LITMIR.BIZ

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in mineral water so two-thirds of each pit is submerged. But I need more liquid.

      We’ll see how they fare after being moved and left out of water for a day and a night. It’s the first time I’ve taken pits on a journey. Now I need something to screen them from the view of all the people who come in and out of the room. Wasn’t there a book in the drawer of the nightstand? I open the drawer. A Bible. Of course. These Christians. Always trying to get you. Not going to get me. But as a screen it’ll do. I prop it up in front of the pits, open, but upside down so the cross is on its head. That’ll piss them off, right? It’s a sign of something bad to them. But what? Who cares.

      On top of my little greenhouse I put the menu of the week’s food choices. That way nobody can see my little secret from above. I’ll only be getting whole-grain bread and granola anyway.

      My family’s all set up. The pit collection makes it feel a bit more like home. As long as I can take care of my avocados I’ll have something to do. Filling them up with water or replacing the water. Documenting their progress with the camera. Once in a while scraping off the slime. Pinching off dead or blighted leaves so healthy ones can grow. That kind of thing.

      The phone rings. Who had it connected? Is that something the candy stripers do? With what money? Do you have to pay for it? I’ll have to look into that. I pick it up.

      “Hello?”

      “It’s me.” Mom.

      Mom and dad want to visit today. They both want to avoid being there at the same time as the other.

      I want so bad for my parents to be in a room together. I want them to visit me here in the hospital at the same time. I have a plan.

      Mom asks, “When is your father coming?”

      “You mean your ex-husband? The one you used to love so much? At four.”

      “Then I’ll come at five. Will you make sure he’s gone by then?”

      I say yes but think no. As soon as I’ve hung up with mom, I call dad and tell him it would be good for me if he came at five.

      Dad shows up at five and brings me a book about slugs.

      I think maybe it’s a reference to my butthole and ask about it. He says he thought I was interested in them because I asked him about them once. I’m sure I did—that’s the only sort of topic I can talk about with dad.

      Not about real feelings or problems. He’s never figured that out. That’s why I talk to him a lot about plants, animals, and environmental pollution. He would never ask how my openly gaping wound is doing. I can’t think of much to talk about with him. The whole time he’s sitting there in the chair at the end of my bed, I keep expecting a knock at the door followed by mom entering the room. I hate awkward pauses. Though as a personal challenge, I try to keep them going. For that, dad is the perfect partner. He doesn’t talk. Unless I ask him something. He just doesn’t need to talk, I guess. I look at him and he at me. It’s horribly quiet. But he doesn’t look unfriendly or anything. Actually quite friendly and relaxed. I have no idea why. I guess I could ask. Perhaps I’m afraid of the answer. But that’s definitely not a reason to leave someone, just because he sits there, looks at you, and doesn’t say anything. There must be a better reason than that. Maybe their love faded. If you really want to promise something worthwhile, try this: I will stand by you even if I no longer love you. Now that’s a promise. That really means forever.

      In good times and in bad. It’s certainly bad times when one person no longer loves the other. To stay only as long as there is love is not good enough if you have children.

      Mom comes too late. She’s still not there at six. Dad leaves. Failed once again. They repel each other like two negative poles of magnets I’m trying to push together.

      My goal is that they see each other and, years after separating, fall head over heels in love again. And get back together. Highly unlikely. But anything’s possible. At least that’s what I maintain. Though I’m not really so sure.

      A lot of time elapses between dad’s departure and mom’s arrival. I speak even less with mom than I did with dad. She thinks I’m upset because she’s late. The perpetually guilty conscience of a working mother. She doesn’t know what I know. That she just missed her future husband. I don’t let on. She can go ahead and try to convince herself that my bad manners have to do with my pain.

      Her visit was a lot shorter than dad’s. Your own fault, Helen.

      They both plan to come back tomorrow. So I’ll try again. The longer I stay in the hospital, the more chances I’ll have to bring them together. At home I’m either at my mom’s, where dad will never go, or at my dad’s, where my mom will never go.

      So it would be better not to have a bowel movement. For my own recovery, of course, the opposite is true—better to have a bowel movement soon, if the doctors are to be believed. I can secretly have a bowel movement and not tell anyone. That way I’ll be able to stay in the hospital longer without having to worry about my bum.

      That’s what I’ll do. Also, maybe by injuring myself again I can force another operation. Then I’d have many more days to work toward my goal.

      Maybe something will occur to me. Definitely. I certainly have enough time here in my boring, atheist room to think up all sorts of possibilities. My parents were each here for only a short time. I’m not talking enough to people. I always realize I’m not when I fall into a state of brooding and start to have bad breath. When I don’t talk for a long time—don’t open my mouth and give it a chance to air out—the leftover bits of food and the warm saliva in my closed mouth begin to ferment. At night your mouth is the perfect, body-temperature petri dish—bacteria multiplies and the food between your teeth decays. That’s what’s starting to happen to me now. I need to talk to someone. I push the buzzer. Robin comes in. I have to think of a reason why I pushed the call button. Ah—a question.

      “When am I getting the device from the anesthesiologist so I can self-administer pain medicine?”

      “He was supposed to have been here a long time ago.”

      “Good. So anytime, then. Otherwise I would ask for tablets now, as the pain is starting up again.”

      That’s a lie. But it makes my use of the call button more believable. He reaches for the door handle.

      “Are you okay, Robin?”

      Typical of you, Helen. He’s a nurse. Yet I think I have to look after him and make sure he has a nice shift.

      “Yes, I’m doing fine. I’ve been thinking a lot about your wound and about how cool you are about it. I even talked about it with a buddy. Don’t worry—nobody from here at the hospital. He thinks you’re an exhibitionist or whatever you call it.”

      “Show-off is what I always say. And it’s true. Is that bad?”

      “No, I wish more girls were that way. Like the girls I meet at clubs.”

      To keep the conversation going and maybe also a little to try to turn Robin on and get him into me, I tell him about my nights out.

      “Do you know what I always do when I go to the disco?”

      I do a cool thing when I’m meeting a boy and want to fuck him. To prove that I’m the one who initiated the fuck that night. To show that what happens later on is no coincidence. A night like that always starts out a little uncertain. You know how it is. Do you both want the same thing? Will you manage to have sex at the end of the night? Or was the date all for nothing? To make totally clear what I wanted from the get-go, I cut a big hole in my underwear so you can see the hair and the lips. Basically, the whole peach should peek out. Obviously I wear a skirt. I start to make out with him and we grab at each other. After he’s stroked my breasts for long enough, at some point his finger wanders down to my thigh. He thinks he has to painstakingly work his way into my underwear and is worrying whether I want to go that far. You’re not going to discuss that kind of thing when you haven’t known each other long. Then, with no warning,

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