When My Heart Joins the Thousand(48)



I look down at his legs. “Are you sure nothing’s broken.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got metal rods in my femurs, remember?” He knocks a fist against one leg. “I’m the bionic man. Indestructible.”

“Well, you’ve certainly got an indestructible head. It’s solid rock all the way through.”

He blinks. For a moment, he looks baffled. “Wait—was that a joke?” A broad smile breaks across his face. “I don’t believe it. You made a joke.”

“I can do that, you know.”

He takes his hat off and rubs his head, grinning. The flush in his cheeks is bright, his nose pink from the cold, and his hair is mussed up, flattened in places and sticking up in others. There’s a string of Christmas lights on the nearby tree—though it’s not even December yet—and I can see them reflected in his eyes. I wish I had a camera. Instead, I close one eye and think click, which is something I do when I don’t ever want to forget a particular image. I reach out and stroke his coat sleeve. It’s soft against my fingertips.

Then I notice how labored his breathing has become. “How much pain,” I ask. “One to ten.”

He hesitates, then mumbles, “Four.”

I look at his pulse, hammering in his throat—135 beats per minute—and mentally adjust that to a six. He overexerted himself today, but I know better than to say anything about it. This was something he needed to do.

Stanley fidgets, opens his mouth, and then closes it. Finally he takes a deep breath, reaches into his coat, and pulls something out. It’s a carnation. The bloom is bloodred, with lots of delicate crinkly petals, and half-flattened from being stuck inside his coat for so long.

He holds it out to me. His Adam’s apple moves up and down. “Here.”

I stare.

“I said I wanted to court you. Remember?”

Slowly I take it from him. I feel off-balance. Dizzy. A red carnation means something, in the language of flowers. But when I try to remember, something inside me flinches shut.

Stanley sits, shoulders tense, hands tightly interlaced in his laps. The flush in his cheeks grows brighter, creeping into his ears.

“Stanley . . . I . . .” My fingers tighten on the carnation’s stem. “I—”

“I just wanted to give it to you. That’s all. You don’t have to say anything.”

I clutch the carnation. I’m not sure what to do with it, so I stuff it into my coat pocket.

His hands tighten on his knees. He pulls his hat back over his ears, picks up his cane and pushes himself to his feet. “Want to head back?”

I stand, and we walk toward the car.

Back at my apartment, alone, I take the carnation out of my coat pocket and study it. The petals are flattened, the leaves bent, the stem broken, oozing clear sap like blood. I’ve already crushed the life out of it with my clumsy paws.

Still, I can’t just throw it away. I get a bit of clear tape and wrap it around the broken stem like a bandage. Then I fill a glass with water, put the carnation inside it, and set it on my coffee table.

A flower is a morbid gift, if you think about it—the severed reproductive organ of a plant, preserved and kept alive through the equivalent of a feeding tube. What sense is there in prolonging its inevitable death?

But maybe that’s the point. Everything dies. All that we do in the meantime is just delay the inevitable . . . and yet there’s still beauty and softness. Is it worth it?

With a fingertip, I stroke one bloodred petal. I think about Stanley’s smile.

Then I remember what he said to me after he broke his arm, about how people like him sometimes lose their hearing. If that happens, how will I communicate with him?

I pull on my coat, walk to the library, and check out three books. I sit at one of the long tables and open the largest book, titled simply American Sign Language. I find the sign for “friend” and practice it, interlocking my index fingers once, then twice.

I turn the page—and freeze. There’s an illustration of a hand with the forefinger, thumb, and pinkie finger extended. Love.

A dull rumble emanates from within the Vault, and the massive doors shudder. From the basement of my brain, a voice whispers, Whatever happens, it’s because I love you.

I slam the book shut. It takes me a few minutes to get my breathing under control.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE


My appointment with the judge is approaching fast; I cross off the days on my calendar, and the collection of red x’s grows until they fill the page.

On Wednesday, Dr. Bernhardt arrives at the usual time, his thinning hair neatly combed. “Well,” he says. “This is it. Our final meeting.” He takes a seat and folds his hands. “How do you feel?”

“I feel . . .” I start to say fine, then stop. “I don’t know.”

“Is there anything in particular you want to talk about?”

I fidget in my chair. Our final meeting. The thought is strange. Unsettling. “I don’t think I’m ready,” I blurt out.

“It’s not too late to change your mind.”

I can’t turn back now, when I’m so close. “I haven’t changed my mind. I’m just . . .”

“Scared?”

I don’t answer. It’s obvious. Of course I’m scared. I breathe in slowly through my nose. “I’m going through with this. I’ll do whatever it takes. I want to be independent.”

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