Moving Forward in Reverse (20 page)

‘Hi, Scott, this is Doctor Ellen Parker.’

Oddly, I felt no surprise at this familiar voice coming across my
phone line; her voice felt right, humming into my ear with the slight,
mechanical twang of my phone’s speaker. I glanced at the clock on the
microwave: 6:00 p.m. A little late for being at the office, perhaps, but not so
late that this was necessarily a call from her home.

‘I’m calling to see how you’re doing,’ Dr. Parker said.

An impish smile arched across my lips.
No physician calls their
patient personally.

‘I’m fine,’ I nimbly replied. ‘How are you?’

‘Were you able to fill the prescription for antidepressants I
ordered for you?’

A chuckle rumbled in my chest and I had to fight to keep the cocky
humor out of my voice. Dr. Ellen Parker was being evasive, a twinge of
insecurity quivering behind her words.
Well, well,
I thought, leaning an
arm on the counter and crossing my legs in the barstool. I was going to enjoy
this – whatever ”this” was.

In response to her question I said simply, ‘Yes,’ then let the
conversation go dead. I let the silence swelter between us as I dumped full
responsibility for the conversation in her lap.

‘That’s good.’ Her voice was beginning to fade even more from its
initial surge of confidence. I entertained myself by imagining how she had
probably mapped out the entire dialogue in her head – editing the grammar to
inhuman perfection and playing it out in her mind with coquettish pauses and
teasing remarks – and now I was tearing it to pieces by refusing to play along.
Whatever she was really after, I was going to make her work for it.

I thought I heard a huff from her end of the line and realized I
may have been chuckling audibly by now. I put my hand over the microphone and
listened to her breathing, enjoying the awkwardness of it all to a
disproportionate degree.

It took her a few more leaden seconds to gather the nerve to speak
again.

‘Actually,’ she said, her voice resuming some of its assertiveness
like a ship released to barrel full-steam ahead, ‘I was hoping you’d like to have
coffee with me.’

My jaw went slack. all thoughts of laughter dissipating like a
rain puddle after the clouds have cleared.
A date? She wants to go on a
date? With
me
?
Realizing this lengthy pause was not of my
intentional devising, I quickly rearranged my thoughts and managed to quip in
response, ‘Sure, but I don’t drink coffee.’

‘Great. How about we meet at Starbucks downtown at one o’clock on
Sunday?’

Either she didn’t catch my mention that I didn’t drink coffee or
she was choosing to ignore it. Whichever the case may be, I was back to my
formal joviality, laughing heartily to myself as I replied, ‘Where is that?’

‘Across from Sylvester Park.’

‘Okay.’ I was pretty sure I knew where that was.

‘Great. See you then.’ This she punctuated with the click of a
phone finding its cradle. I lowered my own handset back into its base with more
care and shook my head around a buoyant grin. Dr. Ellen Parker wanted to have
coffee with
me
.

23

The streets were damp from the morning’s rains, but by one o’clock
the skies had cleared and the tentative sunlight had warmed the December air to
a balmy fifty degrees Fahrenheit. Ellen was waiting for me at an outdoor table
nestled beneath one of the green awnings which protruded from Starbucks’s roof.
She stood when she saw me cutting across the street. A smile unfurled across
her face. Looking at her, in plain jeans and a navy Lands’ End jacket, I saw
Ellen, just Ellen.

I had expected firecrackers – or at least butterflies – in the pit
of my stomach at our first personal encounter, but standing across from her I
felt only peaceful serenity. Where were the nerves? I knew why my palms weren’t
clammy, but what about my underarms and forehead? Shouldn’t my heart have
started pounding the second I drove into downtown? This felt more like
reuniting with an old friend than embarking on a first date.

‘Scott,’ she said as I approached, my name rolling from her lips
in that same alluring way I couldn’t get enough of. ‘Before we go any further,
I need to tell you something. You should know that I’m in the middle of a
divorce. We’re in the last stage; it’s just hinging on the financial aspect,
and I don’t –’  

The words had been tumbling out of her mouth like marbles falling
down stairs, rolling on top of each other in their haste to be free. Then she
stopped. Her lower lip crept between her teeth and she looked at me with such
hopefully mournful eyes I had to suppress a smile.

‘Come on,’ I said after could trust my voice not to hitch on a
chuckle. ‘Show me downtown Olympia.’

~~~

We walked aimlessly up and down and down and up the streets of
downtown Olympia, traveling wherever our feet would carry us in our quest to
keep the inevitable end of our first date at bay. After two hours spent
strolling along the damp concrete, dodging water droplets as they wept from
rain gutters and leafless trees, and wistfully admiring the Christmas lights
strung on the eaves of buildings, I offered to make pizza for us both as an
excuse to head indoors together.

It was an easy detour to the nearest Albertson’s and Ellen told me
about her Italian upbringing as I gathered ingredients for a very American
pizza. I considered fretting over whether my cooking would impress her or not,
but dismissed the notion as a waste of energy. Like the butterflies, a poignant
need to impress Ellen with my prowess was peacefully MIA.

As we were heading to the check-out lane, Ellen guilelessly
inquired, ‘So you don’t drink coffee, but do you drink beer?’

Guided by the propensity we had developed for open conversation,
my mouth responded before my mind could catch up: ‘That I drink.’

As soon as the words had fallen from my lips, I snapped my jaw
shut and felt, for the first time in Ellen’s presence, the antecedent throes of
anxiety. Already forced to pay with food stamps, I was now caught in an awkward
position because stamps couldn’t be used to purchase alcoholic beverages.

Ellen looked at me with those insightful, brown eyes and averred,
‘I’m buying. Don’t argue.’

Like a light shone into a dark, suspicious corner, all my
apprehensions were instantly allayed. Oddly enough, no blush colored my cheeks,
nor did a clammy sweat break out across my body. Instead, I simply thanked her
and said, ‘Corona with lime.’

~~~

Her hair tickled my neck. I wanted to brush the itch away, but
nothing in the world could make me move from that exact spot. She was stretched
out next to me on her brown print sofa, our legs intertwined like the
beginnings of a braid as we lay on our right sides facing the television. An open
window sent a temperate breeze grazing across our bodies, toying with her
curls. I longed to run my fingers through the lustrous locks as the breeze did;
to feel their sensuous waves slide across my palm. In some ways, it was like
courting a lady when courtship entailed chaperoned walks and never seeing her
ankles. Only, in my case, no amount of time or level of commitment could change
the situation.
But at least I know the feel of her warmth in my arms,
I
mused as the enviable breeze stroked her hair once more.

The afternoon light floating through the four full-length windows
was hazy, softening the appearance of our surroundings as if everything were
cloaked in transparent silk. The Seattle Mariners were playing baseball on the
television and, as always, Ellen was emotionally vested in every play and held
none of her criticisms – ‘encouragements’, as she called them – back. Her
enthusiasm reminded me of the nights that, as kids, Jeff and I tuned our radio
to KMOX out of St. Louis to listen to our favorite team, the Cardinals.

I grinned as she coached the team from afar, instructing Glenallen
Hill to ‘lay down a good bunt,’ then barking at him about his incompetence when
he lined out to the Minnesota Twins left fielder instead. Baseball season had
only been underway for a month, but I’d already lost count of the number of
times I’d found myself nestled beside Ellen on her sofa doing this very thing.

If I had to, I could probably pinpoint when each successive date
ended and the next began. But truth be told, the days I spent with Ellen seemed
to meld into each other like the overlapping glow of two adjacent streetlamps.
Ellen and I flowed – glided through the progression of our relationship like
two carefree leaves leisurely floating side-by-side down the same stream. No
rush; no thoughts of where the stream may lead or need to pinpoint where we
were sailing in that particular moment. We always seemed to intuitively be on
the same line of the same page, reading at the same speed. ‘Kindred spirits,’
some might call us. If ever there was an argument for fate, others would say,
it would be our first meeting at her clinic.

The tricky part of fate, though, is determining how far back it
goes. If it was fate that led me to meet Ellen that December morning in 1997,
was it also fate that brought me to rock bottom and forced me to seek
psychological help? Was it fate that caused me to lose the trial and leave so
much behind in Wisconsin? Was it fate which inflicted me with the flesh-eating
disease and robbed me of my hands and feet?

And if it was fate that brought me here, should I feel gratitude
towards it or condemnation?

Another tickle along my neck brought me back to the present. Ellen
had shifted, twisting slightly in my arms so her left shoulder pressed against
my chest and she could incline her head to gaze up at me. The game had cut to a
commercial and with it went the tension and frustration that had kept her body
taught.

In a casual voice, as if discussing the weather or proposing pizza
for dinner, she stated matter-of-factly, ‘We should get married.’

I looked down at her, stared into those deep, brown eyes so stern
like a child determined that you should take her seriously, and felt my
eyebrows rise in surprised amusement.

‘Stop yelling at the Mariner players and it’s a deal.’

Oh, brother,
I brooded in shamefaced dismay when she nodded perfunctorily and
turned back to the TV,
was I
actually
playing hard-to-get?

Who was I to say such a brazen thing on the heels of a marriage
proposal? By all rights I should have been groveling for
her
acceptance
of
my
hand – I was the one with the robotic ones, after all. I looked at
the left myo where it rested innocently on the gentle, moon-like curve of
Ellen’s hip. Why would this amazing woman – a doctor, no less – want to marry
me
?
Handicapped with missing limbs and no direct career path, I was hardly a catch.
Hell, I was still living on food stamps.

I opened my mouth to apologize and beg for her forgiveness. Then
paused before the words could come tumbling out. The game had resumed with Bill
Swift now pitching for the Mariners, but from the sofa there was only silence.
I peered down at Ellen, the biggest fan-meets-critic of the Seattle Mariner
Baseball Club. She was watching with her head pillowed on her arm and eyes
fixed on the screen. I saw the ripples of a furrow in her brow. But her mouth
was clamped firmly shut.

She stayed quiet for the remainder of the game.

~~~

The Thurston County Courthouse Complex was a cluster of stocky,
red-brick buildings with even redder, sloped metal roofs that hung low over
their walls. The windows of the top floors were partially obscured by the
overhanging roofs, peeking out from behind the protrusions like eyes peering
out from behind bangs in need of a trim. It was the first of May and green had
claimed the landscape, brandishing its various hews in happy abundance among
the buildings and parking lots. I reclined in the passenger seat of Ellen’s
teal green Nissan Quest and gazed contentedly out the open window at the white
speckles of daisies dotting the grass.

The courthouse doors were flung wide, jolting me from my
daydreams, as a brunette with thick, curly hair in a navy and white print dress
came bursting through the doorway. It was Ellen, in her blue and white dress,
charging down the walk at a clip fast enough to make any power-walker envious.

As she veered towards where I waited in the van a smile bloomed on
her face and I caught my breath at the unornamented beauty of it. In a moment
of sheer exuberant spontaneity she leapt into the air, throwing her arms wide
and whooping with excitement.

She came around to the passenger’s side of the van still beaming
like an elf on Christmas, her work finally done, and leaned into the window to
give me a fervent, celebratory kiss. When she pulled away with a gleeful sigh,
I carefully adopted an incurious tone in asking, ‘So it’s finalized, then?’

‘Yup! Good riddance, too!’ she jeered in good humor.

I nodded, glanced out the windshield at the daisies, then back at
the ebullient, Italian-featured woman beside my window. She was gazing at the
building with her chin inclined and a self-satisfied, upward curve to her lips.
The vernal air had yet to be infused with summer’s warmth and still held a
slight chill that brought rosy spots to her cheeks and nose.

Stunning.

‘Now you’re officially divorced, would you like to go back in and
get a marriage license?’ I inquired in the same impassive voice she had used
that Saturday afternoon during the Mariners game. Her eyes turned first,
sliding from the building down and left in the direction of the car. Then came
her chin, arcing around towards me like the curve of a ball in decent as her
chest fell on the exhalation of a deep breath. Her eyes were squinting against
the sunlight when they met my own and her lips still held the same crescent of
a blossoming smile.

‘Close the window, grab your wallet, lock the car, and let’s go.’

~~~

We were married four weeks later in the same building by the judge
on wedding duty that day. It was beyond simple – bleak and austere as far as
ceremonies go. In other words: ideal.

I wore a blue suit jacket and tan slacks with a yellow boutonniere
in my lapel to match the flowers pinned in Ellen’s unfettered hair. She had a
yellow, flower-print dress that hung to just below her knees and sang of summer
and spring. We were simply adorned for our simple ceremony and as merry as ants
at a picnic.

It was the first time I had been in a courthouse since the trial,
but nothing here reminded me of then. It was as if I was reading from a
different book now and those scenes no longer connected to these. Life had
moved on. And for once, I had moved with it.

~~~

‘Throw home on that play! Come on! What are you
doing
?!’
She fell back against the pillows with a chagrined sigh loud enough to drown
out Dave Niehaus’ play-by-play on the radio. In their seventh inning, the
Mariners were only leading by two. And by the way Ellen was verbally attacking
the players on the screen, it seemed they’d be lucky to end
behind
by
two.

‘Ah, what’s the use? They never listen to me, anyway,’ she
lamented and glanced out the window at the silent, flat waters of the
tree-framed lake. It was strange to think that it had been two weeks since our
honeymoon. No, what was strange was to think that only seven months ago I’d
never heard of Ellen Parker.

She began to turn her head, her eyes seeking my visual summons as
I gazed at her profile, and our sights locked. She smiled at me, long and slow.
One hand reaching towards me like a blind man groping for his cane. The phone
pealed and her hand went still, falling to the mattress between us as she
turned to retrieve the handset from her nightstand.

How did you find me?
I wondered as she turned the volume on the radio to low, the crowd
becoming a droning hum behind Niehaus’ softly scratching voice. I had been so
lost before Ellen, my life in the midst of swinging wildly off course, and then
there she was: physician, friend, wife. And the tracks switched, curving gently
in the opposite direction – the pendulum picking up its swing as it righted
itself. I was finally heading somewhere I wanted to be.

‘Hello?’ Ellen chirped cheerily into the phone, eyes drifting back
to the television screen with almost subconscious listlessness. A pause,
followed by an ingratiating smile. I couldn’t make out the voice on the other
end of the line, but judging by the amiable squint to her eyes he or she was
friend not foe.