Hope Street: Hope StreetThe Marriage Bed

by Judith Arnold

  Swelling in his brain. No. Curt didn’t want to hear that. That was not what he’d prayed for.

  “So you’ll bombard him with antibiotics,” he said, his voice as rough as sandpaper. Peter had a problem, a huge problem. Dr. Kaye and the other doctors at this hospital would solve that problem. Peter’s brain was not going to swell.

  “We’ll do everything we can,” Dr. Kaye assured him. “We’ll be admitting him to the hospital, of course. Once we’ve got a definitive diagnosis, we’ll have to notify the Department of Health. And I hate to say this, but the media will probably get wind of it. Whenever a healthy young patient contracts this disease, they make a big deal about it…” Her voice faded into a drone, and Ellie responded with nods and comments, taking over the conversation. Curt heard only echoes, distorted sounds. The brittle hospital air filled his lungs. He stared at the beige cinderblock wall next to him, at the stainless-steel wheeled cart, at the empty gurney, the green oxygen tanks stashed on its lower shelf. He held himself motionless, afraid that if he moved he would fall over.

  Thank God Ellie seemed to know what to say, what to do. Thank God she was taking it all in, processing it, discussing treatment options with Dr. Kaye and requesting permission to stay with Peter in his room once he was admitted.

  Thank God she could handle it. Because Curt sure as hell couldn’t.

  THANK GOD CURT COULD HANDLE everything.

  During the four long, lost days she remained by Peter’s side, Curt took care of whatever needed to be done. He dealt with the high school, the health department officials and prying reporters from the local TV news programs. He drove Jessie to and from the hospital, phoned Katie at college and asked her to come home. He kept in constant contact with his parents and Ellie’s. He stayed in touch with his office, rescheduling the negotiations on one of his cases and guiding several associates through another one. He read the mail, fielded calls from friends and neighbors, brought Ellie snacks from home and watched Peter.

  All Ellie did was watch Peter. Occasionally, she managed to doze off in the reclining chair wedged between the wall and his bed. Often, she found her gaze drifting from Peter’s unnaturally still body to the monitors above his bed, beeping with each beat of his heart. She stared at the doses of antibiotic dripping into him and questioned the nurses about whether the penicillin was working or ceftriaxone should be used, instead. She roused herself enough to hug Jessie and Katie when they visited, but for the most part her mind had narrowed to one single thought: Peter.

  The weekend arrived and with it the first mild day of the year. Morning sunlight soaked through the window and into the room, lending the air a golden glow. One of the orderlies whistled as he pushed a dry mop down the corridor outside Peter’s room. A nurse smiled as she gave Ellie a tall glass of orange juice from the nurses’ station. “It’s gorgeous out,” she reported. “Maybe you ought to step outside and get a taste of that sunshine.”

  Ellie wound up not getting a taste of sunshine. Just minutes after she’d finished the orange juice, and minutes before Curt and the girls arrived at the hospital, Peter was dead.

  The girls became hysterical, sobbing that if only they’d arrived in time, they could have grabbed hold of Peter and held on tight enough, and he wouldn’t have slipped away. They were desperate for comfort, for reassurance, but Ellie couldn’t provide them with what they needed. She folded in on herself, spiraling down and down, slipping into her own darkness. She could give nothing. She had nothing.

  Once again, Curt handled everything. He made the funeral arrangements. He convinced Ellie’s parents to put his parents up at their house. He consulted with the high school’s principal about a memorial service. He picked out a grave site for Peter and chose his burial clothing.

  Ellie wasn’t sure what she did. She had memories of lying in Peter’s bed back at home and staring at the patterns of colors dancing across his computer screen. Had the screen saver been on all this time?

  His bedroom smelled of him. His mattress carried the lanky imprint of his body. The bottle of Gatorade she’d given him to drink still stood on his night table, and a half-consumed bag of Goldfish crackers lay on his desk, next to his earth-science textbook and a copy of The Great Gatsby.

  Where was Hope Street? Curt had promised her they would live there forever. Ellie wasn’t even sure she was still alive. If she was, she was trapped inside some ghastly address, a place that looked familiar but felt all wrong.

  The house filled with flowers, so many bouquets their clashing perfumes cloyed. Ellie’s colleagues at Felton Primary School sent chocolates and wine along with the flowers, and at her request the principal offered her a leave of absence for the remainder of the school year. Curt eventually went back to work and Katie returned to college after her spring break. Jessie returned to school, too. It was her senior year. Supposedly the happiest year of a teenager’s life.

  Ellie had nowhere to return to. The first day she found herself completely alone in the house, she stormed through the rooms with a huge trash bag and threw out all the flowers, most of which had begun to droop and wither. Then she entered Peter’s bedroom, sat at his desk and hit a key on his computer. A page from MySpace opened, featuring the photo of an extraordinarily cute girl and some text about how crazy she was about baseball players. Had Peter been corresponding with her, or just fantasizing about her? He’d been so young, too young for love but not too young to attempt an online dry run.

  She clicked on an icon at the bottom of the screen, and a list of Peter’s MP3 music files appeared. She double-clicked on one. She had no idea what the song was—it turned out to be a thumping rap number—but she closed her eyes. This is what Peter would be doing right now if he were here, she thought: listening to hip-hop, dreaming about a cute girl…and munching on Goldfish. Ellie dug into the bag and scooped out a handful of the small yellow crackers. The music was awful, the crackers stale, but she didn’t care. This was as close as she could get to Peter.

  “Hey.” The low voice broke into her reverie.

  She swiveled in Peter’s chair and saw Curt standing in the doorway. How long had she been in a trance, listening to Peter’s music and munching on stale Goldfish? All day?

  Flustered, she silenced the tune with a click of the mouse and pushed away from the desk. “I was just…” Just what? Acting unhinged? Losing her grip?

  Grieving?

  If Curt was home, it must be close to six o’clock. Jessie must have arrived home from school, too. Ellie hadn’t heard the menter the house. She’d been in her own little world. In Peter’s world.

  Curt entered the room, extended his hand and helped her to her feet. His arms felt strange around her. Touching Curt meant touching reality, and reality was where all the pain existed.

  “We can do some takeout for dinner,” he was saying as she tried to relax in his embrace. “Pizza, Chinese, whatever you want.”

  She’d been eating Goldfish all day. She wasn’t hungry.

  But Curt apparently was, and Jessie would expect to eat something, too. “Takeout. Okay,” she said. Her voice sounded miles away.

  Curt arched his arm around her shoulders and led her out of Peter’s room. Did he think she was deranged? Maybe she was.

  All she knew was that, for the first time in her life, Curt’s touch made her want to scream….

  TWELVE

  SHE STARED AT THE REMOTE control until she’d memorized every damn button on it. When she lifted her eyes to Curt, their gazes collided for an instant before he looked away.

  She had never before seen such anguish in him, or such anger. Curt didn’t have a temper. That was part of what made him a successful attorney; he could argue his position coolly, rationally. He was always the most reasonable person in the room. This trait often exasperated her, in part because she envied it.

  He’d certainly been reasonable after Peter died. For months afterward, she’d been a wreck. She’d spent most of that spring and summer in therapy and popping antidepressants.
Prozac had wreaked havoc on her digestive system. Xanax had not only upset her stomach but created problems with her vision. Valium caused no side effects, but it didn’t do much to ease her depression, either.

  She’d felt as if she were living in a glass bubble. Inside was her pain; outside, the world just kept rolling along. Jessie had announced that, despite her sadness, she would be attending her senior prom, and that her friend Kirsten’s mother would take her shopping for a prom dress because Ellie clearly wasn’t up to the task of helping Jessie select a gown.

  Curt had resumed his regular schedule at the firm. He’d negotiated deals, handled some civil litigation, met colleagues for lunch, put in time at the fitness center. Judging by his behavior, one would assume that life was normal.

  While he and Jessie had behaved like rational, healthy human beings, while Curt had run up billable hours and Jessie had studied for her exams and the two of them had discussed the latest news out of Washington or watched South Park together, sometimes actually laughing at the comedy show’s perverse humor, Ellie had spent hour after hour, day after day, sitting in Peter’s room, listening to his CDs and MP3 files—Ludacris, the Beastie Boys, 50 Cent and someone named Nellie who turned out to be a man, not a woman—and eating Goldfish crackers, and wondering how on earth Jessie and Curt could be functioning so well when Peter was gone.

  Curt had never cried, not in front of Ellie. He’d been quiet and steady, fixing simple suppers on evenings when Ellie hadn’t managed to get a meal prepared, and answering phone calls when Ellie had recoiled from the shrill ringing. He’d made apologies to their friends and relatives when she couldn’t bring herself to attend social gatherings. He’d covered for her and reclaimed his place in the world.

  She hadn’t. She couldn’t.

  If only she’d known that he’d been weeping in the shower. If only he’d told her. Maybe she wouldn’t have felt like such a failure for her inability to resume her own routines.

  Sighing, she swung her legs back up onto the bed and peered at the television. She’d paused the movie on a photo of Peter seated at his desk, leaning back in his chair and grinning at the camera. One of the girls must have snapped the picture, because Ellie didn’t recognize it. Peter’s hair was shaggy and he wore an oversize blue T-shirt with Rock The Boat printed across it.

  He’d been so alive until the moment he died. Seeing him smile like that, when in a matter of months he would be dead, caused a boulder-size ache to lodge in Ellie’s chest.

  She pressed the play button, eager to erase that bright, happy image from the screen. The photo faded, replaced by a picture of the front of their house, the azaleas in scarlet bloom, the red maple on the side of the porch lush with burgundy leaves. An orchestral rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” played on the soundtrack, and Ellie realized what a simple, pretty tune it was when Curt wasn’t lampooning it with silly words.

  “It took time, but Ellie rebuilt her life,” Katie’s voice intoned on the soundtrack. “She cheered at Jessie’s graduation—” the photo of the house dissolved into one of Jessie in her cap and gown, flanked by Ellie and Curt “—and by the following September, she was back at her job.” The graduation photo vanished, replaced by a shot of the Felton Primary School. “Slowly, and with great courage, Ellie got back to the task of living.”

  “I didn’t have any courage,” Ellie muttered.

  Curt glanced her way but didn’t dispute her. He was still stewing after his outburst. Had she actually believed he never got angry? Maybe he’d just been hiding his anger all along. Maybe he’d been burying it for the past fifty years, ignoring it, burning it off at the fitness center. Or maybe he’d never experienced anger, just as Ellie had never experienced depression, until they’d lost Peter.

  She was no longer depressed. But damn, Curt was still angry.

  Fourteen months ago

  THE EMPTINESS OF THE HOUSE unnerved Ellie. Everyone was gone—Katie and Jessie in college and Peter…

  Gone.

  Her foot steps didn’t literally echo when she walked through the house, but she heard an imaginary echo, the sound of no one. When she arrived home from work each afternoon, no voices shouted a greeting. No smell of microwave popcorn or cocoa greeted her. No backpacks lay on the kitchen counter, no pile of boots and cleated athletic shoes huddled by the back door, no babble of music or telephone conversations drifted down the stairs.

  Her nest would have emptied anyway. But not this soon. And not when she and Curt were having so much difficulty dealing with each other.

  She’d managed to make a nice dinner tonight, at least. She was getting better at that—not just preparing decent meals but downsizing the amount she made to feed only two. For months, she’d found herself filling her shopping cart at the supermarket with Peter’s favorite snacks and then having to place those items back on the shelves, everything but the Goldfish crackers, which had become her own personal addiction. Some nights, she’d accidentally cooked enough food to last her and Curt several days—a quantity Peter would have scarfed down in a single sitting. Some nights she’d lacked the will to prepare anything more complicated than sandwiches and sliced pickles.

  She’d gotten it right tonight, however. Roast chicken, baked potatoes, steamed broccoli and a tossed salad. Given that she’d spent the past few days working with faculty representatives on a curriculum unit that covered diet and nutrition, she was pleased to have assembled a healthy, balanced meal for herself and Curt.

  He appeared genuinely pleased when he saw what she’d fixed for them. “Wow, this looks great,” he said, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, as he settled across the table from her in the kitchen. “I love the way you make chicken.”

  The way she made chicken was to shake some seasonings onto it, dab it with butter and stick it in the oven. Hardly worth the high praise. She knew what Curt was really complimenting, though: her effort. Her baby steps in the direction of resuming a normal life.

  As they ate, he told her about the negotiations he was about to begin. “Remember Professor Benzer? That guy from MIT?” he asked her. “He came up with a bunch of patents, and we were able to assign the better ones to him and not the guy from Tufts who’d collaborated with him. I handled that negotiation a year and a half ago.”

  A year and a half ago, Peter had died. Ellie hadn’t been aware of any negotiations Curt was involved in at the time. She smiled blandly so he’d think she remembered. He seemed so jazzed about this latest development at work.

  “Anyway, we helped him set up a corporation to license the patents, and now a major player from Silicon Valley wants to buy the corporation. They’re dangling big, big bucks over his head.”

  “Lucky him,” Ellie said.

  “He wants to retain control over the patents,” Curt went on. “The Silicon Valley folks want to buy the patents outright, give Benzer a lump sum and send him on his way. So we’re about to enter into some complicated negotiations.” Curt’s eyes sparkled, silver and gold. He loved complicated negotiations. “And here’s the best part. Moira Kernan is representing the Silicon Valley people.”

  “Moira Kernan?” Ellie frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

  “She used to work with me. She made partner a year after I did. I’m sure you met her at parties. Short woman with straight black hair. She had a blunt personality, sometimes kind of tactless. She was scary smart.”

  “Oh. Right.” A picture materialized in Ellie’s mind. She’d gotten to know most of the partners at social events, and she recalled a petite dynamo who favored bright red lipstick and told dirty jokes without blinking. “She’s representing the other side?”

  “She moved out to San Francisco a few years ago. One New England winter too many, and when a Bay Area firm started sending out feelers, she packed up and left. So now she and I get to butt heads.”

  “You know all her moves,” Ellie pointed out. “You should be able to run rings around her.”

  Curt chuckled. “Unfortunately, s
he knows all my moves, too.” He nudged away his empty plate and smiled contentedly. “It’s going to be fun.”

  Fun. Ellie tried to recall what that was. Something you enjoyed, something that made you smile. Something you could experience only if you weren’t viewing the world through a gray veil of sorrow and regret.

  Something Curt didn’t seem to have any trouble with. His veil of sorrow had lifted off him and blown away a long time ago. He waltzed through his days as if everything was as it was supposed to be, as if the worst thing that might befall him was a traffic ticket or a computer virus.

  Ellie had always believed she and Curt were in sync, their thoughts and emotions perfectly matched. She’d been wrong. Eighteen months after Peter’s death, Curt was having fun. Actually, he’d started having fun just weeks after Peter died.

  Ellie couldn’t imagine having fun ever again.

  He helped her to clear the dishes from the table. She rinsed, he stacked, and their rhythm seemed almost natural. When she turned her attention to the roasting pan, he moved behind her, rested his hands on her shoulders and kissed the crown of her head.

  No, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to shake free of him. A light kiss on her hair—it didn’t mean anything. She shouldn’t shrink from him. He was her husband, after all.

  But his hands remained where they were, and he used his chin to brush her hair away from her neck. When his mouth touched the skin beneath her ear, she flinched.

  “Don’t,” she said. Her body went stiff, as if it had been instantly freeze-dried. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t.

  “Ellie.” His voice was warm and soft. His body, pressed close behind her, was warm and hard. He slid his hands down her arms, stroking, heating her chilled skin. “Let me just…” He circled his hands forward and eased her against him, then nuzzled her throat with another kiss. She felt his arousal through their clothing, the flexing of firm male flesh.