There When You Need Him
When I got home from the ultrasound appointment I was alone. Arnie was still at work at his construction job. Going straight to a medical reference book I kept, I looked up ovarian cancer. The terrifying statistics about vague symptoms, metastasis, and survival rates chilled me. Wanting to blur this new despair, I scrounged a bottle of wine from the pantry, poured myself a glass, and drank it off immediately as I eased onto a kitchen chair. I helped myself to another glass of wine and punched in a jazz station on the kitchen radio. Another long swallow of wine, then Django Reinhardt swung into “What a Difference a Day Made.”Indeed, I thought with self-pity, what a difference. “Why did this have to happen?” I wailed to the sunny yellow kitchen, and began to cry.
But before I could dress myself in a gloom that would drag on the floor all evening, the garage door rumbled open. I turned the volume down, grabbed a dishtowel and dried my face, wiping away weakness before Arnie walked in the door.
He came into the mudroom from the garage and stopped for a moment, taking in the open bottle of wine. He stood in the late-day sun from the window, a Nordic man with collar-length blonde hair and dark blue eyes. I admired him, as always—his height and the straight set of his shoulders. Even in his late forties, and even though he buckles his belt low under his belly, he is a fine man.
He untied his boots, hauled them off by the heels, and aligned them on the mud rug. Then he pulled off his jacket, flinching, favoring the bursitis shoulder. Watching him, I felt a fierce longing to go to his arms for comfort, but the longing was too primitive, too deep. I imagined confiding in Arnie would be like a flash flood in the desert, with him standing in a sandy gully petrified by horror as the churning wall of need surged down the wash to drown him.
“I had the ultrasound today.”
Arnie glanced at me too quickly for me to read his expression, then padded to the kitchen sink to wash his hands.
“How’d it go?” he asked in such a neutral tone he seemed almost uninterested. He dried his hands and pulled a beer from the fridge.
I thought about how my doctor evaded my suspicions and how the ultrasound technician averted her face. I turned these images over in my mind and fed them to a tight little flame of resentment. Then, fueled by wine and my own personal motto that anger is better than fear, I said, “Who knows? No one told me anything. What is it, these people who act like they can’t abide disease or pain? They’re terrified, right? Scuttling away on all sides like crabs, like I’m contagious, like I’m going to give them—” I came to a full stop, staring at Arnie who had pulled a bag of chips from the cupboard. With a troubled face, he shook some chips into a bowl.
I felt a familiar despair. I’d never told Arnie about my biggest fears and my yearning to be kept safe, knowing full well how awkward he was in giving comfort. Words were never easy for him, especially now. I knew his anguish, his fear of losing me, lay like a cold stone on his tongue.
In the past, when Arnie struggled to put his feelings into words, I’d help by offering “How annoying,” or, “A lot of people would be sad,” and Arnie would nod, grateful agreement on his face. But now, my own confusing emotions battered me. Arnie was on his own.
I said, “I’ll get the test results some time next week. Then we’ll know.” I sucked in a breath and banished thoughts of the future. “How about that meatloaf for dinner?”
“Sure, sounds good,” he said with a tucked-in smile. I made a comment on the weather, asked him about the remodeling project his company had assigned him, and we fell into our familiar evening routine.
Now, I finish my story by explaining to Theo, “I told Arnie I wanted to be here, by the river, and drove up this morning.” The late afternoon breeze shifts to the north, swaying the pines and chilling me.
“Why did you run away?”
I frown at him, not liking his challenge, but admit, “Yeah, I ran away.” To my shame, I begin to cry. Theo waits, watching my tears without dismay or disgust.
Then, because his brown button eyes hold me, and because his brow is stitched with concern, and because he knew me when, I tell him, my voice low and strained, “I’m just so goddamned scared . . . I don’t know what to do. I go along okay and then, for no reason, my body turns against me and I start shaking and sweating and get so dizzy I can’t stand up. And what scares me is. . . is that there’s this horrible strangeness inside me—it’s growing inside me. I can feel it sinking roots.” Before I can stop myself, I dig my fingers into my belly as if to hold back the foul cancer I imagine within.
He waits. Finally, meeting his steadfast eyes, I whisper, “I have to face it, don’t I?”
“Yes,” he says. He leans toward me. “Don’t be afraid. Make a plan.”
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