THE HEART BLED IN TWO PLACES : a short story by Ethan Leon 

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“The heart bled in two places,
On the day she died,
One gouge for each reason I loved her so long,
If received back into my arms—-
I would hope to hold and love her long,
And my final home—
In the ground beside her own—“

--Was the poem he had written that morning, it would have been a good epitaph, or not, he didn’t know. But now it didn’t matter, as she had already been buried, and this memorial service had taken place after. He had chosen the place for her to be buried, by herself in a scarcely used part of the cemetery. It was folded over twice in his pocket and he recited it in his mind as the funeral came to an end. He didn’t believe in funerals, he found them quite odd. The entire idea of surrounding some corpse with flowers and crying over something that couldn’t hear you, it was all quite disturbing to him. He wondered what the practice of funerals had started as, cavemen admiring the decomposition of a body?--having parades around it?
He could have only imagined.

Between intervals of silence the pale, sorrowful faces in the crowd were all looking from him to the casket, and he could feel the hands of his mother-in-law groping his shoulder protectively beside him on the pew as if he were her own child. All the faces around him were bland and un-inviting. He found pity a cruel disposition, and it seemed that it was all that lay in store for him for some time, his wife had died not three days ago and already it had come upon him: pity.
“Its okay, its okay, we will get over this together” she crooned in his ear softly as if he were sleeping and she did not wish to disturb him. He had never really liked her; she was like some bird endlessly drilling his head with love and eccentric religious thoughts.

There was a black clad man behind the podium the Pastor, who finished the last sentence of the prayer he had recited at a hundred such funerals, as he most likely would at a hundred more, and then spoke as if he were somehow emotionally connected to the family of the deceased woman. “May God be with her. . . . . we knew her well; we shall always miss her and keep her memory with in our hearts.”
What a joke, thought Marcus. As if some god really cared about his creations. Who could care about something that was made to be killed, or die, people were disposable as it were, he thought.
The preacher glanced down the pews of the church till he found the dead woman’s husband. His name, it was something strange, not one of those typical southern names. Marcus, that was his name; he made a mental note to talk to him later and give him the fatherly advice expected of a decent Christian minister. 
“Now if we will all bow our heads for a bit of private prayer, in honor of the deceased” said the pastor boldly.
The obedient mass of mourners creased their heads downwards like a feeble branch in the wind. The preacher took this time to observe Marcus again, the way he kept his eyes only partly closed while the entire room except for him was in prayer, the way his hands dangled between his legs limply, how, shockingly, he hadn’t cried once over the death of his wife. It was an odd type of mourning; he would have to speak with him.

The Pastor had indeed tried to speak with him, but could not find him in the crowd afterward, it seems he had exited in a lazy fashion and, from what he found out later from a private meeting with the man’s mother-in-law, and this was so.

After the funeral had taken place Marcus sat on the couch in his mother-in-law’s living room. Every few minutes a person or a teary eyed friend of his wife would walk over to him and give their condolences, their “we are sorry for your loss” talk, and then leave him to give way for the next caring group. He eventually found comfort in a small dainty bottle of vodka that he knew probably belonged Anne’s mother. So he kept it between his knees and drank from the bottle, and, to his satisfaction no one commented on this. At this point though, he could care less if the vodka had been holy water-- it was all the more purifying to him. 
During the course of this endless and sterile routine of pity he noticed a blonde in a brown skirt and blue blouse eyeing him discreetly from the chair across from him in the room. She was like a biblical cast-out, a Lilith with a terrifying gaze.
The room itself was a filled with the chaotic hum of conversation; nonetheless he was determined to make contact, perhaps he needed something more than pity to depart with depression. He needed love to blot out a love that was already dead.

So he made his way to her, impolitely pushing past a group that included his frantic mother-in-law. He hoped she watched with regret as he attempted to seduce this evening star.
“Hello, I’m Marcus.”
She waved her hand in a small semicircle showing she had heard what he said to her, even over the loud murmur of the She traveled the small void between them, shoving away gently past the people in she led the way to a small sofa along the dull blue wall.
“I’m Anne’s husband”
No he thought--I was Anne’s husband, but then again, was I really ever a part of her?
“Yes, I know. I met her once before she died. She was very beautiful”.
He looked at her eyes, they were grey. Not unlike a cliff or stone he thought. Not unlike a tombstone.
“Yes, my wife was beautiful”
“I’m Beatrice by the way”
What a name, thought Marcus as if he had not heard this name a million times it seemed.
“Come outside with me for a cigarette”
Did she mean him? Her eye’s flashed and he was drawn in by her charisma.
“I don’t smoke”
“Then entertain me while I do”
There were no more objections to be had from him.
I’m like a child thought Marcus.
“I’m like a child” said Marcus to himself, in a voice several times below the normal hearing range of the deafening conversation around him.
He followed her past the shoving crowd into the fresh hood of the evening.

And as he leaned against the railing of the porch watching Beatrice savor her cigarette, he thought of the only year he spent with his wife on Earth. The people that meant nothing to him anymore--the people meant nothing as they blurred and faded before his eyes. The people became devoured by flames and became ash. The people became ashes. The world was an urn to Marcus.
And the only thing he cared about was that he could still remember Anne, even while feeling as if he had never known her at all.
He could remember the way she had combed her hair after bathing, how she would cross her nude legs after sex and breathe softly into his ear.
He still had her things. The combs, the brushes, even the makeup in the bathroom cabinet. Her clothes still neatly hung in the closet in their room. He liked to think that she wanted him to keep these things. He liked to think some part of her was still alive in him.
But was it anything unlike the rituals of letting to, or suffering the dead that he loathed? It was all ritual, smoothing her side of the bed, or sitting alone in the early morning when he had not slept since her death.

“You’re very attractive when you think”
Was she talking to him? Yes, but of course she is talking to you. And you are not sure if you care, are you?--thinking to himself of whatever could come after this.
“I know that’s why I try to think as often as possible.”
Was this an attempt to let himself go?
“Ha!” Beatrice laughed and rolled her eyes. She flicked her cigarette and threw it in the yard.
The both watched as it descended on the grass. Marcus could only imagine the face of his mother-in-law if she had seen Beatrice do this. It amused him to think of how she would worry about the condition of the grass, as if it had some kind of mind that would cause it to be alarmed by the presence of the burning bud.
He looked back to the bold woman for some speech that would remind him of what he wanted with her.
“You said you’d met my wife?”
“Yes, many times, you know, when she was in college”
“Oh” and he wondered why he had not beheld Beatrice before now, why his---why Anne had not told him of her. He had met all of her friends, all artists and writers, just like his few friends, the few friends that remained didn’t bother him as often as they once had. He was allowed to take pleasure in his lonliness. But he had not met Beatrice.
“I slept with her on and off for an entire semester”

He looked away from the ground and up, where streaks of violet and blue were gathering in the sky, a fitting scene for this.
“I take it you are shocked?”
“No”
“Then why the look, I am curious”
“It’s just that if she had told me…I mean, I know she was infatuated with women and men alike, it’s just that I never imagined she would have picked someone like you”
“You wouldn’t have been, what’s the word-- oh I can’t think of it, but why not someone like me?”
“Because, she was you know, not a flamboyant personality type, she was shy, you know. . . as if she couldn’t allow herself freedom”
“Yes I know, I think that’s why it was me she wanted, when she could have had anyone”
Beatrice looked at him, and he sighed, and said.
“I lied, I do smoke, sometimes”
“I thought so” she said, handing him her lighter and a cigarette.
“I’m sure you think a funeral is as big of a fraud as I do, so I’ll won’t give you sympathy, but I’ll tell you something”
He kept his eyes looking up, but for what? Did he hope for some divine intervention, some deity to strike him down and take him to be with the only other human he ever really loved?
“I know why she loved you Marcus, it wasn’t because she wanted something out of you, but it was because you were one of only two people who I think ever really understood her, one of them is me, the other you” but Beatrice sighed and moved closer to him, 
“I wish she would have married me instead of you, I wish it was me that she had loved like she loved you”
“Why are you telling me this?” he asked, unsure for once of whether or not he was so alone in his thoughts about this day, every day after this, if he would, or could function the same.
“Because, Anne would have been afraid to tell us the truth, and I’m not”

Poor, shy Anne, afraid of what? For being loved because of her flaws? Because of the things she kept secret.
Marcus thought it odd that she should say that; he knew Anne’s mother would have been appalled at this discussion. She would have been furious.
Beatrice took a moment to think this over then sighed.
“She was so always a perfect model of humanity”
If Marcus had been any other person he assumed that this would have come of as rude to him.
“--If you had been any normal person this would have come off as rude to you” he thought.
“Yes, she was like a mold God forgot to break” he told her.

They both settled into a calm situation in which neither spoke, just pondered different issues and examined each other.
High strung was another of those words that Marcus knew could have been used to describe him on any ordinary, dull day of his life. But today to Marcus was different in some trivial way.
Perhaps it was the way isolation kept him in a different mood from what he was used too. Whatever it was, he didn’t know. And he didn’t care.
Beatrice looked him over slowly first looking at his forehead, then at his eyes, peering into them wondrously, finding that they were not unlike her own. But slowly her eyes drifted down to where his legs met his body.
She wondered what he would look like naked, and decided to find out.
Tonight she would own him.

A small drop of sweat rolled down the back of Marcus’ neck, and wandered with intent it seemed down his back. A reminder that he was a part of life, and worried about the part he played in it.
“Tonight I will own him” said Beatrice to herself.
Tonight I will own him.

“What was that look for?” Marcus was talking to her, of course. She had been too obvious. He knew what she was thinking about.
So she smiled, and let slid her tongue over her teeth, wanting to know what his mouth tasted of. It was a personal thing, but she remembered kissing Anne and nourishing something inside her between the sheets. Tonight she wanted to remember what is was like to touch someone you loved, so she would feel of the man whom Anne had loved, because she had loved Anne.
“Nothing, just imagining the future”
Marcus was catching on to her motives quickly, longing for what was to surely come.
And it would come, inevitably for how could one distinguish reality from the surreal and not be content to live in ecstasy in such a time as this. When depression was expected, and despair was meant to be the mode in which he lived life. And after a moment, and noticed he could hear his mother-in-law’s voice in the house some place near.
“Where is Marcus?” or, “Have you seen Marcus?” --he was not sure he could bear her endless speeches tonight. A voice like hers was something to run away from, when in fact there was little to loathe or run away from.
Beatrice looked at him with her cold-colored eyes, and Marcus had a thought.
“Would you like to see my house?” he asked.
“Yes, and more” said she.
“Do you have a car, or would you like to take mine?”
“We can take yours” said Beatrice.

So Marcus led Beatrice to his car, which was parked on the curb close to the house. They got in the car and Marcus began to steer down the street at a slow speed. In the rear-view mirror he could make out an image of his mother-in-law standing on her porch, watching his car go---then he could see no more of her. Beatrice rolled down the window of the passenger side, and lit a cigarette.
“So Marcus, how far do you live from here?”
“Only a few blocks” he said.

The rest of the way they drove in silence, Beatrice chain smoking and Marcus trying to keep his eyes away from the boundary’s of her dress.
He saw that she was looking at him, and nervousness came over him. It was if her eyes could distinguish any finite flaw out of the whole of his being, and perhaps make it into something of great beauty, if not keep it from becoming tragic. Her supposed talents were something to be desired, he thought.
Finally, they pulled unto the street where he lived, and she whistled a slow light hearted tune between her lips. It was something familiar to him, and he couldn’t discover it’s origin in his mind, but he was sure that the tune she played with her lips was a children’s rhyme. Something gentle and slow that made time pass slowly, the car roll by every other human in a luxurious crawl.
On the tune went in and out her vocal cords till he spied his house out of the others around it. A smaller one story modern styled home with an elegant look to it, Anne had chosen it out of all the other ones that her father had offered to buy for them. Her father had paid for everything when they had gotten married, as if Marcus couldn’t handle the start of their new life on his own. Her father had been absent from the funeral, lying in bed, perhaps worse off than him. But at least her father had understood the way he carried himself in his own style of depression, and he had left Marcus alone.
It was in this house that he had dwelled without thought, simply done what came naturally, surviving endless hours that marked off days, when days only marked of years, or even decades.
Would he still feel this way when Anne was completely gone, when he had disposed of her things, when the last memory of her had grown weary and faded completely. He didn't know. But the idea of being forever gone from her was hard to bear.
For now Anne wasn’t even there to experience the house, or anything that had once been theirs, not his, or hers, theirs, together.

He simply opened the door and led the way inside. The foyer was a nice, roomy place where the walls were left white, and bare. They had both wanted to walls to be plain, not crowed with paintings, or photographs, or anything that could give them inspiration that didn’t originate with them. It had become a womb where anything born was completely theirs. Nothing was reused, or sheltered from whatever may have come. It was a good place to be inspired, and they were.
At one point they had considered breaking this common code of theirs to place a Bacon lithograph he had bought at an auction on the wall in the foyer, but they had decided to hang it instead in the bedroom. Where it hung alone on the wall opposite the bed they shared.
After she had died, he had traveled through the house, laying his hand on the walls, dragging it slowly, or across the side of the bed where she had slept, smoothing out wrinkles, or even along her clothes to calm himself.
Beatrice stepped into this and didn't speak, after all the ways and places she had imagined Anne to live in she had not imagined this.

This was a different woman from the one she had loved, it was the one Marcus had loved. She knew that Anne was the same person until the moment she died, but she couldn't help but consider how we changed and how we were a separate entity every time we became entrenched in love. Always different, and having a part of us left behind, or created with every new partner.
All the memories she had of Anne could never be a part of anyone but the two of them, and it was the same with Marcus.

At this moment she wanted a part of Anne that was missing from her. Marcus looked at her and she knew he felt the same.
"Show me the bedroom"
And he did not speak; instead, he simply showed her the way.

In the bedroom it was an immediate, and shared feeling, for Beatrice led herself to him, dragging her hand across his, leading him, knowing he would follow along as he did.
What connected them in happiness gave way to more and they were in a new Eden where the fruit of knowledge was not sinful, but put there with one purpose: to taste of it.

And so she did, opening herself to him, parting his lips, and unbuttoning his shirt, stepping out of her dress and shoes, helping him out of his. She let herself be caught up in the moment, and felt at peace there in bed with him. It was dreamlike, so much that they both soon forgot their shared sadness.

After awhile, when it was over, they laid in bed together, his hand on her thigh, her hand trailing from his cheek to his chest, along the line from his navel and further down. It was a simple act that helped further them both down a road where they would find something new in life that would help them live they're own lives. He drank from the bottle of vodka and passed it to her, she drank in one long draught and sighed heavily. He finished the bottle and laid it by the bed.
Marcus looked beside him at Beatrice, where Anne would have been were she alive, and Beatrice knew she was in a place reserved from someone else.
But this trespass was allowed so that the both of them would be kept from other things.
She passed a cigarette from her lips to his, and they both watched as trails of smoke lead up to the ceiling.

"Would you like to read something I wrote for her" he said, parting the silence in the room. "Yes", and with this he reached down beside the bed and pulled the poem from his blazer.
He was about to hand it to her when she spoke: "I don't want to read it, I want to hear it".

And so, in a flat voice that conveyed no emotion, he read it to her. Although there was no emotion to be found in his voice, it was relieved by the words and allowed to consume whatever was between the two of them.
Afterward, there was only a cool atmosphere of mutual understanding as they both dressed without trading glances.
"Is this hers?" said Beatrice, seeing a book one the floor beside the bed. It was a notebook, and when Beatrice opened it she say that it was one that Anne had written in during they're college years. It was a familiar sight to her. And she longed to take it home with her, lay in bed, and read each page, over and over, run her fingers over Anne’s handwriting, pretend that she would be there in the morning to write more.
"Yes" said Marcus, it was one of his late wife's older notebooks, he thought of how Anne always wrote in longhand before typing and editing her work. When he had met her and come to love her he had begun to do the same. There were days when they had done nothing but lay in bed and work, each writing in different notebooks, but thinking of one another. Or when she would bathe, wasting hours soaking in warm water that was constantly run, during these times he would make a sketch of her, show her, and observe as she lay there longer.
He closed his eyes and tried to imagine what it had been, it had been romantic, it had been something he could never have back.
"I want to take it with me, it's the one she wrote in when we shared a room"
"Take it, it never belonged to me" he said.

He leaned against the wall by the bed, and looked opposite him to where the Francis Bacon lithograph hung, where he could see his face imposed over that of the figure represented. He had done this many times, and each time he felt himself lost in this world that had been created not by a god, but by someone who had once sought out something meaningful in life. He had done the same, but his life had died with the woman he loved. He wondered if one day he would look into the lithograph and see a face beside his own that cared something for him, allowed him a part of her life.
"Take me back now please"
And they left in his car, drove without speaking, but he did look over at Beatrice once before she got out of the car, and he saw there was evidence of tears in her eyes.
"Thank you" he told her.
And he witnessed it as she smiled, thus in turn giving him something for her to be remembered.

She leaned over and kissed him, and he knew he would not see her again, for she had come only to remember. It didn't matter, for she had helped him in remembering what was already becoming the past---had helped him plot out the future. And once she had climbed out of the car he watched her as she walked in the pale light of the evening to her own car.

And he knew that he was not going home.

They had buried his wife in an antique cemetery with graves dating back to the seventeen-nineties. It was a lovely place where the dead were at ease with one another when in life some had been mortal enemies. Where else but in a grave could one contemplate what you left behind, or forgave someone, or finally enjoyed a rest from which you could never wake.
He looked for figures in the darkness as he drove, but knew that anyone out at this hour would be out for the sort of solitude that was given with the night. The trees he passed were silent in the manner of creatures that could not wait for oblivion when it was found to be only a myth. The streets seemed to curve or grow dark with shadows in places where he knew no one stood. It was the sort of paranoia where you learn from having to lean on no one but himself. It meant eventual bliss of some kind or another.
And eventually, he came to the cemetery, parking his car by the gate, and walked to the place where his wife was freshly laid in her grave, he sat in the grass by the upturned soil and breathed in the scent of what was around him.
He looked at her tombstone and knew that after he left he would at last sleep, but before he did, he would have to find himself. Separate himself from the past, and find himself in a new phase of his life.

After this he would live his life without her, but perhaps he would yet find another that would live and be loved by him. But what would he be leaving behind? Would it mean abandoning everything young in him, and crossing over to new areas of existence.
He didn’t know, but here among the dead it terrified him less.

He crept closer on his knees to her tombstone and fell there with his arms wrapped around the granite.
The peace of the night was interrupted by the sound of his sobbing.


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NOTE: It did take me some eight months to finish this among other writing projects, so please do give me an honest, straightforward opinion.