With Isabel

The marsh hummed and glittered and throbbed, it crooned and stretched and rumbled, and she could not notice. She flitted between darknesses through the fluttering of her eyes, from the immense blue-black punctuated by dots of light, to the blackness inside her eyelids, which dragged traces of the stars’ glow into her sight.

Drops of dew constellated the outline of her horizontal figure. She cast a glance sideways.

           “Please talk to me.”

           She smiled. “I am,” she said, “I am, I am, I am.”

           It had been early evening when they first came to the side of the marsh, collapsed in unison, and fled recklessly into the company of each other’s promises. While they kissed and laughed in the sun’s final rays, Allie could stare into warm brown eyes and say ‘I love you too,’ and mean it, she could kick off her espadrilles and seep her toes through warm and wet soil. In the glory of light pink glow, the past years of their love were magnificent and important. Together, Allie and Isabel remembered the day they met outside a crowded bar, when Isabel was smoking her fourth ‘last’ cigarette of the night and holding vicious heels in her hands. Allie had approached.

           Then, an hour ago, Allie had shrieked, “Slightly! They were slightly burnt!”

           “Slightly!” echoed Isabel, dancing around Allie, a rebellious shadow.

           “Slightly burnt!” they cheered together. Like twinkling lights, they sang their favorite memories back and forth, recalling a ruined cake, a long hungover bus ride, strange men in strange clubs, sleeping until the afternoon on days when Allie felt sick for no reason, an outdoor bowl of fresh strawberries. For Allie, the most wonderful and effortlessly content she ever felt was in the arms of her Isabel. She pictured Isabel’s dark lipstick and curled hair the night they met. She felt her muscles and bones ease as Isabel caressed the contours of her face, saying “Allie, Allie, Allie,” softly as she had done for years.

           The final hour of sunshine went by slowly, a long southern drawl, a spoon of easy honey. They basked. But night fell, stealthily, and it did not come alone.

           “What are you thinking?”

           “Is-a-bel.” She took a pained breath with each syllable. Sitting up and gazing into the faintly glimmering reflection of the moon in the cooling marsh, Allie looked around for Isabel.  

           “I’m here, Allie.” At these words Allie felt a cool hand rest over hers, and smiled. She would have to be home soon. This thought hollowed her stomach. She had taken her husband’s car, she had not planned on seeing Isabel, she had wanted to watch the sunset alone, she couldn’t drive back now that Isabel was with her. Momentarily Allie was angry, and felt the urge to push Isabel off of her, but when she closed her eyes, she saw the warm brown pair staring back at her just as the light of the stars did, and she faltered.

           “Allie,” Isabel’s smooth whisper crept up the side of Allie’s neck. “Allie, don’t make me go. Without you I’m nothing. And you can’t go back there alone. Take me, let me actually meet your son, Allie, take me.”

           Allie gave the same answer she had given for five years. “I can’t.”

           Warm wind blew over her and lifted the ends of her loose hair. It carried a sweet smell of wet stones and heavy mud. Wind grew and old branches sighed and she remembered the scream of her son when he had seen Allie kissing Isabel in her driveway.

           “I can’t,” she said again, but the wind drowned it out. Isabel moved closer. “Is there no way out, is there no way out, is there no way out?” Allie said futilely into the breeze, rocking minutely back and forth with her knees to her chest.

           “Stop” Isabel smiled. “Quoting.” She kissed her forehead. “Sylvia.” She kissed her hands. “Plath!” Isabel laughed and shook Allie until they were both laughing and the wind died down and the hum of crickets filled the air.

           “How old was I when I met you?” asked Allie. This was a game Isabel loved to play.

           “Let’s see. You’ve met me when you were 23, bored at a bar and sick of watching your friends flirt and be carefree. You’ve met me when you were 30 and you were in love with your husband and lonely with your husband all at once. You’ve met me when you were 17 and you ran miles and miles away from home and threw up on the side of the road and I found you. You’ve met me when you’ve been all alone, you’ve met me when you’ve been surrounded by your friends. I’ve taken you to movies and appointments and concerts, I’ve taken you on plane rides and to school meetings and new countries, and I’ve lied by your side in bed staring up at the ceiling for hours. I love you. And I, Allie, am here.”

           After the sunset Allie had told Isabel to go, to leave her, not to come to the marsh or her house ever again. She had said these things firmly and coldly and she had tried to mean them. But as Isabel, her “Is-a-bel” had whispered “I, Allie, am here,” she cried quietly, her tears reflecting moonlight on her cheeks. She was not sad, or pained, but grateful, and humbled, by the steady and loyal love which had refused to go. She wished she missed her son. She wished she wanted her husband. She wanted to want her husband, she wanted to want to leave Isabel and drive home. But why, why, why “why!” she yelled, and rolled to lie on her stomach. “Why?!” She yelled into the wet grass. Isabel didn’t answer because the question was not for her. Like so many times before, Allie didn’t know what was stopping her from being with Isabel all the time, openly. She roamed the outer districts of her mind and fantasized about dark lipstick and strawberries. The aching pain that reached throughout her eased as she thought of Isabel’s huge smile, of walking through town together at night and secretly holding hands. In the outer districts of her mind, her family and her son and her friends all loved Isabel too, and did not care about what she was. But the outer districts of her mind, she recalled, are what she must avoid.

           Allie reached for her pocket, drew out her husband’s car keys and a small, torn, folded note.

           Isabel was whispering, repeatedly, “Allie, I love you, Allie, I love you, Allie, I love you..”

           Allie unfolded the note, and felt the ache of the night reach through her limbs and pulse in her head, blaring and beating cruelly.

           The note read: In conclusion, the character of ‘Isabel’ is a nothing but a figmental coping mechanism for numerous personality and anxiety disorders. Allie should consider serious treatment before this condition worsens, and I urge you to remind Allie that ‘Isabel’ is purely imaginary.

           “Allie, I love you, Allie, I love you, Allie, I love you.”

           “I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be alone.” Allie rolled onto her back and looked around for Isabel and she didn’t know if she wanted to see her and she didn’t know if she was there anymore but she could hear her, “Allie, I love you” and it was the only love towards her that she really felt and believed and trusted and wanted. She closed her eyes and thought of warm tangled sheets and Isabel’s laughter and burnt cake and strawberries and she felt her heart race, knowing that when she looked up, she would see Isabel’s brown eyes gleaming down at her. She grasped the note tightly in her fist, her nails digging into her palm, and felt the words climb up her arm, the spindly black spiders of a doctor’s handwriting. She opened her eyes, and saw nothing but the stars. Tomorrow, she thought, tomorrow I’ll get her back.