To Each His Own (novel excerpt)

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You are everything I’m not. Beautiful, compassionate, and giving as if Jesus himself is pouring you out of a wine bottle. So why does someone like you see anything redeeming in a person like me? I know you would be satisfied with just a simple explanation, but there aren’t any. I looked into your tearful eyes and wondered I how I could explain what I didn’t understand.

“It’s been almost seventy years,” you said. “Can’t you move on?”

I gave you that blank look I usually did whenever you brought up the topic. I always wanted to move on, but didn’t know how. I wanted to explain why even the most innocuous smells, words, or sights dragged me back to a time and place I didn’t want you, my sweet Rachel to become a part of. I had my old Nikon and you stood in front of a Monterey Pine whose branches were bent eastward from years of relentless winds. Your long hair danced in the sea breeze, taking on the shape of its twisted limbs. I adjusted the lens, and hoped the photograph would capture what I felt for you but couldn’t express. After I took the picture you led me by my hand down layers of eroded sandstone.

“I want you to see something,” you said. Kneeling next to an indentation in the rock worn from use, you gently placed your scarf into the center and looked up at me. “The Poma Indians washed their clothes here,” you said, mimicking a technique the coastal tribe used in the 1800’s.

“There’s no way of knowing that,” I said, as if there was something in your simple explanation that threatened me. “It could have been made by a kid last week with a hammer.”

“Sweetie, history isn’t your enemy.”

I didn’t say anything. I never did when you tried to initiate the discussion. I smiled and nodded my head as if I agreed, but I knew you didn’t believe me. You cried when you saw my expression, just as you always did when you tried having the conversation with me. I handed you my handkerchief and after wiping away the tears you said, “Whenever you’re ready to talk,” and then your words drifted off, just as they usually did. Years went by, I don’t remember how many, and I still wouldn’t talk about Buchenwald. For a lifetime it’s been lurking as does the odor of a dead rodent in an inaccessible wall. Gently, you would bring it up, usually when I screamed through the night. But I always just shook my head and said, “Not yet.”

But now, when I’m ready to talk, you can’t. Sitting next to you in bed, I wonder why I refused to see how ill you were. Why when your doctor used every word other than “terminal,” I didn’t ask for clarification, as if vagueness would make the pallor of your complexion change, or allow you to say those words that always melted my heart. How do I tell you how that I won’t be able to live without you? There is so much I still want to explain. I hope you’ll open your eyes so you can see the love I have for you. Day turns into night, then back again without ending or beginning, and intimate silent monologues are interrupted by people who come unannounced into the room and nod to me before checking an instrument, recording vital signs, or examining your fluids. I look for reactions and see none.

“How do they look?” I say.

“You need to ask the doctor,” I’m told every time I ask. Once a day, he comes in with a resident and speaks soothing words that are hopeful, but untruthful. Finally, on the third day fewer people visit. I’m sure it’s because their interest in you has waned—after all, this is a teaching hospital—and the inevitability of your condition suggests moving on to someone more medically interesting. Your condition is made less real by equipment those embossed names and unique sounds create the illusion of additional time. A nurse comes into the room and checks each devise, looking at you and me as if we were invisible or just two pieces of unimportant equipment. She fixates on the numbers each device displays, as if they were you. She’s about to leave when I speak.

“Excuse me.”

Reluctantly she turns and facing me, appears to be annoyed that her planned exit is interrupted.

I say, “How is she doing?”

“Haven’t you spoken with her doctor today?”

“Earlier this morning.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said, she’s very ill.”

“Well then, there you are. She’s very ill.”

She leaves and I sit alone with you, not wanting anyone to come back. There is so much that happened I want to talk about. I hope you’ll stay until you understand why I couldn’t.

“Mr. Bernstein,” a volunteer aide says, “why don’t you go down to the cafeteria and get some food. I’ll stay with her until you come back.”

I shake my head. I’m afraid of being out of your presence, since even a few minutes will be enough time for you to slip away. That would be just like you, to spare me watching you take your last breath.

“No thank you. I’m fine,” I say.

I drift off to sleep sitting next to you. In the middle of the night I’m woken by the sound of worn out rubber wheels on the other side of the curtain. As I hold your hand I hear what sounds like a group of people entering the room. The one who I can tell is a doctor spouts explanations as if he’s lecturing medical students.  Those I imagine are family ask questions in hushed tones. And then there is the moan I assume comes from the female patient.

The doctor explains in detail the extent of the surgery, describing each procedure as if he is an art historian gleefully analyzing a Rembrandt painting. He goes into the nuances of the operation, describing how hidden pockets of cancer were detected and removed. Describing how technically advanced his surgical techniques are. Describing how proud he is of what he did. I imagine the family intently listening to each word waiting to hear something like “the operation was successful,” or “I got it in time.” But neither of these phrases nor similar ones are offered. He ends his monologue in what sounds like memorized sentences.

“But unfortunately, there was too much cancer to remove. It’s time for goodbyes,” he says as if the person who just received the death sentence can’t hear.

He leaves without acknowledging the patient, and I hear his footsteps in the hallway and then they diminish as he enters another patient’s room, undoubtedly to proclaim his wonderful performance to the family of that patient.

“You’ve always been there for me,” I hear someone I think is her son say.

The woman whispers something unintelligible and there is a collective cry.

“You’re my soul,” a younger female voice says.

Another whisper.

“I’ve always loved you,” an older male voice says.

A much longer whisper and then silence.

I eventually fall asleep, still holding your hand, dreaming of a life I wish we had, blaming myself for not creating it. When I wake in the morning, the curtain has been pulled back and there is nobody there. I look up and see the nurse from the night before.

“You’ll have to leave now,” she says. “We have to prepare the body.”