Carver (Beginners, 10) Initial background:
What was most depressing to him, after he was assured his wife was going to be all right, that she was recovering to everyone’s satisfaction, what was most depressing was the fact they couldn’t be physically together. That he couldn’t see her and be with her every day. He told me they’d married in 1927, and since that time they’d only been apart from each other for any time on two occasions. Even when their children were born, they were born there on the ranch and Henry and the missus still saw each other every day and talked and were together around the place. But he said they’d only been away from each other for any real time on two occasions—once when her mother died, in 1940, and Anna had to take a train to St. Louis to settle matters there. And again in 1952, when her sister died in Los Angeles, and she had to go down there to claim the body. I should tell you they had a little ranch seventy-five miles or so outside of Bend, Oregon, and that’s where they’d lived most of their lives. They’d sold the ranch and moved into the city of Bend just a few years ago. When this accident happened, they were on their way down from Denver, where they’d gone to see his sister. They were going on to visit a son and some of their grandchildren in El Paso. But in all of their married life they’d only been apart from each other for any length of time on just those two occasions. Imagine that.
Carver (Beginners, 11) Dramatic, romantic aspect of hospitalization:
The door was open and I wheeled Henry right into the room. Mrs. Gates, Anna, she was still immobilized, but she could move her head and her left arm. She had her eyes closed, but they snapped open when we entered the room. She was still in bandages, but only from the pelvic area down. I pushed Henry up to the left side of her bed and said, ‘You have some company, Anna. Company, dear.’ But I couldn’t say any more than that. She gave a little smile and her face lit up. Out came her hand from under the sheet. It was bluish and bruised-looking. Henry took the hand in his hands. He held it and kissed it. Then he said, ‘Hello, Anna. How’s my babe? Remember me?’ Tears started down her cheeks. She nodded. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he said. She kept nodding. The nurse and I got the hell out of there. She began blubbering once we were outside the room, and she’s a tough lot, that nurse. It was an experience, I’m telling you. But after that he was wheeled down there every morning and every afternoon. We arranged it so they could have lunch and dinner together in her room. In between times, they’d just sit and hold hands and talk. They had no end of things to talk about.”
Lish:
Discussion (Please respond in the comments section of the Home Page)
In Carver’s original text, the Gateses were an elderly coupled. Though they were in a car accident, Carver told their story as an example of real, true love. What struck you the most while listening to the two parts of the Gatses’ story? Why do you suppose Lish took these large sections out of the published text?
