“We can’t spend the rest of our lives like this,” she pointed out.
I tried for a funny. “What’s wrong with it? Seems great to me.”
She ignored it. “You can’t spend the rest of your life lying and hiding from people. Sooner or later you have to go out of the house.” She gathered up the towel. “I don’t know how you feel, but I’m not made for it.”
I lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out, then placed it between her lips. My answer came from the heart. “I hate it, too.”
Then her eyes watching me, she asked quietly. “What are we going to do, Brad?”
I thought for a long time before I answered. This was no week-end jaunt that you paid off with a gag; this was for real. I pushed my fingers through her hair. “There’s only one thing we can do,” I said, turning her face towards me. “Get married.”
Her voice was very low and trembled slightly. “You sure that’s what you want, Brad?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m sure.”
“More than anything in this world, I want to live with you, be with you,” she said, her eyes still holding mine. “But what about your wife? The children?”
A pain was growing inside me. I had thought about many things, but not about them. Now I realized I had been concerned only about myself. I looked down into her face. “I didn’t come looking for you, nor you for me,” I said. I remembered what Marge had told me that morning I left to see Brady. I knew now that Marge had the answer before I did. “I think Marge already knows how I feel about you. The other day she said that nobody comes with lifetime guarantees. She would be the first not to want us to be any other way.”
She leaned her head against my breast. “Say that’s the way she feels, you still haven’t said anything about the children.”
“They’re not children any more,” I answered. “They’re grown people. Jeanie’s sixteen and Brad’s almost nineteen. They know all the facts of life. I’m sure they’ll understand. They’re almost at an age where they can take care of themselves.”
“But supposing they resent what you do and want nothing to do with you? How will you feel? Maybe after a while you’ll begin to hate me for having taken you away from them.” Her voice was almost muffled against my chest.
There was a tightness in my throat. I could hardly speak. “I—I don’t think that would happen.”
“But it might,” she insisted. “It has happened before.”
I didn’t want to think about it. “I’ll face that when I have to.”
“And there’s the money,” she persisted.
“What about it?” I asked quickly, a suspicion in my mind that her answer washed away.
“A divorce will cost you a lot of money,” she replied. “I know you. You’ll bend over backwards to be fair to her, give her everything she wants, and it’s only right that you should. She’s entitled to that for all the years you’ve been together. But later, you might resent having given her all that money because of me.”
“I didn’t have much when I started,” I said. “It’s okay with me if I don’t have much when I go.” I smiled at her. “That is—if you don’t mind.”
She squeezed my hand. “I don’t care about money. Only you. I want you to be happy, no matter what.”
I kissed her hand. “You’ll make me happy.”
She pulled my face towards her and kissed my lips. “I will, I will,” she promised.
I leaned back against a chair. “I’ll talk to Marge tomorrow.”
“Maybe——” she hesitated a little. Maybe you ought to wait a while, to be sure.”
“I’m sure now,” I answered confidently. “Delaying won’t help. It will only make things worse.”
“What will you say to her?” she asked.
I started to answer but she suddenly put a finger on my lips, keeping me silent. “No,” she said quickly. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to hear it. You’re going to say what every woman faces in her secret heart, in her most terrible nightmares. We live in dread that one day he will come and say that he no longer cares.
“I don’t want to hear what you’ll say to her. Only promise me one thing, darling.” Her eyes looked deep into mine.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Be gentle with her, be kind to her,” she whispered. “And never say it to me.”
“I promise,” I answered, kissing her brow.
“You’ll never get tired of me, Brad?”
“Never,” I replied as the telephone began to ring.
We parted, startled. It was the first time it had rung all week-end. She looked at me questioningly. “I wonder who it could be?” she asked. “No one knows I’m home this week-end.”
I smiled at her. “There’s only one way to find out.”
She got up and picked up the phone. “Hello,” she said. There was a crackling in the phone against her ear and a strange look came on to her face. Her voice grew cold and distant. “Why no, I haven’t seen him.” She looked at me peculiarly.
The phone crackled again. Her eyes widened as she listened and a terrible hurt came into them. The kind of hurt I had seen deep in their shadows the first day I saw her. She closed her eyes for a moment and swayed slightly.
I jumped to my feet and put an arm around her, steadying her. “What’s wrong?” I whispered.
A strained look appeared on her face. “Never mind, Mr. Rowan,” she said in a suddenly numb voice. “He’s here. I’ll put him on.” She held the phone towards me.
I took it from her. “Dad?” I said into the mouthpiece, my eyes following her as she crossed the room away from me.
He was trying to be calm. “Marge told me to try to find you. Junior is very sick. She’s flying out to him now.”
I could feel the room rocking under my feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Polio,” he answered. “He’s in the hospital. Marge said that you should pray for all of us.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
His voice came nervously through the phone. “Brad! Brad, are you all right?”
“I’m here,” I answered. “When did Marge leave?”
“This afternoon. She told me to try to get you.”
“Where’s Jeanie?” I asked.
I heard the click on the phone. “I’m here, Dad,” her voice answered.
“Get off that phone, you little tyke!” I heard my father yell.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I said. She must have been listening in on the upstairs extension. She would have to know sooner or later. “How are you feeling, honey?”
She began to cry into the phone.
“Easy, baby,” I said gently. “That won’t help. I’ll get right out there and see what I can do.”
“You will, Daddy?” There was an incredulous note of faith in her voice. “You’re not leaving us?”
I closed my eyes. “Of course not, baby,” I said. “Now get off the phone and go to bed. I want to talk to Gramps.”
Her voice was brighter now. “Night, Daddy.”
“Good night, sweetie.” I heard the click of the phone. “Pop,” I said.
“Yes, Bernard.”
“I’m leaving now. Anything you want me to tell Marge?”
“No,” he said. “Only that I’m prayin’ with you.”
I put down the phone, a bitter taste in my mouth. Marge hadn’t called, because she knew. Pop called because he knew. The only one I had been fooling was myself.
I crossed the room to Elaine. “You heard?” I asked.
She nodded. “I’ll drive you out to the airport.”
“Thanks,” I said. I walked towards the bathroom. “I’ll have to dress,” I said stupidly.
She didn’t answer. She turned and walked into the bedroom. A few minutes later she came into the bathroom already dressed. I looked at her in the mirror while I knotted my tie. It didn’t come out right but this was one time I didn’t care.
There was a sympathy on her face. “I’m terribly sorry, Brad,” she said.
“They say if they catch it early enough, it’s not serious,” I said.
She nodded. “They’re much better with it now than they were when we——” The memory brought the pain back to her eyes.
“Darling.” I turned and caught her to me.
She pushed me back. “Hurry, Brad.”
At the plane, I kissed her. “I’ll call you, dear.”
She looked up into my face. “I’m a Jonah,” she said sombrely. “I’m bad luck for everyone I love.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “It’s not your fault.”
Her eyes were wide on mine. “I wonder,” she said.
“Elaine!” I spoke sharply.
Some of the introspection left her eyes. “I’ll pray that he’s well.” She turned and ran back to her car.
I went into the plane and found a window seat. I peered through the window, but I couldn’t see her. The engine began to roar. I leaned forward and put my head in my hands. There was a crazy thought running through my mind. If it was anyone’s fault, it wasn’t Elaine’s. It was mine.
What was it they said about the sins of the fathers?
Chapter Thirty-One
IT was almost midnight, Central Standard Time, when I gave my name to the blue-uniformed nurse at the reception desk in the hospital. I slipped out of my topcoat while she checked the card file in front of her. Through the door I could see the taxi that had brought me from the airport pull away from the hospital.
A nun in a grey habit walked by the desk. “Sister Angelica,” the receptionist called.
The nun turned back. “Yes, Elizabeth?”
“This is Mr. Rowan,” the nurse introduced us. “Would you mind taking him up to eight-twenty-two? His son is there.”
The nun’s face was gentle. “Follow me, please,” she said softly.
We went up in a self-service elevator. “There are no operators on after ten o’clock,” she apologized, pressing the button.
We left the elevator in the eighth floor and started down a blue-painted hallway. There was another corridor off the main hall. We turned into it. Down at its end, I could make out a small figure huddled on a bench outside one of the rooms.
I broke into a run, leaving the nun behind me. “Marge!” I cried.
She lifted her face as I came up to her. Lines of worry and exhaustion were etched deep into it. “Brad!” she spoke huskily. It was a voice that had known many tears that day. “Brad, you’re here!”
She swayed and would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her. “How is he?” I asked anxiously.
She began to cry. “I don’t know. The doctors say it’s too soon to tell. He hasn’t reached the crisis yet.” She looked up at me, her grey eyes reminding me of Elaine. They were filled with the same kind of pain.
I couldn’t face those eyes. I looked at the closed door. “Can we see him?” I asked.
“They said we can peek in at midnight,” she answered.
“It’s almost that now.” I turned to the nun questioningly.
“I’ll get the doctor,” she said. She went back down the hall and vanished into one of the rooms.
“You’d better sit down.” I steered Marge back to the bench and sat down with her.
Her face was pale and drawn. I lit a cigarette and placed it between her lips. She dragged on it nervously.
“Have you eaten anything yet?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I couldn’t. I have no appetite.”
Footsteps were coming down the hall. We looked up. Sister Angelica was returning with a doctor. “You can look in now,” he said gently. “But only for a minute.” He held the door open for us.
Silently we stepped through the doorway. I heard Marge draw in her breath as we saw him, and I felt her nails grip into my hand.
His body was hidden in a massive iron lung; only the top of his head showed. His thick black hair was glistening and oily with perspiration. His eyes were closed tight in his paper-white face. A small black tube led from his nostril to an oxygen tank nearby and his breathing was tortured and laboured.
Marge stepped forward to touch him, but the doctor stopped her with a whisper. “Don’t disturb him. He’s resting, and he’ll need all he can get.”
She stood quietly there, her hand in mine, while we looked at our son. Her lips were moving as if she were speaking to him, but no sound came from them.
I looked at Brad closely. This was my flesh and I could feel its pain. This was the giant sprung from my loins, and now he lay there helpless, a part of me whose suffering I could not lighten.
I remembered the last time I saw him before he left for school in the fall. I had jibed him about being too light to go out for the football team. With his height, I had said, he’d better concentrate on basketball. It was less dangerous and if he was any good, he could grab fifty grand a year from the gamblers.
I couldn’t remember what he had answered, but I could recall the shocked expression on his face that I would even joke about such a thing.
And now he was wrapped in a piece of metal that had to breathe for him because his body was too wracked to carry on. My baby. I used to walk the floor with him at night when he cried. The strongest lungs in the world, I used to complain. I wouldn’t complain now. Nothing was strong enough. Not even I could breathe for him. Only a metal monster, whose white aseptic sides leered ominously in the hospital light.
“Better go now,” the doctor whispered.
I turned to Marge. She blew a kiss to the sleeping boy and I took her arm and followed the doctor out of the room. The door closed silently behind us.
“When will we know anything, Doctor?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “Can’t tell, Mr. Rowan. He hasn’t reached the crisis yet. Could be an hour or a week. It’s anybody’s guess.”
“Will he—will he be affected permanently?”
“We can’t tell anything until after the crisis, Mr. Rowan,” he answered. “Once that’s passed, we can check and find out whether any damage has been done. There’s only one thing I can say to you now.”
“What’s that, Doctor?” I asked eagerly.
“We’re doing everything that is humanly possible. Try not to worry or anticipate anything. It won’t help if you make yourself sick too.” He turned to Marge. “You’ve been here a long time,” he said gently. “Time you got some rest.”
She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m not tired.”
“Make her rest Mr. Rowan,” he said to me. “You can see your son again at eight in the morning. Good night.” He turned and went down the hall.
We watched him go back into his room, then I turned to Marge. “You heard the doctor,” I said.
She nodded.
“Come on, then,” I said. “What hotel are we at?”
“I didn’t bother,” she said dully. “I came right from the airport.”
“There’s a telephone downstairs that you can use,” Sister Angelica said. “You can call a hotel from there.”
I thanked her. “Where is your bag?” I asked Marge.
“At the reception desk,” she answered.
Slowly we walked back to the elevator. We came out of the elevator and went to the reception desk. “The phone is straight down the corridor,” Sister Angelica told me.
I left them at the desk while I went to the telephone and called a hotel and a cab. When I came back, they weren’t there. I leaned over the desk. “My wife?” I asked the nurse.
She looked up at me from a magazine on the shelf in front of her. “I believe she went to the chapel with Sister Angelica, Mr. Rowan” she said, gesturing with her hand. “It’s just past the elevator, first door on your right.”
It was a small chapel, filled with a golden light from the many candles flickering on the altar. I stood in the doorway for a moment, looking in. Marge and Sister Angelica were at the rail, their heads bent forward. Slowly I walked down the little aisle and knelt beside Marge.
&n
bsp; I looked at her. Her hands were clasped on the rail before her and her forehead touched her fingers. Her lips were moving and her eyes were closed, but she knew I was beside her. She moved slightly closer to me.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I LAY quietly on my pillow, listening to Marge crying in her sleep. There was no sleep for me. I kept remembering what Marge had said before she finally succumbed to the exhaustion that had seeped all her strength.
“I’m so frightened, Brad,” she had wept.
“He’ll be all right,” I said more confidently than I had felt. I could feel a strange band of tightness in my throat.
“Please, God,” she cried. “I couldn’t bear to lose him, too.”
Then I was sure that she knew and still I didn’t speak. Words of reassurance rose to my lips, but I could say nothing about myself. Another time, another place, maybe. But not now.
I thought about Elaine. Now I could understand what she had meant. The years of living would take their toll. Now I knew why she had asked how I would feel.
Marge was still weeping softly in her sleep. A tenderness for her came over me that I had never felt before. I slipped my arm beneath her shoulders and drew her head to my breast.
She rested there, softly, lightly, like a child, and soon her weeping stopped. Her breath came easy and restfully. I lay there, waiting out the night until the day crept in the windows.
It was a week before we got the answer. Then, one morning, when we came into the hospital, everyone was smiling. Sister Angelica, the receptionist, the elevator operator, the orderlies and attendants who were usually grim and sober in their duties. All were smiling for us.
The doctor came out of his little office down the hall, his hands outstretched. I took one, Marge took the other. “It’s over,” he said happily. “He’ll be okay. A little rest and he’ll be as good as new.”
We couldn’t speak, only stare at each other with tear-filled eyes. Our free hands clung together tightly as we followed him down the hall to Brad’s room.
He was lying on a bed, his head slightly raised on a pillow, facing the door. On the other side of the room was the big iron lung. Together we knelt at the side of his bed and kissed him and cried.
Never Leave Me (1953) Page 16