“So, has it hurt at all?”
“No. not really. It’s hard to tell.” He played with wood that was splintering away from the bench. It was sunny and breezy, the grass thick and cut low.
She had pebbles in her hand that she tossed into the field across the path from them. They used to lie in the sun on the field, when the city was too hot. “You don’t miss it then? No pangs?”
He shook his head. “No.” He looked up and followed where her pebbles went. “Did you expect it to?”
“I guess. It doesn’t make much sense to, does it?”
“Well, neither one of us really had an idea about how it would go.”
She stood and threw a pebble as far as she could. She imagined it landing on a spot where they had at one time held hands, not so long ago, maybe a year or more.
He saw the pebble fall at the edge of the playground, a hundred feet or so from the bench. “You’re getting better.”
“Hmm. Some of the feeling is coming back to my arm. The doctors have been surprised.”
“It’s all guess work really, but the doctors won’t admit it.”
She kept her back towards him. They used to come here often, to jog around the reservoir further north in the park, when they lived together. It had all been rather rushed and fresh, barely could keep their hands off each other in the beginning. When she thought about it, they had barely known each other. “Do you remember how it was before at least?”
He squinted looking up into the sun, shook his head. “I see it, but it’s like a movie with no sound. All out of sequence. I can’t make any sense of it.”
She slowly sat back down and tossed another pebble. He watched where they fell. On the path, a number of bikers whizzed by. A novice on roller blades tumbled along. A family pointed out the trees from their horse carriage as it went by. Looking at her, he asked, “Have I changed much?”
“You look the same. Lost some weight actually.” She used to poke his belly and he’d swear that she was jealous of it. She had two pebbles left.
“Hmm.” He absentmindedly picked at the bench again.
She tossed a pebble. “Have you been eating?”
He nodded. “Occasionally. Two or three times a day. When the time comes.”
“Would you ever have it put back?”
He kept picking at the splinters of wood. A jogger sweated by. She fingered her last pebble.
He shook his head. “No. I might not clearly understand why I did it, but there must have been cause.” He looked across the park. “No way of second guessing myself now.”
She looked across the park also. He had called her a week before it was done. She thought he was joking, he hung up on her. She didn’t call back. “How do you see things now? When you look at everything around you?”
“I see the same as before.”
She sighed. “You know what I mean. How different is it?”
“The same. They’re there, just the way they are. Nothing more than that.”
She looked back down at her hands. When they’d spend time in the park, he’d make stories out of everything, out of the people that walked by, out of the children that played around them. He’d insist that everyone came to the park only to ogle at them, that they were the latest trend-setters, and that she had to start learning how to accept her newfound status. All because of him, of course. Staring into the palms of her hands, she whispered, “Just grass then..”
“No. There’re trees, children, and dogs. Is that strange to see things for what they are?”
“You know,” she turned but couldn’t face him, grasping the pebble in a fist, “I can’t help imagining that it’s all just black and white for you now. Don’t you feel that you’re missing out on something?”
“I don’t think I would have had them remove it if I didn’t know what I was doing, if it wasn’t what I wanted.” He watched children skip rope further up the path. He then said, looking away from her, “I was in the hospital for a long time.”
She shifted in her seat, looked first up the opposite direction of the path, then at her hands. Things had turned out badly, he broke a window when she was packing, but never laid a hand on her, barely spoke to her at all. He’d just roam about the apartment, and when she was in another room picking up a thing of hers, she’d hear something else smash against the wall or floor. When she walked back through the living room to leave, there were porcelain shards all over. “I know.”
“You never visited.” He turned to her, his face blank and curious.
“I didn’t exactly approve of what you were doing.” She tossed her last pebble.
“I still think, despite that, it would have been the right thing to do.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?” She wouldn’t face him, staring into the field where the last pebble went and disappeared in the grass. She had said good bye then but he wouldn’t turn away from the window sill.
Another jogger trotted past them.
He said, “There was still some of it after the surgery. It hurt then. The nurses told me I was banging my head against the wall. Literally. I remember parts of that, but not why.”
“Having that little piece still inside you with nothing else probably drove you crazy.”
“I guess. The doctors gave me some drugs that wiped it out for good. I remember everything from that point on.” He leaned back and stretched his legs. Two women with baby strollers walked wearily by. “When will you go back to work?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ll be going back again actually. I know now the arm was just an excuse, you know how it was. Never really liked it there.”
He nodded. “That makes sense.”
She looked at him. He was watching the children in the field. In his hands was a splinter and he held his finger right up against the point. He turned to her and smiled. It looked awkward. He used to smile so often that she told him people must have thought he was an idiot, or at least high.
He said, “Good thing you had insurance. Just the x-rays were, what? 300 dollars, right?”
She didn’t say anything. He held the smile. He reminded her of a newscaster. Her eyes were squinting, a breeze blowing her hair back. She whispered, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you do it?”
His eyebrows furrowed. “I would be repeating myself.”
“Things weren’t that bad between us. We were still friends.” Even though they hardly ever spoke after she had moved out, she still rang him every couple of months or so for drinks, and during the holidays, they’d exchange presents.
“We were lovers first.”
She turned away. “Things didn’t work out. That’s all.”
“I’m merely pointing out a fact. I’m not blaming you for anything.”
The girls down the path had broken out laughing. Another biker whizzed by. A father walked by explaining something to his daughter as she skipped along.
“I still don’t understand. You were so full of life. Always laughing, at everything and everyone. You were such a maniac sometimes. When we went shopping you’d dance the hokey pokey in the middle of these long lines in the supermarket.” She sighed. “There were times that I just couldn’t stand it.”
He looked at her. “Well, there is nothing to put up with now.”
She looked at him. He was still smiling. She turned away, looking down at her hands. When things were good, he’d start laughing and crying at the same time. For no reason, he’d hold her face as if he was looking for something, the pressure of his hand just this close to uncomfortable then ask her, ‘How do you put up with me?’
A trio of joggers, one behind the other, single file, were warming down, walking past them. One stopped in front of them, bending at the waist, his hands on his knees, taking a breather. He stood straight after a couple of breaths, let out a long sigh, and then caught up with the rest.
“There were many people in that wing, where the procedure was done.” He stuck a hand in one of his pockets, pulling out a rumpled pack of cigarettes. “The doctor had done two others before me that day.” He looked at the pack. It was still almost full. “He said that the operation was wildly popular in a way that was worrying him, keeping him awake at night.” He tossed the pack into the trash can next to the bench. “Nightmares.”
She glanced at him. He also used to have nightmares, shaking, horribly wet from sweat, teeth bared. She’d hold him so tightly to keep him still, sobbing, saying his name over and over until he awoke sobbing in her arms. He wouldn’t go for help, he’d say that he didn’t believe in it.
A biker peddled by with her hands off the handles. An elderly man walked by, arms pumping, timed breaths. The crack of a bat somewhere behind them in a softball field.
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, looking over the field. “Why didn’t they get all of it? The first time, during the operation?”
“They weren’t going to from the beginning. They said that some parts are too close to regions that govern biological functions, like breathing. Once they had most of it, they’d inject us with a drug specially designed for those hard to get at corners.”
She looked at him. “Why not that from the beginning? Why surgery in the first place?”
“The patient has to be conscious when they administer it. And for some, it’s too big, the drug would work slower. They’d see it happening, actually feel it being taken apart.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. He could have been prescribed something, she had told him. She thought now that he needn’t have done this. “Can you imagine?”
“No.” He tossed the splinter.
She looked at him. “You remember the pain? Why? Why do you remember the pain, you’re not supposed to, right?”
“I remember because it was a sensation. It’s not an emotion any more than getting a nail in your foot is.”
“Why this then?” She blurted. “Why are we here right now? To punish me? If you don’t feel anything for me why did you call?”
He sighed. “I called to end it.” He looked over the field. “I called to tell you not to ever call me again. I barely remember what little memories I have of you.” He picked at the bench. “I don’t want you to look at me as someone you had shared a part of your life with. I wouldn’t know why you looked at me in a particular way and that be something we might have shared before. I don’t want to put you into that position.” He turned to her.
Her eyes were wet. “How considerate…”
Another horse carriage lazily went by.
“This is… this is comfortable for me, do you understand? Not that you don’t mean anything. It’s not the same. You are significant because you are here right now. Not because we might have loved one another in the past.” He looked down the path. “It means nothing to me. It’s a series of half images that flicker with no weight. They don’t rest anywhere.” He glanced across the field. “I think that would be a problem. With you. I wanted to spare you. To show you what I am now and leave it at that.”
She bit her lip and stared across the field also. A couple wearing shorts and tank tops rollerbladed by.
“You bastard.” She had started to cry, shaking her head. Then she took a deep breath and stopped. “You want to know why you did it? You don’t remember?” She turned to him. “I know why. It’s all you talked about. You’d stay up all night, you wouldn’t come to bed, standing by the window staring at the street. I’d ask what’s wrong and you’d cry. I’d come to hold you and you were so stiff, like you wanted to push me off. You kept saying, ‘make it stop, make this all stop’…sometimes you’d crawl into corners..” She sniffled and half-laughed, shaking her head, “..shit. But I never understood, did I? You made sure. Just long nights with you by the window looking like a hurt puppy and me the dumb bitch that kept calling you to bed…”
A bird hopped at the edge of the grass.
“That’s why I left you. I couldn’t take it. Just like you. I couldn’t take your highs and lows and you, you insistent that I could.”
He looked her straight in the eyes. “I’m sorry.”
She turned away and wiped her face. “…you can’t apologize. I don’t think you know what it means.”
Cheers from the softball field. The novice on roller blades from earlier came around again, this time a little more confident. The bird at the edge of the grass was hopping onto the path, tilted its head, then flew off.
“After, when we’d talk, whenever I wondered just what the hell was going on with you since you’d never call, you’d say how you wished there was a way to remove your heart.” She reached for her bag underneath the bench and stood. She looked down at him. He was looking at her with clear eyes. “Well congratulations then. You did it.”
She turned away and walked off on the path, towards the girls jumping rope.
He watched her leave. After a few steps, her face was in her hands, then further down the path, she lifted her head and picked up her pace. Then she was out of sight, disappearing down a bend. He sat there staring for a few moments, then returned his attention to the bench. Slowly, he picked off another splinter.