After Forever

by Jasinda Wilder

  Eden was her own woman, though. She kept her hair dyed honey blonde and, the few times I'd been around her, kept it styled, curled, braided, pinned, always something interesting and different, whereas Ever was given to simply leaving her hair down or in a basic ponytail. Eden was curvier than Ever, enough so that, hair color aside, you'd be able to tell them apart despite their identical features.

  I tried not to see Ever in her. I tried not to see her at all. She was Ever's sister, that's all. And I couldn't let myself look at her. It wasn't right.

  But when she came into my room, wearing skintight black yoga pants, I couldn't help myself. She had her cello with her, a huge thing, almost bigger than she was. She shucked her winter coat and left it on the visitor's chair, and I had to focus on my phone to avoid the fact that she was wearing a gray V-neck T-shirt that scooped entirely too low for my comfort.

  "Hey." She gave me hesitant smile and a half-wave, a stunted crescent motion with her hand, leaning the cello against her front. "Have you been down to see Ever today?"

  I shook my head. "I asked a few hours ago, but no one's been back since. They're saying I'm gonna be released soon, and they've been taking me down in a wheelchair." I pointed at the wheelchair folded in the corner.

  "Going home soon, huh? Ready to be out of the hospital gown?"

  I shrugged. "Yeah, they do kind of suck. My head seems to be healing fine, no damage to my brain. That's what they were holding me to observe, I guess. My leg's gonna need therapy, and so's my arm, but that'll be outpatient."

  Eden rested her cello against the wall and brought the wheelchair around next to the bed. "Need help getting in?"

  "Going to see Ever?" I avoided saying we. I wasn't sure why, but I instinctively did.

  She nodded. "I'm gonna play some of Ever's favorite songs. She likes hearing me play. So I thought...I guess I thought maybe you'd like to sit with her. While I play." She seemed self-conscious, her eyes finding every part of the room near me except my eyes. "If you--if you wanted to, that is. You don't have to, I just thought...maybe you'd--"

  "That sounds great," I said, before I could rethink the idea.

  "Do you need help?" Eden asked.

  I would need help. I knew it. I just...something in me, some part of me shied away from having her help me. "I should be able to make it." Macho bullshit, stupid macho bullshit.

  Gramps had brought me an old pair of my loosest track pants, the kind that buttoned down the side, so at least I had real pants on, albeit with one side open from the hip down. I sat up, slowly, painfully, and swiveled so my legs hung off the bed. I was already panting and sweating, and that was the easy part. I focused on sliding forward, inch by inch, rather than on Eden, who was hovering a foot or two away, clearly wanting to help, yet not wanting to at the same time. I'd never tried this on my own, mainly because it was a stupid idea. I got my good leg planted, my foot firm. I had a good hold on the railing, leaning forward to reach for the wheelchair. This was where I needed help. I was off balance, about to tip forward, and I wasn't sure the wheelchair's wheels were locked, and even if they were, I couldn't really twist in midair on my own.

  I tried to get my weight up on my good leg, but with only one arm, I simply couldn't. I slid forward, slid forward, shifted my weight, reaching for the armrest of the chair. I tipped myself forward, felt my leg catch my weight. I had it, I had it...then my knee wobbled, and I had to either sit back on the bed or topple forward and damage myself worse.

  I sat back on the bed, and with my one good arm extended forward to reach for the chair, my balance shifted completely backward, forcing me to lie down across the bed.

  I laughed, because it was either that or curse. "I guess maybe I do need help," I said, struggling back up to a sitting position.

  Eden didn't say anything. She just wrapped her arm around my waist, helped me slide forward, stood up with me. My arm was around her shoulders, holding on, too tight. I hobbled on one foot, and we swiveled together so I was lined up with the wheelchair, facing away.

  She smelled like citrus shampoo, fabric softener, and some kind of flowery lotion. Not like Ever. Ever always smelled like Bath and Bodyworks Warm Vanilla Sugar body lotion. I'd always smelled it on her, but it wasn't until we moved in together that I discovered the source of the smell, the joy of watching her sit naked on the edge of the bed, the bottle of lotion on the bed beside her, slathering it on her skin, rubbing it in, massaging her legs, her hips, her stomach and sides and arms, her boobs and her shoulders, and then she'd have me rub it onto her back, and usually that led to other things, even if those other things had been the reason for her having taken a shower in the first place.

  Eden smelled more like...cherries. Flowery, delicate and feminine. I felt her pressed up against me, and I was never so aware of anything in all my life, never so uncomfortable with how I felt, how her body was soft against mine, familiar yet foreign all at once.

  I gripped the armrest of the wheelchair, gritting my teeth as my leg protested the weight of my body. I lowered myself slowly, hanging on to Eden in lieu of using my right arm. She lowered me, kneeling with me, holding on to me. She was strong, very, very strong. I could feel the power in her body as she'd held up my weight.

  So much ran through my mind in those brief seconds of physical contact. She was soft, curvy, and yet beneath the curves was a solid core of strength that Ever lacked. Ever didn't go to the gym very often, didn't seem to care. She'd go with Eden once in a while, but for the most part Ever never seemed to obsess much about exercising or dieting. She didn't indulge in unhealthy food all that often, but she didn't go on strict diets, either.

  In Eden, I felt cords of muscle, and I remembered how many of Ever's letters had been about her sister's ongoing struggle with her shape, her weight, her sometimes fanatic dedication to working out, to diets and fitness. Lately, according to Ever, Eden had settled down a bit with the whole weight obsession, but I could still feel the difference in their bodies.

  I hated myself for even noticing a difference.

  I was in the chair then, sitting down a little too hard in an effort to get away from Eden. From my own awareness of her.

  I was lonely, scared, and hurting. That was all. I missed my wife, and Eden was her twin sister. It was inevitable that I'd draw comparisons, that, if I was attracted to Ever, I'd be attracted to Eden as well. But I wasn't, was I? I wasn't attracted to her, not really. It was just seeing. She was beautiful, just like Ever. And that's all it was, noticing the similarities.

  I shifted in the chair, breathing hard, grinding my teeth through the pain of my throbbing leg, having jarred it as I sat down. The pain was okay, though, because it was a distraction. Then she was behind me, out of sight, pushing the chair with my cast-framed leg extended out in front of me. Neither of us spoke until we got to the elevator.

  "Shit," Eden said. "I forgot Apollo." She turned us around and started back to my room.

  "Forgot who?"

  "My cello. His name is Apollo. You know, the Greek god of music?"

  "I thought Apollo was the god of light or the sun or something like that?"

  "It's kind of complicated. He represents a lot of things at different times in Greek culture. But to me, Apollo is primarily the god of music, and thus, my cello is named Apollo."

  "Is your cello a--"

  "No, it's not a Stradivarius." Eden laughed. "If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that, I could probably afford one, though. It's a Vuillame."

  "How old is it?"

  "It was made in 1832. It's worth...a lot. It's been in my family for four generations."

  I was impressed, of course. "Isn't it...I don't know, nerve-wracking, playing something so old and expensive?" We reached my room and she grabbed the cello, then stopped, obviously debating how to push my chair and carry the huge instrument at the same time. "Here, just set it up on my good leg. I can hold it with that arm."

  She hesitated. "I don't know. I don't think so. It's heavy, and if it shif
ted by accident, it could hurt you worse--"

  "And damage your cello," I added.

  She shrugged. "Yeah. That, too." She glanced out into the hallway, saw an orderly ambling toward us with his nose in a cell phone. "Hey, could you help us out? Can you push him for me?"

  "Sure." The orderly was a middle-aged man with receding blond hair and a thick beard. He took the handles of my chair and pushed me toward the elevator. "Where are we going?"

  "Room 319," I said. Ever had been moved to the general ICU a few days ago, until such a time as the doctors decided to move her to a long-term care facility.

  I hated being immobile, being helpless. I still needed help getting into a wheelchair, much less anything else. I was dreading having to go home and being alone and unable to do anything. Grams and Gramps had wanted to stay, had insisted, saying I'd need help, but I wouldn't let them. Why, I wasn't sure. I knew Gramps needed the ranch, hated being away, and that he wasn't ready to retire anytime soon, despite being eighty years old and having Uncle Gerry to do most of the day-to-day stuff. He'd probably work until he couldn't anymore, and even then he'd hate it. He'd probably die on the back of a horse, and I had a feeling that he wouldn't want to die anywhere else, except perhaps in Grams's arms. I made them go home, even though I had no idea how I'd shower or get into the bathroom. How I'd get to and from the condo to the hospital to see Ever. How I'd do anything.

  The one person who could help was the girl beside me, and something told me that wouldn't be a great idea. Mr. Eliot, maybe? I snorted.

  "What's funny?" Eden asked, glancing at me.

  I wasn't really all that keen on sharing my thought process, but I supposed I'd have to broach the subject at some point. "I'm just thinking about what I'm gonna do when I'm discharged from this place."

  "What do you mean?"

  I shrugged, trying desperately to sound nonchalant. "Well, I'm not exactly...mobile. I'm short an arm and a leg for a while, so--"

  Eden frowned down at me as we boarded the elevator. "Cade. You're family. I know my dad might take some...convincing, but we're not gonna let you just...you won't be alone, okay?"

  "Thinking about trying to enlist your dad's help is what made me laugh. I'm not exactly his favorite person, I don't think."

  Eden made a you're probably right face, even as she said, "He'll come around. I'll make sure of it."

  "You can't make him like me. I stole his daughter from him." The orderly glanced sideways at me in shock, then away, back to the opening doors of the elevator.

  Eden made a sound of irritation. "The fuck you did. He lost her a long time ago. I wouldn't even really call what you and Ever did eloping, per se. You just had a really, really tiny wedding. At the last minute. Without Dad's knowledge or approval." She laughed. "That doesn't sound any better, does it? Look, Cade. Ever's relationship with Dad isn't your problem. He doesn't have to like the fact that you're her husband--he just has to deal with it."

  "Yeah, but all that...it's not exactly the best footing for asking him to help me take a piss, or bring me to the hospital and back every day."

  Ever ducked her head as we rounded the corner and approached Ever's room. "We'll figure it out, okay? I promise." She thanked the orderly as he parked me beside Ever and set the brake. When he was gone, she pulled up a chair, setting the cello case in the corner. "Hey, Ev. I thought I'd play for you. I've been working on Beethoven's sonata for cello and piano. I've got the first two movements down. Andy Minor is doing the piano pieces, and we're gonna present it together in a few months for the entire department. Andy is fucking sick talented, Ev. For real. He can slay pretty much any piece he wants. He's got the first four movements already. But you know how I am. I hate memorizing new pieces. Andy is kind of a freak, though. I mean, he's one of those musical geniuses who can barely remember to tie his shoes or zip his pants most days."

  I listened to Eden talk, envious of her ability to hold a one-sided conversation as if Ever was responding, as if she was really listening. I couldn't do that. I never knew what to say, and I felt self-conscious talking to a silent room.

  Eden continued talking as she withdrew her cello from the case, sat down with it, and adjusted the tuning slightly. "Andy is nice, though. He's polite, and he's not trying to get in my pants. Although I'm not sure he's batting for either team. He just doesn't seem interested, you know? Like, the only thing he thinks of is music. Which is kind of nice after working with Kyle Pinelli for that duet. Remember that? He was such a pig. Thought he was the smoothest fucking thing since greased cake pans. I must have turned him down a million times, and he never quit. I mean, he had that going for him, I've gotta say. He was persistent, and no matter how many times I said no, he was always convinced I'd come to my senses and let him fuck me in the studio. I didn't, I'll have you know." She shifted uncomfortably, as if remembering that I was there. "So yeah. I'm gonna play now. I'm not gonna play Beethoven, because it's not very exciting by itself. I played a piece from the Philip Glass/Wendy Sutter album for Dad earlier. He came to see me. Finally. Only took...well, all of this, for it to happen, though. So, I played that, and now I've got another piece from that album in my head. 'Song IV.' This one is for you, sis."

  She rolled her shoulders, touched the bow to the string, shook her hair away from her face, and then closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and started playing.

  I'd never sat and listened to anyone play like that before. Classical music simply wasn't a part of my world, not growing up, and not as an independent adult. I'd heard bits and pieces here and there, of course. I could recognize "Fur Elise" and the Fifth Symphony part that everyone knows. But this...it was magical. Her fingers touched the strings gently, her arm drew the bow across in smooth strokes, and somehow, magic was created. The sound was like nothing I'd ever heard before, a deep, almost masculine voice, and the way she played it, the melody, the way the notes rose and fell, it created this rapturous spell over me. I couldn't not watch her play, couldn't take my eyes from her face, the way she seemed to be communing with her instrument, leaning into it, caressing sound from it, speaking to it, and it to her, her expression shifting and twisting and moving with the music.

  I didn't dare even breathe, didn't dare move for fear of breaking the spell.

  She finished, hung her head, breathing deeply. "How about some Bach? You can never go wrong with Bach." She seemed to be struggling, fighting against some well of emotion. I could hear it in her voice, even if she kept her face turned away from me. "You know this one, Ev. It's number five, the prelude. I know how you are about preludes. You always like the preludes best."

  She began again, and I found myself closing my eyes to listen, to tune everything out but the pure sound. I heard the door open behind me, but I didn't care, didn't bother turning to see who it was. There was something mournful in the way she played. Perhaps it was the piece, perhaps it was in her playing itself, but I heard the sadness. She was playing with a purpose, not just to play, not to practice, but because she was mourning. I heard a pause, and then she began once more, and I watched her now, watched her sway, head bent toward her cello, her hair coming free from the braid along the side of her head, wisping around her eyes.

  I almost thought I could feel Ever's soul somehow, feel her in the air, listening. I could see Eden sitting on a chair, playing, and Ever at her easel, washing the canvas with colors to match the music. I could feel her. Within me, around me. For as long as Eden played, I could feel her, and I never wanted it to end.

  It was surreal being in the hospital, as if it were all a dream, a nightmare from which I'd wake up and Ever would be in our bed beside me, holding me, black hair a tangle, skin white in the darkness, peaceful in her sleep. And I'd be whole, no cast, no bandages, no metal rods or pins. Ever would be there.

  I almost believed it, listening to Eden. I almost forgot reality, forgot that Ever was comatose and I was due for months of therapy before I walked or used my arm again.

  And then Eden stopped and I had to
open my eyes, and I saw Eden wipe at her face, run a finger beneath her eye, catching the tear as it fell, and then another trickled down, smearing eyeliner as it went.

  I sensed the crowd. I turned around and saw a cluster of maybe thirty people standing around the doorway, huddled together, watching.

  "I might've played the second and third movements, too," Eden said. "The fourth movement of the fifth suite is my favorite," she said, and I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or to Ever, "but if I played any longer, I think I'd probably lose it, and I just...I can't let that happen. I know you wouldn't want that." To Ever, then.

  "I think...I think if you needed to let it out, she'd understand, though," I said, not sure where the words were coming from.

  "Yeah, she would. But...I just can't. I won't. She'll wake up, and she'll need me to have my shit together. I can't...I can't just...I can't afford a breakdown. I've got that performance with Andy coming up, and I need to be focused. I've got to learn the rest of the sonata by the end of January, and I can't afford to break down. I can't afford it. I've got...I've got too much to do. And she wouldn't want it." Eden was chanting to herself now, convincing herself. "I'm fine. She'll be fine. Right? Yeah." She stood up, packed her cello away, and stood in the doorway, pausing to glance at me. "I've got to go. I've got homework to do."

  "Sure. I'm good here."

  She was gone then, and I was alone with Ever. The door was closed, the curtains drawn. I reached out and touched Ever's hand. She looked like she was asleep, just asleep, as if she'd wake up any time. Her skin was warm, her chest rose and fell ever so gently. Except...except the tubes, and the machines.

  "Hi, babe. You never told me how talented she is. I mean, I guess I assumed she was good, but I never guessed how good. And I can't believe that her cello is, like, almost two hundred years old. That's kinda crazy, you know, to play something that's older than anyone alive? It's a piece of history, in a way. That's pretty cool, I think." I couldn't keep up the chatter. "I miss you, Ever. I miss you so much. I want you...I wish you could just wake up. I don't know how...what to do without you."

  I fell silent then, and just sat with her until a nurse came in and brought me back to my room.