The System #2 (8 page)

Brixton, Nebraska was not a dead-end after all.
 

“Gun first. Library second,” Lucy commanded with an authoritative nod. And Grant clapped her on the back.

“That’s my girl.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Ethan’s eyes opened. He blinked and tried to move, but his body felt heavy, like he was attempting to pull his arms through maple syrup.
 
He was in his own room, in his own bed. Everything was the way it had been before: there was his desk, still littered with homework from his college classes; and there, on his dresser, was a picture of him and Anna on the mountain, holding snowboards and each other, smiling under thick goggles. His laundry basket overflowed with the clothes he wore several weeks ago, those pants and shirts forever relegated to an unwashed pile.

His blinds were shut tight, but light slipped between the slats. Ethan tried to raise his hand, but it barely moved. Nothing was working right—his body defied every command and Ethan groaned. Then he felt wetness across his abdomen and he turned his head to see the girl—the curly haired one, with the long legs, the high forehead, and the aquiline nose—bathing him, section by section, with a tub of baby wipes. The girl, Ainsley, he remembered, but only barely, lifted his left arm and ran a wipe down under his armpit and across his side; he emitted some noise of disapproval and tried to pull away from her, but his limbs were beyond his control.

She set his arm back down and paused, looking at him, her head turned, without saying a word.

“How’s your pain level?” Ainsley asked clinically when the silence had become too oppressive. No greetings, no small-talk.

The mention of pain sent Ethan’s nerves tingling and his leg began to ache on command. Deep, throbbing, shooting waves of pain emanated from his upper thigh and traveled down to his toes.
 

“My leg hurts,” he replied.

“On a scale from one to ten?” the girl asked.
 

He hated that question. His pain could not be quantified in numbers. It was excruciating, his leg throbbing; he was unable to think of anything else besides the pain. However, if he said ten, then there was nowhere to go—if the pain got worse, could he just add a number to the scale? And what if he said eight, but they assumed an eight was manageable? This was not manageable.

“It just really fu—freaking hurts,” he snapped at her. But Ainsley didn’t flinch or blink or seemed disturbed by his outburst. She just stared at him, her big brown eyes locked onto his, and then she nodded once—a mechanical action, without warmth or objection. She picked the heavy blanket off of Ethan and folded it over her arm, and then she bent down over Ethan’s leg and inspected his stump.

It was the first time Ethan had seen his leg after surgery. He had forgotten.

He could feel his toes. His calf hurt. A sharp shooting pain traveled from his absent knee down to his aching ankles. But there was nothing there—he felt pain in places that didn’t exist. Ethan felt weak and light-headed. He had forgotten. And now he remembered. His right leg was gone.
 

“I’m sorry,” Ainsley said and Ethan didn’t know if she was sorry for his amputation or sorry for showing him the swollen, puckered remnants of his leg.

“I need…something,” Ethan said to her, his mouth dry, the words barely forming on his tongue. He closed his eyes and Ainsley placed the blanket back over his legs, shielding the grotesqueness from the world, hiding it away.
 

“My mom will be up soon to administer your medication.”

“Are you what, like, my nurse?” Ethan asked and he tried to smile, but it came off like a grimace. Ainsley didn’t seem to notice.

“I was going to be a nurse. Before.” She moved the wipes to the side and stood by the side of his bed, her arms dangling down at her sides, unmoving. She didn’t continue, didn’t launch into the history of her life. She just looked at him, blinking.
 

“Not a doctor? Didn’t want to follow in your mom’s footsteps?” Ethan asked. He had no interest in keeping the conversation going, but Ainsley didn’t look like she was leaving and he hated awkward silences. He didn’t know much about the doctor and her daughter. They appeared in a blur, their initial introductions now lost in a drug and fever-induced haze, but he did remember snapshots.

After Lucy and Grant left, his pain increased and he began to show signs of infection; he slipped further away from consciousness—and by the time the doctor arrived, he was sleeping most of the day; everything passing by in hazy dream. He wondered if he’d ever get his memories back from the past week. It seemed unlikely.

“Because they are both related to medicine? Also, that presupposes that I like my mom and admire her choice in occupation,” Ainsley replied.
 

Ethan stared at her. He wished she would leave, but she made no movement toward the door. “Right. Good point. Okay,” he said. “So, then why not a teacher, social worker? Car wash operator?”

“I was kidding,” she added straight-faced. “I both like my mom and admire her choice in occupation.”

He blinked. And shook his head. Who was this girl? Trying to shift, Ethan winced; Ainsley put a warm hand against his bare shoulder and eased him into a sitting position. She fluffed up pillows and tucked them behind him, adjusting until Ethan nodded and motioned for her to stop. Then she handed him a juice box, the straw already inserted and bent for him, like he was a child. He recognized the box, with its popular cartoon character mascot, as the twins’ favorite post-school drink. Before taking a sip, he closed his eyes and tried to picture their faces.

“So,” Ethan continued, “You’re a nurse
and
a comedian?”
 

“Comedian? You think I’m funny?”

“That…it was…my own…look, I was just trying to make a joke.”

Ainsley cocked her head, the edges of her mouth twitched. “
That
was your attempt at a joke? Then you should leave the funny to me.”

Ethan smiled.

They heard a knock on the door and their heads turned in unison. Ethan was expecting the doctor, but it was Joey who stuck his head inside. He looked around and saw Ainsley; he mumbled something and then moved to leave, but Ainsley motioned for him to come inside.

“It’s fine, Joey,” Ainsley said and she moved around the edge of the bed and then flung Ethan’s door open wide. “Don’t lurk.”

“I wanted to see if he was okay. I brought a, um…I brought a…” he took a step inside and waved a homemade card and a small bouquet of picked flowers in the air. He looked to Ainsley and then to Ethan, and then lowered his head. “Just, um, a small get well gift. But…”

“It’s sweet,” Ainsley said and reached to take the flowers from Joey’s hand. He gave them to her and shrugged, then shoved his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor, rubbing his sock against the bedroom carpet. “Did you need anything?” she asked him.

Ethan looked at the girl—how she stood with her hands on her hips, the flowers sticking out from her sides, her eyebrows raised expectantly. She took the role of his guardian and nurse with severe seriousness. When Joey didn’t answer right away, Ainsley spun away from the visitor and tucked the flowers on Ethan’s desk, then she handed him the get well card—crafted from some of his mother Maxine’s scrapbook paper and colored pencils. Ethan might have appreciated the sentiment more if he had any real memories of Joey. To Ethan, Joey was like a long-lost relative: somewhat familiar, but difficult to place in the current realm. All he knew was that Joey was the connection between Spencer and the doctor: a Raider by trade. Beyond that, Ethan didn’t know anything about him.

Joey was skinny and baby-faced. He could have been eighteen or thirty-five, it was hard to tell; he had dark brown eyes and mop of wavy brown hair, a strong, square jaw, and a long neck. He squinted when he smiled, and he had a contagious laugh—a high-pitched giggle that belied the ruthless Raider persona.

That was the thing about the end of the world: you could never predict an individual’s behavior. When the danger became apparent and everything crumbled, people had a way of surprising you.
 

There was nothing about Joey that pigeonholed him as the type to capitalize on other people’s death for profit. Perhaps that was part of his cunning; it was easy to trust his honest face, his genuine laugh, his sheepish smile. Combined with his bumbling monologues that displayed questionable intelligence, Joey was likeable enough.

Maybe under different circumstances, Ethan and Joey would be pals. But with the pain in his leg escalating, it was difficult to focus. Ethan just wanted Joey to leave.

“Spencer—” Joey mumbled and then his eyes shifted to Ethan; he blubbered out a small laugh, his hands still in his front pockets, he shrugged—which Ethan understood as some sort of apologetic action, designed to endear himself. “Hey,” Joey said to Ethan, derailing his own conversation by officially acknowledging Ethan’s presence. Then he shifted his attention back to Ainsley. “Spencer wants to meet with us when you have a second. Your mom wanted me to make sure you were there for it. Something about…” he looked at Ethan again—then looked away, “a plan? In case—”

Ainsley turned toward Ethan and muttered a barely audible apology for Joey’s interruption, but Ethan mustered his energy to wave his hand dismissively. “Don’t mind me,” he said with a twinge of annoyance, and turned his head away from them.

Ainsley motioned for Joey to move back out into the hallway. Even though she shut the door, he could still hear their hushed and hurried conversation—Joey’s voice rising and falling, with Ainsley replying in quick, short staccato bursts. After a moment he heard steps tromping away and then Ainsley slipped back inside his room.

She sighed and looked at him—assessing the damage done. “Sorry. That was…”

“No, I definitely get it,” Ethan replied. “One little surgery and I don’t get to be included in house meetings.” He closed his eyes; her silence was the answer he needed, but when he rolled his head over to look at her, Ainsley was just standing there—her expression blank and unrevealing.

“Think what you want,” she said after a moment, “but it’s not like that. We just want you well. When you’re well, attend as many meetings as you want.”

Ethan didn’t have the energy or the interest to push the issue further.

Without warning, his door burst open again and Teddy darted up to the side of Ethan’s bed, Darla following on his heels.
 

“Hey there, kiddo,” Darla said to Ethan as she scooped Teddy up and walked over to Ethan’s side. She crouched down, her rambunctious five-year-old on her knee, and held out her hand. Ethan grabbed it and gave it a squeeze. “The doc’s on her way up. I know you need to rest and relax without entertaining a whole crowd, but…”

“It’s like I’m a stranger in my own house,” he said to her.

Darla smiled a reply. “I guess it’s not really
your
house anymore.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Teddy slipped away to a corner of Ethan’s room that housed a used collection of Star Wars figures. Ethan’s love for Luke Skywalker started when he was in late elementary school. His father introduced him to the otherworldly tales. While he had outgrown playing with the action figures and racing around his house with his plastic light saber, he had never outgrown the way the stories made him feel—the themes carried him year after year. There were clear battle lines between good and evil and the corruption of power; Ethan liked knowing who to root for.
 

“Did you ask to play with those things, Teddy?” Darla chastised in her mom-voice without taking her eyes off of Ethan.

Teddy kept playing with the figures, bending a miniature light saber around inside Obi Wan Kenobi’s hand.

“Who’s this?” Teddy asked and held the guy up for Ethan to see.

Ethan smiled. “I’ll tell you all about those, little man. Later. Okay?”

Teddy, satisfied, spun back to the toys, ignoring his mother’s request for permission.

“So,” Darla continued. “You feeling okay?”

“No,” Ethan responded without hesitation. “I’ve got pain where I don’t have a body. And pain everywhere else too.”

“Like I said, the doctor is on her way up…she’ll help.”

“She’s helped plenty, yes,” Ethan replied and he couldn’t help tipping his hand, laying his resentment bare.

Darla turned to Ainsley and then to Teddy who, while leaning on Ethan’s shelf, had knocked it down off of the brackets with a crash. With a sigh, Darla hung her head.

“I’ve got him,” Ainsley volunteered and she swung Teddy off the ground; he was still clutching a Yoda and a miniature Millennium Falcon as she carted him out of the room with promises of a treat.

With the door closed, Darla turned her head back to Ethan and her eyes narrowed.

“You do realize that without the doctor you would’ve died. Right?”

Ethan shrugged. He looked away.

“No,” Darla said and she stood up. She leaned down over Ethan and poked her finger into his bare sternum, and he flinched. “No. No way.”

“What?” Ethan whined and he tried to pull away from the pressure on his chest, but Darla had him pinned.

“There’s no room for self-pity. You hear me?” He lifted her finger off his chest and when he didn’t answer right away, she poked him again and Ethan let out a yelp. “You’re alive, Ethan. That’s worth it. You can’t deny that.”

“Stop!” Ethan said and he brought his hand up and tried to grab her wrist to prevent any more finger-poking, but she swatted his hand away. She was so much faster than him. “I lost my
leg
, Darla.”

“Are we doing this? Are we making lists of the things we’ve lost?” She stood tall and crossed her arms over her chest.

He conceded. It should have been the argument to end all arguments.

“I’m in pain,” he said after a long moment.

“I know.”

“I just don’t want to be in pain anymore.”

“Give it time.”

“Time,” Ethan mumbled. “I guess we have all the time in the world now. Got nowhere I need to be, right?”

Doctor Krause entered without knocking. She smiled at Ethan and Darla, but it looked forced, like she had practiced it in a mirror; she flashed her teeth, but even that seemed robotic, inhuman. Ethan looked at her and assessed her; she looked like how he had always pictured doctors—thin, tired. She gave Darla a pat on the back and Darla bristled at the touch.