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With Heath’s fever gone, the snow melted into the ground. It watered and nourished
the green of spring.
I cooked and from a window I saw the yellow trumpet blooms of daffodils lean
toward warm sunbeams. Cherry Blossom petals shivered at the slightest breeze and
filled the air with pink. But no matter how many blooms disintegrated into the dirt, the
trees were still full of them. Many mornings, I went outside and watered Heath’s plants.
Their wilted leaves lifted upward when they were full.
I cooked breakfast, I cooked lunch, I cooked dinner. I cooked for Heath and
Aaron and myself, but mostly I cooked for Heath. For breakfast, he liked oatmeal with
steel cut oats and honey. It tasted of earth with some sweetness. Every day that he had
the fever, he wanted chicken soup for lunch. He liked thick chunks of chicken that
absorbed the salty broth. But when he was sick he couldn’t swallow much, so I shredded
them. He also liked hot chocolate with large marshmallows that turned brown when he
pushed them under the cocoa with his spoon. He liked things that absorbed.
After the fever broke, Heath started to cook again. He made crepes, rosemary
chicken, oatmeal with steel cut oats and honey, Beef Stroganoff, steak, and fajitas with
cilantro in each bite. He never made chicken soup. He never made hot chocolate.
When he started to cook, the trees were budding. Specks of green sprouted
from branches. Aaron set a plastic table and chairs in the backyard, and sometimes we
ate outside. A large Douglas maple tree shaded us. Pieces of sun sliced through its leaves
and hit us in bright beams that reflected particles of dust. We drank lavender lemonade
out there and talked between sips as the juicy pulp slid down our throats. We held hands.
Heath and I. Outside underneath the Douglas maple tree. He held my left hand in his
right and drank lemonade using his other hand. We talked and held hands. His thumb
stroked my index finger. The lines in his palm like deep, soft engravings. Sometimes I
traced them with my fingernail. He always pulled away when I did that. Said it tickled.
Sometimes we sat together in the same plastic chair or in his coffee-brown
leather armchair in the living room. Together. He ran his fingers through my hair and
told me its white shone in the sunlight, like a halo running the length of my body. When
we sat together, I leaned against him and felt his chest rise and fall with breath. Faster.
Sometimes slow. His heart thudded in my ear. Sometimes his hands were on the chair.
Sometimes they played with the flesh on my thighs. Sometimes they circled me. Those
times he was never fully relaxed. The arms were tense around me as he pulled me closer
into his body.
The grass was turning brown when kissing was all right. Even though Portland
got the remnants of the cool vapors from the ocean, it still heated into the upper 90s
in the thick of summer. We stayed inside a lot. The basement was the coolest place in
the house. It was unfinished with gray cement floors that had cracks. There was nothing
there, so Heath brought down an old mattress from his childhood that had been stored
in his garage. He brought it to the basement and put linen sheets on it. That was all. It
was too warm for anything else.
When the heat was unbearable, we went into the basement and lay on his
childhood mattress. He held me like he had grown used to doing. Holding wouldn’t hurt
me, he said. Even though I still wanted more. I still wanted that piece of him.
When he held me that time, his hands played with my thighs. He liked to pull the
skin where it’s fleshiest at the top, just underneath my vagina. My back was toward him,
and he had an erection. He usually did when I lay against him. One time I placed my
hand on it, but he pushed me away and got up. This time I didn’t touch him. He kissed
the back of my neck. When I rolled my body to face him, he stroked my cheeks and
kissed my lips. We kissed for a long time. When we stopped, he smiled at me. I knew he
liked me there. After that, we kissed every day, and it became all right. He didn’t mumble,
or curse himself, or cry.
We started to sleep together, but in pajamas. He wouldn’t let us be naked. He
wore a T-shirt and sweatpants to bed, even when it was hot. I wore one of Aaron’s
T-shirts because they were large and covered my body. I never wore panties, but Heath
didn’t know that. After the light was out, he would whisper to me for a while. It was
hard to understand what he said, but I liked his breath in my ear. I think he knew I didn’t
understand him. But one time I caught the word “happiest.” Sometimes I pretended to
fall asleep when he whispered. As I lay there, he would go quiet and run his hands along
my body. Sometimes I would stop his whispering by kissing him. Then he would also
run his hands along my body. He always fell asleep holding me.
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