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  She lay down, and was too weak to raise her head again, for hours, for hours. Still!—the blessed peace, the calm. She held herself tremblingly erect and opened the door of the medicine cabinet and saw, there, on the lowermost shelf, the razor, the packet of razor blades, that exciting consolation. (What had Sheila told her once? . . . she’d visited a morgue, a dissection laboratory, she had forced herself to look at the bodies, she had forced herself to listen to the jokey medical student, the first incision is the only difficult task, Sheila was told, after that it’s business as usual, after that you get completely caught up in technique, but the first incision is difficult, you’d better believe it, would you like to watch . . . ?)

  Monica shook herself out of her doze, Monica thought about going outside again, risking the fresh air. If she raked over anything surely it should be a literal compost heap; in that direction, surely, lay health.

  But she was too weak, suddenly. She wasn’t going to make it after all.

  25

  Monica had been mistaken, she wasn’t recovering, she was getting sicker, rapidly, deliriously. It intrigued her to think that her bones would soon poke through her skin—pelvic bones, collarbone, ribs. It intrigued her to think that that protective envelope of skin, her skin, might soon dissolve; and all of the world would rush in.

  Now she might have telephoned for help but she was too weak.

  A call placed to the Jensens in Wrightsville, Indiana—but she was too weak.

  Too weak also to defend herself against Sheila Trask: Sheila towering over her: forcing her way into Monica’s solitude where she wasn’t wanted.

  For, suddenly, Sheila was here; and the very air quaked.

  For, suddenly, Sheila was running up the stairs, shouting Monica’s name, frightened, angry, banging into the room. Monica, Monica for Christ’s sake?—what have you done!—she sat heavily on the edge of the bed, her weight was a shock, her hand on Monica’s forehead unnervingly cold. “Are you sick?” Sheila cried. “You are, you are!—oh God,” staring at Monica incredulously, “—how could you have done this to yourself!”

  Sheila’s hand was cold and dry and forceful but Monica shrank from that terrible accusing voice.

  “I’ve been hearing such things— I’ve been in New York— Why didn’t you ever answer your telephone, God damn you—” Sheila cried. “You’re a virtual skeleton, you’re burning with fever, you must be dehydrated,” she said, panting, as Monica regarded her through sleep-gummed eyes, too exhausted to defend herself. Sheila’s face was dark with blood, her eyes very nearly glittered with rage, with disgust, she leaned over Monica saying, “Why didn’t you answer your fucking telephone don’t you know I’ve called and called and now—now—now when I haven’t any time to spare—”

  Monica made a feeble gesture of dismissal and Sheila seized her thin wrist and squeezed it hard, hard. How she would have liked to pummel Monica, how she burned to slap that burning face, hard—!

  26

  Monica would protest, Monica would insist that Sheila go away and leave her alone, but she is too weak; and in any case Sheila is too excited to listen.

  For Sheila Trask must have her way, no matter the grief and shame to Monica.

  Such theatrics, such melodrama: an ambulance speeding along the sleepy country roads, spinning red light, siren sounding intermittently, Monica bundled in white and strapped securely in place, tears scalding her cheeks. She is going to die, she is not going to die, not if Sheila Trask has her way, and Sheila Trask must have her way.

  Once in the ambulance, once moving along, Sheila grows calmer; her panting breath subsides; she would fumble into her pocket for cigarettes except (of course) smoking is forbidden. She is swearing under her breath, seated close beside Monica, rocking slightly from side to side in the very rage of her predicament. “You shouldn’t have done this—you shouldn’t have doubted me—we’ll be friends for a long, long time,” she says, “—unless one of us dies.”

  About the Author

  JOYCE CAROL OATES is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Joyce Carol Oates

  With Shuddering Fall (1964)

  A Garden of Earthly Delights (1967)

  Expensive People (1968)

  them (1969)

  Wonderland (1971)

  Do with Me What You Will (1973)

  The Assassins (1975)

  Childwold (1976)

  Son of the Morning (1978)

  Unholy Loves (1979)

  Bellefleur (1980)

  Angel of Light (1981)

  A Bloodsmoor Romance (1982)

  Mysteries of Winterthurn (1984)

  Solstice (1985)

  Marya: A Life (1986)

  You Must Remember This (1987)

  American Appetites (1989)

  Because It Is Bitter, and Because It Is My Heart (1990)

  Black Water (1992)

  Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang (1993)

  What I Lived For (1994)

  Zombie (1995)

  We Were the Mulvaneys (1996)

  Man Crazy (1997)

  My Heart Laid Bare (1998)

  Broke Heart Blues (1999)

  Blonde (2000)

  Middle Age: A Romance (2001)

  I’ll Take You There (2002)

  The Tattooed Girl (2003)

  The Falls (2004)

  Missing Mom (2005)

  Black Girl / White Girl (2006)

  The Gravedigger’s Daughter (2007)

  My Sister, My Love (2008)

  Little Bird of Heaven (2009)

  Mudwoman (2012)

  The Accursed (2013)

  Carthage (2014)

  The Sacrifice (2015)

  A Book of American Martyrs (2017)

  Hazards of Time Travel (2018)

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SOLSTICE. Copyright © 1985 by Ontario Review, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  A hardcover edition of this book was originally published in 1985 by the Ontario Review Press.

  Cover design by Steve Attardo

  Cover artwork © Pierre Mornet

  FIRST ECCO PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2019.

  Digital Edition MARCH 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-279575-5

  Version 02232019

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-279577-9

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