by Michelle Reale

Lucy concentrated hard and drew circles in red pen on her husband's back, lassoing the oddly shaped splotches in mottled pinks, browns and purples that she thought looked suspicious, possibly and more frighteningly, malignant. The intimate geography of Benny's back was one she could never get enough of. Her large lidded eyes scanned the broad area with careful precision. There was something wrong with Benny and she would get to the bottom of it.

"Hold still, I want to look real good," she squinted. Benny sat tense on the edge of the bed in his underwear and socks, shivering even though the room was sweltering. Benny closed his eyes and let a sigh slip through slightly parted lips.

"This is what a wife does, Benny. It's my job to take care of you," she said with the confidence that only those in possession of an absolute truth dare exhibit.

"Lucy, I've had those marks my entire life. Let it go." He said this softly, as though he were exhausted. Lucy placed her hands on his shoulders, still on her knees behind him on the bed and leaned her head against his. She felt that he really was sick, she could tell by the sighing, the resignation in his voice, the drawn look he'd had on his face lately.

"This is what whats-her-name should have done for you!" Benny winced at the reference to his ex-wife, Anna. "Instead of acting like a woman, she runs back home---what did she call it? The "mother country"? Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Unbelievable."

In fact, Benny harbored no ill will towards his ex-wife or their short marriage. It all seemed so ill conceived from the outset: her cousins who lived on Garibaldi Street thought she'd be the perfect mate for the handsome, but quiet Benny, who they'd known for years. They explained how Anna had wanted to find herself an American man and live in the states. Benny flew over to Italy and the marriage was arranged old style with more than a few glasses of home made wine and a lot of back slapping. They'd married in a noisy village church affair in Italy. During the ceremony the women scolded children who ran around the dark, cool church as though they were fairgrounds. The men smoked unfiltered cigarettes near the entrance of the church, the smoke wafting in and around Benny's nostrils. Anna, taller than Benny by an inch or so looked elegant in a simple white silk sheath with a string of sea pearls, her long curly hair threaded lightly with gray. She seemed luminous that day. The walk as man and wife through the village suited her. She held her head high and took long strides with her arm linked through Benny's. Everyone thought she'd be a princess in America.

"I'm just saying, Benny, you should thank God you've got me," she went on, talking more to the air than anything else. Benny rubbed hard at the back of his neck and wondered at the improbability of having had two women in his life, while some men seemed destined to avoid the whole enterprise entirely.

"Je- sus. I think one of those moles has grown since the last time I looked," she said, scrunching up her nose as if he gave off the scent of something sinister tunneling away inside of him. She pressed and scratched at the slight, discolored protuberance just below his left shoulder blade with a long, appliquéd fingernail.

"The last time you looked was yesterday, Lu, I don't think anything has grown since then. Stop looking so damn hard. There is nothing wrong with me," he said with a rising irritation he usually controlled. He sounded unsure even to himself

He could feel Lucy looking at him with longing.    He thought she looked silly, her dyed black hair frizzy from the heat, oblivious at her failed and awkward attempts at glamour. He knew he never got as mad as she would have liked. "I'd like to see you get really worked up, Benny - just once." She'd said that so many times it became a sad joke.

"How can you even say that?" She put on a pout. "I want you to be around for a good long time---why else would I go through the trouble?" She was off of the bed now, hands on her hips, beaded sweat on her upper lip, her sweet, fruity smell crowding the room. Benny stole a sideward glance. Lucy was soft, round, and womanly in a way that both repelled and fascinated him. Lucy was too much of everything: her hair so thick and black, her large brown eyes always staring through you, and her breasts, large and maternal, a soft as pillows. He knew that she'd been using any excuse lately to get near him. He felt as if he were being choked off in a place too deep to touch for the truth he might find there, what he might have to admit to himself: that he'd made another mistake and ruined yet another life along with his own. When he'd met her, he never thought it would come to much. He surprised himself by not mourning the end of his marriage in the way he thought he should, but instead felt a curiosity that it had ever come about to begin with. It was the relentless questioning of everyone around him, the stupidity of losing such a woman. When he'd met Lucy he felt the old desire to have someone figure things out for him. Lucy, who'd been on the hunt for some time had gladly stepped in. Since then, he'd been looking for the release valve. Lucy seemed to suck the air out of a room. It made his head spin, but he really couldn't blame her.

Lucy hunched in the corner of the bedroom taking off her clothes. She was smiling a slow smile.   Benny glanced back at the bedroom windows wide open with the shades up and the curtains pulled to the side. Lucy's wide bottom looked soft and the dimpled skin quivered.

"Lucy, don't. Not now," he groaned. She wiggled herself out of her lime green panties and matching bra. Her breasts hung sadly, her nipples pointing to opposite ends of the room. Despite the heat, her arms had goose bumps and the soft, downy hair on them stood at attention. The sun was too bright. Benny could see the filaments of dust in the sun beam that cut across the room. The light purple carpet seemed faded and dirty, and the worn path from the door to the bed was evidence of a sad and useless journey.    

Lucy ignored his protests and began walking toward him, as though on a balance beam, small, unsteady steps. She was tentative in a way he'd never seen her before and her smile seemed brave and lost at the same time. He wanted to take her into his arms as he would a daughter, if he had one, and tell her that some things are never what they seem.

Lucy sat gently next to Benny on the bed, as if conscious of making the slightest ripple on the surface. She laid a hand on his thigh and he laid a hand over hers. A small fan whirred in the distance and the telephone might have rung once or twice. Benny thought of Anna so far away in Italy. He wanted to tell her so many things. How late in the evenings he sits on the front porch smoking cigarettes, wishing himself away, anywhere. How he felt he had so many things to say these days, but no one to say them to. How every day that went by he became more and more himself, he could feel it, but had no idea who or what that was. He wanted to say all of these things to Anna. But to his wife, Lucy, who sat leaning into him on the bed, waiting, he could say nothing.

Lucy rubbed his thigh slowly, in a small circular motion. After a time, she disenthralled herself, and gave Benny three quick pats on his leg. With a voice sounding very much like his mother's she said, "It's off to the doctor with you tomorrow, mister." She added, with doubt, "We'll have you feeling better in no time."

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