Under the Bones

by Kory M. Shrum

  “You gave me this freedom,” she murmured. Her chest compressed painfully.

  A boy pushing a bike with a flat tire clipped Lou, setting her wounded arm on fire.

  “Sorry, love. I didn’t see you there.” He flinched at her cold expression. “You all right?”

  Rather than answer him, she headed toward the National Gallery, to the other side of Nelson’s Column.

  “Sorry!” he shouted after her.

  The bright pain faded to a steady throb, to an unpleasant heat. She refused to take off the jacket and inspect the wound. Not only because of the guns it hid, but because of the muggy, damp quality to the early morning air. One press of her watch told her it was only 4:30 in the morning. Most of the shops were not yet open, and the world was mostly quiet in the early dark. A few people were hurrying across town trying to make their jobs. Or those catching early flights or trains out of the city.

  Such as the mother marching past the gallery steps with her red roller bag in tow as well as two children, a boy and a girl, with matching suitcases. The girl gave Lou a long, hard, fearless look. And Lou couldn’t suppress a smile in the face of that defiant chin.

  When she could no longer feel her fingers, and knew no more calm could be gathered by wandering, Lou bled into the building’s shadow and emerged from the corner of a hospital room.

  A machine clicked and beeped. The sound of something being pressurized and released in turn.

  Her aunt seemed to know the moment that she’d entered. Her eyes fluttering open and her head turning toward her with much effort.

  “Hi, Lou-blue,” the old woman croaked. And she did look quite old now. Her blue eyes brighter than Louie could ever recall seeing them, as if the last of her light had gathered there.

  “Hi,” Lou managed. Though the smell of the place was already pressing in on her. The smell, in its way more offensive than any blood or brain matter sprayed on her. In its way a perversion.

  “I miss you,” Lucy said.

  Lou would often say nothing to this sort of remark, but it seemed cruel now. “I miss you too.” And she found that once she said it, it was true. She missed the woman her aunt was. The caustic wit. The benevolent goddess energy, always visibly straining to accept some new horror that Lou had committed. Her patience. Her reassuring presence.

  “I just went to London and Paris,” Lou told her. “Our old haunts.”

  “I miss traveling,” Lucy said with a dry-lipped smile.

  Lou saw too much of the bones in her face. She considered sitting but there were no chairs in this room. This wasn’t a room that welcomed visitors. So they’d come that far then. It was time.

  “If you could go anywhere in the world right now—” Lou began. But she didn’t have to finish.

  “Somewhere warm. I’m always so cold now. No matter how many extra blankets they pile on me, I’m always cold.”

  Lou slipped her cold London-chilled hand into her aunt’s and found that it must be true. Somehow the frail grip was icy.

  “Maui maybe,” her aunt mumbled, pinching her eyes closed.

  “How long do you have?” Lou asked, hoping her voice wouldn’t betray her. But her heart hammered hard in her chest. She could feel it pressing against the bottom of her throat, making her voice thin.

  Death, which had always been so familiar to her, was a stranger again. Someone she didn’t know knocked on the door. The death she knew was a firecracker. A whirling dervish. Fast, violent, and quick. This death was larger. It slid into a room, took up all the available space. It wouldn’t leave. It ate up the heat and joy. It lingered like a revolting grease smeared on the mind that if touched, you were reminded of it all over again.

  “On the machines?” she asked. “Oh we could stretch this on for a while, I think. Maybe weeks.”

  “Off the machine?” Lou asked.

  Lucy met her eyes, considered her face with a mix of hope and fear. “A few hours at best.”

  “Maui’s sunset is in an hour,” Lou said. She counted the machines in the room. Counted the tubes running from her aunt’s paper-thin skin. And when she was done assessing the situation, she caught her aunt staring.

  “Yes.” She searched Lou’s face, looking almost as if it weren’t real. “Yes, take me to see the sunset.”

  Lou, as carefully as possible, unhooked each cord and tube and machine tying her aunt to this place. Then she crossed the room and turned off the light.

  In pitch blackness, there was a terrifying moment when she thought she’d touch Lucy and find her already dead. Or already gone. Maybe slipping away accidentally, leaving Lou to search the world for her.

  The silence of the room without the monitor was deafening.

  But then a bony hand seized her forearm with surprising strength and tried to pull herself up.

  “Don’t,” Lou commanded. “Let me.”

  She threw back all the blankets but one and slipped her good arm under the woman’s knees. Frail arms went around her neck and then they were through.

  The first thing Lou heard was the chatter of birds, a raucous in the trees. A few fell silent at their shocking arrival, but then went right on with their conversation as if to say oh it’s only you?

  Lou stepped out of the woods with Lucy in her arms. She was heartbreakingly light as Lou’s boots sank in the sand. But Lou kept them both upright as she carried her down the strip of beach to the water’s edge. She placed her on the sand a foot from the waves, so the water could only reach her toes, but climb no higher.

  Lucy laughed with delight. “Oh yes. This is so much better. We should’ve come sooner.”

  Lou stood over her awkwardly as Lucy removed her socks.

  “A hospital in no place to die. Sit with me, Lou.”

  Lou obeyed, plopping down onto the sand beside her. She was confident that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Not only because they were the only souls for as far as the eye could see. But this was a private beach belonging to a billionaire. And he was at a Geneva technology convention or so said all the papers. If someone did come to ruin her aunt’s last few moments in this world—Lou would handle it.

  Her aunt took a deep breath and inhaled. The wind from the ocean blowing back the hair from her face. For a long time they said nothing. They only looked out over the western horizon at the sun dipping lower with each breath. Waves crashed on the sand enveloping them. Eventually Lou had to take off her boots and roll up the end of her cargo pants so that they wouldn’t soak through with salt water. These were her best boots. She wanted them dry if and when she faced Nico.

  Lou glanced at her aunt once or twice from the corner of her eye, wondering if the woman would drop off at any moment. And Lucy noticed.

  Smiling, she said, “No, I’m not dead yet.”

  Lou snorted.

  “I’d forgotten how beautiful the world can be,” Lucy said, her hospital blanket whipping around her.

  Lou realized suddenly that she wore only a paper gown under it. “Are you cold?”

  “No. The sand is nice and warm. It’s like sitting on a loaf of freshly baked bread straight from the oven. Mmmm.”

  Lou drew circles in the sand between her legs. She found it easier to focus on the sand than on the woman beside her.

  Finally Lucy said, “I’ve often thought of this moment. The moment of death is a big deal in Buddhism, you know. How your mental state is at the moment you pass will impact your future life.”

  Lou didn’t interrupt her.

  “So I had all of this planned bullshit I was going to say to you. Things I thought that would help us both let go. I was going to apologize if I gave you the impression that I wanted you to be anything other than what you are. And I was going to find a way to help you and Robert not be so angry. Because of course anger and guilt are part of it.”

  She thought of King’s twisted, grieved face in the cafeteria earlier.

  “And now?” Lou asked, throat tight.

  “Now…” She turned and looked at Lou’s face
with intense regard. She reached up and cupped her cheeks. “Now I only want you to know that you’re loved, Louie. You’ve always been loved. And I hope that I see you again. In the next life.”

  Tears were pulled from her eyes by the relentless wind rolling off the ocean. Lucy wiped them away with her thumbs.

  “I just—” Lou began but her voice broke. “Thank you.”

  Lucy smiled but said nothing.

  “You taught me not to be afraid of slipping, and you taught me how to listen to my compass. I hope—I just hope you don’t regret what I chose to do with it.”

  Lucy brushed the hair back from Lou’s face. “You helped me too. Before you, it was only me.”

  The sunset bled from orange to pink, their hands clasped.

  “I know you will find your way. I really do believe that,” Lucy said, squeezing her hands. “You should believe it too.”

  Lou put her arms around her aunt, and kissed her bald, scarf-wrapped head.

  “What do you want to come back as?” Lou asked, pulling away and untangling herself from the embrace.

  “What?”

  “You believe in reincarnation, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yes.” She thought for a moment. “Something that can fly. I’ve always loved cardinals.”

  Lou laughed. “They don’t live very long.”

  “You’re right. So perhaps a cardinal, then a crow. Before making my way back to human again.”

  “A man or woman?”

  Lucy snorted. “A woman of course.”

  They watched what was left of the light dip lower behind the horizon, that false line implying there was an end to it all.

  They knew better.

  24

  A hand squeezed King’s shoulder, waking him with a start. The cold coffee shook with the movement, rippling its black syrup surface. Lou stood there, looking down at him in her mirrored sunglasses. But her jacket was gone. And her shoes. Her pants were rolled up to the mid-shin, with sand clinging to her feet and toes. He stared at this, bewildered.

  “Hurry up,” Lou said as if they’d been in the middle of something.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Fiji?”

  “With Lucy, come on.”

  King’s heart took off like a rabbit, kicking hard in its fear. To echo this was the pounding of feet. He looked across the cafeteria in time to see four or five white coats rush by.

  “We need to move,” Lou said and looked ready to haul King out of the booth if he didn’t move himself.

  “What the hell have you done!” he screamed.

  And then Lou did haul him from the booth, pulling him toward the shadow where the walls met.

  His rage built, ready to release its fury on her, but then the world tilted. The rollercoaster dropped and that squeezing sensation forced all thought from his mind and air from his lungs.

  A orange-pink world rushed up to meet them.

  Birds of every conceivable color darted in the branches above, chattering as loudly as any pack of monkeys. Through the canopy of thick foliage, thin sunbeams hit the forest floor.

  The temperature shift was enormous. The cool, humid air that held New Orleans in its grip was replaced with the balmy warmth King always associated with beaches.

  And sure enough, when Lou pushed back the low branches, she revealed a gorgeous beach. Pale, clean sand and aquamarine waters tinged with the orange of sunset. For a moment, King could only stand there, marveling at the beauty of white crests rolling gently onto the dusky shore. They had only a few minutes left of sunset he was sure. For a moment he’d forgotten why he was so angry, so alarmed, until he saw a small figure wrapped in the cancer center’s pink blanket. Then it came rushing back.

  He crossed the beach in no time at all, coming down onto his knees beside her.

  “We have to get you back to the hospital,” he said. His voice was strained, strident.

  “This is where she wants to be,” Lou said.

  “She’s confused!” King screamed. He pounded a fist into the sand. “Half the time she calls me Jack! She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

  “Robert,” Lucy said calmly. “Look at me.”

  King blinked.

  “Look at me,” she said again, reaching a hand up to cup his cheek and force him to meet her eyes.

  King obliged her.

  “I don’t want to die in a hospital bed.”

  He desperately searched her eyes for the glaze of pain. That look of confusion that often overtook her when her veins were full of the medications keeping her alive and comfortable.

  “One hour on this beach is worth a hundred days in that room,” she said, running a thumb over his shaven cheek.

  “What happens when it gets cold and dark,” he said finally, transitioning from his knees to his butt in the sand.

  “Lou will get us more blankets. Build us a fire. Roast me a marshmallow,” Lucy said, with a broad smile. “I’d love a roasted marshmallow. And a good beer.”

  Lou stood up, brushing much of the sand off her feet before forcing them back into her boots. Then she marched back into the woods, leaving them alone.

  “You can’t eat that stuff,” King said, doubtfully. “I’ve been trying to feed you crap for weeks.”

  Lucy shrugged, her blue eyes bright in the sunset. “Maybe I want to be alone with a handsome man.”

  He leaned in and kissed her then, but he had no illusions about where this was going. The last thing this woman needed was his weight on top of her. But it seemed enough to hold her in the crook of his arm and place kisses on her scarved head.

  He wanted to ask about the wedding. Tell her about the dress that Piper found and the croquembouche that had been ordered. But all of that seemed so ridiculous now as she sat curled up at his side.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go back?” he asked.

  She squeezed his hand. It was a weak grip. “I’ve had enough of that place. I want to die breathing fresh air.”

  King said nothing else on the subject. Instead he only took off his long duster and threw it over her shoulders, adding another layer to the blanket around her. The last of the sun gave way to twilight.

  “She will be okay,” Lucy said finally. She squeezed his hand again. “And you will be too.”

  “You have a lot of faith in me.”

  “In both of you.”

  King’s heart hurt. “And if I fail? What if she’s dead before she’s thirty?”

  “Ah, well the best of us die young, I suppose,” she said. And he knew she was only trying to lighten the subject. She was right to do it. Now wasn’t the time to speak of death. Or reminding her of all that she wouldn’t get to see.

  She searched his face as these thoughts rolled him like ocean waves.

  “Nothing is good nor bad,” she said. Her words had a strange lyric quality to them. He was sure she was reciting something. “It is only the mind that makes it so.”

  “More Buddhist bullshit?” he asked. He hated how the anger clipped his words. But he wasn’t sure he could hide it any better than he was.

  “It’s okay to be angry,” she told him. She cupped his face and ran a thumb over each of his cheeks again. “But I have no regrets, Robert. I’m glad I came back for you.”

  The words unleashed a stream from him. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you sooner. I had every excuse. I could’ve said I wanted to see how you and the kid were doing. I could’ve—”

  She covered his mouth with hers. He relaxed into the kiss, trying to enjoy it. It was hard. Part of it was the smell. Though they’d brought her out of the hospital and into the world, she smelled of death. That acrid medicinal taste clung to her dry lips. And that scent filled him with terror. Irrational, claustrophobic terror. But he willed himself to remain in place and to kiss this woman.

  When she pulled back she smiled. “Do you remember that time I made you go to Yuri’s naked hot yoga class with me?”

  “As if I’ll ever forget.
I’ve never been asked to put my face so close to my own junk before.”

  She laughed. “And you fell!”

  “Because I looked ahead at the woman in front of me doing that moon pose…”

  “Half moon.”

  “It wasn’t her moon I was looking at.”

  Lucy laughed. When was the last time he’d heard her laugh like this? Maybe the fresh air was better for her.

  He went on, hoping to milk this drop of joy for all it was worth. “It’s a shame you weren’t ahead of me. I would’ve liked to seen you from that angle. I feel bad for the guy who was behind me.”

  They fell into laughter then. And it felt good. It felt so good that those remnants of anger receded. He was sure they would appear again soon, rising up some dark and ugly night to remind him of all his regrets. But for now, Lucy was in his arms. She was laughing, and the night had bloomed beautiful around them.

  Lou seemed determined to keep herself busy. King was vaguely aware of her comings and goings as they continued to sit, watching the sky darken. But her deliveries were endless. She brought new meaning to the idea move heaven and earth for you.

  Though heaven and earth in this instance was a pile of wood for the fire. Kindling and a striker. A pile of blankets that she arranged for Lucy beside it, making a pallet big enough for the two of them—Lou herself got a low beach chair.

  And she didn’t stop there. She showed up with a large pizza and a six-pack of beer. Pillows, which King recognized as those she’d brought to the hospital room. When it was all said and done, it was quite the beach party. The only thing they were missing was someone on guitar.

  Lou used a bottle opener to pop off the cap from a frosty bottle.

  “Soft Parade!” Lucy cried softly, with a bright smile, accepting the bottle from her niece. The firelight danced in her eyes. “I love this beer. Perfect for a warm night like this. Have you ever had it, Robert?”

  King admitted that he had not.

  He watched the women talk, reminiscing about ridiculous times, about good times. Lou followed her lead, smiling at all the right moments though from time to time, King caught a glimpse of hollow distance in that gaze.