While You Were Gone: A Thought I Knew You Novella (6 page)

Dr. Patel, my orthopedist, interrupts my rising tirade with his brisk entrance. The door
whooshes
shut behind him. “Hello! How is everyone feeling today?” He ignores, or perhaps just doesn’t notice, my welling tears, my impending meltdown. He takes in Paula with a swift glance, and I watch her go from clucking hen to purring cat, narrow-eyed seductress in a matter of seconds.

“You must be Karen’s doctor.” She offers her hand, leaning in and all but petting him, her décolletage on display. She takes in his smooth brown skin, his dignified, graying hair and dazzling smile, and her eyes flick to his hand, noting the absence of a wedding ring. She calculates it all, right there in front of me, the way I’ve seen her do a hundred times. Teachers, doctors, dentists, my whole childhood. Every man was a possibility. Parent–teacher conferences were potential dates. Teeth cleanings were meet-cutes.

“No. No, no, no.” I struggle to sit up, pulling my casted leg with me, and my voice vibrates off the stark white walls. “No. Paula,
shut up.
Just get out!” I can feel the unreasonableness, that bleak empty feeling in my gut that says there’s no way to come back from this, no way to recapture dignity. I can tell in the shocked look on Dr. Patel’s face, Abbie’s dropped jaw, the way Paula hisses at me, “Karen, what is wrong with you?”

But it’s too late, and the blood is pumping through my arms and legs, the heat climbing up my neck and pulsing in my head. “Just get out!
Now!
”
I scream it much too loud and angrier than the situation warrants, and even as I know this, I can’t stop. I point toward the door. Everyone stares at me in shock, their heads bopping back and forth between Paula and me. There is one pregnant second where all I hear is the
beep, beep, beep
of the heart monitor and Paula’s raspy breathing, coming in short, panicked breaths, before she picks up her purse and pulls it up on her shoulder, slowly like she’s underwater. She doesn’t look at me or make excuses. She doesn’t speak at all.

She simply leaves.

The rain patters against the sidewalk and my face as I wait. I’m tucked under the awning outside the hospital doors. Every time someone walks past in the hallway inside, they slow down just enough for the doors to swoosh open and shut.

“I can’t call your mother for you?” Abbie’s been like this since my meltdown yesterday. Asking me a million different ways if she can call Paula. Reminding me that I only have one mother. How do you fit your whole life into an explanation without sounding defensive? What do I have to defend myself for? I don’t. I crane my neck and look up and down the street, looking for the cab, just for something to do.

“No. I’m fine. Thank you, Abbie. For everything.” I give her an encouraging smile. A don’t-feel-sorry-for-me-I’m-just-fine smile.

“Your brother?”

“Nope, really.” I pat her shoulder. “I called a cab. It’s not a big deal. I promise, okay? My apartment is about five blocks from here. I’d walk if it weren’t for…” I wave toward my foot and shrug. “Please. I’m okay.” I have nothing but my purse, my violin with its rigged and tied strap slung over my good arm, and a plastic bag with my mother’s T-shirt. I’m wearing the dreaded leggings, the left one pushed up to my knee, slowly pinching off the circulation. My right arm hangs, a heavy albatross around my neck. Abbie pulls her windbreaker around her, making no move to leave.

A small, late-model Honda pulls up to the curb. The passenger-side window rolls down, and Greg leans over.

“Need a lift?” he asks with a wide grin.

I shoot Abbie a look. She shakes her head, palms out. “This was not me. I would have let you take a cab.”

I limp to the car. “How did you know I was here?” I ask him suspiciously. He laughs.

“I didn’t. I called the hospital to see if you were out, and they said you were leaving today but that I’d better hurry down because you were on your way out. When I got to the parking lot, there you were.” He jumps out of the car and jogs around to the passenger side. “Do you really need a ride? Who is coming for you?”

“I called a cab. I’m fine, really.”

“Are you always so obstinate? Besides, calling a cab worked out so well last time.” He opens the passenger-side door and helps me in. His hand feels warm despite the cold rain. The heat in the car is blasting. I’m shivering. Out the window, I wave to Abbie, who dubiously waves back. I give her an impish smile. My ankle aches, and I just want to be home. Tea and a cookie. Oh, crap, I remember that I have no food in my apartment. I look at my ankle and my arm. How am I going to do this—this living alone with only half of a useful body thing? I quell the rising panic.

I text Pete.
Is there any way you could go to the store for me?

Greg glances over at me, and when we make eye contact, he smiles. Now that we’re alone in the car and I’m lucid, the silence feels awkward. He clears his throat. “Where to?”

“Oh, um… make a left out of the parking lot.”

He drives carefully. Slow and steady as though he has a lemon meringue pie on the passenger’s seat. I bite back a smile. I eye the other cars only a bit nervously. I wondered if I’d have a fear of riding in cars. I’d read about that once, but Greg’s driving is so slow, so smooth, that I settle back, more content than anxious for the first time in days. Except for my periodic turn instructions, the car is silent. I yawn. The radio plays classic rock on low volume, and the interior is spotless. It’s a rental.

“Where do you live?” I blurt out, remembering the conversation between him and the detective a few days ago.

“New Jersey. But the company I work for is talking about transferring me, so I don’t know where I’ll end up. I grew up in Syracuse and lived there for a long time.”

“The company you train people for.” I remember his “worst day” story the night at Faraday’s, which feels like a million years ago. “Are you still here or here again?”

He doesn’t answer right away, and he taps the steering wheel in a little rhythm along with the song. “Here again. I flew home and came back.” His words are short and clipped, and I wonder if this ride has irritated him. Is it not what he signed up for? I remember his words, “
I’m glad you’re safe,
” and I think maybe I made them up. I remember the way his mouth felt against mine that night of the accident. Even though I’d kissed him, he’d kissed back, right?
Right?
I remember his hand holding mine in the hospital bed.

So why is it now, my heart hammers a hundred gallops an hour, and he sits there, like a chilled cool cucumber or worse
,
like he’s doing this out of pity? I should have taken the cab. I shift in my seat. Every movement feels huge and clunky, and I have no idea where to put my good hand.

At my apartment, Greg rushes out of the car to help me up the steps. As we stand in front of my apartment door, I’m self-conscious of my space. My apartment has always been more utilitarian than aesthetic. My free time is spent practicing or on the road, focused on the next concert, the next piece. I don’t so much
live
there as I
reside
there.

I take a deep breath and push open the door. Despite my mental preparation, I’ve forgotten how stark it actually is—no pictures of family and friends on end tables. In fact, no end tables. A sofa, an entertainment center with a fifteen-year-old, rarely used television. Bare walls. Not even a welcome mat. Some Walmart-acquired pots and pans. A pine table and chairs in the kitchen. If it weren’t for the music stand and sheet music on every flat surface, not to mention the pervading scent of rosin, it would look like a hotel room.

“Did you just move in?”

“Nope,” I grunt as I flop onto the couch. “Been here about six years.” I offer no explanation, suddenly, inexplicably offended by his inquiries. I hear him in the kitchen, opening cupboards and the refrigerator. He appears again in the doorway.

“You have literally nothing. Like, I found teabags. But no food. Not even stale bread. How is this possible?” Dimples. His glasses glint in the light.

“I’m a minimalist.” I smirk at him, and he laughs. The truth is more that I’m busy. Or lazy. And I eat on the go often. I’ve had no reason to eat at home. Why stock food? I’m never here. I think of Scott and our midnight jazz bar dates or mornings at the coffee shop.

“Okay, here.” He hands me a pen and paper. I give him a blank look. “Make a list. I can’t leave you like this. You’ll starve to death, apparently, before you ask for help.”

Shaking his head, he walks back into the kitchen. I hear banging and the water running. I think about a list, all the normal things.
Bread, milk, eggs, butter.
I wonder if I can put Hobnobs on there like I’m some kind of senior citizen. I skip the fizzy raspberry club soda and just put plain club soda because isn’t that more sophisticated? Then again, he might drop everything off, and then we’ll shake hands and go our separate ways, and I’ll be stuck with terrible plain club soda for the next six weeks.
Six weeks!
What am I going to do for six weeks? In this apartment.

“Ahem.” Greg, hovering over me, clears his throat, and when I look up, he’s holding a mug of tea and three cookies. Three cookies!

“Where did you find those?” The level of relief I feel is unwarranted.

“In the cabinet. As far as I could tell, not eaten by mice.”

I take the tea from his hands. “By any chance, would you want to get me the—”

“Honey?” He smiles again. “I added it. You had no sugar, but you had honey. I took a chance. You don’t seem to… have things you don’t use.”

We stay this way for a full-on minute, him standing above me, me staring up at him, my rescue hero with tea and cookies and a grocery list. I look away, embarrassed by the tears stinging my eyes. It’s pathetic that this simple act of caring could possibly make me cry, even a little. This is what people do for each other. This is humanity. Kindness.

He leaves then, with the list and a little salute. I must doze, because the next thing I know, he’s back, banging through the front door, his arms filled with bags, more than I’ve asked him to buy. I hear him in the kitchen, putting everything away, and he brings me a sandwich, setting it down carefully on the arm of the chair.

“So there’re these great things called coffee tables. You can put stuff on them? Some people even put books there.”

I laugh and gesture at the floor, where I’ve set my mug. He perches on the edge of the sofa, and I hike up sideways between him and the back cushions, propped up on my sore ankle. It throbs, but I don’t care. He’s kept me at arm’s length all day, and it’s driving me crazy.

“Will you be okay here? Who will you call?” He asks this like he’s not coming back, and my stomach bottoms out.

“My brother is around. My mom is… around. I’ll be fine.” I force a smile. I reach out with my good arm and cover his hand. His head jerks up like I’ve burned him, and he clears his throat.

“Thank you. Really. I don’t know what I would have done today.” I say this sincerely. His wrists are thick, with the lightest of downy hair covering his arms and the tops of his hands. He has large, wide fingers and neatly trimmed nails. He’s too broad for the space he’s trying to occupy, and he shifts uncomfortably. The heat from his back travels through my walking cast, and my skin buzzes.

I sit up to hug him, a thank-you for all he’s done. He holds me back. He smells like clean air and pine and shower soap. I know so little about him. He’s barely said a word about himself. I don’t know when he has to leave or if he’ll be back. Will he go back to New Jersey? Will he be transferred?

“Will you come back?” I ask, a needy high school kind of girl.

“I’ll check in on you,” he whispers. He pulls away and clears his throat and gives my good shoulder a soft, playful punch. “What would happen to you if I didn’t?”

I kiss his cheek, and he turns his head, just for a second. The kiss lands shy of his mouth, and I feel his breath against my cheek. Neither of us moves. We breathe. I could lean over and just kiss his mouth, blame it on the Percocet, the way I blamed the first kiss on the alcohol. Under my hand, his bicep flexes twice.

Then he’s up and across the room. He stands at the door, his back to me, and doesn’t turn around. “I got your number from your phone. I’ll call you, okay?”

I nod. The door clicks shut before I can respond.

Chapter 5

A
week passes. Amy texts me half-heartedly with a
glad you’re ok. I’ll come visit!
But no follow-up as to when. Nikolai sends a generic
hope you’re doing well
email. I ignore both.

Pete visits twice, bringing milk, coffee, and knock-knock jokes—typical Pete with his uncanny sense of what’s just enough to get him off the hook. He keeps telling me he’ll bring the kids by. I genuinely miss my nieces and nephews, but then I picture Mindy here—she’s never been—standing in the middle of the room, eyeing the furniture warily, noting the lack of personality. She thinks there’s something wrong with me. She told Pete years ago. I was too driven. I was too cold. I was too mechanical. When Pete told me that and I asked him what he said back to her, he just shrugged. “What could I say, Kar? You aren’t nice to her, either.” Either way, my apartment would confirm it.

I don’t hear from Paula at all. Despite my irritation, I ask Pete to check in on her.

“Why? She’s fine.” Pete has his long legs stretched out in front of him, and he’s folded into the sofa, encroaching on my space. He flicks through my DVR. “What have you been watching? Home improvement shows? The
Real Housewives
?”

“A girl’s DVR should be allowed to be private.” I shoot him a look and yank the remote out of his hand. “Check on Mom, okay? She doesn’t avoid me like this. Who knows if she’s face down in a gutter somewhere?”

“Karen, she is not
that
bad. You’re so dramatic. You should have gone into theater instead of music.” Pete just laughs. “So what will you do now? Are you okay, money wise?” He pulls off his baseball hat, smoothes his hair, and replaces the cap.

“I’m fine. I have a little money saved. Eventually, I have to go see about disability. I know I’m eligible. I think.” The whole idea of going back, to the concert hall, to Nikolai, turns my stomach. When I first got home, the orchestra sent flowers. I don’t know who initiated it, but the arrangement sat, wilting, on the kitchen table, surrounded by a ring of curling, crispy leaves. Sprays of vibrant lilies shaped like fluted horns in a vase so big I couldn’t carry it myself. The water level hovered near the bottom, grayish-green.

My phone chirps, an incoming text, and I snatch it up and mumble, “Speak of the devil.” But I blink at the display. It’s not Paula. It’s from an unknown phone number.

How are you feeling?

I pause for a moment then type back,
I’ve had better months, but okay. Who is this?

Within seconds:
Oh, sorry. It’s Greg. I said I’d check up on you. :)

My heart picks up an irrational speed.
Oh, then in that case, I’m out of Hobnobs, and I need raspberry pop. Come back?

Immediately,
I’ll be back next week. Can you wait that long?

I’m in dire need of cookies.

What are Hobnobs anyway?

Pfffft Americans.

I wait, but he doesn’t text back. Pete’s engrossed in
The Bachelor
, and he taps me with his toe. “Who’s your friend?” He nods to the phone.

I shake my head with a small smile. “No one you know.”

It must be the boredom. The walls of my apartment are closing in on me. I can’t watch another television show or movie, and when I try to read a book, my mind wanders to Greg.

I’ve been alone for three whole days, hobbling around, eating jam sandwiches and ketchup potato chips. Paula doesn’t call. Pete texts once a day with the same text,
How are you feeling?
and I type back,
Better today!
but I’m not better today. I’m actually looking forward to my doctor appointment at the end of the week.

I attempt to play, the violin balanced feebly against my shoulder, my chin on the chinrest. But I can’t manage the finger positions with my cast. Frustrated, I set my violin back in the case. I dust off the television stand. Months-old rosin dust has settled on everything, and for once, I’ve spent enough time in the living room to notice. Dusting all flat surfaces takes me about fifteen minutes. There aren’t that many. In my bedroom, I wander around.

I should miss playing more than I do. I should be panicking at the thought of never playing again. I should be dramatically missing the lost hours, forgetting pieces I worked so hard to memorize. Instead, I feel guilt that I have none of these feelings. Out of habit, I still run through pieces as I fall asleep at night, trying half-heartedly to keep the memorization sharp. Mostly, I’ve replaced my musical obsession with apathy.

In the back of my closet, I dig out a plastic bag filled with yarn and knitting needles. When I was a girl, when Paula and Dad were still married and happy, I remember sitting on her lap, watching those two needles wrap around each other so fast they looked like one. The metal of the sticks, and Paula’s nails and her rings, made a kind of beautiful, rhythmic music. I’d hold that neat, tight little ball of yarn. “
Wind that up for me, Kar-bear.
”
I’d fall asleep there to the clacking of her knitting, blanket after useless blanket, to the backdrop of
Jeopardy!
and the tinkling of ice in a whiskey tumbler. As the years faded and I grew too large for her lap, the blankets turned into scarves, and the lulling voice of Alex Trebek muted to silence.

Then there was a fight, or a series of them, but in my mind they’ve melded into one culminating argument. In my memory, Paula was knitting, Dad was yelling, and I hovered in the hallway, hunkered down against the stair rail. They yelled together, their voices climbing over each other until the crash. I ran in. Paula sat there in her chair, those needles and yarn in her lap, covered in ice and liquor, her hands ever moving to the internal rhythm in her head. The
clakety-clack
of needles and nails and rings never slowed. She just kept right on with that blanket, a yellow and green chevron-stripe afghan, like she wasn’t soaking wet and stinking. The next day, Dad was gone, and the yarn sat, unraveled and disheveled in the basket next to the chair, collecting puffs of dust on the sticky, drying threads. I never saw her pick it up again until she handed me a bag of all her old yarn and needles, and I shoved it in the back of my closet.

So now, I hold this old plastic bag filled with fifteen-year-old yarn and wonder if I could do it. Clearly Paula replaced knitting with drinking, but everyone needs a hobby. I look at my dead arm, pinned flat against my midsection with a sling, and wiggle my fingers. Knitting isn’t an option. In the bottom of the bag lies a crochet hook. I pull out the yarn, a pretty bright blue, almost a turquoise.

I YouTube crocheting instructions. A slipknot, a single stitch. One hand stays relatively stationary. I give it a whirl. My fingers are numb and clumsy, but it’s doable. And more importantly, it’s something to do
.
So I stitch one long chain, almost as long as my leg. It takes me several hours, but I’m focused, and when I finally look up, like in a fugue, it’s after eleven.

But look at it! It’s beautiful. I pick up my phone and snap a picture of it. I want to show someone how useful I am, but disgustedly, I realize there’s no one to call. I hesitate only a second before I attach the picture to a text message and press “send.”

I wait. Five minutes later, Greg texts back.
You made that? With a broken arm? That’s kind of amazing.

I know! I’m bored out of my mind. Come back!

I wait, but he doesn’t text back. I’m about to give up when my phone rings.

“Hello?”

“You must be bored if you want me back. Either that or you need groceries.”

“Both, actually.”

He sighs into a pregnant pause. “When I come back, I’ll bring you tea. And cookies, okay?”

“Really? I’d love that.”

“Yep, you are officially going stir crazy.”

He laughs, and maybe I should feel defensive at my lack of company, but I don’t. I want to hand him every part of me, this man I barely know. I don’t want to be coy. I don’t want to play games or tease him. I just want him to know, somehow, that I’ve spent the majority of today, and if I’m honest, the past six days, thinking about him. I want him to instantly know me
.

“Actually, you’re the first person whose company I’ve truly enjoyed in a very long time.” I take a deep breath as I say it, knowing it sounds a bit pathetic and needy. When he doesn’t answer right away, I rush on. “I have Paula. I have Pete. I guess I have Amy, if I wanted. I should really call her. I used to have Scott.”

“Who’s Scott?”

“My ex. He broke up with me the night before I met you.”

“Did you love him?” His reply is immediate. Interested. Curious.

I pause, partly because it’s an extraordinarily intimate question, and partly because I don’t immediately know the answer. Greg’s voice, low and soft, almost whispering, and the time of night give the sensation of being in a cocoon.

“I guess I thought I did, but I haven’t given him much thought in the past week, so maybe not.” I pause. “I don’t think I loved him in any exceptional way. I loved him because he was there, and he was easy. And I was already tied to him through music. I loved him in a convenient way. We were compatible, never fought.” I stop and think before I realize that’s all of it. I think of how in movies, the hero always lists
the way your socks never match
or
the way you use half a box of floss a day
as reasons to love someone. I never had those with Scott. I didn’t know all his quirks, and they certainly never felt like tender points, rom-com reasons for loving someone. He had a tendency to chew with his mouth open and hold a napkin up to his mouth so he could talk at the same time. I always thought he was gross and simultaneously efficient.

“I think if you can list all the reasons you love someone, then maybe it isn’t real?” Greg says.

“What do you mean?”

“Like maybe when you truly love someone, it defies convenience and rationale. Like maybe if you have to fight hard for it, it’s somehow truer. You’re not together because you can be. You’re together because you really want to be.” He’s talking so softly that I can barely hear him.

“Have you been in love?”

He coughs into the phone. “Not recently.”

I wonder if he’s drunk or what he’s really saying. I wonder how we keep ending up in these intense conversations.

“Isn’t it better, though, to pursue a relationship with someone that’s at least available to you?” I laugh to lighten it up, but he doesn’t laugh back. I take a chance. “Than, say, with someone in another country?”

Shameless flirting. I stretch out on the sofa on my good side and pull a pillow against my chest.

“I’m sure there are charmingly available Canadian men.” I can hear the hesitation in his voice, as though he doesn’t exactly want to flirt back, but he doesn’t
not
want to either. I decide to push.

“Yeah, but none of them have saved my life.”

Then, thankfully, he finally laughs.