A Novel by
Don H. DeBrandt
Chapter 1
The Last Dance
It's easy to love the dead.
She felt good in my arms, like she always had. Warm and solid and real. Ev was never the greatest dancer, but that didn't matter. We held each other in the middle of the empty ballroom dance floor, swaying slowly to the music, and I tried to cry as quietly as I could.
The song was Madonna's "I Remember", and the lady herself was there on stage singing it. We hadn't been fans of hers before the Transfiguration, and afterward she didn't have fans; like the other Stars, she had worshippers.And like any deity worth her salt, she sometimes answered their prayers.
And that's how I could hold my dead wife in my arms, and feel her warm breath against my cheek one last time.
I didn't try to talk to her, at least not at first. What was left to say? If she'd died in a car crash or had an unexpected stroke it would have been different. Sudden death always leaves so many things unresolved, so many things left unsaid. But that's not how it is with a degenerative disease. You have years in which to say your goodbyes, to make sure that all that needs to be said, is. How much you really love her, how much you appreciate her, how much a part of you she is.
There is a price for this precious time, of course. The one that you love, that you appreciate, that is so much a part of you--you have to watch her die.
By inches.
So I didn't try to talk. I just held her, and cried, and remembered. I remembered a rocky beach she took me to when we were first dating, on the edge of a park in Vancouver. I remember holding her hand as we stepped carefully from rock to rock, and Ev leaning down to pluck something smooth and shiny from between the stones. She gave it to me with a smile, and I saw that it was a small glass ball, a clear crystal pearl from the ocean.
"Nobody knows where they come from," she said. "Some people say there was a glass factory here that burned down. Some people say they're leftovers from some industrial process. But I know what they really are."
She leaned close to me, her eyes twinkling, and said, "They're treasure."
So we spent the afternoon treasure-hunting, training our eyes to spot the gleam of jewels from the sea while gulls cried overhead and the surf splashed our feet. We filled our pockets with treasure. And it was magic.
Beaches are magic places, by their very nature. A beach is a place where the fluid meets the solid, where the heartbeat of the planet pulses. A beach is a borderland between two countries, an edge where anything seems possible.
I remembered another beach, another time. We were camping on the west coast of Vancouver Island, a place remote enough that clothes were considered optional. I will always remember Evelyn standing naked beneath a waterfall, cold clear water cascading down the voluptuous curves of her body under the early summer sun. She looked like a Greek goddess, eyes closed, serene smile on her face as she washed away her cares. She was so beautiful it made my eyes sting and my chest ache.
The hall we were married in was on a beach. Later, after the ceremony and the dinner and the dancing, we took off our shoes and I rolled up the cuffs of my pants, and we walked down the beach hand in hand. It was a warm August night, with a clear sky and a full, perfect moon. We were happy.
But we knew.
Have you ever missed someone terribly while she was right there in your arms? I don't think I ever felt as alone as I did when I danced with
Ev that one last time, as I cupped her lovely face in my hands and tried to satisfy the burning, aching thirst in my heart with the sight of her. Her eyes the color of warm chocolate, her skin with the faintest touch of dusk. Her smile as serene as always, shining out of an angel's cherubic face. Her hair, dark, curly, and shoulder-length, the way it was when we first met. Her body, Rubenesque in its beauty, a wonder of soft, full curves. She wore the same simple white dress she wore for our wedding, and had the same garland of flowers in her hair.
I suppose I could have made love to her. Madonna, Our Lady of Perpetual Lust, had made me that offer when I first went to her with my request. "I can make it real," she had said, " as real as me." And she'd put my hand on one of her famous, perfectly shaped breasts.
I'd declined. Some illusions are too painful to face.
And now the ballroom faded around me as the song ended, until there was just me and Ev and darkness. She hadn't spoken either, but then, she wasn't really there. She was a gift from the New Gods, a bit of magic brought to temporary life just long enough for one more dance.
I kissed her. "Goodbye, Evelyn," I whispered.
And then she was gone.
"I wish I could do more," a husky voice said in my ear. "I can help you forget for a while. . . "
"I don't want to forget. "
"Then I hope you can handle the pain."
"I guess I'll have to, won't I." There was more anger in my voice than I'd intended.
"Don't blame me," Madonna said coolly. "Many things are possible now, but even We can't turn back time."
"Six days. Six goddamn fucking Christless days." I needed someone to blame, and I was too full of grief and anger and despair to add any guilt. "The Linkers dug their way out of the ground on the first of September. They started swapping performance contracts for god-like abilities within a month. You were transformed on the twelfth of March--and it took you a goddamn week to decide to wipe AIDS off the face of the Earth!" I was shouting, tears streaming down my face. "Six days! She died six days before you thought about sharing your gift with the rest of us fucked-up human beings!"
Before the Linkers showed up and changed everything, railing at the gods was sometimes all you could do. These days, you do so at your own risk.
"You should be grateful I gave you what I did," Madonna said. There was no anger in her voice, just sadness. "She wasn't the only one I couldn't save. I think it's time I was going."
And then I was all alone.
And I just couldn't accept that.