Going Through the Change

by Samantha Bryant

  Last night, when they had been sitting in lawn chairs out in the green space with some of Mary’s friends, Helen had another good one. She’d tried to be cool and not make a big deal out of it, but she was sure she was changing colors. Finally, she’d excused herself and came back with a pill and glass of cold water. Just like last time, there was this feeling like ice running down her head and trickling down her body. Helen imagined puffing the heat out the open toes of her Ecco sandals.

  Suddenly, there was a little fire by the feet of one of the boys, the one with the pretty blue eyes. Too skinny for her taste, but Mary seemed to like the skinny ones. He jumped up, whooping in surprise. Mary dumped the rest of her drink onto the fire, and it went out easily. Just to be sure, Helen stomped on the ground a few times. That was weird.

  Standing in her daughter’s living room, Helen looked back at the wastebasket that held the melted curls of the photograph. Something was definitely strange around here. She was starting to think it was her.

  essica watched as the paramedics raised the table with Nathan strapped to it and pushed him through the still-open door. Max had one damp and mildly sticky hand wrapped around her knee. Frankie had hooked one hand into the back of Jessica’s pants and had his only recently abandoned thumb firmly in his mouth. Jessica rested one hand on each downy, blond head, grateful for the comfort in their warm bodies against hers. She felt as if they were the only things anchoring her to the ground. Thankfully, that seemed to be only a metaphorical anchor. She didn’t seem to be in danger of floating away again.

  As soon as the paramedics left, Jessica freed herself from the grasp of her sons and knelt in front of them. “Everything is going to be okay, boys. The doctors are going to help your Daddy.” Big tears fell down Max’s chubby cheeks, and Jessica rubbed them away with her thumbs. “Really, baby. It’s going to be okay. I promise.” She leaned her head against his, forehead to forehead, their private signal for serious reassurance. She reached for Frankie’s hand, and Frankie nodded emphatically without removing the thumb from his mouth.

  “Frankie, can you put your shoes and jacket on and help your little brother with his?”

  Frankie nodded again.

  When the boys left the foyer, Jessica took a deep breath and slid her foot across the tile floor in practiced graceful steps, like she once would have made across a gym mat on the way to her floor routine event. She was afraid to lift her feet, afraid that if she stepped down too hard, she’d spring back up into the air again. The bubbling sensation in her stomach had completely disappeared. She hoped that was a good thing, a sign she would stay on the ground.

  A few more sliding, ice skating steps and she was at the side table, where her purse and keys were. It was a very solid table with an antique marble top. Holding onto it made her feel secure. She looked at the swirls of marble and pondered her dilemma. She had to get to the hospital with the boys. She really didn’t know what had made her float, or what had made her stop. She didn’t know if it would happen again or if it had been some bizarre fluke, a dream somehow made manifest or a paranormal event.

  What she did know was that there wasn’t time to figure it out now. Nathan was at the hospital. Her family needed her. Hearing the boys coming toward the front hall again, she gripped the table and bounced a little on her toes. Nothing. Gravity was once again on her side.

  She sighed. She’d have to take her chances. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother.

  They hadn’t been in the family waiting area long when the boys spotted Grandma coming through the doorway and ran to pummel her with exuberant hugs.

  Max yelled, “You should have seen it, Grandma. Mommy was flying, and then she fell on Daddy!”

  Eva Roark lifted an eyebrow at her daughter, and Jessica looked around the room nervously and did her best “Kids-what-can-you-do?” shrug.

  Eva frowned and reached into her pocket. “Here, Frankie. I just got a new cell phone. Why don’t you and your brother figure out how it works for me so you can teach me later?”

  The boys ran back to the bench seat, already squabbling over who got to hold it and wondering loudly if this one would be able to show movies. Eva watched them, smiling, but concern quickly clouded her face when she looked back at Jessica.

  “How is he? What’s happened?”

  Jessica took a deep breath, trying to decide what to say. “We’re waiting to hear. They’re still examining him, I guess. All they’ve done is take our insurance information so far.” Jessica realized with a guilty start that she hadn’t really been worrying about Nathan that much. Tears suddenly sprung to her eyes. What kind of wife was she? It hadn’t really occurred to her that he wouldn’t be all right. He had to be, didn’t he? They’d already been through so much with her cancer. It wouldn’t be fair if he wasn’t all right. Things were supposed to go back to normal now.

  “I’m so glad you’re here. The hospital is no place for the boys.” Jessica patted her mother’s arm as if to reassure her, but really, the touch was to comfort herself. “I’ve already had three age-inappropriate questions about transgender issues thanks to daytime television.”

  Eva grabbed her daughter’s hand and gave it a squeeze. Jessica looked down at their joined hands and considered what to say next. She wanted to tell her mother about it all. If anyone would believe her, it would be her mother. Anyone else would call the guys in white coats. But here in the waiting room didn’t seem like the place or the time.

  “How did the accident happen?” Jessica jumped at the sound of another voice. She looked up into the curious, penetrating gaze of an Asian woman who had taken the chair beside her. It took her a long moment to realize it was Cindy Liu, her mother’s long-time friend, the one who made the tea she enjoyed. The two women had met when Jessica was just a baby and had been friends all of Jessica’s life.

  “Ms. Liu, how nice of you to come,” Jessica began. It seemed impolite to comment on the strangeness of tagging along to a family hospital visit, but Jessica was taken aback by the woman’s presence in a private moment. Even if she had been visiting when Jessica called, the courteous thing to do would have been to excuse herself and call to check in later. Of course, Ms. Liu had not always been one to follow societal expectations or to read social cues well. Jessica had sometimes wondered if her mother’s friend might have a form of autism or some other disorder that kept her from understanding how her behavior affected others.

  “What did your son mean? You were flying?” Ms. Liu seemed oddly intense. Jessica squirmed beneath her gaze, looking to her mother for help. Her mother just shrugged, as if to say, “You know how she is.”

  “Um, well, it’s a strange story…” Jessica hoped to avoid having to make up the public story right there on the spot.

  A nurse came into the waiting area and called, “Mrs. Fellicelli?”

  Jessica raised her hand, so relieved by the nurse’s timing that she almost shouted. “It’s Roark. But I’m married to Nathan.”

  The nurse nodded and held the door open for Jessica to pass. Jessica squeezed her mother’s hand and went through the door.

  The nurse led her around several corners and up a small staircase and left her outside the door of a hospital room. At least the quick pace hadn’t given her time to worry about whether she might float off toward the ceiling again. Jessica hoped she wasn’t expected to find her way back to the waiting room alone. She had no idea where she was now.

  She stepped into the room the nurse had indicated and found a doctor leaning over her husband. She knocked on the doorframe. The man stood, clicking off the small light he had been using and dropping it into his jacket pocket. He extended his hand in greeting. “Mrs. Fellicelli?”

  Jessica opened her mouth to correct him and then abruptly decided to let the mistake go. What difference did it make if he got her name right? He could tell her Nathan was going to be fine. She nodded.

  “I’m Dr. Hofstedder.”

  Jessica took the proffered hand and shook it qui
ckly, anxious for the man to get past the pleasantries and just tell her how Nathan was. “How’s my husband?”

  The doctor stepped to the side, and Jessica saw Nathan lying in the bed. He looked oddly small and had a variety of monitors attached to him, but from his regular breathing, he seemed to be sleeping, not unconscious. His color was good. She leaned over and brushed his hair back from his forehead in what she hoped looked like a loving gesture instead of just her not knowing what to do with her nervous hands. She gripped the side rail of his bed, hooking her fingers beneath.

  The doctor placed a hand on her elbow and said quietly, “He’s resting. Let’s talk in the hall.”

  Jessica gave her husband’s hand a squeeze and turned to follow the doctor and then stopped. Her foot hadn’t made contact with the ground. Shit. She grabbed at the doctor’s arm, tugging him back, keeping a strong grip on Nathan’s bedrail with her other hand. “Is my husband going to be okay, doctor?” Her voice sounded a little panicky, but Jessica hoped the doctor would just think she was worried about Nathan. If she pushed down hard with her arm, she could force her feet to rest on the floor.

  The doctor gently tugged his arm free from her grip, and Jessica turned her body so she could hold on to the railing with both hands. It was a relief to be able to use both hands; the one arm had begun to tremble from the force she was exerting to hold herself in place.

  The doctor seemed puzzled by her fervor but offered reassurance. “Yes, he’ll be fine. He’s got a concussion, but I think you’ll be able to take him back home tonight as long as you can stay with him to make sure his condition doesn’t change.” The doctor cocked his head at her curiously. He was probably just surprised that she hadn’t obediently followed him into the hall, but Jessica still felt paranoid that he could tell what was going on with her. Her chest felt tight and her stomach queasy. She was one step away from telling him what was happening and begging for help when she farted.

  Jessica had no idea what the connection was, but as soon as she farted, her feet settled back into her shoes and onto the floor. She smiled, feeling the knot around her heart loosen. “You had me at ‘fine,’” she said and turned back toward Nathan, trying to compose her face into a look of wifely concern, but really just wishing the doctor would go.

  “Mrs. Fellicelli?” The doctor hesitated, and when he spoke again it was with a nervous laughter in his voice. “It’s the oddest thing. He said you fell on him when you were flying around the chandelier.”

  Jessica tried to keep her face neutral. Her smile felt overly wide as she tried to laugh without giving way to hysteria. “Well, you did say he had a concussion, right?”

  atricia walked in to Cindy Liu’s lab without knocking. Some people might consider that rude, but Patricia thought knocking was just unnecessary. After all, Cindy knew she was coming. She was there exactly when she said she would be, seven o’clock. There was no need to play parlor manners games. They’d been friends a long time, after all. She calculated quickly. She’d started college in 1973. Had it really been forty years?

  Patricia thought about the first time they met. The Resident Advisor had gathered all the new fresh-women into the lounge for a meet and greet. Though both Patricia and Cindy had been by the room and dropped off their belongings, they hadn’t yet met, somehow missing each other throughout the afternoon as each wandered in and out and around campus. They had only just introduced themselves and realized they were each other’s roommates when the RA asked them all to sit down and started her spiel. The RA had directed them through a silly activity designed to help them get to know each other, an icebreaker with a cutesy theme. Something about flowers, Patricia thought she remembered. “These are the friendships you will cherish all your lives,” she had rhapsodized, fluttering her hands at the gathered young women and seeming almost as if she might cry.

  Patricia had felt embarrassed for her. She thought a person should have more self-control than that, especially in a position of leadership. When other women got teary, Patricia had to fight to keep herself there in the room. Her every instinct told her to flee the melodrama and false sisterhood. Turning to the side to hide her consternation, she found herself looking into the face of her new roommate Cindy Liu, a very similar look of disgust and dismay on her face.

  Patricia was much too polite, at age eighteen, to say aloud what she was feeling, but Cindy, a few years older, had no such qualms. As the meeting went on, she began to draw caricatures of other students and slyly show them to Patricia, who had bitten the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing aloud.

  That RA had annoyed them both with all her hokey sentimentality, but in the end, she had been sort of right. Patricia couldn’t remember the other women in the room at all. But she had cherished her friendship with Cindy all her life.

  Moving aside a sheaf of papers on Cindy’s worktable to make a place to put her purse, Patricia complained, “Cindy, these patches on my back are getting thicker, and now they are on my arms and chest, too. What the hell is in this cream you’ve been giving me?”

  Cindy held up one finger, and Patricia knew that meant she needed to finish something. She huffed, impatient. After all, she was on time. Cindy should have been ready for her when she got here. She swung around and started peering into the animal cages. There was always something interesting going on with Cindy’s lab animals.

  “What’s up with this one?” Patricia pointed at a small, white rabbit. The label on the front of the cage said, “Roxie” but you could see that “Rocky” had been crossed out beneath. “She didn’t like her name?”

  Cindy clicked at her computer a few more seconds and then looked up. “Sex change,” she said, picking up a black cloth and dropping it over the lizard cage she’d been working with. Just as the cloth fell, the lizard seemed to catch fire. It must have been a trick of the light.

  Patricia blinked. “You mean it used to be a boy rabbit, and now it’s a girl?”

  Cindy nodded but didn’t offer any more information. “Let’s see what we have. Take off your jacket.”

  Patricia sighed. She was used to Cindy clamming up like that. She never liked to talk about what she working on until after she completed her experiments.

  Removing the jacket was more difficult than it should have been. The patches were thick enough that they were making the sleeves snug against her biceps, definitely thicker than when she had first come in. In fact, they couldn’t properly be called “patches” anymore. They were more like plates one might have seen on an armadillo or, more accurately, a triceratops. Patricia couldn’t see the ones on her back, but she knew the eczema, or whatever it was, must have been spreading because of the itching. She resisted the impulse to turn and rub her back against the support beam behind her and tried to be patient as her friend examined her.

  Cindy rested the pen she was holding against her cheek and tilted her head thoughtfully. She had that look of studied indifference that could only mean she was considering something deeply. She also had, Patricia noted with surprise, a face-lift. She wouldn’t have expected her friend to indulge in that kind of vanity, but there was no denying her face had fewer lines than it had just a few days earlier. She looked all of fifty years old, maybe a little less. Patricia knew she was in her later sixties.

  “Come, stand here in the light.” She walked around Patricia in a circle three times, clicking her pen open and closed, leaning in close and changing her angle as she walked. She picked up a petri dish and a scalpel and scraped off a piece of the plate on Patricia’s upper arm.

  “What the hell, Cindy! You’ve got to warn me before you do something like that. What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” Patricia clapped her hand protectively over the platelet on her upper arm, but there was no bleeding, no external sign that the area had even been cut.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Well, no.” Patricia examined her friend’s face, looking for a clue as to whether or not she should be frightened by the lack of pain response. It couldn’t be a g
ood sign, but how bad a sign was it?

  “How about this?” Cindy grabbed the other upper arm and squeezed, none too gently. Patricia saw Cindy’s knuckles whiten as she tightened her grip. “Can you feel that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sit down.” Cindy pulled out a low-backed stool and pushed the taller woman down on it. “Close your eyes, and tell me when you can feel my touch.”

  Patricia obliged. Long seconds passed. Patricia felt nothing. She sighed, growing impatient. “Are you going to start?” Suddenly, there was a loud pinging sound reverberating around the lab. Patricia opened her eyes. Cindy was glaring at her and rubbing her fist. The knuckles were reddened. There was an array of little hammers laid out on the table in front of her.

  “You’d better put some ice on that,” Patricia suggested, gesturing toward the quickly swelling knuckles. “What did you do? Hit yourself with one of those hammers?”

  Cindy wrinkled her brow. “Did you really not feel that? None of that?”

  Patricia shook her head. “Not a darn thing. What did you try?” She was getting more and more worried but trying to stay calm and let her friend do her work.

  Cindy gestured at the hammers and flexed the fingers on her sore hand. “I got mad. Stupid of me, using my own hand. You’re as well armored as a tank, Patricia O’Neill.”

  Patricia snorted. “I doubt that. But I’m worried there’s something wrong with my nerves if I can’t feel you hitting me with a hammer.” She tried to make it sound like a joke, but there was a chill going down her spine. This might have been much more serious than she had first thought.