“Yes.” I need to shower. I smell bad, like the trunk.
While the nurse unhooks me from the IV, she and Adam continue a conversation about her son that they must have started while I was asleep. She leaves the needle in my hand, wrapping it in plastic and gives me a warning not to get it wet. Then she reaches down and unties the first string on my gown.
“What are you doing?” I shrink back. She looks shocked, as if she has no idea what the problem is. “I can do it.”
I’m blushing, but it’s only one of a hundred embarrassing things that have happened while I’ve been here. They ask personal questions, touch you in personal places, and they don’t care who is in the room to see it.
“I can help him,” Adam offers.
“Don’t let him fall.”
“I won’t.”
For the first couple of days I had a catheter. Then I used a plastic bucket before graduating to walking to the toilet, but even that was closely monitored.
As soon as the nurse leaves, I shift my legs over the side of the bed. “I can walk,” I tell Adam.
“I know.” But he still stands right beside me until I enter the bathroom and shut the door. I’m a little shaky and I have to hold on to the silver bar attached to the wall while I pull at my hospital gown. It reminds me of my old karate top, the same folds and hidden strings to tie it all together. Karate was another thing I gave up when it became too hard. Now everything seems too hard. Untying strings. Breathing. Thinking.
The lightbulb flickers over my head with a staticky buzz. It sounds like it’s about to blow out. My breathing starts to get heavy, but I’m not sure if it’s from exertion or fear. I want to leave this tiny room, but I still need to shower. You stink, I can hear Russell say.
No one knows where Russell is. The police believe he’s hiding, but I can’t imagine Russell hiding from anyone. Wherever he is, he must be angry. I left the trunk.
I pull back the shower curtain. There’s no ledge to step over or any sort of barrier, and I wonder what keeps the room from flooding. I step inside and stand near the bench attached to the wall. When I close the curtain, the light flickers again, and suddenly the space shrinks to nothing.
My pulse in my ears. My sweat in my nose. I can’t breathe.
I tear at the curtain.
I fumble at the doorknob. Locked.
I start scratching, crying out in pain when I bump my broken fingers. I yank the door open, and fall out.
“What is it?” Adam asks, rushing to my side. “Are you okay?” My knees buckle, eyes looking up for something, for stars. He grabs my arm, steadying me. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
He nods as if this is an explanation. Still holding on to me, he gives me a towel. “You want to get back in bed? You don’t have to do this now.”
“I have to get clean.”
“Would it help to leave the door open?”
“I don’t know.”
This time Adam walks inside with me and leans against the wall. “Just shower. I’ll wait here.”
I step back into the stall. I close the curtain. “Adam?”
“Still here.”
I turn on the water. It’s not ice-rain cold, but it doesn’t get hot either. I wash quickly, starting to feel sick and dizzy. I hold on to the metal bar as my knees shake. I remember riding my bike. I was so fast. I could ride forever. Will I ever be strong again?
I wrap the thin towel around my waist before getting out. Adam gives me a clean hospital gown, but I want to put on real clothes. I lean on him all the way to the bed, then he hands me underwear and pajama pants.
He presses the call button to tell the nurse I’m out of the shower so she can reattach my IV and blood pressure and pulse monitors. Tears sting my eyes. I didn’t want him to call her. I just want a few more minutes of being unplugged like a real person who can go anywhere. I want my body to be mine again.
I’VE LOST TRACK of how long I’ve been in this room. I left for a little while….Was that only yesterday? Julian had nodded off, so I jogged down the hall to grab a pudding from the mini fridge in the visitors’ kitchenette. I was on my way back when I heard him crying because he’d woken up alone. I haven’t left the room since.
The cops still don’t know where Russell is, which gives me that unsettled, deer-in-the-woods foreboding.
Julian isn’t eating, in spite of the nurse scolding him last night like a pushy grandmother. Under her stern glare, he shrank back into his bed and mumbled, “My stomach hurts.”
“You have to eat,” she insisted. “We’ve got to get you back up to fighting weight.”
He relented and drank another protein shake, but he wouldn’t touch solid food.