The Girl in the Flammable Skirt_ Stories - Aimee Bender [7]
Back at home, Steven was in the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror. Mary stood and watched him touching the disc with his fingertips, a bag under each arm, until he felt her and turned around.
Honey, he said, back-so-soon! He took the bags from her, peered inside them and -oohed- and -aahed- over her food choices.
Oh-Mary, he said, God-I-missed-you-so-much. In-that-ditch, when-I-thought-of-you, I-saw-an-angel. His voice broke. I-saw-Mary, my-angel, in-this-house, with-these-bags. You-brought-me-back-home. He reached out his hand and fingers trickled down her arm.
She kept her back to him and shoved tin cans into the cupboard. Maybe, she was thinking, if you’d concentrated better you’d still have lips. Maybe you’re not supposed to think of your wife at the market while people are throwing bombs at you. Maybe you’re supposed to protect certain body parts so she’ll be happy when you come back.
But instead she just piled the cans one on the other, edge to edge in tall buildings, kidney beans on top of tuna. She turned to Steven.
You’re alive, she said, and hugged him. You’re Steven. He pressed the disc hard to her cheek and kissed her, - - -, and she held herself in and tried not to shatter.
Steven ate more than she remembered so she was back at the market in two days. The young man was there, and she offered him a stick of the same cinnamon gum. He grinned at her.
Thanks, he said, taking a piece.
She touched the back of his hand while he was writing her driver’s license number on the check, and said, Do you take care of yourself?
He looked up at her. What do you mean?
I mean, what if they called you to fight in the war? Her hand was stilled on his.
He snapped his gum. He drew a little gun on a corner of her check. No, he said, I don’t think I would do it. I think I’d run away, because, you know, I don’t want to fight in the war. I mean, how would you do it anyway? How would you know what to do? He drew little bullets coming out of the gun and sliding down the side of the check, near where her name and address were printed.
Mary nodded and placed her license back into her wallet.
I know, she said, me too. I would move away somewhere else. I wouldn’t leave people and maybe never come back. You can’t do that to people, you know?
Right, he said, looking up at her: I know what you mean. The most unbearable thing is losing someone like that.
Oh no, she said to him, wrapping the plastic handle of the bag around her wrist several times, I don’t think so. I don’t agree. The most unbearable thing I think by far, she said, is hope.
At night Steven twitched with nightmares. He never used to; he used to sleep straight through the night, and Mary would carve shapes into his back with her stub of a fingernail and watch the goose bumps rise and fall like small mountain populations. Now he was bucking in and out of the sheets and she still carved the shapes and the goose bumps still emerged, but they didn’t calm him. She wondered what he was seeing. Sometimes she woke him up.
Steven, she said, it’s okay. You’re here. You’re back.
He looked up at her with a frame of sweat around his face and breathed out. -Mary-, he clacked, it’s-Mary.
It’s Mary, she said. Yes. That’s me.
He held her so tightly she was uncomfortable. She wiggled loose and finally fell asleep for a couple of hours but woke up again in the middle of the night and left the bedroom. Steven was sleeping quietly, his back to her, arm out, palm open, belly sloping down to the sheets. She tried the TV but everything was either without plot or in the middle so she couldn’t understand what was going on. Clicking it off, she went and sat in the backyard, on the edge of the patio with its red paint chipping. The sky was oddly light, but it was nowhere near morning.
Leaning down into the dirt, she began to dig a hole. The dirt was grainy and soft and lifted out easily, and she wondered why she never took up gardening. It’s supposed to