I Wish You Happy: A Novel Read online

  This time, watching with Kat, I make it all the way to the happy ending, but the cloud of emotion Kat and I have generated by then is so big I get up to open windows to let it dissipate a little.

  “It’s warm in here, don’t you think?”

  It is warm. I don’t own an air conditioner. Most people here in Colville don’t. It cools off enough in the evening that my system of opening the windows and turning on fans as soon as the sun goes down is sufficient for cooling. But opening windows and turning on fans also gives me a chance to hide my face and dry my tears.

  My father’s voice drifts through my head. “It’s just a movie, for goodness’ sake. They are actors. You’re not a child anymore; surely you can cope with this reenactment.”

  The last time I attended a movie theater, I went with a group of college friends. It was some lighthearted flick, or meant to be, but by the time the credits rolled I was a sodden mess. My date was clearly repelled. My girlfriends laughed at my distress, though they offered tissues to blot my streaming eyes.

  My emotional control hasn’t gotten any better with time, and this movie has done me in.

  Kat’s face, too, is wet with tears.

  Her lips twist in what is meant to be a smile, and her hands flutter, like they are trying to speak for her; then one of them presses against her mouth. A sob slips past it, and then another. Breath keens in her throat, and her face twists.

  “Sorry,” I say. “So sorry. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  She tries to say something, but the shape of the word is lost in her weeping. One hand braces her ribs, the other goes to her belly, and I’m lost, with no idea how to ease her.

  “What can I do?” I ask, kneeling in front of her. “You’ll hurt yourself, with the crying. Here, use this.” I fetch my pillow from the couch and press it against her belly and around the broken ribs. “Use that to splint. Better?”

  Kat nods and manages a full breath.

  “From now on, you are not allowed to cry. No sad movies. Or funny ones, either, probably. I guess we’re stuck with Law & Order reruns.”

  Her lips move. No sound comes out, but it looks like it might be sorry.

  “Are you kidding?” I tell her. “I am such a wuss. I can’t even watch commercials. Movies always make me cry. Movie dates? Terrible things. Makeup smeared everywhere. People turning around to stare at me and tell me to shut up. Snot bubbles coming out of my nose . . .”

  A choking noise makes me think maybe I’d better call 911, but it turns out it’s laughter, doing battle with the tears. She manages to drag in a full breath, and then another. The sobs ease, little by little, and she leans back, limp and white and exhausted.

  “That little boy,” she says. “The thing with the apple, how his mother always peeled it . . .”

  My eyes water and I blink, hard. Tears are contagious, and I’m not about to set her off again.

  “I can’t have kids,” she says. “Did they tell you?”

  It’s the way she says it that slows the world down; the way she glances up at me and then away. Who would say anything to me about whether she can have kids or not? Unless, unless . . .

  “There was damage, I guess, internally . . .” She lets go of the pillow and buries her face in her hands.

  I stay where I am, balanced on my knees, my hands still clutching the pillow.

  Kat can’t have babies now, because of me.

  My car did all of that. Broke her pelvis. Tore her uterus. The extent of this loss detonates an emotional mushroom cloud that sucks my capacity for speech out the windows in its wake.

  “I always thought I’d have a bunch of kids,” she says, her voice muffled by the hands still covering her face. “Three boys for Tom, and three girls for me. As if life ever lines up like that. He said two would be plenty. He said . . .”

  I want to say something comforting, something to lessen the impact of this. Maybe she could tell me she didn’t really want kids anyway. Or I could bring up adoption, but I know better. All I can do is stay here with her, to hold the grief in my body instead of walling it off. Maybe that’s no comfort to her, but it serves as penance for me.

  “You wanted a big family; he didn’t. Is that why . . . why you don’t already have kids?”

  She doesn’t answer that. “How come you don’t have any?” she asks me, after her breathing steadies.

  “Are you kidding? Look around. I can barely take care of myself.”

  She gives me an assessing sort of look. “You seem to be doing fine.”

  I don’t answer. This is complex, boggy ground, the thing about me and kids, and I am not going to venture into it. Not now. Probably not ever.

  After a long moment her eyes drift back to her hands. “God. Tom,” she says, in a tone that might be prayer or curse. “I can’t tell him this. Do you think he knows? How damaged I am?”

  “Cole told him about the accident, because of the note.”

  “That stupid note. I should have shredded it. Better, I should never have written it.”

  I picture Kat’s house.

  Something urban and modern, with shining tile floors and granite countertops and a stainless-steel fridge and stove, polished to a mirror shine. Tom doesn’t fit. He wears a half-buttoned shirt and has a beer belly and a scruffy beard, because he’s too lazy to shave. He lounges around the house while Katya works her fingers to the bone. She fastens the note to the fridge with a little heart-shaped magnet, one she bought to hold pictures of the babies she will never have.

  “Why didn’t you leave it for him?”

  “I forgot.” Her hands twist together in her lap. “When I decided to go, it was—sudden. I packed while he was at work, only what I could carry on the bike. All I could think of was getting clean away before he got home. So I wrote the note, and then I must have stuffed it into my bag instead of leaving it. I was so afraid he’d find me, before—” Her voice breaks on a sob, but her eyes are dry and she doesn’t weep anymore.

  In my mind Tom morphs. The beer belly contracts into washboard abs. The half-buttoned shirt changes into a tank revealing muscular pecs and biceps. He’s handsome, but his eyes are cold. He beats her, careful not to leave bruises on her face where they can be seen.

  I put my hands over both of hers. “You’re safe here. You don’t have to go back. You don’t have to tell him a thing.”

  “You don’t understand. How could you? He’s my husband.”

  “I understand that you are your own person. He doesn’t get to control you or tell you what to do. Okay?”

  She nods. Her hands don’t cling to mine, but she doesn’t pull away, either. “It was nice,” she says, after a minute. “Watching a movie together. Maybe we could try again. I promise not to have another meltdown.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m capable of meltdowns over slapstick comedy. It’s a curse.”

  A ghost of a smile crosses her face, but her eyes have that pinched look that lets me know she’s hurting. Time for pain meds and to tuck her into bed.

  “Tomorrow I have to work.”

  “I can manage.”

  “I’ll set everything up before I go.” Already, I’m running lists in my head of what needs to be done. An easy dinner she can manage by herself. An appointment set up with a counselor. I’ll need to run to the grocery store.

  At the back of my mind my parents’ impending visit looms, but I push it away while I get Kat settled for the night. When I snuggle up on the couch with a blanket and a pillow I feel complete, as if all of the missing Rae pieces have assembled themselves and conglomerated into a whole being without any work from me. Sleep comes quickly and gently and carries me away.

  It hits me midmorning, while Kat is giving herself a sponge bath in the bathroom and I’m washing our few dishes in the kitchen.

  It’s Monday. Monday means Bernie.

  In five years, I have never missed a session.

  I’m not going today. I won’t be going next week or the week after or the week after that
. No more Bernie. Ever. That disastrous last session is clearly marked The End.

  I feel every letter in those two words as if they are etched into my flesh. What will my world be like without Bernie in it?

  When the answer comes to me, I’m shocked to discover that the loss isn’t monumental after all. Six days and twenty-three hours of my week will be exactly the same as they’ve always been. For all the real estate I’ve given this relationship in my head and my heart, that’s all the time it gets. One hour, one day a week.

  “Are you all right?”

  Kat’s voice startles me. I release the breath I’ve been unconsciously holding and shut off the water. The sink is full nearly to overflowing, suds bubbling up level with the counter.

  “I’m fine. I’m good. Daydreaming. I do that. Listen, are you going to be okay if I go to work? I can still try to find someone to cover.”

  “Relax a little,” she says. “I’ll be fine.”

  “Promise?”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.” She accompanies the words with a macabre grin, and we both laugh a little, but I’m still uneasy.

  I leave her with a list of phone numbers. Valley View, Cole, the crisis line. She’s got sandwiches and salad and plenty of water. I dispense the pain pill that is due, and set another one out for later. Two, I figure, can’t be enough to kill her. The key to the locked box goes with me.

  But I can’t shake the worry.

  I call home twice to check in. Has she eaten? Did she take the medications I left out for her? The first time around she sounds happy to hear my voice. When I call at nine I pick up an edge of irritation.

  “I’m fine. Ate my dinner, brushed my teeth, said my prayers.”

  “Sorry, I just—”

  “You’re hovering,” she says.

  “I worry. You being there by yourself.”

  “About which thing? That I’ve fallen and can’t get up? Or that I’ve laid my wrist open with the secret razor blade sewn into the seams of my backpack?”

  I hadn’t even thought to worry about either of these things, but now I do. “Do you? Have a secret razor blade?”

  “Rae.” She says it like my mother when she thinks I’m out of line. “Would you stop? I’ll be here when you come home. Alive, breathing, and hopefully asleep. All right?”

  Some sort of background noise has been trying to make itself heard around the noise of my worry and doubt. “What’s that sound?”

  “What sound?”

  “It’s a sort of squeaking.”

  “I’ve got the TV on. Some sort of commercial about cat food. I’m going to bed in a minute. All the doors are locked. I’m all right. Stop worrying.”

  Stop worrying.

  I repeat this to myself over the rest of my shift like a mantra. The universe plays along. Nancy has unearthed an old Bobby McFerrin CD from somewhere and is practicing wheelchair dance moves to the tune of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” when I enter her room to give her insulin.

  Half a candy bar sits in plain sight on her bedside table, and her blood sugar makes it clear that she’s the one who ate it. My attempt to lecture her is met with an “Oh, honey, please. I’m going to die of something, I might as well enjoy it.”

  The delay of the Oscar Event is a sadness to her, but only a small one.

  “I’m going shopping for something appropriate to wear.”

  “You’re remembering this is all happening on the beach. At a campfire.”

  She waves a bejeweled hand dismissively. “My son is taking me shopping in Spokane. Where else will I wear new clothes?”

  All of the staff is buzzing about the Oscar Event. Some of them are also discussing wardrobes. My own emotions are all over the place, and when I catch myself thinking about what I could wear and whether Cole will like it, I’m ready to concede that the world as I know it has gone mad. By the time my shift is over, I want only to get home, crawl between the sheets, and obtain oblivion as rapidly as possible.

  My key is in the lock before I remember that I’m sleeping on the couch, and that Kat will be in my bed. A brief longing for my old life flickers through me, forgotten the instant I step into my house and discover that my couch is occupied by my roommate and a litter of mewling kittens.

  Kat is a mess, and the kittens are no better.

  Tears streak her face. Her hair sticks up every which way. Five tiny, blind kittens lie on her abdomen, every single one of them squeaking out a story of hunger and despair. On the floor beside the couch, a kitten-size bottle lies on its side, slowly dripping milk from the nipple.

  “Some lady named Jenny brought them,” Kat says, in answer to my unspoken question. “I’ve tried to feed them, but they wouldn’t drink and they won’t stop crying.”

  I stand frozen in the doorway, calculating the impact of a new batch of kittens on the chaos I’m already trying to navigate. They’re not a thriving bunch; I can see that from here. Too thin. Their protests about the harsh world they’ve been born into are feeble. They aren’t all going to make it.

  My lips feel numb. “I can’t do this right now. I told Jenny that.”

  “Because of me, right?” Fresh tears streak down Kat’s face. “The woman said nobody else would take them and they’d have to be put down. So I said I’d help, and she said great, only then she took off before telling me what to do.”

  There’s only one thing to be done, of course, which is to go into full-on kitten-saving mode.

  “Which formula are you using?”

  She looks at me blankly. “There was milk in the fridge. I found the bottles in the cupboard. Did I do wrong? I did. I can see that.”

  “Kittens can’t drink cow’s milk.” I pick up the bottle and carry it to the sink, dumping it out and letting it soak in hot water and soap while I blot at the couch. “You’ve got milk in your hair.”

  Her hand explores the stiffened locks and she sniffles, looking as forlorn as the kittens. “It got everywhere except in the kittens. I’m sorry, I should have said no. Will they die anyway, now? Because I did everything wrong?”

  “You didn’t do everything wrong. You kept them warm. Jenny didn’t bring any formula?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Never mind. I think there’s some left over from last time.” Digging in the storage cupboard turns up a large plastic bin full of supplies. Another bottle and a set of nipples, a can of formula, and a heating pad. There’s also a set of syringes, needles, and a bag of Ringer’s lactate for administering fluids to dehydrated kittens.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve accepted a litter. Since before Oscar, in fact. Not that there haven’t been plenty of motherless kittens, but it seemed inconsiderate to invite a troop of cats into his home, given the circumstances of his mother’s demise.

  “The woman who brought the kittens—Jenny—said you would want them, now that the rat was no longer a barrier. Is that some sort of code? God, I do wish they would hush.”

  “They’re starving. Why didn’t you tell me when I called?”

  “I wanted to help. To show you I could be something other than a burden.”

  “They could have died.” I kneel down beside her to assess the unhappy babies. All of the crying, while irritating, is a good sign. They still have enough energy to complain. The one that worries me most is the smallest, a gray tabby. He’s not meowing. His sides suck in with every breath. When I pinch his skin it stays where I put it, loose and wrinkled.

  “What’s wrong with him? Have I killed him?”

  “Dehydrated.” I don’t have time to reassure her, not if I want to save him.

  Weary as I am, my hands perform the necessary tasks without much guidance from my brain. I’ve done all of this a hundred times, often in the middle of a night of highly disrupted sleep.

  Filling the bottle with warm formula, I get one of the kittens started suckling and then hand the bottle to Kat. The kitten is tentative at first, but rapidly figures out he’s on to something. His little paws begin kneading
. I pick up the little tabby and wrap him in a washcloth. He doesn’t fight, doesn’t try to get upright, and my heart sinks.

  I don’t bother with a bottle; he won’t have the energy to suck. Instead, I draw up some formula into one of the syringes and dribble a few drops into his mouth. He swallows, the first good sign I’ve seen so far. I give him a few more drops, then set him back down on Kat’s lap to keep him warm while I draw some sterile fluid from the IV bag.

  “What are you going to do?” Kat stares at the syringe in my hands, her eyes wide with horror. “You’re not putting him down?”

  “He’s dehydrated. It’s life-threatening for a baby this tiny.”

  “You’re starting an IV? On a cat?”

  “Nope. Just injecting into the space beneath the skin. He can absorb it from there.”

  “I think he’s full,” Kat says as the little kitten she’s feeding releases the nipple. He’s no longer crying, and his belly is rounded.

  “Now you have to burp him.”

  “You’re messing with me.”

  “Nope. Bottle-feeding makes air bubbles. Hold him up against your shoulder and just rub his back.”

  She handles the little bit of fur as if it’s made of glass, lifting it up to her shoulder. It attaches to her shirt with all of its claws, clinging, and she gently taps its back. Her face softens, the lines of worry easing, a slight smile curving up the corners of her lips.

  I dribble more formula into my little patient’s mouth until his belly, too, is rounded and full. He seems to me to be breathing more easily. Taking a cotton ball I massage his lower belly and his genitals, as his mother would do with her tongue. He pees in response, only a tiny amount, but if his kidneys are working there is hope.

  When I set him down on the heating pad he makes a tiny squeaking sound and curls into a ball. Detaching the kitten from Kat’s shoulder, I rub him down and set him beside his brother. She picks up another kitten and manages to get it started sucking. I fill the second bottle and sit down beside Kat on the couch, bringing another one of the kittens into my lap.

  By the time we have a nest of sleeping kittens sprawled on the heating pad, Kat is smiling, but her joy fades when she glances up at me. “You’re so tired,” she says. “Taking care of me, and then a long shift at work. When do we have to feed them again?”