Chapter 12 - The Day Fay Finally Asked for Help
Fay had spent most of her life making difficult things look manageable.
She could negotiate with hospital administrators, comfort frightened families, and persuade a room full of executives to fund programs they had dismissed five minutes earlier. She could also convince a stubborn husband to attend physical therapy with nothing more than a raised eyebrow.
Then one spring morning, she forgot the name of a flower she had planted herself.
It was nothing, she insisted.
We both forgot things.
I once spent fifteen minutes looking for glasses that were on my face.
But over the following weeks she became unusually tired. She lost her appetite. Once, while carrying groceries, she stopped in the doorway and gripped the frame until I came over.
“Dizzy?” I asked.
“A little.”
“Sit.”
“Dominic—”
“I'm not giving an order. I'm asking you to sit because I'm worried.”
She looked at me.
Then sat.
That frightened me more than if she had argued.
We scheduled an appointment. Her physician ordered tests and referred her to a specialist. The results suggested a treatable heart-rhythm problem, but it would require medication, monitoring, and possibly a procedure.
I listened to the explanation with the same cold attention I had once reserved for business threats.
Then I began making plans.
Specialists. Transportation. Second opinions. A new home-monitoring system. I had already reached for my phone when Fay touched my wrist.
“Stop.”
I froze.
“I'm allowed to help,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Then why—”
“Because you're planning my life without asking me.”
The words struck an old nerve.
I put the phone down.
“What do you want?”
She looked exhausted. “I want to understand my options. I want to choose my doctor. I want you beside me, not in front of me.”
I nodded.
Then, because I was still myself, I said, “I can be beside you very aggressively.”
She laughed until she had to wipe her eyes.
At the next appointment, I sat quietly while Fay asked questions. I took notes only after she asked me to. We discussed the recommended procedure with her care team, including risks and alternatives. Fay decided to proceed.
The night before, she found me staring at the river through our bedroom window.
“You're doing it again,” she said.
“What?”
“Trying to negotiate with the universe.”
“I was considering a strongly worded letter.”
She sat beside me.
“Are you scared?”
“Yes.”
The answer came immediately.
There was no point pretending with her.
“Me too,” she whispered.
I turned toward her. Fay Willis, who had walked into my room years earlier and told a furious man in a wheelchair to breathe, was frightened.
For once, she was the one who needed someone to stay.
I held her hand.
“I can't promise it'll all go perfectly,” I said.
“I know.”
“But I can promise that whatever the doctors tell us, we'll hear it together.”
She leaned her forehead against mine.
“That's what I needed.”
The procedure went as planned. Recovery was not instantaneous. Fay tired easily for several weeks, and the medication required adjustments. We followed her doctors' instructions and learned a new routine.
I cooked.
This was widely regarded as the greatest medical risk in the household.
My first soup tasted like salted wallpaper paste.
Fay ate three spoonfuls before declaring that love had limits.
Mrs. Gable, long retired but still capable of terrifying me over the telephone, sent recipes with annotations in red ink.
Carmine called to ask whether the fire department needed advance warning.
Traitors.
But I improved.
One afternoon, Fay found me carefully measuring ingredients at the kitchen counter.
“You could hire someone,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
I looked at her.
“Because you spent years helping me do things for myself. I thought I'd return the favor by learning something useful.”
She came around the counter and kissed me.
Then tasted the sauce.
“Needs pepper.”
“Of course it does.”
That summer, she returned to the garden. Slowly at first. A few minutes in the morning, then longer as her energy returned. I worked beside her from a raised planting bed, using tools that fit my hands and chair.
We argued about tomatoes.
We argued about watering schedules.
We argued about whether the crooked birdhouse I had built was charming or structurally unsound.
It was both.
One evening, Fay looked across the garden and said, “I used to think being the strong one meant never needing anything.”
“I know the feeling.”
She smiled. “I suppose you would.”
I reached for her hand.
“Need isn't a debt,” I said.
Her eyes filled.
She knew where I had learned that.
From her.
We sat together as the sun disappeared behind the trees. Neither of us had saved the other from age, pain, or uncertainty.
May you like
But we had made a life in which asking for help was no longer something to fear.
That seemed like enough.
