So Much More (8 page)

She nods.

I slosh through the soaked carpet to the door. When I step outside, I roll my shoulders a few times, close my eyes, and breathe in the humid night air. The tension in my body, created by the emergency-induced adrenaline coursing through me, is receding. And as it ebbs away, I find myself wishing all stress was that easy to release. The stairs taunt me, and the climb is slow because exhaustion is creeping back.

My apartment door is wide open, and Faith is sitting, cross-legged, in the middle of the living room floor, a palm resting face down on each thigh. Her eyes are closed, and I can see her chest rise and fall in a series of deep, deliberate breaths. Her lips are moving slightly as if she’s talking to herself, but she’s not making any sound.

It’s an awkward situation; I’m not sure if I should interrupt her or wait to see if she senses I’m back in the room with her. I clear my throat; it’s my way to deal with the impasse.

Her lips move for a few more seconds and then she opens her eyes and stands. “Well? Is the water turned off?”

I nod, but in my mind, I still see her sitting on the floor. “What were you doing? Meditating? Praying?”

“Both, I guess, though I don’t like to pigeonhole,” she says as she walks by. “I like to multitask.” She winks.
 

I don’t know if the smile reaches my lips because I’m tired, but on the inside, she makes me smile. “I need to grab my box fan and some towels and go back down to help Hope clean up.”

“Why don’t you give me the fan and towels and I’ll help her? I don’t mind at all. It makes me feel useful,” Faith says.

“But I told Hope I’d be back down to help her,” I argue because I hate letting people down, especially when I’ve promised something.

Faith smiles and I already know she’s not going to let me win. “Your kids have school, and you have to work in the morning, I don’t. Get some rest, Seamus.”

“You’re sure?” I feel bad backing out, but she’s right. I have to get up for work in a few hours.

She nods.

I insist on taking the fan and towels down myself and explaining to Hope the situation and that Faith will be back down to help her. I also tell her to come up and knock if they need anything.

Hope nods in understanding but doesn’t say a word.
 

Faith and I cross paths at my doorway.

“Thanks for helping Hope out tonight. Sorry I had to wake you. We needed a hero.”

It’s nice to be needed. “You’re welcome. Goodnight, Faith.”

She pulls the door shut behind her, but leaves it open an inch and whispers through, “Nighty night, Seamus.”

Your knees are attractive; it’s a shame to bloody them

present

It’s seven o’clock on a Saturday morning, which is a guarantee of two things.

One: Kira is wide-awake and has been for over an hour now, sitting on the couch watching cartoons.

Two: I’m semi-awake, sitting on the couch next to Kira watching cartoons…through closed eyelids.

I haven’t slept in past six o’clock in the morning for eleven years.

I’m not complaining. My kids are only little once. The boys sleep in now, and I’m sure she’s not far behind them in making the shift.

“Daddy, are we going to the beach today?”

I answer with my eyes still closed, “Is it raining?” The weatherman on the local news last night said it’s supposed to rain today.

She walks to the front door and opens it; I guess an accurate weather assessment requires immersion and not a simple peek out the window.

“What’s this?” Kira asks curiously, looking at the ground outside the front door. Curiosity is not always a good thing when it comes to Kira. She’s fearless. The kind of fearless that requires trust. Her trust is a bottomless pit. Trust that the world is good and nothing bad ever happens. But even when bad does happen, like getting stung by a bee when she was three because it looked soft and fuzzy and irresistible to tiny fingers, or bad like her mom leaves the family and moves out of state, she never loses her trust. She’s still fearless.

I walk to the door for a close-up examination of the
this
half of
what’s this
.

There on the W…E mat is a cane. It’s wooden, and though it’s not bulky, it looks substantial, like it serves its purpose and serves it well. And it’s obvious it’s had plenty of opportunity to serve well. The varnish and stain are worn away on the handle and the bottom foot shows some battle scars. There’s an envelope underneath it, and my name is written on it.

When I see my name, a few things bubble up in me.
 

The first is embarrassment because someone thinks I need this. It makes my stomach lurch.

The second is anger because someone thinks I need this. It makes my stomach boil.

The third is foreign, a traitor that has invaded my bitter existence. It’s relief because someone thinks I need this. It makes my stomach settle.

But relief only sticks around for a nanosecond because I’m a stubborn, thirty-four-year-old man. I refuse to use a cane.

Canes scream helplessness, weakness, and deterioration.

That’s not me.

I may not be able to feel my legs from the waist down, except for occasional pinpricking pain, but I will not use an aid like an old man. A broken old man.

“Kira, darlin’, can you do me a favor and put that in my room?” I want to douse it in gasoline and light it aflame on the W…E mat in a proper act of defiance and protest. I also can’t help but find irony in the fact that it’s been left on a mat that no longer says welcome. This cane is
not
welcome. The W…E mat just became the unwelcome mat.
 

She picks up the cane in one hand and the envelope in the other. “What about the letter? It has your name on it.” She’s looking at the handwriting, reading it.

“Just put it on my bed with the…” I can’t even say the word, “with that.” I point at the cane.

We spent the afternoon playing board games and watching movies on Netflix while it rained relentlessly outside.

The kids are in bed now. When I kissed and hugged them all goodnight, I saw three happy, content faces smiling back at me. I haven’t seen them all smiling like that in a while. Too long. Even Kai was grinning. And Kai only does something when he means it. The honesty in him is born in his bones and seeps out into the rest of him, which means every inch of him is truth. When he feels it, it’s projected. And today he was happy.

And that makes me happy.

I set aside the bitter.

Every last inkling of it.

Until I walk back to my room and see the cane lying on my bed.

And now I’m a jumble of emotions, pissed leading the charge. Someone’s made a judgment of me. I let my mind go so far as to wonder if it was Miranda, which is crazy because she lives in another state. Unfortunately, it’s not beneath her to rub my nose in something or to belittle me. She’s always been good at belittling. Jesus Christ, what did I ever see in her?

I tear open the envelope and as I read the note the flash of relief I had earlier reappears.

So does the embarrassment.

But not the anger.

Faith. Of course, it was Faith. It was left with good intention. Not ridicule.

Even so, I’m not using it. I’m stubborn. I may as well wear a sign around my neck that says
I’m useless
.

Putting it in the back of my closet, I bury it along with the letter behind a stack of magazines and a pile of shoes. And when I can no longer see it the relief vanishes into thin air and all that remains is embarrassment. It jabs at me. Taunts me. And I don’t know where it came from because it’s a new kind of embarrassment. A branch that grows on the embarrassment tree, but not a limb I thought I’d find myself climbing on. It feels shaky and thin, too small in diameter to hold my weight. It’s embarrassment tied to manliness and virility. Embarrassment tied to attraction and sexual prowess. It’s the realization that men with health issues, men that need things like
canes
to function, especially at my age, aren’t desirable and I feel like I’ve just lost something else to this disease. I feel like I’ve lost the ability to attract a partner, if and when I’m ever ready for that again.

I know when Faith used the word attractive she wasn’t being condescending. But maybe it’s the fact that she’s an attractive woman, who used the word attractive in her note, that set off the avalanche of epiphanies leading me down the road of imagined lonely, celibate, lifelong bachelor. I know she meant nothing by it. It’s just that sometimes a single word spurs thought. And thought can take the positive route when it comes to the fork in the road, or it can take the negative.
 

Lately, my thoughts always take a hard left and go negative.

Sometimes I’m irrational, I know I am, but even irrational thought feels very, very real when you’re in the middle of shit.

And smack dab in the middle of shit is exactly where I am.

Shit.

Uneventful and normal, I want to be that guy

present

The kids and I took a walk to the beach after dinner. Faith was standing on her milk crate giving away hugs again. Fear for her was still dominant when I noticed her. Regret was a close second.
 

Kira got her hug.

The rest of us didn’t.

Faith and I haven’t talked since the cane incident last week. I have trouble looking at her because I know how she sees me. I’m the guy who falls on the stairs and injures himself.
 

I don’t want to be my MS.

I don’t want to be my symptoms.

I don’t want to be my limitations.

I don’t want to be my pain.

I don’t want to be my embarrassment.

I just want to be the guy who walks up the stairs, and no one thinks anything about it because it’s uneventful and normal.

That’s who I want to be.

Fuck the façade

past

I always wanted the title of vice president before I turned thirty. Titles are important, they signify ascent. And with ascension comes power.

It’s so close now I can taste it. My killer instinct is back. I struggled to keep my shit together the year after Rory was born, but I’m back with a vengeance and determined not to let anyone or anything derail my dream.