by SJ Cavaletti
“Thanks. Seriously, everything is the medical industry is about money. Whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath?”
“Pzzt.” And I meant every bit of that with sarcasm.
He bit the celery, chewed and said, “Speaking of money grubbers, you know I’ve not been too keen on Miami General for a while…”
“Mmmmhhmm.”
“And actually… well, it’s not like I’ve been looking for another placement, but… you remember Dan?”
“Ortho?”
“Yeah. Well, he’s moving to Seattle next month.”
I looked up, listening, but not expecting what was to come.
“He got me a placement.”
“What?”
“In Seattle.”
“Seattle?”
El nodded. I wheeled over with my chopping board of herbs and scraped them into the pot. “Oookay… you never mentioned this…”
“I had nothing to mention. I mean, I knew Dan was leaving. We’d talked a few times about how much we mutually disliked the administration. Apparently there were two ER physicians that left the Seattle hospital at the same time and he just dropped my name in the hat. They buzzed me today and offered me a spot.”
My eyebrows raised. El felt he needed to add, “I didn’t apply for a job behind your back or anything like that.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
“So… I know you’re probably in shock right now but… any initial thoughts?”
My initial thoughts?
He was right about shock.
“There’s a National Health Institute research campus in Seattle,” El added, suggesting I’d be able to transfer my work there.
“Oh. Is there?”
“Yeah. Just so you know, I didn’t even consider it before looking that you’d be able to continue your work. Actually, did you know NHI has twenty campuses across the country?”
“That’s a lot of labs,” I said, avoiding my answer. Because even though I wasn’t sure, a big part of me wanted to say ‘no.’
Here, in Florida, I didn’t live next door to my family, but they were only about an hour away. I hadn’t deliberately lived near them before, but now…
Oh, man. El’s eyes had that wide-eyed look. Even though he tried to suppress it, he was excited.
“El, how do you know this new admin won’t be as bad as the last and you’ll just be chasing your tail? I mean, hospitals are businesses. Bottom line.”
“Well, let’s just say the big boss is a member of PUHC. That’s a start.”
I nodded. “That’s a start…”
“Lizzie. It’s not just the job though. I was kind of thinking… maybe it would be nice for us to have a fresh start somewhere. Feel the excitement of something new and just, you know… start over.”
Starting over. Something about that phrase sent anger shooting up my spine. Starting over? He wanted to start over? I’d been starting over every day for months now. Every goddamn day still felt like starting over.
I turned to stir the stew and calm down. He meant no harm. He still hung on to the old Liz.
But I’d changed. Pre-accident, El and I thrived on the unknown. Now I needed the familiar. Where I used to take an alternative route to the coffee shop every morning, now I didn’t. Where I used to just shove spices back in any old cupboard, now I didn’t. I needed to know what was happening, what to expect. Now, every crack in the road was an obstacle. Instead of me wondering how it got there, I wanted it gone.
And here, in Florida, people still knew the OLD me. They still saw the old spark of Liz, and I could see that in their eyes when I spoke to them. It was natural and brought out bits of myself, reminding me that not all was lost. Whenever I met knew people, they tried to act normal. My family and friends, they just WERE normal. The wheelchair was something new to my old friends and family, but it wasn’t everything.
Strangers always tried to act like they didn’t notice. Annoyed the hell out of me.
But maybe El was right. Maybe we could pack some of this history up as our baggage and let it get lost in transit. Or better yet, leave it locked up in this apartment; leave it all behind for good.
And El. I knew he had been so stressed by the greed in his hospital. He didn’t feel like he was executing on his life’s purpose.
“Well… we could always move back,” I said, “Not like it isn’t irreversible…”
His crooked smile enchanted me, magically evaporating the boiling hot water from my veins. “The only thing permanent in my life is you.”
In an attempt to be my old self. I took a chance on spontaneity. “I’ll ask at the lab if I can transfer…”
El grabbed my hand in his. “If you ever want to turn around, it’s no big deal. I just want you to be happy.”
I smiled at him. An empty, passive smile. But for the first time in our relationship, El didn’t notice the vacancy.
He sat back and took another loud bite of celery. His eyes focused on nothing but the bright future he imagined for us both.
18
Elias
Present Day
Uyu
* * *
I didn’t want to get out of bed that morning. And that was very unusual. Typically, at Uyu, I couldn’t wait to get out of bed. One, because there was so much to do, to see, so much that you couldn’t even get through it all in a week and two, because motorhome mattresses were always hard and uncomfortable.
But this morning was different.
Last night, I touched Liz again for the first time in five years. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love it. All the same feelings came rushing back.
Hope.
Laughter.
Fun.
A sizzling, giddy feeling that made me feel like a teenager again. These were the feelings I’d spent thousands of dollars trying to obliterate, or resolve, or repress. I would have taken any of the above, but the nearest I’d gotten to dealing with our breakup was functional. I was functional now. And then last night happened and I haven’t stopped thinking about her since.
When I finally fell asleep, you would have thought it would have relieved me. Give me a blank space to inhabit until the morning. But even in my dreams, she was there. And last night, a version of that recurring dream I used to have right after our breakup came back for a nightmarish visit.
In this dream, I gave Liz a piggyback, just like out there on the Plain yesterday. The sun set, the flowers danced with us. Only we were alone. Nobody else around for miles. Not my friends. Not hers. No Gypsies. Just Liz, me, and the flowers. And also some silent music that I swayed us in a rhythm to. Even though Liz was behind me, I saw flashes of her face, as if cutting to a closeup in a movie, her cute, toothy, bunny-like smile beamed up at the flowers and she looked full of the same joy I’d seen on her face pre-accident.
The joy when we saw each other on shift the day after our first date.
The joy when she heard she got the innovation grant.
The joy when she said she’d marry me.
Cut back to the dancing. Now all I could see were the flowers and the vast, empty expanse. I had the backs of her thighs in my hands. They felt strong, soft, and I gave them a squeeze.
Only suddenly, too aware, I knew she couldn’t feel it. And in that moment, I wanted her to feel me.
Her hands gripped my shoulders and then one of them slid around the front and caressed my pec, and like dreams work, her arms somehow slid all the way down my front, physically impossible but she reached all the way down and nudged her hands into my pants. I pulled her around front; she closed her eyes. I kissed her and lowered her right down to the dusty earth.
Laying on top of her, gazing into her eyes with lust and love, I touched her face.
“I can’t feel my face, El,” she mouthed, and even though I knew what she said, her words were silent.
I caressed her breast. But she said she couldn’t feel that either.
I kissed her lips… “I can’t feel my lips, El.”
Then, she turned into dust and was gone.
This wasn’t my first dream of the kind. Ever since Liz had been under the ATV that day, I’d had some iteration or another. Most of the therapists I had seen told me it was normal to have dreams (aka nightmares) after trauma and that often they weren’t replayed correctly. As in, it was her legs that were paralyzed. But in my dreams it was everything else, too. That was totally normal, they’d said, and it would resolve in time or with drugs.
But I knew better. It meant something that it wasn’t just her legs that couldn’t feel my touch. My instincts told me this dream meant something more.
A friend of mine from medical school who had become a professor of psychology, who specialized in addiction, took my call one day and entertained my assumptions. He’d been working on a book about alternate therapies for people struggling with addiction and was hot on tribal remedies, past and present. He was the one who told me about ayahuasca.
After hearing him out, I booked my trip, literal and figurative, to the Brazilian jungle for ayahuasca treatment. It was there that my dreams became a reality. That I could see these manifestations right in front of my eyes. True, they were still hallucinations, but damn if it wasn’t all too real. That shaman, with no PhD nor recognizable credit in the western world, was the closest I had gotten to solving my addiction to Liz. And my attachment to our mutual tragedy.
See, the problem I had was self-inflicted. An outside force causes trauma. I had long since dealt with Liz’s paralysis. I dealt with it almost as soon as it happened. Such was the doctor in me. What I couldn’t deal with was blaming myself for all that had passed. And that’s where my addiction and obsession stemmed from.
Unfortunately, there was no pill for that. Guilt was still a mystery disease.
Liz couldn’t feel me in my dream because I hid behind this shame, guilt… whatever it was. After the accident, I hid behind a brave face. Hid behind time, hoping that it would cure all things as the saying went.
With so much unsaid between me and Liz, we stopped feeling each other. Paralysis struck us on an ethereal level. For me, it had been easier to deal with Liz’s paraplegia than it had been the guilt. Probably for her, there was something like that lurking inside, too.
Maybe that was why, even though I had tried my damndest to be the perfect partner, the perfect boyfriend, friend and lover, she still dumped my ass.
I rolled over, faced the wall, and pulled the top sheet up in my hand and over my body. The strange scent of cheap, generic laundry detergent soured my senses and brought me back down to dust.
Now I had my chance. I knew there was a path forward to release myself from these dreams. From the guilt. Maybe even from being chained to the past, so I might move on.
It felt a sin to deprive my Mom of those grandchildren.
I sat up in bed and threw the stiff white sheet off.
Liz and I hadn’t planned to see each other today. But maybe that was a good thing. I needed to get my head straight. Practice saying what needed to be said.
When I got out of bed, Drake was already in the kitchen, eating a piece of toast.
“Hey,” he said, “Look at that. I’m actually up before you.”
“There’s a first time for everything.”
“There’s boiled water for coffee.”
“Thanks.”
I made myself an instant coffee and sat next to him at the narrow motorhome table.
“So,” he said.
“So?”
“Last night was amazing.”
“Mmmhmm.”
He wanted to ask me about Liz. Drake and Maeve went to meet the others when Liz and Simone said they were off to explore after the flowers.
“Well? What happened after I left?” Drake asked because he was direct like that.
“We drove around a bit more and then she dropped me off at Magpies. I was tired, so I didn’t stay out long.”
“You going to see her again?”
“I have to.”
Drake patted my back. “That you do.”
I took a sip of coffee, and Drake continued. “You know, I can see what you love about her. She has one hell of a smile. And that chariot says a lot about her.”
“Yeah, she always had a great sense of humor. Very creative.”
“You still love her.”
“Do I still love her?”
“No. I wasn’t asking. I was saying. Like a statement. Like a fact.”
He took a bite of toast and awaited my reply.
“It doesn’t matter if I still love her. She doesn’t love me. But no, anyway, it’s more like I still care about her.”
“If you say so.”
“Drake… man, I don’t want to be a dick, but I have been through a lot to get to where I am. I don’t think cracking the door open again is a good idea. I just want to say what we both need to say. Get that closure and you know… I don’t know.”
“You should have some fun first. Just hang and enjoy the Uyu ride. You can do that tonight. Simone was by this morning and asked if any of us wanted to hang tonight.”
What the…?
Just then, Maeve walked into the kitchen from their bedroom.
“Hola people.”
I lifted my chin.
“So, talking about Liz?” She asked, pointing backward toward her room. “Thin walls.”
I nodded. She sat down next to Drake and took his arm in hers.
I asked, “Wait, so, Simone came by here to see if we all wanted to go out?”
Drake nodded while Maeve ran her fingers through his hair.
“What did she say?”
“Just asked if we wanted to hang out.”
“You mean with her or with her and Liz?”
“I assumed it was her and Liz.”
“Did she say that, though?”
Drake looked into his brain to replay the conversation.” Yeah, she said ‘us.’ Would any of our crew like to hang out with ’us.’ Her and Liz,”
“But ‘us’ could have been anyone, really.”
“It could have meant someone else, but she didn’t. I could just tell.”
Jesus. My pulse raced. Palms clammed. It felt like the drama built far too quickly. I wanted to wait to speak to Liz. On my own terms. That meant not being around her too much before I was ready for the talk.
“You seem frazzled by this news,” Drake said with a crooked smirk.
“A little. But also…”
There was more to this than simply me feeling off piste. These guys hadn’t lived with a wheelchair user for a year. They didn’t understand what that meant out here on the Plain.
“I just want to say that you guys don’t get that we won’t be able to float about the same way. At least I won’t. I don’t want to take Liz out and then have her feel awkward if she can’t really partake in everything. It’s flat out there but you just don’t realize how much of our bodies we use exploring this place.”
Drake shook his head and bit the inside of his cheek. “Okay. Fair enough. But I don’t see that as a problem without a solution.”
“It isn’t a problem without a solution, but what I’m saying is I want the entire gang on board to make sure she doesn’t feel like the lowest common denominator. She’ll feel guilty if she thinks she’s holding us back. You know?”
“Yeah. I get it. We’ll work something out. Talk to the others and get a plan for the night.”
Maeve eyed me. Even though Maeve and I had grown close over the past year, it still scared me a little bit when she did that. She wasn’t one to hold back or mash her words.
She straightened her bangs. “El, remember last year, when Drake and I didn’t know if we were ready to take each other home, exchange numbers and all that? He told me you made a big deal out of going for it. Not letting something you want slip through your hands.”
Man. I knew where she was going with this. “I did.”
She took a slice of toast off of Drake’s plate and I braced myself
for a lecture. Taking a bite, she spoke out a muffled mouth. “Thanks for that.”
A knowing look, almost smug but kinder than smug. She chewed, never taking her eyes off mine. She had nothing further to say, but she’d said it all. Maeve was way too cool for lectures. And as a lawyer she knew that gratitude and her loved up with her man were the best evidence she could present to make her case.
I needed to practice what I preached is what she meant. I did still have feelings for Liz but over the years, I’d replaced my Liz addiction for an addiction to closing the door on that chapter. I had learned to want to move on instead of want her back. That was the new story I told myself.
I recited various “closure” speeches over the years. In my car when stuck in traffic, sometimes in the shower, sometimes when getting groceries… I’d thought through what needed to be said time and time again.
I decided before coming here, after reading Liz’s email, that my only task was to have the conversation we’d avoided for so many years. To tell her about the feelings I’ve harbored for five years now and finally let them out. I had no intentions of getting back together. I just wanted to heal these wounds for good.
19
Liz
Present Day
Uyu
* * *
Waking up on our second morning, officially day three, it still felt completely surreal to be in such a place. Uyu really had exceeded my expectations.
What had I expected? Naked people, lots of drugs, orgies on every corner and music. Lots of music.
Instead, I got well clothed people in considered outfits, haute couture runway ready. Art installations that belonged in Rodin’s garden, if only they would fit. Kind, generous people who were helpful and non-judgmental. And…
El.
I got El.
Now what was I going to do with him?
An entire day had passed, but I could still feel his broad shoulders against my breasts, like I was still holding onto his back at the foot of those epic stems. I could still smell his hair that was a combination of his own special man scent and that vanilla shampoo.
Vanilla shampoo. I smiled to myself, remembering how he always brought a little bottle of it in a travel container whenever we went on vacation. Even if we stayed at a top end hotel with fancy little soaps, he’d have that nondescript bottle with that signature scent. And he still smelled of it. Same old El.
