Sparrows Falling From The Sky 4 & 5

^^^FOUR^^^

IT WAS JUST MY LUCK THAT MY MOTHER WAS WALKING into the room as Dante’s sketch pad hit the wall.

“You want to tell me what that was about?”

I shook my head.

My mother picked up the sketch pad. She sat down. She was going to open it.

“Don’t do that,” I said

“What?”

“Don’t look at it.”

“Why?”

“Dante doesn’t like people to look at his sketches.”

“Only you?”

“I guess so.”

“Then why’d you throw it across the room?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know you don’t want to talk about this, Ari, but I think—”

“I don’t want to know what you think, Mom. I just don’t want to talk.”

“It’s not good for you to keep everything inside. I know this is hard. And the next two or three months or so are going to be very difficult. Keeping everything bottled up inside you isn’t going to help you heal.”

“Well, maybe you’ll have to take me to see some counselor and have me talk about my difficulties.”

“I know sarcasm when I hear it. And I don’t think a counselor would be such a bad idea.”

“You and Mrs. Quintana making backroom deals?”

“You’re a wise guy.”

I closed my eyes and opened them. “I’ll make a deal with you, Mom.” I could almost taste the anger on my tongue. I swear. “You talk about my brother and I’ll talk about what I feel.”

I saw the look on her face. She looked surprised and hurt. And angry.

“Your brother has nothing to do with any of this.”

“You think you and Dad are the only ones who can keep things on the inside? Dad keeps a whole war inside of him. I can keep things on the inside too.”

“One thing has nothing to do with the other.”

“That’s not how I see it. You go to a counselor. Dad goes to a counselor. And maybe after that, I’ll go to a counselor.”

“I’m going to have a cup of coffee,” she said.

“Take your time.” I closed my eyes. I guess that was going to be my new thing. I couldn’t exactly storm away in anger. I’d just have to close my eyes and shut out the universe.

^^^FIVE ^^^

MY DAD VISITED ME EVERY EVENING.

I wanted him to go away.

He tried to talk to me but it wasn’t working. He pretty much just sat there. That made me crazy. I got this idea into my head. “Dante left two books,” I said. “Which one do you want to read? I’ll read the other.”

He chose War and Peace.

The Grapes of Wrath was fine with me.

It wasn’t so bad, me and my father sitting in a hospital room. Reading.

My legs itched like crazy.

Sometimes, I would just breathe.

Reading helped.

Sometimes I knew my father was studying me.

He asked me if I was still having dreams.

“Yes,” I said. “Now I’m looking for my legs.”

“You’ll find them,” he said.

My mom never brought up the conversation we’d had about my brother. She just pretended it hadn’t happened. I’m not sure how I felt about that. The good thing was, she wasn’t pushing me to talk. But, you know, she just hung out, trying to make sure I was comfortable. I wasn’t comfortable. Who in the hell could be comfortable with two leg casts? I needed help doing everything. And I was tired of bedpans. And I was tired of taking rides in a wheelchair. My best friend, the wheelchair. And my best friend, my mom. She was making me crazy. “Mom, you’re hovering. You’re going to make me say the ‘f’ word. You really are.”

“Don’t you dare say that word in front of me.”

“I swear I’m going to, Mom, if you don’t stop.”

“What is this wise guy role you’ve been playing?”

“It’s not a role, Mom. I’m not in a play.” I was desperate. “Mom, my legs hurt and when they don’t hurt, they itch. They’ve taken the morphine away—”

“Which is a good thing,” my mother interrupted.

“Yeah, okay, Mom. We can’t have a little addict running around, now can we?” As if I could run around. “Shit. Mom, I just want to be alone. Is that okay with you? That I just want to be alone?”

“Okay,” she said.

She gave me more space after that.

Dante never came back to visit. He’d call twice a day just to say hi. He’d gotten sick. The flu. I felt bad for him. He sounded terrible. He said he had dreams. I told him I had dreams too. One day he called and said, “I want to say something to you, Ari.”

“Okay,” I said.

And then he didn’t say anything.

“What?” I said.

“Never mind,” he said. “It doesn’t matter.”

I thought it probably mattered a lot. “Okay,” I said.

“I wish we could swim again.”

“Me too,” I said.

I was glad he called. But I was also glad he couldn’t come to see me. I don’t know why. For some reason I thought: My life will be different now. And I kept repeating that to myself. I wondered what it would have been like to lose my legs. And in a sense, I had lost them. Not forever. But for a while.

I tried using crutches. It just wasn’t going to happen. Not that the nurses and my mom didn’t warn me. I guess I just had to see for myself. It was just impossible with both my legs completely straight and my left arm in a cast.

It was hard to do everything. The worst thing for me was that I had to use a bedpan. I guess you could say that I found it humiliating. That was the word. I couldn’t even really take a shower—and I didn’t really have the use of both hands. But the good thing was that I could use all my fingers. That was something I guess.

I got to practice using a wheelchair with my legs out. I named the wheelchair Fidel.

Dr. Charles came to visit me one last time.

“Have you thought about what I told you?”

“Yup,” I said.

“And?”

“And I think you made a really good decision by becoming a surgeon. You would have made a lousy therapist.”

“So you’ve always been a wiseass, huh?”

“Always.”

“Well, you can go home and be a wiseass there. How does that sound?”

I wanted to hug him. I was happy. I was happy for about ten seconds. And then I started to feel really anxious.

I gave my mom a lecture. “When we get home, you’re not allowed to hover.”

“What is this about making all these rules, Ari?”

“No hovering. That’s all.”

“You’ll need help,” she said.

“But I’ll need to be left alone too.”

She smiled at me. “Big Brother is watching you.”

I smiled back at her.

Even when I wanted to hate my mother, I loved her. I wondered if it was normal for fifteen-year-old boys to love their mothers. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.

I remember getting into the car. I had to stretch out in the backseat. It was a pain in the ass to get me in. It was a good thing my father was strong. Everything was so damned hard and my parents were so afraid of hurting me.

No one said anything in the car.

As I stared out, I looked for birds.

I wanted to close my eyes and let the silence swallow me whole.

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