Here So Far Away(77)

As badly as I felt that I’d given my parents such a scare, this was truly terrible detective work. The book from Francis was in my nightstand drawer, the cigarettes that now hurt my chest to smoke in various pockets. A condom or two could have been turned up, and I wouldn’t blame a person if he made a false connection between them and the half-dead rose in the bud vase. All my kid stuff was under the bed. It was almost farcical how much my dad had lost his grip since last summer.

“Dad, I’m not planning to do myself in. I went to a play. I got high.”

“We’re in a hospital.”

There was that.

“Your mother and I, we know you’re having a rough time. And I know when you’re young it seems like rough times will never end, but they do. So I’m asking you, please, I’m asking you to live with it, whatever it is. Even if it hurts sometimes to be alive.”

He was clutching his knee with his good hand, tobacco-stained fingers against his blue jogging pants. Something snapped inside me. Because he wasn’t wrong; I did go to the brink. It was very nearly death by rabbit. I didn’t know who I was anymore, and maybe he didn’t know who he was either, now that he wasn’t the Sergeant, but only one of us was trying to put things right again. Every morning, putting on my pants. This was one of the few times I’d seen him beyond the boundaries of our yard since last summer.

“Why?” I said. “So I can watch you fall apart? What are you going to lose next? Your kidneys? Your eyesight? You can’t give up buttered donuts for us, but I’m supposed to do what it takes to stay alive for you?”

Was it tough or was it mean?

I meant it, anyway, every word of it thrumming through my body as I looked again at those yellow fingers.

The doctor pulled back the curtain. “Everything okay, Frances?”

“George,” my dad said quietly. “She goes by her middle name.”

“It doesn’t matter, Dad,” I said.

“I don’t mind calling you by your actual name,” the doctor said. “You comfortable having your old man here?”

“I don’t know, is it anything embarrassing?”

“No pregnancy, STDs, or drugs he doesn’t already know about.”

“He can stay.” Now was not the time to tell my dad he was being overly parental.

“Then first things first. That’s acid burbling around your stomach and up your esophagus. Because you’re not eating enough, probably because of the acid, you should be tested for low iron, low potassium, low magnesium, low a lot of things. You been feeling lethargic? Dizzy?”

“Yeah.”

“No shit.”

Were doctors allowed to say that?

“You said you have pain when you eat,” the doctor continued, “and when you’re lying down. We can fix that. But tell me this: Why didn’t you get yourself checked out sooner? Were you scared?”

“I thought—I thought it was my heart. Pretty dumb.”

He consulted my chart. “Sounded okay, blood pressure’s good. Does it feel like it’s squeezing?”

“No.”

“Palpitations? Fast heartbeat? Shortness of breath?”

“No, just that burning feeling. When I eat, when I don’t eat, even when I’m not thinking about it.”

“Even when you’re not thinking about what?”

“What?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. Even when you aren’t thinking about what do you feel the acid shooting up? Something stressing you out?”

“Um . . .”

My dad was now sitting forward in his chair. “Maybe you should excuse us, big guy,” the doctor said.

“No, it’s nothing,” I said. “School stress, you know?” Wait a second. “Though it’s been hard to stay focused. Because I’ve been feeling tired. And dizzy. So dizzy. To be honest, my grades have been suffering. . . .”

The doctor had been making notes on my chart as I talked. Now he looked up and his expression said, Not buying it, but tell you what, I respect the effort.

“Well! We’d better get you a note for school, then, since this has been going on for a while. Your regular doctor should run the bloodwork to check for the deficiencies, and I’ll write you a prescription to help with that acid reflux, which you can start taking now.”

“That’ll make it stop hurting?”

“That’ll stop you from burning a hole in your gut.”

“So it’s definitely not my heart.”

“Your heart is fine, George, but you’re on your way to an ulcer. You think you’re handling something, but you ain’t handling it. That’s what your body’s telling you.” The doctor put his hand on my dad’s shoulder. “You’ll make sure she takes her prescription.”

Dad nodded.

“And, George? Eat some frigging food.”





Thirty-Nine


I was so stupid. I actually believed that if I did what the doctor ordered, I’d get over Francis. Take my medicine, do my schoolwork, practice my chords, eat some frigging food, ask for forgiveness, forgive. Like launching a skiff into the water: a push and a push and a push and a sudden release. That’s not how it works.

But it did get easier. One day, when I was working alone in the computer room at lunchtime, I pressed my hand to my heart. Well, my esophagus. The humming was barely there. I pressed harder, knowing that I was losing something painful but also dear.