trying to will it closer. It stayed out of reach, as it had for months now.
She drew herself, Lewis on the pad, drew them looking at each other. Similar features. Lewis was skinnier, but not by much. Staring, caught.
Trapped .
She wiped the image away, let a story distract her. Caught herself moments after seven. She'd be ten minutes late. Not inexcusable, but he wouldn't excuse it. And she'd wasted valuable alone time on reading! She raced down the steps to the car with an angry clatter of keys.
She pulled into a waiting space in front of the hospital lobby. Lewis was staring at his watch. Her dashboard read 7:13.
He attacked, vicious as a wasp, as soon as he entered. "Glad you could spare time to pick me up."
"Lewis, sorry, I lost track," she said.
"Beggars can't be choosers," he said. Brittle, icy-edged in a way that sometimes signaled a fit's imminence, sometimes just a tantrum. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to stop at the drug store? I have some things to get. Wait in the car if you want."
He knew she'd opt for that.
After ten minutes she raised her head in time to see Lewis exiting the drugstore.
She readied her keys but saw him turn into the craft store that was next door.
What was he doing?
She waited.
The store was busy. A few dozen people came and went through the double glass doors before Lewis exited, carrying a plastic bag. Stems protruded from the opening, brown and knobby. Dried flowers?
He dumped his purchases in the back seat. She smelled eucalyptus. His look dared her to ask.
Whatever it was, he'd tell her in time.
The car chimed reproof as she started it, flashing an indicator for Lewis's missing seatbelt. As always, she thumbed it off, rather than argue with him.
"How was reading to the kids?" she asked.
"Fine," he said. "Good kids. Most of them."
"Not all of them?" she said, surprised.
"Think being close to dying makes somebody automatically good?" he said.
He pressed his fingers to the ledge where door met window, marched his hand along, middle finger become a head half raised.
When they were little, Amber eight to Lewis's three, they had pretended their hands were animals that explored the tops of the sofa and walked like tightrope dancers along the playpen's high wire.
The memory made her smile.
"People just become more of whatever they were to begin with," Lewis said. "Concentrated. Much more so." Malicious smile. "Like ever so much more grateful to you, darling Amber."
Plucking away her expression like a spider web.
Lewis read to the children every Tuesday and Thursday. He continued to be inexplicably late. He couldn't be reading to children for five hours.
Might he be dating someone?
Imagine if someone else took him on, drove him from place to place, paid for the medicine that kept him alive for the perhaps four years (but who knew what might happen, how that statistic might stretch with medical advances) he had left. It would be as sudden, as welcome as a fairy godmother granting a wish, removing the responsibility for Lewis from her life.
What would it be like if someone else—perhaps a nurse with excellent health insurance, susceptible to wounded bird sorts—took that on?
Extracting the hospital newsletter from the mail one morning, she looked through the list of classes and discussion groups: Social Networking for Seniors ; Health Insurance Basics ; Applying for Disability Benefits ; Journaling for Beginners ; Intensive Journaling ; Extreme Journaling ; Alcoholics Anonymous ; Sexoholics Anonymous ; Netheads Anonymous ; Strength Training and You ; Ornithology for Your Window Feeder ; How to Live Without Salt ; You and Your Colon ; Learning to Trust Doctors ; Making a Living Will ; Vegan Cooking .
Practical Shamanism .
She'd smelled sage and lavender wafting from his room. New habits: an odd gesture with his hands before and after eating, a phrase said under his breath. A scuttle of unintelligible words, like a tinny echo of a prayer in foreign movie. Sitting
She drew herself, Lewis on the pad, drew them looking at each other. Similar features. Lewis was skinnier, but not by much. Staring, caught.
Trapped .
She wiped the image away, let a story distract her. Caught herself moments after seven. She'd be ten minutes late. Not inexcusable, but he wouldn't excuse it. And she'd wasted valuable alone time on reading! She raced down the steps to the car with an angry clatter of keys.
She pulled into a waiting space in front of the hospital lobby. Lewis was staring at his watch. Her dashboard read 7:13.
He attacked, vicious as a wasp, as soon as he entered. "Glad you could spare time to pick me up."
"Lewis, sorry, I lost track," she said.
"Beggars can't be choosers," he said. Brittle, icy-edged in a way that sometimes signaled a fit's imminence, sometimes just a tantrum. "Perhaps you would be so kind as to stop at the drug store? I have some things to get. Wait in the car if you want."
He knew she'd opt for that.
After ten minutes she raised her head in time to see Lewis exiting the drugstore.
She readied her keys but saw him turn into the craft store that was next door.
What was he doing?
She waited.
The store was busy. A few dozen people came and went through the double glass doors before Lewis exited, carrying a plastic bag. Stems protruded from the opening, brown and knobby. Dried flowers?
He dumped his purchases in the back seat. She smelled eucalyptus. His look dared her to ask.
Whatever it was, he'd tell her in time.
The car chimed reproof as she started it, flashing an indicator for Lewis's missing seatbelt. As always, she thumbed it off, rather than argue with him.
"How was reading to the kids?" she asked.
"Fine," he said. "Good kids. Most of them."
"Not all of them?" she said, surprised.
"Think being close to dying makes somebody automatically good?" he said.
He pressed his fingers to the ledge where door met window, marched his hand along, middle finger become a head half raised.
When they were little, Amber eight to Lewis's three, they had pretended their hands were animals that explored the tops of the sofa and walked like tightrope dancers along the playpen's high wire.
The memory made her smile.
"People just become more of whatever they were to begin with," Lewis said. "Concentrated. Much more so." Malicious smile. "Like ever so much more grateful to you, darling Amber."
Plucking away her expression like a spider web.
Lewis read to the children every Tuesday and Thursday. He continued to be inexplicably late. He couldn't be reading to children for five hours.
Might he be dating someone?
Imagine if someone else took him on, drove him from place to place, paid for the medicine that kept him alive for the perhaps four years (but who knew what might happen, how that statistic might stretch with medical advances) he had left. It would be as sudden, as welcome as a fairy godmother granting a wish, removing the responsibility for Lewis from her life.
What would it be like if someone else—perhaps a nurse with excellent health insurance, susceptible to wounded bird sorts—took that on?
Extracting the hospital newsletter from the mail one morning, she looked through the list of classes and discussion groups: Social Networking for Seniors ; Health Insurance Basics ; Applying for Disability Benefits ; Journaling for Beginners ; Intensive Journaling ; Extreme Journaling ; Alcoholics Anonymous ; Sexoholics Anonymous ; Netheads Anonymous ; Strength Training and You ; Ornithology for Your Window Feeder ; How to Live Without Salt ; You and Your Colon ; Learning to Trust Doctors ; Making a Living Will ; Vegan Cooking .
Practical Shamanism .
She'd smelled sage and lavender wafting from his room. New habits: an odd gesture with his hands before and after eating, a phrase said under his breath. A scuttle of unintelligible words, like a tinny echo of a prayer in foreign movie. Sitting
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