saw that on the television screen was—it was Lisa—and she was dressed in leather and holding a whip, and she cracked the whip and a man moaned; his face was on the floor, turned to its side, and the image pixelated his face, but his buttocks were bare, and again this woman—Lisa—whipped him and again he moaned.
“Turn that off,” Fergus said. “Turn that off right now.” His wife pressed a button on a remote control, and the screen went a blank blue except for the DVD sign. “And who said you could use my TV?” Fergus added.
Lisa said, “We had to, Dad, because Mom’s is too old to take a DVD and she said she was ready to try and watch this, and so did Laurie—”
“Dad,” Laurie said. “You won’t believe this. She had one guy that she made roll around in like a hundred squished-up bananas and then—oh God, Dad, she took a dump on him!”
Fergus looked at Laurie hard. “And what changed your mind about this filth?”
Laurie said, “Well, Lisa and I had a really long talk and I began to think about it, and I think maybe she’s right, people should be educated, so I came here to watch it with Mom. And Mom said she would give it a try, because, you know, it’s Lisa, it’s her daughter—”
“Where’s Teddy?” Fergus looked around.
“He’s at his father’s. It’s Sunday.”
Fergus had an odd sensation of not fully knowing where he himself was. He said to Lisa, “You took a shit on a man?”
Lisa looked down. “That’s his thing, Dad.”
Fergus walked to the television set, and then he was aware of a different strange feeling, his eyes became blurry very quickly, and without any sense of warning that his body would do this he went crashing to the floor, hitting his head on the corner of his television; briefly he saw stars. When he came to, he heard the loud talking of women, this would be his family, and they were trying to sit him up, and they did, and then he was standing and they were pushing him into the car.
All Fergus wanted to do was curl up, this kept going through his head, just curl up, curl up, curl up, and when they got him to the hospital he did that, he curled up on the floor of the emergency room, and very quickly a nurse came and got him standing again, and then he was on a thin bed and he curled up on the bed. When someone tried to straighten out his legs, he curled them right back up, almost to his chest, and his head was down there too. All he wanted was to stay curled up with his eyes closed.
Eventually he heard someone say “sedative,” and he thought Yes, give me that, and they must have, because he slept deeply, and when he woke he felt frightened and did not know where he was.
“Dad?” It was Lisa, lowering her head, speaking to him quietly. “Oh, Daddy, guess what? You’re okay! Oh God, Daddy, you scared us so much, but you’re okay. They’re going to keep you here tonight, but you’re okay, Daddy.”
She held his hand, and he squeezed it.
Then Laurie was there, and she said, “Oh, Dad, we were so scared,” and he nodded.
Then he was alone, and he fell asleep again. When he woke, he knew right away that he was in the hospital and it was nighttime, a small light was on above his hospital bed. He closed his eyes again.
As he lay there he became aware of someone stroking his arm, very slowly, rhythmically, back and forth went the hand on his arm. He kept his eyes closed so it would continue, and it did. After many minutes went by—who knew how many minutes?—he turned his head and opened his eyes and saw that it was his wife. She stopped when she saw him watching her and put her hand into her lap.
“Ethel,” he said. “What have we done?”
“Done about what?” she asked quietly. “You mean our life, or our children?”
He said, “I don’t know what I mean.” After a moment he said, “You have to tell me about Anita’s kids. Not right now, but someday soon.”
“Oh,” Ethel said. “They’re looney tunes.”
“Not like ours,” he said.
Ethel said, “Not like ours.”
And then he nodded toward his arm, a small nod, but old marrieds that they were she understood. She began to stroke his arm again.
Heart
Olive Kitteridge opened her eyes.
She had