John Miller - The Last Day

“What are you talking about? I found that ball where you put it.”

Ward couldn't believe what he was hearing. “Where I put it?”

“Under the other pillow in my bed. The one you used to lay your head on. Remember that pillow?”

“I'm pretty sure I would have noticed taking the ball out of Barney's room. Why the hell would I put it under your pillow?”

“Your pillow,” she said angrily. “Just like you didn't take Barney's watch from my jewelry box, or any of the other things you don't want to or can't remember. I'm sick of these games, or whatever they are.” She looked at him with genuine concern. “Maybe you should see someone to make sure it isn't…” She didn't say it.

“It is not early Alzheimer's,” he said defensively, but he'd sure as hell wondered the same thing over the past three months.

“I never said it was. You're way too young. You're just under a lot of pressure. We both are. But it worries the hell out of me, and it should worry you. I have no idea what it is, but it's sure something. Maybe it's your nightly Scotch consumption.”

“Maybe it's not all me,” Ward said.

“Ward, you have to see a professional. If not Richardson, then someone else. Find out what this memory loss is. Deal with your grief. The sleeping late is probably because you don't sleep at night.”

“Don't sleep! I sleep like a dead man. Is this going to be the grief counselor discussion?” he said. “Someone who can help me forget about Barney? I don't want to forget about him like you seem willing to do.” He immediately regretted saying it.

“I'm not sure what I want,” she replied sadly. “But I can't keep going like this. I just can't. It's killing me, Ward.”

“Natasha, do you still love me?” He wished he hadn't asked the question, but there it was, hanging like a cloud in the air between them.

“What kind of question is that?” she asked, looking at him angrily.

He shrugged. “One that has been on my mind lately.”

“You honestly have to ask me that?”

“I saw the letter from your doctor friend in Seattle.”

She didn't accuse him of snooping, nor did she say it was an old letter that was of no consequence. What she said was, “I was seriously considering his offer, but just as an alternative. I'll tell you the truth. I don't honestly know how I feel about anything or anybody at this point. I have feelings for you, but you're a different person. I never know how you are going to react to anything. You forget things and you do things you say you didn't do, things only you could have done. Maybe you're walking in your sleep. That might explain things. Who else could be moving things around?”

“You blame me for Barney,” he said. Natasha rolled her eyes. “The only person who blames you is you. It was a horrible accident. That's what accident means. If one of us blames the other, it isn't me.”

“But you could have saved him,” he said, an anger growing. “Don't tell me you haven't thought a million times that if you'd just been here instead of me, he'd be alive. You would have resuscitated him. Admit it. You think I killed him.”

“Your feelings of guilt are self- induced. You're projecting what you feel inside onto me.”

“I can't talk about this,” he said, feeling nauseated.

“Then what else can we talk about?” she asked, throwing her napkin on the table. “You want the truth? My son is dead and now I feel like you want me to get into his grave with you. Maybe you want to die, but I don't. I won't.”

Natasha stood and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. “Right now, I just want to take a hot bath and go to sleep.” She started to leave, her eyes filled with fury, perhaps disgust, but definitely tears.

“Don't forget your Ambien.” He knew better than to say that, but he'd said it anyway.

“Go to hell,” she said, storming from the room.

After she slammed her bedroom door, he stared at her plate, her nearly full glass, and for a second Ward had the strangest feeling that Barney was watching him. He stared out through the dark window and he could almost see his son standing there, staring at him. His look would be asking, Why are you being mean to my mama?

I don't know, Barney, Ward thought. He was sure Natasha had put the ball under the pillow. Why would anyone else do such an absurd thing? It wasn't the first time in recent weeks; either she'd moved things around and accused him or he had done so and didn't remember. Sure, he had felt oddly detached from the real world, but not that disconnected. If one of them was losing his mind, he didn't think it was only him.

Ward walked down the hall and stood frozen outside Natasha's door. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to hold her, to be in her arms again the way it was before. He raised his hand, but he couldn't force himself to knock. He imagined her lying alone in their bed. He wanted to comfort her, to make love to her, to make her feel something for him, but somehow he couldn't make the leap.

He thought about the last time they'd made love, seven months before, and how mechanical and unsatisfying it had been. Love with a stranger, but who had been the stranger? Filled with the fog of uncertainty and perhaps insecurity, he just could not make himself open the bedroom door.

He moved silently into the guest bedroom and, without taking off his clothes, lay awake in the dark for what seemed like hours after getting into bed. Something he couldn't understand, or didn't want to admit, was keeping him from reaching out and trying to make things right.

Ward couldn't imagine life without Natasha, but forgetful or not, he wasn't going to pay some pompous, two-hundred-dollar-an-hour asshole to make him let go of Barney.

After leaving Ward at the dinner table, Natasha took a long warm shower, brushed her teeth, and toweled off her hair.

She was still upset-more upset than angry- and mostly because she'd blown an opportunity to really talk with Ward and resolve their problems. Her psychiatrist had suggested that she give Ward an ultimatum of sorts, force him to understand what he was about to throw away. Barney was dead, and she'd accepted that. She knew Ward knew it as well, but he couldn't put it aside and move on with what was left of his life-of their life together.

She often wondered how she, Barney's mother, was trying so hard to come to terms with Barney's loss and her husband wasn't. She had carried him in her womb, had given birth to him, nursed him, and loved him beyond rationality or description. Yes, Ward had seen him die, had held his cooling body as he waited in immeasurable anguish and pain for the ambulance to arrive. Yes, Ward alone had suffered that, but she certainly felt the same horror and grief even so.

Due to the demands of her career, Ward had spent more time with Barney than she had, and in the last years had been closer. She couldn't compete with the father/son contact and shared interests that became more and more important to them both. As a woman she'd been the odd one out, and she'd accepted that-had welcomed watching their bond strengthen, even at the expense of her own. She knew she loved Barney every bit as much and missed him every bit as deeply. How could it be otherwise?

Ward appeared to be in more pain, and it most bothered her that there was a wall between them that kept them from sharing the pain, the grief, from talking about their lives, and how they would go forward together. She wanted nothing more than to be in Ward's arms, to feel him against her, his warmth to fight away the cold, his strengths to shore her weaknesses, to lessen her fears, maybe even somehow mute their emptiness.

Natasha climbed into bed and turned off the lamp. She reached for the familiar stuffed bear, and after not finding it where she'd left it, ran her hands top to bottom and side to side over the bed, seeking it. Turning on the lamp she got on all fours and, from the bed, looked around the floor. Panicked, Natasha slid off the bed to peer under it, but the bear was not there.