Seven

It is a sunny day in October. Another sunny day spent in my room waiting indefinitely, in bed, my head propped up just high enough to stare out the window at the world beyond my reach. The phone rings. It's Seven. He is in town for a medical conference and would like to come visit. I warn him that I may not keep the best company given my situation. But it has been several years, and in between there have been babies born, new homes bought, and an assignment Iraq which snuffed out communication between us for the last two years. I could not pass up this rare appearance stateside. I am eager to see him.

He arrives just after lunch and takes a seat on a not-very-comfortable antique chair at the foot of my bed. He looks at me. The friend in him is careful not to provoke tears but I can tell the doctor in him is curious. I launch into the story about how the 20-week ultrasound showed that the baby was bulging down into the birth canal, how I had no pain or other physical symptom before my condition was discovered, how I went through two cerclages, and how the doctors then told me to stay on bed rest because they had nothing else to offer. He nods in agreement, and perhaps also in pity. He doesn't say it, but I know what he's thinking: the chances of me saving this baby are slim. I can read it on his face. I can hear it in his silence.

We change the subject to talk about him instead. He is still stationed in Germany but comes to the U.S. occasionally. He still does marathons and triathlons in his leisure time. He looks the part. Iraq was amazing, he tells me – the best experience of his career. He got to perform challenging surgeries that he would never have come across away from the war front. He liked being there so much, he did not miss home. With that, we move to the topic of his recent divorce.

Things are not cordial with his ex-wife. She is bitter. The pick-ups and drop-offs of their two-year-old son, whose custody they share, are tense. He openly relays the details of their fallout to me, and I am taken aback by his candor. The mischievous frat boy of yesteryear would laugh off relationship disasters in a 10-second summary then segue into an entertaining tale about last week's debauchery. The father and divorced man sitting in front of me now is distinctly transformed. The rolling stone has gathered moss. Convivial chattiness has given way to introspection, as the words spill out of him in the manner of a confession. I listen. I do not interrupt his stream of consciousness. After some meandering about the effects of time and distance and the high rate of divorce in the military, he hones in on this: "We liked doing the same stuff, we got along great, I cared for her and I thought that was enough...but I don't think I ever loved her." And then the table is turned. My eyes fill with sorrow for the friend who was once my boyfriend...the boyfriend who broke up with me in a letter, triggering so much rage that I hurled the diamond earring he gave me into the sea (wishing it were him)...the man who never loved his wife of five years...the wife who gave him a beautiful son.

The sun slips down below the horizon. Seven has had one glass of water to drink but nothing to eat in all of four hours he's been at the foot of my bed. He has not moved from the chair, the one with the seat cushion that sinks because of worn-out springs. He shows no sign of discomfort whatsoever, which amazes me, and makes me wonder if he is just being gracious or if this is a mark of an Army man. I decide that it's neither. He has stayed put because he sees a friend in need. Here's the thing about Seven: beneath the jocular exterior is a hidden well of generosity. You see flashes of it in the way he never rushes his visits with you, the way he will drive two hours out of his way on a moment's notice to pick you up when you're stranded, the way he takes time to explain the mechanics of running so that you can enjoy the sport better, the way he does all this without expecting anything in return.

When he finally gets up to leave, I know I probably won't hear from him or see him again for a while. Easy come, easy go. That's the way he's always been. I am okay with that because here is the other thing about Seven: amidst his carefree comings and goings and long communication gaps, there is a constancy that emerges if you just stick with him long enough to see the forest through the trees. He may disappear off the map, but when you find him again he will be the same true friend you met with last time. That will never change.