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I’ve known her a little over three years and I’ve racked my brain; I am absolutely certain I have never seen Claire look like this. It’s startling. Even with just the little moonlight seeping in through the blinds of the window I can tell that her complexion is completely ashen. She’s facing away from me, curled up in a little ball. A pained moan escaped her lips.
Never once in these three years have I asked her to tell me what was wrong. Claire is her own woman; she can confide in me if she wishes, but if she wants to keep something to herself it’s her prerogative. I respect her far too much to insinuate that she is incapable of recognizing when she needs assistance. Though, as I watch her struggle to get off the mattress, I begin to rethink that policy.
Deciding it best to follow her, I find her in the bathroom, the light still off, her face as white as the porcelain bassin it’s resting on, tiny lines of pain etched into her forehead, tears leaking from her eyes, her entire body curled into itself with her hands tightly clutching her middle. I stand in the doorway, and almost say something, then think better of it. Hopefully that’ll get her to come to me when she needs me, that I won’t ask her if she’s okay. When she spits up bile, though, I realize I needed to intervene, fearing something was terribly wrong.
“What’s going on, Claire?”
“It’s nothing, Francis.” She whimpers with a forced smile.
I remain unconvinced as she slowly rises and wobbles out towards me, hunched over. When she nearly collapses, only staying up right by grabbing at the door frame, I silently take her arm and guide her back into the bedroom. She stands in front of the mattress, staring at it, sizing it up as though that mattress on the floor were Mt. Everest. I guide her down onto it, and she resumes her previous position. So I lie behind her for a while, staring at her dark brown hair until she gets up again, and stammers to the bathroom like my drunken father. Once again I find myself standing in the door frame as she coughs up stomach acid in the dark. She turns her head to look at me.
“Really, you needn’t be concerned.”
“Bullshit.” And then I realized: she was vomiting. My wife, a twenty two year old woman, was vomiting. Suddenly, I remember every one of those booze soaked nights when we slopally made love, a condom the last thing on our minds. My pupils dilate.
“You aren’t...”
“No, of course not.”
That woman always could read my mind, still though, we ate the same thing for dinner, so it can’t be food poisoning.
“Are you sure?” I realized what I had done the moment the words left my lips; I flinch involentarly, expecting the worst.
But it doesn’t come. She just gets up again, and this time takes my arm as soon as she reaches me. It isn’t until we’re back in bed that I broach the topic again, now terrified by her non-response.
“Claire?”
“It’s just my courses, Francis, nothing more.” I am ashamed to say I was momentarily relieved, glad not to need to deal with a pregnancy. My relief was short lived when she moaned once more, carefully I attempted to pull her into my arms.
“You don’t have to do that.” Her voice sounds as fragile as paper thin glass, able to be shattered by a slight gust of wind. “I’m being over dramatic, Mother always said as much.”
I fear this could be a minefield, so I abandon my attempt to hold her. The sentence hangs in the air, needing more explanation that its orator is unable to provide and for which I dare not ask.
“You don’t have to stay in here with me, I’m sorry I even told you.”
“Claire, I had asked you what was going on. Why would you think you’d need to apologize for giving me the answer?”
“It’s always been like this. I spend three days in bed crying, puking, and wishing for death, every month since I was thirteen. My mother would always force me to go to school, and threw around the word hysterical. When I passed out in English Daddy had to come pick me up. After Mother found out that I had told him she became livid. She told me that this wasn’t something men wanted to hear about, that I was to keep it to myself.”
Her silent sobs were deafening. All I knew was that at this moment the love of my life was suffering so severely in solitude and I was utterly powerless to alleviate it. I couldn’t help her in her despair and it made my heart ache to watch her. There is only nine inches between us but it may as well have been an ocean, because right now no matter how close to her I came, she was alone.
Eventually, I fell asleep, having nothing better to do,and the next morning when I awoke she was lying next to me looking exhausted and defeated.
“Are you in a lot of pain?”
“Nothing-” she gasps “Nothing I can’t handle.” She says through gnashed teeth, her eyes scrunched up in agony. But my wife didn’t lie to me, she could handle it.
“Are you in a lot of pain?” I ask him.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he says.
I didn’t realize what I had asked until I got that answer. He always asked me that, in the exact same way, always got the exact same response.
Those days are mostly behind us now, I certainly don’t miss them. He tried to comfort me even though most of the time I was inconsolable, but he always tried. And even though he had seen me so vulnerable all those times, he respected me, never held it against me. Maybe that’s why I came in to his room, why I even bothered to come back to him. Sure, I needed him as a stepping stone, but I could fight my way there one way or another. I still loved him, I never stopped, but things needed to change.
He stumbles at the doorway, but he still made it farther than I did the first time he saw me in a similar state, and he’s on IV pain medication, I’d imagine his whole world is spinning. I help him into the chair, and he tells me he’ll approve my plan for the oil crisis. Getting that through was one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but it pales in comparison to seeing the man I love suffering like this.
I still can’t go back to the way it was before, but he says he’ll change, and when I realize he means he’ll change back into that man who showed me that kindness a score of years ago, the kindness even my own mother had denied me, it’s like the strife of the last few years vanishes.
We made it to the end of the hall, and back. I helped him into bed.
“Do you remember the night after your abortion?” He asks, making sure the room had cleared.
“Only that part where the pain medication had worn off and it was too early for another dose.” I laugh, but feel an odd momentary burst of sensation across my belly reminding me of the ordeal.
“You were in so much pain, and combined with the emotion of it all. That Claire, that was the worst moment of my life. I felt my heart drop into my stomach, I questioned if I had asked too much of you, for you to put yourself through that. I hope I didn’t cause you to have a similar moment .”
“When they told me, my heart skipped a beat, time stood still but everything was going by so quickly, and seeing you so weak on all those machines, it was a lot. I was just numb.” I remembered him waiting on me hand and foot, fetching me a heating pad and water, helping me to the bathroom every few hours, I didn’t know he felt guilty about it.
“I can’t even imagine.” He tells me.
“I love you, Francis.”
“I love you, Claire.”