Chapter 30: Anna
Tom is trying. I have to give him that. He’s trying to talk to me, trying to find common interests for us to discuss. But with every word that comes out of his mouth, I like him less. He’s apparently some sort of manager at the 7-11 next to the shop where Jake works. He has never heard of SQL or Java and I’m sure anything I said about what I do would be of absolutely no interest to him. Just as everything he says is of absolutely no interest to me. We have nothing in common. Also, he didn’t wash his hands prior to eating, which upset me immensely—it took all my self-restraint not to say anything.
I suppose it doesn’t help that I have no physical attraction to Tom whatsoever. His eyes are just too far apart. It makes him look like… a fish or some other sea creature. I think of Matt’s kind brown eyes and feel wistful. If Matt had tried to shake my hand, I’d have taken it. I’m sure I would have.
“It stinks that DVDs are going out of style,” Tom is saying. I don’t know what he’s talking about. How could DVDs go out of style? They’re still a good way of imprinting data. “I spent the last decade putting together the ultimate movie collection. Now what am I supposed to do with my collection?”
Lisa and my mother are looking at me like I should say something. So I say, “I have a collection too.”
That might have been the wrong thing to say. Mother looks like she’s going to have a stroke. “Anna, would you like seconds on your chicken?”
“No, thank you,” I say. “It was dry.”
“What do you collect, Anna?” Tom asks me eagerly.
“I collect cans,” I tell him.
Tom looks at me blankly, so I elaborate: “I mostly collect cans of vegetables from the supermarket, but I do have some more exotic cans. My favorite is a can of spiced alligator. I found that in a store in Chinatown. Although I didn’t think alligator was Chinese.” Tom is still not saying anything, so I continue. “I’ve got 98 cans in my house right now, but I’m aiming to have 121. Now that I’ve got nearly a hundred cans, I feel like I have to be pickier. But if a can calls out to me, I won’t say no to it.”
“Right,” Tom says.
“I have a collection at work too,” I add. “That one is smaller, because I have to keep all the cans in my cubicle. I used to have twenty-one cans, but two of them got dented so I had to throw them away. One of my favorite cans, which was asparagus, was one of the dented ones, so that was a hard decision to get rid of it. But I don’t like the dented cans.”
Tom suddenly seems very interested in the food on his plate. I want to tell him more about the cans, but I feel Lisa poking me in the shoulder. “Anna,” she hisses in my ear. “I need your help in the kitchen.”
I glance at my watch. I’ve got nearly forty-five minutes left till I can leave. May as well kill a few minutes in the kitchen.
I follow Lisa into the kitchen, but it becomes obvious that she doesn’t actually need help. She wants to yell at me. I can tell by the way she folds her arms across her chest.
“Anna,” she says. “You can’t talk to Tom about your can collection.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” Lisa’s blue eyes are blazing. “Because it makes you sound nuts. And we’re trying to keep him from figuring that out.”
I shrug.
Lisa’s shoulders sag. “Anna, seriously, will you please try? Tom actually seems to like you. Do you want to be alone forever?”
I think of Matt for what seems like the millionth time tonight. I remember how he came in and saved me from Calvin when he was threatening me. I imagine his cute smile. I know he thinks that walking with a cane has made him less attractive to women, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s only gotten more attractive.
He’s the only man that I can think about. If I’m not with him, I’d rather be alone.
“I don’t care,” I answer honestly.
Lisa stares at me for a minute, then shakes her head. “You never went to see a psychiatrist, did you?” When I don’t answer, she says, “Why am I not surprised?”
Lisa has not had one single moment of achievement in her entire life, compared with my stacks of medals and diplomas. Yet she’s the normal one somehow. What’s sad is that there isn’t a person in this house who would disagree.
Chapter 31: Matt
Erin makes me hold baby Haley. She’s cute enough, I guess. She’s lighter than I thought she’d be. I mean, obviously I know that babies are tiny, but she feels like she weighs as much as a piece of paper. But I don’t know if I necessarily have any uncle-like feelings toward her. I like kids, but I don’t get that excited over them. I used to think I’d have some of my own someday, but now I’m not so sure. I can’t even get a date, much less a wife.
In any case, I’m grateful when my mother says dinner is ready, and I can hand the baby back over to Erin.
It’s about thirty feet from the couch in the living room to the dining table with nothing to grab onto and no cane to rely on. Thirty feet that I take very, very carefully, because there’s carpeting and I don’t want to fall again. If I fall again, my mother will probably have a stroke. I need to make it to the dining table without incident.
That said, everyone clearly notices how careful I’m being and how I’m holding onto the wall. I’m not fooling anyone.
So after we spend the requisite ten minutes discussing how wonderful Haley is as we eat our salads, my dad finally says, “Matt, your Achilles is still bothering you, huh?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, looking down at my plate of mostly uneaten chicken and mashed potatoes. I’ve lost my appetite at some point over the last hour.
“Do you think you should get surgery?” Mom asks me.
“I don’t know,” I say. Shit, I really don’t want to have this conversation. I glance over at Haley. “Hey, look! Haley just spit up. Isn’t that cute?”
Nobody buys my ruse to change the subject.
“I know a good orthopedic surgeon,” Steve tells me. “He’s a friend of mine. I can get you an appointment.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Maybe.”
“You should see him,” Steve says. “No offense, Matt, but you look terrible walking. I thought for sure you were going to fall again. You need to get that ankle fixed.”
“He’s right, sweetie,” Mom says. “I think you should get a second opinion. This is obviously still bothering you a lot.”
“Actually,” I say, “I already got a second opinion. It turns out that…”
I pause and notice everyone is staring at me. I can’t believe I’m doing this. I can’t believe I’m considering telling everyone right here, right now, right in the middle of dinner. But I have to tell them. I can’t keep up this charade any longer.
“It turns out,” I say, “that I have multiple sclerosis.”
I hear a clink as my mother’s fork clatters to the floor. My father’s mouth is hanging open.
“Are you sure about this?” Mom asks me. She looks like she’s going to cry. I may give her a stroke after all.
“Yes,” I say. I take a breath. “Actually, the truth is, I’ve been wearing ankle braces on both my legs for a while now. And I’ve been using a cane to help me walk. I didn’t bring it because… well, you know…”
“What does this mean, Matt?” my father asks, his brow creased in a frown. “Are you on medications?”
I shake my head. “I have a progressive form of the disease that doesn’t respond to the usual meds for MS.”
“Progressive…” Dad turns the word over in his mouth. “Does that… do they think you’re going to get worse?”
He says the word “worse” like he couldn’t imagine anyone being worse than I am right now.
“Maybe,” I answer quietly. “My neurologist says that there’s a reasonable chance that…” I bite my lip, unable to go on with this sentence, but knowing that it’s not something I’ll be able to keep from my family. “He said that in a few years, I might not be able to walk anymore.”
The color completely drains out of my mother�
��s face. “How could that be?” she cries. “You’re so healthy!”
I just shrug, because what do I say to that?
“What would you do if you couldn’t walk?” she says.
“I…” I swallow. “I’d have to use a wheelchair, I guess.”
I feel sick saying those words. Sick. Even though I knew there was a chance that Dr. Dunne’s prediction would come true, I never really thought about what it would mean to lose the ability to walk. I’ve never thought about the reality of actually having to rely completely on a wheelchair.
“Oh, Matt,” Mom says. She runs over to hug me and I have to use all my self-restraint not to push her away. “It’s going to be okay. I promise, sweetie.”
I shake my head, not trusting myself to speak.
“If that happens, you can come stay with us,” she tells me. “We’ll take care of you.”
That does not make me feel better. It makes me feel about a million times worse. Does she think I want to be a guy in my thirties living with my parents for the foreseeable future? Is this supposed to be something I should be happy about?
“Mom,” Erin says. “You don’t need to patronize him. Even if he can’t walk, he could still live on his own.”
“Don’t be silly, Erin,” Mom snorts.
I try to take deep breaths. I need to show them I’m not falling apart. I’m going to be fine. And anyway, Erin is right. Even if I lose the ability to walk, that doesn’t mean my life will be over. Everything is going to be okay.
“I’m okay,” I finally manage. “Let’s just… can we not talk about this anymore?”
Everyone exchanges looks. I know what they’re thinking. How could we possibly not talk about this anymore? Except Haley then bursts into tears and the timing couldn’t be better. Everyone starts cooing over Haley, and I’m left in peace. I’m actually starting to like my new niece.
Chapter 32: Anna
By the end of the evening with Tom, he is actively avoiding speaking to me. Not in a mean way or anything. But I can tell that any attraction he had to me at the beginning of the evening is completely gone. Which is fine with me, considering I have very little desire to ever see him again.
It’s not fine with my mother. During one of my many trips to the bathroom to clean my hands, I overhear Mother and Lisa having a conversation in which my name is prominently featured. It makes me wonder what percentage of their two-hour phone conversations involves me.
“It’s your fault anyway,” Lisa is saying to my mother. “You should have warned her that we were bringing someone.”
“If I’d warned her, she never would have come.”
“So?” Lisa sounds exasperated. “She isn’t interested in dating. So what?”
“So she’s thirty years old!” Mother cries, loud enough that I expect everyone in the house must have heard her. “At this rate, she’ll never get married.”
“She doesn’t want to get married. She wants to be alone.”
“No,” Mother says emphatically. “You don’t understand Anna.”
“Nobody understands Anna.” Lisa sighs. “She needs to see a shrink. Really. Have you seen the cans in her house? It’s like a freaking mountain of cans. That’s not normal, Mom.”
“Well, we’ve both tried to convince her to go to a therapist,” Mother sniffs. “She won’t go.”
“The problem is that she won’t admit how crazy she is.”
I walk away at that point, unable to listen to another word, and regretful that I started listening in the first place. I know there are grains of truth in what they’re saying. There were times in the past when I would have said that I was happy in my solitary existence. But I don’t think I’m happy anymore.
Either way, I don’t think Tom is the answer.
I leave precisely two hours after I arrived, before Mother can start lecturing me about how I need to get myself out there and start dating more, and how it won’t be frightening once I start doing it. They are absolutely right about one thing—they don’t understand me.
I don’t feel better until I get home and have touched every single one of my cans eleven times. It eats up quite a bit of time.
By Monday, the whole thing is forgotten, more or less. Even though my “date” was a disaster, I feel confident when I walk into work. I’m good at my job. I’m the best programmer at this company. When I’m working, I feel like I’m doing what I’m meant to do. That gives me a good feeling. Whatever else, I am happy when I’m coding.
And then I see my cubicle.
Someone has vandalized the contents of my cubicle. Despite the myriad of complaints about me over the years, nobody has ever taken things this far. The papers on my desk have been scattered, but the real victims of the attack are clearly my cans. They have been kicked, thrown, and some forcibly opened. One can of creamed corn lies on my desk, bleeding its contents over my keyboard. Baked beans are spilled all over the carpeting in the shape of a lightning bolt.
I scream.
I’ve always thought of myself as the sort of person who can keep my composure in any situation, so it pains me that I’m the only person to scream in the entire time I’ve worked here. I wish I could take it back, especially when half the people working on our floor rush over to see what the commotion is about.
“Go away!” I try to tell them, even as the tears are springing up in my eyes. “It’s fine. Go away!”
But nobody is budging. I hear them whispering and even snickering. This is hilarious to them—just as funny as that photo of the bag lady. Nobody likes me here—well, except for Matt, but even he isn’t really my friend, if I’m being completely honest with myself.
I want to quit. I want to hand in my badge, walk away, and never return. I don’t feel safe here anymore.
Instead of people leaving, it seems like more and more people are coming over to see what the commotion is about. I don’t want anyone to be here to see this. Only Matt, but I don’t see him anywhere. A tear spills over from my right eye and runs down my check. I wipe it away, not wanting them to know that they got to me, but I’m sure some people must have seen it.
Peter makes his entrance then. He stomps over in the direction of my cubicle, parting employees like the Red Sea. I’m sure he’s completely unsurprised that the commotion is coming from my workstation. Perhaps today will be the day I’ll give him a heart attack.
“Anna,” he says angrily. “What the hell?”
And then he sees. He takes in the ravaged workstation—the toppled and dented cans, the spilled creamed corn. His eyes widen, then he glances at me and sees my red, watery eyes.
“Anna,” he says again, but this time with surprising tenderness. “I’m really sorry.”
And that’s when the tears start for real.
Chapter 33: Matt
The rest of the night at my parents’ house is horrible. Truly horrible. My parents treat me like I’m made of glass. Mom insists that I should use the cane if I feel better with it, so Dad goes and fetches it from my car. And it does help, but I can tell that Mom is about to cry when she sees me walk with it. The best thing I can say is that I don’t fall again.
Steve is almost as annoying as my parents. He keeps telling me about doctors he knows, and stories he’s heard about people with MS who got miraculously cured. Good thing I know Steve is full of shit so I don’t start getting all excited about how I’m going to drink some wheatgrass and somehow get all better.
The only one who’s cool about it all is Erin. (Well, Haley seems fairly okay about the whole thing too.) Erin doesn’t say much, but when we’re leaving later that night, she hugs me. We’ve probably hugged before in the last five or six years, but this time it isn’t a hug because I’m her little brother and she has to hug me. She hugs me like she means it.
“You’re okay, Matt,” she says.
I shake my head. “Not really.”
“No, you are.” She sounds so sure of herself that it actually makes me feel better. “You know Mom and Dad always fr
eak out. It’ll be fine.”
Even though Erin has always irritated me, her words reminded me that she’s endured our parents the same way that I have. She gets it.
Then on Monday morning, I wake up and my right leg is really being impossible. Usually it’s just weak, but now I’m getting these crazy muscle spasms in my hamstrings. I’ve had that a few times before, and Dr. Dunne told me it’s a combination of the lesions from my MS, and also from straining muscles that are compensating for the weak ones. In any case, it’s clear I’m not going anywhere without the KAFO. So for the first time, I strap it on.
And you know what? It helps. A lot.
When I get to work, there’s a commotion going on. At first, I’m relieved because… well, anything to take the spotlight off my extremely conspicuous leg brace. But then I see the commotion is coming from Anna’s cubicle. Shit.
I get over there as fast as I can. Which isn’t all that fast these days, but better with the KAFO.
Anna is standing in the middle of her cubicle and she’s crying. Actually crying. There are tears running down her cheeks and her usually pale face is all red. Peter is there, and he’s doing his best to calm her down. A few people have come out of their cubicles to stare.
“Anna, please,” Peter is saying. “Just go to the bathroom and calm down. We’ll get this cleaned up.”
“No!” Anna is nearly screaming. “You’ll just make it worse!”
I finally get close enough to see what’s going on. Someone has decimated Anna’s can collection. The cans are strewn everywhere. Most of them are dented and one can has been opened and is spilled all over her desk. It’s creamed corn. It’s even on her keyboard. Yuck.
“Anna…” Peter says again. He attempts to touch her shoulder and she yanks away from him like he has leprosy. How could he try to touch her? Haven’t we established after all these years that you never, ever touch Anna Flint?
“It was Calvin Fitzgerald,” Anna says. She swipes at her red-rimmed eyes. “I know it was him. He’s the one who did this.”
Crazy in Love (Matt & Anna Book 1) Page 11