Watch Over Me

by Christa Parrish

  “Oh. Soon then. Maybe next week.”

  “We’ll let you know,” Benjamin said.

  “Well, I’ll stop going on now and let you get out of here. Have a nice visit with your friend, Abbi.”

  Abbi nodded and left the building with Benjamin, his buttons properly aligned now. They got into the Durango. She didn’t understand. Anyone with one working eye could see her husband withering away to a skeleton, the man who came back from Afghanistan wearing Benjamin’s clothes and face and voice wasn’t the one who went over. She needed someone to say it first, to give her permission to cry out, “Yes, yes, you see it, too. I’m not crazy.”

  She knew these people cared about Benjamin, and her. Why wouldn’t they help?

  “You going now?” Benjamin asked, turning onto their street.

  “Yeah. What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know. Something. Nap, maybe.”

  He pulled his squad vehicle onto the grass in front of their house so he wouldn’t block her in and wordlessly walked inside. She started her own bumper-stickered Volvo and sped north, the road pink, as if sunburned. Insects pelted her window, exploding in sticky bursts of yellow and orange. She flicked on her wipers, trying to wash the blood away before it baked on in the heat.

  “Abbi!” Genelise said, squeezing her as she arrived at the park on the edge of the Missouri River. Her friend wore her hair half blue today, brushed to one side and moussed in long spikes.

  “Don’t suffocate me. I just saw you last week. And we talked for an hour last night.”

  She pulled back. “You look tired.”

  “So do you.”

  For several months Abbi had driven up to Pierre on Sundays to help Genelise’s church give out food and clothing and toiletries, or little things that had been asked for the previous week; one woman pleaded for a tube of lipstick, to feel pretty again—“At least my mouth will,” she said—and a man wanted black socks because they looked less dirty after days of wash-less wear. And Lulu begged for a toaster. She had three already in her cramped, subsidized one-room studio in the senior housing building, but someone brought her another, which she petted and carried around under her arm like a prized Chihuahua, black electrical-cord tail dragging.

  Lulu ambled over, shiny silver toaster hugged against her side. Her breasts swung long and heavy beneath a man’s white T-shirt. “Yoo-hoo. You girl. Didja bring those plums again?”

  Last week Abbi had brought bags of extra-ripe plums too old for the Food Mart to sell. She’d rescued them from the dumpster behind the store when she found out they’d been tossed; she would have asked for them—and Jerry would have given them to her—if she’d known before the overzealous stock boy decided to take his job seriously for once. No harm. The plums washed fine, and Lulu had eaten nearly half of them. Abbi had watched her, juice dripping from her chin, and couldn’t help but think, “Forgive me, they were delicious, so sweet and so cold.” Benjamin’s fault. He’d read her William Carlos Williams’s poems when they were in college, over and over, until she told him she was sick of wheelbarrows and chickens, and men dancing in front of mirrors and yellow shades.

  “Sorry, Lu. No fruit today. I have some heads of cabbage, though.”

  “What do I want that for? I don’t buy cabbage ’cause I don’t like it, so why would I take it now it’s free?” And she walked away in her sparkly blue jelly shoes, backs cut out to accommodate her swollen heels, lined with deep cracks, dried riverbeds splitting the thick, yellow skin.

  “I’m sorry,” Abbi called again. Lulu raised her arm and swatted at the air above her head without turning, but another church member came to her with an orange, and she bit away a hunk of rind, spat it on the ground, and continued to peel the fruit.

  Abbi loved the action of these people around her, their living, breathing faith. Not like the amputated Christians she’d known, those who waddled about as if their limbs had been hacked off, unable to reach out into the world and be the arms of Jesus. She wished her own church could be more like this. Genelise kept trying to convince her to attend services here, but this group was a bit too left-leaning even for her. Plus, Benjamin would never agree, and that seventy minutes on Sunday mornings was the only time they came face-to-face with a common purpose. Abbi needed at least that.

  “Nice Monroe,” she said, looking at the little gold ball protruding above Genelise’s upper lip, on the right side, a metallic beauty mark.

  “You like it? I wanted a Medusa.” She flicked the groove beneath her nose. “But Clay talked me out of it.”

  “Men,” another woman said.

  “Tell me about it.” Genelise sighed. “I might still go back and have it done.”

  The wind brushed over Abbi; she gathered her skirt tight around her legs and breathed in the muted river smell of algae and wet stone. And after she helped Genelise and the others pack up, her friend invited her back to her apartment.

  The purple shag area rug and matching chair were Genelise’s contributions to her boyfriend’s otherwise modern décor—a khakicolored, armless couch with sharp, rectangular cushions, beauty salon– style chairs, and a bleached wood coffee table with a top shaped, in Abbi’s opinion, like Australia.

  She had met Genelise in college, in her 2-D design class as a first-semester freshman. The next year her roommate convinced her to try a Campus Crusade meeting, and for a while she felt yanked in two directions—one night hands held high with Lauren, the next at a bar with Genelise, arms above her head again, but moving and shaking to La Bouche, not “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord.”

  Things jumbled up even more when she met Benjamin. Genelise ebbed away until Abbi needed her—on weekends Benjamin went to training exercises and Lauren went home. Genelise didn’t mind. At least she acted like she didn’t mind; she was used to being a backup plan. Like now. Benjamin wanted nothing to do with Abbi. Genelise did. She cared for Abbi—really, truly.

  “Where’s Clay?”

  “He’s in Vegas. With Neva.”

  “Wait. Neva? His ex, Neva?”

  “That would be the one.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Genelise waved her words away. “I didn’t want to think about it. Still don’t. Thirsty?”

  “I can do some water.”

  “Me, too.” She climbed up on the stove and opened the small cabinet above it, jumped down to the floor with a bottle of vodka in her hand. And then, after filling a tall glass of water from the tap, she filled another glass with the alcohol and held them both to the light, swirling them. “The neutral spirit. Just like water. No taste, smell, or color. No difference.”

  “Except one is forty percent alcohol.”

  Genelise shuffled the glasses, a magician playing sleight-of-hand tricks, sliding the cups around one another. “If it looks like a duck—” she said, picking up one glass and taking a swig. Sucked air through her teeth. “Oh, that burns.”

  “Did you and Clay break up?”

  “Officially, no.” She took a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured it into the vodka glass until it quivered at the rim. She leaned close and slurped the liquid down to a safe level. “But what part of us ever was official? I think he just gave me this ring so I would stop pestering him to marry me.”

  “Gen, you deserve better.”

  “Do I? I don’t know anymore,” she said, and then she guzzled the entire glass of vodka and juice.

  “Are you nuts?” Abbi grabbed the bottle and spilled the remaining alcohol down the drain. “There were like four shots in there.”

  “Or six, or seven.” Genelise held tight to the counter, stretched the collar of her shirt. “I’m hot.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “I’m you’re friend.”

  “Then you should have told me you and Clay were having problems.”

  “You have enough on your mind.”

  “That’s such bunk. Anyway, I’d rather think about your garbage than mine.”

&n
bsp; “I didn’t know we were having problems.” She leaned over the sink. “My stomach is sloshing.”

  Genelise vomited a stream of thin orange liquid; it splattered on Abbi’s bare forearms in tiny pings. She wiped her mouth on the hem of her shirt and staggered into the living room, drunk and loose with grief, and flattened herself on the floor, eyes closed.

  Abbi crouched beside her and put one hand on her back. “Genelise?” Shook. “Genelise.” When her friend didn’t answer, Abbi pulled back one of her lids—her blue iris rolled up toward her forehead.

  “Who put the carpet on the walls?” she said.

  “Idiot,” Abbi said again, let her eye fall closed.

  “I don’t know how to be alone.”

  “You learn.”

  Genelise flopped onto her back. “But not tonight. Stay here, okay?”

  “Yeah, okay,” she said, and Genelise threw her arms across her face, groaning a sleep sigh. “If I puke again,” she told Abbi through her arms, “roll me over so I don’t choke to death.”

  Abbi wedged herself into the hairy purple monster of a chair, her legs folded under her, her hip jammed against the padded arm. She read her Bible for a while and prayed for Genelise, for herself—for the deep, miserable alone they were both tangled in. Then she called Benjamin. She’d considered, for more than a moment and with spiteful pleasure, not bothering, thinking it might do him good to find a dark, empty house and know the feeling of wondering where she might be. She used to wonder when he didn’t come home, would let her mind conjure all kinds of horrible scenarios. She’d drive around at night, looking for his car, sure she’d find his body in it, gun stuffed in his mouth and the back of his skull missing. Finally, she worried herself out of worry, every last drop dried up, and began pretending he was still in Afghanistan, at war, with an excuse for deserting her.

  In a way, it was the truth. He was stuck over there.

  Benjamin didn’t pick up the phone, of course. He might not even miss her if she didn’t show up. But she left her message after the tone anyway, her voice hollow in her own ears.

  Chapter SIX

  He sat on the stoop, waiting for the medi-bus, the chipped cement scratching the back of his calves. His cousins fought over the one unbroken swing on the metal jungle gym—Sienna hung in the plastic seat on her stomach, fingers raking the dirt, while Lacie punched her in the back, shouting something Matthew couldn’t make out. Finally, the five-year-old threw a fistful of grit in her sister’s hair and ran to him, crying.

  “Sienna won’t let me swing.”

  Matthew didn’t take out his pad; she couldn’t read yet. But he hugged her to his side, pulled her up by the arm, and led her into the apartment, where he found a grape Fla-Vor-Ice in the freezer. He snipped off one end and gave it to her.

  “Don’t let Sienna have any,” she said, and ran back outside to eat it in front of her sister. As soon as Sienna saw Lacie’s treat, she stomped over to where he stood in the open doorway. Lacie hopped onto the vacated swing.

  “I want some,” Sienna said.

  He shrugged and pointed inside. She grabbed two and flopped down on the couch, fished the remote control out from between the cushions and turned on the television. He watched Lacie squeeze the last of the purple sugar-juice into her mouth and, seeing her sister had deserted her, dropped the plastic tube on the dirt and charged toward the apartment. Matthew braced his arm across the door.

  “What?”

  Grabbing the top of her head, he gently spun her, pointed to the wrapper. Her shoulders heaved up and down. A sigh. Then she shook him off and dashed to pick up the trash.

  A couple of other children came out on the playground, and Lacie, seemingly forgetting she had been heading inside, threw the wrapper on the ground again and climbed up the geodesic monkey bars with the Miller boys.

  It wasn’t much of a playground. The bars, one swing, and a sandbox—four two-by-twelves bolted together in the corners with a blue tarp stapled inside. Really, the whole courtyard was a sandbox; a few clumps of crabgrass sprouted along the walkways, otherwise just dirt. Two long three-family ranch houses sat on either side of the play equipment.

  The bus drove into the cul-de-sac. Matthew pounded on the door, and Sienna said, “Yeah, bye.”

  He pounded again, and she lifted her eyes to him as he motioned out the front window. “I’ll watch her.”

  He waved to Lacie before getting on the bus. She didn’t see him. Darn that Jaylyn. She knew he caught the bus at one thirty, promised Aunt Heather she’d be home to watch the girls. He hated leaving them alone, a nine-year-old to look after a kindergartner. The driver honked. Matthew hefted his knapsack onto his shoulder and found his usual seat in the back left corner.

  Straightaway on I-90, the trip to the dialysis center took twenty-nine minutes. But the medi-bus picked up four other people, adding almost an hour to the trip. He didn’t mind so much in the summer; he went to the school to complete his on-line courses in the computer lab, got home in plenty of time. The rest of the year he needed to leave school early three days a week. The guidance counselor scheduled his electives in the afternoon—typing, health, art or gym on opposite days—so he didn’t miss anything too important.

  The other patients on the bus were older, a forty-six-year-old bank teller and three elderly ladies. Matthew kept his head turned toward the window so no one would try to start up a conversation. He had spoken a few times with all of them when he first started treatment a year ago. The women offered him butterscotch candies in gold wrappers and looked at him with the pity of lives long lived, patting his knee and assuring him that the good Lord had a plan for him, even if it didn’t seem fair that he’d been stricken at such a young age. The bank teller talked only of the three B’s—beer, broads, and basketball. Matthew had tired of wasting paper in reply.

  After he was examined and weighed, Matthew settled in the dialysis chair, a beige vinyl recliner draped in a sheet, and offered his left forearm to his nurse, Denise. She wiped on a cleaning solution and, after three minutes, used a cotton ball to apply a topical anesthetic. It did nothing.

  Denise slid two fifteen-gauge needles into his fistula, one to suck the dirty blood out of his body, one to spit it back in, clean and rosy. He tensed, clamped his teeth together as the metal poked through his skin with a pop, then slid into the vessel.

  “All done now,” she said, and he exhaled.

  She strapped a blood pressure cuff around his right arm. “Want the TV on?”

  Matthew shook his head, pointed to his school bag. Denise pulled out his books for him, hung the pack on the arm of his chair. “Good grief, Matt. Calculus? It’s summer. Have some fun.”

  Math is fun, he wrote in his notebook. Anyway, I’m not doing calculus. I’m just reading about it. It’s like a story. A history book.

  “You have issues,” she said.

  He nodded and grinned at her, and he thought she laughed. It looked that way, her eyes crinkling at the corners, her shoulders heaving back and forward. And in his head he heard Woody Woodpecker. He closed his eyes and saw the crimson bird, speeding along in a car with Shaquille O’Neal. Then the basketball player disappeared and Denise was there, laughing Woody’s laugh. Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha. Ha-ha-ha-HA-ha. A Pepsi commercial he saw when he was—what?—four, five years old.

  Some sounds he had locked inside him, from television mostly. Not many. But sometimes he would see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle and remember a siren he’d heard on CHiPs reruns, or he’d watch a dog bark and the woof-woof of a black-and-white Lassie would come back to him. Didn’t matter if the dog was a German shepherd or a poodle, he heard the same bark. Woof-woof. Timmy’s in the well.

  He opened his book, read about Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, the two brilliant men who independently discovered calculus, and the battle of pride and plagiarism that ensued as a result. Calculus, the study of change. He lived that. Revolving homes, men coming and going—first in his mother’s life, then his a
unt’s—new medications, new aches and pains. He clung to the God who was unchanging, the God of mathematics. The God of pi.

  He remembered in middle school learning about pi, and it fascinated him. He read books, spent hours working the Brent-Salamin Algorithm, watching pi grow longer and longer, marching into infinity. He memorized pi to a thousand places—give or take—and found himself praying the numbers when he had no words. Three point one four one five nine two six five three five eight nine seven nine three two three eight four six two six four three three eight three two seven five zero . . .

  In pi, he saw the reflection of God. Pi was constant, always the same—today, tomorrow, and forever. It was irrational, like the cross, foolishness to those who didn’t believe. It was transcendental; no finite sequence of operations on integers could ever create it.

  It never ended.

  When his eyes tired, he leaned back on the padded seat and dozed, but not deeply enough that he didn’t feel Denise check his blood pressure every thirty minutes. Finally, after three hours, the needles came out. The nurse covered his punctures with a gauze pad, and he pressed his hand over it. Two vampirish spots of red seeped through.

  He was weighed again—lost five pounds, all excess fluid removed from his body. His temperature taken again, still normal. His blood pressure, standing and sitting. His pulse.

  He climbed back on the bus, waited for the others to shuffle on. He felt a little weak, stiff from being tied to a chair for so long. And tired. Just so tired. He hoped the apartment was calm when he got home—no blaring television, no arguing over stupid things, like Jaylyn using his aunt’s perfume, or Sienna twisting the heads off Lacie’s Bratz dolls. Doubtful, he knew. There always seemed to be some sort of crisis at home, and if there wasn’t, one of the girls found a way to make one. Nobody was happy if they weren’t hurting each other. He wished they would just quit. He hurt enough for all of them.

  Chapter SEVEN

  Benjamin stared at a pile of letters—some opened, some not—stacked high and wobbly on his desk, the way he imagined the mattresses in that children’s fairy tale The Princess and the Pea. He had more peas than he could count—Abbi, the baby, the case, his memories—those hard, insistent predicaments that poked at his soft places when he slept, and continued to follow him around while awake.