Him
The girl touched the mask over my face and let out a breath hot with awe. "A vampire," she said, her eyes widening. "Wow."
"I know," I nodded. "But only when I have the mask on. So, now you see why I wear it, right?"
She tottered her head back and forth and leaned back, the paper napkin around her chest crinkling. "Are all teeth cleaners vampires?"
I raised an eyebrow at her as I pulled the mask back up. "Only a few of us. The others just want to be cool, you know, so they wear the masks to pretend. Lame, huh?"
"Totally," she agreed. She opened her mouth when I asked, and this time she laid back in quiet as I pressed the metal hook of the probe against her back teeth, running the plaque off of the white blocks. This was easy: cleaning, getting her mouth from something dirtied and uncared and into something right. "You have to make sure you get the brush all the way back, Stephanie. Or else you're teeth are gonna be totally uncool."
She spoke in that gagged, dull way that voices have when something is blocking their tongue. I do, I translated.
"No, you don't. See, vampires have ESP, too," I told her, wiping the probe on the napkin.
"I try," she corrected. "It's just boring."
"Well, turn on a song on the radio—do you like to dance?" I asked, and she grinned at me. "Okay, so turn on a song and dance as you brush. Brush for the whole song, and when you're done dancing, you're done brushing. How about that?"
She wrinkled her brow for a moment. "That's okay, I guess. I can do that."
"Excellent." I reached over and turned up the volume on the audio book she had picked—some Lemony Snicket that Mary Anne had said was good. The kids always picked Lemony Snicket. Or Harry Potter. It was predictable, like clockwork. I'd hand them my iPod, they'd choose one of those, and then I'd have a full thirty minutes of peace. Unless they were like Stephanie. Stalling, stalling, anything to stall me.
What are those metal things called? What does that do? Where does the water go? What's the polisher stuff made of? Why do you wear a mask?
I'd ease her back and answer her questions as I worked, hoping that the feel of my fingers in her mouth would urge her quiet, but it never lasted. Stephanie wasn't a listener.
Stephanie wasn't like me.
She was lulled, though, by the sound of the words, and it bought me enough time to finish flossing her squinted teeth. In a few years, these teeth would be barricaded with braces, pulling them apart and upright. Mary Anne had encouraged me to do orthodontics. You love making things right—isn't that more up your alley? Maybe. I had a lot of time to think about it. More time now, years where I'd have to wait. But I could wait. I could wait as long as I had to for her. "You're all done," I told Stephanie, scraping one last bit of tartar off of the back of her incisor. "I'm gonna go get Dr. Pompeo, the dentist? And she's gonna check you on over."
"Is this where I get my new toothbrush?" she said as I pressed the button to raise the chair.
"Yup, and floss, too. In fact," I began, reaching over to the cabinets. I pulled out her brush and a box of dental string. "Stephanie, meet Mr. Floss. I want you two to become best friends, okay?"
She giggled, clutching the objects in her fists as I winked at her, pulling off the mask and the gloves and writing in her file. I had two more days here, and then my weeks were done. I would miss this more than I could even understand; my hands ached at the idea of a summer without this job. Every day, I came in and saw patients, I made them right again. As I stood at the counter, filling up the pages of their charts with my notes, I could see them out of the corner of my eye: they would run their teeth over the slick surface of their teeth and smile. Yellowed smile, browned smiles, white smiles, it didn't matter. I had done good, and they thought that I had done good.
For a moment, I believed it, too. For a moment, I could breathe again. I had been waiting for these moments every day since I was fourteen. Since I was told that everything I had thought about myself was wrong. Me, stripped down and broken down and beaten down. This good, I needed it like water.
I walked out of the exam room and down to a room across the hall. "Doc? I'm ready for you," I told her, and she gave me an okay sign as she bent down on Rhiannon's patient, pointing out the areas that she had missed on the wisdom teeth. I winced; maybe I should double check Stephanie again. No, triple check at this point.
A vibration against my hip made me startle; I pulled my phone out of my pocket and checked the ID—California, that's all it said. Jeff, maybe? "Hello?" I asked, ducking into the bathroom off of the hall.
"Hey, I'm really sorry to call, but Mary Anne said that if there was an emergency, you were the person to get a hold of," Jeff rushed. "Stacey's in class, and Dawn's off at a coffee shop writing, and Mom can't help, so, I'm really sorry to call you at work, but Mary Anne had said that—"
"Jeff? What do you mean, 'emergency,'" I cut in, pressing my hand to my forehead. "Is she okay?"
"She won't get out of bed, it's like she's, like, asleep with her eyes open? I went in to see if she'd have some lunch, but she's just lying there, curled up on her side and clutching the dog," Jeff explained, his voice so tight, like a hand was clutching at his neck. "She's just staring at the wall, it's like she's drugged or something. She usually will get out bed, you know? She's freaking me out."
"I know, it's okay," I sighed, resting my head against the wall. I stared ahead at the mirror, at the side of my face lit up by the greened light of the phone's display. Part of me in light, the other bitten away into the dark. "I'm coming home, just sit tight."
"I'm sorry," he said again.
"No, no, it's cool. I'm glad you called—thanks, Jeff," I said, snapping the phone shut. Dark again. I didn't have time to do what I wanted: curl up on the floor and cry. Mary Anne, Mary Anne, what was happening to you? Her therapist said that this might happen, that she'd have low days, so low that it would terrify us.
"But then she'll have a really good stretch, so don't get discouraged. You have to go moment to moment," Sarah declared. "And even on those bad days, you have to keep moving, Mary Anne. You have to go on walks, you need to fight that urge to just sleep."
"What do I do? It's really important that I don't, like, hover and tell her what to do," I insisted. "I mean, when she's in bed like that? I shouldn't be the one to get her dressed and make her do stuff, right? Like, that's bad, right?"
Sarah shrugged. "It's not bad, but it's not what she wants."
"It's not what I want," Mary Anne agreed. "I know me. I'll get furious at you for doing it. So what do we do instead?"
"You need to be encouraging and persistent without doing it for her," Sarah told me. "Let's come up with a plan, just in case, okay?" And I pulled out a note card and wrote it all down. Not that I'd forget what to do.
I'd need it to keep me from doing what I wanted to: make it all better for her.
But I can't. You can't make someone better. You can't lay your hands on someone's body and pull the hurt out. You can't hover over them every second because there are too many moments in the day that can't be watched. There's that one second, two seconds, thirty second time where you are gone, and they are now holding the shining edge of a blade in their bathroom. Or they are holding a bottle of pills and counting how many they've collected.
There's no such thing as all better. There's no such thing as fixing. As perfect.
All you can do is be there. Give them your love. Give them your time. That's all.
I had to remember that.
I ran to the supervising dentist and told him, My wife is sick. They think cancer; they don't know the truth, and I don't tell them. The cancer, it unlocks wells of sympathy that "depression" will not. My wife has cancer, and she's pregnant, and no matter how much I tell her that it's okay, that she doesn't have to suffer like this, she says she wants to have a baby, and even though it kills me to watch her in pain, I really want a baby, too, I want it to save her, so she's now sick with cancer, pregnant, and depressed. So. Can I go?
No. My wife is sick. Yes.
It takes me ten minutes to get from the clinic to the house; it is at the stoplight at the end of the downtown strip that I notice the blood on the hem of my scrubs. Will she notice? Will she tease me? I hope so.
My Mary Anne does that. This Mary Anne, the Mary Anne that's been here since soon after Yelena's wedding, this Mary Anne is too quiet. The Mary Anne of middle school—no, worse. That girl was loose and unshy in private. Even that girl would look at Mary Anne, this May that she is on the bad days, and say, You're a mess.
When I got home, Jeff was sitting on the bottom stair with a tray of food in his hands. "I made her lunch," he said, shaking the tray a little. "I made extra, for you if you want it."
"Oh, thank you, this is great," I said, giving him a smile. "I told Sharon last night that you've been a big help. And, dude, the lawn looks great. What are you doing?"
"Fertilizing," he shrugged. "It's no big."
"Well, thanks—your sister and Stace are so busy, it's been really nice to have you here," I replied, taking the tray from his hands.
Jeff glanced up the stairs. "You think you can get her up?"
"Mary Anne's a fighter," I told him. "She needs to be reminded where the fight is. Trust me, she'll get better once her chemo starts next week. Tesorina does best when she knows exactly where her battles are, and that's why depression is so tough, especially without her meds. There's nothing concrete for her."
Jeff stood up and shifted from foot to foot; his nervousness lifted off of him like steam. "If I ask you something, will you promise not to get mad?"
Narrowing my eyes at him, I replied, "Maybe."
Jeff folded his hands in front of him, and I could tell—he was protecting himself. As if he was expecting me to hit him. I gripped my hands harder on the tray as he asked, "Why are you with her? I mean, of course you won't leave her now, she's pregnant and all, but why are you with her, period? She's got cancer, she's got mental problems, and…Dawn said that her chest? She's got huge scars all over. Keshawn and Todd and the other guys, at practice yesterday, they said that you guys can get any chicks you want. Why her?"
I thought Mary Anne was gonna be, like, hot, man, Todd had laughed when I brought her to a party, a week after we got together for good. The way you're always talking about her? I mean, I was expecting something different, like, I don't know, the girl's got no chest, dude. What's up with that?
I had glared at him, putting down the drink I had in my hand. A minute before, I had been standing out with Mary Anne as she stared out at the lights of the city, listening to the hurt in her voice as she told me about a group of girls that had claimed to be my friends insult her body. Her beautiful body, reduced in a heap by their words. I had come inside to find them, but instead I found this.
I felt my arm leaping back, ready to smash into his face—let's see you hurt. Let's see you bleed like she did. Let's see you in pain in your body and how well you do.
But a hand grabbed my elbow and yanked my fist down. It was the guy who I was backing up that year, the superstar, the god. The guy who still emailed me every week to this day; I had expected him to forget about me once he made it to the NBA, to toss me aside like everyone else does. No: every week for over a year now, Hey backup, How's it be?
If he had been here in town, he would have been my best man. He had sent me a blank check when I told him Mary Anne was sick and pregnant, an empty thing with her name on the top and his signature on the bottom and a letter wrapped around it. I don't want you going to work at camps, I don't want you working as a waiter or whatever shit you were saying in that last email. Whatever you need, it's on me. A loan, not a gift, I know you too well. Just stay with her, take care of her, and we'll work it out after she's all better.
I put that check in our safety deposit box. I couldn't cash it. It could be an NCAA violation, and I knew that it was too much. I couldn't cash it. Not until I knew what to do.
He had sent me a letter last week, nestled in the nook of a baby blanket with the Seattle Supersonics logo. That baby better love me best, understand? And why haven't you cashed that check, asshole? My accountant says he's seen nothing. Don't be a stubborn fuck, take the money and do the right thing. Take care of your 'pretty girl' and your baby, don't be so you about it all.
The right thing—that night, he stopped me from punching my teammate. The right thing to do. He had grabbed my shoulder and shoved me back and then glared at Todd. "What the hell is wrong with you?" he shouted. "You're a stupid drunk, and you say stupid things. Not all guys need big ass plastic tits. Don't be ignorant. You could only dream of getting a smart, sweet girl like Lo's got. And you," he snapped, pointing at me. He stepped forward and poked a finger against my heart. "You swallow that shit down. If I ever see you lash out like that again, I'll kick your ass back to Connecticut, understand me? You save it for the court. I don't wanna hear two whispers from you ever, you with me? You save it for the game, you clear?"
"Yes," I said, glancing down at my feet.
And I became so quiet, they called me Ghost all year. Because I was white, and I was quiet, and I followed him around. Following him, following Keshawn, following Coach, follow follow follow.
Put the ball in my hands, and I will lead. I will be so strong, I will take your breath away and make it mine. I will own you. I will destroy you. But. Take it out, and I will follow.
The only person who wanted to hear from me was Mary Anne. The only person who wanted me to walk next to her and not behind.
So I looked at Jeff and tried to figure out a way to tell him. That it's so much more than just the surface of things. That I'm not a man that he should look at the way he does, those eyes of his swimming with envy. The way he tags after me and tries to lap up every move of mine, trying to make them his. Be like me when I play, Jeff, but don't envy me. I'm no one special. I'm not good enough for you to waste your want on.
"She loves me, Jeff," I finally said. "When I'm with her, I actually like myself. I'm enough."
And he frowned at me; he didn't understand. He couldn't. No one could. In moments like this, I could swear that I felt the wood in my body again, the splinters of plywood that had lodged in my leg and sent a current of pain through my whole body and swam in my blood for days. I had earned that, I did, I deserved that, I did.
Why wouldn't it ever leave? Unless I was with her.
I took the tray up to our room and put it on the bench at the foot of the bed. J.D. lifted her head and looked at me as I came over to where Mary Anne was laying, to where she was looking, dead center on the wall. "Hey there, pretty girl," I whispered, stroking her face. She blinked, tightening her arm around the dog. "How are you feeling?"
She blinked again, rolling her eyes down. Her mouth deepened in a pucker, but she didn't speak. I kept rubbing her face though until her skin warmed. Once, Mary Anne had complained of being on fire, feeling fire too much in her body. But now, she was always cold. After a few minutes, she sighed. "I'm tired, Logan."
"I know you are," I whispered, kissing her forehead. "But Jeff made lunch, I thought maybe we could eat? And then take J.D. for a W-A-L-K," I spelled, glancing down at the dog who knew that magic word too well for me to say it. "When we get back, I'll let you pick a movie. Anything but that one with the girl who looks like you and Julie Andrews and the princess stuff."
"I don't look like Anne Hathaway," she protested, pulling J.D. closer. "You're so silly."
"Yeah, well, come make something of it," I grinned, wagging my fingers towards my chest. A challenge. But she gave me a tea-weak smile and stayed there on the bed. "What's keeping you in bed?"
"My body feels like steel," she said, her mouth slumping. "It feels like I have iron for bones. And my head, it's just…tired, I guess."
"Do you want help getting up?" I asked. "You can use me as a lever."
Mary Anne nodded, and I nudged J.D. out of the way, so that I could offer my wife my hands. I wouldn't lift her up myself, I wouldn't carry her out. I could only help her do it herself. She held hard to my hands, gripping herself into a sitting position. Swinging her legs over the bed, she grimaced in effort and then wiped her face with her hands, letting out a large yawn.
I looked at the clock; two in the afternoon. She had been sleeping for sixteen hours. This was a bad day, a very bad day. They kept saying, it would get better starting next week. The depression would get better as the first trimester hormones leveled out. That these last weeks were the worst. She would feel less rocked, less tired. More like herself.
"Let's go on the…thing with J.D. first. Will you get me some clothes?" she asked, tugging on the shirt she was wearing. A shirt of mine; she hated my school, but she sure loved my t-shirts. She looked so lovely in that color blue, but it was her body in red that always stopped me and slunk me into a speechless state.
"No," I said, sitting next to her. "Remember what Sarah said? You need to do these things yourself, Mary Anne."
She sighed. "Okay." She got up, lurching over to the dresser. I watched her hand float over her stomach, rubbing it like brass. When she dropped the shirt to the floor, pulled her panties off, I had to remind myself not to be me. To not give into the urge to crawl across the bed and grab her hips and pull her to me.
We had lain together once years ago, our breath calming down from pants to deep, slow inhales, and she traced hearts over my chest. "For you? Sex is love," she announced, tapping her finger on my sternum. "For me, it's a connection."
"Thank you, Psych Girl," I grinned, pulling my hand behind my head.
She swatted at my arm and danced her head back and forth, the bald gleam of her scalp catching in the pale moonlight. "No, no, I thought this one out."
"Like, during? Damn, I'm impressed. It's hard enough to remind myself to breathe when I'm with you," I said, reaching up to kiss her neck. And I whispered into her skin, "When I'm inside of you."
She sighed in a heavy way, a low way, putting a hand on the back of my head. "I'm trying to make a point," she said in a thin whine.
"Then make it," I shrugged, still kissing, still touching.
"Okay, well, you won't have sex with someone unless you love them, and I think that this is more than teenage guy hormones—I think you use sex and things like it to show me how much you love me. And I use it because it makes me feel close to you, and I love being close to you. And it makes me feel…whole," she added, and I saw her reach her hand up to her head. "It's a connection with something that I don't get otherwise. You make me feel whole."
And she tipped her head so her lips could meet mine, and she whispered in my mouth, "I feel whole when you're inside me."
We could go long stretches without each other; weeks at a time where I was so busy, so pained from games that she would come to my dorm and just lay with me in silence and rub my back. Her thumbs would needle into the sore places by my spine, and then she would roll me over and lie on my chest, not asking for more. We wanted more, but not then. It was enough to just be together.
So I watched her stand naked in front of the dresser and kept my hands in my lap. We were together, she was up and moving, this was enough. But she caught my eye and grinned. She knew. She wanted it, too. But she pulled on a clean shirt of her own and a pair of her yoga pants and held out her arms. "Better?" she asked.
"Getting there," I nodded. I looked down at the dog. "You want a walk, J.D?"
The dog snapped her mouth and ran in a crazy circle over the mussed sheets, leaping to the floor and barking at Mary Anne's ankles. Mary Anne smiled at her and then at me before bending back in a massive yawn. Her fingers curled like smoke.
We walked for a long time in silence, hands in a knot as J.D. yanked us in squares, around block after block in our neighborhood. I held the leash, not Mary Anne; I was scared that the small dog would knock her off her feet. Her heavy, thudding feet, still leadened. By the time we got home, though, she seemed quicker, more centered.
More like Mary Anne.
"Will you get the food from upstairs? I'll pick a movie," she suggested, walking over to the shelves with the DVDs. "Or did Sarah say that I have to do everything around here."
"Oh, pity poor Cinderella," I clucked. "It's so hard to be you."
"I know," she sighed, shaking her head. "You're just worthless, angel. With the whole buying me flowers every week and the doing the laundry. Just pathetic, I mean, can't you carry your own weight? That's a lot of weight," she glared.
"You saying I'm fat? Girl, you better be glad I got a body like glass, that I didn't do football," I grinned. "I'd be as big as Sandy's boyfriend, you'd be crushed every night."
"Ew," she shivered. "Thank God you're so fragile. You woudda had your knees ripped open by the end of junior year had you done football. You'd be like Howie or Robert Brewster or RJ Blaser, just a poor, writhing mess."
I shuddered as I walked up the stairs. That used to be my worst nightmare, that I'd shred my knees and never play again. Ruined, like those guys. Ruined without a way to avoid it. But there were worse things that could happen. Worse ways to be ruined.
When I came back downstairs, she was sitting on the couch, and she made a surprised noise when I buried my head in her lap. "What is it, angel? Are you okay?"
"I just—I just love you," I murmured, belting her waist and kissing her belly. Two kisses, one for each baby. Baby, baby, make her a match. Please. She wants you so much, I want her so much, please.
She laid her head on mine and rubbed my neck. "I love you, too, Logan." And in the silence of a second, she read me like a book, like the best book she had ever looked at. "Oh, husband. No dying, I promise."
She promised. Could she? I was taking her at her word, like I always did. And I couldn't help it: that moment in the bathroom, it came back, and I began crying into her skin, covering her in a pain that she didn't need. She had enough pain to last her past the end of time, but I had to give her mine, too.
"No dying," I cried, rubbing my face against her stomach. "I can't—I don't know what I'd do if you died."
"Then I won't," she whispered. She promised.
She lied.
