Work in Progress: Isolation Box (2)

Another section from “Isolation Box”.

Stevie took a shower when he got home from cleaning his dead father’s apartment. His nose still had whiffs of the stale and rotten food that lingered in Barlow’s home. He ate dinner in his pajamas with Gina and his sons, James and Kennedy, ages seven and nine. And that night in bed, he lay stiff until Gina asked him what was wrong. He asked her, “Can I listen to your heart?”

“Why do you want to do that?”

“I don’t know. Barlow had some notes about the sounds of heartbeats. You know how he was about acoustics. Just, can I?”

“I think we have the stethoscope from when I was pregnant with Kennedy in the bathroom. Bottom middle drawer.”

“No, not with the stethoscope. I want to just hear you. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said. She uncurled from the fetal position she used to start her nightly sleep.

Stevie leaned over her. He unbuttoned the top of her nightgown. He rested his ear against her sternum and felt her body pulse. He heard her draw in breath. Molecules of oxygen filtered through her lungs and hopped into her blood stream, running through the highways of her arteries, returning with carbon hitchhikers up the back roads of her veins. He inhaled when she did. His thoughts melted into her breath, her pulse.

“Okay, that’s enough,” said Gina. She patted his shoulder. “Off now.”

“Why? I was just–”

“Get off me,” she gritted her teeth. He rolled off her and lay next to her. “You got hard,” she said.

“No,” he said.

“Is everything about sex with you? You would use your own father’s death to get laid?” He said nothing. “I bet you think he’d like that, using whatever you can to have sex.”

“That’s not it,” he said. He turned on his side, away from her. “That’s not it. Good night.”