Carmiel Banasky - The Suicide of Claire Bishop

Yet it could also very well be that Elsa had been a general in a war. She had lost the battle, the nation, the universe, all that had been was no longer, those histories and lands and peoples all wiped away, and Claire had walked in only minutes after defeat and Elsa could not speak of it, could not bring herself to remember. She could have been a famous painter, or someone’s mistress. She could have been a butcher.

Claire suddenly felt guilty for these thoughts, as if by thinking them she were the one stripping away Elsa’s individuality.

The rabbit took one more leap then froze. Claire squinted to see its tracks. This was it, she knew — the animal that circled their house every morning before they woke. Why would it do that?

Claire’s voice cracked when she spoke again. “Leftovers it has to be.” Elsa’s face was rigid. Then she let out a tiny, confused laugh.

Claire knew that laugh. She’d thought that Elsa was laughing at her, but that wasn’t it at all. Elsa was trying to join in. She seemed aware she was unaware, knew she was missing something vital; when she laughed she was pretending to get the joke, even if there was none. Her mother was laughing along with Claire, no matter that Claire wasn’t laughing. Elsa wanted to fool her.

The rabbit was still in the middle of the meadow, staring at them with one eye in profile. This animal that made tracks around their home every day for no apparent reason now stood so still it could be dead. It must be so frightened of them. Too frightened to protect itself, to run.

Elsa coughed and mumbled at the meadow.

“I didn’t catch that,” Claire said.

“Did you make up Claire’s bed yet?” Elsa spoke so softly it was hard to hear. “I’m too tired to do it myself.”

“My bed?”

“The bed in Claire’s room,” Elsa said.

Claire took a step closer. “I’m Claire. It’s me.” Claire closed her eyes and nodded. This was bound to happen sooner or later, Michael had said. Elsa would only become more erased. Rather, Claire would. Eventually, Elsa would forget her completely. It was supposed to happen.

Claire didn’t know herself any better than Elsa did. At least Elsa and her father had had one another. In twenty years’ time, when Claire was old and sick like Elsa, who would take care of her?

“Yes,” Elsa said, and laughed that same disoriented laugh. Elsa, who had whole countries inside her. Burning empires.

She would like to live long enough to find out who would care for her. And to care back.

Without a sound, the rabbit dashed into the woods, out of sight forever, and the meadow was empty. She missed the rabbit then. The word vastly wrapped itself around Claire’s thoughts. I am vastly alone out here. Vastly. I could stretch out across the whole land and not disturb a thing. I am vast.

Life in the house was organized by Sunday-to-Saturday pill containers and the old oven clock.

They watched icicles form, watched with wonder the slow falling of the snow, the slow rise of the surface of the snow. It was constant. Only the midsections of trees were exposed, branches moving up like veins. They watched the snow-shapes of deck furniture, foreign objects, the summer gone out of them. The pie tins on the garden gate no longer clanged their innocent percussion. They were buried now too. There were no more animal tracks.

In the bath, Elsa’s body was so small. She seemed to take up less and less space in the world, the house. And the house, after a snowbound week, seemed to shrink along with her mother. She could swear the walk from Elsa’s bedroom to the toilet took fewer steps.

They had enough wood to last the week, but the fire wasn’t keeping them warm enough. The heater wasn’t working, or it was functioning but not penetrating their skin. Elsa was crying. Claire got down every blanket they had from every closet in the house and piled them all on Elsa and herself. On the couch, Claire held her under the heavy pile, the heaviness like another body on top of them. Elsa laughed through her tears, thought it was a game. She shivered in Claire’s arms.

The cold snap. Black shapes brimmed from tree trunks, spying on them. The women rubbed their eyes until they were raw.

Michael came to check on them the fifth day of the storm, walking all the way from town in high-tech snowshoes. His visits were no longer an indication of time; he’d been stopping by less, and she suspected it wasn’t due only to the weather.

“We have a handle on things here,” she said. He stood there in the cold on the porch, the wind roughing up his hair. He wouldn’t budge. “Come in, please,” Claire said, more warmly.

“No, I better say what I have to say right here.” Behind him was a blank white canvas of sky, no trees or neighbors’ fences were visible, no depth at all.

She put on a stern voice. “I won’t let the heat out like this. You can stand there and talk to me through a closed door, or you can come inside.”

He stepped in scornfully, tracking snow into the house. He barely moved out of the way enough for Claire to close the door, which put up a fight against the wind. When she turned, he was very close, and they stood together in silence. His features cast shadows over his face, and the light was too dim to understand what his mouth was doing.

“Are you all right?” Claire said.

He looked down at his open palms. “I’m taking on — patients,” half his words also swallowed by his shadow.

“What?” she said, leaning in closer.

He looked into her face. “I’m taking on too many patients. I’m going to have to quit you. I’m sorry. Another respite nurse will take my place.”

“Oh.” Claire looked toward the kitchen. “Would you like to stay for dinner?”

“Unless you want me.”

“What?”

“Unless you want me to stay on.”

Claire kept her eyes on the kitchen. “I understand,” she said, nodding. “Maybe it’s…” She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. Maybe it’s for the best? Maybe it’s a terrible idea, I need you, please don’t go? “Please stay for dinner,” Claire said.

He shook his head, ironed out his posture and said, “You’ll be fine.” Then he slipped out into the cold as if it were not cold to him at all, walking always through a different weather system than she.

——

Elsa was not the only one outside of time. The days fell into one another. Claire wasn’t sure if Michael’s visit was the same day Elsa messed the bed or the day before. There was nothing to look forward to and Claire accepted this with something like relief.

Sometimes Claire stared out the window at the snow for so long she lost herself, her mind burrowed into the snow, and she’d forget to give Elsa her medication on time. All this snow made it possible to feel that many things and nothing were happening all at once. That somewhere, right now, even right here, people were coming and going, falling in love or dying. When she retrieved herself, she didn’t know where the time had gone. What was she thinking of for so many hours? It frightened her not to know.

Marlene Dietrich sang softly even when the record had stopped. On the quietest days, Claire heard music in machines. In the washer, there was a soothing sequence of minor notes. Her mind felt loose. At times, she felt she was looking for her madness in the house, that she’d find it like a long-lost wedding ring under the cushions or held tight in Elsa’s clenched fist. At times she thought, stupidly, and for the briefest of moments, that she had caught Elsa’s dementia. And then she’d laugh the thought away. If she could question it, she told herself, it was not so.