Without Absolution. Amy Sterling Casil
the key. Call his family. I laugh, bitterly, as I open the doors to the wet bar and pour myself a scotch and soda. I’ve brought in plenty of ice, from the children’s ice machine.
The night wears on. More scotches, more sodas, between conferences with the counselors, the psychologist, the new charge nurse. The ice is gone, and my coffee cup is nearly all scotch, just a splash of muddy institutional java. Amid a meeting, I stand awkwardly, mumble something, and rush for the restroom. As I relieve myself, I see my aging belly hanging miserably. It’s gray, gray with dark hair on it, as gray as I feel. I slump against the cold enamel wall of the stall for what seems like an eternity, before I finally leave.
Instead of returning to my office, I stumble into the auditorium and sit in one of the folding chairs. They’ve kept the decorations up, the ones the children made for the Governor’s wife. Firemen. Nurses. Doctors. A little train engineer. The fireman held his fire hose between flipper-hands. The nurse had a third eye, very nicely drawn, with long curly lashes.
I stare at the figures, until they split and dance before my drunken eyes. My stomach rebels. I’m afraid I’m going to be sick, and stagger from the auditorium. I avoid Jonny’s dorm, and return to my office. I call home. No one answers. There is nothing on the machine. I put my head down, just for a moment, and sleep takes me.
The morning charge nurse wakes me. She has pale hair, braided tightly at the nape of her neck. “A message,” she says, flinging a piece of paper on my desk.
The message is from Monique. “We opened presents by ourselves. I’ve gone to Cabo for a week. Karen is with my sister.”
I stare at bit of pink paper. It’s Christmas Day, and Monique is gone, my darling Karen is gone. I crumple the message and look at the gray, hard-carpeted floor. My mouth quivers. Something hot and wet hits my hand. I am crying.
As I cry, I hear someone at the door. The nurse again? I can’t face her. Her eyes accused me of something, when she left the message. Of what? Killing Jonny? Abandoning my wife and child? The door opens a crack, and I hear a tiny voice, asking to come in.
I sniff back the tears. It’s not Jonny, but a little girl. She enters, and touches my leg. Gyla, the little dancer. She has something in her hand.
“I made this, Doctor Arlan,” she says. She holds out a pretty white ornament, with my name written on it in silvery glitter. She climbs into my lap.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re crying.” She wipes the tears from my cheek with her silver-furred hand. I sigh, and draw her head toward my chest, and stroke her between her tiny pointed ears.
“I’m sad.”
“You’re sad because of Jonny,” she says with a child’s simplicity. “We’re all sad too, but we think he’s happy because he went to heaven.”
I nod my head. I can’t speak. She nestles against my chest. She is wearing tiny, cheap tennis shoes that look like ballet slippers on her delicate feet.
“I’m going to dance in all the ballets, when I grow up.” She gives me a big hug.
Her face is a perfect little heart, with lovely pale eyes and a sweet rosebud mouth. Karen looked like that, when she was this child’s age. A perfect angel. Gyla’s silvery fur is very beautiful. It shines in the dim light of my office.
Gyla does not need these cheap tennis shoes to dance in, I think. She needs slippers, real toe slippers, with ribbons that lace around the ankle. Not pink, but silver to match her silvery fur.
“I’ll get you some real ballerina shoes,” I say. I pronounce it “bayareena,” as she does. Children deserve their dreams. I shall not break Gyla’s dream by telling her she pronounces ballerina incorrectly. I stroke her soft fur, and the nape of her neck. She is almost purring. What a lovely child, my little girl. I feel her heart beating against my chest.
“I’ll be a beautiful ballerina, and everyone will love me,” she whispers.
“Oh yes, my dear,” I say. “Everyone will love you.”
Gyla kisses me on my rough cheek, but she seems not to notice the stubble. How easily the lies come. How much like the truth they seem.
Gyla kisses me again, harder. It feels like I’ve cut myself with a razor. She moves away, and I see something dark on her rosebud mouth. I raise my hand to my cheek, then look at my fingers. I see blood, as dark as Jonny’s blood. I put my fingers to my lips. The blood tastes salty and sweet.
“Mustn’t do, my love,” I say. “Ballerinas don’t bite.”
Her little brow wrinkles, beneath the fur. She looks at me, wide-eyed. “No?” It is the Spanish no, more question than statement.
I shake my head and hug her once more. “You will have slippers and dresses and tights and everything a little ballerina should have,” I say. “Everyone will love you.”
She feels like a quivering bird in my arms, as she nestles against me, and I rock her in my lap, crooning a little ballerina song, a song she will like, my little girl, my angel, my dear one.
A FIT SUBJECT FOR MODERN ART
They say that jealousy is green
but so is love
green as a new blade of grass
as sharp as turpentine
and so you cleaned your brush
after he died
and drew the chartreuse line
of his dead cheek
against the porcelain bowl
with trembling hand
because the mix was green
yellow and blue
when they told you he was gone
his head in the toilet
and it was green there, too
so you remembered
so you drew
with brush and paint
thick and thin
and perhaps there were tears
or perhaps only rage
rage is green, too
so you hated
so you loved
the line rounded here
brush caressing where once
you caressed
in a gray green stroke
twisted
tortured
as were you
the man you loved
in undignified death
is made beautiful as
Laocoon
and his sons
making love to the snakes
and such is fit for modern art
to greenly love
the one you hate
for taking himself from you
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