Turn 115 of 228

Its friday, spend all weekend high, drunk and playing video games. Skip a week. Out of curiosity visit your family doctor for the first time since the wish. Shock her with your current state and shock her even further with your clean bill of health

The weekend is a blur of screens and smoke and grease. The four of them on the couch and the floor — controllers passing between yellow-nailed hands, the belly resting on thighs, the pizza boxes stacking on the coffee table, the bong gurgling between hits. Marcus plays beside Lena and his shoulder is warm against hers and the game is loud and the apartment is loud and the hum is quiet underneath everything. Carl passes pre-rolls. Diane holds the controller with one hand and a wing with the other and the beard is orange with sauce. Sunday night comes and goes and nobody moves because nobody has to move. Monday is the apartment. Tuesday is the apartment. The week passes the way weeks pass now — food arriving, containers emptying, bodies filling, the hum constant and warm.

The following Tuesday Lena wakes and the apartment is quiet. Marcus is asleep. Diane and Carl went home Sunday night — the walk back barefoot through the cold, 539 and 385-plus pounds moving together through the dark. Lena lies on the couch and the couch holds her and the hum is there and the yellow toenails catch the morning light. Something surfaces. Not the hum. Something older. A thought that doesn't belong to the wish — a thought that belongs to the Lena who stood in the bathroom mirror months ago and tugged at waistbands and hated the way clothes sat on her. The thought is simple: she hasn't been to a doctor since before the wish. The body is 598 pounds. The body hasn't showered in months. The body hasn't been checked. The thought sits there. The hum doesn't argue with it. The hum is quiet.

Dr. Reeves. The family doctor — the one Lena's mother picked when Lena was sixteen, the one on the third floor of the medical building on Garfield and Seventh. Lena hasn't been there in eight months. The appointment is a walk-in. The walk is fifteen minutes barefoot through the February cold and the body doesn't mind the cold. The body doesn't mind anything. The body is comfortable. The yellow toenails click on the sidewalk and the belly swings and the thighs roll and the people on the street look and Lena doesn't care because Lena hasn't cared for months and the not-caring is the wish and the wish is the hum and the hum is warm.

The waiting room is small. The receptionist looks up. The eyes go wide — the quick scan, the body, the nakedness, the matted hair, the yellow nails, the unwashed skin, the 598 pounds filling the chair that was not built for 598 pounds. The chair creaks. The receptionist says nothing. The fingers type. Lena waits. The other patients stare. Lena scrolls her phone. The yellow nails tap the screen. The hum is quiet.

Dr. Reeves opens the exam room door and stops. The pen is in her hand. The clipboard is in her other hand. The white coat is crisp. The face — professional, composed, trained to react to bodies — goes through three expressions in two seconds. The first is recognition. The second is confusion. The third is something that doesn't have a name. The pen stops moving. The clipboard lowers. The mouth opens and closes and opens.

"Lena?"

"Hi," Lena says. The yellow nails wave. The belly rests on her thighs. The body is the body and the body is comfortable and the body is 598 pounds and naked and unwashed and barefoot and the body is here for a checkup. Dr. Reeves steps aside. The exam room is cold. The paper on the table crinkles. Lena sits. The table holds. The hum is quiet.

The exam takes forty minutes. Dr. Reeves checks everything — blood pressure, heart rate, reflexes, breathing, the stethoscope cold on the enormous belly, the blood pressure cuff tight on the thick arm. The scales in the office don't go high enough. The number 598 is what Lena tells her and Dr. Reeves writes it down and the pen is steady now. The bloodwork is drawn — the needle finding the vein on the first try, the skin thick but the vein cooperative. The urine sample is given. The EKG is run. The results come back fast because the lab is in the building and the numbers are in the system by the time Dr. Reeves sits down across from Lena and opens the chart.

"Your blood pressure is one-twenty over seventy-eight," Dr. Reeves says. The voice is careful.

"Your resting heart rate is sixty-two. Your cholesterol is within normal limits. Your blood sugar is —" She checks the chart. Checks it again.

"Your fasting glucose is eighty-four. Your A1C is five-point-two. Your liver function is normal. Your kidney function is normal. Your thyroid is normal. Your EKG is clean. Your inflammatory markers are —" She puts the pen down. "Lena, your inflammatory markers are lower than they were at your last visit. You are, by every metric I can measure, healthier than you were eight months ago."

The silence holds. Dr. Reeves looks at the chart and then at Lena and then at the chart. The white coat is still crisp. The pen is on the desk. The fluorescent light hums. The hum in Lena's body hums. The two hums are the same hum. The wish has never been wrong. The body has never been wrong. The numbers are the proof.