One Life With Him

by CD Reiss

“Stop trying to be funny,” Monica said from her corner.

  “Joking in this situation is common, miss,” the doctor said as he scribbled something on the chart. He spoke medicalese to the nurse before and after his statement.

  “What situation is that?” My wife was about to verbally cross-check the doctor, I saw it in the fact that she wouldn’t look at me. She only had laser-hot eyes for the guy in the scrubs.

  As if he could feel her seething, he stopped mumbling nonsense to the nurse and turned to her. “He needs a heart, miss.”

  “Or what?”

  I could see the thrust of the conversation a mile away, even while feeling like a bag of shit with the hiss of oxygen tubes drowning out much of what was being said. If the doctor mentioned, implied, or thought about my death, she would go ballistic and get escorted out. I didn’t want her to have to negotiate reentry. Every minute without her was a minute wasted.

  “Goddess?” She didn’t answer. “Monica.” I tried to put dominance in my voice, and I know I came up short. As if hearing the intention and not the result, she turned toward me. “Go get my father for me, would you?”

  Chapter 34

  MONICA

  Any shadow of a feeling resembling doubt left my mind when those machines went crazy. I was in empty panic when they all rushed in. When they put the paddles on his chest and he convulsed, the empty panic turned to something else. Something like… When I felt pressure in my bladder, I went to the bathroom. I may stop and do other things, but my ultimate goal at some point was to release that pressure. Everything else is either a distraction or a means to an end.

  When I walked out of Jonathan’s room to get his father, I had absolutely nothing on my mind but making sure some motherfucker put a new heart in him. I did not ever want to see that again. I never, ever wanted to get used to it. If I went to jail for killing someone who was already pretty much dead, fuck it. I could be cool with that.

  Declan paced the lobby, phone pressed to his ear. Even as exhausted as he must have been, he looked clean, energetic, and calm. That must be a Drazen thing. Only Leanne in her general slovenliness and Sheila in her constant backbitten rage ever seemed a tick to the left of perfect. Theresa, who looked buffed and polished when I’d met her, had looked as if she’d run a marathon in pumps when she came to the hospital. Maybe they were all human after all.

  Except Declan of course. He had been described as less than human, yet somehow he had only shown me a vulnerable face. He saw me and held up a finger. I didn’t have time for him. I scribbled—Room 7719 NOW—on one of the last blank pages in my notebook. I tore it out, slapped it in his hand, and walked away before he had a chance to answer. I had to assume he’d go up. I didn’t have time to baby him, and I certainly didn’t want a verbal cat and mouse.

  I took the stairs to the fourth floor and strode to Dr. Thorensen’s office. He would assure me Jonathan was at the top of that list, and I wanted an update on Paulie Patalano’s health. A cleaning cart stood outside the open door. He wasn’t in his office, but his screens were flashing and blazing some twisted circle in the City of Dis. It was frozen, characters halted mid-action, a puzzle half-done. On the smallest screen, off to the right, was a blinking text box with nothing in it. Above that was a list.

  I couldn’t help myself. I looked. Each item on the list was the word PATIENT followed by a long string of letters and numbers. A location. A gender. A blood type. A colored box. Red. Orange. Yellow. It was all red at the top of the list, and the number two patient was in Los Angeles, California. He had AB negative blood. Jonathan. A fucking alphabet soup string with a red box at the end. My lover. My husband. Patient KJE873BP7988. M. LA, CA. AB-. Code red.

  “Excuse me?” A short lady in soft shoes and maintenance gear stood in the doorway. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail, and her hands were covered in yellow plastic gloves.

  I didn’t belong there. “Sorry. I was just leaving.”

  I walked past her before she could ask me what new horror I’d seen.

  Chapter 35

  MONICA

  Brad was home. What a nerve. Sitting in his house on a hill with his manicured garden of native plants and refinished wood porch. He’d been sorry he hadn’t gotten close to me sooner? Well, let’s just see how he felt about meeting me at all. I banged on his door with both fists, not caring if I woke him from a dead sleep or mid-video.

  “Monica,” he said when he opened the door in sweatpants and a T-shirt.

  “Is he going to die?” I demanded.

  “Can you come in?”

  “No. Tell me. Is he getting a heart or not?”

  “I have no way of knowing that.”

  “Why is he second on the list?”

  He held up his hands as if he was fending off an attack. “What are you talking about?”

  “I went to your office and saw the list. He’s second. Which means he gets the second heart that comes.”

  “First of all—”

  “Yes, I’m sorry I went into your office. I was looking for you, but to be honest? Not sorry.”

  He stiffened as if he’d been hit. “It’s Sunday. You can call my Doheny office after nine a.m. to make an appointment, but I’m booked until January.”

  He didn’t exactly slam the door, but he closed it. I looked through the leaded glass windows and saw him go out to the backyard. I stood still for a second, maybe ten, before I walked over to my house. Not my house. Not my mother’s house. Not the bank’s house. J. Declan Drazen’s house.

  It looked as though I would have to move anyway. If I lost Jonathan, and that looked more likely with every passing hour, I couldn’t stay. He’d married me so I’d have the means to avoid his father. The foolish manipulations of a sick man.

  I passed my car and walked up to my porch. I didn’t go in the house, though I could have used a shower and the love of a toothbrush. I walked the floorboards where we’d stood as he put his pussy-soaked fingers in my mouth. I sat on the swing where he’d left me to protect me from ruination. Looking into the street, I thought only of what I had to do next. Jonathan was talking to Declan, a stressful situation I’d put him in. Then Declan would create an opening for me to murder Paulie Patalano. But what was the use if he was second on the list? If they were shipping that bloody muscle mass to someone else, what was the point of committing murder to save the wrong man?

  I could have implored Brad to do something, anything, pull a string or ten, but I’d invaded his privacy. I should have known better. My own heart pounded as I wondered which of my fuckups would kill Jonathan. I played with the rings on my finger, both heavy with commitment to my course and my love.

  A curtain moved in Brad’s house. He could see me, I knew that much. I also knew I didn’t want to be seen. I was thinking evil things. I might as well have been naked and in ready position on the porch. I was thinking evil, desperate thoughts, and I knew they were all over my face. If Paulie’s heart went to someone else, at least I’d move Jonathan to the top.

  I got in my car as Brad opened his front door, taking off before he could catch me.

  Chapter 36

  JONATHAN

  I felt him come into the room. Even through the doctors and nurses running around, poking, squeezing, and barking orders at one another, his presence was a needle at the base of my spine.

  “Son,” he said.

  “What do you want?” I didn’t look over. My scenery was the ceiling. If I lived, I would start a fund to put art on hospital ceilings for patients who were too fucked up to turn their head. No one should die looking at crusty paint and vinyl venting.

  “I wanted to talk to you. To, ah, how do I say it?”

  “Before I die. You want to live in peace.”

  “Am I that selfish?”

  I swallowed. I felt myself slipping into the shattered state of semi-consciousness that so often overtook me. Getting married had required more energy than my body had reserved. The last thing I should be doing was speaking to my father
. I guessed if I got to complete one act as Monica’s husband, it should be to make her happy. I wished she’d picked something easier. Like swallowing an elephant.

  The room quieted, and a nurse whose voice I recognized said, “We’re monitoring you closely, Mister Drazen. Is there anything you need?”

  “No.”

  “We’ll be in and out.” She patted my shoulder before leaving me alone with my father for the first time in ten years.

  “Mom’s going to be here soon,” I said.

  “That was what I wanted to bring up.”

  “Do it quick.”

  He sat in Monica’s chair, and I didn’t have the energy to tell him to get the fuck up. “I know what you and Carrie think of me. I know you think I’m a monster. Maybe, I don’t know, maybe I am. I’ve always known I was different, but I want you to consider this. I’ve never done anything in a rage. I’ve never been ruled by what I don’t understand. I’ve never deceived myself into thinking my actions were anything but self-serving. However, I do want things. I do need things.”

  I reacted. It was half laugh, half groan. I was so focused on staying together I thought nothing showed on my face. But everything must have been there. Disdain. Disbelief. Disgust.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  “Oh, I believe you.”

  “In my life, I know I’ve done everything I could to keep this family together. Nothing is as important to me. When I see it breaking, it...troubles me.” Even dad had a safe place, apparently.

  I knew I smiled at the thought, but I felt out of myself. “And me here reminds you of how you fucked it all up?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Lettie bustled in, checked my tubes. “You have visitors. Do you want to see them?”

  “Five minutes.”

  She took her time, tapping into a computer, taking notes. When a man came in—doctor or nurse, I couldn’t tell—they spoke briefly in medicalese, the one language I didn’t know. They left soon after.

  “You’re close to the end, you know,” dad said.

  “See you in hell.” I was being obstructive because it was easy.

  “You’re making this hard for me.”

  “Just tell me what you want.”

  I heard him shift, a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. “I want your mother. She’s entrenched in her position. She can’t forget the past. I need what’s left of this family to work before...well, before.”

  “Your philandering isn’t her fault.”

  “I need you to talk to her. She won’t ignore your request.”

  I wanted something from him, something big, but I had nothing to threaten him with. I had nothing to ensure he’d keep his promises. What was I supposed to do? Plead? I was already flat on my back. “Stay away from my wife.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Sell that house. Hello and good-bye. That’s it.” I couldn’t go into longer explanations of all the things I didn’t want him to do. Touch her. Tell her jokes. Communicate with her unsupervised. Entangle her business. Go to her second wedding. Breathe her air. Exist on her planet. “Promise it.” I felt the futility of my demand. What would I do? Hold my pinkie out for a good twist or make him swear on a stack of Bibles? What was the devil’s promise worth without a blood guarantee?

  “You’ll speak to your mother?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you convince her, you have a deal.”

  “If not?” I asked.

  “Then not. I’m sorry. My promise is contingent on the actions of a third party.”

  “I despise you.”

  “What if I told you I loved you?”

  “You don’t have the capacity.” I may have said that or something else. The space around me fell into a dream of disembodied voices and floating lights. Just a touch of pain kept me from sleep.

  Chapter 37

  MONICA

  I waited in the cafeteria alone. I wrote a little, some verses about murder that could probably be used against me in court, with the judge unmoved toward leniency by the fact that they were atrocious, puerile, on-the-nose.

  Whatever was going on, it was taking too long. I went up to Jonathan’s floor and found Deirdre staring at a magazine that couldn’t have been of interest to her. Sheila was pacing as if she wanted to carve a ditch in the floor. His mother stood, as usual, next to the chair closest to the hall leading to his room. She was the closest to the elevator, so she caught me first. I thought of something I hadn’t before. She was my mother in-law. I wasn’t calling her mom. No way.

  “Hi, Eileen.”

  She smiled a smile so fake I could have bought it at Nordstrom’s on the sale rack. “Monica. I hear congratulations are in order.” She indicated my left hand with its borrowed engagement ring and jury-rigged wedding band.

  “Thanks. How is he?”

  Her face darkened. “They’re constantly in there...” Her eyes got wet. The coldness of her expression had hidden the fact that she was breaking apart. She cleared her throat and straightened her neck. “A heart will come. I know it. I can feel it.”

  “I can too.”

  Her hand slipped into mine, and I squeezed it. All our bullshit fell away for a second. He was her son. We loved the same person. She wouldn’t be easy to deal with, but we were bound by him whether we liked it or not. Then she smiled a couture smile; it was even kind of warmish, as if something had happened between us that had meaning to her.

  I promised myself to never again forget that her goal was to protect him. That was worth something. I gave her hand a squeeze and sat next to Deirdre. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she replied. “You got married last night.”

  “Yeah.”

  She nodded.

  “I would have married him anyway, you know.”

  She flipped through her magazine. “I do.”

  “I think your mother’s pissed about it.”

  “There wasn’t a pre-nup. Jonathan doesn’t believe in them. Neither do I.”

  “Ah, I hadn’t thought about that.”

  She shrugged, still mindlessly going through the magazine. “Neither does God.”

  I’d never engaged Deirdre for such a non-antagonistic string of sentences, but that was all I was getting from her. She settled on an article and, for all intents and purposes, read it. I cupped my tea and gave the television my attention.

  It was set too low to hear, but the talking head with perfect hair had a floating box next to him. In it was Paulie Patalano—mob boss, philanthropist, and murderer—drinking wine with his wife in a picture captured in happier days. The ticker described him as brain dead, as if I needed the reminder, and placed him in an unknown location. The picture flipped to three mug shots. I recognized one face, the brown-eyed man who had come in with Theresa. Even in the mug shot, he was handsome, angry, with a knowing grin that frightened me.

  My newly minted mother-in-law didn’t see the television. Her gaze stayed in the middle distance. Sheila was on the phone threatening someone, and Deirdre was into her magazine. Declan was either seeing Jonathan or making arrangements for me to kill someone. I’d need to be ready. It was time for me to see Paulie Patalano in his undisclosed location.

  I excused myself and took the elevator to the second floor. I scoped out the stairwell, wondering if I should take it next time. Then more complications presented themselves. First being, how would I find him? How would I do it once I got there? How could I be sure Declan’s job was done? Who did I think I was?

  In pacing and beating the hell out of myself, I rounded a few corners, trying to look for something I’d never defined. I only found ignorance and a lack of expertise in the simple skill of murder. I had a scattered entry plan and a slight hope I’d only get caught when it was too late to do anything but harvest Patalano’s organs. After that, I’d just confess and let Jonathan’s family talk him into annulling our marriage. But he’d be alive. I could deal with the rest if he lived.

  The squawk of
a police radio made me look up before I crashed into the uniformed cop. He was in his thirties and seemed to take up more space than humanly possible. A female counterpart stood nearby.

  “Staff only,” he said, blocking my way to the narrow hall.

  “Uh, okay?” I peered past him. The hall looked like every other one except for the lack of flitting staff and the presence of three old Italian women in black. That was the hall. I made note of the location and walked away.

  I knew Brad had said he’d be in his Doheny office, but I checked anyway. He was just my neighbor and he meant nothing to me, but I’d stepped on him in a way guaranteed to offend him. I didn’t want to leave things like that. He was on his way out the door, clipboard in hand. He slowed when he saw me, which I took as a good sign.

  “I know you’re busy,” I said. “I just wanted to apologize.”

  He kept walking. “I want to explain how serious what you did is, but I have a meeting.”

  “I know. I have reasons but not excuses.”

  He pulled me to the side, out of the hall traffic. “I only have a second. I don’t want to make you feel better because I’m still pissed off. But first of all, the list doesn’t work the way you think. Geography is important. The state of the patient. The gender. It’s not like a line for coffee. But second, you’re not getting away with it. When this is over, you’re sitting down with me and I’m explaining to you the ten ways you fucked up.” He was taller than me and used to being in charge. He had the arrogance of a cardiologist and the authority of a man not called by his first name. But when he looked at me, I knew he wasn’t half as pissed as his words let on.

  “All right.”

  “Over dinner.” He must have seen me turn to ice. “Platonic. If you knew me better, this wouldn’t have happened. That’s all I want.”

  “I guess I owe you.”