It was raining. In fact the pouring rain made things outside so dense, that Anna could not see the gazebo from the bedroom window. Clouds were dark blue, as she stood motionless by the window listening to the sound of the storm. Joseph moved in bed and she rushed to him. "Do you need anything, honey?"
He opened his eyes. They were yellow. His face was not pale but yellow. She feared that the time had come. She kneeled on the bed and touched his forehead. "I am calling for an ambulance."
Suddenly Joseph grabbed her hand. In his extreme weakness, his grab was still strong. "No, Don't you dare." His voice was weak but even in its weakness it had that authoritarian tone in it. She went back to the window, irritated, to remember more of her other savage loss.
*
Horror and despise, like two heavy rocks, weighted down on her. She did not remember where she was. It was not her own bed or bedroom. It was not anything she knew. It was silent, mysterious, and cold. She pulled the blanket all the way over her head, then opened her eyes. Under the canopy she had made, she strove to remember the circumstances. Slowly everything came to focus, blood, death, her fainting, Stacy's screaming, her in-laws' crying, the detective, and the suitcases. She pushed back the blanket forcefully and sat up in bed. She knew then that her one month marriage was over, gone, like it had never happened. She was a widow at age twenty.
At the funeral, she was calm, doing an act of an emotionless widow of an CIA agent. She remembered that someone had told her to act calm and dignified at the funeral. Who? She did not recall. Her in-laws and Stacy were next to her. As they were going on with the ceremony, she called another ceremony only a month before. She was dignified on that one, too. She was leaning on Stacy for support. It seemed to her that the ceremony had no end. She recalled the other one was much shorter. She talked in her speaking mind: "Will I ever survive this? Will life ever become normal for me again?" Many people she did not know came to her, talked to her, and sympathized with her. She acted polite. But what would they know about grief? Her politeness was not really being polite, but it was a state of unconsciousness of her surroundings that made her numbingly like a zombie. If she had her free will or indefatigable energy then, she would perhaps scream at all those people, who did not know her pain including Steve's boss and colleague.
Her in-laws asked her to go and live with them for awhile. She said no. Stacy offered to stay with her. She said no again. There was no need for all those kindness. She was alone in the present of the others; and she was lonely when she was alone. This separation was permanent. It was not natural. But nothing in her life was natural. Everything that had happened to her up to this moment was "FOREVER". Would that make it natural?
She was alone as she had always been. It was like a mad ferocity and fury to be without him, to be solitary. She did not know if she was free or Strong anymore; but she knew that she had too much time on her hand. Life was a savage animal without him. New people irritated her and the old ones bored her with their kindness and show of sympathy. Her books were not her sense of bravery and knowledge anymore. They did not mean anything to her no more. They could not organize or disturb her. Her piano was just a piece of furniture gathering dust. Her school and job were not her connection with society. She had quited both.
She would slam the doors so neighbors could hear her anger. Everything was only a shadow. Sometimes she felt if there had ever been any Steve in her life at all. He was only a shadow. Their marriage was so short that she did not have enough memory of it.
She refused to go to Iran and be with her parents for awhile, so they were coming. Stacy's or Williams' calls irritated her. If she could only think for a moment that they had also lost their brother and son, perhaps handling her pain would be a lot easier. To her, Steve's death only belonged to her. She could not understand his parents' and sister's pain, as she had had it and still suffered from it for Aria, her brother. But how could she know all these? Rage and fury had blinded her. Anger had stolen her intelligence.
When her parents came, Stacy had to go to the airport to pick them up. Anna had said that she was not feeling good. "What else was new?" Stacy thought. But Anna truly did not feel good physically. For the last two days, she was enduring an excruciating pain in her lower back. It was now a almost a month since Steve's death. She had not had her period yet. She knew she was pregnant. She did not need a doctor to tell her that. But now this pain! Her parents would soon arrive, and she was on her bed, unable to get up or move.
When they came, she was still in bed. Her eyes were red of crying, her hair all messy, and she was wet of a sweat that shivering her body. Stacy had no idea that she was pregnant, neither her parents.
When the ambulance came, Anna knew that this last trace of Steve had gone, too. She was bleeding uncontrollably. The miscarriage was devastating both for the pain and the loss of the baby she wanted so much. After D&C, when she woke up, she felt that there was no meaning to life, no aim, and no end; yet end did not justify the significance of her life because there was no end unless she would finish it herself.
She put her face on her father's bosom and cried. Then he wiped her tears with his fingers. A lost face suddenly flashed in her mind, and she remembered the envelope which was among her other mails the day before. It was the result of Steve's bar exam. He had passed the exam but not the life.
To Be Continued
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