The Sand Hill Review               http://www.sandhillreview.org 2006

When Are You Going to Cry

by Robert Garfinkle

The moment I entered my home that dead-leaves-scattered-across-the-lawn fall day, I sensed something amiss. No music came from the stereo; no dinner awaited me; a cool and forebodingly dark pervaded the house.

“Honey,” I called as I set her birthday present on the kitchen table. “Rosey?”

I peered out the kitchen window. Perhaps she was on the deck tending her flower boxes.

I turned away, picked up the mail from the counter, and headed toward the bedroom. As I neared the guest room, I heard a whimpered “Honey” echo from within. I opened the door and saw my petite wife, cross-legged on the couch, her head propped up by the flowerprint pillow on her lap. Around the edges of it I could see the opal whiteness of her bare body. Rosey’s honey-brown hair draped, uncombed, around her angelic oval face. The slight breeze puffed the shade away from the windowsill and gently allowed it to thump against the wood ledge. Streaks of light penetrated the darkness. Even in the uncertain light, I could tell by the frightened expression frozen on her face that her “little problem” had progressed. I could no longer fool myself into believing she was going to return to normal.

Rosey’s doctors had informed us almost two years before that the causes of a breakdown are sometimes hard to determine. During the period when she should have been home raising children, Rosey had put in long stressful hours at her job. Shortly after her thirty-sixth birthday, I began to notice slight changes in her, but nothing that would cause alarm. Her bouncy step gradually evolved into a stooped-shuffle, like a person forty years older. The perpetual smile on her lively face disappeared. Her blue eyes lost their sparkle as her body and spirit slumped into a pit of muddled depression. No matter how hard the specialist and I tried, we failed to get Rosey to reveal what caused her such distress.

I guess what shocked me the most was that in the fifteen years I had known her, she had always been the strong and steady one in her family. When her sister had slit her wrists, Rosey had rushed home to assist Julie’s recovery. When her mother lost a breast to cancer, Rosey flew to Chicago to console and nurse her back to mental and physical health. I did not have to think long about who was going to come here to California to help Rosey, because he was already here standing in the guest room doorway.

Rosey glanced up at me, lowered her head, and timidly held out her hands.

The hands I grasped were cold, clammy. I had become accustomed to the coldness, but this time they felt like she had just taken them out of the freezer. I kissed one, then tenderly rubbed it with my fingertips. I lifted her chin and asked softly, “What’s happening? What’re you going through right now?”

She had heard those questions so many times before—she just shook her head.

“Nothing?” I asked.

The corners of the delicate mouth curled down. Her cheeks contorted into an embryonic cry, but her eyes refused to cooperate.

“Let it out.” I comfortingly patted her head. “Don’t hold back.”

In the frailest voice I had ever heard, she said, “I can’t.” As though weak with fatigue, her whole body shook. “I can’t do it.”

I put my ear next to her lips, so I could hear better.

“I’ve been trying all day.” She sucked in two shallow breaths. “It hurts.”

“Where?”

Her lips quivered. Her glassy eyes drifted from side to side like those of a black cat pendulum clock. After a moment, she held out her hands, palms up.

I touched her palms. “Here?”

“My wrists.”

“I don’t see anything, Rosey.”

“They hurt. Believe me. They hurt,” she pleaded in a clear, yet weak voice.

“I believe you.” I sat next to Rosey, pulling her close. I remember the lightness of her head as she rested it against my shoulder. In my attempt to soothe her, I said, “I’m sorry they hurt. Just because Julie cut hers doesn’t mean you’re going to do the same thing. Your wrists look fine.” I pretended to be a doctor performing an examination. I held them up to her. “See. No cuts. You believe me now?”

She shook her head. Again, her face twisted into a dry cry.

“When are you going to cry?” I shouted and pushed her hands into her lap. “You’ve got to let go and start telling me what’s wrong with you. You scare me when you act like this.”

“I want to, but Daddy’ll be mad at me.” Her voice reminded me of a plaintive, wailing five-year-old.

“Your daddy can’t hurt you anymore. He went far far away, so you can tell me. He’ll never know.” I began to feel like I was talking to a five-year-old.

“I’m sorry for what I did, Daddy. Don’t get mad at me. Please.”

Her continued child-like talk frightened me. Again, I groped for a way to help her overcome her delusions—get her back to realize she was nearing forty, not regressing toward her own birth. She babbled a few incoherent baby sentences, then stopped and shivered. I put my arm around her and held on as tightly as I could. I felt the frailness of her body and wanted to cry out for her, but restrained myself. One of us had to remain strong.

A few minutes with her head resting on my shoulder, I heard her breathing in the steady, slow rhythm of sleep. Carefully, I lowered her so that she was lying on the couch. But she needed a blanket. Standing at the linen closet, I could see into the bathroom through the slightly open door. Reflected in the yellow tile-framed mirror, I saw her lying in the tub, her head resting serenely against the band of blue tile. One hand hung limply over the side of the red-stained porcelain. “What in God’s name . . .” I shoved the door open and stared in wide-eyed total disbelief. Stringers of brownish dried blood discolored the walls and trailed down the side of the tub. A veiling of fluid that should have been inside Rosey coated her body. For a moment, all I could mutter was, “No. This can’t be happening . . .”

I touched her to reassure myself that what I saw in the tub was really my wife, not an hallucination. Her arm was stiff and cold. Coagulated blood had pooled in the cup her hand had formed as the muscles contracted in death. I suddenly realized something that terrified me like nothing ever before, or since. If Rosey was really there with me in the bathroom, then who, or what, was I talking to and holding moments before in the guest room?

I dashed back to see. The couch was empty, except for a pale pink rose with large porcelain-like petals. The flower lay where her head had been. Frightened, I stood motionless for a moment. I could hear my heart thrumming in my temples, as though it had risen to my head. Carefully, I stepped to the couch and picked up the flower. Its intense coldness stung my fingers. I dropped it. Like my life, the pink rose shattered on the hardwood.

It’s taken me several years to get over losing my Rosey, but tomorrow, her birthday, another rose will appear on the guest room couch, and I’ll have her back again, if only for a few minutes. Maybe then I’ll cry.