How to Walk Away

by Katherine Center

  He was halfway across the room, staring straight at us. “What the frick is going on here?”

  “It’s a party,” Kit said, no idea who she was dealing with.

  But Myles didn’t look over. “Did I just walk in here to see one of my PTs kissing one of my patients?”

  “You sure did,” Kit volunteered. “I just Instagrammed it!”

  “Congratulations,” Myles said to Ian then. “You just got fired.”

  The crowd gasped.

  “Say good-bye to your job,” Myles went on, enjoying this moment far too much. “Say good-bye to your PT license. And I’ll have to brush up on my immigration law, but I’m pretty sure you can say good-bye to this entire country, as well.” Myles took a step closer and waved his fingers tauntingly at Ian. “Bye-bye, work visa.”

  But Ian had turned away from him. He was looking at me now, running his gaze over my face, studying the details. I could tell from Ian’s expression that Myles wasn’t wrong. Ian had just lost his job, and possibly much more.

  My knees chose that moment to start to quiver—though Ian anticipated that, somehow, and he was already setting me back down in my chair. As he got me settled and moved to stand back up, he squeezed my hand, and it felt like good-bye.

  “Do you think I’m fricking joking, man?” Myles walked closer. “Because I am dead serious. You just lost everything.”

  Myles’s beady little face was red and sweaty, but Ian seemed to go the other way and get calmer and cooler.

  Ian turned to face him. “Actually,” he said, “I know what it’s like to lose everything—and getting sabotaged by a weasel like you doesn’t even come close.”

  “You sabotaged yourself, friend.”

  Ian seemed to consider that. “Maybe I did.” Then he looked up. “But don’t call me friend.”

  “Who is this guy?” Kit asked the room. Then, to Myles, “It’s a Valentine’s party. Chill the hell out, dude. Have a cookie.”

  Myles looked over and noticed her for the first time. “It’s not even Valentine’s Day.”

  “Why is everybody so fixated on that?”

  “Ian—” I started.

  But Ian had not even turned his head before Myles barked, “Do not approach the patient!”

  Ian gave him a look, like, Really? “I’m just going to walk her back to her room.”

  “You are not,” Myles declared, crossing over to us. “Take one step toward her and I will throw you out of this building.”

  Ian turned to face him dead-on, and at this range we could all see that Ian was a good head taller. “You and what army, you bawfaced prick?”

  At that, Myles decided to throw a punch. But Ian somehow blocked it, and then he grabbed Myles’s two wrists to hold them still in the air. “You don’t want to do that,” Ian said calmly. “I’d hate to kill you by accident. For my sake more than yours.”

  If the expression on Myles’s face had been a sound, it would have been a whimper. He was in over his head, and he knew it. He knew Ian could crush him—and he also knew he’d just made certain that Ian had little to lose.

  Myles opened his palm in a gesture of defeat. “Okay,” he said.

  Ian released his grip. They both stepped back.

  Then Ian took a few more steps backward, and I realized he was leaving.

  He looked around the room, taking it in for the last time.

  Then he turned to me, and said, “Maggie!”

  Though my eyes, and everybody else’s, were already on him.

  Don’t say good-bye, I found myself thinking. Don’t say good-bye.

  He looked right at me, gave me a nod, and then said, “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

  Twenty-three

  THE NEXT DAY brought a few beginnings—but mostly endings.

  It was the day Kitty was leaving for New York, and the day I was leaving the hospital. The plan was for my parents to arrive late morning, and for my dad to drive Kit to the airport while my mom stayed with me to help pack up. As we waited, I tried very hard not to mope.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving me alone with them.”

  Kit wasn’t having it. “Just in the nick of time,” she said. “It’s a miracle we got through this whole month unscathed.”

  She wasn’t wrong.

  Though some of us were less scathed than others.

  When her suitcase was zipped and sitting by the door, she said, “Now can I please tell you the comforting thing I’ve been wanting to tell you?”

  “You can tell me,” I said. “But I won’t promise to find it comforting.”

  “I find it comforting,” Kit said. “That’s enough.”

  “Spit it out, then.”

  “So I saw this TED Talk, and it was this researcher from Harvard—” She paused. “Or was it Stanford? Actually, I think it was MIT. Anyway, a total brainiac—”

  “You’ve lost me already. Just know that.”

  She pushed on. “He researches mathematical probabilities or something, and in his talk, he mentioned that people have, like, a set point for happiness.”

  “How does that relate at all to mathematical probabilities?”

  “The point is, he had these great statistics. People who win the lottery, when you check in with them a year later, you’d think they’d be super happy, right?”

  She wanted me to say it. “Right,” I said.

  “But they’re not happy. They’re just as miserable as they were before.”

  I tilted my head. “Were they miserable before?”

  “And people,” she went on, “who have terrible things happen to them—loss of a spouse, bankruptcy, disfiguring accidents—”

  “That would be me?”

  At that, Kitty nodded. “Exactly!” She pointed at me. “He specifically mentioned paraplegics.”

  I had not heard myself described that way before, and the word gave me a little start. But I pushed past it. “I still don’t see what this has to do with math.”

  “There was a specific study on people who had lost the use of their lower limbs—people in wheelchairs—and those findings totally hold true. One year after the accident, they’re exactly as happy as they were before.”

  I stared at her.

  “Isn’t that great?”

  “That’s what you’ve been waiting to say all this time?”

  “Yes! You’re going to be okay. Aren’t you glad to know that?”

  “Undecided.”

  Then, as she came in for a final hug, she said, “I just need you to remember that, okay?” She squeezed a little tighter. “There are all kinds of happy endings.”

  * * *

  NEXT, MY PARENTS showed up at the door—with a top-of-the-line wheelchair with a bow on it. Literally: a bow. Like I’d just turned sixteen and they’d bought me a convertible.

  I just stared. “This is the worst best present ever.”

  My dad came over for one of his signature hugs. “The titanium was developed by NASA,” he said. “It has razor-thin inverted wheels, like all the basketball players use.”

  “Dammit,” I said. “Now I have to join a basketball team.” I thought about Pop-A-Shot with Ian, and wondered if I just might.

  My dad wanted to walk me through all its features and do a little demo, but I shut that right down.

  “He loves that thing,” my mother said. “Spent all day yesterday scooting around in it.”

  My dad rubbed one of his shoulders and confirmed, “Arms are a little sore.”

  They were both so excited. My mother loved its compactness—how trim it was. “From just the right angle,” she said, “you can barely tell there’s a chair there at all.”

  “So I’ll just look like I’m weirdly floating down the street with my legs bent?”

  But she pooh-poohed me. “You know what I mean.”

  Everyone was civil. Everyone was elegantly polite. You’d never even know that we’d all just bounced back from being estranged. And then something weird happened: Just before Kit headed to
the airport with my dad, she stepped in to hug my mom good-bye.

  And my mom just didn’t let go.

  How long does a normal hug last? Five seconds? This one went on for five minutes. So long that Kit wound up opening her eyes to look at me like, What the heck?

  Nobody said anything, either. We just stood there, in silence, and let it happen.

  It was the first hug my mom and Kit had shared in years.

  When my mom finally let go, there were tears on her cheeks. She wiped them away and turned to my dad. “She’s going to need something to eat in the airport.”

  My dad sensed what was coming. He looked at his watch. “You’re sending me to the sandwich shop?”

  This was becoming her signature thing. Sending him for sandwiches. Especially when she wanted to have girl talks.

  My dad shook his head. “We don’t have time.”

  “We do!” my mother said.

  Kit nodded then. “Actually, we have plenty of time.”

  My dad looked at my mother like, Really? Then he sighed, set down Kit’s suitcase, and headed out—while Kit and I frowned at each other.

  My mother watched him go, and only after he’d boarded the elevator at the end of the hall did she turn around to face us. Her expression was solemn. She took a deep breath and swallowed. Then she closed the door and took a step toward Kit.

  “His name,” she said, “was Derin Buruk.”

  Kit held her breath. She glanced at me, then back at my mother, who glanced back at the door, as if confirming the coast was clear.

  “He was Turkish. An exchange student. Devastatingly handsome. Black hair and green eyes rimmed with black lashes. He showed up on our first day of senior year, and he was all any girl could talk about for months. I didn’t talk about him. I ignored him. I was dating your dad—since ninth grade—and I wasn’t looking for dates, but I couldn’t help but notice him. He had a movie star quality. He was magnetic. And for some reason, he fixated on me. He passed me notes, flirted with me in the hallways, snuck flowers into my locker. I told him over and over to knock it off, but he said he couldn’t. He stared at me constantly in the cafeteria and at football games. He called me almost daily. He professed love—obsessive love—and begged me to break up with your dad and go out with him.”

  I looked at my mother’s hands. They were trembling.

  “Turkish men are famously persistent,” she went on, “did you know that? They are very determined about love. Your dad—your wonderful dad, the love of my life—he’s not really like that. That steadiness, that easygoing nature—they don’t lend themselves to mad passion. He was kind, he was good-hearted, but he was also a high school boy. He got a lot wrong. He knew next to nothing about romance, or wooing, or how to make a woman flutter. We were the best of friends. But I had never come up against a force like Derin. I had no defenses. I did my best. I pushed him away and pushed him away, but he just kept coming back—harder and stronger. The truth was, I liked it. I liked that he noticed me. I liked that of all the girls in love with him, I was the one he chose. I never understood why he picked me. I still don’t know why.”

  My mom looked very shaky. I patted the bed down by my knees. “Come sit down.”

  Absentmindedly, she did. “That year,” she went on, “over Christmas vacation, your father went away to visit family. He was gone for a week. Somehow, Derin heard that he was gone, and he started climbing the tree outside my window at night and tapping on the pane. I turned him away two times, but on the third night, he said he was leaving to go home soon, and he had to tell me something before he left.” She closed her eyes. “God forgive me. I let him in.

  “For the rest of the week, I let him in every time he knocked. He would stay until just before dawn, and then sneak away. The night before your father returned to town, I forbade Derin to ever come back—and he never did.”

  “What did he need to tell you?” I asked.

  My mom frowned. “You know what? I don’t remember.”

  Kit let out a long sigh.

  “When school started up again,” my mom went on, “Derin had gone back to Istanbul. I never saw him again. By spring break, I had figured out that I was pregnant, and by summer your dad had figured it out, too. He assumed the baby was his, and I didn’t correct him. It could have been. He was so happy about it. He proposed, and I accepted, and I pretended that Derin Buruk never existed.”

  “Until I had my blood tested,” Kitty said.

  My mom shook her head. “Until the moment I first saw you. Right then, I knew.”

  “Do you hate him? The guy?” Kit asked then.

  “No,” my mom said. “I don’t hate him. Not anymore.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  “No!” my mother said.

  “But when you look at me, do you see him?”

  “Sometimes. You got his eyelashes.”

  “You always said they were Huron.”

  My mom gave a little sorry shrug.

  “Does it make you feel guilty?”

  “Sometimes. Or afraid.”

  Kitty nodded. “That Dad might find out and not love me anymore.”

  My mom shook her head. “That he might find out and not love me anymore.”

  I nodded at Kit. “You never did anything wrong.”

  My mom agreed. “He’s adored you from day one.”

  “Mom is a little trickier.”

  My mom let out a nervous laugh.

  “Well, he’s not going to find out,” Kit said then, looking at me.

  Was it morally wrong to collude against him? I didn’t really care right then. “I’ll never tell.”

  “Neither will I.”

  My mom looked physically deflated now, as if releasing all those secrets had emptied her out. She kept her eyes on Kit.

  “You’re kind of his favorite, you know,” I said.

  “I know,” Kit said. “Just barely.”

  “He always took your side over Mom’s.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad for that,” our mom said. “I’m glad you had each other.”

  Then, in the little pause that followed, we heard a voice out in the hallway, just outside the room.

  “Can I help you with something, sir?” a voice asked.

  At first, there was no reply, but then a man cleared his throat. “No,” he said. “No. I just … forgot my keys.”

  My mom’s eyes went wide. Because it was Dad.

  The nurse bustled on past him into the room, leaving the door open behind her, and all three of us turned to see my dad, frozen still at the threshold of the door, eyes not quite focused, gazing uncomprehendingly in our direction.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said after a minute, a little breathless, his face blank with shock. “I came back to get the car keys. But I found myself eavesdropping instead.”

  Twenty-four

  MY MOTHER RAN to him, a sob like I’d never heard escaping her throat, but he blocked her and stepped back.

  He didn’t meet her eyes.

  “Come on, Kitty,” he said, not meeting hers, either. “You’ve got a flight to catch.”

  “Cliff—” my mom started.

  “No!” my dad barked, and she caught her breath.

  Then, in slow motion, he reached down for Kitty’s suitcase, walked over to slide the car keys out of my mom’s purse, and left the room without a word.

  My mother’s legs collapsed from under her, but Kitty caught her and steered her over to the bedside chair.

  “I’m sorry—I’m so sorry,” Kit said. “I’ll talk to him.”

  My mom lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.

  “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’re going to fix this. He loves you.”

  Kit had a flight to catch. She met my eyes. “You’ve got this, right?”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t at all sure that I did. “Don’t miss the plane.”

  Kit came my way and squeezed me tight. “Call me if you need me.”

  “Not
if,” I said, “when.”

  “At least you’re not bored,” Kit said then.

  “Maybe we’ll all be better for knowing,” I said. But as I glanced at my mother, now catatonic in the face of what had just happened, it was hard to imagine how.

  * * *

  MY FATHER DID not come back for us after the airport. In my whole life, he had never ever not been there when I needed him.

  But I got it.

  He sent a car service instead.

  It took my mother twice as long as anyone could have predicted to pack up and dismantle the décor, and the driver waited in the hall in his driving cap.

  My mother, it’s fair to say, couldn’t seem to focus.

  I tried to issue suggestions and encouragement from the bed, but she wound up walking around the room, picking things up randomly and setting them back down. She’d pack a few things, only to lose focus and leave others behind in the cabinet.

  Meanwhile, nurses and patients popped in and out, saying good-bye.

  I didn’t expect to see Ian, of course. Myles probably had security set up around the perimeter. But, despite all the pressing drama of the day, I couldn’t stop looking for him. I hadn’t gone a day and a half without seeing him since we’d met.

  The day was a parade of all the faces I’d come to know these past six weeks: farewells from the social worker, and the hospital psychologist, and Priya, and Nina. I saw the spinal surgeon and the dermatologist, and the insurance rep, and two of the orderlies. It was almost like I’d been at summer camp, and now it was time to say good-bye until next summer.

  It took forever to go. Then we hit warp speed.

  Next, I was rolling over the threshold of my parents’ house, over the new ramp my dad had built for me, mentally thanking him and praising his workmanship while trying to staunch the flow of despair in my chest.

  But when I rolled my way into the living room—there was my dad.

  He froze when he saw us, and dropped his gaze to the floor. We froze, too.

  He had an unzipped duffel bag in one hand—his pajama cuffs and part of a toothbrush sticking out, like he’d been trying to get out before we made it home.

  “Hi, Cliff,” my mother said, almost in a whisper.

  But my dad just turned his head away and waited for her to leave.