Read Online A Kind of Flying: Selected Stories by Ron Carlson - Free Book Online

“Let us know how Story is.”
    Half an hour later, I heard the car in the driveway, but Story didn’t come in. I found her sitting in the driver’s seat, washed out and pale. She made a grim little smile. “I should have had you come,” she said. “It’s the only thing so far that’s hurt. I could hardly use the clutch on the way home.”
    I took her in and put her to bed. “You’re all slimy,” she said.
    “Sweaty. I’m all sweaty. Since I can’t paint, I’m putting my energies into basketball. Does it hurt now?”
    “Just a small fire. I think they used a fingernail clippers.”
    I called the Wellners. Ruth answered and I told her about Story and asked her to handle the Township tomorrow. Before hanging up I gave her the accurate score of this afternoon’s basketball massacre. “Why is the world all women and boys? ” she said. “You take good care of Story; I’ll handle the office.”
    Later still, Dr. Binderwitz’s secretary-assistant Michelle called and said that the biopsy showed nothing, that Story was all right. It was a great spring twilight, I could hear the one nightingale calling from Mugacook, and the voices of children playing tag on the edge of the campus, but when I looked in on my sleeping wife, a powerlessness so profound swept over me that I felt my back knotting up. I wanted to shake her shoulder and whisper: “I’ll solve this problem,” the way a husband should about an incorrect billing or a loose window or a gummy carburetor. I leaned against the doorway that spring night, and I knew the truth: I couldn’t do anything about this. I couldn’t paint or make us have a baby. I could throw a jump shot in from the corner, but as Ruth said, that is a matter for boys.
    Story slept. The examination had told us again: she was all right. I folded my arms and felt them tingle with a tension that was new to me; I know now it was the blood sense that I was getting closer.
    FIVE
    BIGVILLE HAS , just as it has a Volunteer Fire Department, a volunteer baseball team, which is one of the oldest institutions in the township. And one of the customs that has grown up with our team is that the mayor throws out the ball for the opening game, which is always played at home against New Hartford.
    At one in the afternoon on the day after her laparoscopy, Story stood up on the first row of the silly little bleachers in Bigville Park and threw a brand new Bradley baseball to Mudd Miller, who plays catcher for the ball team. He was standing inside the baseline, so it was a fine toss by a woman who had just twenty-four hours prior had a laparoscopy. In fact, when Mudd came over ceremoniously to hand Story back the baseball, he commented that she had more on the ball than any mayor in his fifteen years catching.
    Ruth sat with us, being solicitous of her friend Story; she let me know just with her posture that Story’s discomfort was somehow all my fault and that she, Ruth, was fundamentally alarmed that a person of my caliber would even try to impose his twisted gene pool onto another generation. Besides her motto about all the kids at K Mart, she always said to Story, while I was in the room; “Why would you want a child, when you’re married to one?” However, there was a look of genuine concern on the county attorney’s face today, so I could take her cheap heat and watch the ballgame.
    During a laparoscopy, a probe is inserted near the navel and searches the fallopian tubes for obstructive material, primarily known as endometriosis. Dr. Binderwitz had been able to tell us that the search had shown nothing, no obstruction. Story’s tubes were clear. The operation left a tiny wrinkled scar under her navel, as if to underline it, an emphatic italic of her beauty.
    The field was full of townspeople, tradesmen, and friends. Billy was straightaway in right field. Mr. Cummings from the food center was at second base, and one of the deans from the college was on the mound.
    The baseball game was tight