In Sickness and in Death (4 page)

One evening as summer waned, she came in just as he was getting out of his suit and ready to take a shower.

“You’re working a lot of long hours lately,” she commented with a frown. Brian shrugged. “Have to get this business up and running.”

“I just don’t know how I’d make it without you working so hard. If anything happened to you . . .” Her voice trailed off as she stared sadly into space. He walked over to her and took her gently in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said.

“Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

She looked up at him, tears welling in her eyes. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you.”

S-s-h-h-h-h-h,” he murmured, stroking her hair. “I’m perfectly fine. There’s nothing for you to worry about.” He held her at arm’s length. “Now, I’m going to go take my shower. We need to be getting to bed.”

While he was in the shower, Brian wondered about Adrienne’s sudden concern over anything happening to him. She had never before seemed to be worried about anything like that. Had something changed to make her begin considering such things? He tried to think of anything different about their relationship but could find nothing. Everything seemed to be going pretty much as it always had. He shrugged off the mystery, stepped out of the shower and got ready for bed.

Later, as Adrienne snuggled against him, she whispered against his shoulder,

“Seriously, Brian. What if something
did
happen to you? What would I do? I couldn’t possibly make the payments on the car. I couldn’t afford the rent. I would be booted out on the street with no place to go and no way of getting there.”

“But I’ve told you, there’s no reason to worry.”

“But you never know when you might be in an accident or something. What would I do then?”

“I have good long-term medical benefits at work. They’d cover everything.”

“But what if you were
killed
? What then?”

Brian gulped. He had never thought about his mortality. He was too young to be concerned about dying. Yet it happened every day. Young people, even teenagers, were killed in automobile accidents or any other of a hundred different ways. Maybe Adrienne was right. He’d never considered life insurance, but maybe he should. He had responsibilities now. He, at least, had a responsibility to Adrienne. Hadn’t he persuaded her to come live with him? Didn’t that make her a part of his responsibility?

“You think I should get some kind of life insurance?”

“It’s the only smart thing to do. Then neither one of us would have to worry about anything.”

“I don’t know anything about any of that stuff. I wouldn’t even have a clue as to how much I’d need.”

She shrugged against him. “I’ve always heard that one should have at least five times his annual salary.”

Brian paused and calculated in his mind. “That’d be nearly a million bucks!”

Again she shrugged. “That’s what they recommend.”

He sighed. How could he possibly make the premiums on a million-dollar insurance policy? But he didn’t need to tell Adrienne that little fact. “Okay, I’ll look into it.”

Brian tossed and turned the hours away. Every time he dozed off he was startled awake by a nightmare of being pursued by an army of unpaid bills that were screaming for his life.

The next evening, Brian came home earlier than usual. He was sitting at the dining table going over some contracts when Adrienne came in from work.

“Oh, I’m glad you’re home,” she said.

“Yeah, I thought I might as well review these papers in comfort.”

She tossed a thick brochure on top of the stack of legal documents.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Everything you need to know about life insurance.” She laughed. “And probably more than you ever
wanted
to know. I stopped by an insurance office today and asked some questions. There’s an application in there too. You want a cup of coffee?”

“Might as well, I need something to keep me awake while I plow through all this.”

She went into the kitchen and he began to peruse the booklet she had given him. When she returned and set a mug beside his arm, he mused aloud. “I wonder whether they’ll accept the results of my last physical.”

“I don’t see why not since it’s been only a few months since you took it. The agent said that they use many of the same providers that most medical policies accept.”

“Hope so. I’d hate to have to go through the fasting and all that crap again so soon.”

“I’m sure they’ll take those results. You’ll just have to ask your doctor to release a copy of the paperwork to them.” She took a sip from her own cup. “So, are you going to fill out the application?”

He shrugged. “Might as well, I guess, and get it over with.”

For hours, long after Adrienne had gone to bed, Brian sat poring over the insurance brochures. He perused the various plans and compared the costs. There was no way that he could afford a permanent policy. It would be a stretch even to manage a ten-year term deal. That would, at least, give Adrienne some protection, if anything should happen to him, and surely he would have all of the debt paid down by the time the policy expired. He might be able to swing that kind of a deal, if he skipped buying lunch and cut all other expenditures that weren’t absolutely necessary.

With a sigh, he pulled out the application form and shoved the brochure to one side. He filled in all the blanks including the required medical history and the provider of his last physical. He signed the consent form to release his medical information, stuffed the form into the envelope and shoved it into his briefcase. He’d mail it in the morning.

Within a matter of days the insurance application had been accepted and Brian’s life was worth a small fortune.

The early autumn breezes turned crisp and the smell of burning leaves hung in the air. Brian continued to work long hours and frequently came home to find Adrienne entertaining some of her coworkers.

When he came into the condo and heard the muted sounds of the stereo, he would go directly into the living room and find a small group of nurses sipping wine and chatting in muffled tones. Inevitably, whenever he stepped into the room, the talking would abruptly cease.

“Just wanted to let you know I’m home,” he would tell Adrienne. She’d introduce him to any new members of the group and he would move down the hallway to shower and change, shaking his head over their stifled giggles.
Why was it that whenever a bunch of
girls got together, they always seemed to giggle?

The relationship between the couple seemed to be running relatively smoothly. Adrienne did not nag him nearly so much about his late hours and Brian tried not to push it, all the while he doggedly struggled to pay down the debts they had incurred. As the Christmas Holidays approached, the traffic around the shopping malls slowed Brian’s drive home to a crawl and he kept arriving later and later. One evening in mid-December he arrived particularly late. Adrienne and her friends were gathered in the living room. After a brief greeting, Brian went directly to the shower.

Standing under the steamy pulsating water, he flexed his tense shoulders and kneaded the tired muscles of his back. He thought of his father and smiled. He would never have been able to convince him, a blue-collar factory worker, that sitting behind a desk all day could be so physically exhausting. His old man, no doubt, would have smirked and wondered aloud what kind of a candy-assed son he had raised. Brian’s smile withered. He missed the old man. Dead of a heart attack at only forty-eight. He shook his head. Maybe it was a good thing he’d gotten that insurance policy. If his dad had planned better, perhaps his mother wouldn’t have had it so hard when the old man was suddenly gone.

When his stiff muscles had finally relaxed, Brian stepped from the shower. With his towel wrapped around his waist, he padded barefoot into the bedroom. Adrienne sat on the bed and silently watched him cross to the chest of drawers and remove a pair of briefs.

“The girls leave?” he asked.

She nodded, but said nothing. Brian felt the tension creeping back into his shoulders. As he brushed his hair before the mirror, he glanced repeatedly at Adrienne’s reflection.

“Sue and David are going on a cruise,” she said, breaking her long silence. “Bermuda. Over the Christmas holidays.”

“Oh?”

“And Elaine and Tom are going to Cancun.”

“They should enjoy it.”

She sat silently, a brooding expression clouding her face, while Brian proceeded to get into the bed. Suddenly, she turned to face him.

“Why can’t we go to someplace nice like that?”

“You know that we can’t afford it, not for a while at least.”

“That’s what you always say, every time I want to do something.
We can’t afford it
,”

she mocked.

Brian heaved a deep sigh. It was no use arguing. They’d been down this road before. He reached for the switch of his bedside lamp, clicked it off and slid under the covers. Adrienne flounced off the bed and marched from the room, slamming the door on her way out.

Brian turned over, crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the ceiling. So, it was starting all over. Adrienne would continue to put the pressure on until his resistance crumbled. That’s the way it had always happened. But this time he just couldn’t allow that to happen. This time he had to be firm. This time he couldn’t give in. Finally, Brian drifted into a restless sleep. When his alarm sounded, he punched the off button and reached for Adrienne. He snapped fully awake. Her side of the bed was empty. Flipping on the lamp, he looked around the room, remembering their previous discussion. Everything looked the same as it had the evening before. He crossed to the door, quietly opened it and listened. The house was silent. He went down the hall, peered into the kitchen, and then proceeded to the living room. There, curled up in the recliner, was Adrienne sound asleep in front of the muted morning newscast. Brian’s first reaction was to wake her up and ask why she had spent the night in the chair. He slowly shook his head. No, that was how he would have normally behaved. This time he had to act differently. This time he had to be sure that he didn’t cave.

He returned to the bedroom and dressed quickly. He’d stop on the way to the office and get coffee. There was no sense in taking a chance on waking her by making it at home.

When Brian got into his office, he struggled with the temptation to call Adrienne. How he hated having all of this tension between them. But, if he called, she would know that her behavior was bothering him and from there, well, it would only get worse. Suddenly, he realized that ever since they had started dating, he had allowed her to manipulate him with her anger and the ensuing long periods of silence. Time after time, he had given in to her desires in order to hold onto the woman with whom he had fallen in love. Sadly, that woman had only remained until the next want came along. This time it had to be different. This time he had to at least pretend that her sulking wasn’t bothering him. Surely that would be manageable what with all of the long hours he was working. Throwing all his energies into getting together the figures for the business’ year-end report to upper management, the hours passed quickly as he concentrated on the visuals that he would include in his presentation.

It was late in the evening when he opened the door of the condo. All was quiet. There was no music coming from the living room, no hint of muted voices. He walked into the living room and through the dining room, pausing to glance into the kitchen. There was no one there.

His pulse raced as he moved quickly down the hallway. Had she left him? Had she just moved out without even saying anything to him? He opened the bedroom door and flipped on the light.

Adrienne lay, with eyes closed, clinging to the very edge of the bed opposite his side. He stood for a long moment gazing down at her.
Was she really asleep? Or was she just
pretending?
Either way, he would not attempt to awaken her. He switched on his lamp, turned off the overhead fixture and went into the bathroom. When he finished with his shower, he slipped into bed without a word, turned his back toward Adrienne and eventually drifted to sleep.

For several days the silence continued, even when Brian arrived before Adrienne got to bed. One evening a week before Christmas, he arrived earlier than usual and found Adrienne ensconced before the television. He deliberately sat down on the couch facing her.

“Look,” he said. “I think we should plan on taking Mom out to dinner on Christmas Day.”

She looked coolly at him. “Do you think you can afford it?” she asked sarcastically. He felt his face flush. “I don’t need your sarcasm. Let me put it another way.
I
intend to take my mother to dinner on Christmas. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

She shrugged. “As long as it’s someplace nice. I could
use
a good meal for a change.”

Slowly shaking his head, Brian stood up and went to take his shower.

On Christmas morning, Brian awoke early. He glanced over at the still-sleeping Adrienne and eased gently out of bed. He retrieved his robe from the closet, and then bent down to open his briefcase. From it he took a small box wrapped in red foil and tied with a golden ribbon. He laid the package on Adrienne’s nightstand and went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee.

He was sitting watching a light snow sift out of a gray sky, while munching on a bagel and sipping a cup of the strong brew, when Adrienne came into the room. She laid a package that was obviously a tie box on the table beside him and went to the coffeepot.

“Thank you,” Brian said.

She extracted the jeweler’s box from the pocket of her robe and sat down across the table. “I only gave it to you because of this,” she said, opening the case and lifting out the gold necklace. She fastened the gleaming links around her neck and gently touched them with her fingertips. “I’ll wear it when we go to dinner with your mom.”

He nodded. “And I’ll wear this,” he said as he opened his gift.

“Where are we going?”

“Mom’s supposed to meet us at Dominic’s. I guess I should call and make sure we’re still on.” Brian rose, picked up the phone and punched in the number. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. We’re still on for dinner at Dominic’s, right?”