Marcy Rae Henry

the between, novel excerpt

After the narrator’s former lover dies, she reads The Tibetan Book of the Dead to her for forty-
nine nights, the recommended time to help the dead get through what is called the bardo period,
an intermediary state between life and death; between death and rebirth. The ritual allows the
narrator to unravel the story of how two strangers became lovers, then strangers again.

the between

Gram

‘You’re trying to kill me!’ my grandmother shouted, running out the front door without a walker or a cane.

She made it to the elevator before I could catch her and the doors closed in my face.  I didn’t go back to grab the keys or lock the door to her apartment; I just took off running down the stairs.  They were carpeted and I took them two at a time, sure I would beat her to the first floor that used to be the lobby of a fancy hotel, but by the time I got there, she was telling Mrs. López, ‘She wants to murder me.’

‘Who?’ Mrs. López asked as I rounded the corner.

‘Her!’  She pointed at me.

‘Your granddaughter?’

‘Yes.’

It was unclear if she recognized I was, in fact, her granddaughter.

‘Sorry,’ I told Mrs. López and reached for my grandma’s hand.

‘Don’t you touch me!’ she shouted.

‘Gram, it’s me.  Why do you think someone is trying to hurt you?’

‘Why do you want me dead?’  Her big eyes filled with anger and confusion.

I sighed deeply.  ‘I’m going to have to call my mom.’

‘Come in,’ Mrs. López waved me into her place, ‘you can use my phone.’

My grandma stayed outside of the apartment as I rang my mom at work. ‘You better come and calm her down.  She thinks I’m trying to kill her.’

‘What?  What happened?’

‘Nothing.  After I gave her the second dose of meds this morning, she started looking at me suspiciously.’

I ran up three flights of stairs to lock my grandma’s door and rushed back down to the first floor, hoping Mrs. López wasn’t too troubled.  I stood just inside the open door, where I could see my grandma, but she couldn’t see me.  My mom arrived after a few minutes and asked, ‘Mom, what’s going on?’

‘That girl, she wants me dead.’

‘That girl is your granddaughter.  She adores you and she’s actually keeping you alive.’

When they went upstairs, I borrowed my mom’s car and drove off to see Angela.  I was fuzzy from lack of sleep and filled with the desire that accompanies death and a new lover.  We spent an hour together before I figured I should return to my grandmother’s beautiful building in downtown Alto Rio.  It sat where the river was at its widest and, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the center of town had flooded, people smashed into the mezzanine area to smoke and play cards for hours.  My grandma and her neighbors still played cards there, beneath black and white pictures of people dressed up and waiting out a flood. 

I walked into her small, clean apartment cautiously.  ‘Everything alright?’ She gave me the side eye.  ‘Gram, do you recognize me?’

‘She’s your granddaughter,’ my mom repeated.

She’d quit work for the day and stayed with us a few hours, until her mother returned to ‘normal.’  Then, it was as if it never happened.  My mom left and my grandma was joking with me about who was sleeping with whom in her building.  We never spoke about that day again.  I’m not sure she remembered it.

I woke every three hours to administer morphine to her through a pale yellow tube attached to her stomach.  The cancer was in her throat, but everything hurt.  One day I stood behind her and wrapped my arms around her, barely touching her.  I imagined squeezing.  She tossed my arms off and said, ‘Stop that. You remind me of Tatiana.’

‘I am Tatiana.’  I walked around and stood in front of her.  She looked confused for a moment and waved me off.

Most nights I would tuck her in, rub her back or her brow, tell her how much I loved her.  I imagined that’s how it was to have a child.  At night, after her meds, she was always affectionate.  ‘Your husband is letting you stay here with me all summer?’

‘I don’t have a husband, Gram.’

‘Really?  You’re such a lovely girl.’

I would rub her, the way she did me when I was a child, until she fell into a morphine-Ambien induced sleep.  ‘Tatiana,’ she would remind me just before she started breathing deeply, ‘I want a rosary and a funeral.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Don’t let your Aunt Patricia cremate me.’

‘I promise, I won’t.’

My aunt had told her, ‘We’re going to put you on the barbeque and sprinkle you over the garden.’

I had to hold my tongue around my aunt all summer.  Death brings out the worst in some people.  Especially those who can’t admit their own fears.  All I wanted to do was get more than a couple hours of sleep.  And have lots of furtive, furious sex. 

Angela 

She was about to step out of the elevator. The woman I’d heard so much about but had only seen in pictures.  I wanted to hear her voice. 

When she’d called, my mom told her to take the elevator to the third floor, that I’d meet her there.  As I walked down the hall, I heard the ding just before the doors opened and hoped I didn’t look as sleep deprived as I felt. 

When she stepped out, she was a lot to take in.  The femininity of black eyeliner around soft brown eyes, light summer clothes, no jewelry other than earrings.  Strong and confident, though not butch.  Not yet.  She smiled the smile I’d seen in photos.  Perfectly straight white teeth.  Full lips lipsticked in a nude, mid-tone shade.  We scanned each other quickly.  I hadn’t accounted for age and she was older than I imagined.  When our eyes locked, there was the acknowledgment where kind recognizes kind.  Maybe I’m inserting memories of other looks outside that same elevator.  But in this story, there was a curiosity from the start and after a perfunctory, Nice to finally meet you… I led the way, feeling her eyes on me from behind. 

In my grandma’s apartment, Angela spoke about her photography shop.  ‘It’s just up the street.’

‘Do you print photos for the biannual art show?’ I asked.

‘Sometimes.  Mostly it’s senior pictures, family pictures, pregnant pictures, baby pictures.’

‘Nothing for divorce?’

She laughed.  ‘We’ve done dance troupes, sports teams and even funerals.  But no divorces.’

‘You’re so lucky to not have an annoying boss.’

‘I am the annoying boss.’

‘How many employees?’

‘Six.  All women.’

I glanced at my mom. Once, when my dentist was out of town—celebrating with his boyfriend on Fire Island—I had a tooth emergency and went to see a woman up the street from me.  She did a piss poor job and when my dentist got back, he had to fix her fuck up.  My mom said, ‘That’s what you get for going to a woman.’

Angela talked about her house in the mountains.  ‘I designed it myself.  Every window has views of the mountains.’ 

‘That sounds amazing.  Let us know if you’re up for a visit some time.’  I tried not to look at my mom.  ‘I’m hoping to walk in the woods at least once while in Alto Rio.’ 

Angela said, ‘I’m sponsoring a golf tournament this summer.  It’s a fundraiser to expand the course out there.  You guys will have to come.’

I hated golf and said, ‘I’m happy to help.’  My mom nodded.

Before she left, Angela said, ‘Let’s all go for a drink soon.’

My mom didn’t drink, so did she just mean me?  I wrote her number in my journal.  I still have it memorized.  Anything else I wrote about Angela was written in code.   

*  * 

Even now I have to be careful.  Even now I feel constricted.  I’m trying to come as close  to the truth as possible.  Perhaps it’s the last thing I can do for her in the forty-nine days in the between. 

the between

In the Nyingma tradition, the Tibetan Book of the Dead is read to the deceased for forty-nine days.  This is the time Tibetan Buddhists believe a consciousness, or mind-stream, will remain in the intermediary state known as the Bardo. The Tibetan Book of the Dead is the Western name for bar do thos grol, usually translated as ‘Liberation through hearing during the intermediate state.’  The Bardo is the state between life and death, between death and rebirth; it is to be between. 

We hadn’t spoken to each other in nearly a decade, but when you died, I found out in a matter of hours.  I think about that moment so much I wonder if I made it up.   How could you do something so quotidian as die?

I was taught Bardo teachings originated in the 8th century with Padmasambhava.  He was Indian but played a major role in transmitting Buddhist philosophy to Tibet, a cultural adaptation that started in the early 7th century.  Buddhism would merge with facets of the Bon religion being practiced in Tibet.  Today Tibetan Buddhists practice rituals, recite mantras and consult oracles.

The day you died I’d just taken the dog out for a walk when my mom called. We were three or four buildings from mine, close enough to turn around.  My mom asked, ‘Are you alone?’ It’s what she asked when my grandma died a dozen years ago.  I’d just returned home, to work, after spending the summer with her.  And I lied then.  ‘Yes, I’m alone,’ I said, because you were there.  Lying about you was a habit I had gotten used to.  

The Tibetan Book of the Dead is a funerary text, recited more than read, to ease a recently deceased person’s consciousness.  To calm it.  The person, ‘they,’ becomes consciousness, ‘it.’   The recitation helps as it exits, waits and finds a favorable rebirth.

The day you died fall was falling all around.  I hadn’t thought of you at all that day.  In fact, I hadn’t thought of you in ages.  When my mom asked if I was alone, I said, ‘Yup, just me and the pup and a bunch of leaves.’ 

She said, ‘I thought you should know Angela died this morning.’

I stopped in my tracks.  ‘Angela D’Amato?’ 

‘Yes,’ my mother said over the phone.  

We spoke for a few minutes.  Better said, she answered my questions, but didn’t offer any extra information. 

After I found out you died, I did nothing unusual.  No prayers or rituals.  I let the dog lead.  He sniffed, peed and pooped.  I bent over to pick up poop with a colored bag, so I didn’t have to look at the poop longer than necessary.  I deposited it in a receptacle and we made our way around a number of city blocks.  I’d seen them so many times, they didn’t look any different. 

The air was crisp and cool, smells of moist earth, wet leaves before they started to rot.  I took the dog back inside then went for a walk by myself, which I never really do.  Sure, I walk to stores to buy stuff as well as to bars and restaurants to meet people, but those walks always have a purpose.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t plan to pass by the liquor store.  I had my mask in one pocket and my wallet in the other.  As I meandered around slowly, I didn’t cry.  I couldn’t cry.  I was between emotions.

Marcy Rae Henry is a multidisciplinary artist y una Latina de Los Borderlands. She is delighted by tablas, tulips and the theremin. M.R. Henry’s writing has received a Chicago Community Arts Assistance Grant, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination and first prize in Suburbia’s 2021 Novel Excerpt Contest. Some of the stories and the first 50 pages can be found online. Other writing and visual art appear in The Columbia Review, carte blanche, PANK, The Southern Review, Cauldron Anthology and The Brooklyn Review, among others. DoubleCross Press will publish her chapbook 'We Are Primary Colors' this year.