DITW 14-15: Odyssey 10

When the doctor released him, it was almost seven o’clock at night. A nurse arrived with a wheelchair and he told her his wife was waiting for him down the hall. Kimmy sat on a waiting room chair with her eyes closed, her hair a tangled mess, leaning her head against the wall. She looked nothing like the woman of this summer and fall. The one who’d taken him on the wildest ride of his life. What would this nurse think, having seen Kimmy in the room earlier, then banished from her husband’s presence to wait where he couldn’t see her? She wore sweats and sneakers, a pea coat, no makeup, no glossy hair. She’d never looked more beautiful. But the beauty he cherished right now was attainable; a woman who made sense on Josh Waters’ arm. Maybe if the nurse saw Kimmy waiting for him with upright posture, gleaming hair pulled back from her beautiful angular face; saw the black raven’s eyes rich with intellect and cunning; saw her in an expensive suit and thousand dollar shoes and gold earrings, well, maybe then the nurse would say, ah, now it makes sense. But would it? Maybe the nurse would look at Kimmy, then at him, and she would think, how did those two ever come together? Maybe she would think the only reason this man didn’t want that stunning wife in his room was she scared the shit out of him.

But this Kimmy, rousing now from her waiting room chair, showing a tired smile to the nurse, uttered a quiet thanks, and that nod that said I’ve got it from here, this Kimmy didn’t scare him. This Kimmy carried their baby for a brief time in the spring. 

And maybe held another anew. Or maybe the baby was Devlin’s.

The nurse bid them au revoir, and Kimmy wheeled him to the elevator. They rode it down. The two of them the only people in the large cab, he said, “Thanks for waiting.”

She said, “You’re stuck with me, Josh. And I’m taking you home. Nowhere but home.”

  *

The ride home was quiet, mostly high-speed highway, south out of Peterborough and then before they knew it they were zipping along the 407, no other traffic. Josh said nothing, and she played quiet music to ease the crushing burden of silence.

Then, south on 412, fifteen minutes from home, Josh turned down the stereo. Black farm landscapes on either side of the highway, sky the most midnight shade of blue above them, he said, “I don’t want you to think I went into the water on purpose.”

She nodded, eyes on the road, said, “Okay.” She wanted to believe him, and chewed her cheek, waiting for him to say more.

  *

The urge to ask Kimmy to join should be stronger. That familiar pull he’d always felt, the one that sought peace, the one that had allowed the events over the summer to worsen. But sitting here now and watching TV alone, he felt little lure to seek his wife out in their apartment, inquire what she was doing, ask her to come sit with him. If he did, she would do it. It was what she wanted. And somehow knowing she wanted it made him reluctant to offer it. Offering his time and space to her would be forgiveness. And if this summer taught him one thing—it had taught him many—it was how Kimmy would take any amelioration as encouragement. She’d short-circuited. Malfunctioned. Went off the rails. And he’d been unaware, sitting in the passenger car as the train plunged down the slope to oblivion. Every time he reclaimed her hand after letting it go, she closed her grip on him and took one smiling step backwards, drawing him deeper into hell. But the greatest trick she could pull, that anyone could ever pull, was convincing him he wanted to follow.

So he wouldn’t hold out his hand anymore.

He would watch TV alone and ponder the hardest questions. Like, how had she and Devlin conjured genuine enjoyment out of the ether? How was it that when he considered his beautiful Kimmy sneaking behind his back to fuck Devlin, the arousal was real? There was evidence. It was no illusion. They had done something to him. Some sorcery. There were parts of the journey he’d loved. There were even parts he’d like to relive. If only they didn’t provoke so much terror.

Somehow those two demons had splashed his sexual lust with gasoline, then handed him a struck match. He’d ignited in a wicked flash. He’d accepted the match and self-immolated in the fieriest, most self-destructive pagan festival. A wicker man. But the construct was an effigy of his weakness, and the flames consumed it, swallowed it whole. Kimmy and Devlin had burned down the part of him he despised. Devlin would never do such a thing. To Devlin, Josh’s weakness was a toy. A favorite one he would never want to part with; Devlin was a selfish but lonely rich boy whose toys replaced the love and affection absent from his life.

For his newfound strength to be true, strength in the absence of his destroyed effigy, then it couldn’t also be true that he’d gone into the water because of Kimmy.

Therefore it wasn’t true.

He was drunk; he was clumsy.

But he was free.

  *

The weekend had begun with the surprise announcement of her impending arrest. Its inciting incident had been the alert her husband had almost drowned in freezing water and was almost dead from hypothermia. He’d tried to step off the edge of the world because she’d created an existence too cruel to abide. Then a wonderful moment of reflection where she saw her nasty self in the eyes of others. None of what she’d done now made any sense. She’d carried an enormous load up staggering heights for what reason? To show people she could do it? And now what? Now she’d dropped it all; only a step from the top, and all she’d assumed and tended and cared for now lay broken below. And here she was, still near the top of the ladder and wondering whether her path would be up or down. Her hands were empty. Her load unburdened.

The summer had been a high like no other. The spring produced an existential rift, a tectonic-sized one, and as the unavoidable tsunami came to shore, she’d got up and surfed the crest. But now all around her was the devastation that no could have believed she would avoid. There had been glory in the hubris. Only a cold emptiness remained.

It felt good to cry. Out in the living room was the man she’d fallen in love with and swore to devote herself to. They were supposed to forge a union and start a family. Josh sat huddled in blankets watching movies, his back to her, saying not much more than simple sentences. 

The act of caring for him seemed false. Even to her. She would love to go to the kitchen and make him dumplings or something he loved. Would love to sit on the couch at his side and watch movies and laugh and be close. That was gone now. Irretrievable.

There had been a time in the summer where she’d thought the only way out of this whole complication she’d begin with Devlin was to push through. To commit to the sin and cross her fingers and hope Josh would fold, or even convince himself it was his own idea. There had been no harm in trying, she’d pondered. The damage had been done.

But she’d been wrong about that.

She slunk off the foot of the bed and went into the bathroom, took a towel to her eyes and cheeks. The mirror told her nothing. Old Kimmy was there. Meek Kimmy Chang; the one too timid to tame the world. The one content with little. The one cheated from the future her youth had promised; cheated by her mother’s death and her family’s nuclear dissolution.

This was spiritual death. And it came not all at once, but in agonizing gasps.

She changed into fresh cotton, dumped the things she had bought for hospital comfort into the laundry, tied her hair back and left the bedroom. Josh still watched TV, his back to her, not saying anything as she entered. She bypassed the couch and the TV, went into the kitchen, and, not knowing what to do with herself, opened cupboards, checked the fridge. Brought out ingredients for dumplings, some hopeful part of her in charge now. She wrecked it by asking Josh before she’d begun: “Do you want dumplings for dinner?” Josh said he didn’t. She said, “If I make some, would you bring them to work for your lunch?”

“No, thanks.”

She packed away the ingredients, poured a glass of water, but had trouble swallowing it. A tight, dreadful knot formed just above her collarbone. She tried massaging it, but it wasn’t the kind of tightness that could be relieved that way. Her chest was tight, her breaths short.

She dumped the glass and put it in the dishwasher, went into the living room, stood behind the couch, behind Josh, asked him what he was watching.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Some reality shit. These guys have rentals in Australia, trying to see who has the best.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s fine.”

She was too afraid to sit. Afraid he would shoo her away. She said, “Are you going to go to work tomorrow?”

“I feel fine. There’s no reason not to. I don’t want to. Samara and Gabrielle will be there.” He shook his head, lowered it, sighed. “Maybe I’ll stay at home.”

His honesty seemed like an opening and she sat down on the chair beside the couch, facing his side. “You could take the day off.”

“No,” he said, not looking at her, eyes on the television. “Maybe that makes it a bigger deal. Maybe if I show up on Monday, it’s like it wasn’t too bad.”

Words of solace stuck in her tight throat. Anything she said right now in support of his trial by cold would be thrown back at her. It’s all your fault! Why are you even sitting in here?

“It’s so fucking awful,” he said with a dying man’s sigh. “So humiliating.”

There were things she’d like to say. Like how Gabrielle and Samara probably were worried about him. They didn’t see the event the way he imagined it. They wouldn’t see him as a tragic figure who’d walked off the end of a dock after his wife had destroyed him. Josh thought they saw him the way he saw himself.

She said nothing. Josh watched TV in silence, hair messy, eyes tired, luggage sagging below them; his beard was shaggy. Somehow he looked good this way, and she wished she could sit beside him. But right now, he repelled her with an unseen force, like they were polar opposites. She said, “I’m going to go to the store. I want to send flowers and something nice to those two girls. I’ll pick up a card.” She rose. “Do you want anything while I’m out?”

Josh didn’t look up, his expression unchanged. “I suppose you’ll go to work tomorrow?”

She was drawn to the seat, felt like collapsing, but stayed standing. Just come clean. What was the point anymore? There was nothing to salvage. Tell him you took money and you don’t even know why. Tell him you took it sometimes to prove to yourself Devlin was a simpleton. Tell him you even did it sometimes because he’d been mean to you when she’d warned him already. Tell him how you used Devlin’s money to get a tailored suit for him to wear to the ball game.

Tell him you’re going to go to work tomorrow to discover your fate. Tell him tomorrow night you might be in jail or at least in a room somewhere in the city, talking to the RCMP.

She slumped, drooping her chin to her chest, imagining Josh not waiting for her when they released her. Maybe no one would wait for her.

She said, “I have to.”

Josh nodded once, unimpressed but putting on a mask of indifference.