Bad Luck

Maggie and R.J. had a good marriage, except for one thing. In fact Maggie and R.J. had a terrific marriage, except for one thing. They'd been together nearly nine years, married for six, and they were still very much in love. They enjoyed spending time together, talking with each other—in fact each one would have said that the other was "the most interesting person I know."

The sex was great. Some weeks it was only once, other weeks three times or more, depending on how each of them felt and whether R.J. was traveling. But whenever they did it, they had a good time. They had their favorite positions, but they also liked to experiment occasionally. But most of all, each still found the other very attractive, and their love-making was passionate and satisfying.

They even liked one another's families. R.J.'s parents were dead, but Maggie loved spending time with his older brother David and his wife and two children. And R.J. was happy whenever Maggie's parents visited from California, or whenever he and Maggie flew out there to see them.

Maggie was unable to have children, but that was okay with both of them. They enjoyed being aunt and uncle to David's kids, and seeing some cousins of Maggie's from time to time. But R.J. was on the road a lot, as a service rep for a medical instruments company, and it would have been hard to be the father he would have wanted to be while keeping up with his job.

Maggie worked as an executive secretary to the Chief Operating Officer of a manufacturing plant. After eight years in the job she knew the place better than he did; he counted on her for everything, and paid her well.

So they were quite happy—certainly much more so than many married couples—except for the one thing. That one thing was Maggie's temper.

Margaret O'Connor Sullivan was Maggie's given name. She was Irish on both sides, and lived up to the Irish reputation for fiery temperaments. All she lacked was the red hair—hers was coal black, which went perfectly with her strong features and bright blue eyes. She was a beauty, as R.J. never tired of saying. But she was a handful (as he said only quietly, and never when Maggie was around).

R.J. sometimes marveled that a woman as loving as Maggie—so sweet, generous, considerate and affectionate—could turn so quickly into a madwoman. Her outbursts weren't frequent, but they were frightening. The worst period had been during their engagement, when there had been a few fights that prompted him to seriously consider calling the whole thing off.

One of them occurred on a Friday night when he'd been held up at work by an emergency meeting and had forgotten to call her. He showed up at their apartment more than two hours late for dinner, apologizing as fast as he could. The roast stuffed chicken she'd made was overcooked and nearly inedible; the mashed potatoes were cold; the dressed salad was limp. And Maggie was apoplectic.

It didn't matter what he said; it didn't matter that he was sorry; it didn't matter that he swore it would never happen again. Nothing mattered. Maggie shouted, she swore at him, and when her fury reached its peak she grabbed a rolling pin and hurled it at him. Fortunately he ducked and avoided having his skull broken, but the rolling pin shattered a glass cabinet door, sending shards of glass all over the kitchen.

R.J. stared at her in horror. But far from apologizing, or acknowledging that she'd gone too far, she yelled that he was an "inconsiderate fucking asshole" and stormed out of the room. Moments later a slamming door announced that she'd left the apartment as well. R.J. had more than an hour to clean up the broken glass and salvage himself a dinner out of the ruined food before she returned.

They didn't speak another word that evening, and R.J. slept on the couch. The next day Maggie apologized to him—sincerely, with tears in her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, honey. I know you weren't late on purpose. It was just, I was so excited to have cooked us a real dinner, something nice like married people eat—and then I got so disappointed when you didn't show up to eat it. I started pacing around, and the more I waited the angrier I got."

R.J. held her, kissed her, apologized again for not calling, and before long they were in bed, renewing their affection with some very sweet make-up sex.

There was another blow-up just four months before the wedding that wasn't even R.J.'s fault. They were out to dinner on a Friday night with Eileen Anderson and her husband. Eileen was Maggie's best friend at work, and on the way to the restaurant Maggie had told R.J. all about the plans that she and some others had been making for a big party for Eileen's 30th birthday. Unfortunately, the party was a surprise—and Maggie neglected to tell R.J. that.

So as the group sat around waiting for their appetizers, R.J. said, "Eileen, I hear your birthday party is going to be quite an affair—Maggie was telling me all about it."

All he had in mind was making pleasant conversation, but it ended the evening in a hurry. Eileen looked at him blankly, and Maggie screamed at him in a voice you could hear across the restaurant.

"You goddam idiot! It was a surprise party—I can't BELIEVE you fucking did that!"

She stood up, dumped her glass of wine all over R.J.'s sport coat, and stormed out of the restaurant, leaving her stunned husband and equally stunned friends staring after her, while a room full of shocked diners watched the whole thing.

That night R.J. didn't even go back to the apartment he and Maggie were sharing. He went and bunked with a friend, and didn't return home until mid-afternoon on Saturday, not knowing quite what to expect.

Maggie sat in the kitchen and glared at him coldly. She wasn't hysterical any more, but she was still awfully unhappy, and she didn't even let R.J. speak first.

"It's all right," she said, "I'm calm now. But honestly, R.J., you have got to be the world's biggest moron!"

"Maggie," he replied, "I think we need to re-consider whether to get married."

"What!" she gasped. "After you make a—"

"Just listen to me. First of all, it wasn't my mistake. You never told me that the party for Eileen was a surprise, so how could I know?"

Maggie gaped at him, and then her face began to grow red as she realized what she had done. After a long silence she said quietly, "oh, R.J.—I am so—"

"Never mind that," he said. "Even if it HAD been my fault, your reaction was totally out-of-control. You were like a crazy person!"

"But R.J., I—"

"But nothing. What you did was intolerable; it was unacceptable.

"Maggie, I've never loved anyone the way I love you, but if you won't go for anger-management counseling I'm calling off the engagement."

She gasped again, and he said, "please think about it. I'm going to eat dinner out—I should be home by about 8:30."

Looking right into her face he added, "I mean every word I said." Then he turned and left the apartment.

When R.J. returned after dinner he found a different person. Maggie was tearful, abashed, and frightened. She clung to him, wouldn't let go of his hand, apologized over and over.

"You're right," she said, "I get out-of-control sometimes. I'm so sorry, honey! And I'll go see whoever you want me to see. Just don't give up on me, please!"

R.J. was pleased and relieved. He held her, kissed her, reassured her. And then they made love for half the night, bathing one another in touches and kisses.

The next week Maggie began a 12-week Anger Management program, with a company R.J. had located through the Human Resources Office at his company. She went twice a week for two hours to a kind of "group therapy" class with 9 other people, led by a middle-aged social worker named Roberta Simmons. They told one another their stories, did exercises on "re-focusing" and even "deep breathing", and learned a lot from one another about their own issues.

At home Maggie was remorseful and loving to R.J. The class made her much more aware of how outrageous her angry behavior had been, and fueled her determination not to let it happen again.

When the course was over and the social worker had told Maggie she'd done well, she went straight home, apologized to R.J. one last time, and dragged him into bed early.

Needless to say R.J. was thrilled by her progress, and the wedding went off as planned. And in the years of their marriage Maggie had never gone as far off the deep end as she did during their engagement.

This is not to say there were never problems, however. Maggie didn't throw things at R.J., but there were still occasional screaming matches. The big difference was that (usually) Maggie could remember what she'd learned from the program and stop herself, short-circuit the emotional spiral, before she completely lost control.

But when R.J. forgot something or let her down or hurt her feelings, he could expect to get an earful from his wife, and not a pleasant earful at that. Sometimes the tirade was followed by hours or even a day or two of the cold shoulder.

Needless to say, R.J. didn't enjoy any of this. He knew he was far from perfect himself--he was occasionally absent-minded, and he could seem distant and unaware when he had something on his mind--but he wished that his wife could handle life's routine disappointments without taking it out of his hide.

*******************

It was a Friday night in January when things went to hell.

R.J. had been working extra-hard, trying to help cover the territory for an incompetent sales rep in his firm who'd been let go, and he had been on the road more than usual. Needless to say that didn't please Maggie at bit.

So they'd made a special date for that Friday—dinner and dancing at one of the nicest restaurants in Columbus. She'd bought a new outfit; he'd had his best suit dry-cleaned and his shoes shined. And he'd promised on his honor not to let anything interfere with his taking her out that night, even though (as it turned out) he'd be in Louisville that morning.

"Yes, honey, I know it's a 200-mile drive," he said on the phone from his hotel the night before. "But I promised you, and I will be there in time for dinner—trust me!"

What happened really wasn't R.J.'s fault. He'd nearly killed himself to wrap up his sales calls in Louisville by 12 noon, whereupon he grabbed a sandwich and hopped into the car. Under good conditions he'd be home by 3:30 or 4:00, so even allowing for bad weather and Friday traffic he'd have plenty of time to shower and change before they went out to dinner at 7:30.

But R.J. didn't count on the jack-knifed tractor-trailer. On US Route 71 North, just past the exit for Route 3, the driver of a big 18-wheeler braked sharply to avoid some idiot in a red pickup who had cut him off, and the enormous truck skidded on an icy patch and swerved violently into the path of R.J.'s Corolla.

He had absolutely no warning and no choice—veer off the road onto the shoulder or smash into the underside of the truck, which might well take the top of his car off (and his head with it).

So he veered—and as his car left the highway the front right tire dropped into a pothole just off the tarmac, and the car flipped over several times as it slid down the embankment before smashing up against a pine tree.

R.J. had his seatbelt on and he wasn't killed; but he was knocked unconscious, and the upside-down car was folded in all around him. Several drivers used their cell phones to call 911 and a rescue crew arrived within 30 minutes—but it was immediately clear that it was going to take a couple of hours to get him out.

Maggie didn't start to fret about R.J. until 5:45. She was absolutely sure he'd be back, and in fact she'd expected him a lot earlier, but only as the time crept towards 6:00 did she start to get worried.

She'd come home from work early to take a long shower, put curlers in her hair, do her nails, and generally spiff up for their special night out. And as 5:45 became 6:00, and then 6:15 and then 6:30, her worries started to turn to a simmering anger.

He wouldn't, he COULDN'T stand her up tonight, could he? If there was some serious delay he would have called! Unless—unless he was too chickenshit to even face her, knowing he was going to break his promise!

At 6:20 she called his cell phone for the first time. It went immediately to voicemail and she cursed at it. Of course, she had no way of knowing the phone had flown out of R.J.'s shirt pocket and lay crushed in the wreckage of the Corolla.

She called back about every ten minutes, at first hanging up each time she got his voicemail announcement, then finally leaving a blistering message making clear just how furious she was. That was at about 7:00, as she sat at the kitchen table, dressed and made-up, looking as lovely as she could get.

A few minutes later a sudden thought checked the rising tide of her rage, and she gasped and grabbed the telephone book. What if he'd been in an accident? But surely someone would have called, wouldn't they?

She switched on the TV to the local news, muting the sound, and started calling all the local hospitals. It took her twenty-five minutes to learn that none of the 11 hospitals she called had had any accident victims brought in that day. Well, actually one hospital had a victim, but she was a teenage girl involved in a small fender-bender who complained of a headache—nothing to do with R.J.

While the various hospitals had her on hold Maggie went around all the local news stations, scanning for anything about car accidents. Ironically, the local network affiliates all did run brief stories about R.J.'s crash, relying on footage shot from the helicopter belonging to WSYX Channel 6, the ABC affiliate. But they ran them at different times—when Maggie was watching ABC the footage showed on NBC, and so on. If she'd only kept the TV on any one network she would have seen her husband's terribly crumpled car.

By 7:30, now convinced that nothing had happened to R.J., Maggie was once again furious. That bastard had stayed late to make sales calls and now he was afraid to face the music! She angrily dumped out her purse onto the kitchen table to find her cell phone—maybe he'd left her a message there! But the phone showed no messages or new missed calls. Furious, she hurled it through the doorway into the living room, where it skidded under the couch.

Maggie stormed into the bathroom to take one final look at her hair—then she marched back into the kitchen, poured everything back into her purse, and headed for the door. If that asshole was going to stand her up tonight of all nights, she wasn't going to sit at home and wait for him!

Maggie had just backed her car out of the driveway when the phone in the house began to ring. It was a woman named Alice Burns, the operator at Riverside Methodist Hospital, the tenth of the hospitals Maggie had called. Alice had told Maggie they'd had no accident victims that day.

But just moments later Alice took a call that she routed to the Emergency Services Department—an accident victim was being brought in from a wreck on US 71. She immediately checked her call log and dialed Maggie's number. But, of course, Maggie had left—so Alice left a message.

*******************

At first Maggie wasn't sure where she was going—she was too mad to think. But then she decided, hell, I'm all dressed up and I look great, I'm going to find a place to have a couple of drinks, dance with strange guys, and enjoy myself. Fuck R.J., that inconsiderate bastard!

She was an immediate hit at the Mynt Ultra Lounge. It was upscale enough that her fancy dress didn't seem totally out of place, and Maggie was more than good-looking enough to insure that she'd have plenty of male attention.

Within an hour she'd accepted offers of a drink from Brad, Michael, and Andre, and had danced with each of them and a couple of others besides. The attention pleased Maggie, and the fact that she'd forgotten to have dinner meant that she got drunk a lot faster than she'd meant to.

Actually, she hadn't meant to get drunk at all, had she? She couldn't quite remember, being out of breath from dancing and laughing with so many guys. All she was sure of was that she wasn't going to sit at home wondering where her snake of a husband was.

At about 10:15 it occurred to her to check her cell-phone, to see if R.J. had finally bothered to call her. But for some reason it wasn't in her purse, so she gave up worrying about it and had one more Vodka Stinger with Michael, along with a few peanuts. He was sitting close to her, his knees pressed against hers at the small table, nuzzling his lips against her cheek every minute or so and making her giggle as she pushed him away.

He was sweet, but a silly boy, she thought. She remembered that the "one more" drink was going to be her last, but here came another one, in the hand of the cute blonde waitress.

"Where did tha' one come from?" she asked Michael, and giggled again.

"Jus' drink up, baby," he replied, lifting his own glass. They touched glasses together and drank. In a few minutes Maggie's eyes were closed, and she had her head leaning on Michael's shoulder while he had his arm around her, stroking gently up and down her arm. It felt good; she felt dreamy, relaxed, contented. Not even angry any more, she realized! She uttered only a small murmur of protest when Michael stood up, pulled her up from the chair, and guided her towards the door of the club with an arm around her waist.

*******************

R.J. reached Riverside Methodist in an ambulance at 7:42 pm. He was in serious condition, with a moderately severe head wound, a broken ankle, a broken arm, four cracked ribs and various bruises. He was unconscious, very cold and in shock but stable. The attending doctor in the ER took one look at him, ordered a blood transfusion and a neurology consult, and sent him up to ICU.

It had taken more than three hours to cut R.J. out of the car, and until they had him out no one knew who he was. The first few minutes in the ambulance were spent trying to stabilize him and determine the extent of his injuries. Only as they approached the hospital did a paramedic get R.J.'s wallet out of his pants pocket and learn his name.

The phone calls to R.J. and Maggie's home number began by 7:46, about nine minutes after Alice Burns' initial message. Hospital staff called at least once an hour until 2 am, leaving several messages when no one answered the phone. Beginning at 10 pm the hospital also called Maggie's cell phone, having found the number on a slip of paper in R.J.'s wallet—but there too they got no answer and left several messages.

Since the hospital was unaware of any other next-of-kin, they stopped making phone calls. Instead the staff in the ICU devoted themselves to keeping R.J. alive.

*******************

It was probably the ringing phone that woke Maggie up, but she wasn't sure. She thought she remembered hearing it, but it could have been a bad dream. God, her head hurt! Light was streaming into the room, and she raised her head a little and saw that the bedside clock showed 9:24. She sank back down, groaning, and closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, it was 10:05. This time she noticed that she was still wearing last night's dress—and it all started to come back to her. R.J. standing her up, the drinking and dancing, Michael—oh my God, Michael! What had she done?

She jumped out of bed and staggered a little, grabbing the night table to keep from falling. Where the hell was R.J.? She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror: her hair was a mess, her make-up was caked on her face, the bodice of her dress was torn and her tights were gone.

First things first, Maggie thought, trying desperately to keep at bay the panicked thoughts whirling through her mind. Was R.J. home?