I left the hospital and sat on the front steps of Therese’s building. Therese worked in the patent office with me. She was a level three while I was a level two, so I couldn’t tell her I loved her. I had never even been in her apartment. She said this was because it was messy, but I knew it was because she worried about my germs. Every Sunday morning we went to my garage workshop and worked on our inventions.
One of my inventions was like a halo, the kind you go in when you have a spinal injury, only you went in mine when you got the hiccups. It charged a battery with the mechanical energy of your diaphragm contractions.
Therese’s latest idea was a mortoscope, an instrument that would let the viewer see all the invisible things that bring death—microbes, cancer, whatever. So far it consisted of a disassembled kaleidoscope and a couple sketches. She expected me to figure out the rest. When we invented together, Therese stood in the corner and demanded to know what I was doing now, and now, and now, and then she said, Oh. Relationships weren’t easy for her. After a few hours she would leave, because she wouldn’t use the bathroom in my house.
When Therese came home, I asked her out to dinner.
“Thirteen people died today,” she said. “You expect me to eat?”
“People die every day."
“I think you’re being a little pessimistic."
But she came. I pushed aside the shrimp baskets and leaned forward, my elbow making a wake on the greasy table. “Therese, I have to tell you something about my health.” She looked at me in a new way, like she had never considered that I even have health. Suddenly I was all shot to hell with love. Just as I was opening my mouth to tell