Page 6 of Ice Around the Edges

“No sir, I don’t.”

“Evan, I need to talk to you.”

“Nothing that comes out of your mouth will fix something that happened ten years ago, Dix. Just forget it.”

“I tried, it didn’t take.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I was too tired to hear about his epiphany or to debate with him, so tired, and I needed water and I needed to rest. “Okay.”

“That’s it?”

“Can I have some water?”

“No, you can’t have any fuckin’ water. I wanna know what the hell you’re––”

“Nurse!”

“Shut up,” he growled, and I smiled as he moved around the bed. I didn’t even realize I had closed my eyes until the straw pressing against my bottom lip made me open my mouth. I drank as much as I could and then let my body sink back down into the bed.

“Ev.”

“Go back to New York, Dix,” I mumbled, my eyes fluttering, trying to open but unable to. “It’s okay. I know you couldn’t keep me. I know your father hated me.”

“It’s not true.”

But I was way too tired to keep talking to him. When I felt his lips on my forehead, I sighed deeply. I couldn’t help it.

“I missed you, you stubborn prick.”

I smiled before I fell asleep.

II

I WOKE up and I was alone. Half of me was thrilled that he was gone, but the other half, the sentimental half, was hoping that he would have stayed to at least eat dinner with me and take a stroll down memory lane.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he said as he walked into the room.

Dixon Bain, the man I had not seen in ten years, sailed back into my hospital room looking better in black jeans and a gray crew neck sweater under a leather jacket than he had in the suit earlier.

“You’re still here.”

He held up a bag and jiggled it for me. I saw the name of my favorite Chinese restaurant in the city on the outside. The fact that he remembered, after a decade, made it suddenly hard to breathe.

“I asked,” he said, pulling the sliding hospital table around and setting down the bag. All his movements were always decisive and fast and abrupt. He startled a lot of people but, for some reason, never me. “And they said that kung pao and sweet and sour soup wouldn’t kill you.”

“Thank you,” I said as he continued to arrange the utensils and the take-out containers in front of me. There was a Pepsi for me, too, and that looked like heaven.

He got me situated, moved the pillows around, raised the bed, and when I was comfortable and he was confident of my angle, I was allowed to eat. He sat beside me, but there was nothing for him.

“Dix,” I said his name softly, reverently, “you want some?”

“No, baby, that’s all yours. I ate on my way over.”

The baby had come right back. He was only one year older than me, but always it had been his word for me. I never let any other man use it. “Thanks for thinking of me. This is really nice of you.”

“Yeah, well, what’s the use of storing useless information in your brain if you never use it?”

I smiled up at him.