Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  Molly looked blank.

  “The infectious-disease specialist. Your uterus was badly infected. We couldn’t risk anything spreading so we had to take it out.”

  Molly stared at him in horror.

  That night, they took the tube out of the Chinese woman’s nose and moved her to another room. That night, the nurse told Molly they were lowering her morphine dose. All that night she didn’t sleep. She sat up in her uncomfortable bed and watched the door. She saw a strip of dotted swiss cloth sweep by the doorway, blown by an invisible wind. She heard an echoing tap of shoes. She heard the strains of Isaac Hayes melting and then moving into silence. She heard the click and whir of the monitors about her, the snore of a man next door, the soft cat sounds the white shoes of the nurses made.

  She heard something and tried to sit up straighter. A shadow crossed the room and then Dr. Price strode in. She had to look at him twice because something seemed different about him. “Mrs. Goldman,” he said in a low voice, and she saw for the first time how exhausted he looked; she felt how gently he handled her arm when he lifted it up to examine the swelling. He leaned in closer, and she smelled something cherry, like a cough drop. She saw a dot of what looked like tomato sauce on the lapel of his white jacket. “Oh, my God.” Her voice was raspy with effort.

  “Am I hurting you?” He looked at her, concerned.

  She shook her head. It was incredible. He really seemed to see her this time. And for the first time, she really saw him.

  She couldn’t sleep after he left. She stayed awake, listening to the sounds the hospital made. The soft slip of the nurse’s shoes, the whir of the machines, the beep of the IVs. The morning light was starting to slant in the room when she heard a voice. “Morning, people!” Molly tried to strain for the door to see who the greeter was. “Morning, yourself !” she called, and this time a small, wolfish-looking man in a plaid shirt strode into the room, waving a stack of newspapers. “Morning paper,” he said emphatically, handing one to her.

  “I don’t have money—”

  He waved his hand and tossed a paper on the bed. “Don’t worry. They’ll put it on your bill.”

  She didn’t know which part of the paper to look at first. There was a small drawing of a happy-faced sun in the corner. Sunny today. 60 degrees. She stared at the headline. STATE OKAYS NEW HIGHWAY. It was mundane. It was probably boring. But suddenly it seemed like the most interesting thing she could ever read.

  She read everything in the paper, even the sports page. When she turned the last page, she was suddenly tired. She felt like she could sleep for days, deep and uninterrupted. She slid down into the bed and shut her eyes.

  It woke her, this feeling that someone was standing over her. Well, she was used to waking up and finding a face hovering over her, hands ticking through her bedclothes, probing her body. She yawned and waited for the face to shimmer into focus. Do it and go, she thought, and then she looked up again and there was Gary.

  chapter eight

  Molly was afraid that if she said Gary’s name he’d disappear. She kept herself still. She tried to be detached so she wouldn’t be disappointed if this was just another mirage, another hallucination. Wait, she told herself. See what happens next.

  He smiled at her. This hallucination was really good, she thought. The details were so exact, so precise, right down to the small gold flaw in Gary’s left eye, his curly cowlick. There was even the scar on his thumb where he had once cut himself with an X-acto knife.

  She couldn’t help herself. She reached for his hand. It was warm. There was a pulse. It was Gary.

  “Gary? You’re alive?”

  His smile deepened. “You, too.”

  “You’re really alive! You’re really here!” She touched his face, his cowlick, his scarred thumb. She had thought and thought about him, had seen his face in her mind a thousand times, but here, before her, he seemed to glow. She was so excited, so happy, she could hardly speak.

  “I’ve been here every day. I came here just about all the time.”

  “You did! You really did! I haven’t been able to remember. They kept telling me you were here, but I never remembered any of it.” She touched his hair. “I wish there were room in this bed. I wish you could just get up here with me and hold me. Or better yet, I wish I could get up and come home with you. Right now.”

  He laughed. “You don’t know how much I wish that, too.”

  “I had a baby, didn’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is the baby alive?”

  His face changed. “Of course he is. He’s great.”

  “Otis.” She had a brief flash. Big light eyes looking up at her. His damp mouth against her breast, nursing. Her arms around him. “Where is he?”

  “Home.” He hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?” She felt a clip of alarm. “You said he was okay, right?”

  “Honey—”

  “What? Tell me.”

  He looked down at the floor and then back at her. “Suzanne is here. She’s watching him.”

  “Suzanne?” Molly tried to sit up. “Not my sister Suzanne?” She shook her head.

  “I had to call her, Molly. There was no one else.”

  Molly was silent for a moment. “I guess I can’t believe she came.” “She came right away. And she’s great with Otis. And he’s crazy about her. And she’s been here every day to see you.”

  “She has for real? What’s she like now? What does she look like?” Gary looked uncomfortable. “You can see for yourself. And you look so sleepy. Should I come back?”

  “No, no, what if I sleep and then wake up and you’re not here?”

  “I’ll stay. You sleep and I’ll stay. I promise.”

  “You will? You’ll really stay?”

  “Try to keep me away.”

  She reached out her hand and took Gary’s. “I love you,” she said.

  She shut her eyes. She kept opening them, sneaking peeks, making sure he was still there in the orange chair beside her. He was there, watching her. Every time she saw him afresh, she felt a shiver of pure delight. “Gary.” As soon as she said his name, he turned his attention to her, he leaned closer, and she drifted into sleep.

  A bad dream woke her, fading instantly as she bolted awake.

  “Honey—Molly—” Gary was sitting beside her, watching her.

  “I’m not supposed to be here! I’m supposed to be home with my baby—with you!”

  “You will be soon. I promise.”

  “I’m missing everything! I don’t know what Otis looks like anymore! I don’t know what he did when he first came home! I don’t know what his first bath was like! I don’t even know how he is with you, what you two do!” She caught at her breath.

  Gary was silent. “We go to the diner a lot.”

  “What?” She laughed, swiping at her drippy nose.

  “We like the soup.”

  Gary stayed beside Molly past visiting hours. Molly heard the nurses ushering people out, hurrying them along. “You can visit tomorrow,” they said, but when the nurses passed by Molly, not one of them so much as raised an eyebrow. They kind of half smiled. They left Gary and Molly alone.

  The floor was quieting down. Finally, Gary rose up slowly. “I’ll call you as soon as I get home.”

  She watched him leave but as sóon as he was out of the room, she felt terrified. She knew Gary wouldn’t be home yet, but she still wished he would call.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about him, wondering where he was right that moment, still in the car, driving a little wildly, singing along to the radio the way the two of them used to do together, stopping to get a quick bite at the diner they used to like? Or was he already back in the house? What was he doing, making up Otis’s bottle or talking with Suzanne ? What was that even like, the three of them together? She tried to imagine Suzanne being good with the baby, tried to imagine Suzanne in her house, and it made her vaguely uncomfortable. What was Suzanne like? She had asked Gary, but h
e hadn’t told her. For the first time, it struck her: Why hadn’t he told her?

  A half hour later, the phone rang, jolting her. She grabbed for the receiver. “Hello?”

  “Someone wants to talk to you,” Gary said, and then suddenly she heard a breathy sigh, a babble.

  She sat up straight in bed. Her fingers gripped the receiver. “Otis!” She gasped his name. “It’s Mommy! I love you, I miss you. I wish I could be there!” she cried. “Forgive me. Can you ever forgive me?” She heard him yawn, slow and sweet, and then the phone tumbled and Gary picked it up.

  “Well?” he said.

  She was sobbing so hard she could hardly speak. “He’s alive.”

  “Of course he is. You get some sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “You promise?”

  “Try to keep me away.”

  She was wiping her nose on the sleeve of her johnny when she suddenly realized Suzanne hadn’t asked to speak to her. Suzanne was right there in her house, and she hadn’t even picked up the phone.

  “Molly?”

  She blinked awake. She was used to this. Blood tests, transfusions, medications, doctors. “Go away,” she said flatly.

  “Molly?” the voice said again, and then she looked up and there, like a shock, was Suzanne.

  Suzanne was glowing, pretty, and her black hair was hanging in two thick braids across her chest.

  “You look just the same,” Molly said, amazed. “Like time just stopped.”

  “No. I don’t. But thanks for saying it.” Suzanne gave her a funny half smile. “Was it okay that I came back? I know things ended kind of crummy for us.”

  “Gary said you’re helping out a lot,” Molly said carefully.

  Suzanne put her hands in her parka, a bright orange one that Molly suddenly recognized.

  “Hey. That’s my parka.”

  Suzanne looked down at it as if she were just noticing it for the first time. “I borrowed it. I don’t own anything warm.” Suzanne sat down and leaned forward. She had trouble meeting Molly’s eyes. Molly felt as if a kind of radar had suddenly been turned on, as if she knew something about Suzanne, only she wasn’t sure yet what it was.

  “How long can you stay?”

  “As long as you guys want.”

  Both women were silent and then Suzanne awkwardly cleared her throat. “Hey. You want a Life Saver? I’ve got chocolate.” She dug in her pockets, rummaging around, and then she grinned and lifted out a bright purple pacifier, wagging it in her fingers.

  “I keep extras for Otis,” she said. “He likes the round kind. Can you believe it, a baby has pacifier favorites?”

  “I don’t know—”

  “You should see his taste in music. A little James Brown. A little hip-hop.”

  “Hip-hop. I used to sing him the Beatles.”

  “Oh, he doesn’t like that now. Now, he goes nuts for rap,” Suzanne smiled. “Wait until you see his personality!”

  Molly smiled weakly. She could only remember what carrying him had been like, and she wasn’t sure that counted right now. She could only remember three real days of her son. How the maternity nurses wheeled Otis and her roommate’s baby into her room in a kind of parade, both babies swaddled in blue and rose blankets, tiny caps poised on their heads, and what she remembered most of all was the way the other baby always seemed to be sleeping, his eyes squinched shut, the way Otis’s dark eyes danced, the way he seemed to be laughing, as if this life was a great and wonderful joke, and he was about to add to the mischief. The other baby woke up with a wail, and Otis would be looking around, in a mood so good, it was contagious. “That baby, he’s some firecracker,” one of the maternity nurses said to Molly, “he’s got himself an attitude,” and Molly had laughed. “I remember he was fantastic,” Molly said to Suzanne, but Suzanne shook her head.

  “I mean now, Molly. Wait until you see how big he is. Every day he looks like he’s different. He’s learning everything. We play all these games. Find my nose. Bat the toys. He makes a sound and I make it back.” Suzanne grew more animated. “Gary and I sing to him all the time. You should see how nuts he goes!”

  “Gary’s wonderful, isn’t he?”

  “Sure,” Suzanne looked down at the floor, but not before Molly saw her sister flush.

  “He said you two were getting along.”

  “Well, you know, we have to. We share the same house. We both look after Otis.”

  Something about the way Suzanne was talking bothered Molly. The tone in Suzanne’s voice nipped and buzzed at Molly like a small insect. She tried to shake it off. This was Suzanne, after all, Suzanne who had run away with the handsomest, wildest boy in school, Suzanne who had never wanted anything Molly had ever had. Suzanne was quiet. She wasn’t looking at Molly. Outside Molly could hear the squeaky wheels of a gurney, some nurses joking and laughing. “He’s so cute for a resident,” one said.

  “Was it okay that I came back?” Suzanne repeated.

  “I never thought you would.”

  Suzanne shrugged.

  “Gary said you’re really helping. You can take off your jacket, you know. Stay a while,” Molly said, and then Suzanne did, and Molly saw the sweater Suzanne was wearing.

  “That’s Gary’s.”

  Suzanne looked slowly down at the sweater. “God, just like the jacket. Isn’t that funny. I just grabbed whatever was there.” Suzanne laughed nervously. “I’m not used to this cold. Especially at night. As soon as Gary leaves, I crank the heat up.”

  “What are you talking about? Gary’s not there at night?”

  “Well, he’s not exactly a day watchman.”

  “A what?”

  “Oh,” said Suzanne, flustered. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Molly looked at Suzanne, astonished. “What’s going on here?”

  “What do you mean what’s going on? Nothing—I mean—look—Gary will tell you.”

  “No. You’re here. You tell me.”

  Suzanne chewed on her lip. “Gary kind of got fired. Right after you got sick. Luckily, one of the neighbors got him this job.”

  “Brian fired him?”

  “I wasn’t there, I don’t know the whole story.” Suzanne brightened. “But, Molly, it’s been working out. He gets to be with you all day, it’s not too taxing, it’s money under the table. And with me working, too, we’re doing just fine.”

  “You’re working?”

  “I’m just doing hair in the house—and Otis is right there beside me. Unless he’s napping.”

  Molly looked stupefied.

  “I thought you knew that, too.”

  “I’m calling Gary.” Molly reached for the phone. The line rang and rang.

  “He won’t be there,” Suzanne said patiently. “He had to take the car in before he went to work.”

  Molly slowly lowered her hand. “I knew that,” she said defensively. “He told me that about the car.”

  “He probably didn’t tell you about the job because he just didn’t want to worry you. That’s all it probably is.”

  Suzanne kept shifting in her seat. Molly couldn’t stop thinking about Gary having lost his job and not telling her. It wasn’t an important thing about the car, but still, she and Gary used to tell each other everything, no matter how stupid or insignificant. She couldn’t help thinking: If he had kept this from her, what else wasn’t he telling her?

  “Suzanne shouldn’t have told you—”

  Gary was sitting beside her the next morning, trying to explain.

  “We never kept secrets from each other,” Molly accused.

  “It wasn’t a secret! I just don’t want you to worry. I was going to tell you—”

  “When?”

  “When you were better.”

  “Aren’t I better? I’m better now.”

  “Of course you are.” He wouldn’t look at her, and it made her chilled.

  “What else aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing! You know everything!”

&
nbsp; “I know nothing! I have no way of knowing what’s going on! I’m stuck in here!”

  He reached over and took her hand and when she tried to wrench it away, he held it tighter. “It’s not a big deal,” he insisted, but Molly shook her head.

  “Why does Suzanne know things I don’t?” Molly asked.

  That night, Molly lay in bed awake and terrified. She heard the nurses gossiping, the occasional cry of a patient. She reached for the phone to call Gary. It was so late, she’d probably wake him. His voice would be drowsy with sleep, but they could talk, the way they used to when she couldn’t sleep. She remembered once she was tossing and turning, he had dragged her out of bed and made her come into the kitchen. He had made popcorn and put on an old movie. “If you’re going to be up, you might as well have a good time,” he had laughed, and ten minutes into the movie, she had fallen soundly asleep against him.

  The phone rang and rang. Where could he be at this hour on a weekend? And where was Suzanne? The machine suddenly turned on, and there was Suzanne’s voice, jarring her, lilting, as if Suzanne were in a good mood and couldn’t wait to talk to whomever might be calling. “Hi, please leave a message for Gary, Suzanne, Otis, or Molly at the beep.” Molly hung up the phone. Suzanne was speaking on her machine. Suzanne’s name was on her machine. And Molly’s name was last.

  She told herself she was being stupid. Of course Suzanne’s name was there. She was working out of the house. Clients might call her, it was only businesslike. And what difference, really, did it make that Suzanne was saying the message? Gary was doing enough without worrying about a message. If it bothered her so much, she could always ask him to change it, to put his own voice to it. To ask Suzanne to get her own private line.

  Molly lay in bed watching the open door, the occasional nurse whisking by. She wasn’t tired. She had woken up, but to a whole different world, a place where her husband kept things from her, her sister cut hair in her kitchen, and her own baby was a stranger. And she had no idea what to do about any of it.