Together, page 6
Fun is not the word I would have used to describe the experience. I did not think it was fun closing my own door; it felt so “unofficial.” Where was the flight attendant? I’d never closed an airplane door before; what if I closed it wrong and it flapped open during takeoff?
As soon as we were aloft, Henry started pointing out the sights, proudly, as though he’d put each one in that exact spot for my entertainment.
“See Carowinds?” he exclaimed happily, yelling over the vibration of the plane and the nonstop staticky instructions spewing from the radio. “And the river? See? Over there?” He was probably thinking: This is everything.
I was thinking what if he missed something important while he was showing me the Catawba River. I certainly couldn’t hear what the control tower was saying. Could he? “Are you listening?” I pointed at the radio. “You need to be paying attention!”
What if something happened to him and it was up to me to get the plane down? Laurie was five, Mike two—what if we crashed and left them orphans? I could easily see Henry slumped over, unconscious, and me frantically radioing the control tower, and some guy trying to talk me through landing the plane. Okay, Mrs. Goldman, do you see the instrument panel?
The flight, it turned out, was as smooth as ribbon. The landing precise and perfect.
“Well?” Henry said. “How’d you like it?”
“I’m thinking I’ll take the bus home” was my answer, purse under my arm, tight against my side.
I didn’t take the bus. I stayed right there in the copilot’s seat, beside my husband, who remained healthy and conscious as he flew us through that majestic open sky, safely back home.
But I never flew with him again.
And then: a near-accident. He had promised to be home by six and it was already after six. He needed to get the plane down quickly. (Of course, this was totally normal for Henry. He thinks if we’re invited to somebody’s house for dinner at seven, he should start getting ready at seven. Whatever he’s doing at the moment is the most important thing in the world. He’s never ready to move to what’s next.)
His landing, this time, did not go perfectly. The runway was too short, his speed too great, no way he could bring it down. At the last minute, he aborted the landing and put everything he had into lifting the plane. But the flaps were out all the way and he couldn’t get enough altitude. Up, up, up. Still, it was not rising fast enough. He could see the telephone wires just beyond the end of the runway. They were coming closer and closer. Wires thin as grass were growing thicker and blacker.
His plane cleared those wires by inches.
That’s when he realized if he was going to continue flying, he needed to fly more, keep his skills fine-tuned. It did not appear—to either of us—that I would be joining him. Flying alone meant he would spend a lot of time away from his family. He didn’t want that.
Even though I kept seeing myself as the small, spineless wife of a big, strong man, I was actually asserting myself all over the place. I can’t remember if my refusal to join him led to arguments. I can’t imagine it didn’t. My selfishness, my lack of sensitivity in seeing things from his perspective, was not noble, even as I was insisting that I was right. He must have tried to persuade me otherwise. He must have felt pretty exasperated. Of course, he knew I was a worrier. And he wasn’t the type of husband who would want his wife to fly if she were afraid. But this was an instance in which my fear dictated his choices.
The give and take in a marriage.
He loved to fly. I didn’t. So he gave up flying.
Maybe not so much give and take. Maybe just him giving and me taking.
16
Mike and I take the elevator up to the room. We’re not talking about his daughter, Tess, anymore. We’re not talking at all.
Laurie has arrived and is sitting beside Henry’s bed, holding his hand. The two of them are in mid-conversation. She’s so much like her father—both generous, neither likes to say no to anyone or anything. Both have an openness about them. They’re optimistic, energetic, never tired, don’t need sleep.
But our normally exuberant daughter does not look so exuberant. She raises her chin when Mike and I enter. I see her green eyes, the thick tangle of reddish-brown curls framing that pretty, fine-featured face. Henry used to tease her that he didn’t understand how she managed to breathe through such a tiny nose. And, for a flash of a second, I see her as a child, age three, meticulously writing her name, leaning back, cocking that busy little head of hers, then adding two more lines to the capital E at the end of her name because, to her eye, to this future graphic designer to whom patterns and exquisite detail will always matter, an E with five short lines looks better than an E with its usual three. I look at her in this room of white sheets and flexible straws and glaring lightbulbs and see that she is not doing a good job at all of hiding a fretwork of worry.
Mike and I tell them what we now know and give them the printout. Laurie holds it, leaning close to Henry. They read it together, silently. I think they’re both shaking their heads, but I can’t tell for sure. Do they see those words, lasting paraplegia?
17
A 1975 photo: Henry is sitting on the loveseat in his sister Ruth’s den. Sun-tanned and laughing—those brown eyes and dark, shaggy brows—he’s wearing jeans and a soft, light-colored denim shirt, sleeves rolled up. Laurie, six years old and laughing as hard as her dad, has crawled up his back and is cascading headfirst over his right shoulder into his lap. He controls her descent with one arm. Ruth’s youngest son, Adam (eight, also laughing), has crawled up Henry’s back and is tumbling over his left shoulder, scrawny bare legs sliding down Henry’s chest, head dangling between Henry’s firmly planted legs. Henry’s other arm is easing Adam down. Mike (three and eager for his turn) stands close to his dad, so close that if he were any closer, he’d be on the other side of him. Henry looks like he’s granite; Adam, Laurie, and Mike are gnats.
Forty years after the photo is taken, Adam will post it on Facebook with this caption: Mt. Hank.
18
Ramifications are dawning on Henry. The future has been brought into focus. He’s lying there, looking like a dazed person, but he starts naming what he sees:
“I’ll be wheelchair-bound.”
Then:
“I’ll have to have a colostomy.”
Then:
“There’ll be complications.”
Then:
“Who knows what’s ahead.”
Then:
“This is just the beginning.”
Later, when we’re alone, he whispers, “What’s going to happen with us and sex?”
19
For years, I’ve told Henry what I want him to do and what I don’t want him to do if I die first.
“I just know you’re going to fall for the first casserole that walks through the door.” That’s me, warning him to be discriminating. “Remember, if you marry someone who’s not cute, it’ll be a bad reflection on me. People will assume your first wife wasn’t cute, either.”
It all started the New Year’s Eve we’d been invited to a party at Henry’s friend’s house, and a woman named Susan was there. We’d been married maybe seven years and were in our thirties. Susan had been divorced for several months. We’d known her when she was married, and she’d always been overweight. Now she was bone-thin. But she’d kept her big bosoms.
In the car on the way home, I asked Henry, “So what did you think of Susan?”
“She was all right.” Suddenly, he was concentrating so intently on his driving you’d think it was his first time out.
“No, what did you really think? Like if I were dead and you were a widower, would you be interested in her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He put on his clicker to turn. He never puts on his clicker when he turns.
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. She’s the type of woman who’s thin for a minute. Sure, she has big boobs, but right after you marry her, her whole body will balloon right back up. You’ve got to be careful. You should think about marrying Mary or Judy or Debbie.” Two close friends and my first cousin. All adorable. But all already married. Did I think they would divorce their husbands the minute I died and Henry was free?
And would his choice of a second wife really reflect on me? Or was it the cruel and outrageous things I was saying about perfectly fine Susan that reflected on me?
No instructions from Henry regarding what I should do if he dies first.
20
“You won the lottery in reverse.” That’s a surgeon talking. He’s not being sarcastic or unkind. He’s explaining to Henry the rarity of what happened two days ago.
When he showed up in our hospital room, I thought, Oh, good! He’s going to take over the case. That would make sense. We have a long history with him. He operated on Henry for spinal stenosis years ago. This surgeon is very approachable. An easy conversationalist. Not what you’d expect. Most surgeons are reserved, uncommunicative—I think because they’re used to dealing with patients who are sleeping. This surgeon is different.
He pulls a chair closer to Henry and sits down, crossing one leg over the other. He does not break eye contact with Henry. I half sit, half lean on the foot of the bed, eager to hear what the plan is, how we’re going to fix this. He’s telling Henry that it’s a “venous event,” not an arterial one. I don’t understand this last statement, but I do understand the next thing he says.
He smiles his very genuine smile and states firmly—without any ambivalence—that Henry will be completely normal in a matter of weeks. Which is the same thing the physiatrist told us right after the epidural. But then the physiatrist gave us the lasting paraplegia handout. I don’t know what to believe.
Henry and I don’t ask any questions. Maybe we’re afraid of annoying him by appearing to blame, or even just question, another doctor as to what he might, or might not, have done. The surgeon is saying it’s not a lasting problem. If we act as though we fear that it is, he could see us as alarmists, or hysterics. We want him to think well of us. While I’m weighing the pros and cons of trying to find out more, I’m scanning his face to see what he might be holding inside himself.
Still, it’s a jolly visit, loose and comfortable. He asks Henry how he’s feeling, how they’re treating him in the hospital. He listens attentively to the answers. Henry goes into great detail. The surgeon acts as though he has the whole day to sit and chat. We think so highly of him, I decide to put all my trust in what he’s saying. Henry will be okay. We just have to be patient.
After maybe thirty minutes, he stands to leave. He takes a step closer to Henry, puts a hand on his arm, then clasps Henry’s hand with both of his hands. He holds Henry’s hand a little longer than you would for an ordinary, everyday handshake.
“You’ll be transferred to a rehabilitation facility next week,” he says, letting go of Henry’s hand and walking backward in the direction of the door. “I won’t be seeing you again.” Smile. “Those rehab doctors don’t like us poking around.”
I don’t understand that this means we’re pretty much on our own now, that caring for Henry will soon be my full-time job.
21
Surely, now that the weekend is over, we’ll boulder in and see things start happening. The epidural took place three days ago, and we’re still in the hospital. I want plans. I want action. I want a lot of people looking after my husband. Well, I want somebody looking after my husband. I want a move to the rehab facility, where they’ll tell us they’ve seen this sort of thing before and they know exactly what to do to bring on the return to normalcy we’ve been promised.
* * *
.
A trim young woman comes to the room. She gives us her best smile, says she’s a physical therapist from the rehab facility, introduces her assistant, a towering guy, hulky, like a bouncer in a bar. His neck is bigger than her waist. She explains they’re here to “ambulate” Henry, which means they’ll help him walk from his bed to the door, a distance of approximately ten feet. Good, I’m thinking. We’re on our way.
She fastens a thick canvas belt around Henry’s waist and grabs it in the back. Henry jokes about the belt, how it makes him look so stylish. Everybody laughs. The assistant, close beside Henry, holds him under both arms. The guy jokes back, “Yeah, man! You’re way cool!” We all act as though we’re in the middle of something hilarious. The therapist and assistant are keeping him upright and actually sliding his legs forward with their legs. I’m following along behind. If you cut them out of the picture but still let them do their work and all you could see was Henry, you’d be fooled into thinking he’s actually walking. But they’re the ignition, the motor, and the fuel. He’s only a shell.
“I have to stop,” Henry suddenly says, and then he seems to just curl into himself, crumpling in their arms. “I’m exhausted.” I can’t see his face from where I’m standing.
“Quick! Mrs. Goldman! Grab the chair!” the therapist calls over her shoulder. For a second, I’m immobilized. Struck with how far Henry has to go to be “normal.” My mouth opens and closes. No sound comes out. It doesn’t matter; she’s not asking for words. She just wants me to pull the chair over. Which I do. “Now slide it under your husband. There. Okay. Sit here, Dr. Goldman.”
The hardy assistant pushes the chair, with Henry collapsed in it, back to the bed. I follow, walking my slowed-down walk, as though the floor is uneven.
I tell myself, Well, it’s a start. A little rough. But still, a start.
* * *
.
The nurse with the pretty teeth, who told us right after the epidural that she used to work in anesthesiology and was sure Henry would be fine, calls the house today and leaves a message, asking how he is, telling us she’s been thinking about him since Friday. I hadn’t realized how much I wanted someone connected to the injection to follow up and express concern.
* * *
.
Next morning—four days after the epidural—a different physical therapist from the rehab facility comes to Henry’s hospital room. A very straight-backed young man. He’s able to hold on to Henry’s waist (no belt this time) and walk him—Henry using a walker—out into the hall. Henry is still profoundly weak and unsteady, but the way he holds his body is brave, purposeful. He’s not crumpling. He’s sliding his feet along, not exactly a normal stride, more a pushing forward, inch by inch. I follow behind, just in case I need to grab a chair, or my husband—my concentration intense, eyes on him, eyes on the young man, eyes moving rapidly ahead of them, checking to see if anything blocks their way.
The “walk” takes many long minutes. Henry is able to get almost to the nurses’ station. Splashy cheers from the nurses behind the desk, as though we’re approaching the twenty-six-mile marker of a marathon. Henry waves one arm triumphantly, wobbles, looks as if he could go down, quickly grabs hold of the walker again, rights himself.
The nurses’ voices carry us back to the room.
After he’s in bed, under the covers, and the therapist leaves, Henry looks up at me. His face is hollow with exhaustion. He’s about to speak.
I wait.
After several seconds, he says, between ruptured breaths, “That walk was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
* * *
.
This afternoon, still day four, a third physical therapist from the rehab facility comes. She’s young, like the others. She has great posture. But then they all have great posture. I ask if she’s here to walk Henry, like the other therapists.
“Absolutely not,” she says, raising her nose and taking in the full length of me. The expression that passes over her face—of astonishment, of irritation—seems to have a life of its own. “It would be dangerous and potentially harmful for anyone to walk him without a leg brace to hold his foot in the proper position.” She’s admonishing me for allowing her colleagues to do such a foolish thing!
22
That cloud of a frown still stirring in her face, the physical therapist is now leaning over Henry, examining him, manipulating one leg, up, down, bending at the knee, up, down, then the other leg, bending that knee, checking his feet and toes, pushing against the sole of each foot, asking him to push back, pressing down on the top of each foot, telling him to raise it against her pressure. I’m afraid to ask any more questions. Instead, I try to read her face. Look for signs. Just a twitch of her eyebrow might be information. But she doesn’t give even a hint of what she’s finding. Instead, at the end of her exam, she asks him if he’d like to sit in a chair. An enthusiastic yes! She helps him into the vinyl lounge chair beside the bed, tucks pillows around him, covers his legs with a blanket, says she’ll check in with us later, and leaves.
This is the first Henry has sat in a chair for any length of time. A smile takes shape at the corner of his mouth. A familiar, easy smile that just gets bigger and bigger. He clicks the remote until he finds a game to watch. I’m watching him, happy for this so-ordinary sight. Happy, even, to have a husband who loves sports. He could be in the den at home, cheering some team on. “Brilliant play! Brilliant play!” he’d yell at the TV. Or he might question what he considers a ridiculous call, accusing the play-by-play announcer of being the worst he’s ever heard, and why did he ever think he should go into sportscasting? I’d be starting dinner in the kitchen, drifting into the den every now and then to see what all the fuss is about. “Watch this replay, Judy!” he’d say, and I’d watch for a minute, then back in the kitchen. Later I’d call out, “Henry!”—to let him know dinner’s ready and he can fill the water glasses and set the table.
