Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
The Star of David was no longer around his neck. In its place were a couple of hippyish beads on a beige leather string. His flannel shirt was undone several buttons from the top down and two from the bottom up. It was too heavy for the summer heat. She thought, perhaps, he was hiding a messy body. Then she wondered what he was thinking about her body, her face, her hair? As though he could hear her thoughts and was determined to be truthful, Liev, because it was Liev, not ghost of Liev or son of Liev, announced, “Your skin is green.”
“Greenish. It’s the pills. Not fabulous for the complexion. Sorry.”
“I didn’t say that you looked bad. I think you look beautiful. It’s just that, right now, you are beautiful in the key of green.”
She thought about how many times she had heard the word “beautiful” since she had been in the hospital and how many times she had heard it in the last year, how many times in her life. How often had she thought of the word without saying it out loud. And if you think such a word, but don’t expel it with your voice, does it turn to poison in your brain?
Her thoughts began to swim, struggling against the waves in the room, falling now and then, beneath the waves completely.
“I don’t know,” she shook her head vigorously, “I don’t know if I’m still me. I’m not sure that you’re you.”
“Do you believe I was there all those years ago?”
“Yes. Of course you were there.”
He watched her with brown eyes, the depth of the darkness in them sucking out the phosphorous overhead light in the bathroom. It blew out, silently. He was, in the darkness, a man in the shape of a man. She was a girl in the shape of a girl, beneath her sharp starched sheets.
“I am here now.”
“How do I know it’s you?” she queried, stern as a schoolteacher.
“How do I know it’s you, Ruby?” he answered, with the flip drawl of a schoolboy who knows that Miss has a loveless home life.
“Of course it’s me. I look the same.”
“No you don’t.” He edged toward the foot of the bed, where he laid his fingers on the sheet that encased her toes. He traced the sheet upward, as she lay, still as a mummy, eyes darting furiously in the dark.
“You didn’t have hips before,” he journeyed gently up the bed. “You didn’t have breasts before.”
Her eyes came to rest as she asked, tremulous, “Now that I do, I suppose you don’t love me anymore.”