Page 8 of So Close

LILY

I waketo the sound of my heartbeat. It’s slow and steady, accompanied by a relentless computerizedbeep beep beep. Surfacing from a deep, heavy blackness, I hear far-off voices, but distance muffles the words, and there’s a vicious pounding in my head.

The medicinal smell betrays where I’ve ended up. I force my eyes open, blinking away a gritty film that clouds my vision. Something clogs my throat, and I fight the weights holding down my arms to claw at my neck, then my jaw. The steady beating of my heart picks up, and I cough, my nails tearing at the tape securing the tube snaking oxygen into my lungs.

“Setareh, don’t!”

Your voice … that endearment …

My gaze darts around the darkened room, skipping across the pale blue walls. I find your tall, dark form untangling from the shadows in the corner and gliding swiftly to the door.

“Nurse. Get in here. She’s awake.”

The tape pulls away from my lips, and the tube shifts, scratching far down in my airway. Pain blankets my body. A scream of agony writhes in my mind and chest.

“Stop,” you order, your voice so torturously dear to me. You step into the light, and tears flush my eyes clear.

My love.What dream is this?

Lines bracket your firm, full mouth. Your eyes, as darkly intense as ever, look bruised. The lankiness of youth has left you. You’ve filled out, your shoulders and chest now broadened, your hair shorter. Like the finest whiskeys, you have aged into something more robust and potent.

You catch my wrists and restrain me, your touch an electric shock that seizes my muscles. Your skin is warm, rough satin, and your strength is achingly gentle. Suffocating, I suck air in through my nose and smell you, that intoxicating scent I could never forget. Sultry, earthy and utterly masculine.

My heart spasms, and the beeping from the monitors become a wailing siren of alarm.

“Sir, step back,” a man says briskly.

You release me and open space for the nurse. It’s enough for him, but not for the doctor who quickly joins us.

“Mr. Black.” She steps into view, pulling on latex gloves. “Please give us some space. Your wife is in good hands.”

Your gaze never leaves my face as you withdraw and disperse into the darkness. I feel it on me, fiery hot and piercing when I tumble into coveted oblivion.

7

WITTE

Mr Black exitsthe hospital room but looks back over his shoulder through the glass inset in the door. He scrubs his hand over his face, and then his arm drops to his side and his hands fist as if braced for an assault. His foot taps an impatient, unrelenting staccato against the floor.

When we met, he was a man constantly in motion – pacing, sitting and standing in endless repetition, lobbing rubbish into the many miniature basketball hoops he had a fondness for affixing over dustbins. Over the years, he’s become more subdued. He is a once fiery mortal man slowly tempering into hardened, unbendable steel.

The only time I’ve seen him regress is the night he told me about Lily. He walked ceaselessly up and down the library. Up and down. Up and down. It was an anniversary of some sort, either of her death or a milestone in their relationship, and he couldn’t stop himself from talking about her.

I was startled when he presented his wife’s driving licence to the intake nurse, establishing his right as next of kin to manage her care. I hadn’t been aware he carried her identification in his wallet, although in hindsight, I’m not surprised; he wants her with him everywhere. It’s even still valid for another two years, having been updated to her married name in the days immediately following their wedding. As fate would have it, his sentimentality was advantageous.

His head swivels towards me now as if only just recognizing that I’m close. “Witte.”

“Sir.”

“She’s conscious.” His gaze returns to the viewing window, and he stares – unblinking – for too long.

I remember Lily’s gaze when she spotted him on the street, the sheer, abject terror so vicious it spurred her to run directly into the path of oncoming traffic. I can’t reconcile her reaction with the man I know.

I lost her where I found her.I will never forget those words or how he paced like a beast in a cage when he finally told me about her demise. The depth of his anguish was so profound I understood how tempted he was to follow her into death, his will to live sinking deeper by the day into suffocating darkness. Now doubts creep into me, an insidious black fog slipping through hairline cracks.

I’m reminded that he never tasked me with arranging a funeral or memorial service. Sensitive to his unfathomable mourning, I waited for him to initiate such a public farewell, but he never broached the topic in the ensuing years. And while any grave for her would be empty, she wasn’t even memorialized with a cenotaph.

We endure the wait together, standing side by side. The dismal, scuffed corridor bustles with foot traffic. The smell of chemical disinfectant is pervasive, but it fails to hide the underlying scent of malaise and decay. Somewhere nearby, a man in agony shouts profanities.

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