The One Night Strand

"I slept in a strand of pearls last night."

He looked up at her.  This admission gathered his attention in a way nothing she had been saying for quite some time had.  After all, they had slept in separate beds for many years.

"I did," she reaffirmed.

"Why?"

"Because I'm sick, didn't you know?" she asked of him, not really wanting an answer, only wanting to bruise him rhetorically only the way a sick woman can.

"You're not sick.  You're drunk."

"I'm not sick," she barked.

"You're drunk."

"Yes, I heard you the first time."

"You're not sick," he reiterated.

"Stop saying that."

"Why?  Why is it okay for you to walk around like a lush while the rest of us have to wake up in the morning?"  In many ways, she knew this was the voice of a man imprisoned by only himself.

"Stop saying that," she said.

"Yeah, you already said that--"

"I am.  I'm sick!"  She screamed at him and picked up a vase he bought her once, many years ago, when presents weren't yet obligatory on his part.  He told her it was from his trip on the Orient Express, that it was exotic and mysterious, just like her.  She threw it at him, hitting him square in the face.

He fell over, shocked that she would resort to this kind of juvenile behavior merely because he called her an alcoholic.  He used his index finger to dab his cheek, his lips, his forehead.  All were covered in blood.  When he wiped the blood out of his eyes, she could see it was he who had been intoxicated.  Perhaps this was the moment he sobered up.

"You're DOA," she said to him.

"I'm not dead.  I'm just bleeding."

"D.  Drunk.  Drunk on arrival.  You're drunk and you come in here accusing me of that.  I am sick for Christ's sake."

"How are you sick, Miranda?  Is there something I don't know?"

"There's a lot you don't know."

"That was a predictable answer."

"Predictable man, predictable answer."  She knew they were at an impasse and this saddened her.  And she realized that for the first time, she was sad about their marriage.  They didn't know each other any more.  "It's a tumor.  The size of Texas actually.  And it's in my liver."

He was taken aback by this and even more surprised by the fact that something they were discussing had, in fact, surprised him.

"It is my liver, actually.  Literally.  It takes up the whole thing."

Still nothing from him.  Not even the peanut gallery she had grown to despise over their years together.

"Do you have anything to say about this?" she asked.

"No," he said.  "Believe it or not, I don't."

"Well, I do."

He sat up, knowing this would be a big moment in his life, and his face was caked in his own blood.  She had no impulse to wipe it off or to even help him up off the ground.  He didn't have it in him to ask.

"I don't want you there when I die," she said.

His eyes watered up.  It was in this moment that he felt he knew, better than anyone, the pangs of regret.  This was merely tangible the evidence of some such decisions.

And with that, she was gone.