Mary Ellen Courtney - Hannah Spring 01 - Wild Nights (23 page)

“No, I think it’s just horrendous cramps. I get them. The back flop may have turned up the volume.”

I went into the bathroom. I was bleeding. The pain kept coming in waves with only brief reprieves. I’d never had cramps that intense. I got in bed and curled up. There was no more throwing up, just pain. There was blood on the sheets. Jon was rubbing my low back.

“You should go home,” I said. “You won’t get any sleep.”

“I’m okay.”

It kept up, the bleeding picked up, something was wrong.

I whispered to Jon, “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

“This isn’t right, I think I better go to urgent care or something.”

“Let me make a call.”

He made a call and went to get the car. What a mess. I couldn’t even figure out what to put on. I decided on a skirt. Chills were rolling back and forth under the prickly skin on my back. I got to the car and sat on a towel. A woman doctor he knew was meeting us at her office.

“Oh god, this pain is incredible.”

“We’re almost there.”

He pulled up to a small medical building. We went to the second floor and into the office of Patricia Loring, M.D. Patricia led me to an exam room, told me to get undressed and lie down. She closed the door. I could hear her talking to Jon. She came in a minute later wheeling a machine, a chart folder under one arm.

“I told Jon he could leave and we’d call him, but he prefers to stay,” she said. “Is that okay with you?”

“I guess so. I don’t know what’s going on.”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

She did a quick history, then an exam. She peeled off her gloves, and washed her hands. She took my legs out of the stirrups and tucked the blanket around me again.

“Okay. Based on what I just saw, and the dates, I suspect you’re having a miscarriage. In fact, I’m about ninety-nine percent sure. I think it’s straightforward, but I’m going to do an ultrasound to rule out complications.”

“A miscarriage?”

She looked at my chart and at the calendar; I was only about three weeks along. Steve. She said when it happened that early the woman frequently didn’t even know she was pregnant. I wished I were one of those women. She did the ultrasound, everything looked fine. One option was to do a D&C in the office, have it done with. That’s what I wanted.

She moved me to a room with a bed and gave me drugs. Her nurse was on the way in; it would only take a few minutes. After a rest I could go home.

“Jon wants to see you. Is that okay?”

“It’s fine.”

The drugs were already taking effect when Jon came in. He looked worried.

“I’m sorry for dragging you into this.”

“I don’t know what you dragged me into, but it’s okay. I’m not the one in bed.”

“I’m having a miscarriage. Patricia is going to take care of it when her nurse gets here.”

“Do you want to call someone?” he asked

“There’s no one to call. I need this to be over. And you need to go, this isn’t your problem.”

I fell asleep. The drugs she had given me were amazingly potent for something that doesn’t knock you out. I don’t know what the actual procedure is, but I can tell you that even with the distance of heavy drugs it had a quality of pain that is hard to describe. It was a sharp and bitter scraping. It was in my core and out of my control. It felt sadistic. It was angry making. I could hear myself growling. I tried to fight it off, but her nurse held my legs down. She kept saying it was almost over, but it wasn’t. It stretched to eternity.

I woke up an hour later and stared at the ceiling, the dropped panels had an embossed flower pattern. I slept another hour before the nurse came in with my hula skirt and angel wing tee shirt. Jon must have brought them. When I took off the thin gown the warm scent of the Kama Sutra oils was released into the room. The universe was going to just keep on mocking me. I had to wash the blood off my flip-flops; it had run down my legs.

Patricia came in a few minutes later and pulled a stool up to the bed. I said I was feeling stoned but fine. She said it had gone well, that it was unlikely to ever happen again. She said no sex for two weeks.

“Do women actually have sex?” I asked.

“Women do everything you can possibly imagine,” she said. “Every story is different. This was out of your hands. Don’t be hard on yourself.”

She said I’d feel almost normal the next day, but to take it easy and call at the slightest sign of fever.

Jon was waiting for me, looking strained and tired. I couldn’t look at him. Neither of us had anything to say on the ride home. He came in behind me with my bag of bloody clothes.

“You changed the sheets,” I said.

“You didn’t need to come home to that. Patricia said you need rest.”

I was glued to the spot. A combination of drugs and shock swarmed through me. I felt immense self-pity that I’d somehow landed back on this spot. It wouldn’t ever be okay. I could barely stand up. I hated that he had to help me get into bed.

“This isn’t home,” I said. “This is just another place.”

“She said you’ll be fine.”

“Whatever that means.”

I told him to leave. I was rude. I was gone. I slept most of the day, then took a shower and put on fresh clothes. When I opened the door to let in some fresh air a coconut rolled in with a note wrapped around it.

It said: “Patricia says to eat this. Call me.”

He’d left a hammer. I thought about using it to just pound on things. I didn’t dare pound on the coconut; it would vaporize. I knew he’d gone to visit the other islands. I doubted I’d see him again. I was a little sore, but it wasn’t any worse than the skin on my back. The universe hadn’t spanked just breath out of me. I considered calling Steve, but let it go. This was punishment enough; I didn’t need to hear the relief in his voice. I stepped over the coconut, went inside, closed the door and got back into bed. I was in the sliver of space between the drugs, pain and stress, and the loss that I knew was coming.

I woke up to a tapping sound. Jon was sitting on the back porch tapping the coconut.

I stuck my head out the door, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m cracking the coconut. You should eat this, it’s some healing thing.”

“I thought you were leaving.”

“I’m not going anywhere until we talk about it.”

“You’re incredibly stubborn.”

“So I’ve been told.”

He started pulling the meat away from the hard shell. He’d drained the milk into a glass jar. “You coming out? Or are you going to hide from me?”

“I’m not hiding from you.”

“Then what are you doing?”

I went out and sat on the step. He handed me a piece of coconut, then sat with his back to the railing, stretched out his legs and looked at me like he planned to stay awhile.

“I can’t stand that we were…” I said.

I stopped. I didn’t want to say making love; it hadn’t been that for him. I didn’t want to say having sex, it seemed like more than that, even for him. I didn’t know what we’d been doing.

“That we were what?” he asked.

“Whatever. That it was waiting under the surface.”

“I don’t like it either. Is this someone you’re going back to?”

“Do you want the truth?”

“Probably not, but I don’t want anything else either.”

I told him the story. He glanced away over the night Steve had pinned my face to the bed, it had probably been that night, and again over the last night of slurs. I didn’t go into any real detail, but he seemed to understand the story. I’d traded a few nights of chemistry for what might have been a long-term relationship. The long-term relationship didn’t take it well.

It was interesting to tell the truth. It moved the focus from a frittering brain trying to paint a prettier picture, to the shame and pain stored in the gut. Unlike the frittering, it was a relief when it was over. The sound of waves washed in and out over our silence. He handed me the jar of milk and I drank some; he drank the rest. I felt completely drained.

“I’m sorry, Jon. I had no idea. I would never have done that.”

He wiped his hammer on the paper bag he’d been using as a cleaning board, then folded the coconut up in the bag and handed it to me.

“Eat this,” he said. “I need to head out this afternoon. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

He picked up the empty jar and walked away. I didn’t go to bed right away. I thought about calling Karin, but I was back to that place where my throat had closed up and the back of my tongue felt so fat I was sure I couldn’t speak. I finally gave in and went back to sleep.

I woke up in the middle of the night; the cottage was dark and empty. I remembered. I was hungry but nothing sounded like food. Jon was gone and I needed to be home where the familiar walls could hold me together. I turned on all the lights, packed, and then got on-line and found a flight at noon. I left a note for the cleaners to take the food and left them a tip under the dead ikebana arrangement on the table.

New Year’s Eve travel should be easy. I drove in before dawn, dropped the car, and sat around in the airport watching smiling couples come and go in matching all-terrain sandals. It would never occur to me to wear matching shoes, but I guessed that was what happy people did.

New Year’s Day in Los Angeles and it was colder inside the house than out. I started a fire and opened windows. It’s hard to make the transition from hot to cold. I made tea and walked around my two worktables, reacquainting myself with work. I still had a month before we left for India. I decided to pack all the material and move it down to our workshop at the studio on Monday.

I’d turned off my phone so I could get some uninterrupted sleep. I turned it back on and it rang almost immediately; it was Eric.

“Happy New Year,” I said. “I tried calling, but you weren’t home.”

“We got the message,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Home,” I said. “I got in last night.”

“You need to come down here,” he said.

“Now? I just got back, I’m fried.”

“There was an accident last night.”

“What accident?”

“Binky was killed in a car accident.” His voice was catching. “Amber too.”

I sat down in a chair. I was having a hard time understanding English.

“Amber?”

He handed the phone to Anna.

“Hannah, I’m so sorry.”

“How’s Ted? The kids?”

“Mom and Arthur are there. It’s not real yet, for any of us.”

Binky had been at an afternoon New Year’s Eve party with some girlfriends. She was drunk. She’d picked up Amber from a little program that her jump rope team, The Skippers, had put on at a convalescent hospital. It struck me as so odd that Amber would be doing anything that generous. Binky had pulled on to the freeway going the wrong way on an off-ramp. It was dusk, that confusing time of day. She’d always had a hard time with the light that time of day; her eyes were damaged after our childhood of long days playing in the sun. She’d driven down the freeway going the wrong direction. A semi-truck had slammed into them. As far as anyone knew they were both killed instantly.

Ted had been at work at the hospital when the bodies were brought in. He didn’t know who they were until he recognized Binky’s wedding ring. I had a vision of Binky driving in a stupor, blinking the way she did, while Amber screamed at her. I could almost hear Binky saying, “Oh shut up, Amber.” Amber must have died terrified.

“I’m having a hard time understanding this,” I said. “Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, just them. Can you come down?” asked Anna.

“I’ll be down this afternoon.”

“Do you want me to send a car?”

“No, I can do it.”

“Be careful. It’s a shock.”

I had to move, get on the road. I dumped my suitcase out on the unmade bed and threw Hawaii in a pile on the floor. I started packing again. I didn’t know what I would need. I packed the suit I’d worn to my grandmother’s burial. I added my book of Emily and my pearls. Bettina and I had been given pearls for our eighteenth birthdays. I damped down the fire, stirred the ashes, and even went so far as to sprinkle water on it to be sure it was completely out before leaving. I never did that. I wasn’t sure what mattered to do and what didn’t.

I emailed Margaret to let her know what had happened. I blind-copied Karin. It was a crude way to deliver the news, but I didn’t have a phone call in me and I knew she’d understand. I was on the road by noon.

I drove for miles and miles without awareness. I needed to pay attention. I tried to force my mind to focus, but it wanted to run the Bettina movie. Not the Binky crash movie, but the vivacious young Bettina movie. The smart big sister who told me I must be growing up after I told her I had a hankering for butterscotch pudding. She said knowing what I wanted was the first sign of growing up. I felt so proud of myself over the taste of butterscotch that had spontaneously bloomed on my tongue.

We used to have a monkey tree with needle leaves in the backyard. Binky used to say she was the doctor and poke me with them. She kept saying she wouldn’t really poke me this time, but then she did. I always fell for it. I wanted her to like me.

One day she decided to fry donuts while our parents were gone. The grease caught fire. Instead of putting the lid on the pan, she ran screaming through the house with the flaming pot of oil, through the garage, and then poured it in the street. My parents weren’t as upset about the fire and burned up kitchen, as they were about the fact that she’d drunk two shots of whiskey before they got home. She’d seen Mom do it.

Her drinking years had been a nightmare. She was so unhappy. She’d wanted to go to college and be a doctor, to poke people for real. But she’d been trapped in Mother’s dream catcher of how life should be.

Eric opened the door. His eyes were red-rimmed with crying and fatigue. His shoulders sagged under the burden of being a responsible man. Anna’s nostrils were chapped; she looked plain and worn out. Their kids, Adam and Grace, were quiet and sticking to themselves in their rooms. They were good friends with their cousins Sam and Sam; they were close in age. They had taken their cousins to the beach where they just sat around. They’d picked bits of dry seaweed out of the sand until it was clean, and then let the warm grains run through their fingers, over and over, like an hourglass. Anna said the kids hadn’t said much.