“I used to do a little building myself when I was right around your age. Before I headed off to college to get a degree that would later lead me into a life of picking apart pieces of other people’s lives, only to slowly build them back up. So, sorta still in the building industry, but not quite.”
“O-kay.” My goodness, Lincoln’s words were just as slow as his pace today.
“I wanted Phil to see what you do, Lincoln.” I threaded my fingers through his and wrapped my other hand around his elbow. “I want you to show him around.”
“It’s really not all that impressive.” The recycled words that his father spoke just the other night made me cringe. I hated that he latched on to that lie so freely.
“Shut up, it is!” I slugged him, but Lincoln wasn’t at all prepared and he doubled over when my fist connected with his gut.
“I’d love to see it.” Phil was great. I appreciated that he wasn’t even playing along. He truly did want to view every square foot of the house that stood in front of us, no humoring necessary. “Let’s take a look.”
Hesitantly, Lincoln walked us up to the home and punched a few numbers into the lockbox. He gave me an uncertain look as he pulled the key from it and shoved it into the groove as the metal gripped and the lock turned over. The door swung open silently and the smell of fresh, probably still-wet paint met us. I inhaled deeply and took in the beautiful architecture and natural light that flooded through the windows. It was absolutely gorgeous, the most beautiful home I’d ever seen. And Lincoln had built it. Way to go, big time.
“A tour?” Phil suggested, his hand splayed out in front of us.
“Sure.” With a nod, Lincoln complied. I could see a flicker of excitement that I hoped was also mixed with pride flash through his eyes. “Let’s start with the office first. I did most of the finish work in that room. Come on, just down that hallway.”
***
“Oh my God, Eppie, you should’ve seen it! Her dress was classically atrocious in a 1980’s after school special sort of way,” Sam said, her voice loud enough for the couple in the next booth over to hear her every word. Even still, Lincoln, Dan, Phil, and myself all leaned closer over the table as she spoke, enthralled. She tossed another French fry into her mouth and chomped down. “Rhinestones, sequins, taffeta and some sort of reflective, iridescent crap. She was practically a disco ball wrapped up in a big bow. Totally hideous prom queen material right there.”
“I thought she was ravishing,” Dan mocked. Not missing a beat, Sam’s elbow rammed into his side. “But nowhere close to the near-goddessness of you, Samantha.”
“Samantha?” I choked on my Diet Coke, liquid sputtering between my lips.
“I’m trying it out,” she shrugged indifferently as she twirled a strand of magenta hair around her finger. “Aren’t these the years of self-discovery? Shouldn’t we be finding ourselves and all that proverbial coming of age jargon?” Sam cast her eyes over to Phil. He was wedged in between Lincoln and the window, and as uncomfortable as both the seating arrangement and the juvenile conversation should’ve made him, he didn’t appear uncomfortable in the least. “Am I right, Dr. Phil?”
“It’s not Dr. Phil. Just Phil,” he corrected through a smile. “And I don’t necessarily think self-discovery is limited to the teenage years. Learning about one’s self is a linear, forward moving thing.” He’d already lost Lincoln completely to his dinner, and Dan was a close second as he pushed his mac and cheese around with his fork. But both Sam and I held on to his words and paid attention, ignoring the lukewarm meals that lingered in front of us. “I don’t know about you, but I just found out that I’m a huge fan of the Spamwich.” Phil held up a half-eaten meaty thing pressed between two pieces of mildly burnt toast. Cheese oozed out of the corner and he swiped a finger at it and licked it off. Everything about it was utterly disgusting. “Took me nearly forty-nine years, but who knew? It’s a real gem.”
“Not to be outdone by its bigger, juicier, heart-attack-inducing older brother, the Spamburger.” Lincoln waved his dinner high in the air as grease dripped from the patty. I swear I saw it actually congeal before hitting the ceramic plate underneath. “And I think if you’re playing around with the idea of changing up your moniker, Spamantha should definitely be in the running.”
“Good one,” Sam nodded sarcastically. She continued with the head bobbing as she said, “If you’re taking suggestions, Lincoln Logs should be at the top of your list.”
“Let me see if I’ve got this straight.” Dan ran a hand through his sun-bleached hair. Though every ounce of me was head over heels for Lincoln, I could appreciate a good-looking human being when I saw one. Dan was definitely that. He deserved a lot of appreciating. “Dr. Phil, Spamantha, Lincoln Logs, EpiPen, and Lieutenant Dan.” He turned in his chair toward Sam and grabbed her shoulder, squeezing it. “Are you alright with this, babe? You’re not having flashbacks from your freak-show days, are you now?”
Sam flattened the back of her hand to her forehead. She feigned exasperation quite well. “I am. I really am.”
“I don’t see any freak-show here.” Phil took another bite of his cheesy, spammy, sandwichy concoction.
I couldn’t help but laugh at that. “I think that might be what happens when you spend too much time at the circus, Philly. Can’t see the forest for the trees sort of thing. If you hung out with normal people more often, then our glaring freak-showdom would be just a bit more obvious.”
“If you hung out with these so-called ‘normal’ people you speak of, Eppie... ” I knew that tone. It was the, ‘I’m going to singlehandedly put you in your place with this one statement alone’ type of tenor. He continued, “ ...you’d realize that it’s much more welcoming in the self-proclaimed ‘freak’ crowd.”
“Ahhh.” Sam reached across the table and clasped Phil’s hand. Her hot pink lips spread into a coy grin. “We love you, too, Philly.”
“I do hate to break up this lovely party,” Lincoln interrupted. He’d been relatively quiet since the tour at the house, but I figured that was because he’d spent over a solid hour talking about beams and posts and drywall and molding. His vocal chords were due for a well-deserved rest. “But I gotta get back home. Have a guy coming over at seven to take a look at our extra room.”
“Nice,” Dan said. “Just as long as he doesn’t piss all over the bathroom floor like the last guy. Slacker Steve had the aim of a potty training three-year-old.”
Lincoln’s bottom lip hooked into his mouth and he bit down. “Umm,” he stammered, eyes squinting. “That might not have actually been Slacker Steve’s fault. That might have been Sleep-Walking Lincoln’s doing.”
“Well, Dumb-Ass Dan might’ve actually been the one who burned the hole in the leather sofa three months ago. Cigarettes and charades don’t mix. And when coupled with literal mixed drinks, it’s a combination what can only go up in smoke.”
“You know what else doesn’t mix?” Sam huffed, truly annoyed. “Taffeta and prom queens. Should. Not. Go. Together.”
Dan gave Sam an incredulous glance. “If I’m reading you right, I’d actually venture a guess that you’re a bit annoyed by the outcomes of this painfully insignificant popularity contest.”
“I just don’t get how someone with absolutely no style sense could win!”
“Maybe she’s a nice person,” Lincoln offered with a shrug.
“She’s not! She’s awful. Truly. Told Mr. MacMillian that his mustache looked like a sunbaked turd from a dachshund. She’s horrific!”
“I think it should be considered an honor just to be nominated, right?” Dan suggested sympathetically. His fingers that stroked Sam’s back would have been taken by any other person as a sincere gesture, but Sam wasn’t having any of it. She shrugged him off with cold, jerky motions.
“An honor to realize that people like you, but they just don’t like you quite enough?”
This completely caught me off-guard. Sam wasn’t usually one to seek the approval of others,
the least of which being her peers. I couldn’t understand why she was so bothered by this. It made me truly grateful that Lincoln and I had opted out of prom altogether. Sounded all kinds of awful.
“I like you enough, babe.” Dan pressed his nose into Sam’s fuchsia hair and kissed her cheek. “I like you more than enough.”
For a moment I’d forgotten that we had a near senior citizen at our table. Phil just seemed to so easily mesh into whatever setting he was placed in. I wondered if that was a learned skill, or something you were born with. I always felt like that noticeable, sore thumb. But not with these guys. With them we were all bruised and broken, like a fist that had been in a bar fight or pummeling incident with a brick wall. None of us stood out any more than the other, and even ol’ Phil was a welcome finger on our decrepit hand.
“I’m going to offer some advice, if I may?” he finally spoke up.
Was this going to be clinical? Was it going to be practical? Friendly? A word of caution? Had Philly been sitting in his corner—relatively silent for the most part, other than his Spam-love declaration—only to size us up and pass out diagnoses around the table?
“You need to be enough all on your own.” He thrust an index finger toward Sam. His eyes were tight, but so warm and earnest, like he truly wanted her to understand what he was saying. “Don’t let others decide if you’re enough or not. Their approval is not the measuring stick of your worth. Not your friends’. Not your family’s.” He passed a deliberate gaze to each one of us, but this wasn’t diagnosing. This wasn’t admonishing. This was true, life-tested, heartfelt guidance. This was a dose of love if ever I’d felt it. “You are enough. You’re enough, understand?”
“Understood,” Lincoln said.
Dan nodded along with him. “Understood.”
Phil wiped his mouth briskly with a checkered napkin and returned it to his lap. Stretching out against the back of the booth, he shrugged, “Just my two cents. Take it for what it’s worth.”
But what it was worth, I was certain, was something that couldn’t be measured at all.
TWENTY-TWO
Lincoln: I have a surprise for you ;)
I glanced down at my phone. The vet said he’d be right back, but his right back apparently wasn’t the same length as my right back. I’d been waiting for over twenty minutes with no sign of his return any time soon. Even Herb had given up his patient waiting and instead curled into a fluffy golden ball at my feet, completely surrendering hope.
Me: I’m not sure I like surprises.
I wasn’t sure. The things they did to the heart bordered on unhealthy. Pulses shouldn’t spike that quickly. I was positive that’s what led to a heart attack—when you were scared out of your wits from an unanticipated surprise. I knew my heart couldn’t handle those sorts of things.
The heart was a muscle, but I’d never exercised mine much—if at all—in the past. Love hadn’t taught it the ropes just yet. But since meeting Lincoln, it was like my heart had been enrolled into boot camp. The rigors he put it through were enough to strain it, strengthen it, and make it into something completely new. It was like he’d finally shocked it back to life. Lincoln was the defibrillator to my tired, worn out heart. A surprise could very well be the death of me, which would be a shame after all the work he’d put into making it beat again.
Lincoln: How can you not like surprises? Everyone loves surprises.
Me: Not me. I don’t like being scared.
Lincoln: What if I promise you it’s not a scary surprise?
Herb rolled over on the linoleum, groaning as he slid onto his back.
I punched the keys on my phone, my interest piqued.
Me: Elaborate.
Lincoln: Then it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?
Me: See, this is where the scary comes in. My brain is running through millions of possibilities A-Z. There’s an incredible potential for scare in that sample set.
Lincoln: Just trust me.
There went that darn heart again.
I did trust Lincoln, so much.
Me: I trust you. But I’m still scared of surprises.
Lincoln: Sounds like a control issue to me ;)
He was right, and I stared down at that text for so long the words blurred together through the sting of water that came from holding your eyes open too long. Quickly, I blinked and typed out a reply.
Me: Well, I obviously have some issues.
Lincoln: Sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. Just trust that you’re going to love this surprise. It involves me, so naturally <3
Right then, someone knocked lightly on the door, the way they do at a doctor’s office just to make sure you’re decent before they spring into the room and ask you all kinds of detailed questions about your medical history like it’s a completely normal thing to hold conversations when wearing dresses made of paper and nothing else. It made me want to laugh just a little at this vet’s assumption of Herb’s right to privacy. Good thing he wasn’t getting into all kinds of mischief with the jars of treats or playing around on the scale at the back of the room.
“Herb?” A silver-haired man, probably in his late fifties, asked as he peeked around the door.
I didn’t wait for Herb to bark his reply and instead answered, “Yes.”
“So.” He hugged a manila folder to his chest. He cocked his head to the side, studying me, studying the dog. Then he said that saddest thing I’d heard in nearly ten years. “Herb’s not well.”
“I know,” I nodded as I waved a hand to his bent leg. It had healed—sort of—and wasn’t as crooked and jagged as before, but it still didn’t serve much of a purpose other than an aesthetic one. “In all fairness, I’m not sure how functional it was to begin with, but I’m led to believe he had four working limbs before I found him.”
“No, Ms. Aberdeen. It’s not that.”
There was a computer screen hooked on what resembled a long, metal arm, and the vet swiveled it out and toward me as he punched a few buttons on the keyboard. The machine hummed to life.
“These are his x-rays.” He double-clicked on a file and two mostly black images maximized on the screen, hazy white bones and body parts illustrated across the frame. “This is his leg.” With an index finger, he pointed to Herb’s hindquarters. I could see two distinct fractures, little hairs of bone broken apart and then hastily rejoined in a crude ball of dense mass. Evidently, Herb’s healing hadn’t been all that pretty.
“Do you see these?” In a scooping motion, the vet drew an imaginary loop around the upper portion of the screen. “These are Herb’s lungs.”
I nodded. I could see them.
“And these white circles.” Narrowing his circle, he pointed to dozens of patches that riddled nearly every square inch of Herb’s lungs. “These are tumors.”
Well crap.
Suddenly Herb felt too far away, so I slunk off the cold metal chair and onto the floor. I pulled him up next to me, and he lifted his head and then dropped it softly onto my lap. His pink tongue darted out of his mouth and lapped at my fingers as they drug through the thick fur on his neck, and he hummed in delight.
“The interesting thing, though,” the vet continued. He closed out the program with the current x-rays, and then pulled up an entirely new set from a different folder. It still resembled the same dog-like outline, but without the jagged lines of Herb’s right leg. “I knew I’d seen a very similar x-ray before.” Peering up at the screen, I could still make out the tumors in the lungs. There were far fewer, but still enough to make those lungs look like a game of PacMan. “This was Ralph’s x-ray three months ago.”
“Ralph?”
Herb’s ears twitched, perking up into these pointy, alert triangles on top of his head. He looked like a completely different dog, and I felt like crying instantly.
“Yes, Ralph.” The vet lowered himself into a chair, making him much closer to eye level with us. I read this as a really bad sign. When people adjusted their posture before speaking, it
usually meant the words were going to come out differently, too. “This dog used to belong to a family that brings their animals here to be treated.”
My heart clenched.
“They brought him in several months ago and I diagnosed him with cancer. I gave them several options for treatment, but they declined, which was their choice.” He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his kneecaps.
“So he has a family?” Hope took root in my stomach or wherever it was that hope resided internally. It was overwhelming to learn that Herb was really Ralph and that Ralph had not only a mangled leg, but terminal cancer, as well. But it was a relief to know that he had someone else out there that once loved and cared for him. Someone that might be able to actually take care of him now, so much better than Lincoln and I had been trying to do.
“He had a family.” The vet stroked his chin. He was doing that weird thing were you half-smiled, but also half-looked like you were about to cry. I think that was what empathy looked like in physical form. “I just spoke with them on the phone, which was what took me so long. They said that Ralph ‘ran away’ several months ago.” The air quotes hooked around his words made me cringe, knowing the truth in that statement. “But I let them know that we had located him—”
“So they’re coming to get him.”
“No, Ms. Aberdeen.” The man shook his head slowly, but his eyes stayed with mine. “They’re coming in to put him down.”
I gasped. Yanking at Herb’s fur with my hands, I drug him all the way into my lap. Something in me wanted to cover his ears, but I knew how ridiculous it would be for me to do that. I just rocked him gently back and forth.
“I’m so sorry, Ms. Aberdeen.”
“But we have the money,” I blurted, trying to think quickly. “Maybe, if his leg is okay enough, then we can use that for treatments instead?” My words were a hurried rush, their cadence all over the place with sharp staccato syllables and loud, panicked breaths.
“I wish we could do that, I truly do. But this isn’t our call anymore.” I caught that he’d tacked himself on in that sentence. Maybe it was only for my benefit, to make me feel less alone in this decision I wasn’t even allowed to make, or maybe he truly did have other hopes for Herb/Ralph and his future. I couldn’t tell. “They’ll be here in fifteen minutes, at which point I’ll have to ask you to go.” He stood upright. “I’ll leave you two alone to say your goodbyes.”
Love Like Crazy Page 14
