Page 86 of What You Wish For

“You’re the best.”

“It’s fine. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“He’s so lucky to have you there. I was supposed to do it, but our ninety-year-old grandma got sick.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Just a touch of pneumonia,” Helen said. “She’s tough as a boot.”

“Hey…” I said. “I saw the scars.”

“Oh,” Helen said. “Well, I’m glad. I never thought he should have worked so hard to keep it from you in the first place.”

“Well he’s not hiding anything right now. They doped him up like crazy.”

“I bet.”

“So…” I said, wanting the full picture, but not sure what questions to ask. “It looks like it was really bad.”

“It was really bad,” Helen confirmed. “He was hit three times. One just grazed him, but another pierced his abdomen, and another punctured his lung. It would have been bad with regular bullets, but these were military, and so they were designed to do as much damage as possible.”

“The scars are…” I paused to look for the right word, but I couldn’t find it. “The scars are awful.”

“They’re from the exit wounds,” Helen said. “The shot to the abdomen destroyed part of his intestine. He wound up getting a blood infection that almost killed him. The shot to his chest punctured his lung—but that’s not even the right way to describe it. Going in, it punctured it, but going out, it pulverized it. They had to cut out a square section of his ribs with a saw to get in there and take out all the bone and tissue, then repair what was left.”

“I’m amazed he didn’t die.”

Helen’s voice was shaky. “He survived, yes.”

“But he’s different now,” I finished for her.

“He can’t talk about it. He won’t come home. He doesn’t want help.”

“He definitely doesn’t.”

“I want to believe that he’s getting better. But I worry he might be getting worse.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him,” I said. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you for being there,” Helen said. And then she added, “Hey—how are the succulents doing?”

I frowned. “You mean—on the windowsill?”

“Yeah.”

I walked over to the kitchen window and assessed the plants on the sill. Even I could tell they were mostly dead. “They are not exactly long for this world,” I said.

“Totally dead or just mostly?”

“I’d say ninety-nine percent dead,” I said. “How do you kill a succulent? They don’t even need water.”

“That’s just it,” Helen said. “He keeps watering them.”

“Doesn’t he know you’re not supposed to water them? Once a month—max.”

“That’s exactly the problem.”

“He’s watering them too much!” I said, getting it now. “He can’t stop watering them. He’s not neglecting them. He’s drowning them!”

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