Dear Diary, I'm In Love Read online

  I closed my eyes to block out the pain. “As soon as Becky’s better, I’m leaving.” When I again looked over at him, he started to reach his hand across the table, hesitated then withdrew it.

  He nodded. He really didn’t have to say he agreed with me—that it was best for us to be at opposite ends of the country. We got up and silently returned to the corridor outside of Becky’s room. A nurse summoned Dr. Gupta who again told us there was no point in our continuing to stay. We left. We said little to each other beyond “good bye” and then took separate taxis.

  June 4, evening

  I’m being torn apart. I called Eric and we talked only about Becky. Without agreeing to, in so many words, we’re managing to avoid each other. I went to the hospital this morning, and he went in the afternoon. Dr. Gupta was there early, looking weary. She said that the treatments had begun and that Becky would be under heavy sedation from now on. A bone marrow transplant may be essential and, of course, I had myself tested immediately. No match.

  I didn’t go into Becky’s room for more than a few minutes. She was groggy beyond the point where she recognized me. It was too much for me to sit there and see how thin and frail she seemed.

  June 4, late evening

  Eric called. He had himself tested too. No match. We spoke for almost half an hour. Or rather we stayed on the phone that long. Neither of us talked about anything but Becky. There were long silences. I’m going to bed now, because I can’t think of anything else to do. Besides, I’ve started to cry and I’m not sure how much of my tears are for Becky, and how much are for me—seeing her suffering, not seeing Eric.

  June 5, evening

  I spent most of the day shopping—or pretending to shop. Pretending the wedding would happen and happen soon. I didn’t buy anything. I went to the hospital twice. No change. Dr. Gupta couldn’t be nicer, but I know she’s worried. Becky doesn’t seem to be responding to the radiation treatments so they’re running a whole new battery of tests on her. I wanted badly to call Eric, but I didn’t. What could I say?

  June 6

  I should have called, since Eric was at the hospital when I arrived this morning. So was Dr. Gupta. I could tell from Eric’s expression that the news was bad. Dr. Gupta explained. “I think we can manage the leukemia, but there has been internal bleeding which is sometimes a complication accompanying acute lymphocitic leukemia. The problem is that this bleeding seems to be due to a bacterial infection in the blood stream. We’re using massive doses of new antibiotics, but she isn’t responding well.”

  I didn’t have to ask. She went on without prompting. “I can’t promise anything, except that we’ll do our very best. You can see her now, but only for a few moments; we’re going to have to give her another transfusion very shortly. She’s conscious and she’s asked to see you—both of you.”

  Even though I’d prepared myself, the sight was shocking. Along with all the tubes, Becky’s exposed arm was a horrible blue black from wrist to shoulder. Her face was unbelievably pale, distorted by the tube inserted in one nostril. She tried to smile as we entered, then closed her eyes at the effort. Eric sat at one side of the bed, I drew a chair up to the other side. Surprisingly, despite all the drugs that were undoubtedly pouring through her system, her eyes when they opened were bright and alert.

  “I guess I’ve really made a mess of things,” were her first words.

  I responded almost angrily. “Becky! How could you think that, at a time like this. Concentrate on getting well. That’s all that matters.” Eric was holding her hand, and I could see the tears in his eyes.

  “But I knew I was sick. I should have come in weeks ago, when I first begin to feel ill. I just kept putting it off and putting it off. I thought it was just the flu. If I’d come in sooner, there wouldn’t be all this.” She feebly waved her free hand at the tubes.

  Eric and I kept interrupting each other as we nervously tried to say something soothing, something reassuring. I could have sworn Becky was amused by our efforts. The doled-out time passed all too quickly. A nurse and another attendant came in with a metal trolley. We took the hint, said our good-byes, and headed out to the hall. The ever-present Dr. Gupta greeted us and said she would know more by afternoon. She suggested the cafeteria, with the implication we had better stay nearby… an implication which terrified me.

  Neither of us could stand the thought of food, so we settled for coffee. We spoke little, peering over our cups and trying to read each other’s minds. Our mostly-silent break was interrupted by a page over the speaker system. We jumped up and ran for the elevator.

  June 7, evening

  My fingers seem to be moving by themselves. I have to write, yet I’m so torn by grief I’m not sure what I’m writing.

  We had only moments with her, and we were surrounded by nurses, doctors, machines. She was more alert than she had been when we visited before—and she knew. She knew.

  Taking Eric’s hand she moved it across the bed toward me and I reached out for it, the first time we’d touched each other since that light kiss on the cheek the first day we’d met. Becky smiled. “I know how you two feel about each other. I’ve seen the looks in your eyes. I know you’ll take good care of each other. Please do. For me—please.”

  And that was it. Dr Gupta shook her head. I thought there were tears in her eyes. There certainly were in Eric’s and mine. We both looked at each other uncomprehendingly as one of the nurses who had been watching the monitors looked over at Dr. Gupta, her face confirming the doctor’s unspoken words.

  The next thing I knew, I was in Eric’s arms. We hugged each other and cried unashamedly. The attendants began to remove all the apparatus. It was over.

  What now? I’m not sure. Funeral arrangements, of course. Becky wanted a traditional wedding, but long ago we’d agreed that whichever one of us survived would see that a minimum of fuss would be made over our deaths. Eric agreed.

  I’m not sure what he’ll say to me tomorrow. I’m even less sure about what I’ll say to him.

  ***

  December 18, afternoon

  I’ve just come into my office from off the wet and cold streets of Seattle. There are even a few snowflakes mixed with the rain. It reminds me of how mixed my own feelings are at the moment.

  If these were actual diary pages, they would have long ago been filled. Maybe it’s time to write the last words, to move on to living rather than writing about it. I’m still not sure. Since Becky died, I’ve felt a terrible emptiness—depression at its worst—and these pages have overflowed with thoughts of her… and of Eric. I’m not sure it was the best decision he and I made—for me to leave. And, as I look back at it, I’m not sure there has been any sense to my feeling so guilty about falling in love with the man my sister was in love with. In fact I’m not sure of anything—but I finally made a decision, just this morning.

  The decision came with the help of all these words I’ve written and with the help of my live therapist. She said there had to be closure, that I had to get in touch with Eric, and if we decided to get together there would be no longer any need for either therapist—her or this diary.

  So, I emailed Eric, today. It’s the first contact I’ve had with him since what is now more than six months. He emailed back immediately and said he would call right about now. My decision is that I’m going to tell him that I love him—that I want to be with him. Will he say the same to me? As I said, I’m not sure of anything, but I’ll know in a moment.

  The phone’s ringing.

  ____________________

  TWICE IN A BLUE MOON

  I’m not about to claim it had been an unhappy marriage. In fact, from what I’ve seen of other people’s marriages, ours was probably above average in the happiness department. I guess you would call us childhood sweethearts. Gil had played high school football, but hadn’t been a star. I was a cheerleader, and no great star at that, either. To this day, I can’t remember who took the initiative so far as marriage was concerned. We seemed to ju
st drift into it. Were we in love? I suppose so. Or perhaps we were simply doing what was expected of us.

  It worked out well enough. We had two agreeable kids who managed to escape the worst of adolescence. Betty, the adventurous one, is off in the Peace Corps, doing community development in Bolivia. Darren is just about to finish his engineering degree.

  We also had a comfortable home, all paid for, good times together—including a much-remembered tour of Europe—and work that was satisfying for both of us. Gil was a CPA in a successful firm, and I’d found my niche as a children’s librarian at the local library. So money was no problem. Relatives weren't either, with Gil’s safely living in Florida and my folks even further away in Hawaii. Sex had become infrequent and perfunctory, but twenty-two years of marriage probably did that to most couples.

  The problem was Tony, pure and simple. Tony was a stockbroker who had guided Gil into a couple of highly remunerative investments some five years ago. Their business relationship soon became a satisfying friendship between the two of us and Tony and his wife, Beatrice.

  Bea seemed a fragile little thing, a year or so younger than me. But her appearance was deceiving. I soon got the impression, in part from Tony, that she had a mind of her own and didn’t hesitate to express it. Tony, on the other hand, was what I guess you might call ruggedly handsome, though I didn’t think much about it when we first met. His dark hair didn’t show the signs of the thinning already afflicting Gil—to his chagrin—and Tony’s almost black eyes seemed even darker when seen in contrast with his wife’s pale grey ones.

  Bea was an inveterate bridge player and Gil liked the game, so Friday night eventually became bridge night. At first, the problem was that neither Tony nor I were very serious about card games—an attitude which didn’t go over at all well with our more serious spouses. There were some postmortems bordering on quarrels as a result, until we resolved the matter by switching partners. I was nothing but amused then, when my new partner trumped my ace. The same evening, when I redoubled without a hope in heaven of making the necessary tricks, Tony was even more amused than I had been at his earlier misplay.

  So my bridge partner and I played the game and chatted back and forth while Gil and Bea, speaking only to bid, looked grim and pondered their every move. Even so, we managed to win a good share of the time, which only added to the grimness of our rivals.

  A bonus of our relationship with Tony and Bea was their cabin in the mountains up state. They had invited us up for several weekends, and I was enchanted with the surroundings. Isolated, just below the ridge of a hill where there was a splendid view of the Indian Reservation below, it was a pleasant relief from hectic suburban life—yet it also had the comforts of running water, indoor plumbing and electricity.

  As I look back over the last six months, there’s no question but that much of what happened during that time sprang from the week the four of us spent together at the cabin last spring. We had decided to make the most of the isolation. By agreement cell phones, except for one for emergency purposes, were left behind. Bea even promised to limit her TV consumption on the small portable to her favorite soap. The first few days saw us doing a lot of hiking. The only problem was that, by the last day of our stay, the heavy rains that had saturated the area before our arrival, along with the warm temperatures of an early spring, produced the worst infestation of black flies the locals had ever seen.

  In the face of this scourge, Gil and Bea absolutely refused to leave the shelter of the cabin, instead staying behind to play cribbage, while Tony and I lathered up with repellent and went off to explore the newly established state preserve about three miles away.

  “Just tell yourself that only the females bite,” I said as we headed down the trail.

  Tony swatted away at a particularly annoying swarm, saying, “Is that supposed to ease the pain?”

  I laughed. “No, but isn’t it nice to know that only half of them are interested in biting you?”

  There must have been a lot of females around, because the flies were vicious, but the beautiful day, with only a light wind blowing, more than made up for their frantic attempts to penetrate the repellent. The trail was easy to follow and, except for one or two places where we had to be careful to avoid the obvious poison ivy, we made good time until we came to Lost Creek. What was usually a trickle one could virtually jump across had become a stream almost covering the natural rock-ford.

  Tony went first and I followed close behind. Halfway across the now ten-foot wide creek he slipped on one of the mossy stones and stumbled headlong into the water. There was no danger since, even though rain-swollen, the stream was no more than a foot deep. I reached out to give him a hand, my feet went out from under me, my arms flailed, and I fell bottom first into the stream. We struggled out, soaking wet, laughing at our own discomfiture, but both shivering in what couldn’t have been more than a slight breeze.

  The thought of having to trudge back to the cabin in our wet clothes, with the real possibility of hypothermia hovering over us, was a frightening one. My teeth were already chattering when Tony grinned and pulled a metal cylinder from his pocket, a bone-dry container of matches. With a campsite only a few hundred feet away, we quickly got together enough fuel for a fire and, huddled together, we sat in front of the flames. When my teeth continued to chatter, Tony put his arm around my shivering shoulders.

  The warmth was comforting, but I became aware of something more. His very presence was comforting. Actually, I had never thought of Tony that way before. For that matter I’d never given any serious thought in a sexual sense to any man other than Gil, and even with him, it hadn’t been exactly a towering passion. For a moment, I desperately wanted to kiss Tony. For an even longer moment, I was sure he wanted to kiss me. The moments passed.

  Tony piled on the fuel, the wind came up, and the fire did what the Indians always claimed the white man’s fire did. It was so hot we couldn’t stand next to it to get warm. We did manage to dry off, nevertheless, at least sufficiently to start the trek back. If the path had been wide enough, we might very well have gone back hand in hand. The strengthened wind and a quick drop in temperature had thinned out the fly population, making the return trip physically less annoying. My emotional state was suffering, however. As it was, the walk was a silent one succeeded, when we got back to our spouses, by my almost hysterical explanation of our misadventure.

  There was a lot of appreciative laughter, a big dinner to use up the perishables before our trip back the following morning, and a rubber of bridge where Tony and I studiously avoided looking at each other and where we played more ineptly than we ever had in the past.

  The following week found my mind in turmoil. Even the kids who checked out books noticed the difference. I overheard one of them say, “What’s wrong with Stone Face?” I had long ago learned that the grim expression I turned upon delinquent book-returners had earned me that sobriquet. I had also long ago flattered myself into thinking it was really a term of endearment.

  The turmoil resolved itself finally with a phone call to Tony. Or perhaps I should say there was no real resolution to my inner turbulence but simply a change in its content. I used the flimsiest of excuses to meet him downtown and suffered the embarrassment of feeling that he was agreeing to the meeting with some reluctance.

  I had no appetite for the donut, no thirst for the coffee. Worse, I took satisfaction from seeing that Tony’s emotional state matched mine, as our eyes met for the first time since the week at the cabin. I suppose I was the aggressive one. I can’t say for sure, because the memory of that meeting is a terrible muddle. Somehow we managed to come to grips, not only with our feelings, but with the consequences of them as well.

  Tony was the sensible one. “I know how you feel, but the whole thing is impossible. The only thing we can do is to not see each other.”

  My head agreed. My heart didn’t. Or maybe it was my stomach that was rebelling, because somewhere in that vicinity there was a dull ache. The onl
y thing I knew for certain was that I wanted Tony—not just to be with him because I liked his laugh, enjoyed his company, shared his interests, but because I wanted him physically. I wanted to feel his body against mine. I was almost dizzy at the thought and tongue-tied besides.

  By that time, I was willing to do almost anything he suggested, mostly because I began to fear for my own sanity. The agreement was simple, and even more threatening to my sanity. We weren’t to see each other again.

  Excuses would be made to avoid bridge games. Weekends at the cabin wouldn't be offered. Yes, it did seem so simple. Simple for us, but not for Gil and Bea. Most certainly not for Gil. It was obvious that my change of mood baffled him, though I did my best to hide the change and to explain it away when it couldn’t be hidden. He was even more baffled by the repeated breaking of engagements with Tony and Bea. Somehow life seemed to go on—but painfully.

  And, less than a month after the meeting with Tony, I broke our agreement—if not in word, at least in spirit. I rented a cell phone of my own and began to call him on his. Though he denied it at first, I could tell he wanted to hear my voice as much as I wanted to hear his. His engaging laugh made me laugh as well, something I seldom did during those terrible days except when talking to him.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, those long talks would have sufficed. At least I thought so at the time, but fate in the form of a crashing thunderstorm intervened. I was in town on a long overdue shopping trip and found myself five blocks from the parking garage, when an unexpected and violent autumn storm broke. It was only my inborn stubbornness that kept me out in the wind and rain trying to flag down taxis which ignored me at best, and sloshed water on me at worst.

  As my exasperation mounted, a hand caught my elbow and a voice said, “Maybe I can help.” From the surprised look on his face, I was quite sure Tony hadn’t recognized me when he made the offer. The rain pouring down my face brought back the same memories for him as his saturated appearance did for me. He didn’t wave at the next taxi. He simply stepped in front of it. The driver wasn’t pleased, but we managed to open the door and pile in before he could go on to whatever destination he had in mind.