Me Again (8 page)

“Yeah, well, I think Bob is doing the glory days thing, at least a little. But with him it’s both of us he’s remembering. It sounds like his favorite times with me were when we were back in college.”

“Bruce Springsteen,” I blurted.

“What?”

“I just remembered who sang that song,” I said, rightfully proud of having snatched a few more brain cells from the jaws of stroke-induced amnesia.

“Well, duh,” Rebecca said, ever the diplomat.

Chapter 9

“W
HY DO THEY CALL IT A STROKE?” Rebecca asked me one night at dinner.

I had wondered about that myself. Perhaps to find a more gentle way to talk about it in polite company? After all,
brain attack
does sound rather harsh in comparison, and
cerebrovascular accident
is such a mouthful. And it’s certainly not because it’s considered a stroke of
luck
, unless you’re counting bad luck. Bottom line: a stroke isn’t gentle, it’s not lucky, and it’s not something you expect to experience in your twenties.

Okay, that’s what I
thought
. What I
said
was, “I don’t know.”

Rebecca nodded, as if I’d answered her question. Then she went back to spooling some overcooked pasta around her fork. Monday was spaghetti night in the cafeteria.

“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Rebecca said, “I got the last signoff I needed this afternoon, so it’s official. Thursday’s the big day.”

“Big day?”

“I’m leaving, Jonathan,” she said quietly. “I get to go home.”

My stomach lurched, probably making room for my sinking heart. Her news was made worse by the smile that accompanied it. It was the first time her smile had made me feel bad.

“Wow,” I said, with characteristic eloquence. “That’s great.”

“I know,” she said. Her eyes were shining, the way they did when she smiled. “They were thinking I’d have to be here at least two more weeks, but I’ve worked so hard that I’m way ahead of schedule.”

“That’s great,” I repeated stupidly.

And I was being stupid. I mean, I’d seen the progress she had made. She still used a cane, but barely limped at all. She’d had far less to rebuild than me, so there was no way she’d be here as long as I would. Still, the idea of facing this place without her, with no other real friends... well, it was pretty bleak.

Perhaps reading some portion of my thoughts, she said, “It’s going to be kind of weird to leave here. I had just gotten used to it, and now I have to go home. I mean, I’m excited to be going home and all, but it’s still going to be kind of weird.”

“Weird,” I agreed.

“I really liked hanging out with you,” she said, causing a flutter somewhere deep inside me. “You’re easier to talk to than most people.”

Yeah, I thought, with me there’s never any danger of being interrupted.

“And you understand how, well, weird all this stroke stuff can be.”

“Weird,” I repeated, nodding. Whatever my final bill was for speech therapy, I wasn’t going to pay it.

“Do you think maybe we could email each other?” she asked, leaning forward.

Seeing my confused look, she said, “Do you know what email is? Do you know how to use a computer?”

I shook my head.

“I thought accountants had to know that stuff,” she said.

“They probably do.”

“Oh, so you probably forgot.”

“Probably.”

“Wait – maybe not. I mean, email didn’t really start getting big until the last few years. Maybe it happened while you were in a coma.”

That put email on a long list of things I might have slept through.

“I can show you,” she said. “It’s not hard.”

“But,” I began, determined to get back to using full sentences, “I don’t have a computer.”

“They’ve got them here, for the patients to use. Haven’t you seen the computer room?”

I had walked by it before – yes, I was walking now, for very short periods, and only with the aid of a walker adorned with neon yellow tennis balls on its feet. I had seen other patients using the computers in that room, but I wasn’t sure what they were up to.

“I’ll show you after dinner,” she said. “It’s easy, really.”

Seeing the dubious look on my face, she said, “If a cheerleader from a party school can do email, I’m sure an accountant can.”

“Ex-accountant.”

“Well, I guess I’m an ex-cheerleader, too. But it really is easy – you’ll see.”

Rebecca smiled encouragingly. “Trust me,” she said.

And I did.

* * * * *

In the computer room after dinner, it quickly became apparent that Rebecca’s definition of
easy
had little to do with my own. Again and again she walked me through the basic tenets of computer usage. In addition to trying to grasp the incoming flood of terms and techniques, I found it fascinating to observe how she delivered that information. If she saw that one approach wasn’t making sense to me, she would try another angle, looking for some way to get her point across.

“You’re really good at this,” I said.

“No, I’m not. I only know how to do basic stuff, like go online, read email, write a letter.”

“No, I mean at showing me this stuff. At
teaching
.”

“You think I’m a good teacher?” Her face registered her surprise.

“Definitely. You keep looking for new ways to get through to me.” I paused to move the clicking thing she called a mouse over to the left side of the keyboard, having given up on trying to control it with my right hand. “And you never get impatient. That really helps.”

Rebecca’s face went serious. “I don’t like it when people get impatient with me. I mean, I’m doing the best I can. And you are, too. I’ve seen you, and you work hard at stuff. Maybe not as hard as me, but you’re not as strong as me.” She stopped herself, quickly looking at me to see if she’d hurt my feelings. “Not yet, I mean. But you’re a lot stronger than you were.”

We’d see how strong I was come Thursday, I thought.

With Rebecca’s help, we created a free email account I could access from any computer, and we sent each other a few test messages. She concluded the session by typing up a list of instructions for me to refer to when using the computer, which she printed out for me on a nearby machine.

“Now, don’t lose this,” she said as she handed it to me. Like I would ever let go of anything she had given me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Thank
you,
” she replied, smiling.

“For what?”

“For saying I was a good teacher. Nobody ever said that to me.”

“You are,” I insisted. “A really great teacher.”

Rebecca’s smile faded to a wistful look. “I used to think about being a teacher.”

“You’d be great at it.”

She shook her head. “I don’t have the credentials,” she said. “I didn’t get an education degree. I was thinking of doing that, then I just went with liberal arts. By sophomore year it was pretty obvious that I was going to end up marrying Bob, and I knew he didn’t want me to work. He’d want me to stay home and have babies.”

“Do you have... babies?” I asked. She had never mentioned any kids, so this had never occurred to me.

“No,” Rebecca said, shaking her head. “We tried for a long time, and I went through all kinds of tests. They never could find any reason why I couldn’t have kids.”

“How about Big Bob?”

Another shake of the head. “I could never get him to go through any tests. For all I know, he’s the reason we can’t have kids, not me. But I’m not supposed to suggest that. Even with my stroke and all, I know
that’s
a subject I’m not supposed to discuss.”

Not knowing what to say, I focused my gaze on the list she had given me.

Rebecca sighed. “Two people are married to each other, but still there’s stuff they’re not supposed to talk about. That’s pretty weird, don’t you think?”

Opting not to reply with “weird” yet another time, I instead said, “I think I’d want to be able to talk to my wife about anything.” Riding this wave of verbal momentum, I added, “And I’d want her to feel the same way.”

Rebecca nodded. “That’s what I want. And I really kind of need that, since I’m not very good at
not
saying what’s on my mind.”

I was about to reiterate that this was one of the things I liked about her, but she went on.

“I’m going to have to work on that with Bob.”

The noble thing to do would have been to wish her luck.

I re-read the list of computer instructions.

* * * * *

Despite any supplications I made to the vague God I occasionally addressed in a silent stream of thought that some might call prayer, Thursday finally arrived. The big day – well, for Rebecca at least.

I was preparing to go up to her room, to check and see if she’d like to have lunch with me, when she appeared in my doorway.

“Hi, Jonathan.” Her smile warmed my heart for one brief moment. Then I realized that it reflected her joy about leaving.

“Hello!” I replied, mustering some false enthusiasm for the occasion. “Are we going to have one last lunch?”

Rebecca shook her head. “No, that’s what I came down to tell you. Bob’s picking me up at eleven, so I won’t be around for lunch.” Her smile faded a little. “So I wanted to come down and say goodbye.”

“Oh.” There was so much I wanted to say, and that’s what I came up with.

“You look sad,” she said.

Crap. I was smiling, but apparently not very convincingly.

“I’m going to miss you,” I allowed myself to say.

“I know,” she said. “I was worried that you might get lonely when I leave.” Not a word about her missing me, I noted. Ouch.

“Well, you are the main person I talk to,” I said.

“Likewise. That’s why I’m going to miss you so much.”

My heart once again mounted the pogo stick that it seemed to enjoy riding whenever Rebecca was around. Up and down, down and up. Oh well, at least my emotions were getting a good workout.

Rebecca looked at me quizzically. “You do know I’ll be back in five days, right?”

“Five days?” This didn’t tell me much.

“Tuesday,” she said. “I’m coming back once a week for physical therapy and a check-up. The rest of the week I’ll be going to an outpatient PT center that’s closer to my house.”

She looked concerned. “You knew that was how it works, right? You just stay here in the hospital until you don’t need to be here all the time. But even when you get out, you’re not done – you’ll still have to go to PT, and they’ll have you come back for a long time, so they can check your progress.”

I did know that was in store for me, but I didn’t realize it was the case for her as well.

“So I’ll be here every Tuesday until they say I don’t need to anymore.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Rebecca said. “We all know how much fun physical therapy is.”

“I meant it was great because maybe you could come and say hi to me,” I clarified.

“I know,” she said. “And I will. Maybe we can even work it so that we can have lunch.”

“That would be great.”

Rebecca turned to look at the clock on my wall. “I kind of need to get going. I’ve still got a little packing to do before Bob gets here.”

“Oh. Okay.” We stood, awkward in our silence.

Rebecca finally said, “I... I’d like to hug you.” Her matter-of-fact tone hid the awkwardness her face conveyed.

“I’d like that,” I said. I turned to face her as she came around to one side of my walker.

Her arms, strong from weeks of supporting herself on her walker, clutched me in an embrace I won’t soon forget. Letting go of my walker, I hugged back as best I could, not wanting the moment to end. But of course it did. I felt her grip loosen, and we pulled back from each other.

“Thank you,” she said. “You helped me a lot while I was here. I like you.”

Once again her no-frills style of communication went straight to my insides. Feeling a little wobbly, I sank into my wheelchair.

“I like you, too,” I said, sounding like a kindergartner. Stopping myself before making any other puerile utterances, I turned away and rolled my chair over to my desk. “I’ve got something for you,” I said, turning to face her.

Rebecca looked flustered. “You didn’t get me a present, did you?”

I had wanted to. I’d scoured the hospital gift shop for nearly an hour, but had been unable to find anything appropriate. A Lincoln paperweight just didn’t manage to convey what I felt.

“It’s not really a present,” I said. Handing her a sheet of paper, I said, “It’s a poem. I wrote it on the computer, and wanted to give it to you.”

“You wrote me a poem?” Her eyes widened as she reached for the page. Then she read it. Given the length of the poem, she spent an awfully long time reading it.

She looked down at me. “It doesn’t rhyme.”

Not exactly the reaction I was looking for, so I tried to explain.

“It’s a haiku,” I said. “They’re very short poems, and they don’t usually rhyme.”

I was starting to feel embarrassed, but Rebecca seemed genuinely interested, so I went on.

“They’re based on a certain number of syllables in each line. Five, then seven, then five.”

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed. “But you can’t count.”

“No,” I said, “but I can hear.”

I didn’t know how to explain it. There’s a sound to haiku – a rhythm. Among the books my mother brought me was an anthology of poetry that had a chapter devoted to haiku. I read the whole chapter aloud one day, looking for another way to practice my speech. After a while, I got a feel for the rhythm.

“I wrote this based on how it sounds,” I said. “I think I got it right.”