Coda (Songs of Submission #9) by CD Reiss

Author:CD Reiss [Reiss, CD]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flip City Media Inc.
Published: 2015-03-16T23:00:00+00:00

chapter 19.

JONATHAN

Laurelin puttered around the kitchen, putting ingredients into two blender jars that were meant to hold me for two days. She put measured portions of vitamins, greens, milk, powdered puke, and dried shit into a healthful grotesquerie of layers that would be in the fridge for my reluctant consumption.

I didn’t have to think about it. I just had to blend it and choke on it. She’d already taken my blood pressure (one-ten over seventy), drawn blood (a monthly task), and hooked me up to an EKG (looked good). The meds for the week were set out so I didn’t have to count them. The privilege of money. I could pay someone to keep me from the mundanities of my illness.

“Where’s he taking you?” I asked.

“We’re driving up to Monterey,” she replied in a singsong voice. “Donny is staying with Grandma, so it’s kind of a last hurrah before I get huge.”

“Good for him.”

“I have everything you need here until Wednesday. Then you follow this list on the fridge to make new. I’d make them for you for the whole ten days, but the ingredients are perishable.”

“I wish they’d perish,” I said in passing just to make a joke. I was looking at the news on a tablet and was on humor autopilot.

“Oh stop. Be cheerful.” I looked up at her to see her holding up her finger. “Twenty years ago, you’d be the one who perished. And when you complain, people think you won’t do with you’re supposed to when they’re gone.” She winked and went back to arranging my fridge.

“Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Attitude is everything.” More lilting vowels to express something serious. “You missed a few days in your log.” She flicked her wrist at my little blue leather book. “You need to take it with you everywhere. Even if you’re going to a restaurant.”

I rolled my eyes and immediately felt like an adolescent or worse. I ran through the international news as if the tablet was on fire, trying to not feel over-mothered. I hired her to do this. I couldn’t get mad about it. “Okay,” was all I could get out.

“What is this?” She took a plastic container out of the crisper and held it at my eye level.

I looked at it then back at the tablet. “Monica’s Brazilian chimichuri. Her mother was over the other night. The two of them ate it like… I don’t know.” I waved my hand. “They slather it on everything like they’re trying to scald their faces. It’s blowtorch-hot.”

“Oh, that sounds good.”

“Does spicy food bother you? With the pregnancy?”

“Nope.”

“Take it then.” I scrolled through the financials. “We have two.”

“Really?” She peeled the top off and took a whiff. “Oh my God, this smells so good.” She put it under my nose, and I pushed her away. “Oh, I forgot. Well, I understand. Donny doesn’t like spicy food either.” She put the container in her bag of medicinal crap.

“Donny’s three,” I said.

Laurelin shrugged. “He’s a good boy.” She patted my shoulder.

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