Winter Sparrow (7 page)

Mary blinked and realized the sunrise had already come, and she had missed its final movement. She turned her gaze from the strange reality of nature to her still canvas—a pale, man-made thing desperate to come alive again with a fresh soul. Her painting had no beginning and no end. Where was her inspiration?

Mary touched her stomach. Life had been replaced by hate. “The hope I dreamed is gone from me,” she said with tears crawling from her eyes. Her left hand was still on her belly, waiting for there to be a spike of pain or a stir. Nothing. The paintbrush in her right hand snapped in half.
It was made to be broken
, she thought.

The light reaching down from a sky with no conviction seemed like a curse. There was no common ground in her, she knew that now more than ever. Maybe there had never been. She was purgatory, if such a wretched place could be conceived while wives were left empty.

The sounds of her husband hammering in the hallway less than fifty feet away encompassed her. Every time he swung against that drywall, she felt her brain brush up against her skull, wondering if ever he’d hit it hard enough to render her unconscious.

The center of her quivered at the thought of being reunited with him. He didn’t deserve to have her. Nor did the sky, with all of its apathy and neglect. Stuck in this spot. Stuck in this house. Stuck in this body with no life. Her roots had been planted deep, with no true comprehension that these grounds would seek to contain her for eternities no dream could compose. 

Bang! Crash! Bang!
Movement with no purpose. What was the point of fixing this place? Jamie had called just an hour earlier, and she could hear her nephew’s laugh in the background. An adolescent’s laugh never sounded so sublime.

Morning gone. Afternoon replaced by night. Mary was stuck in the sunrise that refused to show its face again. The summers she swore she would mourn time after time.

Beside the glass of water that now possessed a strange, murky layer on its surface, lay an open orange bottle. Joshua could hammer until midnight if he wanted, but that wouldn’t change a thing.
We all have our ways, don’t we? 

Empty. Like the canvas. It would remain that way.

MARY CHEWED THE END OF
her paint brush, not even bothering to notice that a drop of golden paint had dripped onto her night gown. The wooden stand her canvas sat on appeared shaky and unsure of itself. The wide-open lattice doors behind her, which Joshua had recently finished to complete their bedroom, swayed. Her husband lay asleep in bed. The propped-open doors allowed her free passing onto the outside deck, where she’d set up, though it was becoming more of a habit than anything.

The southern landscape seemed beautiful, more beautiful than she felt. Envy festered inside her when she saw the lush, green grass carpeting the grounds, overlooked by massive trees she wished to call by name. Her husband had landscaped the property so beautifully. It was strange to consider that another October was nearly complete.

The wind, much like her body, felt old.

She sat with her legs crossed under her on the stool that, on most days, she thought uncomfortable. It didn’t seem to antagonize her today, though. Not like the still unfinished art in front of her. It was startling how far she’d come with it. But it seemed an impenetrable wall had been erected. She couldn’t trespass, no matter how hard she tried. Looking upon the thing now was like staring into a mirror only to see something frightening.

“I missed the sunrise again.” Maybe it was deliberate, maybe not.

“The sun will come up again tomorrow, baby,” Joshua mumbled. He did that sometimes in his half-way sleep, rolling over to say something that was intended to calm her soul. It only frustrated her.

Mary leaned back on her stool to see if she might catch a glimpse of Joshua turning in his sleep, or if he was awake. Neither was true, she discovered. He was the sunrise she missed so strongly, perhaps, and she was the cloud that, in time, might eclipse him.

“You mustn’t think that way, Mary. He loves you.” Her thoughts had grown loud enough that sometimes they came out of her. While she helped him tile the bathroom floor a few nights back, she had felt the wandering notions, a few unsteady questions that wanted answers.

Is he the one? Is he
all
there is? Is
thisnumbness
all that is left?

The mansion still had much work to be done. Joshua often fell asleep on the floors beside a metal paddle of spackle or hands covered in glue from the wallpaper he’d spent hours peeling. Mary had made sure to capture snapshots of them restoring the mansion when she felt in control of her emotions, though such occasions were rare. She knew that she and Joshua still had to replace the light fixtures, re-carpet many of the rooms, finish painting the walls and handle the many electrical issues. Plus several furnaces were barely functional. The dream was overwhelming. 

But whenever thoughts came upon her like this, in synchronized fashion, she came to realize how trivial it all seemed compared to the hole in her womb. As a young girl, she had wished to never have children, especially considering an adolescent’s potential for screwing up. The boy who groped her body in that defiled high school locker room was somebody’s child, wasn’t he? But the reality of that wish did not fully consume her until she discovered that she had lost her own hope, her own child, and was told by the apathetic professionals that chances were slim she’d ever be able to conceive again.

The situation turned Joshua cold toward her. It made her colder toward him, even though she believed he didn’t mean for his silence to stricken her like it did. They slept together, but they hadn’t shared a passionate night in so long. She had already begun to forget what romance was made of, because it wasn’t this.

Mary’s legs had lost circulation from sitting too long on the stool. Unfolding her knees, she let her feet touch the chilled marble floor again. Joshua had made their bedroom like a palace. She blushed whenever she walked by the fireplace with a stunning mantelpiece upon which sat her favorite of their wedding photographs. It was a simple shot, black and white, with her laughing at a joke of his and him smirking because he knew he’d gotten her to break character in the pose. She loved it.

Joshua woke when she turned on the television. It hung on the wall beside one of her more creative pieces. She grimaced passing by it while a news anchor brought them the latest story. Mary hated watching the news, especially first thing in the morning, but Joshua liked it to play in the background.

“It’s my world,” he’d always say. “I like to know what’s going on in my world.” And right after that came the usual, “It’s your world too, honey.”

To which she replied, “Not by choice.”

Was it wrong of her to become hostile when she didn’t feel creative? When she existed in such a state of distraction? She’d visited an art gallery once in Newport, and the artist boldly confessed his need for failure. “It shows me that while at my worst, I am capable of finding my best,” he’d said after showing a piece that took him nearly two years to complete. Something had begun in chaos but ended in beauty. There was something magical about that, even poetic.

But the creative juices seemed drained from her lately. “Simply complicated, that’s what I am,” she murmured, heading into the bathroom suite to brush her teeth. Joshua was so focused on his world that he missed her self-indulgent sarcasm. Mary slammed the bathroom door and locked herself inside.

SHE DIDN’T SPEAK TO JOSHUA
unless she had to. Time passed so fast she could miss weeks with a blink. The mansion presented her with the luxury of seclusion when she wanted it. But then again, she didn’t, really. She wanted to be alone, but she didn’t want to
feel
lonely. And that’s what she was.

Mary didn’t paint anymore. There was no art that she could see. Her mind fled to better times, to summer nights in bed with Joshua. She hated this separation, but she didn’t know how to fix it. She couldn’t fix the way she felt, the way she thought. She couldn’t bridge that divide no matter how many tears she parted with. When they worked on the mansion they were side by side but not together. She executed every sentence with abrupt precision. And he often asked what was the matter, but she never divulged the reasons for her discomfort.

Once he told her that he was willing to fight, scream if he had to, if it meant they could really talk.

“No,” Mary said with defiance. 

Convincing herself it was the unborn baby that had her mind all confused seemed normal and logical. But that was an even bigger lie than the ring on her finger. In fact, the more she pondered it, the more she believed
she
was the lie, and the fact that she purposely wore garments several sizes too big so Joshua would find little pleasure in her appearance swelled her with shame. But that shame wasn’t powerful enough to make her change. She had a right to feel how she felt. No one should judge her for that.

Mary was in the garden when Joshua decided to come and speak with her. “What’s the matter, Mary?”

She gave him silence. Payment for the silence he’d first given her.

“What happened to us?”

Mary touched new, blooming flowers with her fingertips and caught the tears before they fell. It was a miracle they were still alive. “I think I need to be alone today. I think I just need to be alone.” She wanted him to stay but not to speak, not to judge her.

He touched her shoulder, leaving behind a mark. His hands were stained with polyurethane, the coating he put on some of the floors in the mansion that made parts of the home smell pungent and bitter.

“Look at me. This has to stop sometime. I hate what has become of us. You’re my wife! I love you. There’s nothing we can’t face together. Please just talk to me.”

She pulled away.

“It’s okay. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You think that’s what this is about? That’s it, huh? Is that all you ever think about? How I lost your child?”

“No. I know that’s what you have come to believe, but it isn’t the truth.”

“You’re a liar.”

Joshua stared into her. “Please. You don’t have to do this. Talk to me. You woke up angry again today, locked yourself in the bathroom for hours. You do it so often I don’t even bother you anymore. My goodness, have you even eaten anything?”

She folded her arms and looked away.

“Baby, we don’t talk anymore, and you’re so distant. I’m here. I want to be close to you.”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t feel right anymore, Joshua. I’ve tried for so long, but I’m not right. I know I’m not right.” She stroked her belly and swore there was a thick pool of blood staining her hands. “I’m empty, but I’m full of…of…rage. Bitterness.” She looked down then looked up again. “Hate. You can’t understand.”

“You don’t ever let me try!”

She shoved him in the chest. “You could never understand. I have this fear, always with me. This relentless confusion in my mind. Gosh, the sun seems so bright, doesn’t it?” She flared her nostrils and covered her face. “And when I look at you—”

“What?” his eyes begged.

“It’s…nothingness. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t create. I can’t think. It feels like the world is closing in on me. Everywhere I look I see a room that’s unfinished. I see my dreams being ripped away, and you and me growing further and further apart.”