Page 68 of Delayed Intention
She drops her knitting and stands to embrace me. It’s loving, warm, and sincere. While I love hugging her, I realize I may never trust that it’s okay to go up and get a hug. Growing up, I’d always have to ask my mother’s permission, and there’s no guarantee she would be in the mood. Of course, she’d be super angry if I didn’t ask. I don’t want to tell Nona all that, however.How is this woman Ellen Mendes’s mother?
“May I ask, what this hug request is about?”
“I love you and I’m so happy to live here. I was talking to Monica and… I’m so grateful to feel at home.”
“I’m glad, dear.” She gets back into her with a small groan. Thinking of the hip fracture, I know I won’t have her here with me forever, and I intend to enjoy every moment I can. She interrupts my thoughts.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Do I? Why not?
“I’m in love with him.” I plop down in the chair next to hers. “He didn’t take that information very well. He said some awful things. He was drunk and angry about his suspension from work.” I lean back in the chair. “I never thought I’d love a man this way. And as of now, I’m not even speaking to him—I need time to focus on myself, to settle down here.”
“I thought you might be. In love with him, I mean. I’m sorry it isn’t a happy experience so far, but I suppose we’ll see. Sometimes these things have a surprising way of working out.”
Based on the trajectory of my life so far, it’s unlikely that this mess will sort itself out into some kind of happy ending. But I’ve been wrong before. One thing I know for sure is I’ve no interest in a man speaking to me the way he spoke to me in that bar. Whatever else happens, I know that much is true.
Frozen
Josh, Estes Park, March 2025
Waking up to the smell of vomit is never a promising start to a new day. Aside from an incident of food poisoning a while ago, it’s been years since I woke up, still drunk, to the smell of my own sick. The odor is worsening my nausea. Despite my near-total dehydration, I can tell I need to run, not walk to the bathroom.
Fuck.
The minute I try to stand, blinding pain strikes my head, displacing the nausea with pure agony. It feels like a brick struck the center of my forehead—am I that dehydrated? Palpating my scalp to search for damage, I find there isn’t any swelling or blood. How many days was I drinking? What day is it now? That’s when I admitted I don’t know if it’s day or night. Squeezing my eyes shut, holding my head in my hands, I hold still, waiting to let my abused body dictate my next move. The pain in my head is nothing compared to a sudden, searing pain in my abdomen, making me wonder if I have pancreatitis rather than merely a hangover. Whatever is on the differential diagnosis for the etiology of my symptoms, I’m not done working through it.
This will go down as one of my top three hangovers of all time, of that, I am sure. Then I remember.
Lily.
I deserve everything coming to me today.
I’ve already had to apologize once for being a thoughtless asshole. Now, however, I’ve fucked it up to the next level. Reviewing the night at the bar, I groan, making my headache worse. What I said, about Ellen, about her… I wouldn’t forgive anyone else for talking to her that way. I’m not sure I’ll be able to forgive myself.
The last time I ruined things, it took a letter combined with the luck of a wedding emergency to reconnect us. But now?
My time for procrastinating running to the bathroom is over, no matter how much pain I’m in. I grab a water bottle Lily must have left out for me on my dresser and relocate to the bathroom floor. The cool tile provides minimal relief, but I will take it where I can.
I wake, sometime later, lying on my side with a pillow clutched to my chest and Ginger staring at me from the bathroom entrance.
“Hey,” I croak out to my dog. I need to feed her, but I’d have to crawl to the kitchen. I considered if I could make it to the clinic to start an IV bolus on myself. Unlikely that I can make it more than a block without collapsing in the street. I laugh at myself, igniting another headache, this time behind my right eye. I can see the headline now: “Disgraced Former Physician Dies Along the Fall River Because He Was a Drunk Asshole Who Lived Alone.”
I hear the front door of my house open, along with the padding of Ginger’s feet tapping on the hardwood floor. Whoever it is, Ginger seems to know them. Or she’s decided to trade me in for a newer, better model. Who could blame her?
With that thought, a familiar male voice—complete with a Boston accent—calls my name. My brother-in-law, Alan, comes into the master bathroom to find me in my current state on the floor.
“There you are. Maybe not your finest hour my brother.” Alan’s accent turns all of his r’s intoah’sand I wonder if I am having a particularly detailed hallucination.
“You really here?” I ask from the floor.
“Your sister worried when she couldn’t raise you on the phone.”
“Yeah, I don’t even know where it is.”
“Can you get up? You sick?”
“Sick from being drunk is all. Can’t hold anything down. I can get up if you help me.”
