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Becky awoke to the music of raindrops, a light pitter-patter gently rousing her from slumber.
She yawned, pulling off the rumpled sheets. The left side of the bed was empty, and promptly made – the sheets tucked in, the comforter pulled back a few inches, the pillows propped up. The small nightstand beside it was stalked with books in order of size, not a speck of dust tarnishing its ebony surface. Meticulous as always.
Seeing it made her smile. These days, anything could.
Her feet slipped effortlessly into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers, and she slowly put on a robe. Her movements were lethargic, not in any hurry. She was pleasantly drained of energy, happy to drift about her day at a snail’s pace. She gently fluffed her pillow as she fixed the bed, humming a melody she’d heard on the radio. She drew apart the curtains, letting in the sun’s silver light from beyond the clouds. She trudged into the corridor and glanced between the bathroom and the hallway leading elsewhere, contemplating when she already knew where she would turn.
As she did every morning, she made her way elsewhere. The kitchen was carved from marble and black wood, awash in early morning blue. Various utensils were spread across the island countertop: a mixing bowl, some spoons, a measuring cup, and chocolate chips. A few waffles towered high next to her, dressed in dollops of whipped cream, tart strawberry, and a handful of chips.
Becky popped a strawberry in her mouth, walking past the smell of honeyed breakfast and sweet fruit. The front door was propped open. She rose one eyebrow at the mud tracked shoes leading towards the kitchen and tsked, stepping through the arch that led outside.
Sometimes, the city had its way of feeling like another world. No industrial gunk, no gloomy steel buildings, no hustle or bustle. A miraculous quiet had descended onto the citizens, and for Becky especially, who had spent yesterday evening fighting grammar errors with red while fighting villains in red, the silence felt like a gift just for her.
It was destined to be a rainy day. Clouds hung above like knitted ornaments, and the sun’s dazzle shone over her in a muted, buttery yellow. In the distance, skyscrapers pierced the sterling sky like needles. The earth, damp and wet, glistened with secrets. Flowers danced in the wind, shedding their pastel petal gowns as they nestled behind thorny cages – and just beyond that, a young man, kneeling in the dirt, plucking candy-red strawberries.
“Tobey,” she began curtly, a budding smile on her lips, the envy of any posy. “What did I say about leaving the door open?”
“That dirt, leaves, rain, or shivering little creatures-” he cut off a vine, reaching for a particularly plump berry, “will find themselves in our home by some odd accord if I don’t close it.”
“Very good,” she taunted, using what he liked to call her Bossy Teacher Voice. “And look what we have here: A shivering little creature.”
“A shivering little creature with breakfast,” he remarked. A glint sparked in his eyes, and when Becky opened her mouth to get out a rebuttal, he pushed a strawberry into her mouth. She made a sound of defiance, but quickly surrendered to the taste of fruit on her tongue.
“Traitor,” she mumbled.
“Always devoted.” He winked. Never would he be able to pull off such a thing and make it look dreamy, but her heart squeezed regardless. A tentative finger brushed over the golden band on her middle. “Would you mind helping me? It’s going to rain soon, and I haven’t picked enough of these yet.”
She knelt down beside him and began plucking berries off vines. “What do you need so many for? I’m sure a handful are enough for breakfast.”
“I’ve got enough for that,” he admitted. “But I need a few to bake a cake.”
“Oh? For who?”
He blinked owlishly. “Goodness. You ought to retire if you’ve been busy enough to forget that today is your birthday, Becky.”
Her working hands halted. “Oh. Oh, stars, it is my birthday. How did I forget that?”
“A combination of mind-numbing fifth-grader essays and inconsiderate newbie villains, that’s what,” he muttered dryly. “I don’t know why you subject yourself to the horrors of the education system, dear.”
She rolled her eyes. “I enjoy teaching, for your information. And sure, I have been a little busy. But everyone forgets their birthday sometimes.”
He stared at her. “You are aware of how depressing that sounds, right?”
“Okay, maybe,” she huffed. “Still, I had it circled on my calendar and everything. I even wrote in in my pocket planner.”
“That thing?” Tobey scoffed. “I’m surprised you ever use it, considering how often your schedule changes.”
“I like pretending I have control of things.”
“Clearly.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. She was twenty-one, but always felt like a kid with her husband – knowing no bounds, limitless in a way the company of others could never grant her. He made an equally immature gesture, and then she let out a giggle, and him a snort, and then they were laughing over a wicker basket of strawberries, their red color crackling like a hearth between them.
Then she felt a cold drop on her nose. Her eyelashes fluttered with puzzlement, before another droplet bled through her robe. Water slid down Tobey’s nose. Rain fell like a sprinkling of fairy dust, nestling like crystal seeds into the dirt, studded onto the strawberries in translucent beads, and dribbling against the ground in soft taps – the only sound in a world transformed.
“It’s raining,” Tobey observed.
“Is it? I think I would know if it was raining.”
He feigned annoyance. “I doubt it.”
“Doubting never got anyone anywhere, did it?” She stood up, tucking the basket under her arm. “Now, let’s not leave the waffles waiting. I’m famished.”
He brushed his hands on his apron – had she not known where he’d been, she would have thought the smudges to be chocolate – and prepared to head inside, when the sun made its way across the haze of clouds, like a curious eye sweeping past its fringe of hair. And that eye shed a radiance Becky had never felt before.
Perhaps it was the weather. Perhaps it was the cool temperature. Or perhaps it was her birthday, and maybe things were a little more magical on birthdays, even if they were twenty-first birthdays. But when she looked up, the sun gazed down at her, too, and suddenly the melancholy grey sky lit up in gold.
A touch warm as summer brushed against her ashen skin, and against Tobey’s pale complexion, and together they glowed like glass. Their garden shimmered, each leaf bedecked in dew, a few fluttering away as though late to a ball. The cobblestones under their feet shone like jewels waiting to be unearthed. Above, the clouds became a shocking white, and the rain that fell from them was golden, ichor melting into her cheeks.
“It’s raining,” Tobey repeated, but neither of them glanced at the door, still open, beckoning.
After a moment, she added listlessly, “it’s like a disco ball. The sun, I mean.”
She expected him to make fun of her obviously awful simile – she was too dazed to come up with anything remotely good – but instead, he found her empty hand, and with his left arm, brought her waist against his. She broke out of the sun’s spell and fell into his instead.
“Tobey,” she murmured, “what are you doing?”
“Under a disco ball, you dance,” he said simply.
“And from what cheesy young adult story did you find that tid-bit from?” she teased.
“Ours.” And he swept her off her feet, spinning them into the grass. Laughter spilled from her as they stumbled through silly, delirious steps, one foot there, one over there, a slipper lost to the fog. The earth was cool against her bare foot, and the wind brushed against her neck, guiding their loopy movements. The low mist shrouded them in isolation. In the back of her mind, she knew a car must’ve driven by, or a child must’ve been walking somewhere. Neither would ever see the couple dancing on their lawn.
The showers of gold soaked them. Her shirt stuck to her chest, and the stains in Tobey’s apron had melded into the fabric. Rain painted everything into place – his sweatpants, hair, smile. His eyes glinted mischievously every time he dipped her, and the glint seemed to pop like a firecracker every time she lifted him into the air for a twirl. The grass swayed, the sun pressed its bronze light harder on them, and the rain fell harder and harder, but Becky never lost sight of her husband.
It was strange, how even in his arms, he was leading her astray. He always was.
The ditzy waves of delight sunk as the sun hid behind the clouds. The rain lost its sheen, and everything seemed to dim, like performance lights after a show ended. Tobey laced her hand through his, and they stumbled into the house, still breathless. She shut the door with her heel, sealing away the bitter winds and reluctant drizzle.
“Well,” Tobey said, “we’re utterly drenched.”
“I’ve noticed.” She shucked off her other flipper, grimacing. “And I think we also left the strawberries outside.”
He sunk into the couch, peeling off his glasses. “I could go outside and retrieve them, then we could bake it after breakfast?”
“Or,” she proposed, sitting down next to him, “we can leave the strawberries to fend for themselves and order cake after a nap on the couch. They won’t miss us.”
“You want to nap on your birthday? Isn’t there anything else you’d like to do?”
Becky peered at the waffles, the cream and the cold coffee waiting for them. She thought of her planner, and the bullet points she’d written a few weeks ago. She might have visited her favorite museum with Violet, or hung out at a chic café with Victoria, or gone to see a noir film with Rose and Scoops. She might have brewed herself a cup of hot chocolate and sat on the bed grading essays, Tobey reading a novel by her side. They might have made that cake, sneakily covering each other in dashes of flour and dabs of chocolate when the other wasn’t looking.
The thought of wasting the evening away, curled up on the couch in a bleary half-sleep, sounded more enticing than anything else.
She smiled into his chest, listening to his heartbeat. “No. Nothing at all.”
They had all the time in the world, after all.
Eventually they did make the cake. Tobey took a picture of her while they made it – a polaroid of her licking a bit of cream from her fingertips, flour dusted in her fluffy hair, smudges of butter on her cheeks, scarlet strawberry glowing like lip tint on her upturned mouth.
He had taken it in secret, and so there was no hesitation in her amber eyes, nor a hint of a pose. He had captured Becky in the fullest, shining with youth.
She looked just as beautiful as she had on her twentieth birthday, as though nothing had changed at all.
A year passes. Another photo is taken – Tobey made it a tradition. This time, they made a chocolate cake, scalloped icing thick and tall, nearly toppling off the cake. Next year, they made butterscotch, then caramel, then plain vanilla with scattered gumdrops pockmarking the fluffy surface. Sometimes Becky would take the photo, and by her thirtieth, they were in the pictures together, beaming at the camera, making stupid faces, gazing at the dancing firelight as the number of candles grew, like soldiers lining up on frosting snow drift.
On harder days, Becky would sift through them, each one printed and tucked in a small red box for safekeeping. Her twentieth. Her twenty-third. Thirty. Forty-five.
In each one, they stood side by side, never without a smile. She gazed at the latest one, her forty-seventh. In it, she was nibbling on a slice of carrot cake, icing smeared on her cheeks.
A sigh drifted from the mirror, where her husband stood, scrutinizing his reflection. “They’ve arrived.”
“You didn’t invite anyone over, did you?”
“Please,” he snorted. “I meant these .” He bent down, and she peered at his scalp. Amongst the golden strands of hair were a few silver ones. “Grey hairs.”
“Looks like you’ve finally caught up to me,” she mocked, one hand absently tugging on a few of her grey curls. “I’ve had these since middle school.”
“Yes, but yours are from stress. I’m just getting-” he shivered - “old.”
“Oh no, the natural human life cycle!”
“Your comedic genius never fails to amuse me,” he deadpanned, then rubbed his scalp. “Does it look okay?”
“I think it completes the whole scientist look,” she said. “You could definitely be a lovely Victor.”
“Don’t compare me to the deadbeat,” he huffed. “And just you wait – soon we’ll both be old seniors. I’m dreading it.”
“I’m sure you are,” she teased, patting her lap. He laid his head there, grumbling half-muffled complaints, and she stroked his hair, the blonde locks mingling with sodden grey. They fell asleep, and the conversation drifted into the ether.
“Oh, honey,” her mother crooned. “You look so young. Like a day hasn’t passed.”
Becky blushed, pushing a plate of dessert forward. Her mother pinched her cheeks and helped herself to some fudge. They sat in her childhood home, on the same ratty brown couch, in front of the TV where she watched Pretty Princess canter across the screen, next to the kitchen where her father cooked while humming sea shanties.
The nostalgia draped across her shoulders like a mourning shawl. “Thanks, mom. How’ve you been?”
“You know,” she gushed, “I’ve decided to hang up my badge. Now I’m training the new assistant DA. I’m sure you’ve met them.”
Becky nodded, breaking a cookie with deft fingertips. “I have. She’s really polite. A little kooky, but maybe it runs with the job.”
Her mother batted her arm. “Well, aren’t you a charmer. I think she’ll do nicely. Already locking up villains and it’s only been a week! But enough about me, how are you?”
“Good,” she said honestly. “Celebrated my birthday last week, actually.” She slid their annual cake photo across the coffee table. Her mother squinted at it through her pointed glasses.
“Grey hairs already? That boy’s working himself to the bone.”
“Mom, I have grey hairs, too.”
“That includes you, Becky,” her mother chastised. “Working all day and night! This superhero business is draining you, dear.”
“I’m managing it just fine,” she muttered, pointing a disgruntled finger to her face. “See? Not a wrinkle.”
“Yes,” her mother murmured, bony hands brushing against the polaroid. “Not one.”
“Becky, I’m fine .”
“Falling down the stairs and breaking your leg is not fine , McCallister,” she snapped. “Now hush and drink your tea.”
Her husband grumbled and lifted his saucer in defiance. “You’re making this much more dramatic than it was. I only tripped.”
“And fractured a limb! Lean back, please, I need to adjust this cushion.”
Tobey did as she asked, still looking petulant. He sat on the couch, his injury wrapped in a thick cast and resting on an altar of pillows Becky had cobbled together from various rooms in the house. A fire crackled in the hearth, shedding amber light on their silhouettes. Shadows curled against the couch like strays, heat keeping them at bay. Snow fell lightly outside, white blanketing the window in a pair of delicate curtains.
Becky huffed and plopped down on the couch. “Stars, and before Christmas, too. I should probably call your mother and tell her we won’t be-”
“We will. I’ll heal in time.”
“The doctor says it won’t be until about seven weeks. We – especially you – aren't going anywhere with that leg,” she said sternly. “And don’t even think about building anything to try and speed up your recovery. You’ve got to take it easy and let it happen naturally.”
He splayed a dramatic palm over his forehead. “Oh, the agony. And whatever shall I do, bedridden and forbidden from enjoyment?”
“You can shut up and sleep,” she offered, kissing him before he could respond. A muffled sound of protest – because Tobey always fought against her one way or another – before a rugged hand slipped into her curls and gently pulled her downwards. One kiss fell on his lips like snow, soft and gone in a wink, then another. A blizzard of kisses sprinkled over the faint freckles on his cheeks. Another on his nose, then one for each eyelid, framed with golden eyelashes like icicles.
“Shutting up,” he murmured, when she spared him the breath.
“Rightfully so.” She sounded smug, but her insides were blooming, organs crushed under the weight of flowers. Her fingers carded through his loose ponytail. His hair had grown longer, disheveled, curling at the nape of his neck. The grey strands had multiplied into a single thick streak of silver down the middle.
He must have noticed her staring, as the flush in his cheeks spread through his wobbly smile. “At this rate, I’m going to look like Doctor Two Brains. Yet your hair hasn’t changed a bit.” He sighed, wistful and dreamy. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’re still as luminous as ever.”
Her eyes twinkled. “You shouldn’t. But rest assured, you aren’t half-bad.”
“I’ll be completely bad by next year,” he bemoaned. “My bones will break of their own miserable accord.”
“Then I’ll carry you everywhere,” she conceded, brushing another kiss against his lips. “Wherever you want to go. Unless you’ll find a way to turn back time?”
“Maybe I’ll build a time-machine,” he murmured, “and fall in love with you all over again.”
Becky brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. “You’d have to hate me first.”
“I never stopped. I always hated you, I just loved you more than I despised you.”
“How did you despise me, Tobey?” she whispered. “How much did you hate me?”
“So much, dear.” His smile was incandescent. “I hated how, even on my robots, on top of the world, you were always higher. You crushed anything I could ever built. You made me weak, but I was already weak. All of this-” he pointed to the cast on his legs - “isn’t new. I’ve always ached for you.”
Her lips parted, revealing something brighter than any smile. The word hate had never tasted so sweet.
“Tobey, could you pass me the newspaper?”
Silence. Becky stumbled into the basement, where her husband had made his makeshift laboratory.
“Tobey?”
He was hunched over an automaton, wrangling a bunch of wires into its neck. He wasn’t wearing any noise-cancelling headphones, as he wasn’t working with any power tools. If he’d been listening to music, he would have used the speakers, and the tell-tale melody of piano would have greeted her at the basement door.
Oftentimes, he grew so engrossed in his work that he shut out anything else, but the focus tended to break after she called him more than once. She inched closer, confused. His stance didn’t change, and he continued to hum under his breath as he worked. The morning newspaper hung limply over the table, oil seeping into ink.
She sighed. And there went her read. “Tobey?”
Finally, his head pivoted from the automaton. He flinched when he saw her mere feet away. “Becky? When did you get there?”
“A moment ago. I called you thrice,” she said, frowning. “Are you okay?”
He let out a nervous chuckle. “Well, I have been having some issues with my hearing lately.”
“Oh.” She wrung the green sleeves of her sweater, twisting the fabric tightly. “Are you-”
He waved a flippant hand. “I’m fine. Actually, I was planning on building a pair of hearing aids after I finish this project.”
She peered down at the table, where a robot lay, half-assembled. It was average height, with chipped pale paint and limbs of stormy iron. Its chest cavity was open, revealing a tangle of wires, pipes, and an empty battery holder, its terminals gleaming. Chin up, golden hair flowed from a metal scalp. Underneath those eyelids, she knew there would be a startling, icy blue.
“Is this...Tobot?” Her gaze sparkled with reminiscence.
“2.0,” Tobey preened. “I was helping mother move out, and found him in my old laboratory.”
“The garden shed.”
“Laboratory,” he said swiftly. “At any rate, nostalgia has fueled this particular endeavor.” He patted Tobot’s leg. “He should be finished in a few days.”
“Remember when you used him to win field day?”
“Yes, and then you humiliated me, as usual.” He sighed dramatically. “And all over a pack of markers.”
“To be fair, they were Prismacolor premier double-ended bleed-proof markers. Whatever that means.”
“And in a stunning array of a whopping seven colors,” he added. “Enticing. Although this robot won’t be playing dodgeball. I’m not sure if it has a purpose yet. I’ll figure it out later.”
“And I look forward to it, but you should probably take a break to build those hearing aids.” She pressed a swift kiss against his cheek. “I don’t want you struggling to hear. It could lead to an accident.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he joked. “Shall I build a pair for you, too?”
“I haven’t been having any troubles,” she mused. “Maybe it’s an alien thing?”
“Or,” he suggested, “your supersonic hearing has regressed to normal human hearing.”
“I doubt it.” Becky made a face. “I can still hear Mrs. Periwinkle singing Abba songs in the shower at six in the morning.”
Tobey barked out a laugh, sharp and wicked, the one thing that hadn’t aged as the rest of him had. Becky shook her head fondly and retrieved the newspaper, using a nearby napkin to dab out the oil until the crinkled page was half-legible. She turned to leave him to his work, her mind wandering to the coffee on the stove that must have scorched by now. At the entrance, her mouth opened and uttered a familiar triad of words, words that they’d exchanged over the years so easily that they bubbled forth like spring water, crystal and clear and true.
“I love you.”
Silence. He hadn’t heard her. She hadn’t expected him to.
It’s the first time he hasn’t responded, and it isn’t the last.
Tobey had never truly built for himself before.
Every enormous robot he’d made as a child was for Wordgirl – after all, it could not be his creation if all he thought of during its creation process was her. Later, he made gifts for Becky Botsford, ones less menacing, more affectionate. Trinkets – a little ballerina for her bookshelf, a cleaning robot to organize her room when she was too busy crime-fighting, baubles that glowed when you touched them. He carved out his soul and put it in everything he built, bloody and raw, putting a living, breathing heartbeat into each of his works, because they lived just as he did, and they lived for others.
Now, all he did was build for himself. It wasn’t pleasurable. There was no spike of blissful delirium when he’d solved a particular puzzle, nor the familiar buzz of coffee commanding his midnight movements like a puppet master.
Instead, there were the hearing aids. A polished grey, put together with his own scarred, gnarled digits. It did not feel like an accomplishment.
Nor did the new leg braces he made, thin and made of fiberglass, because his knees were knobby and hurt to stand on for long periods of time. The shocks of pain were still there, piercing his veins like an awkward stab to the spine. He would clench his jaw until his teeth hurt more than everything else. The pain never went away after that, but he could pretend it did.
Working made him tired. The thrill he’d always felt was gone. How could he feel exhilaration when he could barely run without wincing? When, with every breath he took, he felt like his lungs would shatter?
Then I’ll carry you everywhere , Becky had told him. But she couldn’t. He would lay in her arms, and he would fall apart, because even her gentlest touch was more than he could handle.
And so he built for himself. He built to save himself, whatever was left. The final thing he made was a pair of contacts. The same sky blue as his eyes, which had clouded over.
A pair of contacts, all the better to see his wife with, her grin everlasting, her limbs fit and healthy, her entire body a metal spring: always bouncing back in a way his would never be able to do again.
(Sometimes, he wondered if she’d ever felt weak in the way he did. And then he’d shake his head, and laugh, because that – that, was absurd.)
Everyone noticed. Everyone talked.
“You see that young girl?” the people would say, gossiping as one. Becky strode by them, ducking into her hood. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Would you believe it if I said...”
Becky closed her eyes, hopping onto the bus, shoving her hands into her pockets. Any bit of skin she could hide, she would.
“...that she’s in her fifties?”
A gasp. A face of surprise. Wonder, curiosity, hatred.
“Only?”
“But she looks barely twenty.”
The bus hissed to a stop. She tumbled off, heading into the grocery store. Her shopping list arranged itself in her head – milk, eggs, jam, spices.
“What type of facial cream is she using?”
The milk was cold in her hands. And then she thought, well, of course it was, and shoved it into her basket. The eggs were cold, too. They would crack if she dropped them, wouldn’t they? Gravity would pull them down, and there was no fighting that. They would break.
“It must be something expensive.”
The jam had a flavor, but Becky can’t tell. She knew it was Tobey’s favorite, but the colors seemed to change, purple and pink and orange. Her reflection changed with each turn of the jar. The grocery store’s air was stale and dry. There was nothing to sustain a living thing. How did nobody see that but her?
“Maybe it’s surgery.”
The spices were all packed in separate containers. Maybe they shouldn’t have been, she thought blankly. Maybe they should all be in a canister together. She wouldn’t taste the difference, and they were all spices. Bitter and sweet and sour, but they were all spices. Spices, spices, why did she bother cooking with them when she couldn’t taste their flavors anymore?
“It has to be, but it just looks so natural...”
She checks out. Her hand scraped against the sharp edge of a magazine rack. Blood bubble up from the cut.
It clotted, dried, and skin spread over it. Where there had once been a small, crimson line, there was only a smooth swath of copper skin.
She ran from the grocery store, clutching her hands so hard they might have broken.
Might have.
“Natural? There’s nothing natural about it.”
Becky didn’t see her friends anymore.
They were worried. They sent letters, which fell in a heap in front of the door. Even from the kitchen table, she could tell which letter was from whom. The cursive letters, artful and delicate, were Violet’s. The crisp, type-writer-esque print belonged to Scoops. The bad penmanship was Rose. The perfect calligraphy, Victoria.
Tobey offered to tell them she wasn’t feeling well, but she decided not to. Saying that implied she was going to get better.
“Becky?” Tobey’s voice was soft in the night. “Are you awake?”
She cracked a single eye open. “I am now. What’s wrong?”
“Funny, I was just about to ask that about you.”
“Nothing.” She was faced away from him, her curls spread apart on her pillow like a halo. “I’m just...not feeling well.”
“Finally caught up to me, hm?”
A moment of silence. Then: “I hope so.”
He woke up at the crack of dawn.
Tobey stretched his arms, dressed in pants and a sweater. He walked down the hall, one hand on the wallpaper. He’d left his contacts on his night table, and his vision was getting worse. He dreaded the day he would have to sit and make a robotic cane for himself.
But today wasn’t about him, and so he wouldn’t think about it. He opened the door, a brisk fall chill greeting him. The cobblestones were wet from rain, and mist sparkled like a myriad of stars, fallen to the earth. Later at night, he would take Becky to the roof, and there they would see a real meteor shower, brief and beautiful. He would make it last.
He ran over the ingredients for a cake in his head – strawberry, a repeat, but a classic. They had no strawberries, since Becky hadn’t been well enough to tend to the garden. He would buy a pack, and bake the treat for her. She seemed so tired these days. He could surprise her.
The mist shrouded his sight. He grumbled and stumbled through, searching the air for his vehicle.
Lights, bright and blinding.
The meteor shower must’ve started early , he thought, just before the car hit him.
The meteors fell. They fell, like the tears of a god, weeping and weeping and weeping.
(She is no superhero. She is no superhero. She is nothing at all, a Niobe, crying over something that can never be reversed, because if she were a real hero, she would have been able to.
Tobey deserved a hero. But instead, he got her.)
Becky awoke to the sound of raindrops, a light pitter-patter rousing her from slumber.
She yawned, pulling off the rumpled sheets. The left side of the bed was a mess of sheets and pillows shoved from their places. The nightstand was empty.
Her feet slipped effortlessly into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers, and she slowly put on a robe. Her movements were lethargic, not in any hurry. There was never anything to hurry to. She trudged into the corridor and glanced between the bathroom and the hallway leading elsewhere.
She went to the bathroom. She brushed her teeth, and washed her face. She thought of fixing her hair, and didn’t.
The kitchen was carved from marble and black wood, awash in early morning blue. The island countertop was empty. She set a kettle of water to the stove, and thought of breakfast. She didn’t make anything. Instead, she opened the door, where rain crashed against the world outside. She stepped into the torrent, walking to the garden.
“It’s raining,” she said. The sun did not greet her. The man standing in the garden turned to her, his movements robotic and stiff. His eyes were blue. They didn’t squint. His hair was perfectly blonde, not a strand of grey to be seen.
“It’s raining,” she repeated, walking up to him. She leaned her head against his chest. Here, she could ignore the cold of his steel skin underneath the sweater Tobey would never wear. She could pretend that the oil pumped beneath it was his heartbeat.
She took its hands, the chill stinging her. She looked at his face, his still eyes, his fixed frown.
The rain soaked her to the bone. She held him closely, tears pricking at her eyes. They left as quickly as they came, because so much time had passed that she couldn’t bring her heart to bleed any longer. Her house was between two different homes now. The grocery store was a block away now. Wordgirl’s museum had celebrated its 100th anniversary.
She squeezed his hand too tight. He began to fritz, and the rain peeled at his rust, and he fell to pieces in the garden.
She wished she knew what that was like. To fall to pieces. To be hurt, to heal.
Maybe one day she would. After all, she had all the time in the world.