Deep waters, p.8
Deep Waters, page 8
But the transition from Clinton’s progressive conservation policies to the George W. Bush administration, which beat back existing environmental regulations, had been rough for his agency. Under Bush II, functional gag orders descended on some federal scientists, constraining research on climate change and marine reserves. Those high-level edicts—and some missteps on Jim’s part—coupled with having an inspiring, broad-thinking boss replaced by a micromanaging one, drained his spirit and corroded his health. The situation became bad enough that he formulated a plan to retire early and continue working as an independent contractor.
I hadn’t wanted him to leave his federal job, afraid it might not be good for him and that doing so could put our family at financial risk. For months, I witnessed the toll the new regime extracted—he didn’t sleep well, and his weight and cholesterol levels rose. Finally, I agreed to his exit strategy.
He wrapped up key projects and helped his staff transition to reasonable alternatives and then retired at fifty-six and a half, the exact day he could do so with health benefits for our family. His plan was to morph from agency scientist into the subcontractor for building us an energy-efficient house north of town and become an independent research biologist.
A problem with the plan was that I loved our neighborhood and the home where we were raising our son. I worried even a small house would take longer than we expected to design and build, cost more than budgeted, and that all the little choices—from light fixtures and appliances to doorknobs and toilets—would wear us down, burn through our life energy. I knew a couple who had spent three years planning and managing construction, then divorced three months after moving into their sparkling house. Neither of us had a smoldering desire to build a home. Would the diversion eliminate other dreams, like his desire to sail our boat to a warm ocean? Who would we blame for lost opportunities?
His departure from the federal government backed us into a negative feedback loop. He didn’t like how much I worked, but without his income, I needed to work more to earn more.
When the city opened a lottery for parcels of land, we bought a spruce-covered acre on the outskirts of Juneau. We hiked the densely forested slope at Lena Point with our son, climbing over fallen trees through canopy-filtered rays of light. New spears of skunk cabbage melted their way up through lingering patches of snow. Glen balance-walked across the trunk of a fallen, four-foot-diameter spruce. Its splayed roots clenched blue sky, like giant grieving fingers. Devil’s club leaves the size of an elephant’s ears caught light like ancient umbrellas on spiny stalks. Squirrels chittered at us from above. We peered up through binoculars at a bald eagle nest on the adjacent property. Jim adjusted the house plan to include a higher deck platform where we could watch gangly eagle chicks hatch and fledge.
We hired a contractor to excavate a steep driveway, haul in boulders and rocks, and scrape out a small foundation. Money poured out of our account into the rustic hillside.
And then his vertebral artery delaminated.
A door slammed, bringing me back to the hotel room. How could I have assumed his health was a given? Had my buried resentment over his leaving a secure job contributed to the stroke by pushing us apart? Alone in the dark room, my mind zeroed in on our conflicts before the stroke. The harsh echo of Jim’s blameful words that morning stirred doubt into my view of us as a strong couple.
11
SLIPPING
Like a travel-weary couple in an airport terminal, Jim listened to a podcast while I flipped through a magazine. We were still simmering from hot to warm over our alternate views of what caused his stroke. The phone rang.
“Hey, Beth.” It was our friend Lesley, a veterinarian from Juneau we knew through Bill Brown. “I’m in Seattle for a doctor’s appointment. I’d like to drop by to see Jim.”
I covered the receiver and relayed her offer.
He shook his head, mouthing, “Not today.”
I stared back until he nodded.
Lesley arrived, dark shiny hair worn down, rather than bundled in a tight knot. She glanced around the room and said, “This is the shits.”
Interest ignited Jim’s expression. While he scooted to a more upright position, I hugged our friend.
Whenever she visited us in Juneau, her stories of dog and cat surgeries, and her interesting travels, peppered with unfiltered language, made me check to make sure Glen was beyond earshot. She set a woven basket on the bed. “I smuggled in some contraband—real food. You gotta have a break from the crap they serve. Here’s some guacamole and a round of Brie.”
“Wow. Thank you. What brings you to Seattle?” Jim rasped.
“I’m going to give you two time to talk.” I gathered up my pack and jacket and left.
Grateful for a break, I walked to the hotel. Raindrops spattering my hood made me feel closed in, alone. Seeing Lesley, I found it hard to believe that a week earlier we’d been in Juneau, caught up in the demands of my job, prepping the house to sell, and parenting. What I’d give to go back to that—do things differently to change the future.
For months, I’d been pulling away from Jim. Had I been afraid to face what wasn’t working between us? He wanted me to put more energy into our personal lives, less into my job. I hadn’t wanted to. I’d avoided the topic, holding my emotional breath to make it to summer.
At the inn, I returned a few calls and then shoved dirty clothes into the duffel Brendan had used to ship items to us. In the basement, I started a load of laundry. Back in the room, I finished a CaringBridge entry. While moving clothes to the dryer, I argued myself into a run. The spitting rain, Jim’s uncertain prognosis, our recent clash—and a craving for Glen’s steadying exuberance—made me ache for home. I was stumbling too close to the emotional equivalent of a steep, muddy slope. I pulled on jogging tights and jacket and got out the door before a mudslide of despair engulfed me.
Afterward, I went to the basement to retrieve the laundry. The duffel had been moved. Odd, I thought. Folding and stacking warm, clean clothes into the bag, I savored the simple satisfaction of accomplishing something.
I showered, dressed, and remembered Jim wanted me to bring his cell phone. I unzipped the outside pouch of Brendan’s duffel where it had been. No phone. I ran my hand through the other compartments. Where could it be? Had I removed it? No. Did it fall out? I hurried back to the basement and searched the table and both washers and each dryer. As before, there was no one else in the room. Ear to the floor, I checked under the machines. Not there. Dust motes only.
“No, ma’am. Nothing turned in today,” was the answer to my question at the front desk.
Could someone have stolen it? The thought alone hurt. Not possible. Life is not like that. People here aren’t like that.
On the rehab floor, Rebecca waved hello from down the hall. I rounded the curtain to Jim’s space, dreading his mood. “Hey, hon. How was your visit?”
“Good. Lesley was right on.”
Those were the most positive words I’d heard in days.
“She seemed to get what it’s like to be trapped here. Stuck in this body. I-I didn’t expect it, but she hit the mark. We had a good conversation. She’s scheduled for a lumpectomy tomorrow, to find out if her cancer’s spread.”
“I forgot she was dealing with breast cancer. She’s a tough cookie. So kind of her to stop by.”
“Yeah.” He reached out and patted the bed for me to lie down.
Head on his pillow, I snuggled in, an arm and leg draped over him. Her visit had broken our logjam.
“Did you remember the cell phone?” We were among the last of our Juneau friends to buy our first cellular phone. His fingers were too big to finesse a normal keypad, so he’d bought a special AT&T model with a slide-out keyboard. We’d owned the novel device one month.
“Bad news. It was stolen.”
“What?”
“I forgot it was in a pocket on Brendan’s duffel, which I used to carry the laundry. Someone took it while our clothes were drying.”
“Damn.” Jaw tense, his eyes narrowed.
I climbed onto him, chest to chest. “I’m so sorry.”
He exhaled hard. “It’s no big deal. Thanks for all you’re doing.”
I fought back tears. The theft on top of everything else felt like a bad omen.
He rubbed my back. “Really. It’s okay.”
Soon Dr. Zenkel, head of the Rehab Department, arrived. His salt-and-pepper hair and beard were neatly trimmed as if he’d visited his barber instead of going to lunch. I liked how Zenkel engaged us both. Already fully aware of Jim’s history, he asked about his motor skills and led him through the visual test every new doctor had given.
“I see you’re still leaning. How’s walking?”
“Better. They’re letting me go short distances without holding the belt.”
“With or without a walker?”
“With.”
The doctor was trim and fit, a reassuring attribute for someone leading the physical therapy team.
Jim said he’d recently heard that ideas about the brain’s inability to rewire as we age had been challenged. “What do you know about that?”
Zenkel switched gears from doctor-doing-rounds to animated professor. “You’re right. There’s exciting research coming out. A book was published last year, The Brain that Changes Itself. It’s a collection of remarkable stories of the brain’s plasticity and cutting-edge research.”
Jim perked up. “A couple of months ago, I listened to an interview with the author, Norman Doige.”
I grabbed my notebook and wrote down the title.
Zenkel told us about a physician who’d had a stroke in the 1950s. Back then, the dogma was human brains were hardwired after about eighteen years. The man lost his ability to walk, but decided to try to retrain himself from the same stage as a baby—crawling. At first, he dragged his body around the house, scraping his knees raw. He pushed himself through the next stages, like a toddler. He became frustrated at his slow progress but eventually, he walked again. “Before that,” Zenkel said, “stroke survivors were assumed to be permanently impaired. Patients were sent home with a wheelchair and that was about it.”
“No kidding,” Jim said.
“Years later an autopsy revealed the section of the man’s brain involved in walking and mobility had, as expected, been damaged by the stroke. But cells nearby had been recruited to take over their roles. The doctor’s work went unrecognized for decades. New studies reinforce these ideas.”
“Fascinating,” Jim said.
Zenkel told us about mounting evidence that our brains benefit from hard workouts, just like our muscles. “Every minute a stroke isn’t treated, we lose about two million neurons and fourteen billion neural connections. That’s about the size of a pea every twelve minutes a stroke goes untreated. If you have more neurons and connections before a stroke, as you probably did,” Zenkel gestured to Jim, “recovery tends to be better, because you’ve lost proportionally fewer. By pushing ourselves to acquire new skills, rather than doing only what’s familiar—or what we’re already good at—we can keep our brains healthier. The more you challenge yourself—by taking up tennis, say, or a new language or instrument—the more neurons you’ll have.”
“I’d like to learn more about this,” Jim said.
Zenkel shook our hands and said he’d get him a copy of a recent research paper.
After the doctor left, Jim sat taller, engaged and alert in a way that gave me hope we’d turned a corner.
When Chuck returned with Glen, I scooped our boy up. “Sweetheart, how are you?”
He grinned and squirmed as I planted kisses on his rosy cheek. “I’ve only been gone a couple days.” I set him down, tousling his hair.
“We loved having him,” Chuck said. “Every chance he got he was out throwing the ball for Kitka and Yukon. We’d have kept him longer, but with the kids in school and us at work, we couldn’t.”
Glen leaned against Jim. “Dad. You have to see their place. Oh, yeah.” He reached in his backpack. “We made this for you.” He unfolded a red heart with Get well soon, Jim! on it and signed by everyone.
Chuck placed a hand on Jim’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I have to make this a tight turnaround.”
We thanked him and waved goodbye.
“Hey, Glen,” Jim said. “You can help me get better. I’m supposed to play catch to improve hand-eye coordination.” He pulled a green ball out from the bedside drawer and tossed it.
Glen caught it and stepped back against the wall. He threw the ball and Jim snatched it with a quick swipe. On the third toss, Jim missed. The ball ricocheted off the sink. Glen slid on his belly under the bed, scooped it up, scrambled out, and threw it back.
Watching them, my shoulder muscles loosened.
“Tonight you get lasagna,” said an orderly as he set a tray in front of Jim.
Jim had graduated from a liquid-only diet to nectar-thick purées by the teaspoon. For a man who loved to fish and scheduled fall deer-hunting expeditions to fill our freezer, this diet was a severe step down.
Glen peered at the tray. “Which is the lasagna?”
The orderly hesitated, then pointed to a pinkish purée. “I assume this one.”
We exchanged skeptical looks.
Glen’s eyebrows rose. “Can I taste it?”
“Uh, sure.”
He leaned over the bed and scooped a spoonful of the yogurt-like substance. He made a face before swallowing. “Hmm.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “Not as bad as I expected.”
Jim took a spoonful. “Edible, perhaps.” He squinted at Glen. “But not even the same species as your mom’s lasagna.”
On our way back to the hotel after saying goodnight, we agreed Jim was doing better.
Glen suggested pizza for dinner. While he showered, I dozed off. When the food arrived, I spread a towel on my bed and opened the warm, cardboard box.
Refreshed and clean in underwear only, Glen pranced impatiently. He lifted the largest pepperoni-dotted triangle above his head with both hands and slid the narrow drooping tip into his mouth. “This is great,” he mumbled.
I set a slice on a paper plate and sawed at it using a plastic knife and fork.
He stood, savoring big bites. Between chewing, he sang, “Pizza, pizza, pizza pie.” His skinny body danced to the made-up ditty, ending with, “I’m so hungry I could eat the sky.”
Watching him made me smile. It had been a long, difficult week with all meals in restaurants or hospital cafeterias. Being there together in the small room put me at ease. I snapped open the Caesar salad we’d ordered to share, stripped cellophane off a plastic fork, and gave it to him.
He set his half-eaten slice on the oil-blotched lid and lifted a wedge of dressed lettuce with his fingers.
“Hon-ey.” I heard my whiny voice. “Don’t use your hands to eat salad.”
He swallowed, then leaned back onto the other bed, elbows jutted back on the mattress, gears working. Lifting a knobby-kneed leg, he guided a bare foot toward the salad container. His expression expanded to an eye-crinkling smile. His first two toes scissored against each other, hovering over the tray until they snagged a piece of lettuce.
“What are you doing?” Then it hit me: He was obeying.
He raised the foot with the pale green rag of lettuce dangling from it and cocked his leg to deliver the morsel to his mouth. His gyrations made me buckle over with laughter. The harder I laughed, the more absurd his antics became. Without warning, laughter twisted into uncontrollable crying.
Glen stepped in close and asked if I was okay.
Gulping air, I repeated, “It’s okay. I’m okay.” I held his hand tight. The collision of joy and sorrow was the release I needed.
As I fell asleep, stomach muscles aching, I vowed to never take the sweet taste of normalcy for granted.
12
BEAR TRAP
I woke before first light and reached for Jim. How could I forget? I stared at Glen’s smooth face circled by splayed-out too-long hair. Day eight, I thought. Today, we’ll find a barber. He slept with one leg sprawled on top of the covers. Half the sheet was twisted out from the side of the narrow bed and wadded over the blanket. I marveled that one sleeping boy could generate so much turmoil. Remembering his salad antics made me smile. Where did he get that sense of humor?
One morning when he was three and a half, we were in the kitchen. He’d dumped out his bucket of magnetic letters, so I joined him on the floor. I arranged five from the colorful medley and asked him what they spelled. He was learning the alphabet.
His lips moved and then he called out, “Donut!”
I removed two and waited.
“Nut.”
I added three new letters and he said, “Peanut!”
We were connected in a learning volley, as exhilarating as a sustained tennis rally.
“What would ‘peanut’ be if we add an s?” I asked, sliding the red letter into place.
With an elfish smile, he said, “Dinner!”
Six years later, and my son still made me laugh more than anyone.
While coffee percolated, I looked out the window at the four-story stone building next door. We’d spent all our time at the hospital, venturing outdoors only to eat or buy supplies. With Jim healing, I decided this was the day we could also visit the Seattle Aquarium.
I opened my laptop and navigated to the CaringBridge website. In the electronic guestbook sat forty-three entries. A pulse of gratitude rose so steeply it hurt.
For a quiet hour, I read replies and composed my second entry, invigorated by Jim’s improved outlook.
At six thirty I typed, Thank you all for your support, and pressed submit. I was standing at the window when the phone rang. Who would call so early? I belly-flopped onto my bed and snatched the receiver off the night table. Glen rolled toward me, eyes closed.
