hadn’t finished and then lay down again in the mussed bedclothes. The Black Rock lighthouse bleated, familiar as a heartbeat. One good day, and then he’d start to unravel again, as if there were a loose thread in him somewhere that wanted tugging. He was tired of his own tics and quirks, the repetition of them, saying, this is you and you and you, and you’ll never change a hair of it.
The woman down the shore, living there like she was, in Granny’s house, he’d spent many days there after his mother went away. Every detail of that bedroom, the old bed was still there, she’d have to be using it. Big, creaking, metal bed. God damn it. What if that woman had knocked on his door? The sight of him would have sent her running, unless, worse, he’d not answered at all, just hid deeper. Some awful hospitality, that. Why was he so plagued by that particular morning? She might have been drawing flowers, something in her head, for all he knew.
A mad flower, a small monster. He’d read about it in Sydney, the doctor hadn’t the time or patience to go into it much, after all he was not her husband, not kin, but a nice woman in the library had told him where to look. Rosaire at first had wanted to know what scary thing was happening inside her head, but quickly turned away. What’s the point, she said, of knowing that? But Murdock was determined to understand this sinister activity unfolding inside her. Nightmare stuff, blossoming vivid in the brain, blood-nourished, aggressive, pitiless, you could stagger it for a while but you couldn’t knock it out, the radiation only winged it, slowed it down, gave her a few weeks more of living the way she had, flat out, good food and drink and to hell with you. And then the chemicals killed all that, her joy turned to a foul taste and nausea she couldn’t describe. I’m sick as a dog, worse than seasick, she said, this isn’t the boat, Murdock, I want to sail out on. She started to walk badly, with an exaggerated grace at first, like the early drifting stage of drunkenness, later self-consciously, an unsteady actress entering a room. Then one day she fell, just walking along a sidewalk she went face-first to the pavement before he could catch her, bloodied her nose, her cheek, her knees. She cried not then but later, seated on the edge of her bed. It was terrible, Murdock, the humiliation, she said. She was soon in a wheelchair, and he pushed her wherever she needed to go, wanted to go, he would come there to her house, be there, any time of day, he’d have pushed her up the mountain had she asked. He saw the chemo twist her face. She didn’t smile much anymore then, her eyes took on the faraway look of treated pain, she was slipping into a place he couldn’t come to. She did smile sometimes, quick and warm to remind him the way she used to kid about people, Jesus, Murdock, isn’t this too sad by half? Seizures came at random. Her speech went, in patches at first, then just slurring and then the word sounds stopped coming and that embarrassed her, murmuring like an infant, she went mute, only when her feelings welled out of her would she make a sound.…
Murdock got out of bed again and pulled on his grubby jeans and a tattered black sweater. Lint. Cat hair. He had to pick himself up. Months of mourning had turned him limp and huddled, and the house he’d let slide, its slovenliness troubled him. Bones and joints still worked, when he got moving. Someday a stumble he would have once caught would carry him to the ground. Hills would steepen, he wouldn’t see the hanging branch, the flooded rut, the glib ice.
You had to look into the mirror now and then, see what was rough there. If you had a woman who cared.He had been difficult at times, he knew that, but he had toned that down after he met her. You’re a born bachelor, Granny had told him before she died, you won’t want a woman around much. But Rosaire, married once for a short time when very young, liked her own life
The woman down the shore, living there like she was, in Granny’s house, he’d spent many days there after his mother went away. Every detail of that bedroom, the old bed was still there, she’d have to be using it. Big, creaking, metal bed. God damn it. What if that woman had knocked on his door? The sight of him would have sent her running, unless, worse, he’d not answered at all, just hid deeper. Some awful hospitality, that. Why was he so plagued by that particular morning? She might have been drawing flowers, something in her head, for all he knew.
A mad flower, a small monster. He’d read about it in Sydney, the doctor hadn’t the time or patience to go into it much, after all he was not her husband, not kin, but a nice woman in the library had told him where to look. Rosaire at first had wanted to know what scary thing was happening inside her head, but quickly turned away. What’s the point, she said, of knowing that? But Murdock was determined to understand this sinister activity unfolding inside her. Nightmare stuff, blossoming vivid in the brain, blood-nourished, aggressive, pitiless, you could stagger it for a while but you couldn’t knock it out, the radiation only winged it, slowed it down, gave her a few weeks more of living the way she had, flat out, good food and drink and to hell with you. And then the chemicals killed all that, her joy turned to a foul taste and nausea she couldn’t describe. I’m sick as a dog, worse than seasick, she said, this isn’t the boat, Murdock, I want to sail out on. She started to walk badly, with an exaggerated grace at first, like the early drifting stage of drunkenness, later self-consciously, an unsteady actress entering a room. Then one day she fell, just walking along a sidewalk she went face-first to the pavement before he could catch her, bloodied her nose, her cheek, her knees. She cried not then but later, seated on the edge of her bed. It was terrible, Murdock, the humiliation, she said. She was soon in a wheelchair, and he pushed her wherever she needed to go, wanted to go, he would come there to her house, be there, any time of day, he’d have pushed her up the mountain had she asked. He saw the chemo twist her face. She didn’t smile much anymore then, her eyes took on the faraway look of treated pain, she was slipping into a place he couldn’t come to. She did smile sometimes, quick and warm to remind him the way she used to kid about people, Jesus, Murdock, isn’t this too sad by half? Seizures came at random. Her speech went, in patches at first, then just slurring and then the word sounds stopped coming and that embarrassed her, murmuring like an infant, she went mute, only when her feelings welled out of her would she make a sound.…
Murdock got out of bed again and pulled on his grubby jeans and a tattered black sweater. Lint. Cat hair. He had to pick himself up. Months of mourning had turned him limp and huddled, and the house he’d let slide, its slovenliness troubled him. Bones and joints still worked, when he got moving. Someday a stumble he would have once caught would carry him to the ground. Hills would steepen, he wouldn’t see the hanging branch, the flooded rut, the glib ice.
You had to look into the mirror now and then, see what was rough there. If you had a woman who cared.He had been difficult at times, he knew that, but he had toned that down after he met her. You’re a born bachelor, Granny had told him before she died, you won’t want a woman around much. But Rosaire, married once for a short time when very young, liked her own life
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