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march septic, never ridding themselves of illness, death and despair. They rode the pinging elevator. Got out. A long hallway. Bianca was here? For an illness of the heart? Faivel was sleeping, and heavy. Henya clutched him to herself. Here was the room, 611. Here was the bed, draped in white. Twin hills were Bianca’s feet. Here was Bianca’s face, her eyes shut tightly. “Bianca?” Bianca’s eyes closed even more tightly, so that her long, dark lashes were nearly invisible between the folds of her skin. She was closing the window shades to self, tucking them closer to the window, when a friend is looking up to find her. “Bianca. Can you hear me? It’s… me. Henya.” Nothing moved. “And Faivel. We came.” “I shouldn’t wake you. I don’t deserve you,” she said sadly. It was true. It was really true. Is this what Henya wanted to see? She’d traveled in for this, to make the long sojourn back into what she had lost? She sat down on a visitor’s chair. The room was silent. The hall was silent. She sat, waited. Maybe her friend’s features would relax, fall into forgiveness or sleep. From down the hall came a growl, deep, like a hungry lion, ferociously human. She looked over at Bianca. Unresponsive. “Do you want me to leave?” The question hung in the still air. Reverberating around the room, answerless, a dove without a place to land in a world flooded, awash. “I should have never left you. I had no choice.” An excuse. No, a reason. No, an excuse. Was she the source of her friend’s angst? It couldn’t be solely up to her. So, a reason. But what was the point arguing with herself. Here was her friend. What had happened to her?
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a choice when I made the choice. And I didn’t think this would happen, that I’d be giving up you, that we were breathing for each other. Yet it happened. You are gone. But you’re still here. Come back. Come back. And this is what Bianca might have felt when I left her, alone in the coldness of her apartment filled with fancy things, but hardly any sound. Come back. “Bianca, talk to me. I never meant to hurt you. Please say some“Bianca, I’m here.” She stood thing.” again. Found the fisted clump that The hospital hall, terribly, terwas her friend’s hand, held onto it ribly quiet. Oh, how Henya missed though the sheets left a barrier, im- the bird banter at home, and the penetrable, between them. Faivel wind infuriating through the trees, stirred. the water thrashing like a miser“Here is Faivel,” she said. “Your able toddler on the carpet of the baby.” earth. Say something. She dumped him onto her The wall clock moved and moved friend’s slender, prone frame. Bi- and moved, also the Creator’s song, crawling on her straining nerves, her taut desires. “Say something. AnyI lost a friend. I lost you, thing,” she whispered urgently through clenched another one. I’ve lost teeth, as she might to her vacuum cleaner if hair enough in my world, clogged its drum and nozzle. “But say somealways because I was thing already.” choosing a bad choice. If she heard, she remained impassive. Of course she heard. anca stirred her face away, toward Don’t leave me in the cold outside of the wall, but careful not to upset you, in the tundra of other. the balance that allowed Faivel to Say you are angry at me. stay on top of her. Say it. “Talk to us,” Henya said. But Say I killed your sister, because if I what was the use? She was impos- hadn’t pushed her to the work unit that ing her will on the patient, and it day... say it. Say it, just sat it already. Call was her duty to remain, forever in me a murderer. Call me... oh, but just call friendship, of service. my name, as tainted as it is. She scooped up her child, who Henya clutched at the claw of her was crying, and sat back down. friend-sister in bed. The world was empty and bright, “Say anything but silence.” tohu v’vohu. I lost you. I lost a friend. I lost you, anTo be continued... other one. I’ve lost enough in my world, always because I was choosing a bad Chany Rosengarten authors columns choice. Even now. Torn between fam- and serialized novels in leading publicaily and friends, I made a choice, and here tions. She can be reached at gchanyg@ you are, lost to me. I didn’t think I had gmail.com.