somber by the time I got there.
Barbara smiled at me as I walked in.
“Look who’s here, Kenny. It’s Irene.”
So he was awake. He had fewer bandages, although his face was a mass of deep-purple bruises. His eyes were less swollen. His upper body was still immobilized by bandages and splints. “Hi, Kenny,” I said, wondering why I felt a knot in my stomach.
He didn’t say anything, but he looked toward me.
Barbara talked on as if he had given me a warm greeting. “Irene has been asking about you, Kenny. She’s been by here and she’s really helped me out a lot.”
Nothing. He turned his eyes away from me.
“Shall we go?” I said to Barbara.
She was staring at Kenny, who, in turn, was staring at some place on the wall.
“Yes, I suppose so,” she said after a minute. We got up and left.
“There’s a burger joint on the corner that makes terrific strawberry shakes — you up for that?”
“Sounds great,” she said. “Hospital meals have all the charm of a well-balanced diet. I’d love to eat something sinful for lunch.”
“Okay, we’ll split a big order of fries, too.”
“Sorry about Kenny. He’s been very moody today. He’s feeling frustrated and uncomfortable. It’s just a guess, but I think the fact that his dad is dead is starting to sink in.”
“I understand,” I said. Oh, O’Connor. Are you really gone?
“Remember how it was when Dad died?”
“Sure.” In the silence that followed, I thought to myself, sure I do, Barbara. I watched him ebb away from himself day by day. I sat there with him, watching the guy I always thought of as the strongest man on earth become a fragile reed — while you hid out in the frenzy of your courtship with Kenny.
But this subsided. I couldn’t blame Barbara for dealing with Dad’s illness in some way other than the way I dealt with it. We just were and probably always would be very different people. And as painful as those days with Dad were, at least he and I had them together, and I was richer for it.
“I hate myself,” she said suddenly.
“Why?”
“I’m so selfish sometimes. You stayed with him. I didn’t.”
Had I spoken my thoughts aloud? No, I knew I hadn’t. I recovered my composure and said, “It’s over, Barbara. It doesn’t matter who stayed with him. Right now all that matters is that we stick by each other.”
“I’ve thought a lot about Dad lately,” she said quietly. “I ask myself why I can stay with Kenny, but never could stay with Dad. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because Kenny has always been so dependent on me, so it’s not so scary that he needs me now. With Dad it was the other way around.”
“Like I said, it’s over — it was years ago. You need to take a break from Kenny every now and then, Barbara. Sitting around in that hospital room with him, looking at him all beat to hell — that’s bound to make you feel a little morose.”
“I guess you’re right.”
We grabbed a booth at the burger place and ordered our All-American lunch. She lightened up a little and we ate in a companionable way, mainly because I was trying out a new way of communicating with her. It involved a lot of biting of my tongue and redirecting the conversation if she started to get critical. I have to give her credit, too; I think she was pretty much trying to do the same thing.
I walked back to the hospital with her, but decided I didn’t need another trip through the halls today. “Thanks for doing this, Barbara. I know you don’t like to leave Kenny.”
“Thanks for coming by. It was nice to get away for a while.”
I started to leave, and she said, “Irene?”
“Yes?”
“I just was wondering how things are going for you.”
“What things?”
“I mean, I guess I forgot to ask earlier how you are doing with — you know — everything that has happened to you.”
“It got to me for a few days, but I think I’m doing a lot better now. It was hard for me to keep my balance, you might say. Friends help. You help.”
“I do?”
“Yeah, sure you do.”
She started to cry.
“Oh, for pity’s sakes, Barbara,” I said, putting an arm around her. “I didn’t say that to make you cry.”
She bit her lower lip and sniffed, wiping the tears away in a really ladylike way. I was proud of her. I would have used the cuff of a sweatshirt or something.
