“Janelle, are you all right?” my mother asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just tired.”
I took the kids home and went about my day. I did a few loads of laundry. Straightened up. What was I thinking?
Frank came home, and I didn’t say anything. I even let him kiss me and went along with everything. We went out to dinner. Talked about whatever.
Time went slowly because I wanted it to move forward. Get the girls in bed, I kept telling myself. Don’t say anything until then because there will be a scene. There will be yelling and things thrown. Don’t expose the kids to such an awful thing.
Somehow, I got through it. Tucked the kids in bed and waited until they were asleep. That’s when we usually watched the news and let the day unwind.
“How was your golf game?” I asked Frank.
“Played shitty today,” he said, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “I don’t know what happened to my putting game. Not to mention all the balls I lost.”
“I see,” I said. “Who’d you play with? Jim and the gang?”
“Yes,” he said. “Though with the way I played I doubt whether they’ll invite me again. I stunk it up.”
“Which course did you play?”
“Brighton Gates,” he said. “You’ve never seemed so interested in my game before.”
“Okay,” I said, about to let loose. Keep control, I told myself. Don’t lose it. “How about another topic?”
“The weather?” He laughed.
“Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything I should know? Any surprises?” I tried to keep my voice polite.
“I don’t think so,” he said nonchalantly. But I could tell he knew something was wrong. “What’s up?”
“Don’t say anything,” I said. “Just let me say this. It was an accident, but I followed you this afternoon to that house.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“Let me finish,” I snapped at him. “To that house off the east interstate. On Shooting Star. I sneaked around back and saw you and that man. You were kissing each other. Your shirts were off. He was taking off your pants. Your hands were on him. Angie was with me. She’ll tell you about the house. But she didn’t see anything. Please don’t deny it.”
I saw Frank swallow. His face went ashen, and he breathed deeply. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. “Oh God,” he said. “I didn’t want this to happen.”
“It happened.”
“He came on to me.” He started talking quickly, spewing out words. “This has never happened before. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“How long?” I asked.
“Today was the second time.”
“Why a man? That’s disgusting. I can’t believe it. You’re sick. You’re just sick. You need help.”
“You’re saying you would have preferred it had been with a woman?”
“Has there ever been another woman?”
“No,” he said. “And there never will be. Absolutely not. I love you.”
“Don’t think for a second that I don’t feel just as betrayed and cheated on. Even worse. A man? Oh, Frank.”
“I know,” he said. “I know.”
Then a great distance opened between us, and he looked away.
“Please leave,” I said. “Please leave now.”
He didn’t put up a fight. I didn’t get up from where I sat on the sofa as he went to pack a few things. He came out of the bedroom with a small suitcase and stood in front of me. But he didn’t say anything. His face was wet. He bit his lower lip.
Then he hung his head and walked out. I heard the garage door go up, its slow motor growling through the house. Heard the car start and back away. Then the garage door coming down, this time with a dark thud.
That was the last time I saw Frank alive.
I listened to the quiet house for a while, then lay down on the couch and cried and let the destruction sink in. What would I do tomorrow?
I didn’t call anyone. Didn’t tell my parents that evening. Even the next day I refused to say a word to anyone. I dropped the kids off at school and day care and came home and got back in bed and stayed there most of the day, watching a few soap operas.
Late that evening the phone rang. It was the hospital. I remember it was a female voice, but that’s about all. Frank had been shot. He was dead. That’s when I lost myself in a dizzy sea. I called my parents and cried to them about the accident or murder or whatever you want to call it. But I didn’t tell them about Frank being with a man.
* * * *
Allowing Frank to be used as a full-body organ donor was a mistake. I know that now. At the time, though, it seemed right. A perfect combination of revenge and love. I don’t know. It was a snap decision that I felt good about when I made it. Even through the memorial service and for the next few days when people were calling and visiting so frequently, I felt good knowing that, in death, Frank was doing something noble and important.
That has all fallen away from me now. As have my feelings of hurt and betrayal. I know it’s all hindsight, and I know I would feel different if Frank were still alive, but I think perhaps I might have forgiven him for his escapade. I keep playing out small dramas, little scenarios in my head, about how we might have reconciled.
I imagine that he would have tried to call. I’d have refused him, of course. Hung up the phone. Then, after a few days when he called again or showed up at the door I would be indignant and put my hands on my hips and say something like, “I don’t have anything to say to you.” He would have said, “Just hear me out and then I’ll leave if you want,” or something like that, and I would have listened with an angry face and still sent him away. Then, perhaps a week later, I might have consented to a meeting and we’d talk about it, and the scene of him in that man’s arms would start to fade. And he’d apologize profusely, of course. He’d be groveling and crying.
That’s how I can envision him coming back into our lives. I can almost picture the scene of his full return, suitcase in hand, the girls running to him and being embraced and lifted into the air. “We missed you, Daddy!” they’d say, and he’d say, “I missed you, too.”
How long would it be before we’d make love again? I wonder how strained or wonderful it might be. Perhaps a bit playful. “Did he touch you like this?” I’d taunt him. “I bet he didn’t do this.” Who knows, maybe it might have added a little spice to our sex lives.
It’s a fantasy, I know. I probably would have divorced him.
I miss sex with Frank. I miss sex, period. His was a broad-shouldered enveloping love. He was creative and active in bed and didn’t feel fully satisfied unless he’d taken me through several positions. He liked to start on our sides then flip me over on my knees. We’d often finish with a more traditional position, him on top, but he’d push my knees to my shoulders and fill me completely with the ceaseless, deep rhythm I liked.
But now he’s gone.
Certainly, the most crushing thing about his absence has been its effect on our children. Mandy, my oldest, has suffered badly. Maybe because she understands the concept of death the most. She cried for days and slept with me for several nights. She refused to go to school for a week. How I hurt for her. My middle one, Janice, seems kind of lost, but I think she’s doing rather well, even supporting Mandy in a tender way. Angie misses her father, I know that, but she’s moved on and seems to be more interested in being potty trained. I’ve tried to be strong for them.
Soon, something started to nag at me. I don’t know what it was, but at first it seemed physical. I couldn’t eat anything. That’s when I accepted something inside me that called, something that yearned for Frank.
I had to see him.
Knowing that he might be alive somewhere was unbearable. I knew it wasn’t him anymore. That it was just his body. But it was still him all the same. Was he walking and living? Did he have a new life? Would I walk down the street one day and see him
suddenly come out of a store and not know me?
I kept thinking about him. About his eyes and hair. About the way he stood. His exaggerated, swaggering walk. Those things still existed. I could touch him.
I called Dr. Bernstein and asked to see Frank but was told absolutely not.
“Sorry,” he said. “The procedure was not successful.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I know he’s alive. I feel it.”
“I’m sorry you don’t believe me.”
“I can tell in your voice.”
“It can’t be arranged,” he explained. “I’m sure you know that. Please read the release form you signed. Even if he was alive, seeing the donor is really out of the question.”
“Then how is he?” I asked, probing.
“He’s no longer alive, I’m telling you. Besides, I’m really not at liberty to discuss that.”
“Is he alive?” I persisted. “I want to see proof. You’re not being honest with me. After the sacrifice I made for you.”
“I can’t discuss this,” said Dr. Bernstein, and I could tell he was annoyed. “I shouldn’t even be talking to you. Your contacting me is a breach of your release. Please understand. It’s too late. What’s done is done. Whether the procedure was successful or not is beside the point. Your husband’s body doesn’t belong to you anymore.”
“I want to see him,” I insisted.
“You can’t,” he said firmly. “I mean, just for argument, suppose he was alive and that the procedure was successful, and that he was fully functional. It wouldn’t be him. Do you understand that? He wouldn’t recognize you. Wouldn’t have any memory of you or the life you know. All that is gone. Wiped away. All that’s left is a container of sorts. I’m sorry.”
“I understand everything you’re saying. But I still want to see him. I think I have a right.”
“No,” he said harshly.
I called back a few more times and left messages, but my calls went unreturned. After I bullied his office personnel, he finally called back. I told him that I hadn’t changed my mind. I wanted to see Frank. And if he didn’t arrange for it to happen I would do something drastic like call the newspaper or a television station or something like that. They’d love to know about such a story. It would be a scandal. I used that word three times when I talked with Dr. Bernstein. Scandal. And I was prepared to do it, too.
The next day he called and said that it was arranged.
“This is a one-time visit,” he said. “Be in the hospital lobby tomorrow at six P.M. Alone. Don’t tell anybody. You’ll have a half hour with him. You’ll be chaperoned, of course.”
My heart lifted. For a moment, I felt alive again.
Tomorrow, I thought. Tomorrow.
7: Catherine Lavery
Before it was Howard’s decision to allow Frank’s wife to see him, it was mine. The accident, the disease, the transplant. Now the news that Frank’s wife wanted to see him.
Why had I thought this was inevitable?
It had crossed my mind that my husband could be recognized as being someone else. I could picture Howard and me walking down the street and somebody pointing at us and saying, “That’s Frank.”
The most uncomfortable thing about it was that I knew absolutely nothing about Frank or his family or where he came from or the situation surrounding his death. He was a donor named Frank and that was all I was allowed to know. Did he have a family? Children? I wondered who was mourning him.
Late at night, as I lay in bed, I thought about his family and what must be going on with them and their horror. How difficult it must be for them to know that, in a very real way, their father or husband or son might still be alive somewhere. Would they fully understand that without his brain he didn’t really exist anymore?
When Neil was a child I would sneak in his room late at night just to look at him. Such a gorgeous child. Covers usually pushed to the foot of the bed. I’d touch him and kiss him, sometimes hold him. He was such a deep sleeper that he never woke up. I could have danced him around the room and he wouldn’t have opened his eyes.
Now, as I recall holding him there, his head against my arm, his breath so sweet in the air, I can understand just how easy it is to love someone for the way they look and what they represent and the memories they trigger.
Wasn’t it understandable that Frank’s family would want to see him, to touch him, to love him, to gaze upon him and, in so doing, imbue him with emotions and feelings?
And once they saw him, could they ever let go?
Dr. Bernstein posed the question to me as to whether or not to allow Frank’s wife to visit Howard. The first thing I thought about was how I would feel if I were in her shoes.
If the tables were turned, would I want to see Howard? It’s only hypothetical, I know. But I think the answer would be yes. Because even without his brain he would, in a way, still be Howard. Wouldn’t he? The man I cared about, made love to, built a life with. I knew every line on his body. Grew old with him. Liked to cuddle with him in the morning when I was awake but he still asleep. Even a brainless Howard would still be Howard. He’d be flush and visible and real. I could touch him and hold him and cry on him.
The man in the hospital bed was really more of Frank than Howard. The 180 pounds or so that Howard weighed belonged almost entirely to Frank. The brain’s an important organ. I know that. But it is, after all, just an organ. Was it any more necessary than the heart? Than Frank’s heart?
Burdened with the decision, I spent another evening at home, alone except for Matisse, our aging collie.
What frightened me most was that I would be deciding for a lot of people. For myself, yes, but also for my family, for the doctors, and for Frank’s loved ones. Why had this decision been mine? Wasn’t this something that should have been handled at much higher levels?
No, said Dr. Bernstein. It was up to me. If I decided no, he’d support me and fight hard against it. Everything was so complicated that it gave me a mild headache. Maybe I should eat something.
I went to the kitchen and stood aimlessly in front of the open refrigerator for a few minutes. There wasn’t much to see. Some leftover pizza. Jar of pickles. Casserole. A bottle of wine. Nothing called my name so I let the door swing closed and opened the pantry. Ah, tomato soup.
The ordinary task of making a meal was nice. Fitting the can into the wall-mounted opener and watching it turn around. Scooping out the thick paste and mixing in some water. I let the minutes slip away and, with a disinterested wrist, stirred the soup in circles to create a slow whirlpool. I added some pepper and stirred some more, the black specks separating and going on their own parallel journeys.
I associated soup with the gray side of life. At least that’s what occurred to me then as I brought the soup to a simmer. As I was growing up, and even in my own family, soup found its way to the stove when it was very cold or rainy. It was the preferred food when you were sick and couldn’t keep other foods down. Soup was good for moody days or melancholy conversations with old friends, curled up on a couch with an afghan over your legs.
I filled an oversize mug with the steaming liquid and walked through the house sipping it randomly, Matisse at my heels the whole way hoping for a taste.
Matisse was a good dog, but his hips were loose and gave him pain when he stood up. He was a loyal, faithful animal, named by Howard of course, but he refused to keep to himself. If someone was walking in the house, even from one chair to another, he would go, too, his long nose at your knee, waiting to be petted or for a handout or to just find out where one of his masters was going.
Matisse followed me through the suddenly big house, memories frozen in time here and there. The coffee table where Neil hit his head, requiring stitches. The sofa where Howard negotiated the big Schelzhammer exhibit. The doggy door in which I became stuck after leaving my keys in the house and had to break in.
I walked through the house and turned on all the lights to cheer me up, but it didn’t lift my gl
oom. I stopped at an upstairs window and gulped the warm soup and looked out at the neighborhood and the stars above the rooftops. Matisse sat next to me and I scratched behind his ears where he liked it. I thought of the man I knew as Howard and whom others saw as Frank; both were right. He was in that hospital room across town. What was he thinking? Was he listening to music? Dreaming? Was a nurse reading the newspaper aloud to him as he’d requested?
I thought a lot about the part of Howard that was Frank and the new body that held him and how I wanted to be next to him and touch him again. I felt guilty thinking those things. But they were in my mind all the same and I didn’t mind having them there.
I finished the soup and let Matisse slap his long pink tongue around inside the mug. I gave him a big hug and laid my head against his soft coat. “Matisse,” I said aloud, “I’m glad you’re here.” Then I went back through the house turning off the lights and back to the kitchen to clean the pot.
As I stood at the sink I thought of an Earl Baldwin painting that had once hung in the gallery. It was an extremely large canvas of a woman doing dishes and a very realistic work of art—you saw the woman from behind leaning against the counter and in front of a vast window that looked out upon an endless meadow of yellow poppies. The sun was in front of her, leaving her almost in complete silhouette. Baldwin was always one of my favorites. He had a fantastic way of capturing the ordinary and making it seem mythic and universal.
That’s when I got the notion of going to the gallery.
I took Matisse with me, helping him into the backseat where he liked to sit and point his nose out the window that I rolled down halfway for him. What did Matisse think about during such drives? Did he sniff for other dogs, picking up territorial scents? Or was he simply enjoying the breeze and the tickle in his nose?
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