“No, it isn’t.” I feel my throat tightening.
“Dumb thing to say, I guess,” Cricket says.
We sit for a minute in the pseudo silence of the nursing home—things buzzing and announcements being made. Stand Up is starting in the front room. Whatever that means.
“It’s good to see you again,” I say to Cricket, meaning the sentiment wholeheartedly, but aware that my mind is somewhere else.
“Are you ok?” he asks, seeing through me.
My eyes start to water. No. I’m not ok.
“Of course not,” he answers for me and puts his hand on my knee like I’m a child.
The gesture comforts me and breaks my heart at the same time. I don’t know where to start, what to say, what to leave out. I shake my head and try not to cry, but I fail miserably. He patiently gives me time to collect myself.
“It’s just everything,” I say lamely. “It’s all been so weird. Not just Dad. You know—life.” I’m stammering nonsense. “I just wish I knew something. Anything. Why, when. I don’t know.”
Cricket reaches his hand to mine. The skin on his arm is soft and wrinkled. His knuckles are too big and his veins too blue. Yet, the warm understanding of his palm is, I imagine, the same as it always was.
“No one knows anything, Nina,” he says, “Life’s a ride. It’s a roller coaster, and you can’t really see anything but the twist or drop that you’re on. And sometimes it’s better that way.”
I nod. We sit for a minute while he catches his breath and I process his wisdom.
“It won’t do you any good to complain,” he says. “No good to wish it was different, that it was faster, slower, that you were in the front car, that the people behind you wouldn’t scream so loud.” Cricket breathes deeply; his talking to me is a labor of love.
A nurse comes in to administer his medicines. She smiles at me, tilting her head like she’s trying to remember where she knows me from. So many people come and go that once gone, they’re easily forgotten. Cricket swallows all his medicine, and the nurse returns to her cart.
“I just feel out of control,” I say.
“Nothing to do but hold on tight when it gets scary,” Cricket says and coughs. “You got to take a minute and breathe when you can and enjoy the moment, understand?”
“Thank you, Cricket,” I manage to say through the knot in my throat.
He squeezes my hand and smiles at me. “You can come back and see me.”
“I will.”
“Before this place takes the last of me,” he says.
I offer a weak smile, not sure whether to hope that his is a slow decline or a quick one. This place seems like a holding tank, and I don’t know if the folks here are looking for the quickest way out or just hoping for another day.
I decide that my eyes are too red and puffy to seek out Oliver, so I head for the exit. I make it as far as the lobby, and just when I think I will escape unnoticed, the Universe delivers him.
“Hi,” Oliver says, having seen me first, catching me off guard.
“Hi,” I say. My hands go up to fuss around my eyes, trying to hide my emotion.
“What’s wrong?” he says in a very endearing rush toward me.
“Nothing,” I lie.
“You look sad.” He reaches out like he means to touch me, but draws back, looking around nervously. “What happened?”
People in scrubs blur by us, some rushing to the next task, others stopping to talk with the residents trapped in wheelchairs—stuck in a place they never thought they’d be.
“Nothing,” I say, fidgeting with my shirt. “I’m fine.”
“Then what’s wrong with your face?”
“Nothing’s wrong with my face,” I say defiantly. “This is what my face always looks like.”
“No, it isn’t,” he says and steps closer after all. “What are you doing here? Is everything ok?”
“Trying to accidently run into you,” I say, sheepishly. “I think I came here to break up with you.”
“Oh.” He steps back. The look on his face is somewhere between sad and relieved. “Are you still going to?”
“I don’t know.”
I want to grab hold of him, kiss him, feel him against me. If I’m picking up the cues of electricity correctly, he wants the same thing, but he doesn’t move toward me as usual, and as usual I’m not sure how to read that.
He asks in a whisper, “Want to come over later and we can talk about it? If you still want to end it, I’ll understand.”
This is the part of the roller coaster that’s scary, the part that corkscrews around so I can’t see what’s coming next
“Do you want me to want to end it?” I ask. “I can’t read you at all. I know I’m out of practice with the dating stuff, but you’re a closed book.”
“I know, Nina,” he says and takes my hand. “I don’t know how to say no to you.”
“Should you?” I ask, concerned.
“It’s not about should.” He sighs. “Come over tonight. We’ll talk.”
We step away from each other as the coming and going of the world corkscrews around us.
Later, when he answers the door, I can’t help myself, I immediately lean in to kiss him. He pulls us both inside and closes the door with his foot. He kisses me again and slides his hands under the bottom of my shirt, but as soon as his fingers find the skin at the base of my ribs, he jerks his hands away like he’s touched an open flame.
I lift my hands up and back like I’m being held up. This is not the response I’m used to.
“I’m so sorry,” he says and runs his hands through his hair. “This is embarrassing.”
“A little,” I say, feeling my
