At the Doctor's
He winked, part child-like, part gnarly. The last time I had seen him this uncomfortable, he’d just received his divorce papers: a pile he would come to treat with more care than his IPad, as if it could not just at any moment break, but also break him. He looked at it never for more than thirty seconds at a time, as if its spell was that of the Germanic Loreley, whose chants had to be heard sustainedly to hurt. Not rare for him, his fingers blueprinted the sheets with sweat—the kind that sticks, almost tear-like in texture—and I had to distract him with whatever something I had at hand: here a convincing weather report (followed, always, by a yawn, both his and mine); there a murky glass of overcold Merlot, which I would fetch from the garage’s fridge: my steps, too, serving as a sidetracking staccato.
