Roger was swimming up from something. Everything around him felt dim and aquatic, as if he were underwater. Ahead of him was an extremely bright light, and now it seemed to be everywhere, bright, pure white incandescent light. Was he dead? Dreaming? What the hell had happened, and where was he? Roger stopped struggling for a moment and decided this must surely be a dream. Now he could feel things brightening, like sunlight as you moved toward the water’s surface.
He began to register a hum, a drone, like an airplane off in the distance, and he realized it was people murmuring, more distinct, many voices, some talking at once, and now he could isolate them. He heard Margaret’s voice, distinct but firm and then lower in tone, someone else, softer and farther away; someone unfamiliar spoke up next and the white light became more intense, the sheer celestial brilliance of it startled him. Someone was touching him now and he tried to groan, but he was uncertain a sound had escaped. Roger felt fuzzy and groggy, but with extreme effort he opened an eye.
That’s right, he remembered. He was in a hospital. Each time he woke he was disoriented like this all over again, as if he couldn’t fasten the thought that he was here. And now he remembered with crushing clarity that he’d had a stroke.
“Roger?” Margaret’s disembodied voice floated toward him. “Roger can you hear us?” He tried to lift his arm or raise a brow, but he found that he was terribly weak. He could hear them, but why couldn’t they hear him?
“He looks like he’s in pain.” Margaret’s voice again now, more crisp and clear. The authority in her tone relieved him.
“He shouldn’t be in pain,” said an unfamiliar voice. “He is on so many meds, he isn’t going to feel pain. But it’s time for more sedation, if you’ll let me move to his IV.” And then Roger felt a rush, a cold fluid flush through his veins. The tsunami of fear that had continued to mount in his chest began to dissipate as the medication took hold and a syrupy warmth invaded, a gooey nothingness that tamped down his mounting panic. Roger surrendered to a feeling of serenity as he melted back into the bottomless twilight.
For an indeterminate amount of time there were the dreams, dreams that floated through his mind and dissolved like Technicolor movies, but which he would never remember later as he toggled between sleep and a sluggish wakefulness in the days following the stroke. It was impossible for him to distinguish between night and day. Voices flitted in and out of the room as he swam up and back down into unconsciousness. He was certain he had heard Maura once, possibly even Julia, but in his present state he was incapable of separating out what was real and what was dream state.
Seven days later, Roger was more fully awake but with no clear idea of what day it was or how long he had been here in the hospital. As he opened his eyes, he focused out the window. The harsh Florida sunlight was only partially muted by the louvered blinds, but the room was cold, over-air-conditioned. He shifted his eyes away from the glare and Margaret came into focus at eye level, in a chair next to his bed. She was sleeping, her head tilted back at an uncomfortable angle and her jaw hanging slack in a manner reserved for the very exhausted or drunk. Roger’s thoughts felt clearer, and he was able to focus better than the previous day. He reminded himself of the facts, as he did each morning. He’d had a stroke and was still in the hospital and on lots of medication that made him feel fuzzy and floating. At times just moving his eyes around and concentrating on the conversation were exhausting. Draining. He remembered that his three children had all cycled through the hospital at one point or another and then returned to their families soon after he woke up. Margaret was here now, keeping vigil. He assumed she hadn’t left Tampa since the stroke.
There was still an IV tube in his arm and the left side of his face was numb and drooped in an alarming manner. Margaret had told him tenderly that she wouldn’t let him look in a mirror “just yet,” but he had asked one of the night nurses to bring him a hand mirror and had been rendered speechless and heartsick by his own reflection. A dull ache throbbed in his collarbone, which had been broken in the fall. He felt as if he were a marionette, each limb and body part weighted and unresponsive, as if he were swimming through Jell-O. Roger’s brain felt gummy; that was the only way he could describe it. Although he knew what he wanted to say in his head, the words didn’t necessarily come out as he intended. He could hear them forming the way you could slow a 33-rpm record with your finger and distort the sound. Suddenly, he began to cough, a disturbing hacking noise, an irritation left over from the tube in his throat, the nurse had explained. The door to his room flew open suddenly, banging against the stopper, and a stocky nurse with overprocessed blond hair bustled in, pushing a cart with her equipment. Margaret bolted up at once, startled and momentarily confused, as she swiped the back of her hand across her mouth in slow motion.
“Time to check your vitals, Mr. Munson,” the nurse called out in a loud voice.
“Roger, you’re awake,” said Margaret, pulling herself up higher in the chair with her elbows, her tongue still sock-thick in her mouth from sleep, her fingers working now to rake her hair back in place. There was a cautious look of delight in her eyes tempered by fatigue. He could see the lines around her mouth and eyes, deeper than he remembered. Something about her earnestness made him soften. Roger hovered on the verge of weeping and then he collected himself as his pride flared. He was ashamed at being such an invalid.
“Yessssshhhhh.” Roger worked to form the words with his recalcitrant droop and he smiled at her, aware that only one side of his mouth lifted. When would the feeling return to the rest of his face? he wondered.
His thoughts flicked briefly to Julia and he recalled for the hundredth time, with a now familiar sinking feeling, that he’d been at her house when he’d fallen, but he was unable to remember any of the subsequent details. Julia must have called the ambulance, although he couldn’t begin to sequence how the events had transpired from there. Who had called Margaret? When had all the kids come and gone? Did Margaret know about Julia? All of these tangled concerns and unanswered questions made him sleepy. It was too much to think about and so much easier to ignore. Trapped inside this shell of a body, he imagined that he might never see Julia again. She must be worried sick. Perhaps she had been there in person and visited at an off time when Margaret wasn’t there. God, he hoped she hadn’t.
At one point in his druggy haze, he was certain that he’d heard Julia. He had a distinct memory of her husky voice near his ear. Perhaps he was simply imagining her caress, the hurried declaration of love, and her touch on the side of his face that still had feeling. He’d experienced all sorts of hallucinations and strange dreams on the medication they were giving him, and he seemed to sleep for half the day. Perhaps Julia’s visit had been conjured up by drugs in the end.
The nurse finished recording his blood pressure and ripped off the Velcro cuff, moving to check his IV line. Behind her another woman had entered the small room, holding a beige tray of hospital food, the condensation on the plastic wrap obscuring the food compartments underneath. She set the tray on Roger’s rolling table and positioned it in front of him. He was incapable of bringing the utensils up to his own mouth deftly, and so Margaret began to rise and uncover the pudding-ish substance.
“How about some apple sauce, dear?” she asked with forced brightness, holding a spoonful of the brownish glop out toward him.
A part of him wanted to turn his head away, to spit it back out in defiance, but he knew it was futile to react that way, especially to Margaret. She looked so hopeful, her words and her voice overly peppy, almost patronizing. It was the same tone she’d adopted when the girls were small. He was as helpless as an infant, and the unfairness of that, the sudden injustice and the vast inequality between them now, temporarily overwhelmed his emotions.
Roger nodded his head, grateful for her forbearance. He had to focus so carefully on moving his lips and swallowing the food. Each sequence of those motions, which had once been as involuntary as breathing, now required immense effort.
Below the sheet, he knew, was a tube that ran into his penis, collecting his piss. He disgusted himself. How long would this be for? He couldn’t quite grasp all the technical things the doctors had said. They spoke so rapidly and in such unintelligible medical terminology. And because Roger couldn’t always make himself understood clearly, everyone spoke over him, talked to Margaret, looked at him as if he were a child or an imbecile, and then they were gone before he could form the words.
“Jhhhhhhrrrinnnkkk,” Roger said with studied concentration, and Margaret looked over, responding as if he had made perfect sense.
“You want a drink, dear?” She repeated it the way a nursery school teacher tried to model words, he thought disgustedly. But he nodded his head eagerly as she moved the Styrofoam cup and straw of ice water up toward his lips, and he raised his arm to take it.
“Here you go!” and he tried, unsuccessfully, to close his fingers. “Roger, let me do that,” commanded Margaret, and she maneuvered closer to the bedside, offering him the angled straw once more.
Now Margaret was babbling something at him, chattering away, pushing those damned ice chips at him, placing the rubber reflex ball in the palm of his hand and pressing it together. A fuzzy-edged anger bubbled up as he emitted a strange, low growl, surprising them both. Margaret’s eyes widened, and then her look narrowed quizzically as she fought to understand what he was saying, what he wanted.
“Are you hungry?” Margaret said, almost pleading for an answer, and her solicitousness sickened him. He sickened himself.
“Unnnnnnnhhhhfff,” he managed and collapsed his head back against the pillow in frustration.
Later that night, with the moment behind him, Roger felt the kernel of determination begin to form. He would get better. He would work hard. He would devote all of his energy to his recovery, and he would walk again, talk again. This is not how it would end, a slow ebbing of all that was the essence of him. Another unintelligible sound escaped his lips as he held on to this thought, and then moving stealthily, Margaret was instantly beside him in the low fluorescent shadow of the room.
She leaned over him, misinterpreting his outburst as physical pain, and she brushed back his hair, caressed his cheek. The optimism and determination he had summoned deserted him almost as quickly as it had come. She had him, Roger realized. She had him completely and absolutely. Margaret would be his jailer and his captor, his gatekeeper and his interpreter. This is how it would be after all of those years that he was hers, but not hers. Gratitude, resentment, and self-loathing all clashed in his mind.
And now he was crying, he realized. He could feel hot, fat tears rolling down his cheek, almost involuntarily, and he was powerless to stop them. Without missing a beat, Margaret reached over to the window ledge by the hospital bed and pulled a tissue out of the box, dabbing his eyes before the tears could even fall on his chest.