A Widow’s Story: A Memoir

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Exhausted from my vigil—this vigil that has hardly begun!—I slip into a kind of waking sleep at Ray’s bedside as he dozes fitfully inside the oxygen mask and in my dream there are no recognizable figures only just primitive bacterial forms, a feverish swilling and rushing, a sensation of menace, unease—those hallucinatory patterns of wriggling light obscuring vision that are said to be symptomatic of migraine, though I’ve never had migraine headaches. My mouth has gone dry, sour. My mouth feels like the interior of a stranger’s mouth and is loathsome to me. The jeering thought comes to me You must have been infected too. But you have been spared this time.

Waking I’m not sure at first where I am. The sensation of unease has followed me. And there in the hospital bed—my husband?—some sort of disfiguring helmet, or mask, obscuring his face that has always seemed to me so handsome, so youthful, so good . . .

Something of the derangement of Widowhood is beginning here. For in dreams our future selves are being prepared. In denial that her husband is seriously ill the Widow-to-Be will not, when she returns home that evening, research E. coli on the Internet. Not for nearly eighteen months after her husband’s death will she look up this common bacterial strain to discover the blunt statement she’d instinctively feared at the time and could not have risked discovering: pneumonia due to Escherichia coli has a reported mortality rate of up to 70 percent.

Chapter 8 Hospital Vigil(s) (#ulink_4424990a-7901-5603-88ce-42178012d6b3)

There are two categories of hospital vigils.

The vigil with the happy ending, and the other.

Embarked upon the hospital vigil as in a small canoe on a churning white-water river you can have no clear idea which vigil you are embarked upon—the vigil with the happy ending, or the other—until it has come to an end.

Until the patient has been discharged from the hospital and brought safely home. Or not discharged, and never brought home.

Chapter 9 Jasmine (#ulink_7fda8a68-0655-5fe5-a7e6-ec2780e7c1b4)

February 14, 2008. Today in room 541 there is Jasmine—dark-skinned, Haitian, lives with relatives in Trenton and hates the “nasty” New Jersey winter—a nurse’s aide assigned to Raymond Smith who will bathe the patient behind a screen, change bedclothes and adjust his bed, assist him walking into the bathroom, chattering all the while at him, now at me—Mz. Smith h’lo? Mz. Smith howya doing?—voice high-pitched as the cry of a tropical bird. Initially Jasmine is a cheery presence in the room—like the flowers several friends have sent, in vases on Ray’s bedside table—she’s warm, friendly, eager to please—eager to be liked—eager to be very well liked—a squat sturdy young woman with cornrowed hair, fleshy cheeks and shiny dark eyes behind thick-lensed red plastic glasses—but as the minutes pass and Jasmine continues to chatter at us, and to bustle about the room, sighing, laughing, muttering to herself—her presence becomes a distraction, an irritant.

Propped up in bed, breathing now through a nasal inhaler, Ray is gamely trying to sort through some of the mail he’s asked me to bring him—here are financial statements, letters from Ontario Review writers, poetry and short story submissions—at his bedside I am trying to prepare my next-day’s fiction workshop at Princeton University—still Jasmine chatters, and chatters—our lack of response doesn’t seem to discourage her, or perhaps she hasn’t noticed—until abruptly she makes a hissing sound through her teeth as if in disgust—like a petulant child she takes up the TV remote control and switches on the TV—loud—we ask her please turn it off, we are trying to work—Jasmine stares at us as if she has never heard such a request—she tells us that she always watches TV in these rooms—with exaggerated politeness verging upon hostility she asks if she can keep the TV on—Turned low?—in her white nylon uniform that strains at her fleshy hips and thighs sitting now in a chair beneath the TV gazing upward at the screen rapt in concentration at antic darting images as if these images were of paramount importance to her provoking her to suck at her lips, murmur and laugh to herself, draw in her breath sharply—Ohhhh man! Uhhhh!—until after some time—twenty minutes, twenty-five—as if the magical screen suddenly loses its attraction Jasmine turns back to us with renewed enthusiasm—as the TV crackles and drones she resumes the bright-chattering bird-shriek that makes me want to press my hands over my ears even as I am smiling—smiling so hard my face aches—not wanting Jasmine to be insulted by some lapse in my attention or some failure to respect her personality which in some quarters has surely been praised, encouraged—as Ray shuts his eyes in misery—trapped in the hospital bed by the IV tube in a vein in the crook of his bruised right arm, nasal inhaler clamped to his head—forced as in an anteroom of Hell to listen as Jasmine begins to repeat her monologue of a former patient who’d been really nice to her—really really nice to her—and his wife as well—they’d given her real special presents—sent her a postcard Dear Jasmine! from the Southwest—really really nice generous people—an older couple—really nice—as I listen to these boastful yet accusatory words a wave of dismay washes over me—a stab of fear—is this nurse’s aide employed by the Princeton Medical Center retarded? Is she mentally unstable? Disturbed? Deranged?

None of the other, older nurses resemble Jasmine in any way—Jasmine seems to have wandered in from another dimension, a Comedy Central TV program perhaps, except Jasmine isn’t funny—Jasmine is deadly serious—I try to explain that my husband is tired and would like to rest—trying to smile—trying to speak politely—in dread of upsetting the excitable young woman—finally saying in a forceful voice Excuse me—Jasmine—my husband is tired, he would like to sleep—provoking Jasmine to stare at us in astonishment—for a beat unable to speak, she’s so stunned—insulted—a look of exaggerated shock contorting her face as in a children’s cartoon—Ma’am!—You are telling me to be quiet? To stop talking? Is that what you are telling me Ma’am—to stop talking? Jasmine’s shiny eyes bulge behind the thick lenses of her glasses. The whites of her eyes glare. I tell Jasmine that my husband tires easily, he has pneumonia she must know—he doesn’t sleep well at night and should try to rest during the day and if he isn’t able to sleep at least he could close his eyes and rest—as Jasmine continues to glare at me and when my voice trails off she retorts by repeating her account of the really nice older couple for whom she’d worked recently—really nice, generous—Liked me real well sayin Jasmine you a breath of fresh air always smiling—sent me a postcard sayin Jasmine howya doin—until at last I cry Please! Please just stop!

Now Jasmine’s jaw drops, she is so insulted.

Jasmine sits heavily in her chair beneath the TV. Jasmine sighs loudly, muttering to herself. Her fleshy face darkens with blood, her eyes glare whitely. She is sulky, sullen as a furious child. There is no subtlety in her hatred of us who have insulted her by failing to adore her. The thought comes to me I have made an enemy. She could kill my husband in the night.

My heart begins to beat quickly, in panic. I have brought my husband to this terrible place, now I can’t protect him. How can I protect him?

Whatever happens, I am to blame. I am the one who has arranged this.

Outside the room’s single window, it’s night. I think that very likely it has been night for a long time for night falls early in this perpetual winter dusk. I tell Jasmine that she can leave now for her supper break, if she wants to—a little early—this is a good time since I’ll be here for another hour or more.

Jasmine has been rummaging through a large cloth bag on her knees, panting with exasperation. At first she doesn’t seem to hear me—in the friendliest tone I can manage I repeat what I’ve said—Jasmine frowns, glances up—Jasmine pouts and glares—then Jasmine smiles.

Jasmine shuts the large cloth bag with a snap and smiles.

Ma’am thank you! Ma’am that is real nice.