The Other Way : Epilogue

I Hope You Love Me Too

-

I opened Alice’s envelope almost six months after it arrived.

It was smudged and crumpled, worn from its journey between her and me, half a world away. I kept it in the top drawer of my dresser because that was the drawer I seldom opened. There was a box of my mother’s last leftover paperwork, her death certificate and the police report in a manilla envelope, shoved way into the back. A black velvet tray with my grandmother’s jewelry, none of it nearly as expensive as what I’d received from Jasper over the years, but important nonetheless. The lingerie I’d worn underneath my wedding dress was folded in tissue paper along with the picture of Jasper and I, standing on the steps of City Hall, newly wed. Our marriage certificate from the entryway, which came down the day Jasper officially moved out, was folded carefully up beside them. I only went into the drawer to retrieve the deed to the house, the one on which Jasper had scrawled his name, signing it over to me. When my fingers brushed against the newest addition to my sort-of-forbidden collection, I couldn’t help but poed at freshly healed wounds.

It had been almost a year since she left. A year since my marriage dissolved like sugar into warm water and a year since Edward became my hummingbird, flitting around my head in search of sweetness. A year of redefinition and something that felt nearly like redemption.

The glue cracked off in my hands when I pried open the envelope. Her letter wasn’t even a letter, only a few pages torn from that pretty patterned journal she’d carried around with her. The first page was an entry from nearly five years ago, stuttered and disjointed as though she’d only written thoughts down when she had a moment to and put it away for later, the second written just before we all flew to that island.

I had half an hour before Edward was due home, and I don’t know why I ever thought that would be enough time.

---

Asela, Ethiopia
2008

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March 2nd

He got here two days ago and he’s already sick.

What the fuck am I going to tell his parents?

March 3rd

It’s malaria. Fuck fuck FUCK.

He TOLD me he got his shots. PROMISED me, the lying fucking bastard. Part of me wants to just smother him with his pillow but he has fucking malaria and what does that say about me?

Even when he’s sick as fuck, he’s still beautiful.

March 6th

I can’t believe how bad he’s gotten, and so fast. We barely had a chance to say hello before it took him. He’s been tossing and turning like he’s trying to run somewhere. He has a new tattoo, a giant piano on his side but he’s not even with it enough for me to ask him about it.

March 9th

Why is he so fucking stubborn? He’s fighting it with everything he has, a normal person would have just let go already. He’s clinging on and it’s not that I want him to die, it’s that I can’t stand to watch him suffer. He’s been boiling hot for so long that I’m sure his insides have melted and I’m seriously starting to worry about brain damage. The fever is too strong for him.

I’m worried it might be too strong for me too.

March 10th

It’s been eight days and I haven’t slept. I’m terrified that the moment I do will be the moment he chooses to let go.

How long do you wait before you put someone out of their misery? Isn’t that just like murder? Is just thinking about it bad enough? I’m such a terrible person, but he reeks of death. He has one foot through that door already and a horrible part of me wants to just give him one final shove to get him through.

He can’t even cry anymore, there’s no water left in him.

I do all the crying for us.

Everything I learned in med school is a lie, or useless.

March 13th

I lay in his bed with him today. I don’t give a fuck if I get it. I spent all afternoon watching the sun move across our legs and listening to his heartbeat. It’s slow, but it’s strong. When I finally got up to start a fire, his eyes were open and he was watching me, but he was hallucinating . . . which is always the final stage and I went outside to cry this time, in case he could see it.

He called me an angel. Asked me to put my halo back on.

March 14th

He won’t let go.

Jesus christ, please just let go.

March 15th

The fever broke this morning, but he’s not conscious.

I’m afraid that the guy I knew left days ago and I missed it. That the fever has damaged him beyond repair. I have the same twelve lines of Bukowski stuck in my head and if he comes out of this intact, I

March 17th

He woke up today.

Told me that I looked terrible. Asked for food and a shot of something strong.

Thank fucking god.

---

Madama, Niger
2012

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June 1st

I lost Jubilee tonight.

I lost Dayo.

I lost Edward.

His face, when she finally slipped away . . . I’ll never forget his face. He was so angry with me, I’ve never seen him so mad and he was terrifying. He flipped the table and overturned the cot and then left me there with her in my lap, still warm but not breathing and her heart so silent I couldn’t hear anything he yelled.

He called me an idealist and a daydreamer. Accused me of pandering with death, of being the demon the locals all thought I was. Condemned me for forcing him to stand by and watch.

He’ll never forgive me.

He told me not to do it. Told me to get her hydrated before we tried anything and he’s always accused me of being too stubborn. All I did was prove him right. All I did was kill a beautiful, happy little girl because I wanted to be part of her family so bad. I thought that if I saved her they way they were used to, I’d finally be accepted.

That they’d stop thinking of me as a witch.

Now, I’m worse than that.

I can hear them, the village, and I know they’re coming for me, but I don’t want to leave. I want them to burn me. I want them to cut me open and destroy me so that I’ll only ever be here. I don’t want to exist as another person, pretending that this part of me never happened so that no one will ever see me again without knowing what I did.

I want it inked into my skin.

I want it gouged into my bones.

I want it scarred into my face.

---

I cried for ten minutes before I could bring myself to breathe.

There were two photographs in the envelope.

Alice and her tall, dark prince. Him scarred around the face and her sort of scarred everywhere else, standing in the brown grass with a big blue open sky behind them.

She was in a piece of thin black fabric that wrapped around her body and trailed out behind her, face freshly scarred in a delicate tribal pattern around her eyes, her hair adorned with an elaborate headdress of golden chains that hung down around her cheeks. A million beaded necklaces looped around her neck and her arms were full to the elbows with bracelets.

Dayo was naked except for a draped cloth around his waist, his night-sky skin painted with a milky way of white stars and his brilliant white smile . . . oh, his smile . . . made my heart ache and sing for her.

The other photo made my heart stop completely.

It was shot low to the ground, through the grass, capturing a hollow spot made by a giant lion. Its fur was the same tawny color of the grass, sleeping peacefully with a frantic mane of hair haloing its face and a tattooed boy sprawled up against him, sleeping just as soundly.

With hair to match.

Alice’s familiar handwriting etched across the back:

I hope you know that I love you. And him.

I hope you love me too.

I tucked the photo of Alice back into her letter, back into the envelope and back into the drawer I never opened. The photograph of Edward and his lion was going to hang in the front hallway.

In that empty space my marriage certificate had left behind.

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