Louise Read online

  •

  Louise has called all of her closest friends that still live in town and invited them to drop by the house to meet Claude. The girls, teachers and hairstylists, all blonde and pretty, sit around Louise and coo at her. They stroke her partly shaved head. They tell her she looks great, like the model with the tattoo on her scalp. They seem to be showing Claude how he should act. He shuts his eyes and pretends to be somewhere else, on a boat outside Santa Barbara, looking at the waves.

  While they get ready for bed, Louise tries to kiss him. Her mouth feels strange. One side moves, the other side doesn’t. She smells like disinfectant spray. He can see red dots on the insides of her elbows and wrists where needles have been. Her hip bones stick out when she leans against the bedroom wall to show him her new underwear. It is pink and triangular. She wants to have sex. Begs him. He tells her sex would be dangerous. He says he is sorry. He misses her body, the fit of their limbs. He is worried she will try to climb on him while he sleeps.

  He lies awake the whole night, trying not to think, trying not to remember her tanned body on the beach in California, her energy, how she used to take him with her on errands Saturday mornings that would turn into whole days that felt like a vacation, full of foods bought at street stands and impulse purchases like a kite, or lingerie. He tries to push it out of his mind, how she used to look at him, how he thought she would always look at him, her bright blue eyes holding him, giving him courage, making him feel completely wanted.

  •

  At dinner the next night they have flank steak Warner has cooked, and Louise has trouble with her knife and fork. She makes a fist and grasps onto the knife and saws like she’s cutting through wood, and holds her fork as if stamping a library book. Claude doesn’t know whether he should help her, or pretend he doesn’t see.

  “Here, let me help you,” Warner says. He takes her plate and starts cutting small bites. Louise holds up her right hand and flops it around. “Not good for much more than looks these days,” she says, and everyone laughs. Claude wants to tell her to treat her hand with more respect, but Warner is staring at him. He is sawing her meat in quick jerks with a look that seems to say, This is how it works, buddy. This is what you do. Claude examines his fork as if seeing it for the first time, turning it over in his hand like a precious rock.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  I cheated on Claude once. He’d already moved to California and I was still in Kansas, still in school, living with an opera singer who was as tall as a lumberjack. He had curly blond hair and credit card debt. We lived together because we were both friends with our other roommates, a short girl with a loud dog and a guy in pharmacy school who was rarely home. We had separate sets of friends, and he had a girlfriend—a pretty Asian girl who was also an opera singer. She went to the nail salon every single week. They practiced their arias on the porch sometimes. She was out of town the night it happened, and the opera singer and I decided to go out drinking, I’m not sure why.

  He had a beard and it felt good to kiss him. Claude’s face is very smooth and soft, softer than mine. The opera singer and I came home from the bar and had sex in his bedroom. It was filled with stolen furniture. He drove a delivery truck for a Danish store downtown and would sometimes deliver things to himself. He had a headboard, a dresser, a desk, and a set of matching bedside tables, all painted white and handle-less. Our other roommates might have been home. I didn’t think about consequences back then.

  Now that Claude is here I watch him sleep. I picture him in Montecito, leaning back in his office chair with a tie on, teasing the receptionist who has tan shoulders and a symmetrical smile. I picture him walking to lunch, squinting in the sunlight and jingling his keys.

  The first night Claude and I spent at our new California apartment, on the floor squeezed into a single sleeping bag, all I could think about was that opera-singer roommate.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Claude leaves, and Louise is almost relieved. He kept telling her she was still sexy, her physical changes hardly noticeable. He was either lying to her or lying to himself, but either way, he spoke fiction. She wonders what else he is lying about.

  Warner takes Louise to the optical shop. She needs glasses for her double vision: Walking around makes her so nauseated she rarely wants to go outside. Warner picks out a frame because Louise refuses to, and asks the employee to cover the left eye with tape. “No prescription?” the guy asks.

  With her new glasses, Louise can write emails without every line blurring into the next. She can climb the stairs without getting dizzy. The doctors say Louise’s eye could straighten out at any time—she could wake up one day and discover both her eyes gazing at the same thing. There is no way of knowing if this will happen for sure. All she can do is wait.

  Because of damage from the surgeries, she also has nystagmus, or involuntary eye movement. Her left eye moves up and down very quickly, while her right eye moves with grace. The result is that everything appears bouncy. It worsens in darkness, and with alcohol consumption.

  The covered eye is a mystery to people. Some people might think she has just had an eye surgery or some kind of temporary injury, and they will not stare or wonder. They will not guess she has had brain surgery. If they do not see Louise try to smile, or walk, if they just see her sitting in a car, they will just think she is a girl with a vision problem, nothing more.

  She calls Claude after dinner. He is in his car, on his way to LA to see some band. Yesterday he was night fishing with friends. The day before that, at a bonfire, drinking. Louise can’t imagine herself doing any of these things. She can’t even drink without her left eye leaping up and down violently. Claude says he does not want to give up on their relationship, but to Louise, him saying that means that he already has.

  Louise goes back to a mirror and turns so only half her face shows. She puts on a necklace Claude gave her five months ago, a thin gold chain and a pretty brown stone. She applies lip gloss and mascara and ruffles her hair. She looks at that half in the mirror. There is still hope, she thinks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Warner has a Zen rock garden that he combs with a special rake. The rake has widely spaced teeth. He makes dinner and does most of the grocery shopping. His painting studio is above a drugstore on their town’s main street. It used to be a lawyer’s office. A hospital bought one of his pieces. A hotel bought another.

  Elizabeth is a financial analyst and works in the city. She cooks very well, specializing in desserts. She and Warner ride bikes together most Saturdays. She has a personal trainer who comes two mornings a week at six a.m. Elizabeth wants to feel useful, so she takes Louise to her hairdresser, who gently massages Louise’s head, even the scarred part, in one of those special sinks full of warm water. They decide to cut her hair to a blunt, chin-length bob. It is soft and golden, and with all the layered ends cut off it looks like a child’s haircut. Elizabeth takes Louise to get pedicures, manicures. She rents movies she thinks Louise might like, buys her bright pajamas, cozy slippers, and special ice cream that comes in small cartons.

  Elizabeth likes doing these things for Louise. She has never had any children of her own, and she loves Louise and her brothers. Besides, Warner needs help. He worries.

  “Should she go to therapy?” he’s always asking. “A support group or something? What else? A meditation cushion?” He sits on the bed and rubs his face. He looks like he has aged ten years in the months since the surgeries: his hair now gray, a slouch evident.

  “Sometimes I walk by a chair and she is just sitting there with her eyes closed,” he says.

  “Tomorrow I’ll take her to my masseuse,” Elizabeth says. “We’ll go to the farmers’ market. Get lunch. Also, there’s a sidewalk sale.”

  She removes her eye makeup with a cotton ball.

  •

  Warner is relieved to know that an occupational therapist will help Louise. His daughter will learn to complete daily tasks with her right hand, such as:
r />   —Brushing her hair and teeth

  —Buttoning her shirt, tying her shoes

  —Chopping vegetables

  —Washing herself

  She will have a team of occupational and physical therapists and a hearing-and-speech therapist. After the surgeries, she lost some of the hearing in her left ear. And because of the facial paralysis, some words are difficult for her to say, especially words that begin with “th” and “p”—“thistle” and “peanut.” Warner notices it is hard for her to take a bite out of a sandwich because her facial muscles don’t work on the right side. When she chews, she has to move the food from her cheek with her finger.

  Warner remembers taking Louise to get donuts Saturday mornings when she was little, after Michael was born. He and Janet were still married. He wanted to make sure Louise still felt special, even with two baby brothers. Louise had been small for her age, six, and talked nonstop. She always chose the cake donuts with sprinkles, and Warner liked the bear claws. Once he taught her how to dip the donut in his coffee and eat it. She had spit it out and said, Daddy!

  Tomorrow he will tell her about the article he read called “Recovery Foods.” Beets are one.

  •

  The wheelchair is put away, folded up in a closet. Warner wants to get rid of it, but he is afraid.

  •

  The young woman who meets Warner and Louise in the waiting room is named Amber. She is a high school friend of Louise’s, and Louise is surprised and embarrassed to see her here. Warner sees a flash of panic on her face and thinks, Oh no. But the two girls hug and use high-pitched voices that end on the upswing, like a question. He vaguely remembers this Amber. She was allowed to sleep over at boys’ houses on weekends. Now she wears blue scrubs and is very tan. Warner listens to the girls talk about their old boyfriends, all dorks, apparently. When Amber finally takes Louise’s arm and leads her back to the therapy area, Warner is relieved. He starts to sit back down, but a nurse tells him he is allowed to watch.

  •

  Amber gives Louise tests. She has Louise put wooden pegs into a board, circle words in a word search, make a paperclip chain. Louise bounces a rubber ball. They talk the entire time. Warner is mesmerized. Amber says she never left the area and is still friends with their high school crew. She is engaged and will move to Indiana after she is married. Louise tells Amber about Claude. Warner concentrates on not offering his point of view. He wants Louise to enjoy her time doing something different than being at home with him and Elizabeth. Some of the things Louise does at the rehab clinic:

  —Stretching on a giant rubber ball

  —Tug-of-war with a therapist

  —Table tennis

  —Playing the game Connect Four

  —Playing cards

  —Building towers of blocks

  Louise seems bright and happy after therapy. She says it wasn’t so bad. But the following week, Louise fakes a sore ankle and says she can’t go. At Warner’s, she sits and scoots to get up or down the stairs. She knows she can get away with it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Louise,

  Despite what you say about me abandoning you when things get rough, I’m still here and I still want to be a part of your life. I want you to know that I’ve considered many times quitting this job and moving out there to be with you and help you recover. While that would have eased both our pains in the short term, after a while I would have resented you, wrongly, for my having to leave my life. I just couldn’t do that to either one of us. I think you and I are at our best when we’re not being selfish.

  When you say that I’ve changed, I had to. I hope that you one day understand the plight of having to sacrifice many priorities for the sake of a job. All this has made me feel very low about myself and made me question where I’m going.

  I still cherish the idea of you coming back here one day. I want more than anything for us to again seek out the life we once planned for ourselves. We never went to San Francisco and Seattle together. We never went to Vancouver. We never went hiking. I wanted to.

  Love,

  Claude

  Louise shows the letter to Warner and Elizabeth. They both repeat what they have been saying since Claude didn’t come to the surgeries: Move on. When the time is right, you will find someone else.

  Louise says, I know, I know, but in truth, she doesn’t know at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Everyone thought Louise’s double vision was temporary and would go away after the surgeries. But it didn’t. So. At Amber’s urging, Warner buys Louise thick workbooks of exercises, like “What’s Wrong with This Picture?” and “Find the Word!” The exercises are supposed to help Louise rely on her vision more. Louise wonders what Claude, who does the crossword puzzle daily, would have to say about these workbooks. He used to fill them out in red ink and leave them in cafes for others to find. Louise would make fun of him loudly, calling him a show-off, and he’d blush and smile and try to get her out of the café before the other patrons turned around. Strange, how he’s calling more than ever now, Louise thinks. They’d even Skyped a few nights ago. He’d bought another plane ticket right there, with her watching.

  Her eyes are always sore now. She rubs them and uses drops. Overload, Amber says. It will go away. She twists her engagement ring around, which is her habit.

  •

  Warner is encouraged to see Louise doing small tests around the house. She tries to empty the dishwasher using only her right hand and keeps chipping the dishes. It’s like one side of her body is conducted by puppet strings—each movement sudden and jerky. But at least she keeps going, Warner reminds himself. That’s the important thing. She does not give up the fight.

  One day Louise discovers that she can snap her right-hand fingers. Louise seems excited, and snaps for the rest of the afternoon. Warner tries to be happy, but he can’t. This is just not enough to smile about. He wants his baby healed, now.

  The next day Louise doesn’t snap once, doesn’t even mention it. Warner feels again as if they have really been doing nothing this whole time, nothing at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Michigan rehab team gives me a face-shock kit. It comes in a black zippered carrying case in two parts. The gun-like part holds D batteries, and there is a thin piece of plastic extending from it that the therapists call a wand. It looks like a toilet-paper tube with a pencil sticking out of it. The wand has a black fabric-covered tip. The second piece is a box with a lever, which adjusts the voltage from one to ten. The two pieces are connected by a cord.

  The idea is to touch the wand to the parts of my face that are paralyzed and to shock them into movement. Once the muscles are shocked enough and have moved enough by force, they will remember how to do it on their own. The surgeries damaged some of the facial nerves that control movement. I still have feeling on the paralyzed side of my face, so when I pull the trigger on the gun I feel it, like a sharp yank, and a flash of light behind my eyes. The therapist says this is lucky: Her husband has movement but no feeling, so he cannot tell if he has food on his cheek or is drooling. I envy him.

  For about two months, I use the kit at least twice a day, and picture Claude, smoking, or turning a steering wheel, or I think of a photo of us at his graduation where we are arm in arm in our dress clothes and he is looking over at me, laughing, and I am smiling straight at the camera, my face moving so naturally. I shock and I shock and I shock, and the muscles move for a fraction of a second, then nothing.

  •

  I will not be talked into smiling for pictures—the asymmetry is too awful. The only way I will tolerate being in a photo is wearing my sunglasses, staring expressionlessly at the camera, my mouth a straight line, waiting for it all to be over.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Claude is back. Louise suggests that they go to the pool because it has steam rooms and saunas. Good towels and a smoothie bar. She wants Claude to see how much she’s improving, how hard she’s working. She can walk in th
e water! Without a cane! But Claude says he has not brought his bathing suit. Louise doesn’t understand—she’d told him about her water exercises on the phone, and he said he wanted to see, to help her practice. Why doesn’t he want to now? Why hasn’t he thought of additional swimming moves that would be good for her to do, done some research on the computer?

  She ends up screaming at him in the car on the way to the pool.

  “I know this is hard for you to remember,” he says. “But I have a job. I have other things in my life besides you.”

  Louise doesn’t know how to respond. His complaints seem less and less real to her.

  There is an Aquatic Exercises binder with instructions on techniques, and drawings. Her favorites are the Snow Angel, the Butterfly Flutter, and the Super Eight.

  •

  Claude sees the pool, greenish and still, through the glass door. All around them are echoes of people yelling, but he sees no one. He tells Louise to start without him.

  “I just want to play a quick game of racquetball,” he says. He walks backward toward the hallway with the courts. Louise shouts, “But you don’t have a racquet!”

  Claude holds up a silver money clip, and waves it, flaglike.

  “But I have this binder,” she says.

  “Five minutes,” he says.

  He jogs toward the courts.

  •

  We break up three days later over the phone, when he is back in California and I am in my bedroom in Michigan. I say the words and Claude doesn’t disagree, but the last thing he says to me is, “Just remember that you ended this—that you did it”—and then he hangs up.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Louise has started to admit that she will not go back to Santa Barbara. She will not be pursuing that dream of toasting champagne glasses with the rich and beautiful, of being part of some glittering crowd. In Montecito her face and body would be met with confusion by her newspaper boss, who hired her to cover dog shows and “Beat Hunger” 5Ks—how could she interview people with an eye patch on, clutching a cane? How could she eat tapas next to an aging supermodel, when it was hard enough to show her face to her own friends? People in Montecito do not want to be confronted with disability. They want to believe that perfection can be achieved by plastic surgery and the right agent.