It wasn’t until Harry’s seventh day in the hospital that Sylvia came to see him. He had the bed cranked up to a sitting position. His ribs ached, but the tight cast they’d put around his trunk made the pain bearable. The head nurse told him that they were weaning him off the painkillers as she changed the plastic bag of his IV drip.
“Don’t want to make a druggie out of you,” she said cheerfully.
Harry grunted, even though it hurt his ribs.
The nurse left, and before the door closed Sylvia pushed through. Harry felt surprised, then a little guilty. He hadn’t asked about his wife, had hardly even thought about her, since waking up in the hospital.
“Hi, Sylvie,” he said. It sounded weak to him, as if he were automatically trying to gain her sympathy.
Sylvia stood uncertainly at the doorway. He was surprised to realize how chunky she’d gotten over the years. The curvaceous girl he’d married had evolved into an almost dumpy matron. Like everything else, Harry thought. Everything goes downhill. I should talk, Mr. Bald Flab Guy.
For a moment Harry thought Sylvia was going to turn around and leave. But she came into the room a few steps, clutching her purse in both hands.
“Are you okay, Harry?”
He tried to smile. “It only hurts when I breathe.”
She frowned at him. “Don’t try to make a joke out of it. The man on the phone said you were seriously injured.”
“Cracked some ribs.”
“What happened?”
Harry hesitated, vaguely remembering the secrecy agreement he had signed. “I can’t tell you.”
She came up to the edge of the bed. “You can’t tell your own wife?”
Harry started to shake his head, but the flare of pain made him stop. Instead he merely said, “Air Force stuff. It’s all classified.”
“Your own wife?” Sylvia demanded. “Do they think I’m a spy or something?”
Harry thought of Ben Franklin’s dictum: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Then he remembered Pete Quintana.
Sylvia stood at the side of the bed. “Leona Rosenberg told me that one of your crew got killed. That Hispanic guy.”
“Pete Quintana.”
“There was an explosion? Your face looks burned on one side.”
“I’ll be all right,” Harry said. “I should be home in a few days.”
She said nothing.
“How’re the kids?” he asked.
“Vickie’s dating that Vietnamese boy from her class again. I don’t trust him.”
Harry smiled faintly. “But we can trust Vickie. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”
Shaking her head, Sylvia said, “I don’t like the way he looks at her.”
“He comes into the house, doesn’t he? He doesn’t just toot the horn and expect her to go running out to him. The kid’s got some manners.”
“For god’s sake, Harry! You’d let your daughter get raped just because you think the boy’s polite!”
“Don’t start, Sylvie.”
“I don’t see why Vickie can’t date her own kind of boys,” she grumbled.
Harry tried to change the subject. “How’s Denise?”
“She’s fine. Breezing through school. They want her to come out for the orchestra next term.” “That’s good.”
And suddenly they had nothing more to talk about. Nothing that wouldn’t lead to an argument. Sylvia stood by the bed for a few moments more, looking as if she wanted to get away.
“I’ll be out of here in a couple of days,” Harry said.
She nodded. “Good. Call me if you need anything.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve got to be going now. The kids will be coming home from school.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Harry almost said, Don’t bother. But he kept the thought to himself.
Harry felt silly in the powered wheelchair, but he had to admit that it was better than trying to walk. Sylvia had come to the hospital and stayed alongside him as he rolled down the hospital corridor, checked out at the admissions counter, and then wheeled himself outside and up to the SUV that Anson Aerospace had provided him for the trip home. The driver and one of the hospital’s orderlies helped Harry into the SUV’s right-hand seat with a minimum of agony and then stowed his wheelchair in the back.
Once home, Harry realized that the world looks a lot different when you’re confined to a wheelchair. The split-level house had only two sets of stairs and they were no more than six steps each, but to Harry they suddenly looked formidable. Carefully, with the SUV’s driver grasping his left arm and Sylvia his right, he got up from the chair. Then he stood there with his daughters staring wide-eyed at him while the driver carried the chair down the little flight as easily as if it weighed only a few ounces.
He walked down the steps like an arthritic old man, Sylvia and the driver holding him again, and settled into the chair once more.
“I’ll be okay now,” he said to the driver. “Thanks.”
The guy dipped his chin in acknowledgment, grinned at the two girls standing there, and left the house. Sylvia stood in front of him, looking him over with a disapproving scowl on her face. Harry nudged the chair’s control stick and wheeled past her, down the carpeted hallway.
As he turned into the bedroom, Sylvia said from behind him, “Not there. I set up the guest room for you.” Her voice sounded edgy. “The doctor said it’ll be better for you.”
Harry spun the chair around. Sylvia looked strained, almost frightened. He started to say something to her, but gave it up. Without another word he turned the chair around and rolled it to the guest room.
Sylvia and the girls fussed around him as he got out of the chair on his own and stretched out gratefully on the queen-sized bed of the guest room. His back throbbed and he felt the beginnings of a headache pinching at the back of his neck.
“You have everything you need right here,” Sylvia said from the doorway. “If you want anything, just holler.”
“You want some juice, Dad?” Denise asked, her eyes full of anxiety.
He made a smile for her. “I’m okay, honey. Thanks anyway.”
Vickie said, “We’ll be your nurses, Dad. We’ll take care of you.”
“Thanks,” he said, thinking that Sylvia would be happy to let them take care of him. Or anyone else. As long as she didn’t have to.
In two days Harry felt almost normal. His doctor came from the hospital to remove the body cast he’d been wrapped in and ordered Harry to make an appointment for an x-ray of his ribs the next week. Denise and Vickie looked in on him before rushing off to school and once again as soon as they got back. The rest of the time Harry spent in bed watching television or pecking at his laptop. Sylvia stayed out of the guest room.
It’s just as well, Harry thought. I sleep better alone. She doesn’t want me near her anyway.
It was then that he realized his marriage was over. Had been over for years. They’d just been going through
