A thick tube runs from his mouth to a respirator. Its blue plastic accordion folds rise and fall, hissing like an asp. Leads and wires are taped to his temples and chest, an IV bag hangs above him, dripping, dripping, dripping. A black pulse oximeter clamped to his forefinger blinks red light like an artery.
My consciousness flickers as I scan his outline in the bed. I take it in once, quickly, and then move my focus to the center of his chest.
Chantal moves quietly, bringing a chair to the side of the bed. Then she stands beside it in wordless invitation.
I approach the bed slowly.
When I’m directly beside him, I look down at his face, still seeking Roger. I don’t find him there, but I do find him in the muscles of his shoulders and the shape of his chest. I find him in the angularity of his wrist bone and tapered fingers.
“Does he know I’m here?” I whisper.
“He might,” she says. I can tell from the way she says it that she doesn’t think so.
I reach out tentatively and stroke his little finger.
I had been preparing myself to comfort Roger over the loss of his wife, but how to comfort him over the loss of himself?
Such grief, such grief—I am speechless under its weight. I caress his little finger with both hands, tenderly, afraid to hurt him any more than he’s been hurt and weeping because his hand is as familiar to me as my own.
The doctor’s words come back to me.
We don’t know how much function he’ll recover.
Similar words were once spoken about me. I proved them wrong. But as I stand here looking at Roger’s ruined head, I can’t help but hope that he never becomes aware again.
About half an hour later, it occurs to me that I must intercept Eva. I’m pretty sure the nurses wouldn’t just let
her come in, but I can’t risk it. I have no idea how—or even if—I can prepare her for this, but I must forestall until I’ve figured something out.
I ask a nurse how to find the west entrance, and then run in that stilted every-second-stride gait used by people who are running where they aren’t allowed to until I find it. The hotel is directly across the street, tucked improbably under a walkway that leads to the hospital’s parking lot. It is a dismal, squat building, surrounded by concrete and the amorphous fear that clings to the hospital.
The hotel clerk is clearly expecting me, and gives me directions to the room. I walk until I’m out of sight of the front desk, but as soon as I turn the corner I speed up until I’m sprinting down the dark hall. I stop just outside the door and wipe my eyes with the edges of my hands. I sniff once, straighten my back, and knock. I wait breathlessly, making silent deals with deities. If Mutti and Eva are not here I don’t know what I’ll do.
After a moment there’s a click and the sound of a chain sliding across. The door opens a crack and Mutti’s face appears.
“Oh, thank God,” I say.
She swings the door open and I step inside the small dark room. It is both intimate and gauche, with cheap furniture and an air conditioner stuck in the window.
“What did you find out?” says Mutti. “Did you see him?”
“How’s Dad?” Eva’s voice sails to me from across the room. She’s lying on the farthest of the two beds, curled on her side on the bedspread’s sprawling vines. She hugs one of the shammed pillows. The television is off—indeed, still undiscovered within its armoire.
“He’s just had surgery,” I say, forcing my voice to remain steady.
“For what?”
“He had some swelling. They needed to relieve it.”
Mutti’s eyes widen in understanding, but since Eva is searching my face I cannot respond. I concentrate on looking bland. As I attempt to pull the edges of my mouth upward, I realize I’m wearing the same sickly smile as Chantal. Nevertheless, I pin it in place. My lips quiver with the effort.
“Can I go see him now?” says Eva, sitting up. She brushes an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear and continues holding the pillow.
“He’s still sleeping,” I say. “What did you find out about Jeremy?”
“He’s been upgraded to good condition,” says Mutti. “He has a hairline skull fracture and a broken wrist.”
An involuntary cry escapes my lips. “That’s all? Oh, thank God. Thank God.”
Eva stares at me, startled.
“I’m sorry, baby. Don’t pay any attention to me,” I say, crossing the room and sitting beside her. I lean forward and wrap my arms around her, rocking from side to side. “So, what say we find some dinner and get some rest? We’ll see them both tomorrow.”
The last thing I want is food, but I must keep Eva occupied until I’ve figured out what the hell I’m going to do.
A couple of blocks from the hotel we find a cheap roadhouse that has a good selection of salads. It’s a noisy place, with heavily lacquered tables and a sports bar in
the corner. As the hostess seats us at a booth, Eva asks about the washroom.
The second she disappears around the corner, I drop my menu and lean forward, grasping Mutti’s hands. I drop my head onto my arms, breathing through my mouth and trying not to hyperventilate.
“
Schatzlein, Schatzlein,
what is it?”
“It’s Roger. I can’t let her see him.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
I lift my head and moments later find my mouth moving silently.
“Annemarie, tell me! Please!”
“He’s in a coma. They had to remove part of his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain.”
Mutti stares at me. After a moment she declares, “There’s more. What is it?”
“Can I get y’all a drink while you’re deciding?” The cheerful voice crashes into us, the contrast nearly farcical.
Both our heads jerk around. A large-boned waitress stands by our booth. She’s smiling expectantly, with a hip thrust out and her pen poised above her pad.
“Uh—” I say. “Uh—”
“Please leave us for a minute,” Mutti says sharply.
The waitress’s expression sets like concrete. She tucks the pad into her waistband and clicks her pen shut. “Sure, no problem,” she says, her teeth still clenched in a smile. She spins on her heel and sails away.
She’s offended, and the absurdity of this leaves me open-mouthed. Is our distress not visible? Is it not palpable?
“You can’t keep her from seeing him. He’s her father,” says Mutti.
“I know. I know. Oh, Mutti, what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know, but—”
“
Shhh,
here she comes,” I whisper harshly. I look into my lap and rearrange both my expression and my napkin.
Eva slides into the bench beside me. She freezes, looks from Mutti to me, and then back again.
“Oma? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,
Liebchen.
” Mutti picks one of the laminated menus from the table and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Now, what looks good?” she says, staring hard at the menu. After a moment she notices she’s examining pictures of oversized frothy drinks and flips it over.
With an anvil in place of my heart, I try my best to read the menu. After repeated attempts, I realize that if someone removed the menu right now I wouldn’t remember a single option.
When the waitress returns—only slightly sullen and doing her best to hide it—I order the same salad Eva does. I can’t endure the thought of anything related to flesh.
We pick our way through dinner, none of us making much of an effort at eating or conversation. But sitting in a noisy atmosphere surrounded by people whose lives are still normal provides some distraction. The restaurant itself is cheery enough, with brass rails and fake ferns. There’s a television in every corner, each playing a different sport, and I find my eyes drawn inexplicably to the one above Mutti’s head.
Mutti looks studiously at her soup, turning it over and over with the spoon. She is still absorbing what I
told her. For that matter, so am I, although I’m further along in the process. Eva still has no idea, and I try to imagine what she believes. Does she envision Roger as an intensive care patient a la
The Bold and the Beautiful
? Bandages here and there, and a slim oxygen tube running beneath his nose? A few well-placed bruises on a face that retains its shape?
Perhaps she believes he’s got a lacerated spleen, or some other thing that requires surgery but that, once fixed, won’t affect his lifestyle. Maybe a gash beneath his eyebrow that will heal into a rakish trophy of his close call. I wonder whether she worries about comforting him over the loss of Sonja—as I did, until I saw the truth.
As we turn into the hotel’s entrance, Eva says, “Can we stop in and see if he’s awake yet?”
My stomach flips. I rub her upper arm—it’s a comforting gesture, but I’m fully prepared to grab hold of her if she tries to head across the street.
“I think we should wait until morning,” I say.
“Your mother is right,” says Mutti. “It’s always hard right after surgery. We’ll go over in the morning, after he’s had a chance to rest.”
As we head into the hotel’s lobby I think, What are we doing? Protecting her, or setting her up? At some point I’m going to have to tell her the truth. I just know it can’t be now, because I want to buy Eva one last night’s sleep before her mind is overrun with ghastly images.
We watch sitcoms and other light fluff until ten, and then shut everything off. I share a bed with Mutti, leav
ing Eva on her own because I’m afraid I’ll thrash and keep her awake. Truth be told, I’m sure she prefers her own bed anyway.
Before long, Eva is asleep—I can tell from her breathing pattern. Mutti is so still as to be dead, although I know she’s awake; I lie with a fevered brain and shattered heart. We’re probably thinking the same thing.
If I could sneak over and remove his respirator, I would. I have no doubt it would be the right thing to do. I know the situation is different from Pappa’s—he made his intentions clear, participating not only in the decision but in the act—but wouldn’t Roger, if he could? The irony is that after I broke my neck and was paralyzed, I wanted desperately to be unplugged. Thank God nobody complied. But everything’s different for Roger. My limbs weren’t paying any attention to my brain, but at least my brain was okay.
And then it hits me, and I can’t believe I haven’t thought of it before. Sonja is dead. Roger will probably never wake up; and if he does, he will no longer be the person he was. What in the hell is going to happen to Jeremy?
I need to splash water on my face. I get up quietly, groping my way through the blackness with my arms in front of me. When I turn the corner and locate the washroom, I slip inside and flick on the light.
As I lean over the sink to splash my cheeks, my tongue touches one of my back molars. It feels strange. Hollow, somehow. When I reach into my mouth to investigate, it comes out in my fingers. I look at it, horrified, and then try to stick it back into the hole. I press it in, but there’s no root left, and eventually I give up.
While investigating the raw space with my tongue, I accidentally touch the tooth next to it. When it breaks free from my gum, I want to vomit. I move my fingers from tooth to tooth, plucking them as easily as grapes until I’m holding a fistful of teeth.
I huff with increasing frequency, staring aghast at the mirror and pulling my cheeks back with my fingers to look at my gaping, pitted gums, until—
Boom!
I’m back in bed. I have my teeth. It was all a dream; a terrible, terrible dream. But now I really do need to go to the bathroom, as much as I don’t ever want to face that mirror again.
Four different times I get up and go into the bathroom only to realize—when I find a carnival outside the bathroom’s nonexistent window, or a camel in the bathtub, or a sink full of blood—that I’m still in bed next to Mutti.
I’m conscious but completely paralyzed. I scream for Mutti in my head, panicked, convinced I’m dying. If only she would sense my distress and poke me, do something to break the spell. I try everything—I count to three and try to lift my head. I concentrate on my hand, trying to move just a finger, but nothing works. Again and again, I feel the victory of swinging my legs around and going into the washroom only to find that I’m still lying prone in the bed.
The phone rings. It rings a second time before I realize I’m not still dreaming.
I jerk upright, slapping the wall beside my bed in an effort to find the light switch. When I finally locate it, I flick it on and grab the phone.
“Hello?” I gasp into it.
“Is this Annemarie Zimmer?” says a male voice.
“Yes.”
“This is Dr. Lefcoe. We spoke earlier at the ICU. Chantal told me where you were staying.”
I swing my legs around—for real this time—and clutch the phone to my ear. “Yes. What’s up? What’s going on?”
Eva is awake now, squinting. She raises herself onto an elbow, staring at me.
“I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but your husband went into cardiac arrest a little over half an hour ago,” the doctor continues. “We did everything we could, but there was just too much trauma. His system simply shut down.”
I continue clutching the phone with both hands. My mouth moves, but nothing comes out.
“Mrs. Zimmer? Are you still there?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
There’s a long pause. “Yes,” I repeat.
“Do you have any questions?”
“No.”
“Someone will be in touch tomorrow about making arrangements.” He pauses. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” I say.
I set the receiver back on the telephone and stare at it, stunned. When I finally raise my eyes I find my mother sitting next to Eva, clutching her hand.
I look from one face to another, and finally land on Eva’s.
“He’s gone,” I say.
There are a few seconds of silence. Then Eva opens her mouth and screams. She screams again and again and again, earth-shattering, earsplitting screams that
rise and fall like a siren until I’m sure someone will call the police. Eventually her shrieking subsides into sobbing. As Mutti holds her from the front and I wrap my arms around her from the back, she wails an endless repetition of denials through an increasingly hoarse larynx.