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Witnessing - Part Two

By Jennifer S. Davis

Rose couldn't understand what Cecilia wanted with her now. Yes, Rose had an affair with her husband, Baxter, but she'd known about that for a long time and, dying of cancer, didn't entirely disapprove. Besides, three weeks earlier, Baxter sent Rose flowers and a sweet note, all by way of ending things. So why was she now standing with Cecilia in their bedroom?

"Sweet Cecilia," Baxter had said that first night he and Rose had met at happy hour at a local bar. Over martinis he'd explained his wife's sickness, the deterioration of her body and their sex life. He wore a navy tie with different colored golfing tees, his graying hair thick and slicked over his crown. He was neither handsome or unattractive. Love at first sight, Rose would tell him later, because he liked hearing such things.

What she fell for was his love story with Cecilia. It seems pathetic now. But in the moment she had finally felt important, like her existence was essential to something bigger, and it no longer mattered that she'd never finished her nursing degree, or that she hadn't lost the fifteen pounds she's been meaning to lose for years now, or that she was over thirty and didn't have a husband to send off to work or kids to pack school lunches for, because Baxter told her he needed her, and she'd believed him.

They had sex in the alley behind the bar. Afterwards, Baxter said "Thank you," very politely. It took Rose only the three hours they spent in the bar to convince herself that their affair was acceptable.

"I've been reading about alternatives lately." Cecilia kicks the fanny pack of chemo in Rose's lap to get her attention. "Alternatives to this."

"I'm so sorry," Rose says. "I know it must be--"

"Enough of the pity party," Cecilia snaps. She opens the bedside drawer, which is filled with prescription bottles and syringes, the only messy space in the fastidiously neat room, and produces a crumpled business card and hands it to Rose. On the corner, there are two hands folded in prayer sprouting little angel wings.

"A contact reflex analyst and psychic. He reads the body's energy fields and reflexes. Very powerful people spend great amounts of money for his time." Cecilia takes the card from Rose and cups in solemnly in her hand. "And he's agreed to see me. He's agreed to see me today."

"I have to go," Rose repeats, but already she feels as if any control she had over the situation is slipping. Outside, the neighborhood girls shriek at each other; one has what the other one wants.

"Limited," Cecilia says. "If I had to think of a word to describe Baxter, that's the one. Can't think outside of the B-O-X." She draws an imaginary box in the air with her index finger. "Don't get me wrong. He's a good man. Just limited in his reach."

"Perhaps," Rose whispers, feeling slightly disloyal.

"So you'll help me?" Cecilia says. Color rises high in her cheeks. Her hands jerk in little twitches. Rose cannot tell if she is excited or angry.

"Baxter refuses to take me. He insists I'm trying to kill myself with such nonsense. I can't drive anymore because of the seizures, and I would prefer that no one find out. Besides, it would give us a chance to get to know each other." She looks at Rose, hard. "Don't you think we should know each other?"

Rose thinks of the last time she saw Baxter. He had mentioned the week before that Cecilia was a drama major in college when they met, how he went to drama club parties just to get a glimpse of her. He'd spoken about her so wistfully that Rose spent the next two days reading from her high school Shakespeare text in front of the mirror. How should I your true love know from another one? By his cockle hat and staff and his sandal shoon. She read for him on their next date, but the lines sounded funny in her country accent, even worse when she'd tried to hide it, and she didn't know what half of it meant. He'd stared at her blankly for an embarrassingly long moment, then made an excuse about forgetting something that he needed to do and left.

"And let's be honest, dear," Cecilia says when Rose doesn't answer. "It's the least you could do, considering."