Cruel Beautiful World

by Caroline Leavitt

Patrick followed Vera outside. He felt giddy. It had been a silly thing to do, but he looked over at Vera, and her cheeks were flushed, and she had a faraway look in her eyes, as if she were in another zone. He grabbed her hand until she met his eyes.

  “Please,” he said. “Marry me fast.”

  THE DAY AFTER they graduated, they married in Vera’s backyard in Cleveland. It was a Mexican-themed outdoor wedding that Vera’s mother, Ellen, had planned, with a mariachi band, three kinds of make-your-own tacos, bowls of guacamole, and a chocolate wedding cake. They had both a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi, which seemed to satisfy all the parents.

  Patrick’s parents came in from Florida tanned as leather and bearing the gift of a sizable check and two big boxes of oranges. Ellen and her husband, Tom, Vera’s father, clapped Patrick on the back and told him that he was now officially the son they never had. “Not that you weren’t that way before,” Tom said. Ellen wrapped both arms around him. “Anything you need, you just ask us,” she told him.

  “By the time you have kids, maybe you’ll decide on one religion,” Vera’s mother said. “Being both is so confusing to a child, don’t you think?”

  “We just got married,” Vera said. “And now you want me pregnant?”

  “You know what I mean,” her mother said, and then she leaned over and told Vera that all she had had to do was look at Tom and she got pregnant. “We’re a fertile lot,” she said.

  MARRIED LIFE WAS WONDERFUL. They moved into a new apartment in Ann Arbor on East William Street, with a kitchen so small there wasn’t enough room for more than one person at a time. The walls were so thin they could hear the guy walking upstairs and the married couple below them arguing. Ann Arbor was filled with movie theaters and museums and restaurants, and there was the Arb, where they went to picnic, sometimes throwing stones into the brook.

  Their days were crammed. Vera studied library science part-time, squeezing in a waitressing job, while Patrick managed Flower Child, a florist shop, and pursued his master’s in botany with a full-ride scholarship from the university.

  He felt like an adult. He had friends who were still dating, crashing into breakups, and then going out again and were not very happy about it. But Patrick was in a state of bliss. He loved studying botany. Plants made sense to him. He loved his job at the flower shop, too, tending the showy blooms, watching over the refrigerated compartment where the more fragile flowers were kept. He got to know the customers who came into the shop. His favorite was the man who bought a bouquet of lilies every Friday for his wife because that was her name. Every flower was symbolic of something, he knew that, but what he really appreciated was that flowers took on the meaning you wanted them to. If you disliked roses, then who’s to say that giving a rose wasn’t the worst gift you could give someone? If daisies made you yearn, then that was the message you sent by giving them to someone. He filled the apartment with Vera’s favorites: dahlias, poppies, zinnias, anything bright and splashy.

  The only thing he loved more than being married was her. They cooked makeshift dinners—noodles and beef, spaghetti and broccoli. Whatever was cheap and healthy and could be dreamed up in a pan. They went out to the movies, always sitting in the first row because Vera liked the film to be right in her face, and at night they sat out on their front stoop eating ice pops and talking. They didn’t have a lot of money, but they both had stipends at school. They could make do.

  His last year of school, Vera began to notice babies. Even though Ann Arbor was a college town, people loved it so much they stayed. They built families and businesses. Vera and Patrick couldn’t go out to a restaurant without Vera’s homing in on whatever little one was wedged into a booster seat or seated on a lap. She waggled her fingers, smiled, and played peekaboo, and if a pregnant woman was there, Vera congratulated her, asked how many months pregnant she was, how she felt, and whether she wanted a boy or a girl or didn’t care. When Vera turned her attention back to him, he saw the longing in her eyes. “What do you think, should we get one of our own?” she said, leaning toward him.

  He loved her, but they were so young yet. There was so much he wanted to do with her. Go scuba diving in Bermuda and ride camels in Morocco. Camp out under the stars and see the Great Wall of China. He loved kids. Of course he did. But it felt too soon. Was it wrong that he wanted more time with his wife? He loved being able to just pile into a car together and go upstate, to sit up all night watching movies or talking. You couldn’t do that with a baby. “It’s just—I don’t know, right now? Neither of us have graduated yet. We both are going to need to find jobs. Can’t we wait a bit?”

  “I don’t know if we can,” she said. He thought of all those times they had had sex in high school and the condoms had broken and she had never gotten pregnant. Maybe it would take a long time, and by then he’d probably be ready to start a family. She punched him gently in his arm. “Think of the fun we’ll have trying,” she said. “Come on, say yes,” she said. “You know you can’t say no to me.”

  He kissed her mouth. “You got that right,” he said.

  VERA DIDN’T GET PREGNANT. Every time she had her period, Patrick felt relieved. “Next time,” he told her, and she echoed it back, and then she’d go take a shower and Patrick would hear her crying under the rush of water.

  Vera’s unhappiness began to seep into him. Was this his fault somehow, because he didn’t really want it? Because he didn’t feel ready? Because maybe part of him wondered why his love wasn’t enough. One day he brought her a bouquet of perfect lilacs, and she accepted them so sadly that he couldn’t bear it anymore. “Let’s go to bed and make a baby,” he said.

  He focused on her face, her lovely eyes, but the sex felt more like a job than something erotic, and when they were finished, she lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

  A month later she saw a specialist who did a round of tests and told her everything was fine. Patrick went to have his sperm tested, whacking off into a cup in a little air-conditioned room with magazines like Big Bottom Girls on a shelf by a TV. He thought of Vera and splashed into the cup. His sperm were plentiful and strong swimmers, and somehow that made it worse, because if there was no one and nothing to blame, how were you supposed to proceed?

  Vera began to look faded and get tired earlier, and her back began hurting her. “The body will heal itself if you let it,” she declared, and she began making macrobiotic dishes, brown rice and seaweeds, which she barely touched. He’d come home and find her asleep in a chair, a book on her lap. She couldn’t stay up past dinnertime and would collapse on the couch. “Just for a minute,” she said, and then she was dozing. She complained of indigestion that came and went, and she began going on these crazy diets, popping Tums and drinking baking soda in water, but nothing seemed to help. When he reached for her, she gently pushed him away. “I just can’t tonight.”

  “Come here, then,” he said, curling around her, wrapping her in his arms. She sighed and then fell asleep against him.

  One night he woke up to find Vera standing in the middle of their bedroom, her hands tucked into her armpits. “Can’t sleep, that’s all,” she said. He touched her forehead, glowing with heat. “Are you okay?” he said. “You feel feverish.”

  She shook her head. “It’s just hot in here,” she said, and then her mouth moved in a funny way, as if she didn’t want to say the next words. “Do you think we can’t have kids?”

  “Of course we can,” he told her.

  But Vera began to look more and more haggard. “Things taste funny,” she complained, perking up only when he told her he had read that was sometimes a sign of pregnancy. She pounded her fist on her chest. “I wish. I think in my case it’s heartburn.”

  She gave up on macrobiotics, but she still ate lightly, so that the two of them often had different dinners. One night, he caught her studying herself in the mirror. “I look like shit,” she said. “My color’s really awful. Should I go to another doctor? Maybe get completely checked out?”

&
nbsp; He thought of all the bills they had. They were barely making their rent, and the last time he had looked in their bank account, there was only three hundred dollars. Even with the crappy health insurance they had, it would still cost a fortune just to have a checkup. “Honey,” he said, “you’re just stressed out. All you need to do is relax.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said.

  It was her idea to stop trying to have a baby, to give it a break. She dropped out of school for a semester but kept working because they needed the money. “I’ll go back to school,” she told him. “You don’t have to worry.” She began going to the local YMCA to take a yoga class and meditate, but as far as he could see, she didn’t seem more serene, and it worried him. But then he was in the middle of his finals, and he had to concentrate. He had to study. But the more he studied, the more he realized he hadn’t paid enough attention in class, he hadn’t taken good enough notes, because he had been worrying about Vera. What was he thinking? Why hadn’t he done both? He called his other classmates to borrow their notes, he tried to set up study groups, but it all made him more exhausted and confused.

  He began staying up until three, cramming on the dining room table, while Vera slept on the couch, keeping him company. He carried his books everywhere with him, reading at breakfast and on the bus. He began to worry: What if he didn’t pass? What if he didn’t get his degree? As it was, they were barely managing on Vera’s meager waitressing salary and his at the shop. How would they live? He watched his wife reading on the couch and felt a stab of irritation. The last time he had asked her, “When do you think you might want to go back to school and finish?” she had shrugged. She got to just read and work part-time and sleep. When was the last time he had been able to sleep? He had to work and go to school, and he felt as if it was all on his shoulders now. How would they ever afford a child?

  The week before his finals, he had fallen asleep on the living room couch, still in his jeans and T-shirt, his sneakers on, his textbook spilled across his chest. He woke up startled to see Vera, fully dressed, standing in the middle of the room. “I know, I know,” he said. “I’ll come to bed.” They had always had a pact: no going to bed alone. He’d go to bed and lie there until she was asleep and then he’d get up and study some more.

  But Vera didn’t look right. She was blinking hard as if she had just realized something important. She took a step and stumbled and her hands flew to her head. “I think I need to go to the hospital,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, and then Vera’s eyes fluttered and she crumpled to the floor.

  He jumped up. Three steps to get to her, to gather her up in his arms. A sound rumbled from her, like song. “Vera!” he shouted. “Vera!” He had to call someone, he had to get help, but the phone was in the other room. He could see it from where he was huddled over her, but he couldn’t reach it, and to get there he’d have to leave Vera, and how could he do that? “Help!” he screamed through their thin walls. “Help!” Her eyes rolled in their sockets, and he let go of her and leaped for the phone, dialing the operator, yelling out the address for an ambulance. “Tell them to come now!” he shouted. He flung the receiver from him, running back to her, cradling her, stroking her hair, and then, finally, finally, there was the banging on the door, and his door opened as if it were being broken in, and two paramedics in blue uniforms took Vera from him. “She’s still warm,” one of the guys said, his hand flat against Vera’s shoulder. He leaned closer to Vera, and the paramedic looked at him.

  “What are you doing?” Patrick said, panicked. But then they were carrying her out, down to the ambulance, to a hospital, and he rushed to follow.

  HE WAITED FOR NEWS, one person in a sea of orange plastic chairs, until a doctor came out in green scrubs. As soon as Patrick saw the doctor’s face, he knew. He stumbled back until he hit the wall.

  The doctor told him that she had an enlarged heart, that she might have had it since birth, that some people never even had symptoms.

  “What symptoms?”

  “Indigestion, extreme fatigue, sweating—” the doctor said.

  Patrick tried to swallow. “If I had known—if I had seen—could this have been treated?” he asked.

  “There are medications,” the doctor said, and then he put one hand gently on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  It was five in the morning. A social worker had come and given him the name of a funeral home. He had to fill out papers. Afterward he stood in the corridor, holding one of his hands with the other. “Is there someone who can come get you?” the social worker had asked, but the only person he wanted to be with was Vera. He kept expecting her to round the corner, laughing at the fuss made over her. She’d calm him down. She’d hold his hand. Can you believe this? she’d ask him.

  No. He couldn’t.

  He couldn’t leave her. Not yet. He walked to a pay phone and called Vera’s parents, making them both get on the phone at the same time. When he told them, his voice tight, a woman walking by brushed past him, and then Vera’s mother screamed so loudly Patrick let the receiver clatter against the wall, hanging, and then he walked away, his hands clapped to his ears, as if even a mile away he would still hear her.

  HIS PARENTS FLEW up from Florida. Vera’s parents were there, too, from Cleveland. So were his friends. But he didn’t remember much of anything. Everyone crammed into their apartment, someone put food in front of him, crackers, cheese, and grapes, but he couldn’t eat. Everything hurt him. Her face creams in the bathroom. The hairbrush with her hairs threaded through it. He found, hidden under the bed, where he had never looked, a small blue box, and when he opened it, there was a tiny red taffeta party dress, a funny pair of baby suspenders with dogs on them. He put the clothes to his face and wept.

  It felt as if someone had ripped off a layer of life, something that had kept him from seeing what was really there, and now he could never go back to the way things were, to the way he had felt. He could sleep only if he downed four glasses of wine or took a pill, and his dreams, when he did sleep, were thick and heavy with her. In his dreams, she was serene, and smiling at him. How come you aren’t calling me? she asked him, and then she handed him a piece of paper and leaned over and kissed him. But where are you going? he asked, and she laughed, like a line of jazz, and then she was gone, and when he opened the paper, the numbers she wrote were smeared and he couldn’t make them out. Wait! he called. Wait!

  A MONTH AFTER the funeral, he stopped going to work. He stayed at home and he talked to his wife as if she were still there. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you hate me for not knowing how sick you were? Because I sure as fuck hate myself. The house ticked around him. He bolted up in the middle of the night, sure he heard a rustling in the kitchen. “Vera—” he said, and he went into the kitchen and turned on the lights, and a mouse scooted under the stove.

  “Marry him fast,” was what that psychic had said. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. What if he could have done something?

  His boss sent over a huge bouquet of flowers with a note that said, Come back whenever you’re ready. But he knew he’d never be ready. He let the bills pile up on the side table, even though there was the surprise of money from Vera’s life insurance, a policy he hadn’t even known she had. A check for $100,000 arrived in a nondescript white envelope. Why hadn’t she ever told him about that? he wondered. It was typical Vera, taking care of details, taking care of him. Well, what did he care about money now? There was also a letter from the college, saying that they acknowledged his situation and that even though he hadn’t taken his finals, he could still do so. He could still graduate, but he had to let them know, he had to make arrangements. He thought about how much he had wanted this degree, how much it had meant to him, and how it would have changed his life and Vera’s. He crumpled the paper in his hands. Dreams. All of it dreams, and now he had woken up.

  At night he lay on Vera’s side of the bed. Come back. Come b
ack.

  Mostly he thought about how he should have insisted she go to a doctor the first day she said she wasn’t feeling well. He could have paid more attention. Not been so cheap. He should have known something was amiss. What was wrong with him? She might have lived.

  His parents called often. And then one night, when he was staring at the TV, Vera’s mother, Ellen, called him. Her voice was soggy with tears, and she asked him how he was doing, whether he was working or eating, and he lied and said he was.

  “Was Vera sick? Was there any sign?” Ellen said. He heard her swallow. “I know what the doctor said, but I just wondered . . .” Her voice trailed off like a ribbon.

  He put his head in his hands. Here they were. All the questions he had been asking himself every night. Why didn’t you see? Why didn’t you do something? She had told him. She had described symptoms, and he had told her it was too expensive to see a doctor. If he told Vera’s mother the truth, she would be as haunted as he was, always wondering what might have happened if he had taken action, wondering whether Vera might still be alive. She would hate him, and he would deserve it.

  “She was fine,” he lied, and he hated himself even more.

  “Was there anything you noticed about her? Anything at all?”

  “Why are you asking me this?” he said quietly.

  “You were the last person to see her. I’m her mother—”

  “And I’m her husband.”

  “When she was a little girl, all she had to do was cough and I’d take her to the doctor. I’d make sure she stayed in bed,” Ellen said. “You love someone, you notice everything about them, you take care of them. That’s all I’m saying.”

  Anger beat like a pulse inside him. He pressed the receiver against his forehead.

  “Are you listening to me?” Ellen said.

  “The doctors told me it was something in her heart. That she might have always had it,” Patrick said.

  “But you never noticed anything?”

  “Neither did you.”