The Healing (31 page)

Now Karen bent over, laughing harder into both hands as Greg elaborated on some of the ways the comical Johnny Baltich amused their circle of friends with a prop readily found at the beach. “He was the one who always started the seaweed fights,” she said.

“Not always,” Greg replied.

“You're right,” Karen said. “My cousin Anya started a few, too.”

“Your cousin Anya was the biggest flirt on Long Island. She started seaweed fights just to get us guys riled up.”

“Which wasn't much of a challenge, considering you were all in love with her,” Karen pointed out.

Greg nodded, guilty as charged. “At that age, we were in love with all the girls. She was just . . . frisky.”

“Nicely put,” Karen said. She wanted to stay immersed in that other world, but the waitress brought over her take-out coffee and a buttered roll wrapped in waxed paper. Karen let out a sigh as she opened her bag. “God, it feels so good to laugh,” she said, more to herself than to Greg.

He tapped her hand as it went fishing for money. “Let me.”

“No, Greg—really—”

“Let me,” he said again. And then the glint of humor, fired up by a certain familiarity and genuine good chemistry, was back in his eyes. “For cryin' out loud, it's a cup of coffee and a roll. You go on and get to the hospital.” He slapped a ten-dollar bill on the table and shooed her away.

Karen blinked at him. “Thank you, Greg. You've been wonderful company.” She hesitated before blurting out her next remark. “It's nice to feel like I have an old friend looking out for me.”

Greg softened at her admission that she considered him an old friend and that she appreciated his company. “Listen,” he said. “We've only scraped the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the good old days. Why don't you let me take you to dinner one of these nights, and we can have a few more laughs? It'll do you a world of good. And me, too, for that matter.”

Was he confessing he needed the same curative companionship? Or perhaps something else?

Karen hesitated, realizing that having dinner with a handsome divorced man would, for all outward appearances, seem inappropriate. It didn't matter that she had known him when they were kids. It didn't matter that she needed to get out and socialize in order to feel like she was part of the human race.

“Please don't take me the wrong way,” Greg said. “I'm asking you as a friend.” He plucked the pen from the pocket of his T-shirt and scribbled his phone number on a napkin. Karen watched his hand, with its large knuckles, potent veins, and calluses, and soon her gaze was traveling up along his strong wrist to his forearm, where the smallest muscles were jumping as he wrote. “Call me if you get home early enough one night and you feel like grabbing a bite,” he said, handing her the napkin.

Karen felt her face burning, but she paused to look at the scrawled number. Then she nodded. How could she even entertain the idea of going out to dinner while Lori was still in a psych ward and Mike was still loitering at death's door?

“I'll let you know,” she said. “Well, I'd better get going.” She slid off the stool, suddenly all too conscious of how often the male-female dynamic got in the way of comfortable friendships. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Anytime. Don't spill it on your white shirt.”

She glanced at him, knowing she'd see that easy grin again. “ Bye, Greg.”

“See ya.”

She felt his gaze wrap around her body as she walked out of the diner. And it left her with a yearning she didn't even recognize anymore.

Karen walked into the ICU hoping that Mike would be sitting up and waiting for her. Maybe he would watch her walk toward him and help her erase the memory of another man's gaze. But there was no significant change in his condition. His lips seemed to have a little more color, thanks to the oxygen tent, but that was about it. He was sleeping when she arrived, his face almost youthful in relaxed slumber, and Karen was at least glad to see that the pained frown had been erased from his brow, even if his medical chart wasn't reflecting a victory as of yet.

She kissed him on the forehead, but he didn't stir, so she planted herself on the chair beside him and waited. An hour went by, and he was still out cold. She went to visit Lori and came back, and he was still unresponsive.

Karen's imagination started to get the best of her. “Are you sure my husband's all right?” Karen asked one of the nurses at the desk.

The nurse checked the monitors at her station and then followed Karen to check Mike in his bed. “He's fine. He's just sleeping.”

“Are you sure he's not in a coma or something?” Karen asked.

The nurse smiled, but she wasn't at all condescending. “No, he's not in a coma, Mrs. Donnelly. He's just being pumped with a lot of medicine, and he's resting comfortably. It's probably the best thing for him right now.”

Karen felt a little foolish, but no fear was unreasonable in the ICU. It wasn't easy to watch a loved one lying there with his life hanging in the balance or to be at the mercy of medical technology and doctors. It especially wasn't easy to watch those doctors standing around with their arms folded, wondering what else they could do.

Dr. Gupta, who had been Mike's physician since they moved to Southold, consulted with the pulmonary specialist and the neurologist every time he made rounds. Karen felt comfortable talking to him, and she trusted him implicitly with Mike's medical care, but when he told her he'd like to speak to her in the lounge, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. She followed him out of the unit and down the hall.

In the room where so many people mourned, sorrow seemed to hang in the air like a dark specter. And as soon as Dr. Gupta turned to address her, Karen could tell by his solemn expression that she wasn't going to like what she heard.

Was he going to tell her Mike was dying?

“I do not want to give you false hope by jumping the gun and telling you Mr. Donnelly will probably pull through this, because anything can happen,” the doctor said in his proper Indian accent. “But he's pretty stable right now, and we're coming up on forty-eight hours. That being said, I feel it would be wise to discuss his recovery and give you ample time to talk to the social worker and plan for his care.”

Karen felt a stirring of hope. “He's going to be all right?” she probed a little too optimistically.
Why does Dr. Gupta look so grim while delivering such encouraging news?

“I think it's a little too premature to give guarantees, Mrs. Donnelly,” he answered. “And even if I could guarantee Mr. Donnelly will make a full recovery from the pneumonia, you know better than anyone how rapidly his physical condition has deteriorated in recent months.”

Karen nodded, her hope deflating.

“This bout with pneumonia will not help matters,” the doctor added. “Mr. Donnelly has had a major setback. In your heart of hearts, you must realize that.”

She nodded again.

“In the next week or so, you need to choose a nursing facility where you would like to see your husband placed, so we can get him in when he's ready to be discharged.”

Karen's blood froze in her veins. “But I can care for him at home—” she heard herself saying.

Dr. Gupta peered at her with compassionate resolve. “Mrs. Donnelly, you cannot. At this point, it is not physically possible.”

Her eyes flooded with tears, and she realized she had cried more in the last two days than she had since Mike had gotten sick. “But I've been taking care of him all along,” she said.

Dr. Gupta put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “I know, Mrs. Donnelly. You've done more than anyone ever could have expected. But now your husband is almost totally debilitated, and he needs to be handled and moved around in a safe, professional environment.”

“But we got the Hoyer lift and the power bed. And I have a wonderful home health aide.”

“You would need him twenty-four hours a day,” the doctor stated.

“I'll look into that, then.”

“Mrs. Donnelly, your insurance would never cover it. And I don't mean to make presumptions, but I doubt you're in a position to afford such one-on-one care at home.”

Her insides melted with a whole new despair. “But he's only forty-nine,” she whispered, her voice giving out.

Dr. Gupta's large dark eyes were swimming with compassion. “I know. But it wouldn't be fair to paint you a misleading picture. I have to be honest with you, Mrs. Donnelly.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Now that your husband has contracted double pneumonia, I have to warn you this could happen again.”

“Every time he gets a cold?” she asked.

“When he gets a cold or swallows wrong or becomes congested. This puts him at great risk. Do you know what it is I'm trying to say?”

Karen knew all too well. She had dedicated hundreds of hours to researching multiple sclerosis when Mike was first diagnosed. She had been an active member in the local chapter of the MS Society and had learned how the disease claimed lives. It didn't happen to those afflicted with the more common form of MS—most were able to remain relatively mobile and live to a normal life expectancy, albeit with challenges and sufferings that were as individual as the person. But for that smaller percentage who were afflicted with the more progressive kind of MS, especially when that progression was as rampant as Mike's had been, living out the fullness of one's days was nothing more than an untenable wish.

Karen couldn't surrender that easily, and she rebelled with what little gumption she had left. “If Mike is at risk of dying from pneumonia or some other infection, then putting him in a nursing home would only increase the odds against him. Wouldn't it?”

“Mrs. Donnelly, there is no black-and-white answer,” the doctor said. “I just wanted to plant this seed in your mind ahead of time so that you can think about it. I know in the long run you will do what's best for your husband. You always do.”

chapter thirty-seven

He floated to the fringes of awareness like a disembodied spirit without physical encumbrances or sensations. The first stimulus to reach him in that waking realm was the sound of someone softly singing, and he didn't have to open his eyes to know whose face was looming over him. He just listened and let the sound wash over him like a cleansing rain. Her voice was almost a whisper—inhibited and unsure—but the words held something more beautiful than the greatest aria ever performed.

She was singing him a love song. It was their first dance.

He was transported to so many places upon hearing those words. He was on the beach listening to his radio. He was slow-dancing at the wharf. He was in their old apartment holding her in his arms. He was in the backyard at their house in Massapequa, watching her in the sunlight. He was kissing her under the trees. He was making love to her.

But they could never go back to those places, and the realization filled him with an incredible sadness. Then the singing gave way to softly uttered words.

“Don't leave me yet. Please, Mike. You've got to get better and come home. I know you don't think you have anything to live for, and I could tell you that Lori needs you more than ever, but
I'm
the one who needs you right now. I need you, just like I've always needed you. I promise things will be different if I can just have another chance. Please, Mike. I know you'd do anything for me. Please get better and let me make it up to you.”

chapter thirty-eight

Karen lost track of time while she waited for Mike to come around. Hours went by, and she started to suspect something was drastically wrong but nobody was telling her. By the time Dr. Gupta returned to the ICU later in the day, Karen braced herself for a dismal report.

To her surprise, the doctor smiled. “Your husband has turned the corner, Mrs. Donnelly,” he said.

Karen blinked. Had she heard him right? “He's going to be okay?”

Dr. Gupta nodded. “I saw his latest blood work. His blood oxygen has improved and his white count is down. Even his temperature is closer to normal. It looks like the antibiotics are starting to work.”

“But he hasn't moved all day,” Karen said. “He hasn't even opened his eyes.”

“He's medicated, Mrs. Donnelly,” the doctor replied. “He's asleep.”

She was skeptical. She wasn't used to getting good news. “Mike usually snores a little. He's not snoring. He doesn't even look like he's breathing.”

The doctor grinned at her again. “Trust me, he's breathing,” he said.

Karen was so relieved she became light-headed. She didn't realize that her eyes were filling with tears. Did she dare to believe she had been granted her own personal miracle? Was it possible Mike had heard her pleading?

Dr. Gupta urged her to go home, as did the pulmonary doctor and the ICU nurses. Mike would rest comfortably throughout the night, they all assured her, and when Karen returned in the morning, chances were he would be more alert and communicative. The doctor also reminded her she had a lot to think about.

In the next week or so, you need to choose a nursing facility where you would like to see your husband placed . . .

That was how she ended up at Founders Landing.

Karen always loved the beach at the end of the day. At five or six o'clock, after everyone went home to shower and have dinner, when the shadows were longer and the seagulls landed on the sand to see if there were any morsels left behind, sitting quietly by the shore was a restorative to the spirit. And when an hour on the beach provided no great insights, she ended up at Grace's door.

“Karen,” Grace welcomed her softly. The smell of cooked fish wafted out from the house, and Karen realized Grace was probably in the middle of eating.

“I didn't mean to interrupt your supper,” Karen said.

“Please come in,” Grace urged, and gently grasped Karen by the wrist, pulling her inside. “You probably need something to eat anyway.”

Karen followed her into the kitchen, where her half-eaten meal was sitting on the table and evidence of food preparation was on the counters and in the old-fashioned sink. “Thanks, but I'm not very hungry.”

“At least sit down and let me fix you some tea.”

“No, Grace. You finish eating. I'll be happy if I can just talk to you for a few minutes,” Karen said, sitting down in the seat across the table.

Grace sat down also, but she didn't resume eating yet. “So tell me, has Mike started responding to the medicine?”

Karen nodded. “I just got word that his fever broke, and it looks like he'll recover.”

As usual, Grace looked like she knew something the rest of the world had yet to discover. It was amazing how she was rarely surprised by life's turn of events. “Thank God,” she exclaimed.

“Thank you for your prayers, Grace.”

She gave a single nod of acknowledgment.

“Please eat,” Karen said. “Otherwise I'll feel like I've barged in on you like an uninvited nuisance.”

Grace obliged her by taking a bite of fish. Then she put the fork down again. “Karen, you look too troubled for someone who came to tell me good news.”

“I feel like such an ingrate,” Karen confessed. “I feel like a bratty kid who gets what she wants for Christmas but still wants more.”

“What is it you want?” Grace asked.

“Don't get me wrong, I'm elated Mike is going to pull through, but now the doctor is telling me he should go straight from the hospital into a nursing home.” She started to shake, as though uttering the words made it all too real. “Everyone seems to think it's the only option. The doctors, the social workers, my sister, even Mike's own mother, while crying over her ‘poor son and what his life has come to.' They all think it would be in his best interest. But how
could
it be? How could it benefit Mike to be in a place where most of the patients are in their eighties and nineties, and they're too sick to say good morning? How could it be in his best interest to confine him to a six-by-eight corner in a depressing hospital setting when he can get better care at home?”

“It's not in his best interest,” Grace stated candidly. “It's what a person can afford. And most people who can't afford private nurses and live-in health aides are at the mercy of insurance companies, managed care, and the state. That's the bottom line, Karen.”

“So Mike has to live the rest of his life in a nursing home just because I can't carry him? If it was the other way around, and I was the one who was disabled—”

Karen's voice caught, but Grace finished her thought. “He'd carry you.”

She nodded emphatically and then managed a tight grin. “Like a bag of groceries.”

“That doesn't mean he'd be able to take care of you,” Grace reminded her. “You know better than anyone that caring for someone in that capacity means more than being able to move him around.”

Karen leaned her elbows on the table and put her head in her hands. “But Raymond comes for four hours every day, and he bathes Mike and toilets him, shaves him and dresses him. You spent all those hours with him last week. You saw for yourself he's well cared for. I don't understand why everyone's pushing my husband into a nursing home.”

“Because they assume that's where he belongs if he becomes a quadriplegic,” Grace spelled out.

Karen looked up, tears forming in her eyes. “But he's not a quadriplegic yet,” she argued. “Not completely.”

“But you told me yourself Mike
wants
to go into a nursing home,” Grace reminded her. “He doesn't want to be a burden to you and your daughter.”

“He's not a burden,” Karen insisted. “Did he tell you that?”

“No. But I think it would be very hard to convince him he's not.”

“I'd like to try.”

Grace was doing exactly what Karen had anticipated. She was playing devil's advocate and helping her think things through. “If the doctor claims that Mike needs twenty-four-hour nursing care, then you won't be able to bring him home without a discharge plan.”

“I can't afford a live-in health aide in addition to the nurse and the therapist.”

“Then maybe you can get them to meet you halfway,” Grace suggested. “Maybe you can get them to cover another four to eight hours a day if you claim it's the same amount they would be paying out for a nursing home.”

Karen wished she were in a position to see the glass half full. “And what about the other twelve hours?”

Grace appeared thoughtful for a moment. “Don't give up hope,” was all she could offer.

Something else was nagging at Karen, but she waited until she was leaving to bring it up. “Grace? I have to ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“When you brought me into the parlor, I couldn't help but notice you have a lot of books on healing and alternative medicine. Today on your kitchen table I noticed you even had a library book on spiritual deliverance.”

Grace didn't seem perturbed by Karen's observation. She just waited for the question.

“Is there some advice you can give us about seeking unconventional treatment for Mike? Maybe there's hope in something we don't even know about. Like acupuncture or some other alternative medicine. Or maybe I can get Mike to one of those charismatic Masses where the people go up to be prayed over. At this point, we can't afford to leave any stone unturned.”

Grace absorbed Karen's words. “Concentrate on getting Mike home first,” she said, “and then we'll talk about that.”

Karen knelt among her thriving tomato plants in the far corner of the yard. They were almost full-grown, and small green fruits were starting to dot the branches. Grace had spent a few hours tending the garden the previous week, and it was not only free of weeds, but there were a few new vegetable and herb plants that hadn't been there before. Grace had taken it upon herself to transplant a few of her own plants in Karen's unruly patch of earth. The amusing thing was Grace did not plant them in orderly rows; she had planted the green beans, peppers, carrots, and herbs in the same sporadic style, making it appear that all of the plants had sprouted up as randomly as the tomatoes.

She had made order out of chaos and never spoken of it.

Karen's heart burned with affection and admiration for this woman whom she had known for less than a month. Grace had taught her so much and had helped her in a way that nobody ever had. Her timeless philosophies and deeply human wisdom had done more to hone Karen's overextended coping skills than all the doctors, self-help gurus, and medicines combined.

And now, with the possibility of Mike being placed in a nursing facility, Karen needed more help than when she was struggling to care for him herself. She stood in her garden—her grandmother's beloved, bountiful garden—and tried to come up with the answers to profound questions.
What is truly in Mike's best interest? Am I being selfish in wanting to keep him at home? How can I stand by and allow some insurance company manager and the government to force such a life-altering decision?
She tried to find the connection . . . to absorb the serenity . . . that she knew was present here, but her own anxiety was too intense.

It was only seven-thirty when Karen went back inside, and the long night loomed ahead of her like a dark, lonely road. The house she had always loved had begun to feel more like a mausoleum as she darted through the empty rooms trying to keep busy. All she kept thinking was,
This is how it's going to be from now on if Mike is gone.

How did it all slip out of her grip?

Karen felt like she was going to lose her mind if she stayed at home wallowing in the mire of her worries, and she contemplated going back to the hospital. But with Mike in the ICU, it wasn't like she could make herself cozy at his bedside for the night. Nor was she going to escape the nagging questions.

Like a lightning flash in her brain, she remembered the napkin Greg had handed to her. Without even thinking, she headed for the kitchen and plucked it out of her bag, uplifted by the prospect of getting away for a few hours. As she dialed the number he had scribbled, she envisioned herself sitting in a restaurant, sipping a glass of wine or a frosty mug of beer, reminiscing and laughing about some of the best times of her life, and perhaps even letting someone else talk about his struggles in life. She certainly wasn't the only one forging a tough journey.

What a blessed distraction it would be.

Karen found herself holding her breath in hopes that Greg would pick up.

“Hello?”

She was too wound up to realize the implications of what she was doing. “Greg? It's Karen Donnelly.” Her voice was quavering a little.

“Is everything all right?” Greg asked immediately.

Karen realized how shaky she sounded. She steadied herself and took a cleansing breath. “Yeah, I'm at home,” she replied. “The doctor said Mike was on the mend, and they chased me out of there.”

“Wow. That's great news,” Greg said. “So you decided you want to celebrate?”

“I wouldn't quite put it like that,” she said a little more prudently.

“How about—decompress?” he offered.

“Exactly.” She couldn't call it celebrating while Mike and Lori were still in the hospital.

“I can be ready in half an hour,” Greg told her.