Weekend (17 page)

       
AJAX

They'd slept entwined at night—they'd found each other during sleep instead of rolling into the shadows. But now Logan stumbled into the late-night living room where Ajax had marooned herself on the couch. “What's up? Come back to bed.”

“I'm sick, honey,” said Ajax quietly. She was curled up behind Toby. It wasn't
I have a cold, I might have the flu, my tummy's upset
.

Logan sat on the armrest, stroked her hair. “Honey, tell me.”

Ajax's voice came out whispery. “Do you think we can get me to a hospital from here?”

“Fuck,” said Logan.

Ajax was thinking logistics, 9-1-1, choppy boat rides, helicopters. Rescue. Was there even a hospital up here? Of course there was a goddamned hospital, there had to be, but was it any fucking
good
?

“Were you gonna wake me up?”

“Yes. No. I don't know. I love you, Logan,” she said. She coughed. Couldn't stop.

“What's going on, Ajax?” Birds chirped—morning even though it was still dark.

“I suspect it's atrial fib. It's not a really good thing.” Her voice was weak, her pulse as she felt it thready with thuds. “But not fatal, either. I mean, I'm not going to fall over dead on you.”

Logan squeezed her knee. “I'm going to get my phone.” They were back in an instant. “I can take you in my boat.”

“Joe's alone over there with an infant. I saw Elliot leave. We can't take the only boat. She has to have access to a boat, Logan.” She tried to talk, a few strained words at a time, a suck of breath. “My heart feels like a horse is kicking me inside.” She patted Logan's hand. “I'm short of breath. Very tired.”

Toby heaved himself up and slinked off the couch, came to Logan, his collar clinking.

“Have you tried nitro?”

“Yeah, couple times, not that it would do anything for this. Can you do a stroke assay? Listen to if I'm speaking intelligibly, if I can extend my tongue left and right, if I can lift both arms together with my eyes closed, if I can smile without it being lopsided?” Ajax moved through the steps herself successfully. “I'm a little numb on my left side, so there might be a bleed in my right hemisphere. Or maybe it's nothing, just me sitting here imagining symptoms. But we should, uh, probably get me out of here to be on the safe side.”

“Yeah,” said Logan, dialling, talking to the emergency operator, going through symptoms, offering their coordinates.

Ajax rocked, her face turned toward the window, conserving her energy for breathing.

“Help is coming. Okay. They say lie down in case you get faint, and we need to get some clothes on you.” Ajax was naked under a blanket; Logan shooed the dog down, got her up to dress her in track pants, and led her back to the sofa. Ajax coughed; Logan propped her up on pillows.

Ajax asked them to sing.

“You're going to be fine.”

“Sing,” demanded Ajax, coughing.

Logan sang quietly—bluesy love songs, lullabies. Soft, comforting songs. Sat on the floor, held tight to Ajax's hand while Ajax drifted in and out. “Don't you die,” Logan whispered. “Don't you goddamn die the day I propose to you.”

Early dawn; there were robins in the yard, pecking for worms as the newly woken sun rose; poppies bent from the weight of dew, the grass silvery. They squeezed Ajax's hand.

Ajax felt drifty, spacey, only half connected to reality. Then she thought,
It sucks worse for Logan.
Then she thought again,
Should I call my kids?
“Call Joe, okay, so she's not freaked by the ambulance?”

“Okay,” said Logan. Ajax's eyelids fluttered. “What's your cell phone password so I can call the kids?”

Ajax opened her eyes. “Don't call them. Not necessary at this stage. Find out if there's something to worry about first.”

“Honey, your cell password.”

Ajax told them, “If this goes sideways, tell the children I couldn't have asked them to be better people.” She looked into Logan's eyes, held the gaze tight. Had a coughing fit. Logan sat her up, pounded her back. Ajax smiled weakly, but her eyes were closing. She was sliding somewhere, sliding away.

Logan said, “Baby, you're going to be okay.” They sang.

Ajax's eyes fluttered open. A robin found a worm and tugged it from the ground, red belly glowing. Logan phoned Joe, said
they'd explain later, told her where the boat keys were, asked her to take Toby to her cottage.

“And the grandkids,” said Ajax suddenly, her eyes opening. “I have the best grandchildren!”

Logan sang “Too Darn Hot
,
” just to shut her up, belting the tune.

When the water ambulance arrived, two paramedics took over Ajax's care, giving her oxygen, switching her to a gurney.

“Take my ring,” Ajax said, lifting her oxygen mask, holding out her arm to Logan.

The ring that had glided on so easily now slid off and was pocketed. In the boat, in the ER, Ajax heard Logan telling the paramedics they were married. “She's my
wife
.”

Ajax was immediately transferred to an available bed.

Logan and Ajax watched the atrial fibrillation on the ECG monitor, crazy-assed tracings with no rhythm, a two-year-old's scribbling, a heart rate of 180. They did tests and dispensed a blood thinner, a medication Ajax had long resisted because of the potential that she might, as she described it, “spring a leak.” She'd had two instinctual evasions through her years of being sick: first, open heart surgery, which meant a broken sternum, and second, blood thinners. She'd eventually given in to a modified version of the first. But warfarin meant a continual and strict regime of measuring levels, multiple changes in dosing and considerable risk. The problem with not using it was that a chaotic atrium could throw a clot and cause a stroke.

Ajax had an IV taped to her hand; a bag of glucose hung beside the bed. “Tired of hospitals,” she said.

“Baby, how often you been hospitalized lately?”

Ajax counted on her fingers. “Nine surgeries? Plus a few stray times landing in ERs temporarily.”

“And you wonder why you're tired all the time?”

“I'm tired because my left ventricle doesn't work,” she said. “And lots of my medications cause fatigue, and I've been pushing myself with you.”

“Still.”

“Glad you said we were married. It gets you access. I wish you
were
my spouse.”

“Right now, I just wanna take you home so I can get you back to the city.”

“They're not making admitting noises,” said Ajax.

Both of them watched Ajax's heart going in and out of rhythm. “You feel better?”

Ajax shrugged.

“You were right that it was A-fib.”

She looked at Logan. “Life in the fast lane with a heart crip. How come the heart crip crossed the road?”

“I give up.”

“She thought she saw a salt shaker.” Ajax drummed her fingers on top of the blanket. “I'm enough sick that I need to be here, but not enough that I
want
to be here. Discharge, discharge, discharge.”

Logan sang to Ajax—French and German lullabies they
said were from childhood. The ER crashed along around them—nurses, the screech of curtains, intercom, paramedics, doctors, gurneys whipping by,
Code Blue, Code Blue, Code Blue.
Somewhere in all of this, Ajax's heartbeat returned to sinus rhythm. She looked less ashen.

The neuro resident arrived to do a stroke battery. Logan sat off to the side while Ajax was put through complicated paces. “You're lucky again,” the neurologist finally said.

“Yup,” said Ajax resignedly.

“I don't think you had a stroke. If you did, just another TIA.” She put her hand on Ajax's leg.

“
Another
TIA?” said Logan; they had to ask what it was. Transient ischemic attack, mini-stroke.

Ajax grimaced.

“Possibly past TIAs,” said the resident and scratched her head. “See how her face is lopsided? She's been hospitalized for stroke before, she said.”

“Ajax, you never said that.”

“
Arguably
a stroke,” said Ajax, shrugging. “It's why I smile in photos, to even it out.”

Logan said, “Doc, is she sick or not sick?”

“The A-fib leaves her high risk for stroke. Several doctors have tried to impress that on your wife previously, from what she tells me.”

The doctor tapped notes into an iPad. “One of these days, Ms McIntyre,” she said, “one of these bullets is going to find you.”

Ajax sighed.

“You really should be dead.” The doctor frowned down at her.

“But I'm not dead.”

The doc said, “But you should be.”

Logan said, “Um …”

“It's impossible that you have your history and are still alive.”

“And yet…” said Ajax.

The neurologist shrugged.

Ajax scowled. “Don't push me into the grave yet, okay, just so I fulfill your statistical expectations?”

Logan said, “Yeah, come on. Does she look dead to you?”

The resident's boss came in. “We're going to release you, but we want you to stay on the warfarin, and see a Toronto cardiologist. You have to have your blood monitored every two days until we get your levels right. I'll send a consult note to your GP, and here's a referral for the bloodwork and the cardiologist. He'll see you immediately.”

“No CT?” asked Ajax. “No cardioversion?” Cardioversion, a little trick they did with heart shocks.

“We can't do cardioversions here. If you're still in A-fib when you get to Toronto, go in again. Your atria are reset, it looks like, and the digoxin will help—but if you have symptoms again before you go, we want to see you back, and you need to promise to have your levels monitored for toxicity.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Ajax.

The resident passed Logan a stack of prescriptions, the tinkering they'd done to her current medication regime. “You can help,” said the neurologist to Logan. “Make sure she complies.”

“Compliance definitely being her strong suit,” said Logan.

“Am I under any restrictions?” Ajax said.

The doctor said no. “Crisis averted,” he said sternly. “But consider this a warning.”

       
AJAX

“I'm sorry I tanked our perfect weekend.” Ajax felt glad to be heading back to the cottage for solace.

“What's up with the previous stroke history?” said Logan behind the wheel. “Seems like what you tell them when I'm gone to get coffee or whatever is a bit more informative.”

“I just get into more details, is all.”

Cows, horses, sheep, trees, fields. Driving in Ontario reminded her of car-sick drives when she was a little kid and her family flew up from the Bahamas to visit her grandparents, and of her father, dead now more than thirty years and impossible, anymore, to make real. “I was bike riding down at False Creek, and I started getting numb on one side. In Emerg, they noted I had measurably less sensation on the one side of my face. Personally, I think it was related to TMJ, which correlates to a spot in my upper back, because it often makes my face go numb. The hospital and I had to agree to disagree. I was supposed to do follow-up in six months, but I never did.”

“TMJ?”

“Temporomandibular joint—the jaw hinge.” She smiled. “The part that gets sore giving blow jobs.”

They grabbed a water taxi back to the cottage. The sun was already slacking in the sky, tired with noon, but even so, the day showed no signs of cooling down. As they lurched across the water, Ajax lifted her chin, dropped her head back, and closed
her eyes in the wind, relieved not to have been admitted. Or cardioverted, for that matter. Just a private second to cherish life.

“I'm scared,” said Logan, shouting over the motor.

“Honey, don't be scared now.” But this is how it went—when the crisis passed, emotions barrelled in. “My ticker is ticking. Regularly. It's all good.”

Ajax had once told Logan never to love her. Not ever to fall in love because of her health; she'd made sure Logan knew its dangers. But she'd also said,
I'm not strong enough to resist this, so it's gonna have to be you who stops us.

Logan hadn't stopped. Logan didn't even seem to be stopping now after the hospital, though Ajax would always hold a half-worry that they might want to someday because of medical issues. She was fully aware that lovers could turn on her mid-stream, walk out, walk away, close their hearts, be finished.

Looking at Logan in the boat, their hair blown up in a messy cockscomb, Ajax couldn't help it—she was still crazy in love.

The boat pulled up, bumping on the rubber tires. They heard Toby barking at Joe and Elliot's.

As they watched the boat pull away, Ajax undid her pj top, slipped out of her bottoms. “Fuck,” she said. As in,
It's good to be home.
She dove in. Submerging was perfection; she could feel the hospital sluice from her skin in sheets. She stroked out far, for ten or fifteen minutes, swam back in past a life preserver floating near the dock, and climbed out satiated and streaming with water.

Logan passed her the pajamas, wouldn't look at her.

“Logan, shit, honey, it's over. Hit ‘play.' We're back. Pretend it never fucking happened.” Ajax shook her head, pounded her skull to unblock her ear.

“The inconvenience of you almost dying, you mean?” Logan said, voice cracking. They turned away, seemed embarrassed.

Ajax touched their shoulder. “Hey, sweetie. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make light of it. I was just … pushing it away, getting past it. I don't expect you to—”

Logan jerked free, walked away.

Ajax trotted after them as fast as she could go.
Don't run,
she thought.
Rest your heart.
“Logan! Wait up!”

“No,” said Logan, turning on the pathway above Ajax. “No. You don't get to say, ‘Logan, get over it.' You don't get to say that. I just fucking found you, Ajax. You don't get to
die
.”

“I'm sorry,” said Ajax, tears welling. “Please, I'll—”

“You don't get to be fucking sorry, either. Sorry doesn't hold water; sorry is a paper bag with the bottom torn out. Sorry gets me absolutely nowhere. Are you standing there telling me you've been going through this for twenty years, that your
kids
have, that your
lovers
have? Watching you almost die and then not dying and going on like nothing fucking happened?”

“Well, yeah,” said Ajax, pulling her shoulders back, squaring herself. “Yeah, I guess I am, actually.”

“Fuck you, then, because I can't do this. I
won't
do this.” Logan trembled.

“Logan, don't,” said Ajax. “I'm sorry I hurt you. I didn't do it on purpose.”

“Really, don't do this? Really, subject myself to this
bullcrap
for the rest of my life? I'm sane, right?”

Ajax nodded reluctantly. “Sure.”

“So why would I do this?” Logan pulled the ring from their pocket, held it on their palm, and as Ajax reached for it, tossed it onto the path behind Ajax, who yelped as it rolled into the bushes.

“Go fetch,” said Logan bitterly.

“Logan—You love me, I know you love me. This is what you want—to stop? To stop
now
? Or do you want me to get down on my hands and knees and crawl into the bushes to find your love?” Ajax started to cry. Her ring, her beautiful ring. She'd worn it for
maybe
twelve hours. Ajax grabbed Logan's arm. “I try not to give in, you know. That's all. Not to give in.”

Logan twisted away. “Oh, fuck you, Ajax. Not give in? Do you have any notion of
how much
you minimize? Nuts to you. Nuts to this whole screwed-up circus. You and your goddamned medical acrobatics.” They swept their arms from side to side to ward Ajax away. “I don't care. Don't you get it?
I don't care
. You're sick. You're not even
well enough
to be my wife.”

Ajax pulled back, hurt. “That's a horrible thing to say. It might be true, but it's a horrible thing to say.”

Logan stomped up the path. “It's over, Ajax.”

Ajax plodded after them, bypassed them inside the cottage, climbed into the shower, showered slippery-fast, scrubbing at the ECG glue stuck on her in circles, yanked on shorts and a T-shirt, jammed her other clothes into her suitcase. She couldn't
stop sobbing. She needed Logan to take her out of here in the boat and get her back into the city—or maybe she could ask Elliot. She'd stay with friends while she figured things out, till she flew back to Vancouver.

Logan showed up in the doorway. “So last night when I found you, were you going to wake me up so we could get help?”

“Don't talk to me.”

“No, I mean it. Were you just going to let yourself die?”

“They didn't do anything to me in the hospital, Logan. They didn't save me. My heart just went back into rhythm. I don't agree with you about this. As far as I'm concerned, we should be celebrating because I'm okay, but never the fuck mind. Never mind. You threw my ring away. Just take me back to the city. I want to go now, right now.”

“And if your heart hadn't?”

“Who cares, right?”

“That's so fucking awesome of you, really. So
kind
. To just sit there in the middle of the night, after I'd just proposed to you, waiting to die.”

Ajax slammed her suitcase shut. “Really? Because
you're
some kind of medical role model, Logan? You, who told me you've never even had a pap? You, who don't even know if you're in menopause? You, who had your last mammo when? You want
me
to change? Then you change and get your gynecological business looked after. People get gynecological cancers. You take goddamned chances with the boi who's going to be my whatever-the-fuck-you'll-be—my
husband
—every goddamned
day. So don't you be giving
me
lectures about how to perform medically.” She hefted her suitcase, shoulders heaving, tissue pressed to her face.

Logan grabbed her.

“Let me the fuck go. You can't ever—ever,
ever
—touch me during a fight. That's fucking off the table, and I am so not kidding.”

Logan released her. “Give me your suitcase. You are not spending the morning in ER and then carrying around a suitcase.”

Ajax said, “But it's okay to toss my ring in the bushes. That stress will be just ducky.”

“Fine. Have it your way,” said Logan, setting down the suitcase with a clunk, wiping their hands.

Ajax whirled. “
My
fucking way? You're moronic if you think this is
my
way.”

“I don't want to break up,” said Logan.

“‘It's
over
,' you said. To quote … um … you. And throwing my ring? That wasn't breaking up? That and four-and-a-half bucks and I'm good to go at Starbucks.”

“Okay, then,” said Logan spreading their arms. “Maybe I was a jerk. Maybe I shouldn't be mad.”

“I don't want to live with a jerk. I need a person who respects me and treats me
well
. Who doesn't use their fear against me. That's immature and hurtful, and, you know what, anyway,
fuck you
.
Fuck
you.”

“Fear? Who wouldn't feel fear? You diving into that lake?
What if you never came up, Ajax? What if you went under and I couldn't do a goddamned thing to rescue you? You swam out a long way.”

“Well, throwing a life preserver out twenty feet would probably not have worked.” Ajax blew her nose. “I am not a fucking china doll. How many times have I been hospitalized? A reasonable guess?” Her face prickled with anger.

“How the hell would I know? Thirty? Fifty?”

“So how the fuck many of those times did I die?”

Logan pressed their lips together, threw up their hands. “Okay. Okay, I get your drift.”

“You don't, though. I won't be made a prisoner of this disease or my disability—either by me or by you. I already can't dance. I can't really walk. I can't carry shit. But I can swim because I can float when I need to stop moving, and I can kayak and lift weights because those only use half my body at a time. I can fucking go to Whitehorse and see the northern lights. I can go to Churchill and see polar bears. I can go on a safari in Africa or take art lessons in Bali. What I can manage, I can do. Okay? Got it?”

Logan nodded.

“You can cross streets, but I should stop you because you might get run over? I mean, I get that it was visceral for you today. Scared is reasonable. Being an asshole to me because you're scared is not reasonable.”

“I can't lose you,” said Logan, sinking down. “Please, Ajax.”

“Then use the goddamned words
I'm sorry
. For fuck's
sake. Show me you even know what a turd you just were.” Ajax sat down, took Logan's hand, softened. “Don't make
me
lose
you
. Don't call it quits, you fucking wimp. Step up instead. Apologize. Show me you understand why that's needed.”

“I shouldn't have thrown the ring,” said Logan.

Ajax rolled her eyes. “Ya think?”

“I'm sorry I said you weren't well enough to love. I'm just—” They backhanded their hair, the rakish curl tumbling back down into their eyes. “I'm—you know—sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry I was a pig.”

“Don't do that to me. I don't deserve it. I want my ring back, too.”

“Right,” said Logan. “I'll find it, I promise, before we leave here.” They sighed. “You are cavalier, though, right, you have to admit. If you hadn't—”

“Whoa, mister, stop right there. Are you about to say I provoked that abuse?” Ajax's eyes went wide. “Because, oh no, no-no. Where have I heard that before? Oh yeah, in the batterer's handbook.” She felt her atria kick, told herself to stand down. “Okay. I agree I could die. But I didn't die.” She took a deep breath. “Do you know how much angina I have, how often my heart squeezes from lack of oxygen, how many times I've squirted nitroglycerin in my life? Like 100,000 times. You go through that a hundred times a hundred times, and yeah, it doesn't have a huge impact anymore.
Don't get admitted, don't get admitted, don't get admitted
, that's maybe all the mantra I have left. And I get to be a complete person even though I'm
disabled. I get to have a life, Logan! Don't turn me into my disease. I get to laugh and swim and fuck and—”

Logan ran the back of their fingers up the side of Ajax's face. “I want to feel things,” they said, “but then when an emotion starts, I just go cold instead.”

“I know,” said Ajax. “I see it happening.”

“Are you really okay?”

“I'm really okay. I'm okay, honest.” Why did Logan go cold? And how would their arctic heart play out over time? Ajax needed to think. She needed not to be swept back into infatuation.

Logan said, “Your blood thinner is horrible.”

Ajax did not like to think of the rat poison circulating in her bloodstream now—did not want to contemplate the bruises that were going to pounce across her skin. Spankings were most likely out; bondage too—it was good the doctors hadn't seen her bottom. But she wouldn't tell Logan that: need-to-know basis. Reality jerking at their reins—she'd spool that out slowly.

“I love you,” said Logan. Their eyes got moist.

“Be more respectful next time,” Ajax said, almost coldly.

“Yeah,” said Logan. “I agree. One-hundred percent, I agree. That was completely uncalled for.”

Ajax reached to thumb a tear from under Logan's eye. “I get that you have this really strong need to feel in control. I don't mind that. If you need to do the driving, that's fine. If you need to change the lightbulbs, knock yourself out. If you need to do all the cooking, I can even handle that. I have a huge tolerance
for that after living with the ex. I'm a very patient person. But I demand respect, and I ask that you behave civilly when you're angry. I'm not even talking about yelling here, though that too—I'm talking about verbal content. It's a bottom line issue for me, Logan.”