“But I look like shit,” I whine. The truth of this depresses me further when I think back to leaving bed a few minutes ago.
“You’ll feel better after a shower. According to your surgery paperwork, your incisions were allowed to get wet February twenty-fifth. And it’s March second.”
I have paperwork? That she read.
“I placed two bath towels on the toilet for you.”
It’s March?
“Remember Nancy’s instructions. Don’t close the door all the way. Hold on to the bars. Take. Your. Time. And call me if you need anything at all!”
My mother had shower bars installed the afternoon after my bath. It amazes me every time I walk into the bathroom.
“People might be at the store,” I try. “You know, people I care about not seeing me.”
“It’s eleven in the morning on a Tuesday,” Mary Fay says. “All the people will be at school.”
“Some of them get early release and they work at the grocery store,” I continue. I don’t want a shower or an outing. I’m happy in my room.
“Early release?” she says, turning back around to face me. “That sounds like prison, not school.”
Mary Fay had been homeschooled all her life. Homeschooled! What an excellent idea. I’d never have to go back.
“Meef?”
“Yes, honey?”
“Will you homeschool me?”
“No.”
“Even though my mother left me and I’m sad?”
“No.”
I sigh. I’ll work on that one later. Right now, I have to eat because she’s standing there watching me. I swish my eggs around and stick another bite in my mouth. They taste like warm slime. She swipes my Roxy off the kitchen counter and puts it by my juice. “It’s been a while,” she says, glancing down at the time on her cell phone.
I open the bottle and break a Roxy in half, swallowing the larger chunk and placing the other back in the bottle.
“I like that you’re down to half a pill, Eve.”
I don’t offer that I already took a half this morning. Or that me taking it may be wiping the woman she loves from the face of the earth. Not that I believe this. I don’t believe this. The half Roxy on its way into my bloodstream helps me not believe it even more.
“Okay, my heavy metal friend,” she says. “I guess we can go to the grocery store before you take a shower. Avoiding the early releasers.”
I am going nowhere like this. I haven’t seriously washed in god knows how long. And according to Mary Fay, I stink.
“I’ll take a shower and we can go after,” I say, standing up from the table.
Mary Fay stops me. “Eve,” she says, looking down at my plate. “You didn’t eat very much.”
I have a missing-my-clueless-mother pang. “I’m never that hungry in the morning, Meef. You know lunch is my big meal.”
She nods, and I escape. Yet it’s obvious she doesn’t believe it.
Wobbling down the hall toward the bathroom, all I want to do is crawl into bed and pull the covers up to my ears. Picturing myself in the grocery store the way I look right now compels me into the bathroom.
Easing the door almost closed, I leave the light off and start the shower. I stand, staring at the daylight streaming in through the frosted window and listening to the water, while steam fills the room. The idea of stepping into that water gives me goose bumps.
Mary Fay is out there, clattering about the house. Since the moment she arrived, I’ve had zero peace.
As if on cue, she yells, “Holler if you need me, sweetie!”
Sighing, I undo my brace, pull off my pajamas, and reach for the new bar while v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y raising my foot up and over the side of the tub. Water hits my leg and I start shivering all over.
I stand there for a few minutes, watching the blur of cars through the window. Finally, I shift my weight to the foot in the tub and bring my other one to meet it, clutching the bar with both hands.
I’m in.
Closing the curtain and letting the shower do what it does—stream out of a hundred holes—I look down at myself. The sun shining in through the shower window glints off the long line of shiny metal staples. My pulse quickens, my head spins. It’s too steamy. There isn’t enough air.
I rip open the shower curtain and gulp down cool air like it’s water, holding tightly to the bar.
After a few minutes, my heartbeat slows and I let my chin fall to my chest, watching the water pool around my feet while steam surrounds me like a warm cloud. Closing the shower curtain again, I ease backward into the water stream.
When it hits my spine, I gasp. The warmth and the weirdness seem to mix together creating some emotional elixir. And I start to cry, as quietly as I can manage, so Mary Fay won’t hear.
Although when I finally douse my head with water, I can’t contain the loud sob.
“Eve?”
“I’m good,” I yell. And then I add, “I’m really good.” Because I am.
I grab the shampoo and dump half the bottle on my hair and then lather with the tips of my fingers because it hurts to raise my arms. There are so many bubbles they threaten to drown me.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
I use the pile of bubbles streaming down my shoulders to wash my body.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
I imagine this is what the Vikings must have felt like when they returned from some yearlong sea voyage and finally got to bathe—if they’d had grapefruit-lemongrass shampoo. And then I dump another round of it over me and lather again.
Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
This is heaven! I don’t think about stopping until I hear Mary Fay again. “Eve, it’s been a minute, honey.”
I turn off the faucet, and it’s like the running water is connected to my energy level because suddenly I’m exhausted.
But I’m also freezing.
I make my way out of the tub the same way I made my way in… slowly and thoughtfully. Then I wrap up in both the gigantic towels, pick up my brace, and leave the bathroom.
Mary Fay is hovering in the hall. “You good?”
“Yes,” I say, shivering.
“Give me a shout if you need help getting dressed. I’m an expert at dressing others, remember.”
I only met Mary Fay’s mom once before she died—the MS had her in a wheelchair by then—but I knew she lived with Mary Fay at the end.
Nodding through chattering teeth, I shut my door.
Sitting down on my bed is probably not a good idea, and an even worse idea all wrapped up in warm towels, yet I can’t stop myself.
“Ten minutes, Eve,” Mary Fay calls.
I lie back and close my eyes.
Ohhhh… lying down brace-less is heaven, the soft towels against my skin, my bones meeting a giving mattress.
“You’re going to be in trouble,” he whispers.
Now I feel all that skin in another way, imagining what it would be like to be touched by him. I don’t dare open my eyes. Afraid he’ll be there… afraid he won’t.
The Real One
You were switched on.
It looked like you could
barely stop yourself from
burrowing your face into his neck and
wrapping yourself around him. I’d
never seen you like this.
He was totally feeling you.
Everything out of his mouth was
suggestive, and you treated
each innuendo like a serve that you
expertly volleyed back into his court.
You didn’t include me.
You couldn’t. You were
too busy drowning in the frothy joy
of his eyes, all over your eyes,
all over you.
When the four of us
walked into the dark theater,
you tried to steer him into the aisle first, to
position him on your right side. But he was
so gallant,
gesturing with his arm,
“After you, m’lady,” and
who could resist that?
You couldn’t.
So you strode into that aisle,
swaggering to your seat.
Knowing he was staring hard at your ass
and knowing how good it looked.
Did I feel the chilly ache
of your vulnerability?
I did, Lid. I did.
But there they were.
Jayden and Nick.
Separating us like a
warm unfamiliar wall.
The movie started.
It was then that Jayden
must have decided to hold your hand—
a hand he’d never once considered
might not exist.
Forced from the Realm
“OKAY, EVE.”
She clicks on the light.
Although I can see the brightness through my closed lids, I don’t respond, hoping she will just go away. Hoping everyone will just go away.
“I let you sleep for hours. It is now six o’clock, and we are going to the store.”
I’m still in my towels. They’re cold and wet. And I suddenly feel very naked.
“I’ve also made an appointment with Dr. Sowah for tomorrow.”
My eyes flip open. “What? Why?”
I struggle to sit, but my head’s foggy from sleep and I totally fail. Being brace-less now feels unsafe, and I tighten the cold towel around me, trying not to look completely pathetic under Mary Fay’s watchful gaze.
After a few seconds, she folds her arms and leans back on her hip. “I don’t know,” she says, shaking her head. “You just don’t look good to me, honey.”
“I’m fine,” I say, finally sitting up, hoping that she doesn’t notice the wobble of my head.
“You were scheduled to go on Friday anyway, Eve, so what’s a few days?”
She turns around and starts opening drawers in my dresser.
“Okay, I’ll go tomorrow. Now, can I just sleep?”
“I didn’t ask you if you wanted to go. I told you I made an appointment,” she says, her nose buried in my dresser drawer.
“Won’t this mess up your work schedule or something?”
“Don’t you worry about my business, Eve,” she says, choosing clothes for me.
“I can do that,” I tell her, trying to keep the anger out of my voice.
She tosses sweats, a body sock, and a sweatshirt onto the bed, and then stands there—no crooked smile this time, she’s all eyes.
“Okay,” I tell her. “I’ll get dressed.”
“I’ll be waiting in the living room,” she says, walking out of my room. “With my car keys in my hand.” And then she shuts the door.
Sighing, I open the bedside drawer and take out my Roxy. I count them up because this is my ritual now—the number of Roxy has replaced the number of degrees of my curve, my brain forever recalculating the changing number against the days of my life.
I hate this part because counting tells me that I need to close the baggie without taking one.
In a swift motion, I pluck out a half, pop it into my mouth, and swallow it before I can think.
Now that the tiny mental fight is over, I’m glad I took it. The Roxy won. It always does.
Putting clean clothes on a clean body is like some dream I once had. But as I go to take off my towels… I remember him.
I don’t turn around. I don’t want him to know I’m thinking about him. Is he even in the telescope anymore?
As I remove the towel from my head, my cold, wet hair hits my shoulders and I quickly comb through it with my fingers… the Roxy tingles across my scalp. Outside the window are low, puffy dark clouds against a sliver of a moon. A tiny spit of icy rain taps at the window. It’s funny how spring rain can look colder than snow.
I check out the thick pair of sweats, the gray body sock, and the hoodie that Mary Fay chose. She forgot to bring me underwear. It would be too hard to get my feet through the holes anyway, especially now that my hands are so far away from them. She also forgot socks. Nancy brought me some sort of stick that’s supposed to help me put those on, but I have no idea where it is. Because I haven’t needed to put on socks. Because I don’t go out.
“Eve,” Mary Fay calls. “Creatures are evolving on this earth faster than you’re pulling on a sweatshirt.”
This is so ridiculous.
I take off my towel and practically rip my body sock trying to get my feet through as quickly as possible. I’ve never felt so naked in all my life.
He’s not a telescope anymore, he’s not a telescope anymore, I repeat, knowing how ridiculous I sound, and trying not to think too hard about what he has become. Who he has become. And the feel of his fingers on my lips.
I drop my sweatpants down as low as I can, and manage to struggle in each foot, one at a time. After catching my breath, I grab my brace without turning around so he can’t see my sweaty face. Wrapping it around me, I secure it with the Velcro straps. Ahh, how good it feels to be back inside.
“Make it happen,” Mary Fay calls, scaring the shit out of me.
I pick up my hoodie and Roxy, grab a pair of socks, and head for the living room.
She’s standing at the end of the hall and I can tell she’s upset although she’s trying not to show it. When I hold out my socks and smile, she sighs.
“Come on. I’ll stick them on in the living room.”
I’m obviously not getting out of this. Strangely, I don’t know how it happened. How I let it happen. Or how I’m going to do it.
A Kiss
EXCEPT FOR A WALK OUT TO THE STREET AND BACK THAT Nancy made me take, I have not left my house since the EMTs rolled me, screaming, into it following the surgery. Mary Fay opens the front door and takes my arm, and I’m screaming as I leave it, although only in my head.
The drive takes less than ten minutes, but the traffic lights and car engines and Mary Fay’s foot on the gas and then her foot on the brake and the smell of the car and the smell of the gasoline at the gas station and especially the loudly nightmarish commercials running on the television at the pump have me exhausted by the time Mary Fay cuts the engine at the grocery store.
Really exhausted.
“Let’s do this,” she says, clapping. Her enthusiasm isn’t catching.
She climbs out and closes her door, and the small moment I have alone is enough for me to retreat into myself, curling up into a ball in the back of my head. The snap of the opening hatch door, along with the clang of Mary Fay removing my forearm crutches, actually stings as it brings me back. And when she slams the hatch shut, all I can think is how much I want my mother. Because I’d be home in my warm bed right now.
Forearm crutches in hand, Mary Fay opens my door. Groaning loudly, I swing my legs from the car one at a time. Attempting everyday-life things—like getting in and out of cars, walking up and down steps, being around things that slam—not only reminds me how absolutely unbendable my body is but how scarily necessary other people are for me to live through a day.
After I have both legs out of the car, Mary Fay hands me my crutches and grabs me securely under one armpit. I summon my body in an are-you-ready kind of way, and together Mary Fay and I stand me up and out in one motion. Once I’m stabilized and balanced, she lets go yet doesn’t move from my side.
“You good?”
I frown.
“Come on, Eve. You can do it.”
I cannot do this.
Mary Fay reads my thoughts. “Let’s get you inside and then I’ll come back out for a cart.”
The darkness of the parking lot envelops me. I concentrate on the black asphalt in front of my next step. Mary Fay puts her hand on my shoulder as we near the automatic doors, like she understands how jarring the jerking motion of them opening is going to be. And it is.
We enter.
The place is teeming with movement, made even more overwhelming by the brutal lighting and the onslaug
ht of sound. Mary Fay leaves me clinging to the courtesy desk right inside the front doors while she heads back outside for a cart. In the second it takes her to vanish from view, I’m hyperventilating with panic, too scared to let go of the desk to reach for the plastic baggie filled with Roxy in my coat pocket.
A man hurries past. His paper bag scrapes my arm and the world dims. Before I can recover, a shopping scooter with its fat tires and wire mesh basket zooms by, sucking the breath straight from my lungs. Now I do let go, digging out a full Roxy and popping it into my mouth like the Lifesaver it is.
Metal shopping carts piled with groceries clatter past, dragging bouncy little kids who threaten to leap toward me at any moment. It’s as if I’m standing precariously close to the edge of a broiling river with nothing but the hard edge of a desk to keep me from being swept away. I can feel my spine, swollen with pain, and my wounded flesh punctured with staples cringes at the very real danger surrounding it.
I’m about to ask the courtesy desk to call 911, to get me the hell out of here, when Mary Fay rolls up. “Okay, just stay close,” she says, all cheery with that crooked smile of hers and I fucking hate every last tooth in her goddamn mouth right now. “Put your left crutch into the cart and hang on here.”
Clutching at the bar in the front of the grocery cart with my left hand, I use my forearm crutch with my right. In my mind’s eye I see my walker sitting by itself in the corner of my bedroom, a mistake. It would have been much better shelter against the chaotic motion happening in every single aisle. Just imagining one of these carts ramming into my newly solidifying spine makes tears pop into the corners of my eyes every time one rolls near.
Another missing-my-mother moment rises in me while we stand for endless minutes in front of the coffee—my mother and I both walk into a grocery store with one goal, to get what we need and get out. Mary Fay inspects every bag of pasta and box of cereal—not even in an annoyed way, but like she’s interested in it. My eyes blur the long shelves of food until it’s all a single block of color.
The vitamin section is even worse. We’re there so long I’m sure Mary Fay is sprouting gray hairs. Who knew there were so many vitamins? It seems once they ran out of the twenty-six letters in the alphabet, they moved to adding numbers to them like a vitamin bingo game. I sway into the metal shelves, knocking over a row of bottles.
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