Smoky Mountain Dreams (38 page)

“Hey, Mar-Mar.”

Just because it was Thanksgiving didn’t mean it wasn’t
Thursday, and Jesse visited
every
Thursday. Years
ago, he’d bring the kids, but Dr. Charles advised him to stop. It just scared
and confused them, and Marcy didn’t know they were there anyway. So before
heading to the nursing home, Jesse had dropped the kids off with Nova and Tim.
Brigid had taken a stack of paper to make cranes while she waited, and Will was
excited about helping Nova make crusts for the pies.

“You look the same.” Jesse’s voice sounded strange to him,
critical almost, like maybe somewhere deep inside he was annoyed by that fact. “It’d
probably surprise you, but since your accident, I haven’t been fond of changes.
I’ve kept our life pretty sedate. But change is happening now, Marcy. It’s
exciting. But terrifying, too. Not that you’d know it by the way I’m diving
into this thing with him,” Jesse whispered, adjusting her clawed hand,
smoothing her hair back from her face, and then going to adjust the blinds.
Just like always. Pretending that it mattered to her.

“I guess I should tell you that the date I mentioned? It
turned into this big
thing
Mar-Mar, and I’ve got feelings
going on that I haven’t had in
years
. Not since you.
And before that, not since ever.”

He sat next to her. Her open eyes seemed to catch his for a
moment, but as always it was unsustainable. No consciousness touched his own in
their gaze.

“He’s a singer. I love his voice. I used to go to Smoky
Mountain Dreams just to see him. Sometimes I went alone even. When he showed up
on my calendar at the shop… But you don’t need the whole story, do you?
You…wherever the real you is, I guess you already know.”

Still, he wanted to say the words to her. Confession time.

“I think I’m already in love with him. I can hear you
laughing at me for being so reckless with my emotions. It doesn’t feel
reckless, though.”

Jesse rested his head on the side of her bed where she was
curled and tried to see if he could still smell her through the nursing home
scents. Some days he could, and others he couldn’t. Today he thought he caught
a slight whiff, right near the crook of her arm where sweat collected.

“A month and a bit and I’m halfway, maybe more, in love with
this guy. Is it really a surprise, though? Maybe it is. With you it felt like I
fell out of a tree and landed in love with you. This feels like I’m creeping up
the side of a roller coaster—not too slow, but this constant forward motion. I’m
at the top and I can see forever, and then it’s going to go over, and whoosh. I’ll
be a goner. Who am I kidding? I
am
a goner.”

Marcy twitched, and drool dripped from the side of her
mouth. Jesse sat up and wiped her chin with a tissue.

“Marcy, how does that happen? How do we stop it?” He smiled
softly. “He’s got amazing eyes. Green. And his laugh is…it just makes my
stomach tumble over and I want to hug him. He’s sweet too. And he’s great with
Will so far. He wants to be good with Brigid, but she won’t let him.”

He sighed. “She’s got to let him, because I don’t want to
let him go.”

He remembered Brigid’s tight expression when he’d picked her
up from school the day before, and the anger and hurt in her voice.

“Why were you gone last night? Were you
with him? Are you going to start leaving us with Aunt Amanda or Grandma so you
can be with him now?”

Couldn’t he have this without hurting her? Did it have to be
her happiness or his? Couldn’t she see what a great guy he’d met? Of course not.
She was just a child. He couldn’t expect her to understand, but maybe he could
make it easier somehow. Christopher sure was trying. He’d even bought her some
pretty paper at SMD for making cranes, and had said he could help her make a
bunch on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since he didn’t have to work.

“If you think that’s a good idea,” he’d added shyly,
obviously not wanting to do the wrong thing.

“I think that’s a great idea,” Jesse had said, and he’d been
thrilled to present Brigid with the papers that night, hoping she’d see how
much Christopher wanted to be her friend.

Jesse sighed, remembering how Brigid had stared at the paper
and declared it ugly. Only when Jesse said she would thank Christopher for it
regardless and be nice to him or face a day of no crane-making at all had she
seemed willing to at least fake being kind. It hurt his heart to see her be
mean, even if Christopher wasn’t around to witness it.

“Marcy, I haven’t been honest with you about Brigid. I didn’t
want to sit here beside you and say the words. I know you’re not in there, but
I still couldn’t tell you that our daughter isn’t happy. She’s mean to Will.
She was absolutely awful to Christopher at Halloween. She doesn’t want to hang
out with her friends. She’s obsessed with making origami cranes. She’s shut
down. And immature. Way behind the other girls her age. I’m scared that I’m
messing up.”

Marcy made a moaning sound, and if he’d been someone else,
Ronnie for example, he might have interpreted it as proof that she could hear
him—that she was worried about her daughter’s pain. But it was nothing. She’d
made sounds before, and the brain scans were all the same. No cerebral function
remained.

“Here’s the truth: she’s mad, Marcy. Really fucking angry
with me for…I don’t know. Is it that I’m bi or gay or whatever I am? Is it that
I’m alive and you’re not? Not in any meaningful way, at least. Is it that by
dating him I’m making it real for her that you’re never coming home?”

He rubbed his hands over his eyes. “I’ve talked to Nova about
it, and she says to just love her and she’ll be fine. But I can’t stop raising
her, can I? I can’t turn a blind eye to the choices she’s making, or the things
she does and says. I
care
about how other people see
her. What they think of her.”

He stopped and heard his words again. “Oh my God, I’m
turning into my dad.”

The machines beeping and the sound of urine filling the bag
hanging from Marcy’s bed were the only noises the room.

“Last night, after I texted with Christopher, I lay in bed
and thought about how it could be for us. Imagined a family—me, him, the kids.
I want something like that, Marcy. I miss being part of a unit, and having
someone who loved me; who argued with me. Someone I could ask for advice. I
miss having someone in bed with me at night.

“And please, Mar, forgive me, but when I’m with him, that
horrible feeling I had the longer our marriage went on? It’s gone. I feel so
satisfied sexually and it feels so damn
right
. There’s
no surprise. No thought like, ‘Oh, this actually works?’ Because my thought is,
‘Of course this works. This is perfect. This is everything.’

“I was a shitty husband in the end, Marcy. I’m so sorry for
that. We made some beautiful kids, though. Kids I’m fucking up. Well, Will’s
all right. He’s happy. Brigid…what am I going to do about Brigid?”

She didn’t move, and he closed his eyes. “I’m going to get more
appointments with Dr. Charles for her. I’ll call on Monday.”

He fiddled with the edge of her sheet and thought about the
upcoming weekend. Christopher was in Knoxville with his family, but Jesse
nearly vibrated out of his skin in anticipation of Saturday. He couldn’t wait
to hold Christopher in his arms, kiss his neck, hear the little noises he made
when Jesse sucked on his tongue, and—

Christ, he was getting hard sitting next to his wife’s
nursing home bed while thinking about his new lover.

Jesse cleared his throat. “He gets me, Marcy. And he turns
me on like no one else…maybe ever.” He looked at her to see if she’d flinch,
though he knew she wouldn’t. Couldn’t. “When I’m fucking—no, when I’m
making love
to him, because that’s where I’m going with
this whole thing—I say the stupidest shit, and he gets off on it. And then he
says stuff back and I come so hard I see stars.”

He shouldn’t be telling his brain-dead wife about the sex he
was having with his new lover. He shouldn’t. He shouldn’t.

“I love the way he walks and sings and moves and laughs and
fucks, and, well, basically I’m all in. I’m all the fucking way in. Balls deep.”

The machines hummed and hissed, and more urine trickled into
the bag.

“Do you remember before we were an us, how I used to tell
you all the filthiest stuff I did with guys, and you’d laugh and encourage me,
egging me on for more? I don’t do anything nasty with him, Mar-Mar, because
everything I do with him feels like…”

Love.

“Like what we had together at first. That kind of wonder and
amazement. That kind of fun and mischief. I’m so sorry you’ll never feel that
again. That we lost it.” He stroked his hand over her arm, down to her fingers
and squeezed. He breathed around the lump in his throat. “You deserved
so
much more than this.”

“She surely did.”

Ronnie’s voice was the absolute last one he expected to hear
at that moment. He spun around in his seat, rage and humiliation flaring at
having his intimate moment with his wife overheard.

“How long have you been there?”

“Just a second or two.”

“Unless you’re here to say that there’s been a Thanksgiving
miracle and you’re ready to let her go, I really don’t want to see your face
right now.”

Ronnie smiled sadly. “I’m here to see my sister. It’s
Thanksgiving and I’m thankful for her.”

Jesse leaned so he could see out the door. “What? No
television crew? No photographers or reporters who can make me out to be the
evil, horrible, husband—”

“I never wanted that.”

“Ha!”

“That was the pastor’s idea. He thought it would…well, it
doesn’t matter now.”

Jesse blinked. She’d never admitted that before. His hands
in fists, he watched Ronnie come into the room and pull up another chair on the
other side of the bed.

She blew out a long breath. “Here’s the truth, and I’ll
testify to it in a court of law: you are a good, loving husband to my sister,
Jesse. I’ve always known that.”

What the fuck?
He wasn’t sure
what Ronnie’s game was, but he wasn’t falling for it. He waited silently, his
heart thumping and blood rushing in his ears.

“I didn’t know they were going to put that kind of spin on
the whole thing. I didn’t want them smearing you or bringing up your past
relationships with men. I just wanted to get the word of the Lord out, and to
use Marcy’s situation to bring more people to Christ.”

“Fuck that mumbo jumbo.”

“Believe what you want, Jesse. But I know how you treat her.
You come every week like clockwork. The nurses tell me. You bring her flowers.”
Ronnie nodded at the pink and yellow roses he’d brought this time. “You talk
with her. And you provide her with the best medical care money can buy.”

“Because you insist on keeping her here.” Ronnie was surely
trying to butter him up for something. A little voice reminded him that she’d
say anything to get her way.
No.
He wasn’t falling
for it. “I’m not going to let her body be disrespected.”

“I know.”

“And
you
certainly don’t see to
it. It’s all me. She’s never had a bedsore.”

“You’re very dedicated.” She smoothed a hand over Marcy’s
hair.

Stop agreeing with me!
It was one
of the things that drove him the most crazy about Ronnie. While he left
mediation sessions fuming with impotent rage, she never even raised her voice. “But
her good condition doesn’t mean this is what she wanted, or that I somehow
secretly believe she’s still alive in there.”

“I know. We go over this every time in mediation.” She
looked at him, her gray eyes as calm as ever. “But isn’t part of life
recognizing that it isn’t about what
we
want? It’s about
what the Lord wants. Marcy’s vanity or even her dignity isn’t what’s important,
Jesse. God’s will is.”

“In this case, God’s will only exists because of
my
money.”

“No, her good care only exists because of your money. If you
stopped paying for the best for her, she would still receive care until God
takes her home. In your own way, Jesse, you’re contributing to how long she
stays on this earth by making sure she’s always given the best of everything.”

Jesse sneered, the familiar anger surging. “You’re so sick
in the head.”

“I’m just pointing out that your attachment to her earthly
body is…something you may want to more closely consider.”

“You’re giving me a lot of power in that scenario, Ronnie. I
thought your God was the only contributor to her ongoing life.”

Ronnie ignored him. “Mom and Dad and I can take care of
Marcy, Jesse. You can let her go. You’re allowed.”

“I am
not
allowed.”

“Why?” Ronnie seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Does your God believe in divorce all of a sudden?”

Ronnie sighed, pushed her red curly hair behind one ear, and
bent low to her sister, kissing her cheek. “Hey, baby sis. Your hair cut is
real pretty. Best one you’ve had in a while. Did Jesse pay someone to come in?”
She smiled as though Marcy had answered. “I know. He
is
a good husband to you. You’re right. But, Marcy, he’s not a very good man to
himself. He should let you go.”

Jesse snarled. “Don’t talk to her about
me
not letting go when you’re the one who keeps her trapped here.”

“She can’t hear me. Or so you claim.”

“I don’t
claim
. Doctors
know
it. Neurologists—the best in the world.”

“You’re making her stressed,” Ronnie said, rubbing a hand
down Marcy’s arm to work out the clawing. “She’s tensing up.”

Jesse glared at her. He didn’t bother telling her that the
clawed hand had been that way for months. He knew how long it had been since
Ronnie had visited. The nurses kept him up to date too.