The Half-Life of Everything

by Deborah Carol Gang

  He shrugged. “I think this thing just floored her and it never stopped. Maybe it helped a little to have someone to be mad at—to get a little break from her grief.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No! Please don’t apologize. Not for any of this. Please.”

  Neither said anything for a while.

  Then she cleared her throat. “I want you to take a few days off from seeing me. Don’t come back until Thursday. That will still give us time to talk before the meeting on Friday.”

  “I can do that. But why?”

  “Do I really have to say it out loud?”

  “Maybe we just shouldn’t say anything out loud.” David knew he sounded like a child.

  Kate smiled.

  Jane answered on the fourth ring. As always, he appreciated the clarity of one landline calling another. Her voice was sleepy and when he apologized, she didn’t deny that he woke her.

  “But I’m happy that you did,” she added. She waited for him to speak next and, while he wanted to pretend that he had told Kate about her, he admitted, “She made it easy by asking. She was shocked, even though she had guessed, but still shocked. I mean to hear how serious it was.”

  He guessed Jane was holding her breath.

  “But she was kind, very kind. There was no outrage or even what I could call self-pity. You’d really like her.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. Actually, it’s already true.”

  “I have no idea what’s going on,” he said. “It’s only been a few hours since she’s known for sure, and now we’re not going to see each other until Thursday.”

  “Why is that?”

  “It’s what she wanted.”

  “She certainly understands men.”

  He wanted to ask about that but knew better. “Then on Friday, we meet with the team and she thinks the topic will be going home.”

  “Oh.”

  “I want you to know that these last two weeks, we haven’t had sex. She doesn’t seem to be interested. And me, well, I’m a mess. It hasn’t really come up. I don’t know if that helps with anything.”

  She didn’t speak. What could she possibly say? “Let me know when you do?”

  “Look, do you want to get together today or this week? For coffee or dinner?” Then he added, with more honesty, “Or for anything you want.”

  The pause was long enough that he felt hopeful.

  “I don’t think I could do that,’ she said, “but it’s always nice to be asked.”

  David waited at Martha’s side door. Don’s car was gone. He remembered that Don played cards most Sunday evenings, and it always went later than planned. He could have talked to both of them, but seeing her alone felt more correct.

  Martha came to the door with a somewhat fearful smile and brought him in.

  “I have some news that’s good,” David said. “Mostly good. Well, it’s all good right now.” He didn’t sound entirely coherent. The medical team had prepared them with a story, a lie, and now he had to use it for the first time. “A few months ago, the doctors began to question their diagnosis of Kate. There are some better drugs out now for treating the damage from certain kinds of strokes. They decided that her dementia was more from bleeding and related stroke damage. Since then, she’s been responding really well to an experimental medication. Three meds combined, actually.”

  Martha opened her mouth twice but made no sound. Finally, on her third try, she was able to form words. “Did you say better? What do you mean?” They were both sitting at the kitchen table now, and she leaned forward and took one of his hands. She dug her nails in. He flinched, but she didn’t notice.

  “She’s alert and she communicates well. She remembers things up until the memory loss got more severe. We’re going to talk with the doctors this week about her coming home for a visit.”

  Comprehension filled Martha’s face. She let go of his hand. “I couldn’t see her the last time I tried. They said she was being verbal that day and she didn’t want to see anyone. I meant to ask you if that had happened to you, but you were away… and then I forgot. It was a few weeks ago and I haven’t tried again.” Her voice trailed off. “I’m down to only once a month now.”

  “Stop it. You are a completely loyal friend.” Martha burst into tears. She cried loudly, not even trying to speak. Several long minutes went by, and then she went to the sink, where she cried even harder before quieting and splashing water on her face. When she turned back, her face was swollen and pale. She sat across from David and remained there, smiling.

  “You’re the only person we’ve told outside of the boys,” he said. “You can understand our fears of…fears that the good results might not last.”

  “Oh no,” she said emphatically. “God wouldn’t do that to her twice. She’ll be fine. We’ll just insist on it.”

  “Kate wanted me to tell you before anyone else. You can tell Don, but only if he promises not to gossip. She really wants a quiet re-introduction to the world.” They smiled at this. Don’s idea of gossip was to inform a friend of another friend’s death. He wouldn’t tell a soul.

  “She might not want to see you until she’s home, but I don’t really know. She’s really embarrassed about having been ill. I’ll ask her about it, and I’ll also ask her if she wants to talk on the phone. I got her an iPhone, and it’s already like her third child.”

  “Oh!” Her expression collapsed. She looked at her lap a moment, as if deciding whether to speak her mind, then said, “I forgot about Jane. What are you going to do about Jane?”

  David had rehearsed his answer. “Jane is very happy for Kate and the boys.”

  “Well, that’s good then,” Martha said, not acknowledging his careful wording. “Of course Jane would understand. She’s a good person.”

  They stood and hugged and she cried again, though when he drew back, he saw that a dazed and happy expression had settled across her face.

  “I’ve never heard you express any interest in running!”

  Jane had allowed David quick phone calls spaced several days apart, and this time she told him she had begun to train for a half-marathon.

  “I wanted something very different,” she said. “And the pain helps, in an odd way.”

  It was her only reference to what he had done to her. It was good to see how strong she was, even though it meant she was pulling further and further away. Soon, someone else would discover her. He would need to learn to tolerate that idea, because he knew he could never learn to not think of her at all.

  During this week of his quasi-banishment, he connected with Kate only once, and she wanted to talk only of her survey of recent history.

  “We have an openly gay senator!” she said. “It seems so wonderful and so fast. And no one even cares anymore. It was mentioned, like, once in the paper and then dropped. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me that, first thing.”

  “It didn’t occur to me to say, ‘Welcome back. One of our two senators is gay.’ ”

  She asked him to come to the L Friday morning.

  “Friday? What happened to Thursday? You told me to come Thursday.”

  “Friday’s better,” she said.

  After they said goodbye, he walked through the house collecting Jane’s belongings—hairdryer, makeup, and two sweaters. They all fit easily in his dresser drawer.

  David slept fitfully and lay awake at four in the morning. For Kate, was Friday’s meeting like the equivalent of an oral exam for a dissertation? Or worse? Did the team want her to stay? Leave? He knew that embarrassment plagued her, though she didn’t talk about it much. How did she feel about meeting with Dr. Ratha, who had catalogued her descent? Could anyone be clearheaded in such a setting?

  He looked at the empty expanse of bed and tried to picture her next to him. The more recent memories of sharing this room with Kate eluded him, but now the image of a New Year’s Eve ten, maybe fifteen years ago played vividly in his mind. She had been dressing for a party and came to show him the o
utfit: a glittery skirt with a high slit and a low-cut blouse over a pushup bra. It was an outfit a sales clerk had talked her into, including the bra, which seemingly returned her breasts to their pregnancy size and prompted a moment of nostalgia in him. She looked sexy and self-conscious, but before he could say anything, she left and came back in her robe. “You don’t need me to dress like that, do you?”

  “I definitely do not need that,” he answered, as he untied her robe and reached inside. He began to touch her. “Sweetie, let’s wait until after the party. I hate being wet from you and then going out. It takes hours.” He backed off, but she said “oh, what the hell,” and they had the kind of quick sex people have with two kids roaming the house.

  He got up afterwards to investigate the sounds of the boys fighting but, by the time he arrived in the basement, the dispute seemed settled. When he went back upstairs to finish dressing, he found her in a black dress, familiar and comfortable, not cut low or high. By the time the party was over, he had observed every man there studying her.

  He had made sure to ration his beers, and when the hosts circulated with champagne, he only pretended to drink, so that in the early morning of the new year, when they came into their dark living room, he was ready for her as she shrugged off her coat and pulled him to the couch. “Listen to our quiet house. Notice the sound of two kids away at sleepovers. I might make noise for the first time in fifteen years.” She lifted her hips so he could pull up the black dress, under which she wore only sheer black stockings that reached mid-thigh. He came quickly. “You are just too much for me,” he apologized. “Don’t worry. I’m almost there.” He began to slide down her belly and between his fluids and hers, he couldn’t detect any friction, but almost immediately she arched her back to meet him and cry out. She tugged on him and he inched his way up until they lay curved on their sides.

  “God, I love New Year’s,” he’d said and he could feel her smile. And then her voice turned abruptly solemn: “Do you think we’ll always be this lucky?” David, for whom the quiet fear of losing what he loved was never far, like gum on his shoe, had lied. “I’m sure of it,” he said, his breath on the back of her neck. Then, worried he hadn’t been convincing, he said it again.

  A shrill noise startled him and he realized that, paradoxically, he must have relaxed enough to doze until the screeching alarm woke him. Relieved that the long night was over, he took a shower and chose his clothes with care, as if he too had some kind of audition today.

  They ate breakfast in the dining room, or rather, he ate two breakfasts because Kate couldn’t eat hers. He ate out of nerves more than hunger and consumed more bacon than he’d ever had in one meal. The meeting wasn’t until noon and it was barely nine when back in Kate’s room, David came out with it and said, “Do you want to come home?” He didn’t tell her about the insurance company cutting off payments soon. He had to know what she wanted. He waited for her to answer, failing to read the expression on her face.

  “Of course I want my life back and it must seem bizarre that I’m not eager to leave. But to go back to the scene of the crime, so to speak, is daunting. I want to—of course I do. But I feel safe here. Why, I’m the cream of the crop.”

  She didn’t smile. She was biting her lip and looked uncomfortable. He waited. He believed everything she said, but it felt too slender. He moved to sit in the recliner and said, “I know there’s more. There’s something you don’t want to explain.”

  “It has nothing to do with Jane.”

  “Let me guess.” He thought he had the essence of it, though the words were sliding around in his mind, just out of grasp. “I think that you’re worried that this miracle is somehow connected to you being here and staying here. You don’t trust the meds will keep working, but you trust them a little more because you’re living here.”

  She nodded.

  “You think that if you leave here, you’ll jinx it and we’ll be home, going through the same horrible thing again. And you think it’s irrational to feel that way.”

  She nodded again. “What do you think?”

  “I think these are the times when we veer towards superstition. I’ll bet even the docs feel that way. But home is only where you got sick, not what made you sick.”

  She fit herself onto his lap. “What do we do?”

  He stroked her hair as he tried to conjure something helpful to say. “How did you deal with women in labor? When they wanted to leave the room and call the whole thing off? Or they’d ask for medication when it was too late? Or they thought they were going to die?”

  “I just helped them wait.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait with you,” he said. “We’ll help each other wait.”

  Somehow they were comfortable in the small space, their breathing slow and synchronized, until someone knocked at the door. They both jumped. “I don’t need to come in,” Mrs. Nowicki’s muffled voice said. “I’m sorry that the meeting had to be scheduled for noon. Just wanted to see if you’d like an early lunch or a snack.”

  David gestured, putting his finger down his throat. “Thank you,” Kate called back. “We’re fine, though we might go for a drive to pass the time.”

  “How much more bacon can they feed us?” David whispered and she laughed.

  They did get up then and make their way out to the car. David followed the winding roads away from the L and stopped at the first station for gas. Kate stared at the price but didn’t comment. They continued deeper into the suburb to look for a reasonable imitation of one of the downtown coffee houses.

  “I wonder if it will be like a parole hearing and I’ll be like those old-timers who aren’t sure if they want to leave prison. And the doctors won’t be sure either because they want me in a controlled environment where nothing will destabilize me. We need each other—the doctors and I. I’m surprised they haven’t suggested you move in.”

  “Actually, Megan did,” he said. “Though as a joke, of course.”

  “Megan? Oh, the child social worker. I love her. Is that her first name? To me, she calls herself Mrs. Something, trying to seem over twenty-one, I think. She’s very smart. Is she from the same place as Jane?”

  “Yes,” he said and nothing else.

  She turned and looked out the window for the next half-mile but then turned back and looked at him straight on. “Have you had contact with Jane since I…reappeared?”

  “I went to see her Tuesday. To apologize.”

  “Apologize?”

  “I can apologize for hurting her even if I didn’t exactly do anything wrong.”

  “What happened?”

  “She listened. She asked after you and the boys.”

  She was looking out the window again.

  “She’s prepared to see the end of me. She’s very dignified. There won’t be any scenes. She would never fight for me.”

  “She won’t fight for you.”

  “No,” he said. “There’s no chance of that.”

  “That is dignified,” she said, now facing him.

  Kate decided she didn’t feel ready to be in a public place, so they went through a drive-through and headed back, sipping carefully while they listened to a public radio show on animal intelligence. When their dogs and cats were alive, they both believed their animals were craftier than current science would admit. If Kate told him one of the dogs had humiliated himself with abysmal fetching skills at the park, he believed her account of the poor guy’s embarrassment, and when he described the herding behavior the older cat had developed to bring him to the treat drawer, he knew she would believe him. She liked his explanation that the cat didn’t try it with her because he knew she kept track of his treat schedule, but he could usually con David. “Does that make him smarter than you?” Kate had asked innocently.

  “Well, it certainly makes him more organized,” he admitted.

  Dr. Tsang, or “John” as he reminded them, closed the door, and David realized no one else was joining them. “I’ll try to call you John,” K
ate said, “but you are always Doctor, spelled out in fact, and Tsang in my mind.”

  Tsang sat where he could look at them both. “We thought it was better if you only had to talk with one of us first and then we can meet with the others to see if there are questions or planning items to complete. I think that you’re comfortable with me, Mrs. Sanders—more comfortable perhaps than with the others. I mean to say that you’ve had more contact with me. Anyway, I want to ask you how you feel about the idea of returning home.”

  “Well, let’s see,” Kate said. “I have no career and no nursing license, and will probably never be able to get my license back. There’s not even a sliver of a guarantee that the meds will keep working, yet oddly enough, even with all the world news I’m catching up on, I feel smashing.”

  Dr. Tsang smiled. “I’m glad to hear this.” He inhaled audibly and said, “Can you talk a little about leaving here?”

  “I’m afraid the medications will stop working as soon as I’m home. I’m embarrassed to see everyone who knew me when I was well, and then not well. I’m afraid we’ll all be put through this again. But also I think this is like taking off a Band-Aid and I have to do it now and fast.” She sat back and exhaled deeply. “I can breathe again. That’s a good sign.”

  David took advantage of the pause to say, “We wonder about the reason Kate’s better. I mean, what’s the mechanism of action?” He remembered the term from listening to Dylan, or perhaps Kate.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that we don’t really know for sure. I know that’s not the answer you’re hoping for, but sometimes the best drugs are the ones we understand the least.” He spoke for a while about the mechanics and David caught the phrase plaques and tangles, which seemed like part of a poem, and tau, which sounded like a religion. “We were expecting some mild improvements based on the animal results but, for a few people, there’s been a much stronger effect, as if something has actually been…repaired. We’d like to do an MRI in a few weeks, but the best testing would require…” He offered something between a smile and a wince.