Maybe in Another Life

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  You don’t just leave pudding for someone you don’t care about.

  “Can you get me the wheelchair?” I ask her.

  “Oh,” she says. “Sure. I thought you were going to try to use the walker until it was time to go.”

  “I’m going to find Henry,” I tell her.

  “The night nurse?”

  “He started working days on another floor. I’m gonna find him. I’m going to ask him out on a date.”

  “Is that a good idea?” she says.

  “He left me pudding,” I say. That is my only answer. She waits, hoping I have more, but I don’t. That’s all I’ve got. He left me pudding.

  “Should I come with you?” she asks me once she realizes I’m not going to change my mind.

  I shake my head. “I want to do this on my own.”

  I sit down on my bed. The act takes a full thirty seconds to complete. But once I do, I instantly feel better. Gabby pulls the wheelchair around next to me.

  “You’re sure I can’t come with you? Push you, maybe?”

  “I’m already going to need you to help me into the shower. My level of dignity is fairly low, so I’m just hoping to spare myself the experience of you watching me tell someone I have feelings for him when, you know, he will probably turn me down.”

  “This seems like something that maybe you should wait and think about,” she says.

  “And tell him when? What am I gonna do? Call him on the phone? ‘Hello, hospital. Henry, please. It’s Hannah.’ ”

  “That’s a lot of Hs,” she says.

  “You can only muster up this type of courage a few times in your life. I’m just stupid enough to have it now. So help me into the damn wheelchair so I can go make a fool out of myself.”

  She smiles. “All right, you got it.”

  She starts helping me into the chair, and pretty soon I’m rolling. “Wish me luck!” I say, and I head for the door and then brake abruptly, as I’ve learned to. “Do you think sometimes you can just tell about a person?”

  “Like you meet them and you think, this one isn’t like the rest of them, this one is something?”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “Exactly like that.”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe. I’d like to think so. But I’m not sure. When I met Mark, I thought he looked like a dentist.”

  “He is a dentist,” I tell her, confused.

  “Yeah, but when we were in college, when I was, like, nineteen, I thought he looked like the kind of guy who would grow up to be a dentist.”

  “He seemed stable? Smart? What? What are you trying to say?”

  “Nothing,” she says. “Never mind.”

  “Did you think he looked boring?” I ask her, trying to get to the bottom of it.

  “I thought he looked bland,” she says. “But I was wrong, right? I’m just saying I didn’t get those feelings you’re talking about with my husband. And he’s turned out to be a great guy. So I can’t confirm or deny the existence of being able to just tell.”

  I think you can. That’s what I think. I think I’ve always thought that. I thought it the first time I met Ethan. I thought there was something different about him, something special. And I was right. Look at what we had. It turned out not to be for a lifetime, but that’s OK. It was real when it happened.

  And I feel that way about Henry now.

  But I don’t know how to reconcile that with what Gabby is saying. I don’t want to say that I believe you can tell when you meet someone who’s right for you and then acknowledge that by that logic, Mark’s not the one for her.

  “Maybe some people can tell,” I offer.

  “Yeah,” she says. “Maybe some people can. Either way, you believe you feel it. That’s what’s important.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Right. I gotta tell him.”

  “What are you gonna say?” she asks me.

  “Yeah,” I say, turning my wheelchair back to her. “What am I going to say?” I think about it for a moment. “I should practice. You be Henry.”

  Gabby smiles and sits down on the bed, taking on an affected manly pose.

  “No, he’s not like that,” I say. “And he’d be standing.”

  “Oh,” she says, standing up. “Sorry, I just wanted it to be easier because you’re . . .”

  “In a wheelchair, right,” I say. “But don’t coddle me. If I’m wheeling through the halls trying to find him, most likely he’s going to be standing, and I’ll be sitting.”

  “OK,” she says. “Go for it.”

  I breathe in deeply. I close my eyes. I speak. “Henry, I know this sounds crazy—”

  “Nope,” she says. “Don’t start with that. Never start with ‘I know this sounds crazy.’ Come from strength. He’d be lucky to be with you. You’ve got an extraordinary attitude, a brilliant heart, and an infectious optimism. You are a dream woman. Come from strength.”

  “OK,” I say, and then I look down at my legs. “I don’t know, Gabby. I’m crippled. This isn’t my strongest moment.”

  “You’re Hannah Martin. Your weakest moment is a strong moment. Be Hannah Martin. Let’s hear it.”

  “OK,” I say, starting over. And then it just comes out of me. “Henry, I think we have something here. I know I’m a patient and you’re a nurse, and this is all very against the rules and everything, but I truly believe we could mean something to each other, and we owe it to ourselves to see. How often can you say that about somebody and really mean it? That the two of you have potential for something great? I want to see where we end up. There’s something about you, Henry. There’s something about us. I can just tell.” I look at Gabby. “OK, how was that?”

  Gabby stares at me. “Is that how you really feel?”

  I nod. “Yeah.”

  “Go find him!” she says. “What the hell are you doing practicing on me?”

  I laugh. “What do you think he’ll say?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “But if he turns you down, he’s such a massive idiot that I’m pretty sure you’ll have dodged a bullet.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

  She shrugs. “Sometimes the truth doesn’t,” she says. “Now, go.”

  And so I do.

  I wheel myself out of my room and speed down the hall to the nurses’ station. I ask where Henry is, and they tell me they don’t know. So I get into the elevator, and I go to the top floor, and I start wheeling the halls. I won’t stop until I find him.

  It’s Saturday night. Gabby and I are watching a movie. Charlemagne is lying in her dog bed at our feet. We ordered Thai food, and Gabby is eating all the pad Thai before I can even get my hands on it.

  “You know I’m pregnant, right? I should at least get a chance to eat some of the food.”

  “My husband cheated on me and then left me,” she says. She’s not even looking up. She’s just shoveling noodles into her mouth with her eyes glued to the television. “I don’t have to be nice to anyone right now.”

  “Ugh, fine, you win.”

  The phone rings, and I look at the caller ID, stunned. It’s Ethan.

  Gabby pauses the movie. “Well, answer it!” she says.

  I do. “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey,” he says. “Is now a good time?”

  “Sure. Yeah.”

  “I was thinking I would come over,” he says. “Now, if that’s OK. I can stop by.”

  “Yeah,” I tell him. “Absolutely. Come by.”

  I hang up the phone and stare at Gabby. “What is he going to say?” I ask her.

  “I was just going to ask you. What did he say?”

  “He said he wants to come over. He said he’ll stop by.”

  “Which was it? Come over or stop by?”

  “Both. First he said one, then the other.”

  “Which one was first?”

  “Come by. I mean, come over. Yeah, then he said ‘stop by.’ ”

  “I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” she says.


  “Me, neither.” Suddenly, I am overwhelmed by desperation. What is about to happen? “Do you think it’s possible he’s up for all of this? That I might not lose him?”

  “I don’t know!” she says. She’s just as stressed out about this as I am.

  “People shouldn’t be possibly breaking up with their boyfriends while they are pregnant,” I say. “All of this anxiety can’t be good for the baby.”

  “Are you gonna change?” Gabby asks.

  I look down at myself. I’m wearing black leggings and a huge sweatshirt. “Should I?”

  “Politely, yes.”

  “OK,” I say. “What do I wear?” I get up and head to my room, thinking of what to put on.

  “How about that red sweater?” she calls up the stairs. “And just jeans or something. Super casual.”

  “Yeah, OK,” I say, peeking my head back out to talk to her. “Casual but nice.”

  “Right,” she calls to me. “Also, fix your bun. It’s falling over.”

  “OK.”

  The doorbell rings when I’m putting on mascara. I feel so fat lately. No telling if it’s because I’m actually fat, just think I’m fat, or both.

  “I’ll get the door!” Gabby says, and I hear her run up the stairs, away from the front door and toward me. “Before I do, though . . .” she says when she’s standing outside my room.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re amazing. You’re smart, and you’re loving, and you are the best friend I’ve ever had, and you are just the best best best person in the universe. Don’t ever forget that.”

  I smile at her. “OK,” I say.

  And then she turns away and runs down to get the door. I hear her greet him. I come out of my room and down the stairs.

  “Hi,” I say to him.

  “Hi,” he says. “Can we talk?”

  “Sure.”

  “You guys take the living room,” Gabby says. “I was going to take Charlemagne for a walk anyway.”

  Ethan bends down and pets Charlemagne as Gabby grabs the leash and slips on a pair of shoes. Then she and Charlemagne are out the door.

  Ethan looks at me.

  We don’t have to talk about anything. I can tell just by the sorrowful look on his face what he’s here to say.

  It’s over.

  All I have to do is get through this. That is all I have to do. And when he’s gone, I can cry until I’m a senior citizen.

  “We can sit down,” I tell him. I am proud of how even my voice sounds.

  “I can’t do it,” he says, not moving.

  “I know,” I tell him.

  His voice breaks. His chin starts to spasm, ever so slightly. “I’ve thought, for so many years now, that I just needed to get you back, and everything would be fine.” He’s so sad that I don’t have any room to be sad.

  “I know,” I say. “Come sit down.” I lead him over to the sofa. I sit so he will sit. Sitting helps sad people, I think. Later, when he is gone, when I am the sad one again, I will sit. I will sit right here.

  “I messed this all up. We never should have broken up in college. We should have stayed together. We should have . . . we should have done this all differently.”

  “I know,” I say.

  “I’m not ready for this,” he says. “I can’t do it.”

  I knew this was what he was going to say, but hearing the words still feels like I’m being punched in the lungs.

  “I completely understand,” I tell him, because it’s true. I wish I didn’t understand. Maybe then I could be angry. But I’ve got nothing to be angry about. All of this is my doing.

  “I’ve been trying for days now to get on board with the idea. I keep thinking that I’ll get used to it. That it will all be OK. I keep thinking that if someone is right for you, nothing should get in the way of that. I keep trying to convince myself that I can do this.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No,” he says. “I love you. I meant that when I said it, and I mean it now. And I want to be with you through everything in your life. And I want to be the kind of man who can say, ‘OK, you’re pregnant with someone else’s baby, and that’s OK.’ But I am not that man, Hannah. I’m not ready to have my own child yet. Let alone raise someone else’s. And I know you say that I wouldn’t be the dad. I know that. But how can I love you and not share this with you? How could I not be there for all of it? It would drive a wedge between us before we’ve even gotten this thing off the ground.”

  “Ethan, listen, I get it,” I tell him. “I am so sorry to have put you in this position. I never wanted to do this to you. To make you choose between the life you want and being with me.”

  “I want a family of my own someday. And if I say yes to you right now, if I say I think we can be together when you’re having this baby, I feel like I’d be committing to a family with you. I absolutely believe that we could have a great future together. But I don’t think we are ready for this, for having a baby together. Even if it were mine.”

  “Well, you never know what you’re ready for until you have to face it,” I say. I’m not trying to convince him of anything. It’s just something I’ve learned recently.

  “If I had come to you last week and said, ‘Hannah, let’s have a baby together,’ what would you have said?”

  “I would have said that was insane.” I hate that he’s right. “I would have said I’m not ready.”

  “I’m not prepared to take on another man’s baby,” he says. “And I’m ashamed of that. I truly am. Because I want to be the man you need. How many times have I told you that there was nothing we could do to mess this up?”

  I nod knowingly.

  “I want to be the right man for you,” he continues. “But I’m not. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but . . . I’m not the right man for you.”

  I look at him. I don’t say anything. Nothing I could say would change the way either of us feels. I much prefer problems with solutions, conflicts where one person is right and the other is wrong, and all you have to do is just figure out which is which.

  This isn’t one of those.

  Ethan reaches his hand out and grabs mine. He squeezes it.

  And in that one motion, he is no longer the sad one. I am the sad one.

  “Who knows?” he says. “Maybe I’ll end up a single dad in a couple of years, and we’ll find each other again. Maybe it’s just the timing. Maybe now is not our time.”

  “Maybe,” I say. My heart is breaking. I can feel it breaking.

  I swallow hard and get hold of myself. “Let’s leave it at this,” I say. “Just like in high school, this isn’t our time. Maybe one day, we’ll get the timing right. Maybe this is the middle of a longer love story.”

  “I like that idea.”

  “Or maybe we just weren’t meant to be,” I say. “And maybe that’s OK.”

  He nods, ever so slightly, and looks down at his shoes. “Maybe,” he says. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Henry’s not on my floor or any of the floors above mine. I checked in with nurses, administrators, three doctors, and two visitors of patients whom I mistook for staff. I rolled over three different feet on two different people, and I knocked over a trash can. I’m not sure that pushing yourself around in a wheelchair is that difficult. I think I might just be that uncoordinated.

  When I give up on the sixth floor, I get back into the elevator and head down to the fourth, the floor below mine. It’s my last shot. According to the elevator buttons, the first three floors hold the lobby, the cafeteria, and administrative offices. So he’s got to be on the fourth. It’s the only one left.

  The elevator opens, and there’s a man waiting for it. I start to roll myself out, and he holds the elevator open for me as I pass by. He smiles and then slips into the elevator. He’s handsome in an unconventional way, maybe in his late forties. For a moment, I wonder if he smiled at me because he thinks I’m cute, but then I remember that I’m an invalid. He just felt bad for me, wanted to help me out. The rea
lization stings. It is not unlike the time I thought people were checking me out at the grocery store because I was having a great hair day, only to realize later that I’d had a booger. Except this is worse, to be honest. The booger incident was less condescending.

  I shake it off the way I shake off everything else that plagues me, and I breathe in deeply, ready to roll my way to Henry. I’m stopped in my place by a nurse.

  “Can I help you?” she asks me.

  “Yes,” I tell her. “I’m looking for Henry. He’s a nurse here.”

  “What’s the last name?” she asks. She is tall and broad-shouldered, with short, coarse hair. She looks as if she’s been doing this job for a long time and might be sick of it.

  I don’t actually know Henry’s last name. None of the other nurses brought it up, but that’s probably because there were no Henrys on that floor anyway. The fact that she’s asking is a pretty good indication that he’s here.

  “Tall, dark hair, brown eyes,” I tell her. “He has a tattoo. On his forearm. You know who I’m talking about.”

  “I’m sorry, Miss, I can’t help you. What floor are you a patient on?” She hits the up button on the elevator. I think it’s for me.

  “What? The fifth floor,” I say. “No, listen to me. Henry with the tattoo. I need to speak to him.”

  “I can’t help you,” she says.

  The elevator in front of us dings and opens. She looks at me expectantly. I don’t move. She raises her eyebrows, and I raise mine back. The elevator closes. She rolls her eyes at me.

  “Henry isn’t here today,” she says. “He starts on my service tomorrow. I’ve never met him, so I’m not sure that it’s the Henry you’re talking about, but the Henry I know was transferred to me because his boss felt he was getting too close to a patient.” She can see my face change, and it emboldens her. “You can see my hesitance,” she says. She hits the button again.

  “Did he get in trouble?” I ask her, and the minute it comes out of my mouth, I know it’s the wrong thing to say.

  She frowns at me, as if I have confirmed her worst fears about myself and that I also just don’t seem to get it.