The most thoughtful gift left behind was a stack of books I hadn’t read yet, and a bookmark with a “Rohana”‘s telephone number.\u00a0 Well, I mean, I suppose thought went into all the gifts but they were mostly potted plants, and I could tell the petunias were probably thinking, “Not again.”\u00a0 They could have been petunias.\u00a0 Or geraniums.\u00a0 Or chrysanthemums.\u00a0 A few days ago I had people who could tell me, handle the spontaneous garden that seemed to have bloomed around me.\u00a0 I had Artur who could probably call a couple of these cousins, and Doloise always smelled of green, growing things.<\/p>\n
Honestly, my eyes still watered at the thought, but I was too tired to cry.<\/p>\n
I had some missing moments.\u00a0 Lots of time out of my life that nagged at me, making me wonder what happened between the time\u00a0 I was closing doors and the waking up in the middle of a burning restaurant.\u00a0\u00a0 Some bleeding, I’m sure.\u00a0 Probably something unmanly – Magda had had my clothes laundered.\u00a0 They didn’t exactly smell girly, but they weren’t marinated in Old Spice, either.<\/p>\n
The hospital had a lot to say to me, but I really wasn’t listening.\u00a0 You know, follow up with my regular doctor.\u00a0 I didn’t even ask them if a witchdoctor counted.\u00a0 After all, the only one I knew of would say, “Ooh, E,” and then I’d have to follow up with, an “Ooh, ah, ah.”\u00a0 And then there’d be tings, and tangs, and walla-walla-bing-bangs.<\/p>\n
You kind of have to finish that kind of joke.<\/p>\n
I hadn’t had any dreams.\u00a0 When I fell back, it was into darkness, and darkness gnawed at me.\u00a0 It didn’t consume, it merely worried at my bones, as if looking for something in particular.\u00a0 Had Vasilisa hidden a tall blue glass inside my chest?\u00a0 No, that didn’t make any sense at all.\u00a0 It nudged me with its ineffable nose, and occasionally stared and howled with its invisible eyes and inaudible cries.<\/p>\n
Of course I got to be wheeled out in a wheel chair at a solid, orderly pace. \u00a0It’s like a stroller for grown-ups, only we get frowned at when we look into the rooms on the way like we were at the zoo. \u00a0“Over here, a dialysis being performed in its native habitat…\u00a0\u00a0 On your left is the pudding frenzy.”\u00a0 I actually kind of like hospital pudding.<\/p>\n
“You gave me your spare key,” Maggie reminded me.\u00a0 My impromptu greenhouse went into her trunk.<\/p>\n
“Oh.\u00a0 I had wondered where that had gone,” I said.\u00a0 It was all we really said to each other for the fifteen minute drive.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t too proud to take her help up the stairs.\u00a0 My place felt different.\u00a0 Emptier.\u00a0 She set me up on the couch next to the television.<\/p>\n
“Rent’s been paid,” she said.<\/p>\n
“What?” I turned around to look at her.<\/p>\n
She passed me an opened envelope from my bank.<\/p>\n
“That’s a federal offense,” I muttered.<\/p>\n
She just smiled.<\/p>\n
I got to the deposit part of the statement and wiped my eyes because the numbers couldn’t have been right.<\/p>\n
“Guess I’ll be able to pay my medical bills after all,” I said.<\/p>\n
She passed some other mail to me, a utility bill, a couple of flyers (including one for a local gaming convention), and a couple I didn’t recognize.\u00a0 One turned out to be an advertisement offering to sell my home.\u00a0 The other gave me a literal chill.<\/p>\n
“Debts are not settled. -A.”<\/p>\n
I would have probably felt better if it had been letters cut out from newspapers and had it had instructions.\u00a0 “I have taken the Dragon hostage. Send me five unmarked fey with red caps or you’ll never see her again.”<\/p>\n
“Huh,” Maggie said, reading over my shoulder.\u00a0 “Doesn’t say who owes whom.”<\/p>\n
I shrugged.<\/p>\n
“There’s some prepackaged dinners in the freezer.\u00a0 I could put one in the microwave for you.”<\/p>\n
“I’m fine,” I said.\u00a0 I tried not to be snippy.<\/p>\n
“You’re snippy.”<\/p>\n
I didn’t say I’d succeeded.<\/p>\n
“Maybe a little,” I acknowledged.<\/p>\n
“I’m barging in and taking over your life.\u00a0 You’ve got every right to be mad at me for picking up the slack,” she said.\u00a0 She held her arms crossed in front of her, and she didn’t look at me.\u00a0 “I’ll give you some alone time, but I’m worried that you’re going to sulk.”<\/p>\n
“Everyone’s entitled to a little self-indulgent aggrieving of their woes.”\u00a0 I smiled a little.<\/p>\n
“So what aren’t you telling me?” she asked.<\/p>\n
My first impulse was to deny that I was keeping secrets, so I don’t know why I opened my mouth and said, “A lot of things.\u00a0 I have to process them first.”<\/p>\n
“Were you in love with the girl?”<\/p>\n
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I demanded.\u00a0 I actually shouted it, and hadn’t realized how angry or loud I was until I slapped the back of the couch with a hand.<\/p>\n
Maggie took a step back.\u00a0 “Probably because you’re touchy about it.\u00a0 I want to know, E.\u00a0 I know… things aren’t going to work out between us.\u00a0 We’re never in the right place at the right time, but we’ve got experience.\u00a0 Experience that’s going to keep us friends.\u00a0 And I’m asking as your friend. And as your friend, I’m also not asking you to tell me right now.\u00a0 Tell me in your own time, but know that I want to know.”\u00a0 She came closer and put a hand on my arm.\u00a0 “I love you.\u00a0 I’m sorry that I don’t love you the right way, but I do still love you.”\u00a0 She put my phone on the couch next to me.\u00a0 “You have my number.\u00a0 Sylvie will be over in the morning.\u00a0 Call me if you need anything tonight.”<\/p>\n
I didn’t say anything.\u00a0 I kind of shrugged as she left, in fact.\u00a0 At least she was being as honest as she knew how to be.<\/p>\n
I didn’t want to be friends.\u00a0 Not in that, “If I can’t have you, I don’t want anything to do with you,” fashion, but because when the passion was gone we really only had frustration left between us.\u00a0 Frustration doesn’t sound like a good anchor to a relationship.<\/p>\n
I stood up.\u00a0 I was shaky, and I have to say it hurt, but I was a constant “four” on that stupid chart.\u00a0 Four and above meant pain had to be addressed, and I had a prescription I’d get filled in the morning.<\/p>\n
I picked up a box from the corner where I keep all the empties and started sweeping through my art collection.\u00a0 My dragon statues, my posters off the walls, the books, the comics.\u00a0 Everything.<\/p>\n
It wasn’t until I ran across the meerkat coffee mug that I actually started crying.\u00a0\u00a0 I didn’t make it to my bed before the blackness took pity on me again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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