“Oh my god! What is that?” I squatted beside them.
Greta was in tears already. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t even move. I couldn’t leave him.”
“It’s okay,” I said. I got behind her and let her slip out so I could hold John. “Call 911,” I told her. I shook John. “Sweetie? Sweetie? Can you hear me?” He was unresponsive. His body was still awake, though, and determined to empty his innards out through his mouth, but hardly anything came out except electric-green bile. The smell was vile, sweet and chemical.
The paramedics arrived amidst the blur of chaos. They happened to be the same two large men who brought us home from the neck surgery, and familiar with the layout of our house, they went straight upstairs and got to work. They injected him with antinausea medicine, strapped him to the stretcher on his side, and within minutes we were speeding through town with John dry-heaving and gagging, his body trying to curl into a fetal position but the restraints preventing him from doing so.
I couldn’t think of anything except that he might not make it. John was unconscious. He wasn’t with me. This is what his death would be like. I’d never felt so alone.
I broke down and wept all the way to the hospital, emotionally replete and beyond self-consciousness. The tears and snot dribbled into my lips, and I didn’t have an ounce of composure left to even wipe my face before the mucous ran into my mouth.
I left him alone. He warned me. It’s my fault.
The paramedics removed John’s shirt to attach electrodes to his chest. His bruises were turning colors again: blue, green, brown, some yellowing. At least the paramedics knew him and I didn’t have to explain the scars.
I looked at his pathetic, convulsing body, and an unexpected loathing unfurled inside me, black thoughts that jarred me. The man in the stretcher … he was a diseased organism. A waste. Not valid anymore at all. Some Darwinian instinct erupted and took over. Weakling. Parasite. I prayed that he would die just as hard as I prayed that he live. I prayed that he would free us both. When I became aware of these thoughts, they horrified me. What is wrong with you? You don’t really feel that way. I was tired. Just so tired.
Once in the hospital, John was swarmed by an army of nurses in blue scrubs and soft white shoes who spoke in whispers of restrained urgency. They whisked him from me, and I was left alone in the hallway to shuffle back to the waiting room I knew all too well.
I was given a lukewarm cup of coffee. I can’t remember how I ended up with it, but it was suddenly in my trembling hand. I sat down in the waiting room and looked up at the TV. One of those afternoon talk shows was blared, crowds of fat housewives applauding. No one else was waiting there. I had every opportunity to change the channel, but no will to do so. Then Doctor Sheffield found me.
“Mrs. Branch, your husband is suffering from acute organ failure,” he said. “We can’t determine the reason. Do you have any idea what caused this?” The doctor’s clear, green eyes were enlarged by the lenses of his glasses. He was shorter than me, which was extremely short for a man. He was balding and overweight, but I always thought his intelligent and concerned manner made him very handsome. His presence had a calming effect. “Mrs. Branch? Has he had any mix-up with his medication? Any exposure to contaminants?”
“Not that I know of, doctor.” I couldn’t look him in the eye. I thought of how I allowed John to mix his painkillers with massive injections of stolen Demerol, all because I wanted to get some sleep. It’s your fault, Susan.
“We’re running some tests,” he said. “Maybe it has something to do with the idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura.”
“The what?” I asked.
“The ITP,” he said. “His blood disorder.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“He’s still unconscious,” the doctor continued, “but stabilized. It looks like he’s going to pull through.”
“He will?”
“He’s one tough guy,” the doctor said. “I just want to identify the problem before releasing him.”
I noticed his immaculate lab coat and thought it so fitting that doctors wore white. They were either the angels that saved you or the ones that ushered you to heaven. “Will he be here long?” I asked.
“I can’t say exactly. Could be a week. Could be a month.”
Moving back into the hospital. Again.
All of my emotions of shock, worry, hope, and relief were replaced by pervasive, numbing exhaustion. I had the most bizarre urge to collapse into the kind doctor’s embrace. I just wanted someone to take care of me, to soothe me for once, but I shook the doctor’s hand. Everything would continue the way it always had.
“Thanks Dr. Sheffield,” I said. “I’ll run home and get some things and be right back. Could you tell John if he wakes up? That I’ll be right back.”
“Of course, Mrs. Branch.” He patted my shoulder and held the door open for me. Then he told the nurses at the desk to call me a taxi so I could go home.
*
The taxi dropped me off in front of the ugly duckling. The evening was swirling in, gray and windy. Fallen leaves scoured the sidewalks, and bare tree limbs tapped and scraped each other without rhythm. The songbirds silenced, and only the occasional caw of a crow pierced the breeze.
I went upstairs to the bathroom. Greta must have cleaned up the vomit because everything was spic and span, though a sweet, acidic smell lingered with the disinfectant.
I knelt on the floor to reach into the bathroom cabinet. The Demerol was there. Untouched. That meant John wasn’t overdosing. He didn’t give himself the suicide shot. But if this wasn’t an overdose, what was it? An overdose meant at least there was an answer. Now there was none.
I pulled off of my nursing shoes and removed my socks. I noticed my pinky toenail was black from dead blood trapped beneath it. The hammer. I scanned the room. It wasn’t where I’d left it on the chair.
It couldn’t have been a dream. I went to look back in the same spot it had been when I hit my toe. I lifted the dusty bed skirt and felt around underneath the bed. Among the clumps of dust bunnies and shed hair, I found moldered dress shoes, a box of yellowed photographs, and more of my candy wrappers. As I slid my hand toward the headboard, my fingers thudded against something large, smooth, and cool to the touch–a plastic bottle. I pulled it from underneath. It was yellow and squarish with a handle. Auto coolant, the label said.
I twisted the cap. The seal was broken. It had been opened, but the bottle was nearly full. This situation with Old Pete was going from weird to making me angry. I set the jug aside to take with me on my way out.
I took a quick shower, just the essentials: face, feet, crotch, underarms. I threw my worn scrubs and traded them for a slightly less dirty pair of jeans and a wrinkled T-shirt from the laundry pile. I packed a small bag of toiletries, John’s favorite books, and a Sudoku booklet I usually just stared at to avoid talking with other hospital visitors. I stuffed a handful of mini Nestle Crunch bars in the bottom of my purse.
I gathered my things and ran downstairs. I put my bags in the car and then took the coolant with me to the garage. I looked up at our old home that had been so full of color and dreams early in our marriage. I knew John wasn’t healthy when we got married, but I had expected my love to cure him and that we’d live happily ever after in the mother duck, just like a fairy tale. His wealth and stature impressed me, and I fell partly for the story–the lonely, sickly prince in need of a bride. I would be that gentle-hearted heroine to care for him, despite his undesirable condition, and win his undying gratitude for eternity. It wasn’t that I loved him for money, or out of pity for the illness. The wealth, the disease: they were part of him. I loved him for who he was. Now it was beginning to feel as if God was punishing me for chasing a foolish fantasy.
A silhouette caught my eye. The Arab wife peered at me from the window, the golden light of the crystal chandelier glowing behind her black hair. John and I used to dine under that glow. I knew she must have thought we were pathetic. Freaks. Beggars
. If only she had seen John’s family before this mess.
The garage was open, which meant Peter was inside. I crept in. I don’t know why I crept; I could’ve walked like a normal person. The garage was dark and cold, like a cave, and coated in black grime that smelled of grease and decades of spilled motor oil. The old man was at a table in the back, prying open a can of stain.
“Did you find your hammer, Peter?” I asked.
He jumped and turned around with a white face. He hadn’t heard me come in. “Mrs. Branch? No ma’am.”
“It’s gone,” I said. “Who am I supposed to believe took it. Greta?”
He squinted in the dim light. “I never touched any of your things.”
“You didn’t take the hammer and leave this behind?” I held up the bottle of antifreeze.
“No,” he said, scratching his chin. “I haven’t been inside your house since …” he rubbed his head as he looked at the bottle.
“This is yours, right?” I shoved it in front of his face.
“Why, yes,” he said. “I bought it. I was going to put in that old car of yours. Lord knows you don’t have time to worry about it, and you don’t have a man around to take care of that kind of thing for you.”
“You bought it for me?” I was annoyed at his sideways insult to John, but surprised that he’d thought of me.
“It’d be a shame to destroy a perfectly good car,” he said. “But I bought that months ago. Been so long, I forgot about the idea entirely. Where did you find it?”
“Under the bed,” I said. “You’re sure haven’t been in the house? Maybe you forgot.”
His jaw worked in confusion, and a shaky breath escaped his open mouth. The man should be in a nursing home, I thought. Not piddling around here. No wife, no children, all he had was this job. I pitied him, but I had to end this game. “Peter, maybe you should give me your key so there’s no chance.”
“No chance of what?” he asked.
“Of any confusion,” I said.
“I’m not confused. I never went upstairs, and I’ve had the keys to every door and gate on this property for fifty-two years. You’re going to take them away now?”
“Just the key to the servants’ house.”
He grumbled as he pulled his key ring from his pocket. I watched him struggle with trembling fingers.
“Let me do it,” I said.
“No! I got it! I got it.” He finally loosened the key from the ring and slapped it into my hand. “There. You happy now? Can’t blame Old Pete on nothing else. And you can kill the damn vermin yourself.” He set the bottle of coolant on a shelf full of rusted paint cans, and kept his back turned to me until I walked out.
It hadn’t been a pleasant exchange, but it had to be done. He slipped when he mentioned killing vermin. That meant he had been in the house, and whether he was lying about it or had forgotten, his snooping would be put to an end once and for all now.
I had to get back to the hospital. I rushed to the car, but the massive front door of the mother house swung open.
“Mrs. Branch!” The Arab woman stumbled into my path before I could avoid her. Her clear, black eyes and glossy hair, the fineness of her clothing, made me feel that much more ragged and tired. “I saw the ambulance,” she said. “Greta told me what happened. Is Mr. Branch okay?”
“He’s in the ICU,” I said, “but the doctor says he’s going to make it.”
“I’m relieved to hear that,” she said. “But I came out to talk to you about something else.”
“I’m sorry about the rent,” I said. “I’ll go back to work as soon as possible.”
“It’s not that,” she said. “It’s your husband.” She folded her arms over her chest, her jaw tight. “I saw him. He was stumbling around out back the other day.”
“Impossible,” I said. “He never walks around anywhere. He’s too delicate.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“Exactly what?” I said.
“If he falls, you could sue us.”
I was outraged by her insinuation. “Mrs. …”
“Abd-el-gawwad” she said impatiently.
“Mrs, Abdelgawwad, we are not that kind of people.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “We extend our hospitality toward you because of our faith, but I must draw the line somewhere. I don’t want him wandering around unaccompanied. He is a liability.”
“I’m very sorry,” I said. “But he never goes outside. You must be mistaken.”
“He is the only tall, pale man in pajamas on this property, Mrs. Branch. I assure you, I was not mistaken.” She cleared her throat. “He also appeared to be intoxicated. It’s a bad example for the children. Thank you for respecting our wishes.” With that, she turned and strode back toward the mother house, her high-heeled boots decidedly crushing the gravel, her black shining curls bouncing with conviction.
John? Walking around? I was baffled, but then I remembered the night I found him downstairs after he finished the Demerol. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that John, high and feeling no pain, had also wandered into the garden.
*
The test results came back inconclusive, but John’s condition improved, and that was all that mattered. Soon he was eating liquid foods and chatting as if nothing had happened.
He insisted I stay with him in the hospital, and for the next week, I slept poorly in a vinyl recliner next to his bed while he snored in his pharmaceutical stupor. Reruns of crime shows droned in the background, and the nurses woke us several times a night to take his vitals. I’d wash up in the bathroom and eat a breakfast of mini Nestle Crunch bars and coffee. I lived in a perpetual state of exhaustion and malnutrition.
But it was worth the discomfort. John recovered quickly under the hospital’s constant care. The bruises faded using a new medication. His organs were almost functioning normally, and he became more animated than I had seen him since his last hospital stay. His eyes and skin gained back a human color, and he seemed very content to watch daytime soaps as we waited for the final batch of test results. He wiggled his feet under the covers and sipped his strawberry-flavored nutrition shakes from the bendy straw like a good little boy. He was the favorite of the floor, like a celebrity. He joked with the doctors and nurses. He knew all their names and about their kids.
I was the quiet, bedraggled wife in the background, barely hanging onto her wits. I was tormented by my thoughts. I forced myself to bury the memory of the morning John yelled at me. That wasn’t real, I told myself. It had been the beginnings of his organ failure. We didn’t know it at the time, but John was on his way to being deathly ill. He was in a foul mood because toxins were building up in his blood.
I also struggled to dismiss how I felt during the ambulance ride when, as John gagged and writhed, I wished he would die. I reasoned that I had been stressed and overtired. Yes, that was all. Seeing him unconscious and convulsing was too much for me to handle. I would never want him to die, even if he was suffering. Suffering was a part of life. We had to endure it. It was God’s will. John and I had to go on.
So I never brought up the big shot again. Suicide was not an option, and I was sure he forgot the idea. He didn’t behave like a man who had given up. He was alive again and looked as cheerful as ever. John was a survivor, and despite his horrible, unending medical problems, he gripped to life; he enjoyed it still. That steady, beating heart was back on its usual determined journey. To where? I didn’t know. I imagined one day it would stop in a place and say, “Okay, I’m done now.” But that day was not today. Our lives would go back to normal, and maybe even improve.
*
By the end of the week, John was all smiles. He was eating his breakfast while we waited for the last word from Dr. Sheffield. When we had a quiet moment, I leaned toward him. “John, I didn’t want to alarm you, but I need to talk to you about Peter.”
“That old geezer?” He laughed.
“Remember that time we found him in our bedroom?” I
asked.
“He’s harmless.”
“You know how he’s always asking about his missing things?” I said. “Well, I’ve been finding them in the house.”
John’s face grew serious. “What sort of things?”
“First was a hammer,” I said, “under the bed.”
“A hammer?” He paused, musing. “How odd.”
“Then I found a gallon of antifreeze.”
“Antifreeze? For a vehicle?” he said with an exaggerated expression of disbelief.
“Yes!”
“Since when have you begun tidying up under the bed, Suze?” He chuckled and turned his attention back to the TV.
“Does he have a history of this? Maybe he even comes in while I’m at work,” I said.
“That’s just silly. You’re being paranoid.”
“You have been doing a lot of Demerol,” I said.
“I would notice someone walking around in my room,” he said.
“Well, their won’t be anymore problems. I took his key away.”
“You did?” He thought on that a minute. “But what if those things were already there and you just forgot.”
“Antifreeze? Really?”
“Hmm. Okay, I guess you’re right.”
“He seemed very upset about it. I felt like a bully for accusing him, but it’s obvious he’s losing it.”
“You did the right thing, sweetie,” John said. “Pete’s always been a little slow, and those Alzheimer’s people can become violent. Ever the more reason I am so grateful to have you, protecting me like a mother hen.” He laughed. The lights from the TV glittered against his eyes. He took my hand and squeezed it, flashing his most darling smile, stilling my world, with that impish glint of his.
SICK: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 1 Page 5
