When We're Not Taking Care of Them

When we're not taking care of them
We get coffee somewhere
Where we're confident
Nobody will know us

In winter, we keep our coats and scarves on
Thinking we may need to leave fast
After being recognized
Or summoned
Back to the hospital

We let the oversized coffee mugs
Warm our hands
Instead of letting each other’s hands
Warm our hands
Because we're too scared
To each across the table
Even twenty blocks
From where our spouses lay
In the land
Of Just Wait

Even after spending an entire year
Quietly deleting friends and acquaintances
From our lives
We worry

That someone will wonder where we are
Put two and two together
Even though the puzzle is vast
And pieces are lost
And the ones that are left
Don’t fit together
To make a picture
That anyone could see
But us

Even after confessing to separate therapists
That what we want to do this
And hear them tell us
We should
We worry

When we're not taking care of them
We talk to each other on the phone for hours

First it was swapping stories
That we'd only touched upon
After crossing paths
At the hospital

Then we talked about our marriages
The good times, then slowly
Like going into the pool on the first day of summer
We talked about the bad times

The better bad times

Because before there were bad times
And now there is something worse

These are the bad bad times

That’s what’s happened to our lives
Now even bad memories
Seem lovely

. . . . .
A car accident puts two people in a coma
It was the man's fault
He had been drinking
The woman was coming home from the supermarket
There was a bag of cereal and a dozen eggs in the back seat

That was all years ago
And yet nothing has changed

Time has stopped

Welcome to the land of Just Waiting

The stories haven’t changed

A husband and wife of a husband and wife
Wait patiently in a waiting room
In the land of Just Waiting
While blips and bleeps
Carry down the hall

The husband stares angrily at the wife
Blaming the only conscious person to blame
He doesn’t know she already blames herself
For not leaving her husband years ago

He doesn’t know she’ll feel guilty
Long after the husband across the room
Stops hating her
Even after he starts shifting
Into something else altogether

Eventually, they start coming to the hospital separately
But inevitably, visits cross
And tentative hello’s are exchanged
Every now and again

Then polite chitchat
Then an actual conversation
Then another, then another
Then the visits become more synchronized

Not consciously, well maybe consciously
But anyway, they do

Then one day a phone number is exchanged
And that was it

It didn’t happen right away

But there’s a moment when you choose
To let the undertow take you away

‘Here’s my number’

And away you go…

. . . . .

We spend nights in hotels

Because it doesn’t feel right

To sleep in either bed

We eat at restaurants

We see movies

Neither of us

Has seen the other’s house

We sneak in time

When we’re not taking care of them

And yet taking care of them is a job

That we have taken on together

One of us is in charge of flowers

The other, talking to doctors

One of us reads from books and magazines

One of us sits and cries

And talks about children

And work

And what the doctors say

And what they don’t say

And hope

We sneak joy to each other

Like candy in a schoolyard

Here’s a book I know you’ll like

Here’s a song that reminds me of you

Here’s a kiss, I’m sorry, is that okay, is it okay to--?

Every second we spend

Away from taking care of them

Is laden with guilt

We feel like we should always be taking care of them

When we’re not taking care of them

. . . . .

One day he goes

And she’s gone

The doctors say it happens

It could happen

It could always happen

Sometimes

It happens

And she’s gone

There’s an equal chance

In situations like these

That the patient will wake up

But she doesn’t

She goes

He can’t see her after that

Not for awhile

He’s angry again

The anger comes back

Stronger and harder

And he screams at her finally over the phone

When she calls for the fifth time

In one day

Leave.Me.Alone

And she goes too

And he’s alone

Then he hates himself

Throws out the bedding

Gets a new phone

Drives by the hospital

Like it’s a place

Where someone he loved

Used to live

He eats fast food

But loses weight

He lets her parents plan the funeral

And shows up as if he’s making a special guest appearance

He doesn’t seem like her husband

He doesn’t feel like her husband

He doesn’t want to be here

He wants to be with her

The other her

And so that night

He goes to the hospital

And they tell him

They tell him about her husband

They shouldn’t

But they can tell

That it’s something

He needs to know

Her husband

Woke up

. . . . .

We visit him at the home

We hear he’ll be walking soon

Maybe, but let’s not rush it

His brain is still not what it was

He can’t remember things

He can’t remember that he was ever unhappy

And now he’s happy all the time

And we’re glad about that

He’s glad to see both of us

He never questions who one of us is

He’s just thrilled to have visitors

We tell him we’ll be back tomorrow

And we will be

It’s hard for one of us to see him

But we do it because the husband

One of us was angry at

No longer exists

Now all that exists is a damaged man

Who needs to be visited

When we leave him

We visit the cemetery

With flowers

And stories

Like the ones one of us used to tell

At the hospital

We leave with kind words

And it isn’t until we’re in the car

That we allow ourselves

A moment

Where we hold each other’s hands

We will be taking care of them

For the rest of our lives

One must be maintained

While the other is memorialized

We believe there are worse responsibilities

To be given

And that’s the truth

So day after day

We visit and read

And visit and catch up

And visit and comfort

And visit and visit and visit

And when we’re not taking care of them

We finally feel it’s okay

To take care

Of each other