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The floor of their living room was a mess. A carpet of candy wrappers and crumpled tissues, take-out menus and cough drop bags, covered their chevron rug. On TV, the news blared: Already over a thousand confirmed cases of COVID-19–
“Hey, that’s us!” Kate said. “We’re on TV!”
“Aye, look at that,” Leslie pushed a throw pillow aside and sank into the couch. “We’re building the bell curve!” she said. Kate laughed and rested her head on Leslie’s chest, nestling into the scruff of her bathrobe.
“Do you think it’s gonna get up into the ten thousands?”
“Nah, it’s all drama,” Leslie said. “The hospital was fine two weeks ago. No way everyone is flipping their shit over a head cold.”
“I don’t know. I heard Chuck next door got it bad. Said he couldn’t breathe.”
“That’s not corona, that’s diabetes.” Leslie reached to the side table and grabbed a stem glass. “Plus, I’m sure chronic homophobia does hell to your blood pressure.” She took a swig of wine and smiled at her own joke.
“Maybe we just got it easy.” Kate played with the wedding band on Leslie’s finger, twirling it around while she listened to Leslie’s heart beat through her chest. Her stomach growled. “They just make this virus thing sound scary.”
“Welp,” Leslie put the wine glass back on the table. “It’ll pass.”
“What if it doesn’t?” Kate placed her fingers in Leslie’s palm.
“We’ll be fine.”
“What if it’s not?”
Leslie scoffed and nudged Kate’s head off her shoulder. “We will be.” she said and started to stand up.
“No, don’t get up!” Kate laughed as her head fell onto the couch.
“Gotta make us dinner, baby.”
Kate reached out, grabbed the corner of Leslie’s bathrobe and yanked her back. Leslie went to twist her robe away, but stopped, caught off guard by the sincerity in Kate’s eyes.
“No, please.” Kate grabbed the robe tighter. “Can’t we just sit here and starve?” They looked at each other, uncertain. The words sit heavy in the air.
“Let go, weirdo.”
“Okay.”
Leslie wrestled her robe from between Kate’s fingers, “I’m making steak tonight,” She said, “A little celebration before I go back to work tomorrow.” She walked past the TV and the breakfast bar and into their kitchen, shaking off a shiver down her spine. The end of her robe fell to the floor as she opened the fridge. “You gonna be okay while I’m gone tomorrow?”
“I think so,” Kate said, eyes fixed on the TV. “I’m getting better at being alone.”
“Good.” Leslie took a plastic-wrapped T-bone package from the fridge and tore it open.
“Hey, Lez? Can I have wine with dinner, too?” Kate asked, biting her bottom lip. “Since we’re having a special dinner and all?”
Leslie dropped one of the steaks onto a cutting board and leaned into the counter. “I don’t know. Can you?” her eyes narrowed.
“Yes.” Kate said.
“Then sure, come get a glass.” Kate jumped up and hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a glass with cut flowers across the side.
“Cool, thank you.” She kept her head down while she went to the table.
“Of course,” Leslie said and held the tail of her bathrobe as she walked by.
…
Kate had been pacing for the past couple hours. She’d woken up to Leslie kissing her goodbye, then fell back asleep, then woke up again at 2 p.m. to a text that Leslie would be working overtime. She’d never been good at being alone. First she took a shower, hoping to kill an hour, but the water was too hot and it started to feel heavy in her lungs, which made her think about suffocating and what it would feel like. She turned the water colder, but she didn’t care for cool showers.
Then she got worried. She got worried that something may happen to Leslie. What if she got in an accident at work? Or maybe she wasn’t working overtime, but was out having an illicit affair? She started circling the kitchen. Maybe Leslie had been attacked by a patient at the hospital. A case of coronavirus that mutated and turned people into zombies. An hour went by. Then two. It was hard to snap out of these fits once she’d lapse into them. She was pondering the likeliness of an outright apocalypse when she saw headlights coming down the driveway.
“Shit,” she whispered. Kate hated to be caught doing nothing when Leslie came home. She ran into the kitchen and turned the oven to 350, grabbed a cookie sheet and a pan and pretended she was cooking dinner. Bacon was the only thing defrosted. She grabbed the package and slapped the whole thing on a sheet pan and started spacing them out. That’s about when the door opened.
“Hey!” She dropped the pan and ran to the front door. “How was your day? Tell me about it!”
The door clicked shut. Leslie watched it close. Standing there, rigid in her scrubs and facemask, she didn’t say anything. She dropped her bag onto the breezeway floor and turned to walk up stairs.
“Lez?” Kate called after her, but no reply. She heard the shower turn on. Kate kept making dinner, which was shaping up to be pancakes and bacon. When she was a child, her mom would have breakfast for dinner. It was considered a treat– a perfect, cozy, congratulations on Leslie’s first day back at the job. Not ten minutes later the rumble of shower water stopped and footsteps came pattering down the stairs.
“Dinner’s almost set; I’m waiting on the bacon.”
Leslie walked into the kitchen wearing only her towel and the dazed expression of someone who’d just recently lost something. She held her hands to her chest and stood in the doorway, swaying on her heels.
“What ya looking for?” Kate asked. Leslie said nothing, only stood and shook. Kate followed her gaze to her bathrobe on the back of the couch. “I can get it,” she said and ran to the living room. She brought it to her, grabbing her wet towel and tossing it to the laundry room door. Leslie put the robe over her shoulders and sat at the kitchen table, wavering.
Kate served the pancakes and bacon in silence. She looked for excuses to speak. “I heard from work last night. They said they might be closed until August.” Kate cut her pancakes into triangles. “Let’s hope stimulus checks play out. Or unemployment or something.” She let out a shrill laugh. Leslie held her gaze downward, unaffected, like they spoke different frequencies.
The tune of the evening news came on. Good evening, this is Lester Holt on CBS World news. We have a lot to get to today–
“I was thinking about what you said yesterday,” Leslie spoke just above a whisper. –organization says it is deeply concerned with the alarming spread of the coronavirus–
“What did I say?” –levels of inaction to stop it–
“About staying here…about…” She wasn’t eating, but stared past the table and past the tile below it. –The latest projections of how many people we can lose to coronavirus are hard to fathom–
“What do you mean thinking about it?” –one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand and that, believe it or not, is best case–
“It’s bad out there.” –field hospitals being erected in the nation’s largest cities–
“You said it wasn’t that bad.” –death toll in this state exceeds one thousand–
“That was before. I didn’t know–” Leslie put down her fork and held her throat with her hand. Her voice fell strained and knotted. “I didn’t know what it would be like. We should stay here.”
“We have like— obligations, Lez.”
“Obligations,” Leslie leaned into the table, her voice distorted between a snarl and a plea. “Obligations are all we have.”
“You have to work!”
“We don’t have to do anything.” Leslie’s voice gargled. “I’m saying, Kate, let’s stay here together. We can lock down for real. We can stay home, and just wait until we– I mean, like you said, we could just…be together and—”
“And starve?”
–hospital beds are a small fraction of the amount authorities say will be necessary throughout the city. Meanwhile, president Trump suggested that authorities are asking for too many protective masks. Today New York governor Andrew Cuomo responded: ‘If he wants to make an accusation, then let him make an accusation, but I don’t know what he’s talking about’ –
“But my Mom–”
“Hates you. My Dad hates me too. We’re past that, Kate, you’re regressing.”
“What are you thinking, really?” Kate started to hyperventilate.
“I’m thinking,” Leslie sat back and shrunk into her chair, “I think maybe what’s keeping us here is holding us back.” Her hand moved to her throat again.
“We can’t, Lez.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, we just can’t!” Kate grabbed a lock of hair in her hand and pulled it. She heaved out half a sob before taking a deep breath. She closed her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about this again.”
“Listen.” Leslie held her hand up and pointed to the TV. “That’s us again.” –many hospitals in Georgia are in dire need for relief–
…
The next day, Kate was much better. She’d fallen asleep alone in the master bedroom while Leslie stayed up to watch TV. Instead of a kiss, Leslie woke her up with a shake.
“I’m going.” She stood in her scrubs, casting a shadow onto the comforter.
“Okay, baby,” Kate muttered without opening her eyes. “I love you.”
“See you tonight.”
The bedroom door clicked shut, and then the front door. Kate waited to hear the security system chime on, then she jumped out of bed and ran to the medicine cabinet. Behind a basket of Tylenol and BandAids, hidden beneath a package of Q-tips was her travel sized bottle of sleeping pills. Secret pills she kept preserved for the most desperate of occasions. Prescribed, of course, but Leslie had her objections. Once, when Kate was young, she’d run into some trouble with mixing substances before she knew the danger. Leslie never let her live it down. That was before, though, Kate thought. She knew better now.
She popped a couple and fell back asleep. Woke again eight hours later to another text about staying late at the hospital. Another two pills, another eight hours; 7 p.m. rolled by peacefully. Kate got up, drowsy but blissful, and went to shower, minding the temperature this time. She went downstairs and started to tidy up the kitchen. She thought Leslie would be happy to see the house clean when she got back. She’d say, “Haven’t you done a lot today!”
She was swiffering the kitchen tile when she heard the front door alarm chime. The door swung open and slammed against the wall, knocking picture frames onto the breezeway floor with a shatter. Leslie stumbled through the doorway, heaving out a frustrated scream from deep in her gut. She winced and sighed and threw her purse blindly across the room, knocking the coat rack down and puncturing a hole in the drywall. Kate hid behind the kitchen counter.
“Fuck!” Leslie covered her face with her hands, leaned her back against the wall and began to cry.
“Lez?” Kate peeked out from behind the counter, cautious and confused. She thought she may still be dreaming. “Lez, what happened?”
Leslie slid down the wall onto the floor, glass crunching beneath her. She cried quietly, shoulders trembling, resting her forehead against her knees. She held herself tight.
“I cut a guy’s foot off today.”
“What?” Kate approached, weaving around scattered chips of glass.
“Diabetic.” she said. “Went to a different hospital before ours and they couldn’t take him. They said ‘come back when it turns black.’”
“Lez, I–”
“People come in– they tell us they’re going into cardiac arrest. They see the signs and it all checks out and we can’t take them. Hospital’s full, so we can’t take them.”
“Baby–” Kate sat on the floor beside her and placed her hand between her shoulder blades.
“And you know what we tell them?” Leslie asked between sharp breaths. She fought her lungs to speak.
“It’s not your fault–” Kate moved her hair to the side.
“They have these vests with a defibrillator built in. It tracks their heart and it’ll go off when there’s a problem.” She lifted her head from her knees and looked Kate in the eye. Tears and snot streamed down to her chin, her face as red as the devil. “We give them one of those and say ‘let the heart attack happen, this will get it beating again. Come back once you’ve died before.’” Leslie crumbled, dropping onto Kate’s lap and grabbing at the back of her shirt. Kate held her.
“It’s bad out there. It’s really bad out there…” Leslie whimpered. Kate wanted to lift her off the tile floor, take her to their room and tuck her in like a little kid. She wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but had no such certainty. “Imagine what it’d do to you.”
For dinner that night, Kate roasted broccoli and carrots. She made pie crust from scratch and started a rue on the stovetop. After her shower, Leslie came back downstairs, fragile, but functioning. She cut up some chicken and cooked it lightly on another burner while Kate molded the crust onto a pie pan. While the pot pie cooked, Leslie grabbed two wine glasses and left the bottle on the table. They knew then— though neither said it— this would be their last meal.
…
The process of starvation begins only hours after the first signs of fasting. Having no food to process, the body takes glucose stored in the liver to break down and convert into energy, thus maintaining healthy levels of blood sugar. On the morning of April 2nd, Kate was feeling well. She woke up to the kiss of morning sun on her eyelids and the weight of her wife lying beside her.
“You didn’t go to work.” Kate laughed as she ran her fingers through Leslie’s hair.
“No, I did not.” Leslie said. “I want to do this with you.” Her eyes shown silver in the morning light.
“Will it hurt?”
“Probably.”
“We have a gun.” Kate said. “We could just do it quick.”
“I don’t think I want to go quick.” Leslie said. She lifted her hand and played with the shadow it cast on the wall. “I think I want to be here with you for as long as I can.”
From her shoulder, Kate saw the rays of sun lick around Leslie’s fingers, like she held it in her palm. She thought maybe her wife had been heaven-sent. A lover of divine dedication to keep her safe and separated from the fires outside.
“That’s nice,” Kate said and looked at the shadows cast across the hardwood. “What time is it?”
“I can check.” Leslie stretched and grabbed her phone. “Ah, shit” she said, rubbing her eyes. She swung her legs over the edge of the bed.
“What?” Kate pulled herself up onto her elbows.
“Eleven missed calls from work.” Leslie laughed. “Let me take care of this, Kate. They aren’t going to be happy.”
Kate felt the mattress dip and rise as Leslie got up and walked into the hall. Kate stayed in between the covers, looking out the window at the yard she and Leslie built together. At the tulips reaching up from the sodden, scattered mulch. She thought about how peaceful it would be to stay in their slice of the world for however long they had.
From the hallway, Leslie was starting to raise her voice. Kate could hear the back and forth of conversation, but couldn’t make out the words. The voice on the phone buzzed with conviction. Leslie struggled to talk over them. The buzz from the other line started raving, their pitch raised and pronunciation sharpened. Leslie took a breath and then yelled what Kate could make out to be a “fuck you” into the receiver. The bedroom door swung back open.
“Everything okay?” Kate asked.
“No, but it’s done.” Leslie peeled back the covers and sat down.
“So you were able to quit?”
“Didn’t give him much of a choice.” Leslie chuckled and reached out to run her hand down Kate’s face.
“We’re on our way then?” Kate asked and put her hand over Leslie’s.
“Yeah, we are.” A sliver of sunshine landed on Leslie’s cheek. “We’re smooth sailing from here on out.”
They stayed in bed for another hour, the sun rising in the sky until it hung over the house and their room was stuck in shadows. When Kate’s stomach let out a growl, they laughed and held each other closer.
The first week or so was kind. Kate and Leslie lapsed back into their quarantine routine. They’d wake up around noon, stay in bed for a while and then make their way down stairs. They’d pass the oncoming hours with whatever preoccupation caught their eye. It was funny, they thought, how much time they had free now. How many hours in a day are spent making food, eating, planning what to eat. Instead, they pursued recreation. For years, they’d been talking of redoing the foyer, painting the whole thing a soft green and getting floor to ceiling art prints to go up the staircase. And since Leslie had relieved them of their previous wall decor, it seemed just the time. They found, after the first few days, that hunger was a machine: systematic, scheduled, concise. It came in intervals. The machine would beckon, twisting the intestine into knots, stomach contracting, and right when the pain would become unbearable, it would subside. Systematic and scheduled, this was the feeling of becoming less. The couple was quick to adapt.
“Cigarettes and cinnamon water,” Kate suggested. “That’s what my mom said.”
Not a permanent remedy, but means to feel full at least. A quick trip to the gas station worked well enough. Leslie had taken a liking to burning scented candles she’d hoarded over the years. Anything to distract the senses.
“I like the certainty of this,” Kate said the Friday after their fast began. “I don’t have to guess anymore.”
“Guess what?” Leslie was face-down on their living room carpet, holding her stomach as a wave of hunger moved through her. She found it best to press her eyes closed and outlast these little fits.
“You know,” Kate said, “I don’t have to think where you are or what we need to do next.” She spoke in a sing-song tone, as she always did while shaking off sleep medication. “I know I’ll be here, you’ll be there. We’re good, we’re together.”
“I called my Dad this morning,” Leslie said, turning to lay on her back.
“What?” Kate blinked in surprise. “Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know.” She put her arms behind her head and looked at the ceiling. “I guess I thought I should make amends before I die.”
“Did he answer?”
“He did.”
“Oh God,” Kate bit the corner of her bottom lip. “What’d he say?”
“Asked if I was still with you. I said yes.”
“And then what?”
“And then he hung up.”
“Fuck,” Kate got up and started to pace towards the kitchen. “You tried, Lez. My mom’s the same way.”
“I know.” Leslie propped her head up higher so she could see Kate’s face over the kitchen counter. “I’m happy I called. I feel like I’m in this now for real, you know?”
“Always was,” Kate said.
Leslie lifted her head up from the rug. “Didn’t fucking mean it like that.” she said between her teeth.
“What?”
Leslie scrambled to her feet. “Don’t say ‘what.’ Are you kidding me?” Her chest heaved. “What? You doubt that I’m in this with you?”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Don’t fucking play dumb, Kate.” Leslie stomped past the kitchen. “Can’t believe you.”
Kate watched her go and listened to the fury of her steps up the stairs. In the back of Kate’s mind she knew, in a half hour’s time, Leslie would be back, having blown off her steam for the next few days. Or maybe she’d come crawling, whimpering, for a fresh cigarette once the next wave of hunger crashed through. But in that moment, Kate’s loneliness felt damning.
“I’m sorry!” Kate yelled up the stairs, and her voice bounced off the walls of a freshly painted foyer then faded into silence.
…
Kate woke up hungry, but knew it would pass. Her body had whittled down in the last week. Not enough to be unrecognizable, but unfamiliar. She had to reorient herself to the world. Leslie had already slimmed down dramatically, but there wasn’t much to her to begin with. She’d been a certified gym rat until lockdown. When Kate went downstairs for her morning smoke, Leslie was already awake. Legs up on the couch; she was sipping a glass of water while holding her place in a book with the other hand. A fire was crackling away in the fireplace.
“Good morning,” Leslie said warmly.
“Good morning?” Kate said. “You have the fireplace going?”
“Yeah.” Leslie put the water back on the coffee table and set her book down on its face. “It was chilly this morning. I thought you’d like to see a fire going.”
“Of course I do,” Kate said and walked to the mantle. “Makes the house feel cozy.” She grabbed the poker from its stand and rotated it in her hands until the hook was facing downward. Leslie sat up.
“What are you doing?” Leslie asked.
“Playing.” Kate took the tip of the poker and jabbed it deep into the embers.
“Why?” From the couch, Leslie peered over her shoulder. “Stop. You’re going to burn the house down.”
Kate parted the ashes from the center and brought the ones from the bottom to the top. In the same motion, she jabbed into the embers on the side and moved them inward. She knelt down and blew on it. From the bottom of the fireplace, something got caught in the breeze.
“What’s this?” Kate asked and stabbed it with the hook of the poker. It was reflexive blue, but caked in soot. It was the torn corner from a wrapper labeled, NUTRITION FOR SUSTAINAB-. Kate grabbed it. Her hunger faded. “Leslie, what is this?”
Sitting upright, Leslie had turned to stone. “I know what you’re thinking. It’s not like that.” She raised her hands in surrender.
She didn’t know why, but Kate felt the instinct to run. Not out the door, but toward the kitchen cupboard. She dropped the poker with a clank and ran towards the counter, flung the cabinet open, and grabbed a box of cereal, fumbling with the package for a handful of corn flakes.
Leslie grabbed Kate’s wrist before she could bring the cereal to her mouth. “Listen!” she yelled. “Just stop for a second!” Leslie forced Kate’s hand open, raining cornflakes onto the tile. Kate stumbled backwards, tripping over Leslie’s feet and falling to the floor. “No!” Leslie said. She reached an arm out to catch her, but was too late. Kate landed back first and lay there, huffing for breath.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Leslie cried into her hands. “Listen, Kate, I just– I didn’t want to die first!”
“You wanted me to?”
“No!” Leslie put her head down on the counter, sighed, and lifted it up again. “I was trying to make it so we’d die at the same time, or on the same day at least! You were still so strong and I was already so tired. Kate, you’ve got to believe me, I was being fair!”
Kate pushed herself onto her side and closed her eyes, forcing out a few tears. “How long have you been doing this?”
“Kate, please.”
“The whole time?”
“You’re not listening to me.” Leslie dropped to her knees and ran a hand through Kate’s hair. Kate rolled onto her stomach, covering her head with her hands. “I’ll prove it!” Leslie said. “Look, I’ll prove it!”
Kate heard a footstep next to her ear. Leslie grabbed the trash can from under the sink, popped the fridge open and tore one of the drawers off of its track. She emptied the drawer into the can, rotten produce and mold falling into the bag with a splatter. After the last few drops of slush dripped from the bottom, Leslie threw the drawer into the sink and graded the next one. Then the shelves, then what hung on the door. She emptied every cabinet and cupboard, opening and resealing bag after bag with frenzied vigor. She grabbed all the canned goods from the basement and garage and loaded them into her car. Then she ran back inside to Kate, who stood in the foyer watching.
“There’s a food bank in town,” Leslie said. “And the rest we can throw out. I’m going now. You can even come with me so you’ll know I’m not sneaking anything.”
“I didn’t see you throw out those Cliff bars.”
“Right,” Leslie said, lowering her head. “I forgot.” She walked up the stairs. Kate tracked the sound of her footsteps from the landing, through the hall, and into their bedroom. She heard the medicine cabinet swing open, pills and bottles shift around, and then Leslie’s footsteps pivoting towards the stairs. She came down the steps, cradling a stack of them in her arms.
“Are there any other hidden snacks I should know about?”
“No.” Leslie set her hand on the doorknob. “I’m all in. From here on out.”
The drive to the pantry was silent. Every once in a while Kate would reach back to keep the bags steady when the road curved.
“You got it?” Leslie would ask and Kate would say nothing. They emptied all their goods into the donation bin, and got started home.
“We’re good now, right?” Leslie asked.
“Not yet.” Kate said. “Pull over here.”
“Here?”
“Yes. Pull into the drive-through.”
Leslie pulled up to the menu board and lowered the window.
“A small cup of vanilla with the chocolate hard shell, please?” Kate asked. Leslie held her gaze, wide eyed, and drove up to the next window.
“What are you doing?” Leslie asked.
“Just making it fair,” Kate said. “If you get a snack, I should get a snack.”
“That’s two-thirty-nine, please!” the young woman spoke out the window. Kate looked at Leslie and waited.
“Oh.” Leslie jumped and grabbed for her wallet. “Of course. My bad.”
On the drive home, Kate finished her ice cream, savoring every sweet bite. She ran her tongue along the sides and dug at the corner of the styrofoam cup with her spoon. When they pulled into the driveway, she threw it into the trash can by the street.
“Now,” Kate asked, shaking but stern, “are we doing this together?”
“Absolutely,” Leslie said, her cheeks still puffy from before. “I’m in this for real.”
…
Kate studied herself in the mirror of the master bath. She had always been a bigger woman. She had the same broad, Irish hips and shoulders as all the women in her family. Her whole life, she had been told to lose weight. In health, she would get pulled aside to discuss diets and BMI, work out plans, and meal substitutes. When they would watch videos on nutrition, she’d see her teacher eyeing her from the back of the classroom. It was the topic of weight that made Kate realize she was gay. When her mother shot her a disapproving glance and asked “Don’t you want a boyfriend someday?” Kate realized she didn’t have any inclination towards it. None of this criticism had much effect on her. She kept living as she always had and let everyone around her get used to it. Which was why this change fascinated her. Whereas Leslie had been avoiding every mirror, Kate couldn’t help but stare. She had only known the Kate with round cheeks and a full face. She didn’t recognize herself. She’d trace the lines of her cheek bones, the ridges of her eye sockets, the dip in her collar bones, not sure whether to be content or sad or mortified to think this was what everyone wanted from her all along.
Downstairs, Leslie was nearly dust. She sat in her corner of the couch, wrapped tight in a blanket, refusing to look down at any part of her body. Her hair was starting to thin, her energy rapidly draining, she held her eyes to the TV, vacant.
Kate sat next to her, toying with the package of some sugar free gum. They’d added it to their grocery list once the taste of tooth decay became too much to stand. Leslie kept a stack of scented candles on the coffee table with the lighter always at hand, keeping her stomach full with the smell of fabricated autumn leaves and cinnamon spice.
They’d also begun to share Kate’s hardy prescription of sleeping medicine. As phases of hunger became more intense with less time in between, Kate thought it may be best to dream through the worst of it. She presented the pills to Leslie in the way that a prime suspect confesses to a crime or how the town drunk attends confession.
Leslie dropped her shoulders. “I figured as much,” she sighed. “That what you were doing while I was at work?”
“Just sleeping.” Kate said and dropped the bottle onto the coffee table. “This might be easier if we stay sleeping.”
Leslie accepted Kate’s offer with reluctance at first, then contentment, then gratitude. They broke their own rules. The pills went down easier with a tall glass of merlot. They spent their time drifting. They would watch TV together, but couldn’t follow. The nightly news spoke of vaccine trials and mask mandates, but new information was impossible to comprehend. Leslie would try to play video games, but her reaction time was lacking. Everything happened far too quickly. With this decay of reflex came an acute, but gradual dulling of the senses. They sat, arms and legs entangled, caught between the knit fibers of a mustard yellow blanket, completely unaware of the smell of rot between them.
“I didn’t think it would feel like this,” Leslie said one foggy afternoon. “I thought it would be angry.”
“I’ve felt this before,” Kate said. She was repositioning her head so that the point of Leslie’s shoulder didn’t jab into her temple.
“When?” Leslie asked, eyes unfocused.
“Right after my dad died,” she said. “Or maybe sometime just before it.”
Leslie came out of her trance enough to listen. “You did right by him,” Leslie said. “You were there with him that whole time.”
“I know,” she said. “You never saw him when he had hair, huh?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Before chemo he had a mullet, you know?”
“Our Jack? No way.” Leslie laughed and rubbed Kate’s back the way she knew Kate liked.
“Yep,” Kate said. “Every day since the eighties. Said it framed his face well.”
“God, he was such a treat.” Leslie laughed and brushed her hand along Kate’s cheek to make sure she wasn’t crying. “Geez, it looks like you’re always by someone’s deathbed.”
“It seems like it, yeah,” she said, but thought to herself that it wasn’t true. Was it naive to assume they’d die in unison? That they would fade away together, never having to live a moment without each other’s company? Maybe Leslie was right in what she had done before. Maybe her midnight snack wasn’t a betrayal, but an act of mercy, sparing Kate the grief of reliving her father’s death. If Leslie died first, could she really take the pain? Could she sit and wait to die while Leslie’s corpse watched? She looked up at Leslie’s face, at her hazy eyes and absent stare. No, she told herself, Leslie is strong, she’ll last.
That night, Kate woke up to the bathroom door clicking shut. She pulled the blankets over her chest and kept her eyes closed. She tried to force herself back to sleep until she heard Leslie sputtering to catch her breath. Kate jumped up and swung the bathroom door open. On the tile floor, Leslie drooped over the toilet seat, throwing up.
“It’s okay,” Kate said walking up behind her. “Just let it out.” She peered over Leslie’s head and saw the water had turned a vibrant green. The room was filled with the smell of stomach acid. She had nothing left to throw up.
“It hurts,” Leslie said, gasping. Kate fixed her eyes, horrified, on Leslie’s shoulder blades, exposed and convulsing. Kate realized she’d never get her happy ending, not like this.
I’ll have to do something, she thought.
…
For as long as Leslie had known, love meant sacrifice. It was her mother who taught her, beneath the stained glass windows of the Southern Baptist Church, that the first act of true love was the sacrifice Jesus made for humanity. Her mother had a way of worshiping. She’d throw herself in front of her husband’s rage, taking countless beatings at his hand for as long as she could take. When her mother left, Leslie did the same for her brother.
Before this, Leslie had given up many lives for Kate: daughter, sister, aunt, Christian. Hell, she’d given up fifth period to eat lunch with her in the school’s courtyard. And she’d happily give up this life too, if it meant she could both live and die a wife. Hunger was only another pain, another love, another sacrifice. But as time passed, a paranoia began to grow: What if Kate was not as willing of a martyr?
Leslie’s dedication never wavered. Those protein bars were only a measure of surveillance. Leslie wasn’t blind. Kate was much bigger than her, always had been. After the liver runs out of sugar to burn, the body feeds off fat. Kate had gone quite some time in this phase and lived relatively comfortably. Leslie was past that. She had muscle packed on her, but that wouldn’t last long. Leslie had every intention to die in that house, but didn’t want to leave too early. She feared, somewhat feverishly, that if she died too soon and left Kate alone for too long, Kate would get cold feet. And if that happened, what would all this love be for?
It wasn’t anything Kate had said. No passing action that warranted suspicion, or something spoken under shallow breaths that raised a red flag. It was the look behind her eyes. All day she sat on the couch with Kate. Every chance she got, she studied her. Even passing glances, Leslie focused her energy into the space behind Kate’s iris. She saw love. She saw trust and grace, but a lack of commitment.
The world was fuzzy for Leslie now. Thoughts meandered, her vision often blurred. By the time she noticed the car keys were missing, there was no telling how long they had been gone. Confrontation was far too risky. Even on the best of days, Kate was delicate. An accusation out of the blue could chase her away. Hostility was not the answer to this, but she couldn’t let it slide. After four weeks and forty pounds, this was Leslie’s first time feeling helpless.
“I’m going up to bed, okay?” Kate asked. Leslie looked around, jarred to see it was already nighttime.
“I’m going to sleep here.” Leslie said, hollow.
“Do you want me to stay down here with you?” Kate asked.
“Do what you like.” Leslie leaned her head onto the back of the couch. She let her breathing fall into a rhythm, but kept her mind awake. After twenty minutes or so, she heard Kate get up and walk up the stairs. The shower turned on. Leslie opened her eyes and got up slowly. She piled throw pillows into a row and draped the yellow blanket on top of them. Then she grabbed another blanket from the front closet and dragged herself to the garage. Going to Kate was too risky, Leslie thought. Instead she’d wait and see if Kate came to her. Leslie kept the light off. She sat down on the garage floor and leaned against the car’s front license plate, draped the blanket over herself, and got comfortable. After a couple minutes she drifted off to sleep.
It was hard to tell how long she’d been out when she woke to the faint sound of jingling keys. Leslie followed the sound from the top of the stairs, down past the breezeway, all the way to the garage door. When the door creaked open, a sliver of light from the hall fell onto the headlight beside her. An arm slipped through the crack and flicked on the lightswitch. Leslie writhed, covering her eyes and gasping. Kate jumped, but suppressed her scream. She slipped the keys into her coat pocket behind the door.
“Are we going somewhere?” Leslie asked from between her fingers. Kate looked ghostly.
“I was looking for you.” Kate said. “I saw you weren’t in the living room so I went to find you and– why are you out here?”
“I thought I might see you.” She dropped her hands from her face and held her blanket closer. Kate’s breath shuttered.
“Come back inside, Lez. I’ll sleep downstairs with you.” She swung the door open all the way and held out a hand to help her up.
“I can get up by myself.” Leslie said. Kate nodded, stiff, and walked inside. As she turned around, her lanyard stuck out of her pocket. I’ll have to do something, Leslie thought and laid down again in the dirt and filth of the garage floor.
…
The last phase of starvation is short. Having eaten up its reserves of fat and muscle, the body will self-destruct, burning proteins straight from the brain. The consciousness dissolves.
While Kate was just now easing her way into it, Leslie had gotten settled. When Kate awoke the next morning on the leather armchair in their living room, Leslie was not there. She rolled off the side of the chair, joints cracking, and wobbled her way towards the garage. Leslie lay sprawled on the concrete floor, cradled in her blanket, wide awake.
“Can’t get up,” she said, dull and unblinking.
Kate walked over and bent down, looping her arm around her chest. “This would be easier if you’d drop the blanket,” She said, kicking it away.
“No,” Leslie pulled herself into Kate’s arms. “It’s too cold.”
Kate walked her towards the couch, supporting her bodyweight while Leslie waddled along, gripping the ends of her blanket. Leslie tripped, throwing her hands over the coffee table to catch herself, still holding the quilt tight over her skin.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” Leslie said. As she pushed herself up, something scraped against the table. Kate hoisted her up the rest of the way and dropped her onto the couch. “Sit with me?” she asked.
“Okay.”
Leslie dug her hand into the crack between the couch cushions and pulled out the remote. She held it up to the TV with both hands and pressed the on button with her thumb. For a while they sat in unnerving silence. An ad showed doctors in hazmat suits and families smiling through windows. Then a banner of white text on a black background: “We’re All In This Together.”
Kate thought about seeing Leslie in the garage the night before. How, in the stale overhead lighting, Kate could see the exact arch of Leslie’s cheek bones. She saw where her eye sockets started and ended, where her teeth began, and she could see in great detail the joint between Leslie’s jaw contract as it clenched. The strain of each individual tendon and muscle in her face. Kate was searching for the words to call this off. Waiting for the right moment to propose they leave the house, but she feared that would be too much for Leslie to take. She’d already given everything.
“When we got married…” Leslie said. She held her eyes closed and breathed slowly through her mouth “you had to walk….down the– down the aisle.”
Kate recoiled. “No, you told me I should.”
“No, it had to be…it had to be that way.” Leslie pointed her head to the ceiling. “Everyone knows your dad’s dead. If I walked…walked alone– they’d know he just hated me.”
Kate watched her speak, observing the effort it took to form those words. “You said you were happy to be rid of him.”
“I gave him up for you,” she said and shook her head, then paused to catch her breath. She moved her hand from Kate’s waist and held it to the back of her head. “You weren’t worth it.”
With the flick of a lighter, Kate’s hair singed, carrying the flame closer to the root. She flailed, screaming, falling to the floor and yanking Leslie down with her. She grabbed at the flames, cupping them in her hands and ripping the burning hair off in clumps. Tangled embers seared off individual strands, burning to dust as they fell to the floor. Kate grabbed the blanket and pressed it down to the back of her head. The last of the ashes suffocated against her skin.
“Why?” Kate’s voice rang furious, between a sob and a scream. She whipped the blanket off of her head and turned to Leslie. She lay on her stomach, propped up on her forearms, her shirt pulled over her shoulders. Kate saw what Leslie had been hiding. All along her skin, veins bulged outward. Stretch marks creased around her waist like the strings of a corset. Between her shoulders and down her spine, skin flaked away from her body in patches, stripping to reveal swollen, waxy, purple lesions. Her ribs protruded, her torso concave; Kate could see Leslie’s heart beating through her back. Any spark of hatred Kate felt turned to horror and a helpless sense of urgency.
Kate staggered towards the breezeway, towards her jacket hanging on the coat rack. She dug her keys and cell phone out of the pocket and lurched to the garage.
In the living room, Leslie crawled, clawing at the arm of the lounge chair to pull herself up, but her knees buckled beneath her. From the floor she bellowed, “No! Please!” She pulled herself along by the threads of the carpet. “You’ll crash!”
Kate could hear Leslie screaming from the driveway. She climbed into her driver’s seat, fumbled her keys in her hand and stabbed for the ignition. She blacked out, slumped forward on the steering wheel, and closed her eyes until she came to again. Blurry-eyed and hazy, she started the engine and punched 9-1-1 into her cellphone. Another wave of hunger came rushing in.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your–”
“One forty-seven Walnut Lane, we need an ambulance.”
“What is the emergency?”
“Ambulance!” Kate shouted and hung up the phone. She tore down the road, running stop signs and flashing her hazards and laying on the horn whenever another car came by. Her ears rang. The hunger turned her stomach inside out. She scraped together her last reserves of strength to keep her eyes focused, her hands at ten and two, her foot steady on the pedal. When she got to the closest gas station she pulled in next to a pump and kept the car running. She left the convenience store with a paper bag of four ready-to-eat hotdogs, jumped back into her car and sped the whole way home. The ambulance wasn’t there when she pulled in.
“Leslie, I’m back! Let me see you!” she said, nearly collapsing through the front door. She gripped the paper bag in her fist, and whipped towards the kitchen. In the doorway of the foyer, Leslie lay with her hands gripped around her chest, eyes open, mouth gaping. Kate took a step back towards the doorway. She walked out onto the front porch and closed the door behind her. In the gentle breeze of a mid-April morning, Kate sat on the stoop and ate a hotdog alone.
Maisie Hayes is a fiction writer from Berlin, Connecticut, attending Eastern Connecticut State University. She specializes in stories both playfully grotesque and bizarrely realistic. This is her first publication, but far from her last. She hopes to keep exploring irrational characters in irrational situations.