My hands trembled as I held the letter in my hand, tears dribbled down my cheeks as I blinked to make them go away. The words were starting to blur as my eyes filled with tears again and it was getting harder to read the sentences on the sheet. I could feel the cool breeze start to drift in as the wind blew outside the open windows of the hospital. The nurse who handed me the daily mail looked at me from the corner of the room from her chair, there was a concerned smile on her face as I let a few more tears flow down.
"He's asking for a divorce" is all I could muster up just to appease her curiosity "Oh Mary, I'm so sorry" her words felt so drowned out as I re-read the letter, its slight creases shows he didn't care enough to be careful with it. My chest felt tight and I didn't know how I should go ahead with this when I didn't want to divorce the love of my life, I truly thought we were okay. "Should I leave you be for a few minutes?" The nurse asked me with a whisper, I looked up at her green eyes and felt more tears come but I didn't allow them fall this time. "No, no it's okay. Can you hand me a pen?" I said weakly.
Days to turned to weeks as weeks turned to months and I was still stuck in this dreaded hospital bed, my arms hooked to these wires and monitors. An IV drip kept me hydrated as I laid there looking out the big open windows. Sometimes Nurse Abigail would bring me a book with my meals or a simple get well soon card from estranged family members I met once or twice in my entire life, but I never got another letter from my ex-husband. I had to admit the books kept my mind from wondering what he was up to and whether or not he had remarried or not. Of course it wasn't important but I couldn't stop myself from wondering where our marriage had went down the drain, like was it before or after me coming down with stage 3 ovarian cancer, that's what kept me up most of the time. If I hadn't have gotten sick then we wouldn't be divorced and we'd be halfway across the world on a trip to Fiji.
Nurse Abigail came into the room after knocking 3 times to get my attention. Her blonde hair was braided behind her as her green eyes looked at me from across the room again, her soft red lips smiled as she sat down in that chair again. In her hands was another letter. "Good news, Mary. It seems your husband...." she began to say as she caught herself with a quick cough "Ex-husband I mean, sorry. He got remarried" she finally stopped talking. I brushed my blanket with my hand and looked at the soft blue hue of it, my brown eyes looked up into her green ones "And how is that good news?" my voice said with slight anger. How dare she rub this news into my already broken heart. Her smile never left her lips as she opened the letter and began to read it out to me.
"And with the death of Charles Moore he leaves everything of his to his ex-wife, Mary" the nurse finished and closed the letter to look up at me from her lap, that smile still on her lips. My heart skipped a beat or two as sweat began to form on my brow. The room felt warmer than before as the sunlight drowned inside and the flowers next to my bed trickled with condensation. My ex-husband had died and left everything to me? But how? Why?
Nurse Abigail waited a few more minutes in silence and then broke it with a little chuckle, she crossed her arms and nodded to herself, "Mary, he left you with everything after leaving you for another woman, you should be thrilled! First he divorces you and then chooses to leave everything to you after his death? That's amazing!" her shrill voice echoed off the barren walls of the hospital room we sat in. My heart hurt a little bit from sadness and a some anger, he divorced me months ago and now leaves everything to me after dying? Seriously?
I brushed a lock of stray brown hair behind my ear and scoffed to myself a little bit. I looked over at the windows again, no tears this time. "How did he die?" I asked myself more than her, but she opened up the second letter and read it out loud to me. "Death is supposedly self induced" she said with a huff and looked at me again, "Mary, you're getting better as the days go by, it's shown on the tests you can leave here in about a month or so. You should be happy he's gone and you have everything, you weren't happy when he'd visit..." her voice trailed as I looked down at my hands. My weak nails scratched the skin on my finger with anxiety as I licked my lips. I felt parched. "Yeah very happy" I said mostly to myself.
It's been a few months since I've gotten out of the hospital and taken residence in our old house Charles oh so dearly left me. The floors were still a dark ebony color as the walls were that same old vintage flower wallpaper, but the windows were new and so was the front door. It also looked like his new wife had gotten stained glass installed in the main bedroom. I had gone to the hospital a week ago for my usual tests and they had cleared me of my cancer as if it was never there. I was so confused.
"I guess we just have to call it a miracle and live our life now" I said in a small whisper as I set down a medium sized moving box in the upstairs bedroom on top of the new bed I had gotten yesterday. My bottles of medications were sitting on the side table just staring at me as if they were taunting me, reminding me that the cancer could come back any time. "Stop worrying yourself, Mary, it's all gone now" I said angrily as I opened the box and took out the book Abigail gave me before I left the hospital. I looked down at the familiar black cover and ran my hand over that old golden crest, the grooves of the cover felt nice to the tips of my fingers. Abigail and I would spend so many nights reading over the books passages and going over the sayings like it was a new religion we were practicing.
I even remember the night we pricked our fingers and fed the old ivory pages our blood and more woods took shape upon the sheets for us to read. "Remember you deserve a better life" Abigail told me as she had handed me the book before I had gotten into the taxi the day I had left, that same old red lipped smile watching me as the car had left the vicinity of the place I had called home for years. "Don't forget to feed it" I said repeating Abigail's words as I looked down at the book, a soft smile graced my face as I set it down on my bed. I walked over to the closet and opened it, the dim light above made it bright enough to see the chest below. My hands rubbed against the top as I opened it and plucked out the antique knife also gifted to me by Abigail. "Time to feed it" I reminded myself.
Walking over to the bed I had rolled up my puffy sleeves and sliced my arm ever so slightly just enough for a bead of blood to escape the slit wound. I opened the book to the most recent chapter we'd left off of and allowed my blood to drop onto the pages below, the words began to take shape as a little hum came from the book itself. Warmth spread through my arms and chest as I smiled to myself, the blood dripped ever so slowly upon the sheets but the book was feeding again. My eyes read out the words that appeared and my heart skipped a beat "Aren't you happy now?" the words spelled out. Backing up I grabbed my arm tightly so it would stop bleeding. "What the fuck" I yelped as the words kept taking shape on the sheet saying the same thing over and over. The closet light flickered as the room began to become colder and colder, my eyesight became dim as the world seemed to blur away.
Heels clicked against the vinyl flooring of the hospital as Abigail the nurse walked calmly through the halls down to room 404. She looked into the small glass window of the door and smiled to herself as she looked at the little boy laying in the bed. His sad sorrow filled eyes looked out the window just like the others had. She took a small breath and walked inside after 3 knocks and made her way to the corner chair to sit down. Her velvet nails gripping the letter and book. "Aren't you happy?" she repeated her words to the little boy as he looked up, his flushed cheeks were getting better as the days passed. "Your tests are coming back clear lately, you've also been placed into a home like you had wanted" she said, her shrill voice echoed on the walls as her green eyes glinted a slight ember. "But I'm sick..." he reminded himself with a small tear following behind. Nurse Abigail rubbed her cold fingers against the black cover of the book and smiled her red lipped smile once more, "Oh dear boy, we all become happy sometime and this time it's your turn" she said.
The little boy smiled to himself as she handed him the book with the same golden crest on the cover, "Now don't forget to feed it like we had talked about or your happiness may slip away" nurse Abigail said with a strict tone to her voice which made the boy flinch a little bit. "Yes ma'am" he said as he gripped the book in his arms and went back to looking out the window. Another victim had taken the bait of becoming healthy but in exchange they must feed the book daily until the last breath leaves their lungs.
The End.
