She goes to bed early now because of the pills. Jonathan and I will get a few hours of phone time, giggling in the dark like teenagers up past curfew. If I’m lucky, that is. Lately the phone calls have been cut short by yawns and complaints of having to get up early for work. It’s not like it was in the beginning, but then I guess nothing ever really is.
I love you, I think but don’t say. I never say it, but he has to know it’s true. Does he love me? His eyes say he does. The way he kisses me says so too. But Jonathan never says it with words.
He pauses to kiss me, bending over the bed. I don’t grab him by the neck to pull him down, even though I imagine myself doing that. I guess I do have a little pride after all. It doesn’t last. I leap out of the bed and catch him at the bedroom door. I’m still naked. He’s fully clothed. Sometimes being naked is a weakness. Sometimes it’s a weapon.
His hands roam over my bare skin. His breathing quickens. His kiss is fierce, but fast.
“I wish you could stay,” I tell him.
I don’t want to cry. I know he doesn’t want me to. The tears I can no longer hold back make him uncomfortable. I never used to be that sort of woman. The kind to cling or chase or beg.
Funny how things can change.
He grips me gently by the upper arms to put some distance between us. He looks into my eyes. He’s got lines at the corners of his, new since we started this … whatever it is. More lines bracket the corners of his mouth. It used to be that we laughed together all the time. We haven’t laughed about much of anything lately, and there are times, like now, that I worry we never will again.
“Soon.” He says it like a promise, an answer to a question I didn’t ask. Not aloud, anyway. Not this time. “Soon.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m here alone in a room that still smells of him, and even though I never used to be the sort of woman to cry herself to sleep, that’s what I end up doing.
CHAPTER THREE
Diana
“Hallooooo!” My mother-in-law’s familiar trill rings through the hallway. She’s let herself in through the garage, the way she usually does, and I hear the click-clack of her heels heading away from me, toward the kitchen.
Not for the first time, I consider changing the code for the garage door’s keypad lock. It would at least give me a warning that I’m about to be … well, invaded seems like a harsh description, especially since I’m not sure what I would have done without her in those first weeks after the accident.
Jonathan has never been the sort to fuss and coo, so he didn’t take vacation time to stay home with me. Harriett was the one who helped me use the toilet and take a shower. I couldn’t even brush my own teeth. The first time I tried to wash my hair, I threw up from the pain. I’m able to do most of it by myself now, but the embarrassment of it all, the shame of being so vulnerable, is a memory I definitely wish I could forget. I’ll never be able to, though, because Harriett will always be around to remind me.
Invaded might be harsh, but it’s how it feels. Ten years ago, when I moved into this house with Jonathan, Harriett moved out of it and into the in-law quarters above the detached garage. She’d promised then that even though she’d be just steps across the yard, she would respect our privacy. She’s kept her word, mostly, until the accident. She’s been over here every day since I came home from the hospital, sometimes at all hours. Eventually, tired of being woken up at dawn every time Harriett let herself in to start the coffee, I turned off the phone notifications from my camera security system. I appreciate the coffee. I hate being woken up. Still, I wish she’d at least text before she came over—but how can I ask her to do that when, without her help these past six weeks, I’d have been lost?
After all, she’s the only one I really have left.
“Diana?”
“I’m in the den.” I’m out of breath as I slowly, carefully, move through the set of daily mobility exercises I’m supposed to do.
My left arm hurts the tiniest bit less because the clavicle on that side is only broken in one place, not three. I lift it slowly to chest height. The agony in my collarbone, sternum, and shoulder slices and dices me, stabs like an ice pick, way down deep. It’s a hum like a tuning fork, vibrating nonstop. At the faint feeling of the bones grinding together, my body runs hot and cold. My stomach twists, and I make a weird, strangled sort of combination groan of relief, frustration, and agony. The pain doesn’t stop right away, but it fades. Every day, a little more, it fades.
“Diana? Are you upstairs?”
I find enough air to answer more loudly this time. “In the den!”
I slip my arm back into the sling. I’m not supposed to be out of the slings for too long. It can take six to eight weeks or longer, even up to twelve, they’ve told me, for the bones to heal well enough to allow for full use of my arms. I can expect it to be some more weeks after that before it won’t hurt at all. I might always have residual pain there, but I didn’t hear that from the doctors. I found that out on the internet.
The only good thing about all of this is the meds. It turns out that anesthesia-induced amnesia is considered enough of a psychiatric burden that there’s reasonable justification for me to have weekly therapy sessions with my psychiatrist, Dr. Levitt. I also get to take the good stuff. A pastel rainbow of opioids, anti-depressants, and anti-anxiety tablets, capsules, and pills. Put them on my tongue, I go flying.
“I just had your prescriptions refilled—oh, Diana. What are you doing?” In the doorway between the den and the hallway, Harriett sighs and shakes her head.
I taste sweat on my upper lip, and I hope my mascara hasn’t run. It was hard enough to get it on once already today. I’m going out with my friend Trina in a bit, and I’d rather not look like a toddler with a fistful of markers helped me do my makeup. It’ll be the first time I’ve gone anywhere except a doctor’s appointment since I’ve been home from the hospital.
“Just doing my exercises.”
“Your face is practically gray, and you’re sweating like a pig. Here. Take your medicine.”
She opens the bottle and tips some pills into her palm. Pale green-blue oblong pills. I have a few different prescriptions, so without reading the label, I’m not sure exactly what they are. I think they’re the pain pills. They upset my stomach, which requires more pills to offset the random nausea. Dr. Levitt says these random bouts of sickness could also be my body’s reaction to the stress of my mind missing so much time. Either way, I’ve lost close to fifteen pounds since the last time I can remember weighing myself, and I was never in need of a diet.
“I’m okay.” I shake my head when she thrusts her hand in my direction. There’s no way I’m going to let Harriett see how much I’m hurting. I want her to think I’m healing, even if I’m not convinced of it myself. The sooner she thinks I don’t need her help, the better. “I’m trying not to take so many.”
“There’s no sense being in pain. You’ve had some serious injuries. Your doctors wouldn’t renew your prescriptions if they didn’t think you needed the pills.” Harriett proffers the pills again.
“I’m okay, Harriett. Really.”