Excerpt from Waiting to Dive by Karen Rivers
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This is what I got: a red shirt and a blue shirt and two pairs of jeans and a baggy pair of khaki pants and a sweater and a white shirt. The sweater is very cute. It is pale blue and there is a butterfly embroidered on the front. I don’t tell Montana about that because I don’t want her to feel sad that she is here and not out buying new soft clothes with butterflies.
I think she feels sad enough as it is.
I forget to ask her about the magnets, even though that was very important when I came in. I forget, what with all the wires and beeping and the smallness of Montana. It looks like some of the water has been pulled out of her and her skin is a little too big. It’s so weird. I can’t quite get my thoughts straight on the subject of how she looks. It’s very distracting.
Then, before I can ask her, she says, “They cut all my hair off because they couldn’t move me around to wash it and stuff. It was just a mess and it smelled bad and was all in knots. So I told them to cut it off, and they did.”
“Wow,” I say. Because, to tell you the truth, I’m really impressed. I wouldn’t be cutting off my hair for all the tea in China, I’m sure. And my hair is nowhere near as nice as hers was, that’s for certain.
I sit there for a long time, and we don’t say much, until I think maybe she is asleep and I get ready to tiptoe out of the room so I don’t wake her up. She looks very pretty and fragile when she is sleeping, like a china doll.
But I guess my shoes must make a noise, because she wakes up and she calls me back to the bed and says, “It wasn’t your fault, you know. I just dove too deep and hit that big sunken log. I just want you to know that I don’t blame you.”
I hug her very carefully, and think about her steel-rod back and kiss her cheek and say, “I know you don’t.”
But the funny thing is, until she suggested it, it didn’t occur to me that I should feel bad. And now I do.
Boy oh boy. It must be my fault or why would she say that? Why didn’t I think of that right away? I am very worried that maybe I am not a good person. A good person would have noticed right away and said something like, “I’m really sorry I invited you to the cabin and you dove off the rock into a big sunken log and broke your back.”
What kind of friend am I?
Not a very good one, I am sure you are saying. Don’t worry. I’m sure I agree with you. Yes, sir. I sure do.
From Waiting to Dive. Text copyright © 2002, 2007 by Karen Rivers. All rights reserved.
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