Truth and Consequences Read Free Page B

Jane held out a large white sagging object.
    â€œNot that one, it’s too heavy.” He shoved her hand away with a grimace of irritation. “Jesus Christ. I need the little blue packs. Both of them.”
    â€œSorry.”
    â€œThat’s better,” he said a minute later. “And could you maybe bring me a towel to wrap them in? It keeps them cold longer.”
    â€œYes, of course.” Jane climbed the stairs again, found a clean hand towel, brought it down, wrapped the icepacks in it, and helped Alan settle them between his back and the back of the sofa. “Is there anything else?”
    â€œNot just now, thanks.” He groaned and closed his eyes.
    Though Alan had not said so directly, Jane knew he now suspected that his back would never get better, and in fact would probably get worse. He was in almost constant severe pain, except when he was so full of drugs that he was woozy and unsteady on his feet as he had been this morning. In the late afternoon and evening the pain sometimes became so bad that he would have a shot of vodka, or two, or three, though labels on the pills he took clearly stated that it was dangerous to mix them with alcohol.
    Pain, according to the nineteenth-century novels that Jane’s Aunt Nancy had loved as a child and presented to her at Christmas and birthdays, could be ennobling and inspiring. In What Katy Did and Jack and Jill , thoughtless young girls, injured in accidents at play (like Alan) had to lie in bed for months, during which time they matured wonderfully and their characters changed for the better.
    But Alan hadn’t needed to change for the better, Jane thought: he had been perfect as he was. So, logically, he had begun to change for the worse. His admirable evenness of temper, optimism, and generosity of spirit had slowly begun to leak away. He had become overweight and unattractive, he had become self-centered and touchy.
    Those books were wrong, Jane thought. Pain is bad for the character, just as all misfortunes are: poverty and unemployment and loss of friends and family. It makes you tired and weak; it makes you depressed and anxious and fearful. Nobody says this, nobody is supposed to say it, but it is true. Even Jane herself, who was only forty and healthy and strong and attractive, would one day be old and tired and ugly and probably self-centered and touchy as well.
    â€œJa-ane.” Alan’s voice was tense.
    â€œYes?” She stopped washing lettuce and hurried to the sitting room.
    â€œCould you possibly get me the bottle of Valium from my toilet kit, and some cold grapefruit juice to wash it down?”
    â€œYes, of course.” Jane ran upstairs and down, filled a glass with grapefruit juice in the kitchen, and added two ice cubes.
    â€œThank you.” Alan drank. “Yes, that’s good,” he said, smiling at her. But then, as he lifted the glass again, his arm struck the arm of the sofa, and the rest of the grapefruit juice spilled onto the coffee table and the carpet. “Oh, fuck!” he shouted in a sudden rage. “I didn’t need that.”
    â€œDon’t worry, I’ll take care of it.” Jane picked up the glass and ice cubes, ran to the kitchen, and returned carrying a pan of warm water and detergent and a sponge.
    â€œAw, shit, look at the mess,” Alan growled.
    â€œDon’t worry, it’s nothing,” she assured him.
    â€œIt’s the drugs, they interfere with my coordination.”
    â€œYes, of course,” Jane said as she knelt by the sofa, mopping up the juice, then soaking the carpet with water and detergent, while thinking that she too did not need this, but that at least it hadn’t been grape juice.
    â€œI wish I could help—”
    â€œIt’s all right, really. It’s nothing.” She went to the kitchen, dumped the dirty water, rinsed the sponge and brush, and filled the pan again with clean warm water. Back in the sitting room