Story 1, Instructions, 0
Your story is interesting and my interest, genuine. You converted to Catholicism to share what you call your husband’s faith journey, which dissolved your marriage in the eyes of the Church because he’d been divorced.
Classic irony I think but don’t say because you’re still talking. You’ve been doing this for thirty years. Sclerotherapy involves injecting the distracting network of veins in my leg with a saline solution that causes them to collapse and disappear. You tell me you are very good at it, and I appreciate your confidence. You also say I should keep my expectations reasonable, and I appreciate your honesty. The pinch/burn of the injections feel like a single roving fire ant, unpleasant but not unbearable, and I keep listening.
You grew up in New Jersey in a Chinese-American family. You went to college in New York City. You moved to Connecticut after you met your husband and stayed for the schools. Your hands are busy. So much gauze, so much tape, a bloody business, but that’s just my sense of it. I’m willfully ignorant, head turned, looking through the slats in the blinds onto slices of the parking lot.
You wrap my leg in two ace bandages wound tight from my ankle to my knee. Tomorrow, I can switch the dressings out for a compression stocking.
When I get home, I know how much it meant to you to receive your first Communion but no idea how many days I’m supposed to wear the compression stocking. I’m annoyed for the split-second before I remember Google, and how much fun it is, being human.