“You were telling me about a patient you think might have something going on with her liver.”
“Hang on. I just need to get these sorted. Give me a minute.” She directs her attention once more to the apples before her. She lines them up from left to right and then lines them up top to bottom, making sure that each apple is touching the ones on either side of it.
As I scramble her eggs, I keep an eye on Lena. She never offers to move or speak again, though. She just keeps straightening and restraightening those apples, lost once more to the world in which I don’t exist.
Lost to me.
The backs of my eyeballs sting as I recall something I read about the natural occurrences that transpire during the last weeks of life, as different organs begin to fail. The article, one I’d found on a hospice site, mentioned that patients often straighten odd things as their time on Earth comes to a close. It’s a subconscious effort to get the affairs of their life in order before they die.
Before death.
I have to turn away from Lena and squeeze my eyes shut against the surge of anguish that washes through me.
I’m going to lose her.
I’m going to lose my wife. My soul mate. My partner in crime. The very air I breathe. I’m going to lose her, and there is nothing I can do about it.
For as long as we’ve known her condition is terminal, on some level I’ve refused to think that there is really no hope for her, that there is really nothing that can be done. I believed that, because she’s young and healthy, her body would last longer, fight harder and they’d be able to find a way to make her better. I didn’t purposely mislead myself, but now I recognize that’s precisely what I’ve done—deceived myself.
Somehow, I managed to convince a part of my mind, of my heart of that inaccuracy, and now the reality of the situation—that my wife’s body is failing her, that she is now steadily making her way toward the end—stabs me in the stomach like the horns of a bull, a bull that has been taunted and is now hell-bent on destruction.
That bull of truth gores me.
Through and through.
I slide the skillet off the burner and take a step back, bracing my arms against the edge of the stove and letting my head drop down between them. I stand motionless for a handful of seconds trying to collect myself.
It takes everything I have in me to control the devastation that’s wrecking my heart. It takes every bit of my concentration, and even then, it’s another minute or so before I actually achieve an acceptable degree of equilibrium. Only when I’m once more composed enough to let Lena see my face do I turn toward her again.
Then I’m shaken again. To my core, I’m shaken. The sight of her…
Jesus H. Christ!
Lena is still lining up apples, still getting her life in order. And it still feels like she’s ripping my soul out of my chest rather than organizing our fruit.
“Eggs are on,” I say as brightly as I can, smiling when Lena’s eyes flip up to me. Her brow wrinkles as though she has no idea where she is or why I’m here with her.
“Eggs?”
“Yep. You didn’t get dinner. You need to eat.”
“Oh right, right. I’m starved,” she says again, as if the previous ten minutes hadn’t just elapsed.
I plate her eggs and walk them to the island on legs that feel like a newborn colt’s—shaky and uncertain. When I set the saucer down, it clanks and rattles. My hand is anything but steady.
I grab a fork from the drawer and hand it to her. Then, quietly, reverently, I stand in front of the love of my entire existence and watch her scoop eggs into her mouth and laugh at something I can’t hear.
I watch her, and I mourn her, already agonizing over the battle she faces, the battle I’ll have to watch her fight.
The battle she’s going to lose.
And I’m already dreading what the rest of my life is going to be like without her.
********
The confusion worsens over time. There is nothing the doctors can do because any medication they could give to help flush the ammonia from Lena’s system, a build-up caused by her deteriorating liver function, is hazardous to the baby. This is part of the disease, I’ve been told, and is prognostic in and of itself.
It doesn’t bode well.
Lena doesn’t have much more time left.
My strong, amazing wife has already made it past the twenty-eight weeks she was aiming for. On days when she’s coherent and awake, she’s extremely happy about that fact.
I’m happy that she’s happy, and that she’s lucid.
I’ve learned to take advantage of those periods, to say what needs to be said, to enjoy every moment as if it were the last, because in truth, each one could be.