“Oh, God,” I whispered. My eyes were still closed. “Oh, God.” Now that I was on my side, my knees were trying to inch toward my chest, toward the fetal position.
“Keep your head down, that’s it.” Cicero whispered encouragement to me, taking my hand.
“I’m going to be sick,” I told him.
“Breathe,” he instructed.
I tried to obey. One deep breath, and then another. “I want to sit up,” I said, thinking it would alleviate the nausea.
He let me, and as soon as I was upright, the nausea did begin to subside. A few more deep breaths dispelled it to the point that I knew I could keep it under control.
“Better?” Cicero asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You want the bathroom?”
I was expecting a small, closetlike space, and so was surprised by the dimensions of the bathroom. Of course: it had to accommodate Cicero ’s wheelchair. There was a tubular railing along the wall and inside the shower, where a benchlike seat extended out from the tiled wall. I didn’t turn on the bathroom light, imagining it would seem blinding. Instead I washed up by the minimal light that came in from the hallway.
A single towel hung by the sink, no washcloth. I opened the tap and ran a thin stream of water into the basin. I dampened the side of my face with water from my fingers, rubbed them against the bar of soap and then against my neck, raising a thin foam on the wet skin. I put my fingers under the stream of water again and rinsed as well as I could, but couldn’t keep a trickle of water from escaping down the neckline of my sweater. I pressed the thick material of my shirt against my skin, blotting away the water.
When I came out, Cicero was cleaning up his exam table. I watched him, not sure what to say.
“I feel pretty good,” I lied.
But he was looking at me speculatively, in a way that sharpened my attention.
“What?” I said.
“You’re in no shape to be driving anywhere,” he said.
“I know,” I said quickly. The pain had felt sobering, but that was a misperception; I was drunk.
“You need to sleep awhile,” Cicero said.
“What, on your exam table?” I said.
Cicero sighed, reaching up to pull off the bandanna and release the little ponytail. “No,” he said slowly.
“What, then?”
“Look,” he said, “this is not an offer I’d usually make, but I think I’m going to have you sleep in my bedroom.”
“Really?” I sensed he wasn’t terribly comfortable with the idea; I wasn’t, either. But I knew he was right. I couldn’t drive until I’d fully sobered.
He was already rolling toward the bedroom, and I turned to follow. He opened the bedroom door and flicked on the light.
A narrow single bed was covered with a cinnamon-brown counterpane, a black-and-white Ansel Adams print of Yosemite on the wall. A set of hand weights, probably twenty pounds each, were half hidden under the bed. Along the wall ran a low and narrow table, almost a shelf, covered with family photos. Some of the pictures were quite old, in black-and-white.
“This is nice,” I said.
“Out there is my office,” Cicero said. “In here is my home.”
I walked in behind him. To our immediate right was a sliding closet door. It was mirrored, showing us the reflections of a drunk, lost cop and an altruistic criminal. Quickly I looked away.
“Why don’t you turn on the desk lamp,” Cicero suggested. “It doesn’t throw a lot of light, so you can sleep with it on if you like. And if you want to shut it off later, you can reach it from the bed, unlike the wall switch.”
I walked over to the desk and did as he’d recommended. Cicero turned off the brighter overhead fixture, and we were immersed in a low, golden light.
“You can close the blinds on the window, too, if you like. But we’re twenty-six stories up. No one’s going to peek in. I sleep with them open,” he said.
When he began to back out of the room, I turned and said, “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re not going to try to sleep on the exam table, are you?”
Cicero laughed. “No, don’t worry,” he said. “I keep late hours.”
“But-”
“If it gets that late, and I need to go to bed, I’ll wake you and kick you out. I’m not Mother Teresa.”
When he was gone, I stripped down to the sweater and my underwear and wondered: Was it right to get in the bed? That seemed so personal, but I didn’t want to wake up in an hour, on top of the covers, because I was cold.
I slipped experimentally between the comforter and the blanket, a compromise that made sense to my alcohol-and-exhaustion-clouded mind, and turned off the lamp.
An indeterminate time later I awoke in darkness. Where the hell was I? I heard masculine, adult voices from behind a door and the sound filled me with a dread I didn’t understand. My heart jumped up from its slow sleeping rhythm.
Then two words became distinguishable: pecho and fiebre. I recognized the voice of Cicero Ruiz, and heard a baby’s hoarse cough. I closed my eyes and slept again.
When I raised my head again from sleep, I sensed that hours had passed. Something had wakened me, though, and I looked around and saw the low form of Cicero in very dim, flickering light. He was placing a lighted candle on the table of family photos; there was another candle already on the table, flame still and steady.
“What-” I said.
“The storm came in,” he said. “The power’s out. I was afraid you’d wake up in a strange place in the dark and not be able to find your way around.”
I sat up, facing him and the end of the bed. “Oh,” I said, and rubbed at my face. “What time is it?”
“Nearly two,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “You should have got me up.”
“Well, you’re awake now. Have you slept enough?”
“Yes,” I said. “I feel a lot better. Can I use your bathroom again?”
Cicero held out the candle. I threw back the comforter and slid down the bed, climbing over the low footboard at the end. Too late it occurred to me to be self-conscious about being half dressed. But Cicero had seen it all before. He was a doctor. I took the candle from him.
In the bathroom, I found toothpaste in Cicero ’s medicine chest. I rubbed some on my tongue and spread it across my teeth and gums, then spit and rinsed my mouth out. I splashed water on my face afterward. The makeshift ritual made me feel like a normal human being again. It helped that my left ear felt better. It was sore, but sore in a way that was far preferable to the pulsing, sharp pain of this afternoon. I chanced looking in the mirror. I’d expected to be bloodshot, but my eyes were surprisingly clear.
I took the candle back into the bedroom. The way Cicero watched me walk was familiar.
“You’re giving me your field sobriety test, aren’t you?” I said.
“I want to be sure you’re okay to drive,” he said. “Sit down and talk to me for a moment. I’m going to tell you two important things.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, and he rolled closer.
“First, I want to see you again in forty-eight hours, to check that your ear is healing properly.”
I nodded assent.
He picked up a slip of paper. “The second thing: this is a prescription for an antibiotic. It’s likely your body can lick this without penicillin, but it’ll do so faster with help.”
“I thought you didn’t prescribe,” I said.
“The pad was brought to me by a patient,” Cicero said. “I didn’t even want to know where she got it. I don’t use it. But I’m making an exception.” He paused, underscoring that this was serious business. “This prescription comes with conditions. First: you tell no one I have a prescription pad here. I never tell people, myself.”
“I won’t,” I said.