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When Saturday comes around, the outside world is still coated in a thick blanket of snow, glowing and glistening in heavenly ways that Marlow can only look on at with indifference. The snow blinds her, sending waves of pain to her head, and pulsing with life through every sinew and synapse. It's the first time in months that she's abandoned her pajamas for jeans and a sweater, along with a heavy overcoat and boots. The feeling is unfamiliar and more than anything, Marlow wants to crawl back into bed and wither like she's been doing since September, but Jessie's perpetual optimism and resolve leads to Marlow finally caving.
She's awake by the time that Jessie wakes up. Truthfully, Marlow's been away for hours before Jessie even begins to stir, but her real wake up call comes when the relentless blonde bounds into her room, sunshine smile causing Marlow to shrivel into the safety of her comforter. Her blankets do nothing to protect her as Jessie's liveliness seeps through the fabric that Marlow hoped would keep it at bay. Only hope is for those who need something more than themselves to believe in, but Marlow has never needed anyone or anything to believe in besides Eagan.
Eagan who is lost to the earth and decays rapidly, just as he'd done in life.
That morning Antonia practically forces toast down Marlow's throat and rewraps her hand which is covered with gauze and still sticky with molten and blistering skin. Marlow is chastised heavily by Toni who speaks to her like a child, foolish and not nearly concerned enough with her own wellbeing, and Jessie frets over her in a similar manner, like tending to her own child with a certain fondness and excessive worry. Jessie and Toni both came to the decision that Marlow would go down the street to the old church for group therapy to find some kind of commiseration, or just so that she'd finally face her problems head on. Admittedly, wasting away in bed for months, reminiscing on what life had slipped away was not a healthy way to cope with Eagan's untimely death.
Slumped over the island with her straw-like hair creating a veil before her, Marlow can hear the gentle hum of the coffee machine and see the barely there flicker of the lights above her. If she listens very closely she can hear the sound of blood rushing in her ears and the gentle bray of her heart, reminding her that it still beats like the day she was born. Only then her heart didn't belong to just her; rather it beat for two, unlike now where the silent echo of a second heart falls dead. Focusing on the numbness in her wounded hand, the voices blur together and mold into the shrill sounds of birds chirping. The air grows colder and pierces through Marlow's skin like needles, violent and aching. She's sitting on a bench with a warm thermos clutched between both hands, sending waves of heat through her palms and up her thighs. If she inches her head to the right she can see the stone church with stained glass windows and the daunting cross at the peak of the chapel.
