Severe pain in the abdomen, nausea, cramps, vomiting. Acute gastritis…Staphylococcus…Botulism…“I’ve narrowed it down. Hold on.”
“What…?”
A strong spasm stiffened me before I could focus clearly on the next page. The chills that followed were intense enough to make my teeth chatter.
“Melissa?”
“I’ll be all right in a minute. Are your eyes any better?”
“…A little.”
I fumbled the book toward him. “Look at page three fifty-two, darling. Three fifty-two…”
Ray
Darling. Had I heard that right? She hadn’t called me darling, dear, honey, any of the endearments in a long while, even on the rare occasions the past few years when we’d made love…
Another twinge of pain made me grit my teeth, focus on the open book. Page 352. Infected Food, Gastroenteritis. Usually due to eating food that is infected by salmonella bacteria.
Food poisoning. What fools we’d been, each imagining that the other had resorted to arsenic, strychnine, some damned thing. And all along…
“Salmonella,” I said. “But how did we get it? We haven’t eaten anywhere but here the past couple of days.”
“The kitchen! You remember how filthy it was when we arrived? I thought I cleaned everything thoroughly, but I must’ve missed something…That damn’ plastic cutting board. Bacteria breeds in plastic like that, and I diced the raw chicken on it for our pasta.”
Rarely fatal, the book said. But nevertheless a medical alert. Severe cases develop dehydration, kidney failure with urinary suppression, shock. Call physician immediately.
“Nine-eleven,” I said. “Can’t waste any more time.” I tried to push up onto my feet, but I seemed to have no strength in my arms or legs. The entire lower half of my body felt heavy, almost numb from the vomiting and cramping.
“You’re too weak.”
“No. I’ve got to make the call…”
“You ate more than I did,” Melissa said, “your case is more severe. I feel better now…I’ll do it.” She touched my face. “I’m the strong one right now, darling. Let me be the strong one for once.”
I looked up at her through the wetness and the pain. The same Melissa, the same woman I’d married and had children with and lived with for a quarter of a century. And yet she seemed different somehow. Or maybe I was seeing her differently. The little-girl-lost quality was gone; for the first time I saw strength in my wife. Hazily I wondered if it was something new, a courage born of this crisis, or if it had been there all along, hidden or suppressed or just not visible to me for what it was.
I clung to the chair, weak, and watched Melissa stand up, strong, and make her way toward the open doors. And a voice that didn’t sound like mine, that almost whimpered like a hurt child’s, called after her: “Hurry, baby, hurry…”
Melissa
Ray had collapsed against the chair when I came back. “They’re sending a medevac helicopter,” I told him. “We’re going to be OK.” Then I sank down beside him, pulling an Afghan over both of us. He grasped my hand the way the children used to when I’d comfort them after bad nightmares.
A nightmare, that’s what today was.
“Melissa,” he said after a moment, “why did you think I poisoned you?”
“It isn’t important now.” We’d have to talk about it, of course, but later, when we were both stronger. I’d finally have to confront him about Jake. After that…
“No, please, I need to know.”
“…After Jake…died…”
“Jake? What does his death have to do with this?”
“I was there, Ray. I saw the two of you struggling in midair.”
His lips twisted and he let go of my hand. “The son of a bitch tried to kill me.”
“Jake, kill you? He was your friend. You meant a lot to him.”
“He was your lover.”
“No, my friend, too. All we ever did when we were alone together was talk about you and why our marriage was dying.”
A spasm overcame him, and he made a choking sound. When he recovered, he didn’t speak. I felt a coldness in him-anger, too, directed at me. And suddenly I understood.
“Oh, no!” I said. “You think Jake tried to kill you because of me. You think we conspired to get rid of you!”
His pain-dull eyes watched me for a moment. “You didn’t plan to kill me? And you weren’t sleeping with him?”
“I told you I wasn’t. I’ve slept with exactly two men other than you in my life…the last over five years ago. And even if I had been having an affair with Jake, I would never have plotted to hurt you.” The tears I’d been controlling started again.
Ray put a shaky hand to my cheek, tried to brush them away. “What’ve I been thinking? Accusing you over and over. And today…I thought you’d decided you couldn’t go on without Jake and were going to…Christ, what a hideous, twisted imagination I’ve got!”
“No more than mine. I thought you killed Jake and were faking your illness so I wouldn’t realize you’d poisoned me.”
He shook his head, grimacing. “You know, this would be funny if it wasn’t so…”
“Yes.”
We sat silently for a while. A distant thrumming and flapping noise came from beyond the pine-covered hills to the west.
“What about Jake?” Ray asked. “Why did he grab at my chute like that? There has to be a reason.” He closed his eyes, probably reliving the horrifying experience. “Oh, God,” he said heavily.
“What?”
“Jake taught skydiving, remember. Instructors are trained to notice things that other divers might not. He wasn’t trying to kill me…he was trying to save my life. He must’ve seen something that told him my chute wasn’t going to open. And he saved me at the expense of himself.”
Ray lowered his face into his hands and made a strange sound. At first I couldn’t identify it, then I realized he was crying. I’d never seen him shed so much as a single tear.
I peeled his hands away, took his face in both of mine, and kissed him. No words could ease the grief and shame we were feeling. There were not enough words to do that.
Ray
We were both composed again by the time the medevac he licopter arrived. Huddled together under the Afghan, holding hands. We hadn’t said much after the revelations about Jake Hollis’s death; there was only one issue left to discuss, and neither of us was quite ready to put it into words.
Every time I looked at her now, it was as if twenty-six years had melted away. I felt the same deep stirrings as I’d felt that first night at her sorority’s open house. But it wasn’t a young woman’s vulnerable beauty that attracted me this time, made me feel alive again; it was a mature woman’s capacity for giving and understanding. For such a long time I’d seen only the young Melissa whenever I looked at my wife-an illusion that had begun as reality and gradually evolved into pure fantasy. False illusion was what had driven the wedge between us, led to all the problems and foolish misconceptions we’d both had. And not only on my part-on hers, too.
Neither of us knew the other any more.
I wanted to know her again, everything there was to know about this Melissa-but did she feel the same about me? Did she want to know the Ray Porter I’d grown and changed into, with all his flaws and insecurities? I thought I saw the answer in her eyes, but the spasms that continued to rack us both made me unsure.
The helicopter was down finally, its rotors making a hell of a racket on the road out front. The paramedics would be here any minute. I had to get it out into the open now, before there was any more separation.
I squeezed her hand. “Melissa, it’s not too late for us, is it? We can start over again, learn to love each other again?”