Elena (67 page)

She did not answer, nor did her eyes flutter in response. She took in a deep breath, then let it out slowly. Her breathing continued rhythmically. I listened to it for a while, waiting for it to stop. After a time I walked back into the front room and sat down. I could see her sitting in her chair, her hair like a silver fan across her shoulders.

For the next two hours, I made myself busy about the house. I washed things that did not need washing, swept corners already neatly swept. I did not want to go back in that room, fearing the worst, but I did so every few minutes.

She was breathing quite well at three o'clock. The clouds had cleared an hour before, and a slant of sunlight cut across the western corner of the room. It seemed like an impertinence.

I pulled up a small chair and sat down beside her. Then I reached over and took her hand.

“Elena?”

She did not answer. I did not bother to call her name again. She was breathing steadily, but in quick, shallow breaths. I leaned back in my chair, folded my hands in my lap, and waited. A few minutes later, I heard her take in a very deep breath, then the fingers of her hand unfolded and stretched out, as if in search of some final truth. She held her breath a moment, then released it with a sudden rush. She did not draw another.

I sat beside her, studying her face. I thought of various ways that I might describe it in a memoir or to the press. Exalted phrases came to mind, but I remembered that, toward the end, Elena had tried as much as possible to leave mere rhetoric behind.

I lifted her from the chair and brought her over to the day bed. I laid her down on her back, placed her arms at her sides, spread her hair over her pillow, and closed the robe around her throat.

There was still enough light for me to take a short stroll on the beach, so I walked down the stairs and turned right, heading slowly toward the jetty. It was very calm, and I was able to walk out onto the rocks. The water lapped softly at the stones beneath my feet.

At the end of the jetty, the water swirled in a white froth, moving in and out of the crevices like breath. I looked back toward the house, and from that distance I could see her chair sitting by the window, empty now. It seemed very small, and suddenly I remembered that first morning so long ago when they had brought her home, wrapped in a pink blanket, a child no larger than a rolled-up newspaper. I remembered how my father had lifted me into his arms so that I could look down at my sister. They are strange, our first impressions, but they are not as powerful as the last. And in the time that is left to me, I shall continually recall how very large she was.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

copyright © 1986 by Thomas H. Cook

cover design by Jason Gabbert

This edition published in 2011 by
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