Rafael Yglesias - Fearless

Carla decided to call a cease-fire with Manny. But only after she asked if he was still seeing “that bitch.”

Manny said no with his head down, ashamed. He mumbled to the floor, “I ain’t seen her since the day in Jersey.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said dispassionately.

“It’s the truth!” His head came up; his black eyes shined. “I called her that night and told her I couldn’t see her no more.”

“I believe you,” she said and let go of the subject. So they were talking again. Nevertheless, she moved her things into Bubble’s old room and slept there. The next morning she bought cans of white paint. Using Manny’s brushes and ladder she began to cover the pale blue color of the nursery.

A few days later Manny came home with a dozen roses. They must have cost half his take-home pay for the week. She told him he was crazy. He took off his coat and revealed he was wearing a clean white shirt, a blue tie and his best slacks. She hadn’t seen him in a tie since their wedding. For one delighted moment she thought he was going to take her out to dinner and dancing. What he wanted was sex.

She let him — in their old room. The lovemaking didn’t bother her although she felt nothing, like always since the accident. But it did bother Manny that she wasn’t ecstatic no matter what he tried. He was a skilled lover. Carla assumed he had been taught by experts — probably his mother’s colleagues — but even his fanciest stimulations were of no use. Afterwards he said softly, “You didn’t like it.”

She told him as gently as she could, “Enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about me. I feel fine.”

“I can’t.” Manny pushed at his hair with the flat of his palm, agonized. “If you don’t like it, I can’t.”

But he had enjoyed himself. He had arched to the ceiling and moaned, like always. “That’s your pride,” she said. “We’re married. You don’t have to show off with me.”

Manny put his other palm to his hair and pressed with both hands. “Did you do it with him?” he said in a choked voice.

“No,” she said and was disgusted. “I’m not you.”

Finally Manny relaxed, stopped asking questions, and began to brag about his triumphs at work. They talked for a while in a friendly way before she went to Bubble’s room to sleep. To her room really. She felt no trace of her dead boy in the real world anymore. Bubble did live on in her dreams. There he was always happy and pleased with her.

She visited Max three times. She made sure each time (once with Brillstein; the others with Manny) that he would be alone when she came. She worried about his health. They said he was healing okay but she thought something in his brain wasn’t working right. When she made jokes he sometimes looked bewildered instead of laughing or smiling; and he didn’t say smart things, the kind of things that he used to, that changed the way she thought about the world. On her third visit she found out why. A kid came in a white coat — he was an intern Max told her later, but he looked like a child to her — and said in a cheerful way, “How’s the vision, Mr. Klein? Still seeing double?”

“No.” Max covered his eyes with the fingers of his right hand, as if hiding from the question.

“Good. Let me take a look.” He came up to the bed, snapping on a flashlight in the shape of a pen. Carla thought he was too young to be so presumptuous with Max.

Max persisted in shielding his eyes with his fingers. To coax them down the intern pulled gently on Max’s wrist. He shined the penlight into one eye and then the other, each time asking Max to roll his eyes up and then down. “Good,” the intern said. “Things blurry, especially in the distance?”

“I can’t really see,” Max said in a tone Carla had never heard from him; he sounded afraid.

“You can’t see!” the young man was skeptical. “You can see everything in the room, right? Things are a little cloudy, right?”

“Right,” Max said dully.

“I don’t want to put words in your mouth, Mr. Klein. You’re the patient, you tell me. But you see everything — it’s just not sharp, right?”

“Right,” Max said angrily.

“But he can see,” the intern said to Carla.

She understood then why Max wasn’t laughing or talking cleverly. She sat by the bed after the kid doctor left and took Max’s hand. It was soft and warm. He was quiet for a long time. Finally, he mumbled bitterly, “It’s not seeing.”

When Brillstein came to the apartment that night to ask if he could offer to settle the case for three hundred thousand dollars, she waited through Manny’s first excited, then suspicious agreement. At first Manny said, “Three hundred thousand!” as if it were all the money in the world. Yet only a moment later he said to Brillstein, “They’d be getting off cheap.” Finally he was satisfied when Brillstein told him that the most any other parent had gotten was one hundred thousand. Carla nodded to indicate it was okay with her and then said, “Are the doctors telling the truth about Max’s eyes?”

While Brillstein assured her that Max’s eyes should be fine, Manny sulked. “He’s lucky to have eyes,” Manny commented.

As soon as Brillstein left, Manny sat opposite Carla in one of the metal kitchen chairs and said in a bullying tone, “I gotta know something. You gonna go on seeing this nut forever?”

“You want me to stop talking to you again?” Carla said.

Manny picked himself and his chair up while still seated and slammed both down. The metal feet and his shoes made a hard and soft clap of thunder. “You’re taking a fuck of a lotta chances with me, woman!”

“When you get your blood money, Manny—” Carla said in a rage, getting to her feet. The white flash of this anger seemed to blind her momentarily. She blinked hard and Manny reappeared. “You can keep it all to yourself and get the fuck out of my life!” She marched to her room and felt bitterly disappointed.

Manny knocked later, came in without permission, and gave her an espresso. “I’m sorry,” he said in a mumble.

She took the cup. She had been sitting at the window, looking out at the street, wondering about the tourists and rich New Yorkers passing below. Max had once said that walking through Little Italy made those people feel they were in a Godfather movie. She wondered if that was entirely a joke. After a while, she said to Manny, “Thank you.”

Manny studied her while she sipped the coffee. It was good.

“Do you want a TV in here?” he said eventually.

“No thanks,” she said. She liked the room this way, all white and empty except for the small bed, dresser and rocking chair she had kept from the nursery. A television would spoil it.

“You’re my wife,” Manny said quietly.

“Yes, I am,” Carla answered.

Manny nodded and left. She got up early the next morning and made him pancakes. He kissed her with syrupy lips on his way out. He hummed with pleasure and pushed his sweet tongue between her teeth. She eased him out the door.

She cleaned the apartment in an hour. The laundry was done and there was food for dinner. She thought about going to Old Saint Pat’s. She could pray for Max’s eyes.

I need a job, she thought.

Manny would want her to get pregnant again. She didn’t think she could have another child — at least not physically. To raise one, yes; to make one, no. But Manny would never adopt.

Her intercom buzzed. When she asked who it was, she didn’t believe the answer: “Debby Klein. Max Klein’s wife. Could I come up and see you?”

Carla was so taken aback she didn’t reply, she buzzed her in, wandered to the front door in a daze and opened it.