Read Online A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rafael Yglesias
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while Margaret writhed and moaned from the effort to keep her nuclear breakfast down, the technician saw on the scan that it hadn’t progressed at all, and let her throw it up. That was the end of two months of medical skepticism.
The specialist bowed his head to look at the test report and then announced, “We have to put the PEG in first thing tomorrow. She can’t live like this. It’s dangerous.”
Four long months had passed since that grateful day of relief, months so grim that the previous years of treatment seemed cheerful by comparison. The bold, girlish, teasing manner that had charmed her star doctor was gone now. Margaret hid in Enrique’s arms, in the fold of her crooked bed, without makeup, without wig, skin translucent from starvation, eyes bright and wide with despair and drugs, her hospital gown stained here with a brown splash of antiseptic and there with a drop of blood. This anhedonic Margaret was telling her doctor that despite her pluck, her nerve, her aggression, her flattery, and her compliance, she had nothing left. This Margaret who wanted to accept death was very different indeed.
“Okay, I’m going to leave you alone for now,” he said, unwilling to admit defeat. “You’re here for tonight. So we’ll talk tomorrow—”
“No,” Margaret cried out. “Please. I can’t talk about this anymore.” She buried her face in Enrique’s arms and sobbed. “No more, no more, no more,” she whimpered over and over in a hysteria of desolation.
The healer stepped off his conductor’s stand and stumbled to the door. He caught Enrique’s eye and said in a low but firm voice, “We’ll talk.”
Enrique had kept mum while the great man made his plea because Margaret was right and his case was unsupported by facts. But when she ceased sobbing and he handed her new tissues to replace the soggy ones, he couldn’t restrain himself from asking, “Mugs, maybe there’s something to what he says. You could stay on the TPN for just a month and try another dose of—”
She shrank from him, repelled, more terrified by these wordsthan by anything he had ever said to her. “Puff!” she exclaimed in a whispered scream. “Puff! Puff!” she repeated, using the silliest, the most private, the sweetest of her nicknames for him. “You have to help me!” She gasped for air as if her feelings were strangling her. “I can’t do this without you! I can’t do this alone! I don’t have the strength to argue! I need you to fight them for me! I need you to help me die! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair—I know I’m putting too much on you—”
And that was all he let her say, ashamed to have somehow managed the monstrous feat of provoking a woman who was dying in midlife to apologize to him for unfairness. He pressed her fragile, thin-haired head to his chest, pleading, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it, I’m sorry,” and then a litany of I love yous.
She answered each of his declarations. “I love you so much. I love you so much,” saying the “ so much” as if it were a significant development, a furthering of her feeling for him that she had only recently understood.
Her sobs declined into sniffles, and she sighed into another motionless Ativan sleep. He lay beside her and occasionally kissed her forehead, as soft and moist as a baby’s. He expected, when she woke up, that they would start talking in a way they never had, in a way they now must, about their marriage.
“And how are you doing?” he was asked at the end of almost every conversation with a friend or relative or doctor, as if they had all read the same manual. A few informed Enrique, in case he hadn’t the wit to notice, that cancer could be as hard on the spouse as on the patient. They didn’t accomplish their objective of letting him feel sympathy for himself. Inevitably, he felt obliged to point out that he was not dying and so it could never be as hard on him as on
The specialist bowed his head to look at the test report and then announced, “We have to put the PEG in first thing tomorrow. She can’t live like this. It’s dangerous.”
Four long months had passed since that grateful day of relief, months so grim that the previous years of treatment seemed cheerful by comparison. The bold, girlish, teasing manner that had charmed her star doctor was gone now. Margaret hid in Enrique’s arms, in the fold of her crooked bed, without makeup, without wig, skin translucent from starvation, eyes bright and wide with despair and drugs, her hospital gown stained here with a brown splash of antiseptic and there with a drop of blood. This anhedonic Margaret was telling her doctor that despite her pluck, her nerve, her aggression, her flattery, and her compliance, she had nothing left. This Margaret who wanted to accept death was very different indeed.
“Okay, I’m going to leave you alone for now,” he said, unwilling to admit defeat. “You’re here for tonight. So we’ll talk tomorrow—”
“No,” Margaret cried out. “Please. I can’t talk about this anymore.” She buried her face in Enrique’s arms and sobbed. “No more, no more, no more,” she whimpered over and over in a hysteria of desolation.
The healer stepped off his conductor’s stand and stumbled to the door. He caught Enrique’s eye and said in a low but firm voice, “We’ll talk.”
Enrique had kept mum while the great man made his plea because Margaret was right and his case was unsupported by facts. But when she ceased sobbing and he handed her new tissues to replace the soggy ones, he couldn’t restrain himself from asking, “Mugs, maybe there’s something to what he says. You could stay on the TPN for just a month and try another dose of—”
She shrank from him, repelled, more terrified by these wordsthan by anything he had ever said to her. “Puff!” she exclaimed in a whispered scream. “Puff! Puff!” she repeated, using the silliest, the most private, the sweetest of her nicknames for him. “You have to help me!” She gasped for air as if her feelings were strangling her. “I can’t do this without you! I can’t do this alone! I don’t have the strength to argue! I need you to fight them for me! I need you to help me die! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair—I know I’m putting too much on you—”
And that was all he let her say, ashamed to have somehow managed the monstrous feat of provoking a woman who was dying in midlife to apologize to him for unfairness. He pressed her fragile, thin-haired head to his chest, pleading, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it, I’m sorry,” and then a litany of I love yous.
She answered each of his declarations. “I love you so much. I love you so much,” saying the “ so much” as if it were a significant development, a furthering of her feeling for him that she had only recently understood.
Her sobs declined into sniffles, and she sighed into another motionless Ativan sleep. He lay beside her and occasionally kissed her forehead, as soft and moist as a baby’s. He expected, when she woke up, that they would start talking in a way they never had, in a way they now must, about their marriage.
“And how are you doing?” he was asked at the end of almost every conversation with a friend or relative or doctor, as if they had all read the same manual. A few informed Enrique, in case he hadn’t the wit to notice, that cancer could be as hard on the spouse as on the patient. They didn’t accomplish their objective of letting him feel sympathy for himself. Inevitably, he felt obliged to point out that he was not dying and so it could never be as hard on him as on
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