Part 4—
Leo looked at his watch. It wasn't like Donna to be late. He'd been asking her to come to Senior Staff ever since Josh went on sick leave, so she'd be up to speed on what Josh's office needed to do that day. It helped her help the various people who'd been called in to cover for him, and it helped Leo make sure nothing had been forgotten. Leo sighed. He really missed his deputy. Last week Josh had been begging to be allowed to come back in, even if only for a couple of hours a day. He'd been looking so much better that Leo had been tempted to let him, but the President had been very clear about not letting Josh do anything that might set back his recovery, even a little. And Leo had been troubled by the look on Josh's face after the party the other night. He wasn't sure Josh was really up for as much as he'd thought. They'd just have to keep scrambling to cover for a while longer.
"We'll wait another minute," he was saying, when Margaret came in. "There's a call for you on line 1, Leo." "Tell them to wait," he said, impatiently. Really, sometimes he wondered about Margaret. She should know by now that he didn't like to be interrupted during Senior Staff. "It's Donna, Leo. She sounds upset."
Leo felt his heart skip a beat and then start racing as he reached for the phone. "Donna? It's Leo. What is it? . . . You're where? What happened? . . . Jesus. . . . Jesus. . . . Not at all? Nothing? . . . . Jesus. Do they think it's temporary, or . . . ? They don't know? They have to do more tests? Yes. Yes, I see. . . . Yes, of course. Of course not. Don't worry about anything here, Donna; we'll take care of it. Tell Josh not to worry, either. About work, I mean. How is he feeling? Yes. Yes, of course, I can imagine. You think you'll be there for a few hours? I'll tell Margaret to free up something in my schedule so I can get over. . . . Tell Josh we're with him. I'm glad you're there, Donna. Yes, all right, I'll talk to you later. Keep me in touch, please, until I can get over there. Thanks, Donna. Take care."
Leo put the receiver down carefully, and looked around the room at his staff. The new faces, Josh's covers, looked curious or politely concerned. Will looked anxious. C.J. and Toby both looked stricken.
"That was Donna," Leo said, unnecessarily. "She won't be in today. Geoff, Frank, I'll have the pool send someone over, but you'll have to work out the schedule between yourselves. We'll cut whatever we can; I'm going to need to be out of the office for part of the afternoon."
"Leo," C.J. pleaded and Toby growled, almost in unison.
Leo looked from one to the other, holding each one's gaze in turn. When he spoke, he seemed to be aware only of them.
"It's Josh," he said. "They're at the hospital, having tests done. Something happened last night, and he can't see."
"He can't see?" "Josh?" "Do you mean his vision's gone blurry, or . . . ?"
"He can't see at all. He's gone completely blind."
oooooo
"I want to see him, Leo."
"I'm not sure that's a good idea right now, Mr. President."
"Damn it, Leo; I'm not the President on this one. I'm just Jed, and it's Josh, and I want to see him."
"You are the President, Mr. President, and I don't think he's ready to see you yet. To talk to you, I mean. To have you see him."
"How can I let him know I care what's happening to him, if I don't see him?"
"I'm telling him, Mr. President. Or rather, Donna is; he doesn't want me to be there, either. Or Toby or C.J. or anyone. Just Donna."
"Thank God for Donna."
"Yes, indeed."
oooooo
Two weeks later, Donna had to force herself up the stairs to Josh's apartment. She felt completely exhausted: wiped out, drained, empty. It wasn't really a physical thing; she'd had plenty of sleep last night, she'd eaten a decent breakfast and lunch, she'd worked a much shorter day than usual. It was her emotions that were pulling her apart, she knew that. She just didn't know what to do about it.
Being with Josh for the last two weeks was one of the hardest things she'd ever had to do. It was harder than being with him in the hospital after he'd been shot. It was harder than watching him try to cope after he'd seen Stanley Keyworth and been told he had PTSD. It was harder than finding out he had cancer. She thought it might even have been harder than what had happened to her during college, though that was a toss-up; she'd been young then, with no experience of hard things to compare to, so that had made an indelible impression of awfulness on her mind. She was pretty sure, though, that if someone were suddenly to appear in front of her and offer her the choice of reliving the college thing again now, as an adult, and having to relive the last two weeks, she'd choose the former. She knew she would if it meant she could change things for Josh, so he wouldn't have had to go through this at all.
The thing about the shooting was that, after the first few days, they had known he was going to recover. And although there had been some setbacks, every day they had been able to see that he was getting better. It had been the same way with the PTSD; by the time Josh had had his defenses cracked open by Dr. Keyworth, it was obvious that he was already starting to climb out of the dark hole the shooting had dropped him into. You never really stopped having PTSD, but you could get to a point where it didn't affect you very often, and where you could control the effects when it did. Josh had worked his way to that point quite steadily, though Donna knew it had been anything but easy at times. Even the cancer—once she had got over the shock of it, and once Josh had started talking to her again, she'd been able to convince herself that, no matter what the statistics were, Josh was going to get better. All they had to do was to keep going and get through the chemo, and everything would get easier. It had even seemed as if things were getting better faster than they could have hoped, when his oncologist had switched him to the new drugs and the initial effects had been so much less difficult for him than what he'd been through on the old ones. And Josh himself had seemed so buoyed up, ever since that afternoon after the President's party, when he'd given her her beautiful watch, and they'd finally thrown away their inhibitions and become lovers. That business the other night, with him talking about going into the hospital and not coming out, had startled her; she hadn't realized he was still having dark moments like that. Except for his doubts about being attractive enough for her in his present condition, he'd been so cheerful and optimistic around her, so much like his old self. It was too easy to forget how good Josh was at hiding things, at covering himself.
He hadn't been able to cover a lot for the past two weeks, though. He didn't say much; he didn't complain; and he certainly didn't break down. But Donna thought she'd never seen him closer to it. His emotions were written all over his face: he was obviously shattered, devastated. And who wouldn't be, she thought, angrily. Who wouldn't be?
After all the tests had been done, no one was any closer to being able to tell them exactly what had happened or what he could expect. There was some neurological damage, clearly, but it might repair itself. Or it might not. The shooting pain was a common side-effect of the drugs he'd been taking. The blindness was a far less common effect, as she already knew. Sometimes it was temporary; sometimes it was permanent. As for which it might be for Josh, either no one knew, or no one was willing to say.
The HMO had promised to dispatch an OT as soon as possible. Donna hadn't been sure at first what an OT was, but it turned out to be an Occupational Therapist, a pert, petite blonde whom Donna had disliked immediately—not out of any sense of jealousy, but simply out of distaste for the woman's manner, which was hearty and patronizing. Her name was Briany. Donna thought she treated Josh like a very small child. "Come along then! Stand up straight! We don't want everyone thinking you don't care about yourself, do we, just because you can't see?" It was excruciating to listen to; she could only imagine what it must feel like to Josh. He said nothing and did what he was told, but everything about his face and manner indicated his defeat. He was obviously completely humiliated when she suggested that he pee sitting down: "You don't want to miss and make a mess for your girlfriend now, do you? Not that that would be anything new, I'll bet," she'd added in an aside to Donna, quite loud enough for him to hear. "Men never do shoot straight, do they? If only their mothers would train them to sit in the first place, we wouldn't have so much clean-up to have to do after them!" "It's never been a problem," Donna had answered, in her iciest voice, but the OT had been entirely unsquashed. Donna vented her feelings about it to Leo later that day—"She's a nightmare! She's going to destroy him,"—and Briany had been replaced by Chris, a round young man from the Philippines, who was a definite improvement. He gave both Josh and Donna some useful tips about coping with everyday problems, like dressing and eating, and tried to talk to Josh about politics. Josh answered his questions politely, but as briefly as possible, without going off on any of his usual rants or tirades. He seemed to be going through the motions people asked him to, but it was obvious that he didn't really want to.
The HMO also dispatched a psychologist, but after the first two visits Josh refused to see her again. He didn't want to talk to anyone else, either. "What's the point, Donna?" he'd said wearily, when she'd urged him to call the therapist Stanley Keyworth had recommended after the PTSD diagnosis, or anyone else, for that matter. "I've seen enough therapists to last me the rest of my life." When she wouldn't let it go, he said, "They all do the same things, say the same things, try to get you to tell them the same things. I was sick of it years ago. I don't want to do it again now, and I don't see what the point would be. I know what's the matter with me. There just isn't anything I can do about it." Donna let it go. She didn't have a choice; you couldn't force someone into counseling. Josh was being forced into too many things as it was, anyway.
Leo had told Donna to take as much time for Josh as he needed, but after the first few days Josh had told her quietly to go back to work. "Leo needs you," he'd said. "I need it, too." "You want me to go?" Donna had found it hard to hide the hurt in her voice. "You don't want me here with you?" "Of course I want you here with me," he had answered, a little roughly. "But I need you to go. I can't keep you with me like a nursemaid, twenty-four hours a day. I've got to be able to manage on my own." "But are you ready to?" she'd asked, doubtfully. "Yeah," he'd said simply. "I've got to be. And besides, you need it, too. You're going crazy, stuck in here with me all day."
He was right. That was the hardest thing for Donna about the whole experience, admitting to herself that Josh was right: she was going crazy, spending twenty-four hours a day with him. She'd been used to spending twelve, fourteen, sometimes eighteen or twenty hours a day in his company at work, but that had been different. For one thing, she hadn't been with him every second. For another, there'd been work to do. For a third, he'd been a completely different person to be around. He'd been egotistical, sarcastic, loud, demanding, and infuriating, and if someone had offered Donna a chance to spend twenty-four-hour days with that Josh again, she'd have grabbed it and felt as if she'd been given a one-way ticket to Hawaii. Any Josh would be better than this one, sitting so quietly in a corner of the sofa, defeat written all over his face and sounding in every word he said. His depression was like a great, dark blanket spreading itself over the apartment, suffocating both of them. Donna understood it and pitied it and wanted to do anything she could to lift it off him, but the prospect of escaping from it for a few hours a day filled her with a terrible joy. She hated herself for wanting to get out, but she couldn't help it. So she grabbed the excuses Josh was offering her, and went back to work because Leo needed her and because Josh said he was ready to be alone, even though she wasn't sure that he was ready at all.
But she was going crazy at work, too. No matter how much she wanted to get out of the apartment, she'd no sooner close the door behind her than she'd want to throw it open and rush back in again. She hated leaving him, hated thinking of him sitting there, by himself, alone, in the dark. He couldn't read, or write, or watch t.v. He couldn't browse the internet. He couldn't go out for a walk: Chris was supposed to start working with him on that, but they hadn't got to it yet, and Donna had the impression that it was definitely going to take a while before Josh was able to negotiate the sidewalks of Georgetown safely on his own. And, other than the hour a day he spent with Chris, he didn't want anyone to come over and be with him. He'd nixed the idea of hiring any sort of daytime companion—"I don't need a nanny," he'd said—and he declined his friends' requests to visit, politely but firmly. He talked to them on the phone when they called, but when they asked if they could come over he just said, "Maybe another time," and nobody had the nerve to force the point. He didn't call them. He didn't even call Donna; she called him, half-a-dozen times a day, but he never tried to reach her when she was at work. He could have listened to the t.v. or radio, or to any of the stack of books-on-tape people had sent him, but she didn't think he did, or not for very long; she never heard them playing in the background when she spoke to him on the phone. She couldn't imagine what he did with himself all day.
All she knew was that, when she got home, she'd reach down to hug him where he was sitting on the sofa, and he'd pull her to him with a desperation she'd never felt before. He'd wrap his arms around her so tightly she thought her ribs were going to break, and bury his face in hers. The sex that followed was more passionate than any she'd ever had, or imagined having. But it was also sadder. He knew exactly what to do to make her feel wonderful, and he did it again and again, in every way imaginable, but he did it almost wordlessly. He'd been a vocal lover before, witty and teasing, as well as noisy when he came. Now he was so quiet it made her want to cry.
And he didn't come. No matter what he was doing, and no matter what she did to him in return, he didn't come. Couldn't come. He was aroused enough, obviously turned on; that wasn't the problem. She knew she wasn't the problem, either; she was doing all the things that had worked with him before, and everything else she could think of, but he just couldn't get to the point of release. He didn't really seem to care. He'd just say, "It's okay," or "Don't worry about it," pull himself away from her a little and start working on her body in another way, trying to tease another spasm of pleasure out of her, and usually succeeding. If she let him, he'd keep it up for hours. She'd never thought it would be possible to get tired of good sex, and this wasn't just good sex he was giving her, it was great sex, amazing sex, but she was getting tired of it. She wished he'd just stop and talk to her instead. But talking seemed to be the last thing he wanted to do.
oooooo
Josh heard the door click shut behind Donna, and felt his way from the bedroom door, where he'd been standing when she said goodbye, to the couch in the living room. He stretched himself out, and started counting the minutes till she'd come back again. She was working short days; she'd be home by five. It was seven-thirty. He knew that because Leo had got him a clock that announced the time in a stiff, female voice when he pushed a button on top. Five hundred and seventy minutes to go. Chris came at 1:00 and stayed for an hour, which broke up the wait a little. Not that Josh really cared; if Chris had offered to stay longer, Josh would have declined. He didn't actually mind Chris, but he didn't want him there, either. It was harder when someone was there; you had to try to pay attention to what they were saying, had to try to pretend to be all right. The only person he wanted was Donna, and he simply had to wait five hundred and seventy minutes before he could have her again.
He'd tried listening to the t.v. Normally he was compulsive about CNN and C-Span, and he followed the major news shows whenever he could. Now he couldn't bear them. If he couldn't be in that world, playing an active role in it, helping to shape it, he couldn't stand to have to think about it. And he didn't think he'd ever be in that world, that way, again.
He'd tried listening to the radio, but the incessant blare of the ads and the triviality of the lyrics in the popular songs got to him quickly, and he hadn't bothered turning it on again. He could have tuned into WGMS or WETA, the NPR station, but he wanted to hear classical music even less than he wanted to hear the news. There was too much political commentary on NPR, anyway; it set that same hungry ache going in him that CNN and C-Span did. The cheerful roar of the crowds on the sports broadcasts had a similar effect. His own CD's—a lot of 60's and 70's pop and rock—touched off too many happy memories for him to want to listen to them now. The books-on-tape were either novels, which he couldn't care less about, or political biographies. No matter where he turned, he bumped into the ghosts of his former self. It was easier just to lie on the couch and count the minutes till Donna's return.
He was practicing counting them out, sixty seconds at a time, trying to get just the right pace and rhythm to match the clock. He'd been working on it all week, and had got to the point where he could go for fifteen minutes at a stretch and be pretty close to the time the electronic woman's voice announced when he hit the button on the clock. Four times an hour; he wouldn't let himself hit it more often than that. There was something a little frightening about the idea of pushing a button every few minutes, just to hear a mechanical voice. He could easily imagine going over the edge, if he let himself, and Donna coming home to find him mindlessly pushing the button up and down, over and over, without stopping: "Five-o-three. Five-o-three-and-two-seconds. Five-o-three-and-four-seconds. Five-o-three-and-six-seconds . . ."
He was close enough to the edge as it was. He knew he shouldn't be doing this; he knew he should be finding some constructive way to use his time, not wasting it lying on his back, counting seconds and minutes. Counting time. He laughed to himself, bitterly. He remembered that day a couple of months ago when he'd decided he was going to buy time. All the time he could get, he remembered thinking; whatever it costs, it'll be worth it. Now he had time to burn, and nothing had ever seemed more worthless to him. When he'd thought that, he'd thought he'd be spending whatever time he got looking, and loving what he saw. Looking at the sunlight falling through the yellow leaves. Looking at Donna's hair. Looking at her face, her beautiful face, all lit up with that spectacular smile. He'd been so struck by a sense of light, that day, and he'd thought he'd be able to go on, surrounded by that light, filled up by it. He'd been thinking the price he'd have to pay for time would be pain, and he'd been willing to do that. It had never crossed his mind that the price he'd end up paying might be the light itself.
Ironically enough, the pain had mostly ended with that last burst in his head. But the light was gone. And now the expensive watch he'd bought himself, when the chemotherapy had really started to get bad, was lying unused and useless in a drawer somewhere. It had been a kind of promise to himself: yes, it is worth spending all this money on this thing they say will last a lifetime; yes, I will be looking at this when I'm an old man. Now he couldn't see it to read the time. That had been the worst thing, that first day, when the pain in his head stopped but the light didn't come back and he'd realized he couldn't see: not being able to read his watch, not knowing how much time had gone by, or how long he still had to wait until Donna came back and found him. He'd been too confused and too frightened to move, and even if he'd found his phone he wouldn't have been able to call anyone: he'd been working on that since with Chris, and it was surprisingly difficult, telling which key was which in the dark. But he hadn't minded that as much as he'd minded not knowing the time. That was another reason he was practicing counting out the seconds and the minutes: he wanted to have the clock in his head, in case the female voice stopped working and he was left alone in the dark again with no idea what time it was. The horrible idea had occurred to him that that might be what it was like to be dead: to be alone in the dark, conscious, but with no way to keep track of the time passing, and no end to the time that would pass. It was the first time he'd really been afraid of dying; before he'd always thought it would just mean an end to the pain. Now the thought of it made his stomach churn and his whole body shake. Which was another good thing about counting out the seconds: if you didn't want to lose track of them, you couldn't stop to think. He'd lost track now, so he hit the button on the clock to start over again. Seven-forty-two. Five hundred and fifty-eight minutes to go.
But six or seven minutes later, his mind wandered off again. It was hard to keep it focused on the numbers when there was so much else to think about. Especially Donna. Beautiful Donna. So beautiful Donna, that he might never see again. Donna, loving, giving Donna, that he was taking too much from when he couldn't give her anything back in return. Only sex, for what that was worth. It was worth a lot to him—without the touch and the physical closeness at the end of the day, he thought he really would go out of his mind—but he still didn't think it could be worth that much to Donna. She was young, she was intelligent, she was heart-stoppingly beautiful, and she was tied by affection and loyalty to a sick, blind man. A bald and ugly sick, blind man. Who spilled his food down his shirt, and couldn't make a cup of coffee without help. And you did it to her, a voice in his head kept screaming at him. You took her friendship and her pity and held onto it to save yourself, and you're dragging her down with you now. If you die, she'll have gone through all this for nothing; and it will get worse, a lot worse, before it's over, and she'll have to watch it and go through it with you. And if you don't die, it will be worse still—she's too good to leave you; she'll be stuck with you for the rest of her life. And how are you going to make that worth her while, when you can't see to piss straight standing up?
I might get better, he thought, desperately. I might get better. I might be able to see again. Hit the clock, and keep counting. But the self-loathing that washed over him every day always left behind scummy tide-marks that he couldn't brush off. It was the reason that, try as he would to lose himself in Donna's lovemaking at the end of the day, he couldn't come for her anymore. The thought of emptying himself into her was just too disgusting. She deserved better than that.
oooooo
