Sinister Shorts

“Well, although some pain is normal, yours seemed exceptional, and the fact that you described it as growing… I had my suspicions, which I didn't share, but I needed to do some more sophisticated analyses. You remember the most recent round of tests? I believe you found them rather grueling. I'm sorry about that. I guess you suffered. But the results were so astonishing… I wish I could have told you earlier. I regret your husband never knew…”

“Astonishing?”

“You're in full recovery,” the doctor said flatly. “You're a textbook case of spontaneous recovery. The pain you feel in your limbs? Part of the healing process. Your limbs aren't permanently paralyzed. You were laid up for such a long time, there was some debasement in your functioning that will take a lot of physical therapy to overcome.”

“But… my legs don't do what I want them to do! I can't even move them!” Clea cried.

“Now that you know you can, it will be easier, I promise. I expect great progress from here on out. I didn't want to confirm with you until I was sure. I guess it wouldn't have changed what has happened. Life's so unfair. I'm so sorry about your loss.”

The doctor stepped back as two men took hold of the ropes that kept the coffin aboveground and lowered it until it hovered just above the neat dirt hole. Clea concentrated, watching as Claude descended, feeling regret, not for his death, but for the months they had both wasted. Someday, she would reminisce about the good times, she hoped, but in the meanwhile, she had to admit it: her husband's absence left her lighter. Her heart beat steady and strong, her breath came in long, refreshing draughts.

She smelled earth. Expecting something rancid at the scene of a burial, she was pleasantly surprised by a scent like one in their garden, a piquant freshness.

As the men paused, everyone stepped forward for a last good-bye before the coffin would be lowered below the surface. She tossed a silver rose at Claude, inhaling the clean, grass-perfumed air. She needed to move on, and something about the day, the clear air, its sweetness, suggested just the scent to enthrall the Asian ladies Claude had said would be coming back, her favorite, Entracte. Cheeky and green, like today, and so perfect because, although only today could she fully appreciate this, her life with Claude had been an interlude, hadn't it? Only that. She would call the shopgirl with advice as soon as she got home.

So many flowers decked his coffin, all kinds, carnations, gardenias, roses, lilies, some in fussy arrangements, many flung loose, too many scents intermixed, so untrue to Claude.

Could the doctor be right? she wondered, gazing one last time upon the mahogany box that held her husband's cold body. Could she be getting better? The idea was so big, she couldn't approach it with anything less than staggered wonder. She rolled in closer as the coffin paused, half in, half out. She looked down at her thin leg. She commanded her foot.

The kick, as slight as a twitch, left a smudge on the satiny wood. Then someone pulled her wheelchair back, but she was still watching, fascinated, as the curtain fell.

Lemons

Toward the end of February, Doris noticed that the lemon tree in the backyard was heavy with lemons.

She opened the door to the back porch and stepped out into the thicket of pampas grass, forging a trail almost to the fence line, and stood looking at it. In spite of her complete neglect, and some damage to the trunk, the tree had somehow hung on during the dry Salinas summer and cool winter. Hundreds of lemons, big, round, so ripe they were colored almost orange, scented the air around the tree, weighing down the low branches. The tree sprawled across the yard, green and disheveled, propped up against the redwood fence. In the shadows underneath, more lemons lay half-buried in the moist dirt.

Lemons were useless fruit. Fresh lemon juice with water and sugar wasn't half as good as the store-bought kind, in spite of the chemicals they added to concentrate. Who made real pies these days? She had a faint memory that her mother had made one once but she didn't have the slightest idea how to make a lemon meringue pie. And then, didn't she read somewhere you could put lemon juice in your hair and bleach it? But her hair was black streaked with gray.

She returned to her work at the computer, billing out Dr. Pelosi's medical services and stuffing the printed-out bills into the window envelopes. At two o'clock she stacked them neatly on the kitchen table, as always, and stretched out on the couch with the Mickey Spillane she was reading, her tray of cheese and crackers right beside her. The fact that she liked violent crime novels was one of the many little secrets that no one knew about her. She had switched from Agatha Christie last year, when Gene died.

At four she put the envelopes in her briefcase and pushed her arms into the blue suit jacket she always wore to go out, hunching her shoulders a little to adjust the fabric in back and buttoning the bottom two buttons. She blended in better on the street in her jacket, like any businessperson on an errand, and no one cast a second glance at her. She liked how safe that made her feel.

She locked the door and walked down the hill to the post office, because you had to get your exercise, and found her place in a short line. She let a girl with a package go in front of her. Otherwise she would get the red-haired young man who kept up a steady stream of conversation, asking her questions about her day that always made her feel a little upset. As if he were her friend! What did he care!

At the supermarket on the way home, she bought herself some Tiparillos so she could have a smoke after supper. Right before bed she washed the dishes. The yellow curtains above the sink reminded her of the lemon tree. She pulled them apart and leaned over the soapy water, peering out into the blackness. She couldn't see it, but she knew it was there, bulky against the night sky. What a shame she couldn't think of a single thing to do with all those lemons!

Like always, she slept on her side of the bed, even though Gene had been gone a year now. He wouldn't like her spreading out too much on the bed, wanton and sloppy. Her side was big enough to hold her, and that was all the space she needed. She groaned a little settling in, and remembered it was the only sound she had made all day. At least she didn't talk to herself. She would call someone tomorrow, maybe the doctor about her stiff neck, or the technician at ComputerFix to talk about the keys sticking.

Gene had once handled such outside business for her. She had grown used to staying home, taking care of him, letting him handle all the little hassles other people represented. As he got sicker, though, he had gotten meaner, and she hadn't much wanted to deal with him, either. At the di

The next day, after she finished the billing and she'd had her nap and cup of coffee, she took some paper bags out back and started picking lemons. You couldn't just let them rot on the tree. It would be a ridiculous waste. The lemons had grown so ripe they tore at the base as she plucked them, so a little skin came off. They would have to be used quickly. She picked two large sacks, but only one fit into the refrigerator, so she set one sack out front until she could figure out what to do with it.