by Paige Notaro
I had no energy for more fights. In fact, sleep seemed entirely preferable.
“I’m going to get some rest upstairs.” I gulped the rest of the tea and shoved to my feet.
“Good call, brother,” Homer said. “You’ve earned it.”
I opened the screen door. A hand landed on my wrist. I looked down to my father.
“Sleep easy, my boy,” he said. “You are our righteous sword, and we need you. But keep an open mind.”
I stared unblinking then continued in. In my head, I pictured sheathing myself in Rosa over and over.
Oh, my mind had opened. I wasn’t sure what remained inside.
I dropped the glass off and headed for my bedroom. As I walked up the stairs, I passed frame after frame of photos. Many were big ones of my mother smiling alone or with my father or holding a much younger me. Other frames held a dozen pictures in each window.
Many of the slots on these smaller ones lay empty. In fact, there were large rectangular plots in the wall still left vacant, even after two years.
The emptiness had once held my younger brother, Vaughn. But he had done something worse than die. He had left us for a black woman. He had walked out on the entire movement in front of the world.
I wondered what would be left on this wall if my pictures had to come down too. Just my father and his dead wife.
No, that was the meds talking. The meds and too many years pretending I wasn’t who I was.
I headed to my old bedroom, still full of baseball posters and youth versions of the white nationalism messages below. I had lived elsewhere after high school until I enlisted.
Maybe staying here would show me the path back to who I was. I had to find it myself. My father seemed lost in wayward dreams of his own.
I had seen the different paths you could walk while serving overseas. You could hate the people you fought. You could simply serve your country. Or you could fight for the culture you wanted these people to have.
This last idea had driven me. It was a cause I understood. For some, white nationalism was about hate and power, but I’d put it down in the Storm’s Soldiers wherever I could.
The movement was not meant to be about beating others down. It was about finding refuge for our own people. I might be gathering weapons, but it was a means for defense, nothing more.
I lay in bed and thought hard, but I still could find no room for what I’d done with Rosa. There was no room for her and me to be together. I could only hope not to hurt her.
As I drifted off, though, my mind chose its own path. It threw images of a dark tender body, beating hot under my grip. It reminded me of her soft lips and the way her laughter had brushed my ear. It showed me the fiery temper which she had fought me at the hospital, and the tenderness with which she had held me when I was wounded.
I could walk away from all that, it was true.
But if I wasn’t lying to myself anymore, if I could give myself the truth - Forgetting her would hurt me at least as much as it hurt her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rosa
My morning-afters always went by like a sugar rush, and this one wasn’t an ounce different. The bright and cozy end-of-summer day just doubled the dosage.
I went bouncing into work like I’d been drinking gummiberry juice. I smiled at people on the MARTA. At work, I danced through the hallways saying ‘Hi’ to everyone like I was a Disney princess.
I even greeted Lilly with a surprise hug at the upstairs nurse’s station. I knew full well that would let the cat out of the bag. I just didn’t care.
“Oh boy,” she groaned, bending me off. “Which member of the rogue’s gallery got lucky yesterday?”
“What ever do you mean?” I asked, fluttering my eyebrows.
She cupped her chin and studied me like an x-ray image. “Let’s see. Last guy was a bookie. The one before that was some underground street fighter. Who can top those two?”
“Oh, come on. Mark wasn’t that bad. He only used his fist on other guys.”
A lull sank over the normal buzz of our little nook. Lilly cleared her throat.
“I mean he used fists to beat them,” I explained, looking around to the other nurse. “He beat up other guys. Outside of his fights, too. Ok, fine, he was a loose cannon.”
“So this guy is probably a full-on gangster?” Lily asked.
“Uh, no,” I said. “He’s actually a soldier.”
“A veteran?”
“Nope. A big, burly, active duty soldier. He’s down in Fort McPherson.”
“Wow, you found a legal fix for your cravings. You sure he’s not like a war criminal or something?”
“War hero, actually. He’s got a purple heart and everything.”
Lilly’s brows arched. “Damn, that’s legit.”
“Hell yeah, he’s legit. He even -”
I was going to make up something around him being injured in the line of duty and ending up here. Then, I realized I didn’t want people knowing I was dating a former patient. I might have already revealed too much, but Lilly apparently hadn’t given Calix’s file the attention that I had.
Anyway we weren’t even dating. He’d given me his number as he left, but maybe he was just looking for a proper lay when his leg healed. That didn’t sound so awful to me. It wouldn’t be much worse than what my other relationships turned into. If it didn’t crash and burn, it’d even be a step up.
My mood sank a bit. Were my expectations that low?
“Even what?” Lilly asked. “Did he help hunt Bin Laden or something?”
“No. I was just going to say he even spent a couple years in Afghanistan,” I said.
“Well, duh, where else is he getting a purple heart?”
I pumped myself back up. “Anyway, I’ve got a good feeling about him.”
Lilly squeezed my hands. “He does sound like more than a good lay.”
“He is,” I said. “Though I want to be clear that he’s also a good lay.”
“Mmmhmm.”
I scooted my chair closer to her. “Speaking of that,” I said. “How’d it go last night with Paul?”
“You know pregnancy tests don’t work right away,” she said.
“But did you have a good feeling?”
I immediately wished I had picked that moment to shut up. Lilly’s hands fidgeted on the keyboard.
She bent over and whispered. “I don’t think so. Paul just didn’t seem into it. I think I’ve made this whole thing so clinical it’s turning him off me completely.”
“Just play it cool then,” I said. “There’s no rush right?”
“No.” She flicked her lip. “I’m just really ready to be a mom. The last thing I want to do is scare him off. But I don’t want to act like I don’t care about something that’s so important to me either.”
“Paul’s not going to run off,” I said. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
“Used to look at me.”
She slumped onto a hand. Her mood was infecting mine hard, but I wasn’t about to walk away.
“Just ask him if he’s really ready for the change,” I said. “He probably is but you’ll get some peace of mind. You’re probably right that baby making is turning sex into work.”
I thought back to the feel of Calix’s wet heat surging up into me. I couldn’t ever imagine that not being all fun. I wondered if the little pill I took this morning was really enough to fight a load that size.
“So communicate better?” Lilly said. “That’s Rosa’s sage advice?”
“I didn’t say it was an original answer. I’m not the next coming of Oprah.”
“Oprah’s still alive.”
“Whatever. It’s still probably the right call.”
Lilly straightened. “I know. I’m just afraid of what he’ll tell me.”
“You’ll still have me no matter what he says.” I laced a hand around her neck.
“Aw Rosa.” She rubbed my hand. “Thanks for the offer. I would gladly take your DNA a
ny day.”
“Ha ha,” I said. “I’m so not ready for a kid.”
“You’ve got a decent guy lined up. You’re only a step or two away.”
The only step I could see coming was seeing him a second time. Everything else was beyond a horizon I still had no desire to cross.
Even if I wanted to, I was nowhere near it.
I shuffled up Lilly’s hair and ran off to my rounds before she could catch me.
By the time I went home for lunch, I had settled into a nice haze. It was the right level of happy. I didn’t want my family even suspecting what had happened in the living room last night.
Mamá, Elsa and I sat in the dinner nook off from the kitchen eating leftover pabellon criollo. The beans, steak and rice were scattered and not quite living up to the dish’s name, but even reheated, it was one of my favorite foods.
I still remembered the meat being such a treat for us when I was still a little girl in Venezuela. Even though we ate it almost every week now, it still felt like a trip back home.
At least the good parts of home. Like sitting around under a light bulb in plaster and concrete walls watching a black and white TV. The room was cracked and stained, but it still glowed warm in my memory, because there were still four of us together and not three.
“Did you get your grades for summer classes yet?” Mamá asked Elsa.
My sister looked like she had just rolled out of bed. She deserved the rest. Her vacation was basically two weeks long thanks to summer school.
“Not yet,” she groaned. “I’ll let you know the second the report card shows up in the mail.”
“I think I will check the mail myself, actually.”
“But the mailman comes when you’re at work.”
“Let him come,” she said. “You leave the mail there, and I will pick it up after work.”
My sister stabbed extra viciously at a piece of steak. Mamá threw me a look. We both knew the grades weren’t going to be great. But a C was different than an F.
“I still can’t believe it’s your last year,” I said. “My god, my baby sister is going to be a senior.”
“I am going to be a senior this year,” Mamá said. “Elsa I am less sure about.”
Elsa dropped her fork.
“Mamá,” I yelled. “Go easy on her. I was awful at her age. Look where I am now.”
“Then she should learn from your mistakes and get there sooner.” She rapped the table with her knife. “What use is it to pray for good luck, without putting in the work.”
“I’ll put in work when I find something I like,” Elsa said.
“I hope you like McDonald’s.”
My good mood was quickly running out trying to prop up this room.
“It’s still better than running around with gang bangers,” I said. “You forgot how bad I was in high school. Elsa is neutral at worst.”
“And now?” Mamá asked through a mouthful of beans.
“Now what?”
“Who are you running around with now?”
“What? We’re not talking about that.” I gulped water way too loudly.
By the time I realized what a tell I’d given, Elsa had straightened in her seat. Her amber eyes shone right through to the middle of me.
“Oh my god,” she said. “There is a guy.”
“What?” Mamá’s utensils clacked down on the table. “Who is it? Is it the doctor?”
“No! I told you that went awful.”
“Or maybe you were lying to us, so you would not be embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed of what?”
“That you’re dating a responsible doctor instead of some hunk gangster,” Elsa taunted.
“Ok, I’ve never dated an actual gangster. Only gangster wannabes and only back in high school and I grew out of it.” I glared at the little brat. “That’s what we were talking about.”
“So who is this one then?” Mamá asked.
I flapped my lips, but no lies poured out. I threw up my arms. “Ok, fine. There’s a soldier that I met at the hospital.”
“A patient?”
“A former patient,” I said. “And, yeah, he does look like my type. But he’s a great guy. He served in Afghanistan and has an amazing record.”
“What was he in for?” Elsa asked.
“A gunshot wound,” I said, mostly to my plate.
“Gangster,” Mamá said.
“He’s an active duty soldier, Mamá,” I protested. “It was just an accident.”
“Active duty? There are no wars here.”
“There are bases in Georgia.”
“He shot himself at an army base?” Elsa asked.
I really needed to get her on the student newspaper or something. Her questions were like scalpels.
“At home,” I said. “He was off duty.”
“Gangster.”
“This isn’t Venezuela, Mamá. You can’t just keep throwing that word around. The police came and checked him out. And the army will too.”
“And you?” she asked. “Did you ‘check him out’?”
My ears seemed to burn, but I was able to casually say, “I’m not answering that.”
Elsa shook with barely contained laughter. I threw her another death stare. She crinkled her eyes and mouthed, ‘Sorry.’
Sorry wasn’t going to cut it. I truly had the heat now.
“You are grown up,” Mamá said, “But not completely. Be careful around this man. I don’t trust him.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling my inner teenager emerge. “You don’t even know him.”
Mamá clasped her hands and leaned toward me. “Do you?” she asked.
****
Even before that, I knew the crash was coming. The guys I went for always came with a crash, whether it was days or weeks or - once - five months away. Eventually the broken thing at the heart of them would show itself and usually in the worst way possible.
Calix had been so different. He had given me more than that sliver of hope that maybe, finally I had picked right.
Instead, he broke all the damn records.
I went back after lunch and felt a silence descend over the nurses’ station as I walked in. All of them looked at me with wide eyes.
“What?” I asked, locking up my purse.
A new girl, Amy, finally answered. “Rhonda and Dr. Geraldi were looking for you.”
Rhonda was the day shift manager for us. She conducted performance reviews, but I saw her once a month or so for other smaller things.
Dr. Geraldi was the chief of medicine for the whole freaking hospital. I had talked to him once: on the day I got hired.
This felt an awful lot like the opposite of that.
My balloon was well and truly punctured now. With shaky legs, I went over to Rhonda’s office. She was a big, round caramel-skinned woman, who normally had on a big plastic smile.
It was nowhere in sight.
“Rosa, please shut the door,” she said. “Sit.”
“Am I being fired?” I asked. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped with that news in this small dusty place.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “Just come and sit.”
I shut the door and took the bench at the side of her desk. “Amy said that Dr. Geraldi was looking for me, too,” I said.
“He is, but let’s talk first.”
“Ok,” I said. “About what?”
“What you were doing last morning, around…” She checked her screen. “Ten forty.”
“Just my rounds.” I curved around and tried to read the screen but she had some sort of protector over it. “What is that?” I asked.
“Your keycard record.”
A chill went up my arm. “From yesterday?”
“That’s right.”
“I didn’t use it yesterday except to check in. I even ate at my desk.”
Rhonda studied my face, unblinking, then went back to the screen. “That’s not what your record shows.”
“What d
oes it show?” I asked.
She checked my reaction again before answering. “It says that around ten forty in the morning you accessed Surgical Storage.”
“Surgical storage? That closet where they keep the junk they pull out of people?” It had always seemed like a very misleading name.
“The surgical facility that stores that material, yes,” Rhonda said.
“Well, I didn’t. I don’t even see what I could get from there.”
“Anything they pull out in an operation. Broken glass, blades…bullets.”
A shiver ran up my spine. I could only hope it didn’t look guilty. “Bullets?”
“That’s right. Now, two military police came this morning to collect fragments we pulled from a patient here. Those fragments were gone.”
“I see.” I desperately wanted to ask the case name, but I was afraid of how I’d react.
There was really only one possible patient she could mean.
“The only unusual person to access that room was you,” Rhonda said.
“Well, I didn’t,” I said. “I don’t think I even know where it is. I haven’t stood in on an operation yet.”
“But you had your keycard the whole time.” Rhonda rapped her fingers along the table.
“No,” I said, carefully measuring out my words. “I didn’t say that. I actually went home and realized I couldn’t find it.”
Her eyes flared. “So you didn’t have it with you?”
“No,” I insisted. “You can ask Lilly. I called her to see if she’d seen it. “
“And had she?”
Her face remained stony. I thought a missing keycard would cause a bigger reaction.
“You talked to her right?” I said. “You already know she didn’t.”
“She says she didn’t.”
I shook my head slowly. “We’re not in on some weird conspiracy. I saw my badge was missing. I asked her and she didn’t see it at the nurse’s station.”
Rhonda nodded slowly. “So why didn’t you report it missing?”
I took careful breaths. The silence expanded and I knew it looked guilty, but hopefully just the guilt of not reporting a missing card quickly. My hands squirmed under the table, out of sight.
Should I tell her about Calix? Or would that just open up a bigger can of worms? My mind burned with the memory of riding him, of being injected by him over and over.