“That’s fine with me,” he answers, voice gritty with determination. “Whatever it takes to be with you, I’ll do it.”
His words are like him. So sweet. So loving. So completely insane.
“Hold on,” I have to say. “You’re not okay with me calling you John, but you’re like ‘Sure!’ when I say you’ll need a new name and identity in order to come work and live in Seattle with me?”
“Now you’re upset about me wanting to be with you?” he asks me in the dark, his voice tight with irritation.
“I’m not upset. I’m just…confused about why you’re willing to take on a whole new life when you haven’t done much to recover the life you already have. I love you, but I’m also a practical person. So I’m honestly wondering if you shouldn’t start seeing somebody before you make any final decisions about moving out to Seattle.”
“Somebody,” he repeats.
“Yes, somebody like a neuropsychologist.”
John’s arms stiffen around me. “I already saw a head doctor in the hospital. It didn’t help too much.”
“I’m not talking about a psychotherapist. I mean the kind of specialist we don’t have at UWV/Mercy. A neuropsychologist could assist you with your thinking skills, assess your recent behavior, and help you emotionally process what you’re going through.”
John’s arms were stiff before, but now they drop all the way down. “You’re using a lot of fancy words to say you think I need to go see somebody because the way I feel about you is crazy.”
“No, the way I feel about you is crazy!” I shoot back. “I have no excuse. But you have a TBI, and that means—”
“I’m not crazy. I love you. Why can’t you accept that? Why can’t you just let me love you?” he demands, his voice so even, he might as well be yelling for all the angry emotion I can tell he’s holding back.
“Because my specialty is cancer. And I’ve seen what happens when people deny what’s really going on. When they don’t take the time to process it. And I can’t tell you how many parents—even the ones with excellent insurance—refuse to let their child see a therapist and end up letting them die without any real sense or understanding of what’s happening to them…” I don’t realize I’m crying until I can’t speak anymore.
“Doc? Doc?” he says, sounding alarmed.
A light switches on and the dark is replaced by John’s worried face.
“What’s going on?” he asks, frowning as he uses his good hand to wipe the tears off my face.
I shake my head. “Nothing…it’s stupid.”
“Fuck that, Doc. I said we were talking after I put you under me. And you ain’t under me no more. So talk.”
I don’t want to talk about it. Any of it. But then suddenly, that’s all I’m doing. Talking. “Ronnie Greenwell died last night. I came into the hospital to do rounds with my attending, and they were like, ‘Sorry, she went into a coma and stopped breathing.” And my attending told her mom what happened. But her mom wanted to talk to me because I’m black, and she wanted to hear it from a black doctor. And I tried to explain it to her, but she just kept saying, ‘You said she could go home. You said she could go home.’ Which wasn’t what we’d said. The only hospice with an open bed is in Pittsburgh, and we’d said she could go home until we found Ronnie something closer to where her mother works in Ohio. I tried to explain this, but Ronnie’s mom didn’t understand, and I couldn’t make her understand. And Ronnie’s not Chanel, but it was hard, because they had the same kind of cancer. And I used to be like Ronnie’s mother. I used to not understand what happened to Chanel either, but now I do. I understand exactly what happens when you can’t find a bone marrow match because your kid’s African-American, and the chemo stops working, and there’s nothing you can do other than make someone who really shouldn’t be dying comfortable while they die. And usually knowing why it’s happening makes it better. But today it didn’t make it better. Her mom kept screaming, ‘I want to take her home! I want to take my baby home!’ At one point, all I could do was hold her and tell her, ‘She’s already home. I’m sorry, but Ronnie’s already gone home.’ Falling back on my mom’s religious platitudes instead of this degree I upended my life for. But I had to tell her that sometimes medicine just doesn’t work. Sometimes it’s completely useless. Just like my degree!”
“Ah, Doc…” He presses a kiss into the top of my head. “You lost one patient, but you’re saving lives, too. Your degree ain’t useless. Now who is Chanel?” he asks softly.
“My little sister,” I whisper, finally discussing the thing I never talk about. Never fucking again, I’d sworn to Sandy when she tried to make me. “She died of ALL—acute lymphocytic leukemia—the year before I left for college. She’s actually the reason I applied to five-year med schools—why I dropped out of ValArts. But Ronnie reminded me of her. Not a lot. Just enough that I guess I’m feeling it a little more than I should right now.”
“A child died,” he says, knuckling my cheek. “I don’t care what you signed up for, Doc. You got the right to be sad about it. I’m sorry that little girl died. She deserved better than that. So did your little sis.”
My face crumples with the truth of his words. “Yes, yes…they both did.”
He holds me while I cry for all the lives cut too short by this disease. For all the brave little girls who will never grow up to become the strong women I know they would have been, could have been.
He lets me cry my heart out, rubbing my back with his cast. And only when I’m done does he speak again. “Alright…I understand why tonight went the way it did. But next time something like this happens, remember, that’s not us. You got something weighing on your heart, you tell me as soon as you walk in the door. Even when you’re in Seattle, I want you to call me first thing when anything gets to bothering you. Okay?”
“Okay,” I answer, voice small.
“You promise? I want us to be one of those couples who know how to talk to each other.”
“I promise,” I agree with a watery laugh. Then I ask, “Couples who talk to each other. Is that old or new?”
“New,” he answers, voice a little hollow. “Definitely new. But I want us to be new.”
Is it weird that I understand exactly what he’s trying to say? That I’ve felt like a completely new person ever since he came into my life? That I want us to stay new, too, even though I know he’ll eventually find out about my past?
He reaches over and turns off the light, but still keeps me cradled against his chest in the dark. And it’s when he’s holding me like this with no sexual intent whatsoever that I truly understand how deep I’m in with this man. How truly and sincerely I meant every word I said in the heat of our passion.
God, what am I going to do a few days from now when it’s time to get on the plane to California? I can’t take him with me. But how am I going to leave him behind?
Chapter Thirteen
Like a scream from the past, my dad calls the next day right at our mercilessly negotiated hour.
“You get my email?” he asks in lieu of a hello when I answer the new special phone.
“Yes, Dad, I got Mom’s email.”
My dad won’t so much as touch a computer or even deal with the email app on his smart phone. My mom, Cassie, handles all of that for him. But Dad always insists on referring to it like he sent it himself.
He must realize I’m in no mood for his bullshit this morning, because he concedes, “Mommy said she sent you the ticket yesterday morning and you still ain’t said nothing. You know it wasn’t cheap.”
“Whatever, Dad. It’s a one-way ticket. Stop being a cheap, bitch,” I answer in my snottiest tone. But then my voice softens as I admit, “One of my kids died yesterday and it really took a lot out of me.”
Dad pauses on the other end of the line. My sister, my job—and especially little kids dying at my job just like my sister did—are all on the list of things we aren’t ever supposed to discuss.
But Dad recovers in
his typical fashion. “That’s why you don’t need to be messing around with them sick kids in the first place. You out there watching Chanel die over and over again. How you doing anybody any fucking good with that shit?”
“Okay, Dad,” I say with a sigh, steering us back to the main topic. “So it’s the first day Mom’s been out of town. You know the first day’s always the worst. Curt will be back in a couple of months, and I’ll be there by the end of the week, so you can disparage my job all you want then.”
“Fuck you and Curt, always throwing them big words around. Trying to psychoanalyze me and shit. Your mama’s lucky I don’t run up in some other ho while she out of town. You know how many bitches round here looking to upgrade me?”
“Yes, you’re very handsome, Dad, and you’ve still got it going on. You should totally cheat on Mom just to prove that. And eat more red meat while you’re at it. Oh and maybe start drinking too much on top of all the weed you smoke.”
“Fuck you, bitch! I was missing you before I heard your voice. But you think this is why I had kids, so you could call me and come at me like this? Fuck all you ungrateful bitches!”
“First of all, you called me. Second of all, just how many hos do you plan to acquire for this thought experiment of yours? One? Two? You think three would be enough to get Mom to leave you?” I ask, knowing this question will set him off even worse.
My dad cusses me out for a full minute before abruptly hanging up, because he’s got better things to do than fuck around on the phone with an ungrateful little shit like me.
So yes, a typical phone conversation with my dad, who only sprinkles regular words into his steady cuss stream as flavoring. And who after twenty-nine years of marriage, still has the nerve to miss the hell out of my mom whenever she leaves, but pretends she and him aren’t like the most solid couple on earth—especially by California standards. He’s the type who’ll send a “not cheap” ticket to West Virginia, so his daughter can fly home to accompany him to the one event my mother can’t attend with him this year, but refuses to put a dime toward my medical career because he truly believes the whole thing is ridiculous and morbid.
Now that I think about it, I shouldn’t be surprised that the first time I fell hard for somebody, he ends up being made up of a million contradictions. Seriously, look at how I was raised!
Speaking of whom…John pads into the kitchen in nothing but his black sweatpants and presses a sleepy kiss into my temple before saying, “Hey, Doc. You sleep good?”
“Really good,” I answer, pocketing the special phone in my knee-length kimono and continuing with my original task of making us breakfast. All that’s left is to pour the almond milk, but I find myself feeling like this offering isn’t good enough.
I mean, it’s fine for a busy, single doctor. But not so much for a woman on the verge of leaving behind the man she…my heart gives a little shiver just thinking about it…loves. The first man she’s ever loved in this way.
When I sit down at the coffee table with him and our bowls of cereal, I find myself saying, “I bet I can do better than this for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe I’ll see if I can pick up some frozen blueberries when we’re in Meirton, and some applesauce. I could make us Blueberry Oatmeal Waffles...”
John shakes his head and continues eating. Fist over spoon with his elbow up. “I’m good with cereal, Doc. You don’t have to go and do anything fancy for me. Who were you talking to earlier?”
I crook my head, confused.
“On the phone. I heard you talking to someone when I woke up.”
“Oh, that was my dad,” I answer. Strange, less than an hour has passed but that phone call already feels like it happened long ago. Like it came from a galaxy far, far away on a different time continuum. “He just wanted to make sure I got my plane ticket for my California visit.”
“To visit your family back in California,” he says in a way that makes me think he’s my family in West Virginia, even though that’s not probably not what he meant.
I nod. “Dad’s getting kind of antsy. Both my brother and my mother are out of town, and he’s one of those guys who doesn’t do well on his own. It’s kind of a long story.”
One I don’t remotely feel like explaining.
“So you done any thinking about it yet?”
“About what?”
“Introducing me to your family.”
I go completely still.
“And I’ve scared you again.”
“No, no…” I insist. “But, see, my family is a lot. I mean, we’re really close, but we’re not like normal families. We’re kind of crazy. Well a lot crazy. A lot—a lot. I know you don’t think your feelings will change, but I really feel like it would be better if we um…wait.”
“Until my memory returns?”
“Or until we’ve known each other a lot longer than six weeks,” I counter.
I grab our dishes and carry them to the sink before he can take the conversation any further, though. Then I rinse off the dishes, doing my best to ignore all the, “What happens when…?” floating around our relationship.
What happens when I leave West Virginia for good? What happens when he gets his memory back?
I rinse out our bowls, but end up lingering at the sink long after I’ve switched off the water. Why does the simplest relationship that’s ever happened to me have to become so complicated as soon as I leave this state?
But I’m not allowed to linger with my thoughts for too long. He comes up behind me, wraps his arms around my waist, and rests his chin on my shoulder. His hospital beard has become a full-on beard now.
“Wanna get a razor while we’re in Meirton?” I ask him, stroking the fuzz with one hand. Changing the subject.
His answer: “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do, Doc. You know I’ll do anything you want. But if it’s up to me, I’d just as soon keep it.”
I chuff at his unusual brand of acquiescence. My possessor. My thrall.
“No, do what you want,” I answer. “If you want to keep it, keep it.”
We stand there together, looking out the window towards the nature preserve where we’d be doing yoga if it wasn’t Saturday. Our agreed upon day off from exercise, work, and pretty much anything else that doesn’t involve us spending time together.
Had I only been kidding myself about how deep I was getting into this thing with him over the past month? It seriously feels now like we’ve been a couple from the start. My whole life I’ve only gone into relationships after putting in a lot of practical thought. Our connection, what we said to each other last night in and out of the heat of the moment; I’m not sure how to process any of it this morning.
“I’m not trying to scare you, Doc,” he says, voice sober, as if he’s read my thoughts.
I sink further back into his embrace. Grateful for him. Confused by him.
“I know,” I answer. “This is just so…” I seize upon the word in a flash of inspiration, “New. It’s all new to me, too. I mean, my best friend Sola kind of fell fast for her husband. But she was a drama major, and I’m a doctor. I never thought I could feel like this for anyone.”
I’m making some valid points here, but I can feel him grinning against the side of my neck.
“Why are you smiling? How is this funny?”
“You thinking about becoming my wife someday, Doc?”
“No, I’m just saying…”
But he cuts me off, turning me inside his arms and silencing me with a tender kiss to my forehead. “You have permission to think those thoughts,” he says, knuckling my face as he looks down at me. “Them are the kind of thoughts I like.”
“I’m not—”
But he kisses me again until I forget to protest. Until I forget to think. Until I forget how doomed our love may very well be. At least for a little while.
Chapter Fourteen
Meirton isn’t exactly a city, or even a small town. It’s more a collection of brick buildings and maybe a hundred or so houses gath
ered around one main street. However, it’s big enough to have a local police station, and most importantly, a hardware store.
After dropping John off at the station, I find what I need at the family-owned store. But by the time I check out, I’m already thinking twice about my plan to meet John at the town’s only diner for lunch.
The hardware store cashier isn’t mean, but he does seem awfully confused by a black woman coming into his store to buy an oscillating saw.
“You shopping for Father’s Day?” he asks me, voice suspicious.
Then he looks even more confused when I tell him I’m a doctor over at UWV/Mercy and need the tool to cut off my boyfriend’s cast.
He frowns me all the way out the door, and I’m relieved to pass the time until I’m supposed to meet John at a cozy little independent bookstore next to the shop.
Sipping on green tea, I buy a Karin Slaughter novel I haven’t read yet, and it feels a little like serendipity when I spot a baby name book on my way to the cash register.
The lady behind the cash register perks up when she sees the titles of my two books. “Oh, so you’re expecting a baby! I should have known. You have that glow about you.”
“No,” I answer with a laugh, though she’s strangely not the only person who’s accused me of glowing. A few days ago, my attending straight up asked if I was seeing somebody. I’d demurred and shifted to the topic of the research I’d be doing in Seattle in the hopes that would put her off her question.
“It’s for a friend,” I tell the cashier for the same reason. To avoid any more questions. To avoid labeling John before I leave him behind.
“Oh, well then! Congratulations to her,” the cashier says. “Strange, I usually have such a good instinct about these things. Knew my sister was having a boy before she even opened her mouth to tell me she was pregnant. My mama swears I’m psychic.”
His Forbidden Bride: 50 Loving States, West Virginia Page 10