A Nightmare

Abstract

A Nightmare Talia Neffson (bio) She knew what she'd told Lizzie was true. Head injuries do produce an alarming and seemingly unaccountable amount of blood. Mira had never seen so much blood in her life. When she was done crying, she washed her face in the downstairs half-bath and dried it on a burgundy hand towel with a big S monogrammed on it. She tried to remember if Lizzie had changed her last name. It seemed strange and embarrassing that she couldn't remember. Then she remembered. The living room was strewn with toys, board books, little and big shoes, and fossilized Cheerios, just as it had been every time Mira visited, which wasn't often. The only time she could remember its being visibly tidied was for Little Man's first birthday party. She was surprised that Lizzie hadn't tidied this time, with the other couples coming over, though she wasn't sure if she was surprised in a good way or a bad way. Mira couldn't remember where she'd learned about head injuries bleeding heavily but it made sense—so many blood vessels, and of course from an evolutionary standpoint the priority had to be protecting the all-important brain. She had asked the EMT guy if wounds like this always bleed a lot and he'd said, "Sometimes." Otherwise he'd spoken only to Ben, who had been seated on the floor in front of the sink, holding the wadded-up beach towel against his head. Ben's usual serene manner had seemed transformed by the circumstances into a stunned silence that might've been calm or shock. He'd barely said a word. Mira hadn't seen the exact moment his complexion turned to a brown-tinged, pallid gray from its usual warm, light bronze ("like Lenny Kravitz," said Lizzie, when they'd first started [End Page 489] dating). But it was a noticeable change and almost as unnerving as the blood. There was a name for that color. Taupe? Ecru? It made Mira think of the monochrome del Sarto paintings Marco had tried to convince her to like. "Well, you know I am just a dumb American. I'm probably not sophisticated enough to appreciate it," she'd said. "But you are not dumb," Marco had responded seriously, continuing to examine the painting. "You are a very intelligent woman." Humor, especially sarcasm, had always been a problem with Marco. At first Mira had assumed it was a language problem. Later she realized it was not just a language problem. Three years and eight months. Lizzie refused to refer to him as anything other than "that fucking Italian." They'd played the name game after dinner while the two couples with the husbands Ben knew from work were still there. Lizzie and Mira's team went first. Lizzie put down the first scrap of paper and, without pausing, pulled her cardigan off the back of her chair, draped it over her shoulders and tied the sleeves in a loose knot at her chest. Then she leaned forward and lifted an imaginary pair of glasses to her forehead, as if scrutinizing something up close. "The chiaroscuro!" she said with a rolling, extravagant accent, "Molto bellissimo! You see?" "That fucking Italian," Mira answered flatly. The other couples laughed the resentful, strained laughter of people witnessing an inside joke from the outside. Lizzie's motion for "Polo" looked more like vacuuming than swinging a mallet from horseback, but Mira still got it. Lizzie looked at the next paper and, again without pausing, said in the same exaggerated Canarsie accent she often used to imitate their mothers, "Imagine you're a deer …" "Marisa Tomei," said Mira. They went on like that until Lizzie picked up a paper that made her pause. She put bunny ears behind her head. "Hugh Hefner?" guessed Mira. "Mel Blanc?" The other couples laughed unrestrainedly. Lizzie huffed, then their time was up. They won anyway. They always won when they paired up for the name game. [End Page 490] Ben had offered to sit the game out so they wouldn't have an uneven number. Then he'd gone upstairs to...