Feminine 101

If you have not already done so, or if you are new, I recommend starting with Chapter 1. This is a linear story and will make a lot more sense read as a whole. Please leave a like, comment, or subscribe to my blog to get notifications when a new chapter is published. If I get 100 views on a single post of One More Life, I will self-publish a digital and printed copy with an exclusive Epilogue. If you only missed the last post, you can read Chapter 19 here.

The warmth of sunrise quickly dwindled with dark thunderheads mounting in the western sky. The first raindrops splattered on the asphalt as Rana slipped back into the medical complex wrapped in jeans and an oversized sweater. A young receptionist with octagonal glasses and a messy bun directed her to the ICU on the fourth floor. The hallway seemed to echo with foreboding, each step heavier than the last. Flashes of history flickered through her mind with each beat of her heart. She thought of the homestead and the four children they’d born, of her father’s estate in England, of Nathan’s horses shining in the light of a Spanish sun. All of that, a colorful legacy shaped and punctuated by profound love and devotion, was at stake. Perhaps it was arrogant to think, but she had always thought their romance was worthy of any of any of the classics. Odysseus and Penelope. Darcy and Elizabeth. Certainly Romeo and Juliet. Would it really just quietly fade from memory? That seemed such a terrible shame. 

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A nurse in brightly colored scrubs and matching crocs guided her from their station down the final corridor of the warren that was the complex into Nathan’s room. 

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An IV was taped to his wrist and monitors blinked a colorful array of stats. His heart rested at a casual forty-seven beats per minute. His oxygen levels were a stable ninety-six. A tiny cut secured with a butterfly bandage marred his temple just outside of the hairline. Beneath the scratchy, white blanket, he appeared perfectly fine, only sleeping. He didn’t look like a man who couldn’t walk.

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His heavy lids, one tangibly purpled, rose slightly as they entered, then drifted shut immediately. A ghost of a smile crossed his lips. Rana smiled, too, and thanked the nurse who left them to it. Even today, there was joy. What–who could truly take that from them?

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“Are you sleeping, my love?” Her arm stretched out reaching for him, fingers hovering toward his chest on impulse. 

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He lifted his hand to let it fall over hers, pressing her cool fingers to his warm breast. “No. I’m awake.”

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She stood, feet planted, mist stinging her eyes as she looked away. Outside, rain flowed in torrents down the window pane, so heavy that it resonated a dull hum. The sky was a deep, melancholy gray. She stared at the colorless clouds, unseeing. She thought of the steel heavens over a vast empty prairie before a massive, churning wave, over a thousand bodies strong, rose from the rolling grasses to trample underfoot everything they had built. She remembered the ashen sky on that chilly November day when he had brought tidings of a terrible sickness–one that eventually claimed his life and that of three of their children. She remembered four thousand years of tragedy and heartache where children died, crops failed, friendships crumbled, and wars threatened. 

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Then she remembered the sun. 

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It was brilliant in a February sky. She had feared the future that day. She tried so very hard to be brave, to hope, even as her spirit trembled within her. She remembered the breath forming clouds around her and Greta’s noses. The gray’s nostrils flared with exhilaration though she resisted pawing the snow in her eagerness to move again. Invigorated, Rana–for Anna was her, even if she didn’t know it yet–looked to the trees cloaked in spiny, white frost. She took in the snow glittering away across every hill reflecting a glorious sunlight that proclaimed confidently spring would come again. 

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But today, over this construction of concrete, steel, and glass that gave healing to the sick and succor to the dying, the heavens mourned with her. She closed her eyes with a sigh and turned her face downward.

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His eyes remained closed, but he squeezed her hand, “I found you. It cannot be so terrible. Tell me.”

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She sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “The doctors say the nerves in your legs were damaged. They tried to repair them, but,” she swallowed, “you may never walk again.”

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He only smiled a sleepy smile again, unflappable. “Never is a very long time when it comes to you and me.” 

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She bit back a response, a single tear formed and slipped down the curve of her cheek to tremble before dropping to her pale pink sweater.

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“There’s more,” he observed with eyes still closed. “Tell me.”

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She lifted his hand to her cheek as another tear attempted to follow the first, but streamed between his knuckles instead. 

“My beloved,” he soothed, “you needn’t bear it alone. Tell me.”

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She inhaled sharply and was choked by a sob. “He was here.” She swallowed, “Mesed.”

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“The priest?” There was a calm in his words but she could sense a palpable alertness in him. “Tell me,” he urged.

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She forged on, afraid to stop lest she have no will to continue. “He is connected to us, somehow. He has lived…as we have.”

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Nathan’s smile returned, indeed he nearly laughed and his eyes fluttered open, “I suspect there are few people who could live as we have. And I don’t believe one such as he could have been happy for thousands of years.”

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She smiled, in spite of herself. “No, of course not. But that is the problem. He is trapped in this cycle, only…he’s alone. And he…he is tired.”

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Nathan nodded almost imperceptibly. “Yes. I suppose he is.”

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“He wants to end the curse, but it’s not just a curse anymore.”

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Nathan only waited, his chest rising in gentle rhythm punctuated by the rain pattering on the window and slipping down the pane in blurry rivers. The tiny section of outside world in that frame was dreary and distorted. 

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“He mentioned the Hebrew priest. I think…I think Mesed can’t end the curse because of that, not without us.” Her confidence in that conclusion only grew. She was sure that was correct. Messed was bound to them and had been all along.

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“Our blessing is his curse,” Nathan finished. It made sense that such strange circumstances could have bound them together. Their story was punctuated by the impossible so what was one more oddity?

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“If one ends, so must the other.” She waited a moment, her voice breaking, “Do you see?”

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“Shhh,” he soothed, “Yes, I see.” He peered at her through slitted eyes, “If we end it, this will likely be our last life together. Is one more enough if I am only half a man?”

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Her heart broke, “You will never be less to me. And one lifetime was all I ever asked.”

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He lifted his other arm and reached for her. She bent toward him, folded into his embrace. He could not remember the days before she was part of them. Every memory without her in them was smudged and forgettable. But, even now, knowing what he knew, that their time was finally running out and that he would spend their final years together as a cripple, he could not find it in himself to mourn. She was right there. The scent of her hair filled him, the softness of her breath, even the moisture of her tears, were precious to him. Who could despair in the midst of such treasure?

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Seven o’clock brought a new shift of nurses to the station outside and the priest. He simply appeared in the door frame, beard impeccably trimmed, suit immaculate. Everything about him gave off a polished, if sinister, air. But his eyes proclaimed something else entirely. He waited, unshrinking, as the pair turned to him.

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Nathan finally spoke, “You meant to wound us. You called harm on me.” He looked at Rana meaningfully, then back at Mesed. “On one who is most dear to me.”

Mesed stood mute.

“You hurled curses at us. You tried to destroy and called ruin on our lives forever.”

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“I did.”

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Nathan nodded. He looked at Rana, beautiful despite the tears and pain. Every life, he loved her more, was completed and eased by her presence in his world. He slept contented with her in his arms at night, he strove harder in every action of the day because of her–not because she asked for it, of course, she never would. But he was a better man in every way because of her, because he longed to be worthy of such goodness. He took in the dark hair, pulled back in a ponytail for simplicity, and loved its rich elegance. He looked at her smooth, tear-stained cheeks and green eyes whose gift it was to see and know people. He had been seen and known and understood by her for countless lifetimes. Cursed? Hardly. 

“But that is not what came to be.”

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Mesed stiffened teeth gritted, “That’s why I am here.”

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Nathan turned his head toward Rana with a grimace as pain rocketed through his spine. She took his hand and squeezed it tenderly as if to say go on. He stared at her a moment longer, tempted by another future, one where he would walk and they would build another life together, a future where he would be whole. In a moment, those memories together flooded into him, bittersweet, beckoning him another way, to one life after another filled with love and children and every good thing a man could think to ask for. Being a cripple now was merely the blink of an eye in his memory. But, oh, what memories they were! Every sorrow, punctuated by great passion and the faithful love of the woman beside him. 

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One lifetime was all he’d ever asked, too. 

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He squeezed her hand in return then turned to the tragic shell of a man before them and saw him through Rana’s eyes. An expensive suit and flawless facade could not hide the weariness that pervaded everything in him, even the ambient menace that seemed to hover over him like a cloud. No, this man was destitute, desperate. Nathan understood. It was like sharing the last of their bread with a poor widow and her baby. Drawing strength from her to make an impossible choice, because that is the man she followed out of Egypt all those ages ago, his resolve hardened with conviction. It was right.

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“We forgive you.”

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Mesed’s shoulders slumped and he leaned against the door, his posture reflecting the man inside at last. Relief seemed to wash over him before he straightened collecting himself. He pivoted to leave, then paused his back toward them. Mesed turned his head just barely glancing downward, unable to meet their gaze, “Thank you.” 

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Then he was gone.

Thank you for reading my story. I have intentions of self-publishing this as a novella with an exclusive Epilogue. Your support and encouragement is appreciated.

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