Poe (9 page)

My father was ethereally quiet and completely inscrutable. It was hard for me not to jump when I’d unexpectedly find him in the same room with me. One time I thought I was completely alone in the house only to discover him right behind me, reaching past my ear to open the kitchen cabinet. My dad could probably pick your pocket, lift your watch, and knot your shoelaces together in five seconds flat. When I was younger, I often wondered if we were in the witness protection program, because no one would make a better spy than my father—plus he had that soft Russian accent that gave him an international, mysterious edge.

He was such a nonentity that I never gave his life much thought until he was dead, until I was looking through his drawers, feeling part thief, part pervert. I found nothing that could add to my understanding. There were no yearbooks or mementos in the attic, not even a file with a birth certificate or copy of his immigration papers. I’d felt a queasy churning in my stomach. Who the hell
was
this guy, my father? I dove into the metal trunk used to store our family photos. There were hundreds of me, of course, only child that I was. Me as a baby, toddling precariously down the steps holding my mother’s hand; me on my red tricycle, gap-toothed with a bad haircut; and there were a series of Polaroids I’d taken of my doomed goldfish (I was the angel of death to fish—none lasted more than a day or two). But none that I could find of my father.

Finally, at the very bottom I discovered one: it was of the two of us, my father and me, taken by my mother. We stood in front of one of her grand Thanksgiving turkeys, an impressive spread on the linen-clad table. We did not look comfortable with each other; there
was an awkward distance between us. I was squinting and forcing an impossibly wide grin, and he was looking down at his shoes, brow furrowed, as if he were worried.

None of this, of course, made its way into their obituary, a copy of which I keep in my
Roget’s Thesaurus
. I’m the only record of who they were, or weren’t. And what stops my heart at four in the morning is the idea that in time I’ll lose what little I remember, and then they will truly, and irrevocably, be gone.

It’s a massive crack of thunder that wakes me up. I open my eyes, and lightning flashes across the night sky. A shattering rain pounds at the windows, blowing sideways. Or maybe it’s sleet. If I were outside, it would sting; sleet has a slashing quality I’ve never been able to appreciate. It makes me wonder why I don’t move to Florida, where I could eat grapefruit from a backyard tree—what keeps me here.

I try to move an arm, but it looks like I’m still tied up. Well, that’s one thing keeping me here.

Something in the room rustles and I see a shadowy figure sitting in a low chair by the door.

“You are
so
dead.”

My favorite smoky voice.

A floor lamp clicks on, and I see Lisa, glorious Lisa, sitting in a very plush, dark purple chair, which almost exactly matches the deep purple bags under her eyes.

“Well, not anymore,” I say, flashing a grin. She’s clearly not amused.

“Do you have
any
idea what you’ve put me through?” Her eyes narrow into slits as she speaks. She’s trying to look stern but all I can think is,
Damn, that’s sexy
.

“Hey, I’m the one who’s plugged into a heart monitor.” My voice is dry and crackly again. “Water?”

She blows through her nose hard, like she’s debating whether or not to take advantage of my incapacitated status and kill me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so upset on my account before. I’m flattered. She stands slowly and picks up the glass of water that Nurse Barbie has thoughtfully left for me, complete with its bent sippy straw. Way to add to my emasculation.

Lisa stands and holds it out to me, and I shrug, pull at the ties binding my wrists. “Need a little help here.”

She gives an exorbitant sigh and then holds it to my lips. I take small sips; there is an oddly sensual dimension to this small and quiet act. When my throat feels like it isn’t made of emery board, I nod.

“Thanks,” I say.

She places the cup on a writing desk—for critical care patients who apparently need to keep up with their correspondence—and then pleasantly settles onto the foot of my bed. Her shoulders sag. “I’m so damn
tired
.”

There’s a nice little quiet between us, and I say nothing, because for the first time since I woke up on a slab in the morgue, I feel peaceful.
Blip, blip, blip
goes the heart monitor, regular little peaks and valleys on the screen. It has a mesmerizing quality—it’s like watching fish in a tank or a burning log in a fire. It’s so here and now, a touchstone that’s ambient and reassuring. I wonder if the hospital will let me take it home. Maybe Jessica can pull some strings.

“Thanks,” I say again, speaking without thinking.

She turns to me, eyebrows furrowed. “You realize I haven’t slept since someone gave me ‘decaf,’ which actually contained the caffeine equivalent of a controlled substance, and then that someone went and
died
right in front of me.”

“My bad,” I say. “But I thought you didn’t want a regular-people kind of date.”

“I’m reconsidering my position.”

I want to reach out to her but can’t. Still tied up. “You got any scissors or sharp objects?” I ask.

She smiles. “A smart girl always has sharp objects. But I think I like you better this way.”

“So do I have to beg?”

“Kinky thought, but no, I’ll take pity on you this time.”

I watch her reach down for her large brown leather purse, and her hair falls to the side, revealing a delicate, arching neck and pale skin with a paler, but very thick and obvious, scar. I want to ask but don’t. She starts to empty the amazingly lethal contents of her purse on the white hospital bed. There’s a good-sized bottle of mace, a couple of drum sticks, a Swiss army knife, another knife, larger and sheathed in some kind of leather casing, and to round it all off, a Taser.

I raise one eyebrow, but she ignores me, pulling the large knife from its sheath and then reaching over to my wrist. She holds it steady—her warm hand feels good on my skin—and then slips the knife between my wrist and the plastic binding. She is focused—I can feel her breath on the small hairs of my arm—and then she pulls quickly, snapping the plastic easily, like she’s slicing through butter.

I try to raise my arm, and it hovers for a second above the edge of the railing before falling limply back to my side. The small effort exhausts me.

Lisa turns to the other wrist, releasing me.

“Thanks.”

“You said that already,” she says quietly. I can’t quite read her tone of voice, whether that’s a good or bad thing. She looks to the heart monitor, like it has an answer. “My heart’s been racing. I don’t know if it’s the stress or caffeine.”

“You’re beautiful.” The word “beautiful” rushes out, seems to float in the air, like mist.

“Ah, the drugs are talking,” she replies. But she pushes me over gently, electrodes, wires, and all, and neatly curls up beside me. Then she reaches out and slips her hand under my hospital gown, which causes a pleasant shiver. The gown has cartoon ducks on it, and I momentarily wonder if it’s part of hospital psychology to lull one into
childlike obedience, but then—ouch!—Lisa pulls an electrode off my chest, a couple of hairs with it. She expertly slips it under her T-shirt, placing it directly across her breastbone so quick the monitor doesn’t even skip a beat. Immediately the peaks and valleys of the monitor become more erratic.
Blipblipblipblip
, long pause,
blip
.

“See?” she says.

“Sorry,” I say.

She yawns.

Another loud crack of thunder rattles the windowpanes, followed by a flash of light that reflects across the linoleum floor. I don’t want to say a word. I can’t take the chance that she’ll leave, and I feel that this moment is tentative, like a wild bird has just landed on my shoulder. I don’t know what any of it means, her being here beside me, and I don’t really care. It’s enough. It really and truly is enough.

CHAPTER FIVE: BARDO

I
once took a religious studies class in college, Tibetan Buddhism of all things, because the professor was known to smoke dope and go easy on the grades. I remember almost nothing, because it was just a filler class, an alternative to the history requirement. But there is one thing that stands out: the
bardo
.

A bardo is a state in between one and another. There is the bardo of birth, of waking consciousness; there is the bardo of dreams and the bardo of death. I sometimes wish I’d paid more attention, but my professor had this droning voice that made it difficult to concentrate in class. I’d start out with the best of intentions, pen in hand, fresh sheet of notepaper in front of me, but once he started throwing around words like
trikaya
and
dharmakaya
, my mind drifted off to other things, like whether it was pizza or turkey tetrazzini day in the cafeteria. But the bardo stood out, this idea of an in-between place. And when my parents died, I felt like my life, up to that point seemingly stable and permanent, was in fact nothing more than a motel room—I couldn’t seem to land anywhere solidly. It all felt so transitory, like I could put my hand against a wall and it would pass through.

Lisa changes that.

Lisa sits in the purple chair, comfortable. We both know the routine now, and it’s strange how this hospital room feels like a home of
sorts. We know the nurses by name: Nurse Barbie is actually Pamela (not Pam, not Pammy; you have to say Pamela, or the next time you’re due for your sponge bath she will be rough). We’ve heard all the gossip, (Dr. Conway’s marriage is on the rocks—his wife had an affair with her psychiatrist.) And we’ve learned that Village People doctor is actually Henry. He played lead guitar for a metal band in the eighties—even wore Day-Glo spandex and platform shoes. Sometimes he and Lisa talk music; she rattles off the names of bands that sound like jokes to me, but he nods seriously, like they share a religion.

Time drags in the morning, and early afternoon is deadly boring, but everything lightens when Lisa appears at the door promptly at 3:30
P.M.
The outside world somehow clings to her—I can almost smell the light rain that beads her wool hat—and she always carries a paper bag with some treat for me: my favorite donut, the latest issue of the
New Yorker
, or a new addition to the serious vitamin regimen she swears by and which colors my pee different shades of orange.

And although I am getting better, from what no one really seems to know—my diagnosis is being assigned to that amorphous category of “undetermined”—a part of me doesn’t want to. A part of me could stay here, like this, forever.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Lisa says.

She digs through the large bag she keeps her laptop in. Yesterday she showed me a video on YouTube; she was playing drums for a band that broke up three months ago, Pandora’s Lunchbox. The lead singer got a job at a big insurance agency in Florida, and the guitarist moved to New York to get married.

“I had it framed,” she says.

She hands me a black wooden picture frame, but where a picture would be is instead a neatly cut article from the
Devonshire Eagle
.

My obituary.

STAFF WRITER DIES IN HAUNTED HOUSE

Staff writer Dimitri Petrov, known by his byline D. Peters, tragically drowned to death on Halloween after falling into an old well at the Aspinwall mansion. He was 23. He is survived by nobody. Anyone who wants to watch the exciting video of the events leading up to his death can view them online at the
Devonshire Eagle
website, sponsored by Doug’s Automotive on Fourth Street. (Half off your next tire rotation.) He will be missed.

“Classy. I take it Nate wrote the piece?”

Lisa smiles. “Anyone else you know who would use your obituary as advertising space?”

I frown. “The ‘drowned to death’ part really bugs me. I mean, if I drowned and I’m being written about in the obituary pages, then ‘to death’ is redundant. Don’t you think?”