There’s no need for the needle, he says, and though there’s no warmth in his words, I could hug him all the same. In my crackling paper gown, with the ice-cold stethoscope traveling over my back, I take a deep breath—a real one, with no coughing or wheezing or sandpaper drag—and feel briefly sorry for Dr. Frank, who had wanted so badly to be the one to help me. Who had bet a steak dinner against his ability to make me well.
But only briefly.
The pen is attacking my chart again.
“How about side effects? Have you had any nausea, headaches?”
“No.”
“Mood swings? Trouble sleeping?”
This time, I pause before answering. “No.”
“Anything unusual?”
I want to tell him that there isn’t. I want to say that nothing’s changed, not a thing, except the sudden, sensationless movement of the air through my lungs where before there was only struggle. But after all these years, I know better than to hold anything back. They’ve told me, time and time again—that if I do, if there’s something strange and I choose not to tell, I’ll be the one who pays the price.
I take a deep breath.
“I’ve been having . . . dreams.”
His eyebrow moves up, but not his eyes; they stay on my chart, where the pen has paused against the page.
“Bad dreams?”
I shake my head, cautiously. “No, not bad. More like . . . vivid.”
“And nothing when you’re awake? No thoughts of suicide or self-harm?”
I shake my head again.
“Vivid dreams can be a common side effect of the beta-blockers,” he says, and snaps my chart shut, without even making a note. “And your last attack, when was that?”
I look through my memory and come up empty, and then feel giddy: there’s nothing to remember. It’s been weeks, at least. I grin. Dr. Sharp doesn’t.
“Callie, you need to pay attention. If you can’t be responsible enough—”
“No no no,” I protest, and do my best to set my mouth in a straight line, make my face a mask of maturity. I also think, petulantly, that I was wrong: well or not, I really do miss Dr. Frank. “I had one on the night we arrived. In July.”
“And since then?”
“Nothing big. There’ve been a couple times, maybe? But not bad. Not recently.”
“And the minor attacks, what triggered them?”
I flush. “Um. I don’t know, I mean . . .”
He snorts, impatient, and I think again how glad I am that he won’t be coming near me with anything sharp—not today, at least. And, I hope, never again. He seems to want our meeting over as much as I do.
“There’s no need to hem and haw,” he says, clipping off the words with disdain. “Here, I’ll make it easy: Was it exercise? Stress? Allergy?”
“Stress, I guess,” I say, and think,
But not mine
.
If I had hoped that my father would mellow here, that the warmth of the sun and the slow pace of the South might make him looser, relaxed, and more malleable, I’d been wrong. The nearness of the ocean, the coastal breeze, the sound of the river as it slurps along our property line: he hates them all. At night, he glares out the window in the direction of the coast, as though warning the water to come no closer. My last attack had come on one of those evenings—just after dinner, when I asked without thinking if I might go to the beach. The immediacy of his response—“Absolutely not!”—had startled me so badly that I choked, first on my own spit and then on the dry indoor air.
“Callie, please,” he’d sighed, head in his hands, as I scrambled for the inhaler. “After everything that’s happened, I can’t believe you’d even ask.”
But that’s just the sort of superfluous detail that Dr. Sharp doesn’t need. Just like he doesn’t need to know about my dreams.
They’re not like the ones I used to have, the drowning ones, the wall-clawing nightmares that scared me out of sleep and into the airless world of my identical inland bedrooms. In those dreams, I was always lost in endless nothingness. In
But only briefly.
The pen is attacking my chart again.
“How about side effects? Have you had any nausea, headaches?”
“No.”
“Mood swings? Trouble sleeping?”
This time, I pause before answering. “No.”
“Anything unusual?”
I want to tell him that there isn’t. I want to say that nothing’s changed, not a thing, except the sudden, sensationless movement of the air through my lungs where before there was only struggle. But after all these years, I know better than to hold anything back. They’ve told me, time and time again—that if I do, if there’s something strange and I choose not to tell, I’ll be the one who pays the price.
I take a deep breath.
“I’ve been having . . . dreams.”
His eyebrow moves up, but not his eyes; they stay on my chart, where the pen has paused against the page.
“Bad dreams?”
I shake my head, cautiously. “No, not bad. More like . . . vivid.”
“And nothing when you’re awake? No thoughts of suicide or self-harm?”
I shake my head again.
“Vivid dreams can be a common side effect of the beta-blockers,” he says, and snaps my chart shut, without even making a note. “And your last attack, when was that?”
I look through my memory and come up empty, and then feel giddy: there’s nothing to remember. It’s been weeks, at least. I grin. Dr. Sharp doesn’t.
“Callie, you need to pay attention. If you can’t be responsible enough—”
“No no no,” I protest, and do my best to set my mouth in a straight line, make my face a mask of maturity. I also think, petulantly, that I was wrong: well or not, I really do miss Dr. Frank. “I had one on the night we arrived. In July.”
“And since then?”
“Nothing big. There’ve been a couple times, maybe? But not bad. Not recently.”
“And the minor attacks, what triggered them?”
I flush. “Um. I don’t know, I mean . . .”
He snorts, impatient, and I think again how glad I am that he won’t be coming near me with anything sharp—not today, at least. And, I hope, never again. He seems to want our meeting over as much as I do.
“There’s no need to hem and haw,” he says, clipping off the words with disdain. “Here, I’ll make it easy: Was it exercise? Stress? Allergy?”
“Stress, I guess,” I say, and think,
But not mine
.
If I had hoped that my father would mellow here, that the warmth of the sun and the slow pace of the South might make him looser, relaxed, and more malleable, I’d been wrong. The nearness of the ocean, the coastal breeze, the sound of the river as it slurps along our property line: he hates them all. At night, he glares out the window in the direction of the coast, as though warning the water to come no closer. My last attack had come on one of those evenings—just after dinner, when I asked without thinking if I might go to the beach. The immediacy of his response—“Absolutely not!”—had startled me so badly that I choked, first on my own spit and then on the dry indoor air.
“Callie, please,” he’d sighed, head in his hands, as I scrambled for the inhaler. “After everything that’s happened, I can’t believe you’d even ask.”
But that’s just the sort of superfluous detail that Dr. Sharp doesn’t need. Just like he doesn’t need to know about my dreams.
They’re not like the ones I used to have, the drowning ones, the wall-clawing nightmares that scared me out of sleep and into the airless world of my identical inland bedrooms. In those dreams, I was always lost in endless nothingness. In
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