“What’s wrong?” Travis asked.
“That was Megan’s doctor,” I told him. Travis’s eyes went wide, and he stood halfway up before I shook my head. “She’s okay. I just forgot tomorrow was our day to go up there. I didn’t even say anything to Mayra about it.”
“Is she going with us?” Travis asked. His brow furrowed a bit.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t asked her. I want her to meet Megan, though. Well, I sort of do.”
“You and Mayra getting pretty serious?” It was more of a statement than a question.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Travis sighed.
“I want to talk to her first,” he stated.
“What? No! Why?” I didn’t know what Travis was thinking about saying to her, and though they were definitely getting along better now than they were initially, it wasn’t exactly what you would call a friendship.
“Matthew…you know you and Megan together are…well…”
“Are what?” I asked.
“Different,” Travis said. “I think Mayra needs a little prep, and I think I need to give it to her.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I told him.
“I know,” he said. “That’s why I’m the one that needs to talk to her.”
“As long as I’m there, too.”
“If you want.”
Mayra came over later that evening with her hair tied up on the top of her head—still wet from her post-practice shower—and wearing a white tank top. It was a little bit low-cut, and I could see the strap of her bra when she moved a certain way. We had been doing a lot of making out shirtless this week, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t seen that particular bra on her before. I wondered if it was one of those with a tiny pink flower in the center.
She didn’t seem overly thrilled about Travis still being there and was definitely skeptical when he said he wanted to talk to her. I thought I’d better fill her in before he got started.
“I forgot, but tomorrow is the day I go visit Megan in Cincinnati.” I ran my hand through my hair. I was just about due for another haircut, and I wondered if Mayra would do it for me again. I tugged at the ends and glanced up at her. “Do you want to go meet her?”
“I’d love to,” Mayra said with a smile.
“That’s why we have to talk,” Travis said. “There are some things you need to know.”
“O…kay…” Mayra eyed him warily. “Let’s talk.”
I made our customary Cokes, and we all sat down in the living room. I sat next to Mayra on the couch, and she reached over to take my hand. I really didn’t know what Travis wanted to tell Mayra, but I was definitely nervous. Sometimes I didn’t remember much about my visits with Megan, and Travis would often ask me about things I didn’t recall.
“I know Matthew’s told you a bit about Megan,” Travis started.
“I know she’s autistic but more severe than Matthew,” Mayra said. “I’ve done a little research online about it since Matthew and I started going out.”
“Good,” Travis said. “Then maybe you’ll be a bit more prepared.”
“Prepared?” she questioned.
“Matthew and Megan are very close,” Travis said. “Closer than you might expect, considering the severity of Megan’s autism. She’s never really talked to anyone and has never called any of us by our names—”
“She said ‘mom’ once,” I said, reminding him.
“True,” Travis agreed. “Just that once, as far as I know. But for the most part, she doesn’t communicate with anyone, but when Megan and Matthew are together, Matthew is…well, different.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You two get in your own little world with each other,” Travis said with a wave of his hand. “Sometimes you stop responding to everyone around you and just focus on her. I don’t want Mayra to be unprepared. It’s not the same as when he’s having an attack, but it kind of looks like it in a way. It’s hard to explain. I used to think they were both telepathic and talking through each other’s heads or something.”
“We’re not.” I scowled. I did remember various conversations throughout the years about Megan and me together, but I didn’t really think much of it. I just liked to give her my attention when I was there, like we did when we were kids.
Travis continued to talk, but I wasn’t paying close attention to what he was saying. I had just noticed that Mayra’s tank top had shifted again, and I could almost see the birthmark next to the strap of her bra. Almost.
“So, no need for me to be worried about him?” Mayra inquired. “Is that what you mean?”
“Pretty much,” Travis answered. He scratched the back of his head and glanced around the room nervously. “I just wanted you to know since…well, since you’re with Matthew and…and, well…part of the family, I guess.”
“Travis Rohan!” Mayra placed her hand over her heart and used the other one to fan her face. “I do declare! You are warming up to me!”
They both laughed, but the humor was lost on me. I was glad they were getting along better, but I was mostly wondering if I could see the fish-mark on Mayra’s skin if I just shifted my position. I leaned in close to Mayra and tilted my head a little in an attempt to see under her shirt a little better. Mayra suddenly shoved me with her shoulder, snapping me out of it.
Travis’s laughter turned to howls, and he quickly excused himself to go to the bathroom. Mayra covered her mouth, and I knew I had been caught. I shrugged and wrapped my arm around Mayra’s shoulders. I pulled her a little closer, which made the tank top sleeve and her bra strap bunch up, revealing the birthmark.
I couldn’t resist the opportunity, so I reached over and poked the fish.
~oOo~
Mayra and I sat in the back seat of Bethany’s car while she and Travis rode in the front. Beth drove slowly even though she liked going faster. She knew it made me nervous. Travis played with the controls for the radio as we went in and out of the reach of various stations’ signals between Oxford and Cincinnati.
Mayra had come over early to try to help me get myself together for the trip, but I wasn’t having the best of days. Nothing I tried to say came out right, and she was starting to give me strange looks. At this point, she was leaning her head against my shoulder and staying pretty quiet. I had the feeling she figured out I didn’t feel much like talking.
My head was filled with memories of Megan.
I remembered the day I realized she was different from me. I had received a pile of Mighty Beanz for my birthday, and Megan and I were sitting on the kitchen floor and spinning them around in circles. While we were playing, Megan suddenly stood up and started spinning around in circles herself. That wasn’t so odd, but she wouldn’t stop even after she hit the refrigerator door with her head, and her head started to bleed.
I had asked Mom why she did that, and that’s when she told me Megan was different from other people, and that was why she liked clocks so much. I knew about that, of course—Megan would take any kind of clock or watch and hide it under her bed. Sometimes she would even crawl under there with them and listen to them tick. I went under there with her once, and we both stayed there listening to the ticking until Mom made us stop.
“Oh yeah,” I muttered, startling Mayra. “Here.”
I handed Mayra a small wristwatch.
“What’s this?”
“It was…um…it was my mom’s,” I told her. “Megan likes clocks and watches. If she sees you wearing one…well, she might like you, too.”
I held up my own arm and showed her I was also wearing one. Mayra slipped the watch around her wrist, and I helped her get the tiny little pin through the hole in the strap so it would stay on.
“Thank you,” Mayra said quietly. She kissed the edge of my jaw, which made me shiver a little.
The building where Megan lived was tall, white, and surrounded by gardens. It was a warm and clear day, and after I got all the paperwork signed, one of the a
ides helped us find Megan. She was sitting in the grass outside, and a group of young kids was nearby. A woman was blowing bubbles for them. Some of the kids watched and tried to touch the bubbles, but others just stared into space or played with their fingers.
Megan was sitting behind a wooden bench and away from the rest of the group. Her dark hair was hanging in her eyes as she looked down at a line of ants carrying little crumbs through the grass. Dr. Harris was sitting on the bench and writing in a notebook.
“Hello, Matthew,” she said. She reached out to shake my hand, and after a few seconds, I remembered I was supposed to do the same. Our hands touched briefly before she moved to Travis and Bethany. “And who is this?”
Taking my eyes off Megan for a moment, I looked in the direction of the doctor’s gaze.
“That’s Mayra,” I told her.
“It’s good to meet you, Mayra,” Dr. Harris said with a smile.
“Good to meet you, too,” Mayra replied. “I’m Matthew’s girlfriend.”
“Are you now?” Dr. Harris’s smile widened, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I took a step toward my sister.
“She’s not having a great day,” I heard the doctor say to Travis. “I think most of her breakfast ended up on the floor. She hasn’t talked for a while, either. The new medication she’s been on was helping for a while, and I thought we were making some progress with communication, but she hasn’t said a word since yesterday.”
I moved away from the rest of them and went up to Megan. My skin felt like it was vibrating as I approached my sister. It was like all the hairs on my arm were standing up and pointing toward her, drawing me closer. She didn’t move or say anything, just continued to watch the ants.
Slowly, I sat down beside her on the ground and leaned close to her but not quite touching. I raised my hand and held my wrist near her ear. The ants continued their journey—half of them empty-handed and heading in one direction, the other half heading the opposite way with tiny white crumbs in their mandibles.
After a few minutes, Megan moved.
She reached out and grabbed my wrist, bringing it around to her face so she could see the dial of the watch I wore. At the same time, she leaned closer to me.
“This clock has Roman numerals,” Megan said quietly.
“How do ants tell time?” I asked her.
“They don’t have any watches their size,” Megan replied.
“So how do they know when to go home?”
“There are four clocks in my room.” Megan used her finger to trace over the smooth face of the watch on my wrist. “Four clocks.”
“Four clocks,” I repeated. “One is green.”
“My brother has green eyes.”
I froze and my muscles tensed. I felt heat on my neck and pressure behind my eyes. I could count the times she said the word brother on one hand.
“I’m right here,” I whispered. She didn’t say anything else, but we leaned against each other a bit more. The ants continued their tasks, regardless of timepieces. As the sky darkened, they disappeared into their holes, and I felt pressure against my shoulder.
“It’s time to go, Matthew.”
I looked up to see Travis. Behind him was Mayra with a strange expression on her face. I pulled my hand away from Megan slowly, and Megan’s hands fell away from my wrist.
“Megan has to meet Mayra,” I said.
Mayra took a step toward me but hesitated. I reached out and took her hand to guide her closer to my sister, then pulled her down so we were both sitting beside Megan.
“Megan, this is Mayra.” I took Megan’s hand with my right and Mayra’s hand in my left to bring them closer together. Megan noticed the watch on Mayra’s wrist immediately and latched onto it. “Mayra, this is my sister, Megan.”
“Hi, Megan,” Mayra said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Megan didn’t respond but focused intently on the watch around Mayra’s wrist. Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth turned into a scowl.
“Not right,” she growled, and I felt Mayra tense up a little beside me. “Not right, not right…”
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered.
“What is it?” Travis asked.
“I think she recognizes Mom’s watch,” I said.
Megan was clearly getting upset and began to rock herself back and forth, crashing her head against the bench at the same time and still repeating the same words over and over. Dr. Harris came over, and we brought Megan back to her room.
“Are you going to have to sedate her?” I heard Bethany ask.
“Hope not to,” Dr. Harris replied. “Maybe Matthew can calm her down.”
The aide moved away from Megan, where she was sitting on the edge of her bed. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and she continued to rock.
“Megan,” I said softly as I held my wrist back up to her ear. She turned and grabbed at it, holding it to her stomach and pulling me onto the bed beside her.
“Not right,” she said again. For a brief moment, she looked up to my face. Her focus was on my mouth or chin, not my eyes, but it was pretty close for her. She spoke very, very softly, so no one else could hear her. “You’re supposed to give her a ring, not a watch.”
I couldn’t believe my ears, so I just laughed.
Spending time with Megan was always a win day, but it was also over too soon. I said goodbye without Megan even acknowledging me and started to head out.
“Matthew, do you have a minute?”
I turned around and saw Dr. Harris standing in the doorway to her office. We were almost to the lobby and the doors that headed to the parking lot. I glanced over at Travis, and he nodded.
“We’re not going to get back until late anyway,” he said with a shrug.
I followed the doctor into her office and sat down in the chair on the other side of her desk. Something about Dr. Harris’s office always put me on edge. Maybe it was because we always talked about Megan here, and it wasn’t always good news, or maybe it was because I knew I could have ended up in the same place—locked away from the rest of the world the same way Megan was.
Warm guilt slid over my skin at the thought, and I wished there had been some way for me to keep Megan at home with me. There wasn’t. Even if I didn’t have my own issues, I couldn’t take care of Megan and go to school at the same time. The only other option we had briefly considered was having Bethany or Travis quit their jobs to care for Megan, but there was just no way to do that and get the bills paid.
With these thoughts in my head, I rubbed the pad of my right thumb over each fingernail on my left hand—swooping over them from cuticle to edge. Once I had gone over each one, I switched to my left thumb and right-handed fingernails. I went back and forth until the doctor spoke.
“How are you, Matthew?” Dr. Harris asked.
“Fine,” I replied.
Dr. Harris had never been my actual doctor, but over the years of treating Megan—first as an outpatient and then here at the center—she knew as much about me as my other doctors did. I hadn’t seen any other doctors since Mom had died, and Dr. Harris knew that. When I came to visit Megan, she always wanted to know how I was doing as well.
“Just fine?”
I glanced up at her briefly and saw her smile. I went back to rubbing my fingernails.
“Mayra seems nice,” Dr. Harris prompted.
I nodded.
“Will you tell me a little about her?”
A thousand different things went through my head about Mayra. I thought about how patient she was and how she would wait for me to be ready whether it was to say something, to go inside a new place, or to take our relationship further. I thought about how good it felt to have someone who would listen to me without being obligated to do so and without getting tired of waiting for me to get to the point. I thought about how she didn’t seem to mind some of the weird shit I did, even when we both knew it was weird, and how it felt when she ran her fingers through my hair and laughed at the same tele
vision shows.
“She plays soccer,” was what came out of my mouth.
“She’s athletic, then.”
“Yes,” I replied with a nod. “I watch her team practice.”
“That’s a new activity,” she said. “What was it like to do that for the first time?”
I thought about it for a while, the memory of pacing back and forth at the back doors of the school, looking out the window at the girls on the field, and not knowing for sure if I could go out there. Then I had seen Mayra run by in a tight T-shirt and a very short pair of shorts, and I managed to convince myself that I would have a better view from the stands.
“Mayra makes new things…a little easier.”
“You seem very close,” she said, and I nodded. “She seems very attentive and protective of you, as well.”
I nodded again.
“You’re also protective of her,” the doctor said. “You made the papers here in Cincinnati, you know.”
I felt my neck heat up and dropped my gaze to the floor. There was a little piece of paper—the wrapper from a piece of candy, maybe—on the floor under the doctor’s desk. I tilted my head a little to see if I could read what was printed on the cellophane.
“Matthew…” The doctor reached over and placed her palm flat on the desk right in front of my face. “What you did was incredibly brave and selfless. Do you understand what that means?”
I shook my head.
“For the first time in your life, you are thinking about someone outside of your own family before yourself. You’ve done enough research to know how difficult it can be for you to connect with someone outside those you have known all your life. Think about how long it took you to warm up to Bethany.”
“Mayra bakes cakes,” I said quietly, and Dr. Harris laughed.
“Your consistency remains,” she said with a kind smile. After a moment of silence, she spoke again. “What did Megan say to you in her room? What did she say that made you laugh?”
“Um…” I chuckled again. “She said I got Mayra the wrong thing. I was supposed to give her a ring, not a watch.”
The doctor’s eyes went wide.
“That’s what she said to you?”