Part 2 (2/2)

On the day of the mammogram I was more worried about the technician seeing all the bruises on my arms than about the results. You'll be lucky, I told Sam, if they don't come and arrest you for wife abuse.

I hate to see you look like that.

I was standing in just a bra and panties. The bruises were all different colors, the newest ones purple, the oldest turning yellow. It's not so bad, I said. He doesn't mean it. He doesn't know he's hurting me.

I know he doesn't mean it. I'm not angry at him-you know that. I just hate to see you this way.

It's nothing big, I said. He gets upset. He can't talk to us, so he lashes out.

But I understood that the words were pointless, just filling the air between us with sound. There was nothing I knew that Sam didn't know. There was only this ritual of repeating back and forth what we both already knew.

We kissed in the door and I watched him pull out his car-just behind mine in the driveway. He didn't wish me luck and it never occurred to me that he should.

So, first there was the mammogram, at which I stood with my b.r.e.a.s.t.s and my mottled arms exposed. As the technician squeezed my flesh into position I mumbled something about having fallen off my bike. I bruise very easily, I said. Not: My son had a stroke while in utero and is severely brain-damaged. He isn't a bad boy at all, but he has these moments of violence and these are the results.

Not that.

Then came the letter ordering me back for more tests, an ultrasound, the biopsy, the meeting in my doctor's office-this time Sam right there by my side. And through all of this, about three weeks, right up until the surgery, all I could think about was Todd. Not even what would happen to him if I died-I couldn't die, that was out of the question, not on the table for discussion-but little things like who would watch him while I went in for the biopsy, and could I possibly take him to the doctor's office with me and have him there in the room.

It used to seem so simple: you're young, you go through school, you fall in love, you marry, you get pregnant. And then the road takes a certain kind of curve. Your sense of self can disappear.

Todd: cannot speak, cannot walk, barely hears, is blind in one eye. Cannot control his bladder or his bowels. Does he know us? It's never been clear. Until now, I'd always hoped that he did. I'd always hoped that it gave him some kind of comfort to have me and have Sam there with him. But now I'm not so sure that I want that anymore. Now I find myself hoping sometimes he never really knew who I was.

Now, my yeti, I find myself hoping he may be like you. And so won't ever miss me when I'm gone.

There was spread into the lymph nodes. One doctor spoke about saving the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and I said, Just do whatever will make this stop. I don't give a s.h.i.+t about my b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

New questions arise: Just how many fifths of scotch were the two of us going through every week?

We tried not to count them in the recycling bin. And eventually we began to throw a couple of bottles into the garbage cans instead, split them up. Maybe Sam would take a bottle or two in the car and dump them somewhere else. It's almost funny.

We were drunk the night we realized Todd would have to be moved. In vino veritas In vino veritas. In whiskey are decisions born.

Is this the brave thing to do or the coward's way out?

Sam said, I don't know, honey. I just know it's what has to happen to now. And so do you.

Lawrence House. It's a low-lying building filled with heartbreaks, amongst whom my son looks like part of a crowd. And people like me and like Sam pa.s.s one another with guilty looks on our faces. The first year, I went to see him just when I was well enough. The second year, there was no sign of spread. I was off chemo and I went almost every day.

Maybe we could bring him home, I said to Sam. We managed before and I'm feeling fine now. He could come back.

Sam's voice was quiet. He said, I don't know if that's something we should do. Remember how the two of you used to struggle? You were covered with bruises, Ruth. You couldn't handle him at all.

Well, let's think about it anyway. Let's just not say that we won't.

Okay. If you want. We won't say that we won't.

Sam deals the cards, counting quietly to himself. We've kept the same deck beside Todd's bed for all these years.

Fives? I ask.

Go fish.

So I draw from the pile.

No, I say. Not a five. It's your turn.

I look over at our boy. He is staring somewhere else.

My son is eighteen years old. His head is covered with thick black curls like my own used to be and his eyes are the same bright blue as Sam's. He would have been a very handsome man. He would have been something wonderful, I'm convinced. But for the travels of a blood clot to his brain, while he burrowed small and silenced in my womb.

III.

It's been two months now since your six-foot fence went up. Two months, more or less. From my bed, I can hear your children playing on the other side. Sometimes I turn the television up louder just to drown them out. It's a terrible thing to feel yourself hate a child.

Sam didn't want to go to work today but I argued him out through the door.

Nothing will be improved by you losing your job, I said.

He drives my car these days. It was always the more dependable one. It's parked down the drive, near the street, of course-thanks to you. His is stowed in our garage. He argued when I first told him he should take my keys. We went through the game of my telling him not to be silly; it would just be until I felt stronger. It wasn't a big decision at all. Stop being ridiculous, I said. You look like you're murdering me. It's just the better car. You should use it while I can't. I'll be taking it back soon enough.

And so he gave in.

I know that you go to work a little after he leaves-I hear your car door, the ignition. I know the hours you keep, can predict when you'll come home. And I know you have a wife. A friend who visits me, brings us food, brings me gossip, has told me that your wife is very pretty, slender and naturally blond, in her thirties. She stands on the corner in the mornings and puts your daughter on the bus. Then an older woman comes in and watches your little boy, while your wife keeps herself busy, though no one in the neighborhood knows exactly what she does.

There are speculations about you. The new family on the block. There are rumors that you're putting in a pool. But winter is coming now, I know, and it isn't the right time. Maybe in April, when the world has thawed again so the ground will be soft enough to dig.

Sam drives out alone to Lawrence House now, every two or three days.

My last trip was two weeks ago. I said my goodbyes in silence, the language of my motherhood. There were other periods when I wasn't there. There's no way to explain to my child that this is different. And probably no reason that we should, though I still carry this awful fear that he'll think, in whatever way he thinks, that I have given up on him.

I held his heavy head one last time, pulled it gently to my chest, no longer soft.

That day, in the car driving home, Sam was unusually talkative, telling me stories about a new coworker, and then about an old friend. Both of them had done hilarious things-as though everyone Sam knew had taken on an antic side, every situation holding a fistful of punch lines.

And it was funny, genuinely funny. I laughed out loud as he drove us both home.

I don't drink anymore. I lost the craving. But Sam brings the bottle upstairs now and he sits by the bed. Sometimes we watch television. Sometimes we just talk. He pours freely for himself on the understanding that I'm not keeping track. I pick through our lives, recounting good moments, like looking for treasures at the flea market. He listens, sometimes even smiles. don't drink anymore. I lost the craving. But Sam brings the bottle upstairs now and he sits by the bed. Sometimes we watch television. Sometimes we just talk. He pours freely for himself on the understanding that I'm not keeping track. I pick through our lives, recounting good moments, like looking for treasures at the flea market. He listens, sometimes even smiles.

I know you must have heard by now that I'm sick. It's that kind of town, that kind of neighborhood. Our story: the boy who was born so damaged, the mother who won't make it to the spring, it's all well known. We're the kind of family people talk about.

Sam phones me from the office to let me know he'll be late because he's visiting the boy. I tell him that's just as well. I'm feeling tired. But by the time he gets home, I say, I'll be awake.

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