It didn't get lost in the mail.

He almost died.

That's the part they continue conveniently to forget.

He walked around with a ruptured appendix for half a week.

Well, it might not have been ruptured that whole time. But he was hurting, and ignoring the pain.

He refused to see a doctor, no matter how much I pleaded with him to go.

He winced, and panted, and turned a greenish gray.
He sat in the tub of warm water I'd drawn for him, and insisted I go in to work.

I didn't know what else to do. So I went.

As soon as I left, he took the bus to the hospital.

That night, he went in for emergency surgery.

I called his parents, and his sister, and told them what I knew, where he was.
I talked to my family.

I don't know how long after, I woke up on a leatherette loveseat in a waiting room, the texture of my purse imprinted on the side of my face.

I didn't know if he was alive or dead.

I wandered downstairs, and stood in the door of Recovery, feeling dazed.

A nurse led me to his bed.

He opened his eyes.
Time started to move again.

I called his mother, let her hear his voice over the phone.

The nurse led me out of the room, so he could rest.

The next morning, I called his family to let them know his room number, in case they wanted to call. I got his sister on the phone, and told her he was in recovery.

"Do you want his room extension?"

"That's... okay."

"Oh. well. All right, I just wanted to let you know he came through surgery okay."

"Thanks."

"Sure. "

"Um. Bye."

"Bye."

***

I went to work each day. I worked that weekend, too.

My job provided our health insurance.

We were heading in to dress rehearsals for my biggest show for the season. I was the head of my department, and had no permanent staff.

I should have been working overtime, to keep up.

But as soon as the clock hit closing time, I left, and went straight to J's room.

Since his appendix had ruptured, his doctors were worried he might go septic. They needed to keep him under strict observation.

He had a six-inch incision, up the center of his belly, that was left mostly open, packed with gauze.

He was on morphine.

Four days into his stay, his doctors took him off the hard stuff, and switched to vicodin.

I was with him when he suddenly looked around his room, his gaze clear but confused.
"Does my sister know I'm here?"

"Yes, I called her when you went in to surgery, and when you came out."

"Oh."

He looked lost.

***

The next day, I called his sister's cell. I got her voice mail.

"Hi, C. I'm just giving you a call because I think it would mean a lot to your brother if you gave him a visit. He was asking about you. Here's his room number..."

***

"Hey, honey."

"Hi."

"How're you feeling?"

"Like I've been knifed," he said with a whisper of a smile.

"I left a message for your sister today. Has she called?"

"No."

"Really?"

"Well, I talked to my mom earlier, and she said that C. told her she couldn't make it to the hospital, but that she'd visit me at home once they let me out, and get us groceries."

"Oh."

***

She didn't return my call.

By mid-week, J was recovered enough that they let him go home. But he still had an open wound on his abdomen, that he needed to flush with saline each day and pack with fresh gauze. He couldn't lift things. He couldn't go outside.

Meanwhile, I was getting into the shit at work.

A wardrobe manager had gone to my boss, furious that suits of armor had only been delivered the morning of dress rehearsal, instead of the night before.

I wasn't the only one who was running behind on the show. But a co-worker friend overheard my boss saying, "Looks like we'll need to find a new crafts head for next year."

Another friend had read an email sent out from the wardrobe manager in question, which read something to the effect that he didn't care if I had a husband in the hospital-- it was my job to get him costumes in time to check them in.

My job was the one that provided our health insurance.

That week, I worked until eleven each night, swinging by the all-night drugstore on my way home to get fresh gauze and saline.

J signed us up for a grocery delivery service.

His sister still hadn't returned my call.

***

When J was still in the hospital, his mother had asked me if I wanted her to come visit. But her father was in the process of dying, slowly. She was his only family in the area, and his health care proxy. I didn't think it was right to put her in the position of having to choose between taking care of her father and taking care of her son. I wanted her to know I'd take good care of him.

And his sister lived a fifteen-minute walk from our place.

It's not like I'd be alone.

***

A week after J came home from the hospital, he got a get-well card in the mail from his sister. She still hadn't spoken to either of us, or come by.

"Sweetie, I don't want to make assumptions, and I understand every family is different, but... this feels really strange to me. Why hasn't your sister come to visit?"

"Well," he said matter-of-factly, "she doesn't care about me."

I didn't know what to say. I couldn't prove him wrong.

He didn't deserve to feel that way.

I saw red.

***

The next day, I called C's cell. I got her voice mail, again.

"Hello, C. We got your card, yesterday. And while that was ... I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you haven't called or come to see your brother. I'm shocked, actually. And hurt. And I just don't think that's how you treat family. I don't know what else to say."

***

Not surprisingly, I guess, she didn't return that call, either.

In fact, she hasn't spoken to either of us since. And this all happened four years ago.

Later that year, J's grandfather died. The family gathered at his home in Massachusetts for a reunion/wake.

That whole weekend, C avoided both J and me. She wouldn't return our gaze. If we entered a room, she left it.

Incidentally, this is the same way she's treated her father since high school. She's in her early thirties, now.

That Christmas, C sent a collection of family photos to everyone in her clan. There were pictures of everyone in the family-- uncles, cousins, wives, children.

Everyone, that is, except me.

***

Some time later, J had lunch with his mother while she was visiting the city. She's the only person in C's immediate family who C still talks to. In fact, they are extraordinarily close.

J's mom told J that C didn't understand how I could accuse C of not treating her family well, when we'd never done anything to make C feel part of the family.

Except coming to support her when she had a portfolio review for URTA at the end of college. And giving her a place to stay while she looked for an apartment in the city. Or helping her move. Or helping her with her paperwork for getting into the wardrobe union. Or using my industry connections to get her her first two jobs in the city. Or inviting her for four years running to our Thanksgiving dinner (which she, for four years, declined.)

But never mind that.

J's mom told J that C thought I'd over-reacted. C said something to the effect of: "I mean, I offered to get them groceries."

I'm told she did. After all, she told J's mother that she would stop by. It would never do for J's mom to get the idea that C doesn't appreciate a sense of duty to family.

But, that being the case, I find it a little strange that J had to sign us up for FreshDirect. And that C never called either of us, or made arrangements to stop by.

I suppose we should have tried to hunt her down. Though, given that I was working around the clock, J was bed-fast, and C wasn't returning my calls, I really don't know what else we were supposed to do.

***

This weekend, J's mom called J to let him know that she was concerned C hadn't yet received an invitation to my baby shower.

I doubt J's mom really thinks J had anything to do with the invitations for the shower. In fact, J's mom made arrangements with my aunt, who is hostessing the event, at Easter. My aunt has told me that J's mom offered to partner with her to help prepare.

All the same, I did make sure my aunt had a copy of the addresses of all of J's mom's female relatives, and the friends she'd told me she'd like included. Even though, from my understanding of how showers are supposed to work, I'm not really supposed to be part of the preparations at all.

Most of the baby showers I've attended were surprise parties. But, I'm just thrilled my aunt wants to throw me one, so I've done what I could to help when she's asked me to.

But I'll admit, I didn't send my aunt C's contact information.

And I did not mistake J's mother's real intention in calling J about the "lost" invitation, when she's fully aware my aunt is the one she should contact with her concerns about the event.

My MIL is a military-level strategist when it comes to passive-aggression.

But I've been married to J for the better part of a decade now, so I'm far more forthright in responding to these attacks than I used to be.

I called her. I explained that I was surprised she was calling J in the first place about the issue, because both my mother and my aunt had told me that she'd arranged to help my aunt with the event, when they met at Easter.

"Well, I don't... I'm just making some cupcakes. I'm not sending out invitations. And I don't know how to get in touch with your aunt."

Really? You're a sixty-five-year-old woman. You don't know how to use Directory Assistance? Or, failing that, how to call my mom and ask her for my aunt's number?

I didn't say that.

I did tell her that I'd sent my aunt a list of addresses of her family and friends, several weeks ago. "But as for C, well, we haven't spoken in years. And I think it's a little ridiculous to send someone an invitation to a baby shower, when that person isn't speaking to either of the parents of the baby in question."

Or when that person doesn't give two shits whether the baby's father is alive or dead.

I didn't say that. But boy, did I want to.

I added, "She wouldn't come to see the baby's father when he was in the hospital. And at our family reunion, any time J or I came into a room, she left it."

"Well, that must be another miscommunication, then, because she says that was the other way around."

Huh. Have you seen how she acts around your husband? She hasn't willingly been in the same room with him for... what? Fifteen years? This really doesn't sound like her modus operandi?

I didn't say that, either. I wasn't in the mood to play the telephone game, with my MIL the official garbler/translator.

"Listen, I understand that you're trying to be a peacemaker, you're trying to build a bridge and make things right. But your daughter is in her thirties. She's an adult. And she knows where to find us. If she wants to mend fences, and have a relationship with her nephew, we're open to that. But that's on her. And you need to step back, and let her be an adult, and make that happen if she wants to."

***

That was Saturday.

Saturday kind of sucked.

The shower is coming up, Memorial Day Weekend.

I want to write something pithy about remembrance, but this stupid family drama doesn't warrant that level of dignity.

I think I'll focus on remembering to be glad my husband is alive, and that we're making our new family, together.

And letting the rest of this bullshit lay forgotten by the wayside.

Comments

[IzzyMom]

Remember when I mentioned that my sister and I don't speak? People always think that's so sad but you know what? I've made peace with it and I'm truly happy to be free of her constant criticism and her head games and her passive-aggression.

Anyway, I thought what you said to your MIL was spot-on and very mature.

Forget about C... She clearly has issues that she doesn't WANT to address so whatever. You have more important things to think about...

[roo]

Izzy, thank you for reading that giant dissertation of mine!

I let this issue derail me for my birthday weekend-- which pissed me off. I wrote it out to try to put it in its place. I do feel better lately.

But yeah, some people make it clear that they don't want a good relationship. I'm finally getting to the point in my life where I'm willing to accept that, and just move on.

But it's still nice to have backup. Thanks for that.