“I love you,” James tells Mary; he tells her every day. “I love you so much. I’m so lucky to be here with you.”
Where are they? Somewhere in Silent Hill, it must be; they’re still on vacation. Rosewater Park, maybe?
That would make sense. He sees it now, the two of them standing in Rosewater Park, surrounded by flowers in bloom. He’s not sure where that moment of confusion came from.
“James,” Mary says, “if you really loved me, wouldn’t you face what you’ve done?”
She sounds serious. But she must be joking, she must be teasing him. She’s never had an angry word for him; everything’s been perfect between them, always. “What did I do?”
Mary breaks into a sudden, radiant smile. “You forgot to bring me back to Silent Hill, silly.”
There’s a buzzing in the back of his head, a kind of fuzziness, like the static on an old videotape. “But... we’re in Silent Hill now. Aren’t we?”
This conversation isn’t making sense. He must have got it wrong from the start.
They’re not in Rosewater Park; they’re in their hotel room, resting on the bed. And they’re not speaking; there’s less to go wrong if they don’t speak. There’s just James, lying with his head in Mary’s lap and his hand in hers, feeling her warmth and her breathing: that quiet assurance that she’s still there with him.
-
Something shows up behind him in his reflection, and James whips around, his heart a sudden jackhammer in his chest.
It’s Mary. It’s Mary, of course; what else would it be?
“Sorry,” she says. It’s light and warm; she has a way of apologising that always makes him feel there was nothing to worry about in the first place. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I just wanted to check you were okay. You’ve been in here for a while.”
“It’s fine,” James says. “I’m fine.”
“Feeling vain?” she asks, with a small laugh.
“What?”
She nods towards the bathroom mirror. “Have you just been looking at your own reflection?”
James glances at the mirror, hesitant.
“I look older than I remembered,” he admits.
“We’re just getting older,” Mary says, with a shrug and a smile. “We’re married now; we’re growing up. It’s not so bad.”
“Mm.” James stares at his reflection. It feels like a stranger. Mary, behind him, looks as young and beautiful as ever, frozen in time.
“If it helps,” Mary says, “I think you still look very handsome.”
He’s a little afraid that, when he turns around, she’ll be gone.
But she’s still there, of course. Mary, his Mary, solid and warm and real and here. Seeing her always fills him with an aching relief.
“I’m glad you got better,” he says.
“Did I?” Mary asks.
James goes back over the words in his own head. I’m glad you got better. Now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure why he said them. “Were you sick?”
“When?” Mary asks.
James shakes his head. “I must be getting confused.”
“James,” Mary says. “Try to remember.”
James hesitates. “I don’t – I don’t want to.”
Mary is silent, for a long moment. Breathes in and out, slowly. “Okay.”
-
James presses a kiss to Mary’s thigh. He’s always loved her legs. He wishes he could see them more often, but she’s always favoured long skirts and dresses; she’s never liked showing much of herself in public.
It’s not important. He’s just happy to have her.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs. “Mary—”
Something cold goes through him: that’s not her name.
He raises his head, expecting fury, maybe accusations. She doesn’t seem to be reacting. Did she not hear him?
It takes him a moment to realise: of course he said the right name. This is Mary; she’s the love of his life. Why did he think...?
Who else would be here? He was looking right at her; who could he have mistaken her for? What just happened in his head?
“Honey?” Mary asks. “Is something wrong?”
“I don’t know,” James says, after a moment.
If there’s something wrong, they’ll get through it together, won’t they? So long as Mary’s by his side, he can take whatever comes.
-
They’re packed at last, they’re ready to leave Silent Hill. James stops at the parking lot above the town, at Mary’s request. She leans against the barrier, taking a last, lingering look over the lake.
“We’ll come back soon, right?” she asks.
“We’ll come back,” he assures her. “We could see some other places first, though, right?”
Mary laughs a little. “Sorry. I guess there’s no reason to be in such a rush.”
She coughs a couple of times.
No.
No, they can’t leave. Mary is coughing, and if they leave – if this ends—
They’re not leaving. The vacation has just started. They’re in their hotel room, Mary laughing underneath him, her hair spread loose over the pillo—
Over the bed. There aren’t any pillows. They can ask the hotel porter about that later; right now, it doesn’t matter.
James kisses her and kisses her and doesn’t think about anything else.
-
Mary closes her eyes for a moment. Opens them again. “I wish I could talk to you, you know?”
“Baby,” James says. “I’m right here.”
Baby. Is that something he normally says? He can’t remember, for some reason. It feels strange on his tongue.
“I know you feel awful about what happened,” Mary says. “I think there’s a world where I could forgive you. But how can we have that conversation if you won’t know what I’m talking about?”
“I don’t really know what you’re talking about right now,” James admits.
Her smile feels oddly sad; it aches a little to see it. “You don’t, do you?”
He reaches out to touch her, offer some kind of comfort. She’s next to him on the bed; he can see her right there. But his hand never seems to make contact, and he gropes through empty air in a sudden panic; it feels like he’s lost his footing, like he’s plummeting down a deep, dark hole.
She’s there. He can feel her. She’s there. He scrambles closer; it feels like it’s not physically possible to be as close as he wants to be, it feels like he needs to live inside her skin.
“It’ll end eventually, you know,” Mary says. “It’ll wear off. In the real world, only a few minutes will have passed. And you’ll still have to face it.”
He doesn’t know what she’s saying. But it terrifies him, somehow.
“Please.” He wraps his arms around her legs, buries his face in her side. “Just a little longer. Please.”
Her hand settles on the back of his head, stroking gently through his hair. He can hear a slight smile in her voice, tinged with a fondness he’s never really felt he deserves. “Okay. Just a little longer.”
back to room 312