Far From You

43

NOW (JUNE)

When I get back into the house, Dad is waiting in the hallway.

“What was that about?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say.

“Sophie, you’ve been crying.” He reaches out, and I move away when his hand makes contact with my cheek. “Did Trev say something—”

“We were talking about Mina,” I interrupt. “I got sad. Trev wasn’t—I was just sad.” I rub at my arms, stepping farther away from him. “What are you doing home? Did you forget something?”

“Your shots are today,” Dad says. “Didn’t your mother tell you?”

“Oh. She did. I forgot.”

“I thought I’d take you.”

I can’t stop the hesitation that passes over me, and I can tell he’s hurt by it. It’s the barest flash in his lined face, but it’s there.

I remember, suddenly, all those days he took off work so he could drive me back and forth to physical therapy. How he’d sat in the lobby doing paperwork while I bullied my body into working better. How he’d always wrapped his arms around me afterward.

“Sure,” I say. “I’d like that.”

On the drive to the doctor’s office, we talk about ordinary things. About the soccer team that Dad’s dental office sponsors, how he’s thinking about retiring from assistant coaching because Mom wants him to take swing dancing classes with her.

“Have you thought any more about college?” Dad asks as we pass the post office.

I glance at him. “Not really,” I say.

I can’t. Not yet. There are things I have to do first.

“I know how hard it’s been for you, honey,” he says. “But this is an important time. We need to start thinking about it.”

“Okay,” I say. Anything to get him to stop.

Dr. Shute’s office is in a brick building across from the railroad tracks, and Dad pauses a second before getting out of the car, like he’s sure I’ll snap at him the way I did when he took me to therapy with David. So I stand outside the car, wait until he gets out, and we’re both quiet as we walk inside.

He stays in the lobby when the nurse leads me back, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from asking him to come with me. I tell myself I don’t need him to hold my hand, that I’d learned how to handle getting the shots solo at ­Seaside. I’ve learned to depend on myself. I sit down on the exam table and wait.

The door opens, and Dr. Shute pops her head in the exam room and smiles at me, her red glasses hanging on a beaded chain around her neck. “It’s been a while, Sophie.” After a minute of small talk and a rundown of my pain level, she leaves so I can get undressed. I take my shirt off, lying facedown on the exam table in my bra. The table is cool against my belly through the crackly paper, and I dig into my jeans pocket and come up with my phone as Dr. Shute knocks and comes back inside. I page through my music and put in my earbuds, letting the sound warp my senses. I press my forehead into the cradle of my arms, concentrating on my breathing.

“Let me know when you’re ready,” Dr. Shute says. She knows the deal, knows I can’t stand to see the long epidural needle, knows how freaked out it makes me—that even after all this time, after all the surgeries, I can’t handle a stupid needle sinking into me.

I’ll never be ready. I hate this. I’d almost prefer another surgery.

“Okay, do it,” I say.

The first one goes into the left side of my spine, in the middle of my back, where the pain is the worst. I breathe in and out, my clenched fists crumpling the paper liner set over the exam table. She moves down, three more on my left side, ending deep in my lower back. The long needles pierce through me, the cortisone pushes into my inflamed muscles, buying me some time. Then four on the right side. By the time she’s moved to my neck, I’m breathing hard, the music fuzzy in my ears, and I want it to stop, please, stop.

I want Mina holding my hand, brushing my hair off my face, telling me it’ll be okay.

On the way home, Dad pulls into Big Ed’s drive-through and orders a chocolate–peanut butter milk shake. It’s exactly what I need at that moment, and tears well up in my eyes when he does it without being asked. It’s like I’m fourteen again. I never thought I’d want to go back there, to the days of physical therapy and canes, floating on a cloud of Oxy, but I do. Because then, at least, she’d been alive.

When Dad hands over the shake, he meets my eyes, not letting go of the cup. “Are you okay, honey?” he asks, and I want to hide inside the concern in his voice.

“I’ll be fine,” I say. “Just stings a little.”

We both know I’m lying.