Bleeder (28 page)

“It’s nothing for you to worry about,” the father said, pulling the
children to him. He towered above them like a statue. “Nothing to worry about.” And they hugged. And their father cried some more.

“Are you ready to eat?” he asked, breaking their long, mournful embrace.

“Yes.”

So, they piled into the family car, now thinking about hamburgers and crisp fries while their mother stayed, still shut up and crying behind her closed door.

When they returned, she had the tea glasses iced and filled, the napkins folded round, and the plates set out at their places, and none mentioned her tears as they ate their meal in silence.

THE OPEN DOOR

1998
. T
HERE IS BUT ONE THING LEFT TO DO
. I
FIND THE SCRAP OF
paper given me so long ago and dial the number. The phone rings in the receiver. She answers.

“Hey, Maria. This is Shelby.”

And I can feel her smile at the other end, for it is my own.

Often I’ve thought about her and have wondered what happened, but I never called. For me, Maria was a travesty of timing. Then I had nothing of myself to share with her. I consider how my life has depended so much on timing. My factor invented the same year I was born, that’s timing. My health falling in dangerous decline just when protease inhibitors and cocktail therapies swooped in to sustain me, that’s timing. And now, calling Maria just as I’m beginning to feel the other parts of my life falling into place . . . perhaps this is timing.

“And where have you been?” she asks.

“Recovering,” I say.

“And just who was that girl you were pulling around the hospital that last time I saw you?”

“Oh,” I say laughingly. “That was my sister and that is just another long story that you’ll have to endure someday.”

We make plans and when the upcoming weekend of our date arrives, I
drive to Chapel Hill and spot Maria waiting under the restaurant’s awning, her coat wrapped snug about her.

“Wow,” she says when I near. “You’ve really filled out.”

I run my hand over my chest and puff it out a bit.

“It’s the swimming, I believe. The plentiful rest I’ve had while at home.”

“Well, you look great.”

“I’m even better now.”

We pull ourselves together, and it is good to feel her next to me. At dinner, I explain about my past. And when I tell her about my HIV, she never flinches.

“So now that you’re better, what are you going to do next?”

“Well, since you ask . . . I think I’m going to write a memoir.”

“Humph.” She sips her wine. I mine. “That’s like an autobiography, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Well, what’s the difference?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s like
sofa
and
couch.
The same.”

“Well, I think it’ll make a great story.” She sips again. “Think I’ll be in it?”

“Maybe. I haven’t gotten to the ending yet, so there’s a possibility.”

Outside, the summer is young and warms us both, and as I stroll the street I walked in less happier times, I feel that sick tug in my gut. I see the coffee shop where I drank away my fatigue and the road I took every day to Aster Elementary and then to Barnes & Noble. But Maria turns to me, takes my hand.

“Are you okay?” she asks. “You seem melancholy.”

“I’m okay. Just remembering is all.”

“Don’t worry about it. That’s the past. This is the future.” And she smiles again, tugs like a child at my arm.

And later that night she tells me she’s glad we ran into each other again, happy we both had a year of getting better.

We sip more wine, shed our clothes in the coolness of her apartment room.

“I’m not just some girl,” she says, our flesh bodies cooling off from passion, from heat.

“I never thought you were.”

And at night when we sleep, her legs jerk and jump and rouse me from
my slumber. I wake her, calling her Rabbit for the fields I think she must skip through in dreams.

“Where were you hopping to?” I stroke her supple back, her resting body.

“Nowhere. I’m going nowhere if that’s okay with you.”

She drifts back off, her slender arms around me.

The next day, we go for a picnic, passing through the valleys, groves, hills, and fields before pulling off on an open stretch of country road. We hike down a small ravine and sit upon the rocks by the shallow riverside while around us the melodious birds sing. It is an unreal moment, one that is more something one would read in a poem, and less something that would happen. And yet it has.

When the warm sun goes down around our picnic, we spread ourselves on a blanket, lie flat against our backs, and stare up into the night sky to trace the constellations with our young fingers. I spy the Milky Way of stars, which are a hazy cluster against the jet-black dark. We lie there so long that soon clouds come and blow over our view of the night sky. And rain follows. The sweet scent of summer rain pours upon us, making puddles of the ground, while we gather our things and dash for the car.

As we drive away, a tumultuous sky sparks rods of lightning, and the earth smells serene. The wet swish of my tires clicks off the miles as I speed along open road. The cool night drifts damply through my down-rolled window while beside me Maria has already fallen asleep. She is comfortable and at peace, as am I.

Merging onto the interstate, a passing eighteen-wheeler disrupts my tranquility, plowing through the rainy dark, spewing spray in my path and roaring loudly. I let it pass. The taillights blur across my windshield as the semi merges back into my lane and dusts my drive with upturned mist, the truck’s red flash stark against the black-wet road, the black-wet sky.

The storm sparks: a gentle flicker over a clean-washed road. My enormous heart beats on. I breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I’
D LIKE TO THANK MY WIFE
, V
ICKY, FOR HER UNENDING AND
unquestionable support and love; all my friends who became unwitting characters in this book, all those who, for one reason or another didn’t, but who I know I can lean on just the same; the teachers who’ve guided me to this path; the countless caregivers (especially the UNC Hemophilia and Thrombosis Center) who’ve kept me in the game of life; the health care professionals at Caremark and BioRx who’ve assured that I’ve gotten my medicines, maintained my insurance, and stayed in relative comfort and peace of mind; PSI whose contribution in paying my insurance premiums in times of need is inestimable; PEN American for their generous and needed grant; and my family for supporting me through illness and health, especially to Mom and Dad who, instead of propping me in front of a TV when I was ill, gave me books to read and showed me a whole world of ideas—a place I just might fit into.