From The Beauty—Only Sleeping

Prologue

        He looks at the tree, spindly and barren with winter.  No, not a tree, a rosebush.  He can tell by the thorns. 

        The woman lies prone, face down, on the ground.  But her hands are holding the roots.  Her hair grows down into the earth.  Above her, the branches grow into a sheltering crown, like thorn hands interlacing. 

        Is she useless in sleep or gathering strength?

        Her hair is caught in the thorns, the roots.  The only rose blooming is the one in her hair. 

        Is she supposed to be crucified on her own thorns, thorns of neglect and of sadness?  She looks too serene and peaceful for that. 

        Her body curls around the stem of the thorny tree, sheltering its roots and sheltered by its branches. 

        “It will be wonderful when she wakes up,” David says.  What will she do? he wonders in silence. 

        In places it was hard to tell what was hair, what was roots.

        She seems self-sufficient.  But wouldn’t it be nice if a prince were there, to make sure that the flowers behaved like flowers? 

        Her fingers stretch out, as though protecting as much of the ground and the tree as possible.  Her mouth is open, breathing life into the bush, and it, in turn, circles her like a huge wreath of protection. 

        Christine, the sculptress, talks on the phone.  He is acutely aware of her every move, despite looking at the sculpture.  Now Christine smiles, says good-bye, and hands the phone to David. 

        “Your son.” 

Christine turns her back to him and busies herself at her work table by the window, as though to give him privacy in her small studio space. 

        David’s gaze wanders back and forth during his brief conversation with his son.  Sometimes it rests on the woman shaping clay at her table, the silver threads in her brown hair lit by the sun.  Sometimes it rests on the magical woman in the sculpture.

        He returns the phone to its cradle, cautious, as though it too were a work of art.  “She’s a goddess, isn’t she?” he asks, still mesmerized. 

“It’s only Sleeping Beauty,” Christine says. 

“Only?”  David once more steps around the sculpture.  The hair on his arms prickles.  He feels Christine’s eyes on him.  He fears that she can read his thoughts.  He fears her judgment, fears what it will mean to him. 

“I’ve had her in my heart for years.  So here she is.  My sleeping beauty,” Christine says. 

“Gives me goose bumps, just looking at it.  And hearing you talk.”  Once more he turns from the sculpture to Christine and looks directly into her eyes. 

For a while she returns his look in bewildering silence.  Quite suddenly, her mouth spreads into one of her magical smiles.  He sees her head bend back in a familiar surrender to joy.  It’s how she used to laugh, thirty years back, exactly like that. 

Her eyes are gentle.  He thinks he can trust them and rest in their gaze.  But in his chest he feels the quivers of uncertainty.  Why should she want to be with him after all that has happened?