"GUESSWORK"
- Epilogue -
"Love is a Study in Guesswork"
I'm becoming a night owl. I never used to be. Funny how circumstances can clutter up your life when you least expect it …
The room is dark. I have everything turned off, even the wall lights and the dim one above the piano. There's a night light on in the kitchen … the one by the sink. And another one in the bathroom, mainly so he doesn't trip over anything and fall if he has to get up during the night.
There's a pile of technical journals on the coffee table; stuff he gets a big kick out of wrapping his brain around, but which doesn't interest me at all. He's still researching the feasibility of the "mesh caul" theory he brought along home from Raleigh … that idea for figuring out a way to make traumatized bone and muscle adhere to one another again after a serious injury. He said it's turned out to be more involved than it looks, but he's determined to find a way.
He has a puzzle to distract him and he is the happiest horse in the race. He works alone, mostly, and he is in another world. I don't disturb him when he is locked into this place, for it is the closest he ever comes to contentment. He forgets for a short time that the pain in his leg still rules his existence, and life is not fair, and tomorrow never comes.
It's Friday night, about 2:00 a.m., I think. I haven't checked the time lately. He's asleep. He wasn't feeling well, so he turned in about midnight, and it's been quiet since. I wasn't tired; so I sat down on the couch with the TV on low and watched blearily as the Jay Leno show provide me with a night light of my own. After Leno was over, I channel surfed awhile, but couldn't find anything interesting, so I turned it off.
Outside I can see the shadows of the trees across the street doing dances in the breeze under the streetlights; jittery contortions that make my eyeballs contort with them. So I focus my eyes somewhere else before I end up with a headache.
After awhile I get up from the couch and walk down the hallway to his bedroom. The door is open … he never closes it anymore … and I lean against the doorjamb and look in on him. There's a night light on in here too that I'd forgotten about, and its diffused light lets me see the general clutter of his room.
That damn red necktie is hanging from the doorknob of his closet with the gift tag still dangling from it, and I remain puzzled about his insistence on keeping it in sight. Might have something to do with words he can't say, that still get stuck in his throat, and I'm supposed to see it around the place from time to time and know what he means by it. I don't know … but I choose to believe that's what it's for.
In the corner beside the bed, nearest the bathroom side, the crutches are still propped and waiting in case he needs them. I haven't seen him use them, but from time to time I see that they've been moved, and I know he has. He doesn't tell me, and I don't ask. Just as in his office at work, the wheelchair is still pushed into the corner near the yellow chair.
I know he uses it. Others have seen him using it and have told me. But if I'm in my office or somewhere nearby, I know he would rather be shot at close range than allow me to catch him in it.
He is snoring heavily, sound asleep at the moment. Turned slightly onto his left side with the bum leg stretched out straight and propped on the usual pillow. He doesn't complain about it much anymore, but the evidence of his pain is everywhere, and I wonder if he thinks I'm insensitive … or stupid … or both.
I sigh and turn again to walk back to my perch on the couch. In a couple of hours I will put the coffee on and start breakfast. I know he expects it of me, and I will not let him down.
It's the middle of June now, and the whole experience of our time at Paramar is a distant memory. He never talks about it anymore, and I don't bring it up because he doesn't. I often wonder, though, how it is with Kip and Neeka and the others, and whether their ongoing nanocite research has given them any further breakthroughs. I'd like to call down there and find out, but in the back of my mind is a little bell that rings "betrayal" if I do. I don't think he's ready yet, although if the mesh caul idea turns out to be a revolutionary medical phenomenon, I know he will call Kip and let him know what's going on, since it was Kip's idea in the first place.
Our work at the hospital continues, and things have leveled out fairly well after the passage of this much time. His foot has healed, and he can wear a shoe again. He is back on the cane, but he is very lame. I can tell how much he's hurting just by watching his face and realizing the effort it sometimes takes for him to hide it. He says the spasms are seldom, but the missing muscle has weakened further, and the leg is worse. I don't bug him about it because I promised not to. He has promised to tell me if he is in difficulty, but it's always his word against mine, and he loves that phrase: "I'm fine!"
His work ethic hasn't changed a bit. I don't know why I expected otherwise. He still runs off at the mouth to Cuddy and the kids, and they still get all exasperated with him. He still avoids clinic hours like the plague, and won't go near a patient whose case he's working on unless there's absolutely no choice.
He still dicks me into paying for his lunches and never fails to steal food off my plate, but he never does it in anger anymore, and he never belittles me for expressing concern.
He does not bitch me out when I ask how he's feeling, and he does not make a major production of every question I ask about his welfare. He even springs for pizza and beer every once in awhile, but I usually get corralled into dish washing and cleanup. I do it willingly, because I have noticed lately that he never stands if there is a place to sit. If it is possible for him to lie down, he does so. And when he sits down, the leg gets propped up or stretched out. Always. That's how I know it's worse than before.
So why am I sitting here in his living room at 2:30 a.m. on a Friday night? I'm not sure. Today he wanted to know if I would move back in here if he asked me. There is a small room off the kitchen that I could convert into a bedroom if I want to. I'd just have to clean it out and do some major painting and overhaul. The question floored me, and I haven't figured out an answer yet. I'm working on it.
I was beginning to think this smelly old couch would be my nesting place for the rest of my natural life, but that's okay. I can think of worse … like a smelly old hotel room with a dorm refrigerator and a microwave. A fair exchange is no robbery, or so I've heard.
This stupid screwed-up friendship I spoke of once, has seen a lot of sea changes the past six months. It has undergone a schism that no friendship should ever have to endure … and somehow it survived.
We called one another names and accused one another of atrocities that neither of us meant. We just wanted to hurt each other in the same manner in which both of us were already hurting. Neither of us stopped to think about the damage we were inflicting on each other until Gregg got on that damned suicide machine and ran for his life.
And I ran after him for mine!
There are so many different kinds of pain.
We survive as an entity. I can't explain it. Neither can he. We've finally stopped trying. We only know that we're stronger together than we ever were apart. I'm only guessing at that, you know, but it seems logical in the long run.
But that's what friendship is, isn't it? … if it's real.
It's a lifetime of love and respect …
And guesswork.
End
AUTHOR'S NOTE: July 27, 2007, Milton PA
There are no words to say thanks to everyone who stuck with me through this thing. No way other than this pitiful little parade of words to say how much I loved and ate up every kind word and every plea for another update. Music to my ears (so to speak …)
Maybe I'm a little like the stray dog that hangs around your back door … if ya feed me,
I'll never go away! Well, you fed me … and I'm not going anywhere. Watch for the next "angst-fest", coming soon. Thanks again …
Bets;)
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