“Any pain there?” Dr. Bloom said.
“Little bit,” Geno said.
Her finger probed deeper. “How about here, along the scar tissue?”
“Yeah, that’s still sore.” Geno closed his eyes and turned his head on his crossed arms. The paper on the exam table crackled. His kneecaps were starting to howl from contact with the hard platform at the table’s foot.
Should bring my pads next time, he thought, as he always thought, but never remembered to actually bring them.
He closed his fingers around the cuff of the nurse’s cardigan. She lay her palm across his knuckles.
“Doing great,” she said quietly. Her name was Mary Pat and she had the unflappable air of a veteran mother. Incapable of being shocked or grossed out. She could catch vomit with one hand and wipe an ass with another.
She’d done both for Geno on occasion.
Her touch was heavy and still. She knew he didn’t want to clutch her or be patted through these exams. He just needed a Valium and a little bit of contact with someone who wasn’t afraid of shit.
Literally.
“Don’t ever retire,” he said.
She smiled, showing her crooked incisor. “With five kids? I’ll be working until I’m eighty.”
“Almost done,” Dr. Bloom said. “Deep breath in now. You’ll feel pressure, bear down against it. On three, exhale hard. One. Two. Three…”
The paper crackled again as Geno pushed his breath out. The scope slid in, cold and rigid.
At least buy me dinner if you’re going to do that.
“It’s all healing beautifully,” Bloom said. “You’re using the suppositories? Morning and night?”
“Yeah.”
“And soaking?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, good. This is excellent.” The scope withdrew, leaving a smarting burn in its wake. Geno let go of Mary Pat’s cuff as Dr. Bloom tugged the exam gown closed over his exposed ass.
“Come sit up here,” Dr. Bloom said, patting the table. She and Mary Pat walked over to the counter, Bloom to peel off her gloves and wash her hands and the nurse with some kind of busywork. Geno sat, a little KY jelly oozing out of him, his feet icy cold and clammy in their socks.
Bloom looked in his eyes, nose and ears. Listened to his heart and tested his reflexes. He didn’t know if this was all truly necessary, or if she did it to convince him he wasn’t just another asshole to her.
A corner of his mouth flickered, wondering how many asshole jokes a proctologist heard in any given day. Miranda Bloom had a dry sense of humor, as well as gentle hands. She probably gave as good as she got.
He imagined asking, How’d you get into this line of work, doc?
She’d answer, You start at the bottom and work your way up.
But seriously, folks.
Bloom had him lie back and she palpated the skin around the stoma scar on his abdomen. Ten days ago she’d reversed the colostomy and all his plumbing was reconnected. Not since he was three was such a fuss made over him taking a crap all by himself.
Didn’t even get a gold star or anything, he thought, studying the ceiling tiles.
“Bowel movements are all right?” she asked. “Any pain?”
“Sometimes. Not terrible.”
The cold disc of her stethoscope traced paths on his stomach. “You’re taking the stool softeners?”
“Yeah.”
“Blood when you pass stool?”
“I haven’t seen any.”
“Excellent.”
He trusted her use of excellent. Hers was the only compassion Geno trusted lately. Which made it difficult to lie to her.
“You’re still seeing your psychiatrist? Dr. Stein?” she asked.
No. “When I need him.”
“Any side effects from the Prozac?”
I quit taking it. “No.”
“Sleeping all right?”
No. “Good nights and bad nights.”
“What do you do on the bad nights?”
Cry, throw up, pace. “Ambien helps.”
“You’re living at your sister’s still, correct?”
“Yeah.” The truth was cool relief on his lying tongue.
“Sit up. Everything is looking good. Keep up with the baths and the suppositories. I’m going to graduate you to monthly exams so make an appointment for four weeks. Any abdominal pain or rectal bleeding, you call in. Especially if it’s accompanied by a fever. Don’t screw around if you’re running a temperature.”
“I won’t.”
She gathered up his chart and closed it. “I’ll see you next month then.” She reached in her lab coat pocket and came up with a lollypop.
Geno smiled as he took it. “Thanks.”
Her eyes were soft and steady on his face. “You call me if you need me, all right?”
“I will.”
She left, followed by Mary Pat, who gave Geno a smile before shutting the door behind her.
He wiped up with some tissues and got dressed. Hanging at the appointments desk, waiting for the receptionist to find him a slot, he felt the eyes of the waiting room on his back. He was the youngest patient by several decades, and it was no thrill having senior citizens check out his ass, wondering what his ailment was. He ground his molars together, pressing his mouth into a tight line. The lollypop dropped from his hand into the wastebasket.
“Take care now,” the receptionist said, handing him his card.
Care is always taken, Mos said.
After five weeks living at Zoe’s house, Geno couldn’t say he was any closer to his half-sister, yet his life was now inextricably bound up in her household. With nobody suggesting or asking or arranging a thing, Geno had made himself into an au pair.
“You don’t have to,” Zoe said, when Geno first started cooking a meal, cleaning a bathroom, running the vacuum, changing a diaper.
“I want to,” he said, sweeping and dusting and scrubbing the dirt from the world, putting things back in order and making them stay there. Wiping up the spills and splashes and mess and making it seem they’d never happened.
I need to.
Tom, Zoe’s husband, drove a truck and was on the road four days a week. Zoe worked long hours as an administrator at Seton Hall. She had three kids, the youngest an eleven-month-old boy. Summers were particularly challenging for her, a jerry-rigged schedule of daycare, playdates and babysitters that varied from week to week and often fell apart. Meals were thrown together on the fly, she was always running out of staples. Weekends were crammed with laundry, chores and errands. Wanting family time and wanting time alone with Tom.
Geno could help with date nights, but otherwise made himself scarce when Tom was home. While Zoe’s husband was a perfectly decent guy, Geno got the feeling Tom Douglas wanted his family to himself on weekends. More than once, Geno looked up to find Tom staring at him. Not with hostility, more the opposite. A nervous uncertainty, as if he were examining a grenade he found, unsure if it were live or a dud. The first few times it happened, Geno ducked into the bathroom to make sure his colostomy bag wasn’t leaking.
Tuesday mornings came around quickly, then Tom was gone again. The kids needed a thousand things. Zoe needed help. Geno needed to be kept busy. The busier, the better. It made him feel normal, and normal was one of the few feelings allowed in Nos.
Now the Douglas house was an immaculate paragon of domestic organization, law and order.
“It’s like a miracle,” Zoe said, practically in tears when she came home to dinner made, toys picked up, clothes folded, pantry stocked and clutter removed. “I can see my countertops,” she said. “I haven’t seen my countertops in months.”
He smiled and dodged her effusive gratitude. He had no reason to dislike her and he didn’t. He just didn’t like adult company these days. He wanted to work and be useful, not make relationships. He didn’t like being around people who knew what had happened to him, and arranged his life to avoid them. Phone calls and texts from school friends were ignored. The pile of condolence cards, to which he hadn’t yet responded, filled him with an uneasy guilt. Analisa wouldn’t be pleased at him ignoring acts of kindness. He hid them in a shoebox in the closet with a vague promise to deal with them later.
He didn’t like later.
He did, however, like being with the kids. He could breathe easy around them. Nine-year-old Madeleine was shy with him, turning red when he made eye contact. Stephanie, six going on twenty-two, was fearless, asking a hundred frank, curious questions about his colostomy equipment. As for the baby, Matthew, it seemed he’d been waiting all his short life for Geno to show up. He beamed when Geno came into a room. He locked arms around his half-uncle’s leg, or held them up in a demand to be carried. Any time Geno sat down, the boy came crawling or toddling to get in his lap.
“He’s a mushy one,” Zoe said. “He needed a fourth trimester, I swear. For three months after he was born, he was only happy when he was attached to me. And he’s still happiest when he’s canoodling.”
Tom’s disconcerting looks grew more intense when Matthew was canoodling with Geno. Geno chalked it up to possessive, alpha male jealousy, and tried to keep his distance from the baby on weekends. It was hard. He found the innocent, trusting weight of the little boy was the only touch he could bear. When Matthew hugged him, Geno felt his heart slow down and his muscles relax. He’d exhale completely. All the rigid rules and laws of Nos would suspend. Mos shut up, and Geno could be completely autonomous.
With Matthew in his arms or asleep on his chest, Geno felt good.
And good, along with normal, was allowed in Nos.