departer

My original idea with this blog was to use it to post some of my stories, which I seem to have gotten away from with my odd rambles of late. So today I'm posting a story. I wrote this one four or five years ago, and I believe to date it is the last story I actually submitted somewhere (I never heard back and now I can't even find the email to remember where I submitted it.) It's probably not good enough, not polished enough to have submitted anyway but there you go. I really do mean to submit more of my stories but I never feel like they are quite good enough. It's a poor excuse...or maybe it's not. 

The emotions I attempt to catch in this story are very real to me--the fear of unexpectedly losing a loved one. Fiction too often makes this loss too neat, too easily boxed in, but the truth is that such a thing can happen in the most absurd, simple way and there's no way of laughing at the absurdity. I've worked with this theme a few times but this is the only story I feel I handled it, if not successfully, at least not embarrassingly. Of course such judgments are for the reader. Thank you for reading. 

She’s laughing at his impersonation of Frank and he can’t help but think how wonderful this night’s gonna be. Karen knows Frank gets under his skin at work, although he’s fairly harmless in the grand scheme of things. Earlier in the day, just minutes before the presentation to the client, Frank gave a pep talk to Kurt that managed to include a half dozen sports metaphors. Kurt, who has never been interested in sports, had no idea what Frank was going on about. Now, hours later and the presentation having been an unqualified success, Karen is in stitches as Kurt squeaks out sports jargon in a voice sounding like Rodney Dangerfield after sucking a balloon full of helium. If it weren’t for the seatbelt holding her back, she would be doubled over, she’s laughing so hard. No sound could ever ring so gloriously in his ears. They’ve both been under a lot of stress at work lately, crossing each other’s paths just long enough for a quick hello/goodbye, and maybe a kiss. It has been a long time since he’s heard her laugh.

                Yes, it’s going to be a good night. Scratch that, it’s gonna be a great night.

                As soon as the presentation was over he’d called and made reservations at their favorite Italian restaurant. Then he’d emailed her, telling her to prepare for a wonderful evening. It was a risk, which is why he’d hedged his bet by making the reservation first. But she did not complain that she had too much to do, that maybe they could go out this weekend but there were deadlines to meet first, and anyway should they be spending the money when they were trying so hard to save for a house. No, she’d been delighted at the invite, accepting immediately. She told him she was delighted for him and dinner was a fantastic idea. She smiled. He felt lighter than he had in months.

                So tonight it will be all about grand gestures, the first of which will be opening the car door for her and offering his arm like a true gentleman. He feels anticipation tingling throughout his body as he pulls the car into the parking lot. He is pleasantly warm, a little flushed. He gets out and walks slowly around the car to the passenger side, makes an exaggerated bow, and opens the door. Karen falls out, dead.

                Her body presses into him and the unexpected weight sends him sprawling onto the pavement. He feels wetness soaking his pants – the nicest pair of slacks he owns – and knows he has landed in a puddle. He sits in the puddle, stupid and shivering, unable to move or comprehend what has just happened. Karen’s body lies slumped in front of him, half in and half out of the car, like a partially spilled sack of coffee beans. There is no seatbelt around her, she must have taken it off before he’d gotten to the door. Whatever happened to her had happened in an instant.

                He rises. He reaches to her, touches her auburn hair, hair that always made him think of a lazy fall afternoon, leaves and sun rays filtered through the trees, time slowed to a crawl. Crouching, he wraps both arms around her torso stands back up, pulling her upright. The movement is awkward, like two junior high kids stumbling through their first dance. He feels a twinge in his back and winces. His face so close to hers, no breath coming from her mouth, no movement to counter his own. She is lifeless. He shifts her body back into the seat. His hands become a blur, touching her warm skin, shaking her, slapping her once across the face—anything to wake her. Anything.

                But she’s not asleep. She is dead.

                In his chest, the panic bird rises. He chokes it down. He mentally races through his options. A hospital. Call 911. He doesn’t have his cell phone (stupid stupid stupid it is sitting on top of the dresser in their bedroom what good does it do there he just didn’t want to be interrupted tonight didn’t want it even near him stupid stupid stupid.) Does Karen have hers? He feels time slipping by and he’s not reacting fast enough, he should just drive to the nearest hospital. He has no idea where the nearest hospital is. How does one find out such things? The restaurant. There must be a phone inside the restaurant. Go inside and call an ambulance go go go!

                He spins away from her corpse, out of the car, the panic bird free. Lurching towards the restaurant, an ominous-looking building that seems vast and far away, his feet tangle up with each other and he goes down into a puddle for the second time. And this time it hurts, even through the shock, the pavement tearing away the fabric of his best pair of slacks and peeling back the skin on his knees. Tears in his eyes but the pain has at least driven away the panic bird and he realizes:

                There is no point in going to the hospital. Karen is dead.

                No one at a hospital is going to help her. They’ll take her away, pronounce her dead, change her clothes, change her into someone else.

                They never got a vacation.

                He pulls himself to his feet and makes his way back to the car. He closes the passenger door, shuddering at the finality of the sound. He walks around to the driver’s side and gets in. He leans across her, thinking of all the times he’d leaned over her before and how she’d been aware of his movements every time but this time she will not know. He grabs the seatbelt and drags it across the front of her black dress, his favorite, the dress he’d been looking forward to seeing all afternoon. He clicks the seatbelt in place, envious that it gets to hold her while he is now alone. He starts the car and drives away from the worst five minutes of his life.

                The hum of the engine is soothing, the warmth of the car fostering the illusion that no death is present. Just the road and their life together. Quiet Sunday mornings when neither of them had to get up early for work, sharing coffee and cooking breakfast together. Even those had become rare. Karen had been working too hard, he was worried about the stress of her job. He never said anything, she would have pointed out it was the pot calling the kettle black, and she would have been right. His thoughts drift to the little oceanfront inn they used to go to in their early years together. Cheap rooms when they wanted to be away from everything and alone. Bring your own food, no TV reception. The sound of waves ever present, like the hum of the engine. Had it really been four years since they’d last been there? They were pushing too hard, both of them. The inn was all of two hours away; what excuse did they have?

                Drive.

                Traffic thins out as the city is left behind. This is good, this driving. They should drive like this more often. A glance at the gas gauge informs him there is slightly less than a quarter of a tank left. Within a few miles he sees a large yellow and red Shell sign looming against the grey sky. He exits the highway. He is listening for Karen’s voice. Ever since he’d learned how to drive, he’s been paranoid about running out of gas. He never, ever lets the tank get lower than a quarter full, and sometimes he’ll gas it up when it’s still half full. Karen thinks this is an endearing quirk and enjoys giving him grief about it. Good-naturedly, of course.

                Today, though, she is silent. There is no teasing, no “Oh no, you’d better gas up because we are within two hundred miles of running out!”

                He pulls up next to the first empty pump and gets out of the car. The air smells of oil, gas and the coming rain. The aroma is usually one of his favorite in the world, but he is subdued this evening, trying to keep a desperate melancholy at bay. As he fills the tank he watches the sky. Maybe an hour of daylight left. It will be dark when they reach the ocean, especially the heavy clouds rolling in. Ten minutes until it rains, fifteen at the longest. A native of the area, he can sense the rain, he can time its very arrival. Karen thought this knack uncanny. She’d told him so many times.

                The station is offering a free 8 oz. coffee for buying $20 or more of gas, and he takes them up on it. Driving late in the day makes him sleepy. Karen, a night owl, normally does the evening driving when any distance is involved. But not this evening. They are making this journey together but he is driving alone. Soon they are back on the highway.

                Right on time, the rain comes. The windshield swipes badly need replacing. Through the smeared windshield the taillights of the cars in front of him look like blurred Christmas lights. Water on his lashes. He wipes it away and presses down harder on the gas pedal. Forget visibility, forget the rain. He tries to talk to Karen but can’t think of anything appropriate to say. He reaches for her hand, clasps it. There is warmth there, still. He thinks of turning the radio on, decides against it. His fingers tighten around hers. He marvels at the coldness of her wedding ring in contrast to the warmth of her skin. The car heat is turned on as high as it will go and she has not complained nor cracked a window.

                Yes, they should have gone to the ocean long ago. They need more time away.

                The miles pile on and he keeps his focus on the road. The city is far behind now, a definition of far that is new to him, that has less to do with measurement and more to do with distance. Distance is something that he is part of. This is no longer happening to him. Karen does not shift in her seat. The car has never been this quiet.

                Eventually the population thins and the distance between lights is greater. It’s not that people don’t live out here. They are just harder to find. He can sense the ocean, a slight rumble inside his bones that makes him squirm restlessly. Just shaking out the stiffness in his leg, that’s all. The headlights are on and he worries about being too late to check in. They should have left earlier, perhaps, but it will do no good to stress about such things now. It’s the offseason and they should be able to get in even without a reservation. He clears his mind, focuses on the hypnotic sureness of the road. He doesn’t talk to Karen; there’s not much to say.

                Finally the lights catch the carved wood sign: they’ve arrived at the Butterfly Inn. Karen always comments on the name: “There aren’t any butterflies at the ocean! Butterflies stick to the land!” He has never known if this is true, but it sounds right and that’s enough. The Butterfly Inn presents the same weather-beaten, sea-smacked look that all buildings whose fate it is to sit on the edge of the ocean feature, but the garish orange paint sets the building apart from its surroundings. The sharp orange color has faded since their first visit some six years ago, but illuminated by the car’s headlights, it is still a shock against the darkness of the evening.

                It takes him only a few minutes to check in, the lack of reservation not a problem. Key in hand, he takes the rickety steps two at a time and unlocks their second story room. Room 7, the one they always stay in. They’ll have the place to themselves, according to the proprietor. “Some of it is the season, of course, and I guess some of it is the economy.” Had he shown up half an hour later, he would have found the place locked for the night. But he didn’t and they are here now, where they should be. He unlocks the room, shoves the key in his pocket, and returns to the car and Karen.

                He unbuckles her seat belt and crouches until he is at equal height with her sitting body. He reaches around her back with one hand and between her thighs with the other, the intimacy of the act warming his ears. He drops one knee to the ground for better balance and removes her from the car. She is heavy and he is short of breath. His back protests and his knees holler as he rises. He manages to carry her up the stairs, convinced with each step that the battered wood will give away, until he is in front of the door to their room.

                He had not thought to flip the light on when he unlocked the room but it doesn’t matter, the room has changed not all and he is able to make his way around to the couch. He sits Karen down on the couch. When he extracts her hands she slumps forward. He quickly reaches out and catches her. He repositions her so she leans into the back of the couch at an angle. When he is satisfied she is comfortable, he runs back outside to lock the car. The cool damp air is a welcome visitor to his flushed face.

                He returns to the room and sits next to her on the couch. If there was any daylight left, they would be watching the ocean outside the large window. There is not, but it is enough to simply sit with Karen and listen as the water, not so far away, rises and falls in a low rumble symphony full of emotion. Deep and rich and not part of everything else. He picks up her hands, holds them in his and rests his head on her shoulder. His heart flutters. She is not as warm as she was in the car, and very still. They sit together like this, alone at the edge of the world.