— Can you? — I slowly walked to the table and picked up a beer bottle. — Well, go on, explain. I’m all ears. I’m especially interested in how you learned to walk in the three hours I was gone. Is this some new breakthrough method?
Stas jumped up.
— Ann, calm down, let’s talk.
— Sit down! — I ordered, not looking at him.
And to my surprise, he sat. I looked my husband straight in the eye. All my pain, all my exhaustion, all my humiliation from the past two years were concentrated in that gaze. The calm before the storm. And I knew this storm would sweep them both away.
Dima opened and closed his mouth like a fish out of water. He tried to say something, but the words stuck in his throat. Stas was the first to recover. He had always been more cunning.
— Ann, you’ve got it all wrong, — he began in a wheedling voice. — This is… this is an experimental treatment, a progressive one. Dima just started to get better a few days ago. We didn’t want to tell you, so as not to jinx it. We wanted to surprise you.
I let out a bitter laugh.
— A surprise? What a wonderful surprise! Especially the beer and chips. Is that part of the therapy, I presume?
— It’s a temporary improvement, — Dima chimed in, grasping at this pathetic straw. — You see, the doctors said this can happen: I can get up, and then I might be bedridden again for years. I’m in shock myself.
He looked at me with pleading eyes, still hoping his lie would work, that I would believe him again, feel sorry for his miserable self again. But there was no pity left in me.
I silently took my phone out of my pocket, found the right file, and played it at full volume. The image of our bedroom appeared on the small screen. And there was Dima, getting out of bed, stretching. And then his own cheerful voice came through the phone’s speaker: “My warden is gone! Finally, damn it, freedom! To hell with the chair! I’ve already forgotten how to sit in it. The main thing is to hold out until the insurance payout, and then we can go to the ends of the earth.”
Dima’s face contorted. He stared at the phone as if it were a venomous snake…
Comments are closed.