Sing You Home: A Novel Read online

  So I came home from work and showered and put on a tie, and we drove to the nursing home. In her purse, Zoe had the progesterone, alcohol wipes, and syringes. We watched Sadie and Clark, with their combined age of 184, get united in holy matrimony. And then we ate creamed beef and Jell-O—the food had to be denture-friendly—and watched the residents who were still mobile dance to big band records.

  The happy newlyweds fed each other cake. Leaning toward Zoe, I whispered, “I give this marriage ten years, tops.”

  Zoe laughed. “Watch it, buster. That could be us one day.” Then her watch beeped, and she looked at the time. “Oh,” she said. “It’s seven.” I followed her down the hall to the bathrooms.

  There were two, one for men and one for women, each big enough to accommodate a wheelchair—or a husband who had to give his wife a progesterone shot. The women’s room was locked, so we ducked into the men’s instead. Zoe hiked up her skirt.

  There was a bull’s-eye on the upper part of her butt, drawn in Sharpie marker. Every day for the past week, since we began these shots, I’d redrawn the circle after her shower. I didn’t want to hurt her by sticking the needle somewhere more painful than it had to be.

  I had believed there was nothing worse than giving Zoe shots in her belly—mixing up the powder and the water and pinching the skin to inject the Repronex; dialing the dose on the handy-dandy syringe-pen that contained the Follistim. The needles were tiny and she swore they didn’t hurt, even though they left bruises on her abdomen—so many that sometimes it was hard to find a fresh spot for the next shot.

  But the progesterone was different.

  First, the needle was bigger. Second, the medicine was in oil, and just looked thicker and creepier. Third, we’d have to do it every night for thirteen weeks.

  Zoe took out the alcohol swabs and a vial. I swiped the top of the vial clean, and then rubbed the center of the bull’s-eye on her bottom. “Are you going to be okay standing up?” I asked. Usually, she was lying on our bed.

  “Just get it over with,” Zoe said.

  Quickly I screwed the big needle onto the syringe and withdrew the dosage from the vial. It was tricky, because of the oil—sort of like sucking molasses through a straw. I waited till the fluid was a bit past the number on the syringe and then pushed on the plunger, to get it just right.

  Then I twisted off the needle and attached a new one we’d use for the injection. It wasn’t as wide a bore, but it was equally nasty—a good two inches had to get jabbed into Zoe intramuscularly. “Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath, even though it was Zoe having the shot.

  “Wait!” she cried out. She twisted toward me. “You didn’t say it.”

  We had a routine. “I wish I could do this for you,” I told her, every night.

  She nodded, and braced her hands against the wall.

  No one ever tells you how resilient skin is. It’s meant to be tough, which is why it takes a little leap of courage to jam a syringe through it. But it was worse for Zoe than for me, so I kept my hands from shaking (a real problem at first) and plunged the needle into the center of the bull’s-eye. I made sure there was no blood mixing into the medication, and then came the hard part. Can you imagine the force it takes to push oil into the human body? I swear, no matter how many times I did this to my wife (and I did look at it that way—as something I did to her), I could feel every bit of resistance that her flesh and blood put up against the progesterone.

  When, finally, it was done, I pulled out the needle and stuck it into the Sharps container that was next to the sink. Then I rubbed the injection site, trying to keep Zoe from getting a hard knot there. Usually, now, I’d get her a heating pad, too, but that obviously wasn’t going to happen tonight.

  Zoe put everything back into her purse and pulled down her dress. “Hope we didn’t miss the bouquet toss,” she said, and she opened the bathroom door.

  An elderly man in a walker was patiently waiting. He watched Zoe emerge from the men’s room, followed by me, and he winked. “I remember those days,” he mused.

  Zoe and I burst out laughing. “Not unless he was a diabetic,” I said, and we walked back into the reception holding hands.

  The Kent County Family Court isn’t that far from Wilmington, where Zoe and I have rented an apartment for years; but it’s a good distance from Reid’s house in Newport. Clutching the copy of the marriage certificate I got from the town hall, I walk the length of a covered portico from the parking lot into the building.

  Every few steps, I hear a bird.

  I stop walking, look up, and notice the speaker and the motion sensor. The courthouse has some weird nature recording following me with every step.

  It’s kind of fitting, actually, to be headed in to file for divorce and to learn that something I thought was real is just smoke and mirrors.

  The clerk looks up at me when I enter the office. She has curly black hair—and that’s just her mustache. “Yes?” she says. “Can I help you?”

  These days, I don’t think anyone can. But I take a step toward the chest-high counter. “I want a divorce.”

  She flattens her mouth in a smile. “Honey, I don’t even remember our wedding.” When I don’t respond, the clerk rolls her eyes. “Just once. Just once I’d like someone to laugh. Who’s your attorney?”

  “I can’t afford one.”

  She hands me a packet of papers. “You own property?”

  “No.”

  “You got kids?”

  “No,” I say, looking away.

  “Then you fill out the paperwork, and bring it to the sheriff’s department down the hall.”

  I thank her and take the packet out to a bench in the corridor.

  In re: the Marriage of

  Plaintiff: that would be me.

  And Defendant: that would be Zoe.

  I carefully read the first item to be filled out: my residence. After hesitating, I put down Reid’s address. I’ve been there for two months now. Plus, the next item is Zoe’s address. I don’t want the judge to get confused and think we’re still living together and decide not to grant the divorce.

  Not that it works like that, but still.

  Number three: On _____, in _____ (city), _____ (country), _____ (state), the Plaintiff and Defendant married. An official copy of the marriage license is attached to this complaint for divorce.

  Zoe and I had gotten married by a justice of the peace with a speech impediment. When he asked us to repeat our vows, neither of us could understand him. “We’ve written our own,” Zoe said, in a flash of inspiration, and, like me, she made them up on the spot.

  On the divorce form, there are four spaces for children, and their birth dates.

  I feel myself break out in a sweat.

  Grounds for No-Fault:

  I have only two choices here, and they are listed for me. Carefully I reprint the first option: Irreconcilable differences that have caused the irremediable breakdown of the marriage.

  I do not really know what all that means, but I can guess. And it seems to describe me and Zoe. She can’t stop wanting a baby; I can’t stand the thought of trying again. Irreconcilable differences are the children we never had. They’re the times she would sit at dinner, smiling, when I knew she wasn’t thinking about me. They’re the baby name books stacked for reading by the toilet, the crib mobile she bought three years ago and never unpacked, the finance charges on our credit card bills that keep me awake at night.

  Just above the spot where I sign my name is a vow: The Plaintiff prays for an Absolute Divorce.

  Yeah, I suppose I do.

  I’d worship anyone and anything who could turn my life around.

  In a way, I get along better with my sister-in-law than with my own brother. For the past two months, every time Reid asks me if I have a master plan, a goal to get back on my feet, Liddy just reminds him that I’m family, that I should stay as long as I want. At breakfast, if she cooks an uneven number of slices of bacon, she gives me the extra, instead