I had never pictured my life without him, and the sad fact was it might be. I wouldn’t let myself think too much of it, but I knew that no matter what, I would be okay. Better with Ford because he was the love of my life. He had made me what I was today from the love he gave me. I was the person I was today because of him, and the way he made me feel.
My mother would never break me. I would give her what her measly self wanted just to wash my hands of her.
If only making Ford better was that easy.
I picked up my phone, making the call that I was ready to make.
“Mom, I have the cashier’s check and will get it mailed to you by next weekend.”
I hung up, leaving no other sentiment. There wasn’t anything left to say. I would without a doubt be officially done with that bitch as soon as I mailed this.
Chapter 12
Elise
I had walked into the apartment to a blaring TV and a sleeping Ford. I knew he hadn’t been sleeping well because I’d felt him tossing and turning. I had gotten used to getting too little sleep too, but it was starting to weigh on me.
I lightly tapped him after putting down my purse on the coffee table and turning down the TV.
“Ford, baby … I’m home.”
I had been working at the coffee shop since I started my second year of school, and I had really enjoyed it. It was fast paced and kept me on my toes. I didn’t make much money, but I was able to help a little. Ford had always taken care of everything although we butted heads on that for a long time when I first moved in. It didn’t feel right, but he said his parents would have paid for it when he was in school, so what was the difference?
Ford had always thought about our future, and I was thankful for that. I saw the seriousness of his feelings for me, and that made it even clearer that he wasn’t playing the games a lot of college guys—hell, even high school guys—played. He was unique and one of a kind. Levelheaded and stubborn at the same time. The reason I loved him was the very same that drove me crazy.
I sat beside him as he lay dead to the world.
I ran my hand along his face and then down his back lightly.
He whimpered quietly as if he was in a deep sleep.
I observed as he slept peacefully until he wasn’t anymore.
He sat up, looking at me as if I had created a crime or violated him in some way.
“When did you get home?”
“Just a few minutes ago. You okay?”
“No … I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, and I feel like complete shit.”
I sat in silence for a few minutes, trying to say something that might make him feel better.
He stood and almost pushed me away in a smooth pursuit to avoid me.
“Can’t we talk for a minute? I just got home from work and wanted to spend time with you.”
“I’m tired, Elise.”
“You are always tired. Did you work today?”
“I’ve already taken a leave of absence.”
“I know, but I thought you would miss the boys on the team and go in to—”
“You’re wrong.” His voice wasn’t Ford. He was standing in front of me, but it was as if a complete stranger was talking.
I watched him, trying to figure out what I was saying that was making him so mad at me.
“I’m just worried—”
“Just stop! Stop worrying.”
“I can’t. I love you, Ford. I want to— I’m scared … What if we don’t have time to do all the things we want to do? What if we don’t get to spend …”
“Elise, I am exhausted. I don’t want to talk right now. Please …”
I walked toward him, and he put his hands on his hips, showing he wasn’t relenting.
I wanted to touch him and bring him back to reality.
“Do you want me to wake you …?”
“NO! I want to sleep and be left alone. I have a disease that is literally eating at me. I feel it, Elise. I can’t … I won’t … I need to sleep and be left ALONE!”
I started to weep as I watched him turn his back to me and walk into our room, slamming the door. The picture we had taken right after we had married fell and the glass shattered on the ground.
Symbolic? Yeah, I would say so.
*****
With all the stress, my body hadn’t been the same. I wasn’t too concerned about it due to lack of appetite and sleep but knew I had better get it checked out. I hadn’t felt like myself in a long time, but then again, who would while going through her husband being sick and the added stress.
I made it to my appointment just in time without mentioning it to Ford. The last thing I needed was for him to worry about me.
“Are you eating?”
“Some.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Not really.”
“Have you had any stressors in your life that would make you feel bad or stress you?”
Yes, you could say that I wanted to say but thought better of it. “My husband has a brain tumor.”
Dr. Allerd looked at me with pity, fighting for words, but instead, she said none. She slid her stool closer to me and took my hand.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Elise.”
“Me too.” And I was. Everything was screwed up; nothing was going as planned.
“I don’t understand why this is happening. He has made me the happiest I have ever been in my life. We were just about to move back to Humble and start our lives together. And now this … and what if he doesn’t get better? He isn’t listening to the doctor; he doesn’t want me to go through anything with him and is trying to protect me, but he is making it worse.”
“I see,” she said.
“I don’t think you do. I am losing my mind. I am trying to hold it together, but he is falling apart. We fight; he doesn’t want to leave the house. He is pulling so far from me that I fear that … he doesn’t love me anymore.”
She didn’t say a word but continued to listen.
“After moving here four years ago, everything was crystal clear. For the first time in my entire life, I was happy. I was Elise like I had never known her. And then I met Ford, and he made me the happiest woman alive. I learned what it was like to love someone and trust someone, and I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“Hmmmm …” She paused. “Would you have done anything differently since moving here if you knew that this would happen?”
“Not a single thing,” I said and fought the urge to cry.
“The majority of my patients say that, Elise. Do you know why?”
I shook my head.
“Because we all live day by day. And if you are lucky enough to fall in love, you take it for what it is worth. You don’t ask what the risks are or what could happen. You embrace it. From what you have told me, you might have a sick husband, and I am truly sorry for that, but you have a man who loves you, and you love him. Give him a little credit. I always ask my patients to put themselves in the other person’s shoes. How would they handle it? And usually, they tell me that they would do the same thing. We all have defense mechanisms, and that is what it sounds like your husband is doing. He is trying to shield you.”
I already knew that because Ford had promised to always protect me, and he felt like he wasn’t able to anymore.
“And I would like to get you started on an antidepressant. It will help. I do want to go ahead and do some bloodwork on you, though, as well just to make sure you are not anemic or have anything else that would be causing you to be sleep deprived, etcetera, just as a general precaution. I will write you the script, but don’t start it until you hear from me in a couple of days.”
“Okay …”
“And Elise, I will be praying for you and your husband. I see births and deaths every day; things I can’t figure out no matter how hard I try. But I also see miracles. We have to believe in that sometimes, don’t we?”
“Yes ma’am, we sure do. And I can think nothing less …”<
br />
“Good.”
Ford
I crawled into the fetal position as I heard Elise exit the apartment. I had become a royal ass to her, but it was for her own good. If I could remove some of the love she had for me, then she wouldn’t hurt as bad when I left this earth.
I had already been to Dr. Pelker’s office to up my depression medicine without Elise. It was bad enough with my suffering from pain, but now the depression has hit me like a Mack truck. Nothing took it away, and the thoughts running through my head were nothing short of suicide. The pain I was having wasn’t relenting, and the doctor and I both knew what that meant.
It seemed like the same conversation occurred over and over.
“You need surgery. Radiation isn’t going to work … it’s grown … medicine not working … why is Elise not here?”
I got pissy with him, and frankly, I felt bad about it, but I didn’t need marriage counseling. “I came to get my medicines adjusted. I haven’t been able to get into bed, hardly check emails from the school, and I don’t even want to see sunlight or eat. If this is the way I am going to feel, why would I want to continue living … This isn’t living … this is wasting away.”
“This is very common, Ford. You are not the only patient of mine who has gone through this. You have to push through this. And it should get better.”
“Should?” I smirked, and he wasn’t entertained by my bluntness.
“This is a game of the wills per se,” he responded.
“Well, Doc, I am about to fold.” And I was. I was making myself worse than I was feeling by trying to destroy my marriage.
He stood, determined not to waste his time arguing with me.
“This can go two ways, Ford. I can put you on the schedule, and we can get this tumor removed. God willing, you have no other issues and live a good quality life. Sure, there are risks, but if I had a wife like yours who loved you as she did, I would think you would want to at the very least try to get better for her. Do you know how many of my patients would love to have a spouse in their life as you have? Or second, you can go home and die. Your choice but don’t waste my time coming in here playing a game of hardball with me. Is it unfortunate that you have a brain tumor? Yes, it most certainly is. Can you fight it and survive it? Possibly.”
I watched him walk to the door before turning around one last time. “I wouldn’t have thought a guy who took so many hits to the head throughout his life would chicken out so quickly … but I guess that’s just me.”
And then he disappeared behind the door.
Ford
Many days over the past months, I’d been completely ashamed of myself, and today was one of those days. No one ever understands the control and power that the brain had over the body. Mentally, it would eat you alive, making you surrender all your willpower to the beast that beat you.
I had picked a fight with Elise over her trying to make me eat. She’d even made my favorite meal of chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes. I was eating a little at a time, and the medicine was making me sick every time I did. It was a revolving door, and I was fed up with it, and my wife was the same.
Elise and I had our fair share of fights. I surprisingly was usually calm, and she was quite the opposite.
I guess you could say the flame to our passion was just as strong when we disagreed.
I didn’t understand for a second why she would get so fired up and irate because I was the opposite. But finally, I got it. It was how she dealt with being treated the way she had been throughout her life, and I learned to respect it.
“Ford, baby, dinner is ready. You wanna come in here and eat?”
“No.”
“Come on, Ford. I just cooked this meal for you, hoping to get you to eat.” The disappointment in her voice was clear, and I felt bad for refusing it.
“I don’t want it.”
A few minutes later, I hear the pans clicking and clacking and grunts of frustration followed by the door slamming shut.
A couple of hours later, I awoke, realizing I had fallen asleep with my stomach turning or so I thought. After a few minutes, it came to me that it wasn’t my stomach that woke me but more the void that I was feeling and had been experiencing from the absence of my wife.
Elise
Ford treated me horribly tonight, and I’d had enough. I left after putting up the dinner I had spent over an hour cooking and went to buy a bottle of wine, followed by a visit to the park. I sat for what seemed like hours, drinking my wine and thinking about how things had slipped right out from under my fingertips.
I went over every detail; although the more I drank, the more the details became foggy. But one thing remained clear. I loved that man, for better or worse.
When the wine had taken full effect, I went back to our apartment and lay on the couch without turning the TV on. There wasn’t a damn thing I needed to see other than my husband back to himself. I had decided, though, I was in this for the long haul, so if he was hateful to me, I had resolved to take it. He was still my Ford.
I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable. I closed my eyes and tried to think of the times we had together, the times when there was no doubt of our love for each other. But I also thought of the disease that had taken over Ford’s body beyond his control and how I feared that there wasn’t a damn thing that could be done about it. With that thought, I kept my eyes closed in disappointment. I hoped and prayed I was mistaken, and this was all a bad, horrible dream.
Opening my eyes, I jump at the sight of Ford sitting in front of me on the coffee table with one hand on his knee, and his face focused on my every move.
I sat up ever so slightly to determine if it was a figment of my imagination.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly.
“I wasn’t sleeping. I can never sleep when we fight.”
He leaned in closer but didn’t touch me, didn’t reach for me, and didn’t say the words I needed to hear to ease my heartache.
“I am sorry for being such a prick. I know you were only trying to get me to eat.”
“It’s okay … I really don’t know what else to do.” I stated the fact that I knew. There were so many others that I didn’t.
“Elise, sweetheart, it isn’t you … and I am sorry that I took it out on you. I just can’t seem to make myself eat because I get so sick afterward.”
“But I want you to try … Your body needs it.”
“I know what my body needs. And it needs to …”
He looks down, and I am fearful of what he is going to say. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
“It needs what, Ford?”
I wait, holding my breath.
“It needs to be next to its wife. Come to bed with me please …”
He held out his hand, and I grabbed it without a second thought.
Sometimes, my Ford would come back to me, and right now, he was here. I savored those moments because I didn’t know how long they would last.
Chapter 13
Elise
I saw Ford slipping further and further away from me. I tried harder, but I felt myself also withdrawing from him unintentionally. All he seemed to do anymore was sleep and complain about his head. To add insult to injury, I knew he was trying to hide his depression, but it was as clear as a huge red x marked on his forehead. We hadn’t made love in what seemed like months, he was hateful to me when he did talk, and all our conversations turned into a spat that left us both miserable. He wasn’t confiding in me and I in him. We were two lost souls at this point, and it was hard to admit that this was happening to us. Ford and Elise Kelly were falling apart. There was no amount of glue strong enough to put our pieces back together. Watching someone you love go through this was heartbreaking and made you wonder if things would ever be the same. I was starting to feel the weight of his illness on me, and I feared it would bury me, and I wasn’t going to want to fight. Yes, he was depressed, but so was I. My body didn’t feel the same anymore.
He pulled from me, and the pain it inflicted caused me to spend my days crying or angry.
I had to stop this vicious cycle we were in, but how?
I walked into our room, pulling open the curtains, and saw he was wide awake looking at the ceiling.
“Ford.”
“What?” His voice used to sound like it was calling me, but now, it seemed like it was running from me.
“Can we talk?”
“About?”
I took a seat beside him on the bed. How can he say about?
“We are fighting all the time, and we haven’t made love in far too long. You seem to be slipping away from me, pulling away like you don’t want to be with me anymore.”
“And?” Was the only response I got from the man I loved. And?
“I just …” I prayed briefly that somewhere, somehow, the Ford I fell in love with would speak up and demolish this man who had taken over his body.
“I love you, Ford. I don’t know what I can do to make this go away, but I don’t like the way we are to each other right now. You are the most important person in my life, and it hurts me so badly when every time we talk, we fight. You won’t lay close to me at night, won’t do anything with me; you act like we are strangers or roommates. We were supposed to be looking for a place in Humble so we could move out of here. Everything feels like it has been on hold and …”
“Hold?” he repeats.
“Yes.”
“Elise, I don’t have anything to say that is going to make you feel better. I hardly know myself anymore. I’ve had to stop working full time because everything I do pounds in my head and I can hardly keep my eyes open, but yes, let me figure out how to make you happy. That sounds fair, doesn’t it?”
I was shocked and pissed at his words.
“How can you say that to me?”
“As far as moving out of this place, you can do whatever you want.”
“Ford, we are in this together. Why are you pushing me away? Why are you treating me this way?”
Changing Us Page 13