Broken

by Megan Hart

  “They’re not trying to be rude.” I waited until he’d successfully traversed the bumpy patch of concrete before walking by his side. “Besides. It’s been forever since we had dinner out, together. Let’s enjoy it.”

  Once our marriage had been precious. Now it had become fragile, too. Our argument the night before had been swept beneath the carpet, ignored by both of us out of self-preservation. We were both too brittle for truth at the moment.

  “You must be Danning, party of two?” The smiling hostess had very pretty eyes that skated serenely over Adam and rested on me. “You have a reservation.”

  Of course she knew who we were. I’d called to make certain the restaurant had adequate facilities to handle Adam’s chair. Before I could answer, Adam spoke up.

  “How’d you guess?”

  The hostess looked startled that he’d spoken to her. “Oh, I…well, I…”

  Adam had always been a flirt. I don’t think the girl waiting to seat us knew quite what to do. By the time we got to our table, though, she was laughing and blushing. He’d thoroughly charmed her. She left us with several backward glances. I saw her talking with one of the waitresses, pointing.

  “Well,” I told him. “You certainly made an impression.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  A flash of a long-familiar grin made my heart ache. “Yes, Adam. You do.”

  “What looks good?” He indicated the menu with a lift of his chin. “I’m in the mood for something spicy.”

  We looked over the menu and ordered drinks. The waitress looked surprised when Adam ordered a Corona. She looked to me for confirmation, which I could see annoyed him even though he should have been used to it.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I won’t drink and drive.”

  Flustered, she scribbled our orders and fled the table. I gave Adam a look. He gave me one, too.

  “What?”

  “Do you have to be so belligerent?”

  He frowned. “Hey, listen, I’m not a kid. If I want a drink, I should be able to have one.”

  “It’s not fair of you to expect everyone in the world to understand, Adam.”

  He made a disgusted noise. “Ask me if I give a rat’s ass about everyone in the world.”

  “Do you give a rat’s ass about anyone else?” The words popped out before I could stop them.

  The waitress brought our drinks and we ordered our food. She asked Adam what he wanted this time, not speaking to him through me. I waited until she’d gone before saying, “See?”

  “Of course I care,” Adam snapped. “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m trying to say,” I said quietly, “that you hold everyone around you up to very high standards of expectation, and I think you do it so you have the right to be disappointed.”

  He said nothing. I pushed the lime to the bottom of his bottle and held it up for him. Beer through a straw had once been a college trick to avoid foam and get intoxicated faster. Now it was simply an easier way for him to drink.

  “Why would I want to be disappointed?” Adam asked when he’d finished sipping.

  “I don’t know. Because then you can be angry at that instead of the fact you’re in a chair? You tell me.”

  It had been a long time since we’d discussed philosophy and punk rock, way back when we’d had hours of life and the desire to live it together. Nothing then had been too weighty a topic. I’d been happy to listen to him then, and I was happy to listen, now.

  “It’s what people see. The chair. Are you saying I shouldn’t expect them to get their heads out of their asses?”

  I shook my head. “No. But you could be kinder about their failures.”

  He snorted. “Beer.”

  I held it up and he drank. “I guess I don’t have your patience, Sadie.”

  “No. Really? I’d never have guessed.”

  We smiled at that, a moment of connection I hadn’t felt in a really long time. Our food came and we ate it, and if people stared and pitied us because I had to cut and feed him his food, Adam and I ignored them. We talked, the way we used to, about nothing serious. It was far from the easy way we’d once been but better than the way we’d become.

  Getting out of the restaurant proved to be slightly harder than getting in had been. The crowd had grown, filling every table and spilling into the aisles. We had to say a lot of “excuse me” and “can you scoot in” but Adam, perhaps taking my words to heart, maintained a cheerfully polite air about it all even when people stared or whispered as we passed. I walked behind him to make sure I could help if he got caught up on anything, my gaze on his wheels.

  In a bigger city, running into someone I knew would have been coincidence, but in Harrisburg it was merely inevitable. I expected to see an acquaintance in the restaurant. I didn’t expect a sleek French twist and pearl earrings.

  “Pardon me,” Priscilla said as she shifted her chair so Adam could get by, but I wasn’t looking at Priscilla.

  Of course, I was looking at Joe.

  “Thanks,” Adam told her as he passed.

  I stopped, frozen for what seemed forever while Joe and I stared. I was the first to look away. I put my hands on the back of Adam’s chair, though he didn’t like that. I thought, perhaps, I could push him faster, harder, though that was silly since he operated the chair and no amount of shoving from me was going to get him through a space too narrow.

  “Sadie, hold on,” Adam said, irritated. “Wait a minute, someone’s got to move or something.”

  People were staring even more at the small commotion we were causing, but Adam stayed calm. I was the one who felt frantic and stressed, my hands shaking and cheeks hot. I wanted to move, but hemmed in by Adam in front and diners on either side, I couldn’t.

  “Here.” Joe stood, moving with easy grace, and tapped the oblivious man at the next table on the shoulder. “Can you move, please?”

  He arranged the chairs and cleared the way in no more than half a minute, and he did it without making it seem awkward or a big deal. He even bent to pick up a napkin that had fallen, no barrier to Adam’s chair but a considerate gesture anyway. Then he stood back, out of the way, to allow us to pass.

  “Thanks, man,” Adam said.

  “No problem.” I heard Joe’s smile though I was steadfastly not looking at his face. “Have a nice night.”

  “Joe, darling,” said Priscilla from behind me. “Sit down.”

  I gave her a glance. She was smiling, too, pleasantly, with her perfect red lips and perfect white teeth. Her perfect hair and face and life. I nodded, quickly, then followed Adam out of the restaurant.

  At home I was quiet as I helped Adam get ready for bed. We went through the routine, so familiar now we didn’t need to think about it. My fingers fumbled on the controls of the lift I used to get him from the chair into bed and for one heart-stopping instant I thought he was going to fall.

  “Easy,” Adam said. A few minutes later, when he was settled and changed into pajamas, he added, “Are you all right?”

  “No.” I started to cry, and this time, he didn’t tell me to stop.

  I cried for a very long time, sobbed myself to sickness, and wished desperately for a hand to hold mine. Adam couldn’t give me that. Not ever. But I laid my face down against his shoulder and wept, and he whispered to me, offering the comfort of his words. They had to be enough.

  “How did we get here?” Adam’s breath ruffled my hair. “I thought we’d always love each other. Was it just the accident, Sadie? Or would this have happened, anyway?”

  “I don’t know.” With my eyes closed and the softness of flannel beneath my cheek, the words were easier. “I don’t know anything anymore, Adam.”

  “I used to know everything for both of us,” he said. I felt the brush of his mouth against my temple. “Back then. I wish I still did.”

  I lifted my head to look into his face. “I don’t. Things change. They have to change in order to grow. We’re not the same people we were when we
met.”

  “No? Who are you, now?”

  I think he meant to be smart, but I told him the truth anyway. “I don’t know, Adam. I’m trying to figure it all out.”

  “You’re Sadie Danning. You’re my wife.”

  Silence hung between us for a moment. “There’s more to me than just being your wife.”

  “I know that.”

  “I think…I need to know it, too.”

  He sighed, heavy. “So what happens now? Do we keep trying?”

  “Do you have a better idea?”

  Much had changed, but Adam’s smile was the same as it had always been. “Not a damn one.”

  I got up, meaning to go to the bathroom and wash my swollen eyes, but he stopped me.

  “Sadie. I do love you. I still do.”

  “I love you, too.”

  A red ribbon, a poem. Our love, mad, bad and dangerous to know. Once it had been enough to build our lives around. Now I wasn’t so sure, and both of us knew it.

  We were broken, brittle and fragile. The question was, were we still precious to each other? Or, instead of everything falling into place, had it fallen into pieces?

  Chapter

  16

  “You sure you’ll be all right?” I tugged anxiously at the sleeves of my suit and ran my hands over my hair. I caught sight of Adam’s reflection in the mirror. He was rolling his eyes but stopped when I turned, though it was obvious I’d caught him. I put my hands on my hips.

  “What’s that look for?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I crossed to his chair and did a swift check, tucking and smoothing, until he made a disgusted noise. “I’d feel better if Dennis—”

  “Dennis had these plans for months, Sadie. Besides, I’m sure the person the agency sends will be fine. You’ll only gone a few hours.”

  He was right, but even his calm, slightly annoyed tone didn’t make me feel better. “But—”

  “Sadie,” Adam snapped, really annoyed now. “You leave me every day for longer than you’ll be gone today.”

  “Yes. I know. You’re right.” I shrugged. “I can’t help it, okay? I worry.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. I know you do. But I’ll be fine. Really. Shouldn’t you get going?”

  I looked at the clock. “The guy from the agency’s not here yet.”

  He was late. I’d scheduled him to arrive an hour before I needed to leave so I’d have plenty of time to instruct him and make sure everything was going to be fine. Having Dennis and Mrs. Lapp had spoiled me, and I was unquestionably nervous about leaving Adam with a stranger.

  Despite being late, the attendant who showed up set my mind at ease. He was dressed professionally, gave my hand a firm shake and looked me in the eye as he introduced himself as Randy. He was young, maybe in his early 20’s, but he knew his way around the equipment with enough skill to make me feel much better about leaving Adam with him.

  “Have a good time, Mrs. Danning,” Randy said.

  “I know I told the agency I’d be home at five, but I think it’ll be closer to two. You have my number—”

  “He’s got the goddamned number, Sadie!”

  Randy and Adam exchanged the looks of men who understood how frustrating women can be. I knew when to shut up. I kissed Adam’s cheek and left. I only had to stop myself from going back inside three times before I managed to get to my car. I fought myself back from calling to check up on them for twenty whole minutes.

  “If you call here again I’m going to hang up on you,” Adam warned. “Go. Have a nice time. I’ll see you when you get home.”

  And then he did hang up on me, the bastard, before I could say another word.

  “If there’s one thing I have to give my mother credit for,” Elle told me, “it’s that she makes things happen.”

  Moments before she’d been surrounded by the satellites that circle every bride before she walks down the aisle, and it wasn’t difficult to see from the way she clutched the bouquet of wildflowers that she needed a few minutes to herself. I was proud of her, though, as she calmly told her mother and Marcy, the matron of honor, that she was going to take a few minutes to talk to me in private. Now we stood in a small back hallway overlooking the parking lot.

  “My mother,” she said after another moment, “lives for this sort of thing. Honestly, if not for her we’d still be picking out invitations.”

  This wasn’t the place for analysis, even if she’d still been my patient. Even so, the response came automatically. “How do you feel about that?”

  Elle’s smile sometimes looks as though it’s not quite sure it has the right to be on her face. “I’m getting married.”

  She wore a simple, tailored suit in cream and hadn’t yet put on the veil that would cover her face for the traditional Jewish ceremony, but there was no mistaking the fact she was a bride.

  “You sure are.”

  She laughed, sounding a bit shaky. “Thank you for being here.”

  I squeezed her shoulder. “I told you I would be.”

  She drew in a breath and let it out. “I think I need a drink.”

  “You can do this,” I told her, and I meant it.

  “Yes,” she said, straightening her shoulders and looking toward the entrance to the sanctuary, where her mother paced. “I know.”

  The ceremony was brief but lovely. I felt a bit out of place among the friends and family gathered to share Elle and Dan’s joy, but I didn’t regret being there. There are few enough occasions in this life when we are allowed to feel as though we have truly made a difference in someone’s life, and joy is something that should always be celebrated.

  “Wither thou goest, I will go. Where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.”

  I wasn’t the only one wiping tears when Elle Kavanagh said those words to Dan Stewart and became his wife. Her mother wept with less the atricality than I expected, and Dan’s eyes gleamed suspiciously bright, but Elle’s face had been transformed by a smile that sat on her mouth knowing it had every right to be there.

  As much as I knew the invitation had been sincere, I felt it inappropriate to attend the reception. I paid my respects in the receiving line, instead. I did watch from my car, though, as Elle and her new husband posed for photographs on the synagogue steps. They looked happy together, and I was happy for her.

  “Don’t hang up on me,” I said to Adam as soon as he answered the phone.

  “How was the wedding?”

  “Beautiful. How are you?”

  “Also beautiful.”

  I cradled the phone against my shoulder as I dug in my purse for my wallet. “Listen. About what you said earlier…”

  “Yeah?” He sounded distracted, and I could too well imagine the look on his face.

  “I thought I’d give Katie a call. See if she wants to grab a cup of coffee.”

  “Sure, sure.” I imagined his impatient expression. It sounded like I’d interrupted him.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Working on something,” he said, voice clearing a bit as he managed to focus on me. “You’re going out with Katie? Good, good.”

  Working on something meant writing. A sudden smile lifted my voice. “What are you working on?”

  “Something,” he said stolidly, which meant it was definitely writing.

  I didn’t push, but hearing that Adam was writing again made me feel like doing a cartwheel. Or maybe just jumping up and down. “So yeah, I thought I’d give Katie a call.”

  “Have fun.”

  “You’re okay?” I asked. “You’re sure?”

  This time his hesitation sounded less like distraction. “Yeah. Fine.”

  “How’s Randy?”

  That was it, I’d pushed him too far.

  “He’s fine! Damn it, Sadie, what part of ‘I’m working’ don’t you get?”

  I couldn’t even be offended. “Sorry. Can you tell him I’ll be home at five, just like I’d originally said?”<
br />
  “Yeah. See you.”

  “I love you,” I said, but to the buzz of the dial tone. He’d hung up on me.

  “Ass,” I said, but fondly, then dialed Katie’s number.

  “You can’t even begin to imagine how much I needed this.” Katie toasted me with her latte. “I mean, I love my kids, but I’m going crazy being home all day with them. Evan’s great, but he just doesn’t get it, you know? You just never know how much you can possibly love someone until you’ve had to clean up their poop. Man, that’s love.”

  Something must have shown in my face, because she looked stricken. “Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. That was—”

  “No. It was fine. You’re right.” I laughed, not wanting her to feel bad. “You’re absolutely right.”

  Katie looked embarrassed. “I shouldn’t be complaining. I mean…my two rugmonkeys are nothing compared to what you have to deal with.”

  I meant to wave off her comments, but she spoke again.

  “You know, Sadie, if you want to talk about it—”

  And I was undone.

  I did want to talk about it. I told her how it felt to have to stick a piece of rubber tubing up your husband’s penis to allow him to pee, of how it felt to cut up his food and feed it to him, piece by tiny piece, and being terrified the entire time of what would happen if he choked on it. What it was like to lie awake listening for the sounds of the caregiver shifting him so I could be sure he wouldn’t lay too long in one position. Of the ache in my arms and legs and back from operating the lift that got him in and out of the chair. I told her about Joe and about Greg and how those stories had kept me going through long months without physical affection.

  I told her how it felt to be proud of Adam for getting up every day when I would have given up long ago. How much I admired his strength, even when he faltered. How I wished I could do more for him. And I told her how much I loved him, even now, when everything was crumbling away.

  I thought maybe it was too much, because when I finally ran out of breath, Katie got up from the table without a word. I thought she meant to leave me, and I wouldn’t have blamed her. I’d just unloaded four years of grief in half an hour.