Wife - James W. Morris

Wife in the bathroom, gargling. Her habit before she comes to bed.

Me, other side of the wall, in the darkened bedroom. Awakened by the sound. I’m a light sleeper, an early-to-bed, early-to-rise type; she’s a confirmed night owl. Mixed marriage.

Gargling, of course, is not exactly an attractive sound, even the more or less feminine way Wife does it, but it’s attractive to me because it means she’ll shortly be joining me in our warm bed.

She will emit a deep sigh, click out the bathroom light, creak open the bedroom door, and slip under the covers alongside me. She likes to slide a thin arm around my neck, kiss me behind the ear. I like that, too—a lot. In winter, she might put her impossibly cold feet on my lower back to warm them up. This I don’t like so much. The price you pay, eh?

The gargling ends and I wait, lying stoically in the dim night listening for the sigh, the click of the switch, the creak of the door.

I could not say how much time passes; my heartbeat shakes the bed.

Then I remember: Wife died.

Years ago.

*

Morning. Just after dawn.

I grunt rather theatrically, swing my thin legs over the edge of the bed, grunt again. Hardest part of being old—the morning inventory. What hurts, what purports to be working.

I have a progressive neurological disease which I won’t properly name because that would be too respectful to it, almost like giving in. Let’s call him Ol’ Parky.

So far, Ol’ Parky has gifted me with three main symptoms. First, an involuntary tremolo in my speaking voice I pretend gives it a Morgan Freeman-style gravitas, but which really comes across as a stereotypically elderly quaver. Second, an odd giddy-up in my walking gait due to a painful feeling akin to a marble being ever-present under the ball of my left foot as I move about. Third—the most recently arrived symptom—an alarming tendency for my left hand to occasionally freeze into the shape of a claw. You know, an old man living on his own, shuffling around room-to-room all day long in his cramped dusty house, has little use for a claw, really.

My hand is claw-clenched this morning, and I work hard to unclench it, rubbing it vigorously on my pajama leg. I use my other hand to force it back into regular hand shape.

Once it’s unclenched, I use it to give Ol’ Parky the finger.

I stand, wobble, then shuffle my way slowly to the bathroom, hanging onto nearby furniture for support. This is the feeblest time of the day for me, early morning, so I’m supposed to use a walker for this little trek, but I don’t bother. I do keep the walker by the bed, but truthfully the thing sees most of its use as a clothes rack. Just too damn convenient.

Exiting the bathroom, I can smell that downstairs Wife has made the morning coffee. That’s something to look forward to, anyway.

She—

*

One stair at a time, I creak my way down to the first floor, pass through the darkened (virtually unused) dining room, and enter the tiny kitchen, where I stand silently in the center of the cold tile. Of course, no Wife, no coffee. I remember that I don’t even own a coffee maker anymore, required to eliminate all caffeine. And don’t you dare talk to me about decaf. It’s better to eliminate something entirely than take a half-assed approach.

Still, for a while, there had been a persuasively real roasted coffee smell, an enticing, caffeine- rich, warm house-filling aroma.

Gone, now.

*

Shortly after we were married forty-seven years ago, she started calling me Husband. So, what could I do? Called her Wife. Our names became our roles. I mean—our roles became our names. Not sure why. Her actual name Sandra. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Sounds funny now, though. Name of a stranger.

*

I have a modest insight while crunching my breakfast cereal. After fussing about for a bit, in the endless, unproductive, clumsy, time-wasting manner for which we elderly are so universally beloved, I finally manage to locate and unfold the tiny, densely-printed insert that came with the latest prescription my doctor has given me for slowing the progression of Ol’ Parky. Never really read any of these insert things before, never met anyone who has. Have you?

I swap my regular glasses for my reading glasses. Tell me: why, exactly, do they make the print on these damn things so small? The drug is intended mostly for use by old people. Shouldn’t the default font size be large? How much more would it cost—a penny? Anyway.

I locate the listing of possible side effects:

—dizziness

—constipation

—confusion

—headache

—irregular heartbeat

—abdominal pain

—hallucinations

—vomit which looks like coffee grounds

I read over that last item again, make sure I read it right. Yep. “Vomit which looks like coffee grounds.” Have you noticed? Side effects are often more disgusting than many of the symptoms of the targeted disease. I wonder if that’s why so many people quit taking their pills.

Hallucinations, yeah. That’s the one.

The insert suggests I call my doctor.

*

Every three months Doctor Kent tries to talk me into going into one of those places. So-called assisted-living. More like assisted-dying.

I pretend to consider it, but of course will never go unless declared incompetent or drugged and dragged. Ok, sooner or later, Ol’ Parky will probably get me, will be the victor in our little existential set-to, but I am seventy-nine years old. Might fool him, frustrate him, and luck out by dying from something unrelated in the meantime, right? One can hope.

Kent and I compromised. I allow a visiting nurse twice a week. Monday and Thursday. Also, Meals on Wheels, so I’m not so tempted to drive to the grocery store, using my claw to roll down the car window. I like the MOW people a lot, but they give too much white bread. Two slices with nearly every meal! I feel guilty throwing it out right away, so I hold it in the fridge until it gets moldy, and then I throw it out.

*

The only thing I don’t like about the visiting nurse, Karin, is that she’s too beautiful. It’s disturbing somehow. She is from the Caribbean, which country I always forget, and her dark skin is flawless, so astonishingly perfect I want to test my teeth on her cheek when she bends over me to take my blood pressure. I never do bite, however. I am extremely well-behaved, in fact, borderline charming, not wanting reports of irrational behavior being funneled back to Doctor Kent.

By the way, his first name is not Clark, but I sometimes call him that to annoy. His eyelids flicker.

I phone his office to report the hallucinations and he calls me back six hours later. Typical.

“Doctor Kent,” I say. “Since this morning I’ve had a heart attack and a stroke and paralysis and Ebola and a fall which has put me into a coma and for some reason my left arm has shriveled down to the size of a butternut squash. All during the six hours while I’ve been waiting for you to return my call.”

Kent sighs. He loves talking to me but won’t admit it. “You’re speaking rather well for a man in a coma,” he observes.

I tell him about the hallucinations.

“Are they scary? Are you finding them especially disturbing?” he asks.

I think about it. “No, not really,” I say. “They are ok. I think I hear my wife, which is comforting in a way, actually. It’s reality that’s disturbing.”

Kent makes a noise halfway between a laugh and a snort.

“All right,” he says. “It could be the disease itself causing the hallucinations, rather than the new drug, but I think we should stop it anyway. Now, this is a powerful drug. You can’t just discontinue it all-of-a-sudden, so we’ll taper you off. Starting tomorrow, switch to a half-dose, and stay on the half-dose till the next time I see you.”

*

That evening I am watching an episode of the old Dick Van Dyke show, the one where Rob suffers a concussion, loses his memory for a while, wanders out of his New York office, and comes to his senses several hours later while dancing with a strange blonde woman at a house party in Red Hook, New Jersey. Will Laura, who has been frantic with worry, believe his story?

Even after she sees the lipstick on his collar?

In front of me, on the TV tray, is my microwaved Tuesday MOW meal: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, and—instead of white bread, for a change—a corn muffin tightly wrapped in cellophane. I am struggling to prise open the securely shrink-wrapped cellophane, which seems astonishingly, unnecessarily sturdy and refuses to yield.

“What did they think they were packing in here, plutonium?” I ask myself.

The show goes to commercial. I mute the sound, as always, then go back to my struggle with the impenetrable plastic.

The wrapping yields all of a sudden and of course the corn muffin shoots into the air and drops to the carpet, where it nestles against my left foot. When I bend down to retrieve it, I hear Wife walking around upstairs.

Know her tread anywhere.

She walks with purposeful briskness from the guest bedroom to our bedroom, then goes into the bathroom for a while. I hear water running. Then the bathroom door creaks open and I hear her stride back into our bedroom, where I imagine she is making the bed. Wife never could stand an unmade bed.

She is humming quietly to herself, as usual.

I swallow, find my voice, shout up the stairs.

“Wife?” I ask.

Sound stops.

*

That night I crawl into the (unmade) bed a bit earlier than usual and surprise myself by falling asleep easily. I wake a couple hours later to hear Wife in the bathroom, gargling.

Finally, the deep sigh. Then the click of the bathroom light. This is followed a few seconds later by the creak of the bedroom door opening.

Then, sadly—

Nothing.

*

The next day, I follow my usual routine. When it is time take my medication (I take six different kinds of pills, all together, in the morning), I head to the kitchen with my pill caddy to obtain a butterknife to split the pill causing the hallucinations, as instructed.

Using two fingers, I hold the oblong pill up to the light of the window over the sink to locate the helpful dividing line in the center and notice for the first time what a pleasant color the pill is.

Cool pale orange. Like a Creamsicle.

I am never good at splitting medications—my hands shake more than I would like. After wavering a moment, I put the butterknife down.

Wasn’t I the one who said it is better not to do things in a half-assed way? What would happen if instead of halving the dose I dramatically increased it?

I shake two extra Creamsicle pills out of the container, line them up with the first one on the kitchen counter, and consider them for a while. Then I swallow all three before I have a chance to stop myself.

*

About ninety minutes later, sitting in a chair in the living room, I begin to feel really weird. Reeeeeeeeeally weeeeeeeeird. I’ve never used recreational drugs, wonder if this is what it means to be high. If so, I don’t like it much.

I stand, take a couple teetery steps. I think I might enjoy throwing up. But then I remember the coffee grounds and change my mind.

“The real me is a small person who lives inside the machine of my body,” I say out loud. “I inhabit the head, peep out the eye-windows, pull the levers of the mind.”

Wait. What am I saying?

I want to lie on the bed. But the prospect of climbing up the stairs is daunting. I should’ve moved my bedroom downstairs like everyone always says.

But wait. I am a free American. Widower. Living in my own home, with a paid-off mortgage. Loved by no one, which might be sad, but I am also therefore beholden to no one. In other words, I cannot be stopped—if I want, I can just throw myself down and lie here on the well- worn carpet in my living room.

Which I do.

*

When I wake, the quality of the sunlight streaming through the windows has somewhat changed. More golden. Time has passed.

I have lived in this house for decades, but never before spent any significant time lying on my back on the living room floor and staring up at the ceiling. Guess this shows that new perspectives are always possible. Even if they are really boring.

I’m still kind of fuzzy-headed, detached. Sensations arrive a bit delayed, like when you stub your toe and it takes a second for the pain to make itself known.

I decide to relax and listen to the cats. We have three: Athos, Porthos, and Stinky. They like to chase each other from room to room, jumping up onto windowsills to view outside something vitally important to cats—birds or squirrels, I guess—then jumping down to scamper to the next window to get a slightly different view. Whenever they land back down on the floor, they make a specific kind of thud—a cat thud, Wife calls it.

I lie on the carpet listening to the cat thuds. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds in a minute. Either our three cats are getting extremely worn out or we actually have a lot of cats I haven’t ever seen.

*

When I wake again the day is darkening. I feel a small amount of Puritan shame knowing I have spent so many hours snoozing on the living room floor. However, in truth this does not represent a significantly greater waste of time than the manner in which I usually pass my days.

I remember how happy I was listening to the cats a few hours earlier. Now, my mind somewhat clearer, I calculate that the last one of them died thirteen years ago.

Having to urinate badly, I am able, fortunately, to get to my feet with relative ease. I make it to the half-bath located off the kitchen just in time.

Though not particularly hungry, I heat and eat a can of tomato soup, then drop myself back into place in my favorite well-worn living room chair. I pull the pill caddy over from the table next to me and without hesitation take three more Creamsicle pills.

*

Much later, I open my eyes to darkness, and utter quiet.

After a moment, I realize I’m comfortably tucked up in bed, though I have no memory of having climbed the stairs.

In the bathroom, Wife begins gargling.

Afterwards, she emits a large sigh and switches out the bathroom light.

Then I hear the bedroom door creak open.

I sense her quiet footfalls as she approaches. I smell her perfume.

I shift over to make room in the bed and feel her modest weight settle upon the mattress next to me. Then, at last, I sense a thin arm slowly surrounding my neck. I feel Wife’s warm breath on my ear as she comes close to kiss me, her pale face looming in the darkness, and that’s when I know everything is going to be all right.

Originally published by The Oddville Press 2021

James W. Morris is a graduate of LaSalle University in Philadelphia, where he was awarded a scholarship for creative writing. He is the author of dozens of short stories, humor pieces, essays, and poems which have appeared in various literary magazines, and his first novel, RUDE BABY, was published last year. More info at www.jameswmorris.com.