Eyelids flutter and flicker. Pain spreads from back to front and back again — waves licking a distant shore. Eyes. Dance. Luminous blobs. She. Reaches. Out.
Pain slams into her, a tsunami of nausea. Somewhere there is blood. This is almost all she knows. In her side is something not quite natural. It screams to be noticed. Silence wraps her in its embrace. Silence is golden.
Dance. Weave. Tilt. Her left hand reaches out, millimeters at a time, taking centuries to move. She feels another hand, flesh rubbery under her fingers. Eyes closed. She never wants to open them again.
Her hand climbs upward to a shoulder. She inches forward with an index finger and middle finger. A place where her husband’s head should be. She feels viscous liquid, a lobe. A tear squeezes through closed lids. She feels matted hair.
Too much effort. Too, too much. Too, too, too … thoughts bounce around her suddenly empty head. No thoughts of herself. Anthony. The baby. Shouldn’t there be a baby?
***
“Put this one in that room.”
“Jesus, look at her.”
“Would-you-please-shut-the-fuck-up. She’s still alive, and she’s pregnant. We have a chance to save the baby.”
“Shit. Sorry.”
“Here. Here. And here.”
“Was she driving?”
“Husband. He’s down the hall.”
“Alive?”
“Shit, she’s bleeding. She’s bleeding! Get a nurse. Get.”
“Doctor?”
“She’ll live. We have to get the baby. She’s almost eight months.”
***
Ellen glanced over to where Nadine sat, drawing thoughtfully with her crayons. Nadine did almost everything thoughtfully, and although Ellen had once been concerned about it, she had gotten used to it, especially after the doctors told her there was nothing physically wrong with her daughter. She was just a serious child — something to do with how she was born, Ellen often thought. She was drawing a picture of a field. Nadine liked nothing more than to be outdoors in open spaces, and Ellen tried to accommodate her as much as the weather permitted.
She stopped looking at her daughter and looked at herself in the kitchen window. Ellen often thought of herself as a ghost, and she fostered this belief by gazing into windows and picking out her ghostly reflection. Her hair was cropped close to her head, through choice as much as by necessity, and her long face had a premature aged look to it. Ellen sighed. She was only thirty.
Nadine made a noise behind her, and Ellen turned. Nadine was looking into the back yard and smiling. “Dad,” she said simply, pointing. Ellen followed her finger. Anthony was crouched over the flowerbed, trying to coax one of his babies to grow. He spent a lot of time out there, but it didn’t bother Ellen. She knew he still loved her, even though they had grown more distant since the accident. It had been three years, but Ellen knew it had affected him more than her. He was still dealing with issue about it.
She bent down and mussed Nadine’s hair. “Dad,” Ellen repeated, nodding. “Flowers.”
“Fo-wers,” said her daughter, giggling. She didn’t speak much or in any kind of sentences, another cause of concern for Ellen. The doctors told her many things, but none of them knew very much about the brain and how it functioned, and they always ended up saying the same thing: “We’ll have to wait and see.” Ellen tried to get Nadine talking more, but she seemed to be as intelligent as any three-year-old, so her mother consoled herself with that.
Anthony stood and turned toward the house. Ellen always had to steel herself for his appearance. The doctors had done wonders, but the scars were still there. His left ear was gone, and he had a jagged line down the left side of his face. She had taken a long time to get used to it, but now, it was more a curiosity than anything. He was still beautiful to her.
He came into the house, wiping dirt on his work jeans. She smiled when his lips brushed against her cheek, and he muttered something about work in the garage. He said hello to Nadine and kept walking. Ellen felt her hand trembling.
***
“How’s Nadine?” said Fiona, Ellen’s best friend. They were eating lunch at Caprial’s Bistro, Fiona’s favorite restaurant. Ellen picked desultorily at her salad.
“Three-year-olds shouldn’t be this perceptive, should they?” Ellen asked.
“Meaning?”
“She knows there’s a gap in our lives. Even though she hadn’t been born. She knows.”
Fiona was a year older than Ellen and had two children, both over six years old. She looked at Ellen wistfully.
“Kids don’t get any easier, you know. Enjoy her now. Of course kids are perceptive. We think we’re so smart, but they know. I always knew my dad was a drunk, even when I didn’t know what alcohol was. And Nadine’s smarter than a normal kid.”
Ellen continued to play with her food. “What’s wrong?” Fiona asked. “You’re not yourself these days.”
“I want him to touch me like he used to,” Ellen blurted out before she thought. “I want things back the way they were.”
Fiona reached out and stroked her hand. “I know, honey. But it’s not going to happen. It can’t be the same. You know that.”
Ellen tried to keep the tears back, but she couldn’t. “I’m sorry, Fi. It’s just … so lonely.”
Fiona didn’t say anything. She just sat and petted her friend’s hand. There were no words.
***
For months after the accident, Anthony wouldn’t speak to her more than was necessary. He would hold her for hours, soothing her when she cried, but he wouldn’t talk to her about things that were important. He had been in the hospital for so long, and when he came home, he withdrew further into himself. She took care of Nadine and ran the house. She dealt with the lawyers and the lawsuit. She went to the meetings and approved the settlement that allowed her to quit her job and take care of her daughter. Anthony often sat for hours, staring into space. Ellen had finally snapped.
“You have to get over this!” she yelled one night as he sat in the recliner in the living room. Nadine was spending a few days at Ellen’s parents’ house. “I know what happened. I know you were hurt. But what about us? What about Nadine and me? Don’t we deserve your attention?”
He looked at her with the brown eyes that always made her melt. This time she stiffened. She did, however, kneel down beside him.
“I know it’s been hard, Anthony. I thought I lost you. How could I manage on my own?” She reached up and stroked his chin. “But that’s what it’s been like. Like I’m alone with Nadine. You’re here, but you’re not. I need you to come back to me.”
Anthony always had a way of calming her. She watched as he slowly realized what his withdrawal was doing to her. He told her he would try to do better.
“You say that, but you have to mean it,” she whispered. She was hopeful, because this was as meaningful as anything he had said since the accident. “We need you.”
Anthony caressed her hair and promised to make things work. He knew Ellen had been shouldering the burden, and he wanted her to know that could always tell him anything and he would listen. He said all the right things.
For a time, the situation did get better. Anthony was more open, more eager to listen and help. Ellen had to admit that life improved. However, she still felt that he was shutting her out. A year after the accident, he went back to work. They didn’t really need the money, but he told her it was important for him to get back into the world. He wanted to feel like a productive member of society again. He got a job downtown, working at an independent bookstore. She didn’t go to see him.
Ellen spent her days with Nadine. “I don’t know about Daddy, baby girl,” she said one day after Anthony had been at his job for about six months. “Do you think it’s better now that he’s out of the house more often, or worse?”
Nadine knew four words. She looked at Ellen and said, “Da.”
Ellen smiled at her. “Hmmm. That makes sense. I miss him so much when he’s not here, but when he is here, it’s like he’s absent. I thought work would focus him. I thought he would work his way back to us.” Nadine crawled away from her, looking for treasure. Ellen crawled after her to monitor her.
“Daddy is such a good man, Nadine. He loved us both. I know it. I’m scared for him.”
“Poo.”
“Another good point. I know he needs time. I know he would never deliberately hurt me. I know.”
“Da,” said Nadine, pointing at the sofa.
“We’ll make it, baby girl. I know that much. That much I know.”
***
As Nadine got older, she became more uncomfortable around Anthony. Ellen wasn’t sure why. Anthony would talk to her, play with her, pet her hair, but Nadine still began to be uneasy around him. Ellen knew it wasn’t abuse — Anthony was never alone with Nadine, and besides, he loved his daughter — but she wasn’t sure what the problem was.
She tried to talk to him about it. Late at night, when she couldn’t sleep, she would roll over and see if he was awake. He often was.
“Do you still love me?” she asked him one night. It was over two years after the accident. She had never asked him that before.
He took her in his arms and swore to her that he would always love her. She asked him why he seemed so distant, why she felt he was slipping away from her. He said he didn’t understand what was happening to him. He had always been unable to express himself completely, but since the accident, he felt like the world was not enough for him, that he was destined for other things. The accident, he said, had severed him from his old life, and he was scared of what lay ahead.
“It’s been two years,” she whispered urgently. “Life is what lies ahead! Our life. Our child’s life.”
Anthony buried his head in the crook of her neck and she felt him crying. It was the most emotional she had seen him since the accident. She calmed him down, and they made love, slowly but desperately, as if trying to stave something off, something that was hiding in the shadows.
***
Anthony remained pensive, despite Ellen’s efforts. He worked in the garden, went to his job, and sat in the living room, in the dark, sometimes all night. Nadine, Ellen saw, tried to reach out to him just as Ellen did, but Ellen knew he was slipping beyond their grasp. It was like he was becoming gossamer-like, diaphanous and ethereal, even though he was among them. He would go for long hikes in the mountains, bringing back stories of waterfalls and pine trees and eerie dells under fallen logs. She wanted to go with him, but he insisted he go alone. It was part of his attempt to regain what he had lost, he said.
“What he’s lost is right here,” Ellen said to Nadine, one Saturday when Anthony was off in the Cascades somewhere. “He doesn’t need to look for it somewhere else.”
“Dada come back?”
“I don’t know if I want him to, sweetheart.”
She shook her head. She couldn’t think like that. She and Anthony were joined, and her love could survive his quest. Nadine’s question, however, planted a seed of suspicion in her. Would Anthony leave them? Despite his contention that he would always love her, perhaps the reminder of the accident was too much for him. She didn’t know what she would do if he left.
“What should I do?” she asked her daughter. “Should I confront him?”
“Mama sad?”
“Mama sad.”
Anthony didn’t return on Sunday. He didn’t return on Monday, or Tuesday. Suddenly Ellen began to fear that something had happened to him. After he survived the accident — a small miracle, in Ellen’s eyes — she began to think nothing could hurt him. He was immortal to her, because he had made it through such a horrific experience. That, she thought as she waited for him, was a stupid notion. He could die just like anyone else. She didn’t think he had left her — all his stuff was still at the house, and she couldn’t believe he would just leave like that. Another accident, however — that was possible.
Her fears were unfounded, however, and Anthony returned on Wednesday. It was the longest he had ever been away. She didn’t even know if he had missed any days of work. She was no longer able to forgive him.
“If you don’t want to be here, get out!” she screamed at him as he walked through the door. “What the hell is this, anyway?”
He stood, quietly, looking at her with his sad eyes. He knew he deserved what she was giving him.
She grabbed his hand and led him into the living room. He sat down on the sofa, while she stood over him. “Anthony, I can’t do this. Not anymore. I can’t. Nadine can’t. She misses her daddy. I miss her daddy. Don’t you understand?”
He opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything. She turned away.
“I know. I know. It was hard on you. It was hard on me, too. Nadine, too. They had to deliver her early, you know. You do remember, don’t you? It was horrible for all of us. I know we came out if it, and you … But you have had time, Anthony. God knows we’ve given it to you. I can’t give you anymore.”
She turned back to him. Her eyes sparkled with tears.
“When we met … God, you were so beautiful. I remember. I never thought anyone could turn me on like that. You were everything. I know you still love me, and Nadine, but … we can’t go on like this. You spend all your time in the garden, or in the garage, or at work, and now these hikes. It’s like living with your ghost. I can’t live with that. I want …” her voice broke, and she whimpered, “I want my husband back …”
She knelt down in front of him. She felt him touch her cheek and wipe away a teardrop. She looked up at him and saw him smiling. “What … what …” she whispered, ready to be angry.
“I’m sorry,” she heard him say. “I tried. You’re right. I have to go.”
He stood up. She looked around the room, suddenly fearful. He was actually going to leave. She wanted him back. She wanted him back.
“No,” he said, as if he read her mind. “You don’t.”
She collapsed on the floor, weeping. She didn’t hear him leave.
***
“I threw him out,” Ellen said a week later. She was eating lunch again with Fiona. Nadine sat quietly on a booster seat, drawing on the place mat with crayons.
“Who?” Fiona said.
“Anthony. I had to.” Before Fiona could say anything, Ellen blurted out, “He agreed. It was time. It was time to move on. I couldn’t deal with it anymore. I had to move on with my life.” She smiled. “I feel better.”
Fiona took Ellen’s hand. “It was about time, dear. I’ve been telling you for three years to move on.”
“But I couldn’t. I had to give him a chance.”
“To do what?”
“To come back to me.”
Fiona smiled sadly. “He wasn’t ever coming back to you, Ellen. I know, you wanted him to, but it wasn’t going to happen. We were all concerned. You didn’t seem to grieve in the … proper way, I suppose. This insistence … We were worried. I figured you just needed time. It didn’t seem to affect you too much, and Nadine is fine, so I figured you needed to work it out yourself.”
Ellen lowered her head. She hadn’t really listened to her friend. The despair had returned. “I just thought …”
“I know. But he’s dead. I’m glad you finally realized that. I’m glad you’re ready to move on. It’s best.”
Ellen nodded. She bit her lip, hard.
***
That night, she called him. She stood in her backyard and looked down at his garden. The plants were long gone, and the soil was ridden with weeds. She stopped by the bookstore where he had worked, and they told her they had never heard of him. She went to the hospital where Nadine had been born and looked for long minutes at a copy of the death certificate.
She stood in her backyard and looked up at the full moon and begged him to reappear. There had to be some way.
She felt something behind her and turned. He stood on the porch, transparent in the moonlight, smiling. She ran to him, but he held up his hand. No closer, she heard him say. His lips never moved.
“I … I … didn’t mean …” she said, unsure if he could ever hear her. “I didn’t know …”
I’ll always love you, his voice echoed in her head. Thank you for loving me so much.
He slowly faded. Ellen smiled through her tears and walked inside. She went into Nadine’s room and petted her daughter’s sleeping body. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s okay now.”
**********
[I don’t tend to write stories with “twists” in them, mainly because I’m not very good at it and I think I’d have to force it too much. This isn’t really a “twist” – I have no idea if people knew what was going on, but I didn’t try to hide it too, too much – but it’s something. I wrote this after my own accident that damaged my daughter, and I wanted to write something about what it feels like to go through such a traumatic event. Nobody died in our accident, but our lives were changed forever, so I know a little about what Ellen is going through. I hope I headed off some objections to the plot – her friend kind of knew what she was doing, but didn’t want to shatter the illusion until she was ready for it, so that’s why she could get away with thinking her husband was alive for three years. I like to think Ellen had moments where she understood that her husband was dead, but then she reverted to these moments and those more lucid times were lost. The fact that her husband is dead isn’t exactly the point of the story, anyway. This is the same Ellen who was a good student in my story about Rudolf Habsburg (remember that one?), a decade or so later, and we haven’t met Fiona yet, but she’s been mentioned! So yes, more connections in my stories. I dig it.
Next time: the big finale! But not the end of the stories I’m posting here! Whatever could I mean?!?!?!?]
