Twilight was just beginning to bruise the sky. Cara watched until the clouds filled up with blood. He’d leave her like this? She thought about calling for help. But then she thought again about all that entailed. Maybe later. Sweat still trickled between her breasts. No. Not between her breasts. Tell the truth. The voices of the little blue-haired ladies in the "Sister-Survivor" support group seeped into her darkening thoughts. "Cheer up," one of them told her. She’d kissed the top of Cara’s head and then caught her in those water-blue eyes. "You just lost a tit and an ass at the same time," she’d said. That had stopped Cara mid-sob. She told them she’d been expecting something a little more motherly. Then they’d all laughed together and Cara felt something stand up and start stamping in her chest. It helped.

Tell the truth. At least to yourself. Sweat still trickled down the space between her one remaining breast and that other, strange alien mound they’d created. Better. Cara thought again about the help part then. Why was it, again, that she needed help? She thought and thought. There was the problem. Thought disarmed her. Left her limp. Movement was what she needed.

But it was hard to move with those drains still swinging from the incisions. The incisions hurt, but they’d heal. But those drains - ugh, what a word - filled and still filling with some loathsome fluid from inside her own body. They pulled on her like dangling udders. Cara tried to ignore them too but that part she’d have to think about. She’d need to haul herself into the bathroom and empty them again very soon. So. He’d leave her like this. Tell the truth. She couldn’t quite contain it. She turned her head, consciously. Move.

The trees were darkening outside. Good. Then soon the sky would darken too and this heat - she peeled her good arm off the sofa - this heat would have to let up. The sun was cruel in August and the power had been out for hours. No air, no fans, no music, no TV to blunt the serrated edges of this burning, interminable day. Nothing to take her mind away from the fact that he’d left her like this. Phone out too. Of course. She could shuffle over to a neighbor’s, but no, she wouldn’t ask for help. Then they would know.

It might be getting cooler. That might have been a breeze that touched the tablecloth, made it shudder on the line. It sure was getting darker. Good. But maybe not. Cara panicked for a minute. No light? Without light she couldn’t read. She knew she wouldn’t sleep but she’d been counting on words to fill her night since rest would not. Since he would not.

She had to cry then. For just a minute though, because her tears were too hot. She remembered that archetypal Twilight Zone episode where that academic guy lived through some kind of apocalypse and found himself the last man on earth, surrounded by nothing but books. He was ecstatic, it was perfect, until his reading glasses broke. Then that was that.

No point in crying. He had left her like this. In August, in a black-out, still bleeding and draining and sutured. That was that. What she needed was an extension cord for the generator. There’d be one in the garage, but the whole house was dark by then, the whole world. She should have thought to get a flashlight. She should have thought to ask him to bring in a friggin’ extension cord, at least, before he went fishing. Getting up was tricky. The belly incision had severed some of the abdominal muscles so she had to turn to one side and drop to her knees before she could push herself up off the couch. And then there were those dangling drains to contend with. God, it was hot. Fishing trip. She knew what he was fishing for. That part wasn’t a secret.

Cara cupped the drains in both hands as she crept through the kitchen. She wished she could just stand upright like a regular homo sapien - charge around like before. But the stomach stitches had pinched her into this subhuman posture, made her lurch through the darkness, drag her drains like knuckles along the linoleum.

The house was so quiet. She’d never noticed before how much noise just the ceiling fans made, just the movement of air. Nothing moved now except the dining room table. It jumped out in the dark, bit her hip with its edge. The antique hutch at least held still. Its profile clotted in the darkness into something soft and safe. Her grandmother’s china and candlestick holders lived inside that hutch; they clinked when she leaned up against it. Such a pretty hutch. She could take that if she left. And candles! She fumbled through the top right drawer and found them - long, slender, hard. She could leave him. She’d bought those candles after the earthquake - how smart she’d been! - and here they were still. They were lavender candles, though he’d laughed at her for that. "You’re not going to care what color they are if you can’t see them," he’d said. But she did care. And she was glad that for once she had not listened.

Matches. Hmmmm. Would have been even smarter, chicky, to have put the matches near the candles. Calm down. There were matches in the kitchen, in the drawer with the scotch tape and those millions of little loose twister ties. She should toss out those twisters while she was at it. But she would save some too, for when she moved out. All the shapes in the house were becoming more clear. There was the match box, small and square. Full of matches. Perfect.

After a couple of misses, a small orange flame held still in the airless room. Better than an extension cord, better than going into his garage, better than rooting around blindly and stumbling onto more of his secrets, probably, that she didn’t want to know. She had light and words both. Everything she needed.

She carried the candle to the silent fridge and let the drains just dangle. She found an apple, red. Surprise! The memory of coolness still rested on its skin. The fridge was ancient but still worked, at least when the power was on. She might take the fridge too when she left him. She carried the apple, the candle, and her fast-draining, fast-healing self back to the dining room table. She read a few sweet pages of Yeats then closed the book and listened with hungry eyes as the orange flame sang of her escape.