Home: Part 13

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

January 1982

 
The rain began the day after our wedding, and it continued for two weeks. Our small apartment often seemed more like a cave than a home: dark, musty. It was only during this type of weather that my leg sometimes bothered me, though neither I nor anyone else could explain why. My parents and assorted doctors attributed it to "growing pains" when I was young. "There's nothing there to grow," I once said to my father after one visit to a doctor.

"Maybe you're dancing too much when I'm not home," Kathy said one night as we ate dinner at a small Formica table beside the window in the kitchen. 

"Yes, dancing," I said. "Mrs. Miller would love that, wouldn't she?" Mrs. Miller, who lived in the apartment beneath us, seemed especially sensitive to even the slightest of sounds or vibrations above her. After she complained numerous times to our patient landlord, Mr. Baxter, Kathy and I had learned to be as soft-footed as we possibly could. "She's been here a long time," Mr. Baxter told us.

"It's my fault, you know," my father told me after I'd gotten fitted for a new prosthetic. We were driving home from the clinic. It must have been early spring, because I remember that the snow on the ground seemed tired of being there: dirty, crusty on top, melting at the bottom.

"What is?" I asked.

"The leg."

"Your fault?"

"My genetics. Or my bad ones. Bad genes. My dad's brother, your great uncle Rick, had a left hand that was little more than a claw. From birth."

I had never considered actually blaming anyone for my leg, though I was getting to an age when I felt like I wanted to blame someone. Maybe my dad foresaw that and felt like he had to say something. Years later I would feel my own guilt as I thought of how he must have carried that burden.

"It's just half a leg," I said. "I've been okay without it."

So, during those two weeks of rain, I limped more than usual. Kathy would massage my thigh hoping to help. "You're strong to put up with this," she said as we lay in bed.

"No," I said. "I am not strong. I'm just used to it."

"I think you are strong. You've put up with this for a long time. I'm sure it wasn't always easy."

"My parents didn't coddle me," I said. "They mocked me when I complained. They threw things at me when I fell down. My sister would hide my crutches when I was bouncing around on one."

Kathy laughed. Even in the dark apartment I thought I could see her eyes as we listened to the rain's tattoo. "You have such a cruel family!"

"Assholes, each and every one of them," I said. "But I forgive them now. I'm a better man."

"You're a fucking saint!" she said.

And we lay there in the darkness, and the rain continued.