People had run down to the water and formed a chain. They were pulling out stunned humans as they washed up within reach, a tug-of-war with Mother Nature. I got in line and took my smacking. I washed in dazed and confused and grabbed the hand that reached out for dear life. It was Jon. He was on the way back from picking up Chana at the airport and thought they’d stop to say hello. I had to pull my top down over my breasts, pull my bottom out of my sandy butt crack and then shake a blob of sand out of the crotch lining. If toying with the ocean isn’t a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.
“I hate when that happens,” I said. “At least I didn’t lose my suit.”
The guy next to me was fencing with the waves wearing nothing but a band of white skin, and a dark patch of pubic hair. His trunks were washing in-and-out. When he finally grabbed them everyone yelled, “Ole!”
They stayed a few minutes while the women asked Chana how her Christmas had been with her mother. It was nice to feel the group of women holding her in their circle.
I went home. Jon was going to be at work until closing; he wouldn’t be coming over. I checked in with Karin, nothing had changed which I took as a good sign. I told her I had skipped the pink bunny and cut to the chase, and that it had an added dimension I couldn’t quite describe. That I’d not only licked his pineapple ear, but that I’d met a higher power.
“You called him god?” she said. “Not just ‘oh god, oh please please baby, oh god’?”
“I didn’t call him god, I said I’d met god,” I clarified. “I think I said the other stuff too.”
Boy do I hate it when I open my mouth and my mother falls out. I was really parsing the point. She hadn’t said she drinks too much; she said I said she drinks too much. Ack.
“Crap, now I sound like my mother,” I said. “Can you imagine what he must be thinking? He made a point of saying he wouldn’t see me tonight. He’ll probably hide now until I leave.”
“Or show up in flowing robes. He’s probably growing a beard.”
“Oh my god. Or, oh my higher power, will I ever learn how to do this?”
“You met god, you’re doing it. I gotta run, I locked the kids out, they’re attracting the neighbor’s attention.”
I called Mom and heard about her new dress and comfortable shoes for New Years. Anna and Eric weren’t home. I fell asleep sitting up reading in bed. When I woke up the next morning Jon was asleep beside me; he’d turned off the light, put my book aside and slid me down. I peeked under the sheet, no robes.
“How’d you know I wasn’t here with someone?” I asked.
“Mike’s gone so I took a chance. All your lights were on when I got home. Your door was wide open and you were sound asleep sitting up, lit up like a scene in a horror movie. It’s a good thing I’m the only one who wandered over. You were out of it.”
“Thank you, my neck would be killing me. I don’t know why I’m so tired.”
“You want to meet god again?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean god, it was more like a higher power.”
“I’m pretty sure I know what you meant. I saw some white light.”
“White light?” I asked.
“Shhhh,” he said. “Let’s just do this.”
We had a little more spirituality before fruit and coffee.
We hiked out to the waterfall. It’s all very Tarzan. There’s a rope swing and a slimy ladder made of branches to climb back up to the top and swing or jump off again. My arms were getting tired and I mistimed my last swing. I landed in a full court back flop. Ouch. Not exactly me-Jane material. It felt like the entire universe had taken it upon itself to spank me out of my last breath. Jon was already in the water.
“That must have hurt,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I can’t hear you making fun of me over the ringing in my ears.”
“Come on, Hannah, move your arms and legs. I want to see you’re okay.”
I wiggled my fingers and toes; apparently my spinal cord was still intact.
“I think I am. I’m sure my posture is better.”
I rolled over and treaded water. Everyone had been watching in silence from the rocks. When I finally moved they rained down on me from the cliff, sending cannonballs of water my way and howling with laughter.
“It’s a good thing you landed so flat,” said Chana. “People have died here doing that.”
“Always a silver lining,” I said.
We ate a picnic lunch in the warm blowing mist of the falls and hiked home. Jon ran his finger down my spinal column; he said I looked sunburned. They invited me over for an early dinner, then Chana was going to spend the night at a friend’s and Jon was going into work for a while.
I found a piece of driftwood with a hole that fit a used glass jar perfectly. Then rooted around the cottage for greenery and a few flowers that I turned into a modest ikebana arrangement to take as an offering.
Jon put it in the middle of the table and Chana lit a few tealights around it. Their house was similar to Victor and Kaia’s, but in much better condition. Everything that should have sagged had been reinforced. Jon had scraped all the paint off the mullions and painted them white which contrasted nicely with the dark green exterior and the soft neutral color on the inside walls. The bare floors were sanded and sealed. The furniture was eclectic and spare. For some reason I had imagined a 1970s surfer pad with hatch cover tables under heavy resin. Far from it.
The kitchen had been remodeled, but he hadn’t gone overboard. He’d used a restored O’Keefe & Merritt stove with all the bells and whistles circa 1950, and a white refrigerator.
“That stove is great,” I said. “I would have guessed a Wolf.”
He smiled. “It belonged to my grandparents. I can go to work any time I feel the need to clean grease off stainless steel.”
The bookcases were jammed with books behind well-used reading chairs and good lights. There were piles of magazines sitting around. They ranged from Surfer to Scientific American to restaurant. Chana had a pile of Teen Vogue topped by a calculus textbook. Laptops and cords wound around on the floor. CDs spilled out of a box by the sound system. Except for the slack key music and the sound of surf through wide-open windows, it reminded me of Margaret and Ed’s apartment in New York.
I leaned against the kitchen counter and listened to them kid comfortably while they fixed dinner. The refrigerator was covered with photographs; lots were of Chana, a few looked like they were Chana and her mother. Lots were of Jon with various women. My heart pinched over those. I must have gone still because he was looking at me, his expression unreadable, when I broke away from the montage and looked back at him. I don’t know how my face looked; it felt slack. I smiled at him. It didn’t reach my eyes. Chana glanced up and looked back and forth between us.
“Salad’s ready,” she said. She held up red-stained hands. “That’s the last time I use pomegranate seeds.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just standing here. I should have shown you how to do it underwater,” I said. “It’s much easier, no mess.”
We sat down to dinner. We ate and made small talk. Chana planned to major in engineering at either UCLA or Cal Tech. I said I thought it was no contest; I’d go for Cal Tech if I could get in. She wanted to know about L.A. I started waxing poetic about how much fun L.A. can be; about the music clubs and getting henna tattoos on Venice Beach. I told her the only downside was that the water in Santa Monica Bay was pretty funky. Jon was frowning.
I switched over to telling her Cal Tech was in a great part of town. She could live in Pasadena, hike the Sierra Madres, and dip in and out of L.A. without the hassle. Jon was nodding along in the kitchen as he rinsed dishes. We finished clearing the table and I headed home so they could take off.
I was reading when Jon came over a few hours later with a whole passion fruit pie.
“We didn’t offer you dessert,” he said. “Sorry it was so rushed.”
“It’s okay. You two get along great, you’re a good team. It was
nice to see your house. It isn’t what I expected.”
He filled me in on work while we ate pie. People were behaving just fine on Kauai, but the other two places were cutting loose.
In Honolulu a woman had been blowing out the candles on her birthday cake when her hairspray caught on fire. Fire had flashed across the surface of her hair like a sparkler then was gone. Besides gaping mouths, a few singed hairs were the only evidence. The restaurant had provided the candles; there could be a lawsuit. There had been a small grease fire in the Maui kitchen.
He was leaving the next afternoon to make the rounds and meet with the insurance guy. He invited me to go; we could ring in the New Year on a different island. I thought it sounded fun, but I reminded him that I needed to get back to leave. He said he needed to get back to check on Chana.
“You’re as busy as a bigamist with the restaurants,” I said.
“You got that right,” he said.
“Where are the other two?”
“The Big Island. We thought they’d be raising Chana. It would have been less hassle for them.”
He looked at my back, “This still looks upset. Is it okay if I stay over?”
“I’m okay, Jon.” I said. “I’m just a little tired of all the knocking around. Do you think the universe is trying to send me a message?”
“I don’t know about the universe, hula girl, but I’m about to.”
“Are you going to call me hula girl the rest of our time?” I asked.
“Not if you don’t like it.”
“I could do without it.”
We were lying in bed facing each other an hour later; messages had been delivered both directions. Mine was from a distance, his was cautious.
“Do you think it’s possible to fall in love in three days like my parents? Or was it just lust and they lucked out that it lasted?”
“I think it’s possible.”
“I didn’t really believe it.”
“Hmmm.”
“What’s hmmm mean?”
“It means we’ll see what it means.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” I rolled over and started to slide away from him but he wrapped his arm around my waist to pull me back. I felt caught in my usual brand of stupid.
I took his arm away. “Please don’t do that,” I said. “I don’t like it.”
I lay on my side looking out the window and listening to the ocean. I hadn’t made an ass of myself doing the hula, or even talking about god, but I’d managed to do it falling in love with another unavailable man.
“Chana cleaned off the refrigerator door,” he said. “She said designers don’t do that. I hadn’t noticed how cluttered it had gotten. That stuff fades into the background.”
“She shouldn’t worry about it,” I said. “There aren’t any rules about designers. The next one could love French Country.”
We didn’t talk again. It didn’t feel like he was asleep. I hate lying in a tense bed so I wrapped a blanket around myself and went out on the porch to sit for a while.
I was still sitting there at three a.m. when it felt like I’d been stabbed in the stomach. My first thought was that a huge spider had bitten me. I jumped up and shook out the blanket. I couldn’t feel anything that felt like a bite, but I felt woozy and threw up the pie over the railing. Then the pain started, wrenching spasms of pain. I curled up in a ball in the chair, then I walked down on the sand for a while, rubbing my stomach. I wondered if a hot tub would help, my low back was killing me. It kept going into spasm.
“Is there anything I can do?” Jon had put on pants and was standing on the porch.
“No, I think it’s just horrendous cramps. I get them. The back flop may have turned up the volume.”
I went into the bathroom. I was bleeding. The pain kept coming in waves with only brief reprieves. I’d never had cramps that intense. I got in bed and curled up. There was no more throwing up, just pain. There was blood on the sheets. Jon was rubbing my low back.
“You should go home,” I said. “You won’t get any sleep.”
“I’m okay.”
It kept up, the bleeding picked up, something was wrong.
I whispered to Jon, “Are you awake?”
“Yeah.”
“This isn’t right, I think I better go to urgent care or something.”
“Let me make a call.”
He made a call and went to get the car. What a mess. I couldn’t even figure out what to put on. I decided on a skirt. Chills were rolling back and forth under the prickly skin on my back. I got to the car and sat on a towel. A woman doctor he knew was meeting us at her office.
“Oh god, this pain is incredible.”
“We’re almost there.”
He pulled up to a small medical building. We went to the second floor and into the office of Patricia Loring, M.D. Patricia led me to an exam room, told me to get undressed and lie down. She closed the door. I could hear her talking to Jon. She came in a minute later wheeling a machine, a chart folder under one arm.
“I told Jon he could leave and we’d call him, but he prefers to stay,” she said. “Is that okay with you?”
“I guess so. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
She did a quick history, then an exam. She peeled off her gloves, and washed her hands. She took my legs out of the stirrups and tucked the blanket around me again.
“Okay. Based on what I just saw, and the dates, I suspect you’re having a miscarriage. In fact, I’m about ninety-nine percent sure. I think it’s straightforward, but I’m going to do an ultrasound to rule out complications.”
“A miscarriage?”
She looked at my chart and at the calendar; I was only about three weeks along. Steve. She said when it happened that early the woman frequently didn’t even know she was pregnant. I wished I were one of those women. She did the ultrasound, everything looked fine. One option was to do a D&C in the office, have it done with. That’s what I wanted.
She moved me to a room with a bed and gave me drugs. Her nurse was on the way in; it would only take a few minutes. After a rest I could go home.
“Jon wants to see you. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine.”
The drugs were already taking effect when Jon came in. He looked worried.
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”
“I don’t know what you dragged me into, but it’s okay. I’m not the one in bed.”
“I’m having a miscarriage. Patricia is going to take care of it when her nurse gets here.”
“Do you want to call someone?” he asked
“There’s no one to call. I need this to be over. And you need to go, this isn’t your problem.”
I fell asleep. The drugs she had given me were amazingly potent for something that doesn’t knock you out. I don’t know what the actual procedure is, but I can tell you that even with the distance of heavy drugs it had a quality of pain that is hard to describe. It was a sharp and bitter scraping. It was in my core and out of my control. It felt sadistic. It was angry making. I could hear myself growling. I tried to fight it off, but her nurse held my legs down. She kept saying it was almost over, but it wasn’t. It stretched to eternity.
I woke up an hour later and stared at the ceiling, the dropped panels had an embossed flower pattern. I slept another hour before the nurse came in with my hula skirt and angel wing tee shirt. Jon must have brought them. When I took off the thin gown the warm scent of the Kama Sutra oils was released into the room. The universe was going to just keep on mocking me. I had to wash the blood off my flip-flops; it had run down my legs.
Patricia came in a few minutes later and pulled a stool up to the bed. I said I was feeling stoned but fine. She said it had gone well, that it was unlikely to ever happen again. She said no sex for two weeks.
“Do women actually have sex?” I asked.
“Women do everything you can possibly imagine,” she said
. “Every story is different. This was out of your hands. Don’t be hard on yourself.”
She said I’d feel almost normal the next day, but to take it easy and call at the slightest sign of fever.
Jon was waiting for me, looking strained and tired. I couldn’t look at him. Neither of us had anything to say on the ride home. He came in behind me with my bag of bloody clothes.
“You changed the sheets,” I said.
“You didn’t need to come home to that. Patricia said you need rest.”
I was glued to the spot. A combination of drugs and shock swarmed through me. I felt immense self-pity that I’d somehow landed back on this spot. It wouldn’t ever be okay. I could barely stand up. I hated that he had to help me get into bed.
“This isn’t home,” I said. “This is just another place.”
“She said you’ll be fine.”
“Whatever that means.”
I told him to leave. I was rude. I was gone. I slept most of the day, then took a shower and put on fresh clothes. When I opened the door to let in some fresh air a coconut rolled in with a note wrapped around it.
It said: “Patricia says to eat this. Call me.”
He’d left a hammer. I thought about using it to just pound on things. I didn’t dare pound on the coconut; it would vaporize. I knew he’d gone to visit the other islands. I doubted I’d see him again. I was a little sore, but it wasn’t any worse than the skin on my back. The universe hadn’t spanked just breath out of me. I considered calling Steve, but let it go. This was punishment enough; I didn’t need to hear the relief in his voice. I stepped over the coconut, went inside, closed the door and got back into bed. I was in the sliver of space between the drugs, pain and stress, and the loss that I knew was coming.
I woke up to a tapping sound. Jon was sitting on the back porch tapping the coconut.
I stuck my head out the door, “What are you doing here?”
“I’m cracking the coconut. You should eat this, it’s some healing thing.”
“I thought you were leaving.”
“I’m not going anywhere until we talk about it.”
Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights Page 17