Page 32 of Free Heart
Dan
These cats aredemons, I text to Peggy Jo after she sends me another photo of her bald grandchild. I refrain from telling herthe baby looks like a demon too. I’ve already said that once, so it’s not like I really need to say it again. She knows.
Are they bothering you?
Yes. They’re gathered around the bed watching me.
I snap a few shots so she can see Julio on the dresser staring at me, Muggs on the end of the bed, and Romeo sitting in an empty shoebox, all eyes on me. How Romeo fits in the box, I don’t even know. And where the shoebox came from is equally mysterious.
They’re protecting you, she texts back.
I’m bored. Sejin’s gone to Tater Tots and Papa Bear. Won’t be home for a few hours. I’m alone.
Have you tried watching TV?
I don’t bother telling her I’m trapped in the bedroom for the moment. Instead, I send a snoozy emoji.
Have you played any video games on your phone?
Waste of time.
That’s all you’ve got for the next few months, Dan. Time to waste.
I roll my eyes and send her the corresponding emoji.
Sorry, but I have to go. Bella needs me to help her give Amelia Rose a bath. Go read a book.
I do like reading, but all my climbing books and journals are out in the van. They may as well be in Timbuktu since I can’t get to them without risking further damage to my leg.
So, I open my Kindle app on my phone and scroll through the various climbing-related ebooks I’ve downloaded, and they’re all a bust. I’ve read them before or decided they were bunk. Besides, I don’t think I’ll be able to concentrate on reading with my leg throbbing like it is.
I open up the YouTube app and search for rock climbing videos.
Adam Ondra has posted some new stuff, but I’m all caught up in twenty minutes. Magnus Mitbo has a treasure trove of material, but too much of it is ridiculous sports challenges that aren’t about climbing at all.
I search out other climbers I’m familiar with. There are new videos posted by many of them, and I watch a couple, making note of the more difficult climbs that I might want to try myself one day. Stumbling over a few new names in the videos, I head over to Instagram next. Most climbers spray by social media these days, and there are plenty of new posts showing all kinds of wall climbs and bouldering. The attempts, failures, and triumphs all remind me of one thing—I’m stuck here in bed.
For a long-ass time.
I put the phone aside and close my eyes, hoping I can drop into sleep again. They say you heal better when sleeping, and I’d really like to rush through this whole process so I can get back to the wall. Back to what makes meme.
But sleep doesn’t come.
Instead, I’m treated to a reel of memories from various long-ago foster homes. The bunkbed in the trailer of the foster mother who scolded me for chewing rocks. The dinner table where, after we’d eaten our meager meals, a stern foster father had read the Bible to us foster kids. The kind, gray eyes of the only foster parent I’d really liked, Edith. She’d tried to teach me to enjoy opera, God bless her. The red hair of the foster brother who stole half the food from my lunchbox every day during the bus ride to school.
And then another memory comes up, crisp as a movie.
It’s almost as if I can smell the autumn air and the woodsmoke drifting in the open window. It’s night, and the moon casts a pale glow over the small bed where I sleep. I feel the smooth sheets beneath my back. I hear the shouting from the other room. The sound of the slap. The cry of pain.
I startle, and a bolt of agony races up my leg. I blink my eyes open and glance quickly around the room. That’s a memory of my mother. One of my only ones. The man who hit her was the grandfather who’d eventually include me in his will and leave me with a small, and now depleted, trust fund. But I can’t recall what either of them looked like. Just the room I was in. My room.
These childhood memories crowd my mind, reminding me of being helpless and at the mercy of adults who don’t care about me. I feel them like ghosts, trying to smother me, lock me down, lock me in.
I yearn to go to the window, lift the sash, get a good breath of fresh air, but I’m trapped here. I can’t move from this bed.
My heart pounds.
I’m as dependent on Sejin now as I was on those foster parents then. I feel like there’s an anchor around my feet taking me down, down, down into a sea of panic.
