Naomi Richardson, M.D. (hiswidowedbride) wrote in mnhttnprjct, @ 2010-05-16 10:57:00 |
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The corner of the sheet was cool against her cheek, and the sunlight that slid across the windowsill as the sun rose over the eastern rooftops was invasive. Outside, on some distant sidewalk, a team of police robots whirred, unheard from this second-story bedroom. This second-story bedroom? With a start, Naomi's eyes opened wide. She held her breath, blinked rapidly, craned her neck against the pillow, and gazed at the bright green numbers on the LCD clock staring down over her. The numbers on the clock on her nightstand were red. Not green. Her head ached, but she was certain the morning sunlight from her bedroom window came from the right, not the left of the headboard. Her white sheets were not blue. Oh, Lord. Naomi shut her eyes tight, willing the sun to set back into Saturday, sink away into night, and rise again to shine over dinner and warn her then. Not of robots and raids, but of friendly colleagues and wine. Back further, several days, turning back the clock on her desk, the pages on the calender at the nurses' station where they often crossed paths, back to the auction, where she would ignore his smile, delete the video of the red Cadillac. Never buy that red dress. There it was. A shining red pile on the floor. Back further, and she could have refused the position with NYU, and further still, when she could have gone south, north, anywhere but to New York. No, but twist the gears of time tighter, back on a railway, back on a train, back to the west, to the plains and the mountains, back to life, back to husband, to career and Colorado. Back. All the way back, and repair the gazebo on the lawn, lift Bill back into his morning stroll, replace the dust onto the library shelves, and swallow the sneeze. Back to America, before. There it was. A shining red pile on the floor. In the strange bed, Naomi shifted the weight of her hips slowly toward the edge. The blue sheet clung to her body, wrapped inexplicably around her bare torso, and tugged at the far end of the mattress. She opened her eyes, one at a time. There, breathing heavily, Dr. Steve Hackman of Surgery lay with the gentle slope of his shoulders turned toward her, a soft rising and falling of his chest, some happy dream passing away. Letting out a long, slow, quiet breath of her own, Naomi plucked the edge of the sheet from under her ribs, and slunk onward toward the floor. - - - In Denver, the sheets were green. The numbers on the clock face next to her marital pillow were blue, and there were grand windows on both sides of the headboard. In May they would have been shut tight to bar against the onslaught of springtime allergens, but the morning light always clung to the pale green curtains that watched over the distant eastern horizon and warmed the sleepers even in winter. There would come a time when this bed would belong to Naomi alone (and then she rarely used it, indeed, scarcely slept at all), but for eleven years it was shared by husband and wife and the eastern sunlight. The sun, a welcome guest each morning, crept closer each year, until it became invasive, and Naomi drew the blinds shut forever. But before, back in time, when the sunlight woke them with gentle whispers of morning. Then Naomi never slunk out of the sheets and onto the floor in shame, but turned her neck the other way to sometimes smile at her husband, watching his back as he sat up to begin his morning rituals. Lean forward, mutter, "Good morning," through his hands, wander into the bathroom to splash his face with water, as he waited for the shower to warm. There was no breakfast in bed for the Governor. Not until then. "You look pretty in red," Bill said. Before the train, after the sneeze. He lay in a half-upright hospital bed on the second floor of Boettcher Mansion. It was not so very long before the train. "I look better in blue, and you know it," Naomi forced a smile, and straightened her red blouse. But, then, she looked better in black. On a train that swayed left to right, right to left. On a train that chuffed across plains, stirred up dust. On a train, the last train, the only train left in Colorado, Kansas, or Missouri. Her Liz Claiborne overnight rattled in the overhead, her matching large and extra-large pieces shook full of blazers and heels in the cargo car. Claiborne rubbed shoulders with tattered family heirlooms and Walmart-bought plastic. Naomi twisted her husband's wedding band around her knuckle. It was too big, even for her thumb, but it hung on as Naomi watched the endless villages of tarpaulin, rubber, and cardboard flash by. Faces of children and mothers and husbands crowded together over meagre dinners, doctors attended the sick, ignored the dying, dogs ran circles around the tents, and cats slid behind motionless tires scattered across the plains. And on over the mountains, on over the grasslands, on a train, the last train. She twisted the ring around her thumb. - - - In the second-story bedroom of the house on the Hudson Archipelago, the Widow Richardson slid the twice-worn and once-wrinkled red dress over her head and pulled it into place around her hips. She gathered up her red pumps, one from the chair, the other from the base of the bedpost, and plucked her rings from the nightstand, one at a time so as to keep them from clanging and sliding along the wood. She neglected to search the room for her necklace, her earrings, or her undergarments. Heart pounding, she felt the urgency to leave in her brain like an electrical fire, shutting off all other social and mental functions. Looking at the back of Steve's head, Naomi pursed her lips and remembered--vaguely--the many laughs they had shared over the wine the night before, the way she had enjoyed his smile at the auction, how comfortable she had felt in his home. She would have to avoid the nurses' station from then on. Naomi made her way on the tips of her painted toes, down the cold stairs, across the hardwood floor of the entryway, and held her purse and shoes against her chest, as she unbolted the locks on the front door. With a faint whine (or warning, perhaps), the door opened to reveal the face and poised arm of a serious man in blue and his robotic companion. "You live here?" the man said too loudly. Naomi glanced over her shoulder, toward the stairs, "N-no. I was just lea--" "NIC, ma'am," the police officer interrupted. "Please." The latter was barely an afterthought. The man looked tired and unamused by the doctor's tangled brown curls, bare feet, and what was clearly the first steps on a morning-after walk-of-shame. "Oh," Dr. Richardson looked surprised, but did not hesitate in fishing her card from the bottom of her purse and handing it to the officer for inspection. "I--I was just on my way home." |