Down Highway 22, past my house, Bash pulls into a small parking lot on the side of town where the police blotter stays busy, the trailers are lined like an army, and you’d think twice about leaving your car unlocked. He couldn’t have seen me because I calculated the distance between us—distance (d) equals rate (r) times time (t) or d = rt, r = d/t, and t=d/r. So simple, it’s ridiculous.
The wind knocks the branches of a nearby tree, casting deep shadows. I have this unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach and decide if there’s ever a good time to have a backup plan, now would be it. I pull out my phone, shield the light, and text Vi.
ME: CAN’T EXPLAIN, BUT IF U DON’T HEAR FROM ME, I’M NEAR 22 AND MULBERRY. BY THE DUMPSTER.
I don’t stop and think about how badly worded the text is. When Bash moves, so do I. A generous space between us, I read the sign on the approaching overhang:
CLIFTON NURSING AND REHAB CENTER
He slides by the front desk where two nurses are deep in piles of paperwork, their eyes buried, ignoring those who enter—including me.
“She asked for you about an hour ago,” one nurse says to him, without looking up. “Thinks it’s your birthday.”
He pauses, rubs his brows. “It will be. On the twenty-eighth.”
“Happy early birthday, then. Whatcha wishin’ for?”
“You already know.”
I melt into the passing people, where the smells remind me of Benny’s room, and follow Bash as he disappears into a patient’s room that he quickly comes back out of, a long-stemmed flower now in hand, the little thief. I keep my head down, try not to let anyone see my face, and follow him to a room on the left where the hall is quiet. He pushes through a wooden door and walks inside. I stay back, my body clinging to the wall where I can see and hear, just barely. I don’t know what I’m doing or why. I just feel like I need to.
Bash pumps what appears to be hand sanitizer into his palms and rubs. He then sits at this person’s bedside. I can’t really see who. He, or she, is buried between tubes and blankets and all the things I’ve seen on Benny. He bends down and kisses his or her forehead. I shift my position for a closer look. The person is still. A man passes behind me, so instead of alerting everyone to my creepiness, I pretend to text something on my phone, as if I’m supposed to be here. I glance in again, and Bash is pushing a spoon into the person’s mouth. He’s careful, gentle, just as he was with the kids. I’m lost in this sweet sight when a nurse—the same from the desk—walks up to me. Her name tag reads KIM MCDONNELL.
“Can I help you?” she asks, her voice booming.
I shake my head, my cheeks flushed. Bash jumps up from his chair. His angry face, the same as Mom’s, moves toward me faster than I can think of an excuse as to why I’m here.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he growls, tugging at my arm.
“Is there a problem, Bash?” Nurse Kim asks.
I look at him with pleading eyes.
“Who’s there?” the person, a woman, asks from the bed. “If it’s Gloria, tell her I can’t make it to work tomorrow.”
“Bash?” the nurse asks again.
“Come in here,” the woman calls, her voice raspy. “Ray? Did you drive all the way from Utah for Bash’s birthday?”
Bash sighs. “It’s not Ray or Gloria,” Bash responds. He looks to the nurse. “No problem,” he says. “Unfortunately, I know her.”
The nurse looks me over with a condescending eye and tightens her lips. “Okay. Let me know when Ms. Camilla’s done with her soup.” The look on her face is telling me to go; the look on Bash’s face is telling me to run. When the nurse leaves, it’s just Bash and me standing under the glow of overhead lights.
“Sebastian?” the woman says. “Who’s here?”
He looks like he wants to kill me, but instead walks me over to the woman in the bed where a small, nearby Christmas tree is lit. He leaves me at a distance, as though he doesn’t want me too close to the ailing woman. She’s frail, moving slowly. Her jaw is hollowed out like a skeleton, eyes sunken in and gray. Little wisps of hair poke through the colorful scarf wrapped around her head, but even in this state, her lips are adorned with magenta lipstick that rivals a blossoming poppy on a clear spring day.
“This is Birdie,” he says. “From work.”
Her eyes light up. “Pássaro?”
“Huh?”
“Portuguese for bird,” Bash says. “Close enough, Ma,” he tells her. “We’re Brazilian—we speak Portuguese. You know, the language?”
The woman reaches for my hand, grabbing my sleeve instead. Bash panics, pumps hand sanitizer into my palm and quickly rubs it inside my lifeline’s cradle in a frenzy before the woman’s hand slides into mine, and now I see—he wants to keep the germs from her.
I stare into the woman’s eyes, unsure of what to say. My stomach growls, filling the silence with more things to make me uncomfortable. “Is this your mom?” I ask him.
“Camilla,” she interjects.
He nods.
“I … I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I say.
She pats my hand. “You’re even more beautiful than Bash said.”
My eyes expand toward him. He glares at his mom, then to me. “I didn’t say beautiful, Ma. I said kind of tall with brown hair and glasses. And awkward and weird. That’s it.”
I bite my lip. He’s talking about me to people? What does this mean?
The woman glares at Bash. “You said ‘gloriously beautiful,’ actually. And even if you didn’t, I saw it on your face, heard it in your words. She makes you happy.”
He’s shaking his head, his face bright red. I want to look deeper, but as I sit here next to his mother, I can’t seem to do it.
“You go to … school together?” she asks me, already forgetting that Bash said we work together.
“We work together,” I repeat.
“Work, yes, I remember now. Forgive my memory. It’s … not as strong as it used to be.”
“It’s okay.” I smile, holding her glassy-eyed stare, grateful she doesn’t recognize me from the news like everyone else.
“You’re here for his birthday?”
“No. I didn’t know it was his—”
Bash pulls me back toward the hall urgently. “It’s not. Birdie has to go now, Ma.”
“Nice to meet you,” I say.
His boots nip at the backs of my heels. We round the corner, and he’s so close, and my back is now smashed flat against the ivory wall and for a split second, it feels like he’s about to kiss me—right here in this open hallway. “What the hell are you doing here?”
I stutter, look to the passing people—basically everywhere but in his eyes—as I try to find an actual reason, because the truth is, I don’t have one. This is what Violet would call “my intuition.” My eyes focus in on his lips, his really, really nice lips.
“Stay out of my shit.”
I look away again.
“I’m sorry. But now that I’ve seen her, I know what you’re going through, and—”
His eyes narrow into slits, and his voice is low and grumbled. “I don’t want your apology or understanding. I don’t want you anywhere near my ma, or my life. Just leave.”
“For what it’s worth,” I say, my voice breaking, “she’s lucky to have you.” I push past him and hurry down the long hall, my head ducked low to my chest. The hopeful part of me wants him to chase me down and beg me to stay. The other part, the logical part, knows it won’t happen—people don’t really do that. Not in real life.
I find my car in the cold, dark night. The stars twinkle high above me. When I get closer, I realize my door is wide open, still twitching like a body that’s not quite dead yet. Footsteps fade into the night, and even farther in the distance, sirens. My heart thuds loudly in my ears as I approach.
The spare change, $1.47, and Dad’s outdated GPS are gone.
The outside feels scarier than the inside right now, so I quickly jump in, shut the door, and lock
it. My eyes dart across the lot, but my hands are shaking too hard to do anything that matters. I could scream, maybe. Or go inside for help. But screaming might bring the thief back, and going inside, where Bash doesn’t want me, isn’t an option. I try to turn the ignition but that light—the orange one Sarge says is a lying, Commie-made POS—is still on, and this time the car won’t start. I twist three more times, but the engine just rolls and coughs.
I pick up my phone to call Dad, to make sure Vi isn’t gathering a search party in my honor, but the battery is dead, too. I’m frozen, paralyzed, just as I was in the garage the night of Benny’s accident. I don’t know what to do so I slink down into my seat and … wait.
I’m bundled up with my knees tucked up into me. Chilled and terrified, I guess I’m waiting for Mom and Dad to check the locator app that tells them where my phone is (and me), but it could be hours before they even begin to worry. I bury my head in my knees, close my eyes, and wait for something. A logical sign or a religious miracle, maybe. I don’t even know anymore.
No more than a few minutes pass before a tap on the window scares me out of my seat. I scream, and pee a little. It’s Bash. He’s making this face like what the hell? so I roll the window down with the old-school manual handle that’s missing a knob, and it feels like it’s taking forever to get to the bottom.
“Stalking is a felony,” he says. He’s not smiling.
I try to make my teeth stop chattering. “Car won’t start.”
“Fuck. Why didn’t you call someone?”
“Phone’s dead.”
“You have an answer for everything. Almost like you planned this.”
I’d be offended if it didn’t look so well thought out. “My car was broken into. I’m freaked out. I just want to go home—can you help me or not?”
He sighs, expelling a plume of cold air from his mouth and nostrils like smoke. “I want to say no but I don’t really have a choice here, do I?”
“Unless you want to be a sucky person.” My body is still convulsing from the cold.
“Still will be, even if I fix it.” He sighs again, this time louder, more dramatic. “Hold on,” he says. He walks to his car and pulls it as close to mine as possible, nearly scraping the paint. “Roll up your window,” he says, opening the passenger door of my car, “and come here.” He doesn’t hold out a hand but instead nods with his head for me to get out of my car, so I do, my hands hidden in my sweater’s sleeves. I bunch them up to my mouth and blow warm air, but it’s just too cold. Frigid would describe it better. Or maybe even arctic.
He takes off his jacket and throws it at me. I don’t get my hands out in time, so it falls to the ground and he just looks at me again with that what the hell? face, which is becoming his trademark, like I’m supposed to just know when he’s about to toss things toward me. I lean down and pick it up, draping the warmth of leather over my shoulders. “Thanks. Should I call the police about my missing change and GPS?”
“No. Let’s just get your car started and get you out of here.” Now he’s shivering but pretending not to. “You want your jacket back?” I ask, hoping he’ll refuse.
“Nope.” He lifts my car’s hood and hooks up the jumper cables he pulled from his trunk. I don’t mean to, but I’m hanging over him. To collect the warmth or just to be close to someone, maybe. “Get in my car,” he orders. “Heat’s on.”
“Sure you don’t want your jacket back? You look cold.”
“Get in the damn car.”
I roll my eyes, try to lift the handle, but it’s stuck. Thrusting my body up against the cold metal like I watched him do, I finally get it to fling open. He doesn’t look up, but a slight grin forms from the side of his mouth. The vent is blowing a hot, dry air that smells like bologna. The cracked cassette radio is broken, and random trash and empty cups are scattered throughout. Bear and fox sketches litter the space by my feet. I lean over and pick one up. This bear is lying on its back, gazing into the clouds; one billow is in the shape of another bear, a paler version, peering down. The closer I study, the more I see the bear in the grass is crying.
The drawing is heartbreakingly beautiful. I fold it up and stuff it inside my pocket because I don’t know if I’ll ever find something that describes exactly how I’m feeling more than this. Bash moves from the rusted hood to the inside of my car. I lean back and attempt to look like I’ve not taken a thing from this mess. A few minutes later, the engine revs and he flashes me a thumbs-up. He’s quick to unhook the cables, slamming the hood shut. He motions for me to get out of his car.
I kick the door open and, as I start to take off his jacket, he stops me. “It’s cold. Keep it.”
“My car is on; I have heat now.”
He shakes his head, arms crossed tight over his chest. “Bring it to work tomorrow.”
I shuffle awkwardly. “Thanks. And … about me following you here—”
“Forget it.”
“She’s dying,” I blurt out. The words escape before I can catch them.
He nods. “Fucking cancer.”
“I can tell she’s a fighter. I see where you get it from.” I see a slight twinkle in his eyes I’ve never seen before. I’ve made him happy. Not in a joking way but for real this time. My cheeks warm against the cold night.
“I don’t know what I’ll do when she’s gone,” he says. “She’s all I have.”
The air is quiet between us; a string of hair blows into my mouth. “Bash … I … I hurt for you.”
He kicks some loose gravel, in obvious discomfort at sharing this news, in hearing my compassion. “Hmm. Now you know something about me pretty much no one else does, so, whatever.” He slams his body into his door until it swings open, and I hold my stare as I slide into the seat of my car. He’s not looking at me, but he doesn’t have to. He backs out of the spot, but before he goes, rolls down his window just enough for me to see his warm breath curl into the cool air.
“She likes you,” he says. “Doesn’t say that about anyone.”
Before I can speak, he pulls away. I sit in this spot a few more minutes, unsure what to make of all of this. Does he like me or doesn’t he? And I realize this is why I like science. Because factual answers are inevitable. But with love, feelings, sometimes they aren’t.
The drive home feels carefree, my body relaxed, my mind somewhere in the stars. As I pull up the steep driveway, my stomach starts to twist itself back into knots. The feeling intensifies as I pass the SOLD sign. The uphill acceleration forces my mind back to the accident. Through the window, I see all the lights are on, all cars present. I don’t want to get out of this garage, out of Bash’s jacket. I walk into the corridor that leads into the kitchen where everyone is sitting with a pile of papers and a box of used tissues.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Dad walks toward me and grabs my arm. His eyes are wide and misty. “Benny crashed. They had to bring him back.”
I throw my things on the table. “Why didn’t anyone call me? Come get me at work—anything? He squeezed my hand earlier—he was getting better!”
Mom’s shielding her face from me, shaking her head, and Brynn is blowing a pile of snot into her own personal mound of Kleenex.
“We tried calling. It went right to voice mail. They’re telling us he’s brain-dead,” Dad says.
“He’s not!” Brynn cries. “He’s gonna wake up, they just need to give him more time!” She tosses her tissue and runs to her room, where the door slams, and honestly, I wish I could do it, too.
My mouth hangs open, speechless, as the tears build and well in my eyes, splashing across my cheeks.
“They’re killing him,” Mom mumbles. “We need to move him.”
“What about the specialist?” I say.
Mom moves to the sink, away from us. Dad’s eyes follow her. Sarge takes a big sip of his coffee, then clears his throat. “He only takes a couple of cases a year and doesn’t think Benny’s is anything significant for his portfolio. In other words, he’s
a black-hearted jackass. Probably fought for Nazis.”
“Then we’ll find someone else—tonight,” I say, tears welling. “We don’t just give up! We FIGHT!”
Dad bows his head as Sarge stands to empty his cup at the sink by Mom. The lighting in here only exaggerates the emptiness of the Christmas tree, this horrible symbol of our lives without Benny here. “We’re not giving up, Birdie,” Dad says. “We just don’t know what else to do. There isn’t enough money to pay for Benny to stay on life support.”
“My boss and his wife are sending money—he told me. And I bet after seeing us on the news, others will, too. We just need to buy time until we can find another specialist—someone who doesn’t care about his portfolio.” My eyes are swollen with fear and hope all at once.
Mom looks over to Dad, and he shrugs. Sarge walks over and squeezes me into his side. “Bess, order another CT scan.” His voice is firm.
Mom laughs in a condescending way. “Dad,” she says, “we can’t just give an order with no reason. Insurance is already up our asses about all the charges. They’re questioning the need for his catheter, for Christ’s sake.”
Sarge glances at me, then back to Mom, who looks about a hundred years older than she did a few weeks ago. “They want a reason? Make one up. He was sick before the accident. Use that. Exaggerate.”
She tilts her head to the side. “What?”
“Tell them you forgot about a previous head injury or fever or something else believable and you want to make sure they didn’t miss anything. If they do it and find nothing, it buys you another day or two to get a specialist. If they don’t do it, threaten to sue their asses for causing his death. You might not win, but they’ll want to avoid the suit.”
Mom and Dad make eye contact as if Sarge might be onto something. I watch them, hope in my eyes, and there’s that word again—hope. Can’t seem to avoid it, and maybe that’s a good thing. Mom nods, Dad does, too.
The Inevitable Collision of Birdie & Bash Page 16
