Read Online Black and Blue by Paige Notaro - Free Book Online Page B

stepped into the living room, she already had Pop up by one lumbering arm.
    “Can’t a man watch some football?” he grumbled.
    “You’ve gotta be alive to do that, Dad!” Sarah pointed out.
    “Yeah, well, if things didn’t get better inside, this is valuable time you’re making me waste.”
    I patted him on the back as Sarah pulled him deftly out into the hall, with his oxygen tank in tow. After Mom ran off, she had practically run the house. She’d been blind since birth, but you could barely tell she was disabled inside these walls.
    I think she stepped up to make the two of us feel less guilty about not knowing how to raise her. Pop wasn’t up to much but he would do anything for that girl. It might have been the only thing we saw eye to eye on.
    I helped them out of the house and got Pop in the back of the SUV. I pushed Sarah towards the passenger seat, but she jerked away and headed back to the house.
    “I need to get some stuff,” she said, then came back out a couple minutes later with Pop’s wallet and her phone and earbuds.
    Once we clasped in, I set off towards the imaging center. The only one that accepted Pop’s Medicaid was near my old high school.
    “How’s class?” I asked Sarah.
    “The usual.”
    “I don’t know what the usual is for you.”
    “I’m blind and I’m still killing it. Making the family proud. Et cetera.”
    I reached across and stroked her head. “Good girl. No one bothering you right?”
    “I’m immune.” She moved her hands around like a forcefield.
    “Anyone being nice to you then?”
    Sarah chattered on about her friends, and I listened carefully for a bit. But then we passed the old burger joint that we used to eat at after we smoked Silvio’s weed. After that came the liquor store that would always sell to Troy under the table. On the next block was the subdivision where Tiffany Rubino had first let me get inside a woman. All of it came flooding back like it was yesterday.
    This was me. Most of me still belonged here.
    “What about you?” Sarah’s hand shook my knee.
    “Sorry, doll, what’d you ask?”
    “Is anyone treating you nice?”
    I thought a minute and shook my head. “No, but I’m not a nice guy to begin with.”
    “You are, though.” She squeezed my knee.
    We parked in the visitor lot. I took Pop in to Imaging while Sarah loitered in the waiting area. Pop asked me gruffer versions of Sarah’s questions as we waited for the doctor, and I gave small responses. It’d always been this way between us.
    The doctor came in and went through Pop’s old scans in under a minute. He picked out the areas to scan and left without almost a word. I wanted to tell the dweeb that this wasn’t a normal Medicaid appointment, that I’d be paying, but my grim mood kept my tongue from wagging.
    The technician took Pop away and I ventured out to Sarah. She sat perfectly still, pen in hand and poised over a notepad. She stared off at nothing, mouthing some words as she listened to her earbuds.
    I sat next to her, pulled one out and held it to my ear.
    “Hey, give it,” she said.
    A stream of some language poured out of it. Chinese? Japanese? One of those.
    “Just curious.” I gently put it back in place. I slumped in my seat and stared up at the ceiling.
    I’d worked hard just to put us here. Paying for an extra scan for Pop to see how his treatment was going. Getting my sister her special phone that allowed her to function a little like a seeing person could.
    All that I’d done, it was just spinning the wheels in place. I could only keep us from falling off a cliff.
    The doctor came back with similar news. The scans showed no progression. No regression either. He was going to up the dosage. I’d be spending more money with the hopes of getting Pop back to zero.
    We drove home, and I hung out with Sarah and Pop for a couple hours, watching a documentary on TV. I bought lunch from a local chicken place. The time felt like bliss, with my sister crunching