Castles in the Air
- Bill Tope
- 37 minutes ago
- 6 min read
by Bill Tope
Tommy's voice was low-pitched and urgent as he murmured beseechingly to his wife. She didn't respond. He gazed at her, strewn across their bed, her auburn tresses spilling over the pillow. She looked beautiful to him, despite the way she'd let herself go since the baby died. Tommy remembered that it had been only weeks, but the heartbreak seemed to stretch back as far as he could recall, years almost, owing to Rachel's mental history.
The child they had waited for five years for had been stillborn, and it still took his breath away to remember. Rachel had taken it especially hard. She felt as though she had let him down. He was forever telling her she hadn't failed him. That sometimes, things just happened. She worried that it was because she had smoked occasionally during her pregnancy and had maybe one or two glasses of wine, late in her term. He told her she was mistaken.
"Baby," he said, "you need to get up and take a shower. Brush your teeth and wash your hair." It had been so long since she first became immersed in her grief.
"I can't," she said simply.
Tommy nodded. He understood that he would just have to be patient. What was it the priest had said? Time heals all wounds, or some nonsense like that. But maybe it was true.
"Can I get you some fresh clothes, Rach?" he asked.
She sniffed her bedclothes and nodded. "I'm sorry I let myself go, Tommy," she said in a small voice.
"It's alright," he told her. "You heal. Take whatever time you need, I'll be here for you." Tommy slipped from the room and closed the door behind him. Thank goodness people had stopped dropping by to offer condolences. They meant well, he knew, but each time they tore the wound wider. It was just a matter of time, he told himself again.
Their lives were wrapped up in just the two of them. Diagnosed years before with avoidant personality disorder, Rachel was inordinately shy, withdrawn and non-assertive. She had drifted from one unchallenging job to the next since her marriage to Tommy, four years before, at age 21.
"I quit my job today, Tommy," she said one day.
"But why, Babe?" he'd asked. "You loved that job."
Rachel had been employed at a nursery, caring for and selling plants. She adored all living things.
"Mrs. Dickinson," she said, "told me I wasn't doing a good job."
When Tommy called her boss, she told Tommy that she had merely made suggestions to Rachel regarding how she could make more sales.
"Rachel got very upset, Mr. Johnson," said Dickinson. "It wasn't even criticism, and she went all to pieces."
Tommy explained about his wife's diagnosed personality disorder and intense shyness, and her boss seemed sympathetic. "Tell her to come back," she said. "I'll hire her again. She's very good with the plants, but she gets her feelings hurt easily."
But Rachel wouldn't return to Plants R Us, saying she felt inadequate.
The first year of their marriage, at Tommy’s insistence, Rachel had seen a therapist, but the results were a mixed bag. Dr. Fuller explained Rachel's condition to Tommy, who attended the last session with her. The doctor said that based on his private talks with Rachel, he concluded that emotional abuse during her formative years and sexual trauma at 17 had led to her condition.
"She never told me about emotional abuse," Tommy had said. "But she almost never talks about her family." She had told him about her rape as a teen. Intimacy between them had been touch-and-go.
Because of her associated depression, the therapist had prescribed some antidepressants, but they seemed to have little effect.
One day Rachel approached Tommy and placed her arms around his neck. She didn't often show overt affection, thought Tommy.
"Tommy, I want a baby," she'd said.
This was wonderful news, thought Tommy. "Are you sure, Rach?" He had begun to despair of ever starting a family.
"Of course," she said, leaning in for a kiss. "It would make my life complete."
Rachel's therapist had retired, so Tommy consulted Rachel's personal physician and asked what he thought.
"Could be the best thing for her," declared the elderly doctor. "Might straighten her out."
The pregnancy had gone well. Rachel seemed to have found a purpose for her existence. She stopped smoking for the most part, and drinking and getting high. She was attentive to her diet and got plenty of rest.
Then she lost the baby. In her seventh month, things went all wrong. Rachel felt sharp pains in her abdomen and began bleeding. Tommy called an ambulance and rode in the back of the vehicle on the way to the hospital.
"I'm with you, Babe," he told her. "You'll be alright." But she wasn't.
When Tommy asked her OB-GYN what had gone wrong, she said, "Mr. Johnson, there was no way to foresee what happened to Rachel. Sometimes there is no reason. Shit happens," she said bluntly.
"I can't wait till the baby's born," said Rachel dreamily from their bed several days later. She ran her hands over her belly.
Tommy stared at his wife. He had been warned by the doctor whom he contacted over the web that Rachel's reaction to her grief might be a fantasy-prone personality or FPP, which she likened to maladaptive dreaming disorder, which she'd had as a teen, but with a difference.
"Your wife may not recognize what reality is and be able to tell it apart from the fantasy world that she creates. You really should seek professional help for your wife, Mr. Johnson, outside of online resources." Tommy agreed that he would.
But when Tommy brought the subject up with Rachel, she was resistant. "I'm getting better," she claimed. "I'll tell you what," she said, "I'll get out of bed and take a shower and wash my hair and get dressed in clean clothes and you'll see, I'll be all better."
Reluctantly, he agreed. And for a short while, Rachel was vastly improved, if not quite her old self. She fluttered around the house, busying herself dusting and mopping and so on. Tommy had to tell her to rest up, which she did.
The next day, she was again languishing in the bedroom, listless. She practically stopped eating. Tommy began to worry when she started losing weight. He entered the bedroom bearing a tray on which he brought her a toasted cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup, long her favorite. She promised she'd eat it, but when he returned an hour later, the meal sat untouched.
Tommy glanced at his cell phone and noted the date: Oct. 30. Today was the three-month anniversary of the loss of their child. He sighed. In all that time, almost nothing had changed. He had managed to get Rachel to bathe every few days, but otherwise, she seemed little improved. She stayed in bed all day.
Tommy was replacing the vacuum sweeper in the hall closet when he heard a thump from behind the bedroom door. What had happened?" he wondered wildly. Had Rachel fallen? He slammed the closet door and rushed to the bedroom, threw the door open.
"Rach?" he cried. She was nude and lying upon the floor, between the bed and the door. She had fallen out of bed. He knelt and lifted her back onto the mattress. She seemed weightless. What he saw horrified him: she was stick-thin. She had lost so much weight. She lay limply where he laid her on the surface of the bed. Tommy cradled her shoulders and held her close.
"God, Rachel, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it had gone this far." She murmured into his shoulder, and he jumped. "I'll get help, Baby," he promised, and gingerly laid her flat upon the mattress. Taking out his cell, he called 911 and got the operator, told her his name, address, and what he could about his wife's condition. The operator promised the EMTs would come straight out.
Fifteen minutes later, a loud knock sounded on the front door. Tommy rushed into the living room and swept open the door.
"Thank you, thank you," he stammered, and led the first responders to the bedroom, answering their questions on the way.
"Wait here, Mr. Johnson," said one of the men. "We'll take it from here. Tommy waited outside the door. After a few seconds, the man who appeared to be in charge reemerged and asked Tommy, "Where is she?"
Tommy's eyes widened, and he rushed into the bedroom and found the room empty.
"Could she have moved from this room?" asked the man.
Tommy collapsed on the neatly made bed and stared vacantly around the room. The EMT was on his radio. After a moment's conversation, he turned to the other emergency worker and explained, "Rachel Johnson died during childbirth three months ago." He turned to Tommy. "That's right, isn't it, Mr. Johnson?"
Finally, Tommy found his voice. "Yes, I guess it is."
Meanwhile, the other first responder had fetched a collapsible gurney.
"Lie down, Mr. Johnson," suggested the man. "We'll take you to the hospital, get you some help."
"Okay," said Tommy, as he stretched out on the gurney and felt himself being strapped in. As the EMTs wheeled the gurney through the front door, Tommy felt the cool breeze of Autumn on his skin. "I need to leave a note for my wife," he told the men.
"We'll do it, Mr. Johnson," said one of them.
"Okay," said Tommy. "Thanks."
***
Bill Tope is a retired public assistance caseworker; construction laborer; line cook at Hilton Hotels; and one-time nude model for university art classes. He lives in the American Midwest with his mean little cat Baby.