By Saturday morning, another twelve pages of Here Comes a Revolution had accumulated in the typewriter and atop the surface of the writing desk--the original rough draft, too, complete with an assortment of awkward adverbs that were omitted on the second draft, and Oscar awoke two more times in the woods by the park and once more beside Madeleine's grave. There was a silent acknowledgment every time he awoke, and a distant look in his eyes as if trying to solve a riddle. He was perplexed, of course, but he had grown accustomed to waking in some strange place far away from his bed. It somehow reminded him of the long walks he used to take.
Still, he resolved to bite his tongue and stay low-key about his dream-borne wandering, for the most part. If someone asked, he planned to tell them the truth quite plainly, as he'd told Kate when she began quizzing him about the state of his dress several days earlier. In the few conversations he'd had since then, including an abnormally long discussion with Walter about the proper way to grow tomatoes when he returned the laptop, he simply found that there was never an appropriate window to mention his apparent repeating past while completely unconscious.
When Kate arrived late in the morning, she seemed to avoid the topic of sleepwalking altogether, finding it unseemly to remind Oscar exactly how heartbreaking his nocturnal adventures could be. Everything else, though, even the tangentially related, was fair game.
"What was she like?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Madeleine--what was she like?"
Oscar set two plates on the table, bearing identical arrangements of eggs and toast, then poured two mugs full of coffee before sitting back, lost in his thoughts as he searched for an adequate way to describe her, but Madeleine was like an eclipse or some other fantastic phenomenon that words could never describe. They had to be seen through one's own eyes, their presence felt first-hand.
"She was an amazing woman, almost as witty and charming as myself. If you don't mind me saying, you remind me of her quite a bit, both in looks and determination."
"I don't mind at all."
"And she was always so elegant and graceful. She was the sort of woman you could imagine always wearing a dress, with a perfume so light you'd think it was a fragrance emanating from her own skin."
"What happened to her?"
Oscar immediately sighed, his head bowed down toward his chest, withdrawing.
"I'm sorry," Kate quickly said. "It's none of my business, I know. I just thought you might want to t--"
"Cancer."
"Oh."
"For a long while, she was sick--ragged, thin, though she managed to hide it well. How she hid it from me for so long, I'll never know, but through the years, once we finally found out what it was, we had a few scares. I thought for sure I'd lost her."
Kate prodded her eggs politely with a fork.
Oscar rubbed his chin, his hand flowing over the short, coarse grain of his face. He'd forgotten to shave today.
"One day she got better, and we thought that was it. We thought things could finally go back to normal--we could live our happy little lives and pretend that none of the doctors' visits, none of the long hospital stays (with their stale food and starched sheets) had ever happened. I suppose at some point in our lives, each and every one of us is wrong about something.
"I'd like to say that when it finally happened, it was sudden, that she didn't suffer. Unfortunately, I know better. The inevitability, that overwhelming sense that it would come back, was suffering enough. She told me once, even after it had gone into remission, that she could still feel it--something--inside her, something that refused to settle. I think she was in pain the whole time, unwilling to share it with me."
They finished their breakfast quietly. Kate asked no more questions until long after.
Still, he resolved to bite his tongue and stay low-key about his dream-borne wandering, for the most part. If someone asked, he planned to tell them the truth quite plainly, as he'd told Kate when she began quizzing him about the state of his dress several days earlier. In the few conversations he'd had since then, including an abnormally long discussion with Walter about the proper way to grow tomatoes when he returned the laptop, he simply found that there was never an appropriate window to mention his apparent repeating past while completely unconscious.
When Kate arrived late in the morning, she seemed to avoid the topic of sleepwalking altogether, finding it unseemly to remind Oscar exactly how heartbreaking his nocturnal adventures could be. Everything else, though, even the tangentially related, was fair game.
"What was she like?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Madeleine--what was she like?"
Oscar set two plates on the table, bearing identical arrangements of eggs and toast, then poured two mugs full of coffee before sitting back, lost in his thoughts as he searched for an adequate way to describe her, but Madeleine was like an eclipse or some other fantastic phenomenon that words could never describe. They had to be seen through one's own eyes, their presence felt first-hand.
"She was an amazing woman, almost as witty and charming as myself. If you don't mind me saying, you remind me of her quite a bit, both in looks and determination."
"I don't mind at all."
"And she was always so elegant and graceful. She was the sort of woman you could imagine always wearing a dress, with a perfume so light you'd think it was a fragrance emanating from her own skin."
"What happened to her?"
Oscar immediately sighed, his head bowed down toward his chest, withdrawing.
"I'm sorry," Kate quickly said. "It's none of my business, I know. I just thought you might want to t--"
"Cancer."
"Oh."
"For a long while, she was sick--ragged, thin, though she managed to hide it well. How she hid it from me for so long, I'll never know, but through the years, once we finally found out what it was, we had a few scares. I thought for sure I'd lost her."
Kate prodded her eggs politely with a fork.
Oscar rubbed his chin, his hand flowing over the short, coarse grain of his face. He'd forgotten to shave today.
"One day she got better, and we thought that was it. We thought things could finally go back to normal--we could live our happy little lives and pretend that none of the doctors' visits, none of the long hospital stays (with their stale food and starched sheets) had ever happened. I suppose at some point in our lives, each and every one of us is wrong about something.
"I'd like to say that when it finally happened, it was sudden, that she didn't suffer. Unfortunately, I know better. The inevitability, that overwhelming sense that it would come back, was suffering enough. She told me once, even after it had gone into remission, that she could still feel it--something--inside her, something that refused to settle. I think she was in pain the whole time, unwilling to share it with me."
They finished their breakfast quietly. Kate asked no more questions until long after.
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