Me Again (6 page)

“You’re Jonathan.”

“Yes.”

“Do people call you things you don’t like?”

I thought about this. “My brother calls me bro. I don’t think I like that.”

“People shouldn’t call people things they don’t like,” Rebecca said, still in that gentle monotone.

Not knowing how else to respond, I nodded. Satisfied, Rebecca scooted her walker towards one of the other weight machines.

“You’re still skinny,” she said over her shoulder, “but you’re getting better.”

It was amazing how good that rather dubious compliment made me feel.

I eased myself from my wheelchair into the leg machine Rebecca had occupied. I couldn’t even get the thing to move with the weights she had set up, so I reset it to lift the least possible weight, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Then I went to work on my legs, while Rebecca began doing left-handed preacher curls. The only sound in the room was our breathing, punctuated by the clank of the weights.

Chapter 7

M
Y MOTHER VISITED ME THE NEXT DAY, arriving with a thin photo album tucked under her arm.

“I was straightening up the room you’ll be staying in,” she said, “and I came across some pictures I didn’t think you’d seen yet.”

I thanked her without enthusiasm. I’d gone through endless photos already during her visits, but I never saw anything or anybody I remembered. I felt like a crime victim paging through mug shots, but never finding the person who’d done him wrong.

While Mom and I struggled to make small talk, I idly flipped through the pages of the album. Most of the photos were of me as a young boy, often shown playing with Teddy. I detected a recurring theme: in one shot I held a gleaming trophy over my head while Teddy looked on sullenly; in another I had him pinned down in a wrestling maneuver. The next page featured a shot of me holding Teddy in a choke hold, giving the top of his head what I believe my father called “noogies” with the closed knuckles of my free hand.

A grainy black-and-white enlargement that took up most of the adjoining page showed us each wearing boxing gloves, with me taking a swing at the smaller boy while he shielded his head with his arms. I was starting to understand why I sensed such mixed emotions coming from Teddy during his visit – the evidence was starting to suggest that having me for a big brother had come with a distinct downside.

I was nearing the final pages of the album, while my mother was jabbering about some ongoing war between my father and a squirrel who kept raiding the backyard birdfeeder, when her voice suddenly faded away, along with everything else in the room.

All that remained was the photograph in front of me. It showed me as a young boy, on my knees in the grass, playing with a large black dog. The dog stared straight at the camera.

Straight at me.

“Jonny? Are you all right?”

My mother’s voice drew me back into the room from wherever I’d just been.

“Oh – sorry, Mom! I just... this dog...”

“Do you remember Rufus?” my mother asked, her eyes wide. “We only had him for a few years. He—"

Rufus.

Yes. I remembered.

Rufus.

A strange feeling surged in my chest, and I felt my throat tighten. For a moment I thought I was becoming ill, then I realized that I was simply
feeling
. Responding for the first time to something from my past that I recognized.

“Rufus,” I said aloud, trying the name out. “Rufus!”

I felt simultaneously happy and sad as I stared at that furry black face. It was a happy face. A loving face.

“Tell me about Rufus,” I demanded, not looking up. I didn’t dare tear my eyes away from my first glimpse of an honest-to-God memory.

My mother laughed. “Rufus,” she said, “was a handful. Full of love and sweet as sugar, but utterly impossible to control. He was always getting outside, chasing cats and picking fights with dogs, even if they were twice his size.”

She shook her head. “He was a fighter right up to the end.”

“Rufus is dead?” I realized immediately how stupid my question was. Even without grasping the math, I knew a dog that had been full-grown when that picture was taken – when I was just a small boy – couldn’t still be alive.

My mother nodded. “Cancer. We did everything we could for him, but it got so bad we finally had to put him to sleep.” Looking at me uncertainly, she said, “Do you understand what putting something to sleep is?”

“Yeah,” I said, “I understand.” I could definitely relate to the concept of being put to sleep, although in my case it hadn’t been done to me on purpose. Nor, as it turned out, had it been permanent, despite some widely held expectations.

“You were heartbroken. You loved that dog dearly. And the feeling was mutual.” She smiled, remembering. “He belonged to all of us, and your poor father got stuck with walking him when it rained and taking him to the vet and such, but there was never any question that Rufus was
your
dog. I swear, that dog stuck to you like glue. We used to call him your shadow.”

I stopped talking. I was doing something foreign and new. I was remembering. Not in a very clear way – more at an emotional level. I remembered the love. And I remembered the sense of loss.

I remembered something else. A name. Maddy. No, that was wrong. Maggie?

“Did we have another dog?” I asked. “After Rufus?”

Again my mother shook her head. “No, Rufus was our one and only.” She smiled affectionately at the photo. “We couldn’t bear to get any more pets after what happened,” she concluded, looking away.

I sensed I had raised a sore subject, and regretted it. But my relentlessly cheerful mother quickly turned back to face me, her smile once more in place.

“Let’s look through the rest of this album,” she said, “and see if there are any more shots of Rufus. He was such a cute dogger-wogger.”

She laughed at herself. “Listen to me. It’s been twenty-some years, but I’m talking just like I did when Rufus was around. What is it about dogs that makes us fall into baby-talk?”

“Dogger-wogger,” I repeated. “Think I remember that. Hey – did we used to call him... Rufus the doofus?”

Now we were both laughing. I was glad to see my mother’s mood lightening. And I was delighted to have opened another door in my hallway of memories. I flipped the page, looking for more pictures of Rufus.

Looking for more memories.

* * * * *

In the days that passed, I managed to have a number of brief – and, mercifully, less disastrous – conversations with Rebecca since that debacle in the PT room. Still, I was surprised when one day at lunchtime she approached my table in the hospital cafeteria.

“Can I sit here?” she asked. She balanced a tray of food on top of her walker.

I had my mouth full of grilled cheese sandwich, so I grunted and nodded. Yes, those communication skills had really come a long way.

She put her tray on the table and sat down across from me. “I like their grilled cheese, too,” she said, looking at my plate.

I managed to swallow, and dabbed hastily at my mouth with a napkin before replying.

“Yeah,” I said. “Grilled cheese is good.” Unlike my conversational skills, I reflected.

“But I think their mashed potatoes are the instant kind,” Rebecca said. “And their fish sticks are nasty.”

Being rather partial to the hospital’s fish sticks, I remained silent.

“After lunch, can you help me with something?” she said, pausing to taste her tomato soup.

“Sure. What is it?”

Rebecca put down her spoon. “I need a guy’s opinion. You’re a guy.” Again her quiet, level voice made this remark hard to read, but I’ll admit to being somewhat pleased to have had my gender noted and acknowledged.

“I could have asked Bruce – you know, my PT coach – but he and I don’t talk much. And your coach always looks like he wants to have sex with me.”

One thing I had been learning from my brief encounters with Rebecca was that she tended to speak her mind very directly, with little regard for how others might react to her words. From my study of strokes, I had learned that this lack of self-editing was one of the many after-effects a stroke could cause. The thing was, I found her directness rather endearing. And for whatever reason, her quiet, deadpan delivery heightened the effect.

I smiled. “Leon looks at most pretty women that way.” My God – had I actually managed to compliment her in a moderately smooth way? Perhaps there was hope for my linguistic neurons after all.

But rather than smiling at me, Rebecca simply looked puzzled. “You think I’m pretty?” she asked, clearly surprised.

“Yes,” I said, and then decided to elaborate. Speaking carefully, I said, “I think you’re very pretty, Rebecca.”

This got a smile – that nice, simple smile. I assumed it was in response to the compliment, but then she said, “I like it a lot when you say my name like that.”

Resisting the temptation to begin endlessly repeating her name, I instead managed to say, “How can I help?”

Rebecca’s face grew serious again, and she leaned forward.

“I was wondering if you could come by my room after lunch.”

It would be both cliché and accurate to say that my heart leapt.

“I’ve got two new outfits that a friend brought me from home,” she said, “and I want to know which one you think looks best.”

My heart now mounted a trampoline and began to execute a flawless series of back flips.

“My husband is coming by this afternoon, and I want to surprise him by being all dressed up for him,” she concluded.

My heart fell into a kitchen garbage disposal.

“I’d be glad to help,” I lied.

* * * * *

Rebecca’s room, which was on the next floor up from me, was configured just like mine. A narrow bed lined the left wall. In the right rear corner, a bulky armoire housed a narrow closet, dresser drawers, and a small TV with a built-in video player. Completing the ensemble was a small writing desk along the right wall, adorned with several framed photos.

While Rebecca adjusted the curtains to let more light into the room, I drew my wheelchair up beside the desk to examine the photos. Each showed Rebecca with a tall, athletic man smiling confidently at the camera. I hated him instantly.

But then I noticed how different Rebecca looked in these photos. Her hair was a lighter blonde, and she wore a lot of makeup, though it was expertly applied. And her smile, wide and toothy, had a forced, almost manic zest that matched her husband’s. Nothing like the quiet little Mona Lisa smiles she occasionally graced me with. I decided I liked her new smile better.

“That’s Big Bob,” Rebecca said from behind me. “My husband.”

“He looks... big,” I said, having resumed my normal level of conversational incompetence.

“He says he’s six foot five,” Rebecca said. “But I think he may only be six three.”

I gave a neutral nod, not feeling like getting into my “math issues,” as Leon called them.

Pointing to one of the photos, Rebecca said, “That’s us at an awards banquet that our church has every year. Bob’s very active in the church.”

Great, I thought. In addition to being big and great looking, the guy was a saint. Probably had a Nobel Prize gathering dust on his mantle.

“So why do you think he would do that?” Rebecca asked, breaking my self-pitying train of thought.

“Do what?”

“Lie about his height. Why would I care if he was taller?”

For once I pieced out her meaning from context, and was able to speculate. “For some guys, being big is really important, I guess.”

“I guess,” she agreed. “It sounds like you’re getting better at talking.”

“Sometimes,” I said. Then I added, “Thanks.”

Rebecca joined me in staring at the photos. “I look different in those pictures, don’t I?”

This was dangerous ground, and I knew it. “Maybe a little,” I allowed. “I guess your hair was lighter then.”

“Big Bob wants me to bleach my hair. He says it’s mousy looking right now.”

“I like your hair,” I said.

She looked at me dubiously. “But it’s two colors. It’s blonde on the ends, and brown where it’s growing out. I mean, I definitely need to do something about it. But I kind of think I have bigger problems to work on, you know?”

I stuck to my story. “I like your hair,” I repeated.

Ignoring me, she pointed at another one of the photos. “It’s more than the hair. Look at how much makeup I have on in this one – this was at a wedding reception down in Florida. And look at the neckline on that dress.”

Feeling awkward, I looked away.

Rebecca picked up the church banquet photo, examining it closely for a long moment. Then she set it back down and said, “And my smile looks fake.”

“Your smile looks like his,” I blurted, instantly regretting my candor.

She stared at the photo, and said, “It does, doesn’t it? I kind of think Bob brought me these pictures to remind me who I am – who I’m supposed to be.”

“What?” A brilliant retort on my part, I’ll grant you. But I was confused by the turn this conversation was taking.

“He could have just brought me pictures of himself,” Rebecca said. “I mean, it makes sense for a woman to want pictures of her husband when she’s away from him. But every picture he brought has me in it, too. And they all show me looking all...
perfect
like that. Not like I look now.”

“You think you look better in those pictures?” I asked. Okay, I’ve already acknowledged that this was dangerous ground, but what did I have to lose? She was married, after all; she wasn’t somebody who was available to me, despite any furtive hopes I might have harbored. But she was somebody whose well-being I cared about.

“Don’t you?” she asked. “Look at me there. Low-cut dress, tons of makeup, perfect hair. And look at me now – in sweats and a ponytail.”

I worked hard on a sentence that I felt was important to get right. “In the pictures,” I said, “you just look different. Not better. Different.”

A trace of a smile emerged, but she caught herself.

“Anyway,” she said, turning to open the armoire, “tell me what you think of these. I bought them both right before my stroke, so Bob’s never seen me in either of them.”