Did You Ever Have A Family

George

I’d leave in the morning and the room would be a mess — sheets and blankets twisted in knots, clothes and towels on the floor. But when I’d come back at night after a day at the hospital with Robert, the place would be impeccable. The bed made, my clothes neatly folded on the dresser. Even the cap on my toothpaste would be screwed back on and my razor and comb lined up neatly on a folded face towel next to the sink. I’m not a messy person, normally, but when I look back on my time at the Betsy, I can see that I let myself slip. I had lost control of everything — my wife’s health, my boy, my business — and in this one space, this little New England motel room, the problems that existed could be fixed by someone else. That someone else was Lydia. I didn’t meet her in those first two weeks. But I did feel her; in the moments before opening the door to that motel room, I would anticipate the clean room, the restored order, the lemon smell of wood polish, and in those days it was the only thing that gave me anything resembling relief.

Robert was in a coma for three days. He aspirated his own vomit when he was unconscious, and they think he was oxygen deprived for as long as three hours before the police discovered him in that barn. I sat by his bedside until he came out of it. I know it may sound perverse, but a part of me misses those hours with my son. My role, what I could do for him, had never been so clear. I had to be near him. I told him about his sisters and his mother, our dogs and the ugly house being built across the street in the woods where he used to play. I held his hand, which was something I’d never before done and have not done since. I wonder sometimes if it’s like this with other fathers. What I know is that for me, having a son has been a difficult riddle, an awkward tiptoe between too tough and too easy. I never got the hang of it. Not like with my daughters, who were uncomplicated to be around, to love. The rules of engagement were much more obvious. Robert never liked sports. I think sometimes it was because when he was very young I was too busy with work and Kay and the girls to put a basketball in his hands and get him on the court. He liked his elaborate fantasy world of Dungeons & Dragons and the books he made, and he liked Tim, but he didn’t have any interest in anything I knew about. When Kay was alive, she’d tell me it wasn’t his job to be interested in me, it was my job to be interested in him. If she was right, and I expect she was, I failed at the job miserably. By the time he left for Harkness I had convinced myself that Robert was better off without my meddling, that he was self-sufficient and would navigate the world of boarding school and college just fine without knowing how to play basketball or a father who knew his way around the castles in Dungeons & Dragons. I can see now how self-serving that was.

After he came out of the coma, Robert remained in the ICU for nine days. He was conscious but vacant, and his speech was impaired. I sat with him like those first three days but I did not hold his hand. Of all the things to remember, it’s hesitating with my hand that morning when he was newly awake and frightened, stumbling with the simplest words. That is a moment I would do differently if I had the chance. There are many. What could I have possibly been worried about? Everything is the answer. I was worried about everything. It’s painful to admit, but when I remember that time, I see myself as a skittish fool, wringing my hands over every little decision and getting most of them wrong. Why is it only later that things begin to make sense? Mostly, I’ve made my peace with the mistakes I’ve made, but every so often I bump into a memory and it will sit me right down. Not swarming my boy with attention and love in those early years, not grabbing his hand and pulling him toward me as much as I could have, letting him disappear to boarding school because it felt at the time like one less thing to worry about. These are the regrets that slip and drop down, and when they do, there is nothing to be done, no action I can take to make it better. I just let them come for as long as they will.

After his time in the ICU, Robert was moved to the hospital’s Acute Rehab Unit to try to get him walking, talking, and problem solving again. There was brain damage, but with work the doctors assured me it was likely he’d be fully functional, both physically and cognitively. They worked with him for nearly a month, and in that time I flew home for a night or two but for the most part stayed at the motel and saw Robert for breakfast and at the end of each day for dinner. The doctors wanted him to focus on the various therapies during the day, so I stayed away, worked from the motel room and spoke with Kay and my mother and sister, who were driving her to chemo and helping with the girls. Kay would ask about Robert but deflected any questions I asked about how she was feeling. She tried to be cheerful, but I could hear her fading away a bit more every time we spoke.

I met Lydia the day Robert was moved to the rehab unit and his doctor asked that I come back at the end of the day. For the first time since I’d checked in, I’d returned to the motel before nightfall. I could hear the vacuum cleaner going as I put the key in the door, and for a second I hesitated before opening. I wasn’t sure I actually wanted to see who performed the daily magic of tidying the room and arranging my things so carefully. I enjoyed and imagined into the mystery, so before I turned the key in the lock, I stopped and listened to the hum of the vacuum, the sound of its being pushed along the floor and bumping gently into furniture. I must not have noticed it turn off because without warning the door opened, and suddenly there she was. In jeans and clinging white T-shirt, a pile of brown hair knotted loosely on her head, at least ten years younger than I was. Young. Beautiful. Lydia.

She rushed off that first day, and neither of us said more than awkward hellos. I came back the following morning after an early breakfast with Robert and she had not yet arrived. For some reason, I felt nervous. I began cleaning up the room and folding my clothes, which is what I ought to have done from the beginning. Her job was to clean the rooms, not pick up after the guests. I stopped short of making the bed and instead made sure the toilet was flushed, and I tidied a pile of hospital paperwork scattered on the desk. She turned up before noon and didn’t bother with knocking. I suppose it hadn’t occurred to her I’d be there, so she just used her key and came right on in. I was sitting in the chair by the bed and remained silent as she set her large plastic bucket with cleaning supplies down on the carpet inside the door. She was wearing the same jeans as the day before and again a T-shirt, but this time light blue instead of white. I said good morning and she screamed.

What happened over the next three weeks is not something I’m proud of, but it is not a regret. Not like so much else is. Lydia Morey was a sad young woman trapped in a bad marriage, and I was a frightened man who knew his wife would soon be dead. There was more — she was sexy. Young, healthy, and underneath those tight jeans and T-shirts, she had the curvy figure of a pinup. And though she was troubled, she was also tough in ways that let me know she’d be okay. That she’d figure her life out somehow and survive. I hope she did.

Mostly, we just talked. She told me about the father she did not know, her mother’s sharp tongue and how she bullied her to stay with her husband despite his teasing and his violence. She talked about wanting to run away. Driving to some town in the Middle West somewhere where no one knew her and where she could begin again. It was surprising and sad to see someone so young feel so hopeless. I listened but I offered no solutions, no advice. How could I? My life was in tatters and I hadn’t a clue what to do. She listened to me tell my tale of woe, and we were able to laugh at it all, even the overdose, even the cancer. Our lives felt unreal and far away while we were in that motel room. As if we were telling stories of other people’s lives to each other, not our own. Maybe it’s what we both needed then. I don’t know. What I do know is that it didn’t feel bad or wrong. I’d never been unfaithful to Kay in the eighteen years of our marriage. Never been seriously tempted, either. But before I left the Betsy, two days before I returned to Atlanta, I went to bed with Lydia. It started when she kissed me. First on my forehead and then on my lips. We had been sitting on the bed and there had been a long silence. I had just told her I was taking Robert back to Atlanta to a hospital where he could continue his therapy. There was nothing to say. We both knew I would never come back to Wells, Connecticut, and to the Betsy. Our days together were about to be over. So she kissed me. And I kissed her back.

To this day I remember those hours with Lydia Morey as some of the sweetest and most desperate of my life. I wonder if she remembers them at all.