The Healing (4 page)

chapter six

Karen flipped through the
Wine Enthusiast
magazine even though the words and pictures weren't registering in her weary brain. The eastern sky was just beginning to brighten with daylight, and she was already up, sitting at the kitchen table with her steaming cup of coffee.

She had always been an early riser, even back in high school when most of her friends slept until noon. By the time she attended college, Karen realized that she couldn't change her biorhythm and accepted that her most productive time of day would always be before lunch. When she was working as an editor, the bulk of her manuscript assignments were handled in the morning. She saved meetings and other less cerebral duties for the afternoons.

Even after leaving her job and moving to Southold, Karen woke up at the crack of dawn. Lately she had been getting up before the neighbor's rooster even started crowing. It was better than lying in bed and thinking about the many ways her life was slipping away. If she let her mind race for too long, fear and anger crept in like insidious demons, and she would start imagining the worst possible scenarios. Or, even more debilitating, she would start to dwell on all she had lost.

An advertisement in the magazine finally caught her eye. A young couple were on the beach at sunset, sharing secret smiles and clinking their goblets together. Sunlight sparkled on the water and in their chardonnay.

She slapped the magazine shut. A friend had sent it to her because there was an article on how vineyards and wine making had saved the farming economy on Long Island's North Fork. But Karen was a little too preoccupied to care about the flavor nuances of some local cabernet or the recipes it complemented. Her husband was asleep on the sofa bed in the living room because he didn't want to use the stair lift anymore—the man who should've been drinking wine on the beach with her at sunset.

Karen rose from the table with her coffee cup in hand, once again trying to get away from her own thoughts. She went and stood at the back door, facing the yard right off the kitchen. Immediately the pungent smell of damp sea air and moist soil rushed in at her through the screen. She inhaled deeply, smelling the aroma from one of the few potato farms that were left on eastern Long Island. Decades earlier, the mornings always smelled like wet potatoes and cabbage, the two main crops of Southold farmers. It wasn't the most pleasing smell, but it was one Karen associated with the cherished summers of her childhood. Between the long drags of country air and the fresh-brewed coffee, the fog in her brain began to lift.

She went to the stove and refilled her cup. Now she could start making mental notes for all she had to do that day. A few of their friends were planning to come out the following weekend for the Fourth of July, and Karen looked forward to getting the house ready and preparing for a barbecue. Maybe having a couple of beers and sharing a few laughs with old friends would help her pretend things were normal for a little while. Hopefully they wouldn't want to run for the hills when they saw what was happening.

Putting that possibility aside, Karen sat down to make a list. She still had a week, but if she focused on what groceries to get, and if she jotted down a reminder to pick up a few bottles of local wine to share with their companions, then she wouldn't have to ponder why Mike's mental state had deteriorated so drastically in recent weeks. He had seemed to curl up and retreat into himself since the day he'd asked Raymond to put him into bed at four o'clock in the afternoon. Karen was hesitant to talk to Mike about it, knowing he might tell her something she didn't want to hear. So she chalked it up to moodiness, which the doctors had told her to expect.

But they didn't warn her all hell could break loose.

First Karen heard the soft moans and rustling sounds that meant Mike was shifting position in bed. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then the moans turned to grunts of exertion and gulps of air. Something was wrong. Karen froze and listened, her pencil stopping midword.

Then she heard the crash.

Karen shot to her feet. She flew into the living room and found Mike on the floor between the sofa bed and his wheelchair, wheezing and writhing like an animal that had been hit by a car. Skidding to her knees beside him, she pushed the wheelchair out of the way so he wouldn't injure himself further. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Mike was pale, disheveled, and shaking so violently, Karen was afraid he was having a seizure or some other traumatic medical setback. She tried to take hold of his hands, but he shooed her off like an insulted, independent child. When she realized his agitation was not a medical emergency, she should have been relieved. But she wasn't. A different kind of dread threatened to undermine her.

Karen knew she had to remain in control of the situation, so she grabbed Mike firmly by the upper arms. Just a few years ago, her petite hands would not have been able to get a grasp on those muscles. “Were you trying to get into the wheelchair by yourself?” she asked, checking quickly to make sure he wasn't bleeding.

His hands kept flailing at her, but to Karen's dismay, she easily overpowered him. She recalled how Mike used to pin her without the slightest exertion and then laugh. Now she felt no resistance in those once-powerful arms. “Please leave me alone,” he begged.

Karen looked at him, rising above the sting of his words. That was when she saw the shine of tears in his eyes, and she felt his shame slice into her like a sword. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady and her mind clear. She almost wanted his injury to be physical so she could do something about it.

“Please just go!” he said, his voice getting louder and angrier. “Go back into the kitchen with your coffee and your books!”

She felt like he had punched her. Didn't he know that she'd rather be watching TV in the living room with him instead of thumbing through magazines in the kitchen or reading on the porch? “Here, let me help you,” she said, trying to lift him the way she had seen Raymond do so many times.

Mike twisted out of Karen's grip with an impatient growl, but not before she realized his pajamas were soaked. She glanced at the sofa bed and saw the failed condom catheter lying on the rumpled, sodden sheets. Embarrassment tore through her as if his ravaged body were her own. But now she had to pretend it was no big deal. She had to act like none of it fazed her. For Mike's sake. So she put on her best poker face before turning back to him.

“Get away from me!” he finally roared in full volume.

Karen, on the other hand, could barely speak. “Mike—”

“The damn thing came off,” he said, his voice beginning to falter. “Are you happy? I wet the bed, and I didn't even know it! I'm done for!” He started swearing with what appeared to be his last ounce of strength, cursing God and the day he was born. “Look at me! How in God's holy name could I end up like this? What the hell did I ever do to deserve this?”

Karen sat back on her heels, feeling utterly helpless. She didn't know what to do, and she certainly didn't have any words of comfort. And just when she thought things couldn't possibly get worse, Lori came running down the stairs in her nightshirt. Karen held her breath as her daughter came to an abrupt stop on the last step and stared at her father in horror.

“Daddy?” Lori whimpered, but soon she was caught up in the same crescendo. “Oh, God, what's wrong with him? What happened?
Daddy!
”

Mike looked like someone had stabbed him.

“It's all right,” Karen said in her most soothing voice, but her words did not help. Somehow her ability to remain composed was only making things worse. But she couldn't allow herself to be caught up in their emotional maelstrom. She kept murmuring that everything was okay because she wanted to believe it herself. Mike's condom catheter slipping off during the night certainly wasn't a catastrophe in the grand scheme of things. “It doesn't matter, Mike,” she tried to reassure him. “We'll help you into the chair and get you cleaned up in no time. Lori can go to the pharmacy as soon as it opens, and you can wear the guards. You've worn them before. It's not the end of the world.”

Despite her attempts to soothe him, Mike continued to rant. And Lori started to cry.

Karen had the odd sensation that she was floating above the scene. She realized she had two options. She could walk out, leaving her overwrought husband sitting on the floor in his own urine and relying on her fragile daughter to deal with it, or she could grit her teeth and ignore the drama to do what she had to do.

Her only recourse was to try and embolden her daughter by appealing to her sensibility. “Lori!” she called above the pandemonium. “Please find it somewhere inside you to come here and help me. Your father fell, and he needs you.”

Lori slapped her hands over her mouth.

Karen focused on her daughter for a moment, willing her to take the necessary steps forward. As Lori stood on the stairs trembling, with her hands covering the bottom of her face and her pretty blue eyes awash with fear and grief, Karen saw the sweet, sensitive young girl who had been through so much. But she couldn't go soft. Not now. “You can do it, Lori. Come and help your father.”

He was always there for you. Now's your chance to be there for him.

Lori gripped the banister to descend the last step. She put one foot tentatively in front of the other and made her way over to her parents. Karen held her breath as Lori squatted down beside her and reached out a trembling hand to rub Mike's back. For Karen, watching her daughter rein in her turbulent emotions for her father's sake stirred feelings of hope. It was fitting that Mike's steadfast, unconditional love for Lori would be rewarded with such a breakthrough.

But Mike couldn't see it as a breakthrough. Apparently the role reversal was more than he could bear, and things turned from bad to worse.

Mike was quickly losing what little strength he had, and his tirade gave way to something far more disturbing—the wrenching sound of masculine sobs. Now, instead of pushing Karen away, he was turning to her in desperation, clawing at the old T-shirt she was wearing because he couldn't get a firm grip to pull her toward him. “I don't want her here,” he said, the words twisted in anguish. “Tell her to go. Please make her go.”

Karen's insides lurched when she realized he was talking about Lori. She knew that their overly sensitive daughter would perceive Mike's request as utter rejection. Looking up quickly, she saw the look of bewilderment on Lori's face. “He doesn't mean it,” Karen said.

Mike started to gag on his words. “Get her out of here. She can't see me like this.”

He was so upset, Karen was afraid he was going to start retching, on top of everything else. When Lori shot to her feet, Karen felt the tentacles of panic flutter up into her throat. “Lori, please don't go,” she said. “He needs you.
I
need you.”

But Lori ran. Karen watched with mounting despair as her daughter charged up the stairs to her bedroom. Not a minute later, she raced back down, fumbling to button her shorts and tripping blindly as she blinked through a stream of tears.

Karen tried one more time. “Lori!”

She was answered with the slap of the screen door and the revving of the Honda's engine.

Karen ran until she reached the overlook at Founders Landing. But after the ordeal that morning, she didn't have the strength to stand under the maples and gaze at the bay. She planted herself at one of the picnic tables, sitting on a weathered plank of wood and leaning her elbows on the table as though waiting for someone to serve her a sandwich.

Most of it was a blur, but the most vivid picture in Karen's mind was that of her husband, collapsed and sobbing on the living room floor. It was like a nightmare had subliminally planted its most disturbing image to haunt her.

Karen sighed and ran her hands through her hair, which she hadn't bothered to clip up today. Raymond wasn't due to come until this afternoon, so Karen had to call the visiting nurse service, explaining that her husband needed someone sooner. They sent a nurse within the hour, who told Karen to take a break and go for a walk.