Minus Me

by Mameve Medwed

  “Not really.”

  “We might discover some amusing trinkets in the hospital shop. Or up-to-date magazines.”

  Annie stares through the window at smokestacks and heating units, cement mixers and soaring cranes. You’d think whoever designed the waiting room would offer a more soothing, more uplifting view, she imagines, but maybe that’s part of the plan for the new annex now under construction. Would it make her feel better to look out on parkland or streams or distant mountains? No, an unlovely gray industrial scene suits her unlovely mood.

  Will anything make her feel better?

  Actually, yes. Because the minute she turns from the nonview, a green-scrub-suited surgeon appears, flanked by a grinning Ambrose. “All done,” Ambrose says. He wraps a protective arm around Ursula. He nods at Annie. “That Sam of yours is a trouper.”

  The surgeon introduces himself and shakes hands all around. Clearly exhausted, he plops onto an adjacent chair. “We’ve repaired the ankle,” he tells them. “Two plates, several screws. Your husband has got a lot of hardware in there, Mrs. Strauss.”

  “Stevens-Strauss,” Annie auto-corrects.

  “Yes, well, he will be out of commission for quite a period and will need extensive physical therapy.”

  “And the rest of his injuries?” Annie asks.

  “Set the collarbone, stitched up the cuts, taped the ribs. The concussion is minor, although we are watching him. He’ll be fine. Still, the recovery won’t be easy. That crash did quite the number on him.”

  “But he’ll be all right?”

  “In my opinion, yes.”

  Annie hopes his opinion is buoyed by a host of successful surgeries under his belt and a first-class medical degree. “How can I thank you?” Annie says. For starters, she’ll send a donation to the new annex fund. And deliver a box of sandwiches to the nursing staff. Ha, if she keeps pushing Bunyans on medical personnel, maybe they’ll install a branch of Annie’s in the completed addition. She’ll have to take this idea up with Sam. Now that she can take it up with Sam.

  She shifts her attention back to the surgeon. “I am so grateful,” she says.

  “All in a day’s …” He waves a dismissive hand, a hand—she shudders—all too recently soaked in her husband’s blood.

  “Can I see him?”

  “He’s in his room now. Under heavy sedation. He’s not going to remember much for a while.”

  Trailed by a chorus of praise, the surgeon departs, no doubt to collapse onto one of those stacked bunk beds prevalent in TV doctor dramas and often shared with a glamorous nurse. How lovely to be that appreciated. How satisfying to repair a human body.

  If only a marriage could be repaired that fast.

  “Shall I accompany you to see Sam?” Ursula offers.

  Annie studies her mother, who, for once, no matter the brilliant red-with-peach-undertones French lipstick or the Swiss moisturizer composed of the stamens of edelweiss, has not been able to mask the strain of the last few hours. “No, you go home with Ambrose. I need to do this on my own.” She hugs Ursula. “Though I could not have managed without you, Mother.”

  * * *

  On the third floor of the patients’ wing, Annie pauses, her hand on the knob to 37A. She is happy that his is the only name scrawled across the chalkboard that hangs from the door. She supposes she has Ambrose to thank for the privilege of a single room. Yet one more way that Ursula has indirectly smoothed her path.

  Sam looks like a horror-film mummy, all wrapped in white. His plaster-cast leg hangs suspended from a trapeze hooked to the ceiling. Bandages circle one shoulder and crisscross his forehead. His arm, which is propped on two pillows, rests in a sling. All other exposed body parts, in various degrees of swelling, range in color from yellow to black-and-blue to red. At the base of his throat, peeking through the V of his johnny, she can make out a triangle of unspoiled bare chest. Has she ever seen anything so poignant? So perfect? If only she could put her lips to that tender, beckoning hollow. “Sam,” she whispers.

  He’s asleep, his eyes shut. She pulls up a chair next to him. There’s a box of tissues on his bedside table. She wipes her eyes and nose. “Oh, Sam,” she says. She scoots her chair closer. She squeezes his unbroken, though scraped and battered, fingers. It’s been so long since she’s held his hand.

  After a while—minutes? hours?—he opens one eye. His face, however distorted and puffy, seems infused with wonder, with delight. It’s the face of the boy who asked her on a date, the face of the bridegroom who handed her a perfect shell he found on the beach, the face of the lover who joined his body to hers. “Ann-eee,” he marvels, his voice slurred with painkillers. “Don’ go.”

  Hope soars and mingles with relief. Is she off the hook? Has she been tried and found innocent? Has he traveled back to a time before all this stuff happened? Perhaps he has developed selective amnesia; perhaps the trauma of the accident has obliterated bad memories.

  If only.

  “I’ll never go,” she promises. “I’ll never leave your side.”

  The nurse comes in to check his vitals, give him more meds. She’s got a large grandmotherly shelf of a chest and wears sneakers with sparkles on them.

  “Are you sure he’s okay?” Annie asks her.

  “A bit battered, but he’ll be right as rain,” she says. She points to a recliner in the corner. “That chair folds out into a bed, if you want to stay the night, though I wouldn’t promote it as comfortable.”

  “Yes, thank you. I’m not leaving my husband.”

  “From the look of you two lovebirds, I’m hardly surprised.”

  As soon as Sam nods off again, Annie rides the elevator down to the hospital shop and buys a toothbrush and toothpaste. When she returns, the nurse is placing a huge vase filled with purple gardenias on the table in front of the window.

  Annie doesn’t have to check the card to know that the flowers came from Ursula. The nurse hands Annie a pillow and extra blanket. “Your husband is lucky to have such a devoted wife.”

  Has she ever been more content to be a devoted wife, to sit by someone’s side and hold that person’s hand? Has she ever been happier to help someone sip water through a straw? What a joy, what a privilege, to adjust Sam’s covers and stroke his cheek.

  “I love you, Sam,” she says.

  “Luff you do,” he manages.

  * * *

  Three days pass like this, in the overheated hospital room with the terrible food, gloomy view, and health aides interrupting every hour to take Sam’s temperature, squeeze on a blood pressure cuff, or give him his meds or a bedpan or a sponge bath. Aside from her honeymoon, Annie can’t remember three days of such sheer bliss. Yes, the recliner is a torture rack, the same kind of contraption Sam got stuck in when he was sleeping at the foot of her bed all those years ago. Yes, she could use a shower and shampoo. Yes, she’s monopolizing him, banishing all visitors. He’s not up to company, she cautions everyone. He sleeps, he eats, and in between, his voice muffled, thick, he speaks her name. “Luff you,” he whispers. “Ann-eee,” he repeats.

  In the middle of the third night, he calls for her.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, alarmed. It’s four in the morning.

  He pats the mattress. “C’mere.”

  She squeezes next to him on his good-leg/good-arm side, careful not to disturb any wounds. He rests his hand on her thigh, moves his cheek against hers. “Good. Dow can thleep,” he says.

  She has barely a foot of space, but even if she were allotted a mere centimeter, she’d still grab the chance to snuggle up to him. Turned on her hip, she Velcros her body to his. Curled into the warm, sweet arc of her husband, she feels her own wounds heal.

  * * *

  On day four, all is right with the world. Their marriage is no longer a house divided against itself. She goes home to retrieve some clothes, take a shower, pay the bills.

  Casseroles and bottles of wine crowd her front stoop; get-well cards stuff the mail slot. On the hall table,
the answering machine blinks at double speed. She presses play: Rachel announces she’s available night or day, Juliette promises brownies and a drawing by Isabel for Sam’s hospital wall, neighbors volunteer to run errands. She presses stop. She doesn’t have the time—or inclination—to spool through any more of these.

  She takes a long, hot shower and shampoos her hair; she rubs her skin with lavender lotion; she slips on a silk shirt Ursula gave her; she finds a pair of clean, nonfrayed jeans; she applies lipstick and blush and mascara. She throws in a load of wash.

  The minute she enters Sam’s room, she senses the change in the temperature. Though the radiator is hissing, the climate is frigid with anger and accusation. “Oh, it’s you,” Sam says, his voice wintry, his syllables enunciated shards.

  She pastes on a small smile. “Is something wrong?”

  “You need to ask?”

  “How are you?” she asks anyway.

  “Actually,” he says, his eyes turned toward the window as if he can’t bear to look at her. “I’m much better. My memory is coming back.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Depends on your point of view.” He scowls. She notices he’s been reading the newspaper and is holding his cell phone. Back to business. Slightly hampered, yet still back to business. And back to holding a grudge.

  “If you don’t mind shutting the door behind you when you leave,” he continues, “I think I’ll take a nap. Thank you for all your help till now.” It’s a voice you’d use to address a stranger who picked up an umbrella you dropped in the street. “I’m fine on my own,” he adds.

  “Sam …”

  “Please, just go.”

  She staggers out to the corridor, where she bumps into Ursula, carrying another lavish bouquet. “Annie!” Ursula exclaims, staring at her.

  Annie covers her face with her hands. “It’s all come back. He wants me to leave him alone.”

  Ursula gives the bouquet to a passing nurse, requesting delivery to the children’s ward. “The surgeon did explain that any memory loss was temporary,” Ursula reminds her daughter.

  “I know. But for a while Sam seemed so great, so loving, I just hoped …”

  “And why not hope? It’s human nature, darling.” Ursula shakes her head at human nature. “Do what Sam says. Go home,” she orders. “Everything will seem better later.”

  “As in the sun will come out tomorrow? Not for me, I’m afraid.”

  “Do I detect a note of self-pity? Why not call Rachel and have a heart-to-heart. Don’t worry, darling.”

  “Don’t worry?” Annie repeats, incredulous.

  * * *

  Once home, Annie worries. She doesn’t want a heart-to-heart with Rachel. She has no guts left to spill. She is capable only of doing practical, mindless work. She sorts the mail. She checks the blinking answering machine and scrolls through more inquiries about Sam’s health, political solicitations, offers from snow removal companies, notices regarding financial services, and a Chinese robocall, erasing each in turn. She sets up appointments for physical therapy. She contacts the visiting nurse association and arranges for a caretaker to assess the ways the household can accommodate Sam’s convalescence.

  She switches on the television to CNN. The world is at war, people are trapped in mines, there are riots in the cities, thousands are dying in Africa, an earthquake is hitting Japan, forest fires flare in the West, the elms in Central Park are developing a blight, Boston is topping the record for worst winter ever, Maine fishermen can no longer count on a supply of cod, bridges are crumbling, racial violence is erupting in the heartland, ISIS is setting off bombs—on and on, each mounting disaster matching her own mounting misery.

  * * *

  The phone wakes her. She must have dozed off on the sofa, because it’s dark outside. Insomnia and oversleeping are both symptoms of the same distress, she once read in some magazine, maybe in a magazine in the waiting room of the hospital she’s just been banished from. CNN is now describing the latest national security breach, reminding her how her own sense of security has been so recently breached. She reaches for the phone; she checks the ID. It’s Sam’s cell.

  She can hardly understand him. He’s sobbing and nearly out of breath.

  Panicked, she sits up. “Oh, no! Sam!” she exclaims. “What happened?”

  He sobs harder. “I read it,” he weeps.

  “Read what?”

  “The manual. Ursula gave it to me.”

  “She gave you …?” she begins, then stops.

  She drops back onto the sofa, speechless. Overwhelmed. A series of journalism-school questions loop through her head: how, why, when, what, where—all focused on Ursula, the already identified who. She needs to pose these queries—and more—to Sam now. She opens her mouth, ready to release a veritable third degree’s worth of them lined up behind her throat. But the words won’t emerge.

  “Annie. Are you there?”

  In a flash, it all comes back to her. She pictures Ursula traipsing down the stairs, waving a lipstick she supposedly left on the guest room windowsill, chattering away, all the while lugging her big heavy tote. A star performance. A lesson in diversionary tactics. The old bait and switch.

  “Annie?”

  “I’m here,” she manages.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I tried … ages ago when I suggested making a will after old Mrs. Bouchard died. This ploy was supposed to open up our conversation. But you shut me down. Though, frankly, I was relieved, as I’d been so worried about how such news would affect you. I tried again, the first night I came back from New York. But you refused to listen.”

  “I was such a jerk …”

  “And the other morning at breakfast, I started once more to explain …”

  “While I was too busy rejecting the eggs I really wanted.”

  “You were so angry.”

  “I had no right.”

  “And then you ran out and crashed the car and …”

  “Oh, God, Annie, I’ve been a pigheaded ass.”

  “Me too.”

  “Never you,” he declares.

  “The accident was all my fault. I provoked you.”

  “No. It’s mine. I am an idiot.” She hears a door squeak open. Not now, Sam says to whoever has entered his room. He waits until the door slams shut before he continues. “I figured you’d met somebody else. Otherwise, why would you spend so much time away from me and with a mother you can’t stand?” he confesses.

  “Whom, believe it or not, I’ve learned to love. I, on the other hand, suspected that Juliette …”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “That child? Come on, Annie.”

  “I see that now.”

  “How could I ever have doubted you?”

  “I was hardly forthcoming. It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m an idiot,” he says again. “Acting like a total prick while you’ve been going through hell. And all alone.” He coughs. His words, when he speaks them, sound strangled. “To think you thought you were going to die. To think you wanted to spare me.”

  For a while, they both linger in silence, their breaths synchronizing in and out, in and out, straining to control the chaos of emotions.

  “Oh, Annie,” Sam says at last, “Is there any chance …?”

  She grabs her car keys. “I’m on my way.” She laughs, giddy with relief. “And Sam, save me some room in that bed of yours, please.”

  She finds her coat hanging from the banister. She slips it on. Once again, she pictures Ursula skipping down these stairs. The interfering Ursula who yanked the TV cord in the waiting room. The interfering Ursula who got her daughter to the specialists. The interfering Ursula who stole the manual and hid it in her tote. The most annoying woman on earth.

  Who deserves to be canonized. Would Annie in a million years have predicted that it would be Ursula who would save her marriage, save her life?

  “No
w for some good news,” she hears the CNN commentator report, “the Dow rose and the trade deficit has shrunk.”

  She turns off the TV. As she starts to pull on her gloves, she spots the voice mail button still flashing. She must have skipped one. Or another call came while she was on the phone with Sam. She hesitates. Why bother when she’s in such a rush, when it’s no doubt more spam? She presses play: My message is for Ms. Arabella Stevens-Strauss from the office of Dr. Felix Revere in Portland. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you all week. Could you please call us back?

  Epilogue

  So here is the last entry in the manual. Even though I’m going to live (hooray!), every so often I scribble instructions for Sam on Post-it notes. I guess I got into the habit. But now Sam can do the same, advise me to stand up straight, to go easy on the jalepeños when I make chili, and to stop micromanaging. Maybe on New Year’s Eve we can exchange our notes as suggested resolutions for our future selves. Still, I’m afraid my once vast library of better-you guides has been taken over by parenting how-tos.

  Talk about burying the lede! Hope Albright Stevens-Strauss and Abigail Revere Stevens-Strauss, the twins, are now six months old. To say they are the joy of our life is an understatement.

  It turned out that my previous miscarriages and stillbirth were caused by a disorder that could be treated with low-dose aspirin and heparin. Antiphospholipid syndrome. What a mouthful. The pregnancy was uneventful, though Sam quite cheerfully tolerated his own swollen ankles and first-trimester morning sickness. As matron of honor at Ursula and Ambrose’s wedding, despite Ursula’s frenzied consultations with the personal shopper at Bergdorf’s, I still looked like I was draped in a gigantic, expensive tent. I must admit that I relished every varicose vein and every successive urge to pee that ornamented my pregnancy. My badge of honor, my utter, blessed normality.

  Ursula insists the children call her Mémé, the French nickname for grandmother, which to her ears doesn’t sound so golden-agey. She says that now that she’s playing grandmothers on TV, she might as well be one. She delights in the twins, spoiling them with fancy European clothes and toys, reading to them from children’s books well over their admittedly genius comprehension, but they love the sound of her voice. Hope laughs and Abigail grins, showing off her brand-new tooth. They are beauties, Ursula gloats. And they are—the best of Sam, mostly Sam, but also the best of me. Ursula draws the line at changing diapers, however, but otherwise she’s been exemplary.