Being Jim Ch. 08: Lightning Strikes

Monday dawned gray and rainy. I drove my little bug to the stadium and parked... I rode the shuttle bus to campus and made my way to my first class after spring break. It was my computer science class and I ran into most of the crowd from my study group at the lecture hall. We caught up for a few minutes before class started. I kind of tuned out during the lecture though, my mind on Kathie. I guess I was missing her something awful. When the class was over, I made my way to the student center and tried to call the house from a payphone... still no answer. I was starting to get worried now. I made it to my English class and again zoned out completely. I had to ask the TA after the class for the reading assignment again. After that I headed across campus to catch a shuttle bus to the stadium.

It was a short drive from the stadium parking lot to Kathie's house, it seemed so much longer though as the unsettled feeling of foreboding seemed to grow with every passing moment. As I pulled to the curb in front of the house, Kathie's big old Crown Victoria was pulling into the driveway. But as I got out of my car to walk to meet her, I was startled a bit to find Grace getting out of the big car. Grace, on the other hand, was a little startled to see me as well. I might have been imagining things but it looked as if she were troubled, or at least lost in thought just before she noticed me approaching her. Grace gave me a sad smile and opened her arms wide inviting a hug. The sad smile and the troubled look in her eyes made my stomach sour.

"Jim! Oh, darling you startled me... It's good to see you again... come give me a hug!" She said as stepped in and gave her a quick hug and helped her with her bags. I thought at first it was groceries but it was just plastic bags with clothes and stuff in them. I carried the bags and Grace opened the door. I followed her into the kitchen where she set down her purse on the table and took the bags from me to put them in the laundry room. I stood there with my hands on the back of one of the chairs and felt my heart racing as I waited for her to reemerge into the kitchen. Grace finally did come back into the kitchen and the way she glanced at me and then away so as not to hold eye contact just made me all the more anxious.

"Grace... Where's Kathie?" I asked in a far calmer voice than I thought would come out of my mouth. Grace stopped frittering about the kitchen and slowly walked over to me at the Table. She pulled out a chair and motioned for me to do the same next to her. I managed to sit down before my knees buckled as the sense of foreboding grew by a factor of ten. Grace didn't seem to know what to do with her hands as she clasped them together on the table in front of her as she collected her thoughts, her head tilted down slightly and glancing furtively at me again and again.

"Grace?" I began... this time the worry evident in my voice. The dark thoughts of dread that Kathie was hurt or worse flashing teasingly on the edge of my consciousness.

"Jim... Kathie loves you very much... So very much..." She began, still glancing furtively into my eyes. Her fingers were actually trembling.

"Did something happen? Is she okay? Where is she Grace?" I began to babble questions as I reached for her hands with one of mine.

"The last... the last morning you were here, as you were leaving there was a phone call... for Kathie..." Grace began again after she took a deep breath to gather herself. She kept her eyes locked on my hand on hers as she spoke. I nodded, I remembered the phone ringing and Grace coming to the door in the foyer as I was leaving.

"It was one of the doctors that had cared for Elly. Kathie had asked to be tested for ALS after she was told that it could be detected. She was tested and he was calling to tell her about the results. Jim... she does carry ALS..." Grace told me, finally turning her tear-filled eyes to mine. My gut turned to ice and my face went pale. This time Grace pulled her hands out from under my one and then grasped it in both of hers.

"She...she's sick?" I asked with a shaky voice. I had unbidden images of Kathie laying in a hospital bed somewhere.

"No Jim... she's not sick. The tests only showed that she had the gene markers for ALS... it means that she is a carrier... but it means that she could develop the disease later in her life... like her mother did." Grace explained in a rush trying to reassure me that Kathie was okay. But... there was still something wrong... more that she was not telling me yet.

"But if she's not... sick... where is she Grace?" I asked pleading her with both my question and my eyes. My stomach still churned.

"She's... she's resting Jim..." Grace said and then turned her gaze away again and bit her lip.

"She's here? In bed?" I asked and began to stand as if to go upstairs to her, but Grace gripped my hand in both of hers and held me back, she bid me sit back down with a sorrowful look.

"No, Jim. She's at the hospital... She had hoped to be home by now so that she could see you here but there was a complication with her procedure that required an extra day of observation..." Grace tried to explain but bit her lip realizing that perhaps she had said too much already.

"Hospital? Procedure?... Grace? What's wrong? What happened?" I asked in rapid fire, my gut literally boiling at this point and I stood up ready to bolt for the door and to go find Kathie.

"At the University Hospital... Here." Grace said as she handed me a slip of paper with a room number on it. "Jim... Please... You have to know that she loves you more than you can ever imagine... so very very much... please remember that..." Grace pleaded as tears finally broke free from her eyes and streamed down her cheeks. Those sweet cherubic cheeks that I had come to love as dear as any of my own family. I glanced down at the piece of paper with the room number on it and then back into Grace's teary eyes and all I could do was swallow and nod absentmindedly. I turned and somehow, I found myself walking into the main entrance of the University hospital. I don't remember getting back into my car or driving to the hospital or parking even... I was just...here.

I rode the elevator up to the floor and then found the nurses' station for that floor and asked for the room that Kathie was supposedly in. They asked if I was a family member and I explained that I was her fiancé. There were some curious looks exchanged between a couple of nurses but one led me down the hallway to the right room. The nurse asked me to wait in the hall for a moment first and ducked inside the room. I could hear a muffled conversation but not the actual words. A moment later the nurse came back out and said that it would be okay for me to go in for a few minutes. She said Kathie really did need her rest. I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped into the room.

The room was like any other typical hospital room. There was a place for two separate hospital beds with a track in the ceiling from which hung a curtain to provide privacy for either patient. The curtain was pulled back to one side at the moment as the other bed was unoccupied. The cool mint green institutional paint was almost dingy in the low light. The whole room smelled of antiseptic and faintly of alcohol or some other astringent.

The lone occupant of the room was my Kathie of course, she was propped up in bed with pillows behind her back. She was hooked up to the heart rate monitor and an IV hanging from a pole next to the bed. She had on one of those hospital gowns that closes in the back, and had blankets covering her legs and up to her waist. Her left hand was clasped to her breast holding that familiar double heart locket. Her head was turned towards the second bed, her eyes open and reddened and teary. Her right hand lay in her lap with a plastic ID bracelet on her wrist, and a handful of tissue in her clasp.

The sight stopped me in my tracks. I was frozen there in place and in time. My heart hurt to see Kathie in distress but when she turned her head and saw me... the look of pain in her eyes nearly killed me. Pain and remorse and... and what? Shame? Her lips were trembling and her eyes overflowed with tears even as she tried to smile. In a heartbeat I was beside her bed and I had her right hand in both of mine.

"I'm sorry Jim... I'm so so sorry..." She sobbed closing her eyes tightly and turning away. My heart lurched in my chest... my gut turned to liquid even as my head spun.

"Sorry for what? Kath... baby what's wrong? What happened?" I asked, I pleaded. Her body wracked with quiet sobs as she tried to apologize to me... for what I still didn't know.

"I couldn't do it Jim... I just couldn't do it... I won't do it... not to you... not to anyone... especially not to you." She lamented, her face contorted in pain and anguish. It was killing me.

"What? What couldn't you do? What's the matter Kath?" I pleaded, desperately trying to understand what had her so upset and why she was in the hospital in the first place. She just looked at me with those big grey brown eyes so full of pain and sorrow somehow begging me to understand. After a few moments she closed her eyes tightly and pressed her head back into the pillow under her head. She gasped several long deep breaths as if steeling herself for something.

"Jim... You know I love you... I... I will always love you dearly, nothing can ever change that. You know that right? She stated more than asked but I felt I had to respond.

"I know that Kath, sure but what's the matter babe? What's got you so upset?" I asked in a somewhat calmer tone, trying to calm myself as much as reassure Kathie that I was still here for her.

"I had myself tested Jim. I had to know. After... after what mom went through... how hard it was on her and all of us... I had to know." Kathie stammered, "I got the call back with the results, the morning you left the house before you went to Florida." She stopped for a moment, swallowing and taking another deep breath.

"I know, Grace told me you got tested for ALS..." I began but Kathie cut me off.

"I have it Jim... I have the gene for the disease... Do you know what that means?" She all but moaned.

"I get it Kath, I know that it's passed genetically, you have the marker... it doesn't mean you will get sick like your mom did..." I began, and again she cut me off.

"But I might!" She said with her face contorting in agony.

"But you might not... you might never come down with it..." I argued as calmly as I could. Kathie just started shaking her head negatively.

"And even if I don't, there's still the chance I'll pass the gene on to any children I have... possibly making their lives miserable..." She said... her eyes locked on mine... willing me to understand... or to forgive her.

"Kath... I... we..." I reached for words, struggling to wrap my mind around it all.

"I couldn't do that Jim. I won't do that. Ever... now I can't..." She spat out then her face caved in, her eyes closed and her whole body began to quake with sobs and she turned her head away from me. Her right hand weakly trying to pull away from my own hands. I felt like my world was falling apart... again...

"Kathie. Look at me. I'm here for you babe. I'll always be here for you, no matter what. I Love you Kath... nothing can ever change that, you know that." I professed... desperately trying to reach out to her, to make her understand that she was not alone.

"Jim. I refuse to put anyone else through what I and Grace and even you went through caring for my mom. I will not have anyone go through that for me... not even you. I had... I had..." She stumbled struggling to get whatever it was out that she needed to tell me. "I can no longer bear children, ever. We... can never have children... do you understand? I cannot bear your children." She spat out the words as if they were poison. Then gasped and shook with another round of body wracking sobs.

I Stood there beside her bed looking down on her. I was stunned to say the least. I heard the words, I understood what they meant but my heart was having a hard time accepting them. Our dreams and hopes and plans had just been ripped away from us. But my heart was not ready to give up yet, no! We could work this out. We could do something different.

"Kath... I get it... you don't want to continue ALS... But we can still have a family... we can... we can adopt. There are lots of kids out there who would love to have a mom like you..." I began as if I could make a deal, somehow, we could still make a family. But I still didn't get the entirety of what Kathie was trying to tell me. She just kept shaking her head. Once more she turned back to face me and opened her eyes to lock onto my own. This time along with the hurt and pain and love there was something else...

"Jim... I thought of that too, but that would be no different than having our own children, if I get sick, they would have to take care of me, you would have to take care of me. I won't have it. I refuse to have anyone I love have to suffer and take care of me like that. Don't you get it? I Love you too much to put you through that. You will make a great father, you will... but not with me. I want you to have your own children... and to do that you will have to find... someone... else. Please Jim! If you ever loved me, let me do this for you. Let me go Jim." Kathie spoke.

I heard the words... again... my heart heard them, my soul heard them, my brain heard, recorded and replayed them a dozen times over in my mind in the span of a couple of heartbeats. Then my heart stopped. My jaw went slack and my eyes overflowed with tears. My hands went limp and lifeless there on the side of that hospital bed as Kathie pulled her right hand from my hands and brought it to her left. She fingered the cheap little engagement ring that I had placed upon her finger not so long ago. With a deep resigned breath, she slowly drew the ring off of her finger and with both hands reached to take my right hand in hers. She carefully placed the ring in the palm of my hand and then closed my fingers over it.

"I will always love you Jim... till the day I die, I will. I hope you can forgive me someday and I hope you find someone else to make you as happy as you have made me. Someone who can give you the family that we dreamed of." With that she gave me the saddest smile I think I will ever see in my life. She lay back into the pillows again and brought both of her hands to her breast clutching that locket that I had given her for Christmas our first year. Tears streaming down her face.

I would say that I left the hospital room then, and made my way back to my car to drive off... but I really can't. I don't know what I did or how or when. I was lost in a fog. My mind was gone, I was cold and lost. My first recollections of anything after Kathie closing my fingers over the ring in the palm of my hand were of sitting on that lone picnic table at the edge of the lake in Jacobson Park. The ducks were surrounding me quacking and looking up at me with their little tilted heads as if trying to figure me out. The ring was still there in my hand. I had squeezed my hand so tightly at some point I had broken the skin of my palm and there was an imperfect circle cut into the flesh.

There was no blood though... One's heart has to be pumping for you to bleed, I guess. Mine was not. I didn't have a heart anymore. I kept hearing Kathie's words in my mind... over and over again... "If you ever loved me... let me go." I choked out a laugh of despair.

"Like I have any other choice!" I shouted to no one.

I Screamed in anguish at the heavens... the ducks freaked out and fled in all directions flapping and quacking in panic. I looked down at the ring in the palm of my hand again and my rage just doubled...

"WHY KATHIE?"

"WHY ME?"

"WHY?" I shouted again at the heavens then I hauled back and I threw that ring as far as I could out into the lake.

I hung my head and sobbed as the tears flowed. For the second time in my young life my soul had been ripped from my body. My heart... was gone. I was but a hollow shell. Somehow though, this time was even worse. This time there was no closure of finality like a funeral. My heart and my love still lived but would deny me out of... love for me. God, it hurt so much. Suddenly nothing seemed important anymore. How could it?

My life changed forever that day. You might say it was a new chapter in my life but it would truly be more akin to a new book entirely. I only saw Kathie from a distance a couple of times after that day. She saw me as well but we never spoke other than with sad eyes. Kathie ended up transferring from the university to Ohio State to finish her schooling and get her degree. She got her teaching certificate and went on to become an elementary school teacher. The last I heard of her she was teaching grade school in Oregon somewhere. She got her kids, a new bunch every school year. To my knowledge she never got married or even engaged again.

As for me, I lost all interest in school after that. I dropped out of college and went to work full time in management with Dom's. I had hopes of working my way up and qualifying for my own franchise at some point but that was another story altogether... Life has a way of making plans inconsequential. I did learn to love again. It took a long time and lots of patience from many very loving and understanding women in my life. And though there is no way I will ever love that one less, I have learned that the heart can love others if you give it a chance.

And it is true... Lightning really can strike twice.