Page 48 of How to Walk Away

“Afraidof me?”

“Of what you represent. Of how you’ve come to symbolize his weakness and foolishness.”

“Have I?”

“Well, what other explanation can there be?”

“I can’t psychoanalyze Chip right now.” I had my hands full just making it through the day.

“Well, someone has to!”

“Looks like you’re doing a pretty good job.”

My mom set her sandwich down—a gesture that meant we were getting down to business. She started to speak, but then she caught herself, turned to my dad. “You know what, sweetheart? This sandwich is not very good.”

My dad looked at the sandwich.

“I hate to ask, but would you mind going back and getting me a Caesar salad instead?”

My dad had just taken his first bite of his own sandwich. He looked back and forth between it and my mother for a second. “You want me to drive back to the sandwich shop?”

My mother nodded, then gestured at me with her head. “We could use a little just-us-girls time anyway.”

My dad looked at me. Then he nodded and stood up with his sandwich in one hand and his keys in the other and left the room.

My mom leaned closer to me once the door closed, and kept her voice low. “I read an article last night called ‘Sexual Functioning After a Spinal Cord Injury.’”

“Mom! Don’t read that!”

“Because if Chip’s enthusiasm is like his father’s—or any man, really—that’s going to be important to him.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Please don’t talk to me about Jim Dunbar’s ‘enthusiasm.’”

“I’ve been best friends with Evelyn for years, sweetheart. I knoweverything.”

I was shaking my head. “Nope. Please. No.”

“The great news is,” she pushed on, “even though men in your situation often lose sexual abilities, women typically don’t. Which means even if you don’t walk again—which, of course, you will—you’ll still be good to go in that arena.”

Was it worse to talk about Chip’s father’s sexual functioning with my mom—or to talk about mine? Words cannot express how much I did not want to discuss “that arena.” But she had momentum now.

She went on. “You can have babies and everything—typically. In fact,the only trouble most women in your situation have is finding somebody who’s willing to—”

She stopped herself.

“Somebody who’s willing to what?”

But she turned her attention back to her sandwich, wrapping it up like she might save it for later.

“Willing towhat?”

She started again, more carefully. “Women’s level of sexual activity does typically go down, but it’s not that the injury prevents it. It’s that nobody…”

She paused, like she couldn’t say it.

“It’s that nobody wants to fuck them anymore?”

She closed her eyes. “You know I hate that language.”

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