Read More: A Q&A with Eric Notaro
The leaves on the trees outside of the law office were starting to yellow though the thermometers still read 80 degrees. A few signed documents, a few calls to different banks, and it was all over—at least the lawyer’s office assured Andy as much. In a few weeks, it would be as though he and Beth had never filed for divorce in the first place. He knew the next step was to tell her. A call to Beth’s sister, Coleen, could have done it. Beth’s mother could have just as easily relayed everything. It just seemed more appropriate to be the messenger. She could stay on his insurance policy for as long as she needed. How long exactly, no one could say.
Cancer didn’t follow a rigid schedule for better or worse. For every story of a miraculous turnaround or an extended stay, there were stories of sudden turns for the worse, catastrophic collapse. In spite of all the heated back-and-forth over the past year, they were legally in the very early stages of the process. Her newest round of treatment was promising. His insurance made that possible. There was a good chance she would come back from this, but he knew there was no telling with these sorts of things. At best, they would be back to litigating the decades of their lives in court once this whole thing was behind them.
As he walked to the car, he felt lightness in his step. It was a sensation that reminded him of his early days with Beth. In the diminishing hot sun, he imagined the two of them truly reconciling. He pictured how he would resolve that the border between life and death would be enough for him to do better—that she would see past her weariness of him and their life together. The finality of life would convince them to amend their ways and to see that they truly needed to care for one another in their short time left. For better or for worse, till parting, as the vow went.
The car started with a press of the remote as he approached. They had separated for a few months prior to the diagnosis. All of the tendrils connecting the two of their lives were in the midst of being cut or rearranged when the diagnosis came in. If she recovered—survived, he thought—she wouldn’t want to rebuild what she had already destroyed.
A stupid fantasy he didn’t even want. He knew better.
Andy moved through the hospital corridors—the building muttering with its unfolding mysteries. A large family with five children clustered around a bedridden elder. A young child recovered from a sports injury. Nurses moved to address daily crises. The constant flow of events exhausted him. He knew he should take comfort in his relative good fortune, but instead it seemed to taunt his swirling thoughts. Beth’s room was, thankfully, in a quiet section of the hospital. If tragedy and horror were occurring nearby, it was polite enough to keep to itself.
The voice of Coleen met him as he made his way down the final corridor. She spoke with excitement and laughter. He did not hear enough to know what about exactly, but she seemed to be telling her sister a story as she sat by the hospital bed.
“Then he comes in, holding the empty bag out like he’s offering some to me.”
Beth laughed.
“So I just look at it and say, ‘All that for me? How nice.’ ”
Beth laughed again. Andy saw her smile shrink a little as he came in. She sat up in the hospital bed, tired but otherwise in good spirits. He was glad. Some days, she was so drained that it was impossible to talk to her.
“Hello Andy,” Beth said. He couldn’t grasp if her weak greeting was a sign of her physical state or mood toward him.
“Hi,” he said. “How are you?”
“Still alive, even if the cancer would prefer otherwise.”
Coleen’s excitable mood faded as her sister said this. Eager to change the subject, she joined in.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
He froze. Coleen knew their plan to keep Beth on his insurance, but it felt wrong to break the news with her there. He wanted to declare it to Beth alone.
Beth must have sensed his discomfort and was feeling merciful that day. “Probably wants to talk business.” She looked to her sister. “Coleen, would you mind giving us a few?”
“Sure. I should probably call Mike anyway and let him know I’ll be home soon.”
She stepped outside of the room. Andy stood, waiting long enough for her to get some distance from the room before he began.
“The law office says everything is all taken care of now. You should be good.”
“Great,” she said. “And?”
“That’s it really. We shouldn’t have any more problems with the insurance.”
“I see.” She looked toward the door and said nothing.
“What?” he asked.
“You came by just to tell me that?”
“Can’t I come by to check on how you’re doing?”
“Sure,” she said. He could see a weak smirk forming on her face, “but that’s not why you came by.”
“How do you know?”
“When Andy Malkins is afraid to say what’s on his mind, he stands there until you force it out of him or you figure it out.”
“Don’t do this now, Beth.”
“Do what? Describe what you’re doing?”
He thought of his earlier glimpse reconciliation and he hated himself for it more than he already did. He tensed up, knowing she would demand an answer when none would satisfy her.
“Can’t I just stop by without it turning into an interrogation session?”
“I wouldn’t turn this into one if you were just direct.”
“Even with this,” he muttered. “Even with this.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve got to pick apart everything, even when I’m coming by to say that I’m helping you.”
“Well excuse me for dying.”
Several possible responses jammed in his throat, but he did not know whether to take her words plainly.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“No,” she thought over her own answer before adding to it. “Probably. There are still a few more steps they’re taking, but I know a hopeless case when I see it.”
“You’re being cynical.”
“I’ll be cynical about dying all I damn well please.”
“I mean—it’s just—can’t you just have a little hope?” He looked at the empty doorframe behind him and then back at her. “Just a little?”
She looked at the sheets on her hospital bed. Andy knew better than to break this pause. They were both regrouping. He knew this pattern from their decades together. To break the silence now would only cause a bigger conflagration. Andy watched the thermostat.
“They keep it cool in here. Not too cold for you, I hope.”
“It’s fine. They can adjust it if they need to, but I haven’t had any problems.”
He nodded. “It’s so warm out for fall. I wonder if we’ll even have winter this year.”
“We say that, and then there’s two feet of snow the following month.”
Andy nodded at that.
Last February, Andy got a call from Beth asking him to leave work early to help pull her out of a snowbank. The winter had been waves of heavy snow almost every week, but intervening days warmed quickly. Pristine snowbanks melted down, refroze and then buried glazed ice when the next storm arrived. Beth had only recently moved out. He wanted to ignore her call, but he could hear how distraught her voice was on the voicemail when he checked it. The snow continued to blow out the window of his office. However grudgingly, he had an obligation to help. If anything should happen to her out on the road, his refusal might be broadcast for all to see. A woman in need left to die by her soon-to-be ex-husband. The sensationalist headline wrote itself, but he couldn’t imagine leaving her out there even after all that had happened.
Andy crept along the road, watching for slick patches and ice. He relished his slow pace. She could shiver for a little while; he took his time. Soon, as his windshield wipers cleared the latest spray of snow and salt from his vision, he saw her blue hatchback, its warning lights blinking in unison. The dense snow mounded about the front end. Despite a few footprints in the slush and a cast-about clusters of frozen snow, there was little sign she had tried to clear her way out. Andy clutched the steering wheel. She had always been so careless, so reckless, and always left it to him to pick up the mess. Just one more example to add to the long list he cultivated in the prior months to comfort himself. He pulled over, giving plenty of room for her to back up should she need to try it. He stepped out of his car and approached, expecting her to get out and meet with him halfway. It was only when he came within a few dozen feet of the car that he could see her clearly. Her back was hunched. She quaked with the force of her own sobbing. In their years of marriage, and even during its collapse, he had not seen her cry so forcefully. She had cried during their fights, during a handful of tragedies that had struck during their marriage, but this was something else. She seemed fully overcome by the force of her grief, blind to his presence. He stopped. An old instinct arose to comfort her, to find out what could have held so much power even as she sat on the side of the road. An eighteen-wheeler roared by, spraying a harsh wind of salt, exhaust, and filthy mist across his face. As he wiped the salty grime from his eyes, he felt a heat rising within him. She remained in the interior, unaware of his presence. He imagined the truck passing again, splattering him across the asphalt, Beth oblivious to the gore as she tended to her self-pity.
He hurried to the car and knocked on the passenger window harder than he anticipated. She looked up, startled, her face glistening from her tears and mucus.
“Can you step outside?” he shouted into the window.
She opened the driver’s side door and got out, though Andy couldn’t tell if it was due to his words or just her own initiative.
“I was wondering when you would get here,” she said bitterly.
“Right, maybe I got you at a bad time,” he said. “Maybe I’ll come back later.”
“Fine,” she said. “I’ll find someone else.”
“Well then why didn’t you?” he asked.
She stared at him. It was unclear why, but she looked as though she would cry again.
He sighed and pointed back as his car. “I can pull you out with the chain. Pop it in neutral when I tell you to.”
She nodded and watched him as he made his way back to the car.
After he sat with Beth for a while, Andy excused himself from the room. He found Coleen waiting in the hall and from her he confirmed Beth’s remarks. The cancer continued to spread despite all efforts. The doctors were scrambling for other means to contain it, corner it, and begin the process of either removing it from her or destroying it from within. Coleen thanked him for all he had done. The deductibles and other costs had still drained a considerable amount, but it would have been even worse without coverage. He beamed for a moment in her gratitude, something Beth had been so unwilling to share.
“I’m sure she appreciates it,” Coleen said, “even if she won’t say as much.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“I know you two had enough going on with the separation. It seemed like she was finally getting her own two feet when this happened.”
He said nothing. Coleen sensed his discomfort and turned her attention to her phone for a while. He had not yet excused himself. In truth, he had nowhere else to be. Signing the paperwork and informing Beth were all he had planned. At the time, it had felt liberating. One last obligation completed and then he was free to move about his life for a while. He had no reason to be at the hospital. While he liked Beth’s family well enough, his only real connection to them had been his collapsed marriage. He could, at that very moment say goodbye to Coleen, walk to his car, and never speak to any of them again except perhaps what little arrangements he might have to make should Beth’s cancer reach its natural conclusion.
Beth had spoken of halting their proceedings as a temporary step—a tactical retreat. They would put aside their squabbles until this matter was resolved. Then, after the all clear was given, they could return to picking at the carcass of their marriage, harvesting what scraps could be torn from the bone. Talking with Coleen, seeing Beth, and measuring by some deep unspoken instinct, he knew this would be the end of things. Beth would not recover. She would ride out on his insurance until the end, sparing her family the mountain of medical bills—most of them at least.
In a grim way, he thought it was better to end their marriage like this. He imagined the tragic dignity of being a widower rather than enduring his latter days as a jilted ex-husband. Even as he thought of it, he could imagine the voice of Beth scolding him for such a gruesome way of thinking, but he thought of it as a final revenge. After all she had put him through—after everything she had done—he would be the one to bail her out one last time.
The other possibility came to mind as well. Some miraculous reversal could happen, because such things could happen. She could find new strength, new chance to return to life. Then where would they be? Beth’s vision would once again come to pass. She would once again come to shape reality to her will at his expense. That was what she did. She took control and used that power on him. Maybe this would just be another way of doing that.
Andy had labored with the tow chain on the icy road for ten minutes before he was confident enough that he wouldn’t yank anything from either car in the process. He said nothing as he worked through his bulky winter gloves, though he muttered curses at her for not checking in with him. She had seemed willing to do what he had asked, for once. She waited at the steering wheel, ready to set the car in neutral at his command. He judged her for not checking in, for not offering to help, and for not thanking him for coming all this way out.
He gave the chain a final yank to confirm it was secure and then gave her the signal. He returned to his car. He put it in reverse and tapped the gas lightly. The first test pull did little, but the second yanked the car from the snow pile. Chunks of icy snow rolled off the hood as it backed out of the embankment. He pulled it back a bit farther to give the car some space from the embankment. Then he saw the flash of her brake lights and his own car jerk at the resistance. He clutched the steering wheel, not expecting the sudden halt. He cursed and put his car in park and stepped back out onto the road.
He called out to her before she even opened the door, not caring if she heard. “Do you have to be difficult even on the side of the road?”
She stepped out, tense and shaking. She didn’t raise her voice even to be heard over the sounds of cars screaming by. “You already got me out. You don’t need to tow me down the road.”
“If you angle out wrong, you’d be right back in there!” He stopped and threw up his hands. “You know what? Fine. Get stuck again!”
“Thank you for your help,” she said. The sounds of the highway obscured her tone but it sounded sincere. He looked at her, trying to interpret enough to know how to respond. Not knowing how to read her, and not willing to guess, he began to unhook the chain from her car without another word. He tried to change the subject.
“What are you doing out here anyway?” he asked. “I thought you’d be at work.”
This question seemed to make her more upset. He sighed, taking it as yet another sign that nothing he could do was good enough.
“Well, whatever it is, you’re free to go, I guess.” He turned to leave, but he noticed how Beth lingered on the road. He thought of walking back to his car, forgetting whatever was bothering her and moving on with his life. He didn’t owe her anything anymore. He had convinced himself that he had never owed her anything in the first place, but he could not walk away from her in that moment.
“Are you going to stand there until I leave, Beth?” he asked.
“I was at the doctor today,” she said.
“Is that an answer?”
“I was at the doctor. They found something,” she said. […]
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Eric Notaro’s writing has appeared in Border Crossing, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Pleiades, and other publications. He lives in New Hampshire.
Read More: A Q&A with Eric Notaro