Weekend (19 page)

       
JOE

If Elliot thought of them at all, she probably imagined they were still at the cottage. Joe'd left her messages—
Please, Elliot, reconsider, Elliot, please please please I beg you.
And,
Take your narcissism and stuff it where the sun don't shine. You're the cruelest person in the world and I hate you! I hate you!
And,
No, no, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it! I love you!
—until her box was full, with no response. What would Ell discover if she went back? A missing wife and daughter, dirty diapers still in a pail.

Joe hadn't left a note. Because,
fuck Elliot
.
Go to hell, Elliot, and take your handbasket with you.

“What am I going to do?” she wailed to friends.

One said, “But Elliot was looking forward to the baby! She told me so, over and over!”

Another said, “But Elliot is crazy about you, Joe. There's something you're missing.”

“But don't you guys—aren't you guys the poster kids for dyke marriages, actual functional, working dyke marriages? If you guys break up, what does that mean for the rest of us?”

“Did you
do
something? What did you
do
?”

One of Elliot's lovers said, “You kicked her out.”

And Joe said, “I did what?”

“Elliot told me you made her leave.”

“I didn't make her leave; she just left.”

“She says it was you. If you wanted to keep your marriage, you have a pretty weird way of showing it.” One's grasp of
so-called “truth” was often just whose story reached you first, Joe realized. “You can't expect things to just go back to normal after that.”

Joe said, “You talked to Elliot?”

“Of course I talked to Elliot. Five or six times.”

“She's
okay?
God! Where is she?”

“Joe, I know you have a baby, and it makes you moody, but Elliot's not wrong about you being over-dramatic.”

“Just tell her I want her to come home. Will you please tell her that for me? She's not picking up messages.”

The friend said, “I'm not comfortable being your go-between. I don't want to get in the middle of your fights.”

Joe sighed. “We didn't have a fight. We didn't have an anything.”

“Well, don't drag me into your whatever, your
nothing
, okay? If you have to know, Joe, I support Elliot in this, okay? I'm on Ell's side.”

There were sides now?

To Linda, she said, “Ell is all mixed up for me now with Dree, and it's like I don't even know, half the time, which one of them is dead. No, no, that sounds stupid. I mean my brain is refusing to process any of it.”

“I don't blame you,” said Linda.

“I can't come back for Dree's funeral,” said Joe. “Obviously.”

“Of course,” said Linda. “But I know you wanted to.”

“Put a flower on Dree's grave for me, okay?'

Hours collapsed in an exhausted, wet blur—tears and urine
and breastmilk. Joe's mother came by to help with pragmatic matters—fed Joe lunch, did laundry and shopping, prepped easy dinners of salads and cold cuts.

It was hard to talk about the breakup with people who hadn't been supportive as the relationship unfolded.
Yes, we fought this hard for the right to marry. Yes, we asked you to put aside your qualms and attend our weddings. Yes, our marriages are still not perfect. Because we're just like you
, thought Joe.
The same hopes, the same fears, the same fights
.

Her mother said, “You always defend her. And Scout is hers.”

Not that Joe hadn't thought the same thing, but she was offended.

“You're the one stuck doing all the work while Elliot's off gallivanting—”

“Stop that. Scout's my baby too. Just as much my baby.”

“I never understood your arrangement, you girls.”

“You didn't—don't have to, Mom.”

“Well, I don't. I'm just telling you that I don't, and nobody else in the family does either.”

“Okay then. Mom, the important thing is, I'm really grateful for your help. And … um … I think we can manage just fine without it.”

“Ha!” said her mother.

Joe felt almost as much shock that Ajax was fighting for her life as she did that Elliot had left her, which had come to seem,
in the space of a couple of days, almost inevitable. That Elliot had left Scout, though? Still there was radio-silence, as if, in fact, Ell had not walked out, but had been removed by aliens.

By her people
, thought Joe snidely.

Then, after three days, Logan played (in the hospital cafeteria, far out of Ajax's hearing) a rambling message they thought that Joe deserved to hear, about a guy, Steve, Elliot's “true love,” and about how Elliot had finally figured out that she was “not gay after all.” And the message concluded after a long pause: “So, yeah, um … also … I'm preggers. Don't tell Joe.”

Scout tucked deep into her baby wrap. Clatter of knives and forks. Sliding plastic trays. Chairs scraping. Heads bent over lunches that probably no one tasted. Weak light coming in through high, dirty windows. Staff laughing. Shell-shocked relatives of patients, occasional outright sobs.

Adrenalin swept through Joe's body. A guy. Steve. Elliot “preggers.” A guy. Steve. Elliot pregnant. Elliot pregnant! Suddenly Elliot's nausea made sense. Joe looked intently down at Logan's phone as if Ell might appear from it like a genie, then passed it back to Logan without comment.

A guy. Steve.

A baby.

Joe wracked her brain to remember any such Steve. Who the hell was Steve? A Steve up north? Was Steve the reason for all the trips to the cottage? Had Steve fucked Elliot in their marital bed?

Logan said, “Elliot would be the first person to condemn someone else acting exactly like she is.”

Joe grunted, some noise in her throat that made people from another table look up.

It seemed Elliot had made a decision about the separation some time before she clued Joe in. And Elliot had been on about some guy in her office. Some guy named—? Joe couldn't remember, but she didn't think it was Steve. She'd mooned around the house for months, sighing. “I just
love
Gerry. Gerry's so amazing.” Or maybe it
had
been Steve—
Steve is so amazing.

“Elliot's pregnant?” Joe screeched. “How did I miss this? She's been throwing up. My wife's been seeing a dude, and I didn't have a clue? How many times over the years has she told me she's wanted to go back to men? I am so dense. I am so freaking dense.”

“No,” said Logan, “you're trusting, and that's a good thing even if it doesn't feel like that right now.”

“Gullible.”

“You aren't the one in the wrong here, Joe.”

“So much for Elliot, open and honest poly practitioner, eh? My wife was
pregnant
while I gave birth to our kid? When we were together the other night, a thought flickered through my mind about her gaining weight, because she had the littlest pot belly, and she's never had one before, but never, ever, did pregnancy cross my mind. Why would I think that? She's not even that fertile according to the doctors. No wonder she's been moody. No wonder she's been off eggs. And beer! Logan, do
you know this guy? Steve is going to be the father of Scout's sister or brother.” She wrapped her arms tight around Scout.

Logan shook their head. “I know I should tell her about Ajax, but I just can't deal with her right now.”

“Did she really think you wouldn't tell me she's pregnant?”

“She probably knew I'd tell you. Then she doesn't have to, right? Chicken's way out.” Logan drummed their fingers, glanced behind them.

“Did you know something, Logan?”

They brushed back their hair, squeaked their chair over the tiles. “Joe, what if Ajax loses her hand? What if the gangrene spreads?”

Gangrene. It hit Joe again, a speeding bullet.
Gangrene.

Sleeping with Logan had finally been supplanted by reality. Now Joe thought,
Just let Ajax survive.

“She's going to lose her hand, I guess,” said Logan with finality. “I have to come to grips with that.” They drummed on the table. “
Grips
. I just said grips.”

“I'm sorry,” said Joe.

Logan shrugged. “Fuck.”

“Fuck,” said Joe quietly.

“Her kids are arriving later.”

“Do you need me to go to the airport?”

“I promised Ajax I'd pick them up myself. You just go home and, I don't know, try to cope with what Elliot's left you to cope with. Knowing Ajax, she'll probably appreciate the chance for a nap.”

“I can't change anything,” said Joe sorrowfully. Scrape of chairs, clatter of trays being emptied.

“No,” said Logan. “You can't. I can't, either.”

“Maybe seeing her girls will make Ajax rally?”

Logan jingled their keys. “She didn't even want me to call them. I didn't call them when we were up north. I'm guessing they'll have some choice words for me about that.”

“I think she hates freaking people out.” Across the room, someone dropped a tray. Clattering of dishes, coffee cup smashing.

Logan looked at Joe. “I hate that she's freaking people out, too. I would give a whole lot to go back to
before
.”

“Before would be an excellent place to live.”

       
AJAX

But it was harder than Ajax imagined to get well. When she was still hospitalized three days later (
deaths in the first week
, thought Ajax), and the docs on their two p.m. rounds had confirmed that there was no longer any doubt that this was dry gangrene (
gangrene!
thought Ajax), she lost spirit. Life got harder not easier with age, with fewer opportunities for holding out for hope. Offers of psychiatry from the hospital were politely declined. “I've been dealing with this disease for twenty years,” she told the nurses. “It's not a shock. I can manage
.
” She could manage, but perhaps not now, not right now, not in front of all the intrusive staff. If she was going to be cut off at the knees (as it were), then she was going to do it in the loo, sobbing into toilet paper.

“Glass half full of bullshit,” she said, looking at the floor, wondering again about hospital acquired infections often contracted in washrooms. She had watched the cleaning staff with their filthy black mops swishing germs.

Okay, okay, there was love, love with spikes
. (Yes, the doctors had checked her all over, including her bruised ass, had questioned and delivered a lecture about how she could not afford … how she should not be … how she would need to be more careful, given her blood thinners. “But I am not on warfarin anymore, right? Didn't you take me off warfarin?” Grudgingly, scribbling notes, they admitted they had.) Loving Logan was not going to be a peaceful ride, she understood
that, whether the subject was sex or not. And maybe she was grateful for that, because what woman of fifty would want an uncomplicated partner, a life without colour?

She had strong, independent children and step-grandchildren.

And her painting.

Was she really going to move to Ontario?

What it was, though, for all its insanity, was a life going forward, a life with a future. On the other side, there was this confounding, blasted illness that had dogged her heels for most of her life. Some people didn't reach thirty-one, the age at which she had been felled. There was that. Many people had more pain than she did.

But between interruptions for needles or assessments or sponge baths or meals or tests, she had nothing to do but lie in her bed and stare at her yellowing nails and blackening hand with its Sharpie-boundary, waiting for the gangrene to come on worse or retreat. To stare at the innocent-looking non-perfused arm or the rest of her blighted body that barely worked or the blankets or the ceiling tiles or the pages of books she didn't even realize she hadn't been reading until twenty pages had gone by.

Logan dropped off Ajax's kids, who were, besides jet-lagged, uncharacteristically sombre. Ajax tucked her hand under the covers. Simone from the Bahamas, the event coordinator, pregnant with Ajax's first natal grandchild, and Vivi, Ajax's IT baby with the wild shocks of purple hair, were both slump-shouldered
and dull, with sharp small blades of worry sparking periodically in their eyes.

“It'll be okay, I promise,” said Ajax. And thought
Ha ha ha ha ha ha.
“Sorry you had to meet Logan at the airport. Honey?” she said, patting Vivi with her right hand. “This is not all doom and gloom. It's just a set-back, is all. Did someone tell you this was some lost cause?”

“Mom, I flew in from
Vancouver
,” said Vivi. “What the fuck else would it be? They want to amputate your
hand.”

“It's just my left hand.”

“It's just your
left hand?
” said Simone. “Well, shit, I guess I'll fly back to the Bahamas, then.”

“I mean, it won't kill me. Yes, it's a drag and all, but … not fatal.” She thought a moment. “You girls sit down.”

Vivi began to cry, her curls shaking. “This is horrible.”

Her children seemed bleached by the insipid green walls, the green curtains on their tracks around the bed, by fatigue, by worry.

“This is so fucked up,” said Simone. Simone had eyes the colour of turquoise, but in here they looked grey. She had straightened her hair and pulled it severely back from her unlined face.

“I know,” said Ajax.

Vivi sighed dramatically and said, “Well,” and yanked tissues from the dispenser.

Simone said, “Oh, Mommy.”

“I'll be out of here soon,” said Ajax. She reached to touch Simone's belly. “Simone, tell me about the baby.”

“A girl,” said Simone with a wan smile. “We just found out. So you have to not die, Mom, because I need you to be at the birth. I need you in my daughter's life.”

“Congratulations,” said Ajax. “A girl, wow. Due date in October?”

Vivi said, “We only have girls.”

“October seventh,” Simone confirmed.

“I look forward to it,” said Ajax.

Vivi said, “We so have to get you better.”

Ajax said, “There has been some heartening retreat of the, uh …”

“Don't be stoic.”

“Yeah,” said Simone. “For once I agree with Vivi. Don't be stoic.”

The girls left after a short visit. Ajax fatigued easily in company—even with her own children.
When to stop fighting for more life?
she wondered. At some point, so many pieces of her would be carved off, there'd not be much more than a spine left. Big scar down her right arm from an arterial transplant. Gouged-out breasts. Scar under her left tit from open heart surgery. Scar on the top of her thigh from same. Numerous numb patches. Scars dotting her body from a runaway allergy to a prescription.
Where to draw the line?
wondered Ajax.

The next day, when Logan arrived at the hospital, Ajax had
turned for the better, and the doctors had removed amputation from the equation. Ajax felt the difference as the antibiotics dripped slowly into her, her hand perfusing. “Maybe you slept on it wrong,” a doctor opined about the bad circulation.
Yup. That's where I've come to
, thought Ajax.
Slayed by sleeping wrong.

Her hand was affected halfway up her palm, the skin shrivelled and sucked dry, and her fingers were still numb, but the docs concluded they'd probably caught it early enough.

Logan got pissed off in a way they hadn't been when amputation was on the menu, and ranted about a lawsuit.

“Hon, forget it. Nobody forced me to take warfarin,” Ajax said. “Just get me out of here. Look, can I just be supremely happy about not losing my hand for one second here, please? May I just be really glad that I'm not leaking from every pore any longer?”

When Simone came in, wreathed in smiles at the news, she said, “Mom, we flew all the way here; you could at least have the decency to die.”

Vivi said, “Yeah, I brought my best mourning dress,” and kissed her mother's forehead, her purple curls falling on Ajax's face.

Ajax laughed. “So, um, look, while we're, uh, you know, gathered here together …”

Logan said, “Your mom and I are getting married!”

Ajax beamed.

Silence. The noises of the hospital went on around them, the intercom, patients coughing, nurses talking, bleeps.

Vivi said, “But she's our
mom
.”

“And I'm going to spend my life looking after her,” said Logan.

“Wait just a goddamned second, the bunch of you,” said Ajax. “I am
not
feeble. I'm planning to look after myself, thank you very much, and look after you lot, as well.” She regarded her kids' stricken faces. “Logan and I weren't expecting to feel this way, or so soon, but we do.”

“Mom, you're covered in bruises!” said Vivi. “And they almost just cut off your hand.”

“But at least I don't have A-fib anymore, right?” She laughed, but no one else did.
Yet,
she thought.
She didn't have A-fib again
yet
; she'd probably need ablation surgery to treat it.
“Right?”

Simone shrugged and Vivi crossed her arms over her chest.

“I know it's hard, you guys, all of this. I've put you through a lot with my medical crap over the years. But I love you, and we're not asking your permission, only inviting you. I really want you to attend my wedding.”

“Mo-om,
another
wedding?” Vivi whined.

“When is it?” said Simone.

“Just be happy for me, okay, girls? I know you're concerned, but I'll be okay. They said I'll be fine.”

“O-kay,” said Simone.

Vivi nodded and said, “Sure. As you can see, we're stunningly happy, we pair of sisters.”

“Well, it wouldn't kill you, you know, to support us,” said Ajax. Logan sat down on the bed and Ajax bumped over her legs to make room. “Why bet for this to be a mistake? You don't know any more than I know, or Logan knows. We might be about to do something that will be really great for us. It's possible. Fifty percent of marriages make it.”

“Are those
gay
stats?” asked her eldest.

“I support you,” said Vivi and elbowed Simone. “We both do.”

“Yeah,” said Simone reluctantly.

“Saturday,” said Logan.

“Saturday's Mom's anniversary,” said Simone. And then, pointedly, “To our
other
mother. Our
actual
mother.”

“No, listen, definitely not Saturday—yuck,” said Ajax. “But we'll do it soon so you can be with us. Okay? You'll come? Say you'll come?”