by M. H. Lee
No.
He takes hours to do the most basic things—turn over, sit up.
Those are the good days.
On the bad days…
On the bad days, phantom pains shoot through his body like red-hot pokers and he screams until his voice fails. And then he screams in silence, the tendons in the side of his neck standing out in stark relief.
There's nothing I can do. No comforting him.
We try everything. He takes morphine and oxy and everything else they prescribe, but nothing works.
Dave brings him marijuana, but it only dulls the edges.
I continue to hope this will pass, that we'll find a way through. I try to stay positive, to stay happy, to see how far we’ve come instead of how far we still have to go.
But it’s hard.
So hard.
And each day, in the brief moments when he sleeps, exhausted to the point where even the pain can't hold him conscious, I take the red leather bag, squeeze it in my hand, and beg Death to stay away.
She does.
* * *
We're in bed one night. It's four in the morning and he's screamed himself hoarse. I'm pretending to sleep, but I'm lying there beside him, my face wet with tears.
He turns to me and cups my cheek in his hand in that way that always made me feel like a small child, safe and protected, and says, "I can't do this anymore, Christy." His voice is so weak I can barely hear him.
"What do you mean?" I ask, not understanding what he's trying to tell me.
"I can't do this anymore," he says, louder, wincing at the pain of forcing the words out. "This isn't a life."
"It'll get better. I know it will." I stroke my fingers through his hair. "Just a little longer. Trust me. You can make it through this."
He doesn't answer. His gaze moves past me to somewhere I can't follow.
"Please, Joe…After my dad…after he…please don't say this." I try to get him to look at me, but he won't.
He lies back down and closes his eyes, pretending to sleep even though we both know he isn't.
I lie beside him, crying silent tears, wishing there were something more I could do.
* * *
After that, I never leave him alone.
I won't fail this time. Not like I did with my father.
I know things will improve. Joe just has to hang in there long enough to see it, too.
* * *
Dave and his girlfriend, Kelly, come to the house one morning and tell me they've arranged a spa day for me.
Dave's the only one Joe will see anymore. Joe banned the others—said they reminded him too much of what he lost and can never get back.
It's just Joe, Dave, and me in this little hell.
"Go," Dave says. "I'll take care of him."
I look to where Joe's sleeping on the couch, the dog curled up in the space where his feet should be, and shake my head. "I can't leave him alone."
"He'll be fine. You need this. Go."
Kelly grabs my arm and starts pulling me towards the door. "Trust me, this is exactly what you need," she says. "Dave'll keep an eye on him."
"But, Dave…" I can't form the words. Can't tell him that Joe wants to die. Not with Kelly here.
"Go, Christy. I'll be here the whole time."
"Just don't leave him alone, okay? Promise me."
"I promise," he says, and they bundle me off to the car.
* * *
At the spa, I can't relax. Every time the masseuse moves from one spot to another, I tense back up, my body refusing to let go.
I call a cab and go home.
And when I get there…
When I get home…
Dave is sitting in the front room and tells me that Joe's sleeping in the bedroom. But that's not possible. Joe's pain won't give him more than an hour or two of rest at a time and never at this time of day.
I rush past Dave and see Joe lying on the bed, his chest hardly moving. An empty bottle of Percocet is on the bedside table—a bottle that had been full this morning.
Dave tries to drag me back to the living room, saying things about how "this is for the best" and how Joe can't keep living in this constant state of pain.
I twist out of his arms and dial emergency services, screaming at them to come quick. Dave tries to take the phone from me, but I manage to avoid him long enough to shout out the address.
I run to the bed and fall to my knees, fumbling for the red leather pouch.
"This isn't what he wants, Christy," Dave says, hulking in the doorway, Joe's body on the bed between us.
"What does he know? The pain's blinding him. It'll get better, Dave. I know it will."
I repeat the litany over and over until the ambulance finally arrives, Dave watching me from the doorway the entire time.
* * *
Joe survives.
They rush him to the hospital, force charcoal down his throat, and pump his stomach.
When he wakes up, he cries. Not tears of pain, tears of despair.
Nothing has changed. The pain is still there, his feet are still gone, and he still can't do all those things he took for granted before. "Leave me," he begs. "I can't do this to you. I can't ask you to sacrifice your life for me."
"But I love you…" I take his hands between mine.
"Then let me go."
"No. You can get through this. I know you can. It'll get better. You'll get artificial feet and be able to walk on your own again and they'll do another back surgery and it'll help with the pain…It'll get better."
He takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look him in the eyes. "You're thirty-two years old. Do you really want to be with a man who may never be able to make love to you again? Do you really want to be with a man in constant agony? Do you want that?"
"I want you."
And I do. I can't explain it to him, but I just want him.
In whatever form he takes.
* * *
Joe doesn't try to kill himself again, but he withdraws somewhere deep inside. I accept his silence as my punishment for saving him, but I don’t regret what I did.
I stare at the pictures on the wall of our life together —our first date at the town fair, our first skydive together, the week we spent in Hawaii for our third anniversary—and I know we have so much left to do. This can’t be the end.
He kept me together when I was ready to quit after my dad died, now I have to keep him together through this.
That's what couples do for each other. Isn't it?
I look at the note my father left. I read his words about not wanting to go through that pain again, remember how he begged me to forgive him for not being strong enough, and I cry.
I won't lose Joe. Not like that.
This pain will pass. I know it will.
And until it does, I'll be strong enough for both of us.
* * *
Things seem to get better. His pain eases a bit and we slowly start to make progress. Joe even smiles a few times.
But then he gets a bowel infection. We spend hours in the emergency room, sitting on cold plastic chairs surrounded by kids with the sniffles, before they finally see him.
It's one in the morning when the young man who calls himself a doctor examines Joe. There are bags under the man's eyes and he's blinking like a toddler trying to stay up past his bedtime, but it only takes moments for him to realize something is very wrong.
They rush Joe into surgery, barely saving his life. He's in the hospital for a week.
Through it all, I continue to hold the little red bag, continue to plead with Death to spare him.
And he survives. For another day, another week, another month.
* * *
I do research and find an experimental back surgery that could help.
In the middle of winter, frost covering the ground, they operate.
And it works!
He has whole days without pain.
We start to believe, to see a future. We can n
ever go back to how things were before, we realize that. But maybe we can find a way to a new life.
"See?" I say. "I knew things would improve. You just had to hang in there long enough."
His eyes crinkle from joy for the first time since the accident and I can't hold back my tears. We're finally on our way.
I knew it. I knew if he hung on long enough he'd make it through.
* * *
But then…
I wake up one morning, the sun just starting to shine through the blinds, and see Joe lying beside me, holding a pillow against his mouth, trying to hide his screams from me.
The pain is back.
Worse than before.
* * *
Joe starts taking too many of his pain pills. They don't eliminate the pain, but they let his mind go somewhere else. Dull the edges of reality.
He's abandoned me. Left me alone.
I can't handle it.
I can be strong for him, but I can't be strong without him.
I hide the drugs. Dole them out one by one.
Dave finds him more.
I take those away, too, and forbid Dave from seeing him.
I tell myself this is only a little setback. The pain will go away again.
But I'm not sure anymore.
As Joe screams and begs to die, I kneel by his bedside with the little red leather bag cupped in my hand and I say, "I beseech you. I call to you in my hour of need. Please. I ask that you save this man I love. I ask that you sustain his life. I ask that you bring him back to me.”
And he lives.
Day after day, he lives.
* * *
But the pain remains.
We try everything. Pressure chambers, acupuncture, massage, mirror therapy.
Nothing works.
They help for an hour, a day, sometimes two. But the pain always comes back.
I still want to believe that we'll come through the other side.
"Soon, Baby, soon," I tell him. "It can't continue like this forever."
"Get out!" he screams. "It's never going to get better. Never."
I leave him alone. I'm not sure even I believe what I'm saying anymore.
* * *
Then the day comes when it’s all too much. I’m lying exhausted on the couch, Joe asleep in the bedroom. I hear a loud blast of sound and race to his side.
There's blood everywhere.
I don't know how he did it, but Joe got ahold of his old hunting rifle.
He's alive, though; he wasn't strong enough to aim it properly.
I call emergency services, begging them to hurry.
And while I wait I take his hand in mine, wrapping his fingers around the red leather bag, and I beg Death to spare him yet again. We’ve come so far, how can we quit now?
He watches me through slitted eyes, his face expressionless.
* * *
They bring him back, but not all the way.
His speech is slurred, his movements shaky. Sometimes he can't find the right words and I see his anger and frustration build day by day.
I see his hatred. Of me. For saving him.
I try to use the little red bag when he's awake and he slaps it out of my hand, grunting his disapproval.
I know he wants me to stop, but…
But I can't live without him. I can’t just let him quit like this.
* * *
As the days go by, his skin turns yellow.
We find ourselves in yet another hospital room, yet another sanitized space with machines and curtains on tracks.
The doctor talks to us about liver failure. He says he can't recommend a transplant given the circumstances.
I argue and fight until he admits that if someone were willing to donate direct to Joe that the hospital would do the transplant.
I smile.
Everyone loves Joe. Someone will do it. I know they will.
We'll get through this, too. I just need to keep him alive until then.
After the doctor leaves, I kneel by Joe's bed and take his hand in mine, holding the red leather bag in the other.
Joe reaches out, stronger than he’s been in days, and wrests the red leather bag from my hands. "No," he says, even this one word slurred. "No."
He shakes his head as I cry and try to get the bag back from him. He's crushed it in his fist and I can't pry his fingers apart.
"Please, Joe. Don't give up on me. Not yet."
He makes an angry gesture, telling me to look around, forcing me to finally see what our lives have become.
Pain, suffering, loss.
He struggles to get the words out, but finally they come. "Let. Me. Go."
I bury my head against the side of the bed. His hand strokes my hair as I sob into the blanket. "I don't want to lose you," I say. "Live for me. Please. Don't leave me. Don't give up on me."
"Not living," he says.
He's right. This isn't a life. Not anymore.
I look at the little red bag in his hand, considering. He closes his fingers around it, pulling away from me.
"Wait. Let me try something."
He doesn’t want to, but he lets me wrap my hands around his. I stare deep into his eyes as I whisper, "I beseech you. I call to you in my hour of need. Please. I ask that you help this man I love. I ask that you take away his pain. I ask that you…”
I hesitate at the end, but finally finish. "I ask that you take away his life."
I see the hint of a smile as Joe redlines.
* * *
It's over in minutes.
The doctors say it was an aneurysm, probably an after-effect of the bullet.
I know the truth.
I called Death and she answered my call.
* * *
And now I sit here in our living room, staring at the pictures on the walls as the room grows cold and dark, holding the little red bag in my hands.
Joe's gone. Our life is over. That future we were supposed to have is gone forever.
I can't do this…
I can't…
I can’t move on without him, without my father, all alone in this world.
I run my fingers along the bag's cracked surface, over and over again. Finally, I close my fingers around the bag and say the words, "I beseech you. I call to you in my hour of need. Please. I ask that you…"
* * *
If you liked this story, you might also like the essay and short story collection, A World Dark and Cold.
About the Author
You can reach M.H. Lee at [email protected]
* * *
For a list of available stories from M.H. Lee go to mhlee.me
Copyright
Text copyright ©2013-2017 M.L. Humphrey
All Rights Reserved
