“Kim!” Tracy said. “Can’t you control yourself? It’s not helping anyone not even yourself.”
Tracy waited for a response, but it didn’t come. Kim appeared like a sculpture depicting anguished frenzy.
Tracy sighed and stretched. “How’s Becky doing?”
“She’s holding her own,” Kim said. “At least the surgery handled the immediate crisis.”
The surgery had gone quickly. In fact, James had reported to Kim that what had taken the most time was a painstaking irrigation of Becky’s abdomen to lessen the chances of infection. Following the surgery, Becky had spent a short time in the recovery room before being brought back to the floor. Kim had requested the ICU but again he’d been overruled.
“Tell me again about her colostomy,” Tracy asked. “You said it can be closed in a couple of weeks.”
“Something like that,” Kim said tiredly. “If all goes well.”
“It was a major shock for Becky,” Tracy said. “As was the tube in her nose. She’s having a hard time coping. What’s made it worse is she feels betrayed because no one told her these things might happen.”
“It couldn’t be helped,” Kim snapped.
Kim backed up and sank into a chair similar to Tracy’s. With his elbows on the hard wooden arms, he buried his face in his hands.
Now all Tracy could see was the top of Kim’s head over Becky’s bed. He didn’t move. The sculpture of anguished frenzy had assumed another, even more expressive pose.
Looking at Kim’s dejected posture forced her to think about the situation from Kim’s point of view. Drawing on her experience as a therapist, she could appreciate how hard it had to be for him, considering not only his surgical training but, more important, his narcissism. All at once her anger toward him melted.
“Kim,” Tracy called. “Maybe you should go home. I think you need some distance as well as rest. Besides, you have to see patients tomorrow. I can stay. I’ll just be skipping class.”
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep even if I did go home,” Kim said, without lifting his face from his hands. “Now I know too much.”
During the entire time Becky had been in surgery, Kim had researched HUS in the hospital library. What he’d learned had been frighteningly overwhelming. Everything Kathleen had said had been true. HUS could be a horrible illness, and now all he could hope was Becky had something else. The problem was that everything was pointing in the direction of HUS.
“You know, I’m beginning to appreciate how difficult this is for you, above and beyond your medical training,” Tracy said sincerely.
Kim lifted his face from his hands and looked over at Tracy. “Please don’t patronize me with any of your psychological bullshit. Not now!”
“Call it what you like,” Tracy said. “But I’m realizing this is probably the first time in your life that you’ve been faced with a major problem that your force of will or expertise cannot alter. I think that must make this especially hard for you.”
“Yeah, and I suppose all this isn’t affecting you at all.”
“Quite the contrary,” Tracy said. “It’s affecting me terribly. But it’s different for you. I think you’re having to deal with a lot more than Becky’s condition. You’re having to take a hard look at new limits, new constraints that are impeding your ability to act on Becky’s behalf. It’s taking a toll.”
Kim blinked. He always hated his former wife’s psychological theorizing, but at the moment he had to admit she was making a certain amount of sense.
TEN
Thursday, January 22nd
Kim ended up going home, but as he expected he had not been able to sleep much, and the sleep he did get was marred by disturbing dreams. Several of the dreams he found incomprehensible; they were about being ridiculed for poor performance on tests in college. By far the most horrible nightmare had been about Becky, and it was easy for him to understand. In the dream she had fallen from a jetty into a surging sea. Although Kim was on the jetty. he couldn’t reach Becky no matter what he did. When he had awakened, he had been covered with perspiration.