by Rance » Thu May 08, 2014 5:15 pm
The food was invisible. Substance, it had, and presence, even an odor and a taste, but it was fleshless and inconsequential to her in that moment. Such a spread had been prepared, but whether the abundance could be attributed to her presence, or she had merely been an interloper in a ritual of commonality, she'd never know. When she stood her hand wrung her skirts with fervor, littering them with wrinkles and creases.
"I can -- I can visit," she bleated. "But if I stop walking, I think too much; I think about how all the trees were once spinners or seeds, or that the rocks had once been lumps of fire-water in the heart of the earth. And I think too much on how I was just a little grain of sand, and you were -- were a seedling, and only by some kindness of statistics and mathematics did we manage to persevere. Isn't that clever?" she asked.
"Maybe she'll be clever."
She wanted no food. She wanted to stop thinking about babies, but she saw their plump, distorted faces in everything now: noses in the navels of oranges, bending arms in the stems of apples, even heard breathy sobs in the throats of nickering horses.
(And did Arleda, Riesse, Maddy see them, too? Did Arleda, Riesse, Maddy sometimes trip over shadows that, for the span of heartbeats, became illusory infants reaching for skirt-hems and ankles? Did they?)
"When she is born," Gloria said, "she will only have me. You see? I am going to make sure she always has got two hands. I am going to stop sewing and -- and shoving my nose into things; I am never going to sleep because I will always make sure she is breathing one-two, one-two." Her chest raised, then deflated, a mimicry of fulfilling breath. "But you can see her now and then. That would be very fine. You know some things about babies and -- and how they will always want more kisses and attention and toys and I won't know anything, I don't know anything."
The words just kept spilling out of her. Her shoulders jerked about with laughter. And she was crying, too, which felt stupid and dull; she was always stupid and dull, or so she thought, just some teetering metronome always swing well past the median, one-two, one-two like a beating, beating Soodsy-heart.
"I can't talk anymore. My head aches and I want to return to bed. I -- I bet Fat little Frederick is more than that; I bet he knows his numbers wonderfully or is a splendid actor, and I imagine it is better to say Dashing little Frederick or Brilliant little Frederick."
Her sleeve scraped at her eyes and nose.
"I'm sorry. It's nice to talk. I bet Alice is very handsome and has got good teeth. I'll visit, and I promise I am going to be happy. You won't ever see somebody so happy."
But you can't hold her. He'll shred you to pieces, and I can't sew with one arm.
She turned. Her clogs battered the manor floor. She ran and didn't know why. She never thanked him for his hospitality. Gloria Wynsee had to run or she was going to blow up, she was going to burst, and she did. Outside, under sleepy morning skies, she cried as much as she could because if she got it all out now she'd be happy later, she'd be happy months from now--
Stop it. Stop it, stop it!
Aloisius Treadwell had, in Westenford, been a storied thespian.
Being happy would take lots of practice.