Temperance

He brings orange juice and the blue pill box before morning gathers. The window was open overnight, just enough to discharge the smell, and he closes it, secures the curtain for the view of the willow trees. He stretches his arms over his head and leans to one side and the other, as if he is waking, as if we still sleep in the same room. The talon edge of his dragon tattoo climbs over his shoulder. I remember how it felt when it healed. “The koi are big enough to saddle,” he says. I can match every shape his mouth makes.

I sit and stack the pillows behind me. My shawl needs washing; the pills go down like eggs. This routine of ours has become sentient. It is like we had children after all. “Do you remember the Fairs’?” I say. Back then all of his socks were covered in red dust, I had a foothold on a disease. It was last tithe of a good day. “You and your pearls,” he says. I had been looking for a pen in the glove compartment when I found them–pink and cheap–a leftover party favor. I wore them because they made him smile.

The sunrise is haptic, blood orange. “We should have champagne,” I say. He turns, I run my fingers through my hair. My posture is the forecast for the day. “I can pick up some cider this afternoon,” he says, but that’s not what I remember. I remember a green bottle with a sepia label. I remember all the men gathered by the bonfire outside. He was just home, and he said everything was like seeing a painting in person, one you had seen a print of all your life. Illness works the same way.

He sits and takes my hand. Every morning he rubs the base of my thumbs, my wrists and up to my elbows. It is like cleaning a weapon. He talks about the grocery list, his afternoon of work, the upcoming Memorial Day. My tremors come and go. His breathing becomes a metronome, and the day levels out. I was drinking champagne from a plastic cup. The tide was coming in; the wind blowing ocean into our hair. The men were jockeying around him, patting his back and punching his arm. He winced when they touched him. They made jokes about servicing our nation and he smiled, fended off their blows. He did not look like he was home. He had brush strokes. He should have been in a museum. Paintings there last forever.

“You have a fever,” he says. His hand is wet on my head. “It’s hot,” I say. He moves closer, and then away. I smell my hand. The sick doesn’t seem any stronger. “It’s my shawl,” I say. He grabs his phone. Pelicans, a long formation of them sailed over. I feel them more than I could see them. When I lost my balance no one was close enough to catch me.

“Too much champagne,” I say. My mouth tastes like dry apples. The room is almost familiar. It has guest room wallpaper, and I am lying on a pile of coats. He is far too worried for too much champagne, he is always like that now. “Come,” I say. I don’t want to go home. I want to be here. I want to be a body in a great pile of bodies. He comes with my fingers, longer than they have ever been, in his mouth. Sweat drips on to a suede coat. I shudder, and he drops his head. I barely see it go. The work is hard enough to kill us.