LUMP

by Claire L. Fishback

  Then it hit him. If he was staring at their bed, was he sitting on the dresser? He tried to look around to figure out where he was, but again, nothing came of it.

  Celia got up and stretched. He tried to speak, but no sound came out. In fact, he couldn’t feel his lips. She approached the dresser, her mouth moved but no sound came out. She laughed. He knew it was that fake, high-pitched laugh she did because she held her hand against her chest. She bent over slightly, her eyes on whatever her hands were doing. Morey could see down her nightgown into her cleavage.

  When she stood up, she held a note up to his eyes.

  “I hope you slept well,” it read. She reached toward him, and he started to move, his vision jostled about. She was taking him somewhere, but . . . how? She wasn’t strong enough to carry him. She stopped and walked around behind him. His line of sight turned ever so slow. The edge of the bathroom came into view. The doorway, the towels, the mirror.

  If Morey had a throat and new vocal cords he would have screamed. Celia wasn’t carrying him. Oh no, she wasn’t. She was pushing him on a cart. All that remained of Morey was a square container with a brain and eyes. The eyes were held steady with hooks attached to the mouth of the container, which sat in the center of a cart inside fluids to keep it supple. Positioned around the jar were machines pumping oxygen and blood into and out of his brain.

  Celia held up another note. “I thought about cutting off your dick,” it said. “But decided this was a much better alternative.”

  She tossed her head back and laughed.

  Morey heard silence.

  The Healer

  This story is dedicated to Wissa. I wrote this about a month or so before she had knee surgery, because I wished I could take her pain away.

  I REMEMBER THAT IT was raining that night. I could barely see past the drops dripping from my eyelashes. The gunman’s bullet hit its mark.

  “I’m sorry . . .” She choked past the blood filling her lungs.

  “No, no, shh,” I whispered. I smoothed her rain-soaked hair and placed my hand over her heart, over the bullet wound, the other on her forehead.

  Her eyes widened. “No,” she gasped. “Don’t.”

  I shushed her gently. “I don’t want you to die,” I whispered, clenching my jaw to keep from crying. “I love you.” I took a deep breath and prepared to steal away her pain and take her from death’s grip.

  It was a curse, not a gift. Those who I helped thanked me and referred to me as a Saint, but I’m just a man with the ability to heal the wounded. I am a healer, but not the kind with herbs and magical chakras. I take the pain of other’s and make it my own.

  A writer with a broken hand? Cured. Me? Left with a terrible tendonitis in all connecting tendons in my hand. Phalanges to carpals to metacarpals. An opera singer with laryngitis left me scratchy for a week. One of the worst I’ve healed, until the dark night twenty-six years into my life as a healer, was a torn heart valve.

  It was a tough decision; I never know how I’ll be affected. Though the pain I receive is far less than the degree of that which I take away, I am always reluctant to heal. I weigh my odds. How serious is this injury, this disease, this cluster of symptoms? How may I come out? I was approached by Mr. Robert Candava’s wife a week before he was scheduled for surgery to repair his aortic valve. She was distraught and shoved an envelope full of cash into my arms.

  “Heal my husband! One more surgery and I will lose him, I just know it!” She cried.

  “I’m sorry, I think you have the wrong person.” I didn’t advertise, why would I? I’d have every Tom, Dick, and Harry at my front door. I’d be bedridden with numerous ailments all at the same time, all the time.

  “I heard your name from a friend,” Mrs. Candava said. “She told me I could find you here.” She motioned to the steps of the public library I had just come from.

  I sat down on a step and Mrs. Candava joined me, eyes full of tears.

  “He’s going to die.” She looked out across the street. I gave the envelope back to her. She looked at me with wide, tear-filled eyes.

  “I’m going to help you, I just don’t require payment,” I whispered.

  She pressed her face against my shoulder and sobbed. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  Mrs. Candava told me the date of his surgery and told me to meet her in the waiting room. From there she would get me in to see Mr. Candava. When I was alone with him, I explained who I was and what I was going to do. He nodded in understanding.

  I placed my hand over his heart on the lower-left. My other hand I placed on his forehead. I’m not sure when or why I started doing that, the hand on the forehead that is, but I think I started doing it because I felt it would calm the patient.

  I closed my eyes and saw Mr. Candava’s heart. I scanned the entire thing, and when I reached the aortic valve I gasped as searing pain entered my chest. I pushed on Mr. Candava’s chest until he grunted with the pressure. After that I don’t remember. It always happens that way. When I feel the intensity of the pain, it’s almost as if my brain shuts down. I open my eyes and there I am, breathless, on my ass on the floor. Sometimes, if it isn’t as bad, I open my eyes and I’m still standing with my hands on the patient.

  But Mr. Candava’s valve was so torn. I saw it in my mind, working so hard to shut tight, but unable to. My chest burned.

  Someone came into the room behind me.

  “Are you alright? What happened?” A female voice asked.

  “I’m, fine.” I gasped. “I was just—”

  “He was visiting and the grief of me going into surgery just shocked the poor lad,” Mr. Candava said.

  “You aren’t supposed to have visitors once you are in here, Mr. Candava,” the female said. I looked up at her.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” She crouched by my side and felt my pulse. Her touch soothed. I wanted her to keep touching me, but she stopped and helped me to my feet.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I just have really bad heartburn.” I couldn’t stand up straight it burned so bad. “Do you have something for that?”

  She smiled. Her nametag said “Victoria, RN”.

  “I’m sure I can find something for you.” She winked. “But you need to go back out into the waiting room.” She held my arm and led me out to a seat near Mrs. Candava, who looked at me with wide eyes, expectant.

  Victoria, RN left, and Mrs. Candava leaned over.

  “Well?” She whispered.

  “It’s done. I cured him.” I gripped my chest. Black spots danced before my eyes. My heart was on fire. “You have to stop the surgery.” I gasped and doubled over.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Valentine?” Mrs. Candava asked.

  “Yes, but it’s not Valentine, it’s . . .” My head swam with visions of my own aortic valve working overtime to seal tight. But that wasn’t it. What was it? I closed my eyes and put my hand on my heart. Everything was in fine condition. I placed it lower. Acid reflux. Bad. Bile rose in my throat.

  “Here’s some, oh my gosh.” Victoria, RN was again by my side pressing a cool hand on the back of my neck, and then my forehead.

  After that, it all went downhill. I tried to blurt out to stop the surgery, but instead I vomited on my shoes and on Victoria, RN’s lap. She seemed more concerned about my wellbeing than the stains on her scrubs. She rushed a wheelchair into the waiting room and had me whisked to a bed on a different floor.

  “I think he’s in shock,” she told the attending nurse on my floor. “I’ll come back after my rounds and check up on him.”

  She did, too. She came back only an hour later, though. Mrs. Candava stopped the surgery, demanding another EKG, MRI, ultrasound, “Whatever it is you do!” she shouted. The doctor complied and Mr. Candava’s heart was just fine.

  When I woke up the next morning, heartburn still present, but smoldering softly now, there was a package on my side table full of money from the Candavas.

  Victoria, RN, who was really Victoria Knightley, RN, never came ba
ck to see me, and when I was released the afternoon the day after I healed Mr. Candava, the attending nurse told me to call her later.

  “She seemed real weird about it, son,” the woman said, handing me a slip of paper with Victoria’s number on it.

  I kept the number, but I didn’t call her. I knew she was going to ask me about Mr. Candava, about my severe case of heartburn, and what was going on. I didn’t have answers that made sense to those of a scientific mindset.

  A week later, however, I bumped into her at the market one day while shopping for produce.

  “I know you,” she said over the onions. “You’re the heartburn from last week.” She laughed.

  “Yes, the heartburn,” I said. “I’m Christopher. Christopher Valenteen.” I held out my hand and she squeezed it gently. Her hand was soft and warm. The touch of a healer, though not the type I am. “Victoria, RN,” I said with a smile.

  “I noticed you haven’t called,” she said raising an eyebrow. We’d moved on to citrus. She put a large orange in her bag and picked up another one.

  “I know,” I said. “I’m sure I know what you wanted me to call about, and I try to avoid answering questions as much as possible.”

  “Questions? What questions?” Victoria asked.

  “Didn’t you have questions about Mr. Candava’s miraculous self-healing valve?” I asked her, pausing in the handling of a nectarine.

  “No. I figured it was just a mistake. You know, some sort of glitch in the EKG.” She twist-tied her bag of oranges and put them in her basket.

  “Right.” I could see she didn’t really believe that. “Then what did you want me to call you about?” I asked.

  She flushed and smiled shyly. A smile that gripped my heartstrings and tugged hard. “I just—” She looked up at me through her lashes. “I wanted to see if you’d like to go to dinner,” she blurted. “But if you don’t, that’s fine; I know it’s kind of weird.” She quickly put a bunch of potatoes in a bag and tied it off, then moved to the apples and away from me.

  I played coy. I didn’t follow her to the apples, but I did watch her from the oranges as she struggled not to look at me or make eye contact. Her face was still flushed. I sidled over to the apples and stood very close to her.

  “Yes, I’ll have dinner with you,” I told her.

  She smiled and let out a long breath. “I knew you would,” she said. “I could feel you staring at me.” She looked up at me and smiled.

  “Right. Do you always call yourself stupid when you believe someone will accept an invitation?” I chuckled, and she relaxed.

  We went to The Screaming Rooster, a small pub-type restaurant that served mainly fried food, beer, and the occasional plate of wilted salad. Victoria, RN chose the place. Later she informed me she thought it would be relaxed enough to enjoy a first date, without the usual nerve-racking inability to keep the person you’re out with enthralled with what you have to say.

  After dinner, more of a snack, Victoria had greaseball chicken strips, I had mozzarella sticks that dripped hot oil down my chin, we took a walk to the park and sat on a bench in the moonlight.

  “How did you do it?” She asked me after we sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “Do what?” I leaned back and put my arm around her. She relaxed against my shoulder.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “You did something to Mr. Candava.”

  “What do you think I did?” I asked her. Her hair smelled like a summer day.

  She sat up and twisted to look at me. My arm dropped from her shoulders. “You healed him,” she said, but shook her head, as if she didn’t like the way it sounded. “Or something like that.”

  She was so beautiful in her puzzlement.

  “I did heal him.” I took her hand and held it gently. “And as a reward I got heartburn.”

  “Acid reflux.” She corrected me, then laughed, then stopped abruptly with her eyebrows furrowed. She pulled her hand away. “Are you mocking me?”

  “No, not at all.” I held up my hands. “I didn’t want to tell you before because I knew you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “And I kind of don’t,” she said.

  “But you also kind of do—Look, I don’t usually tell people about it because they don’t believe me.” I paused and looked at her through narrowed eyes. “But, there’s something about you, Victoria, RN, that I just can’t put my finger on.” I stood. “This is going to sound crazy, but, I feel like I need whatever it is in my life.” I laughed. “That sounds like a bad pickup line.”

  “Yeah. It does,” she said. “As corny as it sounds, I have to admit, there’s something about you, too.”

  I sat next to her and she leaned against my shoulder again. “I don’t know what it is, but I’ve been thinking about you since you threw up on me last week.”

  I laughed. “I am so sorry about that.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, watching the stars twinkle above, the reflection of the moon on the pond.

  “I believe you,” she murmured.

  “I know,” I whispered in her ear.

  Victoria saw several healings in our short time together. She called me during surgeries that weren’t going very well. The surgeon she assisted was always very kind in allowing me into the OR to do what I did best. I usually sat in the waiting room and spoke with the family of the patients first, to tell them what I was going to do. Most of them had never heard of me before, but some of them had. Regardless, their eyes always lit up at hearing what I told them. I’m going to heal your son, your wife, your sister-in-law, your newborn baby. They were always pleased, and I was always injured afterward, but they never saw that part.

  After I healed a seventeen-year-old who had been hit by a car, I was hospitalized with several minor fractures that healed quickly, but were painful nonetheless.

  “You have to stop,” Victoria told me while she changed some of my dressings. “I don’t want you to do this anymore.” Her voice was stern, her forehead creased with concern, her lips pursed.

  “I have to. It’s what I’m meant to do.” I told her. My voice was dry and raspy. I was drowsy from the pain killers.

  Victoria stopped wrapping my wrist and put her hands over her face to hide her crying.

  “Victoria, RN,” I said in a sing-song voice.

  She turned and smiled through her tears. She loved it when I called her that.

  “What, Chris?” she asked.

  “I can’t heal myself,” I sang. I jiggled my injured wrist, the bandage dangling nearly to the floor. She laughed, wiped her eyes and finished wrapping my wrist.

  After a time, she said, “I know you can’t, and that’s what hurts me.” Her voice was thick with sorrow. “What if you heal someone and end up dying because of it?”

  “That won’t happen,” I told her. “I’m more careful than that.”

  “I know, but what if . . .?”

  “I always assess the injury, if it’s too severe, I don’t do anything but try to calm the patient down, you know that. You’ve seen it.” I was beginning to feel anger seep through the drug haze.

  “I know, but there’s always the possibility that you won’t see how severe it is. Even doctors who’ve gone to years and years of medical school sometimes can’t assess well enough! That’s why I’ve called you for help in the OR, because we didn’t see that it was so serious.” Her voice raised as she spoke.

  I was quiet for a minute, not sure what to say. She was right; there was always the possibility of a wrong assessment. I knew that, she knew that. To be honest, I’d always known that, but I still risked it. I healed people to relieve not only their pain, but the emotional pain of those around them.

  “I’m not afraid of death,” I whispered. I didn’t add what I was afraid of—the pain those around me might suffer should I die.

  “I know you’re not.” She sat on the edge of my bed and placed a cool hand on the side of my face. “That’s what scares me.”

  I reached up with my good
arm and caressed her cheek.

  “Come here,” I whispered. She lay down gently on my chest and I stroked her hair. “I won’t do anything stupid, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said. “Just be careful.”

  “You know I am.”

  She sat up and wiped her eyes and said, “Yeah, right. Look at you now, Mr. Always Careful.”

  “It’s not that bad.” I said. “I’ve been worse, trust me.”

  She finished with me and left the room to see to her other patients. After she left I cringed with pain until tears leaked from my eyes. It had never been this bad.

  I went to my doctor, a psychologist by the name of Abrahm Guthry, and spoke to him.

  “I think it’s leaving me.” I lay on a sofa in his office, staring up at the ceiling.

  “What is leaving you?” he asked. “Your healing powers?”

  “No, my, I don’t know what to call it.” I sat up abruptly with my elbows on my knees. “I’m feeling more and more of the sufferer’s pain,” I said. “I recently healed a kid that got hit by a car and ended up hospitalized.”

  “Well, I’m sure he had extensive trauma . . .”

  “No, it wasn’t that extensive, but it was almost like I felt the full brunt of his injuries.”

  “Perhaps you need to take a break with the healing?” Dr. Guthry stated gently. He knew I wouldn’t want to hear that. It’s what Victoria wanted, too, but I just couldn’t. It wasn’t in me to give up on something I’d been doing for so long. It was a part of who I was.

  “I don’t think I need a break,” I said, shaking my head. Dr. Guthry didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows in a way that said, ‘suit yourself.’

  I have to admit that I did think about it while walking home, and I decided to try it for a week.

  “You aren’t yourself,” Victoria told me over scrambled eggs and bacon the fourth day into my trial period. “You seem distracted and distant.” She sat down across from me in her silk nightgown without making eye contact.

  “I haven’t healed anyone in four days, what do you expect?” I said, a little harsher than intended.