Page 98 of Maybe in Another Life

I sit down on my bed. The act takes a full thirty seconds to complete. But once I do, I instantly feel better. Gabby pulls the wheelchair around next to me.

“You’re sure I can’t come with you? Push you, maybe?”

“I’m already going to need you to help me into the shower. My level of dignity is fairly low, so I’m just hoping to spare myself the experience of you watching me tell someone I have feelings for him when, you know, he will probably turn me down.”

“This seems like something that maybe you should wait and think about,” she says.

“And tell him when? What am I gonna do? Call him on the phone? ‘Hello, hospital. Henry, please. It’s Hannah.’ ”

“That’s a lot ofHs,” she says.

“You can only muster up this type of courage a few times in your life. I’m just stupid enough to have it now. So help me into the damn wheelchair so I can go make a fool out of myself.”

She smiles. “All right, you got it.”

She starts helping me into the chair, and pretty soon I’m rolling. “Wish me luck!” I say, and I head for the door and then brake abruptly, as I’ve learned to. “Do you think sometimes you can justtellabout a person?”

“Like you meet them and you think, this one isn’t like the rest of them, this one is something?”

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Exactly like that.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. I’d like to think so. But I’m not sure. When I met Mark, I thought he looked like a dentist.”

“Heisa dentist,” I tell her, confused.

“Yeah, but when we were in college, when I was, like, nineteen, I thought he looked like the kind of guy who would grow up to be a dentist.”

“He seemed stable? Smart? What? What are you trying to say?”

“Nothing,” she says. “Never mind.”

“Did you think he looked boring?” I ask her, trying to get to the bottom of it.

“I thought he looked bland,” she says. “But I was wrong, right? I’m just saying I didn’t get those feelings you’re talking about with my husband. And he’s turned out to be a great guy. So I can’t confirm or deny the existence of being able to justtell.”

I think you can. That’s what I think. I think I’ve always thought that. I thought it the first time I met Ethan. I thought there was something different about him, something special. And I was right. Look at what we had. It turned out not to be for a lifetime, but that’s OK. It was real when it happened.

And I feel that way about Henry now.

But I don’t know how to reconcile that with what Gabby is saying. I don’t want to say that I believe you can tell when you meet someone who’s right for you and then acknowledge that by that logic, Mark’s not the one for her.

“Maybe some people can tell,” I offer.

“Yeah,” she says. “Maybe some people can. Either way, you believe you feel it. That’s what’s important.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Right. I gotta tell him.”

“What are you gonna say?” she asks me.

“Yeah,” I say, turning my wheelchair back to her. “WhatamI going to say?” I think about it for a moment. “I should practice. You be Henry.”

Gabby smiles and sits down on the bed, taking on an affected manly pose.

“No, he’s not like that,” I say. “And he’d be standing.”

“Oh,” she says, standing up. “Sorry, I just wanted it to be easier because you’re...”

“In a wheelchair, right,” I say. “But don’t coddle me. If I’m wheeling through the halls trying to find him, most likely he’s going to be standing, and I’ll be sitting.”

---