by Kaylee, Katy
I hugged her and promised I would and then Michael and I were on our own. On our out and with nowhere to go. I had one option and so Michael and I walked. When he cried, I found somewhere private to sit and nursed him. We walked the miles until we came to Nathan’s house. The key was where I remembered it would be and we let ourselves in. I knew that legally, I was trespassing, but I doubted Nathan would have me locked up. He was obviously still in Europe and wouldn’t even know the difference. We’d only stay a few days until I could figure out a plan. In the meantime, Michael and I set up a rhythm for our days. I ate from the food stored in Nathan’s cupboards and Michael feasted on mother’s milk and love. He wore dishtowels and hand towels, carefully laundered by me in the bathroom sink and I borrowed a couple of Nathan’s T-shirts and with a untalented hand, I used needle and thread to alter the fabric until Michael had a handful of strange fitting onesies. The weather was warm enough and he was fine. I, on the other hand, was not. I was literally scared out of my mind.
17
Nathan
The light was dim at first, blurry and quick flashes from time to time. It slowly improved and I could hear voices, but I was intubated and miserable. I tried to pull it out, but they had my hands lashed to the size of the bed. Finally, I managed to kick the covers enough to get their attention and a few minutes later the tube was pulled out.
“Dr. Abernathy, you’re at Memorial Hospital in Milwaukee. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded my head and blinked. He seems satisfied.
“Dr. Abernathy, it took us some time to isolate what brought you to us. You are otherwise a very healthy man. We did manage to find some bacteria in your gut, most likely from tainted food. Have you been eating from any unusual sources lately?”
“Plane,” I managed to whisper.
“Well, that could answer it. Sometimes those flights sit for long periods on the tarmac and they’re not terribly picky about preserving the food they serve to the passengers. One of those out of sight out of mind things. You are lucky. If you would have come in much later, I’m not sure we could have revived you. You were seriously dehydrated, had a raging fever and we feared brain damage if not a stroke. Now that you are back with us, were going to run some tests on you. I know you don’t feel up to it yet, but we’ll get you into physical therapy and you should be released in a couple of weeks. I just lie back and sleep naturally.”
I nodded and did as he suggested. I closed my eyes and I went to sleep. I dreamed of Christina. I saw her in my house, the borough she called it. She was wearing an apron like Samantha in the TV show, “Bewitched.” She was the perfect wife and there were children running around her feet and I knew somehow they were mine. Was the best dream I had for a very long time and I didn’t want to wake from it.
Each day I felt a little better and soon they took me out of intensive care and put me into a private room. I had a day nurse whose name was Penny, just like the color of her hair. She was sweet natured and talkative, but not unpleasantly so. It had been a long time since I’d had a decent conversation and I enjoy the opportunity. We became friends, so much so that even after her shift was done, she would stop by and we’d share a snack on trays as we watched television and challenged each other with the answers to “Jeopardy.” It was strange, but she became my confessor. She was easy to talk to and I guess I felt I needed to do it. So, I told her the story, the whole story, of Christina and Macon in my past. She listened quietly and without judgment, a fact which I greatly appreciated. From time to time she would ask me to repeat a detail here and there that I thought that a little strange. I wondered if she were taking notes for a book she was writing. It was that invasive of a question. She wasn’t being rude, though, and so in the spirit of friendship I answered her questions. I credit her with helping me recover quickly. She helped me to practice walking in my room, one arm around my waist and my arm over her shoulders. The bacteria had destroyed muscle tone and it would take some time before I would be back to normal. She was patient and helpful and I let her. I missed Christina. I think in my mind, I let myself believe that Penny was Christina.
You get a lot of time to think when you’re laid up in the bed. Sometimes I think the healing process acts as a governor on a motor, preventing you from going any faster. It’s a snap back to reality and you begin to be grateful for the things you took for granted before you were sick. My thoughts centered on Macon, naturally. I thought back through the years as he was growing up and I saw that I was an absentee father. I loved learning. No, to be more precise, I needed to learn. It was how my brain worked, always needy. I was newly licensed when Macon was born. I suppose it was somewhat like a 16-year-old who gets their drivers license and the keys to a new car. They go wild and all the warnings and rules have flown out the window. There was no feeling of consequences for what I was doing. Macon was a baby. His mother looked after him and did a great job. He didn’t need me, not as a day-to-day parent. I felt what Macon needed for me was an income earner and a father who was gaining wisdom and would be there for him down the road. So that’s what I became. I was wrong.
I wasn’t there when Macon took his first steps. I wasn’t there to pick him up when he learned to ride a bicycle and toppled over onto the concrete, scraping his knees and elbows. His Little League games were boring to me and when it came time for parent teacher conferences, I asked the teacher to email me a summary. I was too busy to take the time to visit the school or I might have seen the pictures he colored that hung on the inside of his first-grade cubby.
Somewhere along the way, Macon passed from being a child into being a young man and instead of finding it more interesting, I felt as though my job was three quarters done. I could set aside the guilt of not being there for him. He was on his own then. When his mother died and I was the only parent, I use that to rationalize that he would prosper despite his loss. He had been raised to take care of himself. Yes, I told myself, I had done the right thing.
So there I lay in bed, in the true reality of what I’d accomplished in my life surrounded me. Yes, I could pay for the best medical care and I was getting it. Yes, I knew a few of the doctors and nurses from having worked with them to treat patients. There was no family, however. No one dropped by to play a hand or two of cards or to talk about the news of the day. No one brought flowers and now, no one was there to say that it was okay. I had done what I thought was right. Now came the time for paying pennants and there was no one who could do that but me.
If only I could begin again. If only I had used my years of academic training to rationalize that Christina’s relationship with Macon was perfectly natural. It was normal, in fact more normal than her being with me, a man old enough to be her father. What had I robbed her of? Had I tainted her youth? Had I plugged her into the role of my late wife and expected her to magically absorb the memories, the family stories and all my preferences I demanded? Had I spent any time looking into her life to see what would make her happy? Had she succumbed to my sexual advances in order to please me? Had I taken advantage of the fact that she was starting out and had yet to build a career or to have enough money to not worry month-to-month? I had dumped Macon into that world without a second thought. I told myself it was okay because he had to learn to be a man. I was so wrong with Macon, was I compounding the same mistakes by expecting maturity in support from a girl who was my son’s age?
Neither of them had lied to me. The relationship was just one of many that people have throughout their life. It pre-dated mind with her and she had no idea that the Macon I referred to was the same as the one she’d just tossed out of the door. Odd, but I should’ve recognized the descriptions she shared. Maybe subconsciously, I did, but I didn’t want to, so I never let it come to the surface. I was beginning to see that the problem had not been with Macon and was not with Christina. My problem with relationships stemmed from me and my inability to have empathy for other human beings. Perhaps my profession had made me hard. I sought every day and othe
r physicians. It was considered survival mode. That was fine, but not when it took place within your own four walls.
These were things I shared with Penny. She was an enormously empathetic human being who sat near my bed and knitted. She didn’t judge or second-guess. She just let me pour it all out like lancing a boil. There was something to be said for people like Penny. You ran into them along the way but they never stayed in your life. Perhaps they were a message from God. The longer I stayed, the stronger I grew. My muscles responded and my mind was cleansed. I had one goal now and that was to find Christina and to apologize. Just maybe, if I was lucky, she’d give me a second chance.
18
Christina
Nathan’s house had been a godsend, something approximating a rest area alongside the highway when you were too tired to go on. I listened for him to come home constantly. I even had the words prepared. They went like this. “Nathan, I’m sorry, but I had nowhere else to go. I wasn’t able to reach you and I know it was a lousy thing I did, leaving you without explanation. But you see, there’s a baby now. His name is Michael and he’s your son.”
Would that make the difference? I wanted to be wanted for me, not for the small child we had created. The question was, did I deserve that? After all, it was me who had lied. I wish I could undo that without undoing Michael. The child shouldn’t live under the onus of having been created in the midst of a lie. He wasn’t responsible.
Despite my listening, Nathan did not come home. The lights continued to work, as did the heat and someone came once a week and mowed the lawn. I found the signs encouraging because they said to me that Nathan intended to come home again. Or did they? I wondered whether he would just call a realtor in one day I would come back to find a sign in the front yard. I had to move on. I had to find a place for Michael and me.
The answer came quickly and from a surprising source. I was using Nathan’s computer to conduct job searches and when the overwhelm was too much for me, I would take a few minutes and enjoy social media. It was there, in a Facebook group that I saw the ad. There was a woman looking for a companion. Room and board were included as well as a small allowance. I jumped on it.
Her name was Ellen Roberts and she was 85 years young. She would have made someone the perfect grandmother with her twinkling blue eyes, snow white hair and the attitude of a 20-year-old. Ellen welcomed Michael and I immediately and we were given two small bedrooms to the back of her house. Ellen had no family. She’d lost a son in the Gulf War and her husband had died a decade earlier. She had a small, but adequate income and it seemed her only sorrow in life was the fact that a degenerative arthritis prevented her from enjoying life on the outside. My job was to look after her although a nurse visited regularly to take care of her medical needs. Michael and I became her companions.
Sitting in her wheelchair to one side of the kitchen, she supervised my learning to cook. She pointed out the cumbersome notebook on the top shelf. “Those are all my favorite recipes,” she told me. “They come from everywhere and I haven’t been able to reach that notebook for years. Let’s give them a try.”
We ordered ingredients delivered and spent our days devising the next meal. I suppose when you grew to be her age, that was all there was to look forward to. Michael flourished, his chubby baby cheeks so kissable you couldn’t pass them by. He sat in his little carrier, his eyes that were so like Nathan’s following me as I moved across the kitchen. Eventually he began to sit on his own and soon he was crawling. We had to baby proof the house and it was wonderful. In the evenings, when Ellen would be watching television, already in her bed, I would take Michael with me and go to the library where I could use their computers. I had managed to resurrect the job of writing blog posts and that brought in a small, but steady flow of income. Since room and board was included with Ellen, I was able to bank the money, saving it for a time that I knew was coming. Ellen would not be there always and eventually Michael and I would have to find a place of our own.
Then one day he came the phone call. It was Penny, the nurse who had been so kind to me when Michael was born.
“Remember me?” She prodded.
“Of course, I do. What took you so long to call?”
“I might ask you the same.”
“I know, but for Michael and me it’s been a matter of survival and we finally found a place where we can rest for a while. How are you?”
Penny cleared her throat. “I could get into big trouble for this, but I wanted to share something with you.”
“What is it?”
“There is another patient who was just recently discharged. I can’t name names, you understand. But he was here recuperating for a long term and I would drop by and visit with him to cheer him up. One thing led to another and he told me the story of his life. I have to tell you, Christina, there were some amazing similarities to what he said and the stories you told.”
“What are you saying?”
“You said Michael’s father didn’t know about him and that he was out of the country. The facts match. He told me about a young woman whom he loved. Now, I don’t know what you’re going to do with this, but I couldn’t carry it around on my chest forever. Obviously, as I said, I can’t give you names or addresses, but I can give you the story that I found a man who very much fits the description you gave me. Good luck, Christina and give Michael a hug for me.” The line went dead and I sat there, holding the cell in my hand, my mind racing.
Penny had to be wrong. The coincidences were too great. I knew that Nathan was in Europe and if he had come back, I would’ve seen signs of it at his house. There weren’t any. He knew my phone number but never tried to call me. There was every indication that Nathan Abernathy never wanted to see me again, and I really couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t continue to put myself through the hell of missing him. I had to let it go, and so I did. I turned back to my life with Ellen and Michael and only looked forward. I never went back on the dating site. That side of my life was done, and besides, I couldn’t bear to see that little green light next to Nathan’s name or for him to see mine. So I stayed away.
Then, two months after the phone call, Ellen died in her sleep. I found her when I went in to wake her for breakfast. Michael was too young to understand what had happened, but babies can be very perceptive and I think he knew something was wrong because he cried nonstop. I called an ambulance and they came to pick her up. I knew there was no one to notify and that she had retained the services of an attorney to carry out her last wishes. I went through the house, cleaning thoroughly but before I left, I did one thing. I took her binder of recipes to the library and photocopied each and every one. I stopped by the office supply store and with that, I began my own binder of recipes. It was my way of having a little bit of her alongside me. Michael and I were due to leave the next morning when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see a well-dressed man with neatly trimmed gray hair.
“Are you Christina McKay?”
“Yes, and you are?”
“I’m Delbert Smith, Ellen’s attorney. Do you have a moment?”
“Yes, of course. Won’t you come in?” I tiptoed back to check on Michael and saw he was sound asleep in his crib.
I offered Mr. Smith some tea but he shook his head. “I won’t be staying long. Miss McKay, as I assume you probably know, Ellen had no family left. She telephoned me about a month ago and asked me to revise her will which formally left everything she had to charity. She made a revision and it involves you, Ms. McKay. Ellen will due this house and a modest amount of money which should permit you to maintain the house, pay the taxes and have a conservative, but reasonable means of income in perpetuity. She also made an allowance that is to go into a trust so that when Michael graduates from high school, there will be money for tuition at a college of his choice.”
My mouth dropped open. “I don’t know what to say. I had no idea.”
He looked at me sternly. “I’m happy to hear that. So many times my elderly cli
ents find themselves employing companions at the end of life and are taken advantage of. She assured me many times that that was not the case with you. In fact, she told me you would be surprised and indeed, your surprise seems very legitimate. Now then, if you will sign these papers, I will have the deed transferred and a copy sent to you. I’ll add your name to the account at the bank and remove hers. If you’ll visit the bank soon, you can order checks or debit card, take the money out and put it in your own account, whatever you choose.”
“I just can’t believe this. She was such a good person and it was a pleasure to be here with her. I needed a companion as much as she might have.”
“Well, maybe God saw an opportunity to bring two lost souls together.” He handed me the papers and I scanned them quickly before signing and dating the copies. I handed them back to him and he stood up, inserting them into his briefcase. “Well, that’s all I came for. Good day, Ms. McKay.”
Then he was gone. I sat there trying to absorb what had just happened and heard Michael fussing. I went into his room to change his wet diaper and told him about it, even though he didn’t understand me. I needed to tell someone.
I did as the attorney had advised and visited the bank. My name was on the account and I ordered checks and debit card and withdrew a small amount out in cash. With that money I stocked the kitchen with food and bought myself an inexpensive computer. That allowed me to work from home and I would no longer have to take Michael with me to the library, which was a good thing because he was into everything. At night, I slept alone, and my heart ached for Nathan, but I told myself I was okay, and Michael was fine. I would say to that. Somehow, my luck had changed and for the better.