Dreamsatnight
Daydreamer23
begonia9508
guelbebek
Alien_Friend
Natz
Cocogurl
Cassie
Michelle in Yonkers
Evelynn
Thetvgeneral
Dream Weaver
Happy Thursday . Sorry I'm late everyone but I had some comp problems. I wont go on for long so here we go. and thanks for the Feedback
~~FIVE~~
When I opened my eyes this morning my wife was still asleep beside me. I absorbed the feeling. I hadn’t felt this way in so long. The act of waking up beside the woman I loved was simple, yet it brought a joy to my life that I hadn’t felt in months. Instead of getting up and risking waking her, I reclined against the headboard, not touching her, not even making a conscious effort to get into a more comfortable position. I just watched her. I watched her because I could.
It was a nice feeling. After not really seeing her for so long it was the most fascinating thing to just look at her. Her hair seemed darker, more vibrant, her skin pinker, her body fuller. Everything about her just seemed…more. More alluring, more desirable, more innocent, more beautiful. God, she seemed so beautiful. She was like living art. Perfectly framed and sculpted to the point where there was no room for the slightest possible improvement.
She stirred in her sleep, and I could tell by her movements that she was in the process of waking up. I brushed a strand of hair away from her face. I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be the first thing she saw when she opened those beautiful eyes.
They fluttered open slowly, adjusting to the dim morning light of our bedroom. Then they locked on to me and I almost forgot to breathe. Her cheeks were pink with sleepy warmth and her eyes half-mast and a little fuzzy. Her hair was going every which way on top of her head and there was even the smallest strand stuck to the corner of her mouth. I smiled down at her, feeling a keen sense of delight. She had never looked more beautiful to me.
Catching my smile and probably interpreting it the wrong way, she combed a hand through her hair as she looked down uncomfortably at her pillow.
“Good morning.” I whispered, giving her cheek a soft nuzzle in order to let her know how adorable I thought she was.
“Hi,” her voice was still sleep-soft as she buried her face against my side.
I lifted my shoulder and adjusted myself so that she was tucked underneath my arm. “You want some breakfast?” I asked as I messed with the muddled mass of hair on the top of her head. She made a face that said that breakfast was the last thing on her mind.
“No breakfast, but some orange juice would be nice.”
I smiled down at her “Orange juice?”
“Yes, please.”
“How about fresh squeezed?” I added.
“Sounds good.”
“With plenty of pulp?”
“Delicious.”
“And in a glass?” I couldn’t stop smiling.
She smiled back. “If that makes it easier for you to carry it.”
I laughed again and stroked my palm across her face. I couldn’t believe it. We were actually having a conversation. Regardless of the pointlessness of it, it was still a real conversation. We were touching and laughing. Smiling! We were actually smiling at one another.
“Alright, fresh squeezed orange juice with plenty of pulp and in a glass coming right up.”
“Thank you.”
I rolled out of bed feeling like I was able to tackle the world. My feet felt as if I were walking on air, or cloud nine as they say, as I headed for the kitchen. I went to the fridge and took out a few oranges, tossing one up and catching it in my other hand. Things were looking up.
When I got back to our room I was surprised and a little upset to find that she was no longer in our bed where I’d left her. I know it was the epitome of corny cheesiness but a soft part of me wanted to surprise her with the whole breakfast in bed with a corny little flower that I’d stolen from the vase in the kitchen.
When I heard the sound of the water running in the bathroom I breathed a sigh of relief. My surprise was not completely spoiled. She had probably just run in for a moment. And anyway, I could use the time to set up my surprise for her.
I spent a few dumb moments primping the flower and moving the tray around until I felt it was positioned at the perfect angel on the bed. Right between the two of us in what would be the perfect vantage point for feeding her a bit of my breakfast if the desire came upon me. After everything was ready, I reclined back on the bed and waited for my wife to arrive.
It may have only been a few minutes before I decided that I had better go and check on her, but it seemed much longer. I opened the door slowly and stepped into the bathroom.
She was standing in front of the mirror with the water running but she didn’t really seem to be paying attention to it. Her face was wet and her eyes were closed. Both of her hands were braced on the edge of the sink and she wobbled a little as if a good breeze was all it would take to send her tumbling over.
A sense of fear that I had never felt before in my life gripped me as I watched her start to slide to the floor.
Although my heart was pounding loudly in my chest, and I could hardly breathe, my reaction was quick and I caught her to me just as she would have slid to the floor.
“Honey, what’s the matter? Are you ok?” My voice sounded frantic to my own ears, but I didn’t care. The only thing that mattered was making sure she was ok. Letting her lean on me for support, I sat the two of us down on the floor beside the bathtub.
“What’s wrong?” I asked and immediately began running my hands along every inch of her body I could reach. Her forehead. She didn’t feel feverish. Her arms. There was goose flesh along them but she wasn’t clammy. Her cheeks. Damp still, but her color seemed good.
I frowned down at her when she brushed my hands away. “I’m fine Max, I just got a little dizzy, that’s all. I just haven’t quite woken up yet.”
I wasn’t buying that excuse for one second.
“Don’t move.” I said when she tried to get up. And I didn’t care when she shot an annoyed look in my direction.
“Max, I’m fine.” She insisted.
“No you’re not.” My words came out a bit more sharply than I intended them to. “You just collapsed.”
“I did not collapse, I just…I…”
I watched in rapt horror as my wife’s eyes clouded and she looked as if she were about to be sick right there on the side of the bathtub. And then the really horrifying thing happened. She was sick right there on the side of the bathtub. And a little on me as well.
I could do nothing but sit idly by while she emptied the contents of her stomach into the tub. My body felt as if it were frozen. I didn’t know what to do. I have the title of doctor before my name, and yet I felt like helpless child lacking any medical knowledge. I couldn’t move for fear that I would jostle her and cause her to be even sicker. More than ever, I wanted to comfort her. However, judging from the way she made sure to keep her head for the most part turned away from me, I knew that my comfort was the last thing she wanted. She didn’t even want to look at me.
When she was done being sick and I regained movement in the rest of my body, the two of us remained seated firmly on our bathroom floor, neither of use saying a word.
After a while I felt her start to try to move again and heard her groan as she looked inside of the bathtub. “Oh no.” she whispered quietly, and then she groaned again.
“It’s ok.” I said my voice containing more reassurance than I truly felt. “Don’t worry about it.” I placed my hand on her stomach and began rub it softly. But I was stopped when she jerked suddenly away from me.
I frowned at her surprising actions and she looked at me strangely as if she were searching for something in my gaze.
And that’s when it dawned on me. Very slowly and very precisely. My eyes went directly back to her stomach where she had pushed my hand away and had replaced with her own. Like a light switch being suddenly flicked on, the shadows of confusion were chased away. Pieces began to come together in my head. All the signs that I had been oblivious to began to come together like a jigsaw.
Was she…?
Ignoring her continued evasiveness I moved my hand back to her stomach before looking back to her eyes. This time she didn’t look away, but I could see clearly in her eyes that I was seeing something she desperately didn’t want me to see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I make it a habit not to work late. I know my limits, what I am capable of, and what is beyond my means. Still, in my profession I find myself forming close bonds with my patients. I have often been told that it is not my job to save the world. Even so, if I can work one miracle for one person doing what it is I love to do then I’ve saved their world. More often than not, that’s good enough for me.
It’s not hard for me to admit that Paula McGinnis is a very special patient of mine. Although I like to think that all the relationships that I have formed with all of my patients are special, there is just something about Paula that places her on a field all her own.
As much as I would like to deny it, she has becomes somewhat of a grandmother to me. And though the most our sessions ever last is an hour or two, I find that when I am talking to her, whether she just be jabbering on, or the two of us are actually engaged in meaningful conversation, she always manages to put a smile on my face. Though whether or not that is always her intention is sometimes debatable.
That is why as I sat in my office looking at the lab results for the x-rays we had done on Paula at her last visit I felt a sudden pang in my heart. Tess was standing beside me as I looked over the results, and though she remained silent, I was pretty sure she could see the look of shock that I wasn’t able to hide from my face.
“These are Paula McGinnis’s labs, correct?” I knew the answer, but there was something in me that forced me to ask the question anyway.
“Yes doctor, these are the labs we took on Paula McGinnis.”
It had only been one week since I had last seen Paula. I didn’t usually schedule our appointments within such close proximity but Paula had insisted that she was in a lot of pain so I scheduled an x-ray for her and told her we would go over the labs at her next appointment. I suppose when you deal with people on a medical level you tend to think you know more about their bodies than they do. After a while you even start to forget that a person with a habitually clean bill of health can suddenly take a dramatic turn. But people are people, and we are, if nothing else, an unpredictable species.
“I put Mrs. McGinnis in room one, doctor.” The look on Tess’s face was sympathetic as she spoke. “Here are her vitals. Weight’s still the same and BP is normal,” she said as she handed me the chart.
“Thank you, Tess. Tell Paula I’ll be in to see her in a moment.” Tess nodded and exited my office, closing the door behind her.
With Paula’s chart and x-rays sill in my hand I reached across my desk and picked up my phone, then dialed home. I waited for the voicemail to pick up.
“Hey, it’s me.” I paused for a second as I looked back down at Paula’s X-ray. “I’m going to be working late.”
When I entered the examination room, Paula was, as she always had been, sitting on the examination table and looking rather annoyed.
“Hello, Paula.” I smiled at her and made sure to close the door behind me as I entered, not wanting the noise of the busy hallway intruding upon us.
Paula gave me scathing look. “Mrs. McGinnis,” she corrected then smiled back at me. “Hey, Kid. Can’t say I’m glad to be seeing you again so soon.”
I smiled at her as I always did and took up the rolling chair beside the table.
“Is that me?” she asked nodding towards the chart in my hand.
I nodded. “We have things to talk about.”
She sighed and sat up on the table a little straighter. “Kid, when you say it like that it doesn’t make me feel too inclined to talk.”
Though Paula was the first to complain about her mortality coming to its end, there was an air about her that told me she had a pretty good idea of what was coming and she wasn’t looking forward to hearing what I had to say.
“Alright, give it to me straight, kid” she said, hunching her shoulders back as if she were preparing herself to take a physical blow. Straightforward and ready to take on the world. I wouldn’t expect anything less from Paula.
I opened up the folder that contained Paula’s x-rays and pasted them against the view box. “These are the x-rays that we took of your chest and legs where you indicated you had been feeling some pain.” I positioned myself so that she could see the x-rays clearly. “After going over your x-rays it seems that you are developing what may be a tumor on your ribs and femur.”
I paused for a moment, giving her the time to react if she needed to. Paula looked at me for a long time, the expression on her face unreadable. It was a shock to see Paula, who had always been so animated and never at a lost for words, completely silent.
She didn’t stay that way for long.
“A tumor?” she sounded as if she almost didn’t believe me. “On my ribs and femur? Sorry kid, but I don’t speak doctor, so you’re going to have to tell me exactly what that means?”
“Well, that can mean a few things.” None of which were good. “But in order to find out completely there are a few test that need to be done first.”
Paula rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t give me all of that doctor gobbledygook, kid.” Her face was straight as an arrow. “I don’t want to hear you dancing around an answer. Tell me what you think it means?”
Unless you were a callous cold-hearted son of a bitch it was always difficult to tell a patient that you suspected they had something potentially terminal. It was particularly difficult to tell a patient that you may have cared for on more than just a doctor to patient level.
“Well, one of the most likely possibilities is that you may be developing a type of bone cancer. But in order for me to be completely sure there are some other tests that I would like to administer. We can do a biopsy of the infected areas to test for cancerous cells. As well as a number of other tests that will tell us if this is what I’m thinking it is. The main thing we want to focus on is determining whether or not this is cancer, and then we can work accordingly from there.”
As Paula’s eyes met mine I could not read her expression. I had no idea what she was feeling or what she was thinking. Her usually dynamic face gave nothing away, and for the first time she seriously looked at me as if I were her doctor and she was my patient.
“Are you alright Paula?” I asked, and because I couldn’t help myself, I reached over and took her hand in mine.
Paula looked up at me and smiled kind of sadly. “Well to tell you the truth, doc, I was hoping you were going to say this was just a bad case of arthritis.” She laughed and then patted my hand reassuringly as if I were the one that needed comforting right now. Paula never ceased to amaze me.
“We’re going to take care of this, Paula.” I found myself saying the words before I could stop them. I didn’t usually say things like that to my patients. In no way was I god, nor was I a miracle worker. I knew that. It wasn’t in me to make promises I couldn’t keep. But Paula compelled the words right out of me and I knew then I would do everything I possibly could to make sure that I kept my promise to her.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was past seven when I entered my apartment later that night. Although I had finished seeing my last patient at around five, I’d spent a few more hours going over Paula’s past medical records, looking for any possible sign that I could have missed that would have given any indication of Paula possibly developing cancer. It was hard work. Maybe even a bit futile. But if Paula truly had been developing chondrosarcoma, which is what I was starting to believe she was, I was going to make sure I did everything in my power to help her.
Paula had been checked into the hospital after our appointment and she was scheduled to receive several tests the following day. I was going to go over and see her myself first thing in the morning. I was sure she wouldn’t want to see me looking tired and stressed out. No, I knew Paula wouldn’t want to see that.
So after two hours of checking and rechecking everything there was to know medically about Paula McGinnis, I finally headed home.
When I entered the apartment I was immediately hit by the smell of something wonderful. Was that…something cooking? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d smelled anything being cooked in our apartment. I was beginning to think that our kitchen was a tomb utilized only to store frozen dinners and as a place to plug in our microwave.
I took a big whiff of the air again as I made my way to the kitchen and the wonderful aroma it exuded. But as I stepped into the room, my sudden spiritedness cut short when I caught sight of my sister Isabel standing at our kitchen counter wearing a little white apron tied around her waist.
“Oh, hi, Iz…what are you? Where is…?”
“Out. She’ll be back soon.” Isabel answered before I could finish my question. “Do you want to get cleaned up before dinner?”
“Oh,” I was still confused by her presence. I sat my briefcase down and took a seat at the kitchen counter. “No I… what exactly are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to sound rude but I wasn’t really used to my sister popping up and cooking good smelling food in my home.
“Well, I was in the neighborhood and I decided to pop by.” She said as she tossed a handful of something into a pan on the stove.
“In the neighborhood, really? With risotto and,” I picked up an open can of spice and sniffed it. “Spicy smelly stuff?”
“It’s saffron, you idiot.” I smiled as I allowed her to snatch the spice away from me. “And yes. I though it would be nice to come over and cook my little brother a nice homemade dinner. I doubt that you’ve had one of those in a while.”
“Isabel,” I started to cut her off, knowing she was about to start in on me, but she continued as if I hadn’t spoken a word.
“And last night was good but you can hardly eat gourmet food every night for the rest of your life.”
“Isabel,”
“One, there are a ton of calories and the last thing you want to worry about is your cholesterol shooting through the roof. I mean after all, Max, you really need to start worrying more about yourself and the foods you eat. You are a doctor, so this really shouldn’t be a surprise to you-”
“Isabel!”
Finally she stopped.
“I’m fine, really. It’s not like we’re over here binging on junk food and ice cream.”
Isabel looked at me doubtfully. “Really?” she turned around and walked over to the fridge. “Then what is this?” She asked, pulling something out and holding it in front of me as if it were exhibit A.
I laughed when I saw what she was holding up. “What, they’re pizza rolls.” I explain. So much for not binging on junk food.
“Oh, nonono, not just pizza rolls. They’re Totinos.” She said underlining the brand name with a flourish of her hand.
“And let’s check out this appealing nutrition factor on these delectable little pizza bites shall we, doctor Evans?” I covered my face with my hand as she flipped the bag around. I knew this wasn’t going to be good.
“Hmm let’s see. Calories, 578.76 grams. Total fat, 28.41 grams, that’s rich. Oh oh and look here, look here. 1301.68 milligrams of sodium. Well, if this isn’t enough to jump start you right into an early grave, I don’t know what is.” She tossed the bag back into the fridge.
“Isabel, you are aware that sister and mother are not synonymous.” I asked only half joking.
“And Max, you are aware that there are other options for meals besides what can be thrown in the microwave for two to three minutes?”
“Yes, but it’s so much easier than having my sister come over and pester me about my eating habits.” I teased.
“Really?! Even if your sister is taking time out of her hard and busy day to cook you a fabulous meal?”
“Hmm, maybe.” I pretended to think it over for a moment. “That depends on if my sister was using this fabulous meal as a means to check up on me.”
Isabel looked away from me as if she had been caught red handed. I sighed and sat back in my chair. “So this is a ploy to check up on me.”
“Well, Max, you can’t blame me for being worried about you.” I watched the teasing smile disappear from Iz’s face as she picked up a towel and wiped her hands on it. Something told me the light air of the conversation was about to take a dramatic turn.
“Max, I know that the two of you have had a ruff year. I know that it’s not easy to talk. But it’s worse to not talk. It’s there. Regardless of whether or not you say anything, it’s still going to be there.”
I stood up from my seat and started to walk out of the kitchen. But I knew my walking away wouldn’t deter my sister. “Isabel, you know what, I don’t want to have this argument with you. I had a really crappy day. I’m tired and I don’t feel like playing this broken record.”
“Well Max, it doesn’t have to be an argument if you would just listen to me. You want me and the rest of the world to believe that the two you are dealing with this, butyou’re not. The sooner you realize that the better.”
I entered the living room and took a seat on the couch deciding to ignore my sister instead of rise to her bait. I was well aware of the rocky emotional rollercoaster my life had been for the past month. I didn’t need my sister pointing out my problems to me.
When Isabel continued to talk, I turned on the TV.
“Oh yeah, that’s real mature, Max. Just drown me out like you do the rest of the world and maybe I’ll go away.” I didn’t try to fight her when she reached over and grabbed the remote from my hand. She would say what she had to say, regardless.
“Max, I’m only trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help Isabel.” I needed her to leave well enough alone.
She sat down beside me on the couch but I continued to face forward towards the blank television.
“I saw what was going on between the two of you last night. God, you wouldn’t even think you two were at the same party, let alone married.”
“Thank you, for your unwanted observation. I’ll make sure that it’s noted and documented.”
Isabel ignored my sarcasm. “Max, please, just hear me out for one second. If you would just talk to someone about all this.”
“And say what, Isabel? That my marriage is falling apart? You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t know that this is hard? That this isn’t tearing us apart? Do you?”
There. I’d said it out loud. After avoiding actually speaking the words for so long, I’d finally given voice to this action that had been taking place around me for the past months.
The words were like a rush of bile in my throat. They made me want to be sick.
“Max, you know I don’t think that.”
I turned around to face her.
“You must. Because every chance you get you throw it back in my face, reminding me to be sad, to be angry or to be fucking miserable. Well I am. I am miserable every damn day of my life. Everyday that I look at her or I go to that room. She can’t even go in that room, Isabel!”
I found myself laughing for some unexplainable reason. A silly little chuckle that was almost involuntary in the way it came from me.
“But you know what I do? I live my life. Because regardless of how hard this has been for me, or how hard this has been for her, we’re still living. We’re still here. And I can’t stop living because of this.”
I wasn’t sure if it was really Isabel that I was angry with or if it was myself or even my wife. But this sudden rush of anger was building inside of me and there was nothing I could do to keep it from coming out. My sister just happened to be a convenient target to aim for.
“Max, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to make you angry.”
No. I knew she wasn’t. She was trying to do everything she could to make things better for me. And I loved her for that. But this wasn’t something she could make nice and tidy in a neat little package. This wasn’t even something I knew how to fix myself.
We sat in silence. Her trying not to pressure me, all the while wanting to force me to do exactly as she said, and me not knowing what to say or do to fix this, yet condemning her for daring to try. Looking into my sister’s eyes, I saw someone who loved me and cared about me and just wanted me to be happy. And in that moment, all I wanted was to be happy too.
“I think she’s pregnant, Isabel.” The words came out before I could stop them. I wasn’t sure why I said them. No, that wasn’t true. I wanted to believe that saying the words would give me a sense of relief that would cause some of the sadness to fade. Instead, with them came a sense of panic so profound I could hardly stand it.
“Oh Max.” I wasn’t sure when my eyes had begun to blur but suddenly I was watching through a shroud of pitiful tears as Isabel gasped and placed her hands over her mouth. As if she made a sound she hadn’t meant to make. “Max, that’s…that’s wonderful.” I could hear the awkward confusion in her voice as she said the words.
I just shook my head. “No it’s not. It’s not wonderful. It’s not happy, it’s not anything that it should be, and you know why?”
I didn’t know if she truly had nothing more to say, or if the shock of my revelation had affected her ability to speak, but Isabel remained mute as she shook her head no.
“Because she’s hiding it from me. I’m her husband, she may be carrying my child and she’s hiding it from me.”
I am her husband.
She may be pregnant.
She is hiding it from me.
The words repeated in my head over and over. All day, I had tried not to think about the discovery I had made this morning. All day, I had forced myself to focus on my work. I’d spent the day continuously telling myself to do my job and not worry about my own problems. All day, I had placed my attention solely on my patients. Back to back. One after the other, shoving any thoughts of my own life aside, for the time being.
Isabel was right. If I didn’t think about it, maybe it would go away.
“Max, “ I heard my sister whisper. “It’s going to be-”
I turned to her sharply, cutting her off as she attempted to speak those words. Those words that were the last words I wanted to hear. “Don’t tell me it’s going to be ok. I don’t need to hear it’s going to be ok.”
I turned back around and found myself staring once again at the blank television screen.
“I need it to be ok. I need it to actually be ok. Because just saying it in my head over and over and over isn’t working. And I’m tired of saying it, and I’m tired of hearing it, and I’m tired of it just not being ok.”
A part of me felt as if I were losing it. And maybe I was. Maybe after feeling so helpless and miserable for so long, I was finally losing it.
“Max you need to calm down. This isn’t good for you. You know what I think? I think maybe you need to see someone. A therapist. The both of you, actually. Maybe if you were able to talk to someone and just get all of your feelings out there.”
That was funny. As far as I could tell, my feelings were as far out there as they could possibly get.
“Isabel, when I woke up this morning, I felt so good.” I remembered that feeling. It was a sense of happiness that I had been so grateful to be feeling after having gone without it for so long. I was miles away from that feeling now.
Isabel was frowning at me and I could tell my words had confused her. Of course they would. As far as she could see, I was currently living in matrimonial hell, with no way out. She didn’t know about the small steps we’d taken back to each other last night. The kisses we’d shared, the silent promises we’d made to each other.
“Last night I held her in my arms. We kissed. We touched. We didn’t make love. And that was ok. Last night I didn’t have to think or hurt or any of that crap. I just held her. And when I woke up I felt so good. Better than I’ve felt in a long time.”
Isabel also didn’t know about the fool I was for believe that things could change.
“When I woke up this morning, I still had that feeling. You know, that dancing on a moonbeam feeling? I went into the kitchen and made breakfast for the two of us. It was just some toast and orange juice, nothing special. But it felt so good to make. It felt so good to be doing something for her and to feel like when I was done she would enjoy it.”
Yeah, that had felt so good.
“And when I came back, she was in the bathroom and she was sick. And I know she was sick. I know it. I sat there on the bathroom floor with her while she was sick.”
I looked at my sister who was now looking at me with barely unshed tear. Tears of pity, no doubt.
“When I woke up this morning, I felt so good. And now…”
Now: I am her husband. She may be pregnant. She is hiding it from me.
Isabel didn’t say a word. Perhaps she was gathering her thoughts. Perhaps she had no thoughts. My sister always had thoughts and she was the last person to censor them. Even for my benefit. But for the first time that I could remember I wanted to hear what she had to say. Because I had run out of thoughts a long time ago.
“Max,” she started gently. “Did you ask her?”
I laughed at that. It was a humorless little sound that was more hollowed wretchedness than genuine mirth.
“Yes, Isabel, I asked her.”
She nodded her head as if she had already anticipated my answer. “And what did she say?”
What did she say? A simple question with a simple answer.
“She said no.” I turned around and looked back to the kitchen where the once delightful aroma had started to take on a charred aroma. “Your risotto’s scorching.”
She ignored me. “And you don’t believe she’s telling you the truth.” She seemed to be speaking more to herself than to me.
I stood up and walked back over to the kitchen area, my only thought being that it really would have been a shame for the risotto to burn.
I looked down into the pan at the mixture of broth chopped onion and rice. Wine. It could definitely use some wine. Isabel didn’t like to cook with wine. She always said the added flavor wasn’t worth the alcohol content.
The risotto could have used some wine.
“Max.” I felt the touch of a hand on my shoulder again and turned to see that Isabel was now standing behind me. I wasn’t even sure when she had left the living room.
“You know what would be nice? If you got away for a few days. Just took a break. Cleared your head. That would be nice wouldn’t it?”
She was now talking to me as if I were a child that needed placating. I sighed. My sister meant well, she always did, but sometimes she needed to learn the value of not meaning so well.
“Isabel you know what would be really nice?” I asked her.
“What?” I could hear the anticipation in her voice. Like she was just waiting for me to tell her exactly what she needed to do in order to help me fix me.
“If you left.” I said calmly.
For a moment, I thought she would argue, or make a fuss, or insist that she stay. But she didn’t do any of those things. She looked at me for a seemingly endless moment almost as if she was gauging me, but she didn’t say a word of protest.
“Fine. That’s fine, Max.” she walked over to the stove and switched it off. “This is way past done anyway.” Something told me she wasn’t talking about our dinner.
I watched in silence as she walked around the kitchen gathering a few odd things and throwing them inside of a paper bag. Her movements were harsh and choppy, making it more than clear that she was not in a good mood. Once she had gathered all of her things, and some things that may have been mine, she walked out the door without another word and slammed it closed behind her.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood in that spot at the kitchen counter after she left.
The risotto was burnt.
TBC