The Medicine Burns Read Online Free PDF Page A

friendship that gripped my throat and made it hard to say good-bye.
    I expected tension when I arrived home, but was surprised to find my parents dressing to go out for dinner. They urged me to dress quickly and join them. I thought, maybe Miriam had made an impression, maybe my mother was sorry for what she’d said, or just felt better for saying it. But I thought, in the spirit of coexistence, it was best to accept and make concessions, or at least not disturb the respite.
    I was startled by my parents’ suggestion that we order drinks before dinner, and more startled still when we continued drinking throughout the meal. An unfamiliar and desperate intimacy found its way into our nostalgia. My mother brought up the time when my father had come back from the Korean War, his body mottled with boils, and how she would have to force him to get undressed in front of her, and how she’d use a washcloth on his back but she couldn’t be gentle enough. He would try to hide the fact that he was crying, but his whole body was shaking with his sobs. And he said to her that he was crying not because of the pain, but because no one had ever shown him so much care.
    And my mother asked if I remembered the time I was in elementary school and I wanted a pair of platform shoes like the teacher, Mr. Gutierrez, wore, and how she’d taken me out to get a pair even though she worried it would be bad for my feet. And I reminded her how my teacher, Mrs. O’Connor, southern trash that she was, had asked me to model them for the whole class while she told them only fairies wore shoes like that. My mother had stood up to Mrs. O’Connor then, and I was transferred to another class by the end of the day.
    We told these stories as if to practice their success, to rehearse the feelings of resolve they each provided. One of us would take up the threads the other had thrown out, and so it was like an intangible weaving that transpired between us, like the sewing up of a fabric that had been unraveling. And by the time we had eaten our desserts and my father had assured us he could drive the few blocks back home, I had forgotten along with them the ugliness of the afternoon, and the months that had led up to it, and I told my mother that she looked more beautiful than I ever remembered her looking.
    Late that evening, I sat listening to records in my room, feeling vaguely disquieted by our excursion to the restaurant, already thinking about how I would tell Miriam if I were to see her again. In some way, our levity and nostalgia felt like a betrayal of Miriam, as though the cloth we were weaving was to be put over our heads, blinding and deafening ourselves to what she had tried to say to my parents earlier that day.
    I heard a quiet knocking at my door and my mother came into the room wearing her nightgown and slippers. She sat down next to me on the bed and took my hand in hers.
    â€œYou know,” she said, “I just don’t understand what it is you don’t like about women.” I pulled my hand from hers and sighed exasperatedly.
    â€œIs it breasts?” she persisted, and this time I noticed her touching her own through the thin nightgown. “Are you worried that you couldn’t please a woman? I’ve seen you in the shower—now don’t be shy with me—you have a nice body. There are a lot of women out there who would be happy to have a man like you.”
    I suddenly felt trapped as she took my hand again.
    â€œWhat could I have done to make you fear women so much?” And with her other hand she dropped the strap of her nightgown and began to pull my hand toward her. I stared at her breast first with disbelief, then revulsion.
    I twisted my hand from hers, saying very slowly and clearly, “Please get out of here.”
    When I’d pulled my hand from hers, she seemed almost to awaken and her expression was awkward and confused. She pulled the strap up on her nightgown and