On the way to the hospital…
On the way to the hospital, we are silent.
The silence is absolute. And that’s because Jan doesn’t have a radio or CD player in the car or anything to fill the silent void between us.
I pull out my phone—no messages from my father.
A familiar sting of anxiety nestles around my heart.
I play the first song from my playlist to distract myself from the unwanted flurry of thoughts and chase away visions of dark scenarios in which I see my own mother on a hospital bed, connected to a monitor, and suddenly I hear Jan’s firm voice:
“Turn it off.”
I’m immediately reminded of all those months during which I felt like murdering him for his bossy tone.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t like something buzzing when I’m driving.”
Buzzing, damn him. I think his hearing is messed up. It’s Summer by Calvin Harris, one of my favorite tracks, but I’m not going to argue. Perhaps Jan’s aristocratic eardrums prefer different music while he rides his pimped-up Beemer like a highway king.
“What would you rather listen to then?”
“Nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Don’t you have a favorite song?”
“No.”
“I don’t believe you. Surely there is a piece you like. Maybe something from the classics?” I look through my list. “Here’s Chopin.” I press play, and when the mazurka sounds, I shift my gaze to Jan. He makes a face as if I’ve locked him in a garage with a group of freaks playing alternative rock.
“Turn it off, Maria,” he hisses through his teeth.
“But it is, after all, calm music, even relaxing.”
“I don’t listen to music while driving or talking or doing anything else.”
“None?”
“None. Turn it off. Please,” he adds.
“I will switch it off if you explain your quirk to me.” Undeniably, the reluctance to listen to music is quite quirky.
The mazurka accelerates, and the sounds become progressively louder and livelier, filling the car’s space.
Jan tightens his hands on the steering wheel. His breathing speeds up.
“Turn it off,” he snaps.
“Why?”
Without warning, he pulls over to the side of the road, snatches the cell phone out of my hand, turns off the player, hides the phone in the inside pocket of his coat and gets back on the road.
Is he a preschooler? God help me.
“Bravo, quite a mature performance.”
He doesn’t answer. He keeps watching the road, his face taking on an icy expression so familiar to me that I cringe.
The old Jan is back. I turn up the heating of both seats.
Not that I’m particularly chilly, I’m doing it to spite that damn block of ice.
May you melt and drown in the waters of your own pond of vanity, you narcissist.
I’m all wet when we pull up in front of the hospital.
And that’s because, firstly, the temperature of the heated seat is about fifty degrees Celsius (Jan, of course, turned off his seat after a minute, so he’s still a fucking lump of ice) and, secondly, my brain can’t stand idle silence, so it is filled with a hurricane of catastrophic visions starring my mother, which led to excessive body sweating.
Jan parks in reverse; success on the first try, of course, and perfectly, as if he had a ruler in his eyes.
As soon as he turns off the engine, I unbuckle my seatbelt and notice four people leaving the hospital.
Two women and two men. Although it’s dark all around, I immediately recognize familiar faces in the light of the streetlamps, especially this one. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Mom!” I hastily open the door and start running toward her.
My legs run by themselves, and I can’t stop! Just as if I were… skating?
I glance down. Holy crap. I’m not running at all.
My feet are gliding across the hospital skating rink of a parking lot.
I want to stop. My arms are flailing, and I’m bending back and forth.
I’m like a curling stone rushing across the ice straight to the goal—nothing and no one can stop me.
Except for the dumpster standing in my way.
Holy shit! I can already see myself in a cast from the waist up, with my legs hanging in a trapeze above the hospital bed.
Let’s hope they have an excellent orthopedist in the ER.
“Fuck!!!”
I skid head-on toward the dumpster. A shrill countdown echoes in my head: five, four, three…
I hold my breath, close my eyes, my heart stands still…
and suddenly I feel a tug at my waist. My feet go flying beneath me, and I fall down like a sack of potatoes on something that is neither hard like a dumpster nor cold like a dumpster and definitely does not smell like a dumpster.
Quite the contrary, it is quite soft, emanating warmth, and smells just like…
I open my eyes and encounter a steel-gray gaze. My heart starts beating again, and very fast.
“Jan?”
“Maria?”
He’s lying on his back. I am on top of him. I feel his chest rise and fall rhythmically under me. His breathing is heavy as if he has been running.
Well, yes, of course, he ran. And probably quite fast, since he managed to save me from a head-on collision with a dumpster, even though I was speeding like a runaway.
I look into his eyes, and my previous anger at him gradually ebbs away, replaced by gratitude.
It’s something I would not have expected from him.
I mean, I suspected he was in good physical condition because he had given me proof of that a little earlier.
But the fact that he was able to put himself and his elegant clothes in harm’s way…
This conflicts with the fact that he’s the egotistical asshole I thought he was.
God, why does he have to be so complicated? I can’t figure him out.
“You saved me. Thank you.”
“You are welcome. Are you OK?” He brushes my hair away from my forehead. Although the tone of his voice is, as usual, composed, and his gaze conveys little emotion, my heart melts.
“Except for the fact that my pussy is getting cold because I’m not wearing pantyhose and panties, everything is perfect. So soft…” I bring my face closer to his face. “What about you?”
“Hard,” he replies directly into my mouth.
“In the back?”
“In the crotch.”
I look down and see my hand on the left leg of his suit pants—right at the zipper. Exactly where Jan is apparently hiding his dick.
I burst out laughing.
“But you’re fine?” I slide my fingers over the small bulge and moisten my lips with my tongue to kiss Jan, and at the exact moment my brother’s mocking voice rings out right above me.
“Yo, sis! Give it to him good right under the hospital dumpster and forget about your mother, who ended up in the ER on Christmas Eve because of you.”
I look up, and see Arek, Paulinka, my father and…
“Mom!” I jump up and adjust my skirt, which fortunately goes down just below my buttocks (let’s just hope I don’t get ovarian inflammation from running in the cold with my bare ass). “Are you all right?” I feel like hugging her, but she backs away.
She doesn’t answer, just looks at me with obvious disappointment.
I know this face of hers very well, and it doesn’t do anything to me anymore because I’m seeing it for the thousandth time in my almost thirty years of life (which makes an average of one face of a disappointed mother every ten days).
“It’s not all right, Maria,” Arek interjects. “Because of you, mom nearly had a heart attack.”
I shift my gaze to him.
“What did she have? There is no such thing as a ‘nearly having a heart attack’.” I look at my mother. “What happened, mom? Why did you end up in the hospital?” I ask, and she lifts her head and turns her nose up at me like an offended princess.
Jesus, what a freakin’ madhouse.
“Can someone tell me what happened?” I look over each family member, and they look at me as if I am the perpetrator of all the evil in this world.
My father finally speaks up. “Your mother had chest pain.” Somehow his voice lacks conviction.
“And she was taken away by ambulance?” I ask.
“Ambulance, really,” snorts Arek. “By the time they would have arrived, it would have been over for Ma. We drove her to the ER ourselves,” he explains.
“And from what I can see, you all unanimously concluded that it was a heart attack.” I look my mother over. She does not look like a person who has just had a heart attack. Besides, if it was something serious, she would not have left the hospital so quickly and under her own steam.
“If it weren’t for you, Mom would be fine,” my brother says accusingly.
“And what have I done?”
“Mom’s heart couldn’t take it, because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“You didn’t mention, Maria, that your brother, in addition to trading cars, also specializes in cardiology.” Jan’s voice sounds right next to me.
Everyone’s gaze switches to my boss towering over them.
“And you are…?” Arek asks.
“Jan Engler. I am Maria’s direct supervisor.”
“Probably not only her supervisor,” interjects Paulinka mockingly, and I feel like slapping her on that stupid blonde head.
“Well, dearest sister, it seems that you were getting your kicks with your boss, and Ma was so concerned that you didn’t come to Christmas Eve that her heart stopped,” she says, spitting her words out, full of vitriol.
I can’t stand it! “Her heart stopped and she is walking on her own!” I explode. “None of you even bothered to contact me and ask why I was late. You guys don’t give a shit about me. If mom cared so much about my presence, she could have at least called.”
“You ungrateful wench,” my mother says, finally regaining all faculties. “Since you were a child, you were spoiled and did not appreciate what you have.”
Ahhhh, here we go.
“Yes, I know, I underestimated my awesome gift, and I’m wasting my life away. I’ve heard this from you hundreds of times before.”
“Because it’s true,” adds Father.
God almighty, how they annoy me… I clench my hands into fists. I’m about to give them a piece of my mind, when unexpectedly a male voice interrupts me.