Age Cannot Wither Her

Every night as Beatrice slept, she panted and rattled and shrank a bit more. She lost her thick, dark hair first; then her supple mobility; then the simmering hazel acuity of her eyes; and finally, pound after pound of flesh once pinched and squeezed and bitten and kissed and caressed. Every morning, after pressing her index finger gently to Beatrice’s philtrum, Céline felt a burst of energy—Beatrice’s immortality was on the horizon. She’d lie in bed for a while, holding the slim comma of her wife, pouring whispers into Beatrice’s ear to the rhythm of every labored breath. Céline spoke of eternity. Promised it. Practically watched the magic flow from her fingertips into Beatrice’s wan, goosepimpled skin. First the pain; but then, mon cœur, the beauty. Just as dawn began frosting the forest behind their cottage pink, Céline laced her boots, toggled her coat, and stepped out into another morning with all the promise of a held breath—a secret not yet spoken. She knew the path to her masterwork by heart. Céline wove through dense birch and conifer, winter-wizened dry brush crunching underfoot. Outcroppings of sandstone sheaths with unrequited aspirations to be mountains loomed above. To her left, somewhere through the trees, a pond. Beatrice had insisted on the property for her paintings. “Am I not enough of a muse for you?” Céline had joked, lugging boxes into the empty sitting room. Beatrice had chuckled, wrapped her up in her strong arms, and kissed her temple; but, no—the question had gone unanswered. Only as Céline watched Beatrice die did she realize that, for true artists, no muse could ever be enough. To watch a sun rise, to follow a braid pushed gently over a model’s shoulder with the eyes—only the muse, tangible, containing the art within their very selves, becoming the art, could come close. For Beatrice, Céline would try. Céline passed into the copse of white birch and came to the largest of them all, sliced in half midway down the trunk by her chainsaw in the summer, when both Céline and Beatrice knew for sure what was coming, but wouldn’t say it aloud. The forest would speak it for them. In the last frog-croaking days of August, Céline had wrapped her hands, gently, around the circumference of Beatrice’s neck while she slept. She felt her pulse, strong and hard under her fingers, and wept. Precariously clinging to a wooden shop ladder, handsaw and sandpaper worked together to carve out the diameter at the top of the sawn birch. Next, Céline moved down, to the shoulders. By the middle of September, Céline had memorized every mole and freckle on her wife’s collarbone and replicated it to perfection in the carving. In October, Céline held Beatrice’s breasts in both hands, examining their shape, their weight, how they fell against her diminishing ribcage. Beatrice, with a rare show of strength and misinterpreting wholly, smiled in that completely, recklessly genuine way that Celine worshipped; just the left corner of her mouth curling up, wrinkling her nose into asymmetry. Céline caressed her wife as clinically as she could bear until she had her necessary measurements, then gave herself to Beatrice for the first time since the diagnosis. Afterward, Beatrice’s heartbeat was weak under Céline’s ear, but Céline was beginning to understand. Céline spent hours carving every day, slowly coaxing the trunk into a perfect likeness of her wife. The harsh cliffs of her shoulders, the jagged expanse of her clavicle, tapering into hips and legs that would keep her standing—keep her strong. December fell on their home, cold and dark, and Céline wove a crown of twisted apple branches for Beatrice by the fire. Beatrice could no longer eat apples. She was harder to wake, and she did not move, or comment on how warm the fire looked, or how beautiful Céline looked in the light of it. Céline ran her hands over the wood to embed splinters into her skin. She would not bother to pick them out. After the crown was finished, she lay down flat before the hearth and pressed her nose into the pile of the rug, hunting for traces of Beatrice’s perfume until she fell asleep. Beatrice died on the first day of January. Céline held her as she left, vowing all the while that she’d never truly leave. She wasn’t sure if Beatrice could hear her, but it made her feel better to say. The new year was to be the year of Beatrice’s rebirth. Once Beatrice’s body cooled and no longer trembled or moaned reflexively at a touch, Céline picked her up and carried her out into the yard, through the trees that seemed to lean in for a better look, past the rocks that seemed to grate against one another. Before the sculpture, Céline kissed Beatrice’s forehead, her eyes, her mouth, then laid her muse upon her cold, duff altar before her likeness. Céline’s coping saw sliced easily through Beatrice’s neck—just limp artery and eroded vertebrae and atrophied trachea. There was hardly anything left of this Beatrice, but the effigy stood tall, and strong, and ready. Céline climbed the ladder and lifted Beatrice’s head, pressing open throat to pulsing heartwood. She bound them tightly with twine, looping and looping until she was sure it was secure, then smeared wood glue and clay into the gaps between for good measure. The neck circumference was a perfect match. As Céline looked into Beatrice’s glazed eyes and hanging mouth, she felt a surge of pride. Céline affixed Beatrice’s crown. An oriole landed on the gnarled apple branches, an explosion of gold. Sunset fell on Beatrice, painting her pallor pink and red, flush with life. Céline sank to her knees, threw her arms around the trunk, and cried. Beatrice held her. ∘ ∘ ∘