Eclipse

“DYKE!” Abby howled victoriously. “Do I have to spell it out for you? SHE’S A DYKE!” Carol cringed at her quick-fire assessment. “Okay, I will spell it out for you: the butch mobile – cha’ ching! DYKE! The cargo pants – cha’ ching! DYKE! The boots and the Ray-Bans – cha’ ching! DYKE! The veggie wraps – cha’ ching…” Every time Abby spat out another piece of her evidence, she pumped her fist in the air.

“There’s nothing particularly dykey about vegetarian food,” Genevieve pointed out, interrupting Abby’s uproarious flow to Carol’s significant relief.

“Not per se, but it’s the big picture that counts!” Abby snapped back. “Keep a look out for those plaid flannel shirts and carabiner key chains, darling,” she winked at Carol.

“And what’s with this Jane person? ‘Oh, I’m just going to ignore this caller because she’s just my goodfriend and she can very well sit back and wait till I’ve befriended another HOT BLONDE!”

Hearing Abby's words, Gen snorted involuntarily. Carol acquiesced to roll her eyes at Abby. She wasn’t going to dignify her poor imitation with a comment of any kind.      

After dinner Gen had refrained from having too much fun at Carol’s expense. She had known her just as long as she had known Abby, but she was aware that her relationship with Carol was different. Abby and Carol had never been afraid to heckle each other, and they indulged in it whenever an opportunity presented itself. Gen was mostly content with just listening to them going at it. This time Abby, however, was making a strong case as far as Carol’s mysterious new acquaintance was concerned. “You have to admit, Carol, this friend of yours, Therese, does sound like…” Gen started apprehensively.

“A DYKE!” Abby intervened again. “C’mon, Carol – whisking your ‘heavenly body’ off to gaze at the moon! Puh-lease…” She was relishing the moment until something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. “Mickey! Quit jumping on the armchair, I don’t want to pay for its repair again.” The skinny little boy ignored her stern reproach.

“It was all perfectly innocent, she was just being a very nice…” Carol attempted helplessly. She had told Abby and Gen most of what had happened during the evening, but she had failed to mention her own mixed feelings, the confusion she had known when Therese had been about to depart. 

“…DYKE!” Abby declared once more. The laughter billowed boisterously out of her, filling her eyes with joyous tears. Little Lou sat across the table from her and just stared at her. “What’s wrong, Lou?” Eyeing her son suspiciously, Abby’s giggles got stuck in her throat. It wasn’t at all like him to sit with adults all quiet and inhibited.

“Our big boy just wants to spend time with his mommas and aunt Carol, don’t you, sweetie pie?” Gen cooed, grabbing Lou gently by the shoulder. His brows askew, the boy took turns looking at all three of them.

“That would be a first,” Abby muttered under her breath, but it didn’t escape her wife.

“Abigail…” Gen articulated with great care. “It is very important for Lou to observe us and to learn how grown-ups interact in social situations.” So far the social situation had been dominated by the indomitable Abby Gerhard, Carol mused.

“Yeah, yeah…” Abby relented. “Sure.” Still, she couldn’t help but wonder why Lou chose to remain seated at the table. His younger brother by ten minutes was, after all, busy pulling down the drapes from the living room window. “MICKEY – I SWEAR TO GOD, IF YOU DON’T STOP RIGHT NOW…” Mickey froze for a quick second, but resumed yanking the fabric in the next. “Can’t I just give him the iPad?” Abby pleaded with Gen. “Just fifteen minutes to get his mind off those fu…” Noticing Gen’s disapproving glance, she caught herself at the last minute. “…fun-filled curtains I painstakingly put up just three weeks ago.” She sounded desperate.

“You know how they get if they play games just before bedtime,” Gen reminded her. “And they have used up their screen time today,” she added, aiming the latter part of her statement at Mickey who looked suddenly way too hopeful.

“How they get?” Abby gasped incredulously. Though frustrated, she nevertheless decided to drop the subject. Gen had made up her mind, and there was nothing she could do to sway her. “Are you okay, Lou?” Abby asked the mute twin instead. The boy remained stubbornly silent. “Should we take his temperature?” she fretted and walked over to the medicine cabinet. “I’m going to take his temperature.”

Shaking her head, Gen let out a heavy sigh. “He’s fine,” she assured her nervous spouse. “Why don’t you run him a bath?” she suggested. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetie?” Gen smiled at Lou who seemed to be slowly coming out of his self-induced stupor.

Abby picked the boy up in her arms and planted a big, wet kiss right on his cheek. Lou cracked a toothless smile. “CHA’ CHING!” he shouted out to her amusement.

“You devious lil’ pumpkin,” Abby grinned at him lovingly, heading towards the bathroom.  

Having cleared the dishes from the table, Gen sat next to Carol. “I’m glad you had a good day,” she said gently, “and I hope you’ll have more of them. But it’s not linear – grieving, I mean.” The psychotherapist in Gen was rearing its astute red head. “There will be good days and bad days, and you just have to let them happen, take them as they come.” She took Carol’s hands in hers, and gave them an encouraging squeeze. “Promise me you’ll be careful.” Gen held Carol’s gaze tenaciously. “I wouldn’t want you to get broadsided by someone you don’t know and can’t possiblyget to know while you’re not in your right mind.” Carol nodded meekly. There was truth to what Gen was saying, and she had to acknowledge that.

“And what’s with the vomiting?” Gen went on. “Have you seen your doctor? It doesn’t sound right, even though it’s not uncommon at a time like this. Maybe she could also give you something for sleeping?” Her voice was laced with concern.

“She’s already taking something,” Abby quipped, returning to the kitchen. “It involves spooning in Poughkeepsie!” She had missed the earlier part of Gen’s comment.

“Give it a rest, will you?” Carol groaned, flipping the bird at Abby behind her left palm so that Mickey couldn’t see it. She knew that Abby meant well, and that this was her way of trying to lighten up the mood, but the joke was wearing thin. “I can look after myself,” Carol said, “and I did see my doctor this afternoon. She ran some tests, and she’ll call me tomorrow.”

Carol had visited her physician for a check-up, anxious to know if anything could be done about her nausea and insomnia. Dr. Phillips had listened to her troubles carefully before giving her opinion. “Let’s draw some blood first. I don’t want to send you off with any prescription without fully understanding what’s going on,” she had insisted. Another sleepless night ahead, Carol had sighed, exiting the medical center.     

“That’s good,” Abby said, visibly relieved by Carol having taken the initiative in whatever it was that was troubling her physically. “And you know I’m just joking around, don’t you?” Carol did know that. “She does sound like a decent person, and I’m glad she sought you out.” Abby’s tone was kind and conciliatory. “In fact I’d like to meet this wonder woman,” she continued pensively. “You should bring her over the next time she’s in town,” she suggested. “I like meeting nice people.”

Her innocent tone didn’t fool Carol. “I’m sure you do,” she chuckled. “God, you’re so transparent…” Carol laughed wholeheartedly, “cute, but transparent.” Abby spread her hands wide, feigning total ignorance over what Carol had just implied.     

Carol spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out what to do with Harge’s things. The amount of stuff we accumulate is staggering, she mused. She marked three big boxes with words KEEP, DISCARD, and DONATE. A garbage bag was readily at hand for the items she wouldn’t have to think twice about throwing in the trash. Carol gathered his suits and placed them over the couch in their hangers. She couldn’t remember if he had even worn all of them. The blue three-piece tweed suit Harge had worn to Abby and Gen’s wedding brought a smile to her face. He had looked so handsome, secretly thrilled by the unconventionality of his snazzy attire.

“Mother would faint if she saw me in this,” he had chuckled, buttoning his waistcoat in front of the mirror. “She’d rather I use the same tailor as Father to get the trousers properly pleated.” Harge’s mother was hardly a trailblazer, and Carol had come to know it soon enough. Still, they had gotten along relatively well, and Carol had been grateful hers hadn’t become the proverbial, scornful relationship with the mother in-law. She folded the suit away.

They had met only six months before her friends’ wedding. After Carol had admired the suit in a store window, Harge had surprised her by buying it for himself. “For the party, but mostly for you,” he had smiled to her. Harge had done a lot of things like that, gone out of his way to delight and to impress the woman he had met under truly extraordinary circumstances. Carol had been sitting in a transit hall at LAX, when a stranger had inadvertently knocked her suitcase down. The man had apologized profusely for his clumsiness, and Carol hadn’t thought anything more about it. He had, however, seated himself right next to her. Slightly distraught by his decision to do so, Carol had focused on her reading.

When Carol had boarded the plane, she had found herself sitting next to the same man. Maybe it was the troubled look on her face that had prompted him to be unexpectedly chivalrous. “I’m sorry,” he had said thoughtfully, “would you rather sit by yourself? There seems to be plenty of empty seats around, and I can certainly move somewhere else.” His willingness to leave her alone had had a reversed effect on Carol.

“No, it’s quite alright,” she had said instead. An hour into the flight, they had been done with the formal introductions, and when the plane had touched down at JFK, Carol had had a date with Hargess Aird the following Friday.        

“So what’s he like?” Abby had asked her when Carol had finally been able to mention Harge’s name to her. 

“Tall, dark and handsome,” Carol had laughed, “and five years older than me.” His age was a strong recommendation in Carol’s book, her past, younger boyfriends having proven frustratingly disappointing. “He’s kinda serious, the salt-of-the-earth type, if you know what I mean, but not humorless, mind you,” she had added, seeing the worried look on Abby’s face. “He takes things seriously. He takes me seriously.” Carol had appreciated that quality above all else, but over the years she had started to think if his somber-mindedness had had more to do with headstrong stubbornness than any conviction to carefully think through his actions and their possible repercussions. Still, Carol had fallen for him, and when Harge had asked her to marry him, she had willingly accepted his proposal.

Every marriage goes through rough periods, Carol had thought, and theirs hadn’t been any different. Love changes after the first three years; it becomes a conscious act of choosing one’s partner every day, of wanting to love him instead of endlessly riding the flush of romantic excitement, she had mused to understand what had been going on lately. She recalled the day when it hadn’t felt so easy for her anymore, although it must not have been the first one. Nothing special had happened, for they hadn’t argued or fought in any way. Carol had just stood in the middle of the living room floor and looked how set everything had seemed. There had been absolutely nothing wrong with the room, it had turned out exactly the way they had planned it – the fabrics and the furniture, the carefully selected artworks, all of them free of blemishes.

Standing in the same spot now, Carol noticed specks of dust on the floor next to the couch. Some of it had spread on the rug as well, scattered around the roots of its shaggy piles. They must have come out of Therese’s boots, occurred to her. Poughkeepsie dust.

To see the dirt on the floor and to recognize its origin made Therese more real to Carol. She wasn’t a figment of her imagination, but an actual person who wore sturdy boots that gathered grains of sand to mark her trail. And Therese had her own issues, her own reasons not to answer phone calls, not to talk to someone else when Carol was around. The enormity of another human being boggled Carol’s mind, the complexity of the choices he or she made willingly or out of necessity, the sheer fruitlessness of trying to grasp what was underneath and how it correlated with what was being said and done.              

It all frightened her now. It was enough to scare the wits out of her. The epiphany of her living room being the moment when the dust had finally settled, Carol had realized she had settled for scratching the surface instead of looking for more. After that she had made her conscious choice, although it had taken her time. And that choice had inadvertently been strengthened by Harge’s illness.

In a way, it had made things easier for Carol, as terrible as it was for her to admit it. Somewhere at the back of her mind she must have had the notion of temporality, the nagging feeling that eventually the life she had chosen for herself would cease to exist and be replaced by something different. Carol had loved her husband, but she hadn’t shared his faith in his full recovery. For so long, Harge had been so confident, so trusting. “I’ll beat this, just keep up with the appointments, and I’ll be ready for fatherhood sooner than you think,” he had encouraged her.

Carol had kept up with them. Harge had taken care of everything before his radiation therapy had kicked in. The clinic had been fully stocked for his wife’s IVF procedures. And she had returned to the clinic again and again, even after it had become obvious that Harge wouldn’t make it. Maybe it had been the guilt her disbelief had brought about, and the need to balance it with tireless hope for fertility that could somehow miraculously transform both of their lives. Her last visit had been only about a month and a half ago, Carol recalled. She had had the next one scheduled as well, but the ultimate change in Harge had finally brought her back to her senses. No more.          

The suits lying on the couch depressed her. She would get rid of all of them, Carol decided. Why would she keep them here when they could be of use to someone? Abby had volunteered to help her sort out Harge’s belongings. Carol had initially refused her offer but now she thought it might be the best way to do it. At least she wouldn’t be distracted by every single item she happened to pick up. Abby would roll up her sleeves and get this done in a couple of hours Carol knew, and the apartment would be freed of the past interfering with her present.

Her eyes caught the patinated sextant on the mantelpiece. This one she would keep. Just in case.               

The next morning Carol woke up to her cell phone ringing on the nightstand. Her eyes at half mast, she picked it up. What she heard made them fly wide open.