Death Trance

by R. D. Zimmerman

  I said, “It's okay, Toni. You're okay.”

  She folded herself and her pain into me, gave herself willingly, abandoned any pretext. I cradled her, hugged her, as she shook gently with her tears, and I mumbled again and again how it was okay, that it was good to let go, that it was late and had been a long day, and that she was exhausted. She pressed against me, and I pulled her as close as I could and marveled at her warmth, her freshness. I ran my hand through her hair and held her head against my chest, and we just sat there, the two of us clutching one another. From me Toni took comfort and security. From her I took hope, which in turn fueled my desire.

  It wasn't odd, then, that I started nuzzling my face into her thick hair, which conjured up so many wonderful memories. It was sweet-smelling, as she was, as she had always been. I started kissing her. At first it was like a comfort kiss. Just a quick peck on the side of the head. Then I stole another one, kissing her hair, really, just above the ear. The third was longer, more full. It was as if I were testing the ice, wondering when and if it would crack. But it didn't. Or it was like a dance, a game, trying to find out exactly how much I could get away with. When I kissed her the fourth time, I found out. She reached up, wrapped her hand around my neck, held my lips against the side of her head, clutched me tightly.

  Toni, Toni, Toni, rolled my heart. That was all the encouragement I needed, and I swelled with hope, kissed her ear lightly, three or four times. Definitely not kisses of comfort. I'd certainly transgressed that boundary of the past, and I wondered if now I'd be repelled, pushed away. But it didn't happen. Instead she brought herself closer, sitting up, lifting her face. I touched her cheeks with one hand, ran my fingers over her soft, tear-soaked skin, which made me smile and shiver.

  She stared at me, looked into my eyes, lifted her fingers to my lips, caressed my mouth, and finally past fused with present: Toni lifted her head, our lips met. I clutched her to me, kissed her hard, perhaps too hard, but I couldn't help myself. Everything dialed up, got cranked right to high. Toni twisted around so that she was on her back, her head in my lap, and she lay there lingering and looking up at me. The impossible had happened. She was here, in my arms. I couldn't believe it; it felt almost as if I were observing the scene rather than participating in it.

  “You are.”

  What? No, I was there, cradling Toni, and she wasn't crying anymore. That was gone. I bent forward, pressed my lips to her mouth, her face, over and over again, and then I reached down, caressed her waist, ran my fingers up her arms. Yes, it was the same Toni. I'd forgotten the bits and pieces of her—how firm her stomach felt against my hand, how buttery soft the underside of her wrists. But there was so much that was familiar—the arch of her back against my hand, the firmness of her breasts. I trembled with desire, wanted to dive into her, enter her, consume her, never leave her again. I tugged her shirt from her jeans, spread my fingers wide, ran them over her skin, up and around. Then, my fingertips flowing over her belt, over the outside of her pants, I reached down. Her legs spread, and I reached, ran my hand all the way down and around, then back up again.

  Then I clutched her, wrapping my arms around her waist and her shoulders, and it was my turn to cry. My eyes reddened; I could feel it. And they misted. A huge swell of pain rose from within me. This hurt. It was partly because of Toni, I supposed, and her dumping me some ten years ago. But it was also from loneliness. Yes, being with her now made me realize how utterly alone I'd been for so long, how I had three very expensive and rather redundant bicycles but had no mate or family, and how much more I wanted the latter.

  I sighed, laid my head against her neck. “Toni…”

  She ran her fingers through my hair, massaged my back, said, “I've missed you.”

  Thank you, I thought. Thank you for acknowledging that there had been something between us, something even profound. So it wasn't my imagination. I had meant something to her as well; she hadn't just dumped me and waltzed on. God, that first year after our breakup, I'd thought about her nearly every day.

  “What happened?” I asked, not to cast blame, not to fuel anger, but to understand or, rather, to have it said once and for all, for I did have my suspicions.

  She pushed me up, then stared at me, her head still cradled in my lap. Reaching for my face, she stroked my stubbly cheeks with the back of her hand.

  “You never understood, did you?”

  Was I so dumb, so dense? No, not at all. Somewhere inside me I'd known the moment she'd moved out.

  Still, I wanted to force the words from her—she, after all, was the one who'd left—and I said, “No.”

  The desire and lust rushed out of us both. She pulled away, grabbed a bunch of her hair, swung it around and back over her shoulder. Sat back. Toni curled one foot underneath her, then reached out and took my hand in both of hers.

  “Alex, I'm sorry. I should have made it clear back then.”

  I nodded. She should have. Instead she'd just packed up her things, went on her way, and shut me out of her life, leaving me to piece things together as best I could.

  She cleared her throat. “Back then, when we were still living together, I met someone else.” She paused, looked away, bit her lip. Of course she was uncomfortable. “It was while I was an intern.”

  “That's what I thought.” I knew that much. Actually now I was sure I'd known the whole thing. “And you fell in love?”

  She nodded.

  I started mumbling, “What did I do? What didn't I…?” It was useless, though, rehashing all that. “Why didn't you just say so?”

  “Alex, I couldn't. Not back then.”

  “Was it another doctor?”

  “No.”

  It had to be someone else at the hospital, for that's where she spent all her time. Someone from high up?

  “Someone in administration?” I probed.

  “No, Alex.” She bowed her head, gulped, looked up at me. “It was a nurse.”

  I stared at her, tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, saying, “It wasn't that guy—what was his name? Phil? It wasn't him, was it?”

  I wanted to be right. I wanted it to be him or one of those other big, brawny guys who were so gentle in their work, lifting ailing people from bed to wheelchair and so on. I'd met a handful of them, played softball with them on two Fourths, and I hoped it was one of them who'd stolen Toni.

  But that wasn't the way it was.

  “No,” said Toni, shaking her head.

  Now I cleared my throat, managed what I'd known to be the core truth. “You're gay, aren't you?”

  She nodded, squeezed my hand. “I'm a lesbian, yes.”

  “Oh.” I glanced away. “That's what I thought.”

  “Do you remember a friend of mine, Laura Cole?”

  My voice was faint. “She helped you move out.”

  “Right. We fell in love and we've been together almost ever since.”

  I'd suspected as much, had grown to believe it, too, especially when I recalled little things Toni had done and said about her, Laura, the nurse. I'd met her on several occasions before Toni had left me; in fact, I remembered the three of us going out for dinner once. Someplace Italian. Laura had a sort of Slavic face, broad and warm, small eyes. Light hair, very long and straight. She wasn't heavy but not thin, either. And she had a bawdy sense of humor. I remembered that because I could never recall jokes, yet I still knew the one Laura had told that night.

  “Did you hear about the nurse,” Laura had said when we were well into our second bottle of wine, “who was walking around with a thermometer above her ear?”

  No, Toni had said. No, I'd echoed, shaking my head.

  “When one of the doctors asked her about it, she pulled it down, and screamed, ‘Oh, my God, some asshole's got my pencil!’”

  Sure. She'd kept us laughing all night long, particularly Toni. The two of them had gone into hysterics a number of times, while I'd tried to follow with a big laugh. I distinctly remembered, even then, feeling the odd man ou
t. So that was the start of it. It all made sense, too. Now it did, anyway.

  Antoinette Domingo a lesbian? Yes, it was said now, verbalized. She'd confirmed an unspoken reality, a truth that was hard to accept, but one that I could and would accept. Still, we'd been so good together, had had such great sex.

  She said, “I loved you very much, Alex. I really did. But I couldn't stay with you because I couldn't go on pretending to be someone I wasn't. I couldn't be with you and be dishonest. So I had to leave. I know I didn't do a very good job at it. Lousy, in fact. And I regret that.”

  I stared at the big oak fireplace. My mind sifted incidents, latched on to facts.

  “I wish you'd told me—it would have hurt, but I would have understood.” I lifted her hand, pressed it against my lips because I knew that I would always love her, although now I would have to do so in a much different way. “I do feel like a fool. I mean, it's like trying and trying to put on a shoe and getting angry and upset because it won't fit, even though it's supposed to. Then finally, ten years later someone just says, ‘Hey, buddy, that's a great shoe but it's the left one and you're trying to put it on your right foot.’”

  “I know, Alex, and I'm sorry. All I can say is that choosing a same-sex relationship is the hardest thing I ever had to do. To face up to, I mean. It wasn't a choice of being straight or gay—I didn't get to make that one. It was just a choice of whether or not I was going to be honest.”

  “I'm sure.” I looked at her, seeing her differently, the pain and the peace, now fully for the first time. “Are you happy?”

  “I've been through some rough times lately—there's more than Liz's death, but I can't get into that right now —so I won't say it hasn't been hard. And I won't say that if it had been solely my choice I wouldn't rather have been married and had a house full of kids, but… but I know I made the right decision.”

  I reached out, touched her on the arm, asked, “Can I hold you?”

  “I wish you would.”

  The two of us stretched out on that green sofa, lay there side by side, my front to her back like a couple of old spoons nestled together. I kissed her on the neck, and Toni pulled my arms around her, snuggled against me.

  “Can we be friends again?” she asked. “I mean, real friends this time.”

  “I'm a little in shock,” I began, clutching her. “But I guess if I can't have you as a lover, then I'll take you how I can get you… as a friend.”

  We lay there in silence, the hurt—hurt because it was impossible, we would never have made it, we both saw that now—pulling us into drowsiness, the drowsiness washing us with sleep.

  Chapter 13

  Somewhere toward early morning, I did in fact slip away, found a blanket to spread over Toni, then—

  “That's right, it's time to get some rest.”

  What? What was that? Who was that?

  “It's me, Alex, and we're going to pause here a bit.”

  I cringed, twisted. Someone was talking to me, kicking me out of that time. But I didn't want to be. I wanted to stay just where I was. Besides, there was something I had to explore and find out about.

  “And you will, Alex. You will. Trust me. We need to rest a bit, though, and get something to eat. I'm starved, aren't you? Don't worry, we'll just take a short break.”

  I felt as if I were being slapped out of a dream, forced awake when it was the very last thing I wanted. Who cared about food? No, I should go back to the couch. Toni was there, asleep. I had to go back to her, lie down, cuddle up and hold her and all the dreams that might have been. Couldn't I make her love me and want me again? Wasn't there any way?

  “Alex, now come on.”

  I just wanted… I just wanted… what? To know that I hadn't been a fool? To know that I hadn't done anything wrong?

  “You've done nothing wrong, Alex. Nothing.”

  Yes, I did. I waited too long before moving on. I was stuck on this one person when I should have let go years ago because it was an impossibility, Toni and me.

  “I'm going to count backward from ten to one, and when I reach one you'll—”

  Do I have to?

  “Yes. My stomach's growling.”

  So she started counting, Sorceress-Sister Maddy, and I reluctantly began to surface, returning from my evening with Toni when the truth about her and our relationship was finally put on the table. As Maddy counted, I began to feel less and less like I was back in my apartment in Minneapolis, and more and more like I was on a leather recliner on Madeline's island. In fact, just before Maddy reached the bottom of her countdown, I opened one eye, saw the bright evening light, and realized how depressed I was. Not because I'd lost Toni, but because what I wanted could never be. And it was no one's fault.

  Maddy took a long breath, whispered, “And one.”

  Both eyes opened, and I lay there quite still as if the blanket of reality that now covered me were too heavy to push off. How dramatic. That was how I felt, though. A little ashamed, too, for until now I hadn't told anyone about Toni and me—why things really didn't work out between us.

  I heard Maddy next to me, looked over, saw her groping for her wheelchair. I hated to see her struggle, so I quickly got up and went around.

  “Thank you,” said Maddy, ever gracious, as I lifted her into the wheelchair.

  She reached down, felt her legs from thigh to foot, and ascertained that, yes, all of her was there in the chair and properly positioned, too. Nothing to get caught or pinched. Then she put her hands on the wheels, twirled around, and started to roll herself onward. What, no comment, no word or reaction to what I'd just revealed? No opinion on Toni and me? I knew my sister well enough to know the answer to that one. She had a reaction, of course, probably a strong one. She was just holding it in. The only question was why and how long she could hold it. I gave her less than a half hour.

  She was escaping quickly, and I called, “You really must be hungry.”

  “I am, aren't you? Come on.”

  She was off and rolling, and I half-jogged after her, through the big empty attic with its soaring ceiling. As we passed around the Tiffany dome that capped the stairwell, I glanced up and out the skylight above the dome. Outside a blue, blue sky. It would be clear tonight, and I was just about to ask Maddy if she'd ever seen any northern lights up here, but then I caught myself. As she whizzed to the back of the room and through a door to the rear of the attic, I realized what a good job she did at deceiving people.

  Some twenty minutes later we were seated at the dining room table; we'd both washed and used the bathroom, Maddy with a bit of Solange's help. And now we were seated at this big plank of yellow oak, Maddy at the head of the table, me on her left, and actually it was kind of lonely, just the two of us at a table that could easily seat sixteen. The ceilings were twelve feet tall, maybe more, and there was a huge built-in buffet, an all-oak affair that must have once displayed pricey china but was now totally empty. All of this and only us.

  “Do you ever get lonely out here?” I asked.

  “Nope.” She turned toward me. “How's the soup?”

  Solange had served us each a large bowl of some summery concoction with lots of chunks of tomatoes and fresh herbs. We had bread, too, and more iced tea with more lemons.

  “Good,” I replied.

  It was then that I tried my first real taste—I'd just sort of been playing around with it before—and it was good. Fresh and spicy and healthy-tasting. So the soup was fine; I had only told a white lie of sorts, a blip of a thing. I wasn't sure, however, if I believed what Maddy had said about not being lonely or, thinking back on it, just about anything else. And that in itself was a terrible realization. I'd always implicitly trusted my big sister, worshiped her, but I was just beginning to understand how much Maddy lied, even if only by omission. She insisted on doing things herself—moving around blindly on the paths of this island and through this huge house—so that you forgot she was both blind and paraplegic. Simply, she worked hard at pretending to be w
ho she was not.

  “You're awfully quiet,” said Maddy.

  “Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “I don't know.”

  Maddy felt for the bread on the edge of her saucer, found it, said, “‘I don't know’ usually means ‘I don't want to say.’”

  “I guess that's right.” I stirred my soup. “Are you're egging me on?”

  “I suppose so. I suppose I want to know what's going on in your head.”

  “I'm thinking that I felt bad for you when you lost your sight and I felt awful when you were hit by that bus, and I've felt sorry for you at times, guilty, too. But… but I've never really felt pity for you until today. Until just now, really.”

  She calmly lifted a spoon to her mouth. “Oh?”

  “You hold back so much, Maddy. I pity you that. You always pull out another person's pain, and you're great at soothing that and healing it. You're a wonderful listener. But you're terrible at revealing yourself.” How odd, I thought, I was beginning to see my big sister not as the mythical older sibling, but as just another person, an ordinary slob like me. “I mean, why didn't you ever tell me about this guy you were so madly in love with? It must have hurt like hell when he dumped you.”

  “I can't show my weaknesses, Alex. Not me. I have several handicaps, obviously, and I have to work doubly hard so people will see that I'm strong.”

  “I think you're overcompensating.”

  “You're probably right. I probably do hide things I don't need to.”

  Suddenly I was there. Without having planned it, I had her right where I wanted, in a corner.

  “Then tell me,” I challenged, “what you think of Toni. What you think of her and me and our relationship. You've been so quiet, but you're a shrink, so you must have an opinion. Am I a sicko?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear?”

  “Yeah, and be blunt.”