All the Good Parts (4 page)

“Did you bring me a pizza?” Jerry asked, throwing the first punch. He knew Paul hadn’t.

“Why would I do that? I sent enough for the week yesterday.”

“I think what your father wants is more familiar food,” I said, inserting myself between the two men. “Maybe we could come up with some compromise foods—mac and cheese with peas and carrots, meat loaf with mashed pota—”

“Not your business,” Paul interrupted. “It’s your job to make sure he’s eating, not to decide what he eats.”

“Isn’t that his job?”

Paul didn’t need to move closer to intimidate me; all he had to do was inhale and his chest practically bumped me into the next room.

“Maybe you could buy some ingredients, and I could cook the meals,” I offered, horrified by the meekness in my voice.

Paul ignored me. “Have you been sitting in that chair all day, old man?”

Jerry looked away from his son. “I got up a couple of times.”

“To use the john?”

“I took the garbage out.”

“Uh-huh,” Paul said. “And if I go check the can, there’ll be a bag in it?”

Defeated, Jerry kept quiet. He rubbed at his stump, and I noticed Paul purposely avoided glancing at his father’s right side. “If he eats refined carbs all day without exercising, he’s going to turn into a blob,” Paul said, finally directing his comments toward me. “All that muscle will slide into fat. Understand?”

I nodded my head.

“Let’s move on,” Paul said. He’d changed the direction of the conversation with such ruthless confidence I wondered what he did for a living. Lawyer? Corporate hatchet man? Assassin?

“Oh, don’t start,” Jerry said feebly.

“You need a prosthesis. I want you to make an appointment. This week.”

“I don’t want one. Waste of money.”

“It’s my money and I’ll decide if it’s a waste. Do you want me to make the appointment, or do you want to pick the doctor?”

“I’ll do it,” I said, and Jerry’s head whipped up.

“Traitor,”
he mouthed.

“Good,” Paul said, and for a moment I thought he might pat me on the head and toss me a doggie treat. “Make sure you tell the doctor he’s been having phantom pains again.”

I turned to Jerry, incredulous. “You’ve been having phantom pains and you didn’t tell me? Since when?”

“Since the operation,” Paul said. “Didn’t you ever ask him?”

I hadn’t. Sometimes my inexperience leaped up and bit me in the ass. “I’m sorry.”

Jerry looked uncomfortable. “No need to be. They aren’t so bad. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

“They’re terrible,” Paul contradicted. “He screams and hits at his bad arm. Sometimes he cries.”

“Paul!”

Paul froze at the sharpness in his father’s tone. After a moment of awkward silence, he gingerly patted Jerry on the shoulder. “Settle down, okay? I’m staying for dinner tonight.
I’ll
do the cooking.” He leaned against the wall and considered me for a moment, forehead scrunched as though he were figuring out exactly what to say to get rid of me. “Would you like me to walk you out, Miss . . .”

“Accorsi,” I said. “Leona. And I have a few more things to discuss with your father, so I’ll see myself out.” I straightened my back, glad I’d finally found my skittish mojo.

Paul crossed his enormous arms over his equally oversized chest. “We’re not paying—”

“I know. I’m not charging.”

“Give us a few minutes,” Jerry pleaded. His voice sounded tired. With a reluctant nod, Paul disappeared into the kitchen.

“You weren’t kidding about him,” I said quietly. After a moment, the hiss of oil hitting a hot pan carried through the house, and I worried Paul could hear us as clearly as we could hear him. “But you should have told me about the phantom pains.”

“I know,” Jerry said, matching my low tone. He touched my cheek with his index finger. “Oh, look at your face. I’m sorry, Leona. I shouldn’t have put you in such a bad position. Paul can be a bully.”

“Save your worrying for someone else,” I said, making him laugh as I tossed his earlier words back at him. “He’s right, though, about the prosthesis. You should have been fitted by now.”

“For what? So I can go to hour after hour of therapy and never learn how to use it right? So I can get an infection and lose the rest of my arm?”

“I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“You won’t always be here.”

I wanted to take offense at his lack of confidence in me, but he was right. This was a temporary job. I’d look for something better right after graduation.

“I don’t hold it against you,” he added. “I know this doesn’t pay much.”

“It’s not that . . .”

“What is it, sweetheart? Is something else wrong?”

“Nothing important.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Don’t bullshit a bullshitter.”

I knew he was deflecting again, but I let him. “I’ve got a few things on my mind.”

“Like?”

“Life problems.”

Jerry waited for me to continue. I thought of ending it there, gathering my things and leaving before I embarrassed myself further. But his sincere concern kept me sitting still, and my need to discuss my thoughts with someone outside of my family got me talking. Also, he’d roped me into his family drama, and fair was fair. “I’m thinking about having a baby.”

“You’ve got a boyfriend? You never said!”

“I don’t have a man in my life. That’s why I’m struggling with the idea.”

“Oh.” Jerry shifted in his chair. His cheeks flushed as pink as the wild-caught salmon in his fridge. “I’ve heard that doesn’t have to be such a problem. You gonna go to one of those places? Where you pick a . . . a guy?”

“Maybe. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“No, of course not,” he said, too quickly.

“You don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“I’m living proof that you could pick the best partner in the world and still be left with a real lemon.”

I shushed him, and he shrugged. “It’s the truth.”

“So you regret becoming a father?”

“I didn’t say that. He’s an asshole—”

“But he’s your asshole, right?”

Jerry laughed. “I hope not. I’ve got hemorrhoid problems and proctitis. What I meant to say was, as hard as it is to believe with a man like Paul, I’d give my other arm for him without thinking twice. It’s a fierce kind of love, and I wouldn’t want to be in this world without it.”

I thought about that for a moment, and then asked him, “Would you feel your life was incomplete without it?”

“For me, yes. For other people, they could take it or leave it. There’s all different kinds of love. You might just need one kind or half a dozen, but that’s for you to decide.”

“How do I know until I have the child?”

“That’s the rub. You won’t.”

The implications of that jostled my conscience. “Do you think I’m being selfish?”

Jerry patted my hand. “That I can’t answer. It doesn’t feel right to judge a person when they have tears in their eyes.”

Mortified, I tried to blink them away. “Sorry if this has gotten too personal.”

“You’ve given me a sponge bath. I think that ship has sailed. No need to be embarrassed.”

“Maybe I should be more embarrassed. It would save you from these conversations.” I tugged on my cardigan and draped my bag over my shoulder. “But thanks,” I said, bending to give Jerry a kiss on the cheek. “See you on Saturday. I promise not to be such a wreck.”

I was almost out the front door when I heard, “You’re not selfish. Maybe a little lonely, and any behavior is excusable if you’re trying to keep that damn monster at bay. You do what you want, Leona. You do exactly what you want.”

CHAPTER 4

Nursing 320 (Online): Community Health

Open Forum

Leona A:
Pretty random, but maybe one of you has some experience with this? I’ve got a home-health patient, male, sixty-eight, Vietnam vet, and lower-arm amputee, with no other major health issues besides possible depression and slightly elevated blood pressure. He’s having phantom pains, and I don’t know what to do to help him. Ideas, anyone?

Jenna F:
Suggest therapy?

Leona A:
Thanks. I’ll try, but that probably won’t go over so well. He’s got a lot of stubborn pride, and I believe he’ll see therapy as an admission of weakness.

Mike G:
That guy in the wheelchair in Forrest Gump was an amputee AND a Vietnam vet. Freaky coincidence, huh? What was that guy’s name?

Leona A:
Wow, that is a crazy coincidence, Mike, and Forrest Gump is a good movie, but does anyone have an idea to help my patient?

Maria S:
Lieutenant Dan!! Ding, ding, ding! FTW!!

Mike G:
Nice one!

Maria S:
I didn’t even have to Google it.

Leona A:
Impressive memory skills, Maria, but can anyone help me????

Darryl K:
Does he own a full-length mirror?

Leona A:
I don’t think so. Why?

Darryl K:
When the pain hits, if he looks at his whole body he’ll get a visual of the amputated limb in relation to the rest of him, and his brain will remember that his lower arm is gone. All those synapses will hook up and—presto!—no pain.

Leona A:
Well, aren’t you the smart one? Maybe I should reconsider our study-buddy situation.

Darryl K:
Are you that easily impressed?

Leona A:
Usually.

Darryl K:
A woman of low standards. My favorite kind. Consider yourself partnered up!

Leona A:
Thanks again for the tip. It’s genius.

Darryl K:
No problem. To be honest, I saw it on an episode of House.

Leona A:
Seriously.

Darryl K:
Yep. And you are officially locked in, study buddy! Our first quiz is due next Tuesday. Why don’t you tackle the study guide?

Leona A:
Yeah. Sure. Great.

Maria S:
You two are so cute.

“Auntie Lee?”

Maura stood at the bottom of the basement stairs, two foil-wrapped packages in hand. Shy about invading my personal space, she shifted from foot to foot in her Converse high-tops instead of moving toward me. “Mom packed some roast beef sandwiches so we could eat on the way. Is that okay?”

“Perfect. Let me pack up my laptop and we’re off.”

The upstairs was strangely quiet as we moved through the house, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Carly was avoiding me. She’d only texted once that day, to remind me of Maura’s tutoring appointment, and responded with uncharacteristically concise directives when I texted back.
7:30 p.m. Library. Don’t leave the building while she’s being tutored.

And good afternoon to you, too!
I texted back. And got nothing in response.

Fine. I understood. I’d dropped a bomb on her lap, and she was figuring out how to defuse it.

Maura was just as silent as her mother while we drove to the library. I took a few bites of my sandwich and didn’t attempt to engage, a survival tactic learned while navigating my father’s volatile mood swings during his illness—if I stood mostly still, if I didn’t stare at him with pleading puppy dog eyes, if I could somehow manage to avoid the constant refrain of
What’s wrong? Did I do something? Are you sure everything’s okay?
then whatever was bothering him would pop to the surface eventually, like a cyst, benign and contained. I just had to wait it out.

Sure enough, only a mile from the library, Maura stopped tapping away at her phone and said, “I’ve never had a tutor before.”

“You’ve never had algebra before. It’s a tough subject.”

She shrugged. “I thought eighth grade would be different.”

“It’s only been a few weeks—”

“Eliza Jane got her period yesterday. She instagrammed a box of tampons.”

And there it was. The actual problem, rising up. “Yours is coming, sweetie. You just have to trust your body. Your mom and I were both fourteen when we got ours. That kind of stuff is usually hereditary.”

She gripped the dashboard. “You mean I still have six more months to go?
Six whole months?
”

“Not necessarily,” I said, backpedaling. “What I meant is, you’ll get it when the time is right for you. The funny thing about change is that it can happen quickly. You wait for it, and then it happens and you can’t believe how fast . . .”

She was staring out the window again. I’d lost her.

I hit the main thoroughfare and nudged the gas. Maura sighed and opened the window, her small hand snaking out into the evening air. She turned her palm to the side, letting the breeze slap against it, testing its power. Growing bolder, she tilted her head and let the wind assail her hair.

It was happening. Not as fast as she would like or as slowly as I would, but Maura, the first baby I’d held for more than a few minutes, the child who shared my reddish-brown hair and hazel eyes, and the teenager whose still-flat chest and delicate, birdlike bones deluded me into thinking she viewed womanhood like one of the hand-me-down paperbacks gathering dust on the top of her bookshelf—something she’d promise to tackle eventually, and then promptly ignore—was growing up.

We turned into the parking lot. Maura tugged her heavy backpack onto her lap, frowning at its weight.

I wanted to carry it for her. I wanted to carry
her
, folding my body around her precious one, a shield against all the possible evils in the world. I wanted to hire armed guards to patrol her perimeter. I wanted a safety camera mounted on her locker. I wanted background checks on any boy who dared glance her way. I wanted to cry her tears, fight her battles, destroy anyone who hurt her, annihilate all the obstacles that were surely to drop like boulders onto her life path.

“Roll up the window,” I said instead.

She huffed a breath. “You don’t have to say it like
that
.”

The library, an impressively modern building, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a chandeliered foyer, represented one of the many reasons why Carly and Donal had stretched themselves wafer thin to live in the suburbs. It boasted top-of-the-line computers, free Wi-Fi, and a labyrinthine lower level housing an assortment of conference rooms, an art gallery, and a small but high-tech screening theater.

We entered on the main level, fiction, and Maura picked up speed as we passed a carefully arranged display of new releases. “He’s here!” she shouted and hurried off toward the rows of study carrels before the librarian could shush her.

I hadn’t given much thought to Maura’s tutor, assuming Carly’d gone ahead with her plan to hire a high school girl, so I was completely unprepared for the man who stood next to my niece, smiling amiably. “You must be Carly’s sister. Nice to meet you.”

“Yes. I—y-yes,” I stammered. Maura looked at me strangely.

The man was in his late twenties, tall, with lank dark hair tied back with a cord, clear blue eyes, and finely drawn, almost feminine, features. His gentlemanly Southern accent made me think of Rhett Butler and mint juleps, but then I noticed his teeth, nicotine-stained and crooked, and his neck, a ring of dirt, faint and shadowy, circling it. His jeans were worn thin in spots, greasy in others, and his T-shirt hung loose. He clutched a duffel bag that had seen better days, and didn’t put it down to shake my hand.

“We’ll be over there,” he said, tilting his head toward a spot—thankfully—in the middle of the room. “One hour, okay? I don’t start the clock until we get settled.”

“Uh-huh,” I managed to respond, but they’d already moved away.

Keeping them in my sight line, I began weaving through the stacks until I found a space that afforded a view of the main library while hiding the fact that I’d taken out my cell phone. I crouched down and cupped my hand over the mouthpiece.

“You need to start talking to me again,” I told Carly as soon as she picked up.

“I’m thinking about you,” she said. “I need to do that before I can talk to you.”

“Fine, but did you know your daughter is being tutored by a homeless man?”

“Garrett? He’s harmless.”

“So why am I not supposed to leave the library?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Carly snapped. “Look, this was a completely practical decision. Those high school vampires charge fifty dollars an hour. Garrett charges twenty dollars and comes highly recommended.”

“By whom?”

“Mrs. Gunderson.”

Mrs. Gunderson was the elderly lady who manned the coffee cart in the patrons’ room near the library’s entrance. Coffee was a dollar a cup, and still she often had trouble counting change.

“Quality reference.”

“He looks like the Hollywood version of a homeless person, doesn’t he?” Carly said breathlessly. “Like Jesus as played by Zac Efron.”

“I don’t even know what to say about that.” I crawled forward, peering around the bookshelf at Maura and Garrett. They were sitting in one of the larger study carrels, with a proper distance between them. Garrett was gesticulating wildly to explain something, and Maura laughed, covering her mouth with her hands. “Do you know anything else about him?”

“Of course. Garrett was some kind of genius at U of I. He went to work as an engineer for some techie company right after college, but the pressure drove him to a nervous breakdown. He lost his job and then everything else. Right now he’s sleeping in a halfway house across town, and he hangs out at the library during the day so he can use the computers to look for a new job. They pay him sometimes to clean up around the parking lot.”

“Where’s his family?”

“Alabama or Mississippi? Somewhere southern. I don’t remember, I just know going back there wasn’t an option for him. I didn’t
pry
.”

“Yes, you did. He just didn’t tell you.”

“I asked some questions. He was evasive. I figured it wasn’t my business.”

“Your sweet-faced daughter is your business. Are you sure about this?”

“He doesn’t know where we live. You or I will be at the library the whole time she’s being tutored.”

We paused, the silence stretching between us.

I broke first. “We’re horrible people, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” she said in a rush. “We are. Judgmental snobs. Hypocrites. The worst.”

Garrett dug around in his duffel and pulled out a calculator. He wiped it on his T-shirt before handing it to Maura. “He seems nice.”

“He is! Very, very nice.”

“I’m giving him twenty-five dollars.”

“No,” Carly cried. “You’ll set precedent!”

“I’ll tell him it’s a tip.”

“Don’t, he’ll expect—”

“Librarian on patrol. Talk to you later,” I whispered, ending the call.
Let her worry,
I thought.

With Maura and Garrett hard at work, I loosened up and decided to concentrate on my own tasks. I found the baby section in nonfiction, picked an armful of titles, and settled into a study carrel of my own, laptop fired up and ready to go.

Dr. Bridget had warned me about falling down the Internet rabbit hole, but I wasn’t looking for opinions, just numbers. I typed in “cost of artificial insemination” and began to read.

Donor Sperm, $500 per Vial, Full Dossier on Donor, $200, Sperm Delivery Fee, $200—

Sperm delivery fee! Was it coming from a special vault at the Pentagon? I read on, my small bubbles of hope breaking free and drifting off into cyberspace.
Ultrasound, bloodwork, consult fee
—every step cost money, and those fees didn’t even include the actual procedure. Average cost per cycle, for everything, start to finish? $2,000. And women my age often did not achieve success on the first run. Or the second.

Damn.

Switching course, I mumbled a quick prayer to the Google gods and typed in “cost of freezing eggs.” I didn’t like the thought of my girls shivering through what could be a very long wait, but the procedure offered one thing I desperately needed—time. Time to earn my degree and get my financial act together, time to buy a juicer and find my old yoga DVDs and stop drinking coffee so strong it could be reclassified as an amphetamine. I imagined my future self, settled and secure, glowing with health and happiness as I watched my glistening eggs slowly regain consciousness. They’d be happy to see what I’d done with myself.
You’re ready,
they’d whisper, beckoning me to pick the most delectable one from the bunch. The doctor would nod approvingly, and together we would—