The Fall

My husband parks the car on a suburban street. I, his unsteady partner of late, opened the door and found the space between the curb and sidewalk too narrow for me to pass as a bumbling ballerina. Not enough road for me to twirl and stumble and eventually recover my gait.

We just flew west to California and gained three hours to Pacific Standard Time. I swear, I can hear the spinal fluid trapped in my brain sloshing around as I’m going down. Down into a thicket of branches and flowers, I don’t know the name of.

My legs are sprawled on the sidewalk. I can feel they are scratched up before seeing the thin red lines. I am on my back like a turtle, and it occurs to me that I am all jutting legs and arms. I am like a windup toy gone awry. In fact, before I went down, I felt like a key in my back wound up, and off I went, unable to control my speed or the length of my steps.

I lie still for a few minutes until I realize my husband has been screaming my name. Before I hear his fear, I stare at the California sky, cornflower blue, occasionally broken up by cottony clouds. “Say something, please.” He is crouched next to me, crying. I have seen my husband cry plenty of times, but I rarely see him frightened.

I have tripped again, and I know that much. And I can’t pretend I haven’t fallen a lot these past few months, But the fear has been knocked out of me. Instead, I am water-logged. The neurologist had a name for what has been happening to me — hydrocephalus — The word makes me feel as if I’m gliding on water.

My neck goes creaky and granular. I shake my head no when my husband asks if I hit my head. Skull intact, brain still bathed in cerebral spinal fluid.  My eyes feel like they are bulging like the turtle I must look like — I am prehistoric. Prehistorically, I power walked my way from place to place when I lived in New York City. Fast, upright, young. Flying then versus lumbering now.

My husband offers me his hand, his love, his life. “I want to be still a little longer to look at the sky,” I say. “Just hold my hand.”

And then he whispers, “I will forever and a day.”