Permanence by Vincent Zandri Page B

doctor with my life.
    I close my arms around him in bed inside the room we’ve rented above the Grand Canal. We are together in a place we’ve never been and in a way we’ve never been. We have been lovers for months, but now there are no bright, ceiling-mounted lights overhead, no cold leather from the patient’s couch adhering to my back, no mechanical sounds of Albany’s rush-hour traffic going past.
    Listen: in romantic Venice, doctor takes his time.
    There is nothing but the darkness and the intermittent soft yellow lights that come from outside and flash through our room. I listen to the sound of water splashing against the boats and the gondolas that pass beneath us. There are the voices that sing not to doctor and me, but I will make them our own anyway. The voices are soft and distant but can be heard above the accordion music.
    I am not really showing yet, so doctor does not suspect anything about my pregnancy. Or perhaps I am just fooling myself.
    Our underwear and clothing lay in a heap on the floor. When doctor leans over me, separating his body from my own, supporting himself above me with outstretched arms, his eyes wide without his glasses, he trembles as though suddenly deprived of the strength necessary to carry things through. And, I fear, he is. But I feel doctor over me, against me. I take hold of doctor and help him enter me. And together we begin the familiar motion.
    Then doctor says, “I love you, Mary Kismet,” the way I do not expect.
    Here’s what I do: I stop all movement. I make my body rigid. I push doctor off me. This happens not by choice, but by instinct. My actions take little effort, because doctor will not resist. Doctor responds as he should.
    “I shouldn’t have said that,” he says, leaning one arm against the mattress. “I’m sorry.”
    I say nothing. I’ve known for a long time now that doctor loves me. After all, why would he invite me to accompany him to Venice? It’s just that doctor has never confirmed his love by saying it. Suspecting love and then hearing it from doctor are two different things.
    “Mary, listen,” he says.
    I jump out of bed. I run into the bathroom, turn on the bright overhead lights. I slam the door closed. I sit at the edge of the bathtub. I run the water in the tub, let it flow into the basin. I listen to the sound of running water. I stare into it. I am consumed with the memory of Jamie and baby. I see their faces in my mind, as if they never left me.
    There is a knock on the bathroom door.
    “Mary,” says the voice. “Mary, I’m sorry. I should have known better. I shouldn’t have spoken about love.”
    I say nothing. I do nothing.
    The water flows into the tub.
    Listen: I’m not afraid of doctor’s love. I’m afraid of my own love. I’m afraid that I will begin to love doctor as much as he loves me. I’m afraid that my love will overpower my need for doctor, and that by loving him, I will forget about baby and Jamie. I’m afraid I will decide to keep doctor’s child, a child that might take the place of baby—the two-year-old toddler Jamie and I lost. Listen: I will never forget about baby. The memory of baby will be with me forever, just like the memory of my mother and my father.
    I stare into the water.
    I run my hand through it.
    “Mary,” doctor repeats. But I try not to listen. I listen instead to the sound of water as it fills the basin.
    In the morning
    In the morning, doctor treats me as though he does not love me at all.
    We remain polite, but distant. We remain silent. Doctor is in a rush. He does not want to be late for his morning conference which, he claims, begins in a half-hour.
    We dress ourselves separately inside the bathroom. I am suddenly embarrassed to be naked in front of doctor in the gray daylight of Venice. And while he showers and dresses, I sit with my knees pressed up against the railing of the balcony with the windows wide open and the breeze blowing steady and cool against my face.
    I drink