Chapter 9

Glossary

Fartumult: completely unsettled

Shtuss: Nonsense or silliness [rhymes with puss]

By 10:00 Abby had finished the quick walk-through of David's tiny apartment. She approved of the cleanliness and tidiness of the rooms, but was appalled at its general condition. She was amazed that he could live under those conditions and taken aback that she was responsible for him having to. The flat seemed tinier still with his office taking up so much of the living room. The new rules of their relationship said she couldn't apologize, so she bit her tongue and uttered inanities.

They settled at opposite ends of his well-worn couch.

"So, what did you want to talk about, and why here? Or maybe you didn't get me here to talk." Her face took on a predatory look and she smiled at him from under hooded eyes. Her throaty voice and blatant stare made him instantly erect.

"No. No. There's something that needs to be discussed. You need to know about it. Abby, excuse me if I seem to bumble a bit, but this is hard."

She glanced at his lap. "It sure is."

Outwardly, he ignored her comment, but it flustered him further.

'Deep breath. Deep breath. Cowboy up.'

"I've put a high value on honesty and openness in deciding whether we belong together again, but I've been hiding something from you. It's something important and I debated telling you until I realized that I couldn't keep this from you and still have a successful relationship. It would stand between us forever."

David could see her stiffen as he spoke. Her smile disappeared while her eyes took on a hardened edge. The very temperature of the room seemed to descend with her icy glare. He had begun poorly and cursed himself as he tried to rescue his future.

"It's not anything I've done. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with how I feel about you. It's more something that's happened to me. I'm afraid it may affect how you feel about me."

Immediately, her demeanor changed to concern.

"Are you sick? Oh my God, you're dying. Please tell me you're going to be OK."

"I'm not dying, honey. I'm fine. Look, I've been so fartumult just deciding to come clean on this that I didn't give nearly enough thought to how to begin, and now I've messed it up completely. Let me start all over."

He took a deep breath and looked again at an anxious Abby.

"Do you remember the hay ride early our senior year?"

"Sure. That was the first time you felt me up."

David turned scarlet. "You know that was an accident," he mumbled.

"Yeah, but it's fun to see you blush almost twenty years later."

"Yeah, well, that's not the part I'm talking about. Do you remember when I ripped open my leg?"

"Of course I do. It kept me from getting you to grab the other one. Ha! I like this game," she said as he flushed again. "It took me three more weeks to get you to ask me out. I know you got hurt, but I recall that night very fondly."

"What about the scar I got?"

"I wish you hadn't gotten hurt. I was worried that you might get tetanus or an infection. Is the scar bothering you now?"

"Not in the way you might think." He reached down and rolled up his left pants leg to reveal the scar that wasn't there. Abby looked, stared even, and tried to make sense of what she saw. It was the proper leg, the correct side of the leg, but there was nothing there but smooth skin and a bit of hair. She reached out her hand and gently ran it over where the scar should have been. The gentle caress had a direct effect in David's lap.

"I don't understand. Did they find a way to get rid of scars?"

David picked up a flashlight he'd placed near the couch and scooched closer to her. "Abby, look at my teeth," he said and opened his mouth widely.

"They look much better now. You've been taking care of them. Ooh, you lost one in the back."

"That's true, but not what I meant, dear. Examine my teeth carefully and tell me what you see."

He handed her the flashlight and displayed his teeth. She looked more carefully, seeing nothing extra-ordinary. Turning on the flashlight, she shone it in his mouth, but still looked perplexed. Then, in an instant, she realized it wasn't what she should be seeing, but what she wasn't. There wasn't a filling to be seen.

Speaking slowly, the lack of understanding bothering her, she asked, "David, did you have implants?"

He shook his head softly, since Abby was unwittingly blocking his mouth from closing.

"Then what's going on? First the scar and now the teeth. David, what is going on?" Concern and confusion were leading to panic.

He disengaged himself and turned off the flashlight to buy a moment to think.

"I was afraid that if I just told you, you'd think I was crazy, so I decided to show you first and then tell you. Abby, I don't know how or why or how come for, but several months ago my body started fixing itself. I guess, regenerating itself works.

"It started with the eyes. I thought they were getting worse, until I found out they were actually getting better. I can see better than 20/20 now. Then I started losing a few teeth, except I wasn't really losing them. They were pushed out by a whole new set that grew in underneath."

"But that's impossible!"

"I know, but it's happened. Lifting weights tightens up muscles, but there's just no way I should be putting on strength and muscle like have been. My hearing's better now and food seems to taste better.

"Abby, say something, anything."

The more he spoke, the more her mouth gaped. She ended up staring at him in shock and disbelief. What he was saying was impossible, yet she saw the evidence before her and hadn't the barest alternative theory herself. His last sentence broke her free from her stupor and she snapped her mouth closed.

"What you're saying is preposterous. I know you're not lying; I can see the results myself. Maybe you could be imagining the hearing and taste changes, but the rest? You'd have to have had laser surgery on your eyes, which I know you didn't; dental implants, which I know you didn't; be taking steroids, which I know you wouldn't ever, ever do."

'Besides which there's no 'roid rage or moodiness.' Her mind drifted back to seeing him in his jockeys. 'No shrinkage, either.'

"What's going on? What does this mean?"

"I don't know and I don't know."

"You have to know something!"

He could hear a touch of hysteria in her voice, so he reached out and took hers hands in his.

"I'm sorry I sprang this on you, but I couldn't think of a way to gently bring up the subject. I couldn't very well say, 'Abby, have you ever fantasized about re-growing body parts?' I've had a few months to think about this, but it hasn't really gotten me anywhere. I've pretty much ruled out an alien abduction and experimentation, cosmic radiation, and radioactive spider bites. I haven't received a great knock to the head and I would have noticed if a wormhole opened nearby. I'm not wearing any jewelry, so no magic rings."

Each silly suggestion calmed her further until she finally smiled and chuckled.

"You goof."

"We've got it narrowed down to two reasonable possibilities. One is a random mutation of my DNA that turned some switch back on. The other one, and I cringe whenever I even think it, is that it's from God. I don't know whether to consider it a blessing, a curse, or a challenge, if that's what it's about."

"You said 'we've got it narrowed down'."

"Jack Lipkin knows. He's actually the one who found it when he looked at my mouth and saw the new teeth coming in."

"David! You have to keep this a secret. They'd take you away from me and do all sorts of experiments."

"I know. You're only the third person to know. Do you understand now why I hesitated to tell you? I argued back and forth with myself even though I completely trust you. If Jack hadn't discovered it in the first place, I wouldn't have told anyone."

"Not even me?"

"I'm sure I would have realized eventually that I had to. It was inevitable. As for what it all means, I'm not really sure. Jack and I have been referring to it as a gift, and that's how I've been treating it. I had a subconscious fear of losing or breaking my glasses and it held me back from all sorts of physical activities. Now that's gone. I ruined my teeth and I've been fighting to control the damage, a losing battle, ever since. You can be sure I'm going to take even better care now.

"I didn't set out to lose my job, but once it happened I've made the best of it, I think. I have a second chance with my boys and, I hope, with you."

"I'm hoping so, too."

He lifted their still-linked hands and kissed the back of her left hand.

"My life is so much better since I gained this gift."

"So is mine."

They smiled and gazed into each other's eyes, but David couldn't maintain it and turned aside.

"David, there's more isn't there? What haven't you told me yet?"

"Hoo boy. Yeah. Uhmmmm. I showed you that the scar is gone, right?"

"Right."

"Uhmmmm, well, that's not the only scar that's gone. It seems that everything I've lost is back."

"David, why are you blushing? Look at me ... please. I don't remember you having any other scars. What are you talking about?"

It was certainly irrational to be so flustered in front of a woman whom he had seen, and been seen by, nude so many times, but people are irrational. He was completely abashed and couldn't say it straight out.

"Eight days old," he murmured.

Abby's eyebrows knotted as she worked on the clue. As she realized what he was hinting at, her eyes opened as wide as the sky and her mouth silently cycled open and shut.

"You mean..."

He nodded. "It's gone ... or back, whichever way you want to think about it."

"Is that why you were itching so much until two weeks ago?"

Again, he just nodded.

"Wow." Without thinking through the implications for herself, she asked, "What are you going to do?"

"I have an appointment in a little over two weeks with a surgeon."

"Oh, David. They're going to just cut ... Oh my."

"I'm trying not to linger over the details, please. I know it's something I have to do, that I need to do. I don't especially want to do it. I wish I didn't have to, but as your mother used to say, 'If wishes were dishes..."

"... 'the cupboard would always be full."

"Don't worry about it, Abby. Everything will be fine. It's just one more thing I have to get past."

"I know, but it's hard to not think about it. Why are you waiting so long to have it done? I'd think you would want to get it done and over with."

"I did, but the doctor assumed that I'd lived all my life like this and was being impulsive. I couldn't very well tell him it grew back, so he insisted I wait a month. Since he came highly recommended and seems to know what he's doing, I agreed to wait rather than try to shop around. I was afraid they'd all say the same thing and I'd end up with one whose skills weren't up to snuff."

"What's the date for the, umm, operation?"

"November 28."

"That's right after Thanksgiving. You are going to eat Thanksgiving dinner with us, aren't you?

"I was planning on it, but, of course, I hadn't been invited."

"Don't be foolish. You know very well that you're invited; you're invited for a whole lot more than turkey."

She waggled her eyebrows. David mock-glared back.

"David, did you realize your operation is the, what, first day of Hanukah?"

"I don't really care one way or the other. I want it to be over with. Besides which, I think it's fitting. Our fathers fought the Greeks and died to protect the right to give their sons a bris. I think it's the perfect date."

The couple ate a light dinner, discussing everything under the sun, except the operation. In the early afternoon they drove separately to the house. He helped Abby prepare supper and both worked on other mundane chores.

Nathan and Aaron dragged a ragged June into the kitchen just before 5:00. The boys gave their parents hugs and kisses, and competed for the opportunity to brag about their accomplishments. June, meanwhile, slumped into a chair.

Eventually she lifted her head to Abby and said, "You owe me big time, and I will be collecting. You can be sure about that. I love your boys to death, but they have entirely too much energy." She groaned as she shifted in her seat.

"I'm going home now and collapse. Lou can make supper tonight. I'm so tired right now a mosquito could knock me over."

David was amused by her haggard appearance.

"You deserve a reward for what you went through today. I'll call Lou and tell him you're too tired to fight him off."

June was instantly on her feet. "That's not funny, mister."

She stalked out of the house yelling, "And to think I was beginning to like you, David!"

She went out the door to David and Abby's laughter and the boys' cries of "What's so funny?" and "Why is Aunt June so angry?"