June 2009 – Of Warmth, Of Dragons

“And you found all the debts,” said Marian.

“And I found all the debts,” the other repeated. “I found bills from banks and letters from collection agencies. I had no idea he was spending so much. I went back over the records, and I saw that we’d been spending more than we could afford for years, despite all his assurances.”

“What did you do next?”

“In the morning, I told Robert to call in sick to work. Then I sat him down at the kitchen table and told him I knew about the bills. I told him that the time to start altering his behavior, our behavior, was right now. I told him that we could do it together.”

“What did he say?”

“He said he couldn’t stop himself, that spending money was the only way he could avoid feeling terrible. I told him he’d have to stop, that if we called the banks we’d be able to restructure the debts and avoid a catastrophe. He said he was too ashamed. And then— ” She paused.

Marian stopped holding her breath just long enough to prompt, “Yes?”

“I told him that I would leave him if he didn’t start, right then.”

“And?”

“And he did.” She inclined her head and lowered her eyelids, as if honoring a shrine. “He called all the banks that morning, contacted their workout departments. We stripped down our spending to the barebones. It took a long time, but we paid off the debts.”

“There was no bankruptcy,” sad Marian breathed.

“That’s right,” happy Marian answered.

“And Robert never lost his job.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He didn’t have to take that other position, the one in the city.”

“That’s right too.”

“And when the War came, and the first attacks in all the financial districts— ” lonely Marian asked, pressing her hands together.

“Robert was at home with me, not in a financial district,” beautiful Marian replied. “He survived. We survived. We lost many things in the War, all our property, had to live off scraps for the longest while. But we never lost each other.”

Hearing this, Marian closed her eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of the wild grapes and leaf mold, feeling the gentle wind on her cheek, drinking in the moment.

Then she realized.

“But then, why isn’t Robert here? Shouldn’t he be here?”

“He died,” the other answered.

“Died? But— but you saved him!”

“Yes, but that was thirty years ago. He died a few years back, a brief illness, something to do with the heart. Now I stand and look at the sky.”

Sad Marian watched as her companion looked heavenward again, smiling at the patterns she saw there.

And now Marian knew what she wanted, knew as she’d known she had to come to the Fair. “May I stay with you?”

“You can’t stay,” beautiful Marian told her. “There’s only this one day. Tomorrow I won’t be here.”

“Where will you be?” Marian asked.

“I won’t be here.”

“Can I come back and see you next year?”

“You won’t, you know.”

“But this can’t be all there is!”

“This is always all there is.”

Now Penelope moved into the clearing, barely disturbing the branches. Her eyes betrayed only slight surprise at seeing the two Marians standing together; she addressed the one she came with. “Mother, are you all right?”

“I’m fine, dear. I’m going to stay.”

“Stay?” Penelope’s strong face winced. “Stay here, at the Fair?”

“Why not? I like it here. I like it better than I’ve liked anything for a long time.”

“Mother, we can’t,” said Penelope, her voice husky. “It’s just the Fair. It’s not our life. It isn’t real.” She stopped abruptly, choking back a sob.

“No,” said Marian. “And have you seen my life recently? Have you seen real? Remembering everything that’s been taken, knowing that none of it will come back? And how can I bear thinking of what’s to come?”

“You have us,” said Penelope. “You have me and Rose and Virgil.”

“Only for a little while.” Marian’s voice rasped. “And I’m useless. I’m half-crippled and I contribute nothing. I lost my chance to make a difference thirty years ago.”

“You did make a difference!” Penelope cried. “You raised me! You took Virgil into your home! You’ve nurtured Rose!”

“To what end? A world that’s over? Here I can be who I should have been.”

Penelope and Marian stared at each other, their eyes wet, their breathing hard.

Then the other Marian, the impossible Marian spoke; her voice was soft and sad. “You know, there’s only one difference between what I did and what I might have done, between what I became and what I might have become.”

Both of the other women turned to look at her.

“The difference,” she continued, “is that when the world confronted me, I acted. I didn’t run away, I didn’t pretend it wasn’t there. When I found those papers of Robert’s, I confronted him. It was awful, and I was frightened, and I thought I might lose everything. But I acted. And that’s what made the rest of my life.”

Then the two Marians looked at each other, the one who was merely old blessing the one who was mortally wounded.

“Mother,” said Penelope, and both of the older women turned towards her. “Mother,” she repeated, looking longingly at the exhausted, defeated woman. “Mother, you never know what will happen. Every day brings a new chance. Here are no new chances.”

Marian felt the pain in her leg, the pain in her lungs, the dryness of her skin and the sorrow pressing down on her soul. She thought of the little house by the edge of a nearly-deserted town, the living they scraped together, the dozen times a day she only just avoided snapping at her poor granddaughter, the dozen times a week she failed. And she thought of the nothing that was coming. She breathed a great, rattling sigh.

“All right, dear. Let’s get a bite to eat before we start back.”

Kenneth Schneyer‘s fiction has appeared in Nature Physics, Flashshot and the anthology Misfit Mirror. During the Summer of 2009, he will be one of eighteen participants in the Clarion Writers Workshop in San Diego.  He lives in the smallest, but wateriest, state in the U.S., with a ritual artist, their two offspring and a narcissistic cat.

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