What They Left Behind

The days Ben was in the hospital were a nightmare for Gennie. The day after Gennie visited Ben, Rory forced her to stay in the house. He gave Gennie one of his mother’s tranquilizers to get her to calm down. They both stayed out of school that Tuesday so he could take her to his family’s doctor, who asked her some questions then prescribed Valium for her. It helped her keep her mind off her brother’s accident, but she was too spaced out to do anything else. She spent about two weeks lying on the couch, absentmindedly watching TV.

  One day, she woke up and took a pill just before breakfast. She was hungry, but the minute she walked into their kitchen and smelled the eggs Rory’s mother was making, her stomach turned. She decided to go back to bed. About a half hour later, she was very sick to her stomach. She walked into the bathroom to get some Pepto-Bismol and the smell of urine lingering in there was so overwhelming that she vomited. She spent that entire day in bed, her stomach pain so unbearable she took two of her Valiums so she could pass out.

  The next day Rory scheduled another appointment with the doctor. On Wednesday, the doctor examined her and could find nothing wrong.

  “Are you on any form of birth control?” he asked her.

  She thought that was a weird question.

  “No,” she said, “I was planning to go on the pill pretty soon, but I just haven’t gotten around to going to a gynecologist. People have told me what the exam is like and I really don’t want to go through it. But we’ve been using condoms.”

  “Is there a time when you didn’t use one?” the doctor asked.

  “Yeah, only once, though…about a month ago. We didn’t realize it until it was too late, but we thought it was no big deal.”

  “It’s a big deal now,” the doctor replied.

  “What do you mean?” Gennie asked.

  “I can do a test first, just to confirm it, but I’m almost certain that you are pregnant.”

  “Oh my god…”

  “You’ll have to stop taking the Valium and I can prescribe you some prenatal vitamins.”

  “What should I tell Rory?”

  The doctor scribbled the prescription and handed it to Gennie.

  “Tell him he’s going to be a father,” the doctor said with a wry smile.

  Gennie had her blood drawn for the test and then went out into the waiting room where Rory was expecting her.

  “What did he say?” he asked.

  “He thinks I’m pregnant,” Gennie said blankly. “They’re going to do a test to make sure.”

  “You can’t be,” Rory replied. “We haven’t finished school yet. We don’t even have our own place. This is a really bad time for this.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Gennie said, tears blurring her vision. “I’m the one who’s falling apart here.”

  Rory put his arm around her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

  “I want to go see Ben,” she replied.

  “You’re not in denial anymore?”

  “No…I don’t want to believe he’s a vegetable, but he is.” She could feel the tears rolling down her face.

  “Sure, we can go see him. Maybe he’ll be awake this time.”

  Gennie shook her head. “That’s only in the movies.”

  “Well, you never know.”

  Gennie chocked back a sob.

  “Let’s get going,” Rory said to her. With his arm around her, he led her out of doctor’s office.

  At the hospital in Walnut Creek, Ben was still hooked up to all sorts of machines, but most of his bandages were off. Even though his face was still swollen and bruised, Gennie could see it was definitely her brother.

  She held his hand with both of hers.

  “Remember that promise we made when we were five years old?” she said. “Well, okay, we forgot about it one time, when we were mad at each other. From now on though, I intend to stick to that promise, I’ll never leave you. I’m sure if it were me in that bed, you’d worry yourself to death. You’d probably be worse off than I am right now, and I’m in pretty bad shape. I’m on Valium, you know.”

  She chuckled and brushed a tear away. “Well, I was on Valium. I don’t know what I’m going to do without it. I’m going crazy worrying about you. I don’t know what I’d do if you died…I think I’d have to die too.”

  She put her head on his arm and cried for several minutes.

  “I don’t understand what happened,” she said through her tears. “The police said the wreckage was so bad they can’t even tell what went wrong. I was told you should be dead right now. Why were you all the way out here and why did you ram your car into that truck? Were you drunk or trying to kill yourself? I don’t understand. She isn’t worth doing that. You could have gotten a new restaurant…and new stuff. I’m trying to visit you as much as I can, but I have Rory now. Why did you run off like that?”

  She sat in silence for quite a while. She tried to think of something that could give him an incentive to wake up.

  “I know your life stinks right now…so does mine, but we still have each other. And we’ve been through a lot worse. We never talk about that time, but I think about it a lot. I would have never made it without you. I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but I love you. You know that, don’t you? I wish you could hear me. I should have said this stuff before this happened. I have something else to tell you, but I’m going to save it for when you wake up. If you can’t hear me, you won’t give a damn anyway, but I hope you can. It’s not the best time for it, but the more I think about it…the more I think it’s right, you know? It sounds stupid now, but it’ll make sense when I tell you.”

  Rory came back into the room. “How’s he doing?”

  “The same.” Gennie sighed. “He’s not responding at all.”

  “You want some lunch? You must be starving.”

  “I can’t eat. My stomach is doing somersaults.”

  “You got to have something.”

  “Maybe later,” Gennie said.

  “We probably should get going.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Gennie gave Ben a quick peck on the cheek. “Bye, Ben. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  When they arrived home, Gennie ate some cheese and crackers along with some chamomile tea. It managed to stay in her stomach for about two hours. She couldn’t bring herself to eat supper when five o’clock came around, even though she was starving. She was very chilly, so she spent the rest of the night wrapped up in about five blankets, going in and out of sleep. She was awake when Rory went to bed for the night.

  “Did you tell your parents?” she asked.

  “No,” Rory replied. “I figured it was better that we wait for the test results to come in.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.”

  “Do you want it?”

  “I guess so. Do you?”

  “I don’t know. I never thought of myself as somebody’s mother. I can’t imagine myself changing diapers or making formula.”

  “I think you’d be a good mother.”

  “I don’t even know what a mother is. I never had one.”

  “My mom will help you.”

  “I don’t think I’d want to stay here. Your parents will think we’re mooching off of them.”

  “They won’t mind,” Rory said.

  “Are you going to keep on going to school?”

  “I only have a year left. Are you?”

  “You’re kidding, right? If I’m sick like this for much longer, I’m going to flunk this semester. And now it’ll give the professors a good excuse for why women can’t be engineers.”

  Rory chuckled. “Seems like a pretty good reason to me.”

  Gennie punched him in the arm.

  “Ow! You hit awfully hard for a sick person.”

  “I’m hitting for two,” Gennie joked.

  Rory laughed but soon turned serious. “I guess I’ll have to get a job too.
”

  “I guess you will. You can’t live off of your parents anymore.”

  “Hey, they like to spoil me.”

  “Come on, Rory. You’re not a baby anymore. You’ve got to work like the rest of the world does.”

  “Except for you.”

  “Trust me, if I had a choice, I’d rather be working than throwing up seven times a day.”

  “I’ll take a look at the paper and see what’s out there.”

  “Good. Now I can rest in peace.”

  “You are weird,” Rory said. He turned over and gave Gennie a kiss on the lips.

  “Not as weird as you are,” Gennie replied. “Goodnight.”

  “No, you’re definitely weirder. Goodnight, hon.”

  Gennie woke up to the sound of the bedroom phone ringing. She looked at the alarm clock. It was ten minutes after eight. Rory was no longer there, having left for class about twenty minutes ago. Gennie answered the phone.

  “Hello,” she said groggily.

  “Gennie?” Malcolm said. He sounded excited.

  “What happened?”

  “I have very, very, very good news.”

  “Did you guys win the lottery?”

  “No, I’m at the hospital and guess who’s looking up at me?”

  Gennie almost dropped the phone. “You’re kidding!”

  “No, he’s awake.”

  “Has he said anything yet?”

  “No, but he seems pretty alert. His eyes were still glazed over at first, but now he’s looking around.”

  Gennie jumped out of bed and grabbed the clothes that she threw on the floor yesterday. “I’ll be right there,” she said.

  She drove to the hospital in record time. She couldn’t believe it when she saw Ben awake.

  “Oh my god!” she cried. She ran over to his bed and gave him a hug. He tentatively put his arms around her in return.

  “You don’t know how happy we are to see you awake,” she said to him. “I thought you wouldn’t make it.”

  Ben moved his lips as if he were trying to speak.

  “What is it?” she asked him.

  “What,” he whispered, his voice raspy. “What…prize?”

  “Huh?”

  “Prize.”

  “What do you mean by prize?” she asked. As soon as she said it, she knew what he meant. “Oh! Then you did hear me! I knew it!”

  “What’s this about?” Malcolm asked.

  Gennie turned to him. “I told him I had a surprise for him, but I wouldn’t tell him until he woke up.”

  “Bribery works every time,” Malcolm said, smiling. “So, what’s the surprise?”

  “Well…” Gennie replied. “I went to the doctor’s yesterday because I’ve been feeling very sick lately and basically he told me that I’m having a baby.”

  “That’s wonderful, Gennie!” Malcolm said, giving her a hug. “So, what do you think about that, Ben?”

  Ben slowly nodded. “Good,” he said.

  “Was that worth waking up for?” Malcolm asked.

  “Yeah,” Ben said.

  Chapter 45: September 10, 1970