“I need some sleep. I love you Kerry. And Suzanne.”
She was quiet and still. I knew she was awake and staring into some middle distance along the wall. After about ten minutes, though, I heard her snore. She had drifted off to a better place.
I snuck away about twenty minutes later. Sitting in the living room with some Special K and milk—Andi did not have much in her kitchen—I called Suze. She was still in her office and decided she would take the subway up. I then spoke to Mom again. She had spoken to Tom briefly. He was staying in his office in midtown until he got an update and would go up to Andi’s apartment if necessary. Mom would drive down. I was concerned about overwhelming Andi so I told Mom that I has the situation under control and that she and Tom should head home.
It was dark when Suze hit the buzzer and I let her in.
“How is she?”
“She’s asleep. It is really not good. She thought he was about to propose. I can’t imagine—”
We sat on the sofa, and I brought a bowl of cereal for her.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you didn’t ask me.”
I popped the question on the 8:13 train one otherwise-ordinary day and she immediately said yes. I, too, could not imagine what would have happened if she had not. Now I was trying to put myself in Andi’s shoes. It was horrible. Especially in light of my knowledge of the day-to-day reality and wonder of being married to the person I love.
Suze and I sat next to each other on the sofa. We didn’t talk much because we did not want to wake her. But also because clever as we both are we could not think of anything to say that was more important than sitting next to each other on the sofa.
We heard a panicked “Kerry.” I rushed into Andi’s room. She was shaking. She had thrown the covers aside and was sitting on the side of the bed in distress. I sat beside her, wrapping my arm around her as she again put her head on my shoulder.
“I thought you’d abandoned me.”
“Never. We’re stuck with each other. You know that. Blame our folks.”
She smirked. “I know. Seriously it’s…It’s that I missed you being with me. I’m better now.”
I told her Suze was in the living room.
“Good. I have to pee.”
She refused my help getting to her bathroom. Suze and I waited in the living room and she came out to us in a short robe. She looked like shit.
“I’m starving. Can one of you order Chinese? There’s a menu on the fridge.”
After we ate, Andi insisted we leave, that she would be okay alone. We called her when we got home, and she assured us she was fine. She seemed in control. Was worried about what would happen when she ran into Dr. Jack at the hospital the next day. It seemed, though, that she was over the hump. She would be polite but no more. She would ask about getting her things from his place and arranging for him to get his from hers. It would be polite and over.
I knew it would not be so easy but Suze and I went along. It wasn’t so easy. The two were civil and polite to one another but no more. If Dr. Jack regretted what he did or wanted to go back to Andi, he never gave a sign of it.
She called me almost every day while this was going on. Mostly she talked and I listened at first. As her anger abated, it slowly reverted to the normal pattern. I will deny it if asked, but it was good to be able to complain to her about Suze. I never had much to complain about—my wife had far more to complain about—but it was good to have someone listen to, or at least pretend to listen to, my wondering why Suze had to be out running every day. Stuff like that.
Then she stopped mentioning Dr. Jack. Like some switch had gone off and he ceased-to-be. Mentally, her brain was no longer shrouded in black and her stories dwelled on the idiot first-year residents that she could barely tolerate, albeit with a self-awareness that that was once her. Only when her thoughts turned to other MDs and one or two hunky patients was the old Andi back.
At about that point, a month or so after this all began, Suze and I swung our little Subaru to Washington Heights to pick Andi up and off we were, out of the City to Millbrook, the little village where Andi and I spent a wonderful Saturday while Suze was in Ireland. The time she told me about her one lesbian “experiment,” which only confirmed her undivided interest in men.
By the time we passed the City line, Andi was off, yapping away. “Turn it up” for and singing-along to songs she liked. “Next!” for those she did not. To Suze and me, it was delightful. Andi has an amazing mind and the ability to effortlessly provide a stream-of-consciousness that deserves its own podcast on NPR. The things she said about her father. That would be my stepfather by the way.
She sat in the rear, her back leaning against the right door and her legs stretched until they were behind the driver’s seat.
“You wouldn’t believe the skanks they tried to set him up with before he met your Mom.” She was terrible and hilarious as she autopsied—that is the only word for it—those she “had the misfortune of meeting.” With each cadaver she relaxed more. The fake tits. The fake faces. The fake hair. The fake personalities.
“Your Mom should get a fucking Nobel for saving my Father from what they tried to pass off on him.”