In the car I stretched out in the backseat and crossed my hands together over my belly. I pretended I was a corpse. I pretended I could feel nothing inside and nothing outside and all that was left was my soul, waiting to be released somewhere. I tried to imagine flying above Omaha and looking down at the Helping Hands Center, and then over the highway back to our hometown. I would probably just head back and hover over our farm for eternity. If I died right now, I would haunt my husband for the rest of his life.
On the way home, Thomas talked, and I listened. He talked about the prick of a needle into his skin. It only hurts for a few seconds. And then you are out. I started to feel a lurch of heat in my stomach. He talked of inches, and injections, and insertions. I wrapped my right hand around the handle on the car door and pressed my left hand to my stomach. He told me about the recovery process. How many days he would sleep, how many pills he would take. How long it would take to heal. The unwrapping of a bandage like a gift under a Christmas tree. How his penis would suddenly be normal. How he would be whole. I told him to pull over, I told him I was going to be sick, I told him, “Now, now, now!” I fell out of the car and hunched over on the ground and my skirt rode up high around my thighs and a truck drove by and honked at the revelation of my flesh while I heaved onto the gravel.
“YOU CAN’T JUDGE THE MAN for wanting to fix himself,” said Valka. She aimed her hand into the shape of a gun and poked her right breast. It moved only slightly. “I mean, they are perfect now.” She smiled. She loved those breasts of hers just like they were the ones she was born with. There was probably no real difference in the end except for some plastic. “But it should have been something you wanted, too.” I was not sure if she was saying that because she believed it, or if she was just trying to be supportive.
“Marriage is about togetherness,” I said.
“That’s right,” said Valka. “Two people making decisions out of love. Not one person out of ego.” She sat up in bed. “Let’s think about luck. And let’s think positive. We should toast to togetherness.” She rolled out of bed and swaggered over to the minibar and rustled around in it until she found a half bottle of champagne. “May I?” she said.
“Sure, I got a hundred and seventy-four thousand left anyway.”
“That’s a long ways to go,” she said, and popped the cork.
14.
One month after our first visit to the Helping Hands Center I sat in its waiting room, legs clamped together, ankles crossed, sweatshirt wrapped around me to keep me warm. Right then my husband was going under, someone was shooting him up, or sliding a gas mask over his mouth, and telling him to breathe, to trust and to breathe. I did not trust them, but I trusted him. That he knew what he was doing, that he was going to be all right when it was over. Elective surgery, that is what the paperwork said. It sounded like he was running for office, but really it meant he was choosing it, choosing to let them put him to sleep right then.
There had been times in the past when I wondered what he was thinking as he slept. I wished I could peek inside Thomas’s head. I would write down all his dreams and keep them forever, read them when I missed him, or wanted to understand him better. Going under, underneath, that is where the truth lay.
“I ALWAYS HATED GOING UNDER,” said Valka. “And then all of a sudden I liked it. Because anything was better than my life awake.” She finished her glass of champagne. Mine lay untouched. I was thinking.
I REMEMBER THE ONLY TIME I went under, the beginning and end of it anyway. I was fourteen years old. I did not talk much then, not because I was sullen or shy, but because I did not have much to say. It was like my insides were not fully formed yet. It was the summer before my freshman year started, and I still rode around on a bicycle with a banana seat with thin shreds of pink glittery streamers tied to the handlebars. They blew in the wind, along with my long blond hair. It was even longer than it is now, long enough that if I stretched my body at a right angle, I could sit on it. My mother hated when I did that. She thought I looked unruly. She swore she would take me to the beauty shop before school started, and I remember it was the first time I hated her.