Chapter Text
Jeannie Nelson, as she had been known for forty-six of her two-thousand and eighty years, realized something was wrong as soon as she woke up that June morning. It took her a moment to realize what it was. The room was too quiet. Deathly quiet. Anthony’s CPAP, which she usually barely noticed, was not on, she realized. She turned her head to look at her husband, as she did every morning after she woke up, and knew.
He was gone. He had left her. He finally went to a place where she could not follow.
Emotions swirled around her, nearly overtaking her sense of self. She looked down and realized that the entire lower half of her body had disappeared. Feeling herself fading, as she had back when she was so unhappy about not knowing when her birthday was, she closed her eyes and forced happy thoughts through her mind. Not of Anthony. No, Anthony was too painful. But their children. And their grandchildren. The people Anthony expected her to be there for now that he was gone. She would survive this pain for them.
She opened her eyes to see her feet and legs had returned. Standing up, it felt as if she were weighed down with boulders, but she managed to do it. She walked over to her husband’s side of the bed and ran her fingers through his hair. She placed a kiss on his cold forehead, his lips obstructed by the CPAP mask.
Then she made the calls that would separate her from her husband as he left their home for the final time.
---
“Do you promise to be true, and a faithful husband, to care for her in sickness and in health, adversity and prosperity, and forsaking all others, keeping yourself only for her as long as you live?”
“I do,” Anthony declared without hesitation.
Jeannie, riding a cloud of joy and excitement, does not notice the time limit on her husband’s vow, only that he made it.
----
The people kept coming. The downstairs of their home filled with friends, family, and people who were nosy and people who wanted to appear to be a great friend to a famous man. It had taken Jeannie many years to understand why Anthony always said he was a man with a few good friends when so many proclaimed him their friend. It took her years to appreciate that real friends, like Roger, were rare in the mortal world.
Roger. TJ had blinked to his home and woke him with the news before they were ready to share it with him. They had wanted to give him time to sleep in, knowing that he rarely slept at night, wanted to let him rest, but a funeral home employee or someone at the Justice of the Peace’s office apparently called in a tip to the local news station. And the death of one of the twelve astronauts that walked on the moon was still a big story. They would not let Anthony’s best friend, a man they all loved dearly, possibly find out about his loss via a phone call from a reporter asking for a quote.
She and Anthony had dinner at Roger’s place the night before last. She’d blinked everything he wanted, but he hadn’t wanted much. The huge lists he gave her in his youth were gone. Like her husband, his appetite was small and getting smaller every year. They had laughed and talked about the old days in Cocoa Beach in a way they hadn’t talked about them in a long time.
When TJ blinked him into their living room a few hours ago, he’d aged years since she last saw him. She’d hugged him, not as tightly as she wanted because these mortal bodies got weak as they aged. She’d had to learn to hug Anthony softer over the years, as his hugs got weaker from his lost strength.
When she finally lost all patience with the people in her home grieving the man she loved, she disappeared into their bedroom. The only room downstairs not filled with people. The only place she could find peace. It used to be Anthony’s office, but after his CABG surgery he’d asked her to blink his office upstairs and their bedroom downstairs. She thought he would go up to his office frequently after he healed, but he had not. He found it difficult to visit the upstairs these past few years, only going a few times to sort through some papers before they were donated to a library.
She stared down at the bottles of medicine on the dresser. She started to sort them into the pill minders as she did every Wednesday only to realize that Tony had not taken his morning medication yet. That he would not take his medicine ever again.
“He’s glad he doesn’t have to take that handful of crap anymore,” Roger said from behind her.
She chuckled. “Yes, he is.” Anthony, used to being in peak physical condition in his youth, had hated what aging did to him, even as he appreciated the years he spent with those he loved.
She turned to look at Roger. He was looking at her with the same, if older, eyes he’d looked at her with for over fifty years. He was the only one looking at her the same today as he had the last time he saw her. Everyone else, including her children, were looking at her with worried eyes. Watching and waiting for her to fall apart and cry.
She couldn’t find the energy to cry. Couldn’t dig through the numbness to find the pain to cry.
“You know, at dinner the other night, while you were talking to Angela on the phone, Tone told me that when he passed, he knew he would only have one regret.”
“Oh?”
“Leaving you.”
The numbness parted for a moment, letting a flash of anger through. He had left her. Left behind a grieving widow with no idea how to return to the genie she was before she met him. Before he became a part of her.
Roger leaned heavily on his cane. “There are not many people who leave this world with that little regret, Jeannie. He lived a good life. A great life. You helped give him a wonderful life, Jeannie.”
She looked down. The tears still would not come. “I hope so.”
“I know so.”
Nodding, she tried to smile and walked over to stand beside her friend. She took his arm in hers and helped him walk over to the two wingback chairs next to the window. Her and Anthony’s chairs. They both pretended that she wasn’t the one mostly helping him stay up on weak legs.
They sat in the dimming light for several minutes. “Do you ever regret it?” Roger asked. Jeannie tensed, waiting for him to finish Anthony’s question. Not knowing what she would answer. Instead, he finished with, “Not marrying me instead?”
She looked over to see his large grin, and she laughed with Roger until her sides hurt. Then, she sat on the armrest of the other chair and held Roger as he sobbed.
---
Anthony held Jeannie in front of him, his arms wrapped around her waist, with her leaning back on his chest, as they watched their children play in their fenced-in backyard. TJ, their oldest at five, kept an eye on his sister as she struggled to keep her balance in the sandpit. Expecting at least some jealousy, Anthony and Jeannie were thrilled when their son had instead adopted the role of protector and caretaker when they brought home his sister.
And Angela often needed his help. Not because she was needy or unwilling to try for herself. No, just the opposite. She’d inherited her father’s drive to do everything for herself, as well as his love of exploration. So, at just over two years of age, she often ended up being places that she had no business being while doing something she had no business doing. They often wondered aloud if she was already showing signs of being a genie when she managed an amazing feat for one so young, but so far, they’d never caught her performing magic.
“It’s okay,” Anthony said when he noticed TJ looking between his sister who was still playing in the sandpit with him and the bucket next to the blue plastic swimming pool they’d been playing in earlier. TJ smiled at his father for granting permission and blinked. The bucket slowly lifted and moved towards their son before settling down beside him. Both kids began to fill it with their hands.
“Wow,” Anthony said softly. “That’s the first time something has made it all the way to him with just one blink. They’re growing up so fast, Jeannie.”
“I know,” she said, stroking her hand over his. “It will be no time, and he will be a hundred years old and an adult.”
“A hundred? Djinns become adults at a hundred years of age?” Anthony laughed.
“Oh, yes,” she said, enjoying the sight of her children building sandcastles. One day, in the future, she will show them how to blink real castles into existence. “It is a big day of celebration. The parents of the new adult always throw lavish parties. We will have to start planning at least a year before, Anthony.”
She can picture it now. Anthony will just have to relax and let her blink the party she wanted. He will roll his eyes when he sees all the lavish food and the animals and the musicians….
He tensed behind her, and she looked at the children to see if something was wrong. They were still carefully digging out their moat. Rather brilliantly, she thought with parental pride.
“Jeannie,” Anthony said, his voice soft, letting her know he was going to discuss something she would not want to hear.
It takes a moment to realize why the sudden change. Anthony will not be there to see all the hard work she planned to do for their son’s coming-of-age party. Mortals barely reach the age of a hundred, and they never make it several decades older than that age.
She quickly stepped out of his embrace before he could say the words she didn’t want to hear. Can’t hear. “I need to start preparing supper,” she said as she rushed towards the sliding glass door.
“Jeannie,” he said again. But she ignored him and entered their home, closing the door behind her. Closing the door on a conversation she does not want to have.
---
She hated everything about the day of her husband’s funeral. The heat of the sun radiating down on the large crowd outside the cathedral as they made their way in and out of the service. The feel of the black dress that seemed to be choking her. The flash of the cameras and the solemn speeches from blowhards who had only met her husband in passing, if they met him at all. The giant reflective sunglasses and the black pillbox hat with a thick half-veil she wore over her eyes kept the curious from seeing her reaction.
TJ’s hand she gripped tightly while trying to be gentle with Roger’s hand on her left. Angela sat on the other side of Roger, helping to comfort a man she called “Uncle” while also reaching around him to grip her mother’s shoulder every so often.
Anthony chose to accept the state funeral offered to him a few years ago. Had decided to go with pomp and circumstances. He tried to talk to her about it once. She told him she would respect his wishes, and do all that he wanted, but she did not want to know anything about it beforehand. He had respected her request.
She sat in the crowded cathedral in a dress trying to kill her while the world watched. Because that’s what he asked of her, and it was the last wish of his that she could grant.
---
Jeannie almost didn’t answer the phone. She was in the middle of preparing supper. Her husband had taken the kids to a baseball game. Sometimes she accompanied them, but most often she did not. She knew Anthony really enjoyed his days alone with the kids. He talked to her often about how hard it was for him to balance doing the work he loved and felt compelled to do with the family he adored. The ball games were easy to put on the calendar, and he could forget about space and deadlines and just enjoy the kids chatter as they sat in hard plastic seats watching grown men hit and throw balls. The kids enjoyed the time with just their dad, too, she knew.
At first, she doesn’t grasp what Maggie said, not comprehending the horror of it. She didn’t even remember how the phone call ended. She did remember Anthony’s yell as he rushed into the kitchen and yanked the burning hamburgers off the stove. His anger quickly evaporated as he turned to look at her, the phone headset still near her ear. He walked over and took it from her, obviously hearing the annoying beep that said the phone had been off the hook too long. “Jeannie?”
She couldn’t find the words to speak. He hung up the phone. “Jeannie?” he said again, as he laid his hands on her shoulder.
“Mark and Victoria were taking Lisa to her dance recital,” she said without emotion.
She saw Anthony’s look of concern deepen. “OK?”
She started to shake. “Maggie said they had an accident.”
“Is everyone ok?” he asked.
“Mark and Victoria were taken to the hospital.”
“Jeannie?”
Tears filled her eyes. How did these mortals do it? How did they survive in a world where so much bad could happen to the most innocent of them? “Lisa—Lisa was in the back seat where the truck hit them.” She grasped her husband’s arms so tightly he winced. “She di-di-died on the way to the hospital.”
Lisa and TJ had become fast friends from the first day of kindergarten. She still remembered seeing the little girl with her hair up in pig tails and her two front teeth missing on that day. Her smile and laugh had been infectious, and Jeannie’s not sure she ever saw that little girl without that smile on her face.
Her son is only ten. How is he supposed to understand death when she doesn’t understand it?
Anthony took her upstairs and ran a bath for her, leaving her a glass of wine and telling her he was going to order in pizza and call the kids in from playing. He would handle breaking the horrible, awful news to them. He took the next two weeks off work to help the children deal with their grief.
Neither of the adults acknowledged he also did it to take care of her.
---
Without thought, she followed her usual morning routine the day after the funeral. She sat in front of her vanity mirror, her various cosmetics in front of her. She blinked and her wet hair dried. It was long, hanging down to her bra line, where she’d often worn it when she first married. She’d not meant to style it this way, the length not flattering to her older face, but she had. She waited a moment and then realized she was waiting for Anthony to pop up in the reflection behind her, complimenting her, as he usually did as she got ready.
Shaking her head, she reached for her aging cream with unsteady hands. As she struggled to open the cannister, it hit her. She didn’t need to put it on anymore. This mask belonged to a woman who no longer existed. Her life as Mrs. Anthony Nelson was over. She had no husband to accompany, no person to be besides her true self anymore. She no longer had to pretend to age to stay by her husband’s side without anyone commenting on her youth.
The glass of the vanity mirror shattered, and Jeannie jumped, realizing she’d thrown the cannister of aging cream into it. “Mom!” she heard behind her, and she turned on the stool. Her son stood behind her, looking as surprised to be there as she was to see him. With his shirt only half tucked into his pants, he’d obviously been getting ready in the guest room above, the room that used to be his, when he heard the noise. Her children had learned at a very early age not to blink into their parents’ room if it wasn’t an emergency.
In all his years on the planet, TJ had never blinked into his parents’ bedroom until now. Jeannie wanted to believe there had been no reason for him to blink here now, but they both knew better. She started shaking. “He left me,” she said, as her breathing grew quick.
“Mom—”
“He left me,” she said again. Her volume rising with the pain swelling inside her.
Her son’s eyes, looking too much like his father’s right then, filled with tears. “Mom—"
“He’s gone,” she gasped as she started to finally cry. A wail of pain from so deep inside of her left her lips as their son grabbed her up off the stool and pulled her close.
She’d always loved her son’s hugs, even when his arms had been too little to circle around her. But right this minute, she hated it. Hated that as close as it was, his hug is not his father’s hug. His shoulder is too tall. His arms are just a little too long. And it had been many years since her Anthony had been so muscular.
She didn’t know how long she cried and shook in the arms of their son. It was as if somehow a raging flood had sprung out from within her, rushing over the barren landscape that had been there since she woke to find Anthony dead beside her. She just knew that when she finally could stop, finally did stop, that she would never be the same again. He was gone, and he took something with him.
She’d lived with mortals long enough to know that their grief became less raw with time, but she wasn’t sure hers would. She wasn’t sure she could ever forgive Anthony for leaving her, even though he had no choice. Not really.
And for a brief moment, a very brief moment, she regretted falling in love with a mortal.
---
She didn’t understand how quickly everything seemed to return to normal. There was a funeral, everyone grieved, with Mark and Victoria having aged decades in a week. To her surprise, they seemed distant with each other instead of leaning on each other as she’d seen them do after Mark’s father had died. Anthony said losing a child was different, and she could understand that fact, even as a genie. But she could not imagine turning away from the person who understood her pain the most.
Her children spent a lot of time wrapped in her arms over the next few weeks, looking for comfort from her, but even they seemed to accept that life continued after the dead left as more time passed. TJ even started to smile again, a different smile but still a smile, when walking into school, and a boy named Tim usually met him at the entrance like Lisa used to do.
But Jeannie could not get past it so easily. She began to blink into her children’s school rooms, hiding in coat pockets and behind pencil sharpeners. She only occasionally did this, but she began to spend a lot of time at NASA watching over her Anthony. Her children should live thousands of years, just like their mother, even if their father is a mortal. But their father is a mortal.
When she was not at NASA, she spent much of her time pacing, trying to figure out how to stop the inevitable. She began to chew on her nails, something she had not done since she was a child. She repaired her nails every day before the children got off their bus, before their father drove into the driveway.
She believed she was doing a good job hiding her apprehension.
Until one night, she and Anthony were standing outside on the patio. She was leaning back on his chest, his arms wrapped around her waist, his cheek pressed against her hair. The skyline over the trees separating their home from the neighbors was sparkling with a handful of stars. That skyline was getting smaller every year as the trees continued to grow. She wondered if the neighbor would notice if his trees mysteriously stopped growing.
Music played lightly in the air, an old jazz song that Anthony loved. It came from the small boom box sitting on their patio table. Roger, the music lover of their group, moaned about music mainly releasing on cassette tapes now, saying the sound was too clean, that the noise of the vinyl was part of the joy of listening to albums. Anthony said he loved the convenience of playing tapes. And the compact disc players were beginning to come down fast from their original $1,000 price tag, and Anthony claimed he would one day buy one. “You’re just going to have to accept that vinyl is dead, Roge,” he said to their friend more than once.
Looking up at the stars, Anthony said softly, “I’m glad you slept through the night last night.”
She bit her lip, surprised that he’d noticed how often she woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the ceiling. “I-I did sleep well.”
He nodded. “And I was glad to see that you actually ate most of your dinner instead of blinking it away when the children weren’t looking.”
She thought he wasn’t looking either. “It was very good.”
“Jeannie, sweetheart, you’re going to have to stop.”
She looked down at the ground and asked, “Stop what?” She wanted to chuckle, to act as if he hadn’t noticed what she thought he hadn’t noticed.
“You’re going to have to stop worrying about me. You’re going to have to stop spending all your time at NASA hiding in bookshelves and behind monitors.”
“I-I-I did not know you knew I was there. I-I did not know you could see me.” she said.
“Most of the time I can’t,” her Anthony admitted. “But I can always sense when you’re near me. Like I have a Jeannie radar. Or maybe I just have a little bit of my own magic.”
His own magic! Of course! The answer was obvious to see!
She turned in his arm and kissed him as if she hadn’t seen him for years. Then, after leading him to their bedroom, she made love to him with an enthusiasm that surprised them both.