Connection: clothes on the floor, my wedding dress destroyed in the living room.
I have no idea what this means but I think, leave it go for later. Get the coffee. Patrick needs the coffee and probably so do you. I slip on the bathrobe and knot it around my waist.
The coffeepot’s in the sink and there are grounds in the bottom so I wash it out and fill it with water to the ten-mark, because this could be a multi-cup morning, and turn to the Krups machine on the counter and at first I don’t register what I’m seeing. It’s bright purple and has a clock and a dial and it’s shaped sort of like an old-fashioned radio. Then I see the Easy-Bake logo.
Connection: Easy-Bake oven, stuffed toys on the sofa.
Is there a child here?
I think, the guest room. Coffee can wait.
The answer is yes. There is indeed a kid around here somewhere — or at least there has been.
It’s a little girl.
How do I know?
Forget the oven. There’s a beading set on the dresser and a half-made knotted multicolored quilt on the floor by the bed next to something called a Stablemate Animal Hospital. I see a small bandaged mule out front. On the other side of the bed near the door my entire collection of Barbies are outfitted in bikinis and lying on lounge chairs in front of a plastic pool and slide. There’s a pink convertible waiting out front.
On the night-table next to the bed is a half-finished glass of milk.
Tossed on the unmade bed there’s a pink pair of pajamas in a smiling-monkey pattern.
A little girl’s been here recently all right, but where is she now? Not the living room, kitchen or either bedroom. Maybe the office.
I check the office. No.
Possibly outside.
I take a turn around the house. It’s already unseasonably warm even at this early hour though the grass feels refreshingly cool and damp against my feet. It’s the first remotely pleasant sensation I’ve felt all morning. I walk all the way out to the dock by the river and back again. I walk over to the old slide and swing set.
No little girl — though the slide is polished smooth, the rust all gone, the seats on the swings have been sanded down and I notice there’s been some soldering work done on the chains and hangers. Patrick? It’s got to be.
Enough of this, I think. I don’t care what he’s going through. I need to talk to Patrick.
I march into the bedroom. He’s dead asleep.
I take his shoulder and shake him. There’s no response.
“Patrick?”
I shake him again, a lot less gently this time.
“Patrick, wake up.”
I shake him a third time. His eyes flash open and his arm flies up and smacks my hand away, bats it so hard it hurts.
“Go away!”
I stand there, stunned.
This is not my Patrick. My Patrick would never do this. My Patrick would never dismiss me like some huge annoyance and certainly he’d never hit me. The Patrick I know and love is the gentlest man I’ve ever met. After eight years of marriage he still wants to hold my hand in public or drape his arm over my shoulder or around my waist. He still wants that one last kiss before we sleep.
His eyes are closed again, his breathing regular. I watch him. Not for long but I watch him. And once again I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Because already he’s fled consciousness. He’s not faking. He’s sound asleep.
This isn’t right. It’s not normal.
There’s something wrong with him. There’s something wrong with both of us.
It’s warm in the bedroom but I’m trembling. I very much need to calm down. I’m thinking that maybe that coffee might help after all, so I go back into the kitchen and spoon the French roast into the paper filter, pour the water, turn the machine on and wait.
Waiting’s hard.
A shower would help too. I know it would. I should clean myself up inside.
And I definitely need to shave.
The sheer fact that I need to shave boggles the mind. Hair doesn’t grow like this overnight.
Overnight. Good god. What day’s today?
I could turn on the television to find out but the television’s in the living room and there’s all that glass.
The computer. That’s in the study.
I sit down at our desk and boot it up and then I’m waiting again, for Microsoft to do its thing. I type in our password and wait for Windows. Finally there’s our desktop. I run the cursor over to the lower right-hand corner and get the time and then the date.
It’s 6:46. The date is May 29th.
It can’t be.
Yesterday was Friday, May 11th. I worked all day at the Tulsa ME’s office, mostly on a fat drunken Dutchman who’d slammed his car into a tree and a farmer who died of a heart attack in an enormous pile of turkey shit. I came home, and Patrick and I showered and fucked, had leftovers and wine for dinner and then we fucked again. And that last one was pretty wonderful.
May 11th to May 29th. How the hell can that be? Short of coma, how is that possible? If it were coma I’d have awakened in a hospital, not in my husband’s bed.
I’ve lost eighteen days somehow. Two and a half weeks!
I’m glad I’m sitting down.
I can hear the buzzer from the Krups machine in the kitchen. The coffee’s ready. But I don’t want the coffee anymore. I feel like anything I put in my stomach would come right back up again. I need to know what’s happened to me.
Doc Richardson. John. He’d know I think — if anybody would. He’s been our doctor forever. He qualifies as a friend by now. And I’ve got to tell him about Patrick too.
It’s much too early to call, but I can try him in an hour or so. Meantime I’ll have that shower. I’ve been sweating. I stink.
On the way to bathroom I look in on Patrick again. I think he may be dreaming. He hasn’t moved. His mouth is open slightly and his brow is knit and his eyes are restless beneath the lids.
He’s hiding in sleep. How well he’s hiding isn’t clear.
The shower feels wonderful. Our water pressure’s fine and I turn it on full blast, standing with my back to the shower-head so that the warm sting of it pounds away at my neck and shoulders and creates a sort of white noise in my head.
I don’t have to listen to myself think anymore.
I wash and condition my hair. I soap my armpits and shave away those tufts of fur. I shave my legs carefully so as not to nick the skin. I take my time at both these things and then I just stand there a while in the spray. I’ll deal with my pubic hair some other time — for now I just wash myself clean, inside and out.
It’s only when the water begins to chill that I turn it off and towel dry. If I could, I’d stay in there all morning until my skin begins to prune and pucker.
On any normal day I’d blow-dry my hair, I’d moisturize, but this is not a normal day. Now I do want that coffee. After the shower, I think my stomach can handle it. I slip on my robe and pad out into kitchen.
The microwave tells me it’s seven-thirty. I’ve been in there almost an hour. I sit at the kitchen table and sip the strong hot coffee, black with two sugars. There’s no cream. He’s not picked any up for me. Patrick takes his black.
Doc’s an early bird. He’s the kind of old country black-bag doctor you hardly ever see anymore. He opens at eight. So at eight o’clock sharp I’m on the telephone.
My hands are shaking again. I don’t think it’s the coffee.