by Buhl, Sarah
__________
An hour later I finished.
Shelly brought the disc back after she helped me sit up. “So if it’s simple, why do I feel like a small hatchback has run over me?” I asked.
Shelly laughed as she helped me stand. “It happens. I think it has something to do with the magnets, but what do I know?”
When we reached the door to the waiting room she pulled me into a hug. I had no clue why, but I accepted it. She was the sweetest person I’d met on this chase. That’s what it felt like after all these doctor appointments and tests—I was chasing a diagnosis, trying to find out what was wrong and hoping for an answer to make it right.
In the waiting room, I found my mom, dad, and Karl still sitting together. My dad and Karl were deep in conversation while my mom was reading a book.
I sat next to my mom. “Good book?” I asked.
“Yes, a wonderful book. It’s a horror.”
“I can only imagine,” I said and leaned into her for a hug.
“You okay?” she asked. I nodded and kissed her cheek.
I leaned around her and tapped Karl with his CD to hand it to him.
“No, keep it,” he said. “Did it help?”
“Yes it did, thank you.”
Karl smiled, and it filled me with that warmth again.
“Well, I’m hungry,” my dad said. “How about we continue this conversation over lunch, Karl?”
Karl gave me an expression as if he wanted my okay. I smiled with a shrug. “I could eat.”
Karl laughed.
“That’s settled then. But I want to go somewhere other than the cafeteria. Though this hospital is decent, I don’t assume that the food is anything to cheer about,” my dad said.
“It’s not,” Karl said as he stood from the chair. He leaned down to pick up the box he was carrying earlier.
“Is that one of your boxes?” I asked.
He gave me a surprised look. “You know about my boxes?”
“Yes, they were all Gabe could talk about for a while. You made quite an impression on him. So is it one of them?” I asked again.
He smiled at his box. His blush was obvious despite the beard that covered his face. “Um, yeah, it’s one of my boxes, but I don’t know if you want to see it.”
“Of course I do.” I put my hand out to take it from him as my parents walked ahead of us.
I walked next to him and opened the box to look in. It was stupid of me to do. My limp became more pronounced when I didn’t focus on my walking. But, with Karl I didn’t mind it as much.
I focused on the box and brought it closer to my face. Inside was a scene of a woman lying down on a chaise lounge. She had no clothes on, and she was beautiful in a real, natural, way. Her hair traced along her shoulders and the determination in her eyes glowed.
“I love it,” I said.
“You do?” Karl asked, and I nodded. “Keep it then.”
“I can?” I asked with a smile.
“Yes, no strings, it’s yours.” He smiled. “I’d rather you have it than put it back with the others. I like them to go to people who appreciate them.”
“Thank you,” I said as I put the box in my bag and we continued walking. My foot caught now and then. It was as if it just didn’t want to work, like it forgot to move when I needed it to. Lazy foot.
“What were you at the hospital for?” I asked. “Were you visiting someone?”
“Yes, I was visiting a friend of mine. Jackson. We were together overseas. We were together before that, though. We’ve been together since just before boot camp. He’s my family.”
“Do you have other family around here?” I asked.
“Yes, I have a younger sister and my mom. My dad lives out in Washington. I have family I’m close to that I grew up with, but other than that—that’s it.”
“I have a huge family. Well, extended family anyway. My dad has six brothers and two sisters. My mom has one sister—that’s Hannah’s mom. You can imagine how many cousins I have. I lost count myself,” I said. My left foot did the crazy drop thing it was doing more and more the last couple weeks.
When it happened, I saw Karl notice it, but he kept walking. I liked that. He saw it and put his arm out to support me without a second thought and didn’t make a deal out of it at all.
“So where would you like to eat?” I asked him.
“Don’t you think it should be your choice?” he asked.
I laughed. “No, you’re the guest with us. It’s your choice. That’s how we always do it. Otherwise, the three of us will just argue over what sounds best. You have to save us from ourselves, Karl. We are an indecisive family when it comes to our food.”
“Okay. I know just the place then.” He smiled once again and continued to support me with his arm.
__________
“So we eat off of garbage can lids?” my mom asked as she followed the waitress with her eyes.
My dad laughed, “I think this is fantastic.”
“Oh believe me, you’ve not seen anything yet,” Karl said as he reviewed his menu. “I recommend the ribs if you like ribs.”
I never ate ribs. They were always messy.
The waitress came to our table, and she looked at me first. “I’ll have your ribs and whatever you have on draft, please.”
My dad’s eyes grew. “That’s a change.”
I shrugged as I glanced at Karl. I needed something different to forget about what was happening.
“So Karl, I gathered from our conversation earlier that you are an outdoorsman. Are there any nice places around here for camping?” my dad asked. He never camped, and I wondered if he wanted something different to take his mind off things, too.
“Yeah, not a camping site, but I stay on my Uncle’s land in the middle of nowhere,” Karl said as he opened a peanut and threw the shell on the ground as he put the peanut in his mouth.
“I’d love to go camping sometime,” my dad said.
“Wow, subtle much Daddy-o? I’m just waiting for you to hump Karl’s leg since you’re so drawn to him.” I laughed and my parents stared at me, dumbfounded. I found it funny; I guess they did not.
Karl lowered his chin, and I saw a crooked smile form as he tried to hold back his laughter. I could tell he didn’t want to embarrass my dad, but he found my comment funny.
He coughed before lifting his head. “Well James, if you ever want to come camping, you are more than welcome. I’m heading out there next weekend.”
“You two have fun with that,” my mom said.
“Well if you’re offering, I want to go too,” I said.
My parents gave me wide eyes.
“What? You said I needed to get out of my apartment.”
“I think it’d be great for you to come, Maggie,” Karl said with another one of his genuine smiles.
I met his eyes and felt the warmth again. I never realized what a beautiful person he was.
6
Karl
Fall
My grandma used to sew pockets as gifts for others. It was a strange creative endeavor she would do. They weren’t pockets in pants, but little pouches. Seeing Maggie in the waiting room brought the pockets to mind. The pieces of my internal pocket waiting to be sewn together have haunted me. They just waited there, watching and wondering when I would make things right. But, once I saw her, an imagined needle began to thread in preparation of sewing a pocket.
I dove into my thoughts as I always did. I look at them, examine them, as if written on pieces of paper, just like the other part of my grandmother’s gifts. When I saw them that way, they made more sense. They were tangible.
My heart tore the same way as my thoughts. The way to put it back was to help others. Sometimes it was just a smile or a bracelet, like for the older woman at the hospital—gifts. They were similar to what my grandmother had done, but Maggie and her family needed more.
She wasn’t the same girl I met at the Christmas party last year. As much as I hated her
love of her job, I missed seeing the passion in her eyes. Every time I had seen her since the party, her eyes held that fire and determination.
Now, she resembled a beaten horse.
I laughed to myself as I thought that. She wasn’t a beaten horse; she was a wild animal. Her entire world had shaken, and she didn’t know where she fit.
“So I want to ask something. You can answer if you choose, but sometimes putting it out there helps. Do they have any idea what’s happening?” I asked.
Maggie put a peanut in her mouth, shell and all. She chewed it up and swallowed it. “I shouldn’t have done that, but oh well,” she said before taking a drink of her beer. “They aren’t sure what’s going on with me. My shit’s all fucked up and they don’t know why. When I say shit, I mean my literal shit.”
“Maggie!” her mother yelled.
“Sorry, he asked. I won’t sugar coat it. I’m a twenty-three-year-old woman and I’ve had most of the tests that people in their sixties have had. I had a colonoscopy—neither of you has even had that,” she said looking between her parents. “That was fun. You know why he said my bowels are messed up?” I shook my head in response to her question but kept my focus on her. Her embarrassment was palpable, but I didn’t let it drive me away. “He said because I must’ve received trauma to my fucking rectum and the truth would come out at some point. He told me that in front of my parents. I’m sorry, but that’s something I think I’d remember. Asshole. So yeah, I have that going on, my foot is jacked up, and I can’t stand on my tiptoes. Now my fucking hand keeps going numb, but they can't tell me why. They keep passing me to one another, trying to figure shit out. That’s all I know. Does that answer your question?”
“Yep, it does.” I didn’t acknowledge what she tried to traumatize me with. From what I know of Toby, he wouldn’t take that information well. But I wasn’t Toby. I’ve seen men piss their pants—a girl having legitimate issues out of her control didn’t faze me.
“So what do you do now?” I asked.
She furrowed her brow at me. Yeah, she expected me to be shocked by her. That was her normal—everyone looking at her as if she were a science experiment gone wrong. I wouldn’t give her that.
She toyed with the peanut in her hand before looking back up at me. “Now, I wait longer. I follow up next week with the neurologist.”
“What are you doing in the meantime?” I asked.
She looked between her parents with a questioning expression as if they had the answer for her. They had been watching our conversation. It was like a chaperoned date.
She laughed to herself.
“What’s so funny, Maggie?” my dad asked.
“Oh, nothing. In the meantime, I just go through each day and measure time by hitting the ‘continue watching’ button on Netflix when asked, ‘are you still watching yada yada yada’,” she said with a smirk.
I tilted my head to the side. “You need to show me that sometime.”
“Netflix?” Maggie asked on a laugh.
“Yes, I don’t know if I’ve watched it long enough for that button to pop up,” I said.
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” She popped another peanut in her mouth.
“Well, how about you show me the button, and I will show you something I measure time by?” I asked her.
“Deal,” she said. “I’ve nothing else going on right now. I’m on leave from work for a few more weeks.”
“Why are you on leave?” I asked.
“Because I broke down at work and that concerned them. They said I needed a break. I think they just didn’t want to see me anymore. It was like I was this walking example of our own imminent demise. They didn’t want to think about that while trying to make money. I think it was because they realized how fleeting it all is. They don’t want to remember that the entire job is bullshit. You know, what you said last year is true. My job is bullshit. It doesn’t mean a god damned thing.”
“Maggie!” her mom yelled again. “You should not speak that way.”
“Whatever, mom. I don’t think he cares if I swear.”
I didn’t understand why I would care. I heard her dad and mom both swear earlier in the waiting room. I wondered why they would care now. Then I realized she said god. It wasn’t me but the he she referred to.
“You have to give it meaning, Maggie,” I said, trying to steer the conversation away from religion. That wasn’t something I wanted to get into with her parents.
“If you say so,” Maggie said.
The waitress came with our garbage can lids. Rebecca’s eyes grew wide when the server set hers in front of her. “These were always plates, right?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Does anyone need anything else?” the waitress asked.
“I’ll have another beer, please,” Maggie said as she pushed her glass to the edge of the table.
“Maggie, you shouldn’t avoid things,” her dad said.
“I’m not avoiding, Dad. I’m embracing this shit. I could be dying. I could have something serious going on with me—at least give me a couple days to pretend it isn’t happening.”
Her dad looked at me and then her mom. He pulled his lip in and sighed. “I’m going to the restroom,” he said.
“I think I need to use the restroom, too,” her mom said, and took her father’s hand as they both walked toward the back of the building.
“So I understand the need to not think about it,” I said. “I mean who would want to. Jameson is good for that.”
“That’s whiskey, right?” she asked.
“Yes, it is.”
“Okay, will you drink Jameson with me later?” she asked.
I laughed. “I suppose we can.”
“Okay. I have to get away from my parents. I need to be my old self for a while. Having them here is out of the norm and it is fucking with me. I need to forget this is going on. I need my normal.”
“When is Toby coming back?” I asked. I couldn’t believe he wasn’t here for her. I know he has some social issues, but his girlfriend is going through something. He should be here.
“I don’t know. He’s off finding himself, as I’m sure you know. He took some kind of sabbatical or whatever the hell you’d call it from working as a teacher at a catholic school. But yeah, he’s gone for now. Not sure when he’ll be back. I haven’t spoken to him in over two months.”
The waitress came back with Maggie’s drink and she set the bill on the table. I checked it and set the cash on it.
“Thank you, keep the change,” I said.
“My parents wanted to pay,” Maggie said after taking a drink of her beer. Neither of us had touched our food.
She ate some fries, but left the ribs.
“I know, but I wanted to more. I have this thing where I have to pay the first time I eat dinner with someone.”
“That’s not true,” she said with a laugh as I ate my own fries.
“Yes, it is.” I took a bite of my sandwich.
“So you paid for Blake and Gabe? Toby even?” she asked.
“Yes, I did. Why is that hard to believe?” I set my sandwich down and leaned back in my chair. I smiled at her as I crossed my arms.
“I don’t know. I thought you were…”
“Poor?” I asked with a laugh. She nodded. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I’m not poor. I just don’t value the same things most people do.”
She looked to the window and pulled her lips in. “I can see that.”
We sat in silence as she drank and I ate. I wondered what was taking her parents so long.
They both stepped from the back hallway at the same time and Maggie saw them when I did. She tipped her glass up and drank the rest of her beer.
“I need to use the restroom now. Can you get a bag for this?” she asked as she waved her hand over her plate.
She left the table without hearing my response. When she passed her parents, her mom said something to her, and Maggie lifted her hand to silence her in response.
/> Her parents returned to the table and took their seats in as deep of a silence as Maggie and I had shared while she drank.
“I don’t know what to do for her,” her mother said, and I could tell she had been crying. “I didn’t want to go through this again. I mean, just last year we went through it with Henry. Sure, he wasn’t the nicest guy, but he was family.”
“Don’t say that, Rebecca. This is not about something terminal. We just don’t know what it is,” James said.
“What are they thinking?” I asked.
“They won’t say for sure. No one will tell us anything. It’s just like we’re circling wagons, running around, not going anywhere,” Rebecca said. “Okay, she’s coming back now. We aren’t talking about this. Change the subject, James.”
“The best concert I ever went to would have to be U2. Do you ever listen to them, Karl?” he asked.
I had to laugh. They must’ve done this several times before. James didn’t miss a beat.
“I can’t say I’ve seen them live, but I listen to them. My favorite song they did was with Johnny Cash. The Wanderer.”
“Oh yeah, I agree. That’s a great one.”
“We ready?” Maggie asked. I waved to the waitress and pointed at our lids. She grabbed a couple boxes and came to our table with them.
“Can we get the check, please?” James asked. The waitress gave me a questioning expression.
“It’s already taken care of—my treat,” I said.
“Oh, okay,” James said, shocked.
“Yep, let’s go,” Maggie said. “Is your car at the hospital?” she asked me.
“No, my car is at Gabe’s I think. Yeah, that’s the last time I drove it,” I said, picking up her box and mine.
“I want to go home and change,” she said to her parents as she dropped her napkin on the table.
“Do you need to get dropped somewhere Karl?” Maggie asked me.
“Yeah, you can drop me at Pike’s house.”
__________
“So you’re hanging out with one of your best friend’s girlfriend?” Pike asked.
“Yes, but it’s not like that. We just ran into each other and I’m helping her get through some things. There isn’t anything funny about it. Her parents were there,” I said.