A. Homes - May We Be Forgiven

“You look a lot like your brother,” one of the soldiers says, like that explains it.

I don’t even ask where the Israeli is but notice that one of the unmarked vans is gone. “Are we done here? Am I free to go?”

“Yes,” Walter says. “And don’t forget to get gas.”

I am escorted to the thruway. There is an eerie absence of traffic. I fly towards home at eighty miles an hour. I would go faster, but anything over eighty elicits a disturbing rattle.

Shivering, I turn on the heat — nothing happens. I reach down; the car seat is damp. I flick on the map light and see the seat is dark with blood.

Outside, the sky is beginning to lighten. I’m not sure what time it is — the car’s clock is frozen at three-forty-three. Just before my exit, I take a detour, pulling in at the local hospital. From the parking lot I text Ricardo’s aunt to say it’s all taking much longer than planned and notice six missed calls — messages from Ashley and Ricardo saying hello, telling me jokes, wondering when I’m coming home.

A security guard comes to the window. “No standing,” he says. “Patient parking only.” He points to a sign.

“My ass is bleeding,” I announce, getting out of the car. The guard escorts me to the triage nurse.

“What happened?” the nurse asks.

“I’ve been shot,” I say, and then faint, falling flat to the floor. I come to facedown on a gurney with my ass up in the air, and someone is taking photos. I overhear that they’ve already gotten an X-ray and that luckily there’s no shrapnel to be found.

“We’re going to clean it up,” the doctor says. “There’s really nothing to sew.”

“I got a new digital camera for Christmas; I could bring the old one in,” someone says.

“What’s the resolution?” another guy asks.

“No idea, but it’s better than this piece of crap.”

They’re talking supply chain while my ass is up in the air. The one guy bends down and speaks directly to me. “We’re going to put some numbing medicine on your tushy and clean it up,” he says. “The wound was deep.”

“What happened?” a second asks, bending down.

“I don’t really know,” I say. “It was like Deliverance met The Shining .”

“Do you want to file a police report?”

“No,” I say, “I’d like to keep it private.”

As soon as I say that, I can tell they’re thinking it was some kind of sexual assignation gone wrong.

“There are a couple of questions we need to ask,” one of the doctors says, bending down so we’re eye to eye. “Are you safe in your home? Is anyone hurting you, or otherwise abusing you? You don’t need to feel ashamed about answering these questions. …”

“Do I look ashamed? I really have nothing to say. I don’t know who it was.”

I am given a card for a men-only abuse hotline, a giant shot of antibiotics, and a tetanus shot, and, just like goddamned George, my arm swells: as I’m leaving the ER, I can already feel a hot baseball forming under the skin.

I take the car through a car wash and ask if there’s anything they can do about the car seat — maybe steam-clean? “Hit a deer,” I say, shaking my head.

“Guess so,” the guy says, looking at me funny, noticing the blood all over my pants. “Was it inside the car?”

“It was enormous,” I say.

When I get to the house, a large “WELCOME HOME” sign written in multicolored bubble letters is mounted on the front door. Ashley, Ricardo, and Christina have clearly been up most of the night and are looking at me with great concern.

“Was there an accident?” the aunt asks.

“Did you go see Dad? Did he beat you up?” Ashley wants to know.

“You look crazy,” Ricardo offers.

“Let’s just say it was quite an adventure.” I excuse myself, take a shower, have some Tylenol, eat a giant breakfast, and promptly fall asleep.

“I called in sick,” Christina says in the afternoon, when she comes to check on me. “I couldn’t leave you and the children like this.”

I nod and fall back asleep, facedown — arm throbbing, ass stinging.

I can’t say I’m entirely surprised when a state trooper comes to the door that evening to ask me about a hit-and-run forty miles away. He comes right out and says it: “My brother-in-law works at the car wash and is really into these crime-solver shows. …”

“I get it,” I say, handing him Walter Penny’s card. He calls Walter, and despite the late hour Penny answers and explains that it was a special operation and, yes, there was damage to both the person and the vehicle, but in general it went well, and he has no further comment.

“You’re like an operative — cool, very cool,” the trooper says, hanging up. “I’m going to have a hard time not telling the brother-in-law.”

“I’m really just a former professor who sometimes gets dragged in over my head.”

“Are you coming to the wedding?” my mother asks, near the end of my visit.

“When are you getting married?”

“Soon,” she says. “And why are you just standing there?” she asks. “You’ve been standing there for more than an hour with an awful expression on your face.”

“I have an injury,” I say. “Sitting is difficult at the moment.”

“Hemorrhoids?” she asks.

“No,” I say. “Is the wedding definite?”

“What kind of a question is that?”

“Are you really going to marry him?”

“Isn’t that why I asked you?”

“I think so,” I say. “But what do you two have in common?”

“We’re old,” she says. “And we both have a love of motion. We like to play catch — they give us these Nerf balls. We love to throw them back and forth. And bingo,” she says. “I help him with his cards. He doesn’t see so well — he lost an eye playing golf years ago — and he has a ringing sound in his head that he’s had for years.”

“That’s what you like about him?”

“We want to move in together,” she says.

“I have no problem with that. And, so you know, you and your friend are always welcome to come and live at home.”

“With you?” she says. “You’re a slob. I was so happy when you moved out of my house. Why should I leave my condo to come to you and have to cook and clean? I’m happy here.”

“Marriage is something to take seriously.”

“It’s not such a big deal,” my mother says nonchalantly. “I’ve done it before.

So,” she says, “I’ll put you down as a yes?”

I say goodbye and hurry down the hall, hoping to catch someone from the nursing-home administration before they leave for the day. “Excuse me, who do I talk to about your policy on inter-patient marriage?” I get an old-fashioned runaround, lots of hemming and hawing, and finally someone comes out and says it: “We don’t like unmarried couples to room together.”

“That’s the least of my worries,” I say, wondering if my mother and her husband-to-be are in their right minds. “There are estate issues to be concerned about. Should there be a prenup? At their age, shouldn’t this be more of a family decision?”

“Do you have power of attorney?” someone from the home asks. “Are you prepared to have her declared incompetent?”

“Look, I’ve only met the man in question twice, and he’s already calling me ‘son.’ I’m not sure what I’m prepared to do.”

“On occasion,” the social worker chimes in, “we have facilitated commitment ceremonies complete with real flowers, cake, dress-up, and someone who does a little ceremony. That seems to do the trick. We tell the couple that the person performing the ceremony is not recognized by the state but that it costs less than an official wedding. I have the couple and their families sign a release stating that the ceremony is not binding and that, should the couple break up or either or both members die, there is no right of survivorship, no community property, and so on. The paralegal who does the DNR paperwork can help you with that.”