I spent the early afternoon in the Intensive Care Unit talking quietly with Zach, sitting in an uncomfortable chair pulled up close to his bed. When he was thirsty I gave him water, when he was cold I rubbed his hands in mine. I told him a hundred thousand times that I loved him. When the nurses came and went, pressing buttons on the telemetry monitor or pushing medication into his I.V., I didn’t move, I never let him get out of my immediate reach.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to call your sister? Knoxville’s not that far, she could come visit.”
“I’m not really in the mood for a family reunion, Katy.”
“She’s going to be pissed when she finds out.”
“She’s not going to find out. Did you call work?”
The conversation turned to practical matters of his classes and needing his laptop and then to Bijendra.
“Is he here?” Zach asked me at one, shortly after his unappetizing lunch of white lasagna and green beans had been ceremoniously plopped in front of him.
There had been a tense few moments of him trying to eat and not being able to manipulate his fingers the way he needed to. When I tried to help him he just lay back against his pillows and shook his head, saying he wasn’t hungry at all anyway. I could see his thoughts in his eyes: that I would be frightened away at last, that I couldn’t possibly stay with him now.
“He’s always here,” I said with a dismissive movement of my hand.
“Those nurses, do they know who you are?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. Yes, most likely.”
“You should go talk to him. Take him home…”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not leaving. I’ve told you already.”
“Katy, if you’re going to do this…”
“I will deal with Bijendra when you’re better.”
“How do you know I’m going to get better, Katy?”
“You’re already getting better. You said your eyes aren’t blurry anymore, and that fever’s gone… you’ll be fine.”
“Then why can’t you leave to talk to your…”
“Jesus, Zach, I’m scared to death, that’s why,” my voice finally rose as I stood up and walked to the end of his bed. “Alright? It’s gonna be very, very nasty and… I’m scared.”
He nodded. “I’m sure you are. But you can’t let him find out from nurses’ gossip, at work. You know that. We both owe him more than that.”
I was silent, picking at a loose thread in the thin hospital-issue blanket. Before I regained control of my faculties the sliding glass door was flung open noisily and Bijendra walked in, Zach’s chart in his hand. He barely looked at me, just stood indolently reading through the chart for a minute and then addressing Zach. Seeing my husband made me suddenly cold inside; he knew.
“A sinus infection caused the exacerbation. I think in a few days you’ll be back to normal—back to how you were before last night, I mean.” He nodded to himself. “Yes, I think definitely. Some people would consider moving to a less hot part of the country—heat, for MS, it’s very bad. Dr. Mallory will be here shortly—he can handle your case very well, so you don’t need me.”
“Thank you,” Zach said, looking BJ in the eyes.
Bijendra nodded and shrugged. “Well, that’s what I do, is it not?”
He walked past me as if I were invisible, hung the chart back on the clip on the outside of the door and then whispered my name in a tone of barely veiled rage.
I took the deepest breath I could, looked to Zach for reassurance, and then stepped out into the hallway. My husband took my wrist in his strong, slender fingers and pulled me into a stairwell at the end of the hall. Another man would have slung me into the wall, I knew from experience, but Bijendra just walked to the opposite corner of the stairwell and shook his head.
“It never occurred to me, Katy,” he said. “Never. Langadi, no, impossible. Ma biraami chhu. You… my mother was right. Veshya, American whore.”
It was one of his distinguishing characteristics that when he was very angry Bijendra slipped from English into his native tongue with every few words.
“Hijo raati,” he was stammering in fury. “You were so upset; your face like you would die. I should have known.”
I could have told him he might have known much sooner if he had ever been home, but thought I was safer keeping my mouth shut. Instead of speaking I closed my eyes, thought of Zach’s hands in my hair and watching him write.
Bijendra poked me in the shoulder, breaking my spell as was his intention. “Sunnuu. Listen to me. I want to know how long, Mary Katherine. Malaai uttar dinuhos. Answer me.”
“Ek barsa, Bijendra. A year—and you never even fucking noticed so don’t you dare blame this all on me.” I was suddenly hissing, just as mad at him as he was at me, though I knew I had far less justification. The rush of anger intensified the terrified roar of blood in my ears.
He grinned at me like a comic book villain and spit his next words at me. “Good. Raamro. I want you out of my house, Veshya. Two days—I give you two days. You go to your langadi, let him take care of you if it works.”
I was given one last glare before he turned on his heel. I stopped him, calling out his name gently.
“Hajur?”
“Thank you, for…”
“I do what I do. Not for thanks. Certainly not from you.”
After he left I slid down the painted cinderblock wall onto the cold tile and pressed my hands to my eyes. My stomach was unsettled and my head hurt. I had just been called a whore in two languages by the husband to whom I’d been unfaithful for almost a year. My marriage was over. And my boyfriend was gravely ill, under the care of colleagues of my soon-to-be-ex-husband. It was all a little too much, a little too international soap-opera, but there it was.
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That night, lying beside Zach in the hospital bed, our fingers woven together, heads touching, I told him about the stairwell scene I’d been too upset to discuss for eight hours.
“He called me a whore,” I laughed shortly. “I expected that. But, really, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. It’s just his ego that’s hurt, it was obvious. He was pissed but he wasn’t sad. He didn’t love me any more than I did him. He probably has a girlfriend stashed around here somewhere. Some… large breasted blonde.”
“What else did he say?”
“That he should have known. That it was obvious last night—that I looked like I would die, if…” I took a breath, inhaling the smell of his skin and hair. “He said I have two days to get my things and be gone. As if I might have been thinking about staying in that house with him. I should have given him my ring, except I don’t know where I put it.”
“It’s in the ashtray of your car.”
“Why do you know that?” I amused my fingers with the edge of his hospital gown.
“I watched you take it off, sitting in traffic Saturday. You tried to slip it off without my noticing—you didn’t want me to see you wearing it.”
“Hmm, you certainly are perceptive. I didn’t want to wear it. I’ll give it to him tomorrow. I thought this would feel different. But… it’s just kind of tense, on one hand, and sublime on the other. Does that make sense? I don’t know why I waited. And I’m sorry, for making you wait. It was so stupid.”
“Look.” He held his hand up in front of us and wiggled his fingers, one by one, perfectly.
I smiled, ran a finger over his knuckles. “I told you.”
“So, are you moving in with me or not?”
“I, um…”
“I think you should. Not that I know when I’ll be going home yet, but I’d like to have you there.”
“Really?”
“You don’t have to. Wait, yes, you do. You have to.”
“If you want me there, I would love to. Yes, I will move in with you.”
“Good. Go home and pack, while he’s still at work.”
“He’s always still at work, I can wait. I don’t want to leave you yet.”
He smiled. “You’re not leaving me at all. Just go pack, and go online and find movers. You’ve got a deadline, remember?”
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Zach spent two days in the ICU and three more in a private room on the floor. Dr.Mallory wouldn’t let him leave without a Novantrone infusion, a new MRI and a lot of lecturing. He had to quit drinking, the doctor said. He drilled it into both our heads as if there were no more important piece of information in the universe. Zach argued, citing things he’d read online, but the doctor was not to be dissuaded. It led to a very tense conversation with Zach when we were finally alone at home amid all my boxes of books.
“I’ll leave.” I could barely speak over my nervous heartbeat drumming in my ears, but I finally said it.
“Excuse me?” He looked up at me from the couch, bewildered.
“If I so much as see you thinking about beer or Scotch or any other fucking thing, I will leave. You can’t ask me to watch you make yourself sicker.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“I am”
Silence.
“Come here.”
I sat reluctantly beside him on the couch and he grabbed my hand and kissed it.
“I guess it hasn’t occurred to you that I love you more than alcohol, Katy. And you’re right, I can’t make this any more difficult for you than it has to be. I’ll quit drinking. Tonight. Pour it all out.”
Dumbstruck, I just gaped at him. I was shaking with adrenaline from the intense battle I’d been expecting for three days and I couldn’t accept that it had been that easy.
“Just like that?”
“To have you, instead? Yes, that easy.”
to be continued....