Kara shrugged. It’s cold, she said, and she ashed her cigarette on the floor.
She was right. The trailer was strangely cold. It had to be eighty-five outside.
Brad set his belt on the tray and looked back at the chair. He could let himself see her there, or make himself not see her.
She smiled. Which do you prefer?
“The test should take about forty minutes,” the technician said, and he led Brad into the next room, where what looked like a morgue drawer awaited him. “Are you claustrophobic?”
“No,” Brad said. He had taken a Xanax before getting out of the car. He hoped he’d feel it soon.
You know you will, he heard Kara say. You’ve had your share of recreational Xanax.
“I’m going to need you to lie very still. Try not to sneeze or cough. If you need to come out for any reason, just hit this call button, and the microphone will come on. I’ll be right next door.” Brad followed the man’s gaze back to the office beyond the glass partition. He probably saw bad news on that computer screen every day—though he never had to be the one to deliver it.
“It’s going to be loud,” the man added, and he handed Brad a pair of foam earplugs. Brad could only recall wearing earplugs once before, at some awful concert Kara dragged him to. He wedged them into his ears and lay down on his back on the metal tray. The technician inserted an IV in Brad’s left arm. “This is going to feel cold,” he said.
Like the tip of an ice cube running up Brad’s arm.
“Do you want a blanket?”
Brad nodded, and the man arranged Brad’s arms flat against the sides of his body, then slipped the call button into Brad’s right hand and put a blanket over his chest and legs. A moment later, a switch was flipped, and Brad felt himself sliding backward, slow-motion, into the center of the machine.
His eyes circled the putty-colored metal tube. He waited for the Xanax to kick in. An intercom clicked on. “This one will be for six minutes.”
“Okay,” Brad mumbled.
There was a snap, then another, then a loud series of pulses. The sounds came in waves. The first ones weren’t too bad. Others were more insistent, like someone drilling and hammering on the outside of the machine’s metal casing. Collectively, the dissonance would reveal whether or not there was “a mass,” the ophthalmologist had explained. It might also detect if he’d had a stroke—“just a mini-stroke,” the doctor had hastened to add, “one you didn’t even notice.” The word “mini” was not a comfort.
Focus on your breathing, Kara whispered.
He did. He closed his eyes and counted breaths. He tried to ignore the clacks and bumps, the pulsations rearranging themselves again and then again.
Are you starting to feel it?
He was starting to feel it. He let the noise wash over him.
“This one will last for four minutes.”
Another adjustment, then a new set of sounds.
It was odd to lie there, immobile in this tube. While Kara lay in her coffin underground. He wondered how he’d look in a coffin.
Depends on how they dress you. Did you see that shirt they put me in? Where did they find that?
Probably your closet, he said. In his mind.
An abandoned Christmas gift from the eighties, maybe. My God.
Brad concentrated on his breathing. If he opened his eyes and looked toward the entrance, his feet and the technician would start to double in the distance, but inside the tube there was nothing but beige. It was refreshing, in its way, to not worry about seeing.
“This one will be about three minutes.”
Brad closed his eyes. He felt the closeness of his metal cocoon. And he felt Kara’s presence.
It’s kind of sexy, isn’t it? Being in here together.
Brad pictured her pressed on top of him, her chest against his.
He wondered if Xanax was hallucinogenic.
You know it’s not. But it’s cute of you to pretend to forget.
Why are you here? he asked.
She licked his ear.
“Remember not to move,” said the intercom.
Brad focused on his breathing, on the thumping of the machine.
I know you haven’t had sex in two months, she whispered.
The thumping stopped, adjusted itself, then started again.
It’s understandable, she continued. I know it’s been a difficult pregnancy.
It has, Brad told her.
And Val’s been a trooper, a saint.
The machine made a new noise, a whistling from above.
What if I unzip your pants—
No.
We’re going to be here for a while.
“Three minutes.”
If I just rub the tip of your—
No.
Why not? I’m not really here.
I’m married.
Brad tried to distract himself. He counted the clicks and the bumps. He tried to categorize them, but then he lost track.
What difference does it make? You’re just imagining me. Besides, I’m dead. You may be soon, too.
A mini-stroke, the doctor had said. A precaution.
Kara unzipped Brad’s pants beneath the blanket. He could feel her finger run slowly down the shaft of his penis.
“Everything okay in there?”
“Uh-huh,” Brad mumbled.
He could feel the weight of her hand.
“Alright, this one’s going to be a little longer. Eight minutes.”
Brad took a deep breath and focused on the noise. He focused on the gentle pressure of her hand inside his pants. It had stopped moving and now rested there on top of him. It didn’t do anything. Just held him, comforted him. It told him not to worry, through all the clanks and thumps and bumps. It told him there were a million possibilities, that most people who get MRIs are fine, that doctors don’t know what they’re talking about, and that he probably just needed a pair of glasses. The hand held him and told him Val would be okay too, and the baby would be okay, and he would be a good father. The hand stayed there for a long time. The hand told him that he was a good person, a brave person, and that people loved him.
I miss you, he said, or he wanted to say.
I miss you too, she whispered.
BRAD was lying on the couch when Val returned from school. “You’re home early,” she said.
“A little bit,” he said. “How’re you feeling?”
“Fine,” she said. “I picked up a couple movies for you.” She set two DVD boxes on the coffee table. “Something horrible and something horrible-er.” She wrinkled her freckled nose. “For after I’m asleep,” she added.
“Oh, you’re wonderful.”
“Well, you’ve seemed down.”
Brad rose to give her a hug, but Val waved her hand and backed away. “I smell like Listerine, bile, and