At half past seven, the children and I were eating dinner in the kitchen when my husband, Chris, called. In the eight days since his hospitalization for mononucleosis—stemming from a transplanted kidney—he had never phoned home. By nature, he was taciturn.

“I think we have a chance,” he said.

Chris was not talking about his ability to escape the ICU alive, even though the medications he was on to prevent rejection had let the mono virus erupt into a life-threatening lymphoma. No, he was referring to the possibility that Senator John Kerry would unseat President George W. Bush, for it was Election Day 2004.

Despite the turmoil in our lives, I had made casting a ballot a priority that morning, joining 122 million Americans in the highest voter turnout since 1968—when another controversial war divided the country. As waged by Bush and his neocon advisors, the war on terror had stoked civic-mindedness across the political spectrum, from those who felt the U.S. was justified in doing anything to prevent another September 11 attack—no matter facts or the rule of law—to those who saw Operation Iraqi Freedom as a reckless and unwarranted invasion, an undue burden on our troops, and a diversion from the pursuit of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Brent Scowcroft, the national security advisor to George H.W. Bush, had argued against ousting Saddam Hussein, warning in the Wall Street Journal that regime change would “seriously jeopardize, if not destroy” our counterterrorism campaign; require a longstanding military occupation; and possibly unleash “an Armageddon” in the Middle East that could “swell the ranks of the terrorists.” His advice failed to bring Bush the Younger to his senses. The assault on Iraq proceeded as planned in March 2003, and every woe predicted proceeded to come true.

Now, as Chris watched early election returns from a hospital bed at the National Institutes of Health—a government-funded medical center that served both military personnel and the general public—he was hearing promising numbers for regime change in the United States. While pleased by the news, I was even happier to hear him sounding upbeat and engaged with events beyond the drear confines of his room.

By the time I arrived for my visit the next morning, however, Chris’s mood had turned prickly. Although the Get Well Dad!!! card I delivered from our son showed a smiling, victory-fisted Kerry, Bush had jumped ahead in the polls. The senator had not yet conceded, but reporters were predicting that he would.

Before addressing national affairs, I cleared off the juice packs and cups of flat soda cluttering the overbed table. Then I brought Chris ice water from the unit’s kitchenette. He was thirsty, as usual, due to sawtoothing fevers. Since his hands were shaking, I held the straw to his lips.

While he sipped, I noted the litter strewn across the floor: empty sterilization pouches, alcohol prep-pad wrappers, syringe caps, gauze. The detritus signaled double-trouble: his nurse had been especially hard at it, whereas housekeeping was missing in action—from the room of an immunosuppressed patient.

All at once, Chris stopped drinking and entreated, “What are you going to do to keep Lee from getting drafted?”

My eyes defaulted to a squint. Although we’d talked about the war in Iraq beggaring the U.S. of its capital—human and financial—our son was not about to be shipped to Baghdad. “He’s only fourteen,” I said.

Then I grew concerned: not that Lee was heading to the Sunni Triangle but that Chris was heading round the bend.

Yet, oddly enough, Chris was onto something.

In 1965, I was fourteen and attending my first high-school dance, when a girl arrived puffy-eyed and bolstered by friends. Having recently moved to the small town in upstate New York, I didn’t know her; but word quickly spread that her older brother had been killed in Vietnam. Until that moment, the conflict in Southeast Asia had been a topic in history class, nothing more. I knew America was engaged in war, but I’d seen no sign that we were at war.

Seven years later, I was a college student, rocking at dances with my boyfriend, Chris, who was contemplating not only graduation, but also the end of his student deferment for the draft. In the 1969 Selective Service lottery, he’d drawn an 87 out of 366—virtually guaranteeing an all-expenses-paid trip to Saigon. The day a summons to a pre-induction physical appeared in his mailbox, it came as no surprise.

The drawdown of American ground troops had begun a few years earlier. What’s more, in 1971 John Kerry, a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, had testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about the hypocrisy and futility—as well as the atrocities and racism—of America’s undeclared war. Speaking as a representative of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Kerry called for an end to combat, challenging the senators to assume the mantle of leadership and admit that the country had made a mistake.

Even so, 94,000 men were drafted that year and nearly 50,000 the next, when Chris was expected to head to boot camp. Death, meanwhile, continued to reap the rewards, adding 3,000 more American names to its roster and far more Vietnamese. In short, Chris faced being shipped out to fight the same unavailing conflict that had claimed my schoolmate’s brother years before.

The morning Chris reported to the military processing station in Glens Falls, NY, he lined up with several other inductees for a daylong evaluation of their physical, mental, and moral suitability for combat. Being young, healthy, and unincarcerated, most of the young men were resigned to their fates—except for the guy who hung his head low, avoiding eye contact, as he obsessively scratched his arms bloody. No one was sure what to make of him, until the examinations ended and he headed for the door. Only then did he look up and flash a smile, thereby explaining all.

Chris didn’t have to rehearse for his 4-F. As a Type-1, insulin-dependent diabetic, he was automatically classified “not qualified for any military service.” Even the Army, which has been known to relax admission standards in times of war, wasn’t interested in a soldier who might go AWOL with insulin shock in the middle of a firefight.

At the time, he and I saw only the upside. Like most young adults, we were flush with immortality and had nothing to fear—aside from an AK-47 or bamboo-stake trap in the jungle. That a medical condition rendered Chris unfit for service wasn’t even a minor concern, let alone a flashing Danger! sign. Men who were underweight or hearing impaired were disqualified, too. Hell, hawk-ster Rush Limbaugh avoided conscription with a pilonidal cyst. (Full disclosure: I’d had three removed by my early twenties; although painful, they were no big deal.)

With the induction physical behind him, Chris cranked up Blind Faith on his stereo, drowning out the sound of his built-in, ticking time bomb. Only later would I reflect on the irony: before diabetes ruthlessly turned on him, the disease may have spared him an earlier, more-gruesome death.

Whether or not Chris’s memories—of fearing combat; of watching others get conscripted; of protesting a war that had long proved a quagmire, even for the French—were percolating through his mind that morning in the ICU, I cannot say for sure. I only know that his anxiety about Lee being sent to Iraq was not allayed by my assurance that he was too young to serve.

More forcefully, Chris challenged, “But what are you going to do?”

There was nothing I could do, for Lee or for Chris. Yet his distress was contagious. Where the hell are his doctors? They should be here by now for rounds!

I’d come to Chris’s rescue a few months back, as a foot soldier with a simple mission: get him in, get him a kidney, and get him out. That was supposed to fulfill my call of duty. To be called back so soon for a second tour, facing germ warfare? That required a temperament and skill set I lacked. That required Special Forces.

Telling Chris that the draft had ended was pointless. “We’ve got a couple of years,” I said. “If we have to move to Canada, well, that’s one option.”

He nodded at the thought of expatriation. Then his team swooped in.

A transplant surgeon, nephrologist, oncologist, virologist, nurse, physical therapist, and physician’s assistant crowded round his bedside, in a room the size of a walk-in closet. They outlined upcoming tests and treatments, including a second round of chemotherapy. When they finished, Chris made his next demand: he wanted to return to the kidney-transplant ward, where he’d been cared for prior to his transfer to intensive care, and where he’d recovered from his graft four months earlier.

His points were cogent: the nurses were nicer; the rooms had windows; and he would sleep better there, away from the ICU’s relentless fluorescence. Still, something about his tone was off. You might have thought he was appealing to return to Lake Wobegon.

The transplant surgeon, who doubled as attending physician, responded with understanding. “Maybe in a few days,” he said, sounding hopeful. “But they can’t watch you as closely on the seventh floor. The ICU has its own team of doctors, round the clock, who can field questions when I’m not here.”

When the team filed out and regrouped in the hall to discuss concerns out of earshot, I followed, to discuss conscription. The nephrologist quickly put me at ease—by explaining that Chris was psychotic.

“Most patients develop the condition, because they lose all sense of time. Bring in a calendar and mark off the days,” she advised. “Bring family photos, too. Anything that helps him stay connected to reality.”

The surgeon, a former Navy commander, affirmed that ICU Syndrome was not a worry. “I’ve had big, strapping Marines in here, and within three days they all start to lose it. But after a few days back in a regular room, patients snap out of it.”

Everyone agreed, though, that when the room across the hall became available, Chris should be relocated, for it offered the amenity of windows. Natural light would restore his circadian rhythms, thereby improving sleep and mood and other physiological functions.

Knowing that Chris would ultimately find his way back to himself allayed my concern about how far off he might wander. Even so, he wasn’t on a jaunt; he was on a bad trip. And the dozen or so pictures I mounted in his room that afternoon—of our impromptu wedding in a park; of the children, from infancy to middle school; of our trip to Thailand and Hong Kong, which Chris named his favorite city in the world—did little to root him in reality. Not that reality offered much comfort.

Having done what I could, I went home, fixed dinner, got Lee and Julia through another night without Dad, and hit the hay. At two in the morning, the phone on my nightstand went off like an alarm. Chris was calling home again.

“I have to get out of here, but no one is willing to help me. Should I give Tracy a shot?” Tracy was his favorite nurse on the transplant ward.

I was relieved to hear Chris’s voice rather than a doctor’s. When a loved one is in the ICU, you do not want to hear from a doctor. Yet he sounded so desperate, so vulnerable. I thought of throwing on my clothes and heading to NIH, which was only a mile away; but leaving the children alone at that hour didn’t sit right. Instead, I told him, “It’s worth a try, but Tracy doesn’t work nights. You’ll have to wait until she comes in at nine.”

Once again, the notion of a plan, like absconding to Canada, was enough to mollify him. “Oh. Okay,” he replied, and then we calmly said goodnight.

After seeing the children off to school the next morning, I hurried to Chris’s bedside. You could say that I found him totally chill, yet the change was a mixed blessing. For the man in bed wasn’t actually him.

So-called Chris welcomed me as though I were a throng arriving for his TED Talk. “Nothing replaces the thrill of learning something new,” he declared, “that addresses problems people haven’t begun to address.”

“Really?”

During our thirty-four years together, Chris had always chested his cards. Opinions, emotions, dreams, fears—little was readily revealed. I had to probe, or drag him to couple’s counseling, to get to the bottom of whatever. And I wasn’t the only one to confront his reticence. By Chris’s own admission, when he and his best friend took a cross-country road trip after college, logging endless hours in the car, Andy objected to his lack of conversation.

Which is why, despite concerns about Chris’s mental wellbeing, I found his sudden volubility charming. For a moment.

“Try not to hit people.”

Now I understood our twelve-year-old daughter’s favorite wisecrack: That’s so totally random. As unsettling as it was to watch Chris lose it, even worse was having him think I was abusive. Then again, did he know who I was?

“Alright,” I said.

He ignored my no-hitting pledge. “In New England there are some great stories. There are these small whirling things—pieces of fish. And the fish love it!”

What is psychosis? I truly, scientifically wanted to know. Were shards of memory breaking apart and reconstructing into thoughts and images that, however distorted or fantastic, held latent meaning? Or was psychosis akin to table scraps churning round a garbage disposal, like those aforementioned hunks of halibut?

Abruptly, his persona switched to Campaigning Politician on Idling Helicopter. “Are we riding? I’m ready.”

“We don’t have any appointments yet.” For effect, I looked at my watch.

Instantly, Monsieur Raconteur returned. “The highlight of my life was coming to this resort a year ago. I just love the female diving accoutrements.”

Accoutrements. Where had he prospected that gem? Neither of us walked around the house saying, “Honey, will you pack the accoutrements for Julia’s soccer game?” Or, “I bought the accoutrements we need to unclog the sink.”

Raising one hand, he began to make undulating movements through the air. “They slide onto your back and sort of move you in waves through the water.”

I pictured mermaids frolicking in Weeki Wachee Springs. (Note: we’d never visited nor mentioned the roadside attraction.) His delight was as infectious as, well, his draft-triggered anxiety. I couldn’t help but think, Let’s hear it for psychosis.

Then, without missing a beat, Chris advised, “It’s very important when picking a partner to not pick one who will kill you.” He paused before adding, “And you don’t kill them.”

The muscles of my face went slack—past serious, past sad, all the way to sickened. “I couldn’t agree more.”

The fun was over. The jig was up. In his altered state, my fifty-four-year-old husband had acknowledged two unspoken—and unspeakable—facts: his condition was critical, and the kidney I had donated conveyed the virus that was killing him.

He was in a life-or-death war against me.

The next day, Chris fainted and dislodged his feeding tube. When it was reinserted, so was a breathing tube. With his torturous new accoutrement, he was unable to speak of flying chowder chunks, female divers, or anything else again. Two weeks later, all of his wars were over.

***

The conflicts overseas wore on, of course. Four years passed. My son turned eighteen and registered with the Selective Service, as required. One afternoon, a recruiter phoned and asked for Lee. I answered the call.

“I’m his mother,” I said with don’t-cross-me conviction. “He’s not interested in enlisting.”

Politely, the man asked, “Would it be possible to speak with Lee directly?”

“No, he’s in school.” I sensed fallibility: Lee was two months away from graduation, yet the Marines were calling his house at lunchtime? The soldier sounded fairly young himself, late twenties or early thirties. “Look,” I said, taking the motherly approach, for I could have been his mother, too, “I have a lot of respect for what you guys are doing, even though I’m deeply opposed to this war. And I’m really sorry our president got us into this mess.”

A low, barely audible mmm seemed to hint of agreement. Otherwise, he remained silent.

“But my son won’t be signing up.”

“I understand.” No doubt he’d heard my words a thousand times before. No doubt he’d lost friends, maybe family members, in the conflicts. He also had a quota, with hell to pay if he didn’t reach it.

“Please don’t call my son again.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

Hearing the defeat in his voice, I took no joy in victory—only satisfaction, in finally laying Chris’s fear to rest.

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