Bread Alone (39 page)

“You’ve never seen my knee.”

“Sad but true.” He turns left, then right. Downtown is eerily beautiful in the falling snow, bathed in the coppery glow of streetlights and spiked with red and green traffic signals. We haven’t seen another car since we left Queen Anne. “Okay, how about ‘The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor—’ “

“Butcher,” I wheeze. “You skipped two lines. ‘The wind was a torrent—of darkness among the gusty trees, The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, The road was’—oh, shit—”

“I don’t remember any shit in the road. Although there was a horse. ‘The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding, Riding, riding, The highwayman came riding up to the old inn door.’ “

Suddenly the truck founders, slides backward, and swerves to a stop against the curb.

“Shit.” He says it under his breath. “This hill …” He looks over at me. “How are you doing?”

“I’ve never been in a hospital. Except to visit people.”

Turning the wheel first one way, then the other, inching forward, slipping back, little by little he turns us around, not down the hill, but across it, and then we start to zigzag our way up like a sailboat tacking into the wind.

“Hang on. We’re almost there.”

“I’ve never had anesthesia. I don’t want it.”

He laughs uproariously. “Wyn, it’s not natural childbirth. I guarantee you don’t want to be awake.” I squeeze my eyes against the pain, then dash the tear away quickly so he won’t see what a wimp I am.

As we get closer to the crest of the hill, the wind picks up, driving
the snow against the windshield. Granted, I’m not at my most alert, but I can’t imagine how he can see much. The wheels are slipping again, but I can’t make myself care. I pull the scarf around my neck and huddle miserably against the door.

He turns on the radio and the cab fills with a breathless tenor.

“Are the stars out tonight?

I don’t know if it’s cloudy or bright.”

“Oh, good one.” He smiles. “The Flamingos.”

“Mac…”

“Close your eyes. Listen to the words.”

“I don’t know if we’re in a garden,
Or on a crowded avenue.”

A high school prom in the fifties. Girls in ballerina-length tulle, shiny page boys, wrist corsages. Crew-cut boys in dark suits with skinny lapels. I let myself drift.

“You are here, so am I.
Maybe millions of people go by.
But they all disappear from view …”

Abruptly I feel the unmistakable dip of a driveway entrance. A lighted red cross appears out of the dark and a sign that says “Emergency.” Mac leans on the horn as we skid to a halt.

“Stop that. I feel like an idiot.”

He’s out the door, slamming it behind him, leaving a cold gust, a few swirling flakes to melt into the upholstery, and me curled up around the hot pain.

There’s movement outside and noise, lots of people in green scrubs and white uniforms. I’m on my back on a wheeled contraption and Mac’s going through my wallet.

“Call CM,” I plead, and he nods.

“When was your last meal?” a nurse demands. I look at her stupidly, then say, “Breakfast.” She rolls me over on one hip, and I feel the bite of a needle, followed by a wave of warmth. Miraculously, the pain begins to break up and wash away.

I’m signing a paper that I can’t read and the walls are moving past me, fluorescent lights speeding down the tunnel over my head. My face flops to the left and Mac is still there. I think he’s holding my hand, which is very cold. I can tell he’s moving and the white-and-green people are moving all around me, but I seem to be floating. On an air mattress, bobbing easily on gentle swells.

It’s like a silent movie with that fuzzy black border. The border is getting wider as the picture gets smaller and smaller, till I can’t see any of it anymore.

I’m throwing up. Or wanting to. But the world’s perkiest blonde nurse is smiling at me, saying, “Don’t vomit, honey. You’ll feel really bad.”

I shake my head. It would not be possible to feel any worse than I do. My stomach heaves again. I swallow obediently. I want to sleep and she keeps rubbing my hand, sponging my face, telling me to wake up. I just know she’ll be in here later trying to give me a sleeping pill.

Later, I wake up in a different room. As the fog recedes, the first thing in focus is CM’s worried face. I smile weakly with relief She scrapes a metal chair up close to the bed and takes my hand in both of hers.

“How are you feeling?”

“Never better. Did anyone get the license number of the truck?”

She gives a little nervous giggle and presses my hand against her cheek. “God, I was so worried about you. How did Mac know how to reach me?”

“Your phone number’s in my wallet.”

“He seems like a pretty nice guy.”

“We’re just friends.”

“He asked me to call your mom, but I thought I’d better wait till you were conscious …”

“Thank you for that.” I sigh. “All I need is her fluttering around here like Florence Nightingale. I’ll call her when I’m safely ensconced at home. What day is it?” Sunlight’s poking around the window blinds, illuminating various metal contraptions with plastic bags full of liquid connected by tubing to several of my orifices. There’s a needle taped in my arm.

“Sunday afternoon. The snow’s already melting.”

When I try to shift my weight, a quick turn of the screw makes me gasp. “Shit. I think they left a scalpel inside.”

“It’s your incision, dum-dum. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t cough, sneeze, laugh, or breathe.”

The sound of knuckles on metal draws our attention to the doorway, where a very young guy with hair as curly as mine, and a stethoscope hanging around his blue surgical scrubs, stands grinning. “How’s it going?” Naturally, he’s talking to me, but he’s looking at CM.

“Are you the one who did this to me?”

“Guilty as charged, Your Honor. And it’s a pretty bang-up job, all modesty aside. You don’t have to leave,” he says as CM gets up.

“I’m just going to run down to the gift shop and see if they have any more of these in spring fashion colors.” She tweaks my plastic hospital bracelet. His head about swivels off his shoulders as he watches her go. He drags his eyes back to me.

“How do you feel today?”

“Like the magician’s assistant who’s been sawed in half. When can I go home?”

“Whoa, easy there. You are one very fortunate lady. You were about that close”—he holds his thumb and index finger together—”to a ruptured appendix. In fact, I lifted that puppy out and as soon as I set it in the bowl, it went. Your friend got you here just in time.”

“I assure you, I’m grateful to all concerned, but I’d like to go home.”

He gives me a bemused smile. “Tuesday. Maybe even tomorrow. As
soon as you can pee by yourself. And when you can promise me you won’t drive a car for at least three weeks—”

“I can promise you that now. I don’t have a car.”

“And that you won’t do a lot of walking around for at least two weeks—”

“How am I supposed to go to work?”

“You’re not. And I don’t want you lifting anything heavier than a sandwich for about six weeks.”

“You must be joking. I’m a baker. Lifting’s half the job.”

“Not for the next six weeks it isn’t.” He shakes his head. “You need to understand that you’ve just had major abdominal surgery. It’s going to be an absolute minimum of six weeks before you can resume a normal routine. Particularly if your normal routine is very physical in nature.”

I fold my arms and stare at him. “Well, fine. You want to come home and wait on me?”

“It’s not the worst offer I’ve had, but I can’t spare the time right now.” He gives me a charming smile, but at the moment I’m way beyond crabby. “Ms. Morrison, all kidding aside, your body needs a certain amount of time to heal properly. That’s just a fact of life.”

“Here’s my fact of life. I live alone. Things have to be done and I don’t have a guy named Cato hanging around waiting for instructions.”

“Do you know what adhesions are?”

“Should I?”

He sighs. “No. But if you don’t let your body heal properly, you will. And it won’t be a pleasant experience.” By the time he finishes describing adhesions, bowel obstruction, abscess, chronic pain, and future surgeries in lurid detail, I’ve reluctantly accepted my new status as invalid.

When Mac calls Monday afternoon to see if I want company, I announce that I can pee by myself. I haven’t been this proud of going to the john since I was potty-trained.

He laughs. “Does that mean you need a ride home?”

“If you could, I’d appreciate getting out of here ASAP. This place is depressing. It’s full of sick people.”

“Unfortunately, that means another ride in the smogmobile.”

“I apologize for any snide comments I might have inadvertently let slip about the Elky.”

“Inadvertently, my ass.”

I have to clamp my teeth firmly onto my tongue. “Mac, I most humbly beg forgiveness.”

“Okay, you’re forgiven. What time can you leave?”

“As soon as you can get the bucket of bolts over here.”

He was right about one thing. It’s been a long time since I had this much attention. Of course, for the first few days, I’m too drugged out on Vicodin to enjoy it. CM fills my freezer with soup and casseroles; she helps me bathe and French-braids my hair. Ellen and Diane bring me bread and scones and muffins.

Tyler brings me cookies and a wood-block print of a loaf of bread in warm shades of brown and rust.

“Tyler, this is wonderful. This should be hanging in the bakery. Can you make another print of it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs, looks embarrassed by the fuss.

“In fact, I think we need T-shirts.”

“What for?”

“To sell, my little nonlinear friend.”

“You mean T-shirts with my design on them?” Her eyes flicker with interest.

“Exactly. And maybe coffee mugs, too. Why don’t you ask Ellen to call me?”

“Totally inflammatory. By the way, Linda says hi.”

“Right.”

“No, really. She totally misses you.”

“Tyler, stop. It hurts when I laugh.”

Mac brings me cassettes for my boom box, and books, which he reads aloud when I’m too groggy to focus. As you get older, you forget how nice it can be to hear a story instead of reading it. It calls up all these primal race memories of storytellers squatting around a campfire in the jungle darkness.

After a week, I stop taking painkillers, so I’m perfectly capable of reading to myself, but he keeps doing it because we both enjoy it. On the three-week anniversary of my grand opening, he shows up at nine-thirty in the morning with a white bag and a copy of
The Great Gatsby.
I crawl back under the covers while he makes coffee.

“If it wasn’t for the pain, I could get used to this. Sleeping late, having people bring me food and music, read to me.”

“Enjoy it while you can. As soon as you’re up and about, I’m planning to get sick so you can read to me.”

“Does that mean I have to drive you to the hospital in the smogmobile?”

“No, I’ll get sick at home. Elky would never run for you.” He sets a plastic tape case down on the kitchen table. “Here’s another tape.” “Who is it?”

He’s pawing through my cupboard. “Don’t you have any clean cups?”

“Yes, CM washed everything. There’s no telling where she put them. Who’s on the tape?”

“Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke.” He hands me a cup of coffee and tosses the white sack on the bed. Inside is one perfect golden croissant, still warm.

“Oh, Mac, thanks.” I inhale the buttery scent. “Is this from Le Panier?”

“Of course. You don’t think I’d dare to bring you a crescent roll from Phoebe’s, do you?”

I clutch my stomach, panting. “Oh, don’t make me laugh.” I take a bite of the croissant and the hundred butter-crisp papery layers shatter into toasty shards. “Oh, God, this is so perfect. Thank you so much. You want a bite?”

“No, I had one on premises.” He sits down in the club chair, props his right boot on his left knee.

“You’re out early for a Saturday.”

He flips the pages of the book. “Actually, I haven’t been home yet. Kenny and I went out last night and ended up at a party on Capitol Hill.”

I feel a weird little jab in my stomach nowhere near my incision. “Was it fun?” I ease out of bed and creep carefully to the stove for a refill. “You want any more?”