Four: Stories of Marriage

by Nia Forrester

  The shocking thing wasn’t that a relationship once so incredibly sexual had become just about sex-less. The astonishing thing was that Keisha hadn’t cared. And the downright scary thing was that Jayson didn’t seem to care either.

  Tonight though, they had been drinking, taking sips of glasses of wine poured from a bottle that had been included in a welcome basket for their suite. From the moment they got back from their afternoon out until the time they got showered and started to dress for the show, as she drank, there was a gauzy haze over everything and Keisha felt sluggish and unmotivated. Something about being in a hotel room seem to demand sex of them, so they had it.

  But like the Broadway show, the idea of sex seemed better than the reality of it. Tonight, lovemaking with Jayson had been covered in the same gossamer-thin mood of disconnectedness. She felt pleasure, but it was dim, and distant as though happening to someone else entirely, and she was feeling it secondhand.

  And that was how this new conviction that she might have just gotten pregnant again felt as well. Dim. Distant. Secondhand.

  “You okay?” Jayson came out of the bathroom wiping his hands on a towel.

  “Why would you ask me if I’m okay?” Keisha narrowed her eyes. It was almost as though he’d read her mind.

  “Because … it didn’t feel like you were into it. You know … when we were …”

  “Into it?” Keisha said. “I’m your wife …”

  “So that means that even if you’re not into it, you’d do it anyway?”

  Actually, yes. But something told her that was the wrong answer.

  “No. I mean, of course I was into it.”

  Jay got on the bed next to her. He was still naked, and Keisha was transfixed by his dick, still large, even when flaccid. Liking the sight of his penis, not being … repelled by it, that had to count for something.

  “Can you look me in the eyes please?” he said. His tone was jokey, but also not.

  Keisha looked at him.

  “It didn’t feel like you were there with me,” he continued. “It felt like I was dragging you along.”

  Her mouth almost fell open at how spot-on that observation was.

  “I came,” she offered, as a consolation.

  “That’s a physical response. Not a mind response. Not a … heart response.”

  Keisha looked over his shoulder, unable to maintain eye contact.

  “Key …”

  On the side table, one of their phones vibrated, diverting their attention. It was Jayson’s. He reached past Keisha to check the display and his brows knitted.

  “Hey,” he answered it. “What’s up, Chloe? Everything … No, he was fine. Why?”

  Jayson listened a while more, but Keisha’s heart had already begun to speed up.

  “Jayson, what …?”

  He made an impatient motion with his hand, signaling for her to be quiet, then stood, and still listening to Chloe on the other end of the line, began to rifle about, looking for something among his tangled clothing.

  “Yeah. Take him now. Yes. Now. We’re coming … yeah. No, don’t wait.”

  “Jayson. What happened?” Keisha heard her own voice, reedy and high-pitched, the panic setting in.

  “Yeah,” he was saying to Chloe. “Maybe it’s nothing, but … Yes. Yes, Chloe, I’m sure. Just get off the phone with me and do it now.”

  He ended the call, tossed his phone on the bed and turned to Keisha.

  “Hurry up and get dressed. Chloe says something’s wrong with Lee.”

  4

  When they arrived at his sister’s house, Austin his brother-in-law was there alone with the kids. It had been almost an hour-and-a-half since Chloe’s call. For the entire drive back upstate, Keisha had been on the phone, dialing Chloe’s cellphone repeatedly and getting no answer. By the time they got to the house, both she and Jayson were barely holding it together.

  “She’s at the hospital,” Austin told them as soon as he opened the door. “You need to get over there right away. I had to stay here with the kids, but …”

  Jayson didn’t wait for the rest of the sentence. He and Keisha were back in his truck and backing out the driveway once again.

  “Oh God, Jay …” Keisha grabbed his arm. “I knew we shouldn’t have …”

  “Our leaving him has nothing to do with it,” Jayson said. “Was he acting weird this morning? When we took him over to Chloe’s? Did you …?”

  “No! You saw him. He was sleeping. He didn’t want to eat anything, but …”

  “What about last night?”

  “I don’t remember anything different about last night. He was fine. Do you think he caught something from Gabby, or from Toni?” she asked, referring to their nieces, Chloe and Austin’s daughters.

  “No. Because they’d be sick too, right?”

  “He’s younger though, so maybe …”

  “There’s no point guessing. We’ll find out soon enough.” Jay said, though his own mind was already going to the worst-case scenario.

  If something happened to his son, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. He’d already lost both his parents, and then a surrogate father, his friend Rob’s father, had died just six months earlier.

  Mr. Wilburn, who had helped him structure the deal to buy his business and who had been a friend when he most needed one had finally succumbed to Alzheimer’s. Jay had been with him from the days of his first, seemingly minor moments of confusion, until the end when there was psychosis, and finally catatonia, when his brain had deteriorated so much it didn’t know how to tell the body what to do.

  Jay had been in the hospice with Rob and Rob’s wife, when finally, Mr. Wilburn slipped away. And he had felt his absence immediately, as though a tiny piece of him had flown away as well. If something were to happen to Lee, more than a piece of himself would be gone, he might lose himself entirely.

  “He’ll be fine,” Jay told Keisha now. “He’ll be fine.”

  They didn’t know where to go at first when they got to the main entrance of sleepy regional hospital until the woman at reception told them they should try the ER. So, together, he and Keisha ran around the side of the building where the ambulances were, and into the emergency room.

  Jay took some comfort in the fact that there were few people there in the waiting room, and that none of them looked to be suffering from anything life-threatening. It meant that if a baby came in, he would be the priority.

  “Lee Jayson Holmes,” he told the nurse at the front desk. “He’s only eight-months-old. He would have …”

  “Jayson!”

  Chloe emerged from between a pair of swinging doors, her eyes wide and a little wild. She came to them, hugging Keisha and taking a deep, trembling breath.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she said. “It just all seemed to come on so fast …”

  “What?” Keisha asked. “What seemed to come on fast?”

  “He didn’t want to eat anything, and was just sleepy and listless, so I let him alone for a while and then I checked on him and he was burning up. So, I called you guys, then Dr. Betty and she asked me a few questions, and said I should take him in right away … And now they’re admitting him, and …”

  “But where is he?” Keisha asked urgently.

  “They’re … they said they’re taking him upstairs. I don’t …”

  Then Chloe was crying, and Keisha began sobbing as well, while Jayson looked around frantically for someone, other than his hysterical sister, who could give him more information.

  That was when Betty emerged from the back. She was in street-clothes—jeans and a red t-shirt with the words ‘Not Today’ emblazoned across her chest. Spotting Jayson with Keisha and Chloe, she approached them, and he could see the moment she assumed her professional demeanor, preparing to give frightened family members difficult news.

  “Jayson,” she said, “hello.”

  “Where’s my son?” he asked, too impatient for social niceties.

  Keisha and Chl
oe, still holding each other, turned to look at Betty.

  “We’ve brought him upstairs to the ICU …”

  Keisha let out something like a groan.

  “… But it’s good that we caught this right away. Chloe did the right thing calling me. We think it may be a bacterial infection of some kind. Maybe meningitis …”

  “What does that mean? How does …”

  Betty rested a hand on his arm, perhaps to calm him, perhaps to get him to listen. She looked from Jay to Keisha and Chloe.

  “It can be very dangerous, but the key is that it looks like we caught it early and can be very aggressive about beating it back.”

  “I need to see him,” Keisha said. “I need to …”

  “Of course. We can go up right now.”

  On the elevator up to the ICU, no one spoke, and Betty stood a little way in front of them, her back to Jayson, Keisha and Chloe. He shoulders were erect, and her back straight, and Jayson thought it was probably part of her professional mask of competence. She had been trained for this, after all—to convey command and confidence to patients and families in difficult circumstances.

  Jayson remembered another side of her, though. The side that had confessed her love for him and grown teary-eyed when he told her he could never be without his wife. The side that told him her most personal pain, in losing the ability to bear children. And here she was, helping him so that he might never experience the pain of losing his child.

  She led them to a room where Lee was in a bed on his back, looking very small, his limbs limp and his eyes closed. Keisha broke away from Chloe and went to him immediately, stroking his head and putting her face to his cheek.

  She said his name, and his eyes fluttered, like someone trying to break free of a heavy sleep, but too exhausted to do so. There was an IV taped to his arm, and it was that which finally drove the fear deeper home.

  How could they even find a vein? He was too small.

  Jayson turned to look at Betty, reluctant to approach his son’s bedside for reasons he couldn’t explain. Seeing his face, she touched his arm again.

  “Come outside and talk to me for a moment. Mrs. Holmes, would you like to …?”

  Keisha shook her head. “No. I’m staying here,” she said without looking around.

  As Jayson and Betty exited the room, a nurse entered, and Jayson looked back over his shoulder. If they were about to do anything to his son, he wanted to be there. When they had inserted the IV, he wondered, did Lee scream? Did he wonder where his parents were?

  “She’ll just be checking his vitals,” Betty said. “It’s fine.”

  Once they were out in the hallway, he ran a hand over his head and leaned against the wall.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I didn’t say that before, so …”

  “It’s alright, Jayson,” Betty’s voice sounded different now that they were alone. Less officious, and more like that of the woman he remembered. “You don’t have to thank me for that. I’m glad I was able to help.”

  “Is he going to be okay? Because if …”

  “He should be fine. It seems like we caught it early. He doesn’t have any of the rashes and other symptoms that tell us it might … He doesn’t seem to be in such bad shape that we need to be unduly worried.”

  “But we’re in the ICU. So, I need you to just give it to me straight. Should I be …”

  “I won’t tell you not to worry. Because, first of all telling you that would be futile. And yes, there are a few cases where this can go very badly. But what I’m saying is, your son doesn’t have those symptoms at this time.”

  “Lee,” Jayson said.

  “Yes. Lee. Chloe told me. Named after your mother.” Betty smiled.

  “She had time to tell you all that?” He managed a wan smile of his own.

  “She babbles when she’s agitated.” Betty shrugged.

  “It was a conveniently gender-neutral name,” Jayson added. “And as much as I wanted to make him a junior, my wife …”

  He stopped abruptly, surprised by how easy it was, present situation notwithstanding to fall back into comfortable banter with her. Betty gave him a look that told him she was probably thinking the exact same thing.

  “It’s okay. You can talk about your wife. You can talk about anything, Jayson. We’re good.”

  He sighed, and they for a moment just stared at each other.

  “Thank you,” he said again.

  “You should go in.” She nodded toward the room. “I’m going to enter some notes for Lee’s doctor, and the attending should be here shortly.”

  “So, you’re not going to be his …”

  Betty shook her head. “No. His regular doctor will be here in the morning, and the attending physician is someone I know well. Very capable.”

  He wanted to ask her to be the one to take care of Lee. Because he knew she would do a great job of it. Maybe even a better job than most, because Lee was his son. But that seemed like asking more than was fair, because it would be exploiting the fact Betty had once loved him.

  “I’ll also speak to the attending before I go, so she can keep me updated. That way if you have any questions …”

  Jayson nodded.

  Betty leaned in and gave him a quick hug. He stiffened at the unexpectedness of it, and she pulled away, looking slightly embarrassed. He wanted to explain to her that he hadn’t been recoiling at her touch, but it would have been a strange thing to say under the circumstances. And before he could think of anything else, Betty had turned and was walking away down the hall.

  The attending physician, Dr. Chen, had the same air of confident competence that Betty had, but none of her warmth. She strode into the room where Keisha and Jay were waiting with Chloe, all of them worriedly standing over Lee’s bed and looked at the chart for almost five minutes before saying a single word.

  Finally, when she glanced up to offer a cursory smile, she launched right in, speaking quickly.

  “We think this may be bacterial meningitis,” she said. “Basically, that means inflammation in the meninges, which protect the brain and spinal cord. Potentially very dangerous if not caught early. The only way to conclusively diagnose this is to examine the spinal fluid …”

  After that, her words were a flurry of medical terms, only some of which were familiar. A few penetrated, though. And none were reassuring.

  CT scan.

  Spinal tap.

  MRI scan.

  Samples and cultures.

  With each phrase, Jay felt almost dizzy with fear, but contained it, because next to him, Keisha was trembling—visibly trembling—with her own terror. He reached for her and she grabbed his hand like a lifeline, her fingers digging into his palms.

  “I’ll need your consent to perform the tests,” Dr. Chen said. “There are risks to the spinal tap, but relatively few when compared to the risk if this is a bacterial infection and we don’t begin to treat immediately.”

  “So, do it,” Keisha said, before Jayson had even begun to formulate a response. “Do the spinal tap.”

  “Will he … is he going to feel it?” Jayson croaked.

  “Not really,” the doctor said.

  Not ‘no’ but ‘not really’.

  Keisha exhaled audibly. “Are you going to do it now?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Chen said. “Someone will come for him shortly. And we’ll begin.”

  She left the room as abruptly as she had arrived, and Jayson turned to look at his son. He looked unlike himself. Lee, who was always laughing, gurgling, reaching for something, smiling was completely inert. He looked … lifeless.

  When he lifted his gaze, it was to find his sister and wife looking at him. As if he had any damn answers.

  5

  Shouldn’t he be waking up?”

  The morning shift had begun, and so there were new faces that came in to check Lee’s vitals. This one, a male nurse with a nametag that read ‘Osei’ smiled at Keisha warmly, making her comfortable enough to ask him the quest
ion. The night nurse had been stern, and taciturn. She made Keisha feel as though Lee’s illness was her fault, which for all she knew it well might be.

  “Not necessarily,” the nurse said, his voice pleasantly melodious. “When children are ill, it’s good for them sleep. It helps them heal.”

  Keisha nodded, but was unconvinced.

  “How will he eat then?” she asked.

  “We may use a feeding tube for him. We’ll wait for the doctor to say.”

  “But …”

  “We try to make it as comfortable as possible,” Osei said, smiling at her again.

  “I could try the bottle,” Keisha offered.

  In her head, she saw pictures of tubes coming out of people’s noses, like on a television hospital drama. Those tubes usually meant something dire was happening. She didn’t want Lee to be part of that club.

  “Let’s have the doctor decide.” Osei’s voice was gentle.

  “Okay,” she said.

  When she was alone with Lee again, she leaned back in her chair, and fidgeted. She needed to call Jay. He had left at daybreak to shower and change and go open the store. He would have to stay there for at least a couple of hours until someone else came in, and then he would come back.

  Keisha wanted to object to him going at all, but the store was their bread-and-butter; and with Lee in the hospital, they would need every bit of that they could get. And it wasn’t as though what he had was fatal. He just needed at least one parent there at all times.

  She didn’t know what time it was, or how much of an interval had passed when Osei returned, bringing her a tray of food—oatmeal, a small box of milk, bread and an apple. The aroma of the oats made her stomach growl in yearning, but she ignored it.

  Until she knew if Lee could eat, she couldn’t have anything herself. She set the tray aside and lowered the side-railing of the hospital bed, resting her head on the sheets next to Lee, lifting his little hand, and placing it in her hair.

  Around noon, Lee opened his eyes.