by Tina Chaulk
I don’t see him once he moves beyond the counter and my much lower than usual line of sight.
The nurse touches my arm, bends down to face me and whispers, “You’re safe now.”
“What?”
“You’re safe now. You can get help. You don’t have to stay with him.”
“With who? Can’t you fix my ribs? I think they’re broken.”
“Your husband. We’ve called the police. It’s best if you talk to them and tell them exactly what happened.”
She is staring at me so intently that I don’t quite know what’s going on until it suddenly registers.
“Oh my God, no. He didn’t abuse me or anything. We’re not even together anymore. I mean we slept together last night but I was drunk and … I’ll shut up now.”
“There’s a shelter where you can stay. There’s lots of help out there. You can’t stay in that situation.”
“No. He’s my ex-husband.Well, not yet. But soon. And he just kicked me because I opened the door when he was trying to kick it down. He was worried about me and thought maybe I’d done something stupid to myself, but I was just passed out and when I opened—”
The look on her face is changing with every word I speak. From concern to great concern to a coldness that comes across her face like a curtain.
“I know that sounds bad. But he’s not abusive. He was only trying to help. And we’re split up.” I try to straighten up, and howl. “Please help my ribs,” I say, voice breaking.
“We’ll move you to an exam room,” she says.
The police come twenty minutes later while I’m awaiting the results of my x-rays in exam room 4. An intern with ridiculously bad breath has told me he thinks my ribs aren’t broken but are badly bruised, which he tells me hurts worse than broken ribs. I believe him.
I start the whole who’s on first routine with the two police officers — one female, looking compassionate, and one male, looking tough. Nothing I say seems to make them understand that my injury isn’t because of anything intentional on Jamie’s part. They ask me how much I had to drink today and I know I’m being judged as much as Jamie is. Misjudged.
“We are pressing charges, Mrs. Flynn,” the male officer says, despite the three times I have told him it’s not Mrs. or Flynn. I just haven’t gotten around to changing my MCP number or driver’s license back to my maiden name. “Whether you cooperate or not.”
“What time is it?” I ask.
“8:57,” the male officer answers. “So will you cooperate or not?”
“Please give me a minute,” I say. “I need to make a phone call.” I’m lying flat on a stretcher, pushed back into a horizontal position by the intern who first examined me, and fully intending to stay there however long it takes to heal. “Could you pass me my jacket?”
I pull my cell phone out of my inside pocket and the female cop warns me not use it in the hospital.
“I have to,” I say. “I can’t move. Just give me five minutes for a private call, please.”
The woman nods to the door and says, “You go check on him. I’ll wait outside.”
“Him” I assume is Jamie and I suddenly realize that his evening might be worse than mine. I feel a twinge of sympathy amidst my pleasure.
When I’m alone I hold down the number one on the cell phone until I see the call has been made. In seconds I hear her voice. As I have so many times in my life I ask her for help.
“Where are you?”
“Health Sciences Centre. Exam room 4.”
“You okay?”
“I will be when you get here.”
“Be there in ten minutes.” I feel my shoulders relax a little.
The first time I used BJ was in downtown St. John’s outside a coffee shop. I had been doing some early Christmas shopping and was to meet her at Auntie Crae’s and was lucky enough to get a parking spot right in front of the store and coffee shop. By the time I made it back to the car to feed the meter before meeting BJ for lunch, time had run out. A Parking Enforcement Officer was writing a ticket.
“Wait, I’m here,” I shouted to him from fifteen feet away. “I’m going to put money in.”
He kept writing. “I already started the ticket. Too late now.”
“Stay here,” I said, pointing my finger at him. “I’ll be right back.”
I ran into Auntie Crae’s, found BJ reading a newspaper, every eye in the place either staring at her or trying not to look like they noticed her. I picked up her purse, grabbed her arm and dragged her out to the meter man.
“This is him. Now, tell him this is your car.”
“You’re BJ Brown,” the man said.
“I am,” BJ said with a broad smile and a nod.
“Wow, I’m sorry. I had no idea it was your car.”
“Would you mind if we could forget about the ticket?” she asked. Broader smile and an arm touch.
“Already done.”
“Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.”
“I’m a big fan. I watch you every night.”
“Thank you. Hearing that is what I live for.” I stepped behind the guy and rolled my eyes at her.
“That last part was a little over the top,” I said once the guy had left, three autographs in hand—one for him, one for his daughter and one for his mother. “That’s what I live for?”
“Shut up. I got you out of the ticket. You know, you’ve never done anything like that before. Never took advantage of me like that. I thought you were different.” She turned and walked away.
“I’ve gone to packed restaurants and sailed in with no reservation and no waiting,” I called after her. “I’ve skipped line-ups.”
She turned around. “But you’ve been with me. It just happened. You hauled me out here.” Her eyes betrayed how hurt she was and I knew I should just say I’m sorry.
“Come off it, BJ. It was a parking ticket. Big deal. Fair play for all the downsides of being your friend.”
“What downsides?”
“You’re worth it. Don’t get me wrong. But just like it’s not always easy to be you, it’s not always easy to hang out with you.”
“How?”
“It’s being treated like a pimple on your arse, like I’m not a person when I’m with you. It’s having every lunch interrupted by ‘Are you who I think you are?’ And being the person who takes the picture of you and whoever owns the camera. It’s being … invisible.”
BJ stared at me a long time and I watched her deciding what to say. “Must have been cold there in my shadow. To never have sunlight on your face,” she sang as I burst out laughing.
“You really are the wind beneath my wings,” she said and squeezed my arm.
At the hospital BJ arrives in my room with two nurses and a resident in tow. The two cops aren’t far behind.
“I can vouch that she has never been abused by her husband.”
“Ex-husband,” I correct.
“Not yet. Not officially. Whatever. I’ve seen Jamie Flynn pick up a spider and set him free outside. And I can guarantee that he loves this woman with all his heart, even though they’re not together.”
“A friend doesn’t always know,” the female cop said.
“This one does,” BJ replied. “I know her and I know him.”
“We have his admission that he kicked her, and Mrs. Flynn verified it.”
“And we both say it was an accident,” I join in.
“And I can vouch for both of them.”
The officers leave with autographs and the promise that BJ will show up at the next RNC Association banquet.
The police are barely gone when Jamie comes in the exam room.
“Was it bad?” I ask.
“Awful. They thought I was a wife-beater. It was the worst thing ever.”
“I have badly bruised ribs,” I say. “That’s pretty bad too.”
They look at me in silence.
“What did they say in the end?” BJ asks Jamie.
“They said the
y were recording this and were keeping their eyes on me.” Jamie looks close to tears.
“Best not try to kick in any doors again,” I say, trying to lighten the mood.
Silence again.
“So, can you go home?” Jamie asks me.
“I have to wait for a painkiller prescription.”
“Are they going to tape up your ribs or something?” Jamie asks.
“No, they don’t tape ribs, especially if they’re not broken,” I say. “The doctor just said I have to rest for a few days and put ice on them.”
“You’re going to rest for a few days?” BJ says and laughs. “You’ll be at work tomorrow, bruised ribs or no bruised ribs.”
“You didn’t tell her?” Jamie looks at me.
I shake my head and shrug.
“Tell me what?”
“Nothing,” I say.
“What?” BJ turns to Jamie.
He starts to recount the morning at the garage and I feel like I’m sitting in the accused box at my own trial. Jamie is talking and BJ is shaking her head, saying things back to him, things I ignore because I can’t hear any of them. Their noises fade into the background, becoming a carpet of sound that covers everything but doesn’t resonate in any way. It’s like they’re the normal people and I’m on the outside. I’m the failure, the screw-up, the stick-in-the-mud. I’m bruised and broken, and all around me things and people seem intact.
The chatter in my room stops. I follow BJ’s and Jamie’s eyes to the doorway where Mom stands, her eyes full of something I can’t identify. Maybe a mixture of fear or something else, maybe shame.
My ribs start to ache more and I notice the tension in my whole body. My jaw is clenched, my fists, even my legs are tense but I don’t realize it until I will them to relax.
Without a word, BJ and Jamie walk out. Mom nods to them and mouths “thank you” to BJ.
“Are you okay?” Mom whispers to me, as if speaking loudly will hurt me. She touches my arm and I flinch. The act of pulling my hand away so quickly makes me cry out from the shot of pain in my side.
“Oh God,” Mom says and a tear rears its ugly head.
“It’s nothing,” I say, trying to find a comfortable position. “It’s a couple of bruised ribs.”
“What happened?”
I just stare at her. Not speaking. I know Mom won’t let it stay that way for long. Silences need to be filled, especially the uncomfortable ones.
“What happened?” she asks, her tone formal. She straightens up and pushes her shoulders back.
“Get out.”
“What?”
“Get out of my room.”
“Jennifer, I’m your mother,” she says. Her hand reaches out for me then pulls back.
“You’re a whore,” I say and it feels ugly and wonderful. It feels like a surge of anger that washes some of my pain away. It is a hideous release and even the look on her face, her hand to her mouth, the tears in her eyes, makes me feel better. Her hurt lessens mine.
“So get out. And tell those other two not to come back in here either.”
She turns and runs out the door. I hear voices outside and BJ shouting, “We’ll see if she can look after herself,” obviously leaning toward the door so I can hear, words directed right at me. And then there is silence in my room. Fifteen minutes later the doctor gives me a prescription and asks me how I’m getting home. I cry for ten minutes before I call Michelle and ask her to pick me up.
“BJ told me not to,” Michelle says. “She told me you upset your mom. That’s a sin, Jennifer. I think it’s good her and Bryce are together. And you should too.”
I hang up the phone without saying goodbye and call a taxi. A nurse helps me get in the cab, and the driver helps me get in the house. The painkiller prescription in my jeans pocket remains unfilled and there’s only a small bit of Bacardi left. I want to get in the car and drive but I can’t. I pop six Extra-Strength Advil, lean against the arm of the couch, and turn on the TV.
An hour or so later, I hear a tiny knock at my door, like the rap of a child. As the door opens, I remember that I didn’t lock the door. A bunch of flowers stand in my doorway wearing khakis, a white shirt and the leather jacket I gave Jamie for his birthday two years ago.
“Wow, walking flowers,” I say.
Jamie moves the flowers aside and smiles. “Surprise,” he says.
“Flowers. I must be really sick.”
“I gave you flowers before. Lots of times.”
“On Valentine’s Day or if I was mad at you.”
“Not true. I gave you flowers lots of other times. I picked a flower and gave it to you the morning after we first made love.” He smiles and tilts his head in a way that makes me wish I could kiss him.
“Really? I don’t think so.”
“You honestly don’t remember that?”
“No.”
I remember everything about it. I can almost feel his lips all over me that first night in my bed. The way he smelled of sweat and Ivory soap, the way his tongue felt inside my mouth, the way his lips brushed my nipple, making me shudder before he took it into his mouth and sucked while I reached my hand down to the zipper in his jeans, unzipped them and released what had been straining against the denim. My fingernails, short as they were, dug in his back in the moment we shuddered together.
The next morning I woke to a half-empty bed. With Jamie nowhere to be seen, I thought I’d lost the first thing I ever desperately wanted as a grown-up. Until he showed up at my bedroom door with a coffee and a red rose.
“For you, madam,” he said and gently kissed me until the coffee went cold.
“That looks like one of my neighbour’s roses.”
“Hmm. Yes, well, it committed rose suicide when I went outside. Just leapt off the bush.”
“Poor, sad rose,” I said and laughed, stopping only when his lips covered mine again and we fell back down to the bed for another round of Jamie.
“Well, I did give you a flower,” Jamie says, bringing me back to the present. “A rose, to be exact.” He places the bouquet of wildflowers, complete with vase, down on my coffee table.
“I’m not supposed to be here. BJ thinks we’re enabling your self-destructive behaviour.”
“BJ is a bitch sometimes.”
“So are you.”
I nod. “Yet you’re here.”
“I am. But I feel bad because I kicked you.” And when he moves to me, he touches my face and kisses my lips. I don’t push him away.
11
THENEXT DAY I wake up with a pain in my side and Jamie in my bed. There had been no sex but he had held me and kissed me and I welcomed him to share the bed with me. Our bed. The headboard and mattress we picked out two weeks after our wedding. The sheets we’d slept on so many nights. The bedspread on which he’d made love to me many times.
I stare at him as he sleeps. His eyelashes are long and golden. I’ve admired them since I met him. His nose is long and aquiline, the perfect Jamie nose, I often called it. His face has tiny pockmarks you’d have to be this close and staring in order to see. And his lips, his lips are full, full of so much I want but am afraid of. Yet I can’t stop myself and I kiss them gently, just a brush.
He returns a long, soft kiss, his tongue playing around inside my mouth, making me curse the pain in my side. He keeps his eyes closed until he pulls himself away, opens them, revealing ocean-blue eyes, the colour always different depending on the lighting. The chameleon of eyes.
“I thought I was dreaming,” he whispers.
“Not unless your dream involves me trying not to breathe with the pain in my side.”
“In my dream, all your pain would be gone.” He kisses my forehead.
The day goes well. Jamie tends to me, we rent a movie and drink wine in the evening, going to bed again with no pressure for anything but companionship and sleep. I don’t ask him to leave. Not once.
I don’t hear from Mom, BJ, or Michelle and I wonder what would have happened to me i
f Jamie hadn’t shown up. I’d missed brunch and no one even bothered to call. I go to sleep grateful for Jamie and feeling a little less sore. The next three days are the same—relaxed, easy, boring. Jamie goes to work a couple of times to check in and tells me that Bryce knows where he is if he needs anything.
But on the fourth night he is there, things change. Lying in bed, Jamie’s hand on my arm, I’m back on to him when I say, “I think my ribs are a lot better now.”
“Good,” he says.
I turn around and touch his face. “No, I mean I think I could move a lot now.” I raise my eyebrows.
“Oh. Well …”
“You don’t want to?”
“No. It’s just that … the last time you said I was just to make you forget. I need to know that’s not what this is about.”
I stare at him. He closes his eyes. In a minute he is out of the bed.
“Jamie. I want you. I’m not saying I need you but I want you. I don’t know why. I haven’t analyzed it. But I want you and that’s all I can tell you.” I say this even though I know there is an emptiness inside me I need him to fill.
I’m not sure who is hungrier. No words are spoken. Nothing. Only two people locked in something wild and passionate. It hurts my ribs — to the point that sometimes I can’t breathe — but the explosion inside me once we get there makes it worth it. I roll over and Jamie holds me, telling me how much he missed me, how happy he is to be with me. He hardly pauses for me to say anything back and if he does, I feel no urge to fill the silence. I say nothing and try not to think about exactly what it is I am not doing.
The phone wakes me up with a start and a quick jolt of pain to my ribs, having performed a less than careful move. In the darkness, I reach over to grab the phone, touch Jamie, and let out a yelp. This body I had lain next to for so many years startles me in the dark by its presence.
Jamie sits up and says, “What? What?” in the instant before the phone rings again.
“Who is it?” Jamie asks me as he reaches for the phone.
“Don’t answer that,” I scream and lie across him to grab it. No one needs to know he’s here.
“Hello?”
“Jennifer,” Mom’s voice says. The clock tells me it’s 2:53. I know this call will change things. Mom isn’t the call-to-chat-about-things-at-2:53 type of person.