Train Shots by Vanessa Blakeslee

Author:Vanessa Blakeslee [Blakeslee, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780984953875
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2013-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Hospice of the Au Pair

Dr. Sam Parkinson was slamming his hips into the groaning au pair, both of them gasping for breath, when he tilted his head and caught his reflection in the skinny mirror hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Grey halos circled his sunken eyes, and spidery red vessels burst across the whites. A voice like that of his thoughts, but not exactly—from somewhere deep and ancient and apart––asked, “Who am I?” He gave the au pair two more pumps, slid out, and collapsed onto the bath mat, still staring into the spotty mirror. But he must have said something aloud because the au pair made a low hmmph in her throat. She said, “You used to come inside me so good. What’s happened?” He tried to answer, but his tongue was thick and slow from the morphine.

Harriet, the au pair, peeled herself up from underneath him and stalked off in silence. On legs as lithe as an antelope’s, she had run marathons right out of Africa until, at thirty-one, she couldn’t run anymore. Her last race had been in Costa Rica, and once it was over, she stayed. With her pretty Kenyan English, she had posted an ad in the Tico Times, “Nanny for a wealthy expat.” Dr. Parkinson had hired her right away.

Now the doctor lay naked on the bath mat, the question still looping in his ears. Who am I and what am I doing? But to this, he could come up with no answer. He lay there for a few more minutes before crawling out, into the master suite. Then he dressed, shuffled downstairs to the conservatory, and dropped into his vigil chair beside his wife Mary’s hospital bed. Her breathing was shallow and vital signs faint. Her parents, with their hand-wringing and calling upon Jesus, paced in a nearby hotel in Escazú, waiting for a phone call, but he didn’t call them. The maids were murmuring in Spanish and cooking something that smelled like curry in the kitchen; the kids were laughing and building a Lego castle in the living room, but he didn’t interrupt.

He slumped in the chair and held Mary’s hand, silent tears skidding down his stubbly jaw, until the house fell into shadows and sleep.

She died in the middle of the night, without waking up to say goodbye to him.

•

The funeral was attended by the regular circle of expats and Ticos that Sam and Mary had fallen into friendship with over the past five years. When asked how he was able to keep his head on straight, Sam reached over and squeezed Harriet’s arm. “This woman right here,” he said. “She’s an angel disguised as an au pair.” Harriet’s lips protruded into a sheepish smile.

The Parkinsons didn’t belong to a church, so Sam had Mary cremated and her ashes sealed in an urn, which he kept in the conservatory. In the days after the funeral, the maids surrounded the urn with Mary’s favorite orchids just as they had done for her when she was drifting in and out of consciousness.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.