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“Kali.”
She turned on the sidewalk, her hand inches from the back passenger door. Lincoln could almost hear the words coming out of him.
'Stay.'
Her brows would rise, then furrow. 'What?'
'Stay.' He'd shrug. 'It's comfortable. It's nice, this thing we've got going here.'
She'd cross her arms, probably adjust her satchel one more time. 'It's too far from work.' Or, 'This is a shit neighbourhood.' Or, 'Are you kidding me? I've been counting the days until I could get away from you.'
He wouldn't know what to say then, to any of it. Maybe he'd tell her they could watch out for each other, or suggest how much money she'd save by paying only one-fifty a month or paying nothing. He didn't need her cash.
Lincoln took the last steps down the porch. “Watch out for yourself. Be safe.”
She let out a laugh, close-lipped. Almost more a hum or faint chuckle. “That's what I do. What I've always done.” She opened the door and ushered Theo in, secured him in his booster seat, then walked around to the driver's side. “See you, Lincoln. It's been swell.”
The moving truck pulled from the curb. A girl and her dog walked down the street, Kali pulled her car into traffic, and the salsa music from next door blared.
What uselessness.
What beauty.
Two weeks into her new job, and a day short of two weeks waking up in her new apartment, Kali's heart pounded. The pressure in her head had been coming off and on for weeks. Intensifying.
But the job was great. The apartment was wonderful. She was no longer spending hours poring over her training manuals. She had no reason to be stressed. And yet almost every morning she woke with this pain. This nausea.
Today the pressure had intensified mid-day. The pain and sickness fogged her vision, like looking through lace. From time to time her ears rang. Kali didn’t know what it was, but it was something. It was real. She'd been reaching for her client's medication and, pain throbbing, nausea making her vision blur, couldn't figure out which was which. She squinted, reached for the one she felt sure was right, and opened the cap.
“Kali?” Dianne, the coworker whose shift she'd been taking over, touched her elbow. “That one is for the evening.”
“Right. Right.” Kali rubbed her temple, recapped the meds, and laughed it off. “Momentary lapse.”
Dianne's brow furrowed. “You can't have momentary lapses. Are you okay?”
Kali nodded. Was she?
Her heart started to pound. And now, nine hours later, after she'd finished her shift accident-free, dropped off Theo at Mrs. Martin's, and sat waiting in her doctor's office, it still pounded.
“Kali?”
Kali stood and followed the receptionist she'd known since she was a girl into one of the clinic's patient rooms. For probably the hundredth time she went over the possible causes for her symptoms. Most harmless. Many easily fixable. It was those few that weren't harmless, that couldn't be easily fixed, that made her palms sweat ...
She rubbed her hands on her pants.
Dr. Pickles shuffled into the office. His name had made her giggle when she was a girl. He still had several cartoon pickles and images around his office. Some had been there longer than she could remember.
He'd retire soon. Probably. His hair had greyed further in the ten months since Theo's last checkup. His shoulders were slightly more stooped.
“Miss Johnson, how's that young man of yours?”
“Good.”
“Speaking?”
“Not yet.”
He tutted. “Well, it'll come.” He settled into the chair behind his desk. “The psychologist's not helping?”
Kali shook her head. “At least not in any way I can see.”
Dr. Pickles leaned forward, his knobby, loose skinned elbows pushing into the desk. “But you're not here about Theo.”
She shook her head again and described her symptoms in clinical detail—from their first occurrences to their present intensity. While Dr. Pickles seemed relaxed at the start, his body shifted toward the end, leaned forward. He questioned her deeper, asking things she wasn't certain of. Thump. Thump. Thump went her heart.
“What else? Tingles?”
Had there been? Yes. But ... the kind he was describing?
Thump.
He listed symptoms off. Confusion. Weakness. Loss of consciousness.
Thump.
Spasms. Nausea. Numbness. Loss of hearing.
Thump.
Reduced motor function. And then there was the vision. So much about the vision.
Thump. Thump.
She'd had some of the symptoms he listed. More than she'd realized. But not all. Not even nearly all. Still, his brow furrowed. He rubbed his bottom lip, just the way he'd rubbed it before they found out her mother was sick.
“So?” Kali swallowed. Thump. Thump. Thump.
“It's most likely nothing.” He smiled. “Often, innocuous and unrelated causes can show up at the same time, making symptoms seem worse than they are.” He rubbed that bottom lip. “But you know that.”
“I do. That's why I took so long to come in.”
He made that sound all doctors seem to make. Deep at the back of their throat—showing agreement, concern, uncertainty. “But we also want to be safe. Rule out something potentially more serious.”
Kali knew the word that was floating through his mind. It floated through hers, but she couldn't say it. Couldn't even think it. Not that it was an automatic death sentence, not necessarily. Not always.
He grabbed a prescription pad and wrote something. He passed the paper to her. “For your nausea.”
“It's not all the time.”
“Then take it when you need it.”
Kali nodded.
Dr. Pickles stared at her a moment. “Cover your eye.”
“What?”
“Your eye. Just put one hand over—”
“Which one?”
“Either.”
Kali raised her hand over her left eye.
“Anything?”
“What do you—”
“Your vision is clear?”
“Yes.”
“Now the other.”
Kali swallowed. She shifted her hand and gasped.
“Kali?”
“It's blurry. Everything is ... like a veil, like ...” She stopped. “How could I not notice?”
“One eye will compensate for the other.” Dr. Pickles gave a little sigh. “I'm sending you for a CT scan.” He turned to his computer, navigated the mouse and tapped several keys. “I can get you into the VG tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow.” Kali squeaked. Patients often waited months for a scan. If the referring doctor thought it could be serious, maybe weeks. Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump. “I work tomorrow, but—”
“You'll call in sick or find a replacement.”
Kali nodded. How could she not have noticed, how ... those early mornings, when she'd rubbed her head, her eyes, had this been the veil all along?
“Don't jump to conclusions.” Dr. Pickles leaned forward. “We don't know anything yet. Not for certain.”
Now Kali made the noise in the back of her throat. Cautious was two months. Cautious was getting her into an ophthalmologist within the week. There was no doubting it now; the word that floated in her mind floated in his. And though that word didn't have to be as serious as people thought it was, clearly Dr. Pickles believed, in her case, it could be.