Zirconium

The old woman gasped.

A figure stood in the doorway to her hospital room. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I thought I heard you struggling in your sleep….”

“Was I?” The old woman’s lips were paper thin and parched. She reached for the cup on the tray at her bedside, but her fingertips scrapped the side and succeeded only in pushing it out of reach.

“Allow me.” The figure in the doorway crossed the room and handed her the cup, turning the straw to the old woman’s lips.

She drank deeply then pushed the straw away. “Thank you.” Her breathing was slow and heavy from the deep sleep she’d just woken from. It was a rare gift, after the steady interruptions of nurses wanting to check her IV or draw some blood or watch her down a handful of pills had left her skipping across pools of shallow sleep. “You don’t need to stay with me. I’m fine now.”

The figure from the doorway was a younger woman. She was probably in her late 30’s but the strain around her mouth and in her eyes could’ve added years. “I can stay a while if you like.”

“I wouldn’t want to keep you from who you’re visiting.” The older woman was thinking of the welcome oblivion of that deep sleep and if she could catch hold and follow it down again.

“That’s okay. I need a break sometimes.”

“How’s that?” The last word drawn out into a yawn. The old woman raised her hand as a sign of pardon.

“I’m always here….” She said with a wisp of a smile. “My husband is just down the hall. Cancer.”

“Oh… I’m so sorry.”

“Palliative care, they call it. Managing the pain…. It’s kinda funny, really.”

“What is?”

The wispy smile widened into a sliver. “This is life, right? Nothing is ever simple. It’s like the pain and difficulty keep compounding.” It was a very tired smile. Not rueful. Not bitter. It was a smile that was all too familiar with itself. “I’m just trying to untie this knot – and whatever I untangle creates another further down the line…. But not with him.” She tilted her head and knitted her brow. “He just wants to make things simpler for me.”

The old woman nodded and squeezed the younger woman’s hand. She projected empathy, and while quite familiar with the recursive knot, no other person had ever brought her that kind of comfort. All her life, she’d been sickly and anxious and ill at ease in the world. Friendships were hard won and harder kept. Love was a fleeting series of gestures missed and overtures dismissed. They all wanted a part of her she wasn’t sure she had to give. They spoke of love like a river aroused into an unrelenting flood, but she’d found it to be a guttering flame shielded against the wind by a shivering hand.

But the old woman said nothing. She felt for the younger woman, really she did, but all she could think about was chasing sleep before the nurses changed shifts and she got the one who could never find a good vein to tap.

The younger woman abruptly laughed. “He’s always thinking of me. Surprising me… Just this morning – even being stuck in this hospital – he found a way to get me a gift.”

From her pocket, she brought out a small black box – a ring box.

“It’s not a real diamond. After everything we’ve been through, there’s no way we could’ve afforded that. And I wouldn’t have wanted it anyway.” Loose strands from her messy ponytail had fallen across her face, and she brushed them back. “That’s not really the point.”

“No, of course not.” The younger woman had handed her the ring box, and now the older woman opened it. It was a simple gem set in a simple metal band. There was nothing special about it…. Except the gem did catch the light in a peculiar way. “It looks very real.”

“Just a cubic zirconia, I guess.… But look closer. It’s flawless.”

The old woman brought the ring closer and looked, more at this point to humor the younger woman. She’d seen and been gifted her fair share of real diamonds in her day, and this one wasn’t…

But there was a flaw. Down deep in the gem. There was a crack. Like a cloud in a clear sky. It was blurry, and each time she tried to bring it into focus, it filled more of her vision until it was all she could see.

The crack opened and inside was a storm. A great roiling darkness, streaked with electricity and shuddering with the force of its own coming.

Horrific pain surged through her body and galvanized her against the bed. Her teeth clenched and her lips drew back; her breath hissed between her teeth with diminishing force and depth. Her eyes fixed and emptied.

“This is the gift he made,” the younger woman said, “and I pass it on to you.”

She wrenched the ring box from the old woman’s clenched hands and snapped it closed. “I’m really sorry you have to die like this.” She wasn’t sure if the old woman could still hear her. Was she still there as her heart stopped and the world faded? “You didn’t deserve this. No one does.”

The younger woman returned to her husband’s room and sat by his bedside. She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. His eyes fluttered open. They were clear and lively.

“How do you feel, my love? The pain is gone, isn’t it? What do you feel now?”

His voice crackled like burning paper. “I feel … you.” His calloused fingertips caressed her cheek and caught her tears. “Now, now,” he drew his hand back and rubbed the tears between his thumb and index finger. “No more of this.”

She nodded her head. “What have I always told you, my love?” She helped him throw back the covers and swing his feet out; the cancer had wasted his body but she could feel renewed vitality as he gripped her shoulders to brace himself. “We take care of each other.”

“And when the pain returns, will you be ready?”

“Always.”