“It doesn’t hurt to have hope,” the doctor said, putting the brain down. “But I’m a realist and there’s too much that we just don’t know.”
“But we’ll know eventually?” Azeem said.
“Perhaps,” the doctor said. “But you must remember that this here is the most complex part of us.” He looked down at the brain. “When a person loses a leg, he’s still himself, still thinks the way he thinks.” He paused. “I’m sorry I can’t help you people more,” he said.
• • •
Like Mustafa, Azeem wouldn’t give up hope. There had to be a cure somewhere. He did his own research, asked around, and at the advice of one of his professors, started reading a book called
The Sexual Mind
. He was, of course, in complete agreement with the author’s theory about illness. Patrick Anderson believed that sexual repression made human beings ill. He blamed cancer and diabetes and arthritis and epilepsy on the deliberate suppression of one’s sexual urges. He claimed that people could cure themselves of all sorts of conditions by giving in to such urges and accepting pleasure. The more pleasure, the better. Sexual satisfaction equaled physical health. It was like the theories he’d heard about illness and laughter, where someone with cancer sat in a hotel room for days on end, watching funny movies and stand-up comedians, and suddenly went into complete remission, only Anderson’s theory was about orgasms and satiation.
Azeem sat Mustafa down in the den and told him about
The Sexual Mind
and the author’s theory. He explained that Mustafa alone could control his disease. He handed the book to Mustafa, which he flipped through while Azeem spoke. Azeem promised that if Mustafa came often enough, freely, without inhibition, the seizures would stop completely.
Mustafa loved Azeem’s suggested medicine and took to masturbating every day, all hours of the day and night, sitting, stroking, curing himself in every room of their suburban home. Mostly he did it when they were sleeping or when he was alone, but one time Hannah returned from Rebecca’s house and found Mustafa on the couch, going at it. He waved her away, and she’d felt his irritation—it wasn’t that she’d caught him doing something private or inappropriate, but more that she’d interrupted his favorite TV show.
Days went by, weeks went by, and Mustafa didn’t have a seizure, not when he was tired or hungry, not even when he came down with a summer cold. Azeem was thrilled, insisting it was worth it—each embarrassing moment and extra load of laundry.
Even Nina and Hannah started to believe. It started to make sense to them. They were a fractured family, but one who believed in the orgasm, a family that had witnessed its power.
No one understood why, the week before he left, while sitting in a fast-food restaurant, holding a dripping burger in his hand, Mustafa started to shake, the burger falling into his now quaking lap, the terrible sounds coming from his throat and chest and somewhere deeper. No one understood his flailing hands and jerking shoulders. And they were all let down, the four of them who’d believed for weeks in the orgasm, who’d hoped it would save their lives.
THE WINE
rack in the kitchen was full of expensive Santa Barbara reds, bottles that Martin’s mom and dad had purchased during their last road trip together. A month before his father’s death, they’d stayed at a beachfront hotel and taken a jeep tour of the wineries in the region.
“It was beautiful,” she told Martin. “Heavenly,” she said. “Your father never looked better.”
Every night for the last week, his mom waited for the sun to set before pulling a bottle from the rack. She’d stand a minute, marveling at the label. Stonecraft Valley, Eagle’s Perch, and her favorite, Blackwood Estates. She’d shake her head. Her eyes would go moist and she’d be remembering some last moment she’d had with Martin’s dad, he was sure.
If Martin happened to be in the kitchen, she’d feign weakness and ask him to open the bottle for her. She’d look up at him, imploring and sad. It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it herself, Martin knew, but that she hoped to tempt him. He also wondered if her displays of weakness or dependence were meant to keep him under her roof.
They had a system. After he popped the cork, he’d drop it in her waiting palm. She’d look at it a moment, mesmerized, before holding it up to her nose for a sniff. Then she’d proudly show him the stain. “Look at that, Marty,” she’d say, holding the cork in front of his face. “See that color?”
“Yeah, it’s red,” he’d say, unimpressed.
“Not just red.”
She’d swirl the wine around in the glass and tell him about its legs. “See that pretty bleed. Just look at that.”
Even though wine hadn’t been Martin’s drink of choice, he didn’t want to talk about it or think about it or watch it
bleed
down the glass.
“No one likes to drink alone,” she said, repeatedly.
“Then stop,” he said.
“Don’t be silly,” she said.
One night, after a couple glasses of what she called a
very impressive cabernet
from Blackwood Estates, she admitted that she didn’t think Martin had a drinking problem. She always thought he’d made a big deal out of nothing. “You drank moderately, like a normal person, certainly like a normal teenager or young man, and then, one day, for no apparent reason, you got all cranky about it,” she said.
“For no apparent reason, right,” he said, his voice rising.
“Your father never thought you had a problem, either,” she said.
It was late, after eleven p.m., and they were sitting in the living room in front of the television. Martin in his dad’s chair and his mom on the couch with her feet up, slippers crossed on the ottoman. She was getting drunk, slurring her words. On the coffee table in front of her was a bag of pretzels she hadn’t yet opened, a square of dark chocolate wrapped in foil on a napkin, and her third glass of that
simply terrific red
. The room was dark except for the light coming from the television. Johnny Carson had just finished his monologue and a commercial for toothpaste was starting up.
“Johnny is a good-looking man,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind getting to know Johnny.”
“Please, no,” he said.
“What?” she said. “I’m still a person. I’m still alive, Marty.”
He said nothing. He looked at the screen and pretended to be interested in toothpaste.
“You know, I spent the last thirty-five years not thinking about the way men looked. I mean, I saw men—they come into the restaurant all the time, obviously—but I never really
looked
at them.”
“You were happily married,” he said.
“That’s true, but some women still look. I think most do.”
“I guess.”
“But now,” she continued, “as much as I miss your father, there’s half the population I can look at.”
“Jesus,” he said. “That’s a lot of looking.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Not really,” he said.
“I miss him, of course—don’t get me wrong, Marty. He was everything to me, your dad. I suppose at some point I’ll need to move on, though.” His mom leaned toward the chocolate. “Want a piece?” she asked him.
“No, thanks,” he said.
“Chocolate will have to do for now,” she said, smiling sadly.
He heard the crinkling of foil and the hard snap as his mom broke off a piece of candy.
She was talking and chewing at once. “You were the first one who talked to me about moving on, Marty. You said it yourself.” She picked up her wine and took a sip. She ran her finger along the rim of the glass and didn’t look at Martin.
When he’d talked to her about moving on, he’d meant her life in some generic sense and hadn’t meant to encourage this plan of hers to ogle
half of the population.
“Up until this point my life had been all planned out,” she continued. “And after I recover, there will be all this possibility.”
“Recover?” he said. “From what? Are you sick?” He leaned forward, suddenly worried.
“From grief.”
“Oh, good—I mean, I don’t want you to be sick.”
“Grief’s a sickness, Martin—don’t minimize it. Or it
feels
like a sickness. You’re lethargic, everything aches—not just your heart.”
“Yes, you’re right. I just didn’t want you to have a disease.”
When she drank, she seemed to him anything
but
grief-stricken. She seemed more like a slurring, sloppy woman on the mend.
“I thought you and Dad were happy,” he said.
“I thought I was . . . I mean, I
was
. But now, there’s possibility—a surprise waiting.”
Martin didn’t want to think about his mom’s surprise. He didn’t want to lie awake in bed tonight thinking about his dad, about how easily one man was forgotten once his widow had sucked down a few glasses of wine.
HANNAH WAS
uncomfortable and confined in the front seat of Pablo’s dad’s truck, her cast at an awkward angle in front of her, her foot pressing against the floorboard. A cardboard lemon dangled from the rearview mirror, but the truck still smelled like his dad’s cigarettes. Pablo, squinting and leaning toward the dashboard, drove slowly, like a little old woman, and she wondered if perhaps he was nearsighted.
“Can you see all right?” she said.
He turned to her, surprised, like he hadn’t known she was his passenger. “Oh, yeah, yeah,” he said. “The truck’s dirty—that’s all.” He cleared his throat, leaned back in his seat, but was still squinting. Hannah reminded herself that the drive to Rebecca’s house was a short one. It would be worth it. Rebecca’s parents were away for the weekend and they’d have the place to themselves. Rebecca had promised them fruit punch and vodka and leftover Chinese food, she’d promised them time alone, just Hannah and Pablo, and even though Pablo was squinting and she was cramped in the passenger seat, Hannah felt like someone’s girlfriend, and perhaps she was, sitting next to a boy she’d liked for years.
She tried to ignore his squinting and the dirty windshield, tried to put her concerns and reservations to the back of her mind: Pablo hadn’t called her in a week, and when she finally called him, he asked her to hang out, yes, but was rushed and impatient on the phone. She tried not to dwell on the fact that he hadn’t really helped her into the truck, just opened the door and taken her crutches from under her arms and tossed them into the back without giving her his usual boost.
“When this truck is mine—which it will be one day—it’s going to be spotless. My dad’s a slob,” he said, turning on the wipers and squirting cleaning fluid with a flick of his wrist.
Hannah smelled ammonia and felt her toes going numb.
“You OK?” Pablo said, looking over at her. “You look uncomfortable.”
“I’m fine.”
“We’re almost there,” he said.
The cardboard lemon swung from side to side and the windshield wipers squeaked. Hannah shifted in the seat, trying to get comfortable, but it was no use.
He drove even slower down Second Street, passing dress shops and restaurants and bars, the parking meters and palm trees that lined the block, at what Hannah thought was parade-speed.
It was late summer, late afternoon, perfectly warm outside, and Belmont Shore was abuzz, busy with shoppers and families, people carrying bags and parents pushing strollers, young people spilling from bars onto the sidewalk, arms around each other’s waists or shoulders.
Hannah wore a short-sleeve white blouse and jeans with the left pant leg cut off. She had a whole drawer of jeans and pants that she’d had to slice up to accommodate the toe-to-groin, but these jeans were her favorite pair and she’d miss them when the cast came off and she’d have to throw them out.
A group of older girls in cutoff shorts and halter tops stood outside of Hamburger Henry’s, colorful combs sticking out of their back pockets and cigarettes hanging from their glossed lips. Three shirtless boys with wet hair clutching surfboards walked past the truck.
“It’s not like we’re in Huntington Beach. I don’t know why they carry those things around here.” Pablo paused. “Hey, I know those guys,” he said, excited now, swerving over to the curb.
Hannah leaned back, startled, her cast bouncing on the floorboard.
“The one in the middle, he’s a dick,” Pablo said out of the side of his mouth.
Hannah thought about her dad holding a surfboard. She imagined him walking down the street, a man among boys, and missed him suddenly. She’d talked to him last night on the phone and he’d told her that Christy was out of the hospital and almost back to normal.
Pablo leaned over her, his shoulder hitting her chest. “Hey, Brian,” he shouted out the window.
“Hey,” Brian said, adjusting his board on his hip and moving toward the truck.
“Are you still a dick?” Pablo said, laughing.
“Pretty much,” Brian said. He looked at Hannah. “Don’t I know you?”
“Maybe,” Hannah said quietly. He had a patch of sand on his chest, buck teeth, and eyes so blue they troubled her.
“You’re the chick with the leg,” he said.
She said nothing.
“You’ve been in a cast since you were born, right?” He laughed, looking at Pablo, who didn’t laugh with him. “How long you been in a cast?”
She ignored him, looked at the windshield, the smeared dirt and bird shit, wishing that Brian would go away.
Pablo pulled away from the curb without saying good-bye. “Told you he was a dick,” he said.
They were quiet and Hannah wondered if Brian’s comment had embarrassed Pablo. Why would he want to be with a girl who’d been in a cast since she was
born
?
“You weren’t born in a cast,” he said.
But she was mad at him too. She didn’t want his sympathy. She knew it was wrong to implicate him with a boy he didn’t even like, but she couldn’t stop herself. It seemed as if all boys were one boy, all of them dicks.
Still, she wanted
this
dick to like her.
“Maybe we should go to the beach sometime,” he said.
“That would be great,” she heard herself say, and as soon as the words came out of her mouth, she regretted them. She wasn’t sure how her leg would look at the beach, especially before it had the chance to heal and match the other one. By the time it looked normal—which Hannah told herself was inevitable and only a matter of time—it would probably be December and too cold for the beach.