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“I find it very strange to be a suffering woman,” Stella said. “I always thought I’d be a wildly reckless woman, and instead of being a partier, I’m a hospital-goer.”
Stephen looked tolerant and loving, and his expression said that he was fine with whatever she said.
“And you, Stephen – what are you up to?”
“Homework,” he said.
“So, when you get home, five hours?”
“Indefinite,” he said stolidly. “As much as I can,” he further explained.
“You aren’t going to get much sleep,” she stated.
“Probably not,” he admitted.
“You’re suffering a little too much for my taste,” Stella said. “I’m not sure that I feel comfortable with that. I think I want you to go home.”
“I like spending time with you,” Stephen said.
“Even if it makes you suffer?” Stella asked.
“I don’t suffer,” Stephen said.
“Oh yes you do,” Stella contradicted.
“Don’t.”
“Do.”
“Don’t.”
“Do.”
“Okay, okay, so I do. I’m a suffering man,” Stephen murmured. “I hope you’re okay with that.”
“Wasn’t Jesus a suffering man?” Stella asked. “Per Isaiah 52?”
Stephen googled it on his phone. “Yeah.”
Not needing to see the phone, she said, “A man of suffering, accustomed to infirmities,” and then she needed a drink of water, while Stephen stepped out of the room to make a phone call that he saw when he checked his phone.
When, he came back, Stella was leaning back, eyes closed.
They talked for a while, or he read while she rested. Sometimes, they looked out the window or at the room.
“You suffer a lot,” he said forty-five minutes later.
". . . accustomed to infirmities," Stella murmured.
Stephen swiftly stepped up to the edge of her bed and seized her hand.
"Stella," he said, "I want you to marry me."
Stella wouldn't look at him for a time. She glanced up, then back down.
"I don't know what you're feeling right now," she trailed off, not finishing her thought.
His grip tightened. "Does it matter whether you know exactly how I feel?"
"Yes," Stella said decidedly. "I need to know whether I feel the same as you feel, because otherwise, I might marry you when I don't really deserve you."
"What are you thinking?" Stephen asked incredulously.
"I'm thinking that I probably don't love you the right way." She was ashamed and turned away, her sheet of hair swinging away from him, and her arm tugging her hand away from his grasp.
"Why?"
"I -- I -- think you're too handsome."
"What?" He sounded more wildly confused than ever, and Stella winced.
"Handsome, nice, smart . . . maybe I just like you because of that . . . and you've got a good job that will pay lots of money . . . and you're a doctor, so you can take care of me . . . everything's too perfect. It's like a fairytale."
"Couldn't that be a sign that God wants us to marry? He's opened this window for us, this glimpse of happiness, and discernment often involves circumstances lining up with what we're praying about."
"I'm a little more cautious about that. Things could see as if they were falling into place when they really are not, and we'd realize it later."
"Huh." Stephen resisted the impulse to put a hand through her hair and turn her head towards his so that he could try to catch her eyes. "This life obviously isn't entirely a fairytale for you, is it? With getting sick and all."
She only looked at him miserably.
"Tell you what." Stephen hesitated and looked around the room, thinking. He didn't complete his thinking very quickly, and Stella asked, "Tell me what?"
"Wait here." He rushed from the room.
Stella put her arms across her chest. "What's he up to now?"
He came back, carrying a CD player.
"Playing music won't change my mind," she said.
"That's the point. Nothing will make you change your mind except yourself, so we might as well listen to music."
She'd been hoping, sort of, that he would try to change her mind, but, no, he was leaving that task up to her. It was slightly irritating of him, because it would take a lot of work, but he knew it was the most efficient choice. She was more likely to win an argument with herself than he was. Day and night, she'd poke holes in her own arguments, almost without cease. He'd refused to argue with her, speeding the inevitable hound of her own thoughts. He wouldn't postpone a decision by talking with her.
He put in one of her favorite CDs. He knew it was one of her favorites.
"I can't think with it on," she said.
He made her a cup of tea.
"Why did you give me a relaxant?" she said. "I'm thinking."
He left the room.
"Where are you going? I'm lonely!" she shouted. He did not reappear instantaneously. "Drat him," she said. "I hate delayed gratification" -- ironically. She did not need to rehearse her speech against instantaneous gratification in Western culture. She knew it well enough that she could almost see the paragraph in her mind. It ended, "The best thing is not to be aware of gratification by not needing anything." She really shouldn't, she thought, need Stephen to this degree at all. She shouldn't shout at him or beg him to stay.
Stephen returned quickly, with an icon holy card.
"What's that for?" she asked.
"My nerves are wracked," he joked. "I need something to concentrate on while you decide."
"Why couldn't you do something like read a medical treatise?" she asked crossly.
"Who do you think I am? Becky?" he asked. "No. Doctors read medical journals, if rarely, and patient files, when they have to, at work. I prefer to relax with something other than work."
He took a drink of tea, played the music, and looked at the prayer on the back of the holy card.
It took her a moment to realize that the distracting, energetic, exuberant last movement of the 1812 Overture to which they were listening was for him. It was his way of relaxing.
I guess that explains why he likes me, Stella thought. He finds loud, bright entertainment relaxing.
I guess that if I were analogous to a piece of music, it might be the 1812 Overture. At least, this last movement, to which he's turned.
I'm not like chamomile tea, though. I'm not very calming. I'm much too talkative and awake.
But maybe, although, I feel like talking at a lot of times, he doesn't, so he finds it relaxing. And if I do it too much, he might find it soporific. In fact, maybe there is no such thing as "too much" of my talking for him.
She stole a glance at him, trying to tell what he was thinking without his noticing, because she would get flustered if her looked in her eyes and knew what she was thinking. He could read her face better than she could read his.
He looked calm in her presence, relaxed in the world formed by her, her music, a cup of tea, four white walls, a bed, a chair, a nightstand, and a flimsy holy card.
That's how he felt.
He felt calm.
This was an interesting development in thought.
He was calm, when she wasn't calm. In fact, he was calm probably because she wasn't calm.
That she could have a calming effect just by being herself led to a wellspring of more thoughts.
"I was worried that I was using you to feel happy," Stella said. "Secure, safe." Perplexed, she confided, "But I think maybe we're in the same situation. You love me because I make you feel -- happy -- secure --safe."
"I'm fascinated. Go on," Stephen said. He sat up and looked at her.
"I'm concerned that it means our love isn't unconditional. The definition of love as truly wanting the best for the beloved, beyond feeling, might not apply in our situation."
"Not apply in our situation!" Stephen exploded. "Stella, what am I doing, spending most of my time in the hospital with you! Those chapel pews are not made for sleeping, you know! And this place is terrible, you know! Not exactly aesthetically pleasing, or full of fresh air, or sunshiny. Driving here every day, on top of my internship and cooking meals and helping out my family, and updating your mom on how you're doing -- Stella, this isn't easy. Darling," and Stella caught her breath, "this isn't 'just a feeling.' This isn't sentimental love. This isn't affection. This isn't, most importantly, my feeling bad for you or feeling obligated. This is me -- me -- me . . ." His voice, growing more quiet and resonant, almost seemed to give out. He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "Stella. This is me, offering myself to you as a sacrifice."
Unconvinced, Stella's eyebrows stayed up and her eyes were shaped like skeptical half-moons. She didn't want to hurt his feelings, so she said as gently as she could, "But what about me? I'm not giving up anything for you . . ." She felt tears in her eyes. Her own voice broke. "I'm -- just here." She began sobbing. "Here in the hospital." Her hands were wet with tears. "Doing nothing. I don't deserve your love. It's unconditional, but mine isn't. And feeling calm, the way you do with me, even when things are tough -- that could stop. It's just a feeling. It's just something that happens. We can't control it." She was beginning to sob so hard that she was getting unintelligible.
She sat up, wiped her face on her lower arm where the hospital gown didn't cover it, and said distinctly, "Anyway, my two main concerns are, 1) I don't love as unconditionally as you, and 2) any peace that we feel around each other could dissipate."
Stephen, who'd patted her back perhaps three measured, hesitant times at most, looked sorrowful. He regretted having to leave. Visiting hours were over. He picked up his bag and cup of tea.
"I'll be back tomorrow. Think some more for me, will you, love?" he said. He knew that she liked to think, that she would think no matter what, and that she would like the reassurance of his supportive listening to her thoughts. "Just be here for me and think, that's all I ask." As if he couldn't resist touching her but wasn't sure whether he should, or how long he should, he placed a hand on her back for a short time, and then edged out the door.
Over the large bag his shoulder, he called, "Rest, too, please."
Then, she heard him say something to a person in a white coat outside the door.
And then, he was out of sight and hearing.
"See God," Stella thought, remembering Augustine's Confessions. "Hear God. Touch God. Smell God. Taste God. Be God." Standard deification talk set in. Her thoughts molded as she fell asleep around midnight, that night.
"See Stephen. Hear Stephen. Taste Stephen. Smell Stephen. Be Stephen."
The comparison was simple and tidy to make, even if it wasn't exactly coherent.