Chapter 06
Most people I knew relished the weekends and dreaded Monday’s return to work. I was just the opposite. My weekends were harder than anything I ever had to do during the week. On days when other people looked forward to sleeping in, I woke, bleary-eyed from regularly interrupted sleep to take care of Adam. I couldn’t go anywhere or do anything without making arrangements for someone to be there to care for him—and, much like parents of young children who most often felt that the effort of arranging for childcare made the pleasure of going out to dinner and a movie not worth taking, I just grew accustomed to staying home. It wasn’t solely the inconvenience, it was the expense. With our combined salaries and the carefully invested money from the settlement granted by the ski boot company, our lives were much easier, financially, than many others of spinal cord injury patients. We were lucky. But even with all that, finding someone to stay with Adam on weekends was more effort and money than I generally cared to spend.
Another Friday night and I was already yawning when Dennis rapped on the door. He waited until Adam called out for him to enter. That politeness, the willingness to grant Adam the courtesy of waiting until he was ready, was but one of the qualities that endeared Dennis to me.
“I’m heading out, guys, but I’ll be around tomorrow when you’re ready to go, Sadie.”
“Thanks.” I smiled at him. “You look very dapper.”
He did, in a clean white shirt and dark trousers. His arm muscles bulged under the fabric. His shoes gleamed, and I knew he’d spit-polished them.
“Hot date tonight?” Adam’s chair is chin-operated, and now he turned it to face Dennis.
It was funny to see such a large man blushing. “Yeah. Sort of. You ready for bed?”
“Sadie?”
I’d been covering my yawn with the back of my hand, and I smiled a little guiltily. “I think we’re just going to watch a few movies, Dennis, so sure, if you could help me…”
“Be happy to.” Dennis is always happy to help.
Together we maneuvered Adam from his chair into bed and Dennis did a last check of all the vital and important facets of Adam’s existence. I appreciated his concern. I could do everything he’d just done, but by doing it for me, Dennis allowed me to be Adam’s wife, not his nurse. It was a small gesture, one I doubt anyone outside of the situation would have noticed.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Adam reigned from his place in the special bed that adjusted to nearly any position and allowed his body to be moved easily to prevent sores. “Hot date, or not? Sort of isn’t an answer, man.”
Dennis gave me a look, but I could only shrug and laugh. “You’d better tell him. He won’t let up until you do.”
“Yeah, I have a hot date.” Dennis made a show of arranging Adam’s blankets. “With Henry.”
“Henry? The guy from the gym?”
“No, that’s Alan. Henry’s the one from the coffee shop.”
“Would you listen to this guy?” Adam’s laugh drew my attention. “Don Juan.”
Dennis shook his head. “Not true, man. Not true.”
They laughed some more. I’m sure they didn’t mean to exclude me. I watched their conversation without a clue about who they were discussing. It was silly to be jealous of my husband’s caregiver, especially when I didn’t envy the tasks he performed with such ease. I envied that at any moment, at his whim, he could leave. I imagined it would have been simple for me, too, to put on a cheery face and work at making Adam happy if it was just a job to me, instead of the rest of my life. Except that was being unfair to Dennis, who never made us feel as though caring for Adam was just a job.
“Have a good time, Dennis,” was my advice.
“Be careful,” came from Adam.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Dennis said and gave Adam a casual flip of the bird when he hooted something lewd. “Yeah, yeah, man. Whatever.”
Then he was gone, leaving us to our rather bland Friday night. I changed into sweats and a T-shirt while Adam indulged in some mindless TV. I tidied up the room, putting away his computer desk and moving the wheelchair out of the way so I wouldn’t stub my toes on it if I needed to go to the bathroom in the night. On the weekends I slept on the oversized recliner Dennis used at night. We’d talked about getting a cot but somehow never had.
“I hope Dennis has a good time tonight,” I said after a while.
“He will. I’ve been telling him to ask the guy out.”
I settled into the recliner. “I didn’t even know he was interested in anyone.”
Some celebrity gossip show had stolen Adam’s attention. “Yeah. He is.”
“Oh.”
It took him a second, but he looked at me. “Oh?”
I shrugged, pretending interest in my ever-present knitting bag. I never worked more than a few rows, but I always had it. I looked up to see Adam staring. “What?”
“We talk about it, sometimes,” he said, almost defensively. “Is that a problem?”
“Of course not. I just didn’t know, that’s all.”
His face creased. “Sometimes I can’t sleep. Dennis is there.”
When you’re not.
He didn’t say it, but that’s what I heard. I put my eyes back on my sad excuse for a scarf. The droning of the television buzzed in my ears.
I never forgot that, while I went out into the world and talked to people almost every day, even something as mundane as going to the grocery story was an adventure of epic proportions for Adam. Telephone and email conversations were not the same as face-to-face interaction. For a man who’d thrived on social contact, his isolation was harsh and not made better with knowing it was largely self-induced. Adam had decided the effort of getting ready, and the discomfort he most often felt when out of his environment, wasn’t worth the effort. He got angry when I tried convincing him otherwise, so I’d stopped trying.
It’s easy to learn who your real friends are after an accident like Adam’s. There were those who visited, and those who didn’t. Who was I to begrudge him a friendship with Dennis?
“Debbie sent me some pictures of the girls.” Adam pointed with his gaze toward the desk where the mail lay in scattered piles. “She’s thinking of coming out for a visit.”
“Sounds great.” I forced more enthusiasm than I felt. Adam’s sister and her kids were a handful and not the best houseguests. Not only did a visit mean I’d lose what little privacy I had already, but I’d be expected to entertain them, too.
“Maybe next month?”
He sounded so hopeful I couldn’t bear to tell him no. After all, it was his sister and nieces. Since we couldn’t visit them, they had to come here. I understood it. I just didn’t feel like dealing with all the hassle of preparing for and cleaning up after them. Mrs. Lapp took most of the burden off me in that respect, but while they were here I’d be expected to entertain and occupy them. Adam’s sister was high maintenance, her kids as much so. It would have been nice if she’d come to spell me in Adam’s care, give me a bit of a break, but she didn’t. She’d sit with him for an hour while her kids ran rampant in my house, but she wouldn’t stay with him for an evening while I went to the movies.
“She said maybe my mom would come with her.”
There was no way I could feign enthusiasm for that, and Adam knew it. I said nothing. Adam’s mother had no compunctions about advising me on everything from the temperature of his shower to how small to cut his meat, but she didn’t lift a finger to actually help out when she’s here. Once, exhausted from a night of interrupted sleep and a small medical crisis, I’d confronted Alice Danning about her constant “advice.”
Affronted, she’d drawn herself up with a sniff. “I guess I know what’s best for him, Sadie. I am his mother, after all. If you had children, you’d understand. A mother never stops knowing what her children need.”
I wasn’t so sure that was true. You’d think a woman who wiped his ass when he was an infant wouldn’t have big, scary issues with doing it now when his need is just as great, but I never dared argue the point with her. After all, I didn’t have children, and it didn’t look like I ever would.
Would things have been different had we been parents? If I’d learned to nurture a child before having to learn to take care of my husband, would I have taken to it more easily? Maybe children would have kept me focused on our family, given me a reason not to resent the way my marriage, which had once been my greatest pleasure, had become my greatest burden. Childish hugs and kisses and the sweetness of a baby’s smile might have filled my need for the physical touch and affection I no longer had. Or maybe having children would have been just more of an additional burden, would have stretched me so thin I broke, taken more than I had to give.
I’d never know what difference children might have made. Adam and I had assumed we had all the time in the world to procreate. We had careers and our infatuation with each other didn’t allow much room for anyone else. Children had been a someday dream, an adventure on which we had plenty of time to embark.
There was no real reason why we couldn’t entertain the notion of trying to have a baby now. Men with spinal cord injuries of Adam’s level made babies all the time. True, it might require more effort, some help and we’d probably need to involve expense and embarrassing procedures to make it happen, but that wasn’t the reason why I never discussed it with Adam. Nor was it my age, which was rapidly approaching the upper end of the safe pregnancy spectrum.
The much simpler reason behind my absolute lack of desire to become a mother was selfish. I didn’t want the responsibility. Caring for Adam took up nearly all the time in my life I didn’t spend at work. I had nothing to give a baby.
“I haven’t seen them in a while,” Adam said somewhat defensively. “Is it a problem, Sadie?”
“Of course it isn’t. What movies came today?” I changed the subject deftly, already heading to the table to check out what our internet movie rental company had sent.
Adam was in charge of keeping our queue. He spent more time on the Internet than I did. Not only that, but he cared more.
He rattled off the names of several blockbuster hits, some big-budget action pictures with lots of guns and explosions. I didn’t really care. I’d end up falling asleep halfway through the first one, as I always did.
“Sounds great,” I told him.
He laughed. “Think you’ll stay awake?”
“Probably not.”
We laughed together, this time, and his gaze caressed me. He tilted his head for a kiss, which I gladly gave him. Our mouths, slightly parted, brushed before I pulled away. I kissed his forehead.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I told him. “And bring us some ice cream. Then we’ll watch the big bangs, okay?”
“I’m tired of ice cream.”
“You know,” I said, after a pause. “So am I.”
“Maybe Mrs. Lapp made some pie.”
“I’ll see.”
“Good,” Adam said, as if pie solved the problems of the world.
If only it could.
“I’m worried about your sister.”
At my mother’s whispered words, my eyes automatically searched the room for Katie. I found her laughing in the corner, bending to feed Lily a bite of chocolate cake. Her husband, Evan, lounged in a chair next to them. He was laughing, too.
I looked at my mother, whose mouth had pursed in concern. “Why?”
“She looks tired.”
“She probably is.”
My mother made a tutting sound and shook her head. I took another look, seeking to find what had so disturbed her. Katie had always been the fashion plate, but gone were the designer suits and flawless makeup. Now, her belly swelling in her fourth month, she wore a loose cotton top daubed liberally with chocolate and faded cotton pants. Her hair, naturally a few shades lighter than mine, was tucked up in a messy knot. Yes, there were faint circles under her eyes and her cheeks were slightly hollowed, but that came from lack of sleep and morning sickness. She wore a necklace made of macaroni and yarn with as much aplomb as she’d before worn pearls.
“She looks fine to me, Mom.”
“Maybe you should talk to her.”
How many times had I heard that over the years? When Katie had a fight with a friend, or lost a role in the school play, I talked to her. When her college boyfriend had broken her heart, I talked to her. When her boss at the bank passed her over for a promotion because he was schtupping her competitor, I talked to her.
“Oh, Mom.” I sounded more annoyed than I’d meant to, and she didn’t miss it.
“You’re her sister, Sadie. She’ll talk to you about what’s bothering her.”
Katie’s laughter drifted over to us. I watched her swat at Evan’s hand, which had crept out to give her a surreptitious squeeze. Lily danced in front of her parents, and they both gave her looks of such adoration it made me smile.
“What makes you think anything’s bothering her?”
“I can tell.”
My mother fussed with platters of deli meats and cheese that we spread out on the counter. They’d all been pretty well picked over, the turkey tumbled with the roast beef and impolitely nudging the ham. My mother, fork in hand like a dagger, stabbed the slices and rearranged them into neatly segregated rows.
I was no more willing to argue with my mother’s statements about a mother’s ability to judge what her children needed than I was with Adam’s mother. I wouldn’t have won against either one of them, in any case. Besides, what she was asking was nothing new.
“Then you talk to her.”
My clipped reply made her look up again, fork poised in the air. There’s nothing quite like pissing off your mother to churn your stomach. Mine, however, had been in an uproar for so long it didn’t seem to make much difference that my comment had made my mother’s mouth thin in that telltale way. It wasn’t only mothers who know their children; daughters know our mothers, too.
“I think your sister could use your help,” my mother said stiffly. “With Evan traveling so much and the baby on the way, I think she’s got too much on her plate—”
It was more of the same old story, the one my mother’d been telling since Katie was born. ‘Take care of your sister.’ It didn’t matter how old we were or what was going on in our lives, I was the older sister. The responsible one, the smart one… I was never the one who needed taken care of. Watching my sister with her husband and child, I couldn’t stand to listen to my mother any longer.
“Mom, I can’t, okay?” I must have been sharp, because she flinched. “Get off my case about it. I can’t.”
“Fine.” She bent back to her task. “Though I have to say I’m very disappointed in you. I think she could use someone to talk to. She needs you. I’m worried about her….”
“She’s always the one you worry about.” The words, like acid, burned my throat. I sipped my drink to wash away the bitter taste of sibling rivalry, but it wouldn’t go.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My mother turned, still wielding her fork.
“Nothing. It means nothing.”
I excused myself and sought solace in the den, abandoned at the moment in favor of the places serving food and drink. The small room had once been part of the garage, but my dad had converted it as his domain when I was in high school. The far wall had been built with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with photo albums and paperback novels. I recognized the faux white leather cover of my wedding album, and I yanked it from its place on the shelf.
We’d had a simple ceremony. Struggling on Adam’s meager salary and with my bills for school, we hadn’t had the money or the desire to throw a lavish, traditional wedding. I’d bought my dress from a local thrift store and waitressed to pay for the wedding pictures. We both looked gorgeous.
We looked happy.
Married five years after me, Katie’d planned a vastly different affair. Bridesmaids, formal wear, a cocktail reception and a candlelight service. Both she and Evan had high paying, successful jobs and similar skills in the art of consumption. They’d spared no expense, either from their own pockets or their parents. Even their honeymoon had been lavish and exotic, a two week stay in Greece. Adam and I had gone to Niagara Falls for the weekend and went back to work and school the Tuesday after the wedding.
We’d made different choices, my sister and I. I didn’t envy her the grand, expensive ceremony, or the five thousand dollar wedding dress; those were things that had been unimportant to me. Yet now, as I pulled her far thicker wedding album and laid it next to mine, resentment bubbled up. Not because she’d had her hair and nails done for professional portraits and looked like a princess while my photos weren’t as pretty. And not because she and Evan had served steak and lobster at their reception while Adam and I had been happy with chicken and fish.
She’d always had more. More of my parents’ attention, more friends, more parties, more clothes. More sense of style, more money, more adventures. More of everything but grief.
I didn’t hate my sister, but my mother’s admonishment, not the first and far from the last, had tipped me over an edge upon which I’d been teetering for a long time without knowing it.
I felt like shit about it, too.
I put the albums away. I needed to find my dad, wish him happy birthday and get home. Dennis was great and apparently Adam’s new best buddy, but he still cost time-and-a-half to work weekends, and I wanted to be able to buy a new car before the end of the year.
The books on the shelf had shifted and wouldn’t allow me to replace what I’d removed. Irritated, I shoved them aside to make room for the wedding albums, and in doing so scraped my knuckles. The cut was shallow but bled, and I sucked them with a muttered curse.
“You all right?” said Katie, her belly leading the way as she appeared in the doorway. “Sades?”
“Fine.” I blinked back tears of fury while anger rose in my throat and threatened to choke me. “Just fucking dandy.”
My sister had perfected the art of the pause. “Okay…”
I couldn’t look at her. Couldn’t see her flushed cheeks or the bulge of the baby inside her. A baby I wasn’t having. A joy I didn’t want and wouldn’t ever have. I pushed my hair off my face and straightened my shoulders.
“I’ve got to go home.”
“Hey,” she said. “What’s wrong? Was mom giving you a hard time?”
“No.”
“Jeez, sorry, it looked like she was, that’s all. Sadie, what’s wrong with you?”
It was just the question my mother had wanted me to ask Katie. I looked at her. She gave me a half smile, quizzical. She had no fucking clue.
“Mom wanted me to talk to you. She’s worried about you. Again.”
Katie rolled her eyes. Normally it would have made me feel better, and we might have shared a laugh at my mother’s overconcern. Today it only set my teeth further on edge. She had all the concern in the world, and didn’t need it.
“Yeah, she’s been on me,” she said. “Thinks I’m not taking care of myself, or something. Hey, she takes Lily for me, though. Gives me have some downtime.”
Caring for a grandchild was different than caring for a disabled son-in-law, there was no question of that. Knowing didn’t ease the surge of resentment flooding me. It was irrational, and I could do nothing about it.
“Hey, maybe she’ll watch Lily and we can grab a movie next week?”
“Katie, I told you, I can’t.”
“Oh.” She sighed. “Because of Adam.”
“Yes, because of Adam!” I snapped. “I can’t just leave him alone, Katie!”
“I thought you had someone—”
I cut her off. “Mrs. Lapp leaves at five-thirty and Dennis doesn’t come on duty until nine. It costs me money if they stay with him any other time, okay? It’s expensive, and I’m sorry if I don’t lead the grand lifestyle you’re used to, but that’s the way it is.”
Without giving her time to reply, I shouldered past her. “I have to go.”
“What bug crawled up your ass?” she cried. “God, Sadie, I just thought maybe you could use a break.”
There were two people in my life who’d been able to drive me into a state of white-hot fury. Adam and Katie. The two people I loved most.
“You don’t understand,” I snapped.
“Maybe if you told me about it, I would!”
“You never ask!” Our shouts grew progressively louder.
“You never want to talk about it!” Katie’s fists clenched.
“You never talk about him to any of us! We ask you how he’s doing and you give us one word answers, he never comes around anymore and when we go over there he stays upstairs. Lily barely knows him!”
“I never talk about him because none of you like hearing about it! It’s uncomfortable and you’d rather not have all the details! It’s easier for you to just pretend it doesn’t exist. It’s easier for you if I just keep it all to myself!” The cry echoed in the room. Guilt, transparent, flashed over her face and I knew I was right. I also knew I was being unfair.
“Sadie, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her, wanting to soften and unable in my misery to manage. “It’s easier for me, too.”
I left and she didn’t call after me. My mother caught me on the way out.
“Sadie Frances, what on earth is going on?”
I stopped, defeated. “I’m sorry, Mom, but I’ve got to go.”
“Did you talk to Katie?” My mom looked past me toward the den.
“She’s fine. You don’t have to worry about her.”
“Of course I do. She’s my daughter.”
“Well,” I answered stiffly. “I’m your daughter, too.”
“Oh, Sadie.” My mom reached to pat my shoulder. “I never have to worry about you. I know you can take care of yourself. Don’t you know that?”
Smart one. Pretty one. The roles we play come back to bite us in the ass. “Yeah, Mom. Okay.”
I wanted to be what she thought I was. What I’d always been. I’d told Katie the truth. It was easier for all of us, in the end, to maintain the status quo. Besides, it was a party. I put a smile on my face, gave my mom a hug and wished my dad a happy birthday. At home, I stood outside Adam’s door for ten minutes, listening to him and Dennis laughing and trying not to hate the world and everything in it.
Elle was silent today, not unusual for her, but not a step forward, either. She fidgeted in her chair, her fingers knotting in her lap. Today she’d gone back to wearing black and white. Definitely a step backward.
“It’s Dan’s mother,” she said finally. Then nothing else.
She rarely spoke of Dan’s family. “What about her?”
“She’s nice.”
Expecting a complaint, I had to think of how to reply. Knowing Elle had a penchant for talking around a subject before she got to the heart of it, I asked, “Do you mean nice as in really nice? Or are you being kind?”
She looked up, her smile guilty. “You know me too well, Dr. Danning.”
“I think that’s the point, isn’t it?” I teased gently, not a tactic for all my patients but one that worked with her.
“Yeah. I guess so.” She sighed, her shoulders tensing for a moment before she made an observable effort to relax them. “No, I mean she’s really nice. Super nice. She’s like…everything a mom should be. Mom Deluxe. She’s Mom Squared.”
“Unlike your mother.”
This earned a laugh from her that she covered with one hand, a guilty gesture, as if she didn’t want to find humor in what I’d said.
“Yes, unlike my own mother.”
“Elle, unless everything you’ve ever told me about your mother has been a lie, I think I am safe in saying she could have used a bit of motherhood training.”
She laughed again, the hand away from her lips this time. “Oh, I won’t argue with that.” She paused. “Do you think I’ve been lying?”
“No. I don’t.”
“Good.” Her brow creased. “Because I haven’t.”
“Good.”
She gave me another look. “Dan’s mother has taken me shopping. She’s offered me her secret recipe for brisket. She’s…um…oh, shit, Dr. Danning, she likes me.”
I let that hang between us for a moment or two.
“And why shouldn’t she?”
She made a wordless noise.
“Elle. Believe me, a lot of women would be glad to have their boyfriend’s mother like them.”
She let her head fall back to stare at the ceiling for a moment.
“Dan doesn’t have any sisters. His mother is thrilled to finally have a daughter. Her words.”
I could guess at the problem, but she needed to be the one to tell me. I waited for her to speak. She rubbed her forehead and shifted in her chair again before finally sighing as though it came all the way from her toes.
“I don’t know how to do it.”
Again, I waited.
“I don’t know how to be a daughter.” The words blurted from her lips and she took a deep breath like she’d been starved for air.
“Do you think she’s got high expectations?”
“Yes!”
Her vehemence startled me. Her fingers tapped the arm of the chair. Watching her consciously smooth the lines of tension in her body was like watching a ball of yarn unravel. One small section at time, she relaxed.
“Why do you think so?”
“She’s always wanted a daughter. Now, all of a sudden, she thinks she’s got one. Don’t you think she’s going to expect long, mother-daughter chats and giggling over shoes?”
“I don’t know Dan’s mother.”
“Well, I do,” Elle said. “And she likes shoes.”
“Don’t you think she likes other things, too? Would it be hard to find something you both enjoy and can connect on?”
“No, I guess not. I’m just not good at that sort of thing.”
She made a funny face and reached for her purse. She pulled out a bundle of fabric. I waited. She made the face again.
“It’s…a sweatshirt.”
“From Dan’s mother?”
She nodded.
“Are you going to let me see it?”
Elle’s sigh came from the toes of her classy black pumps. Fabric unfolded and kept unfolding, until she held up a garment easily large enough to fit two of her. She stood to show me the front of it.
“Oh, my.” I bit my lower lip, not wanting to offend with laughter.
“Kittens,” Elle said in a slightly strangled tone. “Playing with…yarn.”
I had to put my hand over my mouth, and even that didn’t stop the chortle.
“Go ahead and laugh,” she advised. “God knows Dan did.”
I gave in and laughed as she tucked the voluminous tribute to cuteness away. “Did he?”
“He says I don’t have to wear it.”
“But you feel you should, because it’s a gift.”
“Well, I sure as hell can’t make brisket!” She looked sour. “At least not without the fire department coming. He laughed about that, too.”
Her mouth tipped up into a smile. “Too bad the sweatshirt didn’t burn instead.”
“Maybe next time.”
She sighed again, looking at the clock. “Our time’s up.”
“I’ve got a few more minutes,” I told her. “Listen. Do you like her?”
“Yes.” She squirmed a little, laughter gone. “That’s why I’m so bothered.”
Pleased she’d admitted to it, I smiled. “Because you don’t want to let her down?”
“I don’t want to let her down, Dan, me…my mother…” Her voice trailed off, low.
Now we were getting to the crux of it. “Your mother?”
She nodded, slowly. “Yeah. I might be a shitty daughter but I’m hers. And…”
“You feel disloyal.”
Again, she nodded. “Yes. I do. Because I really like Dan’s mom.”
“Elle,” I told her gently. “It’s okay to like her. You don’t have to feel bad about that.”
“I’m afraid I’ve spent too long being a bad daughter. I know how to do that. I don’t know how to be something else.”
“Is that an excuse for not trying?”
She made another wordless noise, this one half a groan and half a sigh. “No. It’s just easier to keep doing the same thing. Play the same part, that’s all.”
Her words made me blink, hitting close to home as some of our previous conversations had. “There’s nothing that says you can’t change.”
“Not even if it changes everything else?”
I shook my head. “Not even then.”
Elle got up and reached a hand for me to shake. “I know you’re right, Dr. Danning.”
I squeezed her fingers. “I know you know I’m right. You have to know you’re right, too. Good luck with the kittens.”
She snorted delicately. “Thanks. I’ll let you know how it goes.”
When she left, I picked up the phone to call my sister to apologize. Then I put the handset back in the cradle, uncertain of what I meant to say.