Blessed Are the Wholly Broken (12 page)

“Phillip?  Are you okay?” Brian’s voice sounded muffled and distant, as if making its way through buried tunnels to reach me. I shook my head to clear it of images I did not want to see.

“I’m fine. I just….Promise me something, Brian.”

Across the table from me he stiffened. “I’m not really in a position to make promises, Phillip,” he said. “And you’re not really in a position to ask for them.”

“True enough,” I conceded with a shrug, “but I’m asking anyway. Promise me you won’t hurt Anna any more than you have to.”

He blew out a breath, clearly frustrated. “In case you’ve forgotten, Anna is dead.”

I flinched at the words. “You know what I mean. Promise you’ll protect her memory. She was a good person, a good wife, given everything she went through. Don’t betray her now.”

He stood and began to pace, a habit of late, hands shoved into his pockets. “My job is to get you out of here,” he said. “I think I can do that, but I can’t do it if I protect Anna at your expense. This isn’t a matter of blaming the victim in order to save the perpetrator, Phillip. Sometimes, the victim is guilty.”

“But she wasn’t, Brian. She told me. She
begged
me, but I refused to listen. She reached out to me for help, and I let her down in every way possible. Anna’s not the guilty party here. I am.”

He moved to stand over me, leaning in and forcing me to look at him. “If you believe Anna wasn’t guilty,” he said, “it’s only because you haven’t seen Peter. One glance at that baby and there’s no doubt of guilt.”

I closed my eyes against a wave of pain. “How is Peter?”

“That’s something else we need to discuss. He’s going home, Phillip. They can’t keep him any longer. There hasn’t been improvement in a long, long time. He remains in a persistent vegetative state—”

“They don’t know that,” I snapped. “Remember that case a couple of years ago? The one where they thought the man was in a vegetative state, and he wasn’t? He was fully aware, he just couldn’t communicate. How do they know that’s not the case with Peter? Hell, he’s a
baby
, Brian! How would they even
know
if he’s in a vegetative state? What’s he supposed to do, dance the tango?”

Brian moved to sit across from me again, and this time he was the one struggling to maintain eye contact. “They know, Phillip. He’s nearly ten months old. He should be sitting, crawling, interacting, even pulling to stand, but he’s not doing any of those things. He’s been tested in every way imaginable, multiple times. MRIs, CAT scans, EEGs, blood tests…you name it, and he’s had it. He suffered a severe anoxic brain injury, a complete lack of oxygen for what was clearly an extended amount of time. A
deliberately
extended amount of time.” He looked meaningfully at me. “He’s not aware of anything around him. He doesn’t track movement. He doesn’t respond to stimuli. He’s fed through a tube. Just about the only thing Peter is able to do is to breathe on his own, and even that needs to be monitored. You know these things, Phil. I’ve told you.”

I was suddenly too tired to support my own weight; my head dropped onto the table between us. It was cool against my cheek, and it smelled of salt. I wondered about the parade of men who’d sat at that table, their sweaty hands clasped in—what? Hope? Fear? Anger? Where were they now? And how had I gotten there? If Peter wasn’t Peter, if he no longer existed as Peter, what was the point of it all?

“Back to what I was saying, Phillip. Peter is being released.”

That got my attention, and I sat up. “Released? To where?”

Brian cleared his throat, rubbing again at the scar on the table he seemed to favor. “To Cathy.”

My mouth dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Phil, and I agree with you. Unfortunately, I had no say in the matter. And Connie will be there; Cathy still lives with her, so at least you’ll have the comfort of knowing Anna’s mother is overseeing things. And I’ll check on him, too, you know I will.”

I was flooded with a mixture of both fear and fury. “Cathy? Are they crazy? What, so one sister couldn’t ki—” Coming to my senses, I clamped my mouth shut before I could say more, but Brian knew.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said.

Anna looked beautiful, and I told her so.

“Really?” she asked. “The dress isn’t too much?”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by
too much
. Cleavage? Never. Curve-hugging fabric? Tantalizing. Deep blue color? Perfect. Which is what I also told her. “You’re perfect.”

I was rewarded by a kiss, not one of those we’ve-been-married-for-years little pecks, mind you, but a kiss deep enough and real enough that I was tempted to scrap our fancy night out for a cozy night in. I had not had a kiss like that in some time, and I would have suggested staying in, except that this night was all about Anna, who was the guest of honor.

“Are you nervous?” I asked.

“About the party, no. About the job, a little. But excited, too.”

Anna had just been promoted to Dean of Students, a position she’d coveted for years. She was a natural advocate for students, and she already had plans for implementing various activities and policies on their behalf. Though she had never spoken of it, I had always suspected working with students filled a void for Anna. She would not have college-aged children of her own, but engaging and advising the children of others allowed her to experience some of what she would otherwise miss. I said as much to her as she turned to allow me to fasten her necklace.

She seemed startled, even angry, by my assessment. “No, Phil. That’s not it at all.” I looked up from struggling with the tiny clasp to find her eyes in the mirror. She frowned. “You, of all people, should know that.”

“I’m sorry, Anna. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m not even sure how I did.” Anna and I rarely disagreed; she was much too reticent to derive pleasure from fighting, and after growing up with my opinionated father, I craved a peaceful environment at home. Looking back, I think our reluctance to address issues in a forthright manner is what ultimately led to our end. After all we’d been through we worked hard to protect not only ourselves, but each other. We told each other we’d survived not only intact, but stronger for it, but that wasn’t true. Our strength was based on denial, a fragile foundation, to be sure. But those insights were gained during long nights alone in my cell. The night of Anna’s party, I was caught off guard by her sudden irritation with me.

“I just can’t believe you’d minimize this…” she gestured with her hands, “…this whole thing, my promotion, the party, everything, by drawing that conclusion. It’s sort of chauvinistic, don’t you think? To assume everything I do in life is related to the difficulty we had trying to have children?”

I was too surprised to speak, but Anna forged ahead.

“It’s been years, Phil. Years. And believe it or not, not everything I’ve done since then has been some sad attempt to fill a void. I never even think about it anymore. Do you?”

I did, sometimes, and I told her so. “But not as much as I used to.”

“Do you feel as if we’re missing something?” she asked, and I thought about it before answering.

“Maybe,” I said. “I definitely worry
you
might feel we’re missing something.”

“Remember what you said about your father? That he used his definition of success when sizing up your life?” I nodded, and she turned to face me. “That’s what you’re doing now. You’re insinuating that I must be unhappy, that I must feel as if I’ve failed, because we don’t have children. But that’s not my issue, Phil, it’s yours.”

I was pelted by the truth of her words. In some secret place, some hidden room of my psyche, I think I did label our lack of children as a failure, not Anna’s failure, but mine. Until she verbalized it, I wasn’t even aware of my bias, and I don’t know if it stemmed from an unconscious internalizing of my father’s values, or from the insecurities that had dogged me all my life. I had never felt masculine enough in my father’s eyes; I’d never been athletic, or strong, or even particularly brave. Was I really enough of a Neanderthal to equate manhood with procreation? Apparently on some deep level, I was.

“You’re right,” I told her, “and I’m sorry. Until you said it, I didn’t even realize….”

“I know,” she said, “and it makes me feel sad for you, that you still feel as if we’ve missed out on something. But I don’t, Phil. I really don’t. When I look back at everything we went through, I wish I could go back and tell my younger self to just stop it, already. Why did we put ourselves through that? Why didn’t we just accept early on that we were meant to be childless? We had a great marriage, and we have a good marriage now. The worst part of our marriage was when we tried to add to it.”

I have to admit, I was a little surprised by the harshness of Anna’s statements, but I couldn’t help but recognize the truth in them. We did have a good marriage. We both enjoyed our careers, and we had the financial freedom to more or less indulge ourselves at will. Our time was our own, to do with as we pleased; we had always enjoyed each other’s company, and we shared the same hobbies. I had no doubt that had we had children, we would have continued to enjoy a good life, albeit a different one—certainly a less self-centered one.

Anna must have read my thoughts, because she moved towards me and wrapped her arms around my waist. “If we’d had children,” she said, the anger leaving her voice, “it still would have been a good life, but it wouldn’t have been this one, and I like this one just the way it is. I wouldn’t change a thing, and it bothers me sometimes that it seems as if you view this life as a consolation prize, as if we lost out on curtain number one and had to settle for curtain number two.”

“That’s not true, Anna.” But wasn’t it? Didn’t I sometimes see it that way? Anna and I had spent many years building our lives around the idea of when we might have a child. We moved from the city, bought a house with plenty of land, ensured the backyard had room for a swing set, even remarked on the convenience of our long, paved driveway:
Won’t it be great for teaching our kids to ride a bike?
Wasn’t it natural, then, to view our life without children as the second choice?

“Enough of this,” Anna said, pushing away from me. “We need to get a move on or I’ll be late to my own party.”

In the early years of our marriage, we had agreed never to end a discussion without reaching a resolution. It was an idealistic goal, a vow made by two young, naïve newlyweds who had no way of knowing each disagreement, each misinterpretation, missed opportunity or misspoken word left a shadow made of webs, the tendrils reaching through the years to weave a unique tapestry of misunderstandings. What in the beginning had seemed simple—
Are you listening to me? Did you forget to pick up the milk? Do you have to work late again?
—becomes, over time, fraught with nuances and hidden meanings.
Do you still love me? Do you ever think of me? Is this still what we want?

I understood more from Anna’s expression, her quick redirection combined with the stiffening of her shoulders, than I did from her words. It had always been that way with Anna. I had come to learn that the Zen-like calm she projected was capable of masking an astounding depth of emotion.

Once, shortly after we married, I’d come home to find Anna lying across our bed in tears. I can truthfully say until that point I’d never seen her cry. “What is it?” I’d asked, alarmed, dropping my briefcase in the doorway and rushing to her side.

“You forgot,” she said, sitting up to look at me and wiping the tears from her cheeks.

“Forgot? Forgot what?” It wasn’t a holiday. It was months away from her birthday or our anniversary. I couldn’t imagine what I might have forgotten.

“I told you I wanted to have lunch with you this week. I told you I missed you, with all the hours you’re putting in at the lab. You said you’d check your schedule and we’d make a date, but you never did.”

I nearly laughed, I was so relieved. “Is that it? I thought something horrible had happened, like someone had been in an accident or something.”

“What do you mean, ‘Is that it?’” I watched her expression morph from sadness to disbelief.

“But we didn’t have a plan, did we? I mean, I got busy at work and I forgot to check my schedule, but it’s not as if I stood you up, right?” I was struck by a thought. “Or did I? Did we make a lunch date for today?”

“No, we did not,” she said, standing from the bed and moving towards the door, “because my loving husband never made one.”

“Anna, come on,” I pleaded, caught somewhere between alarm and amusement. “You made a simple statement that you wanted to have lunch sometime. It didn’t work out this week, but we can have lunch sometime next week. It’s really not that big of a deal, is it?”

“The
deal
,” she said, spinning around to face me, “is that you didn’t
listen
to me. You didn’t
hear
me. I said I wanted to have lunch with you this week, and you blew it off without any consideration for what I was telling you.”

I blinked, confused. “But I did hear you,” I said.

“So you heard me, but you just didn’t care?”

“I….” I truly didn’t know what to say to that; there didn’t seem to be a way out. “Of course I care,” I said, but she interrupted me.

“Really? Well, if you cared, then why didn’t you check your schedule like you said you would, so we could make a lunch date?”

“I guess….” I took a moment to try to regroup, unsure how to fix things between us. Anna was still waiting tables at that time, as well as taking some night classes. Her schedule was never set; some mornings I left before she awakened, some nights she was gone when I got home, either at work or in class. There were times we went a day or two without seeing each other. I missed her, of course, but I was working such long hours I probably didn’t feel the absence as keenly as she did.

“I guess I didn’t realize how important it was to you,” I finally said. “I didn’t understand that you were making an actual request. I thought you were just saying it would be nice to have lunch sometime, and I agreed with you. It would be nice. It will be nice. I miss you.”

Anna was unrelenting. “What I said was, ‘I’d like to have lunch with you this week.’ What’s so hard to understand about that? What do I need to do, jump up and down and yell before you hear me?”

I was struck by how young and vulnerable she looked; I wasn’t used to seeing Anna that way. I stood from the bed and moved towards her. “No,” I said. “No, you don’t have to do that. I’ll listen more closely from now on, okay? I’m really sorry, Anna. I would never do anything to hurt you.”

“Well, you did,” she said, before coming to lean against me, accepting my embrace.

We’d both grown and matured in the passing years, but one thing hadn’t changed: Anna still understated her needs, and I still had a difficult time hearing them. We’d learned to compensate, in some ways, or at least I had. I knew now that when Anna expressed displeasure, it ran much deeper than appeared. I didn’t, however, always know what to do about it.

We would go to the party, and we would mingle and make small talk. I would refill her drink, laugh at her humor, and place a proprietary hand at the small of her back. She would introduce me to colleagues I had not met, making me sound a much more interesting person than I am. No one would know that underneath the surface of our pleasantries, Anna was still angry while I…well, I had the distinct feeling trouble was brewing.