All My Relations by Christopher McIlroy Page B

“I moved her back in the house, and I left. I knew she’d be more at peace there.”
    Driving home Julia awaited the inevitable cough. Like thebraying of an onager, it came, accompanied by runny nose. She screamed in the closet, muffled by coats.
    By phone she broke off with Philip. “I can’t think of words to despise you enough,” she said.
    To expand the newsletter Julia recruited correspondents. The sun bear drive cracked its goal, and construction began. Member of a YWCA with indoor pool since fall set in, she slogged through laps when the cough allowed. Sunglasses hid the dark circles around her eyes.
    The following weeks Tim was so peevish and erratic—most often Julia entertained Linda alone—that Julia considered imposing a once-a-month quota on
him
. Despite the persistent cough she again bought cigarettes. Linda berated her.
    â€œAt a certain age, character becomes simplified,” she told Linda. “Julia plus Philip equals Tim minus smoking. Julia minus Philip equals smoking minus Tim.”
    Bundled in a quilt against the damp chill, feet to the electric heater, Julia thought of Easter, herself in the ambulance, a gray stick, tassel of brownish hair, the oxygen mask a malignant flower covering her face. The cough boomed.
    Napping, Julia dreamed of Philip in the form of a joke. The prototype she’d actually heard, a series of exchanges, increasingly damning accusations culminating in a punch line that was, as usual, all she could remember. In the dream the words were enormous stone monuments, unreadable from her perspective. Among the letters Philip scurried, a gnome with hairy rump and tail, mischievously peeking. Some of the joke’s lines, rather than words, were film clips of him—striding naked, leaning back from the table wiping his beard, among trees, tinted green from their leaves.
    At the punch line—“Well, nobody’s perfect”—Julia awoke laughing.
    Through the church grapevine Julia learned that foot surgery had confined Philip to his apartment, his wheelchair unable to navigate the stairs. She assembled a CARE package of deli items, fresh fruit, and a bottle of Dry Sack, along with mundane necessities.
    Grinning, Philip held out his arms. Even seated he was huge.
    â€œI’ve missed you so much,” Julia said.
    â€œMoscarpone! Smoked oysters!” He twisted the sherry cork and poured two glasses.
    Lit only by a gap in the Venetian blinds, the disheveled room showed no sign of outside intervention—a wife’s, for instance.
    Philip’s bandages were cloddy white blocks. “The idea of someone cutting,” he said. The wince bared his teeth. “I keep imagining them stepping into an egg slicer.” For another two months he mustn’t walk.
    Julia did some picking up. “Today’s man on wheels needs room to roll,” she said, shoving books against the walls.
    Philip beamed, sipping. “You are dear,” he said. “Now we have a dance floor.” He put on Vivaldi. Grasping Julia’s hands, he lilted her to and fro. From behind, she lumbered him through figure eights. A hub caught books, loosing an avalanche. Deliberately Philip rammed another tower, toppling books and a broom, spilling the wastebasket. Flouncing her onto his lap with a thick arm, he said, “Have you ever made boom-boom with a mechanical centaur?”
    â€œPhilip,” she said, “I love you, but that aspect of our relationship is past.”
    â€œMy regret.” Stretching for their glasses, he clinked. “And deepest apology.”
    Leaving, Julia demanded a key, and they argued. “What if you called for help and couldn’t get to the door?” she said.
    â€œAll right.” He slapped the key on the counter. “Not because I need it, but because you deserve it.”
    â€œThank you thank you.” Julia curtseyed. “I shall wear it like a diadem on my