Alix Ohlin - Signs and Wonders

“Never mind,” she said.

For days she kept this knowledge to herself, clutching it to her body like a money belt. I hate my husband. She’d been fighting it for so long! Now that she knew, her relief was tempered only by the dread of telling him, then leaving him. She could picture so perfectly the scenario of her escape: she’d buy a little condo and furnish it simply but cozily, in reds and yellows, and she’d have fresh flowers and no stereo system or flat-screen TV, none of the consumer electronics Terry spent his weekends shopping for. But it was hard, if not impossible, to imagine how to get from here to there. His anger was scorching, and his speeches long-winded; she’d have to budget days, more likely weeks, to let him get it all out.

Then, one Sunday afternoon, Steve called to say he’d received a job offer in California — head turtle-keeper at a large municipal zoo — and was moving across the country to take it. Both Kathleen and Terence were happy for him, and not a little surprised that he’d managed to do so well.

“It’s weird,” Terence said when he got off the phone, his face thoughtful. “It’ll just be the two of us now.”

“It’s been the two of us for a while,” Kathleen pointed out.

“I know, but now it seems like he doesn’t really need us anymore. He doesn’t need”—Terence’s gesture encompassed the house, the living room, the framed photographs, all the archival, institutional memory of the family—“any of this. ”

And from the way he said this —because, after all, as a professor of literature, she paid attention to the placement and nuance of words — she knew Terence was every bit as miserable as she was. So she spoke, for the first time in years, with genuine affection.

“Honey,” she said, “let’s get divorced.”

They stayed up late making plans, more excited about this stage of their lives than anything since their honeymoon, practically. They couldn’t stop expressing surprise and joy at these revelations; the discovery of shared misery was nearly as thrilling as that of mutual love had been. Terence said he wanted to take early retirement and drive a motorcycle to Central America. What a cliché, Kathleen thought. Then, realizing his behavior no longer implicated her, that she didn’t need to be concerned, she told him it sounded like a great idea.

Because it was still the middle of the semester, because they wanted to sell the house and each buy a new one, because the start of a new life was a luxury that ought to be relished, they decided not to rush it. They spent spring break with their real estate agents, looking at houses in different neighborhoods. They stopped eating dinner together, and sometimes Kathleen just had a bowl of cereal and read a magazine, while Terence went out for a burger with his friend Dave. Dave had never been married, started drinking at noon on Saturdays, had false teeth, and believed himself irresistible to women. What Terence saw in him was a mystery, but she no longer — thank God — felt required to plumb its depths.

The week after spring break, Kathleen was at home grading papers when the phone rang. A man identifying himself as a police officer asked for her by name.

“What’s this about?” she said.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” he said. “Your husband is at the hospital.”

“What kind of accident?”

“It’s hard to say,” he said.

“What do you mean? Is he okay?”

“He’s not able to give us a statement at this time. I think you’d better come down right away.”

When she got to the hospital, the officer was standing outside the room she’d been told was Terence’s, along with a doctor and a rail-thin young man in a dirty hooded sweatshirt whose connection to the situation was unclear. They all started talking at once, and Kathleen stood there unable to understand any of the cacophony — questions, explanations, complications — until finally her teacher instincts kicked in and she said, “Stop. All of you.” She pointed at the cop. “You first.”

“Your husband appears to have been the victim of a crime,” he said. The guy in the hoodie tried to interrupt, but Kathleen shushed him. “From what we understand, he was waiting at the stoplight by the Everton Mall when an individual wearing a ski mask entered the vehicle and asked Mr. Schwartz to exit. Mr. Schwartz appears to have refused. An altercation ensued.”

“You’re saying Terry was carjacked? At the mall?”

“As you know, there has been an escalation of violent crime in this area,” the officer said gravely, “linked to the increased presence of illegal drugs.”

The guy in the hoodie could no longer be contained. “I’m coming out of Sears and I see this guy dive into your husband’s car. He’s yelling ‘ Pterodactyl! Pterodactyl! ’ and grabs your husband and pulls him out and starts beating him and then he leaves him in the middle of the road and screeches off in the car and he actually, uh, runs over your husband when he drives away.”

“Pterodactyl?” Kathleen said.

“I think he was hallucinating — you know, tripping?” the man said. “My theory is that in his mind he was being pursued by this, like, animal, and getting away from it was the top priority?”

“Your husband’s injuries are quite severe,” the doctor added. They were in a rhythm now, this information committee, filling in the picture for her. “He’s nonresponsive at this time.”

“You’re saying he’s unconscious?”

“He’s in the state you might know as a coma,” the doctor said.

“Jesus,” Kathleen said. “Can I see him?”

All three men nodded, as if giving her their collective permission.

Inside the dim, white room, Terence lay swaddled in tubes and gauze. Between the bandages, his skin looked bloated, purple, etched with rupture. He was Franken-Terry, a monster version of himself.

“Dear God,” she said out loud. The machines beeped. She couldn’t bring herself to touch him or even say his name.

The department gathered round. Everyone came to the hospital bearing flowers, cards, audiobooks. Lots of audiobooks. It seemed to have been universally agreed upon that the sounds of literature would bring Terence back to consciousness, a notion that Kathleen found both touching and ridiculous. She herself pictured his brain as rotten and pulpy, fruit that had been dropped on the ground. Playing books on tape seemed hardly adequate. It would be like reciting Beckett to a flesh wound.

But she thanked everyone and accepted the gifts with all the graciousness she could muster. Still, she couldn’t help feeling she was just playing a part. She and Terry hadn’t told anyone of the impending divorce. For one thing, they’d wanted to wait until the semester was over; for another, knowing that the gossip would rise in the halls to storm force, they each wanted to enjoy the secret knowledge of this surprise for a little while before unleashing it. The desire to spite their colleagues was one goal they still shared.

In a gesture meant to be kind, the department arranged for someone to take over not only Terry’s classes but also hers. Kathleen called both real estate agents and told them they had to stop looking at condos. Her world shrank to the house and the hospital room, an orbit of two planets. At the hospital, she played Terry tapes — who knew, they might help — that were mostly, it turned out, of Shakespeare plays. Everyone had taken his profession of love for Shakespeare seriously. So Kathleen lost herself in the recitation of Romeo and Juliet, Troilus and Cressida, leaning back in the room’s only chair, her eyes closed. Sometimes she forgot where she was, but then she would open her eyes and see this broken, silent mummy entombed by machines. It was impossible to know how much of him was still there. The doctors said there was some brain activity but couldn’t specify what this actually meant or how long the coma would last. It’s a waiting game, they liked to say, to which Kathleen always responded, “Game?” They’d smile wryly, then leave the room.