Advice from an Opossum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Noel Sloboda

they can all go to hell—actually, she wants Vasili to tell them—but if he can keep his mouth shut, so can she.

Of course, she will never give Spencer the satisfaction of knowing that Vasili stopped taking Communion in church years ago when he was first diagnosed. Nor will she confess she ’ s been secretly careful herself, checking only the unmarked section of Vasili’ s forehead for fever.

She is relieved, watching the doctor ’ s bare hands.

“You ’ re looking good, ” she says, approaching Vasili’ s bedside.

“I’ m getting eaten alive inside. ” Vasili sips from a glass of water. His eyes grow wide as he takes her in. “You ’ re looking good. My God. That skirt. Foxy!”

“You like it? It’ s a hundred degrees out there. ”

“Like it? Am I not a man?” He grins.

The doctor pulls the sheet over the leg and offers a weak smile before exiting.

Persephone sets Vasili’ s glass on the tray at the foot of the bed. Scrambled cafeteria eggs and honeydew melon remain wrapped in cellophane.

With the doctor gone, Vasili’ s tone shifts. “I want to talk to you before Father Kosporis arrives. ”

“Father Kosporis? Why is he coming?” Persephone says. “I don ’t want to see him today. ”

“I should think not—in thatskirt. ”

“Funny, ” she says. “Is he bringing you Communion?”

“My last rites. ” He winks.

She shakes her head.

Years ago, the last time Persephone and Vasili were in church together, Father Kosporis made his Communion policy clear. “Let me ask you to consider again that this is truly the body and blood of Christ and that you should refrain from Holy Communion if you are not at peace with God. We are asked to stand here worthily. So, if you are in an adulterous relationship, a pre-marital sexual relationship, an unnatural relationship… ” Persephone was shocked by this improvisation. Vasili grinned and said, “Well, that about covers all of us, doesn ’t it?” She hesitated, and then rose to join him.

She wonders, now, what has kept his faith intact all these years, while something has been chipping away at hers.

“I need a walk, ” she says.

“You ’ re not leaving me already. ”

She hears the echo of her husband and wonders why the men in her life must convey their affection with such unbecoming desperation.

“No. Just—some fresh air, ” she says.

“Out there?”

He is on to her, but she doesn ’t bother to come clean.

“The cafeteria, ” she says. “Coffee. ”

He mirrors her strained smile.

Coffee is as obvious a lie as fresh air, given the heat.

When she reaches the door, he says,

Advice from an Opossum

By Noel Sloboda

Ignore your brothers and sisters until you secure your place in the pouch. Then grow up quickly.

Once you step out on your own, devour everything in your path, from acorns to carrion. Revel

in delicacies to be discovered in garbage cans. Sleep all day. Develop the wiry muscles

in your pink, prehensile tail: seeing the world upside down is sometimes inspiring. Scavenge

country roads, but beware white lights cascading across the blacktop. If they approach,

bare all fifty of your teeth. If that fails to stop them, perform an Elvis: bask in the glow

as you bloat and stiffen; secrete a horrible smell; hold perfectly still; and dream

of swallowing the moon.

Noel Sloboda is the author of the poetry collection Shell Games (sunnyoutside, 2008) as well as the forthcoming Our Rarer Monsters. He has also authored a book about Edith Wharton and Gertrude Stein. Sloboda teaches at Penn State York and frequently works as a dramaturg for the Harrisburg Shakespeare Company.

“Promise me you ’ll be strong. ”

“What?” Persephone laughs. “I’ m

strong. ”

“I want you to be free, Phoni” —the name only Vasili still uses. “Let them know who you are, ” he cheers.

“Vasili!” She feels insulted. Why don ’t you?she thinks.

“You ’ ve never really gone anywhere, or done anything. Don ’t let Phillip— ”

“Stop it. I’ m free. You have no idea. ”

“I know, I know. ” He pauses. “New topic. My funeral dinner. ”

She grimaces. She can ’t pretend— not about this. “Not now. ”

“When you get back. After you have your coffee, ” he adds, grinning, seeing that she has one foot out the door. “Foxy. ”

She rushes toward the cafeteria, eager for the relief that the company of strangers will provide. This has all come on so fast. But even that is a lie. She has had more than enough time to come to peace with this. It has been five years since the night he told her he was sick, in the kitchen, after Aunt Anastasia and Uncle Mike had gone to bed. It hadn ’t occurred to her immediately what “HIV” was. He might have announced that he was off to Europe for a while. “A few months ago, ” he said, as if answering a question, “but I wanted to make sure. It’ s dormant. Mom and Dad know. I’ ve lost some weight. ” These were prepared pieces of information. “It hasn ’t affected my playing. ” He contemplated his hands, his precious fingers. She remained dumbfounded, even as reality settled in. “The priest in New York gives me Communion in private. ” Then he answered the unspeakable question: “A friend from the orchestra, he had a house in the Hamptons. There were parties, after concerts, on the weekends. I’ ve been careful since the AIDS scare. ”

The AIDS scare. She hadn ’t shared in this fear that, to him, bonded everyone.

She has never been this close to anyone else—other than her husband. When they were kids, Vasili was the one who could make her feel buoyant and lovely.

Late last night, after returning from the hospital, she decided to assemble photographs of Vasili. She was heading to the family room, toward the cabinets filled with albums, when she stopped at the mirror in the vestibule. She took a deep, satisfied breath. Six pounds in six weeks. It was odd to feel so light, having just spent hours in the face of her cousin ’ s wasting disease—virus?—the two of them, together again, as thin as they ’d been at eighteen. Standing there, hot— despite the air conditioning—she recognized Vasili’ s imminent death as true, not just as a fact to which she had finally resigned herself, since he ’d arrived home over a month ago, but as Truth, with a capital T, part of the flow of life and death that in recent years—since turning fifty—she had been trying to understand is neither good nor bad.

Phillip was asleep beyond the slightly open door at the top of the steps. The sound of his breathing heightened her sense of ownership—this body was hers to fatten or starve. She headed to the basement in search of old clothes, to test small sizes. She had always been what they call petite, but she ’d puffed up after giving birth to three boys. With her two youngest moving out this summer, she ’d decided it was time to return to form. Too skinny, Phillip would say. Still, in bra and panties she dragged boxes across the concrete floor, out from the cedar closet, and, fitting snugly into old shirts and skirts, felt not just a little bit, well, foxy.

After circling the wing, Persephone returns to Vasili’ s room empty-handed.

“We must have strawberries, ” he announces.

It takes her a moment to remember where they left off. The funeral dinner.

“And asparagus, ” he adds. “Promise me. ”

He has said he is lucky to get closure like this—not everyone gets it, you

know. “What else?” she asks.

“At my viewing play Mozart’ s Requiem. The Vienna philharmonic—you can find a recording of it. ”

She nods.

“I don ’t mind open casket for the family, but then I want it closed. ”

Suddenly she wants to say: you ran off to be free, and now it’ s killing you.

“Oh, and I want nice, fresh fish at the dinner. Snapper, I don ’t know, whatever ’ s good now. And don ’t worry about money. This will be the wedding banquet I never had. ”

She takes his hands into hers.

“Promise, ” he says, as he sinks into sleep.

He turns toward the metal box whispering to his right. She has barely paid attention to the thin tubes that curve out from his nostrils and disappear beneath the bed sheets; she recognizes them now for the job they are doing, thankful for their transparency and their discreet path to their source.

Strong. She will be strong.

“I promise, ” she says.

This morning Phillip asked where she ’d found that old skirt.

“You don ’t like it?” Persephone set her cup in the sink, her back turned.

“Yes, I like it. Are you kidding me?” He clasped her thigh, his thick thumb shocking her, sending her spinning like a schoolgirl. “How old is this thing, Skinny?” He slurped the last of his coffee.

He flipped up the skirt, and she welcomed the surprise, figuring—rightly— that for a few minutes she might forget herself and what was in store for the day. In this old skirt she was eighteen again— for better and for worse: she could see herself, newly married, in the Orange Street pizza shop, the first of the three they would own, kneeling on a booth cushion and setting a poinsettia on a windowsill, her hair falling from a small rounded cone, as Phillip surprised her from behind.