Shaking Out the Dead by K.M. Cholewa

Author:K.M. Cholewa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FICTION/Literary
Publisher: The Story Plant
Published: 2014-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

25

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Tatum led Rachael back to their own apartment, blocking with her body the view of the UPS box in the hall. She decided to keep quiet that it was from Lee until she was certain there was a gift in there and that it wasn’t just a shipment of odds and ends that would make it look like he was clearing a space for a home gym.

Inside, Rachael stood in the middle of the living room, looking lost.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tatum said.

Rachael blinked as though not registering the question.

“Vincent?” she said.

Tatum did not mean Vincent. She meant the scar, the missing breast.

“Vincent came to see Geneva,” Tatum said. A fact she, herself, had registered.

“He said he was going to call you.”

Tatum was about to say, I don’t want him to call, but it caught on the inside of her lips. It was a new thought. A new idea. Was it true?

She approached Rachael and sat down on the coffee table, the trunk, to be eye level with her.

“You know,” Tatum said, “I do want him to call. But you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to tell him not to call again.”

Tatum wasn’t sure what she said was true, but it felt good to say it.

Rachael looked up at her. Her eyes were intelligent. She understood Tatum’s meaning. There’s power in rejecting the one who rejects you.

“Rachael,” Tatum said, unsure of what she would say next. “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened to you. I know you don’t want to be here. But you know, I’m happy you are. At first, I thought I could help you learn how to be sad and have it be okay. But I can’t now. Because now that you’re here, I don’t feel sad, myself, anymore.”

Rachael looked at the ground.

“It feels so good to have you in my life,” Tatum said, “that it makes me think I want Paris in my life more too.” Tatum swallowed. “Did you see Paris and me kissing each other?”

“Yes.”

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” she said but didn’t sound certain.

“Should we talk about the scar?” Tatum said.

Rachael said nothing.

“Want to see it? It’s scarier, I think, if you see it and look away fast than it is if you look closely.”

“Okay.”

Tatum unbuttoned her shirt, keeping it closed. When it was undone, she looked Rachael solidly in the eye.

“Ready?” she said.

Rachael nodded.

Tatum opened one side of her blouse and bra, revealing the gash. She looked down at it. She ran her finger along the tight seam.

“Here’s where they sewed me back up after cutting away the bad stuff.” She avoided the word cancer. Too scary. Too never-over. “It doesn’t hurt at all. You can touch it if you want, but you don’t have to.”

Rachael came forward. She reached up and touched the skin, puckered like pressed, old lady lips.

“The scar is worse than it could’ve been, but I didn’t do all the stuff that would help it go away.”

Rachael pulled her hand away but continued to look.

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