Just Once

by Lori Handeland

  She was up and across the hall as he started shouting. ‘Go, go! We gotta get out of here before this one falls too.’

  What followed was coughing, choking, wheezing. He must be reliving the dust storm that had washed over him and several of the firefighters he’d followed into the North Tower. They’d tried to get him to go back out, but when he’d refused they’d given up. They had more important things to do. Unfortunately they’d never gotten to do them. They’d made it into the area between the two towers as the debris rained down.

  ‘Charley?’ Hannah sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Hey, come on. Wake up.’

  Charley’s eyes snapped open; they darted this way and that. He started thrashing. One of his knuckles caught Hannah in the mouth.

  She tasted blood. That was going to leave a mark.

  ‘Can’t breathe.’ He started gasping, then he started digging.

  According to the authorities, Charley and several firefighters had dug their way out of the area between the two towers in an impressively short amount of time, considering. About twenty minutes.

  Nine minutes before the North Tower fell too.

  Charley had always said it felt like twenty hours. He was still pissed off that he’d lost his camera in the rubble. It had never been found, along with over eleven hundred people and, oddly, most of the furniture in the place. The largest piece of any office found was a portion of telephone keypad.

  Everything was vaporized, pulverized or both, Charley’s camera included. Whenever Hannah thought of how close Charley had come to being dust, she started wheezing herself.

  ‘Charley!’ She caught his wrists. She’d become adept at it. ‘Wake up, sweetheart. Come on.’

  His eyes, still open – that always gave her the wiggies – blinked and he was there again. She was so glad to see him she leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He tasted like Her Charley – spicy cinnamon from the Dentyne gum he carried everywhere – and before she knew it she’d wrapped her arms around his neck.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Charley shoved her off the bed.

  Hannah landed on the floor hard enough to leave another mark. Fat lip, bruised ass. Batting a thousand here.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Frankie stood in the doorway.

  Hannah’s face heated. How long had Frankie been there?

  Charley cowered against the wall, shaking. ‘There were firemen. Smoke. Ashes. People screaming. And then something monstrous fell and fell and fell. On me.’

  Frankie stepped into the room just enough so that the moon through the window illuminated her face. She glanced at Hannah with eyebrows raised. ‘World Trade Center?’

  ‘Yes,’ Charley agreed, then scowled at Hannah as if it were all her fault. ‘The towers fell. Both of them.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘But that didn’t happen.’ He dropped his hand, grabbed Frankie’s, pulled her on to the bed next to him. ‘Why does it seem like it happened?’

  Frankie hesitated and Hannah murmured, ‘No.’

  Why tell him? He wouldn’t believe them. She’d like to forget that day and the several that had followed when she hadn’t known if Charley were dead or alive. She’d also like to forget that he hadn’t been worried at all about her in DC. Of course, why would she have been at the Pentagon, but still. Charley wasn’t supposed to be at the damn World Trade Center either, but he was.

  ‘You had a dream,’ Frankie said.

  ‘I had a dream,’ he repeated. ‘And you didn’t come. She did. She kissed me.’ He rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth.

  Hannah felt like a slut. She should probably get off the floor. That wasn’t helping.

  ‘I’ll just …’ She motioned toward the door and Frankie nodded absently.

  Hannah stepped into the hall, but she didn’t leave. She couldn’t.

  ‘You want to talk about it?’ Frankie asked.

  Hannah inched closer, careful to stay out of sight.

  ‘It felt like the truth,’ he said. ‘Like Vietnam.’

  ‘A flashback not a nightmare.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The covers rustled. The bed creaked.

  Hannah drew quickly back. What were they doing?

  Frankie started to hum.

  Hannah didn’t recognize the tune until Frankie began to sing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’

  A war song. Maybe more of an anti-war song, which could explain why it might have helped calm Charley down from his war flashbacks. But would it work now?

  She waited until Frankie began to hum again and then peeked in.

  Charley rested in Frankie’s arms, his back to her chest, his head on her shoulder. Her lips pressed to his temple, even as she continued to hum. The moon painted the room, the bed, them in silver, white and blue light. Every other color seemed leached away, leaving behind a stark depiction of a love so great it had never truly died.

  I gotta get out of this place.

  Hadn’t that been one of those sixties songs too?

  Hannah fled. Sat on her bed, then a chair, then the bed again. She tried to work, tried to read. Gave it up and just stared at the door until Frankie came through.

  She shut it then leaned against it. ‘You kissed him?’

  ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.’

  And it had been. Right up until he’d shoved her on to the floor.

  ‘He was himself again, or I thought he was, but …’ Hannah spread her hands.

  ‘He wasn’t. He isn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he have a lot of flashbacks?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Only one that reoccurred. Mostly he had dreams, nightmares.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘According to my psychiatrist, a flashback is a reliving of an actual event – sometimes you’re awake and sometimes you’re asleep. A dream, a nightmare is a lot of jibber-jabber.’

  ‘Is that a medical term?’

  Hannah ignored her. ‘Most of the time dreams make no sense; there might be things that actually happened, mixed with things you feared would happen or hoped would. But a flashback is a memory of what happened.’

  ‘Charley has World Trade Center flashbacks?’

  ‘No,’ Hannah said. ‘That’s not his recurring memory. This is the first time he’s woken up screaming about the towers falling. At least when he was with me.’

  She had no idea what he did when he wasn’t with her. She’d learned to live with that, even forget about it most of the time.

  ‘But …’ Frankie began.

  ‘Lisa,’ Hannah blurted, and Frankie emitted a startled gasp. ‘His flashback was Lisa’s death.’

  Frankie slid along the door until she sat on the floor as if her legs had suddenly become too weak to hold her up. ‘Did you help him?’

  ‘Help?’ Hannah repeated.

  ‘I used to sing to help him forget.’

  ‘He didn’t want to forget. Even though he woke up sobbing and gasping, his chest aching, soaked with sweat, he didn’t want any comfort. He didn’t think he deserved it.’

  Frankie flinched.

  ‘And he wanted …’ For a minute Hannah couldn’t finish what she knew she needed to say.

  ‘What did he want?’ Frankie whispered.

  ‘To keep having that flashback. Because if he didn’t he might forget someday what she looked like.’

  Frankie let out a soft sob, then slapped one palm over her mouth.

  ‘Is that true?’ Hannah asked. ‘Would he have forgotten?’

  Frankie’s eyes were wide above her hand. She nodded but she didn’t speak.

  ‘I told him he should look at the photographs, but he wouldn’t. He put them in a box and he hid them away. More punishment, I suppose.’

  Slowly Frankie’s hand fell away from her face until it rested limply on the floor.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kiss him,’ Hannah said. ‘He seemed like My Charley and I miss him.’

  Why she was explaining to Frankie, she had no idea. Charley was still Hannah’s husband, no matter
what he believed, and she had every right to kiss him.

  He also had every right to shove her on her ass.

  ‘What I can’t figure out …’ Frankie said, either not hearing or not caring about Hannah’s explanation. ‘Does his having a Your Charley nightmare … flashback … whatever mean his subconscious is remembering things, maybe the tumor is …?’ Frankie made a shrinking motion with both hands.

  ‘Yes!’ Hannah’s voice was too loud, too perky. ‘It must,’ she continued in a more sedate fashion, though she was still excited bordering on manic. She was never going to sleep tonight. ‘It has to.’

  ‘A tumor doesn’t have to do anything.’

  ‘But if he’s worse, wouldn’t he forget more instead of remember more?’

  ‘You’d think.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out Monday,’ Hannah said.

  ‘You’re staying?’

  Hannah sighed. ‘I’m staying.’

  What else could she do? She’d been at Heath’s side through everything. Shouldn’t she be at Charley’s, even if he didn’t want her there?

  She no longer knew what was right or wrong, what she should or shouldn’t do, but she did know the least she could do was join Frankie and Charley in Dr Lanier’s office on Monday.

  ‘I’m sorry to say the chemo isn’t working,’ Dr Lanier informed them as if he were a waiter imparting the sad but inevitable information that the restaurant had run short of the house special.

  ‘But that can’t be,’ Hannah said faintly.

  Charley cast her a withering glance. ‘Why is she here again?’

  Frankie shushed him and he actually shushed. He was so agreeable to everything Frankie said that Hannah was both disturbed – definitely not Charley – and encouraged. Maybe he’d listen to Frankie when she told him to do whatever it was that needed to be done to save his life.

  ‘I assure you it is,’ Lanier continued, face and voice still carefully neutral.

  Was that to keep people from losing their shit? Hannah wondered how that worked for him.

  ‘Not only is the tumor growing instead of shrinking, but it’s spreading. Have you noticed any new memory issues?’

  ‘I didn’t notice the old memory issues,’ Charley muttered.

  At least he still had a sense of humor.

  ‘He had a flashback,’ Frankie said.

  ‘It was a dream,’ Charley snapped. ‘Not a memory. The World Trade Center never fell down in a cloud of ashes and smoke.’

  Lanier’s eyebrows lifted. ‘I see.’ His fingers tap-tapped on his laptop. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Frankie said. ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘I’d like to try an experimental treatment that’s had some success in this area.’

  ‘What area?’ Hannah asked. ‘Failure?’

  ‘The brain,’ Lanier said dryly.

  Frankie patted Hannah’s hand. She felt like a chastised child.

  ‘It’s a new chemo cocktail used specifically on tumors that seem to feed on the old ones.’

  ‘They feed?’ Hannah felt a little nauseous at the image. ‘On chemo?’

  ‘It’s as good a word as any for what’s going on in Charley’s head. It’s almost like the tumor is drinking the chemo, smacking its lips and begging for more.’

  Now Hannah felt a lot nauseous.

  ‘The only problem is this cocktail makes patients a lot sicker, the sickness lasts longer and that makes them weaker.’

  Wasn’t that three problems?

  ‘Oh, goody,’ Charley said.

  ‘Does it work?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘We’re not sure.’

  ‘How can you not be sure?’ Hannah demanded.

  Frankie patted her again. She had said that kind of loud.

  ‘It’s experimental. We don’t have enough results to be sure.’

  ‘You want me to be your guinea pig?’ Charley asked.

  ‘Only if you want to be.’

  ‘I don’t think I do.’

  ‘Charley, you have to …’ Hannah began, but he silenced her with a glare.

  In his mind she shouldn’t even be here; she definitely shouldn’t be telling him what he had to do. Even if he had known who she was, Charley wouldn’t thank her for telling him what to do. That had never bothered her, because he didn’t tell her what to do either. Unless she asked.

  And she had asked, in the beginning, because he’d not only been her husband but her mentor. She’d admired him, looked up to him, in addition to loving him. Her life with Charley had been an education in every way a young woman might want it to be.

  She’d soaked up his advice, his knowledge, his attention, and he’d seemed to enjoy imparting it. He’d almost seemed to need to. In that first year, one of the few times she’d seen him smile was when she asked him a question that would take hours to answer. Something they could analyze and discuss, practice, improve.

  How many times had they fallen asleep at the light table, the kitchen table? Some of her best memories were of her waking him or him waking her and together, hand in hand, walking to the bedroom still talking about whatever it was they’d been talking about when they’d nodded off.

  Later, when she’d taken his advice, learned, grown, become her own woman and she’d stopped asking, had that bothered him? She didn’t think so. He’d always said he was proud of the woman she’d become. He’d believed her capable of handling everything, so she’d done so. Even though he looked at her now as if she were dry, week-old gum on the bottom of his shoe, that didn’t make her dry, week-old gum. Did it?

  ‘I’m not going to spend the time I have left sicker than I’ve been already.’ Charley’s mouth tightened. He was so thin, the expression made him resemble a mulish old man. ‘I’m just not.’

  ‘Frankie?’ Hannah’s voice quivered.

  Charley listened to Frankie. He did what she said in a very un-Charley-like way. If Frankie told Charley to take the chemo, would he listen?

  Frankie’s own lips set in a tight, pale line. Suddenly she looked older too.

  Hannah took Frankie’s hand, squeezed her fingers. ‘Tell him.’

  Frankie glanced at her once, then nodded. ‘Whatever you want, Charley.’

  Hannah snatched her hand back. ‘That’s not what I meant!’

  Dr Lanier’s gaze flicked between the two of them. He stood. ‘Maybe we should step into the exam room.’

  Hannah wasn’t certain which ‘we’ he referred to, but she followed when he opened the door and went through. She nearly shut the door on Frankie. Guess she was coming too.

  Charley had picked up a magazine and was paging through it, muttering to himself. He seemed far too nonchalant to have just signed his own death warrant.

  The last time Hannah had felt this helpless, Heath had been dying. Then she’d been scared; now she was both scared and mad. ‘Don’t I have any rights in this?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Lanier said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘He’s in his right mind.’

  ‘He has brain cancer!’ Hannah sounded hysterical and she knew it.

  ‘Yes, but he knows that. He’s well aware of his condition and has every right to make his own choices regarding treatment or non-treatment.’

  ‘He thinks it’s 1989.’

  Lanier shrugged. ‘If he thought it was 1889, that might be different.’

  Hannah made a soft cry of frustration. ‘You’re just going to let him die?’

  ‘He was always going to die, Hannah.’ Frankie’s voice was just above a whisper. ‘All he gets to choose is how.’

  ‘This is what you wanted all along, isn’t it?’ She should stop talking, but it was as if a person she didn’t know had taken over her mouth. ‘You’ve been wanting him to die in agony ever since …’

  ‘Don’t say it.’ Frankie lifted one finger and pointed it in Hannah’s direction.

  ‘It’s true.’

  ‘Just because it might have been true once, doesn’t make it true
any more.’

  ‘Aha!’

  Frankie rolled her eyes. ‘I know you’re upset. We’re all upset.’

  Except Frankie didn’t look upset. She looked calm, cool and in control, even more so because Hannah was just the opposite. When had they switched roles? Hannah wasn’t sure, but she wanted to switch back.

  ‘Maybe I should tell you what’s going to happen from now on.’ The doctor spoke quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to impart the information and get out of Dodge. ‘He shouldn’t be in pain. If he is, he can have morphine.’

  Heath had had morphine. It had taken away the pain and given him hallucinations. Considering what Charley already saw without morphine, Hannah wasn’t sure she wanted to be around for what his busy brain conjured up with it.

  ‘He’ll get increasingly sleepy, less coordinated, weaker, there might be headaches and seizures, mood swings. Since his tumor is affecting his memories, he might lose some of the ones he has, have trouble forming new ones, or mix up different memories altogether.’

  ‘Might that be why he had a flashback of the fall of the World Trade Center when he doesn’t remember it’s gone?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Lanier agreed, then moved on as if it didn’t really matter, and at this point did it? ‘There’s a local medical supply place where you can get a hospital bed.’

  Hannah had a sudden flashback of Heath lying in one of those beds. She didn’t think she could watch another man she loved die.

  Lanier pulled a card from his pocket. ‘Call the visiting nurse. Get things set up for when he needs meds.’

  ‘How long?’ Hannah managed, a cold sweat beading her forehead as her stomach did a frightening pitch and roll.

  Lanier stared first at his shoes, then into her eyes. ‘Not long.’

  Hannah barely reached the wastebasket before she threw up.

  Frankie

  ‘I used to throw up whenever Charley was in life-threatening danger.’ Frankie set her hand atop the roof of Hannah’s rental car and leaned down so she could see in the open driver’s side window.

  Why was she telling Hannah that? Had she ever told anyone but Charley? There were a lot of things she was sharing with Hannah that she’d never shared with anyone but Charley, including Charley. And, really, who would understand any of these things but Hannah? There was a camaraderie here that Frankie had never felt with anyone before, with good reason. She wasn’t sure she liked it, but she didn’t not like it either.