Fix

by J. Albert Mann

  There isn’t one.

  I reach out and clutch the porcelain soap dish tiled into the wall, but it’s too slippery.

  The only way to do this is by holding on to the shower head.

  It’s kind of jiggly, though I think it can bear my weight. Holding my breath, I bring my left leg up and over the tub wall and into the water.

  “Yesssss,” I hiss joyfully.

  I’m in.

  I carefully lower my rodlike body into the tub—aware of every screw and staple—until I’m sitting on my feet, a circle of warm water around my thighs.

  Water is amazing. It really is. Even this tiny amount makes my now-even shoulders fall away from my ears and allows my lungs to open like two butterflies lifting off into the sky. And, I guess, it turns me into a bad poet.

  I yawn so big my jaw cracks.

  A very tired poet.

  I sit in the tub and stare down at the bath mat. Happy?

  Happy.

  I hear Sowah’s voice.

  Nineteen degrees.

  A miracle.

  Something We Both Knew

  On some long-ago

  gloomy afternoon

  my mother stepped

  into my room

  with clean sheets. A

  simple, neatly folded stack of

  clean sheets.

  The fitted sheet is kind of fun to put on, but

  the flat one sucks. You can

  fling it up and out a

  hundred times yet

  it never lands right.

  With zero hope of success, I

  picked it up at one end and

  flung it into the air with a hefty

  snap!

  A snap that caught my attention.

  A snap that felt right on.

  A snap I watched float down to the bed and…

  land perfectly.

  In that moment

  a dream was born.

  A living, breathing

  dream.

  The snap.

  The floating

  down,

  down,

  down

  and the

  landing, softly…

  even.

  It is Dr.

  Sowah,

  holding on to my toes

  while I lie

  so still,

  and then, just like the sheet,

  he snaps me

  up into the air

  where one by one by

  one,

  the vertebrae in my very crooked spine

  crack,

  crack,

  crack

  into a perfect bumpy line

  as I float to the bed

  straight at last.

  Like all daydreams,

  it was satisfying, comforting,

  and I spent hours

  envisioning this lovely, simple

  snap. Ignoring things like

  pedicle screws, interbody fusion,

  blood.

  Just as Lidia

  spent hours on her

  website, repeating words like

  elegant, flexible,

  lightweight. Ignoring words like

  glove, individual digits, and

  TrueFinish™ technology.

  It was a dream.

  There was

  no soft landing. And

  copyrighting a word like

  TrueFinish™

  didn’t make it true.

  But there was a landing.

  For me.

  You could be straight,

  if you wanted.

  Sawed open.

  Rearranged.

  Stapled shut.

  Something we

  both knew.

  The Real One

  You said

  it was his grin.

  But I knew

  it was my surgery.

  The rest of New Year’s Day

  you spent talking about

  that grin…

  his bright eyes…

  the sure way he’d plucked the hat from your head…

  then the grin…

  again.

  The guy was

  literally in our presence

  for thirty seconds, yet

  somehow,

  you’d noticed enough

  about him

  to pontificate endlessly.

  Meanwhile. I didn’t say a word—

  about what you hadn’t told Jayden, or

  the dread I felt

  imagining Nick’s disappointment

  when he showed up on Saturday

  and found

  me.

  But what could I have said?

  I needed you, Lid.

  God, I needed you.

  More than I ever had.

  Everything was changing.

  Literally,

  everything.

  In two weeks,

  my skin,

  my muscles,

  my bones,

  even my belly button

  wouldn’t be in the same place.

  So I did what I’d always done.

  I pulled my head inside my plastic shell

  and stayed there.

  The date was a week away.

  Anything could happen in a week.

  Holiday break was over.

  School started tomorrow.

  You’d have volleyball.

  Our English term papers.

  Your hand on its way.

  My surgery around the corner.

  You’d forget that grin.

  Forget his bright eyes.

  You’d forget the date.

  Slow Motion

  LOUD KNOCKING.

  My mother.

  “Eve!”

  The world spins in a tiny circle as I remember where I am.

  The bathroom door opens a crack. And then it swings wide.

  “Are you in the tub? What the hell, Eve? How did you get in there?”

  But she stops and looks away when she sees me hug myself for privacy. She didn’t come in here to get angry. She takes a breath and resets herself.

  “Hey, how about this,” she says. “Let’s put some soap in there with you. It looks like you’ve got a few inches or so before the water reaches the bottom incision. At least you can clean your legs and your… your…”

  “What kind of feminist are you that you can’t say vagina, Mom?” But I’m smiling.

  She snorts. “It’s actually a vulva,” she says.

  “Mom.” I roll my eyes and drop my arms, modesty over, while she pours bodywash into the water and swishes it gently with her hands to make bubbles, eyeing my staples. It’s hard not to notice them. They begin up under my left armpit, run down to my navel, and then over to my right hip. There is a separate track that runs from between my scapula down to my butt. I can’t see those. I can only feel them.

  “Wow,” she says.

  I think it’s the first time she’s seen what Dr. Sowah did. I’m happy to shock her. I sometimes feel so damn… uninteresting to her.

  “Hey, I know,” she says. “Do you want me to shave your legs? And after I help you out of there, we have you lean over the tub wall and I’ll use the shower attachment to wash your hair.”

  “Um.” I think. “I like the shaving-of-the-legs thing, but I’m not sure about the leaning part.”

  “Well, let’s start and see where we get,” she says.

  She helps me stand and then carefully wraps my many staples up in a towel. This way, I can lean against the shower tiles while she shaves my legs, rinsing off the soap with the shower attachment. The warm water feels so good. The sudden need to be clean is overwhelming.

  “Okay, get me out,” I say. “Let’s try the leaning thing.” It’s not as good as a real shower, but it’s something.

  Getting out with my mother’s help is so much easier, and so much less scary, than getting in had been. She dries my legs with another towel and then trots off to my bedroom for a clean body so
ck and a fresh pair of sweats, leaving me alone with the Roxy. I can see it in my peripheral vision but don’t move to look directly at it.

  When my mother returns, she also has a glass of water. “Where’s your medicine?” she asks. “This is a lot of activity for you. You might want to take one.”

  Stunned, I stare at her. What do I do?

  “Eve? Sweetheart?”

  Sweetheart.

  I point at the Roxy sitting on the back of the toilet.

  She picks it up and spills one out, handing it to me. I take it from her in slow motion, bringing the white pill to my lips, moving for the glass, filling my mouth with water. Doing it all because it comes from her. But it’s my decision to swallow.

  She removes the glass of water from my hand and sets it on the sink counter, and then helps me into the body sock by placing it over my head and carefully rolling it down over my incisions.

  I can feel it already. The Roxy. Rushing into all my nooks and crannies like heavy rainwater racing down muddy slopes and bubbling over worn rocks, making its way to a river, an ocean.

  I hold on to her shoulders while she pulls on my sweats. The clean cotton sliding up my freshly shaved legs feels so good I shiver.

  We Velcro me back into my second home, and then my mother prepares for the hair washing by placing a thick towel on the tub wall for support. I get down on my knees, lean into the tub—belly to towel—and allow my head to hang from my neck. The tug on my sore spine feels strange, but not bad.

  “Here goes,” she says.

  Staring down at the bath mat on the tub floor, I zone in and out while my mother washes my hair, the Roxy sending all my thoughts to a galaxy far, far away. She very delicately douses my head with warm water, lathers my hair using her strong fingers, and gently rinses it while water runs down my face, dripping off my nose, my eyelashes.

  “How you doing?” she asks every few minutes.

  My only response is “Mmmm.”

  When she’s done, she asks if I can stand it a little longer while she conditions it. I can’t. My spine is so done in this position, even with the Roxy.

  She towels my wet hair and we go out to the living room where I lie on the couch and she combs my hair out over the armrest. The soft tugging at my scalp puts me into a deep coma-like state where I’m safe and happy and peering out between the branches of yellow forsythia.

  “Eve,” she says.

  My name. The name she gave me. I don’t often hear her say it like this. Like she is going to say something that’s just for me.

  “I’m sorry that I have to leave you.”

  She’s sorry.

  Sorry. To leave me.

  She’s leaving.

  Turning from the

  mirror… toward the

  restroom door.

  “Lidia, no,” I whisper.

  “Eve?”

  When I open my eyes, I find my mother standing in front of me.

  I clear my throat. “I think I need more medicine.”

  She quickly fetches my Roxy and hands me one. This time, nothing happens in slow motion.

  I watch her turn and walk away.

  Alone.

  In the living room.

  I remember the rumble of the truck,

  the squeak of the brakes, and

  my signature on the tablet.

  The Real One

  You didn’t forget.

  We sat in my living room

  over the next week

  waiting for the hand, while you

  jabbered on and on

  about Jayden…

  A guy who

  basically

  stole your hat.

  I knew you were attempting to drive

  all the things I knew,

  all the things you knew,

  out of our minds as we munched on veggie sticks,

  twisted our hair into different romantic messy buns,

  and

  watched out the window for the UPS truck.

  You never brought up my surgery, but

  neither did I. Ten days and getting closer every second.

  So was Saturday, which was coming even faster.

  You were seriously busy.

  Trying on everything in your closet.

  Trying on everything in mine.

  Each outfit chosen to show off your coming hand.

  Your coming hand.

  As Saturday approached, I could feel what

  little control I had

  slipping away.

  Still. I tried.

  “Lid—” I said,

  that Friday afternoon

  as you lined your eye

  in smoky grays.

  “Don’t,” you said,

  cutting me off so fast and final

  it left me breathless and

  struggling under the weight of

  every single moment in my life

  where I’d felt

  different and

  awkward and

  ugly and

  deformed and

  wrong,

  just fucking wrong.

  You showed up Saturday night

  with your eyelashes

  dark and long, and your

  cheeks flushed red with

  Tea Rose Tickle

  blush.

  You did not wear a hat, but you

  did wear a dress.

  One with long, flowing sleeves.

  You were gorgeous.

  “Fuck the hand,”

  you said, and we

  hopped in your car, and

  drove off.

  Fuck the hand.

  You didn’t need it.

  Fuck the hand.

  You could do anything.

  Fuck the hand.

  You never needed two hands.

  Fuck the hand.

  The one you weren’t hiding

  under your sleeve.

  Because I had it hidden

  under my bed.

  Say Something

  “HONEY, I’M HOME!” MARY FAY SHOUTS, STARTLING THE SHIT out of me on the couch, which sends pain shooting everywhere. I groan, but Mary Fay misses it under the clatter of her suitcase rolling across the threshold.

  My mother rushes out of her bedroom, greeting Mary Fay with a big hug and kiss. Even Mary Fay is a little knocked off-balance by it. It’s strange to see my mother being so affectionate. She’s obviously excited to leave.

  She’s leaving.

  I can’t help glancing guiltily at my orange bottle.

  “More in the car?”

  “A bit,” Meef says.

  My mother disappears out the front door while Mary Fay drops a heavy-looking shopping bag onto the nearest armchair, rolling her suitcase into the center of the living room. “How’s the patient?”

  It’s more a greeting than a question, and she heads back out to help my mother unload the rest of her stuff.

  Alone again, I close my eyes and fade away. Although now it’s my mother’s turn to clop across the threshold and I can’t help but crack open my eyes in pure annoyance. Mary Fay is right behind her rolling a second suitcase even louder than the first.

  “In the bedroom?” my mother asks, struggling under the weight of two shopping bags’ worth of books.

  “No, maybe on the dining room table,” Meef says, grabbing one from her and dumping it on the table. “This all yours?” she asks me, gesturing toward my stack of homework. I blink at her, hoping that like her greeting, this question also doesn’t need a response.

  Mary Fay picks up my history textbook and smiles over the top of it. “Me and Eve. Drinking the java and burning up our brains.”

  “I can’t wait,” I say. Feeling very much like I can wait. A long time, in fact. And also, that maybe I’m in some trouble.

  “Okay, let’s get you settled in,” my mother suggests.

  Mary Fay places my textbook back onto the table and heads for one of the suitcases, while my mother takes hold of the other.

/>   “Nice telescope,” Mary Fay says, before they head down the hall past my bedroom to my mother’s.

  I close my eyes. My telescope is a sore subject at the moment.

  “What’s it doing in the middle of the living room?” I hear her ask.

  “She likes to be with it,” my mother says.

  “Why?”

  “Um.” My mother falters.

  I lift my head off the couch… waiting to hear how she’ll respond to this. “I don’t know,” she says finally, with a laugh.

  It was a piece of the truth. She didn’t know. The other piece, of course, was why she didn’t know.

  They continue to chat and laugh and generally bump about as they unpack Mary Fay. Where is my silent house? The quiet I’m used to. Hearing them heading back my way, and realizing escape is necessary, I roll off the couch onto my hands and knees, and then stand up way too fast.

  Dizzy… my eyes circling in my head… is when I see him.

  Thomas Aquinas. Standing in the front door like he is another of Mary Fay’s suitcases.

  I stop and blink.

  “Hey, Eve. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

  He’s carrying my trig textbook with a bunch of papers stuck in it.

  “I knocked, but—”

  “No problema,” my mother says from behind me, waving him inside.

  “Mom, don’t.”

  She doesn’t look at me but stops her terrible Spanish. “Thomas, you’ve met my partner, Dr. Walker. Mary Fay, you remember Eve’s friend Thomas. He lives down the street and has been kindly ferrying Eve’s schoolwork back and forth.”

  “A little more forth than back.” Thomas smiles broadly… at me.

  “Of course, of course,” Mary Fay says. “Thomas. It’s good to know I’ve got help with Eve for the next two weeks.”

  When she turns her attention my way, Thomas mouths the word friends and gestures at the two of us, smiling.

  Since I don’t understand exactly how to take it, because it is Thomas Aquinas we’re talking about, I snap back: “I don’t need any help.” Trying hard not to look so helpless hobbling back toward the couch, grimacing as I sink onto it.