Eclipse

Therese drove Carol to the station an hour later. As the train nudged forward, Carol kept looking out of the window to catch the last glimpse of the woman who had unknowingly consoled her far better than all the friends and relatives combined. Therese was still on the track-side platform, heading towards the stairs to get to the parking lot where she had left her black Jeep. She crossed the grey, weather-beaten pavement in only a few absentminded strides, her thumbs tucked inside the pockets of her cargo pants. Leaning forward in her seat, Carol followed Therese’s every move until her head nearly hit the window glass. The last thing she saw were Therese’s hiking boots that disappeared inside a dark green, covered pathway leading up to the overpass.

The diesel engine pulled its silver tail along the Hudson River, the train speeding on tracks that at times seemed to fall on water as it curved around the bend. On the other shore, the mountains sloped gently upward, their contours blurred with verdant brush. Carol looked at the river and saw how the hardening wind whipped its surface into sharp, rippled arrows. Unleashed, they spiraled around as if chasing an invisible foe cowering at depths.

It wasn’t until Croton-Harmon that Carol realized she had forgotten to ask Therese’s last name. In fact, she hadn’t told hers either. The less-than-twenty hours she had spent with Therese had been so irregular, it hadn’t even occurred to Carol to make a formal introduction. The neglect frustrated her immensely, though she had at one point wondered if their chance meeting was just a curious fluke that wasn’t even meant to happen again. Maybe it had been decided for her, Carol thought, saddened by the wasted opportunity to get to know Therese better. To thank her for her help. Oh well.

When the train pulled up at Grand Central an hour later, Carol was still thinking about Therese. How hard could it be to find her? she asked herself. I’ll call Vassar or google astrophotography. Not hard at all. Comforted by her renewed optimism, Carol headed toward the subway.

Abby came by soon after Carol had returned home. “Here,” she said, handing Carol a set of keys. “I fetched the car. They were done with it, so I thought I’d better get it for you,” Abby smiled faintly. “I don’t like the idea of you hitchhiking in the middle of the night.” She got rid of her jacket and scarf, and threw them over the sofa cushions.

“Thanks,” Carol said. “You really didn’t have to go through all that trouble. I could’ve gotten it myself tomorrow.” She was pleased, nonetheless. Abby was always ready to go beyond the call of duty to help her out. Sometimes Carol wondered if she was as good a friend for her as Abby was for her. Lately the scales had been tipped to her favor.

“It was no trouble at all. I was happy to get out of the house,” Abby sighed. “First you worry about your kids being feverish and slack. Then you medicate them and end up losing your nerve with two goofballs, now miraculously juiced-up and running circles around you.” She frowned at Carol who found her complaint both amusing and adorable. “It’s a vicious cycle, I tell you!” Stretching herself on the sofa, Abby closed her eyes for a second.

Abby and Gen had been together for ten years. They had first gotten to know each other at Vassar, both just starting their studies at the time. Abby had majored in Political Science, Gen in Psychology, both minoring in Women’s Studies. Carol had more or less played Cupid in their ending up together, recognizing immediately how well-suited they were. She had known Abby already before college, attending the same private school as her.

When Abby and Gen had decided to start a family six years ago, they hadn’t been at all prepared to what was waiting for them. Lulled by the notion that Gen wouldn’t most likely get pregnant right away, they had been stunned to hear it having happened on their first fertility clinic appointment. Not only were they expecting their firstborn – and the ‘only born’ as Abby had been quick to remind everyone at the time – but twins. Nine months later Lou and Mickey arrived, and as much as their parents adored them, the two red-haired rascals had been driving their mothers up the walls ever since.

‘Aunt Carol’ was their favorite, never afraid to get her hands dirty or to let the boys turn her place upside down. Even Harge had liked Lou and Mickey, although his interest in playing with them had waned after his failed attempts to get Carol pregnant. Carol had seen it in him, the defeat and the anguish of a man who wished nothing more than a child to call his own. “Nothing wrong with Harge’s ‘swimmers’”, their doctor had assured them, all they had to do was to keep on trying.

Nothing like having sex with one purpose only to take the fun out of it, Carol had mused many times, but for Harge’s sake she had kept her end of the bargain. The one thing that was supposed to be so natural and effortless became its polar opposite, a strained, perfunctory ritual dictated by what time of the month it was.

The basic method having run its course, they had sought the assistance of a fertility clinic. The IVF process hadn’t been a walk in the park, not to Carol. The hormonal treatment had wreaked havoc in her mind and body, bringing about mood swings and recurring headaches.

No one had placed blame, no one else except Carol. If their failure wasn’t Harge’s fault, it had to be hers, she had reasoned. The disappointment had consumed her like a black, hideous clot growing bigger and bigger inside her, until it smothered all competing thoughts and sentiments. She had witnessed it in Harge as well, the suffering in silence that had gradually permeated his entire existence. Never had it been as prominently present as after the endless Sunday lunches with Harge’s parents, after the torture of having had dodged their nosy questions about the much-hoped-for grandchildren.        

When Harge had gotten his diagnosis, Carol had wondered if the darkness she had known had in fact become something more real for him. Maybe Harge’s clot had assumed a tangible form that had started preying on his health. Carol had never believed in such things, not per se, but seeing him ravaged first by despair, then by cancer, she had no longer known what to think.

“I believe you have some explaining to do.” Abby broke the silence. “Spill.” Knowing very well how persistent Abby could be, Carol gave up. She let out a deep sigh.

“I wanted to see the observatory,” Carol started, “but of course it was closed by the time I got there.” She hesitated for a while. “A really nice young woman understood the trouble I was in, and offered me a place to stay.” Abby didn’t say a word, but the look on her face left Carol no choice but to continue. “Then I slept with her.”

“YOU DID WHAT?” Abby leapt into a sitting position. She was uncertain if what she thought she had heard was correct.

“Not in that way!” Carol hastened to say. “We just slept in the same bed, that’s all.” Yet she knew that it wasn’t all there was to it.

“There were no other beds in her apartment, no extra mattresses, no sofa?” Abby wasn’t buying it. “Or did you just happen to slip and fall into hers?” Her astonishment over Carol’s surprise confession was getting out of hand.

“There was nothing sexual in it,” Carol said quietly. “I needed someone, and she was there for me. She didn’t ask for anything…” Carol fell silent, overwhelmed by the sadness of her past tense.

Abby caught the shift in Carol’s tone, and changed her approach. “Are you going to see her again?” she asked. Warm and frank, her question no longer implied anything.

“How could I? I don’t even know her full name.” Carol’s disheartened voice gave away just enough for Abby to grasp the full meaning of her encounter.

“Serendipity,” Abby said. “To find something good that you weren’t even looking for.” She got up to go to the kitchen. “Now we’ll eat,” she declared in her customary manner that fended off all objections. “I brought lasagna and a bottle of very nice Chianti.” The baked pasta dish needed only heating up.

“You pamper me, Abigail,” Carol smiled. “But I do feel bad taking up so much of your time these days.” She liked having her around, but she also knew that Abby’s main responsibilities lay happily elsewhere. 

“Anything to buy me an extra hour away from the madness and mayhem,” Abby quipped, winking at Carol. She poured some wine in their glasses and sighed contentedly.

“You’re full of shit, darling, but I love you for it,” Carol laughed and joined her at the table.

When Abby had left to put the boys in bed, Carol was once again forced to face the reality of her home. Their home, hers and Harge’s. Now that she had it all to herself, she was slowly coming to the conclusion that she didn’t like it.

First she would have to paint the walls, Carol decided, if she were to survive within their confines at all. Then she would get rid of all the bric-a-brac, no matter how much sentimental value some of it held, for it was those very items that sucked the oxygen out of the rooms she had to live in. She would pack them in neat little boxes until she found out what to do with her memories. Right now all they did was spell the past Carol was funereally shackled to.  

Carol thought of Therese’s room, how vibrant and inviting it had looked compared to the dreary dullness of her domicile. She thought of Therese, and the image of the young woman at ease on the floor made her both happy and sad. They had slept the entire night in the exact same position, Therese behind her, spooning her. Carol wondered what it would have been like, had she turned around just once and faced her. To bury her head in Therese’s shoulder, to wrap her arms around the young woman’s waist. Carol’s heart skipped a beat but only to gain momentum for a heavier blow. Would Therese have allowed her to do that? Would she have merely embarrassed herself with her neediness? She was full of questions that taunted her, zeroed in on an easy victim.

The food Abby had brought over hadn’t agreed with her, and Carol had known it after her first bite. She had hardly touched the wine either. The flavor of red berries and bitter herbs she had always relished had eluded her, only the coarseness and the tartness stinging her palate. Abby had noticed her reluctance to eat, but she hadn’t said anything. “You’re only beginning to weather the storm, no wonder if you feel sick,” she had offered as an explanation to Carol’s nausea that had started two weeks before Harge’s death. Abby was right, of course, Carol mused, for Harge – the Harge she had known and loved – hadn’t died on the day stated on his death certificate. When his heart stopped beating, he had already been gone for quite some time.

The nausea came back in waves, the next one being always more intense than the one before. Sometimes it skipped the warning signs altogether, and broke her resistance as easily as if it were snapping a brittle twig in half. Tonight the queasiness returned – with a vengeance.

The rare moments Carol was able to relax and hope to sleep, she kept tossing and turning in her bed. The night was long and ruthless, and it made her cling to the beauty she had known the day before. To kill the torturous time, she searched the Internet frantically. She caught the ‘thereses of the world’ but yearned to find the real one, feeding the search engine with words and tags she hoped would put her on the right track. Nothing came out, nothing was revealed, the ‘information superhighway’ leading her nowhere near her Venus under an arched rock.

Exhausted, Carol gave up, and when the first light of morning clashed with the polish of her bedroom window, she turned her back at it and wept.

Carol was tired, hardly able to function, but she needed to get out of the house. She would be angry and depressed the entire day, she grumbled in silence. Angry at her own stupidity and depressed by her inability to do anything about it, Carol put on her coat, the same one she had had on the night she had met Therese. She wasn’t sure where she was going, or if she was going anywhere at all. The night and the tears still heavy on her eyelids, she had to squint to see ahead.

The weather had taken a turn to worse like a fickle lover dosing disfavor for mere morbid amusement. A foul wind penetrated the layers Carol had on and played with her hair, indifferent to her patience having already worn thin. Pressing her chin against her chest, she shoved her bare hands stubbornly inside her coat pockets to keep them warm. Something sharp-edged and rectangular nearly cut her finger, and she withdrew her hand in haste. A moment later she reached inside the pocket again and drew out a business card:

Therese Belivet

E C L I P S E

Astrophotography

1-212-729-0268

 

Stunned, Carol stared at the treasure she had found. The wind, sensing a change in her mood, hurried along in search for another victim.

Serendipity.