tucking in the corners

England. Laura Dell could have been in England, running from awning to awning, dodging the rain with strangers. It could have been London, but it could have been anywhere as long as in that place she did not have to stare at the brick wall on the landing, while two men loaded the body of her friend into an ambulance; one that drove away without its sirens and without its horns to tell everyone that this was an emergency.

Sorrow found Laura Dell when she was very young. And then it slept, for just long enough in the grass to have her to believe that there were things in the world worth getting out of bed for; things worth moving to Chicago for.

But now there none of those things, and as she stood on the landing in a cocktail dress, she wished that her car wasn’t back in Siloam. She had spent a lot of time in it after everything with her father. In her car she could be somewhere and nowhere at the same time, and it fit so well around her.

She had nowhere to go, because while cancer lives in a place it does not belong, the death that it caused made her feel like she did not belong in the places she lived.

She climbed the stairs, and went back inside of Herbert’s apartment. To say that Laura Dell had never experienced death would be a lie, but to say that she knew how to handle it, to say that she was good at it would be just as untrue.

Sitting on the end of his bed, Laura Dell knew, and realized again that the worst part about the death was not the actual event, but the realization that the world does not take much notice; that and the fact that she still had to keep the cat from eating the bird. Her sparrow was not singing, but sat perched in the corner of its little menagerie although the door hung open.

“Come here Herbert,” Laura called to the grey kitten in the corner.

“It’s not your fault.”

Her voice surprised her, as did the tears, and she wasn’t at all sure she was talking to the cat. She sat for a long time, looking at the map across the wall from Herbert’s bed. The pins, each a different color, marked almost every country in the world. At the realization that he would never be there to decipher what the colors meant, she gathered her things. Laura Dell hailed a cab to drive her the eight blocks back to her apartment, and as it was passing the theatre something inside of her asked the driver to stop.

She asked the driver to wait for her.

A few moments later, she realized that this was as ridiculous as asking him if he wore deodorant, and he drove away as she approached the box office. The line of people who waited to get tickets the night of the show was stretched around the corner, but Laura Dell walked to the very end anyway. She found a couple there, reached into her purse and handed two tickets to them.

“Don’t you need these Ma’m?”

The young couple was terribly excited, and as Laura Dell watched them skip the line entirely and go through the revolving door of the theatre, she decided to walk the remaining three blocks.

As the trees ushered her in with their long branches, pointing her toward her apartment building and up the little stairwell, she stood in front of her red door. Placing the key in the lock, she realized it would not turn, and that it was Herbert’s. Looking down at the key on her ring, Laura Dell was surprised that it had even fit.

They were similar keys, but ones that opened very different locks. Laura Dell wished that her mother could have understood.

After changing, Laura Dell headed back to Herbert’s apartment because he would not feed himself and she didn’t want him trying to eat the sparrow again. The air inside still made you feel like a stranger, but the bed did not. She smoothed out the wrinkles where Herbert had been, made the bed and tucked in all the corners.

She had come this far, and went a little further. In keeping a promise to a friend, she collected his journals; fed Herbert, and the sparrow. She turned out the light.

Dear Malynne,

Do you remember the time at your mother’s, the time when you found a snake in her garden? I chopped its head off with a hoe, and burned its body. I am sorry I could not protect you from sadness, tornadoes, or coffee that was too hot. I’m sorry I could not chop off the head of cancer; from that one cell that becomes two, the two that become three, and the whole maddening thing that grows and grows and grows. It now seems to be asking for both of our lives, and I wonder if it realizes that the more it grows, the closer it is to its own death?

My arms do not hurt so badly today, although they are still bruised. I am sorry I did not realize how your arms must have hurt when they were always taking blood, and that it took me so long to discover the mystery that is you. I am sorry for the months I was away in Africa, for the year I was in Egypt without you; and for even beginning to hope that the eight months spent sleeping next to you on a hospital couch could warrant even one of my absences. When we met, I knew that I would either have to have you or spend the rest of my life chasing you. Thank you for not making me chase you, and for standing beside me even during the times when I gave you no reason to.

I wish that you could see her Malynne, because she reminds me so much of you. The way her curls frame her face, and she does not laugh when I am not funny. We came to see you a few weeks ago, and I am sorry we could not stay longer; I am sorry you could not stay longer.

As the wheels of the train ground to a stop, Laura Dell closed Herbert's journal, and stepped out into the early morning rain.