Chapter 18

I was too stunned to respond. Suddenly, everything fell into place: why she’d been so uncomfortable at the farmers’ market when the dentist had seen us together, why she preferred to meet at out-of-the-way locations. Why she’d suddenly ended our relationship…

But not everything added up…

Before I could summon anything to say, she hurriedly moved to the front door and opened it, pausing on the threshold.

“I know you have questions,” she said without turning to face me, “but you’ll understand everything later. I’ll pick you up at six.”

I finished booking the tickets, made hotel reservations, read the reviews for some restaurants in Helen, then spent the rest of the day trying to figure out the nature of Natalie’s marriage. Were they separated but now trying to work things out? Did they have an open marriage? I even flirted with the idea that the husband had passed away and we’d be making a trip to the cemetery, but none of those answers seemed to fit with the woman I’d come to know. And why did she want me to meet him?

Was that what married people did these days when another person was interested in their spouse? Hey, let’s all meet so we can talk this through?

What was I supposed to say to him? Should I avow my ignorance at the fact that she’d been married? Admit that I’d begged her to start a new life with me but that she’d nonetheless chosen him?

I spent the rest of the afternoon spinning through questions and possible answers. In the meantime, I packed a duffel bag for my trip to Helen and went through my grandfather’s box again, searching for more clues without luck.

When Natalie pulled into my drive, I stepped out of the house before she’d even had a chance to turn off the engine. As I got in, she offered a mysterious, unreadable look at me before directing the car back onto the road. Because she remained quiet, I did too.

My first surprise was that instead of driving to her house, we took the highway heading east, toward the coast. No longer in uniform, she was wearing jeans and a cream-colored blouse, more casual than dressy. Around her neck hung the gold chain she was never without. “Do you and your husband live together?” I finally asked.

She adjusted her hands on the wheel. “Not anymore,” she responded without elaborating further.

My mind flashed to the idea that he’d passed away and again, we settled into silence. After ten or fifteen minutes, Natalie slowed the car and left the highway, turning onto a commercial road I’d passed countless times but had never really seen. There was a shopping center to the right; on the left, fronted by a cheerful, tree-shaded parking lot, was a single-story brick building that looked as though it had been constructed sometime in the last five years. As soon as I saw the name of the place, I felt my heart sink.

It wasn’t the cemetery.

It was worse.

We parked out front near the entrance, in the near-empty visitors’ lot. After exiting the car, Natalie pulled a small bag from the back seat, and we headed toward the double glass doors of the entrance. At the sign-in desk, a woman in a uniform smiled as we approached.

“Hi, Mrs. Masterson. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Sophia,” Natalie said. She signed her name into the visitors’ log, chatting with the woman like an old friend. “How are you? How’s Brian?”

“The usual. He’s driving me crazy. The way he reacts, you’d think that cleaning your room is worse than scrubbing septic tanks.”

“He’s still a teenager. How’s he doing in school?”

“No complaints there, thank goodness. It’s just me he seems to hate.”

“He doesn’t hate you, I’m sure,” Natalie said with a sympathetic smile.

“Easy for you to say.”

Natalie turned to me. “This is Trevor Benson. He’s a friend of mine and he’ll be visiting, too.”

Sophia directed her attention to me. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Benson. Would you mind signing in, too?”

“Of course.”

As I signed in, Sophia asked, “Do you want me to walk with you?”

“No,” Natalie answered. “I know the way.”

We left the desk and proceeded down the corridor. It was well-lit and clean, with wood-laminate flooring and wrought iron benches between the doors. Here and there were artificial ficus trees in large pots, no doubt intended to provide a soothing environment for visitors.

Eventually we reached our destination, and Natalie paused before pushing open the door. My heart contracted as I watched her steel herself before walking into the room.

“Hi, Mark,” she said. “It’s me again. Surprise.”

Mark lay in the bed with his eyes closed, hooked up to what I knew to be feeding tubes. He was thin, his face partially sunken, but it was still possible to glimpse the handsome man he once had been. I guessed that he was a few years younger than I was, which made everything even worse. Natalie went on, her tone almost conversational. “Trevor, this is Mark, my husband. Mark, I’d like you to meet Trevor.”

When she gestured at me, I cleared my throat. “Hi, Mark,” I said.

Mark could not answer. As I stared at him, Natalie’s voice seemed to float toward me from afar. “He’s been in a persistent vegetative state for almost fourteen months now,” she offered. “He had a resistant strain of bacterial meningitis.”

I nodded, my stomach in knots as Natalie approached the bed. After setting her bag beside him, she used her fingers to part his hair, and spoke to him as though I wasn’t in the room. “How are you feeling?” she asked. “I know it’s been a few days since I’ve visited, but I’ve been super busy at work. I saw on the sign-in sheet that your mom came by earlier. I’m sure she was happy to see you. You know how much she worries about you.”

I stood in place, feeling like an intruder. When she realized I hadn’t moved, she motioned toward the chair. “Make yourself comfortable,” she said to me before turning her attention back to Mark.

“The research isn’t clear on how much patients really experience when in a vegetative state.” Even though she remained focused on Mark, I knew the words were meant for me. “Some patients wake up and remember certain things, others wake up and don’t remember anything at all, so I try to visit a few times a week just in case.”

I nearly collapsed in the seat and leaned forward, propping my forearms on my thighs, watching.

“Trevor’s an orthopedist,” she said to Mark, “so he might not know exactly what a persistent vegetative state is or how it differs from a coma.” She continued in a gentle yet matter-of-fact tone. “I know we’ve talked about all this before, but humor me, okay, sweetheart? You know your lower brain stem is still working so you can breathe on your own, and sometimes, you even open your eyes and blink. Your reflexes still work, too. Of course, you still can’t eat on your own yet, but you have the hospital for that, right, honey? You also get physical therapy so your muscles don’t atrophy. That way, when you wake up, you’ll be able to walk or use a fork or go fishing like you used to.”

There was none of the excruciating sadness in her demeanor that I felt in witnessing the scene play out before me. Maybe she was used to the experience, as numb to it all as I was heartsick about it. Natalie went on.

“I know they shave you here at the hospital, but you know how much I still like to do that for you when I visit. And it looks like your hair needs a bit of a trim, too. Do you remember when I used to cut your hair in the kitchen? I don’t know how you ever talked me into that. It’s not like I was any good, but you always insisted. I think you just liked me standing so close to you.”

She pulled out a washcloth and can of shaving cream, as well as a razor. To me, she asked, “Would you mind putting some warm water on the washcloth? The sink is in the bathroom.”

I did as she asked, making sure it was the right temperature before bringing it back to her. She smiled with an expression of gratitude, then gently dabbed the washcloth to his cheeks.

“Trevor is moving to Baltimore soon,” she said, beginning to lather his face. “He’s going to become a psychiatrist. I’m not sure if I mentioned that to you before. He told me that he struggled with PTSD after he was injured and he’s hoping to help veterans who have the same issue. He’s the one with the beehives, remember? And the one who brought me to see the alligators? I told you about that. Like I mentioned, he’s been a good friend to me. I’m sure the two of you would get along well.”

When ready, she began to shave him, the movements graceful. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I saw your father last week at the dealership. He seems to be doing okay. He stopped losing weight, at least. I know he doesn’t visit as much as your mom does, but it’s hard for him since the two of you worked together, too. I hope you always knew how much he loved you. I know he wasn’t great at saying it when you were little, but he does. Did I tell you that your parents invited me on their boat for the Fourth of July? The problem is, my family’s going to be at the beach, and they want me there. I hate when that happens…I guess I could split the time, but I haven’t decided yet. And all of that’s even assuming I’ll get the day off, which I probably won’t. It’s no fun being the low man on the totem pole.”

When she was finished with the shave, she wiped his face with the washcloth again, then ran her finger over his cheeks.

“Feels better, I’ll bet. You never were the scruffy type. But let me trim some of your hair, too, while I’m here.”

She took out a pair of scissors and went to work; because Mark was prone, she was careful to put the trimmings in the bag. “I used to make such a mess when I did this, so be patient with me, okay? I don’t want you to get itchy. Oh, I heard from your sister Isabelle this week. She’s expecting her first child in August. Can you believe that? She used to swear that she never wanted kids, and now she’s singing an entirely different song. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it up there for the birth, but I’m sure I’ll get there before the end of the year. I want to give her a chance to settle in first.”

Her patter continued while she finished cutting his hair. Afterward, she gently lifted his head and slid out the pillow. She removed the pillowcase, shook it a couple of times, and examined it to make sure it was clean before reversing the process, putting the pillow back in place. She adjusted the sheet and kissed his lips with a tenderness that nearly brought a tear to my eye.

“I miss you, sweetheart,” she whispered. “Please try to get better soon, okay? I love you.”

She reached for her bag, then stood from the bed and motioned toward the door. I led the way out into the corridor, and we retraced our footsteps to the car. When we arrived, she pulled out the keys. “I could use a glass of wine,” she said. “Are you up for that?”

“Without a doubt.”

We went to a bar in Havelock called Everly’s. It wasn’t too far from the hospital and I had the sense when we walked in that it wasn’t Natalie’s first visit to the place. After ordering our drinks, we found a quiet booth, partially sheltered from the noise.

“Now you know,” she said.

“I’m very sorry for what you’re going through. It must be awful.”

“It is,” she admitted. “It’s like nothing I ever imagined.”

“What do the physicians say?”

“After three months, the chances for recovery are very slight.”

“What happened? If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll understand.”

“It’s all right. You’re not the first to ask. A year ago last April, for our third anniversary, we spent a long weekend in Charleston. As crazy as it sounds, neither of us had ever been there before and we’d heard so much about it. We left Thursday night. He told me that he felt tired and he had a headache, but who doesn’t toward the end of a workweek? Anyway, we had a nice day on Friday despite his headache, and then on Saturday, he got a fever. It got worse as the day went on, so we went to the emergency room and he was diagnosed with the flu. We were supposed to be heading home on Sunday anyway, so neither of us was too worried about it. But in the car the next day, his fever kept getting higher and higher. I wanted to stop in Wilmington, but he told me to just keep going. By the time we got back to New Bern, his temperature was a hundred and four. We went straight to the hospital, but they didn’t figure out what was wrong with him until the next day. By then, his fever was over a hundred and six, and even with all the antibiotics, the fever just didn’t break. It was a nasty virulent strain. After the seventh day of sky-high fevers, he went into a coma. After that, once the fever finally broke, he was able to open his eyes. I thought that meant we were past the worst, but he didn’t seem to know who I was and…”

She took a sip of wine before going on. “He stayed in the hospital for another month, but after that, it was pretty clear he was in a vegetative state. We eventually found a really good place for him—where we just were—and he’s been there ever since.”

“That’s terrible,” I said, grasping for words. “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been—must still be.”

“It was worse last year,” she said. “Because I still had hope. But these days, I don’t have a lot of hope.”

With my stomach in knots, I couldn’t fathom taking a drink. “Was he the one you met in college?”

She nodded. “Just such a sweet guy. He was shy and handsome, but wasn’t arrogant in the slightest, which surprised me, especially considering how wealthy his family is. They own one of the car dealerships here in town, and two or three others in other parts of the state. Anyway, he was on the lacrosse team, and I used to watch him play. He wasn’t quite good enough for a scholarship, but he was a recruited walk-on and played in almost every game his last two years. He could run like a gazelle and score from almost anywhere.”

“Was it love at first sight?”

“Not quite. We actually met at a formal. I was there with another guy, he had a date, and after his date ditched him and my date had wandered off, we started talking. I must have given him my number because he started texting me. Nothing weird, nothing stalker-like…after a month or so, we met for pizza. We dated the last two and a half years of college, got engaged a year after we graduated, and we married a year after that.”

“And you were happy together?”

“We were both happy,” she said. “You would have liked him. He was such a genuine person, so loving and energetic.” She caught herself. “I’m sorry. Is a genuine person.” She took another sip of wine before looking at my glass. “You’re not having any?”

“In a minute,” I said. “I’m still processing.”

“I guess I owe you an apology. For not telling you straightaway.”

“Even if you had, I’m not sure it would have stopped me from going to the farmers’ market or inviting you over to see the bees.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess. But…you should be aware that it’s not a secret. A lot of people in town know the situation. Mark grew up in New Bern; his family is well-known here. Had you asked around, it wouldn’t have taken you long to find out.”

“It never occurred to me to ask anyone about you. Honestly, I don’t know enough people in town well enough to ask. But I am curious as to why you don’t wear a wedding ring.”

“I do,” she said. “I wear it around my neck.”

When she pulled out her chain, I saw a lovely rose gold wedding band that looked like something from Cartier.

“Why not on your finger?”

“I never wore rings growing up and when I was in college, I began working out at the gym. Nothing too strenuous, but I do try to do sets on a few of the machines. After I got engaged, the ring would pinch and I was afraid to scratch it. I just got into the habit of wearing it around my neck. Once I became a sheriff’s deputy, I didn’t want people knowing anything about me.”

“Didn’t that bother Mark?”

“Not at all. He wasn’t the jealous type. I used to tell him that the ring was closer to my heart. I meant that and he knew it.”

I took a small sip of water, moistening my tight throat. Humoring her, I chased that with a swallow of wine, which tasted way too sour. “What do your mom and dad think?”

“They adored Mark. But they’re my parents. I told you they worry about me.”

Because of her job in law enforcement, I remembered thinking at the time. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

“It seems like they take good care of him here.”

“It’s a top-notch facility for those who can afford it. Insurance only covers so much, but his parents make up the difference. It’s important to them. It’s important to me, too.”

“What happens…”

When I didn’t finish, she nodded. “What happens if we decide to pull the plug? I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Ever?”

“It’s not my decision. It’s up to his parents.”

“But you’re his wife.”

“They have medical power of attorney. They make those decisions, not me. When he turned eighteen, Mark got access to a trust. He had to sign all sorts of documents, including the ones that gave them the right to make end-of-life decisions for him. I doubt he even thought about it afterward and after we were married, it never came up. Before the marriage, he was way more upset that his parents insisted on a prenup. He didn’t have a choice and I really didn’t care. I thought we’d be married forever and have kids and grow old together.”

“Have you spoken to his parents about Mark’s future?”

“Once or twice, but it didn’t go well. His mom is very religious and to her, ending the feeding tube is the same thing as murder. The last time I tried to talk to her about it, she told me that the week before, Mark had opened his eyes and stared at her, and she read that as a sign he’s getting better. She’s convinced that if she prays enough, Mark will just suddenly blink and be back to normal one day. As for his dad, I think he just wants to keep peace in his own house.”

“So you’re left in a kind of limbo.”

“For now,” she agreed.

“You could get a divorce.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“Because even if there’s less than a one percent chance that Mark will get better, it’s a chance I’m willing to take. I made a vow to stay married in sickness and in health. Health is the easy part; it’s remaining faithful in sickness where love really shines.”

Perhaps she was right, but I wondered if it smacked a little of martyrdom. Then again, who was I to judge?

“I understand,” I said.

“I also want to apologize about the night at your house. After the boat ride and dinner—”

I held up my hand to stop her.

“Natalie…”

“Please,” she said. “I need to explain. While we were at dinner, I sensed that we were going to sleep together, and then when we kissed, I knew it for certain. And I wanted to. Because I really had fallen in love with you, and at that moment, it felt like it was just the two of us in the world. It was easy for me to pretend that I wasn’t married, or that my husband wasn’t being taken care of around the clock by nurses, or even that I could have the best of both worlds. I could stay married and still have you. I could move to Baltimore and get a job there while you did your residency and we’d start a new life together. I was fantasizing about all those things, even as we moved to the bedroom…”

When she paused, memories flooded my senses. I remembered pulling her close and the tautness of her body against my own. The wildflower scent of her perfume, light and exotic, as I buried my face in her neck. I could feel her breasts pressed against my chest and her fingers clutching my back. When our lips came together, the flicker of her tongue triggered a wave of pleasure.

I helped her untuck my shirt and watched her unbutton it; within a moment, we both had our shirts off and our heated skin came together. And yet, when I began to kiss the tops of her breasts, I heard what sounded like a muffled sob. Pulling back, she seemed frozen except for a tear drifting down her cheek. Alarmed, I pulled back.

“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t. Please forgive me.”

Now, as I sat across from her in the bar, I watched as she swallowed, her gaze fixed on the tabletop.

“That night…you kissed me right below my collarbone. That was a thing Mark always used to do, and I suddenly saw him in my mind—lying in bed, surrounded by tubes in that sterile room. And I couldn’t get his image out of my head and I hated myself for that. For doing that to you. I wanted you and I wanted to make love to you, but I couldn’t. It felt…wrong, somehow. Like I was about to do something I would regret, even though I wanted it more than anything in the world.” She drew a long breath. “I just wanted to tell you again that I was sorry.”

“I told you that night that you didn’t have to apologize.”

“I know you did, and somehow, that made me feel even worse. Because you were so kind about the whole thing.”

Gently, I laid my hand over hers. “For what it’s worth, I’d do it all over again.”

“You fell in love with a dishonest woman.”

“You weren’t dishonest,” I offered. “You just…omitted some things. We all do that. For instance, I didn’t tell you that in addition to being rich and handsome, I’m very skilled when it comes to putting tarps on roofs as well.”

For the first time since we’d arrived, she cracked a smile. She gave my hand a quick squeeze before withdrawing her own.

Lifting her glass of wine, she held it up in toast. “You’re a good man, Trevor Benson.”

I knew it was yet another ending for us, but I reached for my glass of wine anyway. Tapping it against hers, I forced myself to smile.

“I think,” I answered, “you’re pretty great, too.”