but rots you slowly from the inside for the rest of your life. She told me if I
took a drug now, even if I didn’t have children for a decade, they would be
deformed.
“People take drugs for pain,” he said. “It’s normal.”
I must have winced at the word “normal,” because he went quiet. He filled
a glass of water and set it in front of me, then gently pushed the pills forward
until they touched my arm. I picked one up. I’d never seen a pill up close
before. It was smaller than I’d expected.
I swallowed it, then the other.
For as long as I could remember, whenever I was in pain, whether from a
cut or a toothache, Mother would make a tincture of lobelia and skullcap. It
had never lessened the pain, not one degree. Because of this, I had come to
respect pain, even revere it, as necessary and untouchable.
Twenty minutes after I swallowed the red pills, the earache was gone. I
couldn’t comprehend its absence. I spent the afternoon swinging my head
from left to right, trying to jog the pain loose again. I thought if I could shout
loudly enough, or move quickly enough, perhaps the earache would return
and I would know the medicine had been a sham after all.
Charles watched in silence but he must have found my behavior absurd,
especially when I began to pull on my ear, which still ached dully, so I could
test the limits of this strange witchcraft.
Mother was supposed to drive me to BYU the next morning, but during the
night, she was called to deliver a baby. There was a car sitting in the
driveway—a Kia Sephia Dad had bought from Tony a few weeks before. The
keys were in the ignition. I loaded my stuff into it and drove it to Utah,
figuring the car would just about make up for the money Dad owed me. I
guess he figured that, too, because he never said a word about it.
I moved into an apartment half a mile from the university. I had new
roommates. Robin was tall and athletic, and the first time I saw her she was
wearing running shorts that were much too short, but I didn’t gape at her.
When I met Jenni she was drinking a Diet Coke. I didn’t stare at that, either,
because I’d seen Charles drink dozens of them.
Robin was the oldest, and for some reason she was sympathetic to me.
Somehow she understood that my missteps came from ignorance, not
intention, and she corrected me gently but frankly. She told me exactly what I