He wonders how long before he will be able to forget. How long before he won’t wake from a daydream to find himself automatically checking his pulse. How long before he’ll be able to take the ordinary workings of his heart for granted.
He hasn’t mentioned it to Rose, but he wonders about the garage. Even if they tell him it’s all right, he’s not so sure he wants to go back to work. He allows himself to imagine it. No more blistered skin from red-hot manifolds. No more replacing broken bolts on rear axles.
Retirement isn’t impossible. Although Rose doesn’t know it, he has been approached by one of the big chains. A buy-out. It could happen. Mostly they are interested in the location, and they’ll pay big for it. Now Ned wants to grab what’s left of life, taste it and roll in it. Maybe now Rose would agree to a move to Florida. He feels funny thinking this—like his heart attack is a weapon he can use to bend her. But it has changed things. Like Rose driving again after all these years.
He’ll start with small changes before he springs Florida on her. Maybe in the fall, he’ll take a couple of weeks and go fishing. He used to rent a cabin up north where he would spend whole days standing hip-deep in a cold running stream casting for trout. It was a memorable feeling, like being outside inside, wearing those waders. Paradise on earth. Could he talk Rose into coming along? Just the two of them? It would be good for her to get away from the house. Maybe it will be the first step. There are so many things he wants to tell her. That he will tell her.
This morning the hospital chaplain, a smug stick of a man, stopped by for a visit and had the gall to tell him his heart attack had been a gift. A gift. “A wake-up call,” he said. “We all need reminding that we are not immortal.”
Jesus Chr-rist, Ned had thought.
“Each day we need to clear up unfinished business,” he said. “Have you told your loved ones that you love them?”
The banality of the man’s speech infuriated him. The presumption of it, the gall of it, enraged him. “Don’t let that son of a bitch in here again,” he told a nurse.
Now, lying here listening to his heartbeat, thinking of Rose, the chaplain’s words echo. What does he wish he could say to Rose? What would he regret leaving unsaid?
For one thing he would like to tell her he read what she wrote in that writing class. He would tell her how he opened the letter that professor had mailed her and read the whole thing. He wants her to know Todd’s death wasn’t her fault. He doesn’t blame her for it. Accidents happen.
He would like to tell her he loves her and that he has always been faithful. He would tell her that he thinks he’s a lucky man to have had her love. There are a million things he has never done. He knows his life has a huge blistering wound at its heart, but it hasn’t been defined only by Todd’s death. His life has been filled with ordinary joys.
He listens to his heartbeat, marvels at the steady, unremarkable pace of it. Even now, he can rely on his heart.
He has been lying like that for some time—musing about his life, about how lucky he has been to have found Rose, about how he has nothing to regret and what a good thing that is for a man to be able to think—when he is suddenly seized with dread. Like a premonition. Beneath his ribs, his heart quickens.
The nurse, Nancy, reappears. “How we doing?”
It’s the nurses he has come to trust. Not the doctors. The nurses touch him, listen to him, take time, meet his eyes with theirs. “If anything happens to me, will you tell my wife that I love her?”
She takes his pronouncement calmly. She picks the newspaper up and sets it on his bedside table, checks the IV. Then she slides her hand in his, leaves it there for a moment. He finds this incredibly comforting.
The second day he overheard one of the nurses tell Rose he was in denial. He isn’t. He knows he had a heart attack—he’s not brainless for God’s sake—but he isn’t afraid of death.
“Here’s a funny story,” he tells the nurse. “Coming here, in the rescue truck, I saw a long tunnel.” He attempts a laugh. “You know those people who say they have those experiences—you know—where they die and come back?”
“Near-death experiences?”
“Right. Near-death experiences. You know how they say they see a long tunnel? Well, I saw one.” He chuckles. “Turns out it was a real tunnel, the one the ambulance goes through to reach the emergency entrance.”
The nurse smiles. “They should warn people about that.”
“Do you believe in that stuff? Life after death? Tunnels? People coming back from clinical death?”
“Yes,” she says. “I do.”
“I wasn’t frightened.” Just like he told Rose. Another adventure is ahead. Not that he’s in any way near ready yet to leave this one.
“I want Rose to know it wasn’t her fault.”
She smiles, misunderstanding, and pats his arm. She is used to these midnight conversations on the unit.
“My son never had a chance to say anything,” Ned tells her. “He died. Accident. When he was sixteen.”
“That’s got to be the worst.”
“He was a good kid. Kind. Everyone liked him. He could make a stone laugh.”
“You sure you don’t want something to help you drop off?”
“No. I’m fine now.”
She lowers the bed, adjusts his pillow, not in a fussy way like Rose, but in an efficient way that makes him feel cared for.
He dozes off, wakes, dozes again.
When he wakes, he sees someone sitting in the shadows. A doctor? He squints. The form rises and comes closer. Trick of the light and the damned medication, no doubt. The boy needs a haircut—as usual— but he is whole, unharmed. And not the little boy Ned always remembers, but big, lean, almost a man. Ned struggles against the tubes and cables to sit up. Tears are smarting at the corners of his eyes, and he is aware of a loud, bright tone to his left somewhere. He opens his mouth to greet his son. “Todd,” he says, and laughs aloud. Todd’s shy smile widens. God, what a handsome kid; he’ll give the girls some sleepless nights.
He’s a sight for sore eyes. Whole, unharmed, strong. It’s all right, after all. Ned can’t wait to tell Rose.
CHAPTER 39
ROSE
ROSE HAD DONE THE STRANGEST THING. SHE’D WORN A pair of Ned’s pajamas to bed. They were oddly comforting; still she spent a restless night. Even when she managed to drop off, she woke on edge, breathless with the knowledge that something was wrong, then the full awakening: Oh, yes, Ned’s had a heart attack.
She has been up since before dawn, getting the house ready for his return, which, according to Dr. Cassidy, should be within the next two days. She has already tackled their bedroom, aired it out, vacuumed the mattress, changed the linens, waxed the furniture, set up a card table by the bed so there will be plenty of space for all the things he’ll need: medicines, water carafe and glass, newspapers. She’s considering a radio for the ball games if it won’t get him too riled up.
As much as she wants Ned back home where she can take care of him, she thinks his release is premature. They should keep him for another week, just in case.
Don’t treat him like an invalid. Fine for the doctor to say. She wonders if he would be so casual if it were his wife lying in the unit.
They push patients out of the hospital today. Just shove them out. One day you’re hitched up to monitors and IVs and the next you’re back home in your bed. A person’s lucky if he’s fully conscious before he’s wheeled to the parking lot. Gloria Smart’s daughter was released the day after she gave birth. The day after. Rose was in for five days when she had Todd and was glad of it. No. Nowadays they just roll you right out. What’s the hurry? Why the rush? Can it be safe to leave so soon after a heart attack? She blames it on the insurance companies. Which reminds her, she still hasn’t asked Ned about their coverage.
She goes upstairs to gather a few things he’s requested. She packs his shaving kit and finds a pair of pajamas. They’re not new, but anything is an improvement over t
hose ridiculous tie-up gowns they put a person in. She would like to bring him something to eat—some little treat—but she isn’t sure what’s allowed. This morning he’s being moved to Medical West, but even there his diet will be restricted. Well, she’ll bring him the Sports section again. He’ll like that.
Yesterday, during the late visiting hours, he asked her to sneak him in some coffee. Coffee. Is he crazy? After she finished getting mad, she saw it as an indication he was getting well. Still, Dr. Cassidy is cautious.
The cardiologist answered all her questions patiently—even telling her Ned will be able to have sex, as if she cares about such things—but he couldn’t promise the biggest questions: Will Ned recover fully? Will he be all right?
Late last night when Rose phoned in, the nurse said Ned was sleeping. His signs are good, she reported, then added something about having him back on meds until he’s stabilized. Stabilized? They had told her he was stabilized. The nurse had explained that around midnight the monitor had picked up some irregular beats—ventricular fibrillation, she said. Ventricular fibrillation. This sounds like a problem Ned would find in someone’s engine. Leaky carburetor. Blown manifold.
Ventricular fibrillation. Meds. They speak a foreign language— speech that puts them in control, in charge. Well, soon enough she’ll be the one in charge, and he’ll be back here in his own bed.
Suddenly she considers the stairs. Will he be able to manage them? Should he even be trying it? Don’t treat him like an invalid. But surely they can’t expect him to be climbing stairs his first day home. Maybe she’ll have to rent one of those hospital beds and set it up in the living room. Of course, that will create another problem. The house was built back before people had to have as many baths as they did bedrooms, and there is only the half-bath on the first floor. For years now Ned has been talking about taking that little room off the kitchen, the one they use for storage, and enlarging the bath, adding a shower. Great for resale, he’d say, as if she planned to ever sell the place.
This could get complicated. She wonders if she’ll have to hire home-care people to help out. Another expense. Will insurance take care of it? Some of these questions can’t be left until he is well enough to take over.
Ned keeps the desk in order. Their checkbook and savings passbook are in the top drawer on top of a manila folder. She picks up the folder, opens the flap, and withdraws several envelopes. The first one holds a life insurance policy. Suddenly superstitious, she pushes it back into the folder, as if even looking at it will bring bad luck. She flips through the other envelopes. Appliance warranties. No health insurance.
In the next drawer she finds the recorded deed for their house. At least if he is unable to return to the garage they won’t have to worry about losing their home. She remembers the day he made the final mortgage payment and they owned the house free and clear. They went out to dinner at that Italian place where they always went when there were things to celebrate. Back in a time when they still had a life that held cause for celebration. Ned had ordered wine in one of those bottles encased in straw. Neither of them was crazy about the taste, but they drank every drop, toasting each other, the house, their parents who would be so proud if they were still alive. They even raised a glass to the bank.
She folds the deed and slips it back in the drawer. All the things Ned had worked so hard for. All the things they thought were so important.
She is about to close the drawer when a long white envelope catches her eye. It’s tucked in back, half covered by a stack of utility receipts. She pulls it out, startled to see her name on the front. In the upper left corner she reads Anderson Jeffrey’s name and address. So he had sent her a copy of the piece she had written in his class. When had it arrived? And Ned had opened it. Her stomach clutches at the thought of him reading it.
She pictures him unsealing it, imagines him reading all the things she spilled onto that page, all the things she could never tell him. All her bitterness and rage about Todd. All her grief. All her anger at him. All the “hot writing.” And he never said a word. She checks the cancellation date. Last February, after she’d met Anderson Jeffrey over in Pellington. Too upset to continue her search for their HMO papers, she shuts the drawer and escapes to the back porch.
So Ned knows everything. Oh, God, he even knows how she refused to let Todd take the car that day. He knows it’s her fault their son is dead. How will she ever face him?
He’s known since February and has never let on, never confronted her or blamed her. All those months and weeks and days he kept on with ordinary life, sitting across the table, making conversation, going to work. She feels like he is someone she doesn’t know at all.
Doesn’t know at all. Like after the attack, all his talk about “the next great adventure,” making death sound like a trip to Disney World. Where did that come from? Before this she would have sworn Ned didn’t hold much with spiritual matters. He isn’t even religious. Even back when she was going to church regularly, it was a struggle to get him to go along. He only went to appease her. Once he told her he thought religion was for the weak. They had had sharp words over that, although now she thinks it’s true. Religion is nothing but empty words.
The thick trill of the phone interrupts her thoughts. Ever since word of Ned’s attack spread, the phone’s been been ringing off the hook with calls from customers, friends, people she hasn’t talked to in years. Sometimes it’s people whose names she doesn’t even recognize. Now, here it is barely daybreak and they’ve already started up again. She lets it ring on. She can’t talk to one more person, can’t answer one more question, can’t say, “No, there’s nothing anyone can do, thank you, anyway,” one more time. There is nothing anyone can do, and that’s the hard and inescapable truth.
She stares out at the sun rising on the horizon. It’s going to be another hot day. The humidity is already making her skin damp. The weatherman has been forecasting a spell of record-breaking heat. She’ll have to get a fan for Ned’s room. Maybe even one of those air conditioners that sit in the window.
She rocks back and resumes her musing about Ned.
Does he really believe there is something beyond this life? Is that why it was so easy—so simple—for him to go on after Todd’s death? Is it possible he really believes that Todd’s soul—his spirit—goes on? She wants to ask him this. She feels a flash of jealously. The next great adventure. She remembers how he looked when he said that. Denial, the nurse told her. But Ned’s face was calm, as if he knew something, had already seen a place she hasn’t.
Why had they never talked about these things? What was it he had said about Opal and the custody battle? “The girl deserves a second chance.” Is that what life is? A series of missed opportunities? A series of second chances because we keep getting it wrong?
At that moment, bathed by the dawning sun, she feels a stirring in her chest. Ned survived his attack. She doesn’t have cancer. They are being given a new chance. This is the thought she tucks in her mind’s pocket as she calls for the taxi to come pick her up.
SHE HAS BARELY STEPPED THROUGH THE SWINGING DOORS into the CCU when she sees the day nurse startle, rise, and head for her at top speed.
“Mrs. Nelson?”
She knows immediately. Even as she keeps walking—her feet on automatic—she knows. No! her mind, her heart cries out. No.
The nurse reaches out a hand out, takes hers. “Mrs. Nelson,” she says again.
She allows herself to be led to the visitors’ lounge. “I’m sorry,” the nurse says.
“He’s gone?” Rose says, as calm as if she is inquiring about the price of beef.
“I’m sorry.” The nurse spills out the details, taking Rose’s silence as a sign she wants to know: A massive attack. He had a good evening. A little restless. No pain.
As if these details would help.
“Was he alone?”
“Yes. Apparently he tried to get out of bed by himself, maybe to use the commode.”
“
Where is he now?”
“In his room. Would you like to see him?”
The nurse’s words ring hollow, as if she is speaking from a distance. She reaches a hand out to steady herself.
“Here,” the nurse says. “Sit. Let me get you some water.”
THEY HAVE CLEANED HIM UP. ALL THE TUBES ARE GONE. THE IV feeds. The monitor hookups. He could be sleeping. If you didn’t know better, you would think he is sleeping. A slight smile on his lips. Like a child having a good dream. Yes, he could be asleep, waiting for her to rouse him. Except it is too quiet. No snoring. No breath.
She thinks, shocking herself, How dare you? How dare you smile, as if you’re happy to leave me alone, with no one? Later she will track down the night nurses, seek details. Listen to everything they tell her about his last night, every word he said to them, even ask to see the monitor printout. But now, at this instant, her first thoughts are for herself.
How could Ned leave her like this? How could he leave her alone?
CHAPTER 40
ROSE
FUNNY THING, SHE CAN REMEMBER EVERY DETAIL OF Todd’s funeral. Even now, nearly six years later, she can recall who gave to the scholarship fund in his name and who sent flowers, and how rain threatened but cleared just in time for the service. She remembers exactly what they wore to church—her navy dress, Ned’s charcoal suit, even the purple pantsuit that Ethel had on—can remember how Louisa Henderson stood in the choir loft and sang “On the Wings of Love” in her thin soprano voice while the pall-bearers guided the casket up the aisle, each detail as clear and sharp as if all had occurred just this morning. She can close her eyes and recreate Todd’s funeral in—what’s that movie word?—Technicolor, but she can’t even summon a black-and-white snapshot of Ned’s, barely two weeks past.
The last thing she really remembers, as she understands memory, is being at the hospital. The nurse telling her “his heart exploded.”
“That’s a hard but true way of describing it,” the nurse said. What are people thinking, saying something like that? Words that will just haunt you. That’s the last she can recall. His heart exploded. What image is she to hold? An engine expiring in a concussive cloud of smoke and sparks? A valentine sputtering into shreds of lace and red glitter?
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