Love You Hard

by Abby Maslin

  I bolt down the hall, stopping him halfway up the steps. “I’m sorry,” I ashamedly offer. “It’s OK. You don’t have to wake my mom. I won’t do anything.”

  He stares at me with equal parts anger and trepidation, deciding whether I can be trusted, and then he shakes his head. “Fine. Don’t do that again,” he commands before climbing the rest of the stairs and returning to his bedroom.

  I return to the table to clean up the evidence of my pathetic breakdown before climbing into bed with Jack. I’ve exhausted myself with emotion, and I crawl underneath the blue-striped comforter, pressing my body against his small back, humiliated and disgusted by my actions. I don’t want to die, I think. No, I want to be saved. It’s a yearning that has chased me for months now. Friends and strangers compliment my bravery and remark on how well I’ve hung in there, but neither assessment is accurate. I’ve just been holding my breath, waiting for the darkness to pass, running from it when the occasion calls for it. That’s not bravery. It’s survival.

  Jack’s forehead, warm from the mild fever he’s been fighting, pulses electricity in the palm of my hand as I lay listening to him breathe. The world has shown its ugliness to me, and I in return have shown my own ugliness tonight. But Jack is innocent—a casualty of his family’s misfortune—and I want him to stay innocent as long as possible. I cannot fail him as I almost did tonight. And I cannot hold out hope that a man who no longer exists will save me.

  I owe it to us both to figure out how to save myself.

  CHAPTER 18

  February marches forward. And despite the cold, oyster-colored days that follow, my mood takes baby steps toward improvement. The following weekend my sister returns home from D.C. to check in on everyone. Bethany quickly realizes how burned-out I’ve become in her absence. My hopelessness has all but smothered my former ability to laugh off our family drama.

  Over that weekend my sister does what I’ve been secretly praying for someone to do: she digs deep into my business without attempting to soothe me with platitudes, and she gives me the chance to sob, unbridled, into her hair for hours. Afterward she folds out the sleeper couch in the living room of the cottage, turns on My Father the Hero, one of our favorite brainless movies, and stays with me until I fall asleep. I wish she could stay forever, of course, but she has to return to work on Monday. But when she leaves for the city that Sunday evening, I’m surprised to discover I feel lighter—no longer carrying the burden of my sadness alone.

  Saving myself means finding a way to live with things just as they are, but it also means finding a way to feel whole again. It means we have a lot of healing to do, both separately and together. I think about TC and how far he’s come in his physical therapy. He can move about without the cane now, walk two miles at an easy pace on the treadmill, and has even begun to take daily long walks around the neighborhood.

  But functional tasks such as shaving and carrying items from room to room are performed with only his dominant left hand. His right arm hangs limply at his side, no more than deadweight he must haul around with him throughout the day. At other times his arm is tense, bent at the elbow, and the spasticity in his hand causes his right fingers to curl in the shape of a claw. In these moments he resembles one of Jack’s Tyrannosaurus rex figurines, ready to attack.

  I hate the way TC’s arm makes him look so awkward, so undeniably injured—his vulnerability exposed for the world to prey upon. I can’t stop myself from my unconscious efforts to “fix” him, even though I’m aware my motivation stems from some shallow and unquenchable need for him to look the part of a strong and normal man. Often he bats me away as I press down on his right biceps, a futile effort to massage away the tension. When his fingers begin to curl, I take his right hand in mine, forcing him to drop his lifted shoulder and respond to my touch. TC’s most annoyed with me, however, when I give him that silent gesture to wipe food from his face or reach for a Kleenex to blow his nose, two sensations his right facial muscles can no longer process.

  I feel myself hovering over him like a mother hen, and I know he thinks I’m nagging. But it’s also my responsibility to draw his attention to the things he cannot see for himself. I think about his goal to return to work and how that depends not only on his ability to think and communicate appropriately but also his ability to conduct himself in a professional setting. Gently, I cue reminders, dabbing my own mouth as I eat and hoping he’ll follow.

  While I’ve had little time lately to design speech activities for the two of us to do together, it doesn’t stop TC from working on his own. In the sunroom, he has amassed a collection of books he’d like to read once his comprehension returns, beginning with Al Gore’s nearly 600-page treatise, The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change. It’s another ambitious goal, all right, especially considering he’s unable to fluently read Jack’s board books aloud.

  What TC can read in his mind and what he’s able to express in words are two different things, however. It’s the damage to his expressive speech that’s responsible for the disconnect. A person with aphasia may have full comprehension of what they are reading and still be unable to produce the sounds that make up the words. It’s harder still for TC when he’s asked to do it on command. The pressure of an external witness creates additional anxiety, which explains why I often catch him reading out loud under his breath, just barely audible. He’s trying to amass as much practice as he can get.

  In the aphasia community, there is a slogan: Aphasia is the loss of language, NOT intellect. In other words, a person’s expressive and receptive communication do not correlate to their IQ or knowledge.

  I’ve seen enough examples in TC’s recovery that I mostly trust this to be true. His retention of numbers and ability to perform calculations without help or the use of a calculator is outstanding. He can multiply multidigit numbers in his head and confirm the sum of our stock assets with a swoop of his pencil. His abilities far surpass my own mathematical aptitude.

  But language is a much trickier puzzle to make sense of. I lie in bed at night wondering if TC’s limited language also impedes his ability to think complexly about issues. Since he came home from the hospital, I have designed his days to be as simple as possible for him. He does not have to track social commitments or Jack’s daycare schedule. He’s not responsible for driving or managing the bills. His day-to-day existence revolves primarily around waking up, eating meals, and attending therapy. If he’s thinking about bigger things, perhaps curious about the details of his attack or remembering things about his former life, he cannot convey these thoughts to others. Every speech therapist assures me there’s no correlation between the complexity of TC’s thinking and what he can say, but still, I find myself worried. Is there a chance that his simple language reflects the simplicity of his thoughts?

  * * *

  Regaining his independence is a top priority for TC, something he makes clear in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day. In a not-so-subtle move at the grocery store, he asks me to step away from the cart as he slips in a greeting card he wants to surprise me with.

  As we prepare to pay, I can’t help but smile as I watch the pink-and-red card travel down the conveyor belt, its sharp, crisp edges poking out from beneath a box of cereal. On the morning of the fourteenth, he hands it to me eagerly, looking very much like a proud child delivering the homemade card he’s made at school.

  I love things you do. Happy day, wife.—TC

  The words are unconventional, but the sentiment is right. In an even more valiant effort, he attempts to make a dinner reservation for us at Café des Artistes, the French bistro up the road. His iPhone, which he’s become increasingly reliant on to record and play back his speech and to document new words in the Notes app, also allowed him to look up the name of the restaurant (which he’d forgotten), as well as the phone number. With the exception of our evening phone calls to catch up with his parents, risk-free conversations, this is TC’s first a
ttempt at speaking on the telephone. On a Post-it, he scribbles the details of what he’s planning to say: Saturday, 7 p.m., two, Maslin. He keeps the note in front of him as he dials the restaurant.

  “Um. Hello. Hi. I need to—make team . . . table for next year,” he stammers to the person on the other line, anxiously registering the pressure to speak clearly.

  “I need a reser-reser . . . table for next year,” he tries again, his brain unwilling to replace the word year with Saturday instead.

  Frustrated, he looks down at his notes, trying to decide how next to approach the request.

  “Hi.” He exhales, starting from the beginning. “For a table for, for Satur-Satur-Saturday.”

  As I pretend not to eavesdrop from the living room, I send out a silent thank-you to the patient host or hostess on the other end. One of the things that made the move down to St. Mary’s County so appealing was the hope that we’d be surrounded by even-keeled, patient strangers who might not be so quick to judge.

  It tears at me to imagine TC navigating the types of everyday situations he used to encounter in the city. A task as simple as ordering a latte from Starbucks now requires a degree of preparation and courage that all but depletes his limited energy supply for the day. I know the world is full of a cruelty and harshness that far surpasses the occasionally impatient Starbucks barista, but these minor interactions are the ones he’s likely to encounter often.

  When TC is aware that there’s a time limit to his conversations or if he can sense a degree of intolerance from the person he’s talking to, it nearly always guarantees the interaction will end badly. He becomes flustered, the words disappear, and he turns to me with a pleading look to intervene. I’m petrified to think about how he will find his way in the world again when something as simple as ordering coffee or making a dinner reservation requires such a Herculean effort.

  The world is not always kind to the disabled, a reality I’m beginning to observe firsthand. People are not conditioned to observe unusual behavior from a stranger and ponder whether that person has been affected by brain injury. In fact, I’d place large wagers on the idea that brain injury very rarely enters people’s consciousness as a possible explanation for behavior. Most likely, people think the way I used to, saying to themselves, Oh, that guy bagging groceries is straight-up crazy.

  Crazy. Nuts. Weird. Psycho. Up until six months ago, this was the parlance of my internal dialogue too. And while the term brain damaged is technically correct, I still can’t bring myself to use it. For me, brain damaged feels harsh, hopeless—a term that falsely implies none of his brain works anymore.

  Equipped with these new concepts, I’m starting to examine people differently, ashamed of how ignorantly I’ve written people off as “crazy” in my lifetime. The term disabled has always called to my mind those with obvious physical disabilities. I can’t imagine how many people I’ve unknowingly encountered over the course of my life with a mental disability. It embarrasses me to realize I’ve been walking blindly among the brain injured for a full three decades.

  At this point, I know I worry about other people’s perceptions of TC more than he worries about it himself. Until he regains the awareness to see himself as he is now, he can’t begin to conceptualize how others might see him. As a response to my worries, I have developed two conflicting internal personas:

  I am Abby Maslin: protective warrior to TC. Done with the old rules that governed my life and ready to throw up middle fingers to the world and its stupidly narrow definition of normal.

  I am also Abby Maslin: insecure, image conscious, controlling. Unsure how to value or make sense of my own existence now that it no longer fits a neat label or attractive box.

  Valentine’s Day sends my competing identities into a real tailspin. The fearless part of me wants to shout, “Fuck yes!” as I listen to TC struggle on the phone with his dinner reservation. The fact that he’s even trying is so remarkable, so thoughtful, and yet plainly badass that I want to celebrate the simple victory of his attempt. The same is true for his botched greeting card. No, his message didn’t make complete sense, but in all his struggle, he thought to get me a card at all. That is love. The struggle is love. The effort is love. It is all love.

  Not so fast, argues my weak, lamer other half. He got you a card, sure, but it was hardly a surprise and you had to pay for it. How does that even compare to the husband you had before? That guy could make fluent dinner reservations, write original poetry in his cards, and surprise you with flowers and chocolate. That’s what marriage is supposed to look like, she spits back in my face.

  It’s an incessant mental tug-of-war, even though it’s obvious who I need to silence. There is more sentiment and thought behind TC’s actions this Valentine’s Day than any other holiday we’ve celebrated together. It shouldn’t matter how it looks or that it deviates from the well-worn Hallmark bullshit I’ve internalized. But I also accept that it’s going to take time to adjust to this new life. My brain is simply doing the best that it can. Making sense of your life is no simple task when you realize the script will never be anything but an original production.

  * * *

  We are standing on the black-and-white-tiled floor of the kitchen one night trying to decode what is quickly becoming a tiring miscommunication.

  “I’m trying to tell you about what’s going on with the trials,” I say exasperatedly, needing someone, anyone to unload my day upon. I’ve just returned from the city, where I spent the day running morbid errands, among them recovering TC’s wedding ring from the concrete warehouse in Anacostia where the D.C. police department stores its evidence.

  “I don’t know about trials,” TC says, misunderstanding that I’m not asking him a question.

  “No, I’m trying to tell you what the lawyer told me.” I explain again. It’s consuming, this first court case, which is expected to go to trial in April.

  I don’t know anything about criminal cases, nor what to expect. Every few days I’m in contact with Jennifer, our victim advocate, as she breaks down the latest for me in layman’s terms. What I do know is that I’ll be testifying and TC will not. He is not yet of sound enough mind to give a legally binding testimony.

  “It’s just hard,” I try to explain. “Like, do you ever think about those guys? Does it freak you out that they’re sitting in jail right now? I hate that our lives are connected this way. I hate that we have to go through this.”

  TC offers a small smile and gestures for me to come closer. “I don’t really know about all these things,” he admits. “You know everything, and I know nothing anymore,” he says, tearing up.

  My eyes begin to well in response.

  “But,” he says, choking down a sob, “you’ve done everything for me. Do you know that?” He grips my shoulders. “I love you, honey. I love you so hard.”

  I look into his eyes, stunned to silence. TC’s broken language has punctured the heart of the matter. Love is hard. It wasn’t meant to be easy. All this time, I believed TC and I were connected by the simplicity of the connection we shared. That glance nearly eight years ago at a bar that set everything else in motion.

  But it occurs to me now that a glance is not what’s kept us bound. It’s the choice; it’s our faith in each other that inspires the effort to make it every day forward. I’ve known what it means to love in times when things are going mostly right, when your physical attraction to each other remains strong, and when life hasn’t forced you into rapid transformation. Yes, I was well versed in this amateur love, a commitment no thicker than the glaze of a crème brûlée. But real love? That messy, cavernous kind that kept ancient philosophers like Plato up at night? That’s the stuff we profess in wedding vows but know shit about when we make them. We never actually expect to put it to the test.

  My love for TC is where I must invest my faith. The question is whether I can do it. Can I abandon my old expectations? Can I block
out all of that societally imposed imagery of “pretty” love, in exchange for something far more complex and far less seductive? Can I bury my attachment to the old TC in order to find love with the new one?

  While I want to believe I’m fearless and gritty enough to reconstruct my notion of the world’s most mind-boggling phenomenon, I must also accept that I’m human: selfish, imperfect, and prone to error. I can’t make my heart stop wanting what it wants, nor can I convince it of any delusion for the sake of saving my marriage.

  All I know is that I was wrong in my belief that at twenty-seven years old I understood the institution of marriage and what it takes to make things work over the course of a lifetime. I was wrong when I equated chiffon gowns and gorgeous wedding photos with a happy, meaningful life. I was wrong in thinking that I loved the old TC to the fullest extent I could, when, in retrospect, much of what I loved was encompassed in his abilities—the things he could do, the things he could give me, the way he made me feel. My love for him back then was a reflection of myself. It was not yet rooted in the contents of his soul.

  I don’t yet know what it means to love soulfully. I’ve never taken a close enough examination of my own soul or anyone else’s to declare this kind of love. But I’m willing to try. There’s no way I can save this marriage if I keep comparing TC to the person we both lost. It is time to stop sitting submerged in my grief and start conquering it instead.

  And if I can find a way to genuinely and profoundly love the new TC, I’ll have done more than just save my marriage. I’ll have transformed myself in the process.