the post-op instructions, and it looks like I’m supposed to. Just in case.”
“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!”
“Poor Duncan,” Helen said. “Can’t escape it. He’s a nurturer.”
I considered that for a second. “I really miss the guy he used to be,” I said.
“Oh, God, so do I,” Helen said. “And you know what? I think he does, too.”
* * *
When it was time, I brought Duncan a mug of soup and a heavy-duty painkiller.
He was all wrapped up in his blankets, shirt still off, curled up on his side.
“Hey,” I said, gently, touching him on the shoulder. “Time to drink some soup and take your medicine.”
He sat up, slowly. I tried to hand him the mug, but instead he shuffled off to pee, and then spent some time brushing his teeth. The door wasn’t entirely closed. Through the crack, I could see his elbow moving.
“Why do you have a whole windowsill of dead succulents?” I asked.
I saw him lean down and spit. “They’re not dead. Yet. Not quite.”
“I mean, how do you kill a succulent? All you have to do is just not water them.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is easy.”
“Not for me,” Duncan said, leaning his head back to gargle.
“Here’s my advice,” I said. “Every time you feel the urge to water them … don’t water them.”
He spat in the sink, rinsed his mouth, washed his face, and shuffled back into the room. He was shirtless still, and the sight of him as he perched on the bed’s edge, lit from the side by the light in the hall, was so dissonant: his shoulders and arms just covered in muscles, and his side covered in scars. A picture of health—and destruction.
“Thank you for being here,” he said.
I handed him the mug of soup. “Drink as much of this as you can.”
Duncan took it. Then he said, “My sister keeps sending me the succulents. I know I shouldn’t water them. But I keep doing it anyway.”