Desperate Remedies

Kyle pulled back Melanie’s hair that fell limp over her gaunt cheek and tied the food bib on her. She placed her hand on his, her muscles involuntarily jerking; she could no longer hold her eating utensils. He knew how hurt and challenged she felt like this, and when she thought he was out, he heard her raging and it broke his heart. 

“I really like the texture of this food,” she said, after he spoon fed her from the bowl of processed dinner. 

“And the taste?” he said, ignoring the bitter edge of her sarcasm.

“Let me guess, carrots and kale?” 

“Your taste buds are incredible.” It was broccoli and sweet potato. He didn’t know why he fibbed. What did it matter? Every week, his wife seemed to lose something more, and he couldn’t bear to tell her. 

“Kyle, unfortunately when Anita moved me, my muscles jerked and the leg of my wheel chair hit the wall.” 

He stroked her cheek. “Darling I’ll fix it.” She loved their dream home that they’d planned together and built, and couldn’t bare to let anything go untended. 

“And the rose bush needs pruning.”

“You’re my rose,” he said and kissed her. 

After dinner, he helped her into her recliner chair to look out into the yard and made her tea with cream and sugar in an indestructible plastic cup with a lid and a straw, and turned on her latest audio book for them to listen to. Before long, her head drooped to the side and her eyes closed. He positioned her head and pulled the blanket up around her. She might still wake up. He turned off the audio book and put on some gentle music at a lowered volume, and grabbed his computer and opened up his email. Her doctor’s name showed up in his new emails. His fingers trembling, he opened it. 

Dr. Sanchez mentioned a new remedy that had recently undergone promising trials in Europe, but it wasn’t available in North America and would cost about half a million dollars. He was writing to Kyle first and would talk to Melanie about it on her next appointment, but he’d thought Kyle might want to consider if he could manage the cost first, as well as the complications of moving with his wife to Europe.

Kyle closed his computer. A cure. Would it work? What if it didn’t work? Would she be worse off after being moved to Europe? At the beginning of her illness, she’d made him promise he’d support her to die at home, in the comfortable surroundings they’d assembled and not in some cold, clinical hospital. She loved their home and he would do everything to save her and not lose their home. 

Kyle helped Melanie into bed, gently supporting her frail frame and easing her into the bed in the guest bedroom, where she’d insisted sleeping ever since she’d required his help with her nighttime routine. He gave her all her medications and rubbed her feet gently, his mind churning. The agitated snores issued from Melanie’s mouth, and he stayed with her a few moments more before leaving.

In their study, he looked around at the mahogany book shelves they’d selected and installed themselves. There were his carpentry and architecture books and magazines, and her English Literature books, and in a special case, the early edition of Emily Dickinson, he’d given to her for her birthday five years ago, just after they’d finished the house. He remembered her hand, slender but with a healthy muscle tone, tentatively touch the gilt paper edges and her eyes raised to him with a smile that made the expense worthwhile. 

Running his hand along the fine wood of the shelves, he felt grounded while his life turbulent, and cruel and difficult stormed around him. He needed to keep the house. It was as much a product of the love Melanie and he had for each other as any child. Before her illness, they both expected the house to grow old and worn and even creaky with the two of them. 

He opened up his computer and took out their financial file from the desk drawer. The bank numbers taunted him from the screen, as insensitive and uncompromising as Melanie’s lab results. Numbers don’t lie, but they bludgeon and cut and maim. She used to spend hours in here, writing short stories at the this large ash desk, they’d found in a second hand store and refinished, He fancied she impressed love and passion into the cellulite of the wood grains, as well as her stories. Even when she wasn’t in the same room as him, her essence pervaded every inch of of their home. Why didn’t the numbers testify to that?

He checked in on her, walking softly in his socks. She moved and groaned, and he waited by her door, not wanting to disturb her. Where had her stories gone? They’d shrunken inside her, wasting away with her physical body. If only he could get the remedy, and if only he could know for sure it would return vitality to her sickened form. Without her, he couldn’t imagine how he’d go on. He leaned against the burnished wood door frame, and stopped the door from closing, grasping the bronze door knob and feeling its night coolness against his hands. He couldn’t imagine being in this home without his wife, but he couldn’t see himself living anywhere else, except where he’d shared the happiest moments of his life with her.

In the morning, he opened the door to Anita, the Malaysian care aid who stayed with Melanie while he went to work. Getting into his car, he called to his office and told them he’d be a little late, and drove over to his parents. 

“How is she?” his mom said when she opened the door to him. It sounded like an accusation to him, but he responded evenly, “She’s fine.” No, she wasn’t fine. She was dying. 

“This is so hard for you, Kyle. You don’t need to do it alone. You can hire help.”

 “I know, Mom. I’ve come over to talk to Dad.” 

“You know where he is,” his mom nodded her head to the hall. 

He knocked on his dad’s open door and saw his dad bent over a large black ledger on his executive oak desk. After his dad retired many years ago, he acted as treasurer for the condominium complex, his lawn bowling club, and various other organizations, and kept three full file cabinets.

His dad held up his hand; “Just a moment, just going down these figures.”

He waited a few minutes. “Dad, I got to get to the office.”

His dad glared at his manual ledger. “You should’ve called ahead.”

Stepping from one foot to another, he pondered how to ask. There was no good way. 

“There’s a new remedy we can get for Melanie, which could cure her, so …we need money. It’s expensive.” 

His dad rubbed his stomach and grimaced. “Kyle, I told you not to build that fancy house of yours. I told you, you don’t know what can happen. You see. Melanie went and got sick. That’s what can happen. And now you want me to pay for this remedy?”

“This is my wife’s life!” 

“And I’d like to have a fancy new house like you, but I’m responsible.”

“Damn you and your sanctimonious blabber.” He grabbed the ledger out of his dad’s hands. “You care more about these stupid organizations than you do about the people in your family.”

His dad looked cowed and clutched his heart. 

“Kyle, please leave now. You know your dad has a heart condition.” His mom moved past him to attend to his father.

“Sorry!” 

“Your tone, Kyle,” his mom said.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, and pushed past his mom.

Sitting in his car, he let the feelings of guilt and anger wash over him. Even after all the psychotherapy he’d invested in, they still pushed his buttons. Let it go, he told himself, as he drove to work. There’s got to be a way to get the remedy for Melanie without selling their home. Other than her increasing loss of independence, she paid scant attention to herself, but everyday she hinted at upkeep tasks around their home. 

When he got into work, he booked an appointment with his bank for after work, and passed the day thinking more about that than about his work, which was a lot of paperwork for a development project, nothing urgent. 

At the bank, a loans officer with a heavy face and brow ushered him into a small cubicle. Lewis Fletcher introduced himself, planting his thick, reddened fingers on the formica tabletop. With foreboding, Kyle took a seat, and gathering all his selling skills from years of development presentations at work, laid out his situation, and focused on his goal of saving his wife’s life with this remedy.

Lewis listened without expression. When Kyle finished, Lewis typed on his keyboard and peered at the screen for a few moments. Kyle felt his anger rising. The banker’s expression was so much like his father’s. 

“No, I’m sorry, but we can’t help you.”

“But this isn’t about money. It’s about my wife’s life!” 

“I understand your situation. I wish I could do more. But as it is, you’re already overextended..” He tapped a few keys, his job done, and stood up. 

Kyle leaned forward and grabbed the monitor and raised it in the air. “My wife’s life isn’t just numbers in your stupid system. Do something. I’m not a bum. I make a good living.” 

“Security!” Lewis yelled. Kyle slammed the monitor down on the desk and reached over the desk to throttle the damn banker. Hands grabbed at his arms, and he looked behind him to see a slender young female security officer, who looked lost in her dark bulky uniform. The fight went out of him, and he let her escort him out of the bank. 

Kyle sat in his car and buried his head in his hands on the steering wheel, setting off the horn. He bashed the horn on purpose again and ignored the thumps on his window and angry shouts outside and leaned on it again. Gentle knocks followed with his surname being called. He looked up and saw the female security officer with another tall lean man in a pale grey suit with thinning hair in his forties, gesturing for him to open his window.

“I’m Mark Wilson, the branch manager. We wanted to check on you.”

“Look, I’m sorry. Leave me alone.”

“Mr. Ulansky, you’ve been a good customer for many years and we value your business, and we know the…er…your behavior was…”

“I said I’m sorry. Please, if I damaged anything, I’ll pay for it.”

“Er, there’s something my colleague didn’t discuss with you.”

Kyle stared at the bank manager. 

“You see, your home has appreciated in value at least forty percent, and so you see you could…”

“You want to take my home, the home of my wife and I, just to give me a measly loan.”

The manager cleared his voice. “I didn’t mean to put it like that. I just wanted you to know what your options are. We value your business.”

“If only you valued the life of my spouse. Good day, Mr. Wilson,” Kyle said, putting his car into reverse, and peeling out of the parking lot. 

As he drove, he obsessed. If only they valued Melanie like he did, they’d help. He parked and sat in the car until his rage subsided.

Then it hit him. He’d always gone home to his wife. What would it be like to go home without her there? He stared at his home for several minutes before he went inside.

Melanie reclined in the chair with a blanket on her lap, with her feet up, looking out into the backyard and the bushes. “The flowers give me such joy.”  

He smiled with satisfaction at the vividness of the pink and purple and yellow and other colours; the result of his following her directions, prepping the soil and planting the seeds, and with her reminders he kept the garden watered.  

“The rose bush needs pruning,” she said.

Kyle wiped his brow and finger combed his hair back from his forehead. He knelt down beside her chair. Her shoulders looked thin and vulnerable and her facial bones jutted out in her pale face were prominent, but for him she was beautiful. 

“You have the expression you had when you proposed to me. How long ago was it?” “Twenty-eight years ago,” he said.

“Ah, I was testing you.” 

Kyle swallowed. “I want you to know I love you. I’ll always love you, and I can’t bear not to give you every chance at health and life.”

She reached out with her thin fingers and caressed his cheek and chin. “You’ve done all you can. You’ve given me a wonderful life. I couldn’t ask for anything more. I love you as well, and I feel I’ll love you even when I’m gone.”

He leaned forward and cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, aware of the smell of decay and sickness in her body, but he’d rather smell her even in this way than all the most beautiful roses in the world. Holding her gently, he whispered in her ear, “Melanie, darling, I’ve decided to sell the house.” Her body tensed, and he felt the emotion in her propel his body back. 

“But Kyle, this is our home!”

“No, darling. You’re my home.” 

Tears brimmed in her lower eyelids and he wiped those away with a clean cotton handkerchief he’d taken to carrying in his pocket. 

She reached out and put her unsteady hands on his. “Are you sure you want to do this? Don’t you want to continue to live here with all the beautiful memories of our life here?” 

“Not without you. It would just be a house. There’s a remedy. It’s not a hundred percent, but it’s the only way at this point.” He heard the anxious eagerness in his tone, just like when he proposed, ‘in sickness and in health.’

“Kyle, honey, I know.”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I wanted you to come to this decision on your own.”

“What if I’d never come round?”

“I knew you would just like I knew all those years ago when you asked me to marry you.”