Free Lost & Found by Brooke Davis

back.
    Evie
, he said again, because it was the only word that came to mind. He put his palm on the pillow by his head and closed his eyes.
    When Scott and Amy rose for work the next morning, Karl was already sitting at the dining table with his bag packed at his feet. He wore his hat and the gloves he’d once used for driving.
    Dad
, Scott said, stopping in the kitchen doorway.
    Karl cleared his throat.
I think I’m ready to move on
, he said, fingers tapping on the table.
    Scott pulled out the chair beside him and sat down. Karl laced his fingers together. Scott placed a careful hand on top of Karl’s. As he ran a gloved thumb over his son’s knuckle, Karl thought,
I made this hand
.

    Karl sat on the edge of his bed. He was in a room with four other men. The pallid color of their skin seemed to match the pallid color of the walls. They all lay in their beds with a kind of stunned boredom, their mouths open, their eyes blinking as if they had to remind themselves to do it.
    So
, Karl said out loud.
This is it.
    A nurse stopped in the doorway and eyed him.
You gonna unpack, love?
    Of course
, he replied.
Just getting my sea legs.
    The nurse smiled. She had a pretty smile.
Take your time
, she said, leaning into the doorframe.
But we’re serving dinner in an hour.
She winked at him and turned on her heel, her ponytail flicking at the air. Her bum jiggled beneath her uniform as she walked away.
    It was still light outside when Karl walked down the hallway to the dining hall for dinner. The clock on the wall said 4:30, and as a plateful of unidentifiable foodstuffs was pushed in front of him, Karl thought,
So this is it
. He sat at a long table, like the sort he’d seen in movies about prison. He still wore his driving gloves and hat.
    The jiggly bummed nurse pulled up a chair beside him. She grabbed his hand and looked into his eyes.
Okay, love?
she asked.
    He couldn’t remember the last time someone had looked at him like they meant it. He closed his eyes and allowed himself this moment. She had dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin. She was so clean. He thought,
Another time, another place, I would kiss her.
Being able to rest his nose in her cleavage would make this place bearable.
    Instead, he just looked back at her with his old-man eyes. He said, typing into her palm,
Yes, thank you.
    His body felt pathetic in comparison to hers, so old and shrunken, but she looked at him with a type of kindness that made him forget that. And then she stood up and jiggled away, and he sat there, looking at what might have been mashed peas, thinking about how much he wanted her to jiggle on top of him, right in this chair, in front of everybody. No one would even notice. And as he surrendered to the peas, spooning them into his mouth, feeling them sink down his throat, he thought,
I never do what I want to do.
these are the things karl knows about
touch typing
    When Karl was a tiny boy thinking enormous thoughts, he would sometimes pretend he was sick so he could accompany his mother to work. She worked in a big room full of typing women, and Karl would sit underneath her, the top of his head touching the bottom of her chair, the perfect line of her legs in front of him, pushed together with such tenacity you would need a crowbar to pry them open. But there was still a sweetness about them, somewhere in the roundness of her calves. He only remembers his mother in bits and pieces now. In legs, and fingers, and reflections in mirrors.
    The women had seemed otherworldly to him, likesomething that might be kept in a glass case or on a wall. He closed his eyes underneath his mother’s chair and listened. The typing was loud and unforgiving. All these pretty women, their bodies perfectly still, their fingers warring against typewriters.
    Things began to advance for Karl when he learned the term
touch typing
. He realized that the women didn’t have to look at their fingers to make them move in such dramatic ways. This made him feel something