Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon (23 page)

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m going to sleep before you bring the kids.”

He left and I tried to go to sleep. I called him.

“You make it home?” I asked.

He was quiet on the other end.

“I like to hear you breathe,” I said.

“We’re safe, H,” he said. “We’ll all be there in a little while.”

What was wrong with me? I’d survived four nights hanging over a cliff and I was right back to worrying that Jon wouldn’t make it home at high noon. I couldn’t imagine what life was going to be like when Meggie and Chance dated. I’d probably have to be institutionalized for the duration.

Jane knocked and stuck her head in the door. She wanted to check in with me after the police visit. The conversation with the police hadn’t upset me. I was disconcerted that the guys were going to get away with it, but part of me was relieved.

“Jon still blames himself,” I said.

“Do you blame him?” she asked.

“I blame the guys who chased me.”

She was quiet.

“And I blame myself,” I said. “It was stupid to take off like that. I have responsibilities. I was acting like I did when I was twenty, leaving before I could be left.”

“Did you do that, leave before you could be left?”

“Yes. But I never left anything behind except a few confused men.”

“And this time you left your husband behind?”

“Jon wasn’t confused. I left my children behind. I was just like my mother.”

“Did your mother do that?”

“All the time. Or she didn’t show up in the first place.”

“Were you drunk?”

“Of course not.”

“So not just like your mother.”

“What difference does it make? I didn’t take care of them.”

“You weren’t drunk and you left your children safe with their father. The only one you didn’t take care of was yourself.”

“I’ve never told anyone this, but I left them behind last month, with strangers.”

I told her about leaving them without even knowing Bob and Sherry’s last name. She said it didn’t sound like I’d left them in a dangerous situation. I’d just spent the night in their home.

“There’s always some excuse,” I said. “The kids are still the collateral damage.”

“Were you the collateral damage when your father left.”

“He didn’t leave. He died in a plane crash.”

“Tell me about that.”

My parents were just sorting out his affair when he crashed. He was away at a medical conference, short hop. Mom suspected he’d taken the other woman and insisted he come home. He would have waited for daylight, but he wanted to reassure her, so he tried. He died alone, trying.

“I don’t think flying because she needed reassuring was an excuse,” I said. “He used bad judgment. Classic bad judgment. Pilots call it
get home
. They fly when they shouldn’t because they’re so close, or there’s an insecure wife, or some other meaningless bullshit at the other end that they risk their life for.”

“Was your mother insecure?”

“I don’t know. I was young. Her husband had just had an affair. So, yeah, she was probably feeling insecure.”

“Do you feel insecure about Jon?”

“He puts his first wife before me. It’s like an affair. He says it’s not. He might not be sleeping with her, but it feels the same.”

“How so?”

“Like he’s willing to lie to hide his relationship with her. He finally got around to calling her, after the accident.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Nothing can make me feel.”

“Okay. How do you feel about that?”

“Like I had to go over a cliff before he’d make the call.”

“Do you think he loves you?”

“I don’t know anymore. He says he does. He’s taking good care of me. Could just be guilt.”

“How do you feel about your marriage right now?”

“All I feel right now is trapped. I’m not used to being dependent on people like this. It freaks me out.”

“You can’t leave.”

“I can’t go the bathroom or even wipe myself without help.”

“One of the reasons people say they get married is that there will be someone there to help them when they’re trapped by life.”

“That’s not why I married Jon. I don’t want him wiping my ass. How is he supposed to forget that if we ever have a sex life again? How am I?”

“Why did you marry him?”

“A hundred reasons, none of them involved my hygiene. He lets me be happy. He makes me laugh. I make him laugh. He scares my bitch aunt. That alone would be reason to marry him. It’s like we’re in a lifelong conversation. My brother says he’s a lot like my father.”

“Do you tell him those things?”

“Not really.”

“Is it okay that he’s like your father?”

“Sure. Who else am I supposed to marry? I do know that much.”

“Your father had an affair and disappeared when you were twelve. You never knew him as an adult woman.”

“My father was a good man, so is Jon.”

“We need to stop now,” she said. “You shouldn’t get overtired.”

“Jon wanted the baby,” I said.

“Did you?”

“Once he said it, I thought it would be okay. That we could work it out.”

“How do you feel about his decision to terminate?”

“I don’t know. He said it was necessary. I can’t imagine going through a pregnancy like this. A baby with problems would have been difficult, especially with Chance so close in age. Be hard to work. Losing my finger isn’t the worst thing in the world.”

“Don’t underestimate the impact of losing the baby or your finger. That’s why I was asking about blame.”

“Do you think there is someone to blame in all this?” I asked.

“Blame could come into play. It’s a destructive thing in a marriage.”

“My old therapist said that if I blamed my mother, she was in control of my life. Does that mean if I blame the guys who chased me, they’re in control of my life? I was relieved when I heard I wouldn’t have to go to court and drag it out with them. I never want to see them again. Jon wants to kill them, but he blames himself. How do you get around blame?”

“I suggest that people start replacing the word blame with the word responsibility. It’s a small step, but it starts to shift the conversation. It creates forward motion. Blame runs in circles.”

“Blame is bitter,” I said.

I thought about a woman I used to work with who said we’re so responsible for our lives, we even pick our own parents, a cosmic match.com. I’d thought about picking my parents. Despite everything, they seemed like the right parents for me. When I was young, I realized that as nice as my friends’ parents were, none of them made chili with smoked paprika, or read plane crash parables.

After being in India I was more inclined to think of it as unfinished karma coming back for another spin on earth. I knew young that I was stuck with the rabbit I’d pulled out of the dharma hat. I wondered how deep that all goes. Sometimes you hear adopted children, or children switched at birth, say they always knew something wasn’t quite right. Celeste might say she’s stepmother to my children, but they wouldn’t feel it, and neither would she really. She’d just drive them all crazy trying.

I was to blame for the accident. If I hadn’t left the house, none of it would have happened. If I’d just changed my mind about Jon and Celeste.

Jane was smiling. Another therapist who was just going to sit there with an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. They must teach that in school. They probably practice it in front of mirrors.

“So I’m ultimately responsible for the whole thing,” I said. “For some reason, that seems easier. Jon’s not going to like it, he’s pretty wrapped up in blaming himself.”

“Jon has some responsibility here; you’re married.”

“Sherry said Bob was stupid nice for years, taking care of his mother who was nuts. She thought Jon was doing the same with Celeste. That it wasn’t good for either of them.”

“Sherry doesn’t sound like a stranger.”

“I’m not going to wear a wedding ring again.”

“Give it some time. I’m going to go.”

The nurse took my vitals as I was falling asleep.

The burn technician rattled in with a cart and supplies to treat my finger. When the bandage came off I got my first look. The digit, as she put it, was covered in smushed white frosting. She said it was just fat. I thought a digit was a number. If I lost the finger, I’d have to learn to count by nines. I’d live in a base nine world. Or I could leave a beat where the finger had been when I counted to ten; pretend it was still there. Maybe the finger memory would count along. I wondered if I’d have phantom pain, if it would remember the four days it was dying, or the day Jon slid my wedding band on while he looked into my eyes. I needed to stop thinking about that.

The fingernail had pale turquoise polish. The next nail was frosted chartreuse green. The next frosted pink. I’d painted the nails on my left hand at Walmart. I was trying for an abalone shell look. The tech gently removed as much of the frosting as she could.

My finger still had working nerves, the air hitting it was excruciating. She shot it full of lidocaine, and then took pictures that she texted to the doctor. He texted back to go ahead. Despite the numbing, the nerve pain still broke through a few times in the warm whirlpool bath. Bits of tissue drifted away with the last of the fatty packing to reveal a mash of skin and bone. It was scraped out all the way down to blood vessels and thin puppet strings over bone where my wedding band had been. It was a tenuous connection. I stayed an observer.

“Is the doctor coming?” I asked.

“He’s in La Jolla. Welcome to the new world of medicine.”

She repacked it and bound just the last three fingers together so I could use my thumb and forefinger. It was like being given back my hand. I could pinch. I was a Therizinosaurus, a Giant Claw. Wait until I told Richard.

Seeing all that reality left me exhausted.

I woke up to Jon staring out the window, looking lost. I watched him until his mind broke off from where ever it was and he glanced my way. We looked at each other, a wave of understanding washing between us. I was reassured by the fact that he didn’t smile at me. Jon was a realist. He never bored me with false cheer. I held up my bandaged hand.

“I’m a Therizinosaurus,” I said. “The Giant Claw. Too bad we don’t live in Mongolia.”

He smiled and shook his head.

“Only Hollywood dinosaurs wear nail polish,” he said.

I looked at my painted nails.

“I was going for an abalone look. Can you imagine Nancy putting on nail polish at Walmart? She’d have made them keep the store open until Ed got there. The Nancys of the world don’t go over cliffs. They make sure they’re taken care of.”

“Ed calls every day, she’s usually on speaker. They sound easy with each other, H.”

“Are they still coming?”

“Yep.”

“Jane says we should talk in terms of shared responsibility.”

“It’s my fault. I know you,” he said. “You didn’t feel safe. I was dicking around about Celeste while you were worrying about space monkeys.”

“You can’t do that. I want to be married. We can’t stay married if you did this to me.”

“Do you want to be married to me?” he asked. “You know what? Don’t answer that, it’s not fair. You can decide when you’re healed.”

“Where are Chance and Meggie?”

“Out front with your mom and Arthur. Meggie insists we all call her Angel now. They’re fine. Maybe you should skip a day, you need rest.”

“I saw what’s left of my finger today. I don’t know if they can save it.”

“It will be fine either way.”

“It’s not your finger.”

“I know. I wish we could trade places.”

We were quiet for a few minutes.

“Maybe I should rest this afternoon. It feels like too much to get up and go outside.”

“Okay. They can take the kids home.”

He left and I imagined him walking out into the sunny courtyard, squinting. He needed to wear his sunglasses more, but they were always covered with fingerprints so they spent most of the time on top of his head. Mom was probably swaying with Chance while Arthur herded Meggie on her tricycle. She kept trying to ride in the hospital door because she thought I was just on the other side. How thoughtless could I be? It took some awkward twisting around, but I managed to get the phone. I called Jon.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Come get me.”

I called the nurse to help me get dressed.

Jon pushed me out into the sun.

“I wish you’d wear your sunglasses,” I said. “You’re going to end up with cataracts.”

“They’re covered with Nutella. I don’t know who bought it. They’re not talking. Megs is totally wired.”

“And they think we’re teenagers.”

One day of Nutella-charged practice and Meggie had mastered her tricycle. She rode in tight circles and stuck out her foot when she started to tip over. I called to her.

“Hey, Angel! Show me how fast you can go.”

“Mama!”

She started barreling my way.

“You need to run interference,” I said to Jon.

“She’s stuck some pinpoint landings on your wheelchair ramp. She already burned through the toes of her new shoes.”

She flew my way. He stepped out in front and herded her to my left side. He was right. She pulled up next to me and stopped with smoking tires and toes. Okay, that might be an overstatement. She looked at my face like she was reading a chart, looking for familiar outposts. She smiled under a fuzzy milk mustache and streaks of Nutella.

“Hi, Angel,” I said.

She almost tipped over when she leaned out to get her arms around me. Jon scooped her up and flew her slowly in my direction.

She buried her blonde head in my neck. I kissed the top of her head and used my pincher to stroke the soft tendrils that had escaped her French braids to swirl around her neck. Her little girl sweat was mixed with fruity shampoo, ocean, and the faintest under note of pig. She pulled back and tried to touch my black and blue nose with her finger. Jon started to pull her away.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Gentle, Angel, it hurts.”

She pulled her finger away and planted a soft kiss on the side of my eye, one of the only spots that wasn’t a strange color.