Conundrum (27 page)

But
,
with
one look around me at the nurses
in blue scrubs communicating in
hushed whisperings
,
it struck me.
A knife pierced my heart and stole away my singular victory.
Somewhere down that hall, Jeremy lay on a bed, wishing he would die.

I had escaped a cage only to find myself trapped in a bigger one. And I didn’t know if this cage even had a door.

Chapter
1
8

A gentle hand on my shoulder startled me awake. I opened my eyes and squinted under the strange glow of fluorescent lighting. The clock on the wall read 3:25, but it took me a moment to realize it was the middle of the night
and that I was slumped in a metal chair outside the ICU.
The sterilizing smells and soft whirring sounds of monitors brought me forcefully back to the hospital,
and
that awareness
brought
with it a rush of distress. Jeremy lay close by, separated by only a few feet of wall, but it could have been a gaping chasm, by the way my heart berated me.

“Mrs. Bolton,” Jeremy’s surgeon said, “your husband will pull though.”

I looked in the woman’s face—her kind Asian features reassured me. As she explained to me the extent of Jeremy’s injuries—two broken ribs, a punctured lung they were about to reinflate, trauma to his
liver
that had caused internal bleeding but was not punctured,
assorted broken bones with Latin names I couldn’t place anywhere on my body,
and a fracture in his left forearm—I thought of another conundrum, probably the oldest in the book.

A man
and his son are driving
in a car
. They get into a car wreck and the father dies. The son is rushed to the hospital and into surgery. But the doctor stops at the sight of the child and says, “Wait, I can’t operate on him—he’s my son!” Back in the sixties, this puzzle stumped everyone. If the father was dead, how could the doctor say this child was his son? Was he the boy’s stepfather? Godfather?
Once women’s liberation entered the scene, the conundrum
was moot
. The answer was obvious—the doctor was the child’s mother.
But in that era, no one would have guessed the doctor to be a woman.

I chased after my wandering mind and brought it back on a leash to focus on the doctor. I had managed a few hours’ sleep on the uncomfortable chair, occasionally getting up and stretching, pacing the hallway, checking in at the nurse’s station for news.
Initially, the doctors worried about the internal bleeding and the extent of the trauma to his organs. I knew I should
have
been
relieved that he was out of danger, but I couldn’t
rally
any emotion.
My head was thick and groggy
,
and my heart
was
a concrete block in my chest. Everything about that place
appeared
surreal and intangible. I had to touch my leg to be sure I was really there.

“Is he still unconscious? When can I see him?”

“
He’ll be coming out of anesthesia soon. Once he’s alert enough, we’ll let you know. It may be another hour.”
She rested a hand on my arm. “Your husband made it through surgery, but he’s not in the clear just yet. His spleen was damaged, and we nearly had to remove it because of ongoing bleeding and a drop in blood pressure. But we were able to avoid that necessity. He
has
a chest tube in
for his punctured lung
and will be on a mechanical ventilator for a few days. Tomorrow, if he’s strong enough, we can begin to wean him from that.
The laparotomy packs for his liver injury need to remain for another twenty-four hours or so. Fortunately, his pancreas is fine and his spine intact.
”

I nodded and thanked the doctor. She
suggested I go downstairs to the cafeteria and get some coffee and something to eat.
But I couldn’t bear the thought of straying that far from Jeremy’s side. A great need to see him seized me. I thought of his arms around me, my head pressed against his chest, his big gentle hands running through my hair.
W
e
were connected by some tenuous strand that threatened to snap if I stretched it over too great a distance.

A sob broke out of my chest and startled me. I collapsed into the chair and cried, a great gush of tears
accompanied by heavy heaves that felt like waves of pain washing over me. My Jeremy—broken, hurt, bleeding.
A man so capable, so competent, so confident. How could this have happened to him? And what could I do to help him?
How could I make it better, make this nightmare go away?

A hush draped the hallway. A nurse sat at the desk near the elevator. No one else loitered near the ICU.
I could feel the seconds passing as if in slow motion.
I walked over to the pay
phone attached to the wall by the restrooms. I dug into my purse and found three quarters, then dialed my mother’s number. She was a heavy sleeper, so I knew to let it ring, trusting that Neal would have no inclination to pick up her phone at four in the morning.

My hand shook with restrained anger
,
and my heart
began to thump
my chest so hard it hurt. I heard the click as my mother answered.
My breath hitched.

“What? Who’s calling this early?”

Sudden terror overtook me. I nearly dropped the phone. But I managed to force the words out, drenched in acid. They burned my throat as they traveled out my mouth.

“I hope you’re happy now. Jeremy drove his truck off the road. He’s in Intensive Care.” Phrases tumbled through my mind in a disconnect with my mouth. I stood there, trembling, waiting to hear what my mother would say, toying with the temptation to slam the receiver down. But I really wanted to get a reaction from her.

“Lisa?” I could almost hear the wheels turning in her brain, trying to formulate just the right thing to say. Surely, she wouldn’t try to console me. And heaven forbid she apologize for anything. Ever.

“
Lisa, I don’t understand—”

Oh, it would be the play at innocence and naivety. I knew how
that
line of argument went. “What’s to understand,
M
other? You’re taking everything away from us and destroying our lives. Jeremy couldn’t take it anymore—just like Dad. How many more men do you plan to add to your list of victims, huh,
M
other?”

“Calm down. I know you’re upset, but this has nothing—”

“Oh, I beg to differ.
Wait,
I take that back—I will never beg anything from you, ever again. You think you’ve won, forcing us out of our home. You have no clue. You’re the loser. You destroyed your marriage, and now you’ve destroyed this family—irreparably.
Take our house
.
Take it all! I don’t care anymore; I just want to get away from you. Whatever it takes.”

“Lisa, I—”

“And I don’t want to speak to you or hear your voice ever again. You have anything to say, send it to my lawyer through your lawyer. We’re done.”

I slammed the receiver down and slipped to the floor
as if someone had delivered a hard punch to my gut
. I
had done
what I had to. I knew in that moment the only way Jeremy would get better, would have a chance,
wa
s by my severing all ties to my family.
Like a fight
-
or
-
f
l
ight response, I could sense danger
,
and my only thought was to flee. Protect what precious left I had in the world. Jeremy.

Maybe we could move to Montana, start over, leave
our memories behind us. Maybe in time we would heal
—
emotionally and physically. Even if, by some miracle, my mother had a change of heart and rescinded her decision to force us out, how could we stay? As long as we remained under my mother’s control, we were prisoners.
And Jeremy would die—one way or another.
Quickly or slowly.
Inevitably.

I buried my head in my hands and sat there, on the cold linoleum floor, until I saw two
white
shoes through the cracks
b
etween my fingers. I looked up and saw the nurse.

“Your husband’s awake.” She offered me a hand and helped me stand. I followed her down the hall and around the corner to a door. She opened it
,
and I spotted Jeremy in the dim lighting, on an elevated bed, with an IV drip going into his arm. The nurse gestured me in, then walked away.
Strangely, the sight did not distress me; rather, I
had
a sense of déjà vu, as if I knew all along this is where we’d end up—him in a hospital bed and me helplessly looking on.

This
, I thought as I studied him surrounded by machines with blinking lights and all the attendant hospital paraphernalia,
is the real door to enlightenment
. This door opened to truth
;
to understanding
;
to
stark, unmasked
reality. I had wanted to be enlightened. To be set free. I had sought out a different door, but this was the one that opened to me. And strangely
enough
—
I realized as I walked over to Jeremy
—
I had found enlightenment. Not what I expected or wanted
, b
ut apparently what I needed right then. The answer to all my searching, the solution to all my problems
:
I needed Jeremy and he needed me. Nothing else mattered.

When I came beside him, he stirred and opened his eyes.
A lump lodged in my throat at the sight of him hooked up to tubes and monitors—my nightmare made solid and tangible.

“Hey,” I said, taking his hand. His gaze drifted, but he found my
face
.

“Lis
.
 
.
 
.
 
you’re here
.
 
.
 
.
”

“Shh, Jer. You don’t have to talk. You’re going to be fine.”

Jeremy squeezed his eyes and grimaced. “Sorry
.
 
.
 
.
 
so sorry. I wasn’t thinking, I was
.
 
.
 
.
 
so mad.”

I stroked his face, noticed one eye was swollen and his cheek bruised. I was careful not to touch that side of his face.
I looked at the machine
ry and devices easing his pain and realized they were doing the job I should have done.
My heart ached painfully.
“Hush, it’s okay. Just get some sleep. I’m here, not going anywhere.”

He let his eyelids close.
Hush-a-bye
. A little tune went through my head. I sat on the edge of Jeremy’s bed and watched his breathing deepen. From somewhere deep inside me, I heard words and a melody
sung in an oddly familiar voice
. I let the sounds come through my lips, almost a whisper.

“Too-loo-loo-loo-loo, hush-a-bye. Dream of the angels in the sky.” The melody had a haunting
, sad lilt, an old lullaby. It sounded Russian to my ears. More words came, but from where?

“Too-loo-loo-loo-loo, don’t you cry. Daddy won’t go away
.
 
.
 
.
”

I
held my
breath. I saw a face, my father’s face. His eyes were
muddy brown
and his skin pale.
His
chestnut
-
brown hair was thinning and
receded
off his forehead.
His head seemed big as he loomed over me,
as his
hand brush
ed
hair from my
cheek
.

“Sleep in my arms as time goes by. Childhood is but a day
.
 
.
 
.
”

I was in my crib—a light pinewood, up against a wall with nursery rhyme characters in bright colors. I saw the three blind mice, and Little Bo Peep with her sheep. There were words in rainbow block letters, and although I was too young to read, I knew what they said because my father had
often
pointed to them and recited them to me:
“
Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse ran up the clock.
”