The Ghostwriter(51)
A battle I lost.
MARK
She looks good, almost better than she did two weeks ago, when she’d first swung open her door and scowled at him. Part of it is the sun. Just those two days in Memphis, and she’s got a bit of a tan, freckles dotting the surface of that pale skin, her nose a little pink. He hadn’t thought to give her sunscreen, hadn’t thought about the disease and how it changes your skin’s fragility. But sunburnt or not, she looks better. Her shoulders have lost their hunch, her eyes burn with attitude, and she even—on rare occasions—laughs. With Ellen, he used to get a laugh just from smirking at her. But with Helena, each laugh is like the final line of a difficult chapter. Exhausting to get to, but worth the hours of headache when it finally comes.
They are so different, Ellen and Helena. Not only in their personalities, but in how they handled their prognosis. Ellen had fought it in every way she could. Helena… Helena doesn’t seem to care that she is going to die. She doesn’t seem to have fear, or dread, or any emotion whatsoever. The cancer, the medicine—it is all an annoyance to her, something to step over in her path to get to the next page, the next chapter, the next scene. Everything in her is focused on this book.
Her head droops against the office couch, and he considers the pillow, which has shifted out of place underneath her neck. She hadn’t wanted a pillow. She had told him, in the sort of tone you’d use on a disobeying dog, that she wouldn’t be sleeping. “We need to work,” she had chided, shoving her laptop open, her settle into the couch almost defiant. “We have to catch up from this weekend. I’m not going to be sleeping.”
He had grabbed the pillow anyway, ignoring her hostile glare when he’d stuffed it under her head. Now, a low snore drags through her open mouth, the sound waking her up, and she starts in her seat. “I’m not sleeping,” she calls out loudly, though he sits just two feet away, hunched over the desk. “Oh-kay,” he calls back, as if he can’t care less, his pen moving across the crossword puzzle page, filling in the boxes with neat and careful letters. A-S-P-H-A-L-T. Before he finishes the next clue, she has fallen asleep again, another soft sound coming out of her open mouth.
He closes the crossword book and sits for a moment, watching her. Two weeks together, and they’ve finished the first seven chapters. She’s refused to give him a full outline, so it’s hard to tell how far into the story they’ve gone. At this pace, they should be fine, finishing the manuscript and submitting it to publishers before she gets too bad. He’ll get paid and be back in Memphis by Thanksgiving, spending Christmas with Maggie while Helena—his chest grows tight, like it hasn’t for a long time. There, in the recesses of his chest, the yearn for a drink. He reopens the crossword and stares at the rows of blocks and blanks, dark specks blurring as he struggles to focus.
Adult Insect. 12 across. Five letters.
I-M-A-G-O. Her, alone, bent over a bucket, vomiting. Snow outside, her struggling to walk, to fix herself something to eat.
He steels himself against the visual. She’s a wealthy woman. She can afford nurses, twenty-four-hour care. Kate will come, Kate will be here, surely. It won’t be like that.
One of her hands curls against the white fabric of her sweatshirt and he watches it, the thin fingers, the blue veins along its back. Such tiny hands to create such huge worlds.
He looks back down at the page, but his mind is blank.
I’m worse. I didn’t think I could be worse, but my body is an asshole. When I roll over on the couch, I feel my stomach heave. When I close my eyes, the room spins. Everything aches. Everything tastes terrible. I am freezing, yet I can see the damp stains underneath Mark’s armpits and the sweat dotting his forehead when he brings me hot tea. When I made it to the bathroom, I looked at the thermostat. It’s eighty-three degrees in here. My teeth shouldn’t be chattering. I shouldn’t have goosebumps along my arms.
“Here.” He moves in front of me, a blanket in hand. He covers my chest, and I watch a bead of sweat run down his neck. I don’t need his help. I’m not an invalid. I am perfectly capable of getting my own blanket and tea. I can fight this bug, or whatever this is, without his help. He should be writing. One of the two of us should be productive right now. “Open up.” He has a thermometer in hand, and he’s forgotten the clear disposable cover, the one that keeps the tip free from germs.
“It needs a cover.” I sound pathetic, the words scratchy and weak.
“We ran out. I’ll grab some tomorrow.”
I pin my lips together and he smiles in response. “Open your damn mouth.”
Bethany, her lips in a tight line, eyes wide at Simon. The dental floss stretching out from her lips, the end of it in his fingers. Open up, Bethany. It won’t hurt. Just a quick tug.
That night, their quiet slip into her room. Glitter dusted across her pillow. The silver dollar replacing the tiny tooth.
I open my mouth and close my eyes, trying to hold onto the memory, the sound of her squeal when she discovered the silver dollar, the way she had run into our bedroom and crawled in between us, glitter sparkling off her hair. She had laid back and held the coin up in the air. She had called it magic, and Simon had cut off my rebuttal with a warning look. “Yes,” he’d agreed, his head settling on the pillow beside hers. “It’s magic.”