Aftermath of Dreaming(111)

32




It has been fourteen weeks since I’ve heard Andrew’s voice and all I want is to see his face in front of me. Instead I am looking at big, pillowy gloves coming straight at my head. Not at the same time. My partner’s first combination is right jab, left hook, right hook, which I am supposed to swerve from. Okay, it’s not called “swerve.” Or “duck,” which is the only other word I can think of, but something that I can never remember what they call it when you move out of the way, but in that very specific boxer way where you’re gone, but still near, so you can hit them back. It has to do with the rhythm of your weight. How quickly and easily you can shift so you’re gone when they’re there, but right there before they’re gone. I’m still learning.

And the worst part is that I can’t hit back. We’re taking turns—my partner, Dave, and I. He’s on offense, so I’m defense. Dave’s a seventeen-year-old…kid, I guess you call them. I don’t know. I never hung around one that age before because I jumped over that group when I was fourteen, and going to that all-girl Catholic school, I just never saw one this close up. But here Dave is, with legs like a man, hands still young, every part of his body looking a different age, like someone hit the random button on the CD player of his growth. It’s his turn to punch and my turn to shift my rhythm and move my weight toward him, which is the trick, see, because that’s when you can switch from just being in the getting-hit-but-trying-to-cover defense role to the yes-your-punches-are-so-in-my-face-but-I’m-moving-toward-you-backing-you-up-while-effortlessly-missing-your-hits-ready-to-make-my-own position.

But that is not happening. What is happening is that Dave’s punches are hitting me. Not hard. He’s got big, pillowy gloves. I’ve got a mouth guard. I’m able to do some swerving-duck, but still I am getting hit. Repeatedly. On purpose. And I start getting annoyed. He’s seventeen. Energy comes out of nowhere on him like growth spurts shooting out his hands, but I’m trying. I’m stepping forward, shifting the weight, moving my head. It’s very hot. My face is melty and wet. I swerve another duck, glance up, and catch Dave smiling at me. Hard. Happy about all this. And suddenly, I start to cry. Silently, but cry. Which I realize is a tactic Tyson and Ali have never used, probably because it doesn’t work, although maybe Dave can’t tell I’m crying because my face was already quite wet, but now tears are adding lots more, then my nose joins in this liquid fest, but still I try to change my rhythm and shift my weight, which is right when his left hook nails me, busting my lip against the safe mouth guard.

I can tell he feels rotten. So does the coach whose back was turned when it happened. I consider sticking around to make them feel better, but all I want to do is leave and maybe never return. I promise them I’ll go to Cedars Hospital, but, honest to God, I just want to go home. I take the towel they give me with the ice wrapped in it, get in my truck, and speed to the 10 where anything can get blotted out if I ride it long enough.

Andrew has been out of my life as fast as he came in. I keep telling myself this is for the best. He’s married with two children. Stay away.

He must have come to that decision, too. He told me that first night we were together in December that he had been good, his word for not sleeping around. Until me, I thought. So it’s good that he hasn’t called me in three and a half godforsaken months. I just wish I completely felt that way.

I skipped my exit. The sign snuck by me like those subliminal ads you hear about in films, so I get off at Hoover to turn back around. I decide to check my messages while pretending to myself that I’m not hoping one from Andrew is miraculously there. I hook back onto the 10 as my answering machine clicks on.

Suzanne’s voice is telling me that she tried to reach me on my cell phone, Jesus, she wishes I would leave it on, just call her immediately. I am almost at my exit and consider waiting until I’m home to call her back, but she sounds angry, frantic, and scared all at once so I punch in her number, as trepidation makes a wider space in my stomach than I can hold because Suzanne’s voice sounded exactly as it did when she called to tell me about Momma’s—

“Hello?” My sister is practically shouting.

“Hey, it’s me, what’s wrong?” I try to sound normal, hoping my tone will force her answer to be normal, but my words are hindered by the towel-wrapped ice and my enlarged lip getting in the way.

“Why are you talking like that?”

“It’s nothing, I’m fine. My lip got hit in boxing tonight, but it’s nothing, I’m—”

“Boxing?” Like I said I was in the Arctic, she made it sound that far-fetched.

“Suzanne, what happened, why’d you—”

“Daddy died.”

“What?”

“Dad-dy died.” She spit the syllables out.

“No, Suzanne, no.” The trepidation has kicked itself inside out and is knocking me down from within, as fear, panic, and dread shoot out from it.

My sister is silent as I move my truck over to the shoulder of the 10. I am astonished that some part of my brain was untouched enough to heed a long-ago-heard safety advice—when in danger on a highway, pull to the side.

“Where? When? From what?” It is too impossible. Time and distance from my father have disappeared, leaving the irrational thought that I was just about to see him, was finally going to get to see him. I suddenly realize I have been dreading this news for years.