Desperate Remedies

Diffident knuckles rasp at a hospital room door already ajar. A black, wrinkled hand pushes the door open. A hoarse whisper, “Willa?” A slow step, almost a shuffle, into the room. A wizened face pokes through the doorway, a mix of curiosity, anxiety, and guile. “Willa?”

Willa, wasted, charcoal gray face leached of its former ruddiness, shuts her eyes, recognizing the voice. “What do you want, Bitsy? Missing that alimony?”

Bitsy lowers his gaze and, with an apparent effort, brings it back to her face. “Just wanted to see you, baby.”

Willa stares at him, incredulous at the effrontery. “I’m not your baby. Never was.”

Bitsy drops his gaze, removes his cap and shifts it from hand to hand, peering at her through knitted brows. “Willa, I’m not here to fight. Just wanted to see how you’re doin’.”

Willa sighs. “I’m dying, Bitsy. That’s how I’m doing.”

Bitsy’s eyes glass over. He rubs one of them, sniffs, slumps into the bedside chair. “Been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“Not long enough for me.”

He nods. “I know. I got that comin’. But, baby, you got me all wrong. I straightened out. A long time ago I got clean.”

Willa sits up, wincing, high enough to look down into his eyes. “Clean enough to get some self-respect? Clean enough to take care of yourself instead of having the world do it for you? Instead of having me do it for you?”

“Aw, gimme a break. It’s not my fault if the welfare checks and the disability checks keep coming. If the Man decides to give it to me, who’m I to say no?”

“What about giving me a break? With all that income coming in, you couldn’t see your way clear to letting me off the hook?”

“Aw, come on. That’s chicken feed to you—to any doctor.”

Willa sighs again. “Just like always: you know nothing. Nothing about the world that you don’t want to believe. Everyone has it made but you. Poor you, always something new to feel sorry for yourself about. Never mind my income dropping to a pauper’s. Oh no, it’s poor old you the judge sides with. If you can count on one thing in this country, it’s to reward people for acting helpless. Long as they have a good lawyer. The one good thing about lying here letting cancer take me away is that one of your rivers of money is running dry.”

“Willa, honey, I’m over seventy. I ain’t got much time left. Have mercy. You gonna go to your end like this? I ain’t axin’ you much. Just wanted to see if we could get together, you know?”

 “Get together? What the devil does that mean?”

“I…I guess I just want us to see past where we left off. You know, let bygones be bygones?”

It comes back now, the fright of that night twenty years before when he left the house drunk after threatening to shoot her. How the terror had burned until he returned, dropped off by a friend. Had he gotten a gun? But the only thing he was carrying was whiskey. Lucky he could get inside before passing out on the couch. She swallows this and picks up a more accustomed grievance, a safer one to feel. “What about all the years when I couldn’t pay for a nurse anymore and you were living high? I mean, high high, as in stoned.”

“That’s all over. Long over. Just ask your Nora, she been listening to me. She knows.”

“You mean the Nora that wouldn’t send out bills to patients who hadn’t paid for a month when they were supposed to pay going out the door? The Nora who was against raising our rates because it might offend patients? The Nora who stopped in the driveway one time to let a pair of rabbits pass? Stone rabbits? She must have waited five minutes till she caught on. Convincing her you’re a good person doesn’t mean much.”

“Sugar, it don’t mean nothin’ to me, neither. I just want to convince you—at least that I’m worth talking to. I ain’t axing you to forgive me. I know I done wrong.”

Willa lowers herself back into the bed. “Oh, you can charm. I’ll give you that. Charm a possum out of a tree.” She raises her head a tad. “And then eat it down to its anal orifice.”

Bitsy laughs in spite of himself. “Now you just bein’ cruel.”

Willa purses her lips to hide a smile, remembering how her insults used to pierce him through and how he’d laugh anyway. “Now I’m just telling the truth, Bitsy.” Her forehead pinches as pain embraces her bones again. “And the truth right now is you better go while I’m in a good mood.”

“Can I come back end o’ the week?”

“Suit yourself.” Distracted by the pain, she presses the button to summon a nurse. The IV isn’t delivering enough morphine and she can’t bear it anymore.

She wakes in the middle of the night, the ache droning. That’s what it was like being with Bitsy, she tells herself as she waits for help: new pain on top of old. How had their visit ended? She’d said “Suit yourself.” And he will, she knows, he always does suit himself. But that note of pleading means he’ll visit again. She shudders, thinking about waiting for that other visit, that night he threatened to kill her.  The pain whispers, he’s the one who deserves to die, not you. You even know how to do it.

Willa, feeling no shock, only the recognition of a neglected inner voice, finds herself agreeing. Let that snake in the grass crawl closer, act like I’m glad to see him.

A nurse steps in, turns up the morphine drip a notch, says not a word, pats her on the shoulder, leaves.

Willa relaxes a little. Yeah, give him a dose of what he loves better than anyone or anything. Give him a dose bigger than he ever thought of. Big enough to do the job.

Relief from the pain blends with satisfaction at her coming role as executioner.

Bitsy does return at week’s end, still diffident but with new hope in his eyes, his mouth already open to speak, confess, receive pardon graciously.

Willa hates this attitude even worse. Her eyes shift away from him. Renewing her commitment to ending his worthless life, she swallows, offers him a weak smile. “Maybe I’ve been too hard on you. The pain makes me crabby. Maybe I should ease up. I always feel better for a while after the nurse adjusts the IV.” She smiles again, but it doesn’t feel like it reaches her eyes. “After all this time, I’m getting used to sliding from feeling low to feeling like a little morphine is good stuff. Maybe I should have taken you up on it when you used to offer me some of your drugs.” 

Bitsy’s jaw sags. “Yeah, bet you’re on the hard stuff now. Hunh?”

Willa nods. “Reach in that drawer, will you? Something in there for you.”

He frowns. “Yeah? Anything good?”

“Just open the drawer.”

He does. “All’s I see’s a needle and a little tube connected to it.”

“What I’m talking about. Thought you might want to share some of this. Of course, if you’re clean—long clean—you probably wouldn’t want to get in trouble again. Don’t like to offer you something you can’t handle.”

Bitsy’s head lifts. “I could handle that shit then, and I can handle it now. I’m sure out of practice finding a vein, though.”

Willa slides her legs to the side of the bed near Bitsy. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I haven’t lost my touch doing blood draws.”

“You mean it? You’re gonna share the good stuff?”

“Here, on the blanket. Hold out your arm. Steady. That’s right.” Willa turns a valve, shutting off the flow of her IV. She takes the needle from Bitsy, slides it into a bulging forearm vein. Removing the cap from the end of the tubing, she pulls out the big IV line connected to her own tubing and connects the morphine drip to Bitsy.

“Just a second.” She opens the valve. The yellowish fluid seeps into him. “How’s that now?”

“Don’t feel nothin…uh, I mean, mmm. That’s better. Thass…” His head starts to sag.

“That’s more opiate than you ever had, Bitsy. That’s the level it takes to keep cancer pain at bay. After being on the drug for a month. After tolerance builds up. A couple more minutes and you really won’t feel anything. Your miserable existence will be over. I’ll be free of you forever.”

But this kind of relief is sapping her of another, the steady flow of analgesia that keeps her from going insane in fear and agony. She steels herself. “Just a couple more minutes, Bitsy. I can take it that long. I’ll just slip the needle back into my own arm and be okay again. No terror here. Not now. Not like that night you threatened me a bullet in the head.”

Now the terror reminds her of the terror she used to feel around Bitsy before the divorce, the terror of losing herself in caring for the miserable shell of a husband he had become under the influence of pot, alcohol, and cocaine. The terror of being at the mercy of a man—an incessantly demanding, endlessly intrusive man. Only now it wouldn’t be just one man, it would be the Law, her other nemesis. Arrogant white men with badges. People who don’t care whether she gets pain control or not. Who don’t care whether she lives or dies. She shudders, stifles a wail. “What’s going to happen to me after I kill you, baby? Am I in for a worse ride than ever?”

She groans, holds herself, tosses her head from side to side. “How do I get some peace? This time the pain asks, Do we have to forgive him? Isn’t there any other way? A lump fills Willa’s throat. “Don’t I have any choice but that?”

No one answers. She sobs, hesitantly reaches up, shuts off the IV valve.

A tear trickles down her cheek. “Oh, God, what am I going to do?” She sniffs, shakes her head. “No, God, he’s not worth it. Not worth losing self-control over. Not worth losing self-respect over. Is that what forgiveness is, Bitsy boy? Just realizing you’re not worth it? Not worth anger? Not worth a single, solitary sin?”  

She disconnects the IV line from him, replaces it on her arm. She opens the valve wide for a minute, then slows it down. “Sleep good, boy. Enjoy. And may you undergo a relapse and plenty of withdrawal symptoms. You’re getting a pass from me this time. A new chance. Enjoy.”

As the morphine hits its target, she relaxes, lies back. She smiles slowly, yawns, closes her eyes. “After all these years, we’re gonna sleep together.”