The Forever Marriage

by Ann Bauer

  Thankfully, Jana understood. “They’ll be here when you’re done,” she said, slipping the rings onto her own finger and holding it up for Carmen to see. “Look, a perfect fit. We’re married now, it’s my dream come true. Now get out of here and come back healed.”

  Carmen smiled and nodded, though she didn’t feel like it. She was, in fact, terrified in a way she never had been before. She’d been stripped of everything: her clothes, her rings, her friend. Now she was being led by the portly nurse the way prisoners were walked to death. She wondered if this is how her mother felt, or Jobe—or if his mistaken belief that she was in the waiting room crazy with worry and praying for a miracle helped him in this moment. Carmen sniffled. She hoped it had.

  “Hey, don’t worry, this is going to be just fine.” The nurse slipped his arm around Carmen’s waist as if they were a couple, out strolling. And this is when she realized that she’d been crying. “You took a Xanax, didn’t you?”

  Two, Carmen almost blurted out, then—as her thoughts ground slowly through the mechanisms of caution—simply nodded.

  “It has this effect, a lot of times. You get a little weepy. But we’re going to take really good care of you. My name’s Pete and I’m going to stay with you the entire way. We’ll have you back to your lady friend in no time.”

  Carmen brightened at this. Had she been a little less stoned, she might have laughed. But the image of she and Jana—a happy couple the way she and Jobe had never been—brought her great pleasure. Perhaps, she thought woozily, she should suggest it afterward. Jana could move in and help her raise the children. Carmen tried to imagine taking off her friend’s tie-dyed cap, striped cape, and cotton clothes and she stumbled. “Whoa, there. I think you better take my arm.” Pete tucked her hand inside his elbow, as if they were walking together down the aisle of a church. “You don’t look it but you’re kind of a lightweight, aren’t you?”

  Carmen leaned gratefully. “Will they cut it off?” she asked. “What do you think? Does this doctor like to do that?”

  Pete was unperturbed, clearly used to this question. “You signed, giving permission if the cells have spread?” he asked, and Carmen nodded. “Then the answer is yes, if there’s any sign at all he’ll perform a mastectomy. Dr. Woo is kind of a zero-tolerance guy where cancer is concerned. He thinks you just get rid of it. And he’s right; his success rate is very high.”

  Pete led her through a doorway, into a room that looked not like a surgery but like a birthing suite, without the fancy linens. In the center was a normal hospital bed surrounded by equipment: monitors and masks and two IV stands. “Time to get in,” Pete said, pulling back the white top sheet. “Doc’s on a schedule. He should be here any minute.”

  She lay, stretched out like corpse, while Pete said, “You’ll feel a pinch now,” and slipped a needle under her skin. Of course, even if Danny were here, he would not have witnessed this humiliation. Like Jana, he’d have been in the room with the Indian husband and the lone woman in the corner—who had still, cruelly, been waiting when Carmen was called. Neither would he have been here to see her breathing speed up or the odd, utterly lonely feeling envelop her. Lying on this cot in the midst of shiny metal and white tile, she had become, suddenly, as small as an insect under glass. She could stop breathing as Jobe had that morning not long ago.

  For the first time, Carmen felt not guilty but genuinely grieved. Tears ran down the sides of her face and into her ears. “What is this?” said the man who came into the room, scrubbed and masked, only his narrow eyes peering out over the blue. Oh, thank God, blue, Carmen thought as she wept. The doctor was not wearing pink. This was a very good sign.

  Then there was haze and people moving above her: several masked, capped heads, the floating presence of a set of eyes that shone from the brightly lighted room as if it were darkness. Carmen blinked at them, only really it was just half a blink: she closed but neglected to open. There was a rubbery smell, like tires. And then she was gone.

  Afterward, in the recovery room, she would remember nothing and have to be told about how she inhaled the anesthetic for three minutes before going easily to sleep. Jana had materialized beside her and the doctor was speaking to them earnestly. Without his mask, he had a shiny, round face and hands that fluttered and gestured. He had gotten the whole tumor, he said, making a scooping motion as if with ice cream. The margins, he told Carmen proudly as if she’d accomplished something, were clean. Here, he used his hands the way men do when they’re outlining a woman, only the shape he made was of her comet and not humanlike. She was a lucky lady, he said, with very little to worry about. She should go home and wait for the path report. Eat well.

  It wasn’t until he said this that Carmen realized how nauseated she was. She lay back on the bed, which seemed—if it were possible for one hospital bed to be different from another—not the one that had been wheeled from her surgery into this cubicle. But Jana was bringing her clothes, pulling them out of a plastic bag and piling them at her feet. “Time to leave,” she said. And though Carmen wanted to question this, asking for just a few more minutes the way she had when her mother awakened her for school, she sat up abruptly and the room began to turn.

  “Here.” Jana handed her a shirt. And Carmen, without any warning or noise, took it and was immediately sick all over it.

  “Jesus!” Jana said, jumping back. “Now what the fuck do we do?”

  She was gone for two or three minutes during which time Carmen sat with her eyes closed. “Can we give her a shower?” she heard Jana ask someone when she returned.

  “Sorry.” This voice was female, not Pete’s. What happened to his promise to stay with her? This could be just a taste of the infidelity Carmen deserved—her life to come. “She’s not in a room with shower privileges,” the woman’s voice floated in. “You’re just going to have to clean her up with water and get her home.”

  “Fine.” But Jana did not sound fine at all.

  Carmen felt the washcloth on her arms, Jana’s hesitant touch as she picked up Carmen’s messy hands to clean between the fingers. It was soothing, nonetheless: Even a caregiver who was clearly disgusted could help. Suddenly, Carmen’s eyes flew open. She looked at Jana, who was stone-faced and perspiring. But she was there, after all, lifting Carmen’s hand to wipe under her wrist, Jobe’s jewels glinting from her ring finger.

  “They used to be in yellow gold,” Carmen said, tapping the largest sapphire. “He had them reset in white gold because I wanted it. He wanted them to be mine.”

  “The man loved you.” It wasn’t a statement or an accusation, but somewhere in between. “Here, I think you’re ready to have these back.” Jana slipped the rings off and handed them to Carmen, then went to the sink and began washing her hands over and over, using big squirts of soap. “You’re going to have to wear a hospital shirt home,” she said over her shoulder. “They’ll probably charge you for it but, whatever ….”

  “Yeah, the one thing I have is money. Isn’t that strange?” Carmen pulled on her jeans and leaned over—another woozy moment, but she managed to control herself—to slip on her shoes. “It doesn’t help. Not at all.”

  “I’ve heard that about money,” Jana said. “Of course, I’ve never had the opportunity to find out.”

  Siena watched from the front door as Carmen and Jana haltingly climbed the steps. They wore the same expressions she had whenever Jobe had come back from another surgery or treatment: part worry, part revulsion, part terror. This had always struck Carmen as precisely the right mix, and it still did now. She tried to smile at her daughter on the way past but succeeded only in straining her eyes. She closed them the moment Jana deposited her on the living room couch.

  The next few hours went by in a slow-motion dream. Luca came by and ran his hand along the length of her arm, the way a little child might with a wall or banister. Then Michael, who’d been told only that his mother was sick, came behind him and did exactly the same thing. Carmen settled in then, feeling blessed,
wondering if the boys had performed the same sacrament on Jobe. Despite the outcome in his case, she wished for this continuity. Their children’s touch anointing both parents. Keeping them—even her—pure.

  Carmen dozed while Jana had the kids help her make fajitas: Michael chopped vegetables under Siena’s supervision while Luca grated cheese. When they finally sat at the table, Carmen was woozy but ravenous. She was sore under the bandage and found that using her left arm made this worse. Without asking, Siena assembled a fajita for her mother and handed it over with a pleading look that said, Don’t make a big deal.

  “Thanks, sweetie,” Carmen said softly, remembering the dozens of times at the end when she’d had to cut Jobe’s food and hold the fork up to his mouth.

  By eight o’clock, Carmen was exhausted and she could see Jana was, too. There was a reason Jana hadn’t had children; she didn’t care for the dailiness of it or the mundane constancy of their requests. “I don’t understand my math,” Michael announced after the dishes had been cleared. “Can you help me?” It wasn’t clear whom he was asking; his question went out to the room. But Carmen was dumb with pain and Vicodin, and Siena had gone off to call Troy, and Luca had never mastered anything beyond subtraction, which still sometimes confused him.

  “Okay, why don’t you bring it to the table?” Jana said so sweetly that Carmen knew—even through her haze—that her friend was nearly at the end. They worked through word problems while Carmen and Luca sat stumplike in their various places. It was as if an evil spell had been cast over their house. With Jobe gone, something had shifted and deadened; quiet as he’d been, he must have added some kinesis to the atmosphere.

  At nine o’clock, Jana shooed the children off. “I’ve had my fill of you,” she said, and they knew she meant it, so they went to their various rooms. Then she brought a bottle of white wine to the couch along with two juice glasses. “Here.” She poured Carmen’s all the way up to the brim. “I don’t know how you do this every fucking day. It’s enough to make me want to shoot myself in the head.”

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t going to be this way.” Carmen lolled her head back, alcohol mixing with the drugs so she felt as if she were being pulled down by something heavy.

  “How was it going to be?” Jana fell back into a huge easy chair. She was already nearly done with her glass.

  Carmen squinted, as if she could see the answer in the air. And then she could: a series of days from two decades before. Young, smiling Jobe. Sunday dinners at his parents’ house where Carmen now belonged. She could wander the estate at will and ride the two horses they kept at a close-by farm any time she chose. Often, when they arrived, Olive would kiss her cheek and tell her how beautiful she was, then mention they were having strawberry shortcake for dessert, because it was Carmen’s favorite. Olive always smelled wonderful back then, not like an old woman but something almost magical—sandalwood or cedar. The time Carmen came bearing a picture of Esme’s two big-eyed little boys Olive’s face had changed, becoming nearly tearful.

  “Aren’t they miraculous?” she’d said, running one finger over the surface of the photograph. “You would have children like this, too.”

  But telling Jana about this—about how she’d gotten pregnant more for Olive than for Jobe—would make her sound stupid, like someone who deserved to get stuck in a loveless marriage. Jana would never make such a ridiculous mistake, so Carmen mentally edited the story to preserve her pride.

  “I suppose,” she said, “there were absolutely no money concerns. So it was like this huge barrier, the thing you said, you know, ‘We’ll start a family once we can buy a house,’ or ‘when we can start saving for college.’ All that was removed in our case.”

  Jana nodded. This was making sense, so Carmen forged on. “I thought it would help, I guess. I thought it would make me grown up, and maybe I wanted to show my sister I could.”

  “Not a great reason to make a lifelong decision,” Jana said, moving a pillow so she could recline sideways in the chair.

  “No.” Carmen poured herself more wine. The night felt unreal around her. Everything glowed. “God, I was young and stupid. It just kills me when I look back. But Esme was always telling me what a fuck-up I was; she had a husband and a little house of her own and two adorable babies. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I found myself living in this palace. I married a man who was so brilliant …” She stopped for a moment and stared at nothing, feeling a wrench of pure pain. “Jobe was so good he got tenure the minute he stepped onto a college campus. But Esme, she told me once—way back—that she was afraid her husband was having an affair. That he might leave her. At least I knew Jobe would never cheat on me.”

  “Are you sure?” Carmen stopped and looked over at her friend, who was suddenly slit-eyed. “How do you know Jobe never cheated?”

  “Because he just … wouldn’t have. It wasn’t in him.” She swallowed, unwilling to disclose the real reason. Jobe didn’t deserve to be humiliated that way, even in death. “Besides, he was socially withdrawn, and not very, you know, smooth.”

  “You know what?” Jana sat up. “Sometimes, I think you’re a bigger bitch than this sister you’re always talking about.”

  “Am I?”

  “Are you what? A bitch?” Jana was getting ready to leave and Carmen didn’t want things to end between them this way. But she felt anchored, suctioned to the couch.

  “No, am I always talking about my sister?”

  Jana stopped and thought. “Actually, you’ve only mentioned her a couple of times. That was an exaggeration. But I’m sorry, this whole thing just reeks of really bad karma. You get married to show up your sister, despite the fact that you don’t even love this guy who would gladly throw himself under a truck for you. Doesn’t hurt that he’s obscenely rich, of course. And then you spend the next couple of decades living off his family and wishing him dead.”

  Wait, Carmen wanted to say. Let’s go back! I didn’t tell you about Olive, about how much she wanted a daughter and a grandchild. A miracle, she said, and I wanted badly to make that come true. And there were moments I loved Jobe, even when he wouldn’t touch me. He saved me in London. He brought me his T-shirt in the bathroom. Have I ever told you about the way he danced?

  It was too late; Jana wouldn’t believe her selfless motives now. So she reclined instead and watched while Jana collected the knapsack she carried instead of a purse and slipped on her shoes.

  “Listen, forget what I said, I’m just really tired.” Jana kissed Carmen on the forehead. “I really hope the biopsy results are good. Let me know, okay? And just send the kids over to the café when they’re hungry. I guess they do kind of grow on you. If I’d bludgeoned one of them earlier, I’d be really sorry by now.”

  Carmen had been planning to go back and see the doctor alone. But when Pete called to check on her and set up the consultation to go over the pathology results, there was something in his voice. “Who’s coming to the appointment with you?” he asked, too brightly. And as on that day in the garden, she knew.

  It was ten o’clock, a likely time for Olive to be out playing bridge or at her garden club. But she happened that morning to be home. Carmen told her first about the mammogram, leaving out the part about Danny, letting Olive think the comet was detected during her yearly screening. She heard Olive inhale sharply.

  “The surgeon said he’s sure he got everything,” Carmen lied. “But they had to examine the, uh, tumor”—she hated that word—“so I’m going back today to get the results.”

  “What time?” Olive asked.

  “Three,” said Carmen. “And it’s not necessary, but …”

  “I’ll be there at two-twenty,” Olive said, and curtly hung up.

  Her Mercedes glided up at precisely two-nineteen. Greenwich calls Olive for the correct time—that was always Jobe’s joke. “Thanks for coming to get me,” said Carmen, climbing into the car.

  “How are you, dear?” Olive wore a pair of sunglasses with amber lenses and she d
rove intently, never more than fifty miles an hour.

  “Pretty good, now that the drugs have worn off,” Carmen said. “The nights have been a little strange.” Of course, she didn’t tell Olive about how she climbed into bed with Jana’s disapproving voice ringing through her head, or about taking another pill simply to make the words recede. So many things needed to be hidden from this woman she adored. What did that say?

  Even moving slower than the rest of the traffic, it took less time to get to the hospital than Carmen anticipated. This was some sort of trick of Olive’s. They walked through the electric doors and found the surgeon’s waiting room with ten minutes to spare. He was running late, the receptionist informed them. It would be more like three-thirty. So they chose adjoining chairs near the back of the room. Carmen picked up a soft, tattered magazine from two years before.

  “I can’t believe this,” Olive said suddenly.

  “What?” Carmen looked around.

  “This! After everything else, Luca’s difficulties and Jobe’s illness.” Olive never used the word death; Carmen was pretty sure she couldn’t—at least not where Jobe was concerned. When George had died two years earlier, of a heart attack that struck him exactly like lightning on the golf course, when his nine-iron was raised, Olive had been resigned. Nearly businesslike. She’d planned a grand funeral and wafted through it dressed in widow’s weeds. Even the drab black dress failed to conceal that at seventy-three her body was perfect. The woman had never lifted a barbell in her life, but she held up like Sophia Loren.

  An idea dawned in Carmen’s mind: Olive had never loved her husband, either. She had been far more vibrant than he, a brick shit-house of a lady who easily could have had men—gardeners, chauffeurs—on the side. George’s death simply hadn’t been something to mourn. She also had been waiting to be free, only her sentence was much longer than Carmen’s: nearly fifty years. And it would follow then that she, too, might feel guilty, perhaps responsible for her son. Carmen shivered and took Olive’s hand, which the older woman clearly interpreted as a sign of apprehension. “It will be fine, dear. I’m sure the surgeon took care of everything and there’s only a little bit of tidying up to do.”