Nothing Will Save Your Life but This Might Buy You Time

By Hollay Ghadery

Mellie’s nails are perfect ovals, what I’d imagine Grace Kelly’s must have been like. Even though the sky’s ultrasound grey outside the hospital room window, when I say this to her—when I say, “Mellie, you have nails like Grace Kelly”—she smiles and I see only sunlight.
Mellie’s hand is over mine and I don’t feel it—not her skin and not the weight of it, only warmth. A fuzzy glow. I snuggle down deeper into the bed, a happy puppy.
“Mellie, Mellie, Mellie,” I say, her name a green marble in my mouth. Emerald as her eyes, deep and rolling. I squish her face between my hands and her lips fold into a perfect rosebud.
Mellie pats my arm and gets up slowly. When she brushes her bangs off her forehead, her bangles tinkle like wind chimes. “Mellie,” I whisper, motioning her closer. “You’re magic.”
Mellie laughs and shakes her head, showering us in delicate sparks. I reach out to cup them in my palm. “You know,” I say, watching the sparks melt like snowflakes. “You know, it’s not even my birthday.”
Mellie’s eyes turn liquid. “Honey,” her voice, the last precious moment before rain. “I think you’re on a lot of drugs. Are you thirsty? Would you like some water?”
I lean forward to accept the cup and register a dull ache between my hips, something thick and wet between my legs. Lifting the blanket overhead, I pull up the front of my gown. There’s a belt around my waist and elastic running between my thighs, securing a bulky white pad.
“Noooooooo.” The word is exhaled, it has no ending.
Mellie’s fingernails appear over the blue wall of sheet, gently pulling it down. Her eyes are already on mine, as if they’ve been waiting for me to arrive.
“I’m so sorry, honey.”
My heart is a paper bag.
“Scooch over?” Mellie kicks off her heels and crawls under the cover with me. She smells of lavender. I curl into it, my longing fetal.
“Geo is here,” she says, “You may not remember, you were just waking up. He had to go pay for more parking, but he’ll be right back.”
I shake my head. She strokes my hair.
“Geo will want to try again,” I say, “but he’s not the one …” My thoughts drift, dainty willow wisps in a stream. Mellie pulls me closer. I swallow, try again. “He’s not the one who keeps ending up here.”
The pink of Mellie’s cardigan is a kitten’s belly against my cheek, and inside the starry expanse of my womb, I hear the fizzle of lights flickering out one by one.
“Do you wanna know something?” Mellie asks.
I nod, rubbing skin against Mellie’s ticklish knit. “Before my top and bottom surgeries, before all the hormones, I thought that was what was holding me back. That I had to transition. I had to become what everyone said—what everyone accepted a woman should be—and then I would be happy. So I did it, you remember? I did all of it.”
“Then,” I say, fiddling with a pearl button on her sweater, “you were happy.”
Mellie laughs. I don’t hear it, but I feel it thrum through her chest.
“No, honey, that’s not it.” She rubs my back. “You’d think you couldn’t ever run out of room for emptiness, but you can. You definitely can. So one day, after all that emptiness had been building and building and I couldn’t take it anymore, I left my office in the middle of the afternoon, took the elevator right to the roof and walked straight to the edge. And I would’ve stepped straight up and over the ledge, but I was wearing this pencil skirt and the damn thing was tight, so tight I couldn’t lift up my leg. I couldn’t even climb up to throw myself over. I tried for a good two minutes before the absurdity—the overwhelming absurdity—of the situation filled all that emptiness, and I started laughing. I collapsed right there on the roof and just laughed and laughed until I wept.”
I lift my head to look at Mellie’s face. Her long blond lashes flutter like dandelion petals. I blow to see if they’ll scatter, if they’ll dance through the window into the sky.
She pushes my hair behind my ear. “Do you see?” she whispers, resting her cool forehead against mine. “Do you see what I’m trying to say to you, honey?”

Hollay Ghadery

Hollay Ghadery (she/her) is a writer living in rural Ontario on Anishinaabe land. She has her MFA in creative writing from the University of Guelph. Her fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have been published in various literary journals, including The Malahat Review, Room, CAROUSEL, The Antigonish Review, Grain, and The Fiddlehead. Her essays on parenting have also appeared on CBC Parents. Fuse, her memoir on mixed-race identity and mental health, was released by Guernica Editions’ MiroLand imprint in Spring 2021. Her debut collection of poetry, Rebellion Box, is due out with Radiant Press in Spring 2023. Widow Fantasies, her collection of short fiction, is set to be published by Gordon Hill Press in 2024.