Widowish: A Memoir(9)

“He’s still got a fever,” the night nurse sweetly told me.

“Has he been able to talk at all?” I asked.

“Not yet,” she said. “Don’t worry, honey. We have your number. Call as many times as you’d like, but we’ll keep you updated.”

“Thank you,” I said as I hung up.

I was too tired and scared to cry. My heart was racing. I watched Sophie sleep on Joel’s side of the bed. I wanted to hold her, but I didn’t want to wake her up. I wanted to assure her that everything was going to be OK. But I wasn’t sure it would be.





FOUR

No Matter What Occurs

By Monday Joel had been moved out of his hospital room and admitted to the intensive care unit. He remained noncommunicative and nonresponsive. He was breathing on his own, but there was concern over the strength of his lungs. The doctors started saying things like, “Your husband is critically ill.” But no one could tell me why or how things had turned so bad so quickly.

I started making phone calls to friends. My close friend Mimi, who is incredibly responsible and organized, convinced me that I needed some help. I told her where she could find the key to my house, and she began coordinating with some other friends. One day I came home to a house full of flowers. The next, to a fully stocked fridge of ready-made meals. I was typically the type of person who handled things on my own, but something inside me succumbed. People wanted to help us. I let them.

My mother lived nearby and was devastated by what was happening. She loved Joel and offered to help in any way she could. She spent time with Sophie, cooked for us, and made herself available.

My dad and stepmom, Elisabeth, who live in New York, happened to be in Northern California on vacation. We had plans to meet them in the central coast the following week. But with Joel so sick, they cut short their trip to the wine country and headed straight for Los Angeles.

Joel’s dad was a constant presence, and I spoke to Joel’s mother, Nancy, every night. It was difficult for her to see Joel so incapacitated, and as a mother, I understood completely. I sent emails to Joel’s employees and closest friends to let them know that Joel was out of commission for at least a few days, maybe a week.

Sophie continued to sleep with me every night. I would take her to school, which had always been Joel’s job, then head straight for the hospital. People offered rides, but I wanted to be there to pick her up every day like normal. I kept her in a bubble, reassuring her that “Daddy is going to be OK. He must really need this rest.” She seemed to understand. This went on for days.

When I think of Joel in the hospital on those fraught, early days, I try to forget about the tubes in his nose and mouth, the IVs connected to his arms, and the soft whir of machines that helped him breathe.

It wasn’t like the movies where the bereft spouse cuddles in bed with their sick husband or wife, smoothing down their hair and kissing them on the lips. Between the tubes, wires, and machines, I couldn’t get close to Joel even if I wanted to. I feared something would become disconnected or loose. I was anxious seeing him like that, being unable to touch him or get close. He couldn’t tell me what he needed, what would make him more comfortable, or more importantly, how to help him.

I tried to speak to him but I felt self-conscious—there was a steady flow of people in the room—nurses, doctors, visitors. And Joel was there, but he wasn’t there. I would lean over the plastic tubes, whispering in his ear:

“You,” I’d say.

“I love you.”

“I’m here, hun!”

The only thing I could offer was my love.



After we ran into each other at that Dodgers game, Joel and I would see each other at shows around town quite often. The girlfriend Joel had been living with when we met at Atlantic Records was now his wife. She was rarely at shows with him, and while Joel and I always had chemistry when we saw each other, I was focused on starting my career.

By then I was working at Walt Disney Television, writing and networking like crazy, and was determined to get a job as a TV writer. I answered my phone one day; it was Joel.

“Perfect timing!” I said.

“Really, why?”

“I’m moving to Seattle next week!” I told him about the writing job I had just accepted on a new kids’ science show called Bill Nye, the Science Guy. I was thrilled.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

“This is the part where you say you’re happy for me. It’s why I moved back to LA, so I could move to Seattle,” I said jokingly.

“I’m happy for you,” he said, “but you just got back from New York.”

“I know. It’s kind of crazy.”

Again, there was silence.

“The thing is,” he said, “I let you get away once. I’m not going to let that happen again.”

“What do you mean?”

But I knew what he meant. Like a cartoon, Joel and I had hearts in our eyes that day we met, but the timing was always off.

“Go to Seattle,” he said, and then with over-the-top theatricality, he added, “Stay alive, no matter what occurs! I will find you! ” It was a serious and dramatic line from The Last of the Mohicans delivered by Daniel Day-Lewis’s character.

We both started laughing hysterically. Nervous laughter, perhaps, but it was typical Joel. The side of Joel that made me love him even more every time he said something funny or with innuendo.