Bette and Davy are building a fort of cushions around me as I write, which makes sense. I barely move from the floor anymore, so I am an ideal load-bearing structure.
Here’s what I see: my feet spread out under a blue fuzzy blanket, the kitchen/dining room table covered in the remains of two peanut butter sandwiches. On the sill of the window above the sink, a line of orange pill bottles with white lids.
Small circular white pills for pain.
Oval blue pills for vertical gaze palsy.
Red pill-shaped pills for numbness.
Prozac for depression.
Et cetera.
The last one on the list, I haven’t taken yet. But I’m about at that point.
“Play with us, play with us, play with us,” Davy is chanting, the fort abandoned as she and Bette run around the couch. I look around for Harrison, hoping he can distract them, but remember he’s at camp.
“I can’t,” I tell them. Too busy watching a terrible, terrible show about people who compete to find valuable goods in storage lockers.
“Why?” Bette asks.
“I can’t move,” I say.
“That’s not true,” Bette says. “You get up to go to the bathroom and get food! I saw you just now!”
She was right. I can move. I just don’t want to. Move to go where? Outside? To the border of our property?
The only comforts I have are two fictions: the fiction of whatever is on TV, and the fiction of texting Stuart, who now thinks my strep has turned into mono. (It turns out it’s easier to lie when you’re typing, and because of medicinal side effects, your tongue is dry anyway.)
And neither comfort requires movement. So.
Speaking of Stuart, where is my phone?
Uggghhh.
I keep it next to me so I don’t have this problem. Seriously, I’m not having a memory lapse. I didn’t move it.
Then I hear Bette and Davy giggling under the kitchen table.
Oh god.
“See? You can move!” Bette shouted with a triumphant smile on her face when I stormed over and snatched it back. They both ran outside.
Whew, they didn’t text or call Stuart.
They texted Coop. They must have found his name as the only one they recognize. Coop sometimes gives them “helicopter rides” at church.
I yanked open the sliding doors and screamed at them. “DON’T DO THAT!”
Bette called from somewhere in the tree line, still laughing. “HE TEXTED YOU FIRST! I JUST TYPED ‘OK’!”
Oh, so he did.
Coop: Hey gurl just wanted to check and see how you’re doing. Can I drop by? Also Mom made you guys a ton of food so I’m gonna bring that.
Me: Ok
So I guess Coop’s coming over. I need to put a password on my phone.