The Harm in Asking: My Clumsy Encounters with the Human Race (34 page)

I obliged my father’s request, thereby giving him something to do while robbing myself of the same. To keep busy I tried feeling sorry for myself. I did this exceptionally well and to further the cause focused on the most depressing thing that I could think of: that I would not be walking normally again. When that line of thinking got old, I moved along to the second most depressing thing that I could think of: that I’d become a daddy’s girl.

A daddy’s girl
.

It’s a term that gets tossed around too much, and always in a tone to suggest it’s somehow
not
a mark of shame for both the daddy and the girl. It’s said always with a self-delighted subtext:

Isn’t it
so
sweet? How I’m
so
close with my daddy?

And the thing is, it’s not. Not when you infantilize yourself. Not when you’re desperate for credit.

I’d thought this way, always, and although the sanest part of me understood that I was not
this
variety of daddy’s girl, I liked feeling sorry for myself; and pretending like I was, well, it helped nudge that whole process along. After all, my dad and I were living together full-time. He was bathing me, cooking my meals, tending to the transport of my makeshift commode. It might not have been sitting in my father’s lap or father-daughter cocktail hour, but I nonetheless felt like a hypocrite if I tossed the phrase around. Judging other daddy’s girls—and other girls,
and
most men
and
various children—is one of my most treasured pastimes. It enlivens me to the furthest reaches of my ability to be enlivened. With the skill set chipped away, I felt terribly bored and depressed.

Neither my boredom nor depression were helped by the fact that I almost never left the house. Mine was a fourth-floor walk up, and the fact of that combined with the overall process of maneuvering through a city made it too much of a hassle. Besides, I didn’t have much reason to leave the house anyway, seeing as how most of my friends were mostly unavailable to socialize. The fact of this surprised me. My social requirements seemed fair enough to me. I asked only that:

The bulk of my out-of-home activity centered around Angel, whom I saw three times a week for my ongoing
physical therapy. The appointments were a highlight at first, but then they got annoying. Because Angel got a girlfriend. His doing so set up an awful dynamic wherein my physical therapy was forced to overlap with his honeymoon stage, wherein
I
was forced to overlap the already unpleasant process of an ankle mobility exercise with the even worse process of listening to Angel talk about another woman.

“Sarita, you cannot
believe
her kindness.”

“Sarita,
my
woman is
so
more beautiful than
all
the other womans.”

“Sarita, for to know someone so
mucho
special? You cannot know the joy.”

I couldn’t know the joy. I didn’t know the joy. I myself was wildly, flagrantly single at the time, and I did not appreciate the way in which Angel’s new relationship interrupted my suspension of disbelief. Naturally, I knew Angel was out of my league, but at least when he wasn’t going on about some real, actual woman, I could trick myself into thinking otherwise.

Seeing as how you have to join them if you cannot fight them, I decided to ignore my impulse to fake snore whenever Angel mentioned his girlfriend, and instead I feigned interest. By this I mean that whenever Angel and I were together, I asked him questions about his girlfriend as a means to the end of stalking her online.

I went on in this vein until I learned everything I wanted to know: That Angel’s girlfriend was a midlevel hairstylist
with an adequate face and a fitness-model figure. That she maintained an active presence on both Facebook and her salon website. That she liked posting photos of haircuts she’d done, which she’d then intersperse with posts thanking Jesus for her talent, for the chance to “take advantage of this one life by doing what I love.”

These bits of information made my current situation easier to bear.

After three months and three weeks on crutches, it was time, once again, to try walking on my own. I could not do so casually, however. I could not simply cast them aside in my apartment, then see how the ol’ ankle coped with a victory march. The process of walking independently would have to be approved by Dr. Dean.

My mother called the night before the visit.

“Are you preparing?” she asked.

“Preparing?” I asked back.

“Preparing questions,” she answered. “For Dr. Dean. You should do that, you know. Prior to the actual appointment. You’ll get intimidated once you’re in there, overwhelmed by the prospect of walking again.”

“So?” I said.

“So,” she said, “plan your questions in advance. Here’s what I want you to ask: ‘1. Will the range of motion return? 2. Will the swelling go down? 3. Where can I expect to be one year from now? 4. (And this is important.) What can
I
do to make
myself
better?’ ”

I did as instructed. I wrote down these four questions and took them with me the following day.

Upon arrival, I was relegated to Dr. Dean’s usual minimal eye contact and monotone speech.

“Hello,” he said, staring at my ankle.

“Hello,” I said, staring at his wider-than-a-mile chest.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Let’s walk,” he said.

“Just like that?” I said.

“Yep,” he said. “Just like that. Just go ahead and walk.”

I was thrilled at the chance, but disappointed by the lack of fanfare. I would’ve liked … I don’t know, applause, maybe, from some of the surrounding staff. Instead, I took my first steps to resounding silence, and this granted unto me the charming opportunity to focus solely, silently, on what it felt like, now, to walk.

My ankle was flexible like a piece of damp timber is flexible: There’s
some
give, but barely. So it was that walking felt not at all like walking, but rather like carting an albatross around. A spiky, grinding pain set in.

“This feels … bad,” I said.

“That’s to be expected,” Dr. Dean responded.

Dr. Dean and I stared at each other. Or perhaps it was more like I was staring
at
Dr. Dean because I wanted a more reassuring answer, whereas Dr. Dean was staring
through
me because that was just sort of his deal.

Finally, my father broke the silence.

“Sara,” he said. “You had questions you wanted to ask.”

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, and reached into my pocket for my list.

I read with the robotic stiffness of an unseasoned actor.

“Will the range of motion return? Will the swelling go down? Where can I expect to be one year from now?”

I left out the bit about asking what
I
could do to make
myself
better, and that is because an eminent surgeon and I
aren’t going to have similar definitions of the word “work,” now, are we? The difference in our thinking would be the difference between a ten-minute stroll for the prize of a decent New York bagel versus a ten-mile run for the prize of bruised nipples. And anyway, even if I could channel that sort of dedication, why would I want to put it toward my ankle? I’d have one less thing to complain about if I did. One less thing to make me feel special and unique.

Dr. Dean answered my questions concisely.

“A little. Not really. That all depends on you.”

“That all depends on you” sounded, to me, like the answer to the question I had purposely left out. The overall point here was that shouldering responsibility for my own recovery would rob me of hours in the day I preferred to devote to self-pity.

I therefore made the choice to let the questions lie. All I said in response was, “Um, okay. Well, thanks. Am I done?”

And Dr. Dean had nodded.

“Yep,” he’d said. “You’re done. Just check out with my nurse before you leave.”

The orthopedics department was located on the third floor of the hospital. The physical therapy department was located seven floors above it, on the tenth. I had been told to schedule a physical therapy appointment with Angel as a follow-up to my orthopedics appointment with Dr. Dean. Which is to say, I had been told to schedule an appointment with Angel as an immediate follow-up to being taken off my crutches.

My father joined me at both of these appointments, and when we arrived to the second he made the unnecessary and (if I may say) moronic decision to mention my least favorite part of the first.

“Angel,” he said, “Sara’s surgeon made an important point today, I think.”

“Bueno,”
said Angel. “Tell me, please, then. Let me know.”

“Well,” said my dad, “the surgeon said that now that she’s off crutches, the recovery is largely up to her.”

“
Bueno
point-o,
yes
,” said Angel. “Very
bueno
. I was discussing with my girlfriend the other day, how important it is for us peoples to be responsible for us peoples.”

“For ourselves, you mean?”

“
Sí
, yes. For ourselves. My girlfriend, she is wise. She understand very much, and anyway, Sarita, yes: You must work for to make the ankle strong and good.
You
must push
youself
.”

“Pushing myself isn’t my thing, really.”

“But this is okeydokey. Angel make it
be
your thing.”

To his credit, Angel tried. He really did. Our physical therapy sessions took on a new, markedly more tortuous quality. On crutches, they had involved gentle stretching and presses. Off crutches, they involved crippling pain on a treadmill. They involved an excruciating game of hopscotch designed to engage the ailing limbs of deformed adults. They involved a little piece of hell on earth built around a seat belt and a folding chair. They involved a butter knife, which Angel would use for the delightful and specific job of “loosening the skin” of my “very big scars.”

The physical therapy facility had been lined on all sides with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and it was thanks to these mirrors that I knew how I looked as I did my various exercises. It was thanks to these mirrors that I knew I looked like some contestant off
The Biggest Loser
. I’m talking, like, one of the ones for whom gratitude is trumped by anger.

Too much hurt too much. And that—by my estimation—is how you know it’s time to walk away.

Speaking of walking, now that
I
was walking, it was time for my dad to go home. Following our double-bill appointments, he booked himself a flight back to Chicago.

Four months together. Every hour. Every day. But then he books a flight. And then he has to go.

My mom tells this story about how when she and my dad dropped me off to go to college, he, my dad, requested a window seat for the return flight so he could slump against the window and sob. His little girl was gone to the Big Bad Apple, gone to do as young girls do once they arrive: fail at creative enterprise, sleep with the occasional homosexual.

I thought I might get a similar bit of fanfare at this good-bye. However, at
this
good-bye, my dad wasn’t leaving behind a daughter becoming a woman, but rather a woman who’d been peeing in a vase. There wasn’t reason for him to cry so much as there was opportunity for him to wash his hands of the final urinary splash. So it was that for the first time in his life, my father, Joseph Barron, didn’t cry. Perhaps I should’ve been impressed, but instead I just felt sad myself and did the crying for him. It was like I’d been handed some supremely sad baton.
Here, sweetie. Take it. Since now you’re all alone
.

It’s weird how quickly one adjusts to company, in general, and servitude, in particular. I’d hoped my father’s absence would be compensated for by the fact that I was walking again, but then it turned out the whole walking thing wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. I tried drumming up new activities to occupy myself, but I’m never great with that sort of thing, and instead wound up stuck with what I’m good at: TV watching. Bagel buying.
Rigorous rounds of self-pity. The TV and bagels were, as ever, really delicious and fun. But the rounds of self-pity were less so. I couldn’t enjoy them as much without my dad around to hear them, and so I started calling home. Complaining over the telephone was the only viable alternative to complaining in person. So I’d call my parents in the morning, to complain to them into their afternoon. Or I’d call them in the afternoon, to complain to them into their evening. The routine worked well enough, but only until they got hip to my game, only until they learned to avoid the calls until they absolutely had to answer.

“Sweetheart! Hi! Sorry we missed your call.”

“You missed
five
calls.”

“Did we? Gosh. Well, I’m sorry about that. We were out for a walk. The weather’s lovely at the moment.”

“Out for a walk, eh? Sounds great. We should all be so lucky.”

The truth of the matter is that I dislike taking walks and always have. However, it is important when seeking attention to instill guilt in whomever you can.

When I visit home now, I like involving my family in bits and pieces of my ongoing physical therapy. I’ve been prescribed a half hour’s worth of ankle exercise that I’m supposed to do every day. I’m
supposed
to do it every day, but I
don’t
do it every day. And that is because I don’t like to do it if other people aren’t around. If other people
are
around, well, then it’s much more fun.
Then
I’ll make a show of it. I’ll ask someone to massage my scars or to push back on my foot to increase the mobility in the ankle.