Like a Woman Scorned (6 page)

He reached down and gave her another big hug, which she loved and held on to him as if he were a life preserver.

“Well, you’ll probably love what I brought you.” He reached into the white bag he had with him and pulled out a chicken salad sandwich on dark rye, a container of small coleslaw, and a gorgeous piece of white cheesecake. Alison was overjoyed. She could feel her face light up like a kid at Christmas and had tears in her eyes when she hugged him again and said thank you.

“I’d better hide this stuff,” she said. “It’s got to be a highly valuable commodity around here. You made my day, Boss. I’m so grateful! But, can I have a couple weeks off?” Then she started to laugh, and became a bit hysterical, probably affected by the pain medication mixed with her rampant emotions.

“You can have as much time as you need. It’s not an issue. Do you want to use my mountain cabin? Oh, maybe you can’t drive. Whatever you need, just say the word, okay? And your secret is safe with me. I’m so sorry, Alison. I really am. Are you okay with all the insurance paperwork and stuff?”

Alison assured him she was and he soon left—which was good, because she couldn’t wait to dig into the food he brought her. The sandwich was fantastic. She saved the cheesecake for later and tucked it into the drawer of the nightstand next to her bed. It would have to be over her dead body before anyone could get to that. At the last bite of coleslaw, she rolled the bag and wrappers into a tight ball and dropped it into the wastebasket, glad she’d gotten through the meal without someone coming in.

Alison slept intermittently, awakened by nurses doing nurse things frequently. Hospitals were not the place to get any kind of rest, but she did manage several hours of straight sleep until she woke up very early in the morning remembering the cheesecake in the nightstand. Down the gullet it went.

As the day progressed, doctors and nurses came and went, and at one point the gynecologist conferred with her.  During the quiet moments she thought about calling her parents, but couldn’t decide what to tell them. Maybe it was better they didn’t know anything about this.

Brenda came by with everything Ali asked for and spent a couple hours. They talked about Mike’s visit last night and his genuine concern for her and the wonderful deli food he brought. Alison now knew what to bring people who were in the hospital. Mike must have had a stay in one himself at some time or another.

That evening’s dinner was a little better, as it is hard to screw up meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. But the pain medication made her sleepy and she drifted in and out while trying to watch bad network television shows.

Rick. She kept seeing him in her mind. Shouldn’t he be here? Sometimes she would see him in the room and reach out to try and touch him, to talk to him, to exchange words and feelings and touches that would make everything okay—but then she always woke up. Alison really thought he was there in the room several times—she could smell him and hear his voice. And then she could feel him inside of her and it made her angry. No man would ever get to her like this again. Not like this. Not in these deep places.

Children. Those were her other dreams. It was too late for them now. She had been fooling around far too long, had wasted too much time. Did it matter? There could no longer be a man out there who she would want to father a child to her. Not now. Not anymore.

Alison finally asked for something to help her sleep and drifted off to uninterrupted slumber until almost seven the following morning. After breakfast, Brenda came by again.

“Hey girl, how are you feeling today?”

“Hi! I’m better. Just glad it’s over. It was real surgery, you know. Not that I want anyone but you and Mike to know about it.”

Brenda chuckled. “Don’t worry. You’ll be out of here soon and nobody needs to know anything. If anyone finds out you were here, we can just say you had your appendix out.”

“Yeah, thanks, Bren. That will work. My coworkers still think it was food poisoning, but since I asked for two weeks off, they’ll need a better story. Appendix is good. Lots of people probably go to emergency rooms thinking they have food poisoning and end up getting their appendix out. Mike will go along with whatever I say.”

Alison shifted her body in the bed and realized how much she still hurt. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for a day or two.

Brenda leaned over the bed and spoke quietly, but firmly. “Now listen. I’ve made arrangements to spend a couple of days with you when you go home, no arguments. But the condition is that I get to go through your freezer and food pantry.” Alison laughed at the mental picture of Brenda slinking around the pantry and moving things in the freezer.

The doctor appeared. Alison introduced her to Brenda, and let her know she could talk in front of her. The doctor spoke positively and had mostly good news. The surgery and immediate recovery had both gone well. Alison would be fine, but needed to take it easy for a few weeks. It would maybe be a month before jogging again. The three of them chatted for a bit, the doctor left, and Brenda stayed for a while longer. Before she left, she gave Alison a small bag of chocolate candy. Alison fell asleep clutching it tightly. It was all she had now to get her through this ordeal.

Two days later, she was home in her own bed. It would be a while before her life was back to normal. In fact, normal was being redefined. Brenda was there with her for the first few days, a true friend and lifesaver. Alison never told her the bad news. She would never be able to have children. Before the surgery, the doctors confirmed that—for some reason Alison didn’t understand—any subsequent pregnancies for her would probably be ectopic ones. Some kind of a condition called
Asherman’s
, which Alison planned on researching further. Before going under, she gave them permission to tie her tubes so there would never be that risk again.

Not that she’d be having sex any time soon.

CHAPTER FIVE

Three months passed. The newness of spring was excluding Alison every bit as much as Rick had. She couldn’t shake a gloomy, wintery, unsettled feeling. Nothing seemed to help—not playing the workaholic, not resuming her jogging routine, not going out with friends. When she ran now she found she had to force herself to look up, but it wouldn’t last, so she had become one of those runners who are always looking at the ground. She couldn’t concentrate at the movies, it just seemed dark in there to her, and her friends often had to explain obvious things in the plot of the film that she somehow missed.

Concentration became a problem for Alison. Her mind just didn’t want to focus. Finally, she decided to see a therapist—but she didn’t want to go through her health plan. There was someone in Berkeley she’d heard good things about, so Alison phoned to make an appointment, politely explaining she would pay outside of her insurance plan. From the receptionist’s reaction, that must have been a fairly normal request.

Susan Josner was her name. She was supposed to be a tough, no-nonsense therapist who had a talent for perceptive listening and getting to the root of a patient’s issues. Tough love was beginning to sound attractive to Allison. Maybe she just needed a push.

Alison wasn’t disappointed. Her problems were by no means new or unique to Susan, who quickly got to the bottom of the matter.

“You have how many people working under you?” Susan asked.

“Ten.”

“How often do you need to check with your boss before making important decisions?”

Alison thought for a moment. “Almost never.”

“You’re a person very much used to being in control. When you got involved with Rick, that was different for you. It was a situation you couldn’t control.”

“I suppose not,” Alison said. “But I never felt I needed to be in control. Everything with him just flowed.”

“Nevertheless, it placed you in a vulnerable position you are not used to. Nothing wrong with that, but, unfortunately, you got burned. When he abandoned you with no explanation, it wasn’t much different for you than it is for a person who experiences the death of a spouse, especially considering how close you too became in such a short period. Then the pregnancy and subsequent surgery, and the unfortunate consequences thereof, that was the knock-out punch. Your loss of control resulted in your worst fears, the ones you always avoid by not taking any risks. So, now you are mad. Mad at yourself, mostly, for allowing the loss of control—but since you can’t rationally punish yourself for that, you turn your wrath towards Rick and even the world itself for being such a dangerous place. Some of the anger you are now directing at Rick is unwarranted, because it’s really about not getting the opportunity to choose to keep the pregnancy.”

It made sense to Alison. According to Susan, the solution was for her to fully deal with her anger. That meant more sessions, of course. The two of them also agreed to a simple plan of purposefully breaking her current routines, and to make a point of engaging in more spontaneous activities, especially outdoor things now that it was spring. It would supposedly help break her out of the confines of her self-protected existence.

Money well spent—so far, anyway. After the session, Alison decided she would make good use of the rental car, since she had it for the whole day.  Why not spend some time in Berkeley, visiting places she hadn’t been to in years? It was a nice day and she realized Susan was right. More spontaneous fun and less rigid schedule adherence was in order.

Many of the shops Alison remembered were not there anymore, which is to be expected in a college town like Berkeley. She walked down Telegraph Avenue, thinking about all the good times she had in this city back in the day. It was almost a shame she chose to go to UCLA instead.

Alison thought about losing her virginity here when she was 18 years old. The culprit was her friend, Scott—boy was she crazy about him back then. Scott had decided his role in life was to protect Alison from anyone who could hurt her in any way. That job ended up coming with fringe benefits. He was a junior at Berkeley and she had just graduated high school. They met when Alison spent that summer with her aunt in Oakland. The affair predictably ended badly and was the primary reason Alison decided to go to different school.

Having a rental car for the day was nice. Maybe Alison should buy a car. Then again, why spend the money when it would just sit in the garage most of the time? Maybe a fun weekend car, a little red convertible for sunny days. Sunny days were nice. Not too many of them in the bay area, though.

On a whim, Alison phoned her mom in Phoenix and arranged to go visit this coming weekend. She stopped by the rental car place and extended her contract, then went home to pack. After calling Mike to let him know, she rang up Brenda to see if she was interested in going on the road trip.

“You have got to be kidding. Me, deal with your mother? I don’t think so. Thanks, anyway. Have a good trip. Let me know when you’re back.” They laughed and chatted a few more minutes.

Alison’s parents were easterners who were frustrated to no end with the casualness of the western lifestyle. Phoenix was offensive to them, but San Francisco much more so. They had both been born into wealth and never quite adjusted to people with different lifestyles, but they chose to live in Phoenix for her father’s health. They weren’t rude about it, but they didn’t blend in at all and made no attempt at it. Alison fought them on the issue as a young adult and kept her parents as far away from her friends as possible. A couple of men she dated when she was a teenager had been so put off by the “grilling of status” they’d received that she never again had a date pick her up at home.

After she moved to San Francisco, Alison set up her home and life without consulting her parents about anything, which was fine with them. They believed they raised her to know who she was, what she wanted, and right from wrong, so they never interfered. Thankfully.

The trip to Phoenix was fun. It felt empowering just to drive. Good thing Alison brought along a container of CDs. She hadn’t listened to most of them in years now, and there were a lot of old favorites in that box. Spontaneous? You bet. Just look, Dr. Josner! She was driving to Phoenix on a whim and getting back into her old music.

One night in a Southern California motel was necessary, so Alison stayed in Palm Springs—albeit with an ulterior motive. There was a fabulous deli in the area and the next morning she loaded up a throw-away ice chest with goodies to take her family—corned beef, pastrami, chicken salad, breads, pastries, and half-sour dill pickles.

The visit with her parents went far better than Alison thought it would. Everyone was in a good mood, no issues were thrown in her face, no one was critical of anything she was doing in her life. She almost thought she was in the wrong house.  They made a video to send her grandmother, which was a laugh riot, something the family had never done before. When Alison left two days later, it was to hugs and bon voyage with the very best of attitude from everyone.

Her parents asked her to consider moving back to Phoenix. Not back home with them, of course, but just to live in the same city so they could be a closer family again. They said they could introduce her to “so many wonderful people they’d met.” Alison knew what that meant—so many wonderful single men. They were still hoping for grandkids. No point in killing that dream. It would die naturally for them over the next five years or so. During the drive home, though, Alison actually thought about their suggestion, and quite seriously too—but moving back to that weather after having become a coastal-dweller could be a problem. Still, her current living situation in San Francisco was beginning to lose some of its luster.

So what was she to do with her life?

Before she could decide, Alison knew there was a nagging little detail she had to handle, what Susan told her she needed to do: fully deal with her anger. And in order to do that, she had to see Rick. It became clear to her as she drove back through the Southern California deserts. Nothing more, but nothing less was going to work. She had to go to Boston and see Rick, see him in his environment, and come to some kind of understanding about him. Alison needed proper closure.