Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest

“It’s not too bad,” Matilda lied. On good days, Matilda’s nonexistent foot would tingle or just feel like it was there, its ghostly presence driving her crazy. But on bad days it hurt to distraction. Today, it felt like needles were piercing her nonexistent foot. For weeks, she’d had a persistent itch on one of her missing toes. She found herself in the ludicrous position of fantasizing about amputating a foot that didn’t exist.

“Sit down,” Vinnie said, placing the pizza on her kitchen table. “Take a slice while it’s hot. You can eat while we do this.”

She reluctantly sat on one of her kitchen chairs. Took a slice and blew a little before she bit into it. “How did you manage to get it here while it’s still hot?” she asked him.

“Trade secret,” he said.

“What’s in the sauce that makes this so good anyway?”

“Nice try. We can talk my miracle sauce later. Let’s do some work.”

Vinnie had been talking about mirror therapy for weeks, and Matilda thought it sounded ridiculous, like voodoo. Still, he was in front of her and he’d carted a mirror all the way to her house, so she reluctantly did what he said. She straightened her knees and let Vinnie position the mirror between them so that when she looked down, she saw her intact foot on one side and its mirrored image on the other. “Oh,” she said.

“Move your left foot,” Vinnie said. She did and the optical illusion was of two perfect feet, moving in concert. “Scratch your toe,” he said, “the one that’s been itching.”

“How?”

He pointed. “Scratch the itchy spot on your left foot, but keep looking in the mirror.”

She leaned over and gently scratched. “Oh my God,” she said. “It helps.” She scratched harder. “I can’t believe it helps. I don’t understand.”

“Nobody understands, really. The simple way to think about it is that you’re helping rewire the old signals in your brain. You’re teaching your brain a new story.”

She moved her foot to the left and to the right, flexed and pointed and flexed again. She wiggled her toes. She rotated her ankle and the foot in the mirror, her missing foot, seemed like it was back and was working. She scratched again, it helped again. “It already feels better,” she said. “Not great but different.”

“Good. Four or five times a week for fifteen minutes. And use the mirror whenever the foot hurts or itches. Got it?”

Matilda nodded and smiled. “It sounded so stupid,” she said. “I didn’t want to go buy a mirror just to do something that sounded so dumb. Thank you, Papi,” she said. She spoke softly and put a light hand on his shoulder. “Thank you for bringing the mirror.”

“It’s temporary,” Vinnie said, standing abruptly. The charge that shot through his arm, his chest, and other places he didn’t want to dwell on when Matilda touched him was dismaying.

“I’ll buy my own. You can have this back—”

“No, no,” he said. “I don’t mean the mirror is temporary; it’s yours. I bought it for you. I mean you still need to deal with the underlying problem.” He sounded angrier than he intended. Matilda was frowning. He took a breath. Stop. Rewind. He started again, keeping his voice even. “The mirror is just a temporary fix is what I meant.”

In her heart, Matilda knew Vinnie was right. Of all the things people had said to her over the past six months, all the useless advice and meaningless platitudes ( God never gives you more than you can handle, everything happens for a reason) and quoting of Bible verses, what Vinnie said about elective amputation and losing her ankle made the most sense. Matilda grew up knowing that you didn’t get anything without giving something up. In her world, that was the prevailing logic. It was just a matter of knowing how much you were willing to lose, how many pounds of flesh, which in her case would be literal. (“If thy foot offend thee, cast it off”— that Bible verse she understood.)

When she was in rehab, one of the nurses told her Vinnie was someone they called a “superuser.” He healed so swiftly and learned so fast that he’d been chosen to test the cutting-edge prosthetic he wore. And here she was, barely able to hobble around on her clunky, ugly rubber foot. She was the opposite of Vinnie. She wasn’t a superuser, she was a superloser.

But more surgery, more rehab, better prosthetics? It would all cost money. A lot of money. “I don’t have that kind of insurance. I don’t have that kind of money, and I don’t know anyone who does,” Matilda said. She sounded defeated, resigned.

“Yes, you do,” Vinnie said. “You do.”

IT HAD TAKEN VINNIE A FEW TRIES,but before he took the mirror to Matilda, he’d managed to convince her cousin Fernando to meet with him privately. Fernando was suspicious at first and Vinnie quickly realized the source of all the wariness, the secrecy and protectiveness around Matilda: fear of deportation. Vinnie slowly pulled the story from Fernando — the wedding, the ride in the fancy car, the emergency room, the hastily called meeting in an attorney’s office only days later, the rush to sign papers and take the check, the refusal to fight Leo Plumb in court or insist on an insurance claim. The family wanted to avoid a police report because a police report would mean that Matilda’s parents — and Fernando’s mother who was also illegal, not to mention most of the rest of their extended family — would come to the attention of the immigration authorities, as George Plumb had repeatedly threatened, according to Fernando. Vinnie tried to understand exactly what kind of agreement Matilda had signed (in the hospital, hopped up on morphine; it was ridiculous, a travesty). He finally convinced Fernando that a conversation with Leo Plumb was not going to incite legal action. “I just want to have a friendly chat with him,” Vinnie said.

Fernando had burst out laughing. “You understand why that doesn’t sound entirely plausible to me?” Fernando had almost punched Vinnie the day he’d yelled at Matilda in the pizza parlor; he didn’t trust the guy.

“I swear to you,” Vinnie said. “On my mother’s grave. I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Matilda. You have to believe me. I would never, ever bring harm to Matilda.”

Fernando did believe that part because Vinnie was clearly head over heels. And Fernando also felt a not-insignificant amount of guilt about the weeks following the accident. He had panicked; they all had. He’d been blinded by the sum of money the Plumbs were offering as much as anyone and was ashamed to think of how Matilda had helped him pay off some of his law school loans. He’d been so relieved, he’d barely protested.

“Okay,” he finally said to Vinnie. “But you have to tell Matilda what you’re planning and she has to agree. Promise me you will tread carefully.”

“You have my word,” Vinnie said. He wasn’t scared of anyone, and the mysterious Leo Plumb sure didn’t intimidate him. He respected Fernando’s hesitation, but he knew without ever having to meet him what kind of a person Leo Plumb was: He was a fucking coward.

Matilda was so full of shame about the night of the accident she couldn’t see clearly, but Vinnie could. What kind of person leaves his wife at a wedding and lures a young girl out to his car with a lie? What kind of person doesn’t even think twice about driving given his blood alcohol and drug levels? What kind of person doesn’t fucking apologize and check on the girl who, because of his spectacular hard-on, no longer has a foot? A coward, that’s who. And here was another thing Vinnie knew about cowards: They were easy to break.

Vinnie had a plan. He was going to request a meeting with Leo Plumb and make it clear they weren’t after money, because they weren’t. Vinnie wanted access. He’d done his research and he knew Leo had traveled in the right circles. Leo could put Matilda in touch with the right people and help her with any number of programs where she would get assistance with her prosthetics, including further surgery if necessary. He wanted Leo to pull some strings, and he wasn’t going to give him a choice. He was going to make it clear that he wasn’t afraid to expose him for the coward he was. He’d put on his uniform, stand with Matilda at his side, and humiliate Leo Plumb until he buckled. Leo could come after him and Vinnie would welcome that fight, but he’d never have to engage. Because the other thing he knew about cowards? They were most afraid of being unmasked. This was going to be easy.