The Healing (8 page)

The kitchen was not at all how she imagined it. There were no modern appliances or expensive cherry cabinets. There were no granite countertops or aesthetically pleasing conveniences that might have been featured in home improvement magazines. It was all very old-fashioned. The stove looked like something from the 1930s. In the middle of the black-and-white-tiled floor, where a kitchen designer would have placed an island with electrical outlets and a wrought-iron pot rack suspended from the ceiling, was a roll-away butcher block table that looked like it dated back to colonial times. The wall tiles were the standard early twentieth century white rectangles, slightly yellowed with age, and the sink was the old porcelain type on legs.

Something about the old kitchen was so appealing, so inviting. It felt like a place of refuge, where things were simple and undemanding. Karen realized she would have been happy to sit all afternoon at the table by the large picture window overlooking the bay. She had stepped into another era, when having a cup of tea with a neighbor was a good remedy for stress.

“Karen, would you like to use the washroom and put some water on your face?” Grace's voice intruded ever so gently on her thoughts.

Karen snapped to attention, realizing that her preoccupation with her surroundings might have been rude. “Oh, I'm sorry. Sure. That would be nice.”

“It's at the end of the kitchen on the left,” Grace told her. “I'll pour the tea.”

The small bathroom was more like a closet that had been fitted with a toilet and a sink, similar in size and style to the downstairs bathroom in Karen's house. She surmised the idea of a half bath off the kitchen was probably a popular commodity during the early part of the twentieth century. At the time, it must have been considered a practical addition to any modern home.

Unfortunately, there was a tiny mirror over the sink, and Karen made the mistake of looking at it. “Holy—” she said, cutting off the expletive that was about to roll off her tongue. Bloodshot sunken eyes gazed back at her from a face that was flushed and sagging. To make matters worse, she saw that she had not even combed her hair that morning, and it hung from her head in stringy disarray.

Turning on the faucet, Karen cupped her hands under the cold running water and dipped her overheated face into the small pool. She almost moaned with relief. After cooling herself a few more times, she dried off with the little towel that hung beside the sink.

When she emerged, Grace was setting a plate of shortbread cookies on the table. “I hope that helped,” she said softly.

“It sure did,” Karen replied. She wondered why Grace cared so much about a woman crying at the beach—enough that she was compelled to invite a total stranger into her home.

“Come and sit down,” Grace offered, pulling out the chair with the best view for her guest.

Karen sat and took a quick survey of all that was in front of her. It was only tea and cookies, but it was being served on fine English china. The spoons gleamed on linen napkins. “This is so nice of you.”

“Don't mention it,” Grace said.

Karen looked out the window. She couldn't suppress an amazed chuckle. “You have no idea how weird this is for me,” she confessed. “I have to tell you, I've admired this house since I was a young girl. To be invited in like this is just, well, such a treat.”

“I'll have to give you a tour,” Grace said while putting sugar in her tea.

Karen did the same. “That would be great.”

“So you've lived in Southold all your life?” Grace asked, taking a sip.

“No, I only moved here a few months ago,” Karen replied. “But I've been spending the summers out here my whole life.”

Grace nodded. “I thought you looked a bit familiar.”

Karen hoped she meant their more recent encounters. Hopefully Grace had no knowledge of the goofy sisters who used to snicker at her and imagine she was some kind of phantom. “We've passed each other on the road,” Karen said. “And I've seen you at the store a few times.”

Another nod. When Grace drank her tea, she barely bent her head. Long, thin hands lifted the teacup to her lips with steady finesse. Her brown eyes regarded Karen over the brim of her cup and suddenly shimmered with subdued humor. “You're a coffee drinker, aren't you?”

Karen smiled for the first time in days. “How can you tell?”

Grace smiled, too. “Just a hunch.”

“I wasn't doing anything wrong, was I?” Karen asked with good-natured self-derision.

“Of course not,” Grace replied. “It's just one of those things you can tell about people. But I wish I had realized it sooner.”

Karen sipped her tea with deliberate aplomb, which only brought them both to the brink of outright laughter. “I do like tea,” she said, putting her cup down before she spilled anything. “Really, I do. I just like coffee better.”

“I'll make some,” Grace said, and started to get up, but Karen reached across the table and put a hand on her forearm.

“Please, Grace, that's not necessary. The tea is delicious. And you were right about the bergamot. I feel better already.”

Grace settled back down. “Well, maybe you just never learned enough about tea to appreciate it.”

“You could be right,” Karen said. “And today I learned that a good cup of Earl Grey is like a brain massage. It's just what I needed.”

Grace was noticeably silent. It was obvious she had too much class to come right out and ask Karen why she had been sobbing so wretchedly at the beach. But Karen was more than ready to share her plight with another human being. She
needed
to talk about it. Grace didn't know Karen or anything about her family's marathon of misfortune, which was even more of a blessing.

“My husband has multiple sclerosis.”

Grace didn't wince or make a comment, but her expression thawed with understanding.

“He's getting pretty bad,” Karen added, keeping her voice steady. “I think today I just realized how bad. That's why I got so upset.”

“Is he at home?” Grace asked.

“Yes, but I don't know how much longer we can manage.” Karen couldn't believe she was talking so openly about it. She had never admitted to her own sister that Mike's illness was getting the best of them.

“So who's with him now?” Grace asked.

“A visiting nurse. And we have a home health aide who comes to the house every other day.”

“Is he in a wheelchair?”

At first Karen was reluctant to admit it out loud, and she took a deep breath. “Yes,” she finally replied. “He can't walk anymore.”

“How about physical therapy?”

Karen shook her head. “Not anymore. All along he's been trying to do whatever he can to take care of himself and be as independent as possible, but now he's given up altogether.”

Grace was so attentive to Karen's every word it seemed she was barely blinking or breathing. “Do you have children?” she asked.

“One daughter. She's nineteen.”

“Does she help you?”

“Well, she's not too well herself.”

Again, Grace waited for Karen to offer the information before probing.

“Lori suffers from depression,” Karen said. “She would have been fine on medication if fate hadn't been so hard on her. Around the time my husband got sick, Lori started getting very moody. The psychiatrist said she was acting out against her father's illness. By the age of fifteen she was experimenting with drugs and alcohol as a way to dull her pain. Then, as if that wasn't bad enough, she was involved in a terrible car accident when she was seventeen. It almost destroyed her.”

Grace was still listening with her whole being. “You have quite a cross to carry,” she said.

Karen was too spent to cry again, but Grace's words touched her deeply. “You make it sound noble,” she said. “As if I had a choice.”

“Oh, I think you have plenty of choices,” Grace replied. “Except that you probably wouldn't consider most of them.”

Karen sipped her tea, enjoying the company. She was afraid to look at her watch. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

Grace didn't refuse or acquiesce. She simply tilted her head and waited.

“Are you a nurse?”

The woman paused and looked into her teacup as though searching for a tactful reply. “I was, but I'm retired.”

“Oh. I see.” Karen grinned and gave a little shrug of resignation. “I'm retired, too.”

“What did you do?” Grace asked.

“I was a senior editor for Pell Publishing.”

Grace seemed to approve. She also seemed much happier when she wasn't the topic of conversation. “That sounds like a wonderful job.”

Karen didn't have to ask Grace if she liked to read. It was easy to envision her rocking slowly on the porch or sitting in a parlor chair with a book. Karen hadn't seen the living quarters yet, but she guessed that Grace didn't own a television. And if they touched on the subject of books and literature, Karen suspected they could talk for hours.

Who would have thought she had so much to talk about with the woman in black?

“Did you get to work with any famous authors?” Grace asked.

Karen brightened. “Have you ever read Carol Stewart?”

Grace smiled.
“Forever and a Day.
How exciting. Anyone else?”

“In nonfiction, I worked on
Midlife Doesn't Have to Be a Crisis.
It was a
New York Times
bestseller.”

“I'm a little past the target audience on that one,” Grace said.

Karen could have talked forever about her work in the publishing field, but she was forced to look at her watch. When she realized her time was getting short, she stood up. “I really should be going.”

“But I promised you a tour of the house,” Grace said.

“I'll have to take a rain check,” Karen said, and picked up her empty cup.

Grace took it out of her hand. “Leave that.”

“I can't thank you enough.”

“Please, don't mention it.”

Karen looked her new friend in the eye and saw many things that renewed her faith in mankind—adamant kindness with sincerity, intelligence with patience, strength with gentility. Suddenly Karen felt like she had known Grace all her life, but not as the woman in black who cast spells on people while they slept. If Grace was an eccentric, it was because she was a paragon of forgotten human virtues.

It was a revelation that made Karen feel like she could face the world again.

“I usually have a cup of tea at around ten o'clock if I'm home,” Grace told her. “If you're passing by, just knock on the door.”

“Thank you.”

chapter ten

Mike looked out the window, but the sunshine did nothing to lift his spirits. The sheets on the sofa bed were now crisp and clean and fragrant with fresh air, but he couldn't appreciate it. The visiting nurse was a blond twenty-eight-year-old angel of mercy, but he couldn't even muster a healthy response to that. She was just another health professional who came to the house on a weekly basis to monitor his deterioration—just one member of a team that seemed to grow larger every time he turned around. She probably pitied him.

He didn't care. His thoughts were with his wife and daughter, who had both left the house to get away from him.

Just before noon, Karen came home. But she didn't use the porch door as she always did. Instead she slipped in the back, which allowed her to avoid the living room, and spent a long time talking to the nurse in the kitchen. Mike couldn't hear everything they were saying, but he caught bits and pieces.

“He didn't want to sit up in the chair,” the nurse said. “I was going to take him outside to sit in the shade, but he said he was so tired he couldn't even hold his head up.”

“He hasn't been outside in weeks,” Karen answered, and Mike thought he detected a hint of distaste in her tone. “What did you do about . . .”

Her voice lowered, and Mike couldn't hear the rest. He thought he heard the nurse say something about putting him in a “diaper.” Just in case.

Yes, indeed. He wasn't just wearing an external catheter with a urine guard. His whole bottom was securely swaddled in mutant, adult-sized Pampers. Virtually leak-proof and fitted snugly with the same adhesive tabs he had used on Lori's baby diapers. Every time he moved, he heard the crinkle of the plastic and was reminded that this was the first day of the rest of his life. So he tried to lie as still as possible in an attempt to forget what his next humiliation was going to be.

But in the kitchen they were openly discussing the truths he was trying to deny, and the nurse was preparing Karen for the next logical step. “I told Mr. Donnelly that the suprapubic catheter will make things easier on everybody, and he's agreed to make the appointment.”

There was more murmuring. After a brief discussion about catheters and bowel regulation, Mike heard them talking about schedules.

“The home health aide will be coming every morning instead of every other afternoon.”

He heard Karen reply, “That's a relief.”

A visiting nurse would be stopping in more often than once a week, and so would the social worker and the occupational therapist. Then the nurse began rambling off a list of home care options and insurance information. She sounded like a voice-over in a commercial, reading from a teleprompter.

“Is Mike under psychiatric care?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

“You might want to look into it. He seems clinically depressed.”

No kidding,
he thought.

The nurse also told Karen that if Mike intended to remain at home, they would have to add the necessary equipment. They needed an adjustable bed, a portable commode, lifts . . . Their living room would become like a hospital room. Apparently Raymond already alerted the occupational therapist that a new mobility assessment was needed.

All this because he wet the bed?

Finally, the telephone rang, and the nurse got ready to leave. Mike pretended he was asleep when she came to bid him farewell, but in reality he was straining to hear his wife talk on the phone; he hoped the caller was Lori. He wanted to tell his daughter he was sorry for the way he'd acted this morning. How could he behave that way, knowing how fragile she was?

But the caller was his mother. He heard Karen's voice take on that certain perky tone reserved solely for Nora. It was a mite high-pitched and singsong, trying a little too hard to communicate to her mother-in-law that everything was all right and that she was happy to hear from her.

“Well, we're taking it day by day,” he heard Karen say.

It was her generic answer when asked how things were going.
Day by day.
Not
Fine,
not
It's been a living hell . . .
just
day by day.

“The visiting nurse was just here,” she told his mother. Pause. “Yes, she usually comes on Friday, but . . .” Pause. “Well, we had her come today because”—Karen hesitated only slightly to come up with an acceptable reason—“Mike had a little fall this morning.”

Mike could picture his mother's reaction. But then, she was known to go into a tailspin over the slightest concern.

Karen always knew how to handle Nora Donnelly. “No, he's okay, Mom. He didn't get hurt.”

He's just suicidal and in a diaper.

“Well, I managed to get him into the chair.” Pause. “Yes, Lori was here.”

He marveled at how Karen could make it sound like everything was under control without lying to the woman.

“The aide is supposed to come this afternoon.” Pause. “Yeah, I'll go out to the store while he's here.” Another pause. “I don't know yet. Something easy.”

Mike knew his mother was asking what they were having for dinner. Nuclear missiles could be launched and heading for New York, but a good wife always had the pork chops ready.

“I don't know, let me see if he's awake.”

Mike closed his eyes before Karen took two steps toward the living room.

“No, Mom. He's sleeping. Let him call you back later. The nurse said he was exhausted.”

Karen retreated back to the kitchen. She was no doubt listening to his mother's endless stream of chatter on the other end of the line as she paced across the kitchen floor. He'd seen it often enough to picture it clearly. “If you want to. Sure.” Pause. “Well, it's been a little rough, but we're managing.” Another pause. “Next week? No, that's fine. Come for the weekend. If Trish brings you up next Friday night, I'm sure you'll be able to find a ride back to the city on Tuesday.”

Mike almost groaned. His mother was coming for the holiday weekend.

Happy Fourth of July.

He could only imagine what her reaction was going to be when she saw him in a diaper. Or perhaps by then he'd have a little plastic tube poking through his abdominal wall to drain his bladder.

When Karen hung up from talking to his mother, she made a series of phone calls. The first was to his doctor. They discussed the new setbacks and agreed on the need for a permanent catheter. Then she called the health aide agency and requested daily morning care, mentioning that bowel regulation was going to be part of the routine and that Raymond was the aide of choice. Then she called their insurance company and argued for half an hour about their unrealistic cap on long-term home health care.

“Would you rather I put him in a home? He's barely fifty years old!”

How assertive she was.
How businesslike
.

The phone slammed down, and Mike heard an enormous sigh. Then Karen picked up the phone and dialed another number, but this time she got no answer. “Come on,” she muttered impatiently. After waiting more than a few rings, she slammed the phone down again. “Damn you!”

An echoing silence followed, and somehow Mike knew that Karen was sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands. Just like he knew the last number she dialed had been Lori's cell phone.

It was a good fifteen minutes before Karen's footsteps broke the silence in the kitchen. They weren't as hurried as before, but when Mike realized they were on their way to the living room, he pretended to be sleeping again. There was no way he was ready to face her yet. Not after this morning.

But this time Karen didn't leave the room when she saw his eyes were closed. She came to the side of the bed and stood there in palpable silence for a few minutes. Mike knew she was looking down at him, and he wanted to disappear. He didn't want to guess what was going through her head. She was probably cursing the day she met him.

He could sense her presence beside him like a fiery column of judgment that had the power to reduce him to ashes. Then something happened that utterly confused him . . . and poured the first drops of relief on his feverish shame.

Karen's fingers lightly traced the line of his jaw and then moved a few locks of hair from his forehead. Her touch was cool and feather-soft, but Mike's skin burned where her fingers made contact. He wanted to open his eyes and see if he was imagining it, but he didn't have the courage to confront the beast that stood between them. It had taken less courage to run into a burning building—a place that promised death as surely as the bowels of hell—than it did to see pity (or revulsion) in Karen's eyes when she looked at him.

But maybe he wouldn't see revulsion. Maybe she didn't think of him as someone who was now subhuman. She had to know how much he wanted to leap up, scramble off the sofa, and sweep her off her feet. She had to know he wanted to spin her around until they were both dizzy and carry her anywhere she wanted to go. She had to know this was the Mike who was still inside him, dreaming of all the things they should be doing.

He was lying so still, he could almost feel the warmth of her breath on his face.

“I'm sorry, Mike.”

It was softer than a whisper. Was he hearing things?

Open your eyes,
his inner voice screamed.
Tell her you're sorry, too. Tell her to call everyone back and ask them to come out for the Fourth of July. You'll grill the burgers and she'll make her famous summer salads.

Mike opened his eyes just in time to see Karen turning away. She walked back to the kitchen without looking back.

Please. We'll drink beer and laugh. I love you.

At one time, it had all seemed so ordinary.