While Drowning in the Desert

Epilogue

Karen was just getting out of the shower when I asked her to get me a Diet Pepsi.

“Excuse me?” she murmured.

“I’m in postcoital bliss,” I said. “And when I’m in postcoital bliss I need a Diet Pepsi.”

“Why don’t you get one?”

I shook my head.

“When a man’s in postcoital bliss it’s the woman’s job to get the Diet Pepsi,” I smiled. “Besides, I’m not supposed to get out of bed.”

“I’m in postcoital bliss, too.”

“Too bad.”

I looked at her with what I liked to think was a lascivious expression.

“Besides,” I said, “it’s your fault.”

She got dressed and went out to the little refrigerator in the hall to get me a Diet Pepsi.

The phone rang.

“Hello, son.”

“Hello, Dad.”

“What’s this I got in the mail today?” he asked.

“From me?”

“No, from Elvis,” he said. “Yes, from you.”

“It’s a Father’s Day card,” I answered.

“It isn’t Father’s Day,” Graham said.

“It should be,” I said.

There was a long silence over the phone. Then I said, “Dad, thanks for finding me.”

“Forget it,” Graham said. “So how’s Palm Springs?”

I laughed, then he nagged me about my various terrible injuries and I told him I was okay.

“Well, you take care of yourself,” he said.

“Yeah, you too.”

We would have gone on in that vein but it would have been absolutely bathetic.

Karen came back in, sat down on the bed and handed me the Diet Pepsi.

“Did we attempt to make a baby?” I asked.

I was willing. I thought I could handle it.

Talk about your long silences.

Then she shook her head.

“I still want to, though,” she said.

“I think I do, too.”

“But you don’t know,” she said.

“No.”

She sighed, lay down next to me in the bed, and snuggled her face into my neck.

“Not knowing’s not good enough,” she said. I’m sorry.

“Don’t be sorry. Wherever you go, there you are.”

We held each other as tightly as two people with various broken bones could.

“I think you’re right,” I said. “I think I have a lot of stuff to work out.”

“I hate saying it,” she said. “But I think so, too. I just want you to know. I’ve been thinking about it, too. A kid deserves that, you know?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I guess you do.”

I swallowed hard and said, “So I think I’ll go see somebody.”

“You mean like a shrink?”

“Don’t sound so shocked.”

“No, I think it’s a good idea,” she said. “I’m just surprised that you do.”

“I don’t. I just don’t know how else to go about it.”

We shared some more silence.

“I think we should postpone the wedding,” she said.

“Is that a gentle way of saying we’re not getting married?”

“No, it’s a gentle way of saying that we shouldn’t get married until we know what we want,” she said. “And I guess we need to be alone for a while.”

That scared the shit out of me. “You’ll be there when I come back?” “If it works out that way,” she said. “And I hope it works out that way. I love you.” “I love you, too.”

I left the hospital two days later. I was still sore and still hurting and had a heroic limp, but it was time to go. I said good-bye to Nathan and Hope. Karen had already left.

Saying goodbye to Nathan was harder than I thought it would be. It’s funny-first I couldn’t wait to get rid of him, and when I finally did I felt kind of sad. I just had this feeling that I had seen the last of Natty Silver and that there weren’t any more coming down the road.

I don’t want to talk about saying good-bye to Karen.

I didn’t really know where I was going so I finally got on that flight to Palm Springs. I hated to leave a trip unfinished, I wanted to find a shrink, and I figured that they probably had a few of them in California.

So I never should have got out of the hot tub, right? Sometimes you get out of the hot water just to jump right back into it.

But maybe you have to almost drown before you really learn to swim. And sometimes you find out that you’re somewhat broken and you can’t swim at all.

But you do anyway.

Drowning in the desert, you just tread water.