Chapter 25: Mending Me Madly


Highland Memorial Hospital – Rochester, New York

5:23 PM


"Ma'am? Mrs. Rainey, ma'am?"

I was still breathing. Good. I could feel my heart beating. Check. But a whole part of me was missing, an unexplainable part that you can't convince a police officer or doctor of. That part was behind those doors, the thick, swinging, red ones labeled, EMERGENCY OPERATION.

That part of me was making it difficult to talk. Even though I knew I had to.

"Mrs. Rainey? Are you alright?"

I turned my sodden eyes up into the florescent light again, catching the young officer's baby blue-eyed stare. All I wanted was cinnamon brown and those charcoal orbs back.

"I'm sorry."

"It's fine. Here you go." He handed me another tissue from his pocket. "I only have a few more questions. If that's alright?"

"Of course. Go ahead."

He hesitated, making sure I was as well as I let on, and then scanned a small notepad in his hand.

"Your husband, Mr. Rainey, how did you say he knew Miss Catalina Alvares?"

With a deep breath, I responded. "We both knew her. Before."

"Before when, exactly?"

"She worked in my office, as an intern. Five years ago."

"The Rolling Stone offices on 83rd in Manhattan, ma'am?"

I nodded and blew my nose.

"And your husband? How was he acquainted with the girl?"

This was the tricky part, the thing I didn't want to ever have to talk about again after this cop finished his questionnaire.

"He—they--" I was choking up again, wiping furiously at tears that formed over and over at the same rate, just staring at those two doors, counting the number of times they whipped open and shut without Mort. "She was a fan of his. They met at one of his book signings in February, the same year she came to work at the magazine."

The officer jotted all this down. Then turned his eyes back up, solemnly, as respectfully as possible and asked, "Were they friends beyond that, ma'am?"

I looked directly at him, searching in his eyes for something that said I didn't need to answer or embarrass myself with the truth. But there was nothing. He had to know.

I nodded gently again, "For that one day. Yes."

His silence and havoc note taking told me that he understood.

"One more question, if you don't mind?"

"No. I don't."

"It might seem a little unorthodox Mrs. Rainey, but--" he paused and pulled something from his coat pocket. It was a rolled up issue of that month's Rolling Stone. I wasn't sure I understood, until he held it out towards me with a tired, hopeful grin and asked politely, "Would you mind terribly, signing this for me? I'm a huge fan of your work."

My lip shook uncontrollably from the change of pace in conversation, from undoubtedly upsetting to grateful, soothing even.

"No," I laughed softly, "I wouldn't mind that at all."

And with a black sharpie marker that made me think far too heavily about the past, about the only thing that ever mattered to me, I signed with a joking sob right across Angelina Jolie's half covered breasts, the ones that reminded me of a certain Italian seductress.

"I really appreciate it, ma'am. I think I've read your articles every, single month since you wrote your first expose on Aerosmith. That was the best."

I was smiling again, thanks to this nice guy who came out of nowhere to do his job and help me briefly remember a part of me that hadn't seen the light of day in a while. The part deep down in the center of my being, that can only be brought out by sincere humbleness, by honest modesty of myself. I hadn't seen her in a long time.

But as I said, it was a brief visit with the past, when only a split moment later, an emergency nurse's aide was interrupting with an invitation for me to follow her, finally.

"Thank you again, Mrs. Rainey."

The officer patted me gently on the back with reassurance and led me off towards the nurse. Then she walked in silence, saying nothing, giving me nothing to go on, except the squeak of her shoes as the imminent bread crumb trail to something else. I didn't know if it would be bad, or good, or anything at all. But at least they were taking me through the doors this time.

At least I was getting closer to him.


She relaxed into me further, letting the soap bubbles and warm water between her skin and mine act as nothing but a teasing lubricant of what was to come. Just as soon as she stopped wiggling and let me finish reading, that is.

"What's so fascinating about reading that?"

Roxanne lifted her wine glass from the tiled edge of the tub, gulping down the rest as I looked at her curiously from the corner of my eye.

"You have me naked and drunk in a tub of bubbles. And you want to read that instead?"

"I'm invested in it now. Relax. The bubbles aren't going anywhere."

I slanted off with the end of the article, eyeing up the photographs she'd taken, the ones I loved just because they were hers. She'd taken the drive to Knoxville months ago, but seeing her writing, her re-cap of what she lived and breathed and experienced while there without me, was refreshing. It was why Rolling Stone owed her their balls most days of the week.

"Are you quite satisfied with me now? Can we get back to business?"

I shut the magazine and tossed it across the bathroom floor, snarling with a wicked eye that made her jump in anticipation. She sat twirling her empty wine glass against her tongue and lips, waiting as I slid through the bubbling mess of strawberry scented water to find her legs. I tugged her towards me with a wave rushing over the edge and onto the floor as she screeched with a giggle.

When her face was visible through a dust of bubbles and steam, I let her rest across the rounded frame of the porcelain tub, her arms outstretched and her legs wrapped firmly around my waist. I held her there for thirty seconds, staring down longingly at her laughing green eyes in the faint candlelight.

"Make love to me until I forget my own name."

Her smile was light, playful and tempting as I snagged her mouth in mine. With the silence and her thighs' compliance in pulling me ever closer to where she needed me, I plunged deep and fast within her hidden heat. And I stayed there, until the sun came up over the Blue Ridge and the kids' desperate crying reminded her who she was all over again.

The blurriness was fading, fast. It had been so strong for so long, hours maybe, days, years quite possibly. And now, all of a sudden, the fog was being lifted like it had never been there at all.

"Welcome back, Mr. Rainey," a sweetened, older voice sighed. "We're all done. It's time for you to rest now."

I already was resting. What the hell is she talking about?

I felt the ground I was laying on begin to move as the lights got brighter, more yellow and further away. There was slamming, teetering, jolting, and rolling. The only thing I could think to do, or say, or plead for, was the girl that had been in my dreams. The one who carried the fog away.

"My wife--" I mumbled pleadingly up at the shadows, "I want my wife. Roxanne--"

And just like that, before I knew whether any of them had listened to my request, I was back in darkness again.


Circles. Millions of circles flew before my eyes.

The doctor was speaking to me, but there was no comprehension. He sounded as though he were speaking pig Latin, or French, or some other strange aborigine language that I would never understand. He said the word 'heart' two dozen times, and all I could think about was mine, shivering and breaking all alone. He talked about valves and damage and fragments of copper. He talked about respiration and anesthesia, and I felt as if I were fainting.

Then he said the word 'lucky', and I knew everything I needed to.

"…It may take him another hour or so to wake up, all depending on what his body will allow. But he's going to be perfectly alright, ma'am. It's about recovery and rest from here. He needs to take it easy. No more Wild West showdowns for a while."

I breathed a deep sigh of relief as the doctor placed a gentle hand on my shoulder and arm, lending me a tissue from his own coat pocket, same as the officer, and soothing me likewise.

"Am I allowed to go in and sit with him?"

"Oh, absolutely." He rubbed my back and led me down the hall further, toward Mort's room. "In fact, you were personally requested between shots of morphine."

I wiped my eyes and looked at him with a humored smirk.

"Which in my experience…" He began as he leaned closer with a whisper as I glanced inside of the window to the darkened room, "…Only the best of wives ever are."

I smiled past the falling tears and quickly, without warning, flew into the older man's arms, hugging him for whatever doctors were worth nowadays, their price in gold and aspirin maybe? He held me the same, gentler, and with complete reassurance.

"Thank you," I mumbled into his white coat. "Thank you for saving him."

He patted my back as I relaxed down on the soles of my boots again and then just winked.

"I'm merely the medicine man. You're the one who saved him, truly."

And with a short twist and a squeeze of my hand out of continuing kindness, he was gone down the hall to tend to other weary wives and their unconscious, heroic husbands. My hand tingled on the cold steel doorknob, and I was hesitant, if only because I was used to being on the receiving end of hospital visits. I was usually in the bed, hooked to the wires, breathing for life's sake. This was new to me, not that I ever wanted to get used to it.

As I fell inside quietly to the blue haze of the early evening light from outside, I could hear him breathing weakly, I could hear the beeps and the drips all around him, and I could hear the beat of my own heart, pounding to run free of my frightened chest. There was a chair next to the bed, but I didn't sit. I couldn't sit. I couldn't relax now, not when my muscles were all buzzed and hopping off of nothing but previous coffee consumption and endless tears. I had to walk, I had to move and pace and let myself think, if only because that's what we writers do best anyway.

I dropped my coat and purse in the chair and then walked around to the large window of the room where there was a couch. I leaned over it to see down into the street below, at the wet, white ground, and the flashing of red emergency lights. I tapped my finger to the glass, cold as ice, and let the shiver run the course of my spine before I pulled back and walked around again.

There were so many things I wanted to do for him, say to him, and all I could do was to keep waiting. Wait to see if he wanted something to eat, something to drink, or do, or watch on the television. He looked so helpless when I passed by his bed, countless times. He looked like he was in peace certainly, with those heavy drugs no doubt, but he seemed lost in his dreams, his mind.

I wondered, standing at the end of the bed and watching his brow shift and twitch with sleep, what he was thinking about or seeing. I wondered if it was me, or Catalina, or something else entirely. I wondered then if anything happened between the two of them before I came back. I'm sure it could have, since she did have him tied up and restricted from resisting it. I could have asked him during all that time I wasted fighting him over the police, all that time I should have just been helping him get away, the one thing we did best together. But I didn't. I fought with him, right down to the last minute when the car wouldn't start. He was trying to fix it, get us out of there, and all I wanted was to stay and deal with the law. Well, I got my way, but he also got shot in the process of my catch 22 kind of day.

My hand lingered over where his foot was under the soft blanket, and I squeezed his toes lightly before moving right back into my solemn pace. In the duration of an hour and a half, I called my sister, explained everything that had happened to Jane and Todd, and talked to the kids with nothing but tears. Tears that they tried to ask me about with curiosity, and to which I brushed the subject off with questions about their day instead.

"Mommy, we got hats for New Year's."

"Did you?"

Maddie laughed and I could hear Max in the background with noisemakers.

"I picked a pink one for you. And a blue one for daddy."

I looked up at Mort, brushing a tear from my eye to see him just as out of it as before the phone call had started. It nearly killed me then.

"That's great, honey. Daddy and I are going to try our very best to make it before midnight, okay?"

It was a complete lie, but what could I do. No five year old needs to hear that the source of all their piggy back rides is in the hospital because he got shot.

No thank you, I don't need that burden of toddler psyche on my already full plate.

"I'll give daddy a New Year's kiss for you if we don't though. How's that?"

"Okay," she chanted gladly, "And one for you, mommy."

I heard her blow the kiss from SoHo all the way to Rochester and held back the added waves of tears. I did the same in return, said all of my 'I love you's' and agreed to keep in touch through the rest of the night. Then I hung up the phone with Jane and slumped into the chair nearest to the bed, finally at a fair point of exhaustion.

I wasn't sitting with my eyes closed for more than thirty seconds, before I heard a rustle of the bed sheets next to me and a gruff, dry voice.

"Took you long enough."

My eyes shot open and back up to see Mort's, smiling in return, the way only his eyes can do, and I threw myself from the chair, lunging to his side. He chuckled at me, coughing just to breathe deeply again for the first time in six hours. I brushed the ever messy hair from his eyes and tried to touch every bit of him that I could, without hurting him.

"I'm so sorry," I mumbled with tears that fell on his nose.

I wiped them away as he argued, "Are you seriously," cough, "apologizing for this? What is it with you, woman?"

I couldn't help but to smile, to laugh and drowsily tuck my face into the crook of his neck, where I always knew it was beyond warm, and well beyond safe. He lay beneath me, tired and achy for a lasting moment, before I eventually felt his arm, draped with wires and needles and medicinal sustenance, come around and rub at my back gently.


She really was something else.

Apologizing, to ME. The guy who brought all of this on in the first place. Jesus…

Every one of her tears that fell on my face and neck was like a typhoon of them. Watching her cry was the most painful thing there ever was for me. More painful than bullets, or baseball bats or handcuffs and tape. She tucked her face into my neck, half leaning toward me on the bed, and all I could do was remind her that I was still there, that it wasn't a dream, that she was really feeling me. I softly caressed her back, wishing I could just leave this bed and go home. Go home and lay with her under a half dozen blankets in the freezing cold for the rest of the night.

"I know how you feel all the time now," she cried into my cheek, kissing me, hugging my neck as best she could. "And I hate it. I hate it so much, Mort. How do you do this?"

I smiled weakly, knowing full well what she meant. She pulled away enough for me to see her eyes flickering in the grey light of the room. They were like two runway sparks on an isolated landing strip, like two candles in the middle of a dark house, or two headlights on the most dizzying road one could ever imagine being stuck on.

I stroked the tears from her cheeks.

"It's easy. I walk around in circles thinking about you until you wake up again."

A small grin came to her mouth as she relaxed back into the chair and came as close as I could possibly beg of her. I was freezing but every bit of her warmed me instantly.

"Do you want anything? Are you thirsty?"

I nodded with tired eyes and watched as she reached to pour a cup of water for me, never letting go of my hand. I could see the bandages over my heart from underneath of the gown they had me in, and I wondered how deep it went, where it went, and how closely it hit my heart. I'm sure it wasn't as close as it felt every time I saw her dripping green eyes.

She brought a straw down to meet my parched lips and our eyes never left one another's as I sipped and she cried. The more hydrated I became, the more I took notice of the little scars on her skin in this light, the ones that were still forever healing from all she'd been through before me. They suited her, although I wished they didn't have to be there.

"More?"

I shook my head 'no' and relaxed back on the pillow again, staring up at the ceiling of the room, fighting the urge to keep from staring at her pain stricken eyes. That would kill me faster than any shrapnel through the heart.

"Sweetie, do you want me to get you anything? Food? Are you hungry?"

Oh the possibilities of answering that, I thought wildly. Where do I begin with her?

I turned my hungry eyes back down to see hers clearing up.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

She knew why and it made me laugh when she rolled her eyes and turned her face away, childishly, before eventually just bringing it right back again. We endured another round of our never-ending staring contest through life, until I broke it with what was really on my mind, the only thing I couldn't get off of it in fact.

"What happened to that bitch?"

Roxanne's eyes went wider, suddenly realizing the force of my interest, the anger that went with it. I could see gratefulness mixed with shock all over her face.

"Did they arrest her?"

"No," she whispered softly, wiping her nose.

"Figures. Fucking New York cops don't--"

"No, Mort." She stopped my potential rant with a hand on my stomach, caressing lightly. "Catalina, she--" there was a pause, the kind that comes with morbid news only. I was more than prepared, to be quite honest. "She's gone."

I held her eyes furtively, knowing the sound of what I heard in her voice. It was that grotesque tone I've only heard once before in my whole life, from anyone. On the day she had first explained to me how she killed Ethan and his lover, Lindsey.

"You did it, didn't you?"

I was more than happy to hear the truth either way, but had to admit, that hearing her say she was the one to take Catalina out of the world, to take that threat as far from here as possible, would be what made me the happiest man alive.

"It's terrible, I know I just--"

"Sh." I cut her off with a hand to her cheek, brushing back her falling curls. "Roxanne, don't even think about analyzing all of this. And if you already started, then stop. You hear me?"

She gulped with a nod.

"Good. Thank you."

There was silence then, because I knew she was already going back to her thoughts, back to the place where she would sit questioning the entire situation until she was crazily tied to a wall in an institution. She was always good at beating herself up about stuff, especially difficult choices.

"Stop. I'm begging you."

"Mort, I shouldn't have done it. She didn't have any bullets left. It wasn't a fair--"

"Please," I grabbed her hand to bring her back close to me, kissing her warm knuckles. "For me. Stop. It's done with. Let it rest."

More silence, prevailing, hapless silence. The kind that comes when it's all nerves and contemplation in the air. The kind I absolutely hate. I had to break it again.

"Baby?"

She moved her eyes to mine, resting her chin down on my hand, free of needles.

"Yeah?"

"I think I know what I want now."

"Food?"

I just smiled with a twisted eye and nodded.


Food, right…I should have known better.

I hit the simultaneous 6 and 7 buttons on the vending machine and watched as the bag of cheese flavored demons fell down to where a half dozen others were already waiting to be grabbed. His doctor was going to be overjoyed at this one, I was sure of it. I laughed to myself though, punching buttons on a handful of different machines, namely the ones that housed all his favorites, while the television screen overhead blasted with last minute New Year's celebrations in Times Square. The kids were blocks away from all that insanity, and it made me happy to know they'd get to enjoy themselves even without us there.

With my arms full of sugary, fructose induced crap I headed back to Mort's room and came inside just as the nurse was finishing his vitals. She was an older lady, sweet, with an accent as flavored as New Orleans jazz and Cajun food.

"Looks like your wife is takin' mighty good care o' you, Mister Rainey."

He turned his head with a laugh as I stumbled toward the bed and dropped everything I had, bags of Doritos, cans of Mountain Dew and plenty of other things he didn't need.

"I'm a lucky guy," he smirked back at her as she tugged the blood pressure cuff from his arm and snuck out of the room with a laughing sigh or two. I turned to see the TV with the same New Year's happenings as in the waiting room, then felt a tug on my hand as Mort pulled me toward him. "Come here, lay with me."

"Yeah right. They have you wired like a computer."

He shook his head and grunted with a tug of my weight onto the mattress beside him.

"Mort."

"You asked me what I wanted."

I sighed then, giving in as usual, and found a comfortable niche tucked into his arms. For all of five seconds anyway. He immediately growled with a pinch of pain somewhere.

"What? What did I pull out?"

"Oh God," he threw his head back on the pillow, writhing and jolting on purpose, "I think you pulled my life support out. Oh baby, how could you--?"

And then he tilted his face to the side, tongue hanging out of his mouth and eyes rolled back in his head like in the old cartoons. The only thing he was missing was a pair of black X's over both of his eyelids. I leaned over, resting against the right, un-bandaged side of his chest, smiling with warm breath on his neck until he gave in and looked back.

With a crooked, half open eye, he whispered, "Is this heaven?"

"No. It's hell. Welcome. You made it," I teased with a tap on his chin.

"No," he sighed, turning over to get comfortable with me in his arms again, my face hidden at the crook of his neck where I always seemed to belong. "It can't be hell." He tossed the blankets over my legs and wrapped me up tight with him. Bags of chips and freezing cans of soda rolled between us as he whispered, "Because I see an angel, right here."

And then, just as the shouting, counting citizens of New York City began to chant, Mort kissed every single inch of my face he could find under hospitals blankets and tangled curls, eventually stopping in a hover right over my mouth.

"Did you ever know that I'm your biggest fan, Mrs. Rainey?"

I grinned under him, catching the intentional irony of his morbid words, and nodded.

"Funny. I just so happen to be your biggest fan too, Mr. Rainey."

Then, just like in all those perfectly predictable love stories, the ball dropped over Times' Square, snow began to fall outside of the window to his hospital room, and he kissed me like there was nowhere else to be in the world, except right there, forever and always.

We snacked on Doritos and shared Mountain Dew from the same straw for the rest of the night. We talked about things that had nothing to do with what we'd endured all morning and afternoon, and found we couldn't stop talking, like usual. We argued over names and a preference for a boy or girl in our third go round as parents. We kissed and laughed and repeated every necessary line to late night Seinfeld re-runs.

And I couldn't help but to think to myself, as we drifted off to sleep together in that tiny bed, how everything had seemed to come completely back around. There was no more upside down or sideways. No more confusion or uncertainty. There was just me and him. And nothing and no one could truly come between that.

Never ever.