Innocent Spouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

ignition, and said only, “So like Howard to be in grave condition but still traveling in style.”
    At the Washington Hospital Center a vigil began. My other brother, David, arrived from Seattle. Martha, Robert, David, and assorted friends camped with me in a small waiting room with a pay phone on the wall outside the hospital’s second-floor medical intensive care unit, steps away from the cramped, cluttered high-tech bay where Howard continued to struggle on life support. We lived there with pillows, blankets, food, and a TV from home. I taped family photos on the wall of Howard’s bay. I wanted his dedicated medical team to see the healthy, handsome, happy Howard.
    One week stretched into two, then three. Day turned to night turned to day turned to night. Time lost all boundaries. I returned home only to hug Spencer, clean up, change clothes, and occasionally sleep—or, more correctly, pass out. In a bizarre contrast, as I drove through the city, I passed the preparations for Bill Clinton’s upcoming second inauguration, an event in which as a network news producer I would ordinarily have been deeply engaged. Instead I existed in another universe of grief and pain, good news, bad news, good news, bad news. Up, down, up, down. My language was medical jargon. My most intimate conversations were with doctors. My husband was as still and silent as a stone, his body animated only by a respirator. Sometimes I would walk to the end of the hall to a large picture window with a view of the city. Hope ebbing, I would press my cheek against the glass and sob.
    On day nineteen, Howard’s good, kind, and hard-working doctors, Michael Hockstein and Peter Levit, closed the door of the small waiting room and sat down with Martha and me. It was empty but for us. They could only be honest. “He’s not going to make it. We can keep him on life support, but that won’t change anything.” Martha and I had more or less expected the news. We didn’t break down. We didn’t fall apart. Instead, we dealt with the moment. “No, no,” I said, about continuing life support. “He wouldn’t want it that way. We have to let him go.”
    Dr. Levit said, “I’ll sign the order.”
    Spencer returned from preschool that day in his usual bubbly mood. He was such a happy little boy. Three weeks without his daddy and he was still in high spirits, though aware that our routine was jarringly different. Now I had to rob him of his joy, let him know that something irreversible and terribly, terribly sad was about to happen.
    “Let’s take a walk,” I said, “out along the canal.”
    He was instantly agreeable. I bundled him up—puffy jacket, hat, mittens, scarf. We leashed up the dog, too. I didn’t know how I could inflict such incomprehensible pain upon him—almost an act of violence. But he had to know. I wanted him to understand as best he could what was happening to his father, that he didn’t just disappear into thin air. Even a five-year-old needs to say good-bye.
    The grass along the towpath was covered with patches of snow; the sun was breaking through the mottled gray clouds. We stopped at a pretty spot where we were alone. “I need to talk to you about Daddy,” I said, holding his hand in mine.
    His head was down, and I heard the little voice. “I know. He’s going to die, isn’t he?”
    “Yes,” I said, my heart sinking.
    Spencer grimaced and held his eyes shut. He plowed his head into my stomach and grabbed onto me with both arms and stayed like that, his head buried in my winter coat, his fists and arms tight on my hips. He tried to stop the tears. He wiped them away with his mittens as they spilled from his eyes. I kneeled, stroked his head and his back, and wrapped my arms around him as tightly as I could. His heartbreak tore through me.
    “Do you want to say good-bye to him?” I asked.
    His head was pressed against me but I could feel his nod.
    “I think it would be a good idea,” I said, holding him, “and I