Marble Man

My lover has turned to marble. I do not know how or why—just that when I arrived home last Tuesday I found him standing in the living room, a brilliant Parian marble statue. He was somehow more gorgeous this way—tight curls frozen in place, posture straight and strong, skin smooth and inviting. I didn’t tell anyone when I found him, deciding it was better to keep such an event to myself. Instead, I phoned the restaurant across town and canceled our eight o’clock dinner reservations.

I spent the first night with my marble man searching local museums in the area. I didn’t know the first thing about caring or preserving marble, nor anything about man-to-statue transformations. I wrote the first address that popped up on Google on a yellow sticky note and placed it on the fridge.

Later I stood in front of him, searching for some sign that he could see or hear me. “Tom,” I said into his marble ear, “Thomas, are you there?”

He did not stir.

At eight, I gave up and made my way to bed.

In the bedroom, I found his laptop open, his dirty clothes pushed into the corner, and his favorite watch unclasped on the nightstand. The room stood as evidence that my marble man had been human earlier that day. I began to wonder what he was doing the moments before he turned to stone.

He was still sleeping when I left for work. He must’ve awoken around eight. Perhaps he went to the kitchen, or maybe he took a shower. I looked around and, sure enough, a bath towel hung over his desk chair. I reached for the towel—it was cold and still damp. I folded it over my arms and carried it with me to the bathroom.

In the bathroom, I found his facial hair sprinkled all over the deep of the sink. He must have shaved after his shower. I hung his towel on the hook to dry and went back to the living room to examine his face. As expected, there was no sign of facial hair on my marble man. I reached up and ran my pointer finger along his jaw. It was so smooth that it was hard to believe he was ever capable of growing a beard.

“What happened to you, Tom?” I whispered.

My marble man did not answer.

That night, I lay in bed tossing and turning. It had been years since I had slept alone. The bed was cold and empty without him. I reached over and buried my face in his pillow. It smelled sweetly of cedar and peppermint—a scent made from a mix of his cologne and shampoo. I closed my eyes and tried to remember Monday night when he was still human.

He was sad that night, though he wouldn’t tell me why.

He had been playing his guitar on our balcony late at night—around one o’clock. I remember tapping on the window and motioning for him to come to bed. He turned his head to look at me, smiled gently, then turned back. Confused, I opened the balcony door. 

“Thomas, the city is trying to sleep,” I said. 

“You’re funny. The city never sleeps,” he said, looking out at the street. 

“Well, I am trying to sleep. Can you play that thing tomorrow?”

Without a word, he took his guitar by the neck and followed me into the apartment. 

He didn’t hold me that night. In fact, he hadn’t held me for many nights before that. We had shared little intimacy in the past four months, something I had been told by friends was normal in adult relationships. I never complained though—his presence was enough to calm me to sleep. 

I sat up in my bed, scanning the room for his guitar. It wasn’t in its normal spot—propped up against the wall by his desk. I tried to recall where he put it down after we came inside from the balcony, but I must not have been paying attention. I decided to search for it and pulled myself out of bed. Other than its empty case stuffed at the back of the closet, I found no sign of his guitar.

In the living room, my marble man stood just as I had left him.

“Where’s your guitar, Tom?” I asked, knowing he wouldn’t answer.

He looked brilliant in the moonlight—skin shining like fine glitter. He was such a beautiful man, yet I couldn’t remember the last time I told him he was handsome.

I searched the living room one more time for his guitar, and, after finding nothing, I returned to bed.

*****

The next morning, I was awoken by the sound of a phone ringing. I followed the sound out of bed and to the corner of the room where Tom’s jeans lay on the wood floor. I picked up the dirty jeans and fished out his phone from the pocket. The office number flashed on the phone screen. I hadn’t thought this through—what was I supposed to tell people? I anxiously clicked decline. I’d have at least today to figure something out before his work filed for a missing person.

As I went to slide his phone back into the pocket, a piece of paper fell to my feet. It was just a receipt, but the obvious markings of a red pen caught my attention. I bent down to pick it up. It was from the local CVS, printed at 1:03 p.m. on Tuesday. He had purchased a box of peppermint tea bags and a pack of gum. On the back, in bold red letters, was a phone number I did not recognize.

My heart sank. Could this number be—no, not Thomas. Thomas would never. He was a loyal man, wasn’t he? I looked at his purchases again. Just gum and peppermint tea bags. But when did Thomas ever drink tea? I sorted through our four years together, searching for some memory of peppermint tea. I drew a blank. But people try new things all the time, I reminded myself. Still unsettled, I ran to the kitchen and rummaged through the pantry, searching for the box of peppermint tea. I pulled out bags of ground coffee beans, pasta boxes, expired cake mixes, and canned soups. But nowhere did I find a box of peppermint tea bags.

With the receipt in my hand, I walked back into the living room to face my marble man. Nothing had changed in his complexion. He was still beautiful. Still smooth. Still stone. I looked down at the number on the receipt, then back up at my marble man. His face was so familiar, yet I knew nothing of the hours he spent in the apartment alone. Glancing down at the receipt again, I ran my fingers along the red ink on the paper. I decided to call the number. Perhaps it would lead to the peppermint tea bags.

Back in the bedroom, I nervously dialed the number. As it rang I held my breath, preparing for the other woman to pick up. A loud beep sounded on the line followed by a female voice:

Hello, you’ve reached the office of Sherry Browne, Marriage and Relationship Therapist. I am currently out of the office, but please leave a message and I will get right back to you. Good-bye. 

I hung up immediately. Blood rushed to my head, and I began to feel faint. A relationship therapist? But why? I had thought we were happy together. Sure, our relationship had changed in the past year with my new job and our move to the city. Tom had been reluctant to leave, especially because we had to re-home our German Shepherd after our apartment lease added a strict no-pets policy.

“What’s wrong with your job here?” Tom had asked me last year over dinner.

“Tom, we barely make enough for rent. I can’t turn this down. We can’t afford to.” 

“But we’re happy here.”

“Who says we won’t be happy in Boston?”

He had punished me with his silence. In the five days we drove across the country, he said only a few words. He had rejected all my attempts at conversation and, instead, filled the hours with guitar strumming and songs from the two Red Chili Pepper CDs he had saved from his youth. 

Even now, as he stands in our living room frozen in his marble frame, he is punishing me.

“Why?” I ask him.

My marble man does not budge. His lips remain pressed together and his eyes seem to gaze at everything but me. I stare up at him through tear-blurred eyes, wishing for so much as a syllable to slip from those stone lips.

Suddenly, in the corner of my eye I see a sharp light burning through the window. I turn towards it and notice a copper mug perched on the railing of the balcony. It stood—another clue to the hours before my lover turned to stone. He must have been drinking coffee sometime Tuesday morning. I walk outside to fetch the mug, and as I lift the cold cup into my hand, a tiny white string bushes against my fingers. I look down—a peppermint tea bag sits wrinkled at the bottom of the mug.

*****

The address on the yellow sticky note took me downtown to a small art museum where families and couples shuffle in and out, chatting and laughing. I walk in and ask the representative at the front desk if I can speak with someone who knows a thing or two about Parian marble sculptures. She’s confused by the panic in my voice.

“Is everything alright, ma’am?” she says as she sits up in her chair. “I can point you to the marble exhibits if—”

“No, I need to speak with a professional. Someone who knows a lot about this stuff.”

“Ma’am, we don’t—”

“Please! My boyfriend has turned to stone! Just please give me the number of someone—anything!”

“Ma’am, if you don’t lower your voice, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Families and couples stop to stare at me as my tears drip onto the counter. The representative slides a folded piece of paper to me. Sniffling, I take the paper in my hands and unfold it. In messy, rushed penmanship it reads:

Nod if you’re in danger. 

My stomach drops. I’ve scared her. Of course I’ve scared her. I sound like a loony speaking of the impossible. I look around and see that she’s not the only one nervous. A mother in the corner of the building holds her child close to her hip as she stares at the scene I’ve caused.

“No,” I say, embarrassed.

I leave without another word.

*****

I pass through the West Side apartment alley as I walk home. The rain from last night puddles in the center of the sunken alley and I walk in a zigzag to avoid the water. Half way down the alley, I see a guitar neck poking out of the dumpsters. I step closer, curious to see if—

A dark red guitar strap with the initials “TC” written in black Sharpie lies there in the trash. The sight tells me all I need to know.

*****

When I arrive home, my marble man greets me with silence. The sunlight hugs him, creating a gorgeous halo around his still body. I sit down in front of him, feeling like Medusa as I stare up at him wide-eyed. I want to speak with him so badly. What was the last thing he said to me? I suddenly couldn’t remember. When was the last time he said I love you? When was the last time I said it? I think it was Christmas, I wrote it in his card…

“I love you,” I blurt out to my statue.

It’s more of an apology than anything else. A truce, perhaps. I want to fix things, maybe call back the therapist, have a discussion over a cup of peppermint tea. Buy him a new guitar—what was that guitar store he used to go to downtown? I’d listen this time, maybe try to guess the song he played. I would get it wrong, for sure, but still we could laugh. It had been so long since we had laughed together.

*****

At night I sit in front of the computer Googling “man to stone.” I sort through myths of Medusa and medical papers on fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (the “stone man” syndrome) until finally the painting of Pygmalion and Galatea catches my attention. The talented sculptor Pygmalion leans up against his marble woman carved from his own hands. He is in love with her, you can see it in his body. He kisses her, and she breathes life. To love something so much, it comes to life. Was such a thing possible? Could it be reversed? If Pygmalion had neglected his beloved Galatea, if he had stopped loving her, appreciating her, would she turn back into stone?

I close the computer and walk back to my marble man. He resembles Galatea, not just in that he is marble, but in his expression. Straight, unmoving, unloving. No smile or frown. It’s a haunting of a man sent to torment me. He was ungraceful as a human, loud at times, obsessed over the small things. Yet standing here looking at him in this perfect form, I can’t help but think he was a far more beautiful human.

To love something so much, it comes to life. 

I thought for a moment, imagining kissing his stone lips. Maybe the marble would crack, or maybe it would disintegrate and my Thomas would emerge from its ruins.

To love something so much, it comes to life. 

Hopeful, I lift myself on my tippy toes to his marble face—his full lips straight and firm. I place my hands on his hard cheeks and prepare myself for a transformation, for the materialization of human flesh. Then, I close my eyes, pray to some Greek god I don’t believe in, and kiss my marble man.