Life Expectancy

heavens, no. Anything like that I would have told you last night."
        I would not allow myself to feel relief, because clearly he had something to tell me that wasn't news you celebrated with fine champagne.
        "I understand that you and Lorrie have three children."
        "Yeah. Annie. Lucy. Andy. Three."
        "The oldest will soon be five?"
        "Yeah. Annie. Our tomboy."
        "Three kids under five-that's a handful."
        "Especially when they won't share one closet monster."
        "Is that Lorrie's ideal family?" he asked.
        "They're darn good kids," I said, "but they're not ideal."
        "I mean, the number."
        "Well, she wants twenty," I said.
        He stared at me as if he'd just noticed that I'd grown a second head during the night.
        "That's partly a joke," I explained. "She'd settle for five, might like six or seven. Twenty-that was just an exaggeration she came up with to express how important family is to her."
        "Jimmy, you know how fortunate Lorrie is to be alive?"
        I nodded. "And I know she's going to be weak for a while, going to need lots of recuperation time, but don't worry about the kids. My folks and I can handle it. There won't be a strain on Lorrie."
        "That's not the issue. Jimmy, the thing is… Lorrie won't be having any more children. If that's going to be a blow to her, I don't want her knowing until she's on her feet again."
        If I could have just Lorrie, Annie, Lucy, and Andy, I would thank God every morning and every night that I'd been given so much.
        I didn't know for sure how she would take the news. She is practical, but she is a dreamer, too, a realist and a romantic at the same time.
        "I had to remove one of her ovaries and a fallopian tube," he said.
        "The other ovary is undamaged, but the trauma to the associated tube will inevitably result in scar tissue that'll close off the isthmus entirely."
        "It can't be repaired someday?"
        "I doubt it. Besides, she has just one kidney now. She shouldn't get pregnant again, anyway."
        "I'll tell her. I'll know when the time is right."
        "I did everything I could, Jimmy."
        "I know. And I'm more grateful than I can ever put into words. You've got free baked goods for life."
        After Dr. Cornell left and as the day wound on, I kept my guard up, waiting for whatever unspeakable horror my grandpa had foreseen, but wondered if Lorrie's sterility might be it. To me, that would be an abiding sadness, yes, but nothing worse; to her, however, it might qualify as tragedy.
        As it turned out, we would not fully understand for several months why that twenty-third of December had been almost as terrible a day in our lives as had been the evening of the twenty-second.
        Looking rested, Dad returned with the roast-beef sandwiches, olive salad, and an entire pistachio-almond polenta cake.
        Later, during another short visit with Lorrie in the I.C.U, she said,
        "Punchinello's still out there."
        "In a maximum-security prison. No need to worry about him."
        "I'll worry a little anyway."
        Weary, she closed her eyes.
        I stood beside the bed, looking at her for a while, then said softly,
        "I'm so sorry."
        She wasn't asleep, as I had thought. Without opening her eyes, she said, "Sorry for what?"
        "For getting you into this."
        "You didn't get me into anything. You saved my life."
        "When you married me, my curse became yours."
        Opening her eyes, fixing me with an intense stare, she said, "Listen up, muffin man. There's no curse. There's only life."
        "But-"
        "Did I say' listen up'?"
        "Yes, ma'am."
        "There's no curse. There's only life the way it is. And in my life, you're the greatest blessing I could have hoped for. You're my every prayer answered."
        On a subsequent visit, when she was asleep, I gently slipped the cameo pendant around her neck, fastened the catch.
        Delicate but indestructible. Beauty enduring. The profile of love everlasting.
        On January 11, 2003, Lorrie was discharged from the hospital. For a while she stayed at my parents' house, next door to ours, where there would be more hands to help her.
        She slept on a roll-away bed in Mom's art alcove, adjacent to the living room, under the watchful gaze of an unfinished portrait of