After being in India I was more inclined to think of it as unfinished karma coming back for another spin on earth. I knew young that I was stuck with the rabbit I’d pulled out of the dharma hat. I wondered how deep that all goes. Sometimes you hear adopted children, or children switched at birth, say they always knew something wasn’t quite right. Celeste might say she’s stepmother to my children, but they wouldn’t feel it, and neither would she really. She’d just drive them all crazy trying.
I was to blame for the accident. If I hadn’t left the house, none of it would have happened. If I’d just changed my mind about Jon and Celeste.
Jane was smiling. Another therapist who was just going to sit there with an enigmatic Mona Lisa smile. They must teach that in school. They probably practice it in front of mirrors.
“So I’m ultimately responsible for the whole thing,” I said. “For some reason, that seems easier. Jon’s not going to like it, he’s pretty wrapped up in blaming himself.”
“Jon has some responsibility here; you’re married.”
“Sherry said Bob was stupid nice for years, taking care of his mother who was nuts. She thought Jon was doing the same with Celeste. That it wasn’t good for either of them.”
“Sherry doesn’t sound like a stranger.”
“I’m not going to wear a wedding ring again.”
“Give it some time. I’m going to go.”
The nurse took my vitals as I was falling asleep.
∞
The burn technician rattled in with a cart and supplies to treat my finger. When the bandage came off I got my first look. The digit, as she put it, was covered in smushed white frosting. She said it was just fat. I thought a digit was a number. If I lost the finger, I’d have to learn to count by nines. I’d live in a base nine world. Or I could leave a beat where the finger had been when I counted to ten; pretend it was still there. Maybe the finger memory would count along. I wondered if I’d have phantom pain, if it would remember the four days it was dying, or the day Jon slid my wedding band on while he looked into my eyes. I needed to stop thinking about that.
The fingernail had pale turquoise polish. The next nail was frosted chartreuse green. The next frosted pink. I’d painted the nails on my left hand at Walmart. I was trying for an abalone shell look. The tech gently removed as much of the frosting as she could.
My finger still had working nerves, the air hitting it was excruciating. She shot it full of lidocaine, and then took pictures that she texted to the doctor. He texted back to go ahead. Despite the numbing, the nerve pain still broke through a few times in the warm whirlpool bath. Bits of tissue drifted away with the last of the fatty packing to reveal a mash of skin and bone. It was scraped out all the way down to blood vessels and thin puppet strings over bone where my wedding band had been. It was a tenuous connection. I stayed an observer.
“Is the doctor coming?” I asked.
“He’s in La Jolla. Welcome to the new world of medicine.”
She repacked it and bound just the last three fingers together so I could use my thumb and forefinger. It was like being given back my hand. I could pinch. I was a Therizinosaurus, a Giant Claw. Wait until I told Richard.
Seeing all that reality left me exhausted.
∞
I woke up to Jon staring out the window, looking lost. I watched him until his mind broke off from where ever it was and he glanced my way. We looked at each other, a wave of understanding washing between us. I was reassured by the fact that he didn’t smile at me. Jon was a realist. He never bored me with false cheer. I held up my bandaged hand.
“I’m a Therizinosaurus,” I said. “The Giant Claw. Too bad we don’t live in Mongolia.”
He smiled and shook his head.
“Only Hollywood dinosaurs wear nail polish,” he said.
I looked at my painted nails.
“I was going for an abalone look. Can you imagine Nancy putting on nail polish at Walmart? She’d have made them keep the store open until Ed got there. The Nancys of the world don’t go over cliffs. They make sure they’re taken care of.”
“Ed calls every day, she’s usually on speaker. They sound easy with each other, H.”
“Are they still coming?”
“Yep.”
“Jane says we should talk in terms of shared responsibility.”
“It’s my fault. I know you,” he said. “You didn’t feel safe. I was dicking around about Celeste while you were worrying about space monkeys.”
“You can’t do that. I want to be married. We can’t stay married if you did this to me.”
“Do you want to be married to me?” he asked. “You know what? Don’t answer that, it’s not fair. You can decide when you’re healed.”
“Where are Chance and Meggie?”
“Out front with your mom and Arthur. Meggie insists we all call her Angel now. They’re fine. Maybe you should skip a day, you need rest.”
“I saw what’s left of my finger today. I don’t know if they can save it.”
“It will be fine either way.”
“It’s not your finger.”
“I know. I wish we could trade places.”
We were quiet for a few minutes.
“Maybe I should rest this afternoon. It feels like too much to get up and go outside.”
“Okay. They can take the kids home.”
He left and I imagined him walking out into the sunny courtyard, squinting. He needed to wear his sunglasses more, but they were always covered with fingerprints so they spent most of the time on top of his head. Mom was probably swaying with Chance while Arthur herded Meggie on her tricycle. She kept trying to ride in the hospital door because she thought I was just on the other side. How thoughtless could I be? It took some awkward twisting around, but I managed to get the phone. I called Jon.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Come get me.”
I called the nurse to help me get dressed.
∞
Jon pushed me out into the sun.
“I wish you’d wear your sunglasses,” I said. “You’re going to end up with cataracts.”
“They’re covered with Nutella. I don’t know who bought it. They’re not talking. Megs is totally wired.”
“And they think we’re teenagers.”
One day of Nutella-charged practice and Meggie had mastered her tricycle. She rode in tight circles and stuck out her foot when she started to tip over. I called to her.
“Hey, Angel! Show me how fast you can go.”
“Mama!”
She started barreling my way.
“You need to run interference,” I said to Jon.
“She’s stuck some pinpoint landings on your wheelchair ramp. She already burned through the toes of her new shoes.”
She flew my way. He stepped out in front and herded her to my left side. He was right. She pulled up next to me and stopped with smoking tires and toes. Okay, that might be an overstatement. She looked at my face like she was reading a chart, looking for familiar outposts. She smiled under a fuzzy milk mustache and streaks of Nutella.
“Hi, Angel,” I said.
She almost tipped over when she leaned out to get her arms around me. Jon scooped her up and flew her slowly in my direction.
She buried her blonde head in my neck. I kissed the top of her head and used my pincher to stroke the soft tendrils that had escaped her French braids to swirl around her neck. Her little girl sweat was mixed with fruity shampoo, ocean, and the faintest under note of pig. She pulled back and tried to touch my black and blue nose with her finger. Jon started to pull her away.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Gentle, Angel, it hurts.”
She pulled her finger away and planted a soft kiss on the side of my eye, one of the only spots that wasn’t a strange color.
“Thank you, Angel. It feels better now.”
She smiled and struggled to get put down and back on her ride. Away she went. Jon pushed me over to Mom and Arthur at the picnic
table. Mom had Chance propped up on her lap and waved his hand at me as we got near. His silly hand waving didn’t match the riveted look on his face. He pedaled his legs and squawked, as I got close.
“He knows me,” I said to Jon.
“Hi, Sweetie,” said Mom. “I like your haircut.”
She started to cry. Chance rotated his head like an owl, looked at her, and then he started to cry. Meggie pulled up on her trike, took one look at the cryfest and she started in. I finally threw in the towel and joined them. My mother has a miraculous way of focusing the attention on herself and then taking everyone down with her. Arthur, aka The Saint, handed Chance to Jon and picked up Meggie which meant getting whatever was on her grimy hands on his impeccably clean white shirt.
“Come on, Angel, it’s time for a snack,” he said. “Jackie, you bring her trike.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“You’re a beautiful cat,” he said.
Meggie stopped crying. Arthur had that effect on her. He leaned her over so she could give me a kiss on the ear. Her panty little breath was sweet.
“Don’t hop, Mama.”
“Okay, Angel.”
Mom apologized as she gathered their things.
“Is that a hickey, Mom?”
“Very funny, Hannah. You slept in your own bed when you were her age.”
“She’s upset, Mom. You should knock off the Nutella if you want her to sleep. You’re filling her up with sugar. She likes almond butter on celery.”
Mom stuck her tongue out at me and caught up with Arthur and Meggie who were headed to the car.
“Did you see that?” I asked Jon.
“Yeah, it’s time for you to come home. I’ve lost control of the situation. She’s a bad influence on the House Elf. Things aren’t as spotless as usual. They’ve got a bridge table set up on the lanai. They play bridge while Chance swills Karo and Megs and Chop lick Nutella off a spoon.”
He dug containers of sushi out of a bed of ice and loaded chopsticks.
“I don’t want you to have to take care of me all the time,” I said.
“I can take care of you.”
“I’m so sorry to throw such a monkey wrench into your life,” I said.
He stopped the chopsticks halfway to my mouth.
“When did it become just my life?” he asked.
“I just meant that you’ve had to do everything. All the worrying. All the decision-making. You bring me all my meals. I have nothing to offer in return.”
“Would you do it for me?”
“Of course,” I said. “I love you more than anyone on the planet.”
“I love you more than anyone on or off the planet,” he said.
“Off the planet? Every parallel universe?”
“Every parallel universe of every parallel universe times infinity. This isn’t about it being a fair trade as you once said. We’re not keeping score here.”
“When did I say that?”
“After we first met and you were back in L.A. yelling and hanging up on me. You said you’d exchanged sex for me taking care of you. Something like that. That it was a fair trade.”
“I did not.”
“Oh yeah, you did. It’s the one thing you said in all the yelling that made me consider not calling you again. I’d never been accused of bartering for sex.”
“I’m sorry I insulted you.”
“You insulted yourself. I might barter.”
“Why did you call me again?”
“I decided you had good reason to be upset, so I’d give you a one time pass.”
“That was big of you. I haven’t said it again.”
“You just came pretty close.”
“Well, marriage is a partnership,” I said.
“For life, H. Not just this week or this year. I’m in this for the long haul. Sometimes I wonder about you.”
“I am too.”
“You don’t have to say that because you’re hungry. Even if you told me today that you were leaving me, I’d be here feeding you until you’re whole.”
“Because I’m the mother of your children.”
He looked at me like maybe he was going to poke my eyes out with the chopsticks. I hoped they didn’t have wasabi on them. Chance was glued to his face. Poor kid. He was trapped living next to parents who were either slathering all over each other while they prayed to oh god Jesus okay Hannah, or who were dickering about who was going to begrudgingly feed whom in the year twenty-seventy. Humor rippled across Jon’s face.
“You’ve always been like wrestling an octopus,” he said. “I’d let you eat hospital food if that’s all it was. I’m going to love you at the end of this. I’m pretty basic that way. I don’t waste time making the same decision over and over.”
“Okay. Well. Ditto for me.”
“That’s it?”
“Can I have pudding now?”
“It’s not pudding. Sherry shipped a rhubarb pie. You can’t have any until you eat sushi. You want wasabi in your soy sauce?”
“Are you going to poke me in the eye with a chopstick?”
“Not if you have your mouth open.”
He fed me with one hand and held a bottle for Chance in the other. Chance had his eyes closed.
“I love how he closes his eyes when he eats,” I said. “It must help him concentrate.”
“He’s pretending it’s you,” said Jon.
“How are you doing with that? Not having me around to take advantage of.”
“I’m handling it.”
He was focused on getting loaded chopsticks to my mouth while keeping the bottle attached to Chance. It’s not as easy as it sounds. I was smiling at him. He looked into my eyes and said, “Literally.”
I started laughing. Chance opened his eyes, broke contact, kicked his feet a few times and smiled.
“He loves to hear his mama laugh,” said Jon.
∞
I spent the afternoon sleeping. Jimmy came in at the end of the day and stuck me full of needles. A few were notable.
“That was a zinger,” I said. “Like an electric shock.”
He nodded and sadistically stuck in a few more.
“I felt it when Meggie and Chance sparked to life,” I said. “Have you heard of that?”
“Most doctors think you’re feeling ovulation.”
“Most doctors are men and have no idea what they’re talking about. This was different. It was like a tiny star exploded in a distant galaxy. I had a vision of bursting white light in a dark red space.”
“Did you feel it last time?”
“No. What do you think?”
“I think we are energy, in a field of energy that we emerge from and go back to.”
“That’s elastic.”
“Elastic?”
“Well it’s not like a grinding karmic wheel where what we were before determines what we are next. Trudging toward enlightenment, hoping to hell we got something right last time around. Blaming mishaps on bad karma. I don’t see a big difference between that and being born with original sin. You start out with a strike or two against you. Not that I know much about any of it. Do you believe in karma?”
“I don’t think of it as circular,” he said. “But I do think the energy we manifest in this life has resonance down the road.”
“Resonance sounds like karma,” I said. “I’ve decided that religion is just about who controls the outcome, the individual or some god. God is just another word for karma. Piss him off and he clobbers you with a setback. So I guess it’s always the individual. Maybe praying is just a vision board without the board. I should probably start praying. Do our bodies know the future?”
“You have a busy mind,” he said.
“I know. I’ll be quiet.”
“Just while I do this.”
“Oh brother,” I said.
He smiled while he tapped in the last of the needles then sat down to work his puzzle. I thought about the idea of knowing the future. I had known
that my father was going to die, but that was it. The rest of my life was nothing but big fat surprises coming around blind curves. A cosmic roulette wheel.
“Are you married?” I asked.
“I live with someone,” he said.
“Do you have children?”
“We have dogs. We might adopt.”
“Should I be quiet?”
“You should focus on healing. That’s what we’re doing here now,” he said.
“Be here now. Ram Dass. My father had that book. I loved the cover art, words in a circle. I had a lover, well, for two nights, named Alan Watts. I talked to him a few weeks ago.”
“Be here now,” he said.
“Okay. I don’t meditate though.”
“I believe that.”
∞
Jon brought dinner from Penny. Penny follows recipes as religiously as my mother avoids them.
“They joked about sending you a Nutella crepe,” said Jon.
“Oh brother. They need to leave.”
“Yep. How’s that taste?”
“It’s good.”
“It’s Penny flat,” he said.
“It’s home cooking.”
He fed me bites of healthy Penny flat food while I related what I could remember of my far-ranging conversation with Jimmy. Jimmy thought my jump up in mental energy, as wacky as it was, was a sign that I was reentering this energy plane.
I watched Jon’s eyes as he wiped my face with a wet washcloth. He was looking for every smidgen like he did with Meggie.
“I love to look at your face,” I said. “I love your voice, I hear it in my belly first. I was barely alive, but I could feel your voice over the guy’s phone on the cliff. I love your hands and your laugh. I love your intelligence and that you’re nice to people. I love to make love with you. I never get tired of it. I love how gentle you are with our children.”
He stopped wiping my face and stared at me like I’d sprouted Hiroshima heads. He probably figured it was the drugs talking.
“I know I don’t tell you that,” I said. “But I think it all the time. And it’s not because I’m stoned either.”
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 02 - Spring Moon Page 19