Me Again (14 page)

Chapter 16

S
EATED AT OUR USUAL CAFETERIA TABLE, Rebecca downed half of her soda in one draft.

Suddenly self-conscious, she said, “Sorry – I was really thirsty.” Her face and neck were shiny with a light glaze of sweat, and her skin, still flushed from her efforts, seemed to glow against the pale blue of her warm-up suit. No makeup, hair slick and pulled back, to me she was nothing less than stunning.

Opting for understatement, I said, “You look good.”

“Thanks,” she said, “you too. You’ve put on some weight, it looks like.”

“Probably because my mother is cooking for me,” I said. “Beats hospital food, hands-down.”

“I bet. So how’s living at home?”

I considered the question. “It’s not bad, really. I was all worried about not remembering what it was like, but since I don’t remember what much of
anything
is like, it didn’t turn out to be a big deal.”

“So nothing at home reminds you of anything you’ve forgotten?”

I shook my head. “Not really. But it’s nice – we all get along, and they’re really good about helping me. You know, driving me around and stuff.”

“When are you going to be able to drive?”

This was embarrassing. “Probably never,” I said, my eyes downcast.

“But why not? You’ve been working really hard, and you can see okay, can’t you? I mean, to read road signs and all?”

I looked up at her. “It’s what’s on those signs that’s the problem.”

She stared at me for a moment, and then grimaced. “Oh, crap. You mean like speed limits. Highway names. Distances.”

I shrugged. “Numbers. Can’t live with ’em. Can’t live without ’em.”

Rebecca looked mortified. “Jonathan, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I—"

“It’s not a problem,” I said. “You didn’t say anything wrong. It just turns out that numbers are a big part of how we live. Well, of how the rest of the world lives. Me, not so much.”

“I’m sorry, Jonathan,” Rebecca said again.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, eager for this portion of the conversation to conclude. “How about you? How are you doing? How are... well, how are things with you and Big Bob?” I was bound and determined to do this friendship thing right, even if it forced me to ask questions for which I didn’t want to hear the answers.

Rebecca took another sip of her soda, then put her cup down.

“Still pretty weird,” she said. “But in a different way.”

Scared to death of what that remark might mean, I forged ahead nonetheless. “Want to talk about it?”

Rebecca opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. Finally she said, “See, this is where being me is really a pain. I
do
want to talk about it, and there’s all kinds of stuff I want to say. But I’m not sure if it’s stuff I’m supposed to talk about.” She gave me a very serious look. “Or whether it’s okay to talk about it... well, with
you
.”

“I’m your friend,” I stated simply.

“I know,” she said, “and I’m so glad. But that still won’t stop me from saying something stupid. Or something that’s better kept to myself.”

“Have you talked to any of your other friends about this?”

She scowled. “That’s what’s so hard. I’ve got other... friends, but I don’t really feel comfortable with them anymore, you know? And most of them are people we know from church. So I definitely couldn’t tell
them
about what I’ve been going through with Bob.”

“Well,” I said, thinking aloud, “You’re really my
only
friend. I don’t remember anybody else, and the people I’ve met – outside of my parents, that is – I don’t really trust.” I stared into her eyes. “But I do trust you.”

“I trust you, too. I mean, that stuff I told you about Bob and me – the sex stuff – I haven’t talked about that to anybody. Even me, who blurts out everything at the worst possible time – even I know I just couldn’t do that. But I felt I could with you.”

“So talk to me,” I said.

Rebecca sighed. Then she surprised me by asking, “Are you religious?”

I pondered this. “Not really,” I finally said. “I’ve got sort of a vague sense of there being a God, I guess. But I know Mom said I used to hate going to church. How about you?”

“I don’t know that I’d call myself religious. I mean, I was raised Catholic, but my family never went to church much.”

She paused to sip her drink, then continued.

“Bob’s gotten really active with the church since we got married, so I always go with him on Sundays. The people there are nice, and I like some of the music. But I don’t think I get as much out of it as he does.”

Rebecca frowned. “Now he’s started going to church every day.”

“Every day? I didn’t even know they had church every day. I thought it was just on Sundays.”

“I guess it’s different when you’re Catholic. They say mass every day at the church we go to, at six-thirty in the morning. So he’s been getting up early every morning and going.”

“When did that start?”

“The day after I threw him out of bed.”

I hated to ask, but I did. “Is he... still...”

“Sleeping on the couch,” she said. “Actually, that’s not right. A couple days ago, he started sleeping in the guest room. He actually moved some of his stuff in there. I guess he knows I’m not letting him back in my bed any time soon.”

“Are you worried that he’ll try to... do things you don’t want to do?”

“No, it’s not that. He’s not going to force me to do anything – he’s not like that. I just can’t get into the same bed with him, not after he lied to me like that. I’m... well, I’m not really sure how you get past something like that.”

While a part of me was overjoyed with this news, the pain on her face was palpable. So I tried to empathize. “That’s got to be awkward. How’s he taking it?”

“That’s what’s so weird. I figured he’d keep pleading with me, you know, trying to soften me up. But instead, he’s gotten all religious about it.”

“I don’t understand. Is he praying for you two to patch things up?”

Rebecca sighed. “No. That’s what I thought at first. He’s always been very religious, so I figured he started going to church so much because he felt guilty about what he did. I thought maybe he was going to confession or something. But it’s not like that.”

Rebecca paused, her lips pursed as she looked for a way to explain. Finally, she said, “It’s like he’s given up on me. I’m not the person he married – he came right out and said that to me. That person was taken away from him, and in her place, he got stuck with me.”

“Now, wait a—"

“No, let me finish, Jonathan. Please.” Rebecca’s eyes pierced me, and I was silent.

“All this time, Bob had been fighting that. Trying to get me to come around, to be my old self. Now he’s accepted the fact that it’s not going to happen.”

Rebecca’s eyes began to well up with tears. “So now he’s praying to understand why the woman he loved was taken from him.”

“But you’re still here,” I protested. “You—"

“There’s more,” Rebecca said. “Bob told me he took his vows
in sickness and in health
. And the way he looks at it: I’m sick, and it’s his responsibility to take care of me. So now I’ve become some... cross that he’s got to bear.”

“My God,” I said involuntarily.

“I’m not sure whose God it is,” Rebecca said bitterly. “But he’s throwing himself into this like I’m some sort of trial for him to endure that will somehow make him more righteous, or holy, or whatever. Do you have any idea what it’s like to feel like you’re nothing but a burden?”

Rebecca began to sob quietly. I reached instinctively for a nearby napkin dispenser and pulled out a few thin paper napkins to offer her.

“Thanks,” she said, then blew her nose loudly. “God, how did things get so messed up?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But I think I do know how you feel.”

Our conversation dwindled after that, and we finished our drinks in silence. I hated not being able to help, but I couldn’t think of anything to say or do.

Finally, Rebecca broke the silence. “Well, I guess we should get going.” She fumbled in her gym bag, and extracted a set of keys. “Ready to hit the road?”

“You’re sure it’s not too much trouble?”

“It’s no trouble,” she said. “It’s not like there’s anything I need to hurry home to.” She gave me a half-hearted smile, then stood up. I clambered to my feet and followed her out of the cafeteria.

When we got to the hospital entrance, Rebecca turned back towards me and said, “I got a crummy parking place – it’s pretty far away. Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll pull the car around to pick you up.”

“Okay,” I said, embarrassed by my inability to keep up with her. “Sounds like a plan.”

I waited next to the sloping semicircular drive, trying to come up with some more cheerful topics for us to discuss in the car together. Then a shadow fell over me as a huge SUV pulled up, blocking my view of the parking lot.

A window slid down. “Hop on in,” came Rebecca’s voice from high above me.

The passenger door swung open, and I looked up, wondering how in the hell I was going to get into this behemoth.

“Hang on to the door, and pass me your walker,” Rebecca said, holding out her hand. I managed to fold it up and pass it to her without taking a dive. I felt my face flushing again, dreading the humiliation of needing her to give me a boost into her car.

But Rebecca the Teacher was on duty – she called out to me over the thrum of the engine. “Grab that handle, and pull yourself up.”

I looked up and saw a handle mounted high inside the frame of the door. Thinking this just might work, I swung my arm up and caught the handle in my hand. Sure enough, I was able to pull myself up and into the seat pretty smoothly, if I say so myself. I made a mental note to thank Leon for pushing me on those preacher curls.

Feeling pretty smug, I reached over to close the door, and promptly found myself falling back out of the car. I grabbed madly for the handle I’d used to pull myself in and somehow managed to catch myself before I tumbled to the pavement. I pulled the door closed with a satisfying thunk and then, crisis averted, sank back into my seat and turned to face Rebecca. To my infinite relief she was busy adjusting her side mirror, and had missed my brief acrobatic act. I exhaled with a sigh and began to wrestle my way into my seatbelt.

Then Rebecca turned to me with an expectant smile and asked me the killer question.

“Okay, where to?”

It was then that I realized I didn’t have the slightest idea how to get home. Or even what my address was.

Rebecca had a cell phone, and my parents were home, so I then got to endure the humiliation of listening to her chat with first my mother, then my father. She jotted down some directions on the back of a takeout menu she pulled from her glove compartment, and soon we were on our way to my house.

I’d never felt more helpless or stupid in my life.

* * * * *

I’m afraid I wasn’t much of a conversationalist on the way home. I tried to bury my humiliation by focusing on the names I saw on the street signs we passed, determined to memorize the route home.

“It’s not a big deal, Jonathan,” Rebecca said, reading my thoughts. “I mean, I do the same thing when I’m a passenger – I never pay attention to where the person who’s driving is going.”

“But I bet you know your address,” I said, still sulking.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” she said. “Things are hard enough for you already. Besides, you’ve made a lot of progress.”

I realized I was ruining what could have been a pleasant conversation, so I tried to perk up.

“You’re right, I know. I just get frustrated some times when stuff that should be, I don’t know,
basic
... well, it just eludes me.”

“You mean like knowing what’s okay to say and what isn’t?”

Touché.

“Yeah,” I said. “Like that. At least you know how I feel.”

“That’s why I like you,” Rebecca said. “You know how I feel, too.”

We arrived at my house to an unusual sight: both of my parents were out in the front yard, my mother with a garden hose and my father with some sort of gas-powered hedge clipper. I had lived with these two people long enough to know that they were
not
great outdoorsmen or gardeners, preferring to pay local youths to tend to their yard. They were just manufacturing an opportunity to see Rebecca. Apparently I had been wrong to assume no further embarrassment could befall me today.

Rebecca pulled into the driveway, and I considered my options. If I were an able-bodied young man, I’d have opened my door and sprung from the car, leaning in for a quick thank-you before slamming the door and trotting into the house, calling a breezy
hello
to my parents as I passed.

But no. I was a walker-wielding stroke victim, not at all sure of how to dismount from the towering heights of this wheeled leviathan without ending up sprawled on the pavement, while the object of my unrequited affections looked on in benevolent pity.

Surrendering to the situation, I smiled sheepishly at Rebecca. “So,” I said, “would you like to meet my parents?”

My parents greeted Rebecca with much fuss and ceremony, then turned to the task of safely extricating my walker and me from the battleship-sized car. A few moments later we were all seated around our dining-room table, while Mom fetched a tray of iced tea and finger sandwiches she just happened to have prepared. Living in her house and seeing her outside of the confines of my hospital room, I had become much more aware of my mother’s quick, birdlike movements. She was constantly darting back and forth, always ready to solve any problem with the appropriate food or beverage.