The Man I Love (20 page)

Drew was a hardnosed professional. She was trained to one job: alert Pete to noise. Everything and everyone else were mere distractions to be tolerated. She accepted praise and dignified affection but any attempt to get her to romp or play was coolly ignored. Being a companion and buddy was the exclusive domain of Lena, a lovable but dopey border collie who had twice washed out of service dog training.

“Phenomenal instincts,” Pete always insisted. “Zero attention span.”

But it was Lena now who put her muzzle against Erik’s knee and stared up at him. Her liquid brown eyes, usually rolling and hyper, were serene. Filled with a bald, penetrating compassion. Erik squinted at her, confused.

“This is Lena, right?” he asked Pete, who nodded, looking just as perplexed.

Erik got up on his knees to study the dog. Her gaze was proud, as if she had finally found her purpose.

I am here, little one,
it said.
And I understand.

Feeling terribly little, Erik stared back. Lena put her paws on his knees then, standing up to lick his face. He put his arms around the silken coat, burrowed his head into Lena’s warm flank and exhaled.

“What’s going on here?” Christine said, coming up the walk.

“I think I’ve been dumped,” Pete said.

Lena shadowed Erik’s every move. Pete hadn’t been exaggerating about those instincts. The merest frisson of anxiety and her ears went up. Erik’s chest tightened and she was there. If a lump came to his throat, she came to his side.

She did her best work at night. Erik’s body was gripped by a surreal fatigue. But disturbing dreams were keeping sleep from being restorative. Horrific night terrors where he was back in the theater, crouched in the aisle trying to pull James back from the edge. Only this time James laughed in his face and shot him. Erik felt the impact of the bullet like a fist to the chest. No pain. Just a spectacular flow of blood through his hands and sickening sense of helplessness as James went back down the aisle and hopped up on the stage to finish what he had started.

Erik’s own blood rose up around him. A river of red down the aisle. He could not stop James. He could only watch. One point-blank shot to kill Will. Then another to kill Daisy. Then more blood surging over the lip of the apron and water-falling into the orchestra seats. A shattering of glass and the thud of falling plaster chunks. And everywhere blood.

Nothing predicted the onslaught of the dreams. They plagued him night after night, then mysteriously retreated. Lena could not stop the nightmares from manifesting, but she rescued him from their clutching grip, bringing him back to the waking world where she could guard him. She slept on the floor by his bed, at the precise spot where his hand could reach down and find her. As soon as he began to stir restlessly or thrash, her paws were on the mattress and her nose in his neck.

Pete began bedding down on Erik’s floor, too. And with his brother and both dogs close by, Erik began to string together consecutive nights of good sleep. The shadows in his face smoothed out. His appetite returned and he put some weight back on. But his heart was with Daisy. He was exposed and fragile without her. It hurt to breathe. His arms ached to hold her, his eyes longed to connect with hers. He felt severed. He needed her. The sleep he craved was with Daisy pressed against his back and Lena on the floor by his head. Snugly bookended between the greatest love and understanding he had ever known.

The fasciotomies were closed now. The vertical scars running down Daisy’s calf were livid and ugly, crosshatched with staple marks. But neither closing had required a skin graft, which was further indication her repaired artery was pumping plenty of blood and oxygen to the lower extremities. Dr. Jinani was pleased enough to tease her.

“My dear,” he said, “when it comes to being shot in the leg, you are a champ.”

Daisy had unconsciously charmed her way past the double checkpoint of Dr. Jinani’s professional detachment and his naturally shy reserve. They joked and chatted through his daily visits with the ease of uncle and beloved niece.

He originally wanted her to do her rehab at the Magee Center in Philadelphia. But sensing the strength she drew from her family, he agreed she could go to a facility closer to home as an outpatient. On the fourth of May, three weeks after she was shot, Daisy returned to Bird-in-Hand.

“I’m fucking home,” she said to Erik on the phone, her voice a purr of relief. They talked every night, Erik following both her progress and her setbacks.

“‘Rehabilitation protocol,’” Daisy said, reading to him from a lengthy document. “‘Following compartment syndrome release with open fasciotomy.’ Nice to know this is common enough to warrant protocol.”

“You know,
release
used to be a much sexier word,” Erik said, curled in bed with the phone tucked under his ear. “Now all it evokes is your leg muscles bulging out.”

“I told you not to look when they were changing the dressings.”

“Well you looked. I couldn’t not look if you did. Think you’re going to one-up me in the looking department?”

“I’m sorry, did you just say compartment?”

“Cute. But really, it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Thank you, honey,” Daisy said. “I try to corner the market on all your extreme experiences.”

“You have the freakin’ monopoly,” Erik muttered.

The first two weeks at rehab, her trainers left her leg at rest and concentrated on getting her endurance back. Daisy worked side-by-side with one man who was a double amputee, and another who was a paraplegic. They did grueling cardio workouts solely with upper body strength, propelling their chairs in laps around the outdoor track, or in specialized treadmill racks indoors. For strength training, the men used heavy free weights while Daisy worked with resistance bands. Her exercises focused on her core, back and shoulders, and keeping the good leg conditioned. She needed strength without bulk, and had the additional goal of maintaining her flexibility. She worked with a stretching coach daily, and saw a massage therapist three days a week.

“This does not suck,” she said to Erik.

“Is there a release in those massage sessions?”

“Cute.”

She phased into active strength training for her injured leg. She started in the pool, using the resistance of water to gain the suppleness back in her left knee and ankle and build up the strength in her quadriceps. Long hours just learning to put weight on the leg again. And then walk on it.

She often sounded tired and frustrated on the phone. Her heart wanted pliés and relevés while her body could only handle supported baby steps. Sometimes she cried and Erik, unable to hold and comfort her, wanted to tear the walls apart. Just as her little triumphs brought him joy, her stumbles filled him with aggravation. Those were the days he wanted to take the penny out of his pocket and chuck it in the street. Only a gripping superstition kept him from doing so.

So the rest of May passed. Cardiovascular training. Treadmill. Elliptical. Weight training. Strengthening and conditioning. Stretch. Massage. Ice. Elevation. Little by little, the left leg began to come back. All the while, the therapists were keeping her right side strong. Her right leg was her ticket out: Daisy was a southpaw in the sport of dance, a natural left turner, balancing on her right leg and spinning counter-clockwise. All her dancing was right leg dominant. It inspired an Abbot and Costello routine Joe Bianco ate up with a spoon:

“At least he shot you in the right leg,” he would say.

“You mean the correct leg.” Daisy always went along.

“Right, he shot your left leg.”

“Right.”

“No, the left.”

“Right.”

* * *

June arrived. And Erik began to rebuild.

The carpet in Mallory’s auditorium had to be replaced, stained as it was with blood and human gore. The upholstery on two rows of seats was unacceptable for public posteriors. With minimal debate, the university decided not only would the carpet and seats be replaced, but the theater was getting a full overhaul, including a new electrical system. And in an astonishing cut through normally-clogged bureaucratic channels, the plans and the budget were approved and the project went out to bid. When construction crews rolled on site the first week of June, Leo Graham had created four summer internships within their ranks, securing two of those spots for Erik and David.

Erik drove down to Pennsylvania the weekend before his job started. His car ate up the rolling, scenic miles of Amish country, passing farms and vineyards and produce stands. Just at sunset he turned up the dirt road at the sign marked
BIANCO’S ORCHARD: Farm to Market.
Outside the driver’s side window were hills of apple and pear trees. On the other side, grape vines were rigorously bound to posts and wires, following the ridgeline in near-military formation.

Just where the private driveway branched from the road was a funny little statue, a squat, ugly creature somewhere between a dragon and a turtle. It crouched at the base of a signpost which read, “La Tarasque.” It was both the name of the house and the name of the odd, lizardy beast—a beloved legend from the region of France where Joe Bianco was born (Joe told Erik “Tarasque” was also the name of a beloved anti-aircraft gun towed by the French military).

Erik rounded a bend and the farmhouse came into view, pale grey with black shutters and a yellow door. Francine’s treasured flower beds sprawled on either side of the stone walk, a riot of colors competing for attention. The porch ran the full front of the house and wrapped around both sides. Daisy was waiting, her red sundress bright against the grey shingles. As Erik switched off the engine, she took up her crutches and came carefully down the steps, swinging the last few feet as fast as she could. With a cry she let her crutches drop to the ground and flung her arms up around his neck. He locked his arms around her slender waist, buried his face in the curve of her sweet-smelling shoulder and exhaled.

“Dais,” he whispered.

“Never again,” she said against his face. “I never want to be away from you again.”

“Never,” he said. “God, I missed you so much.” The words didn’t do it justice. He could feel the cells in his body perk up, as if he was severely dehydrated and Daisy was a long cool drink of water. They stood a long time in the driveway, holding each other without speaking. And then a longer time passed in kissing.

“Let’s go in,” Daisy said, smoothing her hair. “My parents went out to dinner. It’s just us.”

His lips tingling, Erik opened the car door to get his backpack from the front seat. Walking across the lawn, he slowed his step to Daisy’s swinging gait, a hand lightly on her neck. He knew she used the crutches in the evenings, whether she needed to or not. Mandatory rest. Sun went down, she went off the leg.

“Guess what I did this week?” she said.

He could barely answer, he was too consumed with stuffing his eyes full of her. “I don’t know. Pressed twenty pounds with your left leg?”

“Twenty-five,” she said, smiling. “But guess again.”

He wound a length of her hair around his fingers, dying to undress and wrap himself in its soft length. “I don’t do guessing games,” he said. “Just tell.”

“I had a follow-up appointment with Dr. Jinani. And while I was in Philly, I went to see Omar.”

“Why?” It took a moment to sink in. “Wait. You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“You got a tattoo?”

She nodded, biting her lower lip, nose wrinkled.

“What did you get? Show me.”

“Come inside.”

He set his backpack down in the front hall and followed her into her bedroom. The door clicked shut. “Now go find it,” she said.

He brought her over to the bed, into the light of the table lamp, where she put down her crutches and stood still for him. He searched her arms, her shoulders, lifted up her hair and peered at her neck. Finding nothing, he crouched down and inspected each leg. His fingers reverently touched the starburst pucker on the inside of her thigh and the long, raised zippers of flesh on either side of her shin. Still nothing.

He stood up and slid her little sundress over her head. It wasn’t on her back, nor her stomach, nor under her bra. He got distracted there a few minutes, running his tongue in circles around her breasts, breathing in the sugary scent of her skin.

“Keep looking,” she murmured.

He knelt down once more, his fingers poised around the waistband of her underwear.

“You’re getting warmer.”

He eased them down and saw a splash of color by the jut of her hip bone.

“Oh, Dais,” he whispered.

“Do you like it?” she asked, her hand in his hair.

Inked into her a skin were stylized red letters spelling out Svensk Fisk, but in such a way they cleverly formed the shape of a fish. The little loop of the E made the eye, and the top of the first K was the dorsal fin. The legs of the final K were elongated and curved, creating the tail.

“It’s amazing,” he whispered. “Did it hurt?”

She gave a dismissive snort. “Ruptured femoral artery. Compartment syndrome release with open fasciotomy. A tattoo is nothing. Omar cried the whole time, though.”

On his knees before her, Erik put his fingertips to the little red fish, then his lips to it.

“I thought hard about where to put it,” she said. “Somewhere only you could see.”

He gazed at it up close, far away. He laid his head against her stomach and viewed it sideways. He traced the letters with his fingernail as his heart swelled and grew in his chest, a seed blossoming and blooming until he was a wide-open flower in the sunshine of her love. He laid the inside of his wrist against her hip, his daisy pressed to her fish.

“Nobody loves me like you,” he said.