Awash in Talent by Jessica Knauss Page A

recognized me! His eyes were unfocused and he displayed a complete lack of interest in the books in his lap, but he still recognized me, the love of his heart.
    “Are you leaving?” I asked calmly.
    “Yes. For some reason my wife is obsessed with moving out of here. Maybe she found bedbugs or something.”
    Bedbugs had passed through Providence years before, not to return except to the houses where they’d sprayed with organic pesticides. His bizarre rationalization led me to believe that he didn’t remember my sister’s treachery. Adrenalin took over. I stood behind the chair and grasped the handles, looking for a moment at the dramatic part in his hair. Then I glanced at the blinded window one last time and pushed. It was hard going, so I stopped, lifted the books off Carlos’s lap and placed them respectfully on the ground. He made no remonstration, so I headed off.
    I wasn’t Talented or apt to become famous like Beth. But I was going to have something much more rare. I was going to have true love.
    I thought that if I could wheel Carlos to the medical school, I could claim spousal abuse and they could look him over. With his anemia and weird wounds, they would be sure to at least keep his wife away from him long enough to investigate. Within minutes, he would be mine to care for and nurse back to full, vigorous health.
    Then I heard it: the unmistakable sound of his wife’s voice.
    “Hey,” was all she could come up with. She even didn’t have the eloquence to state what was wrong with the situation. She really didn’t deserve someone as smart and refined as Carlos. Instinctively, I knew I wouldn’t have time to explain all that to her, so I ran. The right wheel began to wobble and squeak loudly, slowing me down while simultaneously announcing my presence to the neighborhood. My spousal abuse claim would be much more credible if she would only act a little more cavalier about who wheeled his chair around. I was going to have to shake her. I looked left to see whether I could dart into the street, but before I could make the turn, the chair stopped short. My sister stood in front of us, her hand outstretched in a traffic cop’s signal.
    “What’s going on here?” she shrilled.
    I tried to turn the chair within the small radius she offered, but she could see what I was up to, and I felt the handles slipping out of my hands. I gripped them more tightly, held on for dear life, as she tried to pry Carlos away from me. The pressure from that had barely ceased when I saw Carlos’s whole body lifted out of the chair into a semi-natural standing position. He was clearly too weak to stand on his own, and his limbs hung limply until, like a marionette, he started walking. My sister had a lot to learn if she ever wanted to perform telekinesis clandestinely, because Carlos walked impossibly, with his hands swinging in the same direction as his legs, instead of in the crosswise rhythm that has allowed humans to keep our precarious bipedal balance for thousands of years now. That said, I already noticed a marked improvement in her concentration. She was barely squinting when she flopped Carlos into the arms of his waiting wife.
    “Hey,” I said to Beth, indignant.
    “Hey what?” she said.
    “What right do you have to take away my only chance at happiness?” I couldn’t help it. I started to cry. I stopped when the strangest feeling overtook me: I was moving involuntarily. My sister lifted me up and placed me firmly into the wheelchair. From there, I couldn’t move, no matter what I did. I felt a strong bond with Carlos, who’d undergone that sensation of loss of control at the hands of my sister not once, but twice now.
    “I’m sorry, Emily, but I think you’re criminally insane.”
    “Insane? I’m the sanest person here.” I couldn’t even crane my neck to check on my love Carlos, on my one patch of goodness in a world that was rapidly becoming unbearable.
    Carlos’s wife must have called the police