A visit from Boyfriend 4

We had a visit from Boyfriend 4 Monday night, and part of Tuesday I guess. He has been out of commission for a couple of months or more with his cancer treatments, and just now was finally able to make the (several hour) drive from where he lives today out to our house. He said he’d get to our place about dinner time.

Boyfriend 4 was late getting here because the winter weather made the traffic way worse. So he had not yet arrived by the time we had to eat so that I could leave to take Son 1 to Boy Scouts; but he was here by the time we got back (about 9:00 pm). I had asked Son 2 to stay awake till we got back, because I wasn't sure Wife could; so he was reading in bed, Wife was groggy but vaguely conscious, and Boyfriend 4 was smoking in his car when Son 1 and I drove up. Son 1 hung out and talked with Boyfriend 4 and me till about 9:30, then showered and went to bed. Son 2 packed it in about 9:30 as well. Wife staggered out of bed long enough to yell at Son 1 to turn in, and then she fell asleep for good. Which left me talking with Boyfriend 4 more or less nonstop for about 3 hours.

I guess I have never mentioned that Boyfriend 4 lived with us for a couple of years, back when he was between jobs. Wife was having more troubles around the house (because of her illnesses), she really couldn’t take care of the boys very effectively, and the two of them had started fucking just a few months before. So it really seemed like a fairly simple solution to multiple problems to have him live with us as a housekeeper, nanny, and general caretaker. Anyway, I mention it only because Monday night we were talking the way we used to talk when he lived here (and when he was sober and nothing was wrong) -- jumping from one topic to another quite carelessly. He seemed almost his old self, although he told me this isn't really so. He now has a colostomy bag (hidden in his pants, I guess), he said he still experiences a lot of neuropathy in his legs and feet caused by the chemotherapy, and (as he put it) if he were in any kind of romantic relationship right now he would be a Viagra customer. Still, he summarized his condition by saying "numb and limp is better than dead." And apparently his condition was far more serious than anyone told him. After he was recovering, his doctor admitted that if Boyfriend 4 hadn't started treatment when he did ... and if things hadn't gone just the way they were supposed to ... then he might have lived to see Christmas but would almost certainly not have seen the end of January. And here he was instead, able to drive for hours (even if it did exhaust him) and tell jokes and all the usual stuff. And it was fun just to be able to talk, even if most of it was totally inconsequential stuff.

It did concern him a lot that Wife looks (so he says) as haggard as HE looked just before his treatment.

In the end he decided not to sleep on the sofa here. He said he'd rather rent a cheap hotel room, ostensibly so he can smoke in the room instead of having to go outside. I suspect that he may also have brought along one or two bottles of beer, and he knows we won't let him drink in the house. In any event, he said he'd come back in the morning to visit with Wife before moving on. I told him that if his plans changed, naturally he would be welcome for dinner.

I guess he came back for part of Tuesday, after I was at work and the boys were at school, and pushed Wife through the day’s errands. I never heard a lot about that. What is amusing is that I heard from D this afternoon what Wife later reported about the visit.

Wife was apparently glad to see Boyfriend 4, as were we all at one level or another. But once I got home? Let’s see, D tells me that Wife told her that I was screaming at the boys and at her and at Boyfriend 4, that the boys were screaming back at me, and that finally Boyfriend 4 took me for a walk so that I would calm down and Wife could get some sleep. Ummm, ... screaming? Could she possibly have been hearing the raucous laughter at Boyfriend 4’s bad puns? Could she perhaps have been hearing the boys’ natural exuberance, combined with their enthusiasm at seeing “Uncle B4” again? Or what? I have no idea how to account for this story. I suppose the good part is that I don’t have to take it very seriously, either.