Ainsley comes back in as I’m picking myself up off the floor.
She rushes over to me. “Oh, my God!”
She helps me onto the couch. She looks at me, and then gently lifts my chin.
“Your neck,” she says, her eyes wide. “I need to call someone.”
“No!” I say. “Please, don’t.”
Ainsley walks to the kitchen and returns with ice wrapped in a towel. She holds it to my neck.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Her voice is shaky.
“I will be,” I say. “The things you’ll do to make it in show business.”
The Finale
A few months later
Teddy
“On a scale of one to ten, with one representing very mild pain and ten being the most unbearable pain you can experience, where would you rate your pain today?”
“A million!” I yell at Ron. “There is a catheter up my wee-wee! It feels like I have a U-Haul parked down there, and that parking space is only meant for compact vehicles!”
My shouting does not thwart nursemaid Ron. He props me up even further in bed, and hands me a glass of water, pills for bladder spasms and a stool softener, and a bowl of fresh fruit.
Ron sniffs the air and winces. He yanks down the blanket.
“Not again,” he says.
“Put me out of my misery,” I beg. “Please.”
The incontinence was not supposed to start until my catheter came out, but bladder spasms cause nightly leakage. Even worse, after I put up with being constipated the first few days postsurgery, the water, fruit and stool softeners are kicking in as they are supposed to, but I’m too exhausted and too medicated to realize it and call for help in time. When I finally realize what has occurred, I’m too ashamed, so I sit in my own waste like a baby in his diaper.
“I’ll clean you up,” Ron says.
I turn my head away, mortified.
“It’s okay,” he assures me.
Ron returns wearing gloves and carrying an arsenal of wipes, towels, soap and water. He washes me as I used to bathe my mother when she was dying. The warm washcloth feels good against my skin.
“I should have hired someone to do this,” I say. “It’s not fair to you.”
He gets another washcloth and rubs my legs.
“That’s what friends are for,” Ron says. He looks at me. “You’re my best friend, Teddy, and I love you.”
“There are things a child should never see,” my mother said to me once as I cleaned her dying body, eyes locked on the portrait hanging on the wall in front of her bed.
“And there are things you should do for those you love,” I said.
“You love me?” she asked.
“You shouldn’t have to ask,” I replied.
“You love me?” I ask Ron.
