Try Again
“See you Thursday,” I said to Paul, going out the door of the office. “I have to leave early. I have a doctor’s appointment.”
“Everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah, it’s just a routine check-up thing,” I said, waving my hand dismissively. “See you.” However, that was not exactly the truth. It was initially the truth when I scheduled the appointment, but the last few days I’d been feverish and unsettled. I had not been able to sleep, waking up shivering and wet with sweat. I first attributed it to anxiety about Ross, but now I wasn’t so sure. I was feeling off; I was feeling small, as if I had collapsed inward upon myself. Just not right, with a headache that would not go away. Looking back now, I should have said goodbye to Paul that day, because that woman leaving the office; that young woman walking down the street, so in love with her headstrong fiancé with the dangerous flash in his eyes, so concerned with keeping all her beautiful things together; that particular woman who went in through the door of that medical office building never came out again.
A diagnosis such as the one my doctor ruminated on—unwilling to put the final stamp on it, but just as unwilling to let it go: there must be more tests and unnumbered days and nights of anxious uncertainty first—disrupts reality as you understand it. This sea change will rob you of many things, but the most precious thing it will rob you of is your sense of singularity. Any thought the world would blink or shudder in the slightest at such a blow brought down upon one of its own, or that the earth’s turning might wobble even imperceptibly was a futile one. I had stumbled, but the world blithely carried on.
I wasn’t going to tell Ross immediately, but picking him up at the airport limo drop-off that following Sunday night, my face gave me away. It had been a blessing that he’d been away up until now, and I had managed to remain relatively calm the whole weekend, walking round and round the house, continually peering out the windows as if the answer were to be found casually sitting in a lawn chair in the yard. But as soon as I saw him, my resolutions evaporated and my eyes welled up. Seeing my face, my trembling chin, Ross immediately forgot his greeting kiss, demanding “What’s wrong?”
“Wait till we get in the car,” I said.
“It’s not your father, is it?” he asked, now really concerned, as we quickly walked out to the parking lot. “Something’s happened at home?” I just waved my hand at him to shut up. The mounting panic had choked off my voice. Ross had been looking forward to my joy at seeing him again, to seeking soft solace after a frustrating and discouraging trip; this 180 degree turn of expectations took his own breath away.
I repeated the doctor’s words once in the privacy of our car; it was hard to get them out: blood disorder, leukemia . . . Words that got pinned onto other people, I thought; not me; I take no ownership of them. I didn’t know how Ross would take it; I thought he might be my ballast, be reassuring to help me, but after a few minutes of refusing to believe it and then questioning my understanding of the situation, he flew into a vulgar rage.
“What the fuck is wrong with us?” He viciously punched the dashboard with the heel of his hand so hard he rebounded back against his seat. “We can’t get two steps ahead and some kind of goddamn shit has to happen.”
“Dr. Mahler isn’t certain; it could be nothing serious. He’s not . . . he said several weeks . . . I don’t know . . .” I countered, still in denial. Ross pushed me—why had I gone to the doctor in the first place; what exactly did he say—trying to get a straight answer where none existed, getting angrier and angrier. He kept trying to protect people and they kept turning on him: getting hit by cars, getting shot, getting sick.
“You’re not certain of anything, are you, Amy. No one fucking knows anything.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” I kept saying, my voice getting higher and higher, finally just screaming, “I don’t know!” His reaction was making me cry. I just needed to be held, but Ross was lost to me in his own rage. Bitterness toward him welled up in me at that moment. I had been so brave so far. He should have taken his cue from me, but he couldn’t control this rage, it was racing around inside him, making him rock back and forth, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly they were mottled red and white. Car engines were roaring all around us, lights blinding us, as the last lot of limo passengers got in their cars and left the parking lot, leaving us stranded in our misery. A strange and detached chill sunk over me watching Ross in his fury—here’s a chance to gain some insight into men, I thought. He spun toward me and I thought he was going to hit me, the first time ever I had to brace myself for that; he was acting so strangely, I was feeling so strange, it was as if we had both become different people. Suddenly he swung around in the opposite direction and smashed his fist against his side window, succeeding only in injuring his hand. My mind flooded over with overwhelming loathing. I spasmodically opened my door and walked around the front of the car to the driver’s side. ‘I’m all alone, all alone here, all alone,” I kept repeating to myself.
Ross sat motionless, his forehead resting on the steering wheel. “Move over,” I ordered, without a trace of pity. Without protest he jerked himself to the other side of the car. I got in and slammed the door shut, wrenched the driver’s seat back up closer to the steering wheel, and drove out of the lot. Ross wouldn’t look at me, but stared out the window, massaging his bruised hand. “When were you going to tell me you wanted kids so soon, when you got pregnant?” he asked bitterly. I didn’t answer and he didn’t say anything else.
* * *
I turned into our driveway and put the car in park. Getting out of the car without a word, Ross opened the back door of our house, leaving it wide open, and never looking back, strode into the living room and turned on the TV, setting the volume at an ear splitting level. He sat there, staring at the screen. I went upstairs and sat on our bed, looking out the window. With difficulty I pushed up the screen, then stuck my head out into the cooling night air; it didn’t matter now if bugs got in or if I got mosquito bites. Slowly, gradually, the sea breezes brought back my feelings for Ross; my heart broke for him sitting down there all alone, the television flashing strobe-like distress signals out across the front lawn, blaring like a siren. He had lost many people in his life, how would he stand this? People do, though, people stand it. How, I didn’t know. How could I bear the thought of losing him, of losing everything? Panic washed over me, blackening out my vision, making me lose my balance. I gripped the sill, fighting for my consciousness. I went down to him and turned off the set, the blood pounding in my ears at the sudden silence. I knelt at his feet and rested my head and hands on his thigh.
“I’m so sorry, Benny,” I said softly. He laid both his hands on my head, the knuckles of his right hand swelling up red and purple, and silently, tenderly twisted his fingers through my hair. After a little while, I moved between his knees, putting my arms around his waist. He gathered me up in his arms and took me up to our bed. He tried to comfort me, tried to make love to me, but couldn’t.
We lay there in the darkness, in each other’s arms, but separate and frightened, the stillness pierced only once by Ross saying brokenly, “How could I ever let you go?” I would never forget the bewilderment in that voice. I was terrified, terrified this Benny had already lost his Choo, terrified that I had already turned into a strange other being, someone he could not make love to.
Image: The bond as yet unbroken. Source: Detail from the cover of A Book of Images, W.T. Horton and W.B. Yeats. The Public Domain Review on Flickr, edited by J. Weigley.