She Cuts Herself Part 2 by Sean Miner

Content Warnings:

Self-harm, Domestic violence, Psychological abuse/gaslighting, Terminal illness, Non-consensual polyamory, Suicidal ideation, Family caregiver burnout, Disability/stroke, Identity loss, Parent-child role reversal, Mental health issues

 

Notes:

Contains descriptions of self-cutting, features scenes of emotional manipulation, includes discussions of terminal illness and mortality, depicts abusive relationship dynamics

I must have fallen asleep after crying. My alarm woke me before Dad did, so I quickly killed it and got up quietly. No use: before I’d made it to the room he was shouting and banging for me.

 

“Hi, Dad,” I said in my usual tone. “Everything okay?”

 

“Yah,” he said, resentfully, and gestured across the room. “R’mo.”

 

I got him the TV remote. He took it in his bad hand, then held the better one out to me, waving it in my face. I focused on it and saw the problem: a wicked-looking black splinter was deep in the outside heel of his hand, and the skin around it starting to darken. He could only have gotten it from the picnic table, probably when he swatted at the coins.

 

“Christ, Dad,” I sighed. “Well, you caught it before it got infected, so that’s good. I’ll fix you up. Be right back.”

 

I got the first aid kit from the kitchen, which is the most centrally room in the house. I sat next to Dad while he did his best working the remote with his bad hand, which involved a lot of cursing and some shouts of undefined accusation against the TV, or maybe me. The splinter was in there good and had to be an eight of an inch wide where it was broken off just under the skin. I could make out a good quarter inch of length before it got too deep to see. I wiped the area with an alcohol pad first, then picked up the tweezers.

 

I don’t know how long I sat there looking at the tweezers, marveling at how good they felt in my hand. Eventually dad gave me a little shove with is splintered hand and I came back to what I was doing. “Sorry,” I said quietly as I lifted his hand back into the light. “Zoned out for a second.”

 

I tried to work as painlessly as possible, but that wasn’t very. The splinter was a monster, and I had to dig in just to get a grip on it. But one thing that hadn’t changed about dad was stubbornness, and he might have a hair trigger for annoyance or any other kind of discomfort, by it would take a hell of a lot more physical pain than digging around his skin with a piece of metal to get him to admit to noticing. The splinter seemed to come in out one piece. It was longer than my thumbnail, and blood started to well up immediately. I bandaged it up with some antibiotic, then packed up the kit and put it away.

 

When I got back, I found I hadn’t packed the tweezers, so I slipped them into my pocket to put away later.

 

I realized I was starving. I walked into the kitchen. I didn’t want a sandwich. I wanted something hot. But I didn’t have time. Then it came to me. Mac and cheese.

 

I pulled a box from the cabinet. I boil the macaroni until it was soft. Then I poured off the water and added milk, butter, and the cheese powder and mixed it up. Easy. Civilized.

 

I started getting Dad ready for the “thing” an hour before I’d decided to leave, because that’s how long it takes. Along the way he needed grapes, a pee break, the sports news on TV, three separate rants, and lastly a shot of whiskey, which we have but I knew he’d want at the party so he had to wait.

 

I wheeled him into the garage, a big two-car that hadn’t held two since mom was alive. I brought him down the ramp to the car, then stopped to look at the other side.

 

God. I hadn’t touched it since the night I’d got the call from the hospital about Dad. I stepped around the car, pulled aside the tarp to reveal the ugly, unfinished clay. It was long dried brick-hard; even if I could ever get back to it, I’d have to knock off chunks that I’d been planning to smooth away, and start whole limbs over. I tried to remember the face I’d planned for it, but I hadn’t seen that face since we’d broken up a month after I stopped working on it. When I stopped working on my life.

 

Dad made an impatient sound behind me and I put the tarp back over. I got him buckled into the car and put his transport chair in the back. I got in the driver’s seat, sat back and took a few deep breaths while Dad fumed about the indignity of being put into the back seat, where he’d been relegated since the time he’d had a meltdown and tried to grab the wheel.

 

It was a short drive to Andy’s and there were already several cars filling the driveway and lining the road. I got Dad buckled into his chair and hoped this would be good for him, because then he might be good. I rang the bell and got back behind the chair. Cliff answered and seemed to have practiced the smile because I couldn’t see as much of the tape.

 

“Hey, Mitch!” he said, stepping back so I could push the chair inside. He called to the room as we approached, “He everyone! Mitch made it!”

 

There were cheers from the room as I pushed Dad in. I came around the side so I could see his face. He seemed to be happy with the attention, for now. I knew that that could turn at any time, but I was glad for the moment.

 

Andy asked Dad how he was liking retirement, and Dad actually laughed. Then he answered unintelligibly to everyone but me, and that’s how they all learned not to ask him any more questions.

 

Dad wanted his whiskey, so I asked Andy’s wife for a shot in ice and helped him sip it. Everyone stopped to listen every time he burst out with something to say — usually interrupting someone — and I clarified where necessary.

 

An hour in, some of the bowling team men started telling stories and they soon came around to one of the classics involving dad. They asked Dad to tell it, which meant me telling it with him. After that ended he wanted another whiskey.

 

“No, Dad,” I said “I already broke doctor’s orders letting you have one.”

 

“Yah wish-ke!” he slurred. His nostrils were starting to flare and his brow knit in the look that I’d learned heralded a meltdown, and sometimes not by much.

 

“Dad,” I said under my breath, “You don’t want to get upset in front of all your friends, let’s just have a nice night.”

 

Except he did want to get upset in front of his friends. A year ago he’d have been mortified to get upset in front of people. But this was now, and this was a different him, and he wanted everyone to see what a terrible daughter he had who wouldn’t let him have a drink. It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault, it’s not his fault. And the meltdown began.

 

He startled everyone by exploding into curses, aimed mostly at me, that most of the people there couldn’t understand, though a few reacted to the attempted f-bombs. After he’d worked himself up, he threw his glass at me, not coming near me and shattering it on Andy’s fireplace. He started gesticulating as wildly as he could, compensating for lost fine motor movements with extra gross.

 

I’d already had the words of the apology ready. They held barely a touch of the strain that filled in my chest, my shoulders. My throat felt like a column of stone, but I got the voice out without a hitch, thanked Andy and his wife for the hospitality, wished the company well, and piloted Dad, still waving and cursing, out the door to the car. It’s not his fault, it’s not his fault…

 

When we got him to the car, he’d grown silent and still but wouldn’t let me get him out of the chair. I got in, shut the door behind me, put my purse in my mouth, and screamed. Then I screamed again. Then I sobbed, the whole time worrying that someone might look out the window and see that I’d left him out there on the curb. I touched the key. I touched it and thought about turning it, felt the accelerator pedal, my foot begging to press it.

 

I opened the door and was thankful that the meltdown had ended. I opened the back door and Dad offered no resistance when I tried to lift him in, but he wouldn’t help, either. As I tried to buckle him in, he took hold of my coat with is bad hand. I pulled back to see what he needed. Then I realized he wasn’t using his good hand for anything. And he was looking from me to his good arm, back and forth, frantically, but only with his eyes; his head lolled to the side. I was frozen for two or three seconds before I managed to whisper, “Oh, fuck.”

 

As I pulled out my phone, I shouted out, “Call 911!!!” and hoped someone in the house would hear in case they were a few seconds faster than I was, working hard to resist the urge to drive him myself. Instead, I pulled Dad back out of the car and put him in his transport chair to save EMTs a moment. They were jumping out of the ambulance less than five minutes later.

 

The ride was a blur. I answered the questions. Six months ago. Listed his prescriptions. Yes, one shot of whiskey. No tobacco, no marijuana, no fall. I’m next of kin.

 

Then I was in the ER waiting room. Waiting. Then I realized someone was asking me questions. I looked up at the doctor in his blue scrubs.

 

“The EMTs said your father had whiskey, is that correct?”

 

I tried to pull useful thoughts from the cyclone. “Yeah. Um. One shot.”

 

“He shouldn’t have had alcohol,” the doctor said, looking and sounding very stern as he wrote on his clipboard. “It raises blood pressure and increases the likelihood of further stroke. Which is what he’s had.” (what a terrible daughter)

 

“Um. I know.” I said, “all that.”

 

“We don’t know yet how bad the damage is,” he continued, tone unchanged. “Some of it may be temporary, depending how bad the occlusion and how quickly we get it removed. But right now he’s lost most voluntary motor function, including speech. He can move his eyes. He can swallow. He can weakly grasp with his left hand.”

 

“That’s his bad hand,” I said, picking a useless thought by mistake.

 

“Not anymore,” he said curtly, then finished, “I’ll be back when we know more.” Then he clicked his pen and walked away.

 

I went back to wherever I’d been before he’d come, but with the winds now ramped up to double speed. I had no idea how much time had passed when Dr. Clark came back. He looked more tired but no less stern.

 

I tried to listen but his words just joined the cyclone. I made out, “your father will need assistance with essentially all living activities.”

 

“He already does,” I muttered, mostly to myself.

 

“Not like this,” he said, checking things off the clipboard. “He can’t sit up. He can’t move his right arm or leg at all. His left arm and leg are extremely weak and his ability to grasp with is left hand is negligible. He can’t hold his head fully erect, though I’m hopeful that he may regain that sooner than the rest. He can swallow, but not chew; he’ll need a liquid diet for now.” He paused a pause that I was meant to hear and went on, “That should not include alcohol.”

 

He went on. Dad was asleep, his vitals were otherwise good, they’d be keeping him for observation, he’d probably go home in a few days, before that there would be a consultation to instruct me on how to care for him at his new ability level.

 

Some time after he left, I realized I could leave, realized I hadn’t come by the car, so I called for a ride. I gave our home address, not realizing that I needed to pick up the car at Andy’s until I was already almost home. I didn’t react to the realization. It was a tomorrow worry.

 

He dropped me off in front of the house. I went in the front door and was immediately struck by the an unfamiliar buoyancy. I had to actually stand still and think to identify it, and when I finally realized that it was that I was alone in the house for the first time in six months, I dropped to my knees and then hands as the numbness I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying was swept away by a tide of sobs that went on and on until my lungs and stomach were too weak for more, and then I still hitched periodically, my diaphragm spasming and vocal cords grating with each short intake.

 

As suddenly as I’d been struck by the unfamiliar sensation of freedom, it was mitigated by the knowledge of what was coming. A few days. Then he’d be back, and it would all be so much more. All of his progress was lost, and from the sound of it he was worse off now than after the first stroke. What should I do? What does one do with the last of their freedom? How do you prepare?

 

Finally I knew. I gathered myself up and went to the garage, turned on the lights. I walked up to the sculpture and pulled off the tarp. I looked it over, fully, opened my eyes to every angle, for the first time since I’d brought Dad home from the hospital.

 

It was good. Maybe not my best, but good. A month of brainstorming, a week of planning, but only a few days of building armature and working the clay had started to take the shape that had been in my heart, but wasn’t anymore. Frozen now, half-made, into stone. I walked to the corner where we kept the sledge hammer and picked it up.

 

With the last of your freedom, you kill hope.

 

The first swing loosed some chips. My heart wasn’t in the swing. Neither was my back. The next had both, and it connected. An arm shattered at the elbow. But I could do better. I swung gain, and the arm was gone at the shoulder. Again, and the head exploded. Now I was breathing heavily but it wasn’t from the effort. I found a kind of exhilaration in destroying a past I could never go back to. I was desculpting, taking away what I’d put s o carefully in place. Another swing and the other arm became shards and a few chunks. Then the chest; it was sturdy, so I could get in swing after swing. Not the legs, yet, I wanted to take it out from the top down. Chips of hard clay flew everywhere, scattering on the floor and walls some hitting me on the face and arms, some scratching me as they struck, recycling some of the the destructive energy I was pouring out.

 

When I finally delivered the final blow to the hips, the legs, no longer attached, collapsed. I didn’t slow, but kept hauling the four pound head up in an arc that became a swoop of annihilator, crushing chunks into shards and shard into powder. It only slowed when my muscles began to tire, and I finally refused to lift it again, and then I threw myself on it and struck the mound with my fists, over and over, then scratched at it, digging at the rubble with nails that must have broken off immediately. It wasn’t enough to destroy it anymore. I needed to hurt it.

 

I needed it to hurt.

 

I could feel my hands, raw and broken. It wasn’t enough.

 

As I lay on the rubble, I felt something in my pocket pressing my hip. I felt it with a mangled hand, without thinking I reached a mangled hand into the pocket and pulled out the tweezers.

 

My eyes must have gone wide. I felt like I was looking at a fairy gift. I knew this thing. I’d felt like this before, and I’d used this.

 

I looked at my other hand and found no spot that wasn’t bloody or bruised. No place to sculpt a new line. I looked down at the back of my forearm. It was smooth. I placed the point against the fresh marble of my skin.

 

I carved.

 

I woke up.

 

 

I woke up.

 

“Holy shit,” I said, dream-images still swirling in my head.

 

Monica walked in and looked at me with surprise. “Are you just getting up? I’d have thought you’d have at least showered by now. We’re going to be late.”

 

I rubbed my eyes. I was having trouble getting my bearings. “For?” I asked, vaguely.

 

She stared, stage-slack-jawed. “Are you high right now?” she asked.

 

“No,” I insisted. “Just. Weird head space right now, I need a minute.” I tried stretching the confusion away with a yoga pose I couldn’t recall the name of.

 

“Well you’ve got about ten,” she said, “then we have to leave.”

 

I stopped stretching. “For the museum,” I said as the memory dropped into place. “My museum.”

 

“Yes!” she said. It sounded more like incredulity than sarcasm.

 

I looked around, still foggy. I’d have gotten my things ready the night before. There! Comfortable underwear, sensible but stylish shoes and dress. As I wriggled into them, I saw my accessories laid out on the vanity. Well at least Last Night Me had been on point; I’d learned something in the decades since college.

 

But something nagged. I wasn’t looking forward to today. Why? What was I planning to do? I think it was something I didn’t want.

 

I was putting my hair up when Monica came back. She seemed mollified as she looked me over. “Okay, I’m impressed,” she said, and started to turn back toward the door.

 

“With my togetherness or the outfit?” I asked as I worked a hairpin into place.

 

“Both.” She paused and said, reassuringly, “You look gorgeous, babe,” and turned again to the door.

 

I froze. “What did you just call me?” I asked without looking at her.

 

She stopped again. “What?”

 

“What did you just call me?” I repeated, trying to keep my voice level.

 

“Gorgeous. Is that a problem?”

 

“No,” I said, “the other thing.”

 

I heard her go over her words under her breath, “You... look... gorgeous...” Then to me, “‘Babe’?”

 

“Yes, that,” I said, lowering my hands. “When did you start calling me that?”

 

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug. “You’ve always been a babe. That’s why I said you’re gorgeous.”

 

I took a stepped back and hit the vanity as I thought back and hit a wall. “Where did we we meet?” I asked.

 

“Elle, we can do couples' nostalgia in the car.”

 

“I can’t remember how we met,” I said, too loud.

 

“Wait, are you getting upset with me because you can’t remember how we met?

 

“No,” I said. “But why can’t I remember how we met?”

 

“Are you sure you’re not high? Because you sound really high right now.”

 

“How?”

 

She looked at me for a moment like she was trying to decide whether I was joking, and then said, “In college. It was at a protest.”

 

“What were we protesting?”

 

She looked exasperated. “Honey, I don’t remember every damn thing I protested twenty years ago! And odds are pretty good I was only there to get laid! And I did! And you were so good I decided to keep you! Now can we please get down to the car?”

 

She said it with conviction. And I seemed to be remembering now. I took my purse from the vanity and started to follow her downstairs.

 

We’d just left the house and Monica was almost to the car when I stopped and blurted, “Cornell.”

 

She stopped and turned perfectly on her heel, as thought she were on rails. “What?” she asked, seeming incredulous again.

“We went to Cornell. That’s where we met.”

 

She walked to me, took my purse, took out the keys. She looked me in the eye, dropped the purse back at my side, held up the keys, and said, “I’m driving.”

 

We didn’t talk much during the drive, though Monica glanced warily my way a few times with in a way that seemed part concern, part side-eye. Once I’d stopped panicking the memories came back. I remembered Cornell, remembered the quad, Dragon Day, and I remembered the day I’d met Monica. And found that, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t remember what we’d been protesting that day, either.

 

We filled the silence with NPR and a short detour for a drive through breakfast, and I ignored the majestic Hudson River Valley scenery in favor of turning the dream over and over in my head, trying to mine out coherent gems. I’d been me, but not me. Younger, sometimes my 30s, sometimes my 20s. There’d always been someone. And there’d always been pain.

 

The trip felt like another dream. It was a two hour drive, but we were entering the city before I’d realized it. I’d been lost trying to remember the dream. I hadn’t finished my breakfast coffee. As we passed over the bridge, Monica said, levelly in the way only someone trying hard to speak in a level tone can, “You did bring the speech, right?”

 

The speech. I trusted in Last Night Me and looked through my purse. There were sheets of folded copy paper. Yes. It was the speech. “Got it,” I said. I was supposed to have been studying it the whole ride and I’d forgotten. I tried to get a late start. The memory of writing it came back to me as I read it. Good morning friends, colleagues, press, etc. etc. Thank you etc.

 

I glanced at the GPS. I had only about ten minutes, depending on traffic. But the speech wasn’t until after the breakfast, so I had time. I went back to the papers. My decade as Director has been the most fulfilling time of my life. This is as glorious a day for me as it is difficult, as I… I stopped.

 

“I’m going to resign,” I said out loud.

 

Monica glanced at me, back to the road, nodded. “Yes. Very good! Set your intention.”

 

I said the only words in my brain. “I don’t want to.”

 

Monica did a sitcom double take and nearly stopped the car but managed to pull into a bus stop before she turned to me and asked, “Elle. This isn’t a surprise party, we’ve been talking about this for a year, you made the decision… what, two months ago?” She suddenly looked scared. “Are you having a stroke? I read about micro strokes or something, they’re slow bleeds and happen over hours. Is that why you’ve been acting weird?” She took out her phone and started to swipe it on.

 

“No,” I said, “put that away. That’s not a symptom of stroke.”

 

She didn’t put it away, but stopped swiping. “You know all about strokes all of a sudden?”

 

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at my hands as I held them, palms to me. Then more confidently, “Yeah, I do. And this isn’t how they work. This isn’t a stroke. It’s… it was sitting there all this time and I wasn’t thinking about it and now I am.” I turned to her. “I love my job. I worked hard for this job, and I’m good at it. It’s what I always wanted, all through grad school.”

 

“It’s two hours from home! And we don’t need the money! Elle, I can’t have this argument now, we’ve had it a hundred times, you’ve already quit!”

 

I shook my head as it all came back, “The trustees didn’t want me to, Derek tried to refuse to accept it. If I tell them I changed my mind they’ll tear it up, I know they will.”

 

Monica was about to say something when a bus honked behind us. She looked around and found no course but to put the car in drive and move.

 

“You cannot do this to me now, Elle. We agreed.” She was trying to talk slowly and pay attention to driving.

 

“You… badgered me to agree,” I said, remembering. Why had I ever thought of it as anything else? “You wore me down over a year, you didn’t care what I wanted.”

 

“I know what you wanted. I care about what you wanted. But I told you, I can’t be a suburban widow, I can’t just have you between 8 at night and 5 in the morning. I would never have married a flight attendant!” She was shouting now and nearly rear-ended the car in front of us.

 

“We can afford a place in the city!” I said.

 

“Not on your salary, unless it’s some crappy little apartment, and my clients are in Albany! You want me to commute 4 hours? For God’s sake, we’ve already had this argument a hundred times! It was finally over! God you’re being so fucking selfish even to the last damn minute!”

 

The memories of dozens of arguments came back to me. I remembered the wearing down. I remembered the resignation, just for some peace. This time that seemed lifetimes ago, but the pressure of it all coming back, haunting me from anther life, made a pressure build up, my blood ring in my ears. I realized we were stopped at a light. We were only a few blocks from the museum. Without letting myself think about it, I held my purse tight, opened the door, and stepped out and into a run.

 

The sensible shoes were a good pick, I decided. Couldn’t have done this in heels. I first ran back to the previous corner so Monica couldn’t follow me with the car, then up two avenues, then east again, the long blocks. I’d really only added a few minutes to the trip, maybe less if the lights were against the traffic.

 

I slowed to a walk to get my breath back as I got close to the museum. I was ahead of the door opening, but only just. I went in, feeling jumpy and excited, said good morning to Eloi at the counter, and went straight to the event. The Gladerheim wasn’t one of the big, touristy museums, but it was prestigious in its own way. Its collection of works by New York born artists chronicled the evolution of art through the city’s history back to New Amsterdam and the state’s back to some indigenous pieces over a thousand years old. It had its devotees and its donors, and we could afford a good sized event hall for things like today’s.

 

With the crowds still out on the street, I quickly found Derek near the stage.

 

He broke into a smile when he saw me. “Elle! You’re just in time!” his smile melted with confusion. “Did you run here? You’re all flushed.”

 

“Just excited!” I said. “I have good news! I’ve made a decision!”

 

He smiled again, “Oh? What is it?”

 

“You remember how you didn’t want to accept my resignation? Well. You don’t have to! I want to withdraw it!”

 

The smile faded again. He passed once more through confused, and into awkward. “Elle… I would have loved for you to say that a month ago, but… we’ve already hired a new director, you know that.”

 

“Yes.” I said, slowly, “I realize it’s a little awkward, but it’s an unusual situation. And between us and the rest of the board, I’m sure we have enough contacts to get Kurt another job somewhere else.”

 

Derek still looked awkward but his voice became more serious. “Elle. Kurt has a job. Here. It' i's too late to tell him he doesn’t.”

 

I nodded, and the words tumbled out almost on their own. “Okay, I get that. But, I’ve never had an Assistant Director. He can be that!”

 

“Elle,” Derek said again, speaking slowly, “The contracts have been signed. At noon today, Kurt becomes the Director of this museum. There’s no going back.” He paused, then finished, “I’m sorry.”

 

I nodded, a little stunned. I smiled, because that’s what I should do. “Alright,” I said. “It was just an idea.” I reached into my purse an pulled out the folded sheets of paper. “I… brought my going-away speech. Just in case! Better go practice!” I climbed the stage steps and ducked backstage.

 

Don’t know why I’d thought that that might work. Nothing was that ad-hoc with the board. I unfolded the papers with shaky hands but couldn’t focus the words, so I went back to the hall and found the seat on the stage with my name on it.

 

I sat there though the breakfast. At one point I saw Monica talking with Derek and both of them looking at me and my papers, but they didn’t come near. I think Monica looked relieved; it was finally over.

 

Eventually they started the ceremony and people drifted reluctantly away from the breakfast tables to the seats. When they were gathered, Derek welcomed everyone. He talked about the museum and its vision, all we’d done over the past year, and the past ten, and I applauded longer and louder than anyone. At points I was honestly jumping up and down with excitement.

 

Finally, at the end, he introduced me. He looked nervous, but I was so happy at that point that he must have decided I was okay to speak. And I was. I stepped up to the podium as he stepped aside, and there was laughter as he had to lower the mic enough for me to speak. I smiled at the crowd, and unfolded the notes, which were by then crumpled and damp. I started with the words on the paper. They were good words. Monica had helped me choose them.

 

“Good morning friends, colleagues, press, and patrons of the Gladerheim. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for supporting this museum as it grows and as it changes. My decade as Director has been the most fulfilling time of my life.” I had to stop because I couldn’t read through the tears. I smiled through them instead.

 

“I’m sorry,” I said, going off-script. “I told my wife that I wasn’t going to do this.” There was laughter and I used the time to try to wipe the tears away, but new ones replaced them.

 

I continued without the notes, repeating. “My decade as Director has been the most fulfilling time of my life. And now. It’s over.” I sniffled. The audience wasn’t sure how to react. “But that’s okay!” I said a smile. “As my friend, our chairman, Derek, said to me earlier, there is no going back! But… there is always a way forward!” Then the audience applauded, and Derek as well. When that had died down, I continued, “And I have a way to do that! Right now!” I put my purse on the podium on top of my notes and opened it. “I have it right here,” I said as I started looking through it, “if you’ll bear with me!”

 

I knew it was there, it was always there. Ah! I pulled out my little black manicure set, peeled the velcro. The audience was starting to mutter uncertainly as I opened the kit. No tweezer. But there, this would do just as well.

 

I lifted knocked the purse to the floor and held up the cuticle trimmer, still smiling. “If this doesn’t work,” I said, “I’m going to be pretty embarrassed. And I’m gonna make a mess!” My smile faded as I looked at the trimmer. I held up my forearm and said quietly, “But I think it’s gonna work.”

 

I cut.

 

 

I woke up.

 

Exhausted, of course. I couldn’t see anything but the remote was in my hand so I turned on the TV. The sound came on first, too loud, startling me, and I hit mute. As soon as the dim glow lit the room enough, I looked at my arm; it was smooth, except the dermatitis spots. Running my other hand over the skin, it was shocking to feel no scars or cuts. It had been so real. It hadn’t made any sense; the relationship was abusive, I’d have left someone that manipulative long before. But it had made sense in the dream. I’d been… not quite me. More naive. Weird to feel that naive again. And it had felt so real.

 

And that father. How was I a museum director when I was taking care of the father all the time? Or was that not the same dream? My head felt so full it hurt. I had to clear my head; I needed more sleep but I couldn’t go back to whatever that was.

 

Feeling around in the cushions, I found my tablet, looked at the last sketch for a second… it wasn’t bad. Not as good as acrylics, not nearly as good as oil, but I didn’t have to wait for it to dry, and who had time to wait? Then I swiped it away and googled “stroke”. All that stuff in my head had to be dream nonsense, right? But as I read it turned out that it wasn't.

 

It was more than deja vu, because after touching a link to check what I knew before looking at the screen, and what I thought would be there was there. Every time. I seemed I knew as much about stroke as I did about pancreatic, and I couldn't remember ever having learned it. Maybe it was still a dream? My heart beat faster; it would be so good if it were. But I’d had that thought before.

 

Hadn’t I? Everything was so fuzzy. Always so fuzzy.

 

“Danielle?” Mom’s voice. She was coming down the stairs. “Are you okay? I heard the TV.”

 

“I’m fine, Mom,” I said. “Go back to bed.” I knew she wouldn’t.

 

“It’s time for your pills,” she said. “That's why I was up to hear the TV.”

 

Was my brain synching with my pills now? Bad enough my glands betrayed me, now my dreams too? “Mom, please, not tonight? They just make me feel sicker.”

 

I could already hear the pill rattling as she tried to open the vial. “The chemo makes you feel sick,” she said with conviction. “These are to make you feel less sick from that.”

 

“They just make me a different kind of sick,” I said. Uselessly. Always.

 

She handed me three different kinds of pills, and started pouring water into a cup. “You have four more trips to see Judith,” she said. “Then you’ll be better.”

 

I closed my eyes, whether against the pills or the positivity. “Mom,” I sighed. “I don’t wanna see Judith again. I don’t wanna feel this way anymore.” (Mom, I don’t like carrots.)

 

“Four more trips,” she said, “and you’ll be done.”. (Just four more bites and you’ll be done.)

 

Maybe it was the thought that it might be a dream, but I was feeling... brave? “Mom, I don’t have much time left, I don’t want to spend it throwing up.”

 

“Don’t talk like that,” she said, “the doctor told you not to think like that.” It was so weird, watching her keep calm and casual outside, like she was just giving me aspirin, while her voice got that hysterical edge. Like watching a badly dubbed movie. “You’re going to be fine.”

 

“Stage four, Mom,” I said, surprised to hear my voice. “There is no stage five. Just the end.”

 

“I won’t listen to that talk,” she snapped, finally letting her voice show on her face. Then she looked regretful. Did she feel bad for snapping at me, or for losing control? Probably the snapping. “I’ll take care of you,” she said, more softly. “I always will. You don’t know what I’ll do to fight this. You’ll understand when you have kids, what you’ll do for them.”

 

It’s in my ovaries, Mom. The only grandkids for you are tumors. But I couldn’t say it. I took the pills with the water, hoping to get her to leave sooner, and closed my eyes. One good thing about exhaustion, I got to spend a lot of time asleep.

 

She waited, maybe trying not to cry. Them the TV light against my eyelids went out and I felt a kiss on my forehead and heard her walk away and up the stairs. I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t say that either; I took that as a win.

 

Minutes passed and I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, still awake. Even the exhaustion was letting me down now. I didn’t realize there were tears in my eyes until felt them spill across my cheeks.

 

It was surprising because I didn’t feel sad. I felt... full. Too full of everything: nausea and pain and tumors and chemo and radiation and dreams. Everything was too much. Too much to sleep away. Too much to wake up to again.

 

I felt around for the remote; Mom had left it on the arm of the couch. I turned the TV on. Still muted, fortunately; I just needed the glow. I looked around for something. Tweezers were in my mind, but they were in the upstairs bathroom, and I didn’t feel up to navigating the stairs. The drinking cup was plastic. So were the pill vials mom had left on the coffee table. Dying people shouldn’t have to be so fucking safe. Then I remembered where I’d last touched glass.

 

I took out the tablet, ran my fingers over the screen. I looked at my pictures. Blue skies turning orange. Oliver curled in a ball, not knowing he was modeling for me. I’d really done some good work on that piece of glass. I was going to miss the work. I realized I was going to miss it more than anything. But I couldn’t wait any more.

 

It was the newest model; it would be a waste, but one way or another I wouldn’t need it much longer. I took an end in each hand and twisted. Not strong enough. Just smashing it was no good, I couldn't use a spiderweb fracture. I slid one end into the space between the couch and end table, took the other in both hands, and twisted again. It wasn't much but it was enough; there was a crack and the screen split into long shards sticking out, making me think of a bristlecone pine. I wiggled out the biggest piece. It was wafer thin, almost a razor. I put the point against the skin of the arm that I’d just been surprised to find whole. I’d fix that. I closed my eyes as a wave of nausea hit.

 

I cut myself.

 

 

I wake up.

 

I just... opened my eyes. I didn't even think to sit up, at first. After a minute or so, I just said, “Wow.”

 

That was a doozy. I tried to hold the memory of it in my head, but it was already fraying into impressions, like dreams do. There had to be some meaning in it.

 

And there had to be something I could use.

 

Something about a sculptor... love-lost sculptor, that maybe. With a sick daughter... wait no. That was something else. But the sculptor, that might work. There was passion there. Passion and tragedy. Could be, anyway.

 

Had I done that already? No, there'd been the violinist in Heartstrings. The painter in Colors of the Heart. I didn't think I'd done a sculptor. Wait, there'd been a sculptor in Heart of Stone... but he'd been the love interest. Could I double dip with an MC sculptor without anyone noticing?

 

Ah! No! “Sculptress”!

 

I'd have to look that word up to see if it was kosher.

 

Then I huffed a little laugh (the only kind I did anymore... what I'd have given for a belly laugh) and closed my eyes. Like any of it mattered. Back to sleep.

 

No more dreams came. No that I remembered anyway. I woke to sunlight, checked my phone, and it was 9. But I wasn't checking for the time. I wasn't checking for the two messages from Beth, either, and I didn't read them.

 

I opened the romance forum and went to /danayoung. My fan reddit. First post was a from user DanaOlds. The first lines were, “I can't believe you Muppets are really reading the same stuff I am. I'd swear these are paid reviews, but there's no way a hack like Dana Young makes enough to pay this many people. I'm...”

 

This wasn't her first post on the subreddit; they went back over a year, if you did a search, all of them trashing me and my stories. But this was the first time one had made it to the top; the first one that had gotten more upvotes than down. Which was fair; after all, DanaOlds was a better writer than Dana Young. At least she was passionate about something.

 

It was inspiring. So I switched browser profiles and signed in again, this time as DanaOlds.

 

It was amazing how much better I felt writing as her. And why not? I was writing what I knew, for a change. As Dana Young I wrote about about love and romance, and what the hell did I know about that? But as DanaOlds, I was writing about that hack Dana Young, and I knew every miserable detail about her.

 

I savored one post from someone gushing over The Sainted Heart. That absolute dog of a book, from back when I was playing with working in religion. I replied with “God will probably forgive you for enjoying that, but you should never forgive yourself. But hey, at least you’re not talking about Zen and Heart of Archery. I don’t think Jesus or Buddha could forgive that.”

 

A lot of Dana Young's stalwart fans were giving me grief, a few even resorting to very unromantic language to make their point. A number were asking why the moderators never did anything posts trashing the author the reddit was about.

 

Because I'm the moderator, you fucking goofs. Why would I kick out the only one of you with any taste?

 

But now DanaOlds had a squad of her own that was defending her. They weren't all in, they still called themselves Dana Young fans, but they were priding themselves on being “realistic” about it.

 

“I've probably read more than most of you,” HeartofDana78 wrote, “probably 24 books already, and you'd have to be crazy to expect all 24 weren't winners. Olds has some issues, but a broken click is still right twice a day.”

 

HeartofDana86 (oh god) wasn't happy with that: “I'm embarrassed to share a screenname with you!” Well how do you think I feel, sister?

 

I snarked back at a few of them, but my focus started to fade after awhile and, as always, it started to feel pointless. Oh, well, that was enough catharsis for one morning.

 

Time to pay the bills. The sculptor idea was the best I had to work with, so I put it through the process. First I checked off all 34 of my novels to make sure I hadn't done it before... and, yes, there was only Heart of Stone. That left the question of what I was going to call this one, but Beth would probably come up with something.

 

Then I took out the worksheet and started dropping in elements: MC, sculptor, call her, I don’t know, Dania for now. Love interest is... her model? That could work. A little cliche but what wasn't? A reverse-Pygmalion thing, maybe; he starts to fall in love with her as she carves his likeness. Or maybe she does. Both? No, both was no good, there'd be no conflict, no tease.

 

MC: Dania Michaels

 

LI: Her model (Mike? No she can't be Michaels and he’s a Mike. Figure it out later.)

 

Conflict: She... can't love because she's married to her art? Why not, I'd done sillier.

 

Rival/nemesis: The LI's: ... I circled “Ex” then crossed it out, wrote in “Art Teacher”. A painter, maybe?

 

I got an idea. Maybe I could use the painter from Colors of the Heart, years later, an older woman...

 

I deleted it. Don't complicate the process. Ah! The name of the painter MC's from Colors: Tanya. Call it an Easter egg, those romantic twits will eat it up. I was already writing DanaOlds’ mocking response in my head. “I thought for a second she was actually going to do something interesting and it turned out she's churned out so many of these she's had to start recycling names.”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Olds,” I said out loud.

 

I stopped typing. Woah. Maybe I was finally cracking. That had definitely been a mentally-cracking thing to do.

 

I should have a glass of wine. I looked at the clock. Only 10:30. Still, I was having a moment. No. I might be a hack but I was absolutely not a washed up romance writer getting wine-drunk alone at mid-morning. I'd wait for noon. For now, back to the plot chart.

 

Location 1: Um. New York? She could start in the glitzy art scene of New York and travel to Paris to learn romance, YES!

Meet-cute: Indie coffee shop near her studio. She needs a coffee, he's the barista? Why not?

 

Passions rise: She's started a new commission but her model can't make it; on honeymoon with his boyfriend? Yes, shows that even her model’s got a love life and she doesn’t. She asks around, someone sets her up with a new model, and it's barista boy! For the first time she doesn't see a body as just a body.

 

Notes: She doesn't usually do portrait sculpture. She's like a Sarah Peters, functional interactive, focus is on the materials, but she took the commission to do something different. (Also, needed the money? Maybe.)

 

I stared at the page. That was... specific of me. Sarah Peters. That was a real name. A real sculptor. I knew about her. Where did I know her from? Maybe from my research from Hearts of Stone.

 

Location 2: Paris. She has to fly out there with the piece. It'll cost a fortune to ship it, unrealistic, who cares? Some emergency, she has to finish it there, she brings baristo. (Crap, I’d have to stop calling him that or I'd start thinking of him as Barry, and you can't have a romance hero named Barry.

 

First kiss: A moment of excitement at the gala unveiling of the sculpture.

 

The Separation: He falls for her, she gets scared, scoffs at him, he leaves, insulted and heartbroken.

 

The Regret: She regrets it. What the hell is this field even for?

 

Belly of the Beast: She's lost her muse, her artistic vision.

• She cancels her next commission bc she can't think of an angle
• Starts to teach sculpture but doesn't take any joy from it., starts to see her students as suckers and posers wasting their time.
• She learns Barry's (FUCK!) become a top art model in Paris, because of her last piece. Bitter, she becomes a critic under a false name, writing hit pieces on artists who use him as a model; her article becomes wildly popular.
• People start to wonder who the critic is, so to throw them off the trail she trashes her own piece. As she writes it, she starts to agree with it.
• This is way too much going on in the Belly of the Beast. It'll have to be like a montage.

 

The Reunion: It's a year later, and she's gone full-blown impostor syndrome. By day she's doing corporate commissions where nobody cares what it looks like by day, and by night she's drinking cognac and writing her hit pieces, but now people have gotten tired of it; she's a has-been as both a critic and a sculptor. Then one day Barry walks in, now he's a big, mainstream male model. He's tracked her down, worked out that she's the critic – of some tell in her writing, something he noticed the first time he modeled for her and always remembered. He wants to know why.

 

Alright. That was enough to send to Beth. She'd be over the moon. And 11 was close enough to noon.

 

And by noon Beth was ecstatic. I had to threaten to hang up just to bring her down to human hearing range.

 

She squeed “I love it! I love it! I love it! This is going to be Heart of Louvre only times, like.... five!!!”

 

“Wasn't that a terrible seller?” I asked.

 

“Not if it’s times five! That's still more than your biggest! Which was Hearts on a Plane, by the way.”

 

I mused, “Yeah, writing a money grab to play into that movie was brilliant.”

 

“People underappreciate how romantic Sam Jackson is,” Beth nodded. We were on the phone but I knew her so well I could hear her nod.

 

“Alright, what kind of advance can you get me for this?”

 

“Dana, babe, you know I need more than this before I go to the table. We need an ending, first off.”

 

I was irritated. “We know how it ends. Happily ever after. Glint of a baby in Daddy's eye. Drive off in whatever the guy drives. The end.”

 

Why was I so irritated?

 

“Are you okay?” Beth sounded concerned. Beth was always concerned. “You sound.... irritated.”

 

“What did you call me?” I asked.

 

“Irritated? I wasn’t calling you that, I was--”

 

“Before that!”

 

“Dana,” she repeated. “Then I asked if you're okay because--”

 

“Before the ‘okay’ !” I snapped. “Did you call me 'babe'?”

 

There was silence for a second and she said, “Yeah. I call everyone 'babe', you know that. It's my one concession to the glitz and glamor of the media-industrial complex.”

 

“It's irritating!” I said. Snapped.

 

“O-kay...” The pause was exaggerated. Which I found irritating. “Has it always been?”

 

I sighed. “Look, I'm having a bad day, okay? I got this whole idea from a dream and it was a fucked up dream.”

 

“Why don’t you have a drink?” Beth suggested. “It’s past noon, right?” I looked at the just-empty wine glass on my desk. “I’ll try to hold off a little longer,” I said. “I need to be able to figure out the ending.”

 

“That’s my girl!” Beth said, then she stopped. “Is that okay?” she asked. “‘My girl’?”

 

“Yes, Beth,” I said with my eyes closed like a headache was coming on, but the headache was metaphorical. “It’s great. My girl. Babe. It’s all fine. You just be you, okay? Don’t mind me, I’m just going through the Change or something.”

 

“Oh, that’ll do it,” she said from experience. “But once you’re on the other side it’s all roses and buttercups. That’s not right, it’s roses and something. Or maybe it’s shits and giggles, I’m not sure. You’re the writer, you do the expressions. I’ll sell them.”

“You do that, Beth. I'll call you when I have this ironed out.”

 

It ironed like winter linen. Three days later, I'd progressed from the bottle of rosé to a box of red, and that was all. And on the third day, Beth called again.

 

She started right in with dreadful enthusiasm. “Talk to me, Dana!”

 

My metaphor started to flare up again. “I can't get it to work,” I said. “I let her go too far into the dark.”

 

“The darker the meat the sweeter the juice, ba-- Dana,” she said.

 

I rubbed my eyes. “Beth, you realize that's a racist thing, not a cooking thing, right?”

 

“What?” She sounded really taken aback. “I've been saying that for years. Nobody's ever said anything.”

 

I handwaved. “Maybe they didn't know.” She got quiet and I knew she was counting back on her conversations over the years. Beth was the only person I'd ever met who talks louder when she's thinking than when she's talking. Then she seemed to table it for later and went on. “What's the problem? He left, she got sad, he's back, she has her second chance at happiness. Are you not using your worksheet?”

 

“She's not sad,” I said, “she's broken.”

 

“Right, that's what makes it so powerful. This is the best story you've ever had. It's going win you a RNA for Contemporary. Love heals all wounds.”

 

“It doesn't,” I insisted. “She fell, and she broke. That's what sculpting a stone is all about; once you break a piece off, it stays broken and you have to work with whatever you have left.”

 

I started typing to give my hands something to do, before they did something stupid like pouring more wine. “what you still have.” Just random words I was saying to Beth.

 

She got quiet for just a second. “Yes, Dana, it does. That's one of the core principles of the genre.”

 

“Then I don't think I'm writing that anymore.”

 

“Dana, you can't write a romance novel for 300 pages and then turn into Flannery O'Connor at the end. I don't think Flannery O'Connor could have done that, and you're--” She broke off, too late for me to not finish the thought for her.

 

“Not Flannery O'Connor. I know. But I can't write this story and write an ending that I know makes no sense, either.”

Not Flannery O’Connor. Makes no sense.

 

“So what makes sense, then?” Beth asked, shifting back into sounding board mode.

 

“If anything made sense, I'd have written it by now. Therapy? Do you think anyone would keep reading while she talks to her therapist for ten or twelve years?”

 

“Is the therapist hot?” Always pragmatic, Beth.

 

“I can't start a slow burn 300 pages in, either.”

"slow burn”

 

“So what will her therapist tell her after twelve years?” Beth asked. “What makes her happy again? Shortcut to her realizing it on her own. An epiphany when she sees the barista's face again.”

 

“Cuts don't work,” I said before I heard the words in my head (but not before I’d typed them: Cuts don’t work). “Shortcuts, I mean. And. She was never happy.” (never happy) “She was just... looking forward to being happy. Someday. And now she's not anymore. But now she knows that Barry was never going to make her happy. No sculpting awards were ever going to make her happy.” (ever going to make her happy.)

 

“Happy endings are what we do, Dana. Happy, sexy endings, preferably after dramatic, sexy middles. You've got 25 pages to get her there. Maybe you can start with her happy and work backward to see how she got there.”

 

“Sure,” I said. “How about I just have her sculpt a hot guy and he comes to life?” (comes to life)

 

“You could start it out that way, romantasy is big now. Maybe you should. You haven't written that 300 pages yet, remember? It's just an outline; go back and change what you have to change to make it work out. And if it's not going to, now's when you should stop and we can pitch something new.”

 

“I--” I got stuck for words. I what? What?! “I... think it's too late. Too late to stop. I'm... committed.”

 

“You're committed to a story you don't know how to end?” Beth suddenly sounded curious but not angry. “Dana, are you passionate about a book again? I haven't gotten that from you since Pair of Hearts, and, I'm not trying to give too much weight to this, but that was your biggest seller after Plane.” 

 

“The book?” I think I actually snorted. “Not the book. But I... I need to figure out the ending.”  

 

“Well,” Beth finally said (I could hear her squared shoulders), “when you figure it out, let me know. Then we can either start this one or do your Pygmalion romantasy, either way.”

 

“Bye--” I started, and she hung up before I was through.

 

Fuck it. I logged into my fan forum. What were the Muppets saying today?

 

It was quiet. Only 5 posts. Nothing of note in any of them; what page they were on of what book, the Main Character of this book reminds them of the Best Friend from that. DanaOlds would be bored. I was bored. I'd have been ecstatic years ago, to have people even interested in them. When did I get so far away from that? Years ago, of course. No matter. DanaOlds didn't need anyone to start the party for her. I logged in as her.

 

Everything was starting to get fuzzy. I was supposed to wear my glasses for writing.

 

I reached for my glasses without looking and knocked them off the desk. Shit. It had gotten dark and the only glow was the computer monitor, but it had sounded like they'd landed on the table below. I felt around on the table and knocked over the wine glass. “Shit!“ I snatched blindly at the stem to try to grab it and sent it flying, heard it shatter.

 

I turned on the desk lamp. There were shards glinting here and there on the parquet, but a big piece was still intact. I picked it up, carefully, by the stem. The rim was gone, and about half the bowl. A few drops of wine ran down from the sides to gather in the bottom. I looked at the jagged edges for a moment and felt something familiar start to move. I heard myself mutter, “I should do something with this.” Then my focus shifted and I saw the words on my screen, sharp as anything though the glass:

 

Cuts don’t work

 

I’d said that. It was true. But.. maybe it's not the cutting that's the problem. Aren't we always cutting? What's editing but cutting? Maybe it's where we cut that matters. Less smashing, more sculpting. If the edges get hardened, you cut off what needs to be smoothed away, and start whole limbs over.

 

I took a deep breath. Then another. I clicked my forum account, then Settings.

 

Delete Account.

 

Are your sure? This cannot be undone.

 

My pointer hovered over it, and I realized I wasn't breathing. I inhaled. On the exhale, I clicked Yes.

 

And just like that, DanaOlds was gone. And I was staring at the forum, being  asking to log in. I had my moderator account “RomQueen1978”, but I didn’t want to moderate. I was sick of moderation.

 

I hovered a minute or two. Then I clicked, Log In. Then, Sign Up

 

email: dana@danayoung.com

 

I verified. Finished up the login info. Then I was looking at a blank profile, needing a user name.

 

DanaYoung

 

That username is already taken.

 

Well crap.

 

DanaYoung1979

 

That username is already taken.

 

Oh, God, please let that not be one of the followers on my forum.

 

DanaYoungRomance

 

I stared at it for a few seconds and backspaced.

 

DanaYoungAuthor

 

I hesitated.

 

DanaYoungWritesThings

 

I hit submit, and that one cleared. Go figure. Then the blank bio stared into my soul. Tell people about yourself. God, I don’t even know. I did the only things that ever worked with writers block: just let my fingers start typing.

 

I’m Dana. I’ve been writing all my life, and that’s been a long time, and so I’ve written a lot of things. Some of it people have liked. Some of it not so much.

 

And I don’t have a beat sheet for what happens next.