Read Online The Convalescent by Jessica Anthony - Free Book Online Page A

are not afraid of anything.
    As it says on the tube, Spice of Life is
For Men on the Go! ®
and there’s a picture of a tall, handsome man in a leisure suit, smiling like someone just complimented his pectorals.
    Maybe that’s my problem. I have no pectorals.
    But Dr. Monica believes there’s nothing better for the body than water, and she prescribes large quantities of it for the very sickest of her patients. I’ll often see the mothers of the Sick or Diseased children lugging around a plastic gallon, and there are two water fountains on either side of the Waiting Area alone. Sometimes Dr. Monica herself will appear for a drink at one of the fountains. She’ll bend over the fountain and wrap one delicious ankle around the other. A foot will delicately scratch her calf, all the way up one leg and then back down again—
    It’s enough to make one throw one’s hands in the air and denounce civility altogether.
    I look at my own hands. I should have washed them. I have darkly stained fingernails that will probably never be the proper color from all the animal cutting, the blood handling— Footsteps approach! I quickly pinch my cheeks to give them color; to give the illusion of vim, of vigor.
    Dr. Monica knocks, and then opens the door. “Hello, Mr. Pfliegman,” she says.
    Her blond hair is loose today, not bunned, and falls flat against her back in a yard of silk. Her white coat is open, and underneath is a soft blue turtleneck sweater. Tan slacks one size too small cinch her large thighs, pulling at the seams, and around her shoulders a Kermit the Frog stethoscope hangs like a piece of reliable rope.
    “GODDESS!” I want to shout.
    She smiles, turning the stethoscope in her fingers.
    “You’ve got some color in your cheeks,” she says. “How are you feeling today?”
    Dr. Monica always says “you” instead of “we.” All of my other doctors always referred to me the other way, as in: “How are
we
today, Mr. Pfliegman?” To which I would respond in my brain, “What
we
? We are not both Pfliegmans. We do not both live in a broken-down bus in a field. We do not both hold our cramping stomachs over the bucket, or cough until we bleed. We do not both dream worms are nibbling at our fingertips.”
    Dr. Monica is better than that.
    “Your vitals are up,” she says. “You’re drinking your water, I can tell. That’s excellent.” She produces a clean sheet of paper to write on. “You’re still not eating right, though, and you’re not doing your stretching exercises.”
    Stretching exercises?
    “Like I showed you last time, remember? Bend down, rise up, breathe?”
    Dr. Monica puts down her clipboard and bends at the waist. Her long hair spills in front of me in a waterfall of blond, exposing a creamy slice of neck—
    St. Benevolus shivers like an orphan in the cold.
    Her fingers quickly smooch the tips of her white pediatrician’s shoes, and then she stands up again. Blood rises to her face, coloring her cheeks. “Remember?” she says.
    Ah yes, now I remember
, I write.
I am a complete and total idiot
.
    “You’ve got to work on rehabilitating that leg,” she says. “There’s absolutely no reason why it should be dragging like that.” She points to my bad leg with her pen. “The kneecap’s a little off, but that really shouldn’t affect anything,” she says, and she frowns at the kneecap. “Does it hurt to stretch?”
    I shake my head.
    “Okay then.” She sits back down and returns to my folder. “Have there been any more nosebleeds?” she says.
    A few
.
    “And your leg? Is there any stiffness?
    There is some stiffness. You could say that there is some of that
.
    “What about headaches? Are you still getting those?”
    Actually, those have eased up a bit
, I write.
    “Good!” she says, scribbling. “And how’s the coughing? Is there any expectorating?”
    I nod.
    “And when that happens, what color is it? Is it white?” She wrinkles her nose. “Or is it yellowish or