This Close to Okay(39)
“How many kids does your brother have?”
“One. A boy. He’s six. I’m knitting this sweet little sweater for him.” Tallie held up her yarn and needles before grabbing her phone. She swiped through and held it out, showing Emmett a photo of a little brown boy grinning, missing teeth. “His name is River…and I don’t want that name to trigger anything for you because of the bridge and yesterday. It’s okay for me to keep going?”
“Yes. And no one else is like you, by the way,” Emmett said, taking the phone from her, looking closely at the photo of River—the little boy whose picture was stuck to the fridge more than once. “He’s super cute,” he said, feeling as if his heart had been wrenched open, scooped out.
“You haven’t mentioned any siblings. You don’t have them?”
They were surrounded by candle flickers. The house went wavy and shimmering, like they were being consumed. Deuteronomy 4:24; Hebrews 12:29. God as a consuming fire. And the devil, always there, too. Confusing him, telling him to give up, to let go, that there is only one way out. The constant grappling. Dissociation again—the swirly, conflicting feeling of floating gravity. No matter how fast or far he ran from it, it caught up to him. He stood, closed his eyes.
“Are you feeling okay?” Tallie asked.
“Sometimes I get dizzy.” He lifted his weighty eyelids, focused on her.
“I’ll get you a glass of water,” she said, walking to the kitchen.
“I’m making too much trouble for you.” He followed behind her.
“You aren’t. I want to help you, but you have to let me. Are you on antidepressants? They can cause dizziness. You should sit. I’ll make some more tea,” she said. She handed him the water and went to the table, pulling out a chair for him. She put the kettle back on.
(The chair is quieter than expected as it slides. The walnut wood of the chair matches the walnut wood of the table exactly. There are four chairs. The kitchen tile: gray sunbursts on white. The sunbursts are connected by thin gray lines. Tallie’s breath smells like tea.) “I’m not on antidepressants,” he said, sitting. His heart beat as if he’d been running. The edges of the world curved in closer, dimmed. Tallie sat, too.
“Have you ever been on antidepressants?”
“Not really.”
“Dizzy spells are the worst.”
“No, I don’t have siblings. I’m an only child.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the hospital? We could go if you’re not feeling well,” Tallie said.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital, Miss Tallie, thank you. Will you hand me my backpack, please?”
“You don’t mind me getting it?”
“No. Will you get it for me, please?” he asked, putting his head in his hands.
TALLIE
She found his backpack next to the couch. Pam had perched herself upon it. Tallie apologized for having to disrupt the cat’s napping area and petted her head. She handled his backpack gently, placed it on the floor at his feet in the kitchen.
“I’ll show you what’s in here. It’s not scary. Just stuff,” he said, unzipping the front pocket and pulling out an unlabeled orange plastic bottle rattling with pills. “Allergy medicine and beta-blockers. The beta-blockers settle my heart, my adrenaline. It’s a low dose, but they can make me dizzy.” He took a small, round orange pill with his water.
Medication: antihistamines, beta-blockers. Antidepressants, maybe?
“Of course,” she said, knowing beta-blockers blocked norepinephrine as well as adrenaline and were also prescribed for anxiety and stage fright, relaxing the automatic fight-or-flight response. She didn’t treat any clients who relied on beta-blockers alone for anxiety management, but at least Emmett had something.
Tallie made two fresh mugs of tea as Emmett put the items on her kitchen table, the things she’d felt but not seen. The fuzzy blue snow hat she’d bought him at the outlet mall. A black lighter, a soft pack of cigarettes. A pair of oatmeal-colored wool socks rolled into a neat thick ball. One pair of white boxer shorts. A navy-blue pocket T-shirt folded into a pair of dark denim. The diamond wedding ring in its ring box. A bag containing a travel toothbrush and toothpaste, a plastic tube of deodorant. An unopened unscented bar of soap. A clean white washcloth, a clean black towel. The snaky cord and chunky thunk of his phone charger. An old plum-red copy of the New Testament—the size of a deck of cards—with a scrap of paper torn from a children’s coloring book sticking out. A brick-size manila envelope. A pair of citron fabric butterfly wings with elastic shoulder loops.
“Can I?” Tallie asked, sitting and holding her hand out.
“Yes,” Emmett said. “Unremarkable, like I said. And I have that Kershaw knife I keep clipped to my jeans if you want to take it from me. So you’re not scared.”
“I’m not scared,” Tallie said. Could she levitate from sincerity? She picked the items up, inspected them as if she were an archaeologist, attempting to glean everything she could from his culture and the time period in which he lived. She felt closer to him immediately, seeing and touching more of his stuff, as if his secrets had taken physical form. When she got to the envelope, she peeked inside and gasped. What had felt like a book wasn’t a book.