Voices from Another Room

"They never are," she said as quickly.

He paid for lunch and they walked back to the office; he was lost in indecision. He heard the clicking of her heels on the lobby's broad terrazzo floor and drifted back a little, looked at her shapely legs and stiletto heels. 'She's really a good looking woman,' he told himself. He shook the thought from his head, caught up with her as the elevator doors parted.

Carolyn smiled as he entered; she turned and smiled at Henry as he stepped beside her.

'Such a little boy,' she told herself once again. 'So ready for his candy.'

+++++

He walked into his office, went to the window and watched sunlight filter through thin veils of cloud. A light flashed on his phone; there was a voicemail from Jennifer: "Sorry about last night, Henry. I know I haven't been myself lately, and I'm, uh, sorry. Uh, look, I've got to go away for a few days, something's come up. I'll probably be back early next week, Monday or Tuesday anyway. We'll talk when I get back... we need to talk..."

And just like that... she was gone. He'd lost her. He knew it. Everything he'd taken for granted about his life and about love was -- gone. She'd been so cool and distant the past few weeks. Had she found someone else? What else could it be?

Carolyn walked into the room, watched him for a moment, read his mood, then walked up behind him and put her arms around his waist. He tensed and she hovered, he relaxed and she smiled.

"You have to learn to let go, Henry. Nothing lasts forever. Not even love."

He nodded, bit his lip. A part of him felt like cutting loose and crying, another part felt like turning and facing this sudden need, taking this woman and running through the snow with her, running until he found warmth and quiet smiles again.

He turned, brought his fingers to her chin and lifted her face to meet his.

+++++

She rode home with him that evening, looked in on his other world. She liked what she saw, could imagine herself living like this. She liked Henry, liked the way he worked so purposefully. His dedication to the company, even the man's dedication to his wife was admirable. She admired these qualities, perhaps, because these qualities were so lacking in most people she knew.

He fixed drinks; they sat together on the sofa in the living room and talked of other things -- of places and evenings far removed from the present. He seemed ill-at-ease for a while but relaxed as he made his way into a second scotch; she moved closer, took his drink and put it on a table then leaned down with nimble fingers, took his penis in her mouth, shaped his need around the contours of her will, swirling warmth surrounded them as snow a million miles away blanketed streets far below.

+++++

She stayed the night. He fixed her breakfast. They showered together and she took him in her mouth again, she reveled in the flooding warmth he fed her. He took her and kissed her, she felt her hold on him growing with each passing moment and she loved him for it, hated him for bending to her will so easily.

+++++

They talked more that second night, talked of hopes and dreams and a million tomorrows. Pillow talk, intimate and as warm as embers in a fireplace. The fireplace she had wrought from his sorrow and grief. They made love and talked and talked, they played and laughed and fell into one another's arms and kissed and made love again and again.

He was on top of her when he heard the door open. He froze, turned, looked... nothing. He pulled out of her, rose to his knees.

"Did you hear something?" he said.

"No. Like what?"

"A door." He stood and went to the bedroom door and listened.

Nothing.

He opened the door, walked out into the darkened living room.

Nothing... but...

That smell? What is it? Perfume? Jennifer's perfume? Carolyn's?

He walked to the front door; the door was unchained, unlocked. Had he forgotten to lock it last night? He suddenly felt like a wounded beast, like unseen scavengers circled just out of sight. Something flashed before his eyes and he brushed it away.

He locked the door and set the alarm, walked back into the bedroom. Carolyn was asleep, breathing easily. He went into the bathroom, closed the door and turned on the light. He brushed his teeth, tried to brush Carolyn from his lips and tongue but the taste remained. He smelled his fingers and smelled Carolyn, smelled the extremity of her need on his flesh, the hidden depths of his betrayal.

He looked at himself in the mirror, at the man he had been only days ago and the man he had so suddenly become.

+++++

She stood before the mirror, her breast in her hands. She looked upon it as one might a betraying husband, as someone who had violated a most basic trust. Only this was her breast, a part of herself. 'But Henry is a part of me, too,' she told herself. She smiled at his implicit fidelities, the way he held her and kissed her, the way they had always talked in shared languages of simple truths.

'Why am I afraid to talk to him, to tell him?'

She knew he'd understand, that he'd love her always.

'Because I'm the betrayer,' she said to her reflection, 'I'm the one causing the pain!' She looked at the breast with pure contempt, as something to be cast aside, as something unworthy of her husband's love.

"Good riddance!" she said into the emptiness.

The door opened, a surgical orderly pushed a malevolent-looking metal gurney into the room, an anesthesiologist and nurses trailed like priests and acolytes in a ghostly procession.

"It's time, Ms Brinson," the physician said. "Go ahead and lay down. I'm going to start an I.V. and give you something to take the edge off..."

"Are you? Are you indeed?" She looked at her breasts one last time and let her gown fall.

+++++

His stomach growled. He was hungry, wondered where he'd take her for lunch today. She came in while he was lost in the space between work and dreams and he looked up; looked at her gorgeous legs and that alluring smile. He imagined the warmth behind those lips, those lips that picked him up and carried him to places he'd never known or imagined existed.

She caught his eyes and held him there, slipped just the barest tip of her tongue from her lips and watched him shift and settle in his chair. Candy, she told herself... just like candy.

The telephone buzzed and flashed; his personal line. He wanted to ignore it but thought it might be Jennifer. He watched Carolyn as reached for the phone, felt her come up behind him and run her fingers through his hair.

"Brinson," he said gruffly.

"Uh, yes, Henry, Henry Brinson?"

"Speaking."

"Mr Brinson, my name is Deborah Goldstein; I'm your wife's internist. She didn't want me talking to you but there have been some developments this morning you need to be aware of..."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"I, uh, don't quite know where to begin. Maybe it would be better if you came to the hospital now; we have a lot of ground to cover..."

Seven weeks earlier

He had taken a leave of absence, had been at his wife's side for months. He sat with her through chemo, paced anxiously in waiting rooms outside Oncology and Radiology, pushed her wheelchair to one appointment after another, lifted her ever-lighter body out of their bed each morning and placed her as gently in their bed each evening. He fixed her food and, when it became necessary, he fed her. As she got sicker he changed soiled pads under her, changed the sheets two, sometimes three times a day. He read to her, carried her into the shower and placed her in a chair and washed her body, ran his fingers through her hair. Some days he felt so ashamed of himself when he looked at the rippled and bruised flesh where her breasts had once been. Other days he saw his betrayal as simple justice, the cross he would bear the rest of his life.

He wanted her to live. He wanted to turn the clock back. He wanted to tell her everything.

"I'm fighting, Hen," she told him time and again, "I'm doing the best I can."

"I know you are, darlin'."

But it wasn't enough. Nothing was enough. There was no medicine strong enough, no prayer pure enough. No love enduring enough. There was only the night, the looming darkness.

Friends came by, they brought food. Flowers adorned her bedroom. Daisies, always daisies. Friends from high school sat and talked with her, told her how well she looked, that surely she must be getting better. Her father came, old and frail, the memory of his wife's battle a livid wound on the man's soul.

He saw the ravens again in a dream. They were picking the truth from her eyes. In the ravens eyes he saw the truth; they were his eyes, pitiless and vile.

Seven days earlier

She slipped away from him in the night, as quietly as she could. In her last moments all she wanted was to spare him the grief she had known was coming. She wanted him to move on, to find love again. To live again. She passed not knowing the truth of her husband's infidelities.

Days before she had written a poem. She had started a haiku but resisted its limitations, drifted beyond constraint as feelings found expression on paper. She had slipped it in an envelope and told Henry to read it after.

Friends came, family gathered. Associates from work dropped by after the service.

Carolyn Saunders came. "I'm sorry," she said. "So sorry."

He looked at her with raven's eyes once before he turned away. Then he heard her behind the bedroom door. Not Jennifer... no, it was Carolyn... he heard Carolyn behind the door, heard her laughter, heard their lovemaking. Just as Jennifer had when she stood outside their door that night...

Seven days later

He returned to work the day after she passed. He took refuge in the banality of other routines, and he ignored his secretary. He had mountains of work to catch up on, factories that would soon close, jobs waiting to be shipped overseas. All the demands of dying empire remained to be looked after, and that was his job. He watched thunderstorms building, drifted through the extremities of her need -- and his failure.

He went home that evening, alone. He tried to eat but couldn't; tried to drink something -- and failed. He went to bed.

He watched the sun rise from where he lay, and he watched it set. And again and again. He lay still for days, listening to the laughter and gentle sighs of their lovemaking... but he couldn't tell who laughter it was.

Was it Jennifer's laughter, or Carolyn's?

Whenever he moved, whenever the physical needs of his body intruded, the laughter began again, louder, more insistent. And still he couldn't tell whose laughter it was he heard.

Sunrise, sunset. Time passing, light dimming, no sensation... only floating.

A knocking at the door, insistent. Shouts, questions.

He feels detached from the world now, floating, adrift above the bed. He sees Carolyn and someone from the building, and police officers. They are moving around the room and someone sits on the man's chest. One presses on the man's chest while another breathes into the man's mouth, Carolyn cries, turns and runs from the room.

He hears laughter now, but gentle laughter, soothing and knowing. Not the laughter of bitterness and broken vows. He turns to a face so familiar, so welcoming, and his soul is filled with joy. She is reaching out to him. He turns for a moment, looks at the people below, then returns to his wife and is gone.

end©2009AL