Heroine(23)

Mostly what I feel, when I look at all that OxyContin, is absolute relief.





Chapter Seventeen


strong: having active physical power, the power of exerting great bodily force—or—having passive physical power, the ability to bear or endure

My phone vibrates with a reminder about a checkup with Dr. Ferriman. I’m a month out from conditioning, putting half weight—and sometimes more—on my leg, but still with the assistance of crutches. I get my stuff together and check in on Mom. She’s napping, the small hump of her body lonely in the king-size bed she and Dad splurged on for their anniversary.

An hour later I’m back in the teddy-bear-papered room, their cherubic faces less annoying when I’m not in pain. I feel great, actually, good enough to have left the crutches at home, thanks to one of Ronald Wagner’s OxyContin, the full 80 milligrams coursing through my system.

There’s the two-tap knock on the door, then Dr. Ferriman comes in.

“Mickey,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” I say, swinging my legs to prove it.

Ferriman rotates my leg, asks me questions about my pain levels, which I can honestly answer are quite low.

“You’re doing great,” he finally says, finishing up. “Putting weight on the leg?”

“Yep.”

“Without too much additional pain?”

“Nope.” Not after taking Ronald’s Oxy, for sure. “Can I get rid of the crutches?”

Ferriman crosses his arms, eyeing me up and down. “Only if you promise me you’ll go back to them if necessary.”

“Promise,” I say quickly, as if I’m afraid he’ll take it back. “Can I start conditioning in March?”

“Can I stop you?”

Technically, he can. So I don’t appreciate the joke.

“Yes,” he says quickly, reading my mood. “But I strongly advise you to consider a different position. All that crouching behind the plate could create long-term problems for your injury.”

I nod as if I’m listening, but I only heard the first part. I can play.

Ferriman is reaching for the door when he pauses, and I wonder if he’s noticed that I’m a little slow with my responses, my eyes lingering too long on certain things that catch my attention, like the changing facial expressions of the teddy bears as the pattern in the wallpaper repeats itself.

Instead he says, “I’m so impressed with your recovery, Mickey. Really. To see you doing this well, after an injury like yours, is a testament to the healing capacity of the human body, but also to your willpower.”

“I . . . thank you,” I say, not really knowing what else would be appropriate.

“You’re a hell of a strong person, Mickey Catalan,” he says.

Somehow, this makes me feel like shit.

Dinner with the Galarzas will fix that.

Carolina and I are fixtures at each other’s houses, and I can almost claim to be as comfortable around their dinner table as I am on a softball field. Almost. The accident disrupted more than our health. Being housebound, unable to drive, then buried under piles of makeup work had taken me out of the weekly cycle of dinner with them. Tonight that changes. It’s one more step in my return to normalcy, I think, as I let myself in the side door without knocking. Most people would find that rude, but Mrs. Galarza—Clarita—had been more offended the one time I did knock.

“You knock on your own door?” she’d asked, finger in the air to punctuate her question as I shook my head. “Then don’t knock on mine.”

Still, it’s been so long that I do feel odd walking straight into their kitchen. That is, until I’m folded into Clarita’s arms, a spoon dripping asopao barely missing my face in the process.

“How is this girl?” she asks, pushing me back just as forcefully as she pulled me in, to get a better look at me. “Wait . . . where are the crutches?”

“Gone,” I tell her, emotion closing my throat so that I can’t get more than that out.

“You look good,” Mr. Galarza—Ian—says from the table, folding his laptop shut. “I told my wife it will take more than a car accident to keep you two from playing.”

I nod, unable to speak. I’m saved from breaking down into actual tears when Carolina shows up, pulling a sweatshirt over her head. She’s got pillow creases on one side of her face and her hair is sticking up in spots, but she gives me a smile.

“Cinco minutos,” Clarita says, glancing at her pot of soup.

I’ve been raised past the point of a guest in the Galarza family, which means I get to walk in without knocking, but it also means I have jobs. I help Carolina set the table, pausing only when Mr. Galarza glances up at the place settings and asks, “?Aaron no viene?”

“Not tonight,” Carolina says, and her dad can barely hide his disappointment.

“?Por qué no?” Clarita asks, carrying the soup pot over to the table. “Donde comen dos, comen tres.”

What two can eat, three can eat . . . a saying I’ve heard more than once in this house, although it’s usually being used to invite me to stay for dinner, not Aaron.

“He is a good boy,” Clarita says to me. “But his Spanish . . .” She shakes her head.