All's Well(15)

It was Dr. Rainier who first recommended Mark to me, nearly a year ago. Fortunately for you, he said, there’s a nationally renowned spine rehabilitation center right here in Massachusetts.

Really? I said through my drugged tears.

Oh, yes, Ms. Fitch. Right here in this very building. In the basement, in fact. He smiled. And I know just the therapist to pair you with. He’d be perfect for you. Mark.

And I remember I repeated the name as though I were receiving the Eucharist. Mark. I held it on my tongue like it was holy sustenance. I closed my eyes. Surely Mark would be better than Luke. Or Matt. Or Todd.

He’s going to help you, Ms. Fitch.

He’s going to help me, I repeated. And I believed it. When I first took the elevator down to the basement, to SpineWorks, Mark was standing there just beyond the doors. Waiting for me, clipboard in hand. His yin-yang pendant gleamed around his neck.

You must be Miranda, he said.

Wow, he said. I just love your T-shirt. The koi is my favorite fish, truth be told.

I gazed at Mark like he was a god.

Tell me, Miranda, he said gently. I want to know the whole story.

And I did tell Mark. I told Mark my whole case history—my fall off the stage, followed by the left hip pain, followed by the failed surgery, the bad recovery; the sudden pain down my right leg; the disc herniations; the MRI no doctor could agree upon; the steroid shots to the hip, to the spine; the acupuncture, the biofeedback, the man in the white lab coat who stabbed my breast like he was driving a stake through the heart of a vampire, the Chinese-medicine doctor who needled my peroneal nerve and then I involuntarily kicked him in the face—and Mark listened; he nodded; he made little noises of what I presumed to be sympathy; he pressed his palms together as though he were praying for me; he pressed the tips of his index fingers to his lips.

Tell me more, Mark said. Like he couldn’t get enough of my story. Not since my stage days, in fact, had I had such a rapt audience.

It was hard to keep everything straight, of course. Facts and precise descriptions and the order of things kept escaping me. I kept apologizing for this.

Never, Mark said. Never apologize. You’re doing so great. You’re doing so well.

When I was done talking, how thoughtfully Mark nodded. How tenderly he took me through a diagnostic examination. Asking me to bend forward. Carefully, carefully. Then bend backward. Easy now. How does that feel?

I thought I could tell Mark the truth.

It hurts, I said. Terribly.

I expected Mark to roll his eyes, to shake his head at this. I was so used to the cruelty of Luke, to the indifference of Matt. But Mark only nodded. Of course. Of course it did.

I believe I can help you, Mark said at last.

You do?

And I remember he took my hands in his. They were in blue surgical gloves, but I could feel their warmth pulsating through the latex.

I’m going to take ownership of your pain, Miranda, Mark said. He put a gloved hand to his chest, like he was making a declaration of love.

But what if you can’t help me? I whispered.

Mark smiled. How about we cross that bridge when we get to it?

We. My heart soared. Tears swelled behind my eyes though I did not cry. I had been trained by Luke, who told me he didn’t do crying.

If you cry, Luke had said, I’m going to walk out of this room. He’d said it smiling.

Miranda, Mark said gently, I’d like to show you something.

What? I whispered.

It’s a video. I’m going to send you a link. Will you watch it, Miranda? I think it would be such a great place for us to start.

Us.

Of course I’ll watch it, I said. I’d love to.

I watched the video later that evening, standing crookedly by my dining room table, my laptop propped on a stack of theater textbooks. What would it be? A new series of exercises? A new kind of therapy we were going to try? I was so excited when I clicked the link. It was a cartoon. It starred a giant cartoon brain with large unblinking eyes. A spinal cord dangled from its back like a rat’s tail. It had a stick for a body. Little stick arms and legs too. I watched the brain wander on its stick legs through a roughly drawn world under a smudgy charcoal sky. It looked sad. Because it believed it was in pain. Because, according to the voice-over narrator, pain lives in the brain. I remember feeling a flicker of rage then. Was this how Mark truly saw me? As a dour cartoon brain trapped in its own gray world? I recalled his wide-open eyes gazing at me in such rapture. His pressed-together palms. The warmth of his hands through his surgical gloves when they held mine. No. No, surely I was mistaken.

That was almost a year ago.

Now? Now after nearly a year of twice-weekly sessions, in which I have not improved, in which I have only gotten worse, things have grown colder between us. Now Mark doesn’t meet me at the elevator doors anymore. Now I have to wait for Mark in the waiting room, and he is often late, still with the patient he sees before he sees me. I can hear a woman’s hellion laughter ringing from the gym, and I know it is the laughter of a woman who still has faith in Mark’s capabilities. Now Mark barks my name from the opposite end of the hall, and he looks away while I rise from my chair and limp toward him, dragging my dead leg, no less stiff for all the needles he has driven into it, all the times he’s tugged on my foot attempting to pull my hip from its socket, scraped my thigh with stainless steel, pressed the pads of his fingers so deeply into the flesh that he’s left black bruises.