This is another post in a series, about a woman named Amara. Every Friday I will post another segment in this story.
“Hello?” Joe whispered into the phone receiver, not awake enough to really be talking yet.
Joy stirred, laying close to Joe, feeling warm, protected, and cared for.
“When did this happen?”
Joy was awakening more quickly now, as she heard the urgency in Joe’s voice. She glanced at the bedside clock, noting it was only six minutes after five in the morning.
Joe put the phone on the bed table, “your mother is not doing well. They said she may have had a stroke. We need to get to the hospital, as soon as possible.” He eyed Joy, looking for signs that she fully understood the words he had just said.
Joy took a deep breath, “okay. The girls are at Susan’s, and we can call them later. Will you come with me?”
She wants me to be with her … she needs me. Joe nodded a yes to Joy, and a great smile covered her face. She then turned and started to move at lightening speed, dressing and readying herself to head to the hospital.
In less than fifteen minutes, the two of them were locking up the house and climbing into Joe’s old Honda Civic that he had been driving since university. Normally a suggestion that they take his car would be squashed by Joy, immediately, due to it’s “gas guzzling” and “appearance of a vehicle that had been abandoned in a field, permanently.”
As soon as they arrived on the floor where Amara had been, one of the nurses, who had been with Joy the early morning when Amara was first brought in, walked directly to them.
“Joy, we are doing tests on her right now, and she will be brought back to her room very soon. As soon as she is back in her room, I will page her doctor, and have him inform you of her progress. Come in to her room, and I can let you know exactly what has been happening.”
The kind nurse ushered Joy and Joe into the room, and they sat on the small sofa in the room, while the nurse recounted all of the events leading up to the point when Amara was taken for a test to see if the problem was atherosclerosis or a brain aneurysm. It sounded like a dreadful test to Joy, who was assured that her mother was sedated while having it.
Once the nurse left the two alone, Joy fell into her hands, into a long and deep sob. She could feel Joe encapsulate her into his arms, and she felt no shame, no weakness for losing control so fully. Joy could not remember crying like this … ever in her life. At no other time in her life did she feel able to be so out of control with another person. Not her mother, or her father, or even her dearly loved grandparents, and definitely not Joe. Something had changed, within her? Within Joe? She did not know, but something had changed that allowed her the freedom to be so vulnerable.
Joe had no idea how long he had been holding Joy, as her body was consumed with sobbing. All he knew was that, for the first time in many years, the woman that he was holding needed him, and needed him terribly. Somehow, her needing him, caused his need of her to grow as well, and his recognition of his own responsibility for how their marriage had deteriorated.
All this time, while he would email and text and talk on the telephone with Roxanne he had been telling himself that the problems were the fault of Joy. He had been rationalizing that the time he was spending with Roxanne was related to work, and, even if it was more, that was because Joy had been cold to him, in every way. He had constantly said to himself, “she can’t expect me to live like this forever. At some point she will push me into another woman’s arms.” But now, holding the woman he truly loved, he realized that he was not pushed into Roxanne’s arms, he RAN into them.
As Amara was being wheeled back into the room, Joy’s phone started to ring. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Susan’s number. “Joe, can you take this call for me? It is Susan, and she is probably wondering when to bring the girls back home.”
Joe nodded and headed to the hallway to answer the call.
“How is she?” Joy asked the men lifting her mother to her bed. Amara’s body was limp, her face so pale. The only sign of life was a grimace as she was being lifted, followed by a moan.
“Sorry ma’am, we are just delivering her to her room. I am sure someone will come and speak with you,” one of the orderlies said, as the two were walking from the room.
Joy walked slowly towards her resting mother. It had already been days since they had spoken to each other, and Joy wondered if that might have been her last words to … and from her mother. Oh, what did we talk about? Joy was frustrated that she could not remember. Then it came to her that their last conversation had been on the phone, about Joy and her daughters going to her mother’s house to spend the night.
Just then Joe walked in the room.
“Hey Joy, is she okay?” He asked, as his eyes darted from Amara to Joy.
“I don’t know yet. I guess it was just orderlies who brought her back. They said someone would come to let me know.” Joy looked so sad, so tired.
“Robin is ill, so Susan thought it might be best if our girls don’t stay there, so that they do not get sick too. Will you be okay if I go to pick them up, and then I’ll bring the girls here?”
“Sure,” Joy responded more a reaction than a response.
“I promise, I will not be gone long at all,” Joe finished saying as he stood in front of Joy, where she literally fell into his arms.
“I am so sorry that I have not been here for you, for far too long.” Joe said, with deep regrets in his heart. “I promise to be here for you. You do not have to walk through this alone, I am here for you.”
Joe had not been more transparent or sincere at any other time in his life. He was beginning to feel as though he had a once in a lifetime opportunity to have a second start in his marriage with Joy, And he was willing to do whatever it took to make that happen, and to prove to Joy that he was committed to a better marriage.
“I will be right back.” He said as he pulled back from Joy, kissed her forehead, smiled and walked through the door.
itsawonderfilledlife 