Chapter 41
DEB
BILLY WAKES UP AND TRIES to speak, but his voice is froggy.
I smile. “Morning, sunshine.”
He takes pains to clear his throat, and then he asks: “Has someone called my wife?”
Dread fills me. “Your wife?”
He says, “She’s going to be furious.”
My concern grows. “Why?”
He clears his throat again. “She has every right to be mad. She warned me about that turn.” He winces. “Did the belt injure my stomach?”
I take a guess. “The…seat belt?”
“Yeah.” He shifts to redistribute the pain, grunting.
I take a deep breath. “You’re in pain?”
He nods once.
“Let me go get something for it.” I pause, trying to get my bearings. “So you were just in a car accident, right? That turn at Rosedale and Forest?”
He nods again as though irritated I don’t already know that, whoever he thinks I am.
I step out of the room and find the nurse, who administers Tylenol and asks if there’s anything else she can do for us.
Billy pushes the button to raise the bed. “Do you need my phone number? Deb will want to come once the girls are at school.”
Diane blinks at me, and I tell her thanks but there’s nothing else she can do for us.
When she leaves the room, I tell Billy, “I’ve been in touch with your wife. She’ll be here.”
“Thanks.” He winces and adjusts again. “Did she sound mad? I bet the car is totaled.”
I measure my words and my slingshot emotions as I think back to the long-ago day of his car accident. “She did sound a little mad, to be honest. But she’s probably just worried. Anger is easier to express than fear.” I pause and ask, “What do you remember about it?”
“I remember helping our daughter find the little rubber dinosaur in her cereal box this morning. Then I left for work. There was a flash of fear on impact, but next thing was me waking up here. Funny how memory can jump like that.”
I watch him frown at my wedding ring. Surely he recognizes it. But he only asks, “How long have you been married?”
“Thirty-five years and counting,” I say. “He’s a good one.”
“Wow, the length of my whole life.”
I stretch my legs, wondering what I should say to thirty-five-year-old Billy.
He asks, “Any words of wisdom for the fool who took the corner too fast?”
I wonder if he was this preoccupied with whether I was mad at him when the accident really happened. I was, of course, because I had told him that he took that turn too fast. I say, “My husband would have more wisdom about that. He did the same thing once. And I’ll admit that I was a little mad.”
“He okay?”
“Oh yeah. And you will be too.”
He’s staring at my teeth. “You look awfully familiar. Who’s your dentist?” At this, he interrupts himself. “Oh, I need to call my receptionist and tell her to cancel today’s appointments. I’m a dentist,” he informs me. “Do you know when I’ll be discharged?”
I still don’t know who he imagines I am. A flannel-clad nurse?
I tell him, “A day or two. But your wife has already been in touch with Marcia.”
“ ’Course she has.” He smiles a little. “Talk about a good one.”
“Oh yeah?” I recline, crossing one leg over the other. “So,” I say, smiling. “Tell me about your wife.”
Billy gets a distant, fond look in his eyes. “None compare. Just the other day between cooking and helping kids with homework, she beat me in chess for the first time. She poured a drink and had us all toast her victory and call her queen.” He chuckles. “She makes every day fun.”
I gaze out the window, where a bird hops along the ledge. “Wow, I forgot all about that.”
“What?”
A little shake of my head before looking back toward Billy. “Oh, I just forgot about those busy days with young children, is what I meant.”
He sighs. “Yeah, our hands are full, all right.”
I look down at the pronounced veins of my empty hands, unsure what to say.
He asks, “You have kids?”
I nod. “Three. All grown now.”
He sighs again. “Between you and me?”
I wait. He’s chatty, and it feels like a conversation with a sleep-talker, where you want them to say one more thing but also feel like an intruder.
Billy lowers his voice and confides, “We had our first baby right out the gate, and I love our kids, don’t get me wrong. But I can’t wait until they’re grown so my wife and I can have the adventures in our golden years that we didn’t get to have before.”
I turn my face away, unable to repress the swell of grief.
Later, I’ll ask what adventures he wants; I cannot bear to ask him now.
Billy glances at the doorway, waiting for a thirty-five-year-old me.
He says, “I’m going to close my eyes a bit, but thanks for the Tylenol and visit, ma’am.”
Still avoiding his eyes, I reach to give his hand a little squeeze. “Any time.”
He presses a button, the bed whirring as it lowers him down.
As he drifts to sleep, I begin to hum “Dream a Little Dream of Me.”
Because maybe he will.