Storied By Josh

 

“Mister, you shouldn’t be out here.” She is young, at least I think. I can’t tell.
“I needed a minute.” I reply.
“Well I was going to smoke.” She says. “It won’t do to have you around when I do that.
“Smoking is bad for you.”
“Honey, we are beyond that.” She replies, laughing. She comes over and sits beside me. She looks exhausted. “You doing okay?”
I realize I have been sitting for a time with her.
“Can I tell you a story?”
“Is it long?”
“Good ones usually are.”
“But I don’t have time for it.”
“Neither do I.”
“Well then keep it short.”
“I’ll do my best.” I take a deep breath of beautiful fresh air.

 

 

The month we met was one that was cold and dark, it seemed to me before I met her there and then that they all were. The party we were attending was for a mutual acquaintance’s birthday. I knew of her before that and she was always beautiful, but I hadn’t bothered to know her. That night I suppose I drank enough to be bold, as all young men are when alcohol mixes in their blood. I waved to her from across the room.

She smiled at me and blinked slowly. I moved to her and we talked about this and that. A little of something and a little of nothing. She drank from her champagne glass and we found ourselves kissing in the cold. We both had one or two, I guess.

I called her the next day. Then the day after that. I saw her and then I saw her again.

In the mornings, she used to sing this song that I think was from the south of America. It went on about how a man could have been anything and he wished he had picked an honest trade but he hadn’t. “Could you stay here, and show me another way,” it went.

It was good when I heard it the first time. When I heard her sing it as she played it on her guitar…there was nothing better. I told her so and she began to regularly sing it for me. “If the world would learn to sing again, things would be better.” She used to say.

We dated for a time and then moved in together. Things were so fast and yet they just felt easy. Things rarely are that easy. We fit together so well. She loved me for what I was and still encouraged me to be better. She made me better.

She loved the birds in the air and carried a book that told about them. Her father had taught her it all. He would take trips to Canada and Mexico to try to find different kinds. When I told her my surprise she explained it was a legitimate hobby, enjoyed by thousands around the world. I still don’t believe it.

 

We never married. She didn’t see any point to it and I was prone to agree. It seemed outdated and silly. Originally a sacred institution, the people who practiced it had warped it into something ugly and unfit for serious people. So we didn’t bother to partake.

We had a breast cancer scare in our third year. She made it through strong. I was a mess. The surgery was a little more complicated than normal. She was more at risk when under general anesthesia. The doctor told us to make sure she had her affairs in order just in case.

I remember as we sat in the doctor’s office filling out paperwork for her surgery, I began to cry. She put her hand on my shoulder. “It’ll be fine.” She says. “everything will be fine.” She used to joke at the worst times and said that I better love her, even if they took one of her boobs.
I laughed through my tears. “I’ll call you cy-tit.” She held my hand.

I waited during the surgery, nervous as I’ve ever been. “She won’t leave you” I kept telling myself. What would I do without her? God only knows. The doctor came through the doors and told me she was fine. She was just waking up. “We’re going to keep her over night, the mass was removed without any complications but we just want to make sure everything is fine.”

I slept on the chair next to her bed.

 

We tried to have a baby in our fourth year. Over and over again the tests came back negative. Finally she conceived. She came into the living room while I was watching television. Her face was glowing as she held the test. I knew. I knew. “You’re going to be a dad.” She said and I was ecstatic and scared and overjoyed and worried and I loved her. She was going to be the mother of my child. We both cried and the next morning phoned everyone we knew.

My friend Bill told me “You old dog, you did it” when I saw him at work the next day. “I thought you weren’t ever going to have children.” Bill had four kids. Three boys and a girl.
“Neither did I.”
“Will you guys find out the gender?”
“Probably, we don’t hold much to waiting to find a thing out.”
“What do you want? A boy?”
“I haven’t thought about it. I just wanted a kid.”
“You better hope for a boy. God knows I love my daughter to death but she is a nightmare.”
“How old is she now?”
“Sammy is 13 going on 28. It seems like everyday we’re arguing about if a boy can come over, if she can meet him. With all the broken bones and fights that the boys get into, I’ve never pulled my hair out like I have with Sammy. You better hope it’s a boy. No, now that I think of it you better pray it’s a boy.”
“I think I’ll be happy with whatever he, or she is.” I said.
“I hope so, you’ll be stuck with em.” He said, laughing.

We got all the books, took the classes and

After a miscarriage they say, a person can become depressed, suicidal even. It hit her harder than it hit me.

She was having pains for a few days, three months into it. We knew what it probably meant. Everytime the pain came she would double over and then cry. I found her crying and bleeding on the bathroom floor one morning.
“We have to go to the hospital.” I told her. She let out a howl of a childless mother. I picked her up and carried her to the car as she sobbed into my neck. I felt the warmth of her life spilling down my shirt. “Hold on.” I told her. “hold on, we’re nearly there.” I drove her to the ER and had her wait as I ran into the hospital. “I need some help here!” I yelled. A nurse sprinted from the station. They loaded her onto the gurney and took her in.

The doctor came out some time later. “She’s lost a significant amount of her blood volume. We’re giving her some more but she’s not out of the woods.”
“Can I see her?”
“No, but we’ll let you as soon as we can.”

I sat for hours, it seemed. The doctor finally came back out and said she was stabilized and doing better.
“How is she emotionally?”
“She was in some distress, so after we normalized her vitals we administered some mood stabilizers. She’s pretty out of it now.”
“Can I see her?”

She had tears running down her face when I entered the room.
“My baby is gone.” She said softly as I took her hand. “I killed our baby.”
“No you didn’t.” She didn’t say anything after that. She turned her head to look out of the window. There were children playing just across the street. A heavy breath escaped her lips.
“I love you.” I told her. I love you.

We buried the child a day after she came home. We never found out the gender.

 

After that she was distant when it came to children, it almost bordered on impatience when dealing with them. She didn’t hold other people’s babies. She skipped birthdays for children and baby showers. Time made things easier to live with, as it always does, but I don’t think she ever got over it. I’m not sure I ever did either.

They told us we wouldn’t be able to have children. She told me I should leave her and I said I never would.
“What kind of a woman had a body that kills its own child?”
“That’s not your fault.”
“It is specifically my fault.”
“Not it isn’t. Life is like this sometimes.”
“Don’t you say that.”
“What?”
“Don’t you say that life is like that. Life isn’t like that. I am like that.
“Stop it.”
“How can you love me?”
“I don’t love you because you might be a mother or not. I don’t love you based on some sort of thing you can give me. I love you for everything you are. For who you are. Even if you’re not a mother, you’re you and you’re beautiful.”
She loved me then. And in time she came back to me.

 

We lived a normal life after that for many years. I look at my wrinkled hands now and I see the times she held them. The times she ran her fingers across my scrapes and cuts. I see how we made it through all this pain and hate in the world. It wasn’t always beautiful and it takes what you love, but we had each other so I wasn’t worried.

 

I still remember the day. We were walking together and a little boy brought her a flower. His nose was runny like the kids’ noses always are. “This is for you.” He said and she took it. She thanked him.
“Put it in my hair like we are young.”
I did. We walked together to the store, bought some bread and cheese. We laughed together and made the same old jokes that old people make. That was the last time we went outside together.

 

Three days later She had a cough. I had seen the news about something coming from China, but we weren’t worried. We had lived through a lot together.

A day after her cough the President was on television telling us not to worry. It was going to be fine and we had contained it.

It didn’t help her.

She collapsed as she was making dinner a few nights later. I called the hospital. I would have carried her if my strength was still with me. I sat in the hospital and waited like I had before. Then the doctors came in and took me to a room. A man was dressed in a funny outfit, with his face covered. He told me that my wife was very sick with a new disease. He told me that I had been exposed. They took tests and checked up on me day and night. It turned out that I was immune, even though they didn’t know how. She turned out worse and worse. I would watch the television. The disease was spreading around the world.

At first they wouldn’t let me see her. I begged and pleaded. They told me it was for my protection. Finally they let me see her one day.

I went to her. She was so old, so frail. I touched her face. I wasn’t supposed to but I don’t give a damn. She is beautiful and should be touched. That damn kid I told her. She grabbed my hand. It took some effort but she said to me “Don’t be angry with the children. They have God in them.” I began to cry.
“Don’t leave me.” I begged her. “Stay with me and show me another way.”
She had a tear run down her cheek. “I don’t think there is this time.”

And they couldn’t take me out of that room with a hundred men trying.

One day we saw on the news that Italy had been quarantined. The news footage showed neighbors singing together from their balconies. First in that country, then in France, Spain, Germany and then in America. She turned her head to me. “The world learned to sing again.” She said.

They left us together. A nurse brought our food to us, but I wasn’t allowed to leave. I watched as her breathes came worse and worse. They told me they didn’t have a ventilator for her. She began to fade finally. I sat in the corner as the doctor’s worked and worked. They couldn’t do it. She’s gone. My universe ended today, three hours ago.

 

 

I finish my story. I look up. The nurse’s hands are shaking.
“Why did you tell me that story?” She asks as she sobs.
“Because I needed someone to hear our story, her story. We have no children. All of our friends are gone or forgetful. But our story is worth something. It is the same story a million times with a million people. She died so the world could learn how to sing again. I don’t want us to forget how to again. But I am just a silly old man and my heart is breaking.”

She slumps against the wall and takes her mask off. I was right she is young.
“I’m sorry.” She says finally.
“You can smoke now.” I say as I turn to leave. I walk back to my room. And begin to pack. The news plays and I see a man with a violin. He plays a song that is sad. I hear machine alarms go off nearby and hastened footsteps.

The world sings on the television, but it isn’t for me and I am alone.