Ch21

Dex was having his annual bone scans completed for his severe osteoarthritis, though Nor hadn’t observed his limp for some time. She offered her company, and he gratefully accepted. Thus, they sat together upon a starchy hospital bed, sharing robust cups of coffee.

Much to his chagrin, he was cloaked in traditional hospital garb: rubber-soled socks and a stiff gown. The drab, tea-bag material billowed to his shins and braced across his large chest and shoulders. It bound at the old man’s spine, which shivered occasionally.

Nor couldn’t help but allow her eyes to study the tattoos that danced across his bare legs and arms. Some of the ink had blown out beneath his papery skin but was still detailed and breathtaking. She knew Corvid’s lone tattoo shop well, and she couldn’t match any of their illustrative styles to Dex’s neotraditional lines and work.

His inked stories were usually hidden by layers of fine button-down shirts, tailored blazers, leather suspenders, and brass-buckle boots. And while his accessories were stunning nods to fashion, his skin was the true work of art.

“What does fluctuat nec mergitur mean?” she asked with a clumsy tongue, eyeing a large anchor at the base of his throat. It was wrapped in a paper scroll bearing the dead language.

His legs ceased their tapping with consideration.

“Fluctuat nec mergitur is Latin,” he said, rolling the fascinating language across his teeth with ease. “Means ‘tossed by the waves, but does not sink.’” He dropped his chin to her with a curious brow. “Why do you ask?”

She huffed a chuckle and poked at his throat.

“Ah.” His limbs resumed their dance.

“You might learn something about yourself if you looked into these,” she said gently.

“Perhaps.”

“Do you avoid looking at yourself?”

An amused huff hissed through his nose.

“Is it because you don’t like what you see?” she persisted shamelessly.

“They’re permanent and mysterious, like my past. I’m afraid of looking for fear of what I’ll find and cannot change. But no, I also don’t like what I see in general.” He swallowed and stifled a slight tic in his cheek.

“I do,” she said.

“Well, that makes one of us, amica mea.”

Depicted in a neat, uniform row at the peak of his right bicep were detailed tattoos akin to military medals. The first was a pair of tattooed wings around a red thorny rose, the second was a gold shield topped by a red-bellied bird, and the last was a screaming hawk bird of sorts, clutching a sword in its talons. Each was illustrated to look gilded and precious, meant for honorary recognition of some sort.

“Dex, I think you might be a veteran.” She poked at the inked epaulet. “These look a lot like the war tattoos some of my veteran clients have,” she added.

He shook his head, uninterested. “No valor in my battles, love. Nothing to show for but scars and distorted bones.” He kicked out a creaky leg.

“You’re here today, and that’s plenty to show for it,” she retorted, still scrutinizing his tattoos.

He stuck out an elbow to better see the ink for himself but decidedly sighed and dropped it to his side.

“You must have done something impressive. I think I need to thank you for your service.” She sought his fallen eyes with earnest respect.

He gave a sarcastic snort and downed the remainder of his coffee. Droplets flecked his mustache.

“I’m serious, Dex. These have to be war medals.”

“I believe you, Nor,” his jaw ground as he stared into his empty cup. “But we don’t know what I fought for.”

“I’m sure you fought for what you felt was right.”

A faint tic clenched at the corner of his eye, brows contorted. He truly believed he was a horrid person before the accident.

Then, a portly Dr. Downy strode through the curtain and interrupted their conversation without so much as a knock on the doorframe. The owlish man gawked with puzzlement at Norah.

“Kestrel? Didn’t see you on the chart,” he said, hurriedly tapping at his laptop.

“I’m here for the coffee and the company,” she said simply, raising her cup.

“She’s my emotional support person Doc,” clarified Dex. “What’s the prognosis?”

The doctor spun his screen to reveal several digital images of Dexteras’ contorted bones and calcified joints. He pointed to weak binds, vulnerable muscles, and compromised tendons. He shrugged at the marring scar tissue.

“I’d typically say at this point that we need to be resting, planning vacations, taking up quiet hobbies, things of the like.” He began, pulling back his screen and typing on his charts. “We’ve seen you through a lot here, Dex. Your body has endured hell and back.”

Norah crossed her arms, biting her tongue until salt filled her mouth. Though he looked burly and ruthless, Dex was sensitive and gentle through and through. He was soft-spoken, analytical, and observant. He experienced moments with sharp inspection, even when it was most painful. She’d hoped her hospital’s staff was capable of more empathetic delivery and bedside manner.

Dex remained silent, dissociating into the laminate.

“So what does that mean?” Nor prompted.

Downy ignored her and turned his screen to reveal another round of uploaded scans. These looked quite different, shining with more white, unblemished light. The shapes were bold, their shadows less steep, the ligaments untouched and young.

“Had we still been showing those results, it would’ve meant a lifetime of pain meds until Dex ran himself into the ground. But our newest scans are…extraordinary.” He stared in awe at the screen, slapping his hands on his thighs.

“These joints look years before their time. I can see signs of old scar tissue…” he traced some graying slivers of light. “But overall, these bones are nearly good as new.” The doctor scratched his head with high, thick brows. “I’ve shown these scans to multiple doctors on the floor, and they’re stunned. A medical anomaly.”

Norah began to smile, but as she turned to Dex, her expression crashed with sobering worry.

The old man remained silent, hands massaging his knees. He only managed a drop of his head in comprehension.

“I’ve got decades of bone scans from you, Dex, and these are the first that proves not just deep, resilient healing but atypical regrowth.” The doctor shook his head, unable to tear his eyes from the ligaments on his monitor. “It’s…impossible, but here we are. You’re a miracle.”

Dex nodded again, but his eyes were not on the doctor nor his extraordinary scans. His gaze was glossy-eyed and distant on the laminate floor.

“We have studies here you could really help us with. Clearly, there’s something at your cellular level capable of unnatural, inhuman growth. It’s unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

Norah winced with his word choice but kept her stare locked on Dex. Still, he remained silent, drifting into catatonia. They’d lost him to his thoughts. His neck flexed with a deep tic, bending his ear to his shoulder.

She leaned into him softly, but he didn’t respond.

“I think he’s okay for now, doc, but he’ll get back to you,” she muttered, watching her friend with concern.

But Downy was persistent, craning his thick neck in search of Dex’s attention.

“Dex? You could be quite resourceful in our studies. You could save other people with this information.”

Her friend’s eyes fluttered with blinks, evidently overloaded. His lips parted, but nothing spilled from them.

“We’ll discuss it another time,” said Norah, much firmer this time. Her voice hit the walls hard. Could he not see Dex was overwhelmed?

Downy cut her with a challenging glare. “These results are unheard of, Dexteras, you-”

Norah smiled and stood between Dex and his doctor, teeth bared and chin tall.

“He heard you, Eric, but we’re done here for today.”

a+2

As Dexteras changed back into his proper clothes, Norah retreated to her staff kitchenette. She dug through the filthy depths of its refrigerator and dragged forth a small canvas cooler, heavy with treasure.

She returned to find him in the dark lobby, waiting in silence, chin settled in his hands. She guessed his mind was on fire with anomalous prognosis and exceptional morality.

Nor gave a beckoning nod, and he followed her drearily to her old truck.

He’s scared.

They headed westward of town up a gently sloping back road. After several miles, she hooked a sharp hairpin onto a gravel drive that dissolved into dirt and heavy tree lines. The path was barely wide enough for her squatty vehicle.

After several grumbling turns and narrow passes through the thicket, they came to a rusty chain draped between two massive cedars. A rusty tin sign hung at its center, Private Drive, All Trespassers Will Be Shot. A crusty padlock secured the barricade.

She threw the car into park and plucked the lock’s suitor from her mound of tinkling keys. She hopped out, set the chains free, and tossed them to either side of the road.

She jumped behind the wheel once more and gave him a devious grin.

“Should I ask?” he muttered.

“Always,” she called over the groaning axles that tore through the hill.

“Whose land is this?”

“My Papa’s, Rufous Starling. He bought it with the hopes of reselling it. Nice lumber trees.”

“Why didn’t he?” Dex called.

The little, vintage truck bounded over the final hill, leaving them atop a bald plateau. She backed into a tight clearing, seemingly carved for them.

“Come see.” She stepped onto the dusty earth and popped the tailgate.

Dex approached a small opening through the trees to reveal an overlook. It poured across Corvid, painting the small town in fresh glory. Miles above, Dex watched the horizon until the unzipping of a cooler stirred his focus.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“First-aid kit. For days like this.”

“Like this?”

“Shitty days. Full-moon days. Days you don’t want to go home.”

“You have those often?” he mused sadly, sitting beside her on the tailgate.

“Sometimes. But the other staff use it too. Rule is, if you use it, you refill it.”

Nor unpacked a case of amber beer, a bar of dark chocolate, and a pack of cigarillos. She inspected it all with consideration, nodding at their wealth. She broke two cans free, cracked them open, and handed one to Dex.

They held up their drinks to toast.

“To more bottles in front of me than frontal lobotomies,” she sang to the sky.

He sputtered and cackled as he sipped the dark ale.

They drank their beer and smoked their cigars, swinging their legs and taking in the twinkling lights of Corvid. Dare she call the town bearable, at this height? Her shoulders sagged, and her feet hung limp as she considered the faces of clients and family below, living and dead. She thought of her father’s scattered cremated remains in the wind here. Of her mother, wheezing with the aid of countless machines, just floors above her office. This image, above all others, made her nauseous.

She hadn’t always avoided the woman dying above her head. She’d tried to visit.

Once.

Just once. Years ago.

Nor had smoked an old crusty blunt from her mother’s stash at home on an idle Tuesday and had drank far too much of her father’s whiskey. Around eleven in the evening, she’d gone for a walk through the fields. At the fence line, she was so disconnected from her swimming skull and wobbling limbs, that she clambered over the splintering wood and kept walking.

Hours later, she was swaying on the threshold of her mother’s hospital room, fists clenching and unclenching. She had no idea how she’d tottered past the night shift nurses and the hospital’s watchful security officers. She only knew her badge was swinging from her fingers.

The sleeping Robin Kestrel was unrecognizable to her inebriated daughter, whose watering eyes burned into the frail woman. Robin wasn’t old, but the atrophy of a hospital bed made her look decrepit. Her blonde hair was thin, and her wrinkles were deep. Medical bracelets lined her wrists, and cords threaded her arms. Watercolor smears of blue and purple bruised her flesh. Gaunt, shadowy patches deepened her cheeks, collarbones, neck, and the tiny divots of her finger bones. The once gorgeous and rosy Robin Kestrel was little more than ruddy veins and rice paper flesh.

CLACK.

The ID badge and its lanyard slipped from Nor’s hand and smacked the floor.

Robin startled, her wrinkled eyelids lifting until her glassy blue eyes fell on her daughter. Robin’s lips remained a thin, colorless line. Massive, heaving swells of the woman’s sunken chest made up each of her monumental breaths.

They stared, faces still, breath held. Neither said a word and neither moved aside from the younger Kestrel’s drunken swaying in the hall.

Looking back, Norah knew her ignorant, childish, self craved an apology. She wanted to be told that she could scream and cry and feel all the bullshit she never got to feel as a child from within the grip of her mother’s spindly arms. She wanted to be clung to.

But Robin only stared with icy blue eyes, cold and steady. Norah heard the woman’s heart monitor increase as moments passed.

And when it was evident that neither had anything to offer the other, Norah tore her feet from the laminate, scooped up her badge, and tripped home alone in the dark.

“Fuck, I hate it here,” Nor muttered, returning to her present body in the bed of her truck with Dex.

He gave a half smile and dropped his head. “It is dark and isolating, at times.”

“It’s cursed,” she corrected. “Cold and damned and nasty,” she added, considering Corvid’s cancerous rumors and ignorance.

The embering tip of his cigar crackled as he inhaled. He hastened it from his lips to say, “Mmm.” He nodded, eyes tired and understanding. “Everyone’s got a bit of that inside of them at times. We’re all broken.,” he said, smiling at her.

“You’re so fucking nice,” she said, burping and opening another beer. “Tell me something you don’t want to tell me. Something that doesn’t sound kind.”

He fiddled with the tab on his beer and swallowed, smiling a moment before his face fell.

“It is-s-s frustrating enough to not understand my past…they called that impossible too. But now I’m impossible as I am. Inhuman.” He shook his head. “It feels like there’s never enough of me to make a whole, normal, functioning person.”

She winced at Downy’s ugly verbiage. “He was an ass for speaking to you that way. I don’t know who teaches these bastards to treat patients like that.”

“We cannot teach people anything,” quoted Dex, shrugging his large shoulders until bones crackled like dry twigs. “We can only help them discover it within themselves.” He stared into the peeking stars with reverence. He rubbed at his forehead, tight with stress and then yanked the elastic from his tied hair, releasing the great mane to shadow his fallen features.

Nor spat into the woods, noticing the stale cigar souring her tongue. “Who said that?”

“Galileo,” said Dex.

She hugged her knees to her chest and nodded, agreeing with the wise stargazer.

“You’re a whole person, Dex. And you’re here with me now,” she offered.

Small puffs of smoke escaped from his lips as he spoke. “This was the kindest thing anyone’s ever done for me, mellis. Thank you.” He blinked tired, watering eyes down at her.

She leaned into his large bicep. “It’s what friends do.”