The Snows of Eden

Devon tossed down the carton of cigarettes on the table in front of him, plopped a bag full of unhealthy fast food beside it, and lowered himself onto a chair against the near wall. He sighed as he wiped his glasses. These visits were getting more and more difficult.

“The cigarettes and burger you wanted. You know, for your healthy lifestyle,” he quipped. A small figure looked up from her bed. She gave Devon a nod as she reached for the burger (complete with unhealthy fries) and unwrapped it. She took three bites before she started chewing, which caused Devon to shake his head.

“For someone so little, you sure can stuff food in your mouth at an alarming rate.”

“Um.”

Devon looked around the room with a look of distaste. The walls were practically bare. There was a table that even IKEA would disdain as tawdry. The radio on the table was a simple affair, and it was playing 70s rock much too loudly right now. Devon got up and turned the music down before returning to his seat and looking at the girl. She was skinny as hell, but he felt like this might not be the right thing to say in the circumstances.

“You’re skinny as hell.”

Adriana finished her repast and wiped her mouth with a napkin that came out the bag with grease stains. Frowning, Devon found a clean napkin and handed it to her. She took it, looked at it for a moment, and gently laid it down on the table without using it. Devon shook his head.

“You were like that as a kid, too. No matter what I wanted you to do, you’d refuse to do it. You ever think that maybe that’s why you don’t have many friends?”

“Pretty sure that’s the case, Dev. I don’t have many friends because I hide my sparkling personality behind my passive-aggressive stubbornness. It’s a wonder I ever got married, yes?” Adriana had been sitting on her bed with her legs crossed under her, looking for all the world like an anorexic, female Buddha. She uncurled her legs and sat slumped against the wall, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke out through her nose. She was careful with the ashes, though, tapping them into a gigantic ashtray. Devon noted how full the ashtray was and frowned again.

“I didn’t come here to talk about Ken,” Devon sounded angrier than he actually was.

“Well, he’s out of my life anyway.”

A silence of profound quietness ensued, and this made Devon jumpy. His sister would sit there for hours if he didn’t try to engage her in conversation, preferring instead to let her silence drive people away. He wondered how Ken put up with it all those years, but he cleared his mind of that thought immediately. Thinking about Ken and Adriana was not conducive to a peaceful mind.

Devon opened his briefcase and pulled out some papers. He shuffled through them, putting them in order of importance. Since Ken was no longer her husband, and since time was running short on this matter, he felt a sense of urgency on behalf of his sister.

“As your lawyer…”

“As one of the many lawyers this family employs,” Adriana countered.

“Yes, as one of the attorneys representing you…”

“And being my brother to boot,” she said sharply.

“Yes, well. At any rate, there are papers to sign…”

“You know, Ken and I used to have such fun with Jill and Conner,” Adriana said meditatively. “I remember all those times at the family lake house. Jill was the only person I could chatter away with. Like a regular person. And the guys would go fishing. God, they were terrible at it! Used to tell us that they would catch and release, just to appear manlier, but Jill and I knew they never caught anything. They would drink beer and eat Cheetos and swap bald-faced lies about their conquests. It was cute, really.”

“Adriana. Don’t,” Devon pleaded.

Adriana sighed and reached for another cigarette. Devon watched her as she blew the smoke through her nose, but he never knew why she always exhaled the smoke in this particular way. A thought struck him.

“Why do you always blow smoke through your nose? Most people do it through their mouth as well.”

Adriana looked at Devon and smiled. He was taken aback; he hadn’t seen her smile like that since he found out what had happened to end the marriage.

“I’m a dragon when I smoke. Invincible. Aloof. Alone but in command.”

As if to demonstrate, Adriana took a long drag from her cigarette, tilted her head back and watched as the smoke she exhaled streamed gently through her nostrils. She looked at Devon with dead, unblinking eyes.

“See? A dragon,” she said.

“Um.”

Adriana quickly signed the multitude of forms that Devon had brought. She tossed the pen down on the table after finishing. It clattered on the table and bounced off onto the floor. She made no move to retrieve it, so Devon got up slowly and picked it up, placing it carefully back into his breast pocket. He straightened his tie and sat back down.

“I want to blame Conner for all this,” Adriana had put her heels up on the bed and crossed her arms over them, burying her face there. The words, when they came out, sounded like the words of some faraway ghost.

“Conner! Why the hell do you want to blame him? He was cheated on, just like you!” Devon sounded more incredulous than he felt was appropriate in this situation, but it was absurd. Conner was a victim.

“Well, if he hadn’t discovered the affair between Jill and Ken, I would have never known. I would have been happy, even if Ken was cheating on me. We would still have our terrific life, and our terrific love, even if it was a lie,” Adriana looked up as she spoke. She looked old to Devon. Thirty three years old should never look like Adriana.

“You’re kidding me,” Devon said, shaking his head. This was not what he expected from a sister who had never flinched from bad news. When Devon’s wife died in a car crash, it was Adriana who told him about it and who took care of him while he dealt with his loss. She would implore him to face the truth and start healing. He hated her for it at the time but he came to see her wisdom. And now, now she couldn’t face her own ugly truth.

“I know what you’re thinking, Dev. And you’re right. I’m a hypocrite. But there is a bigger truth here, don’t you think?” Adriana looked at her and nodded. Yes. There was a bigger truth indeed.

Devon got up and paced back and forth in a room that was not built for pacing. His expensive shoes provided an incongruous contrast to the cheap, worn carpet. He could hear echoes all the way down the grim hallway, and he wondered about the other residents here. There was no real life here. Just sadness and miserable thoughts of what could have been. He glanced at Adriana, her face still ensconced in her arms. She certainly took the road less travelled.

“As your brother…”

“And one of my many lawyers,” Adrian interjected.

“Yes. As one of your many attorneys…”

“One of many family lawyers, Devon. We are a family who employs many lawyers.”

“Attorneys,” Devon corrected her.

“Don’t you ever wonder why we need so many lawyers?”

“Attorneys.”

“Maybe I’m the personification of our family’s values. We get what we want and we punish those who don’t give it to us,” Adriana looked at Devon as she reached for another cigarette. Devon emptied her ashtray so she could start filling it up again. The ashes flew up from the waste basket, dancing chaotically around the room. The fluorescent lighting gave them a sinister aspect, like they were ashes from a funeral pyre. Devon shook his head. That was a thought he didn’t need in his head.

“Don’t read something bad into it, Adriana. We deal in big business, and big business needs many attorneys. We have to follow correct procedure,” Devon said defensively, for Adrian had spoken an uncomfortable truth. The family did tend to crush those standing in their way. That they couldn’t get their way with Adriana’s problem ate at them. This included Devon.

“I hate this place, Adriana,” Devon said, looking around.

“I love it. It’s quiet and no one bothers me. And I can smoke here, thanks to you,” Adriana lit another cigarette. Devon was alarmed. Not that it mattered, he thought. She would do as she would do.

“Family money and family connections, sis. Even landlords can have their arm twisted.”

“Landlord! Ha!” Adriana laughed out loud.

“I should have brought you a soda. Sorry,” Devon didn’t eat fast food so he didn’t know that a burger and fries could be accompanied by a drink in a combo order. He ate with the family, and the family had a chef. The chef would prepare a menu, his father or mother would approve it – or not – and things would progress from there. On the occasions when he went out to eat, it was always in places where the tablecloths were white, the flowers were real, and the cost was enough to feed a family of four for a week.

“How are mom and dad?” Adrian asked quietly. She knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from Devon.

“The same. Upset and unhappy but bringing out the famed stiff upper lip of the Wentworth family.”

“Um. Well, I hope the family survives my misfortune. I’d hate to think that they were left off the list for social events because of me.”

Devon shook his head.

“Don’t Adriana. Just…don’t,” he pleaded.

“You’re the only one that comes to see me. They don’t even call or write.”

“They are…different from us,” Devon explained. He broke down and lit one of Adriana’s cigarettes and smoked it slowly. Adriana smiled. It would be just like Devon to try to identify with her by smoking. She appreciated the motive but deplored the method.

“You look stupid when you smoke, Dev.”

“Yes, well. So do you,” he retorted weakly. He tamped out the cigarette and sat back down. The sun came in through the lone window, casting a brilliant light against the opposite wall from Devon. Sharp and angular, the brightness intruded on his thoughts. He looked at Adriana. She ignored the light.

“I look like a dragon.”

Adriana started crying softly. Devon sat on the bed beside her and put his arm around her awkwardly. He didn’t know how to do this very well, this comforting thing for a family member. Just as suddenly as she had started crying, Adriana stopped. She pushed Devon away in irritation, though it was irritation she felt for her tears, not his closeness.

“Time for you to go, Dev.” Adriana looked at him steadily, her face dry and a faint smile on her lips. Devon seemed unwilling to go because…because…well, he didn’t want to think about it. So he didn’t.

“Go!” Adriana almost shouted, her thin frame quivering with an emotion that scared Devon. Hesitatingly, he rose to his feet ponderously. He was a big man, and he was unused to even the slightest of exercise. Pacing the small room was enough for him.

Devon kissed her on the cheek, surprised at its warmth. If he didn’t know better, he would say that his sister was more alive now than she had been in years.

“Okay, sis. I’ll see you in…”

The pause hung in the air like an unwanted guest. He shuffled his feet and stood before her like a schoolboy about to be reprimanded for shooting spit wads at the teacher. Adriana unwound herself and stood up. She pushed him gently towards the door.

“Yeah, I’ll see you in three days. Don’t be late,” she said laughingly. Devon wanted to be appalled, and he would be after he left her presence.

“Um,” he said in lieu of anything coherent and worthwhile. He never had been able to talk to his sister without feeling like he was in a battle that had already been lost.

Adriana sat down again and lit another cigarette. She watched as the smoke made its way to the shaft of light that had entered the room an hour ago. The smoke was blue and solid and heavy when it came from her nose, but it became something else in the light. Insubstantial. Airy and ephemeral. Uncapturable and whimsical. Everything about her marriage was illuminated in the tendrils of smoke that inhabited the light.

A deep, quiet shuddering cry erupted from her thin body. She cried for things that might have been, things that were, and things that could not be undone. But she didn’t cry for herself; she was unworthy of tears.

The light left her room seven hours and thirty five cigarettes later. She was a dragon.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Seventy hours later, Adriana was changed into different attire and led to a small room. She was strapped down on a gurney and an IV was inserted. She looked to her left and saw Devon and Conner sitting in chairs, looking at her with a mixture of pity and horror and helplessness. A man spoke softly. Liquid entered her veins. Adriana spoke quietly to the man in the room and then gasped. A few minutes later, Adriana was pronounced dead by lethal injection for killing Ken and Jill during their illicit tryst.

           The man who had given the order came out to meet with Devon and Conner after the deed was done. He was balding and serious and a bit overweight, but he had kind eyes, Devon thought. Far too kind to be giving orders for executions. Conner was silent and still in a state of shock; he was not as prepared as Devon for this.

           “What did she say before she died?” Devon asked the quiet man after shaking his hand. He had a firm, strong grip, a grip that said that he felt their loss. Conner had moved away from the man, not wanting anything more to do with this tragedy. He had lost a wife and a friend to Adriana’s actions, and nothing about his life would ever be the same. Devon looked at him and shook his head irritably. At least he still had his life, he thought.

           The quiet man blinked and wiped his glasses. It was hot outside the Houston area, and the humidity was, as always, as high as the temperature. He replaced his glasses and looked at Devon with silent melancholia. It must be torture to families to see their loved ones die, he thought. But it was better than the old days. Prisoners crying as they were rubbed down with water and had a steel cap strapped to their head, knowing that bolts of man-controlled lightning were about to fry them.

           “She said that she wanted to ask God a question when she met Him,” he wiped his face with a damp handkerchief.

“Yes? And?”

           “She was gonna ask him if it ever snowed in Eden. And then something – I couldn’t rightly tell – about that’s where dragons belong?”

           Devon paused a moment, and then he smiled. My sister the dragon, he thought. He lit a cigarette and smoked the entire thing, blowing the smoke from his nose. He glanced at the smoke rising into the bright, humid Texas air until it disappeared, following a curling chaotic path that only angels and dead sisters understood.

           “Good-bye,” he said softly to the sky. He could swear the sky told him he looked stupid when he smoked.