Blue Stars (33 page)

Ellen straightened in her chair. She fought down critical thoughts—
what was the theoretical background of this approach?
—and hoped against the odds that Michael wouldn’t find this stupid or cheesy. Certainly there were dozens of happy memories of the four of them, back home in Madison. It was only a matter of his being comfortable enough to share one. Now, which would she choose? The time they took Wes out for a birthday dinner and Mike joined the mariachi band when it came around to their table, singing full-out in made-up Spanish?

“Michael, do you want to go first? What kind of happy memory are you thinking about.”

“Um. Okay. It’s not a big—just this time we took this boat, and—anyway.”

“No, that’s great.” Ellen heard pleasure and encouragement in the therapist’s voice. Behind her closed lids she was sorting through memories, confused. When had they been out on a boat? “Tell us more. Where were you?”

“Well, it was my buddies Troy and Benny, also this guy Tagger … we were at this pond one night behind Benny’s uncle’s place. Benny said his uncle had a boat tied up, we were gonna use it, but then there were these locks all over, like on the tarp and stuff?” Ellen listened in disbelief. There was a smile in Mike’s voice. “We’d had a bunch to drink—anyway, Troy swims out and unhooks this other boat, we don’t know who the fu … we don’t know whose. And we take it out, trying to be quiet but loud as hell probably. Laughing and stuff. Then we just … floated around, out in the middle of the pond. With a couple of bottles and some beef jerky.” He chuckled. “On some random guy’s boat, probably his pride and joy.”

Ellen held it in, how much this hurt her, and how angry she was at herself for being caught off guard and selfish. Why shouldn’t he remember a fun night with his friends? That had nothing to do with her, or Jane, or Wesley?
Of course
he wouldn’t think to include her in his choice of a memory, just because she was here; it was absurd, this disappointment. She held it in while the therapist praised Mike and told him to return to this memory, that night on the boat, anytime he felt overwhelmed by pain or anger.

But there must have been a remnant on her face, as the session ended, because she’d kept her eyes closed too long and when she did open them the therapist seemed surprised and Mike said
what?
when he happened to look over to where she was.

*   *   *

Mostly, they watched TV. A lot of TV. TV pretty much all day long and into the evening after his dinner, when Ellen would usually say good night and go back to her room at Mologne. She supposed he watched it all night too, or at least had it on while he slept in fitful stretches. Often she’d be back at the ward before he awoke, and the set would still be on. Mostly Animal Planet: he liked the shows where “animal cops”—Ellen still wasn’t sure what their exact authority was—investigate pet abuse and then bring the perpetrators to justice. “Soon as the camera’s off, I hope they beat those people to a pulp,” Michael muttered. Also ESPN, NFL Classic, and every live sports event, including golf, which she’d never thought he liked but she saw how it riveted him now: the pale green hills and flats of a Florida course, the hushed announcers and pressed polo shirts, and the barrage of unfathomable terms: bogey, under par, eagles and handicaps and scratches.

On this bleary afternoon, a dull-white winter day, they were watching a bad murder mystery from the 1980s, a TV movie with endless commercials for cat food, medical call buttons for elderly people, and toilet-scrubbing bubbles. Ellen sat in the one chair, no book or pens or anything, and Michael shifted around endlessly in bed—nearly every position made him ache, especially sitting upright—and they watched in near silence, although Ellen counted it a triumph the rare times they happened to chuckle at the same time, or even make a dull sound of recognition.
The investigator’s daughter is part of the drug smuggling ring?
Hm. Mm.

For once they had a break from prosthetic prep; over the past few days Michael had had constant visits from technicians at the Gait Lab. They made him wear shrink socks, which caused bleeding and itching on his stump, and tested out several custom-molded thigh sockets. All of this would lead soon—no one could say when—to the actual fitting of his new leg, to being upright, to the next phase. Ellen wanted to be excited about that, but instead she felt sleepy, disconnected from it all, as she sensed Michael did too.

As sometimes happened in these long stretches of TV time, she found herself carrying on an inner dialogue with Mike, even as they physically occupied the same space in silence. The heartache of not being able to talk to him, of trying to convince herself that it wasn’t true that he couldn’t stand her around, led to long stretches of giving free rein to all the things she had to say, which she couldn’t say.

How could you not use a
condom?
With my
daughter?
I let you into my house, I trusted you with everything … and this is how I’m repaid?

Why didn’t anyone tell me? Why was I left in the dark? All those times we talked, every one of those nights on the couch in the basement, watching TV or having a snack … you never once thought you should let me know that you and Jane were …

Well, so what were you? What
are
you two, to each other? God knows she won’t tell me. And I suppose you both laughed about it, sneaking around to be together right under my nose. What made it so hard to talk to me?

“Ugh, this is killing me. Where’s the Sonadryl? I didn’t take it yet. I gotta take it.”

“Don’t scratch,” Ellen said automatically. “You took the Sonadryl this morning, with the others. They’ll give you another tonight.”

“I don’t
need
it tonight, I need it
now
! Look at this!” Michael lifted his T-shirt—he was now wearing mostly regular clothes on top, with extra-large shorts below, to fit over his bandaged stump. Along the left side of his torso was a thick, bright red rash, laced with white streaks where he’d given in to desperate scratching. The burn was a reaction to a set of meds earlier in the week designed to relieve pressure in his bowels and urinary tract. Now he needed more medicine to counteract what they’d given him.

“Here’s the cream.” He wouldn’t let her put it on, so Ellen merely handed over the tube. Michael muttered about how fucking cream doesn’t do jack shit, which she silently agreed with, but he slabbed some of it on anyway. They returned to the show.

And now, a baby. She’s going to have a baby! What are we going to do about this, Michael? Because if the two of you weren’t exactly the best candidates for parenthood before this, how can you and she possibly manage now? How can you be a father? You barely made it back alive. But then what is it going to do to my beautiful stubborn girl when she has to raise this child, your child, on her own?

“What?” he said irritably. She must have made a sound, a kind of quiet moan, out loud.

“Nothing. I’m going to take a little walk.” Damn. Why did she have to use that phrase? Once she even said,
stretch my legs.
“Need anything?” He shook his head once, eyes on the screen up in the corner of the room.

In the hallway, Ellen said hello to the woman who stuttered, the one whose brother was also an above-the-knee. She peeked into the room on the corner as she passed, where a really young-looking soldier missing an arm sometimes fought loud and long with his teenage wife. Rosalie was at the nurses’ station, accepting a delivery from FedEx; she’d just become a grandmother for the third time, although Ellen guessed she was barely in her fifties.

A teenage boy, asleep in one of the waiting rooms with his headphones on. Too old for the Ward 57 family room, which was stocked with donated toys, art supplies, board games. Ellen always wondered how older kids made it work when they had to live here for some time. Did they try to keep up with the class? Did their teachers extend deadlines, accept late work? Could this boy even care about homework when his father had come home wrecked from war? Was his mother able to make arrangements with the school, did she worry about the effect on his grades, his education … or was she so overwhelmed she simply had to let it go?

Ellen quietly took a seat on the opposite side of the room. She scrolled through phone messages; it looked like Paul had called her back after she left him a message last night but she deleted his now. Their relationship, so easy back in Madison, was strained. Conversations were flat and low on meaning. He said the right things, he asked about Michael and her own self, but … something was missing. Ellen found herself unable to tell him what it was really like. Most likely, she had to admit, what they’d had wasn’t built to sustain an experience like this. They were turning away from each other.

But she needed to throw a line outside, to know that the world still continued. A brief longing for quiet, routine Madison in winter: the warmth of the reading room in Helen White; Maisie’s favorite snow-covered trail along Lake Monona; sun pouring through the windows of her south-facing bedroom, melting icicles. She made a call.

“I don’t believe it.” Serena’s voice rushed in before Ellen was ready. “I was about to call you.”

“I didn’t know if you’d be in class—”

“It’s Saturday, darling. We’re about to go meet Louise and Dan for a matinee and then early dinner on State Street somewhere. But I have a few minutes. Did you get the last box? I hope you don’t have to carry these anywhere yourself. Maybe I should lighten the load.”

“No, they’re fine. Very thoughtful. And thank you—I’m sorry I didn’t call.” Ellen couldn’t tell Serena that her weekly boxes of books were stacked unused in the corner of her room. When she looked through their contents, she felt nothing, even though it was apparent Serena was choosing them with care, with an eye toward what she imagined Ellen might want—might
need
. Novels mostly, heavy on the Victorian period. Collections of stories by contemporary writers, mostly African or Latin American. New issues of
MLA, PMLA, The New Yorker,
and any moronic interdepartment memos she thought Ellen might chuckle at, with infelicitous phrases circled and marked “!”
Department Staff: Please attend today’s MANDATORY meeting about ID policies. If you cannot attend, please review the attached document.
A sign it was Serena packing these kind, useless boxes: each one came with a notably leftist book or magazine, included without comment.
To keep me honest,
Ellen thought. Every few days she carried an armful of books to the giveaway shelves, except for the few she saved for Lacey.

Should she tell Serena to stop sending them? No, because it was the only way that Serena could believe she was helping. It was surely what Ellen would have been doing herself, if their situations were reversed. And no, because it would mean saying aloud the troubling, bewildering, but incontrovertible fact that she had lost all desire to read.

“Oh, stop. I’ll take any chance you have to talk, and don’t worry about calling. Now tell me the latest.” So Ellen did, as quietly as she could, although the sleeping teen’s music was up so loud it came through his headphones. She gave the facts about Michael’s most recent progress and setbacks: the nerve-recalibrating operation that went well, the gut blockages and treatment which hadn’t. She did her best to describe his mood swings, and did appreciate, if not fully connect with, Serena’s murmurs of sympathy. She tried not to fall back on automatic cheerfulness, or dip down too far into actual horror.

“And you don’t have any timeline for coming back?”

“Yes and no. I’ve talked to Jane and Wes about flying home for a few days as soon as Michael can handle things better. My friend Lacey said she’ll check on him as much as she can.” Ellen hurried on, afraid Serena would ask about Jane. Who she hadn’t spoken to since she left Walter Reed. Who was ignoring her calls, once again. “I don’t know when I can, though.”

“There’s got to be someone else who can stay with him. You can’t do this all by yourself!”

“Who? I sent a registered letter to his aunt, no response. I’ve tried to call her—nothing. Anyway, I hate to think what he’d do if she actually showed up here. His cousins have texted him … all the old girlfriends too. Cards and gifts come in, but … no, there’s no one else.”

“And what are the prospects for him going home? For leaving there, for good?”

The teenager tried to roll to his side, became tangled in his cord, and wrestled his way out with an exasperated huff. She flashed on what Michael would go home to: a rehabbed room on their first floor, no job and no leg, and Jane with their baby. “Too early to say,” Ellen said, covering her mouth with a hand. “We’re in true limbo here
.” Limb-o,
her ever-linguistic brain chimed in, obnoxiously.

“Well … I don’t know what to say. That you’re trapped there, that you have to go through this…”

“Tell me about school. How many dissertators?”

“Oh, you don’t want to hear about that. Really, I want to know about
you
.” Ellen opened her mouth but Serena went on. “What are you
eating
?”

She laughed. “Well, it’s a far cry from Jill’s famous spinach and quinoa gratin. In fact, the pickings are so slim that I’ve started drinking TPN shakes. There’s a nurse who took pity on me when she saw my lunch. Now she slips me one almost every day.”

“Do I even want to know? TP … what shakes?”

“Total Parenteral Nutrition. Michael hated them, but I have to say, the vanilla blend isn’t bad.” She wouldn’t mention they were the only thing she could keep down. Remembering all the dinners at Serena and Jill’s, all the times she’d had them over, Ellen missed her own kitchen with a fierce thump. She missed any form of cooking, big complicated messy menus or even the chance to boil a small pot of spaghetti and top it with a single fried egg, some toasted bread crumbs and parsley, a few red pepper flakes. Her longtime favorite solo meal, to be savored slowly at her kitchen counter with a glass of Beaujolais and a thick
New York Times
best seller checked out from the library that day …