The Man She Married

by Cathy Lamb

  On the first day of school Justine came in and promptly fell asleep at her desk across from me, her long black hair a mess. I learned later that she was up most of the night because her mother had a baby in a swimming pool in their living room and she had to help take care of her twin three-year-old siblings. She was asleep for most of the morning. The teacher woke her up for art time, which is when we met.

  “You slept for a long time,” I said to her as we both glued white cotton balls onto a piece of blue construction paper to make lambs. My lamb looked angry and mean, definitely dangerous.

  Justine’s lamb was cute. We had those roly-poly eyeballs, and she glued them onto her lamb’s face just right. One of my lamb’s eyes was an inch higher than the other. He had five legs and a hump on his back like a gargoyle.

  “We had another baby.”

  “You had a baby?” I gasped. She was pretty young to have a baby! Only five years old. I looked at her stomach. She was skinny. That baby must have been as small as a squirrel.

  “My mommy had a baby. She had it at home in our living room in the swimming pool.”

  “She had a baby in a swimming pool?” This was getting better and better. I stopped working on my dangerous lamb.

  “You have a pool in your living room?” Chick asked.

  Justine nodded. “That’s how she likes to have babies. Then she doesn’t have to go to the hospital and get shots. She pushed it out in the water so it could go swimming, and she screamed a lot.”

  “How big is the swimming pool?” Swimming in your living room? That sounded like fun. “Is there a slide?”

  “Is there a diving board?” Chick asked.

  “No. It’s a small pool. With whales on it. For kids. But we’re not allowed to swim in it. It’s only for the new babies.”

  I thought about the screaming part. “Why did she scream?”

  “She told me it’s because she’s trying to push something the size of a watermelon out something the size of a grape and it hurts. I like grapes.”

  “I like grapes, too,” I said. “I stuck one up my nose one time. It fit.”

  “I like watermelon,” Chick said. “I even eat the seeds.” Chick had made three cotton ball lambs. The mom lamb had a beer and her nails were painted pink and red.

  Justine glued more cotton balls down. “I’m not going to have a baby ever.”

  “Me, either.” I didn’t want to have babies if it hurt. “How did the baby get out in the pool?”

  She pointed to her privates. “Right there.”

  “What? Are you sure?” I was suspicious.

  “I’m sure,” Justine said, nodding. “I’ve seen it.”

  Chick pulled up her dress, pulled down her underwear, bent over double for a close-up examination, and said, “There’s no room for a baby down there.” She stood back up. “I’m going to get a zipper on my tummy and when a baby wants to come out then I’ll unzip the zipper and she’ll walk out in her dress and get on a horse. I have a horse.”

  Wow. That was a good idea. Chick was smart.

  “They don’t wear clothes,” Justine said. She wriggled her nose. “There’s no zipper. They come out all red and slippery and crying and sometimes they’re sort of purple. It’s gross. They’re gross. My mom wears a white lace dress when she has the babies.”

  “My mom paints women’s fingernails,” Chick said. “She says they tell her all their secrets.” She leaned forward and whispered to us, “You know Mr. Toberton, the mayor? Mommy says at night he comes when everyone else is gone and gets his toenails painted pink with yellow flowers.”

  “I didn’t know men polished their toenails,” Justine said. “But my dad has handcuffs.”

  “My dad doesn’t polish his nails,” I said. “But he can wrestle down a pig.”

  “And Mrs. Leonard is pregnant again,” Chick said, “but it’s the wrong daddy.”

  I didn’t know what that meant. What’s a wrong daddy?

  “My mommy told my daddy that he needs to keep away from her at night or she’s going to have a herd of kids,” Justine said. “Like a herd of goats or a herd of cats. I think he puts the babies in her tummy at night when she’s not watching him.”

  “But doesn’t she wake up?” I asked.

  “How does he get them in there?” Chick asked.

  Justine shrugged.

  “My mommy says that she only wants one kid because I can be a big brat,” I said.

  “I don’t think you’re a brat,” Justine said. “But your lamb is sort of scary.”

  “Yeah, I don’t think you’re a brat,” Chick said. “I think you’re nice. Like my chickens.”

  I couldn’t believe it. These girls didn’t think I was a brat. They liked my lamb.

  Justine had a mom who had babies in a swimming pool with no slide in the living room. Chick’s mother put nail polish on men’s toenails. I had a mother who often screamed at my dad and threw plates and plants, an occasional chair and, another time, our cat at my dad’s head. He caught the cat.

  She would sometimes roar off in her car for days at a time. She would come home with shopping bags full of clothes and my dad would look sad. Sometimes she came home all wobbly and would stumble over furniture. She would go to bed for days on end, and cry and not eat and not talk, then all of a sudden she’d get up and pretend that she hadn’t been sad.

  She always wore pretty dresses and heels and said I had to dress pretty too. “We’re not white-trash poor people. It’s not like you live in a shed, Natalie, or in our car, so don’t dress like it,” she’d tell me. “My parents were wealthy. They bought me beautiful clothes.” Her parents had died before she met my dad. “If you look poor, people will treat you like you’re nothing and we’re not nothing! Do you hear me? I’m not nothing!”

  All our moms were sort of weird.

  I fit right in!

  We were friends from that moment on.

  The Moonshine and Milky Way Maverick Girls had met and bonded over lambs.

  * * *

  “Natalie,” my husband, my Zack, my fly-fisherman, says to me as I am lying flat, machines beeping around me, trapped inside my nonresponsive body. “You have to wake up so we can fish together on the Deschutes. Remember, baby. We’ve already planned the Deschutes trip for spring. I bought you that new pack for your waist. You can put all your flies in there.” His voice breaks.

  My middle name, Deschutes, is for the Deschutes River. I grew up fishing it with my dad, and I definitely want to go and fish it with Zack again.

  “Come on, sweetheart. Open those blue eyes for me.”

  I can’t open my blue eyes. I want to. I am in here, alone, and it’s dark and scares the hell out of me. It’s like drowning without the water.

  “You’re getting better, and everything’s okay.”

  I’m trying, sweet Zack, I’m trying.

  “Natalie, I can’t live without you.”

  I can’t live without you either, Zack. I can’t. We didn’t even get to live in the dream home we’ve always planned on living in. One day. Inside my dark shadows I start to cry.

  “Can you squeeze my hand, honey? Can you? Try. Please try.”

  I try. I can’t. I can do nothing.

  “We have to do our crosswords together,” he chokes out. “I can’t do crosswords alone.”

  We are so nerdy. We do crosswords together. When we started dating, I introduced him to crosswords. We do them on Sundays. We also read books together. We each have a copy of the same book. We call it the Deschutes Family Book Club. We discuss the book as we go. We read fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, and biographies, with a few thrillers thrown in.

  The crosswords and books are like mental foreplay, I suppose. I’m a math person, he’s a construction engineer. I like numbers. He likes blueprints. I like analyzing complex tax returns. He likes building with his bare hands. We like to make love in the afternoon. It’s the best time. Everybody’s rested and fed.

  “I want to do a crossword with you, honey.�
� His voice crackles and breaks again and that’s it. Zack starts to cry again. “I want to do a crossword with you. I want to do a crossword with you, Natalie.” He says it again and again, my poor Zack, he has lost it. “I want to do a crossword with you.”

  I want to do a crossword with you, too, Zack, I do. I so desperately do.

  My strong husband is falling apart.

  Inside, I cry with him. I can’t stand knowing he’s in this much pain.

  Then Zack drags in a ragged breath. “That son of a bitch,” he whispers, ferocious in his quiet fury. “That son of a bitch.” He slams a fist into a table of some sort. I hear it crack.

  Whoa. Who is a son of a bitch?

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I’ve been like this, in my Coma Coffin. Doctors and nurses come in and out. My mind comes in and out. One time I heard I’ve been like this for three days. The next time I woke up I heard it was five.

  I try to add numbers in my head here in my hospital bed to distract myself and get my brain working. They flip and bounce and disappear.

  I try to name all the animals I can think of. I am up to twelve.

  I name states and try to match them to their capitals. I think I reached thirteen.

  I name countries. Eleven.

  I have started to make up poems about my condition.

  Natalie is under the weather.

  She will soon get better.

  A food tube gives her tea and toast.

  This is definitely not a funny roast.

  There she lies in a coffin bed.

  Darned if she will end up dead.

  Wake up, Natalie, do it now.

  Or else you’ll have a permanent frown.

  I never said the rhymes were going to be well written. This is how I entertain myself. If I don’t, I’ll cave to my panic.

  The next day I cave to my panic. Inside my dark Coma Coffin I start to have a panic attack, all by myself. Alone. Is this going to be my life? Is nothing going to change?

  I am locked inside myself.

  No one knows I am alive.

  * * *

  Oh no. Gall. Sheesh.

  It’s my mother.

  She’s crying. I feel her hand on my forehead. This is surprising because my mother is not affectionate. At all.

  “Talk to her, Jocelyn,” my dad says. His voice is calm, encouraging. He forgave her instantly for what she did; he does not have room in his heart for anger. I did not forgive her instantly. I’m not sure I’ve forgiven her yet. “The doctors say she might be able to hear us.”

  “What do I say?”

  Ah. There’s my sparkling mother.

  “Tell her you love her.”

  “Natalie knows I love her.” Her voice is snappish through her tears. “I’ve already told her that, Scott.”

  Have you, Mom? Recently?

  Jocelyn Miller Fox Andretti Moscovitz Chavez Smith leans over me. She lives about four hours away from here on a ranch in eastern Oregon with Husband Number Five, Dell. She took Husbands Number Two, Three, and Four to the cleaners when she divorced them. Her home is about an hour away from my dad’s, the home I grew up in, in Lake Joseph.

  She has thick blond hair that curves into a bell around her face and blue eyes, like mine, but hers are brighter, which she often notes to me, as if we are in a competition to see who has the bluest eyes. Every piece of clothing, every handbag, every heel is designer, labels prominent. Her “social status” is important to her. She has no women friends, probably because she flirts with their husbands. You never know when you’ll need a new husband! Must keep your options open!

  My mother is still in love with my dad. When I do talk to her, she always asks me about my dad. What is he doing, how is he doing, and, in one way or another, is he seeing anyone?

  My mother has convinced herself that my dad has been pining for her forever. That is not true, but she believes what she wants to believe, regardless of facts. My dad has had a few relationships, all long-lasting, and I have liked all of the women. He does not miss my mother.

  I can smell her overpowering perfume. Her mouthwash. And . . . brandy. Yes, brandy. Had to have a shot before coming to see me. I don’t blame her on that one.

  She sighs. Then she says, her voice wobbling, “I love you, Natalie.”

  Whew! She did it!

  I haven’t seen her in months. She calls now and then, and sometimes I call back, sometimes I don’t because I’m not up to it. It’s like dealing with a lipsticked Godzilla.

  “I’m sorry, baby.” She puts her hand to my cheek, which, again, startles me. More affection!

  “And I’m sorry. I’m sorry for . . . for everything.” At that, her voice sinks into nothing. I hear her inhale. I hear a sob, the sob turns into more sobs. She is holding on to my bed rail, and I can feel it shake.

  My dad says nothing.

  My mother cries and cries.

  I don’t hate my mother. But I don’t want to be around her. She hurts me every single time I’m with her and has since she deserted my dad and me with a cheery wave as she drove off when I was seven.

  In her bright blue eyes, brighter than mine, I don’t dress “fancy enough.” My hair needs to be highlighted. I have the wrong bra on and I need more “boob lift.” I look pale. I look sickly. I should think about Botox. “Image is everything, Natalie. Never forget I told you that. Dress the part. Always look your best. Don’t dress like you’re poor and stupid.”

  The worst? She repeatedly lied to me as a child as to when she was coming to see me.

  But maybe I feel a pinch of pity for her today. She is a mother looking at a daughter in a coma. My mother is crying over me as if her sobs are going to kill her.

  As my body lies as flat as roadkill, my brain fluttering, I feel my heart swell a tiny bit. Maybe that tiny swell is a tiny bit of forgiveness.

  Then she snaps at my dad, “My God, Scott, has no one washed her hair? It looks awful. Get a nurse in here. I can’t have my daughter looking like white trash.”

  Inside, I sigh.

  * * *

  I wake up to Zack arguing into the phone. He calls someone “one sick shithead.” He does not anger easily, but he is swearing, his tone furious. Zack is usually calm and controlled. He’s a measured, mature man.

  As if he realizes I might be able to hear something, and he doesn’t want to upset me, he gets up and leaves my hospital room.

  Maybe this has something to do with his construction business, a contractor who didn’t show up? Maybe there was a lawsuit? Was Zack being sued for the first time ever? But there was a threatening tone to his voice. This is personal.

  About five minutes later, he comes back in. He kisses my forehead and says, “Hi, honey,” then he starts to pace. I feel him staring down at me sometimes. I love that man and I know he loves me, and the way he has been with me, almost all day and all night since this happened, whenever it happened, proves to me once again that my husband loves me.

  But I also sense something else: Fear.

  I know he’s scared. I am in a coma. He’s scared I’ll die. But there’s something else here, too. The fear is coming from someplace else. I can feel it.

  What is it?

  I thought about that for a while, inside my coma, trying to catch an answer that kept slipping away, hiding in the darkness of my injured brain, before everything went dark again. I wish I could remember the morning of my accident; it bothers me that I lost it. Something’s there....

  * * *

  I am having a bad night. My heart keeps racing, then fluttering, and my blood pressure plummets down, then shoots up, then back down again. There are doctors in and out all night. Zack and my dad beg me to hold on.

  I hold on.

  * * *

  Oh, joy. I have finally realized that I have a catheter up my va gi gi that is hooked to my urethra like a plastic snake. I don’t know how I missed this part. Maybe it’s the crush of all kinds of bizarre things going on with me at the moment.

&nbs
p; The catheter is now my special snake friend. I am all IV’d up, so clearly the liquid has to leave my body or my bladder will inflate like a balloon and pop. It’s reassuring that I have a snake catheter, because I definitely want to keep my bladder.

  In addition I believe that I am in a diaper. Yes. A diaper. This is what my life has become. You don’t know how much you love a toilet until you are unable to see one anymore.

  I am also being tilted and flipped around like a human side of beef so that I do not get bedsores. I do know that every day I lie here my muscles atrophy. I am also getting a shot a day so I don’t get blood clots that can kill me. My teeth are cleaned by nurses, and drops are plopped in my eyes to keep them moist.

  I could worry about this snake catheter, or I could worry about the feeding tube into my stomach, where I am undoubtedly getting mushed-up filet mignon and banana cream pie, or the diaper or the shots, but they are the least of my problems.

  No, I have a much bigger problem in that I am still alive, in a nonmoving body.

  I have identified three doctors by voice: Dr. Tarasawa and two doctors I call Dr. Doom and Dr. Hopeless. Dr. Doom and Dr. Hopeless are the two who stand over me and say hopeless and doomy things about me such as, “She should have woken up by now . . . could be permanent brain damage . . . we should let her go . . . talk to the family . . . her life may well not be worth living even if she does wake up . . . the longer she’s in a coma, the harder her death will be if they decide to stop treatment . . .”

  These are the types of things that set me to screaming inside myself again.

  Dr. Tarasawa says, “Let’s wait and see if she gets the golden miracle.”

  I want the golden miracle.

  So my vagina snake and my diaper hardly make a blip of discomfort in my mind.

  It is smart to prioritize what is really a problem, and what is merely an inconvenience, in life.

  A snake catheter, for example, is an inconvenience; listening recently to two doctors say that I should be “allowed to die” is a problem.

  An enormous, earth-quaking problem.