DITW 14-14: Odyssey 9

The doctor told her how lucky Josh was to have such expert care so close at hand. The doctor told her that the two nurses at the cottage did everything right; they cut off his clothing; they transported him horizontally; they took care Josh wasn’t jostled or upended. The state Josh was in, his sensitive heart was on the precipice of arrhythmia or ventricular fibrillation. The doctor told her Josh was unresponsive, hypotensive with hyporeflexia, decreased renal blood flow, and a host of other symptoms that sounded terrible. It was the hypotension they treated first. Though Josh had a body temperature close to thirty-two, “where we see the worst outcomes,” the doctor said, Josh had a strong heart, strong enough to fight the shock and trauma of what he’d endured. The doctor said it again: “You’re lucky your husband has such a strong heart.”

  *

Josh’s lips were blue. She kissed them.

Though it was only October, the lakes up north were cold enough to kill someone given enough time. Josh couldn’t have been in the water for more than half an hour. If he had, he would be dead.

They admitted Josh on Saturday afternoon. Admitted him to a room shared with an older woman, separated by a curtain. Josh had the window that looked out to the helipad where the Ornge helicopters came in and out, their muted whoop-whoop-whoop riling her a few times overnight. That was how Josh had arrived here.

Meyer took Steve and Karina and the two nurses back up north, and a few hours later he’d dropped by for Hyun and Sophie. Before he’d taken them away from her, at least he’d offered her a solemn nod before parting, knowing what he’d left her with and the trial she must be enduring. And then it was her alone. It was a relief. She’d been freed from the prying, judgmental eyes of the others, yes, but now she was left with the corpse of her murdered marriage. Here lay one young man of value and the kindest of hearts; an innocent, one who sought no quarrel, no victory, only a man who wanted life to be whole and complete for those he loved. And this man whom she loved had embraced oblivion, and she would have to be the grandest of liars to make the claim she had nothing to do with it.

What if her actions had sent Josh on this quest for oblivion? What then?

Who could she tell herself she was?

The man she had married, the man she had loved, lay dead to the world in a hospital room far from home; in his slender, peaceful arms, the nurses had implanted two large-gauge peripheral IVs; one of the IV bags was filled with a crucial hot fusion of isotonic crystalloid. He’d gone through bags of it. He sported a bladder catheter and another line in his femoral artery. Without all this aid, without all this intervention, Josh would be dead.

She sat with him deep into the evening, then wandered away, going out to her car, driving into Peterborough, buying a quick dinner of eggs and fruit at a Cora’s, then stopping at the Marks for a change of comfortable clothes. Then it was back to Josh’s bedside, this time moving the chair around to the curtain side, the older woman moaning in her sleep behind her, and Kimmy staring out the window at the blinking lights of the helipad. But on this side of the bed, she could caress Josh’s hand. His hand that wore his wedding ring, the red dots of the helipad glinting off the gold, his fingers interlaced with hers.

  *

Kimmy sat in a tweed chair by the side of the bed, curled on her side, eyes closed, sleeping with her hands up under her chin. He’d watched her for a quarter of an hour. No makeup, lips cracked, long silky black hair across her cheek. She wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt he didn’t recognize. He was in a hospital; that was clear. But dread rolled downhill and picked up steam, realizing there was much he’d forgotten, and much he’d missed. Who brought him here? What were the circumstances? While he watched Kimmy sleep, that dread-ball had picked up speed, barreling its way through his muted psyche. Those things he’d told everyone. Those awful truths, those bizarre events that had led to the demise of his marriage, he’d spewed them out for everyone to see. And to escape it all, he’d headed down a long path into the mist, a path with a frigid end. He was too warm to feel so cold and dead inside.

At last, Kimmy’s long eyelashes fluttered, and he watched his beautiful wife come awake, her eyes cast to the foot of the bed. How long had he been here? How long had she been here?

For a moment, Kimmy was oblivious to his consciousness, waking, eyes roaming the room, half-lidded in some contemplative reverie. He cherished the moment, seeing his wife in her habitat, unaware of his cognizance, lost in whatever fold of reality had occurred while he was dead to the world. A vision came to him of a path leading into a mist, a path that led nowhere, and of him following it to its end. He shivered.

Kimmy looked his way, then jumped, startled by his open eyes. She rushed to him, slinking off her chair and taking his hand in both of hers. “You’re awake!”

He tried to answer, but his throat and mouth wouldn’t cooperate.

Kimmy kissed his cheek, and he fumbled around, trying to get his arms to move so he could touch her. She stood and poured him a cup of water from a plastic bottle. When she asked him if he’d like to sit up, he nodded, and she pressed buttons behind the bed, hydraulics raising him to sit comfortably. Kimmy held the plastic cup of water to his mouth while he drank. He licked his lips and asked her where he was, his voice a rough croak. She told him Peterborough Hospital, and he asked her, “What happened?”

Kimmy’s relieved expression dimmed. “You don’t remember?”

“I was at the cottage. I went in the water.”

Kimmy’s eyebrows bowed to a forlorn tent. She asked him softly, “Why did you go in the water, baby?”

He groaned, then closed his eyes, shaking his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “To get away.”

Kimmy sat down, put the cup aside and took his hand in both of hers. “To get away from what?”

“Aw fuck,” he groaned, and closed his eyes again. “I said too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the cottage. . . . I said . . . I told them . . .”

Kimmy’s thumb stroked his knuckles. “What did you tell them?”

He winced and grimaced, lamenting, “I’m so stupid.”

“Is that why you went in the water?”

“I just wanted to get away. Get away from it all.”

Kimmy lowered her head, her brow touching his hand. Her back shook, and when she spoke, he could tell she was crying. “I’m so sorry, Josh.”

His head inclined on the pillow, chin tucking down, regarding her clutching his hand like he was a saint. He said, “It’s okay,” wishing his limbs worked better so he could console her.

“I put you in the water,” she sobbed.

He said, “I put myself in the water.”

“All those things I did to you . . .”

“Don’t cry,” he said.

“You wanted to get away from it all,” she moaned.

“Because I told them what happened. Told them what you did. Told them what I did.”

“You told them what I did. You told them you hit Devlin with a chair.”

And now he could remember that corrosive dread he’d woken with in the bunkie; that assured belief he’d spilled all the beans in his drunken stupor. He remembered describing Devlin’s enormous penis to everyone, and how much Kimmy loved it. That was what he’d run from. He’d run from facing the people he’d told, facing them with shame in the cold gray of a new dawn. But he wouldn’t tell them that, would he? Even in the dankest craze of a bourbon-fueled monologue, surely he would never describe such depravity, such perversity. It seemed ludicrous now to think he would ever admit to anyone what his wife had done to him, all the dark paths she lured him down, and how far he’d followed her before it ended.

As much as those descriptions and confessions rang in his ears, there was no way he’d admitted his sins to his friends. He asked her, “How do you know that?”

Kimmy lifted her face so he could see her, tears racing her porcelain cheeks, her lashes fluttering. She let go of his hand to pluck a tissue from a square box on the over-bed table. She wiped her eyes and her nose. “Because they told me. They told me what happened. They hate me, Josh. They hate me. They won’t even look at me.”

His stomach turned, knowing how that would hurt, and now feeling guilty. “Because of me?”

“Because of me,” she cried, and rolled her eye upward before dabbing them again with the tissue. “And they don’t even know anything. Anything except I cheated on you.”

There was nothing more for him to say, and now that the moment had passed, there was a certain justice in them knowing. And he didn’t like how that made him feel. “It’ll be okay in time,” he said.

She shook her head, lips pursing. She turned to him. “Do you want something to eat? You must be hungry.”

“Yeah. It can wait. How did I get here?”

Kimmy explained how Karina had found him, how Quinn and the nurse named Emily had rescued him, resuscitated him. They warmed him up. Quinn’s brothers carried him back to the house. They cut his clothes off him. All the peace he’d woken with soured. How humiliating. How devastating. After all the fun of that evening, he had to ruin it for everyone, getting too drunk and then imagining insurmountable horrors and—

He said, “I fell off the dock.”

Kimmy studied him, pretty features twisted in pain and sorrow. “That’s what happened?”

He nodded, then frowned. “What day is it?”

“Sunday,” she told him. “You came in yesterday morning.” He nodded again, and she said, “Meyer should be here soon. Your parents are coming.”

“My parents?” He scoffed. “No, come on. That’s too far for them to come. When can I get out of here?”

“I’ll get the doctor.”

“Where’s my phone? Will you text Meyer, tell him not to come?”

“Why not?” she said, trying to soothe him because he suddenly wanted very much not to be in bed or in the hospital or anywhere, really.

He settled, finding the struggle to get out of bed exhausting, letting Kimmy guide him to sit back again. 

He said, “When can I get out of here?”

She said, “Probably today. Tomorrow morning at the latest. How do you feel?”

“I’m fine,” he told her. “My lower back is aching and my ass is sore, but I feel fine.”

“Meyer has your phone,” she said. “It was in the bunkie. I’ll text him to stay in Ajax if you want that.”

His eyes met hers with new reluctance. He looked away. “And my parents, too.”

She kissed his cheek, said, “Was it an accident?”

Now he looked at her again, his brow troubled. “What do you mean?”

“Did you go in the water by accident?” He could see her eyes swell up like balloons, like they would burst tears at any second. A vein rose in her temple and down her neck.

“Of course,” he told her. “I walked on the dock. This dock goes forever. And I was in the fog, and I just . . .”

“What, you just walked off the end?”

“Yeah,” he said, doleful, frowning as he recollected.

Kimmy’s eyes stayed on him, more on her mind, more she wanted to say. “You didn’t . . . You didn’t call for help?”

“I did,” he said. “I shouted for help. I guess no one heard me.”

“Did you?”

“Of course I did. . . . I must have.”

Kimmy drew in a long breath and stood, looking faint. She looked around, talking quietly, saying, “I’ll get my phone, I’ll, I’ll text Meyer. I’ll text your dad.”

“Thank you.”

She found her phone on the chair where she’d been sleeping. “I’ll find the doctor. I hope you can come home today. But I’ll stay another night if you can’t.”

“Kimmy, I . . . I don’t want you here, either,” he said. “I want to be alone for a while.”