The Understatement of the Year

by Sarina Bowen

  His eyes shifted in my direction, and for a split second I saw him emerge far enough from his misery to really read my face. So I kissed him on the forehead.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For…” he waved his hand toward the steering wheel.

  “It’s nothing.” I heard the gas pump click off. “You need anything?” I pointed at the store. Because I was basically starving to death.

  “Just need to get there.”

  “You got it.” I hopped out to replace the gas cap. Food could wait.

  I accelerated up the on-ramp again, marveling at my own stupidity. You need anything? That was the question I’d just asked Rikker. Today, for once, I really meant it. Too bad it took a freaking tragedy to extract my head from my ass.

  The headache kicked in around White River Junction. And by Montpelier, it was fierce. “How fast can I drive this stretch?” I asked Rikker. I hadn’t seen a cop in a good long time.

  “Eighty,” he said without hesitation. “They don’t patrol very hard. Just watch those U-turn spots in the median. Slow down for the ones that are blocked by trees.”

  I kept our speed up, and I tried to ignore the pressure along my brow line. Rikker grew agitated as we approached the Burlington area. When his foot tapping started making me crazy, I reached over and settled a hand on his knee.

  “Sorry,” he sighed.

  There was nothing I could do but drive and give his leg a squeeze. No more texts had come through, either.

  “You want exit fourteen,” Rikker said eventually.

  Yes, yes I do. The last five miles seemed to take forever. But then we were finally pulling into a big parking lot, and then jogging on stiff legs toward the E.R. doors.

  Inside, Rikker charged toward a desk, although there were too many other people waiting in front of it. Abruptly he changed course, veering into the waiting area. I spotted Skippy with two older women, and they were waving him down.

  Skippy stood up to wrap Rikker in a hug, which should not have bothered me. But there was something awfully intimate about that hug, the way he pulled Rikker’s ear close to him and began to whisper. And Rikker’s eyes fell shut, listening to whatever soothing words Skippy had to say.

  It’s hard to describe how badly this ate at me. But it wasn’t a typical lover’s jealousy. The problem was that I had never greeted Rikker that way, and certainly not in a room full of people. It struck me how badly I wanted my share of that affection. I’d been missing out, and all because of fear.

  Right then, a little light went on inside my thick head. I already knew that my refusal to come out had hurt Rikker. But until that moment, I don’t think I ever understood that it had hurt me, too. Because the cost of avoiding unfriendly eyes wasn’t nearly as great as the cost of forgoing even one of Rikker’s hugs.

  I approached the two of them slowly, making a path between the people. And not a soul was bothered by the two men embracing on the green linoleum tiles.

  When I arrived beside them, Skippy stepped back, but he held tightly to both of Rikker’s hands. “Okay, here’s what we know. If you’re going to have a stroke, you want to do it in a room full of people. She got her first CT scan about twenty minutes after she collapsed. And the window for treating a stroke with the strongest meds is something like three hours.”

  “Did they give it to her?” I asked. “What’s that stuff… it breaks up clots, if you get it soon enough?”

  Skippy nodded. “They gave it to her. She’s being scanned again right now.”

  “John,” one of the older women said. She wrapped a wrinkled arm around Rikker. “Hang in there, honey.” Then she extended a hand to me. “I’m Gertie.”

  Gertie? The one who cheats at poker? “Graham,” I said, shaking her hand.

  “If you don’t mind,” Gertie said, “I’ll take John to try to find the doctor that explained everything to us. He won’t be able to see her until she’s back from the tests, though.”

  “Is she conscious?” Rikker asked, his voice husky.

  Gertie shook her head. “No, honey. But the doctor said that’s not unusual.”

  Rikker’s eyes closed, and then opened again. “Let’s go, then.”

  They walked off toward the back, leaving me standing there with Skippy and a woman who looked an awful lot like him. She had the same quick brown eyes. “I’m Linda,” she said. And then I saw that she had the same carefree smile as her son, too.

  “Graham. Nice to meet you.” We shook, and my head gave me a stab of pain.

  Now that my hands were finally free, I could indulge in a full-on massage of my own forehead. The ache had spread, radiating out to my hairline and temples.

  “Are you okay?” Linda asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Wait… you have a head injury, I thought?” Skippy asked.

  “I’m okay, I’m just…” probably going to collapse now. Because I’d delivered Rikker to the hospital, my body chose that moment to experience a massive adrenaline crash, and a blood sugar crash, too. Also, I’d skipped my head-injury-patient nap. The only thing to do was to look around for an empty chair. And when I found it, I sort of oozed into it like a blob.

  “My goodness,” Skippy’s mother said. I felt her sit down beside me, although I couldn’t see her because my face was in my hands. “Can I scare up some aspirin for you?”

  “That is a great idea. But I’ve got it.” I shoved a hand in my pocket and came up with my magic little bottle. I’d downgraded to plain old ibuprofen, and it usually took the edge off. I took out two of them and dry-swallowed them.

  “Seriously, are you okay?” Skippy asked, sitting on my other side. “When’s the last time you ate?”

  “Uh,” good question. “Yesterday, I think. We were on our way to a party when you called.” There was probably a vending machine around here somewhere. And I knew I should find it.

  Skippy made a sound of disapproval. “You know it’s almost five o’clock?” He pulled out his phone and tapped it a few times. “Hiiiii Sweetie! No real news yet. But Rikker got here, so that’s good. His boyfriend is about to pass out, though. So maybe we should have that Thai food sooner rather than later.” Skippy tipped his head in my direction. “You eat Thai?”

  “Sure?”

  “Put in an extra pad Thai for Rikker, because that’s good warm or cold. Thank you, Sweetie. Love you too.”

  Skippy’s mom, who had wandered off, returned to my side. This time, she held out an ice cold can of Coke. “This is what I drink when I have a headache.”

  “Wow, thanks,” I said. Sugar and caffeine were excellent headache remedies. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  She smiled at me. “We’ve been here all day, just wishing there was someone we could shore up,” she said. “You’re elected.”

  Skippy’s mom put one hand on my back, and Skippy added one on his side. I was so delirious with exhaustion that it almost seemed as though their touch was the only thing holding me together. I popped the can open and took a long drag of the soda. Then I looked down at the floor so neither one of them would notice that my eyes had become curiously damp.

  — Rikker

  A month ago, when I watched them carry Graham off the ice, I thought I knew fear. But it was nothing like this.

  They finally let me in to see Gran about an hour-and-a-half after I got there. And then I almost wished they hadn’t. The ICU was full of frighteningly ill people. And Gran frightened me the most. She was so still, and so fragile-looking in that bed.

  It was a lonely vigil, because only one family member was allowed to accompany her. There was nothing I could do but sit in another awful plastic chair and make deals with God. Please make this turn out okay, I begged.

  The trouble with this strategy was that I wasn’t on great terms with God. Even if he looked past all the swearing and fornication, I hadn’t been a regular churchgoer for years. And I was angry at pretty much anyone who brought up Jesus in a non-ironic way, because I’d been brought up by and among a bunch
of fundamentalist homophobes who claimed to be doing God’s work as they shunned me.

  That wasn’t really His fault, though. But prayer was probably a dead-end for me. That only left hope, and I guess I had plenty of that.

  I hoped Gran would wake up.

  I hoped that the effects of her stroke would not be too vast. (And by too vast, I meant that I hoped her sharp mind and her sharp eyes would scrutinize me by morning.)

  I hoped that I could help her even a fraction as much as she helped me.

  At some point during this vigil, I fell asleep.

  Someone patted my hand.

  I woke up with a start, to find that the hand-patter was a stout nurse. “She’s awake, honey.”

  My eyes flew to Gran, who was looking around critically. Another nurse raised Gran’s head a few inches, and then held the straw of a water glass, and I saw Gran take a sip. When she swallowed, a little of the water dribbled out on one side. “Dis can’t be good,” she slurred.

  At the sound of her voice, my eyes welled. And that was the moment she locked onto me, and I saw her make a sad face.

  “Oh, don’t you worry about him,” the nurse said to Gran. “He’s just exhausted because it’s the middle of the night.”

  I heaved myself out of the chair and wiped my eyes. “Hi, Gran,” I said. I leaned down to give her a kiss on the forehead, and my stupid eyes filled again.

  “Honey,” she said, her voice thick and awkward. “I’m shtill here.”

  “I can see that,” I managed. But I was losing my battle with the tears.

  “Go home,” she said. “S’late.”

  “She’s right, sweetheart,” the nurse who’d awoken me said. “Tomorrow morning she’ll be transferred to a proper room. You can talk then.” She gave me a gentle nudge. “Your grandmother will rest better if she’s not worrying about you.”

  I took a minute to mull over that logic, and decided that she had a point. “Okay. I’ll come back first thing.”

  The nurse fished a scrap of paper from her pocket. “Your friends left this note for you, in case your phone went dead. Now have a good night.”

  I kissed Gran once again, and she looked at me with soft eyes. Then I stumbled out of the ICU, leaving all of its beeping machines behind. The note was from Skippy. “It’s midnight. Taking Graham home with us. Ring if you need anything, or want us there. Or come over. Call my cell or knock on the window to the right of the stoop.”

  According to the clock in the waiting room, it was three in the morning. When I passed through the hospital doors, it took me a couple of minutes to get my bearings. I’d toured around the University campus with Skippy before, but I’d never paid much attention to the medical complex. Eventually I figured out where I was, and walked about ten minutes through the quiet little streets to Skippy’s place.

  I pulled out my dying phone to verify that I was in front of the right house, because it would suck to accidentally wake a stranger at this hour. Right after I rapped on the window glass, I heard movement inside the room. So I climbed the little wooden stoop, and Skippy appeared at the door in a kimono. He and Ross lived in an old Victorian that had long ago been broken up into cute, creaky little apartments.

  Wordlessly, he let me in. When I stepped into the living room, I saw a Graham-shaped lump asleep on the pull-out couch.

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “How is she?” he mouthed.

  “She woke up, and spoke a little. But she looks awful.”

  Skippy winced. “Tomorrow you’ll know more.”

  “Yeah.”

  He pointed toward the back. “Help yourself to anything in the bathroom. I’m going back to bed.”

  “Skippy, thanks,” I said again.

  Big parts of the day had been lost in my stressed-out haze. But I knew that the people in this room — the sleeping one, and the kimono-wearing one — had been pulling puppet strings in the background, making my nightmare just a little more bearable. Hours ago, I’d caught Skippy waving maniacally from the other side of the ICU glass. When I’d gone out to see what he wanted, he’d shoved a paper carton of pad Thai into one of my hands, and a pair of chopsticks in the other. Then he’d pointed at a bench. “You can’t go back in there until you eat that,” he’d said. It had been easier to comply than to argue with him.

  Now, Skippy leaned in to give me a quick squeeze. “Any time, honey. You’d do the same for me.” He turned away then, heading back to bed. We didn’t have to say anything more, because we both knew it was true.

  I kicked off my shoes, and turned my attention to Graham, who had somehow zapped me from Connecticut to Vermont like a superhero. Even though we’d spent four hours in a car together, I felt as though I hadn’t talked to Graham in a year.

  Dropping my jacket and jeans, I crawled onto the bed beside him. The pull-out sofa was the usual disaster — a thin mattress over dubious springs. But I’d never been so happy to be anyplace. It would have been polite to just lie down quietly and go to sleep. But that wasn’t good enough for me. I curled into Graham, tugging him into my arms.

  “Are you okay?” he asked sleepily. I watched him wake up fast, his eyes snapping open, assessing me. “What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “I just miss you. Maybe I should have just let you sleep, but I love you too damn much.” If the people in my life were going to start collapsing everywhere, it suddenly seemed important that I let them know.

  He put a heavy palm on my cheek. “Love you, too, Rik.” The sentiment just rolled off his sleepy tongue. Then he let out a colossal yawn. “What time is it?”

  “Three? Four?” I yawned, too.

  “How is she?”

  “Woke up. She sounds awful, but she’s there, you know?”

  “Thank God.” His arms came around to squeeze me. “When I picked up that phone today, and Skippy told me what happened, I panicked.”

  I tucked my body even closer to his, my mouth just beside his ear, so we could talk quietly. It was so still here. That’s how Vermont always sounded at night — quiet enough to hear your own thoughts. “That part of the day is hazy for me,” I admitted. “Thank you for getting me up to Burlington.”

  “It’s hazy for you,” he repeated.

  “Yeah. I was freaking.”

  For a minute he didn’t say anything. He just nuzzled my neck. “I don’t think the team will forget it anytime soon.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Graham kissed my jaw a few times before he answered. “I don’t have to agonize over staying in the closet anymore.”

  “What?” I pulled back so I could see his face.

  But Graham’s eyes were closed, and his face was serene. “Just didn’t have time for the cover-up today. I kind of let it all hang out. For me, anyway.”

  I traced back in my mind to try to figure out what he meant. “In the locker room?” It hadn’t been my sharpest hour, but I didn’t remember any words exchanged, other than Graham asking to borrow a car. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”

  He gave a sleepy, half-shrug. “Doesn’t matter. Don’t care anymore.” He tugged me back down onto his body. “Middle of the night, Rik. I’m only good for sleep or sex.”

  Smiling, I rubbed up against him. “I guess it would be rude to fuck on Skippy’s sofa bed.”

  “Sofa might not survive it,” Graham mumbled.

  “Good point.” I pulled up the blanket and lay down in Graham’s arms. Sleep clobbered me immediately, and I was out.

  * * *

  I woke up the next morning to the sound of Ross making coffee about ten feet away in their little kitchen. Graham’s big thigh was practically wedged into my ass, and I was clinging to the edge of the bed. I was either going to have to become a more assertive sleeper, or share only king-sized beds with him. With both my feet, I shoved his leg out of the way.

  “Unnrgh,” he said.

  “So true,” I agreed. And Ross laughed over the burble of the coffee maker.

  Skippy came ba
rreling out of the bedroom a few minutes later, and began organizing us in his Skiptastic way. “Graham can shower while you call your uncle,” he ordered. “Let me find a couple of Ross’s t-shirts for both of you.”

  I gave Ross an apologetic look, and he just shrugged, sticking a piece of toast in his mouth.

  “…Ross and I have class later this morning, but I want to run into the hospital with you, so I can report back to Mom. Now come over here and eat something quick.”

  Graham and I let Skippy march us around. As a result, thirty minutes later we were both more refreshed and better fed than would have otherwise been possible.

  Ross tucked their little poodle into its duffel bag and put it over his shoulder. Then we all went outside to walk to the hospital together.

  On the way into the building, Graham took my hand and gave it a squeeze. Oddly enough, he didn’t let it go. We all approached the information desk together, where I learned that Gran had been transferred from the ICU to a regular room on the fourth floor.

  “It’s good news that they moved her, right?” I asked as all four of us waited for the elevator.

  “It’s awesome,” Skippy agreed.

  Graham squeezed my hand, which he was still holding. Weird.

  On the fourth floor, we looked around for the right set of room numbers. And I was so eagerly scanning the signs that I didn’t notice the woman standing outside a room at the end of the hall until we were almost upon her.

  My mother.

  As we moved toward her, I watched her mouth fall open.

  Nice to see you, too, Mom. “How is she?” I asked without preamble.

  “What is he doing here?” she asked.

  Beside me, Graham’s body went completely still. But he did not remove his hand from mine.

  There was a nasty silence, and then I felt Skippy push past my other side, as if to get a better look. “That’s her?” he asked. For obvious reasons, he’d never met my mother. “That’s the crazy bitch who calls herself your mom?”

  “Skip,” Ross warned. “Simmer down.”

  “You think I should be polite?” My ex-boyfriend spat. “Fine. Thank you, Mrs. Rikker, for kicking your son out when he was sixteen. Because if you hadn’t, someone else would have had to take my virginity.”