Coe Review

something from me that others rarely see, a need to nurture, a need to give.
At Pemberton Laboratories I test hair, blood and tissue samples for defense
attorneys and write uninspiring reports—there are few opportunities to
practice my benevolence.
I learned about caring at the age of eleven, when I found a sparrow with
a broken wing and kept it in a shoe box on a shelf in the garage. I fed my
secret pet for weeks, until it died one Saturday morning. I cried in my room
afterwards, stunned by its death and the loss of the magic that moved its
eyes and opened its mouth to accept pieces of milk-soaked bread. The tiny
body quickly stiffened. I buried it behind the garage then sat under a tree,
weak from the weight of helplessness. Not only was my bird gone, but also
my mission to keep it alive.
Annie reaches out for my hand. I pull her up from the chair, and then
support her as we make our way to the bedroom. She sits on the edge of the
bed and wiggles out of her jeans. I roll up my sleeves and turn on a portable
heater. As I light several candles, I catch my reflection in the glass of a framed
Monet print across the room. At fifty-two I'm someone you'd ignore on
the street, an average man with a turtleneck sweater, a conservative haircut
and a hawk-like nose. Not someone who cheats on his wife. But then I ask
myself, is this cheating?
I peek at Annie's bottom as she climbs over the bed, and then mix
eucalyptus and castor oil in a small metal bowl. Carefully swirling the liquid,
I warm it over the flame of a candle, and its sappy fragrance brings the past
nine months to life. The sweltering summer days with the ceiling fan above
us. The afternoons late last spring, when I pushed open the window to allow
the perfumed scent of lilacs to enter the room.
Our visits began on a frigid evening in January, when I found Annie
slumped on the sidewalk. She had fallen on the ice, and blood leaked from a
cut in her forehead. I helped her inside and held a washcloth to the wound,
which was smaller than it seemed. The next day I stopped to say hello. We
drank strong black tea, and Annie described the years of arthritis and said
massage had helped ease the pain. Six visits later I offered to give it a try, and
she reluctantly agreed. On that rainy afternoon the outcome was laughable: I
spilled oil on the bed; my hands pinched and prodded her flesh; she giggled
through whimpers of pain. We eventually found a process that worked, and
I would lie in my own bed at night, fantasizing that she'd soon give me
access to the rest of her body. But this temptation quickly died. During one
of our visits, Annie revealed she hadn't had sex in seven years, since her
divorce. She joked she'd rather have a good piece of chocolate cake than the
"complication of screwing."
She stretches her thin, milky legs out across a white sheet. I arrange a
60 The Desert Between Us