by Lee Woodruff
Seven days later, Roger was more fully awake but with no clear idea of what day it was or how long he had been here in the hospital. As he opened his eyes, he focused out the window. The harsh Florida sunlight was only partially muted by the louvered blinds, but the room was cold, over-air-conditioned. He shifted his eyes away from the glare and Margaret came into focus at eye level, in a chair next to his bed. She was sleeping, her head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle and her jaw hanging slack in a manner reserved for the very exhausted or drunk. Roger’s thoughts felt clearer, and he was able to focus better than the previous day. He reminded himself of the facts, as he did each morning. He’d had a stroke and was still in the hospital and on lots of medication that made him feel fuzzy and floating. At times just moving his eyes around and concentrating on the conversation were exhausting. Draining. He remembered that his three children had all cycled through the hospital at one point or another and then returned to their families soon after he woke up. Margaret was here now, keeping vigil. He assumed she hadn’t left Tampa since the stroke.
There was still an IV tube in his arm and the left side of his face was numb and drooped in an alarming manner. Margaret had told him tenderly that she wouldn’t let him look in a mirror “just yet,” but he had asked one of the night nurses to bring him a hand mirror and had been rendered speechless and heartsick by his own reflection. A dull ache throbbed in his collarbone, which had been broken in the fall. He felt as if he were a marionette, each limb and body part weighted and unresponsive, as if he were swimming through Jell-O. Roger’s brain felt gummy; that was the only way he could describe it. Although he knew what he wanted to say in his head, the words didn’t necessarily come out as he intended. He could hear them forming the way you could slow a 33-rpm record with your finger and distort the sound. Suddenly, he began to cough, a disturbing hacking noise, an irritation left over from the tube in his throat, the nurse had explained. The door to his room flew open suddenly, banging against the stopper, and a stocky nurse with overprocessed blond hair bustled in, pushing a cart with her equipment. Margaret bolted up at once, startled and momentarily confused, as she swiped the back of her hand across her mouth in slow motion.
“Time to check your vitals, Mr. Munson,” the nurse called out in a loud voice.
“Roger, you’re awake,” said Margaret, pulling herself up higher in the chair with her elbows, her tongue still sock-thick in her mouth from sleep, her fingers working now to rake her hair back in place. There was a cautious look of delight in her eyes tempered by fatigue. He could see the lines around her mouth and eyes, deeper than he remembered. Something about her earnestness made him soften. Roger hovered on the verge of weeping and then he collected himself as his pride flared. He was ashamed at being such an invalid.
“Yessssshhhhh.” Roger worked to form the words with his recalcitrant droop and he smiled at her, aware that only one side of his mouth lifted. When would the feeling return to the rest of his face? he wondered.
His thoughts flicked briefly to Julia and he recalled for the hundredth time, with a now familiar sinking feeling, that he’d been at her house when he’d fallen, but he was unable to remember any of the subsequent details. Julia must have called the ambulance, although he couldn’t begin to sequence how the events had transpired from there. Who had called Margaret? When had all the kids come and gone? Did Margaret know about Julia? All of these tangled concerns and unanswered questions made him sleepy. It was too much to think about and so much easier to ignore. Trapped inside this shell of a body, he imagined that he might never see Julia again. She must be worried sick. Perhaps she had been there in person and visited at an off time when Margaret wasn’t there. God, he hoped she hadn’t.
At one point in his druggy haze, he was certain that he’d heard Julia. He had a distinct memory of her husky voice near his ear. Perhaps he was simply imagining her caress, the hurried declaration of love, and her touch on the side of his face that still had feeling. He’d experienced all sorts of hallucinations and strange dreams on the medication they were giving him, and he seemed to sleep for half the day. Perhaps Julia’s visit had been conjured up by drugs in the end.
The nurse finished recording his blood pressure and ripped off the Velcro cuff, moving to check his IV line. Behind her another woman had entered the small room, holding a beige tray of hospital food, the condensation on the plastic wrap obscuring the food compartments underneath. She set the tray on Roger’s rolling table and positioned it in front of him. He was incapable of bringing the utensils up to his own mouth deftly, and so Margaret began to rise and uncover the pudding-ish substance.
“How about some apple sauce, dear?” she asked with forced brightness, holding a spoonful of the brownish glop out toward him.
A part of him wanted to turn his head away, to spit it back out in defiance, but he knew it was futile to react that way, especially to Margaret. She looked so hopeful, her words and her voice overly peppy, almost patronizing. It was the same tone she’d adopted when the girls were small. He was as helpless as an infant, and the unfairness of that, the sudden injustice and the vast inequality between them now, temporarily overwhelmed his emotions.
Roger nodded his head, grateful for her forbearance. He had to focus so carefully on moving his lips and swallowing the food. Each sequence of those motions, which had once been as involuntary as breathing, now required immense effort.
Below the sheet, he knew, was a tube that ran into his penis, collecting his piss. He disgusted himself. How long would this be for? He couldn’t quite grasp all the technical things the doctors had said. They spoke so rapidly and in such unintelligible medical terminology. And because Roger couldn’t always make himself understood clearly, everyone spoke over him, talked to Margaret, looked at him as if he were a child or an imbecile, and then they were gone before he could form the words.
“Jhhhhhhrrrinnnkkk,” Roger said with studied concentration, and Margaret looked over, responding as if he had made perfect sense.
“You want a drink, dear?” She repeated it the way a nursery school teacher tried to model words, he thought disgustedly. But he nodded his head eagerly as she moved the Styrofoam cup and straw of ice water up toward his lips, and he raised his arm to take it.
“Here you go!” and he tried, unsuccessfully, to close his fingers. “Roger, let me do that,” commanded Margaret, and she maneuvered closer to the bedside, offering him the angled straw once more.
Now Margaret was babbling something at him, chattering away, pushing those damned ice chips at him, placing the rubber reflex ball in the palm of his hand and pressing it together. A fuzzy-edged anger bubbled up as he emitted a strange, low growl, surprising them both. Margaret’s eyes widened, and then her look narrowed quizzically as she fought to understand what he was saying, what he wanted.
“Are you hungry?” Margaret said, almost pleading for an answer, and her solicitousness sickened him. He sickened himself.
“Unnnnnnnhhhhfff,” he managed and collapsed his head back against the pillow in frustration.
Later that night, with the moment behind him, Roger felt the kernel of determination begin to form. He would get better. He would work hard. He would devote all of his energy to his recovery, and he would walk again, talk again. This is not how it would end, a slow ebbing of all that was the essence of him. Another unintelligible sound escaped his lips as he held on to this thought, and then moving stealthily, Margaret was instantly beside him in the low fluorescent shadow of the room.
She leaned over him, misinterpreting his outburst as physical pain, and she brushed back his hair, caressed his cheek. The optimism and determination he had summoned deserted him almost as quickly as it had come. She had him, Roger realized. She had him completely and absolutely. Margaret would be his jailer and his captor, his gatekeeper and his interpreter. This is how it would be after all of those years that he was hers, but not hers. Gratitude, resentment, and self-loathing all clashed in his mind.
And
now he was crying, he realized. He could feel hot, fat tears rolling down his cheek, almost involuntarily, and he was powerless to stop them. Without missing a beat, Margaret reached over to the window ledge by the hospital bed and pulled a tissue out of the box, dabbing his eyes before the tears could even fall on his chest.
31
“The world feels upside down, Pete.” Maura was lying in bed next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. She had braided her body around him after they had unexpectedly and hurriedly made love while the kids were at Erin’s for a Saturday afternoon. And while it hadn’t set the world on fire, it had felt good and familiar.
“I know, baby, but it’s good you were there for your father, even if he wasn’t awake. Good you could help your mom through that period. She’s been such a major help to us.” Maura nodded in agreement.
“I’m really worried about her. She’s trying to be strong for so many people. And she’s exhausted.”
“It’s got to be hard,” said Pete. “But I’m glad he’s awake and making some progress.”
“And I’m glad Erin will be in Florida for the transfer back up here.”
“How do you think he is, really?”
“Pretty weak.” Maura sighed deeply. “His speech is totally affected. Mom put the phone up to him today so he could hear me, but it was sort of hard to understand him. And his movements. They’re so disjointed. Stu told me when he was down there that he’s getting more mobility, slowly, but it’s really shocking to see him so diminished. He can barely feed himself. I think he’s depressed. I mean, anyone would be, right?”
“I’m glad he’s coming back to the Chicago Rehab hospital,” said Pete. He was absentmindedly rubbing her shoulder now with his forefinger, staring at the ceiling. It was beginning to feel uncomfortable, like he was wearing away a layer of skin, but she held her tongue. This felt like the old them, and she didn’t want to disturb the pleasant sensation of equilibrium.
“All this sadness.” Maura sighed. “So much for one family.” Pete didn’t answer but pulled her closer. They lay in silence for a moment, each cataloging their own thoughts.
“Thanks again for taking the kids camping,” she said.
“Well, it wasn’t really camping. We spent the whole week sleeping in the cottage. Just that one time we pitched the tent outside. Somewhere about one A.M. we got too cold and went in the house.” Pete laughed. “Grandma June made bacon and eggs in the morning.”
“Ryan told me,” said Maura.
“But I told Ryan and Sarah that counted as winter camping. As long as you make it past midnight.” Pete coughed, and her head, resting on his chest, rose gently up and down.
“Ryan told me you all tracked a bear in the woods.”
“Yup, I had them both going. There were some tracks in the snow, a raccoon or who knows, some other small animal, and I told them it was a baby bear. Ryan’s eyes got really big.” He paused. “James—”
“You know that James—” began Maura simultaneously, and they both stopped. They’d had the same thought at the same time, she realized. They’d imagined their son’s delight with the idea of off-season camping, his enthusiasm for the bear tales. He loved the night sky, loved animals and campfires. She watched sorrow flare up in Pete’s face, and she battled back her own precarious emotions.
“Hey, come with me,” Pete said suddenly, rising off the bed and slipping on his jeans. Maura looked at him quizzically and then threw on one of Pete’s T-shirts on the chair by the bed. He led her down the hallway and turned the door handle into James’s room. The afternoon sunlight cut strips across the floor where it filtered through the wooden blinds. This was less her son’s place now and more of a shrine. It was a room where time and objects had suspended themselves in the life of a forever nine-year-old boy.
Pete led her over to the twin bed and they sat side by side on the SpongeBob comforter.
“I miss him so much,” said Pete simply.
“I know,” answered Maura. And she leaned her head on his shoulder. They sat for a moment, studying the trophies on the single shelf Pete had built around the perimeter of the room just under the dentil molding. She made a mental note of the fine layer of dust on his desk. They had picked it out together last year at Crate & Barrel, his own private place to do homework. He’d wanted to buy his own laptop too, and they’d all discussed what chores he could take on to earn money. Roger and Margaret had given him paying jobs around their house, like weeding the pachysandra beds and polishing silver so that he could achieve his goal.
Maura sighed heavily. “If I could have one wish …”
“Me too.”
“Remember how James was scared about things under his bed?” Her brow creased, thinking about his night terrors and his certainty that something was lurking beneath him.
Pete smiled and nodded his head wordlessly.
“I guess there really was something under the bed, something bad waiting after all, huh, babe?” A tear spilled out of Maura’s eye and ran down her cheek. She hadn’t cried with Pete in a long time, and it felt strange at first, unpracticed. Pete was crying too, his shoulders rising and falling. And then he was holding her again, rocking her back and forth.
“Why did it happen to James? I let the bad thing happen to James.” All at once the words were pouring out of her mouth, the horrible knowledge that she had been the parent in charge.
“Hey,” said Pete, soothing her. “Hey now. I don’t … I don’t have any of the reasons why. Or the answers. I don’t think there are any. Bad stuff just happens. It happens all around us every day. I know you’re punishing yourself, Maura, but, whatever you were doing, looking away or not paying attention, you have to forgive yourself.” Maura hiccupped a sob and then nodded.
They both stayed on the bed, rocking, as if afraid to break the spell. Something had dislodged and shifted between them this afternoon, a nestling together. Perhaps this was James’s gift, she thought, guiding them back toward each other here in his room.
“I want us to work, Pete,” Maura said softly, and it took a moment before she realized she was holding her breath.
“We’re working,” he said simply. “We’re getting there.”
They sat, each navigating their own thoughts, remembering James, transfixed by the pictures of him on the little bulletin board, the proof that he had been theirs. James standing next to Pluto in Disney World, James pitching, his fourth grade school portrait with the unnatural forced smile and fake blue cloud backdrop.
There was a bitter sweetness in sitting here together. Up to this point, their grief had manifested itself in such completely different ways. Today was one of the first times since the funeral they had sat together, comingling their respective sorrow. She was touched that Pete had taken her in here. It was a form of healing to lie on the bed together, the two people who had created James, shouldering their loss as a couple, in this sacred space.
32
“When Maura and Erin had sat with her in the hospital last month, they had repeatedly tried to get Margaret to go back to the hotel and nap, to read by the pool, to step away from the bedside. She wasn’t ready yet, she’d told her daughters. She occupied the hotel just to shower and sleep. The rest of the time was spent by Roger’s bedside, as if keeping constant vigil could improve his chances of recovery.
Although Roger had been awake for a month now and was participating in some basic therapies, there was no giant leap forward in his condition. It was hard to see him so incapacitated, and Margaret could intuit, beneath his intermittent thumbs-up and false bravado, the reek of anger and defeat. Where was the fight in him?
Margaret had to admit there was a kind of peace in being next to him like this, an abundance of unencumbered time together. It brought to mind the butterflies that she had trapped in a jar, as a girl, with a cotton ball of alcohol and then pinned to a bright felt background. Here was her husband, a perfect specimen, captured, but not present, not vitally alive.
Margaret reached out
to touch his cheek while he slept. After four weeks in the hospital on a mostly liquid diet he had shed pounds, and his skin was sallow, hanging a bit from his face, muscles slack. The nurses had told him they were not allowed to shave him or cut his nails, hospital rules, and so Margaret had done it herself. She had been surprised by the emotions evinced during the act of grooming him. There was a gentle dignity in the simple tasks of physical caretaking that was hard to articulate. Lathering her husband’s face and drawing the razor carefully along his jawline was such an intimate experience it almost made her blush. The way his eyes followed her studied gaze during these moments felt like a found purpose.
Occasionally Margaret had allowed herself to imagine what life might be like if Roger never fully recovered. There was only one incidence she could remember when they’d discussed end-of-life issues and it was at a dinner party, not many years ago. Someone had introduced the idea of a DNR, a do-not-resuscitate order, and they had all been bantering about what they would do or what their wishes would be in this situation, each person boisterously offering their opinion over multiple cocktails.
“I would never want to be a vegetable,” she remembered Roger saying glibly. “If I couldn’t live fully and move and talk, I’d never want to stick around.” She could recall at that moment how confident he had looked, almost as if he couldn’t fathom that age and infirmity would ever catch up with him.
“I want to go out like that governor, was it Rockefeller?” Roger had continued, raising his highball glass at the table in a jesting toast. “He died of a heart attack, didn’t he, while having sex with a hooker? He sure went out with a bang!” That had elicited raucous laughter from the men at the table and some of the women. But to Margaret the joke was a razor nick too close to home, and she had masked the humiliation she felt with a polite smile.
