“He’s alive.” For now, because a galloping pulse can’t be good in a man the size of a VW Beetle.
“Thank God,” Lisa says.
Yeah, God. That guy. He forgot to RSVP to mankind’s last party. Who could blame him? The fireworks were great but everyone attending was sick.
On the other side of the kitchen, knives wait in a drawer. Knives for sawing bread, for slicing cheese, for dicing tomatoes, for hacking meat. One cleaver for me, and the paring knife. Both bear keen edges.
“You should have a knife.”
Lisa’s brows dip. “Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“What if you need to cut something?”
“I thought you meant…”
She’s staring toward the thin air above her uncle. The drawer beckons. A corkscrew. Good for taking out an eye. An adequate weapon for someone who doesn’t want to carry one.
“Take this,” I say. Her fingers close around the helix. One presses against its point and she winces. “Just in case we find a great bottle of wine. This is Italy, remember?”
We walk with my wheels between us. Lisa’s hand balances on the seat, using it to guide her path while I hold the handlebars and steer us true. She took the corkscrew without question and shoved it into her jeans pocket, where she reaches down and traces the outline every few dozen feet.
This is the middle of nowhere, although its existence proves that it must be somewhere. So I pull out my compass and wait for the needle to still. Southeast. I want southeast. If we take a right at the farm’s entrance, that’s the road east. Good enough until we find a road that wanders south.
We don’t speak until we’re at the white mailbox and the old planks that form a halfhearted attempt at a fence are behind us.
Lisa cracks the silence. “I hope he’s okay. My dad.”
“He’ll be fine.”
“He’s my father.”
“I know.”
“You could have killed him.”
“But I didn’t.”
There’s a pause as she formulates the question. “Why?”
“The world you knew, that we all knew, is gone. Humanity is mostly dead and what’s left is dying.”
A ditch forms between her eyebrows, and it’s filled with ignorance.
“I don’t get it.”
“I like being human.”
The ditch digs a little deeper.
“He did it because he loved me,” she says after a while. “That’s what I tell myself so I don’t hate him. He’s still my dad, and a person shouldn’t hate their dad. In a way, I feel like I owed him something. It was a hard job, looking after me out here, being blind and all.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Sometimes.”
“It’s no excuse,” I tell her. “You didn’t owe him
She disappears inside herself for several moments before returning with a new question.
“During sex, did you ever close your eyes and pretend it was someone else?”
Did I? Maybe. When I was younger. Before I began having sex with someone other than myself.
“Sure,” I say to make her feel better. “Probably everyone does that.”
“I tried. It didn’t work very well.”
“Honey, what he was doing to you wasn’t sex or love.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” The question mark has a rhetorical curve, so I stay silent. When we reach the first crossroad stamped into the landscape, she says, “I think I’d still like being touched one day. By a man who likes me.”
“I think you will, too.”
“Do you have any secrets?”
I look at her sideways, tell myself I won’t let this one come to harm when I’ve lost so many along the way. “No.”
TWO
Dr. Rose opens a window. Sun and fresh air rush in like they’re in a hurry to go no place but here. This is their ultimate destination, their dream vacation.
I hold my face up to the light, smile. “That could be symbolic.”
“Of what?”
“Of what you do here.”
He smiles. “An optimist. That’s a step in the right direction. Often people who come see me look on therapy as a negative. A black mark against them.”
“
He gets up, goes out to the waiting room. “You want something to drink?”
“Is this a trick question?”
“Yes. I’m going to read your personality based on your beverage choices, so choose wisely.”
I smile. I can’t help myself. This isn’t what I thought it would be. I expected a dry soul shoehorned into a somber setting.
“Coffee with cream. Two sugars.”
“Two?”
“Okay, three.”
“That’s more like it.” He returns with identical mugs, passes one to me. The liquid is hot, sweet, smooth. I alternate blowing and sipping until the first inch disappears.
“What does this say about me?”
He takes his own long sip, slurps a little, doesn’t apologize. When he’s satisfied he swaps the mug for a notepad and pen. “You like asking questions.”
“My coffee tells you that?”
The pen moves on the paper. “No, your questions do.”
I laugh. “If you don’t ask, you may never know.”
He smiles down at his paper. “Why don’t you tell me why you called me?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I’m a therapist, not a psychic.”
“That would make your job easier, no?”
“Scarier.”
I take another half inch of coffee. “I’m not crazy.”
“There are two ways to look at that. Either no one’s crazy, or we’re all crazy in our own way. As a great Greek philosopher once said: Man needs a little madness, or else he never dares cut the rope and be free.”
“Socrates?”
“Zorba.”
Again with the laughter. “I don’t know, Doctor, it’s possible you might be crazier than me.”
“Sometimes I talk to myself,” he admits. “Sometimes I even answer myself.”
“Only child?”
“Eldest. Of two. I have a brother.”
“I have a younger sister. She had imaginary friends. And because my folks wouldn’t buy me a Ken doll, I drew a mustache and chest hair on one of my Barbies.”
