Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon (20 page)

“You wanted the baby,” I said. “So I did too.”

“I wanted you more,” he said. “We need you.”

“I don’t know how to feel about this right now. I tried to stay alive. I drank rainwater when I could. I talked to the geckos. I hoped.”

He had his head down, and then looked back at me.

“There’s something else. They’re not sure about your finger. They removed the dead tissue. They didn’t have to amputate it.”

“Amputate my finger? Did they?”

“No. No. But they cut away a lot of tissue. Once they cut the ring off, your circulation came back okay. They’re pretty sure they can save it. It might not be perfect is all. You’ll need some surgery, on the mainland. They’re consulting with someone in La Jolla. We thought you could stay with Eric and Anna.”

“And if they can’t fix it, they’ll amputate it? I won’t be wearing a new wedding ring. Why’d you even bring it up until we know what’s going to happen?”

“You can still wear a ring.”

I looked at him and thought about wearing a new wedding ring on a mangled finger. I used to remember our wedding every time I looked at my ring. Now I’d remember this.

“I don’t think I’ll do that. I don’t need a memento to remind me of all this.”

“We exchanged rings, H. It has nothing to do with the accident. I’m not taking off mine.”

“You have a healthy finger to wear it on. Mine is going to be a constant reminder of losing the baby. Of being out there.”

“They’re going to fix your finger.”

“Do you call Celeste, C? I was wondering about that while I was in the car.”

“You thought about that in the car?”

“I thought about everything. Do you have a special name?”

“There is no special name. There never was a special name.”

We fell quiet.

“What else did you think about?” he asked.

“I don’t remember much. I was sorry I hadn’t told you I love you. I thought about the babies. I wished I’d written them a letter that they’d have. Chance wouldn’t remember me. Meggie would make things up. Nobody remembers being four. I hoped you’d say nice things about me.”

“I would have told them every day that you loved them,” he said. “That you were smart and beautiful and made up funny stories. I’d tell them that you worried about them. That you loved to float. I’d tell them that you were brave and honest and set your best friend on fire. I’d tell them everything, but I don’t have to.”

“Why didn’t you stand in front of the car?”

“I should have. I was mad that you’d just take off like that.”

“Has my mother been guilting you? She’s good at that.”

“No one says anything. They’re all polite. It’s worse.”

I was crying. My mouth dribbled when I sucked for air. Malina came in shaking her head.

“You can’t come in here and get her crying, Jon. She can hardly breathe with that nose packing.”

She kicked him out, and then washed my face gently and straightened the bedding.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

“Fine. I might lose my finger.”

“You might. Don’t get in the habit of saying you’re fine. It doesn’t help anybody. A therapist will be in tomorrow.”

“I don’t need a therapist.”

“We all need a therapist. Doc says you can have some nourishment. I’m going to make you a shake. Jon brought the fixings, said it’s your favorite. First we’ll do your nose.”

She shot up my IV line. She was going to remove the packing in my nose once the morphine kicked in.

Who knew you could get so much gauze packed up a nose? They’d fixed it as soon as I was stable. They’d managed to wrestle my shoulder back into place. A four-day wait didn’t help that. They were treating my finger like a burn to give it a chance to heal and rebuild from the inside out.

It was strange to think that I’d been passed around without remembering any of it. Eric and Anna had stepped in as my advocates. Knowing those two, the little island hospital didn’t know what hit them.

Malina said Jon talked to me the whole time. He told me I’d be okay, that I was in good hands. He told me about the babies and described the sunrises and sunsets coming through the sliver of window in my room. She gave me a sponge bath and cut off my remaining hair. I was almost bald.           

“What happened to my ankle?” I asked

“Your anklet sliced into it when your leg swelled up. It’s not as bad as it looks. The chain broke.”

“I don’t wear an anklet. I always wanted one though.”

She smiled at me as she pulled fresh socks over the bandage and straightened the blanket.

She came back a while later with a shake. She sat next to the bed and pulled out a
People
magazine. It was my first food and I wasn’t going to choke to death on her shift. I’d never tasted anything so wonderful. She read me bedtime stories about Kate and Will. About who had lost a thousand pounds, again. About the people I was supposed to care about who wore the same dress to a party. She showed me the pictures, spray tan legs and implants. She took my empty plastic cup and straw.

“Jon’s bringing dinner. That man is a tough nut. Your doctors will be in soon. They hope to move you to a floor today. The police want to talk to you, the therapist will sit in.”

“I just want to sleep.”

“You can say no any time. Remember that.”

I fell asleep thinking about Karin getting implants. Silicone parts. Why?

Jon came in with a cooler and his diaper bag satchel. Mom had sent one of her famous homemade creamed soups. The recipe changed every time. She’d also pureed spinach with nutmeg, and mixed tiny pieces of ripe avocado and papaya together, sprinkled with smoked paprika. The first bite was a little strange. Dessert was butterscotch pudding. Meggie had made a card. Penny had guided her hand to write
Mama
. I just let her go for it. She always thought it said what she wanted it to say.

“I wish your mother would write down her recipes,” he said. “I’d use this soup at the restaurant.”

“Even if she did, she’d forget something. She cooks on autopilot. I guarantee you she threw in nutmeg or smoked paprika. Maybe both.”

He spooned food into me and wiped my chin. He smiled while he told me about his night sleeping with clutchy and farty. He looked almost rested.

“The doctors are coming soon,” I said.

“I know.”

“The police want to come. A therapist is coming. I might move to a room. I can say no anytime. I need rest.”

“I know, H. I know it all. Just relax, nobody’s coming through that door until you’ve eaten.”

He spooned food into me until I told him to stop. It was too much all at once.

“I’m having a hard time,” I said. “This is all more than I can process right now. All I did was go to Walmart. Malina said I was wearing an anklet.”

“You bought one at Walmart.”

“I bought jewelry at Walmart?” I asked. “I never buy jewelry.”

He was reading with his feet on the bed and I was staring at the ceiling trying to remember, when the medical trifecta arrived. The only one I knew was Patricia, my obstetrician. The orthopod was Russ, a genial man with beefy sunburned hands covered in swirling red hair. He’d shaved his head to get the drop on pattern baldness. I imagined him muscling my shoulder back into place. Fred, the internist, read through my chart then gently lifted the skin on my hand and released it. Then did the same to my arms and legs and made a note in the chart. He said it was the high tech test for dehydration.

“I drank the rainwater in my hair,” I said. “A gecko licked my eyes.”

He nodded while he finished his notes.

“You need to stay off your feet for at least two weeks,” said Russ. “You’ll be in a wheelchair. You can have a shower once they get you upstairs. I’m going to order a physiatrist. Get some acupuncture, light PT on that shoulder.”

Malina followed them out and closed the door. Patricia pulled a chair up to the bed.

“Have you two had a chance to talk?” she asked.

“A little. Jon told me last night.”

“We can never be sure, even with all the tests. You were dangerously dehydrated and in the same position for days. That can cause deformities and systemic problems in a fetus. We couldn’t have known until an ultrasound, very late. Even then, it was high risk.”

“What would you have done?” I asked.

“You were unconscious,” she said. “The fetus was in distress. I couldn’t tell how long that had been going on. I would want my husband to make the same decision.”

Her phone beeped. She said she’d check back in a few days and left. Malina stuck her head in to say good-bye. Robert came in a few minutes later to run through my vitals and update the chart. He asked how my pain was.

“Hit me easy,” I said.

He watched me take a pill. They planned to move me to a room upstairs before dinner. Jane, the psychologist was on her way. Jon and I settled into the quiet after the storm and looked at each other, too tired for more words.

“Knock knock.”

A woman stuck her head in the door.

“Hi, I’m Jane, your appointed without asking you therapist. May I come in?”

She shook my dark hand. Jon packed up; he was going to a program at Meggie’s school. They were going to hula in honor of Hi’iaka, Pele’s favorite sister, the patron goddess of hula. I’d missed helping Meggie learn her dance. We watched Jon leave, loaded down with baggage.

“He’s feeding me,” I said. “I finally got him to sleep at home last night.”

“You know the number one and two things people in the hospital worry about?”

“If they’re going to die, and is their doctor really Leonardo DiCaprio?”

“You’d think. Those are maybe down at twenty or thirty. They should worry about the doctor right off, but they don’t. Yours are good, your brother made sure of that. Nope, the first thing is, who can see me when I’m sleeping? The second is, where is my food coming from? Basic wounded animal stuff. Jon’s is protecting you.”

“Jon has a caveman side.”

“I saw your rescue on the news. They showed your car being lifted by the helicopter and interviewed the vet with the dog. Handsome guy.”

“The dog?”

She laughed.

“No. The vet. Have you ever been in therapy?”

“Years of it. My father died in a plane crash when I was twelve. My mother was an alcoholic. Blah blah blah. Alanon too.”

“What did you think?”

“I had no idea what she was talking about most of the time. It was like she was doing therapy with someone else. The words ran off me. I showed up every Monday, wrote a check and read
People
magazine until she cut me loose and told me to buy my own subscription.”

“Did you?”

“Subscribe to
People
? God no. How embarrassing.”

“It’s been my experience that there are two kinds of people in therapy, people ready for therapy, and people getting ready for therapy. Sounds like you were getting ready.”

“That’s the Alanon thing. Keep coming back and hope something sinks in.”

“Not everybody does. You showed up.”

“I always show up. I show up and act interested. My friend Margaret used to say it was the secret to life, or at least to getting laid.”

“Where is she now?”

I told her about Margaret. And about Jon coming to India when I called.

“So Jon shows up too,” she said. “Did you have a problem with lighting the fire, later on?”

“Never. It was really beautiful. I knew she was happy. I would have a problem if I hadn’t, I’d regret that. Not like bad relationship regrets. Like something in another world regret.”

“Have you had bad relationships?”

“Not really. A few. I wouldn’t call most of them relationships. How do you define relationships and affairs?”

“I think it’s an affair when at least one of the participants is being dishonest with a person who isn’t in the room. For some reason we flower it up with the word
affair
when the person is married. It’s just cheating. A relationship is a more complicated question. Even a one-night stand can be a relationship. If two people come back a second time, I definitely consider it a relationship. Something must have connected. Then again, people can live together and have children, and never connect. I see it all.”

“Fuck buddies?”

“True farce,” she said. “I could do an hour on fuck buddies. That’s like two people being dishonest with themselves and with each other. What’s that? Six deluded people in the same room?”

“Jon can do the math,” I said. “Based on your definition, I’ve had some regrettable relationships and one cheat, before Jon. Most weren’t bad or good, they were usually more interesting for one of us, or just convenient.”

“Do you regret them?” she asked.

“Yes. I wish I didn’t. Other women don’t seem to carry around that regret.”

“There is plenty of regret out there,” she said. “How do you end relationships?”

“Why are we talking about relationships?”

“It was on your mind. I’m trying to get a complete picture.”

“I don’t know. Most of the time I just cut it off. It’s easy in my business; we’re always on the move. I kicked my first husband out in five minutes, but I’d wanted to do it for years. I tried ending one like a grown up once. You know, work on it. His name was Steve. He’s the one I cheated on. Then I tried to put lipstick on our pig of relationship. He got rough with me. It really scared me. I didn’t realize how much until later. I met Jon right after him.”

“So you didn’t end them all fast. Has Jon ever been rough with you?”

“He’s never even been rude to me. Unfortunately, he can’t say the same about me. Why are you asking me that?”

“Hospital rules. I’m required to ask you questions. If you feel safe. If you ever think about hurting yourself or others. It’s not very meaningful after someone goes over a cliff.”

“I haven’t thought about hurting anyone lately, except maybe his ex-wife, but I’d get caught.”

“Would you do it if you knew you wouldn’t get caught?”

“Probably not. I love my stepdaughter. I know what it’s like to lose a parent.”

“How are you doing with the accident?”

“It’s confused. We lost a baby. They might amputate my finger. Jon wants me to wear a wedding ring again. I don’t know how I feel about any of it right now.”