Saturday Night

Saturday night at the hospital, just past midnight. Back in my younger, druggier days, it was a time of night I was very fond of, the excitable and delicate hours between twelve and three. Early: you still had a rational grasp on your debauchery. Late: the exhausted and disappointing end of the day compelled you to find a place dark enough in deed and decor to mask your sickness. Lately, however, I find Trudi and I endure our worst moments in these hours.
"Where do you want me to sleep?" Trudi asks. We are sitting up in a hospital bed. There is an open recliner next to us.
"I don't know, honey." I say. The recliner looks horrendous. It's thin and has wooden arms to hold while the body slides forward.
I'm dying for a little space. I want to write, and I don't want to feel like Trudi's reading over my shoulder. Mostly, she never does, but when she's so close, it still feels that way. Regardless of that, there's the body heat, which I have no taste for right now. There isn't enough air in here as it is. My limbs get tight in any position I'm in for more than a few seconds, so I have to keep shifting, then she must keep shifting, and this is more shifting than I can deal with right now.
But I don't want her to feel like I'm pushing her away. I think about how this must all be for her. Trudi, unlike me, is naturally inclined to worry. (She blames me, partially, for this. It is her opinion that someone must worry, and since I don't, it's always left up to her. I am not naive; there is some truth to this view. Still, she's had plenty of practice worrying before I came along.) These days have provided endless matters, large and small, to fret over. Doctors, families, brain surgeries. This is the third time today I've stopped in the middle of this chaos and tried to track everything Trudi must be going through because of my tumor, but I cannot. I get two seconds into the thought line, and then something else happens, a test here, my parents there.
"Where do you want to sleep?" I say.
Trudi looks at the recliner, then back to me. She starts to cry.
"Trudi," I say, placing my hands on her shoulder. "Listen--listen. You can't let this change the whole tenets of our relationship. I'm not dying. You can still want what you want."
It's been this kind of evening.
"Do you want to be alone?" she says.
"Do I? No, I don't know . . . Do you?" I think, maybe for a little while. Just to have some space.
I feel this is an em-pass that will be difficult to navigate. I look at the recliner sheepishly. I feel bad I cannot just tell her to sleep there. This situation has all been about me. The more I leave things up to her, forcing her to decide when to be generous or when to take what she needs, the more pressure she'll be under. But being strong-willed requires strength, which, since the surgery, has been drained out of me as steadily as the Kool-aid colored sac of cerebrospinal fluid hanging over my head.
"What do you need, Frank?" Trudi says.
I think about that word. Alone. I imagine being really alone in this room. If Trudi were not in my life. . . we've had some difficult moments in the last year; we have spoken about the possibility of ending things. How would we separate our lives? Our furniture? Our dogs? Those issues didn't resolve so much as settle and smooth over. Simpler times came; things did not stay so dire. It turned out to be us imagining worst case scenarios that didn't come to pass.
I can't go there now, I decide. Too much pressure. “Nothing,” I say, calling on some place inside me that is still untouched by the whirlwind panic of these last days. “Everything's fine.” The matter-of-factness I manage surprises me.
She sighs. "It's alright," she says and moves over to the recliner. I stare at my computer as she tries to get comfortable. Finally she settles in, finishes by setting a white hospital blanket over her head. I stare at her like that for a moment, and the ridiculousness of this sight almost makes me laugh—but I stay quiet.
We sit like this with the lights on, me trying to write through a Percocet high that is coming on strong and making me feel sweaty and fast; her trying to fight back tears so as not to disturb me. It's not the prettiest snapshot of our relationship. Every now and again I hear her sob. I pause, consider, then ask her if she is alright. I'm not sure how much we just need some space. Or maybe I'm being cold. It seems every moment is fraught with this question. How can I tell the difference at one thirty in the morning in a hospital room?
My eyes roll, and close a bit as I stare at the same sentence on the screen for some time. How long have I been sitting like this? Did I fall asleep sitting up?
"Baby?" I say. "Baby, you up?"
Trudi grunts under the blanket.
"Come to bed," I say, closing my computer, making room for her in the bed.
Trudi pulls the blanket over her head. She is worn down. I worry she is shivering, but she is holding quite still.