The Animal Girl by John Fulton Read Free Book Online Page A

entryway, and despite the grayness outside, the light had a raw brightness that Kate had to turn away from. Charles was wet, and the stringy flatness of his hair made him appear desperate. He held a small bunch of drenched tulips out to her, and she managed to carry them back to the couch. Looking at the flowers—their dramatic mess of color—exhausted her. “I got caught in this,” he said. Water dripped off his coat and onto her wood floor. “I’m sorry,” he said. Then he explained himself: “I just wanted to visit. As a friend.”
    â€œI’m tired, Charles,” she said. “I won’t be able to say much.” As usual he was nervous, and for the first time Kate was irritated by his fear rather than touched by it. She knew that he was merely afraid to be in the presence of a dying person. He seemed so reduced: every inch the furniture salesman. She should have offered him tea or coffee, but she could not imagine how she would get up from the couch again. She was in her robe, for God’s sake. “Your eye,” he said. “Is it OK?” She’d forgotten about her patch until then, and now felt humiliated. She didn’t want him there. She didn’t want him to see her dying. He had been right: They didn’t know each other well enough.
    â€œNo,” she said. “It’s not OK.”
    â€œYou look good.”
    She almost laughed, but stopped herself when she realized how horrific laughter would sound coming from her. For a time they were silent until Kate finally said, “I’m tired.”
    He nodded. “I hope … I hope I wasn’t unkind. I hope I didn’t mistreat you. I hope …”
    Kate understood now why he had come. She shook her head, and because he looked so achingly vulnerable, so convinced of his guilt, and because he was so extremely kind that he believed he was in the wrong when he wasn’t, she said, “Of course not.” And though she was too exhausted to summon the requisite tone of penitence and regret, though she wasn’t sure it was entirely true, she remembered her daughter’s recent courage and summoned her own. “I suppose I used you … a little. I didn’t want to end up alone. I didn’t want to end up”—she paused and let her head sink into her pillow—“like this.” She smiled. “It’s not as bad as it looks. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I have my daughter.” And now that she had said it, she thought it was true.
    His shoulders lifted as if a chain had just come off him. How easily people might push him around. How easily she might have delivered a blow to him right now, had she wanted to. “It was just using me?” he asked.
    â€œNot just. It was more than that, too.” The truth of these words was in the sudden enthusiasm and fullness of her voice, and his smile and the lift in his face told her that he had heard it. For a moment, she wondered if he deserved to be this happy given what would soon happen to her. But the moment passed.
    â€œI’d rather you not come back,” she said. “I’m going to get worse, and I’d rather you remember me as the woman you took to bed and not the woman with an eye patch.”
    â€œSure,” he said. She wished he’d struggled more before saying that.
    â€œI’m tired,” she said again. But she wasn’t prepared for how quickly he kissed her forehead and then turned around and left.
    Her heartbreak continued. When she was especially lonely, in the long hours of daylight, she thought again of his lanky nakedness, his surprising competence at killing, his melancholic voice on her answeringmachine asking to speak to her. How odd to be heartbroken at this time in her life. How odd to be left with desire. It was a relief and a luxury to know that she did not want the actual man. Not now. She liked him best in her thoughts. He was