I was in a coma for more than a week. Ivo rarely left my side. He was there the first time I drifted back to reality and then again when I came back for good. I remember feeling comforted seeing him, knowing he was there. I felt so terribly sick and weak. And I saw him and thought to myself, "There's Ivo", and drifted back to sleep, secure in the knowledge that he was in control of everything though I didn't understand it that way at the time. Once I woke up and Isabel was there and I cried like anything and flailed about helplessly. I didn't want her. I wanted Ivo. I wanted to feel safe.
There were tubes in every part of my body – my throat and nose and wrists and penis. Every time I moved, I felt one tugging somewhere. It was uncomfortable but it didn't hurt. Nothing hurt. I just felt very weak, like a newborn kitten. I wanted the sick, weak feeling to go away.
The doctors told me I was lucky to be alive, that even if the fall hadn't killed me – and I had fallen nearly one hundred feet – I should have drowned. It took so long to get to me. Ivo had almost jumped off the cliff after me but he was far too rational for that. Instead he had scaled down the side of it, screaming for help. He got to me before anyone else, gave me mouth-to-mouth and immobilized me so that no further damage could be done to my spine or any other part of my body that was broken. The nurses said he was a hero. And that he never left my side.
The first day I was awake for a whole hour, meaning I didn't drift in and out of consciousness, Ivo talked to me, telling me how happy he was to see me, how much he loved me. He even cried a little but he said he was crying from joy because he had been so afraid that he might lose me and he couldn't bear the idea of life without me. I was too exhausted to respond and fell back into a deep sleep. He was more together when I saw him next. He stroked my hair and asked me if I needed anything. I needed to get the fucking tubes out of every part of my body so that I didn't feel so sick but I couldn't speak with the ones in my throat and nose. I just held his hand pitifully and cried a little. I wanted to go home but I couldn't tell him that either.
They took the tubes out one by one, leaving the catheter in the longest. I couldn't walk because my back and legs had been injured. I was able to eat jello and pudding and finally some clear broth. Ivo spoon-fed me and I could tell that it pleased him though whether that was because I was alive or because I was totally dependent on him I wasn't sure. Probably it was both. Once I was able to use the toilet, he helped me there as well, holding my penis for me while I urinated and cried because it hurt so much. He bathed me and changed my gown and I grew to resent being so completely helpless that he had to do it all for me. I wished I had died, that the fall had killed me as I intended for it to. But I couldn't tell that to the psychiatrists. That would mean an even longer stay in the hospital. Ivo told them it was an accident, that I had fallen over the edge and I readily supported the lie. I wanted to get out as much as he wanted to get me out.
We spoke candidly once I was able to use my voice. He said he wanted to take me back home with him. I was still quite an invalid and had no one else. My mother was hospitalized and my only other option was Aunt Clarissa or another hospital. He would care for me, support me, while I recovered. It wasn't as if I had a job even if I could work. We had already planned on living together next year – him supporting me so that I could work on my novel. Why not stick to that plan? He understood that I felt my feelings for him had changed, but what if I was wrong? I was young and confused and volatile. There were so many issues in my past I had not dealt with. Why not stay together for companionship if nothing else? I had no one else, he had no one else and how could being alone ever be profitable? We could suspend our sexual relationship for a while. He'd find that hard, but then some things in life were hard. The most important thing was that I get back on my feet. He went on like that for what seemed like hours.
He was right, of course. I had no one else to care for me, no money, no job prospects to return home to, so why not just stick with the original plan? It sounded easy. I needed something easy. I was too weak to think of an alternative. Of course, he did have a few stipulations – I would see a psychiatrist to help me sort out some unresolved issues (he didn't specify what those might be) and I would agree to allow him to participate in that. He hastened to reassure me that he had no interest in controlling me, he simply wanted me to get well. He was very open – he wanted to be with me permanently. He knew he reprimanded me, found fault with me, but that was because he loved me and I was so young and still had the chance of being someone remarkable. "Isn't that permitted in someone older than you who loves you, to try to set you right? You could say I am trying to make a perfect partner for myself."
I wanted to say something about not wanting to be made into anything but I felt queasy and needed to go to the toilet – to throw up and defecate. I let him help me out of bed.
We left Juneau two weeks later. Ivo had already missed the first month of classes, but he said he wasn't worried about it. He would take the whole semester off, the whole year off, if need be. He would borrow money to be able to stay at home with me. He might even go in for a grant so that he could stay at home and write. I urged him to return to his classes, assuring him that I was quite capable of being home alone and I didn't want to interrupt his work. He told me nothing was more important than me and he would give up everything to be with me. That was too much for me. I promptly took a pill and slept the remainder of the trip.
And so we came home, Ivo and me.