Matthew Salesses: The Hundred-Year Flood

“I heard there was a flood,” she said.

“I’m not okay, by the way.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”

“What were you thinking, Mom? Why did you e-mail me that?”

She asked whether he was hurt. “We can talk about the e-mail later. Is everything all right now?”

He said later he would still be angry. He heard her teeth click together. He wanted something motherly from her, a reassurance that she really had sent the e-mail for his good.

“You’re not physically injured?” she said. “Your body is still intact?”

“My body is still intact. Why didn’t you tell me about her earlier?”

His mother said she didn’t have any facts. He heard oil sizzling. She was flipping an egg, or a pancake, her veined fingers tightening around the spatula. “I mean, I know,” she said, “but I have no proof. Your father would never talk about it. You must know, too.”

His phone slipped in his wet palm. He wished to reach through the line and shake her. He plugged his other ear to hear her better. She walked away from the oil, and her nose whined. “Mom,” he said, finally relenting, “I’m in some other trouble here. With a girl.”

“You got her pregnant,” his mother whispered, as if she, too, thought he had turned into his father.

“I’m trying to talk to you.” Before he could change his mind, he told his mother about the infection and the surgery and the swollen leg so big it was like a planet had split a fault. He said he didn’t know what to do.

“Where are you?” his mother asked.

“In the hospital.”

She asked again if he was okay, and he took his finger out of his ear. “You’re not listening. What’s debridement? Tell me something I need to know.”

“I’m not a doctor.”

She was right. He needed to talk to a doctor. His mother just wanted to know that he was okay.

“I didn’t get anyone pregnant,” he said. “But I am in love with a woman who is older than me, who is from another country. Whatever happened with Dad, those are my feelings. What’s wrong with that?”

His mother was silent.

“I’m okay,” he said. “Thank you for calling me.” He hung up.

He left the waiting room. He had to ignore the language barrier, stop being timid and ashamed. He had to act more American. At the desk, he asked for Katka’s doctor. The nurse replied in Czech, but Tee persisted: “Her doctor. Or tell me her room number. I need to see her.”

Another nurse came and spoke softly with the first, as if Tee was only pretending not to understand. He asked again whenever they paused. At last they made a call, and Katka’s doctor reappeared.

“We are busy,” the doctor said. “I have no time.”

“If you’re here, the surgery must be over,” Tee said.

The doctor said something in Czech, and the nurses averted their eyes. “She rests now,” he told Tee. “Her debridement is — later you see. We need more time with her.”

“I want to see her now,” Tee said.

“No. In this, no agreement.”

Tee stepped forward; a cold breeze rose from somewhere. Then he said, “She’s okay? She’ll be okay? There’s nothing to worry about?”

The doctor picked at his stethoscope.

“Tonight — let me see her tonight.”

“You will see her tonight,” the doctor said, and left.

Tee leaned his elbows on the polished counter. Why had his resolve weakened? The nurse behind the desk touched his arm. She gestured for him to move. Heat flashed back up his body into his neck and face, but not like anger, more like embarrassment. He dropped his arms at his sides. The nurse smiled, understanding or pitying him.

“Okay?” the second nurse asked, her glare, too, disappearing.

Tee brushed his hot cheek. They seemed to wait for him to say something. He turned back toward the waiting room. The nurse who’d offered her help earlier hurried up the corridor, but he shook his head, wishing to be alone.

“Nobody is coming?”

“Which room is she in?” he said. “I need to see my wife.”

“She not your wife,” the nurse said with an accusing smile. “I am checking her papers.” He knew what had happened. Meaning to help, she had found Katka’s emergency contact. “You are not her miláček ,” the nurse said. “I know that name of her miláček .”

“I’m her husband,” Tee said.

“That painter will here soon,” she said. “Who are you?”

He needed her to hear him out — he needed someone to give way. He stepped forward, trying again to assert himself, and she shrank back in sudden fear.

“You know nothing about me,” Tee said quietly. “Where do you get the right to say who I am?”

The nurse couldn’t make him go since Katka wanted him to stay. Maybe the staff anticipated a good fight. Everyone’s eyes seemed to follow him as if they’d bet for or against him. In the waiting room, he took a pen from the side table and weighed his options: he wasn’t leaving, and he wasn’t letting Pavel take her back. He could only acknowledge that he had hurt her, and hurt Pavel, and yet press on. Later, after Katka healed, they would flee together.

The television showed a barge sinking before it could hit a bridge, and policemen cheering. A plane crashed in Tee’s mind.

Sunset was only a few hours off. Tee watched the shadows outside — doctors smoking with their patients — like the creeping fingers of the flood. He remembered how Katka had snapped the last candles, as he pressed the tip of the pen against the table, bending the barrel.

Finally Pavel arrived — with Rockefeller. The smaller and the larger man talked at the desk, presumably about Katka’s health. What was their deal? Forgive and forget? Rockefeller stood to the side of the artist and after a while, went out to smoke, ignoring Tee. When Pavel scraped his casts across the counter, no one stopped him. They knew who he was. Either they recognized him or the nurse had told them.

They would tell Pavel exactly what Katka’s status was. A nurse pointed toward the waiting room and Pavel tensed and looked over his shoulder. Tee tried to keep his face blank. A corner of his stomach clenched, a muscle he hadn’t known he had.

As Pavel entered the waiting room, it went quiet. Heads turned, not to the artist, but to Tee. One of the nurses crossed his arms. Tee plucked at the lip of his jeans pocket, but did not lower his eyes. He imagined how he must look, still in his flood-stained clothes. He’d been exhausted the night before, and in the morning, they’d rushed to the hospital before he could shower. He probably still smelled like the river.

“You hurt her,” he said.

Pavel reddened. “She walking out okay. No flood, no sickness. You did that.”

“I didn’t know.”

Pavel started forward, rubbed his casts together. “I telling nurses you are hurt her.” A child shouted from down the hall.

“That isn’t true,” Tee said loudly. He tried to remember that he was taller than Pavel. “She told them I was her husband. She doesn’t want you here.”

Tee remembered the intensity that seemed to draw the artist’s outer reaches in toward a central point, as Pavel’s jaw clenched. There was a strange sense of déjà vu. The room breathed all at once, sucking in air.

“You say your father hurting people,” Pavel muttered. “Who is hurting people really? You should watching out.” His casts stiffened at his sides, and he stomped out to smoke.

Tee shook. He straightened his back, suddenly aware of his posture. At least it had been quick. He wanted to cry, but he wouldn’t let Pavel hurt him. And then Rockefeller walked in — of course. Tee dared the two of them to do something. Blood rushed to his defense, to his head, his fists. He held on to his anger and righteousness.