Love in Many Languages

by Jamie Bennett

  “Ione—”

  I started to try to get up. “I’m very tired, I’m sorry. I just want to go to bed.”

  “Of course! Reid, can you…” They all bustled around again and helped me into the new bed and Augusta ran around covering me up.

  “Thank you for doing all this. Thank you for your help. Can I go to sleep, now?” I asked them.

  “Yes, you need your rest,” Karis agreed, but she didn’t move. “I’m going to put your phone here, right here,” she said, and placed it on the little table that they had gotten for me, too. She took a piece of paper out of her purse and put it next to the phone. “This is how you use the alarm. I’ll put a sign up so you remember that it’s on. We’ll be back to help you with dinner for sure, but call me. For anything, call me. I can help you take a shower, and we can help you get meals, anything.”

  The thought of Karis trying to help me shower while not seeing any part of my naked body almost made me smile, but my face hurt too much, just like most of the rest of me. “Thank you. Thanks for everything.” Karis still didn’t move, not until Reid took her hand again. She kept looking back over her shoulder, her eyes big like an owl’s, and told me to call her, send her messages, that she would be back soon.

  I closed my eyes but I listened as they left, stepping carefully and quietly. I heard beeps which must have been the new alarm going on, then many clicks as they closed and locked the front door.

  I sighed and tried to settle back into the bed. It was really comfortable and I was so glad to get away from the smell and constant lights and noise of the hospital. I tried to make my mind rest so I could finally, finally get some real sleep, but I couldn’t seem to drift off. I made myself start thinking about my babcia, my grandma, and how good the house smelled when she made a prosta szarlotka, apple cake. How she would sing as she cooked, or talk to me about what she was doing so I would learn, her hands never stopping.

  Then I actually felt her there. It wasn’t a dream, I was pretty sure, because I hadn’t been dreaming since I went into the hospital. My grandma was there with me, and we were back in my old bedroom before I had painted it green. “It hurts,” I told her. “I’m scared. I’m really scared.”

  She laid her palm on my swollen face but she didn’t speak. I opened my eyes and I thought I would see her there, but I was back downstairs in the new bed instead of in my pink bedroom. My eyes lit first on the hole in the dining room wall where someone had knocked through the plaster with a didgeridoo. Then, when I slowly turned my head to the door, I saw a piece of paper taped to it with a word in Karis’ block handwriting: “ALARM.”

  Yes, another sign.

  ∞

  Everything itched and I fought the urge to scratch myself like a monkey in need of a flea dip. The moment I got inside I would take off my clothes and rub against the rough plaster of the wall, scratching my back, my legs, my brace-free, left arm, even my face. For now, I used the handle of the paint roller to ineffectively jab at a spot between my shoulder blades. I hadn’t known that healing would make you so itchy. As Karis said, it was a positive indicator.

  It had been a week since I had gotten home, and everyone was still acting strange like that. Karis was not the person who looked for “positive indicators” but now she was finding them everywhere. Augusta was over at my house at least once a day, speaking in that boisterous, jolly voice, when she had never visited me one time before what happened, not one party, or anything. I hadn’t gone into the office yet and Reid, who expected everyone to work just as hard as he and Karis did, was telling me repeatedly to stay home, that they were perfectly happy with everyone pitching in to do my job and with the temp, who, according to Augusta, had cleaned out the petty cash envelope I kept under the phone and never come back.

  I hadn’t heard a word from Fox. Karis clammed right up whenever I mentioned him, but Reid, who had been coming over and cooking and constantly buying groceries, looked furious. He hated Fox. I didn’t miss him, exactly, but it just felt odd, now, to be in the house with just myself. People had been coming and trying the door, banging on it sometimes and asking if this was the place for the party, but I kept it locked all the time. Mostly I kept the alarm on also, and the people who came over to visit me called first and had keys. I had been staying inside, out of the heat, enjoying the window air conditioner that Reid had bought and had installed when he reinforced the door and changed all the locks.

  That was, I had been staying inside until now. After I made myself eat some oatmeal for breakfast, I put on my big hat and ventured into the garage to get a roller, tray, and an old can of paint. Today I was trying to do something. I was tired of being alone inside with my thoughts, looking at the hole in the wall.

  I dipped the roller in the paint, pushing it back and forth across the tray. It was much harder to do this with my left hand. I had gone back to the doctor to get my right arm checked out and it had really gotten me down. I had realized that I was a long, long way from being able to use it like I used to. So I was pretty determined to start doing things with my left arm—I could do it.

  About 15 minutes later I rested a little, breathing hard. I had covered an area about the size of my car door, that was all. I closed my eyes, feeling tired, itchy, and overwhelmed.

  “Ione?”

  I didn’t turn, but opened my eyes and jabbed the roller into the paint. I had heard her coming, the squeak of the tricycle wheels on the sidewalk, her telling Mita and Ani to stay put while she talked to me. “Hi, Sania,” I said. “It’s quiet at my house now, right? I’m sure you’re very relieved.”

  “Devesh and I were very sorry to hear about what happened,” Sania told me. “We’re glad that you are out of the hospital and getting better.”

  “Yes, thank you. I am getting better.”

  “And you’re repainting, finally,” she commented.

  I turned around to look at her and she saw my face for the first time. Sania’s mouth dropped open and she stepped back, away. Then she shook her head, no.

  “Yes, I’m painting. I’m covering up the blue. The house will be all white again,” I said, as clearly as I could.

  “I had no idea,” she said, and her voice was shaking. “I had no idea. We saw the ambulance taking you away but we didn’t understand…the damage.”

  I turned back to face the house, and now I was shaking, too. “I’m fine.”

  “Who did that to you? The neighbors have all been talking. We’ve all been worried about crime, but we thought it was one of those people you let come and go. Was it one of the vagrants who you let into your home?” Sania shook her head. “Someone you allowed in did that to your—” She stopped.

  I picked up the roller and moved it back and forth, back and forth.

  “I’m very glad to see that you’re well,” she said formally, and I heard her footsteps heading back across my dry, brown yard, rustling the dead grass as she went. It hadn’t rained in forever and the heat had not relented.

  I went back to painting, trying to make the house white again. The paint dripped down my wrist and splattered my old button-down shirt. I stopped, panting. It wasn’t really covering up the blue color. I didn’t remember it being so hard to paint, before, either. The day I had decided to make the house blue had been a clear day in spring, bright but not too hot. The kind of weather that made you wear shorts for the first time in months and feel excited that warmth and growth were just around the corner, like summer was coming, and it was going to be full of possibilities.

  I had made sun tea, because it was before someone had taken the big jar I used to make it in. Fox had sat outside in a lawn chair, working some on his computer, mostly shooting the breeze with me about women, work, parties, nothing. He had made me laugh with all the ridiculous things he had said. I had loved how the blue paint looked, so different from how white and plain the house had been before. Then a crowd of people I knew from art school had come over and we’d talked and danced for hours. It had been such a fun day.

&
nbsp; “Ione.”

  I spun around this time, because I hadn’t heard anyone coming, and instinctively, I held up the paint roller in front of my face. “Oh. Cooper.” I had been so lost in thought, I hadn’t even noticed his car turning into my driveway. I turned away from him and pulled my hat down lower. “What are you doing here?” I hadn’t seen him since…I couldn’t think. I was so hot and itchy and sore and tired, my left arm shaking with the strain of holding the roller.

  “I wanted to see how you were.” He swallowed. “How are you?”

  “I need to go sit down,” I answered him. I moved slowly back to the house, slowly because I was still all bruised and sore inside, too, and while I opened all the locks, he climbed up the steps behind me. I turned up the air conditioning unit in the living room to the highest setting, threw off the hat, then carefully sat down on the floor in front of it and let the frigid air blow over me. It was wonderful. “Thank you for coming,” I said. “There’s a lot to eat and drink, if you want something.” Reid had been stuffing my house with provisions.

  Cooper went into the kitchen and he came back with a mason jar of water for me. “Thank you,” I said, and took a long sip. He pulled the chair over next to me and the plastic creaked as he sat down.

  “I’m glad to see you up and outside. I’ve been talking to Augusta—”

  “About me?” I picked up my head from my knees and looked at him.

  “Yes, about you. Since it happened. She told me that you would need a little recovery time—I only came to the hospital a few times, but I wanted to see you again.” He studied my face. “It’s amazing how much you’ve healed.”

  I turned back away from him. “Yes, amazing.” I hadn’t looked at myself since I’d seen the reflection in the car window, but I had seen other people’s reactions to me, and they had all behaved just like Sania did. “I never heard your news.”

  “What?”

  “That day, you said you had some good news. I never got to hear it.”

  “It’s not important,” he assured me, but I just waited. “We signed a contract with the company from Japan,” he said finally.

  I was trying to smile but it hurt my lips and jaw. My cheeks. “Oh, Cooper! I’m so glad for you. That’s wonderful news.”

  “It doesn’t seem as important now.”

  “Of course it is!” I told him. “It’s amazing. I’m just thrilled.”

  “I thought you would be. I thought probably you would guess before I told you, with how well you can read people.”

  “No,” I murmured. That wasn’t true.

  “I thought something was wrong when you didn’t come to class. I just got this terrible, suffocating feeling…” He trailed off. “That was why I left early. That was how I found you.”

  I had thought it was a dream, how I had heard Cooper’s voice. He had begged me to stay awake. “I’m here, Ione, I’m here!” he had repeated.

  I scooted a little closer to him now and leaned against his leg. He had saved me, then; it had been real. “Thank you,” I told him. He put his hand on my head, not in the spot where they had taken out the staples, and just gently, so I knew that he was there.

  Chapter 10

  I woke up when I heard the clang.

  “God damn it, Tanner! Will you watch what you’re doing?”

  “So you’re the paint expert, too? You know fucking everything about everything, right?”

  “I know that you can’t carry all that and not expect to drop something. You probably woke up Ione when you let go of the ladder!”

  The fighting continued.

  I stretched, feeling the soft sheets around me and the cool air in the dining room. I had been sleeping a little better, feeling a little better. I lay with my eyes closed until there was another loud noise, a crash, and the fighting intensified.

  It took me a moment, then I started to really wonder what Cooper and his brother were doing outside my window. I slowly and carefully turned to my side, then pushed myself to a sit, acclimating, before I stood up. I deactivated the alarm system, undid the locks, and stepped out into the morning sunshine. “Hi,” I said, blinking in the light. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We’re painting your house,” Cooper explained.

  “What? You are?”

  “And we’re arguing,” he continued. “Because Tanner is not listening, as per his norm. Right?”

  Tanner didn’t answer. He was staring at me, at my face, at my arms and shoulders, all visible in my tank top. “Ione,” he breathed, and I thought he might cry.

  “Tanner!” his brother barked. “Get your ass in gear. Remember what we have in the car?”

  Tanner tore his eyes away from me. “Oh, yeah. Right.” He came back with a paper bag. “Here, we got this for you.” Now he couldn’t seem to look at my face at all, and studied his shoes instead of making eye contact.

  “Drawer’s jockey serum,” Cooper explained. “They’re little sweet buns, right?”

  “Really? You got me drozdzówki z serem?” I inhaled the delicious aroma of the Polish pastries. “Where did you get these? How did you know that I love them?”

  Cooper picked up some of the equipment that his brother had dropped. “You mentioned it when we were out to dinner at L’Argent, about your grandmother making them.”

  Tanner muttered something about going to five bakeries.

  “Thank you,” I told them both. “It’s been years since I had these. Why don’t you come in and eat with me? You don’t really have to paint my house.”

  Tanner’s face lit up but Cooper shook his head. “No, thanks. We already ate. It’s better to do this now before it gets too hot.” So his brother reluctantly picked up a roller cover.

  I got dressed, taking a long time in the shower, examining the bruises that I could see. They were getting better. It was the internal stuff, the bruised ribs, the fractures and plate in my arm, the concussion—that was what was worried me more. But I wondered about my face, since it had been bad enough to make Sania almost run away and Tanner almost cry. There was a tiny mirror in my grandma’s old compact. It was in a box of her things in my studio, but I hadn’t been in there yet. When I got out of the shower and put on some clothes, I thought about going in. I went as far as putting my hand on the knob to see if it was unlocked. It turned, and then I let go and went carefully back downstairs. By the time I got to the bottom of the steps, I was winded.

  “Why don’t you guys take a break and have something to drink?” I wheedled a few minutes later. “It’s nice and cool inside.”

  “No, it’s better to paint from wet edges,” Cooper said without even looking up. He wielded a paintbrush carefully, angling it just right to get into the corner of the window frame. I was sure I hadn’t done the blue so well. “Tanner said you were clearing your back yard. We’ll finish that next.”

  I heard a muted, anguished groan from Tanner. “Well, maybe you could take a break out here?” I suggested. I carried out the new glasses that Augusta had brought over, one at a time in my left hand, filled with some of the specialty juices that Reid had brought from our office, and I also carried out my special pastries in the paper bag to share. Tanner gulped his drink in one swallow, sitting in the shade of the house and wiping his forehead. Maybe we weren’t in the heat of the day, but it was already very warm. I sat down on the step and waved a glass enticingly at Cooper. “Guava, papaya, pea sprouts, manioc, and apple.”

  “Is that really good?” He looked at it skeptically.

  “Everyone in the office seems to love it. If you mix fruit with vegetables, people are all in,” I explained. Reid had brought over a case and fit it into my refrigerator, which was already overflowing with his previous food purchases.

  Tanner picked up his brother’s glass from the step and drained that, too. “It was good,” he told Cooper. “Sorry you missed out.”

  Cooper shook his head at him, but started to laugh, and then both of them laughed together. “Ever since you were a kid, you’v
e been taking my stuff.”

  “You shouldn’t have good stuff if you don’t want someone to take it,” Tanner told him reasonably.

  “He does have a point,” I said. “Thank you both, again. I can’t believe this is how you wanted to spend your Saturday.”

  “We would rather be here,” Cooper answered, and gave his brother a look. “My mom’s sister came down from Tawas to spend the weekend hanging out with her, so it’s the perfect time for the two of us to get some projects done.” He started painting again, and after a minute, Tanner did too, muttering a little.

  “How is your mom doing?” I asked them, and Cooper filled me in. Ok, it seemed like, or at least not any worse. Stable.

  I asked him more about what was happening with his business, and about Tanner’s summer job, working at Digger’s shop, which he loved.

  “They all hope you’re doing well,” Tanner said. He still hadn’t looked directly at me since I had first come out on the porch hours earlier that morning.

  “I’m much better.” I opened the paper bag and tore off a tiny piece of pastry with my fingers. I chewed it very carefully. They had fixed my teeth, and I wasn’t in danger of losing any now, but I had to be careful with them still. Tanner nodded quickly, studying his brush.

  “Tanner.”

  He jerked his head up. “Yeah?”

  “I’m really fine. I know it’s scary to look at, but I’m ok.”

  He looked me in the eye. “I’m glad.”

  I was, too. “Try some,” I offered, holding out the bag, and he did.

  After a while I went in to take a nap, because of still not sleeping completely the night before, and I woke up again when I heard arguing. Loud, angry voices that I recognized, and I got up as quickly as I could and went to the front door.

  Fox and Cooper looked to be having a stand-off in the front yard, with Tanner right behind his brother, ready to tap in. “I can go in. I live there!” Fox yelled.

  “Not anymore, you little fuck. Get out of here.” Cooper’s voice was so deep and cold, it almost scared me, and Fox took a big step back.