by Chie Alemán
My eyes fall on a large, professionally taken photograph of a group of young people—kids and teens—posed together in a park. They’re all dressed in neutrals, grinning for the camera.
“Mis sobrinos,” he says. “My nephews and nieces.”
“Wow,” I say, studying the photo, counting. Ten, just as Santiago mentioned that morning waiting for the streetcar.
“That’s Augusto—Gusto, as I call him,” Santiago says; he’s dropped his arm partially out of his right crutch so he can point to a tall, gangly boy toward the back who looks about twelve. I can definitely see the resemblance. He’s got Santiago’s essence, if nothing else. “He’s my oldest sister’s youngest.”
I glance away, back to Santiago, whose eyes have filmed with a softness—a combination of nostalgia and longing. “He’s your favorite?”
Santiago blinks, shakes his head, as if waking himself, then looks over at me with a grin. “Yeah. Just don’t tell anyone else that.” He nods his head toward the bedroom, then starts to enter. “He reminds me a lot of myself when I was his age.”
I follow, enjoying the subtle sound the rubber tips of his crutches make on the floor as he moves, the slight shuffle of his step, the swish of his pants as his legs rub together as he walks.
Santiago’s bedroom is larger than I expected, with a sturdy, four-poster bed in the center, pushed against the wall. Although the bed is clearly well crafted—sturdy, solid wood—its rustic design seems out of place after the modern furnishings that decorate the rest of the apartment. It isn’t made, sheets and blankets and pillows tossed about, which is endearing. Although the apartment is neat, the bed proves he’s not anal.
He notices me staring at the unmade sheets and offers an apology. “Sorry. Growing up, my mom was a Nazi about perfect hospital corners, so as soon as I moved out, I stopped making the bed. Always figured my time was better spent doing other things.” He laughs; I notice the muscles in his forearms tense, then relax.
I smile, trying to put us both at ease, taking a seat on his bed. Like the couch, it’s firm without being unyielding, and my feet don’t touch the floor. I pat the bed beside me, taking the time to survey the rest of the room. It’s simple, masculine—walls the color of his Porsche—a muted gray—with a large, solid wood dresser along the wall behind me and a matching low bookcase in front of us, both the same sturdy construction as the bed. I spy his chair pushed off to the side and wonder how much he uses it around the house. Just for cooking?
He eases onto the bed beside me, laying his crutches against the wall; by the scuff marks, it seems as if the space is reserved for them. We sit in silence for a moment. He reaches for my hand, gripping it supportively. His shoulders hunch forward.
“I know from my sister, Genie, there’s a test they can do, to check if the baby is healthy…”
“Yes. Amniocentesis. My doctor told me about it. She said I could find out paternity in a few weeks if you’ll give your DNA for the test.”
He nods. “I guess I sort of ruined the mood,” he says, finally looking up at me, a shy smile on his face unlike any other I’ve seen him make before.
I inch closer, realizing despite everything, despite Stephen—I could love this man. “No,” I say, laying a hand on his cheek. I can feel the beginnings of stubble piercing his skin. “Everything’s perfect.” I lean up and kiss him, first on the lips, then more passionately. He accepts the kiss at first before kissing me back, delicately, tenderly.
When he finally pulls away, we’re both smiling, staring into each other’s eyes. We stay like this for a moment, and then his face shifts, as if a shadow passed over it. He takes my hand and lays it on his thigh, pressing it there with his hand on top of mine. I can feel one of the bands of his brace beneath his pants and wonder if he’s intentionally placed my palm there.
His eyes are searching when he speaks. “Di—tell me the truth. If it weren’t for Stephen, would you give me a chance?”
As much as I want to reassure him, as much as I want to tell him, Of course! You’re my dream come true, I can’t seem to speak. It’s as if, as long as the words remain unspoken—even in a hypothetical situation without Stephen—I can somehow discount myself. Words are power, right?
Santiago sighs, takes his hand away, stares off toward the door that must lead to the bathroom, slightly ajar. “I understand. You can still call me though. I’d like to know about the baby.” He offers the semblance of a smile.
I’m certain that—in some ways more than when I woke up knowing I was an adulteress—this is the single moment in my life in which I hate myself more than anything. I push myself up, stand over his legs so they’re between mine, and take each of his hands. I suck in a breath to buoy myself.
“I like you, Santiago. And I wish, more than anything, we could be together.”
He brightens but only partially. I touch his face, and he leans into it, his eyes closed. Our roles are reversed; earlier, he consoled me in my tears, and here I am, comforting him. It feels strange, yet somehow wonderful, to be needed, to be wanted in more than just a sexual way.
I don’t want to leave him. I want to stay, to hold him like he’s held me, to feel his warm body against mine. I kiss him lightly on the lips and then back off his legs, sinking to my knees at his feet, looking up at him. I put a hand on one of his shoes, and he shifts, visibly uncomfortable.
“Di…” He frowns; it’s odd to see him nervous. I think back to the hotel room, when he told me not to touch his feet, how he responded to my light pecks.
“Do you normally wear your shoes in bed? I don’t need to leave right away. I thought maybe we could snuggle.”
Santiago forces a smile, but his face is wary, unsure. “I can take my shoes off myself. I have for years.”
I push through. “And I can take my bra off myself, but I’ll still let you do it if you want.”
This manages to make him chuckle; even if it’s not his full belly laugh, it makes me smile to hear it.
“All right,” he says, his voice jovial, although I don’t miss the hint of hesitation in it.
He’s wearing sturdy lace ups, obviously dressy enough for work but more like boots than hardcore dress shoes. They have thick, textured rubber soles, and I imagine he likes the grip and stability they provide. I start with the left foot, untying the double knot and pulling the bridge of the laces to loosen them. I can sense he’s tense, nervous. I’ve never been this close to an orthotic before—not counting the unusual braces I spied in one of Santiago’s drawers back at the hotel in New Orleans—but I know more or less what to expect.
I stop. “I want to do this for you, but if you’d prefer I didn’t…”
Santiago takes a slow breath, lets it out. I notice his hands pinch the edge of the bed on each side of him. He nods.
I smooth his left calf, intending to reassure him, quickly discovering my mistake when I feel the support bar beneath his pants. I stop and check his face again, to make sure he’s still okay. He’s looking at me with disbelief but is silent, so I return to his shoe. I suck in a breath and drop my head, partially to concentrate, partially to momentarily avoid his gaze. I grip the heel with one hand, my other over the bridge, and pull gently. I expected more resistance, but the shoe pops off his foot easily.
I see the footplate, solid black plastic that stops before his toes. The brace comes up, curving around his ankle, and I notice the footplate has a wedge on which his heel sits, probably to accommodate the slight flexion of his foot. My stomach tingles. I can see the hint of plastic along the back of his ankle and the suggestion of a hinge as the rest of the brace, along with his sock, disappears up into his pants. I set his foot down gently, allowing my fingers to graze the metal.
If it’s possible to be both relaxed and tense at the same time, that’s exactly how Santiago is right now. I meet his eyes before moving to his other foot. My stomach’s churning nervously, but I remember he told me, “It’s okay, Di. To ask,” earlier.
“Your feet…why�
�?”
He rubs his hands on the front of his pants. “I didn’t take such good care of myself when I was younger. Stubborn,” he says with the hitch of a smile, but his cheeks betray some tension. “My Achilles tendons have shortened a little, so…” He hesitates.
“Forget I asked.” I blush, glance up at him before ducking my head to focus on the remaining shoe.
“It’s okay,” he says on a sigh.
I avoid looking up, untying his shoe.
“They’re…sensitive,” he finally says, and when I look up at him briefly, I can see by the tweak of his cheek he’s using it as a code word for painful. “I’m used to keeping them covered,” he adds.
I frown. Santiago has been so open and comfortable, and yet he seems uncertain about his feet. I long to tell him how sexy they are, although I remain silent, slipping his shoes onto the shelf of his nightstand. When I peer up at him again, he’s smiling faintly, his eyes soft with a slight sheen, like looking at the sun rising over the ocean. His allowing me to remove his shoes is an even bigger deal than I imagined, and I feel privileged.
He offers his hand to help pull me to my feet, but my legs are a bit numb from having sat on them while I worked, and I stumble onto the bed, into his arms. We both laugh, diffusing any tension in the air. Our eyes fix on each other, and I find myself getting lost in those chestnut depths.
“Lay with me, Di,” he says, his bottom lip catching just a bit between his teeth, his expression hopeful.
I grin back. “You mean ‘lie.’”
His smile deepens, his right cheek dimpling. “No. No lying. Just honesty.”
Chapter Fifteen
I wake up feeling happy, refreshed, rested, like I’ve just had the most wonderful dream. It takes a moment for me to get my bearings. I’m in Santiago’s bed, fully dressed, tucked under the covers, cradling a pillow. Only as I wake, I realize it’s not a pillow, but his thigh. I glance up at him, and he smiles. He’s sitting beside me, leaning against the headboard, stroking my hair so lightly he’s barely touching it. I smooth one hand over his leg, realizing he must have changed out of his braces at some point while I was sleeping. I’m a little disappointed I missed seeing them, but the feeling of contentedness unlike anything I’ve experienced before quickly replaces it.
“Hey, linda,” he says with a smile. “You’re beautiful when you sleep, do you know that?”
I find myself smiling back. “Was I asleep long?”
“Long enough for me to admire you,” he says, dipping his fingers onto my cheek, the tips tickling, but in a way that makes me feel electric and alive.
I slide my fingers along his leg, over the soft hair, the indentations from where his braces were, trying to force myself to say what I want so desperately to say. I swallow. I breathe. I open my mouth. “I’d like to see you again.” I hold my breath, waiting for his response.
He shifts, stops tracing his fingers over me. I start to panic, worried, and push myself up, onto my knees, sinking onto my feet. But he’s smiling. “I hoped you’d say that,” he says, pulling me closer, in for a kiss. “I’d ask you to stay for dinner, but I’m guessing you have to get back.”
I sigh, shoulders sagging. “Yeah.”
“I’ll see you out, then,” he says, reaching for his chair, which is parked beside the bed, quickly transferring into it. I inch closer to the edge, watching him set his feet on the footrest.
“Can I ask you something?” I ask, slipping my legs out from under me and pushing closer.
“You don’t need to ask my permission every time you have a question,” he says, his eyebrows dipping. He’s not angry, simply perplexed, studying me as if I were a book in a foreign language.
I glance around, not seeing his braces anywhere, although his crutches are still where he left them before. I wonder if he saves them in a closet or drawer when they’re not in use. Right now he’s dressed like he was that morning at the hotel gym, in basketball shorts and a faded tee, looking so, so sexy.
“You’re a proofreader, right?”
“I am,” he says, gripping his push rim with one hand for stability and offering me the other to help me off the bed.
I step off, having to readjust again to looking down to him, to being nearly the same height. “You fly first class, you drive a Porsche, and this,” I say, waving my hand around as if I were a TV game-show host.
“That’s not a question,” he quips, making sure I’m steady on my feet before wheeling out of the room.
“You know what I mean.”
I follow him; he’s pushed to the kitchen, while I turn toward the living room to slip into my shoes.
I hear the fridge open and close, and a moment later, he’s meeting me in the open space between the two rooms. A long, flat plastic food container rests in his lap. He offers it to me. “I’m a man of many secrets,” he says with a playful smile.
“What’s this?” I hold it up to try to see its contents.
“On the weekends, I like to cook myself meals for the rest of the week. That way I always have something healthy and tasty to eat. I know you mentioned Stephen’s been working late, but you couldn’t stay for dinner, so…here.”
I grasp the container tightly, putting my emotions into my grip. “Thanks.” I want to say more, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to hold back tears if I do.
His eyes soften. “I know it’s a long drive. You sure you’ll be okay?”
I smile. “Yeah. Thanks.” I shift the container to one hand and lay my other on my stomach. “For everything.”
* * * *
Before we married, I asked Stephen if he loved me. He looked at me, his face serious with thought, lips pursed, before responding that love is simply a reaction in the brain, chemicals combining and having an effect, the same as any other process. He didn’t ask me if I loved him, and I never asked him again.
Until today.
I’m sitting in bed, a copy of Grendel in my hand, watching Stephen undress, when I say it. “Do you love me?”
He stops, turns, and looks at me, perplexed. “What? Are you menstruating?”
I frown. I hate it when he says it like that, especially because he pronounces all the letters, so it sounds like men-strew-ate-ing.
“It’s a simple question.”
“You know how I feel about love,” he responds simply, with a nod. He finishes unbuttoning his shirt and tosses it in the hamper.
I push myself up in bed, bracing myself with one arm, deciding to try a different tactic. “I saw my ob-gyn recently, and she said stress can be a major factor keeping couples from conceiving.”
He sighs, a long exasperated exhalation as he pulls off his undershirt. “Di, not this again. Not tonight.” He turns to me, the shirt bunched up in one hand. His chest is pale and skinny, with hair in all the wrong places. “Besides, what do you have to be stressed about? If you’re so unhappy at work, quit. I make enough money to support us both.”
“It’s not about that,” I say, though my voice is low enough he may not hear it. In a louder voice I ask, “What if we looked into adopting?”
Stephen straightens to his full height, crosses the room so he’s towering over me. “Some people aren’t meant to have children.” He scowls, his words sharp and biting. An anger I rarely see from him, and with the size difference and the tension I feel radiating off him, I’m suddenly scared.
“But—”
“Di,” he says, his voice threatening. “Leave it.”
“But if I did get pregnant, that would change things, wouldn’t it?” Stephen’s never been good with hypotheticals; he likes to deal with facts. I could tell him. That I am going to have a baby. I can just leave out the questionable parentage for now… Maybe forever. “What if—”
“What would I know about being a father, Di? About a family? I never had one. You know that.” He shakes his head, stalks around me, and throws the covers aside. “I’m exhausted.” He climbs in bed, his back to me, shutting off the light on his side, a clear ind
ication the “discussion”—if I could even call it that—is over.
Stephen never talks about how he grew up. I don’t know what happened to his parents, or how he ended up with his great-uncle. I obviously hit a nerve; I just wish he could feel comfortable talking to me. Does he really not want children, or is he just thinking of his own childhood?
I debate saying something, anything, so he doesn’t have to go to bed angry with me, but he lets out a series of snores and I know it’s too late.
Sometimes “too late” seems to be the motto of my life.
* * * *
The next evening when I get home from work, I immediately go to my office, where I plant myself in front of my computer, ready to tackle that blank space that’s been taunting me for weeks. It takes me a few minutes of staring at the blinking cursor, fingering my medal, thinking of my mother, wondering what she’d think of me, of my life with Stephen, of being pregnant by Santiago, and then, suddenly, like a cork popping, the words flow. I don’t stop until several hours have passed, checking my word count. 5012. I smile, pleased, resisting the urge to read over it so the editorial voice in my head won’t have time to pitch in.
I glance at my computer’s clock: 8:15. I know I wasn’t so much in the zone I didn’t hear Stephen come home. My stomach’s grumbling, but the bite of curiosity since I last saw Santiago nibbles at me. I open a browser and type Becker’s muscular dystrophy into the search box. I read through the first couple entries, from the National Library of Medicine and Wikipedia. Both say more or less what Santiago either told me or I’ve observed. It’s related to Duchenne’s, most men are diagnosed in their teens, and it progresses slowly. I find a couple blogs by men with the disease and bookmark them, planning to explore them more fully later. One has an entry titled “What is Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy?” that catches my eye, so I click it.
The post is brief and summarizes what I already know, although being written from the patient’s (instead of the doctor’s) perspective means it talks about the practical problems of living with BMD. I scan the text. Men living with Becker’s muscular dystrophy can face many issues over time due to muscle wasting, including heart conditions, mobility issues, trouble climbing stairs and rising from low positions, and even upper arm problems. The good news is that even though many men may need some mobility assistance as early as their twenties, life span for most men with BMD is normal. Heart conditions? I don’t remember reading about that, and Santiago didn’t mention it. Maybe it’s not common. I decide I can look into it later, maybe ask Santiago about it, since my stomach is insistent, rumbling loudly.