“Knock it off,” Mr. Mayer said. He stood, too, and crossed his arms over his chest. “We’ll decide in the car.”
Mrs. Mayer glanced at me, then turned to Mike. “I’m so sorry, honey,” she said, her eyes full of regret. “I know this must make you feel bad.”
Mike gave her a disgusted look. “You think I expect you guys to sit around picking your noses when you’re not here? I don’t care.”
She flushed a little. “I just wish you could come.”
Mike frowned, but Mr. Mayer actually seemed to consider the idea. He cupped his chin in his hand, stared off into space. “Maybe we should see if you can next time,” he said thoughtfully. “In a few weeks or something.”
Mrs. Mayer clapped her hands together. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful! I wonder if you couldn’t get some kind of day pass or something.”
Mike rolled his eyes and laughed harshly. “I’m not in jail, Mom, appearances to the contrary. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to.”
“Why on earth not?” Mrs. Mayer bit her lip. “I should think you’d love a little change of scene.”
“When I want a change of scene,” he said, “I tell my buddy here to try channel fifteen for a while.”
Automatically we all looked at Jeff Walker, who’d been lying there quietly, his father on the far side of his bed, saying something every now and then in a low voice. After a moment, though he’d given no indication that he was listening, Jeff aimed the remote at the TV and a new picture came on.
“Like that,” Mike said.
After the Mayers left an orderly came in to transfer him onto his bed. I moved out of the way and watched as she lowered the bed and then unstrapped him from the chair. She stood in front of him with his knees between hers, wrapped her arms around his chest, and slowly raised him till he’d cleared the chair. Then she rotated him around, settled his bottom onto the bed, lowered his upper body onto the mattress, and swiveled his legs up. She was about my size, and I couldn’t imagine how she’d done it, how strong she was. What was going to happen once he was home? How were we going to manage even just the physical part of it?
When she left I dragged a chair closer and sat down. I was about to offer him something to drink when a tall, dark-haired man with gold-rimmed glasses and a full beard came in. He stood just inside the doorway, wearing jeans and a shirt and tie. Mike took one look at him and stared off to the side, plainly furious.
“Hey, Mike,” the man said. “How’s it going? Thought I’d poke my head in before it got too late.”
Mike didn’t respond. He looked straight ahead, his face reddening.
“Dave King,” the man said, coming over and offering me his hand.
“I’m Carrie.”
He nodded knowingly, as if he’d heard of me, had half expected to find me here. He was standing in Mike’s field of vision now, impossible for Mike to avoid seeing unless he truly looked away, which the halo made difficult.
“Thought we might spend some time together tomorrow,” Dave King said. “Say around four?”
Mike pressed his lips together.
“Hey, a simple yes or no wouldn’t be too much to ask, would it?”
“How about a simple no, then?”
Dave King shrugged. He watched Mike for another moment and then left the room, nodding at me on his way out.
“Don’t you want to know who he was?”
I looked back at Mike. I had a pretty good idea he was the therapist the Mayers had mentioned, but I didn’t say so. “Who was he?”
“The head guy. Total dick.” I couldn’t help smiling. “How so?”
“He just is. And if you’re going to laugh, why don’t you just leave?”
“Is that what you want?”
Mike’s face went livid and he shouted, “Stop! Asking me! What! I! Want!” He stared at me with his eyes burning, his words bouncing off the hard surfaces of the room and keeping us both absolutely still. Finally the color in his face began to drain away, and he said, quite calmly, “Why do people keep asking me what I want? I want to walk out of here. Christ. I want to walk.”
The moon was just past full, bright in the indigo sky. Leaving through a side door, I made my way to a bench in a little paved V where two wings of the building came together. I’d left Mike composed but so exhausted I knew sleep would come fast. I sat down and breathed in the night smells, settled car exhaust and boxwood and a faint, moist scent of the lake. How could Mike stand having people
at
him all the time? The rehab people but also us, his family, me. It had to be a nightmare—on top of what was really a nightmare. My worry about him slipped into high gear, and I felt stripped by the tension of it, just opened wide.
Worry
. It sounds like such an active thing, but it was more as if that picture of him that I’d told him I had—the picture of him that was thinking of him—had fallen to the bottom of an inky well, and through the dark and rippling water I could see glimpses of his distorted face, down so far I couldn’t reach it.
The exit door swung open, and I heard pant legs brushing together, then a low cough. “… and we can’t have
that,”
a man’s voice said, and a moment later the man himself appeared. It was Dave King, the therapist. I pressed myself into the shadows, but he looked over and stopped, saying, “Whoa, you may be the first person I’ve ever seen on that bench.”
I looked in the direction he’d come from, but there was no one else, no one for him to have been talking to.
“I was having a small conversation with myself,” he said. “Just straightening
a few things out.” He came closer and set his briefcase down, then stretched: a self-conscious stretch that suggested a desire to engage me in a casual-seeming but nonetheless significant conversation. Could he have followed me out of the hospital?
“Nice night,” he said.
“Yeah, it’s not so hot anymore.”
He unzipped the briefcase and took out a small, shiny package. He held it in both hands and pulled, and the faint pop of air that followed told me he’d opened some kind of food.
“Ritz Bits?” he said, offering me the package.
“No, thanks.”
“Dave?” he said, and then, “Why, thanks, Dave, don’t mind if I do.” He shook out a handful and then just chewed for a while, the bag crinkling in his other hand. “You know, I’m glad I ran into you,” he said. “How do you think Mike’s doing? Actually, do you mind if I sit down? I feel like I’m blocking your moonlight.” He pushed the briefcase aside and sat down a few feet away from me.
I didn’t know what to say. Would it be a betrayal of Mike to talk to him? I wasn’t sure.
“Maybe you’d rather not go into it,” he said.
“No, it’s OK. He’s really sad. Really sad.”
He nodded slowly. “Do you know that more by what he’s said or what he hasn’t said?” He spoke without looking at me, and I thought he was being very careful, as if I were a valuable but easily spoiled resource.
“Hasn’t,” I said. “Well, both.”
“His parents probably told you he’s decided he doesn’t want to talk to me.” He paused. “As if you couldn’t have figured that out tonight.” He glanced over at me. “Was he much of a talker? Before the accident?”
“Yeah. I mean, he wasn’t a motormouth or anything, but he talked.” I thought of lying in bed with him after making love, how open and sweet he always was, as if, business over, we could finally chat. Sitting there on the bench, I could almost feel his leg slung over mine, his hand on my stomach, the vibration of his chin on my shoulder.
“I guess he decided I’m a jerk,” Dave King said.
I smiled, thinking of the word Mike had actually used.
Dave King gave me a curious look. “What?”
I shook my head.
He reached into the bag again and threw a couple more crackers into his mouth, then leaned down to stuff the bag back into his briefcase as if he were about to take off.
“He said you were a dick,” I said. “If you really want to know.”
He straightened up and looked at me. “A dick?”
“I’m afraid so.”
He was silent for a moment. “Interesting choice of words.”
“I guess it’s kind of rude,” I said, “but I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.”
He rocked his head back and forth. “Maybe he did.”
My mouth went a little dry. “Like what?”
He leaned back and crossed his legs. “What do you think his concerns are right now? He’s lying up there, he’s got another seven or eight weeks in the halo—what’s going through his mind?”
Understanding hit hard, and I looked away.
“I don’t mean to embarrass you,” he said softly. “You’ve probably thought all this through yourself, or maybe you went to the library and found out what you needed to know.” He hesitated. “I mean, there are books that explain the effects on male sexual function of an injury like Mike’s.”
I stared at my hands. This was the one thing Mr. Mayer hadn’t researched, or if he had, he’d kept his findings to himself. Still, I didn’t have much doubt about it. No motion. No sensation. Twice since the accident I’d woken from dreams so aroused that just turning over or moving a leg had made me come. I couldn’t bring myself to masturbate, though: it seemed too final, like an acquiescence.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve made you uncomfortable.”
I looked over and saw him watching me with what I could only think of as a gentle look, and to my surprise I found myself sort of liking him. There was something vulnerable about him, and for an instant I flashed onto his home life: a guy living alone in an apartment with lots of spider plants, an aquarium full of tiny, colorful fish. He’d walk over and talk to them as soon as he got home, the room still dark behind him.
How strange: Kilroy had seen me in the same sure way I’d just seen Dave King. Clear and certain, as if he’d known.
I hope Mike wakes to your vigilance and love soon, and that you’ll be well together
. His letter was in my dresser, buried in my sock drawer. When I got low on socks I could see the envelope, white against the wood grain, a signal of some kind.
“I’d really like to find a way to help Mike,” Dave King said. “That’s why I came over when I saw you sitting here. He’s got a rough road ahead of him, and it can help to talk about things.” He stayed still for a moment, then turned toward me and gave me a quick smile. “Well, I should get going.”
He leaned down for his briefcase, and I found I didn’t want him to leave yet. “My mother’s a therapist, too,” I said. “At the U.”
He straightened up without the briefcase. “What’s her name?”
“Margaret Bell.”
He wrinkled his forehead. “She’s been there awhile, right?”
“Twelve years.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Have you considered talking to someone yourself?”
I was taken aback. “I don’t really think I need to.”
He lifted one shoulder. “I don’t know about need, but it could be said that you’ve got a rough road ahead, too.”
A rough road, sure, but not so rough—not as rough as Mike’s. I thought of his rage earlier:
Stop! Asking me! What! I! Want!
Yes, absolutely.
“Well,” Dave King said.
“He’s not just sad,” I said, “he’s angry. He’s
furious
.”
“Did he say so?”
“He yelled at me tonight. Right after you left.” I told him what had happened. “The thing is, he doesn’t yell. Didn’t, anyway. He was easygoing. Rooster would get all tense over someone being really late, or people arguing over what to do, but Mike—” I broke off, embarrassed that I was blabbing.
“But Mike?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m going on like this. You probably don’t even know who Rooster is.”
“Mike’s best friend?”
I was surprised. Had Mike told him about Rooster? How much had he told him about me? I stared into my lap, wishing I knew what he knew. Was he here to tell me what Dr. Spelman had told me?
Rehab is very hard work—a lot of getting better is wanting to
. Don’t you think I
know
that? I wanted to cry.
“You were telling me that Mike was different from Rooster,” he said. “Less tense over conflict.”
I looked over at him. He was sitting there, waiting. Not in a hurry, like Dr. Spelman. I nodded.
“Can you say more?”
I thought for a moment. “He wouldn’t stress,” I said. “He could roll with things. But he could also handle Rooster being tense—roll with that.” I remembered a winter Saturday a few years ago: we were going up to Badger Pass to ski, and Stu showed up without gear—he thought we were renting up there, which we’d decided against to avoid the lines.
Rooster got really annoyed at Stu and his mood sort of took over everyone else. Except Mike. When he and I were alone together for a moment, moving through the house to leave, I cast a glance back over my shoulder in Rooster’s direction and made a kind of face, and Mike shrugged and said, “He wanted it to go smoothly.” Just that:
He wanted it to go smoothly
. And I had a feeling then—which I remembered now, sitting in the moonlight outside the hospital—that the word for Mike was
kind
.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty, isn’t there?” Dave King said. “About how he’ll be.”
I nodded.
“For him, too, don’t you think? How he’ll be, how he’ll fit into the picture he had of the future.”
“Yes,” I said. My voice was so low it was like a whisper, and I said it again, a little louder: “Yes.”
He bent over and picked up his briefcase, then sat holding it for a moment. “Listen,” he said, “I should get going, but can I tell you one thing? As far as what we were talking about before?”
“Sure.”
He scratched his jaw, and a feeling of nervousness came over me about what he would say, what he might say to me after all. Stay the course.
Stay the course!
Why should that make me so uneasy, when I was?
“Guys with spinal cord injuries are using vibrators, electricity, even drugs to ejaculate. Which means, among other things, that it wouldn’t be impossible for you and Mike to have a child together somewhere down the line.”
“Oh, my God!” I exclaimed.
Behind his glasses, his eyes widened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean—”
“It’s OK,” I said. “I just had a very bizarre thought.”
He waited expectantly, but I couldn’t tell him, I certainly wasn’t going to tell
him
—but then I did: “I thought: I can’t have a child, I
am
a child.” I looked at the ground, embarrassed now. “Pretty stupid, huh?”