Reflections from the Snow Ch. 03

I returned every day to visit Beth. We spent much of our time reminiscing. "Do you remember when . . ." conversations. I was vastly relieved to observe that over the course of my visits that Beth seemed to steadily improve. After about one week her color had returned to normal and she was able to walk on her own, albeit slowly, up and down the hall, an activity I dotingly aided her in.

After returning to Beth's room from one such expedition, she sat in the large lounge chair in her room rather than the bed. She looked much stronger. I felt I dared broach a subject I had been postponing until she was more resilient.

"Tell me about the day you saw me, last November," I said.

Beth took a long time to respond, as if gathering her thoughts and organizing the facts she had to convey.

"It was November 9th. Funny that I can remember the day, but it had been one of my chemo days. It was my second treatment, so it wasn't hitting me so hard yet. After about the third or fourth one, they really start to kick your butt. I still had most of my hair, but it was already starting to come out, so I wore this big knit cap that covered my whole head."

"Yes, I remember Mel mentioning something about you having a cap on."

"Mel?"

"The bartender you talked to, Mel. He owns the bar. He was the link that kept our chain from breaking entirely."

"Well, I had had my chemo earlier in the afternoon and still had to take care of some errands. They say it's good for you to stay active right after a chemo session, keep the blood circulating and all that. So I had done some shopping and was heading home. The weather had turned and it was turning into a nasty evening. I just had my head down trying to walk home as quick as I could. Then out of nowhere I see a hat go skittering past me on the sidewalk and a man stumbled after it. He kind of bumped me a little and it startled me. I glanced down but just caught a glimpse of his face as he kept chasing after his hat. I could have sworn it was you. It made me gasp, but you-I still can't believe it was you!-just kept walking. I just stood there, trying to talk myself into believing it was you. Not much had gone right for me that year and I had trouble believing that something with happy memories attached to it might actually come my way. Finally, I said to myself, 'Beth, if you don't check this out, you'll regret it.' So I ran after you. But you had gone down into the subway and by the time I got there you had already caught your train.

"So I just decided to go back home. But when I had gone a couple of blocks, some little voice inside said I shouldn't give up. I knew it was silly, but I just couldn't give up. So I went back to where you lost your hat. I thought maybe I had seen someone come out of one of the shops along there and thought maybe that had been you. I figured it must have been that bar, so I went in to see if anyone remembered you, knew you.

"I felt such a fool talking to that bartender. To Mel. He must have thought I was crazy. I remember him telling me that everyone wears hats in November. I was ready to skulk out of there, but he offered to take my name and number in case you showed up. That was sweet of him."

I squeezed her hand and smiled.

"Can you tell me about the phone number you left? I did call it, eventually, when Mel finally made the connection that I was the guy in the hat. But it was a couple of months later."

"Um, I was kind of in-between right then. My second husband, Randy, had left me not long before that. Kicked me out, may be more accurate. He had found a younger woman and was anxious to trade me in for a newer model. You know what it's like finding affordable housing around this place. I needed some place in a hurry so I was staying at my step-son, Bernie's, apartment."

"Bernard Viscoli," I elaborated.

"That's right. He had graduated from Boston College in the spring and just that fall had landed a job in Philadelphia. His lease went to the end of the year, though, so he let me move in until then. I just kept his phone and utilities, it would be such a short time."

"So when I finally called, in mid-January, you had already moved out and disconnected all the utilities, is that right?"

"Yes, that's what happened."

"And when, in the summer, I looked for Bernard Viscoli in the phone book, he was in Philadelphia, not in Boston."

"Yes, that's where he was, in Philly."

"So how long were you married to your second husband.? Randy?"

"Yes, Randy. I don't even like saying his name, it leaves this taste like dust in my mouth. We weren't even married two years. Saying yes to him was not one of my prouder moments. Roger had passed away about a year earlier, and Randy was just so insistent, and seemed so energetic and glamourous. And he had lots of money. That seemed so exciting to me. Roger didn't, he was just a hard-working guy who managed to make ends meet. But Randy would pick me up in his fancy cars and we lived in a nice house. He wanted me to quit my job, but I wouldn't do it. I think that was the start of his disenchantment with me, when he realized he couldn't manipulate me. He was very manipulative. I don't know what he wanted with a boring old nurse anyway."

"It's those eyes," I said. "They could enchant a blind man."

"Well, aren't you the flatterer!" she smiled. "Anyway, I'm better off without him and hope I may never see him again!"

After she had recounted these events to me, I could see Beth's eyelids grow heavy. I knew I had to let her get some rest.

"Here, let me help you get back into bed. I think you need a little beauty sleep right now."

Beth smiled wanly and nodded. I helped her into bed and tucked her in.

"I had better go now," I said, leaning in close. "I have to warn you that I'll be gone for a few days on a business trip, but I'll be back soon, I promise. OK?"

She nodded a little sleepily and grabbed my hand.

"Come here," she said with a little thrust of her chin, and I leaned in close. She reached up, placing her hand at the back of my neck and pulled me even closer. Whispering in my ear, she said, "I'm so glad to have you back in my life," and then gave me a little peck on the cheek.

I kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair. "Me too. Now, I'll see you in a few days, right?"

She nodded, eyes already drifting closed.

My business trip lasted three days, so four days later I returned for a visit. I confidently strode into her room bearing flowers, but to my bewilderment, the room was empty. The bed was made and there was no sign of Beth or her belongings.

I ran to the nurses station.

"Where is Beth Morris?" I inquired anxiously.

The nurse there didn't even have to consult her records. "Beth's been in ICU for the last two days," she said.

I bolted for the elevator without waiting for more.

"She can't have visitors!" the nurse shouted over my abandoned flowers at my retreating back.

When I got to the ICU, I ran up to the main desk.

"Beth Morris," I stated, out of breath from my harried dash.

"Are you a relative?" she inquired coolly.

"Look, she'll want to see me. Can you just ask her?"

"No, I'm afraid not. There's a reason she's in ICU."

"What's wrong with her?"

"I'm sorry. If you're not a relative . . ."

I pounded my fist in frustration.

"Can I use that phone?" I asked, pointing to a handset on the counter.

The nurse nodded her permission and I dialed Sally's extension.

"Sally, this is Robert," I blurted out when Sally came on the line. "What on earth is going on with Beth? Why is she in ICU?"

"She's had a setback," Sally answered.

"Setback? What kind of setback?" I demanded.

"Hang on, I'll be down in a few minutes. It will be easier to explain."

About 15 eternal minutes later nurse Sally walked up.

"Tell me, what's happening?" I asked desperately.

Sally led me over to a waiting area and we both took seats.

"Beth has developed an infection," she explained. "It's a risk after surgery like this, and this one has proven very stubborn. She hasn't responded to the first antibiotics they gave her. They're going to try another round of a different type. We won't know for a while if they're working."

"And what happens if they don't?" I asked tremulously.

Sally's mouth drew to a thin line and she slowly shook her head. "Let's just hope they do," she said finally.

I felt my eyes burn and tears began to streak my cheeks.

"No! No, this can't be!" I slapped the arm of the chair in frustration and sudden despair. "I can't lose her again, not now!"

Sally patted me consolingly on my back.

"None of us can bear the thought of losing her," she said. "But it's out of our hands now. We just have to have faith."

"Can I at least see her? Please, please! Let me be with her!"

"I'll see what I can do," Sally said, rising.

She talked for several minutes to the nurse at the ICU desk. The nurse made a phone call, and the two of them talked a little more. Then Sally returned to me.

"She won't be responsive, and you can't touch her. But follow me, we can see her for a little while."

I followed Sally into the ICU. We both donned surgical masks and used sanitizer on our hands. Sally led me over to a curtained area, held open one edge of the curtain and beckoned me in.

Beth lay inert on the bed, a breathing mask on her face, an IV drip in her arm. Her complexion was sallow, her breathing shallow and irregular.

I looked imploringly at Sally.

"Try talking to her," she suggested.

I turned back to Beth.

"Beth? Beth, I hope you can hear me. Beth, I know you. I know you can pull through this. I know what kind of strength you have. I've seen it. I've seen your fearlessness. Use that, Beth, tap into that spirit that I know you still have in you."

I looked at Sally.

She mouthed silently, "Keep talking!"

"Beth, sweetheart. You know, I spent a lot of time and trouble finding you. And we've only had a week together. You've got to give me a little more chance than that! Think of all the things we can do once you're better. We could go skiing again! Wouldn't that be a hoot? And this time you'll know that you really don't need to look out for snow snakes! Beth? Please stay with me. I don't know if I can endure losing you again. Can you try, Beth? Can you do that for me?"

I went on this way for another several minutes before one of the ICU nurses came back to shoo us away.

I called work the next day and told them I was taking an indefinite leave. Then I parked myself in the ICU waiting room. Sally got me in to see Beth a few more times over the next two days, but nothing much changed.

On the third day, after a tedious day alternately sitting in and pacing around the waiting area, Sally came rushing in.

"There's news!" she said. "Follow me!"

I hurried after her. Sally spoke in quietly urgent tones to the nurse at the desk, then motioned me to follow her into the ICU. After putting on our masks, we nearly ran over to Beth's bed. Sally pulled the curtains closed around us and walked over to Beth.

"Are you with us, sweetie?" she asked gently.

Beth opened her eyes and took us both in. She still had on her breathing mask, and she tried to reach up to pull it down, but couldn't. Sally pulled it down for her.

"Just for a few seconds sweetie, just for a few seconds."

Beth's eyes fixed on mine.

"You're here," she said so faintly, I almost couldn't make out her words.

"Yes, of course I'm here," I said, coming over to her. "Of course I'm here!"

She gazed at me a few seconds longer, then closed her eyes and sank back into her pillow.

"You're here," she said one more time.

Sally gently restored her mask and said, "We'll be back. Now you just rest."

Beth's recovery from that point on was rapid. Another day later she was back in a regular room, and a week after that she was released. I visited her every day until she was back in the small apartment she rented in a quite frankly not great part of town and we had lunch or dinner regularly after that.

Beth was able to resume part-time work about a month later and was working back to resuming a normal full-time schedule towards the end of the year. Our relationship had evolved to that of very close friends. Some unspoken agreement-or perhaps it was a barrier-between us kept our relationship platonic. I yearned for something more, but knew that the time wasn't right.

At Thanksgiving I got to meet her step-son, Bernie, who was a delightful young man. Much more mature than I was at his age, I decided. Beth's parents had both passed away some years ago, and her one sibling, a much older sister, lived in Florida. Bernie was the only family she really had, at least nearby.

As Christmas approached, I sensed an increasing distance, almost moroseness, from Beth. I thought perhaps the holidays might have been particularly difficult for her, given how life had tossed her around over the last several years. I tried to think of doing something that might lighten her spirits when I recalled my good old friend Charlie, whose family owned a rustic cabin in New Hampshire in the area of the White Mountain National Forest. Val and I had spent a few days there with him and his then wife one winter. It was a small but cozy place tucked in the woods and would make a terrific getaway.

I asked Charlie if it would be available anytime over the holidays. He said he would check with his family and came back with good news.

"It's available for four days right after Christmas," he told me. "It's yours if you want it."

"Thanks pal!" I thanked him. "I owe you one!"

"Hate to break it to you my friend, but you owe me three or four by this point. But don't worry, I'll collect later."

I approach Beth about the idea. Could she get off that many days in a row?

"If I work Christmas day and New Year's, I can probably manage to trade my shifts. Let me see what I can do."

Eventually it was all worked out and on the morning of the 26th, we were on our way north. The cabin was as I remembered-charming and private. Recent snows truly made it look like a winter wonderland.

I had brought provisions and we made a light lunch once we got unpacked, then went for a long walk along a quiet country road. There were snowshoes among the permanent store of equipment Charlie's family kept at the cabin, and I had planned a little snowshoeing expedition the next day to a nearby patch of national forest.

The cabin was a two-bedroom affair with a large central room featuring a fireplace faced by a plush leather couch liberally sprinkled with pillows and throw blankets. I made no presumptions. I threw my bag in the smaller bedroom and got Beth set up in the larger one. That evening we had a nice dinner with wine, chatted comfortably by the fire until we got tired, and went to our respective rooms.

The snowshoeing adventure the following day was a complete success. Beth took to snow like a squirrel to nuts. Her cheeks flushed a healthy pink and the sunlight reflecting off the snow gave her eyes an animated gleam. A smile never left her lips.

We treated ourselves to dinner at a nice restaurant in a nearby town and then went back to the cabin. I made a roaring fire and served up two big mugs of hot chocolate to cap our day. Beth snuggled up under a blanket at one end of the couch and sipped her chocolate.

"Do you know what this reminds me of?" she asked, raising her mug.

"A certain ski trip, I do believe," I answered.

"And a certain secluded corner of a lodge deck," Beth added.

I smiled in remembrance. "You were such a rascally little tease back then."

"I just liked making you happy. Nothing teasing about that."

"And you did. You made me very, very happy."

Beth was quiet for a long while, sipping her chocolate and gazing at the fire.

Finally she spoke again.

"What happened to us, Robbie?"

I stared into my mug, hoping to find a good answer there, but none surfaced. This was the moment that I knew was coming, the moment that I dreaded. But I also realized that this was the bridge that we had to cross. On the other side lay a treacherous landscape of memories, feelings, hurts, and betrayals. If we had any hope of a future together, a future that I had come to realize I fervently desired, we had to find a way to navigate around those obstacles together.

"I wish I had an easy answer for you, Beth," I answered finally, my face burning with shame. "But I don't. I can tell you one thing, and I hope you can forgive me for it, but it was all my fault. You did everything you could to keep us going. I was the one that . . . well, that just let things go."

"Didn't you love me?" she asked.

"Of course I loved you! You can't doubt that!"

"Then why . . . I just don't understand why you gave up so easily."

I tried to formulate a reasonable sounding response, something that made my actions appear rational, understandable. But there was nothing rational about it.

"There may be reasons, but I want you to know that I understand they're not excuses."

I paused before going on. Beth clutched her mug of chocolate, alternately looking at me and intently studying a spot on the blanket covering her legs.

I plunged forward.

"Back then, when I was with you, you were my whole world. I couldn't imagine wanting anything else than to be with you. But once you left, left for a home all the way across the country, I had difficulty keeping that clarity of feeling. There was a world in front of me, and it called me. I just lacked the . . . I don't know what to call it-the imagination, the determination-to keep things going over such a long distance. I was young, Beth, and I wasn't a mature youth. I'm sorry I failed you. I'm sorry I hurt you. I have regretted it many times since, believe me! But it was nothing inherent in you, nothing wrong with the way I felt about you. I was just . . . flawed, weak."

Beth continued to study her spot. I anxiously let her process what I had said, hoping she wouldn't just throw her mug of chocolate in my face and demand to be taken home.

She finally spoke.

"The way I felt about you-I had never felt that way about anyone before, have never felt that way about anyone." she said. "It just . . . it just . . . I felt abandoned. I thought it was a fault in me."

Her eyes brimmed with tears, as did mine in sympathy.

"No, Beth. Nothing could be further from the truth! The memory of you, the memory of us, in that time, has always been the ideal that I have used to measure my life against since. And as I've gotten older, I've come to realize how rare it is to find what we had together. I was a fool to let that slip from my fingers. A young fool, but a fool nonetheless."

I leaned forward and gathered one of her hands in my own. She set down her mug and grasped my hands in return.

I looked her in the eye.

"Can you find a way to forgive me?"

Beth gazed at our hands for a long while, then met my eyes.

"Since you've come back into my life, you've been a like a shaft of sunlight in my darkened room. But I've been afraid to believe that we could find what we once had. I'm afraid to open that door."

Tears streaked her cheeks. She reached under the blanket and fished a tissue out from somewhere. She dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

"You know, we've never really talked about it, but Sally told me what you did to track me down. I didn't know you had so much of the detective in you!" She laughed quietly, then blew her nose again.

"Once I had found you-well, sort of found you-I wasn't going to let you slip away again," I replied. "I just couldn't!"

"You really wanted to find me that badly?"

"I didn't know how badly I wanted you back in my life at first, but I just couldn't let go of the possibility . . . The possibility of what we had, and maybe could have again."