When Abigail Thomas’s husband, Rich, was hit by a car, his brain shattered. Subject to rages, terrors, and hallucinations, he must live the rest of his life in an institution. He has no memory of what he did the hour, the day, the year before. This tragedy is the ground on which Abigail had to build a new life. How she built that life is a story of great courage and great change, of moving to a small country town, of a new family composed of three dogs, knitting, and friendship, of facing down guilt and discovering gratitude.This wise, plainspoken, beautiful book enacts the truth Abigail discovered in the five years since the accident: You might not find meaning in disaster, but you might, with effort, make something useful of it.“The startling power and beauty of Abigail Thomas’s memoir comes not only from her acute perceptions of a man without memories and her fear of losing her husband but from her refusal to surrender the shards of a loving relationship.”—O, the Oprah Magazine
ABIGAIL THOMAS is the author of Safekeeping, a memoir, as well as a novel and two story collections. She lives in Woodstock, New York, and teaches at the New School.
Read an Excerpt
x
What Stays the Same
This is the one thing that stays the same: my husband got hurt. Everything else changes. A grandson needs me and then he doesn’t. My children are close then one drifts away. I smoke and don’t smoke; I knit ponchos, then hats, shawls, hats again, stop knitting, start up again. The clock ticks, the seasons shift, the night sky rearranges itself, but my husband remains constant, his injuries are permanent. He grounds me. Rich is where I shine. I can count on myself with him.
I live in a cozy house with pretty furniture. Time passes here. There is a fireplace and two acres and the dogs run around and dig big holes and I don’t care. I have a twenty-seven-inch TV and lots of movies. The telephone rings often. Rich is lodged in a single moment and it never tips into the next. Last week I lay on his bed in the nursing home and watched him. I was out of his field of vision and I think he forgot I was there. He stood still, then he picked up a newspaper from a neat pile of newspapers, held it a moment, and carefully put it back. His arms dropped to his sides. He looked as if he was waiting for the next thing but there is no next thing.
I got stuck with the past and future. That’s my half of this bad hand. I know what happened and I never get used to it. Just when I think I’ve metabolized everything I am drawn up short. "Rich lost part of his vision" is what I say, but recently Sally told the nurse, "He is blind in his right eye," and I was catapulted out of the safety of the past tense into the now.
Today I drive to the wool store. I arrive with my notebook open and a pen.
"What are you doing?" Paul asks.
"I’m taking a poll," I say. "What is the one thing that stays stable in your life?"
"James," says Paul instantly.
"And I suppose James will say Paul," I say, writing down James.
"No, he’ll say the dogs," says Paul, laughing.
"Creativity," says Heidi, the genius.
"I have to think," says a woman I don’t know.
"The dogs," says James.
Rich and I had a house together once. He was the real gardener. He raked and dug, planted and weeded, stood over his garden proudly. Decorative grasses were his specialty. He cut down my delphiniums when he planted his fountain grass. "Didn’t you see them?" I asked. "They were so tall and beautiful." But he was too busy digging to listen. I lost interest in flowers. We planted a hydrangea tree outside the kitchen window. We cut down (after much deliberation) two big prickly bushes that were growing together like eyebrows at either side of our small path. We waited until the birds were done with their young, then Rich planted two more hydrangea trees where the bushes had stood. I don’t want to see how big they are by now, how beautiful their heavy white blossoms look when it rains. "I love what you’ve done with the garden," my friend Claudette says, looking at the bed of overgrown nettles in my backyard. I weeded there exactly once. I want to plant fountain grass out there, but first I need a backhoe.
Rich and I don’t have the normal ups and downs of a marriage. I don’t get impatient. He doesn’t have to figure out what to do with his retirement. I don’t watch him go through holidays with the sorrow of missing his absent children. Last week we were walking down the hall to his room, it was November, we had spent the afternoon together. "If I wasn’t with you and we weren’t getting food, the dark would envelop my soul," he said cheerfully.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department, Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.
"What Stays the Same"—currently with Dan Jones "Accident"-- published in "O" "Home"--published in "O" "Comfort" –published in Dog is My Co-Pilot, Bark Anthology "Surprises" –not placed serially "Magnificent Frigate Bird" –published in Tin House "Learning To Live Alone" –published in Self "How to Break up a Dog Fight" –not placed serially "Dog Talk" –published in Bark "How to Banish Melancholy" –to be published in Women’s Best Friend, Seal Press Anthology "Carolina’s in Heat" –published in Bark "For Now" –not placed serially "Filling What’s Empty" –published in Tin House "NO" –currently with Dan Jones "Guilt" –published in Subtropics "Edward Butterman Sleeps At Home" –not placed serially "Knitting 2002 to Present" –to be published in Swivel "Outsider Art" –not placed serially "Running" –not placed serially "Past, Present, Future" –excerpt to be published in Real Simple "Moving" –published on Mister Beller’s Neighborhood "Five Years" –not placed serially
