Her Eyes (3 page)

The sun started descending as he reached his truck. He stood there a moment, appreciating the coming sunset. The orange, red, and gold eased his mind. For a moment, everything was good again. He watched the sunset and took in the mix of fresh air and car exhaust. Things had to get better. He worked at being a good husband. His entire life he wanted to live up to the image of his father, who never had strayed from his mother and had rarely spoken a hard word. Of course, his father never had to live with Catherine.

"Don't that beat all, a man who can appreciate the view."

Frank turned and saw a nurse, one born of men's fantasies and not a hospital environment. Her legs went on for a mile, disappearing beneath a skirt too short for work. She had long blonde hair she wrapped into a ponytail. The lady walked up, and he noticed her exposed cleavage from a top not quite buttoned far enough.

"Hello, miss.” Frank turned back to the sky.

"I'm June.” She brushed against him. “I'm a private duty nurse at the hospital. Are you here seeing someone?"

"Yes. My wife."

"Oh.” She stepped back a little. “What she in for?"

"Nothing much. I better get going.” He opened the door to his truck and stepped inside.

"Maybe I'll see you around."

That was the last thing he heard as he shut the door. Even if he wanted another wife, it wouldn't be one like her. He had enough of the busty, look-at-me types. If God ever gave him the opportunity to do right by Catherine and find love, then he would look for a good girl, the kind that understood what a marriage was supposed to be about. A girl like the one he lost before he met Catherine.

He gave the nurse a nod as he backed out of the parking lot. This would be his last night at home alone. It might be wrong, but he dreaded Catherine coming home. The very thought made him stop for a six pack of beer. She wouldn't be happy, although he'd built an addition to the deck while she was hospitalized and had installed a hot tub. Somehow, he knew she would find fault with it and more with him.

"Twenty bucks for a fuck. Leave the money on the dresser.” That was the line her mother had told so many men who made their way in and out of their single-wide trailer. At first, Catherine's mother tried to hide her line of work, but that became too difficult. From noon to midnight men visited her mother. Most of them smelled bad and dressed in jeans and flannel shirts. None of them were professionals. Many of them had wives and children at home.

Her mother never found a man to stay with her, to love her. She sold herself because she had been too ugly for a man to want. Catherine's mother was overweight, a condition that had been brought on by being pregnant with Catherine. At least that's what her mother had told her on a daily basis. She always told Catherine that having a baby girl had ruined her life. These insults she would spew while holding a cigarette stained with red lipstick. Catherine remembered her greasy hair and that lipstick.

The men that left the twenties didn't complain about her mother's weight. They would simply turn off the lights, hiding what they deemed unsightly while they emptied their loads. Sex. All her mother had been good for was sex.

Catherine had learned that men had little control over sex. Sex controlled them. Even before Catherine had grown breasts, her mother's clients would look at her with that strange lust. As she grew older, a few of them tried to touch her. That was when she decided that she couldn't end up like her mother. She would get married, she would be good enough for a man to stay. Her beauty was the ticket out of that rusty old trailer with the threadbare carpet.

Now, she wasn't beautiful. Now men would only want her with the lights off where they couldn't see her scars. If Frank left her, she would have nothing. After all that she'd done, she wouldn't even have a dresser for men to leave their money.

"I'll never be beautiful again.” Catherine saw herself in the mirror. The odd eye teased her, making her look, she was sure, more like a collection of parts than a person.
I can't live like this. I can't be a freak that people look at in disgust, point at like a circus sideshow. Not me. Maybe people who grew up ugly can, but not me.

She shivered remembering her mother, usually drunk, making those loud noises. She didn't want to be that person. She wanted to be adored, worshipped, needed, and above the sordid things in her childhood.

"I can't live like that. I won't.” She looked in the little mirror. The green eye mocked her. “To kill myself is wrong.” She reminded herself. “But I can't live like this! I'm tired ... so tired ... my life hasn't turned out the way I wanted, the way it should have. I shouldn't have married Frank ... I deserved someone better, someone with clean hands and a nice suit. I deserved someone who would buy me a big house and better jewelry. I wasn't cut out for the happy homemaker lifestyle. I want to go back and have a do-over starting with not marrying Frank."

Outside she heard the nurse, rattling that damn medicine cart down the hall. It was filled with drawers, and in each drawer, a new way to make the pain go away. That's what she needed, a way to take away the pain. It wasn't even the discomfort in her face, her soul seemed to be in agony.

This time of night the nurse didn't watch her cart closely. She'd seen the overweight behemoth before leave the drawers open as she went into the rooms. The day nurses never did that. They guarded the cart like a holy shrine, keeping everything locked up tight. This one didn't, this one was sloppy.

Catherine eased out of bed and cracked open her door. The edge of the medicine cart sat across the hall, just past her door. This was her chance. She could get that do-over or at least not turn out like her mother. Catherine stepped into the hallway, reached into the large open drawer, and pulled out one bottle and several blister packs of pills. She went back inside her room. No one saw her. The halls were blissfully empty as she closed her door.

She had no idea what she'd taken. The bottle had some long chemical name on it. The blister packs were also unlabeled except for a C in the middle of the white pill. It didn't matter what they were. She poured a glass of water and started taking the pills from the bottle. When those were all down, she popped open each blister pack and swallowed those too. She wouldn't have to live this way. She didn't have to live.

Catherine leaned back on the bed, waiting for the pills to do their job. She used to ridicule the ugly, make fun of those overweight. Now she was worse than any of them, but she wouldn't be much longer.

Her limbs started feeling heavy, then her eyes closed. A little vertigo made her grip the sheets, but overall, it wasn't so bad. No, dying wasn't so bad after all. She'd heard about some sort of light, but didn't see it. Some shades of forms, but no lights. It wasn't so bad over here, and she couldn't see that damn mirror.

Frank never expected to be back at the hospital so soon. When the call came shortly after he returned home that Catherine had tried to kill herself, he couldn't believe it. Now, he saw her in the glass-enclosed room with a tube running down her throat. The event took on a surreal quality as the doctor explained what Catherine had done.

"The nurse didn't notice the stolen pills until she went for her last count of the night. After that, the rooms were searched, and we found Catherine in distress. We pumped her stomach, of course. She still absorbed a large amount. Her breathing and heart have been severely suppressed by the medication. It's a wait-and-see thing at this point. We're not sure when she lost consciousness."

"I understand.” Guilt racked Frank's body. He'd wished he didn't have to take her home, but he didn't mean like this. No matter what Catherine had done, he never wanted her harmed. “Can I go in?"

"Sure.” The doctor put a hand on Frank's arm. “We're not sure if she can hear you."

Frank stepped through the first door and sat in the chair next to his wife's bed. The machine kept a steady rhythm, forcing air in and out of her lungs, but it didn't seem like she was there. Perhaps she had gone on to something better.

"Catherine. I've tried to be a good husband.” He looked at the pale, unmoving body. “I don't know how to make you happy. I guess I never did. If you don't love me, then I want you to go on. Staying would be cruel to both of us.” He sniffed back a tear. He couldn't fight the thought that Pam, his sweet, loving Pam, would never have done anything like this.

Life was precious to Pam, she didn't even like seeing a bug die. She would talk about karma and reincarnation and how souls go on and come back when they are ready. He recalled one time she had gotten this book about walking ... walk ... what was it she had said? Well, that didn't matter.

Whoa, pull back. I can't be thinking about someone I haven't seen or talked to for ten years. Pam's gone, moved away ... and I married Catherine. If she makes it, then I have to help her get well.

Suddenly, the room grew chilly, and he felt like he wasn't alone. The hairs on his arms stood on end, gooseflesh rushed over him. He stood, looking around the room but no one was there, not even at the window to the hall. But he couldn't shake the sense that he was not alone. Unseen eyes were on him.

One of the beeping monitors spiked, lines topping, and then it grew quiet and steady once again. Catherine sat up in bed, her eyes wide looking to the ceiling. Her left hand rose upward as if reaching for someone or something. She grabbed at the air, yet didn't close her hand around it. A small sound like a hiccup escaped her lips, and she fell back down on the bed.

Just as she fell, the doctor came rushing in, crash cart in tow. Pushing Frank out of the way he went to set up the AED paddles only to discover, it seemed to Frank, that she was breathing. Her eyes were open, panic in their mixed depths, as she clawed at the breathing tube.

"Easy now, Mrs. White, easy, we'll get this out. Easy. I want you to breathe in and then cough out, and when you cough, I'm going to pull it out."

She obeyed, keeping the same horrified expression as the doctor removed the tube from her mouth. A nurse wiped her lip. Frank couldn't get closer to the bed. The doctor checked her eyes with his light while the nurse took her blood pressure, comparing the numbers against the machine at the wall.

Finally the small crowd stepped away from the bed. One of the nurses left, shaking her head as she exited the room. The doctor looked pleased with himself, as if he just performed a miracle. Frank looked at the doctor who shook his hand.

"Frank?” He turned his head to find Catherine looking at him. She struggled to sit and he wasn't sure she should be doing that, but when she tossed the blanket to the side it was too late to ask. “Is that you?"

Her voice was different, softer, but the tube being down her throat could have done that. “Yes.” Frank came closer and touched her hand. They'd always been cool before but this time her hand felt warm. “I'm here."

"I've missed you.” Tears filled her eyes as she spoke. “I can't believe you're here with me.” She pulled his hand to her face, touching his palm against her undamaged cheek. “I love you so much."

"Do you really? What about..."

"Why am I in the hospital?” Catherine looked around the room and back at him. “Was I injured? Why is this bandage on my face? Frank? What's going on?"

"You don't remember?"

"The last thing I remember was a car spinning out of control. There was a tree. I remember being in a bed while people whispered I might not recover from the impact.” Her gaze grew distant. “Was I in a car accident?"

Catherine stayed in the hospital for another week. The doctors couldn't explain her memory loss, unless some brain damage had occurred when her breathing stopped. Nor could they explain the flip-flop in her personality, or that she suddenly started to use her left hand instead of the right. The psychologist had come in to talk about her, and Catherine couldn't believe she would have tried to take her own life. She insisted it had to be a mistake. Her memory loss encompassed much of their marriage. She spoke of things that almost sounded like someone else's life. When it came down to it, all Catherine seemed to know for sure was that Frank was her husband and that was enough for him.

They pulled into the drive of their house, a house Frank had built from the ground up. Frank parked in front, then ran around the side to open her car door. Catherine took his hand, and he led her to the porch. She kept the same content smile on her face, not the disapproving glare Catherine usually held.

"This is our home.” She said it as if reassuring herself of a questionable fact. “Yes. I think I remember it.” She followed him inside, looking at everything as if seeing it for the first time. “Bits and pieces are there, like parts of an old movie."

Catherine walked through the house, touching things, staring at photographs for too long. A look of confusion crossed her features when she looked at one taken of her shortly before the accident. When her inspection took her to the backdoor at the kitchen, she stopped, then touched the door knob. She pulled her hand back, nervous, and Frank opened the door for her. It led to the back deck, where he'd made most of his improvements. Frank spent a lot of time here, pouring himself into things he could control with his hands. He enjoyed it, but Catherine never understood his pleasure in creating.

He carved intricate designs in the posts, picked out the perfect landscaping, ending in a small rose garden. At the time, he rationalized that he'd done it all for Catherine, when actually he had needed something to do to take up his time. Seeing the look on her face made him glad he'd done it though. He worked for years to see that honest sincere smile on her face.

"This is new, right?” She touched the banister, ran her fingers along the edges.

"Yes. You were in the hospital for quite a while, and I didn't know what to do with myself."

She reached up, tracing the outline of the bandages still on her face. It was a thin pad of white now, carefully taped to hide the healing scars. Sadness passed over her face. She pressed against the gauze until she winced in pain.