In Her Image; Chapter 1: Lenore

And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear? – weep now or never more!
See on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore.

Cars. In front, behind, and all around – shiny, stylishly curved hunks of steel hurtling through space.

Well, they weren’t hurtling now; in fact, they hadn’t moved for a whole five minutes. Lenore’s toes were beginning to tingle. The radio station she listened to was playing a song with a strong beat. Deep, booming voices gave her a stream of words that she didn’t recognize or care about. She doubted that the people singing them cared, either. “Radio off,” she said quietly. The music stopped, and the soft silence of the car swallowed her words. Lenore felt as though she were in a sensory deprivation tank. Her toes began to itch. The exit that would bring her home was so close...

Finally, the traffic began to move again. It was slow, at first, then faster as the traffic began to thin. Lenore pulled into the right-hand lane. She could see the exit – it was right in the distance. Guardrails flashed past her, and she felt caged. She could almost imagine them crushing her where she sat. She accelerated the tiniest bit, and her heart began to race. The police were everywhere, and they’d write you up for the smallest infraction. Speeding was dangerous. Her palms began to sweat.

Finally, she got out. Muscles she hadn’t known she’d tensed were beginning to relax. She hated the freeway.

It began to rain as she made her way through the small, dishevelled housing projects and then through the suburbs. Lenore’s brow furrowed. It had been grey all day – winter in the North was just beginning.

The rain turned to wet snow, and then it began to hail. She could almost hear the frigidity of the wind as it whistled past the silver curves of her car; she could almost see the long, bony fingers of Jack Frost trying to poke their way through her windshield in vain. Why had she left home, again?

The bottles clinked together in the back as if to remind her of their presence. Ah, yes. The wine. She had run out the night before, and she needed a glass of wine beside her to do her work properly – one didn’t simply create art on a whim. The wine, full-bodied and oaky, a deep purple that bordered on black, reminded her of her childhood and of her brother. So she had driven the full hour to the city to get it. Art did not wait.

The weather was getting worse – Lenore could barely see. The windshield wipers and high beams engaged automatically, tiny gear-driven soldiers battling for victory over nature. The wipers’ scientifically enhanced rubber and metal configuration worked furiously against the glass, beating back the freezing rain with a vicious ferocity.

She was out of the suburbs now. She drove on muddy dirt roads past acres of government-controlled farmland. And then, finally, she traveled beyond that and was in sight of her beautiful mountains. They were tall, green and dark. Their smoky silhouette against the navy sky was mystical, and the thin veil of mist that encircled their head was a smoke ring. Her heart seemed to jump out of her chest at the sight, and she longed more than ever to go back home. She accelerated a little more. Not even the cops would come out here – these mountains were hers.

The roads were blacktop now, instead of dirt. She ascended quickly, making her way upward and westward. The moon crested the head of the next mount. The freezing rain got heavier, and she could hear the hail bounce off her roof. The roads were getting slick, too – Lenore tried to remind herself to be careful. You’ve got to pay more attention, she heard her brother’s voice in her head. You’re always so absent. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you. In her mind, she saw his strong face smiling, saw him brush the back of his fingers against her cheek. Unthinkingly, she lifted her hand off the wheel and touched that cheek, closing her eyes and smiling. Sometimes it felt like Amos was with her – strong and warm, with the sweaters and jeans he grew up in, and with that same straight brown hair and bright blue eyes that she had loved as a child. She had always taken care of him as a baby, but it seemed like as soon as he became a teenager, he always took care of her. Living away from him was painful. She missed him so...

She opened her eyes dreamily. There was a jolt of panic; a feeling that her stomach was falling out through her throat; her heart skipping beats as her car fell off the unguarded road and through the air.


Lenore couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel anything but wild panic in her gut. She couldn’t get out. She was trapped. Frantically, she clawed at her belt until she unclasped it. “Open!” she cried, her voice shrill and strangled.

“Voice command not recognized,” the car’s smooth female voice replied.

“Open!” she repeated, scratching at the door, yanking hysterically at the latch. The ground loomed up at her, rocky and black in the shadows of the night. “Open, open, open!”

Finally, with one last pull at the handle, the door fell open and she tumbled out of the car, feeling the cool air fly past her face. The ground rose gracefully up toward her, and she closed her eyes and tried to remember Amos’ face.


Her head hurt. There were people around her, too many people, and a burning car a few metres away. Her breathing was shaky, and her back was freezing where it touched the cold, wet sand.

“She’s back.”

“Oh, God. Oh, thank God. Lenore? Lenore! I’m here. Don’t worry. You’re going to be fine.”

Lenore turned her head slowly and blinked even more slowly. There was a man bending over her – tall and muscular, with blue eyes and white teeth and a straight, straight nose. His big hands held hers firmly, and a chunk of his longish brown hair fell into his eyes. He looked like something had broken inside him, and Lenore wondered what could make someone as good as him look so sad.

She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said dreamily. “It’s okay.”

His hand cupped her face and he cried. Lenore leaned into his warm palm and fell back asleep.


Amos paced the hallway. Brash halogen lights hummed busily in the ceiling above him, sounding like a fly buzzing around his ear. It only made him angrier than he already was.

His shoes were old runners, and they squeaked on the linoleum. They weren’t letting him in. He couldn’t believe they weren’t letting him in. He needed to be there. They wouldn’t even tell him anything. What if she had died? What if she were brain dead? What would he do? He couldn’t live without Lenore. His existence without her was unthinkable, unimaginable. He needed her.

The door opened. Jump, gasp. “Is she okay?”

The doctor looked up at him. “I assume you’re talking about the 36-year-old Caucasian woman who was just wheeled in?”

“Yes.” The word sounded more like a breath than anything, but Amos didn’t care. His hands were shaking, and he clenched them into fists.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to release that information.”

Amos wanted to break him – to crush that curly-haired, bespectacled head into the wall. “I assume,” he said, his voice suddenly cold and unemotional, “that you’re acting in accordance with Section 12(a) of the Medical Privacy Act?” The tiny, nasal-voiced man nodded. He looked smug and self-important, and something in Amos growled and snapped its teeth. “Well,” he continued, “I am a senior member of the International Senate, and if you don’t let me in that goddamned hospital room, I swear I will have your credentials removed.”

A widening of the eyes. A flash of panic. “Your credentials?” The small man sputtered.

Amos dug in his pocket and took them out. The doctor’s eyes widened, and Amos could almost see what was flashing before his eyes: he would lose his job, his home, his family, his dignity, him self. Amos knew that he had won.

The doctor knew it too. “Right this way, sir.” He swallowed nervously and turned heel, avoiding eye contact.

When Amos finally got to the room, it was better than he expected it to be. He hadn’t been in a hospital room since he had broken his arm when he was twelve. They had improved immensely. The walls were a warm shade of burnt orange, and there were small potted plants and a television. But one thing remained the same: the bleak, white bed in the middle of the room. And there Lenore lay, small and frail, hooked up to heart monitors and IV drips.

He turned to the doctor, who was still in the room. “Leave,” Amos muttered. The other man nodded and mumbled something unintelligible before leaving the senator alone with his sister.

The room fell quiet – silent, except for the slow, constant beeping of the heart monitor. Amos hesitated as he walked toward her. He hadn’t seen his sister in such a long time – it must have been about five years since she moved away. How old had she been then? Thirty-one? Now she was thirty-six, and he was still treating her like a child. He had been so upset with her when she moved.

You’re making a mistake, his own voice echoed in his head. You haven’t thought this through. You won’t be able to live on your own.

I’m thirty-one, Amos! I can live on my own if I want to. I don’t need you.

His heart still sank every time he relived the moment. After that, he let her go. She moved up into the mountains (“Artists live in the mountains,” she told him excitedly.), and despite his warning, she managed to do fairly well for herself – or so he surmised when he looked into her tax records, her purchases and her telephone conversations. Over the next five years he wrote letters and left messages, but never visited. She didn’t need him, after all.

He made his way over to the bed. There was a chair, and he sat down. He scooped up her long, thin hand into his own. She hadn’t changed at all. Her long, black waves of hair tumbled around her narrow shoulders. He wondered whether her eyes were still the same blue as they were – the same blue as his own.

“Lenore,” he murmured quietly. “Lenore, I’m sorry.” He curled his fingers, and brushed the back of them over her face.

The heart monitor started beeping faster. Lenore turned her head. Amos’ heartbeat was in sync with the monitor, pumping frenetically. Finally, her eyes fluttered open.

Amos smiled shakily. “Lenore!” he cried. Laughing, he kissed her hand. “Lenore, I knew you would wake up. Listen, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been angry with you. And I have, I’ve been angry with you.” Her brow knit together, and she looked astonished. “For moving,” he explained. “I thought you would always need me, and I couldn’t accept that you could do things by yourself. But I want to change, Lenore. I want to be there for you, and I want us to start over. Is that all right with you?”

Lenore looked at him strangely, questioningly.

“Who are you?”

Amos couldn’t breathe. He backed away. His hands shook.

“Doctor!” he cried. “Doctor, come in here right now!”

The man walked in. When he saw Lenore awake, he called for nurses, and more doctors, and they began poking and prodding and examining. Lenore didn’t take her eyes off of Amos once. He almost wished she would.

“She forgot me,” he said. “She forgot me.”

He was gently shoved out of the room by the personnel, and the door shut abruptly behind him. His legs began carrying him numbly away from the scene, but it was only at the end of the hallway that his nose and throat started to burn, and he had to squeeze his eyelids shut.

Her eyes were the same blue.