Also by Elizabeth Berg

Open House

Until the Real Thing Comes Along

What We Keep

Joy School

The Pull of the Moon

Range of Motion

Talk Before Sleep

Durable Goods

             

 

 

 

 

 

 

              
him. So many do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  The world breaks everyone and afterwards many are

The Tuesday before it happened was a perfect

summer day. Driving through town on my way

home, I saw two young girls holding hands as

they tried to cross a street against the light. They

would start to cross, then stop; start again, stop.

Finally, all the traffic sighed and halted; and the

girls bolted to the other side of the street and

began to laugh and push each other, exhilarated

by their survival.

  Next I saw an old woman sitting at a

bus stop, eating an ice cream cone with the neat

precision of a cat. She wore a yellow print

housedress and white, orthopedic-style sandals,

and her purse sat on the bench a slight distance from

her, as though it were her companion. One leg was

crossed over the other, and her foot swung

rhythmically. She stared straight ahead,

seemingly lost in memories.

I passed a very small child walking

delicately along a stone wall, holding onto

her mother’s hand. It was a graceful pas de

 deux; love lay strung along the length of their

joined extremities, love and pleasure. And

heartbreaking certainty.

  I drove by two boys about eleven years

old, riding the hell out of their bicycles as young

boys do, their real manhood still so frustratingly

far off. You could see their sweet toughness in the

straining cords of their necks. Each kept

passing the other, shouting roughly, shouting insults;

but each always looked back to make sure the other

was coming.

  Two blocks from home, I went past the

library and I knew I could go into the children’s room

and sit in a chair and watch, enjoying every damp

curl, every dimpled elbow, every throaty question, every

pair of eyes turned upward toward a parent--the

wholeness of that trust! I could press my own hands

over the children’s small prints on the walls of the

hamster cage, trying to see what they saw, as they

saw it. I could turn the pages of a book that one

of them had looked at, then left behind. The question:

Why was this not taken?

  Yes, and I could stay for pajama story hour,

as I often had, and watch the children who gathered on the

carpet with their matted, sleep-scented stuffed

 animals. I could enjoy the children’s          3

unashamed eagerness--yanking their thumbs out of their

mouths and rising up on their knees to see the

pictures, resting their hands unselfconsciously

on those ahead of them so that they would not lose their

balance.

  I suppose I might then have gone upstairs

to the reference room, pulled down a weighty

text, and searched for some wondrous fact I had

never known. I might once again have sat at a

wooden table, my own purse on the chair beside

me, waiting for words to offer their touchless embrace.

  I did not do these things. I headed home,

toward what I had come to believe was my destiny.

 

 

 

 

 

  

You know people like me. I’m the one who sat on a

folding chair out in the hall with a cigar box on

my lap, selling tickets to the prom, but never

going--even though in the late sixties only

nerds went to proms. But I would have gone. I would

have happily gone; I would have been so happy. I

wanted the phone call with the rough voice asking

”Would you ’’’?” I wanted to finger row after row of

pastel dresses in silks and chiffons--their

sweetheart necks, their wide ribbon ties.

I wanted to have some shoes dyed; I thought it was a

miracle they could do it. I wanted to put a

wrist corsage in my refrigerator, lock the

bathroom door, and bathe in perfumed water with

rollers in my hair and the transistor at the edge

of the sink blaring ”Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch.”

I wanted to allow an hour for the application of

all my new Maybelline, suffer the

flash-bulbs of my parents eager camera, stay

out all night, and eat breakfast before I came

home, bleary-eyed and in the know.

  I didn’t get asked. I never once got

asked. Not to proms, not to lesser dances, not

to movies, not to parties, not for shopping with the girls.

   I would get talked to, though. I mean   5

beyond the ”Hiff’s in the hall, beyond the

preoccupied chatter in the lunchroom. I got

talked to a lot. They would call me on the

phone, the pretty girls. They would call and

talk to me about things that were serious: their parents’

alcoholism. Their hidden scoliosis. Their

possible pregnancies. They talked to me because

I knew how to listen, and I gave good advice.

I didn’t have a lot of personal experience, but

I knew things, because I read and I watched. That

is what there was for me. Those girls talked to me

--anda boy, once, too--because they knew I would

never betray them. Of course they betrayed me

constantly. But they didn’t really mean to.

Probably they didn’t know. They didn’t think

about it that much.

  I’m the one everybody liked, Myra

Lipinski, oh yeah, Myra, she’s nice,

the one that everybody liked and no one wanted to be

with. The odd shape. The socks, those socks--

well, her parents had accents. The face,

unfortunate, with its too small eyes, its too

wide mouth. The hair mousy brown, too thin and

straight, greasy after half a day, no matter

 what. Even as a five-year-old: the aunt and

uncle who once came to visit, sitting with my

mother at the kitchen table, chatting quietly in

Polish, and smiling over at me. ”What are they

saying?” I asked my mother, coming over to stretch

myself out across her lap and shyly smiling back at

them. ”What are they saying about me?” And my mother

finally breaking into English to tell me, ”They say

you look like ’’’ your father. And now we are not

anymore talking about you.” I lay still in her

lap, contemplating the yellow-and-orange pattern

of her apron and forbidding myself my thumb, until

she crossed her legs and dislodged me.

   I sold the tickets and I decorated

the gym and I helped win the volleyball games

and I sang a good alto in the choir and I lent

my notes to anyone who asked; and if people wanted

to copy from my test paper, I let them do that,

too. I did not become bitter. I don’t know

why. Maybe I didn’t think I had the right.

  After graduation, I stayed here in Ashton,

venturing no further than the twenty-two miles

necessary to get to Boston College, where I earned

my BSN. I went to nursing school because I

knew it would be a way for people to love me. And for me

 to love them, too. This happens in illness.   7

The sad plates of armor separate; the light

comes in.

  At first, I worked in the intensive care unit.

I wanted the challenge and the prestige of working in

the hardest place. You’re eating lunch in the

cafeteria, wearing your scrubs, your high-tech

stethoscope around your neck, a hemostat

clipped onto you somewhere, tourniquets tied

onto it. You know a long list of lab values

cold; you could intubate if you had to; you can

rate heart murmurs and evaluate lung

status and draw blood and start IV’S better

than most of the attending physicians. You see a

burst of ventricular tachycardia race across a

monitor screen and you save the patient and let

the doctor know about it when you get around to it. You can

give a lot of drugs that nurses on other

floors can’t. You can decide when to get certain

kinds of tests performed. When you call down to any

other department in the hospital and say, ”This is

ICU,” they pay attention. You come first. When you

say stat, it gets done stat.

  So you’re eating lunch and a code is called

over the loudspeaker, and you get up and run back

 to the unit. It’s likely you’ll be needed, no

matter where in the hospital the arrest occurred.

The other people in the cafeteria watch you leave your

bowl of soup sitting there, and they nod at you as you

pass by. In the army of nurses, you wear four

stars.

  The pay is pretty good, too, especially

for a single woman with no obligations--only child with

no children, parents dead. I bought a little

two-bedroom house a couple of blocks from the

center of town. I bought a Porsche Carrera

911, too. Black, tan leather interior.

Incredible sound system. The boys look when I

pull up next to them; then look away. I beat

them off the line, every time.

  The problem with intensive care is that the

patients usually can’t speak. They’re on

respirators. Or they’re unconscious. Or

they have such messed up chemistry that they’re

confused. Or they stay just until they’re

stabilized, and then they’re out of there and another

train wreck comes in. That’s what the bad

cases are called: train wrecks. It

doesn’t mean what it sounds like. What it means

is: right now, I can’t get close to you, you’re

 halfway to death. And anyway, I don’t   9

have time.

So there’s no opportunity, in the unit,

to sit at the side of the bed and shoot the breeze with

patients. To get to know them. To admire

pictures of their children, to style their hair,

to slowly help them eat. Not that many of them eat.

Tubes. I know a nurse who works in the unit

precisely be-cause the patients don’t

eat. ”I didn’t go to four years of nursing

school to load mashed potatoes onto a fork,”

she says. But I like feeding people. It doesn’t

feel demeaning. It feels like high privilege.

  The best day I had in the unit came when we

had a boarder, someone who couldn’t get put onto

the floor where she belonged; it was full. She

ate. She sat up in a chair. She was oriented

to time, place, and person. She dug in her

purse for lipstick after her bath. The unit was

light that day; she was my only patient. She

told me she had a crush on her doctor--no

surprise, everyone had a crush on Dr.

LaGuardia, with his dark, South American

looks--so I told her I’d curl her hair,

and she’d look beautiful when he came to visit

 her. We used 4 by 4 gauze pads to make

rag rollers, and she did look beautiful when

he came. I stopped him outside her

cubicle, told him to be sure he noticed her

hairdo. He’s a good guy, Dr.

LaGuardia. He walked in the room and stopped

dead in his tracks. ”Where was the beauty contest?”

he asked, in the accent you could feel in your

knees. ”Where’s the trophy?” Then he told

her she could transfer to her floor now, there was a

bed available; and twenty minutes later I was

taking care of a gray-faced man with multisystem

failure.

I stayed working in the unit for a long time. I

mixed drugs, counted drops, monitored

machines, resuscitated people who arrested, then

resuscitated them again when they arrested half an

hour later. I rarely had enough time to talk to their

distraught family members. I had to walk

away from their sad, worried clusters; I had to go

and milk chest tubes while they wept and talked

in church-quiet voices.

  Oftentimes, I worked in my dreams. I heard

the beep-beep of the IV telling me the infusion was

completed, the rhythmic sighs of the ventilator, the

 dull bong of the alarm on the heart         11

monitor. I changed dressings in my sleep,

emptied urine and bile and drainage from wounds

into toilets, sent polyps and kidney stones and

spinal fluid to the pathology lab. I tested

feces for blood, tested urine for blood, tested

vomit for blood, kept track of each ounce that

went into a patient and each ounce that came out,

monitored levels of consciousness, listened

to lungs, to hearts, to various levels of

activity in the four quadrants of the abdomen.

I awakened after those nights feeling exhausted,

feeling like I’d just put in eight hours at the

hospital after having just put in eight hours at

the hospital. Or nine. Or sixteen.

  These days I work for a Boston agency called

Protemp, as a visiting nurse. When I was

hired, I asked for easy patients; I was

tired of high acuity levels. Now that I’ve

been there for ten years, I don’t think I could

hear a heart murmur if it were as loud as

sandpaper on sandpaper. But I’m happy. And when

I sleep now, I am back to dreaming only

gauzy mysteries.

I have some clients I see daily: Rose

 Banovitz, who lives in a seedy area on

Commonwealth Avenue and needs her morning dose

of insulin, and who often sings to me in her high,

quivery voice. Fitz Walters lives in

Chinatown and needs me to check his blood

pressure and his wildly erratic heartbeat in

order to determine his dose of Nitropaste. He

goes to strip clubs every night, Fitz, though he

is blind. The Schwartzes live in the heart of

Brookline and need weekly visits

to supervise their medications and to keep them from

killing each other. Another once-a-weeker, a

black woman in Dorchester appropriately

named Marvelous, I will keep on seeing even after

I’m no longer paid to help her with her

colostomy. I also see one DeWitt

Washington, because nobody else will put up with the

combination of his personality and his neighborhood in

Roxbury. I have to go every afternoon and change the

dressing on his gunshot wound.

  I give eyedrops daily to a rich woman

in Back Bay, Ann Peters, who can’t see

to do it herself and whose family can’t be bothered. And

since last week, I’ve been going to Allston

to see a fifteen-year-old girl named Grace

 to help her with the baby she just had. I       13

gave her my home number, and she leaves me

messages at least once a day. Things like,

”Okay. His shit looks exactly like scrambled

eggs. No way is this normal. All I do is

fuck up, and he don’t even cry. Can you call

me? Sorry for the swears, can you please call?”

  You know the boy who once called me in high

school? That was Chip Reardon. He called because

he knew I had been talking to his girlfr,

Diann Briedenbach. They were having trouble. He

wanted advice, some inside information. He felt

comfortable asking me--we’d had a lot of classes

together and he knew how carefully I observed

things. Once, in fact, after an essay of mine

had been read aloud in English, he stopped me

after class to compliment me on my perceptiveness.

I treasured that small event, carried the

memory of it home from school like a wrapped

gift. I even decided, foolishly, that had the

bell not rung, that conversation might have led to something

more. I remember getting home and looking at

myself in my parents full-length mirror,

wondering if I’d finally worn something right, something

that would make a boy like him really see a girl like

 me. I’d worn the same outfit a week

later, down to the same color tie to hold my

hair back, but of course nothing happened.

Anyway, when he called that night I told

him only that he shouldn’t worry, Diann loved

him, I knew that for certain. He thanked me,

though it seemed to me that his relief was not so great.

But then I decided I was only making that up,

trying to make him less invested in her than he

really was. After we hung up, I put my

fingers to the place his voice had come from.

  As there is one of me in every high school, there

is one of Chip Reardon, too. Other end of the

spectrum. Every girl’s dream boy. The handsome

star athlete with a good head on his shoulders, too.

And a genuinely nice guy. Everyone fighting over

him for college.

  He went west. That’s what he said, to keep from

bragging about Stanford--nobody from Ashton High

had ever gotten in there. But now he’s back here.

I know because I got a message from my agency,

asking if I could possibly fit in another

client. A man called Chip Reardon.

Fifty-one years old. Brain tumor, end

stage, apparently; not too much to do. Probably

 home to die--he’d only need comfort       15

measures.

  I called my agency back. I said, yes,

I could take another patient. They told me it

would be daily visits at first, starting tomorrow. Then

they told me where his parents, with whom he would be

staying, lived. It was in the south part of town, a

newer, wealthy area that is in marked contrast to the

rest of this mostly blue-collar area. It’s too

far to walk to the hardware store from there, to the

library or the bakery or the common; but it is

close to open areas of farm lands, with their lovely

stone walls, their rolling hills and peaceful

populations of sheep and cows. I wrote down his

nice address and his terrible diagnosis, entered

it next to the 2:00 P.M. slot for

Wednesday. And you know something bad? You know something

bad about me? When I wrote that, I felt

happy. I thought only one thing. I thought, Good.

Now I can have him.

  Not that you should think I haven’t had my moments.

I have had my moments. Some. Moments. You know,

the blind date with the guy whose face at first turns in

on itself when he sees what he got. But

 particularly after age forty-five, one can make

do. One adult female can offer a certain kind

of comfort to one adult male. And although they didn’t

usually stay the night--only two ever stayed the

night--I was glad for that. After my rare

interludes, I actually prefer a sandwich alone

at my own kitchen table. I know I’m better

off sitting under the fluorescent light in my

bathrobe, alternating bites of pickle with my

ham and cheese, turning the pages of the Chambers

catalog and finding the one thing I’ll let myself

order--that’s much better than the smiley

conversations I endure when they stay. The awkward

partings in the morning, the indignity of picking the

guy’s hair from my sink when I know I’ll never

see him again. Better to eat the sandwich and then

look to see if any Mary Tyler Moores

are on where Mary still lives in the old apartment.

The only thing wrong with that show is that they acted like

Rhoda was unattractive.

  People think women like me should settle. That we should

not aspire to certain things. Well, I had a

crush on Chip Reardon, too, just like all the

other girls. I had a full-time longing that went

beyond the brief fantasy I enjoyed that day after

English class. I saw him kissing      17

me. I was not a different person when I imagined

this; I saw him kissing me. I was aware that if

most kids knew that, they’d snort their

disapproval. They wanted me to have a crush on the

guy equivalent of me. But of course I

didn’t. No one did. I didn’t want

Thomas Osterhout, him with his horrible posture and

his stick-out Adam’s apple and dandruff dusting the

shoulders of black knit shirts tucked into his

high-waisted pants--I didn’t want him any

more than he wanted me. Probably Thomas

kissed Diann in his dreams, rode her around in

his battered Gremlin while all the jocks stared,

their fists shoved into their pockets.

  Mostly, I have a dog. Don’t laugh.

Take a look at marriages that have survived a

long time and see if it’s the dog or the spouse that

offers a better package to either partner. The dog

can’t call the internist for you; he can’t accompany

you out to dinner or to a show. But he will lie by you the

whole time you’re sick, and he will listen to every word you

say and offer nothing back but acceptance. My

dog, Frank is his name, is an

eighty-five-pound golden mix, selected from the

 suffering souls at the dog pound. He sat

quietly in the corner of his concrete cell,

asking for nothing. When I stopped in front of his

dank space, he walked up to me and sat down.

Looked up. Held my gaze and waited.

  ”This one,” I told the overworked attendant.

  Frank walked out into the office on the leash

I’d brought with me, lifted his leg

apologetically against the desk where I filled out

the necessary forms, and never again had an accident.

  Usually, he sleeps smack up against the

side of my bed, quiet as a shadow, except

on the nights he has dreams--then he whines through

his nose in a way that sounds like a story. Other

nights, he senses a need and he jumps up

to stretch out next to me. He lies on his side,

his back to me. I put my arm around his middle,

push up next to him, note with pleasure the

salty earth smell of his paws. It’s enough, work

and Frank. Or at least it has been, until

now.

 

 

                                    19

  On Wednesday morning I wake up thinking,

What? And then I remember. I go into the

bathroom, look at myself in the mirror.

Well, clear skin, I have that, I’ve always had

that. Straight teeth. I stare a little longer, then

go stand on the scale. I could lose weight; that’s

always been pretty easy for me. Five pounds,

no problem, I can lose five pounds in a

week. I put my lipstick on carefully. I

could get some good mascara, too.

  I stop for coffee on my way to Rose’s.

My favorite Dunkin’ Donuts is just at the

end of my block. It’s always open, owned by a

three-generation Russian family that barely

speaks a word of English, but they are all

remarkably friendly. Once when I was having

trouble sleeping, I walked down there in the middle

of the night in my pajamas (sweatpants and

T-shirt, who could tell?) and I shot the

breeze with the mother, Katrina, who works nights with

her husband--the grandmother works mornings, the daughter

evenings. The husband was in the back making glazed

donuts and the wife sat down with me and had a cup

of cocoa. We didn’t talk a lot, but our

 eye contact was comforting. Katrina did say,

”Where is you dog?” and I told her Frank was

sleeping. He was, too. He wouldn’t get

up.

  This morning, the shop is crowded, but I see that

the grandmother has two girls helping her. I open

the car door, say, ”Stay, Frank,” and then

remember he’s not with me. I don’t bring him

when I have to admit someone--filling out all the forms

takes at least an hour. And of course you don’t

want to bring your dog until you’ve asked the

patient if it’s all right. Rose Banovitz

is afraid of dogs, but all my other patients

really like him. I told my agency they should put

Frank on the payroll. Once, they did:

At Christmas time, they cut a check for him.

”Pay to the order of Frank Dog,” it said, and the

amount was five million dollars. It’s in his

scrapbook.

  When I get to Rose’s, I see that a few

of the lights are out in her hallway; it’s hard for

me to see when I make my way down to her

apartment. The cooked cabbage smell of the place

seems even stronger in the dimness. I wonder how

long it will take for someone to replace the bulbs.

 Last time, it took five months. When    21

the lights were finally back on, it felt like Las

Vegas, walking down that hallway. I’m sure

the cockroaches were very upset.

  It’s not always that the landlord doesn’t respond

to the tenants requests; sometimes the tenants

don’t know they can ask. Or they don’t know how

to. Or they don’t think it’s so bad, not having

hall lights. At least they have electricity in

their apartments. Heat. A lock on the door.

Their very own toilet. And you can’t take on

everything yourself, although in the beginning I tried. You

only end up on the phone all day long. You

don’t get your own work done. At some point, you

have to make a decision: Do I want to run for

office, or do I want to take care of these

patients?

  Rose is in her slip when she answers the

door, her nylons rolled to her knees, one

blue plastic slipper on. ”Oh,” she says,

and starts waving her hands excitedly. ”You see,

it’s my nurse!”

  ”Good morning!” I come in, close the door.

  She starts to cry a little.

  ”How you doing, Rose?” I pat her shoulder.

   ”I have no milk,” she says.

I sit at the foot of her iron bed:

carefully made, covered with a formerly white

chenille bedspread missing half its tufts.

”You don’t have any milk, huh?” I rummage

in my bag for her chart.

  ”No. And no orange juice!” She sits

beside me. Her thin hair is up in a bun, about

three thousand bobby pins at work back there, and a

black hair net over it. Still, strands of gray

slip and fall, and these she tucks behind her ears.

  ”Did your home health aide come yesterday?

Was Tiffany here?”

  ”No. She didn’t come.”

  ”Oh, Rose. You’re supposed to call the

agency when that happens--they’ll send someone

else. Remember? The number is on your

refrigerator.”

  ”Oh. Yes. I forgot. I forgot!”

”Okay, it’s all right.” I look at my

watch. I can call the home health aide and

listen to a lot of bullshit, or I can call my

agency and listen to a lot of bullshit, or I can

take care of this problem myself and save a whole

lot of time.

   I put my bag down on the floor,    23

zip it closed again. ”Here’s what we’ll do,

Rose. We need to work together, okay? I’m going

to run to the little convenience store, the one right on the

corner. I’ll get you some milk and some orange

juice. Do you have bread?”

  ”Um hum, I have bread. Do you want some?”

  That’s how most of these patients are. They’ll

give you anything.

  ”No, thank you. I’m just seeing what you

need. How about fruit? Do you have any fruit?”

  She looks longingly into my face and begins

to sing ”When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”

  ”Okay, Rose, I’m going to go to the store

now. I’ll be right back. I’ll bring you some

food, and then I’ll give you your insulin.

While I’m gone, you get dressed. Can you do

that?”

  ”I’ll get dressed. The bus for day care,

I know. I’ll be ready.”

  I check my watch, walk quickly back down

the hall, thinking I’ll be late for DeWitt--

I have to see Ann Peters and Fitz Walters

before him. I’d call DeWitt--he’s the one

patient who really gets mad if you’re not on

 time--but the last time I tried to let him know I’d

be fifteen minutes late, I ended up being

half an hour late because I spent so long standing

at a pay phone listening to him carry on about my

incompetence. ”You fired!” he finally said. His

grand finale. And I said, ”No, DeWitt,

I am not fired; I am simply late.”

”Same thing!” he yelled, and hung up. And I

went over and did his dressing anyway, and my

punishment was that he did not speak to me.

  By the time I bring Rose’s groceries back,

she’s sitting at the little metal table in her

kitchen wearing her favorite black dress.

It’s a good forty years old, crepe,

semiformal, with a once daring neckline now made

modest by Rose wearing a man’s T-shirt beneath

it. There is a rhinestone bouquet pinned at the

shoulder, all the stones gone cloudy with age. Her

battered black shoes are double-knotted, and she

wears school-girl white socks with them. She

has drawn on long, black eyebrows and

applied a smear of her ancient coral-colored

lipstick to her lower lip. Her open purse

rests in her lap: inside, I see a

 balled-up hankie, a red plastic coin   25

purse, and her apartment keys on a string. She

used to always carry a framed picture of her mother,

but the glass got scratched; so now she leaves it

sitting on her dresser. Once I picked up

that photo and stared into the clear eyes of Rose’s

long dead mother, wondering if she could ever have

imagined that this was how her baby girl would end up.

  I put the groceries on the table, fold up

the brown paper bag and then store it at the side

of Rose’s refrigerator, as she likes me

to do. Her supply of bags--plastic and paper,

large size and small--is becoming overwhelming.

”You could probably get rid of a few of these

bags,” I say.

  ”Oh, no,” she says. ”I need them.”

”Maybe not so many, though.”

  ”I need them.”

  She also has a bunch of rubber bands that she

keeps in a kitchen drawer. That’s all that’s in

that drawer--a gigantic nest of rubber bands.

Sometimes I stand outside Rose’s building and

look up at all the windows, and I think,

Whose apartment is the craziest? When I call

Tiffany tonight to yell at her about not showing up,

 I’ll tell her to quietly get rid of a good

third of those bags. After a while, you think about

fire hazards.

  ”All set, Rose,” I say. ”Let me

give you your shot; then after a little while you can have

some breakfast.”

  She stands, stretches mightily, then shuffles

over to her bed. She has a routine: She sits

and squeezes her eyes shut, hands gripping her

knees. Holds her breath, as though she were

getting some whopping dose of penicillin rather than this

mosquito bite of insulin. I inject her

left thigh quickly, then tell her, ”All done.”

  ”This time I didn’t even feel it!” she

says, as she does every time.

  ”Right,” I say. And then, ”Hey. Guess

what I got us.”

  ”I saw. Milk and orange juice. And

bananas.”

  ”No, not the groceries. Something else.”

  ”What?” She can’t decide whether to be

suspicious or thrilled--too many times she’s

been offered a bad deal like it’s a gift.

  ”Would you say you’re a gambling type,

Rose?”

   She smiles, looks down into her       27

lap. ”I don’t know.”

I pull two scratch-away betting cards from

my jeans pocket. ”Know what these are?”

  ”Coupons!”

  ”Nope. They’re betting cards. You scrape

off the covering to see what numbers you have. You can

win money.”

  ”From that card? You can get money?”

  ”Right. Your numbers just have to beat the dealer’s.”

  ”Oh. I pick one million.”

  ”No, Rose, you already have numbers. They

give them to you, right on the card. We just have to look

and see what they are.”

  I hand her a card, and she peers closely at

it. ”I don’t see any numbers.”

  ”You have to take the covering off of them,

remember?” I scratch at my card. ”Look

here. In this case, I got a seven and the dealer

got a nine. So I lose.”

She looks at me, stricken.

  ”It’s okay. I have three more chances. But

let’s see what you got.”

  Together, we scratch away at Rose’s card.

The bottom set of numbers shows the dealer with

 four and Rose with five. ”You won!” I tell

her. ”See? You won five bucks!”

  She laughs, claps her hands.

  I uncover the rest of my numbers.

”Uh-oh. I lost. But Rose, you won! See

how lucky you are?”

  She nods happily. ”What can I buy?”

  I look around her wreck of an apartment.

Suddenly, the balloon deflates. ”Well

’’’”

  ”A new dish towel?” she asks.

  ”Yes!” I say. ”Yes, I can get you a

new dish towel.”

”And I’ll embroider it.” She opens the

bottom drawer of her dresser and pulls out a

large flowered tin. She lifts the lid, shows me

skeins of brightly colored floss crammed

inside. ”This was my mother’s, you know.” She picks

up a handful of colors, closes her eyes,

holds them against her cheek.

  ”Oh, that will be beautiful, Rose. That will be a

wonderful thing to do.”

  ”Yes, that will be a wonderful thing to do.”

  ”But right now, you really need to eat breakfast.

Your driver will be here soon.”

   She nods, stretches out the baggy       29

sleeve of her T-shirt to wipe her nose.

  ”Can you make yourself some peanut butter toast and

eat a banana? And drink some milk and orange

juice, too?”

  ”Yes, I will.”

I leave her standing over the toaster, peering down

into it. She has to make sure the roaches are out

before she puts the bread in.

  Back in the car, I check my watch. I’m

a good forty minutes behind. Then I remember where

I’m going at two.

  I look in the rearview mirror, smooth

down the cowlick at the side of my head. Then

I try to remember the last time I saw Chip

Reardon.

  It wasn’t at graduation--the day before, he’d

broken an ankle in three places in a touch

football game, and he couldn’t come. I

remember he got a standing ovation anyway when they

called his name.

  So it must have been the last day of high school

when I last saw him. June 8, 1968.

Chip and I had English together, sixth period.

 Diann was in that class, too. We all sat in

the back--Diann in front of Chip, me across

from him. On that day, near the end of the last class,

the teacher was reading us some T. S. Eliot,

droning on and on, just killing time before the bell.

  Chip took Diann’s purse off the back of

her chair. It was a big black leather thing,

full of intriguing smaller pouches. He started

examining everything. I remember thinking how lucky

she was that he was so interested in her. And I

remember being surprised that she felt no need

to hide anything from him--she knew he’d taken her

purse; she’d barely turned around. He looked

at every picture in her wallet, started to open a

note some friend had written to her, then didn’t.

It impressed me that he would respect her

privacy in this way when he was so boldly going

through everything else. And it wasn’t for my

benefit, either--as usual, he had no idea I

was watching him. He uncapped the two pens he

found, scribbled a few lines with each. He found

her Tampax, took it out, and then put it back

in its plastic holder. He stroked the rabbit’s

foot on her key chain, made it hop around his

desk. Then he tried on one of her lipsticks

 --a pink so hot it neared fuchsia--and     31

tapped her on the shoulder to show her. She frowned,

rolled her eyes, and turned away. ”Myra!”

he whispered. When I looked over at him, he

pursed his lips and made small kissing

noises. I looked down at my desk,

smiled. ”Want some?” he whispered, holding up

the tube of lipstick. I shook my head. ”Come

on,” he said, tilting his head, running his eyes

slowly over my face. ”It would look good on

you.” His blond hair was falling over one dark

blue eye; his long legs in their khaki pants

stretched out into the aisle. He was wearing

Weejuns with no socks, and he had the sleeves

of his plaid shirt rolled up midway to the

elbow. He was killing me.

  Diann turned around then, snatched her purse

back. But he had kept the lipstick, and now he

held it out to me. I shook my head again. I

knew he didn’t mean it.

  ”Care to let us in on the joke, Mr.

Reardon?” the teacher asked suddenly--loudly--but

then the bell rang and everyone started cheering and

running out of there. Then years passed and years

passed and now I am a fifty-one-year-old

 nurse and Chip is a fifty-one-year-old man

with a brain tumor. And in a few short hours,

I will see him again. His eyes will be the same. His

hair will not be.

  DeWitt is sitting out in a lawn chair on

his sagging gray wooden porch. His arms are

crossed, his eyes narrowed, his foot tapping.

He chides me all the way into his apartment,

down the hall, and into his bedroom, the place where

I change his dressing. ”What’s your problem,

anyway?” he says. ”You don’t need to be no

Norman Einstein to figure out how to get here

on time. You been here ’bout fifteen thousand

times. ’Bout thirty thousand! You ought to know by now.

You say you’re going to be here at twelve, you

best ; here at twelve. Maybe you mean

twelve midnight, you want to come here at

twelve midnight?”

  ”Norman Einstein?” I say, lowering my

bag to the floor, digging around for supplies. I

cover the syringes with the blood pressure cuff;

I keep forgetting I’m not supposed to bring

syringes into DeWitt’s apartment.

  ”Allen, I mean.”

   ”What?”                          33

  ”Allen Einstein, okay?” He climbs

onto his bed, rearranges his pillows, sucks

at his top lip with his bottom one.

  ”Albert,” I say. ”His name was Albert

Einstein.”

  ”Whatever. Now you just showin’ off.”

  ”Would you please lie flat so I can do your

dressing?”

  ”Yeah,” he says. ”After you wait for me.

I got a life, too. I’m a bidness man,

work twenty-four hours a day.”

  This is actually true--DeWitt does a

fair amount of drug dealing. ”I got one

important call to make,” he says. ”And I

got to call right now, take just a minute. Then you

can do my dressing.” He stares defiantly at

me.

  I sigh, stare back. It won’t do any good

to tell DeWitt that all three patients before

him took longer than usual today. As far as

DeWitt is concerned, there are no other

patients. It won’t do any good to tell him

he’s wasting my time just for spite. That’s the

plan, after all.

   ”Well?” he says, finally.

  ”What, DeWitt.”

  ”I could use some privacy.” He picks

up the glossy flyer he got last week from the

Mercedes dealer. He has a substantial

amount of money coming from a settlement, something about

what happened when he went to court over his

gunshot wound. He turns pointedly away from

me, starts punching in numbers.

  I go out into the living room, sit in his

oversized black leather chair. I notice the

faint smell of his citrusy cologne. He

has one chair, one sofa, one lamp, one

television. No rug. No pictures on the

wall. No curtains. Nothing to read. It’s a

terrible waiting room.

  ”Yeah, this Mr. Washington,” I hear

DeWitt say. ”This Bob? Bob, my man!

I’m calling to tell you I’m ’bout ready to zero

in on my choice. Now, how long it take to get

that silver one again? Black interior.” Silence.

Then, ”Well, yeah I want that. I thought that

come with it.” The bedroom door slams shut,

presumably so I won’t hear. But I still can.

”Say I want to add that other CD player

instead,” DeWitt says. ”How much it    35

be then?” He starts laughing. ”No shit!

Well, what else that car got?”

  I look at my watch. Then I get up and

go knock at the bedroom door.

  ”Hold on,” I hear him say. And then,

”Yessssssss?”

  ”DeWitt.”

  ”What!”

  I open the door. ”Stop busting my balls.

If you want your dressing changed, I need to do

it now. I have another patient to see. You can

talk on the phone while I work.”

  ”Yo, Bob, you hear this? Nurse Ratched.

Yeah, she mad as a wet hen. I catch you

later, I got to use my wildy charms, get

her back on track.”

  He hangs up, smiles at me. He has

a beautiful smile, actually. Two big

dimples. He unbuttons his shirt, exposes

the dressing. I put on my gloves, start

pulling gently at the tape, loosening it.

  ”Hey, Sugar?” he says.

  I don’t answer.

  ”Awwwwww. Cabbage blossom?”

   One side of the dressing is loose. I start

on the other side.

  ”Come on, Myra, did I bust your balls,

really?”

  This other side is more difficult to get off.

I pull a bit harder.

  ”Ouch! Je-sus!”

  I step back, my hands raised high.

  ”Just kiddin’,” he says, and chuckles.

”Sheeeit. You like a rabbit, girl. Jump like

a little white rabbit.”

I go back to work.

  ”You a white rabbit?” he asks.

  I study the incision. No redness, no

swelling, no odor, no excessive drainage.

Good granulation tissue.

  ”Let’s make it easier for you,” DeWitt

says. ”We take it one step at a time. Are

you white?”

  ”DeWitt? Knock it off.”

  ”Aw, you no fun today. You nervous. What you

so nervous about?”

  I don’t answer.

  ”Where’s your dog? Where’s ol’ Frank?

He always fun.”

   ”He had a play date.”            37

  This is true. The woman across the street,

Theresa, has a collie named Ginger, who

loves Frank. They play together a lot.

”A play date?” That keeps him going for the

rest of the time it takes to do his dressing. Good thing

I didn’t tell him Frank will frolic in

Ginger’s kiddie pool, be served Frosty Paws

while he watches Airbud, and come home with a

booty bag full of rawhide treats. Sometimes

when I think I’m the only lonely person in the

world, I remember Theresa. But she’s lucky.

She’s a widow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
A few minutes away from Chip’s house, I

pull into the parking lot of a White Hen.

Hungry. Well, nervous.

  I buy a package of mini-rice cakes and

come out to the car to eat them, then don’t eat them.

I look into the mirror, freshen my lipstick,

think of the questions I’ll need to ask Chip about his

symptoms. Any headaches? Any ’’’

changes in mentation? Any mouth sores from the

chemo? Any diarrhea? ”I used to lie on my

bed after school every afternoon and imagine kissing you,

Chip; have you had any loose stools?”

  I take out the little bottle of mouthwash I

keep in my glove compartment, rinse, spit

discreetly into the parking lot. ”How about pain,

Chip, how are you controlling that? Want me

to call you Zipper Head, like this other patient of

mine who had brain surgery? He lived six

months, Chip. Think you can make it that long? Can

I make dinner for you? You can come to my house,

I’ll make anything you want--if the food is

on the earth, I’ll get it for you. You could take

a bath afterward, I have a little jacuzzi. I can

give you a massage; I’m supposed to,

 now.”                               39

  I imagine introducing myself to his parents.

I feel sorry for them already. I always feel

sorriest for parents whose children are dying. It’s not the

natural way, of course. The parents always

take me aside to say that they should be the ones to go

first. As though I could do something about it. As though

I could say, ”Oh, right! Okay, then, so ’’’

which of you will be taking the disease instead?”

  Oftentimes, the parents object to the season.

”He shouldn’t be dying in spring, he loves

spring.” ”She shouldn’t die before Christmas, if

we could just have one more Christmas.” Again, as though

an adjustment could be made. Oh, their hearts are

broken, that’s all, and they try to find one thing they

can fix. And all you can do is go through your nursing

care plan, share techniques with them:

”Encourage the patient to share thoughts and

feelings.” ”Encourage use of stress

management skills: relaxation techniques,

visualization, guided imagery, biofeedback,

laughter, music, therapeutic touch.” This is

good advice, of course. It is appropriate.

It is what you can do. But you tell the parents these

things, and you imagine that as they nod and think of how

 they might comply, their chests are full of the loudest

roaring. Just this roaring. And in your own chest? A

dull weight. A wish that you could wave a wand, just

once.

  I wonder if I should tell the parents that I

went to high school with Chip. I decide not to.

It would only make them feel bad. Pointing out

the similarites between us would only highlight the

terrible differences.

  The house is a large colonial, white with

black shutters. The lawn is well kept; there

is a garden that runs along the side of the house,

full of flowers in bloom--blues, pinks,

yellows. The riches of summer.

  At almost the same time that I ring the bell, it

is answered by the kind of older woman you see in

magazine ads proclaiming you’re only as old

as you feel. She has the bone structure of the

classically beautiful woman; longish gray

hair held back at the sides by combs. She

wears black linen pants, a white silk

blouse, pearl studs. She has the distressed

look I have anticipated--the start of a smile

overtaken by grief.

   I hold out my hand. ”Hi. I’m      41

Myra Lipinski.”

  ”The nurse.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Please come in.” She stands aside, and I

hear her small sigh, a mix of regret and

relief. I enter a hallway, dark and cool and

redolent with the scent of roses. And then I see

why--on a small table is a cut glass vase

full of them. A mauve color. Beautiful.

  ”Chip’s upstairs, in his bedroom. His father

is with him. But I wonder if we could just talk a

little before you see him.”

  ”Of course.”

  We go into the living room: yellow silk

furniture; a floral Oriental rug, many

paintings in heavy gold frames. Formal

drapes. A fireplace, now holding a large

basket of dried hydrangea.

  Mrs. Reardon gestures for me to sit on the

sofa. I do, with my bag at my feet. In this

room, the bag looks more beat up than it is.

  She clears her throat, smooths the leg of

her pants. ”Chip is not really responding

appropriately to his diagnosis.”

   I nod, wait.

  ”As you know, it’s a very aggressive form of

cancer.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”He had the surgery, of course. But now he

won’t do anything else.”

  ”You mean ’’’”

  ”Well, I mean chemotherapy, radiation

therapy ’’’ even psych-otherapy!” She

laughs. ”Really, he won’t consider anything.

Now, I know none of this will necessarily keep

him from. ’’’ I know it’s not exactly a cure,

but it can buy him time. And if he gets some time,

even a few months, who knows what they could come

up with!”

  I’ve got a pretty good idea what ”they”

could come up with in a few months: nothing.

  She leans forward, speaks softly. ”I’m

hoping you’ll be able to talk him into treating this thing.

Really going after it. Persuade him that it’s the

best thing. It is the best thing. It’s the only

thing.”

  ”You know, Mrs. Reardon, it can be really

hard when someone doesn’t make a choice that

seems obvious to us. But--”

   ”I mean, he acts as though this is some   43

kind of joke! Most of the time he answers the

phone saying `Chip Reardon, cancer

patient.”’ Last night, he answered it saying

`Check-Out Inn.”’”

  ”Well, that’s not ’’’ it’s not unusual. People

have different ways of coping. Sometimes, the first thing

they need to do is--”

  She stiffens. ”Oh please, don’t ’’’ I

assure you, I know my son.”

  ”I’m sure you do.”

  Silence. There is the rich sound of a clock

ticking somewhere nearby.

  ”So,” she says, finally.

  I stand. ”Yes. Why don’t I go and see

him?”

  She leads me to the stairs, then points.

”It’s the first room on the right. My husband’s

name is Charles.”

  The bedroom door is closed; I knock

softly. It is opened by a man who looks like an

older version of Chip. ”Miss Lipinski?”

  ”Yes.”

  He closes the door behind him, nods

gravely, then gestures for me to move down to the

 end of the hall with him. ”I understand you’ll be coming every

day.”

  ”Yes, I will.”

  ”I wonder if I could just ask you about something.”

  ”Of course.”

  ”I don’t know if ’’’ Well, first of all,

I’d like to ask you to be very straightforward with me about

everything, all right?”

  ”All right.”

  ”I really mean it.”

  ”So do I.”

  ”Good. So, I’ll just say this. I was wondering

if Chip ’’’” Abruptly, he starts to sob,

but it is nearly silent, and completely

dry-eyed. He does not acknowledge this--does not

apologize, does not seem at all

embarrassed. He just stands there, staring straight

ahead, waiting for his chest to stop heaving and his

breathing to quiet. It is as though he is waiting

for a loud plane to pass overhead. I know better

than to try to comfort him. There are times you reach out,

and there are times you must let someone hold a terrible

thing by themselves.

  After a few seconds, he continues. ”I was

’’’ pretty tough on Chip, when he was growing

 up. Times were different, then.” He        45

looks at me, seeking agreement, I assume.

  ”I know what you mean,” I say. ”Children

weren’t raised the way they are now. My parents

were really strict, too.”

  ”I don’t believe I was abnormal, but

I was tough on him. And now I can’t help but

wonder if ’’’ I’ve been thinking that maybe his

cancer--”

  ”Mr. Reardon?”

  The expression on his face is that of a child’s,

caught in the act of doing something he shouldn’t.

  ”If what you’re wondering is whether anything you

did caused this--”

  ”Oh, no, it’s more that I ’’’ Well, yes.

Yes. I guess that is what I was wondering.

Not that I can do anything about it.” He has been

looking everywhere but at me, but now his gaze is

direct. Pleading.

  ”No one knows what causes this cancer,” I

say, gently. ”But I can absolutely assure

you that it’s not your fault.”

  ”Okay. Thank you.”

  ”And I think the fact that Chip has come here

says something about his relationship with you.”

   ”Well, he never married, you know. He’s

stuck with us.”

  ”St.”

  ”Oh, I know. I know he loves us.” He

passes his hand over his eyes. ”Jesus. This is

so difficult.”

  ”Yes,” I say, softly.

  ”He’s our only child.”

  ”I know. I’m so sorry.”

  ”My wife must have told you he’s refusing

any further treatment.”

  ”Yes, she did.”

  ”I just want you to know that I’m not so sure he

isn’t right.”

  I nod, slowly. ”Okay.”

  He straightens, points to the door. ”So!

He’s all yours! Do you need anything?”

”No, I’m fine. I’ll just do an admission

interview today; it’ll take about an hour, at the

most.”

  ”Cup of coffee?”

  ”No thanks.” I am at the door, ready

to knock, when it opens. And there he is. And

except for the baseballish line of sutures

along the shaved side of his head, I would say he

 has not changed much at all. Some gray    47

in his hair. Perhaps a very slight slackening at the

jawline. But mostly he looks like the boy Chip

dressed up as the man Chip.

  He stares at me for a long moment, trying

to place me, I’m sure. Then, ”Oh, my

God, Myra?” He laughs loudly. ”You

look exactly the same!” Not much of a compliment,

I’m afraid. ”Hey, Dad!” he says.

”This is Myra Lipinski, remember? We

went to high school together.”

  ”Oh, yes,” Mr. Reardon says. ”Of

course.”

  But he doesn’t remember, I know.

  ”God, it’s been so long,” Chip says.

  I smile, feel the warmth of a blush start

to rise up my neck. Then I remind myself of

what I’m here for: head-to-toe body system

assessment, emphasis on neuro deficits.

Evaluation of activities of daily living

status--can he do independently all he needs

to do for himself? Medication review--does he know

what to take, when, and what it’s all for? Home

safety check: electrical hazards ’’’

”You’re a nurse?” Chip asks.

   I shrug. ”Yeah.”

  ”Are you still Myra Lipinski?”

  his’’’ What do you mean?”

”I mean, are you married?”

  ”Oh! No.” I laugh. ”No, not ’’’ at

all.”

  ”Huh. Me neither. Never did do that. Still time,

though, I guess. People could say, `They never

got out of the honeymoon phase.”’ And they’d be

right! Well. Won’t you come in? It’s small,

but it’s home.” He looks over at his father.

”Dad?”

  ”I’ll be downstairs,” his father says quickly.

”Call me if you need anything.”

  Chip closes the door behind us. Then he sits

on the bed, grinning, looking up at me.

”Let’s see ’’’ The last time I saw you was

sixth period English, right? That idiot Mr.

Saunders. He read poetry with all the

sensitivity of a `goddamn toilet seat.”’

Remember that guy? In The Catcher in the

Rye?”

  ”Holden Caulfield, talking about

Ackley,” I say. ”Yes, I do remember

that.”

   Chip points to an overstuffed chair      49

close to the bed. ”Sit down and tell me all

about yourself while I get ready. And then let’s go

out and get a meal. I want some grease. My

mother’s driving me crazy with her health food.

She’s trying to turn me into a macrobiotic, for

Christ’s sake.”

  This is not exactly what the program is

supposed to be. But do I mind? No. I’m

going on a lunch date with Chip Reardon,

cancer patient. After he interviews me. I

watch him put on his sneakers and tie a blue

bandana around his head that does a fairly good job

of covering his incision. I’m trying not to feel too

thrilled while I tell him what’s happened in

my life.

  It’s warm out, but with no humidity to speak of.

Chip wants to walk somewhere to eat, and we

decide on Ned’s Place, one of my

favorite restaurants, only a few blocks

away. Chip’s never been there; it’s only been

around for five or six years. It’s tiny--five

tables, five stools at the counter. It’s in a

white, freestanding building that looks like a child’s

 playhouse--there’s a little porch attached where I

tie Frank when we come here, black shutters

at the window, red geraniums in the window boxes.

Inside, there are small shaded lamps on the

wall over every table, as though the place is half

’dj’s nightclub. The menu features a

drawing of burned toast coming out of a smiling

toaster. Once I asked Lindy, who, along with

her husband, Also, owns the place, why she put

a picture of burned toast on the menu. ”Al

likes it,” she said.

  Everybody who goes to Ned’s loves it,

including Frank--Lindy always gives him great

scraps. The best time is early morning, when the

regulars are lined up on the stools, hats on

their heads with the bills turned emphatically

frontward. Nearly all the regulars are men,

ranging in age from their late teens to their late

eighties. They don’t bother Also, who stands

quietly cooking at the grill behind the counter, but

they’re after Lindy all the time. Once, when she

was giving it back to them pretty good, one of the

guys said, ”Jesus! Does anybody know when

laryngitis season starts?”

  There’s a cop named Brenda who comes in there every

morning, and she allies herself with Lindy--   51

once, she up and handcuffed a guy who was mouthing

off too much. She didn’t release him until

he promised to leave a ten-dollar tip.

Sometimes, if the place is really busy,

Brenda will run around and take orders, then go

back to her own breakfast. I tried to help out

once, but Lindy fired me, saying I made the

customers feel bad about what they ordered. ”I

didn’t say a thing!” I said. And Lindy said,

”You didn’t have to. Your little nursey face said

it all.”

  When Chip and I come in, Lindy looks up

from wiping down the counter. ”Hey, Myra! Where you

been? I’ve got the butt end of a ham saved for

Frank.”

  ”He didn’t come with me today,” I tell her.

Then, pointing to Chip, I say, ”I brought him,

instead. This is Chip Reardon.”

  ”How you doing,” Lindy says, and Also offers

a manly nod--the upraised chin variety.

  ”You want a table?” Lindy asks.

  Always, I sit at the counter. But she can see

that today I want some privacy.

  ”Sure,” I say, and head for one in the

 corner.

  ”Not that one,” Lindy says. ”John Harris

is coming in.”

  I look at my watch. ”It’s way too

late for him.” John is a big deal in our little

town--has a finger in every pie. He’s like the

mayor without being the mayor, and he has a

permanent table at Ned’s.

  ”He’s got a meeting,” Lindy says.

”He’s probably taking out a contract on

somebody.”

”Yeah,” one of the guys at the counter says.

”He’s taking it out on you, Lindy, for not ever

keeping a goddamn coffee cup filled!”

  Lindy looks up from the dishwasher, where she’s

been loading plates. ”You want more coffee,

Freddy?”

  ”I guess I do.”

  ”Well, I guess if you ask me nice,

I’ll think about it.”

  ”Aw, Jesus,” Freddy says. And then, in

a singsong falsetto, ”Oh, please, Lindy,

could you find it in your heart to give me a little more

coffee, please?”

  ”That was pretty nice,” she says. ”Now,

 I’ll think about it.”                   53

  Freddy gets up to fill his own cup.

  Chip and I sit at a table near the door.

It’s where Lindy sits to refill the condiments,

when the place quiets down. That’s usually only

at three o’clock, when they close. Not that they really

close. They put up the ”Sorry!” sign, but

then they hang around and cook for the next day, and if

someone comes in and wants to eat, they feed him.

  Chip scans the menu, muttering, ”Great. Oh

yeah, great.” He looks up at me, nods.

”You were right, this is exactly what I wanted.”

He orders a double cheeseburger, fries, and a

chocolate malted. I start to order, then

remember my diet.

  ”Just coffee,” I tell Lindy.

  ”Aw, bullshit.”

  ”Okay, a burger, then.”

  ”Fries?”

  ”Okay. And a malt, too.”

  She scribbles down our orders. Then, looking

more closely at Chip, she says, ”Whoa.

What’d you do to your head, fella?”

  I feel myself stop breathing. Then Chip

says, ”Well, I had a little surgery. They

 took out a tumor.”

  ”Oh, my God,” Lindy says. ”I’m

sorry. I thought you had an accident, I had an

uncle, he had a toboggan accident, and he had

stitches in his head just like that.”

  ”I wish it were that.”

  ”I’m so sorry.” I have never seen Lindy

blush, but she is colored a bright red now.

  She goes back to the counter, yells the order

to Also while she slaps away the hand of a regular

who has tried to untie her apron.

  ”I’m sorry,” I tell Chip.

  ”Happens all the time,” he says. ”I’m

used to it.”

  ”It won’t take too long for those sutures

to be gone. And your hair will grow back quickly.”

  ”Right.”

  There is a moment of silence, and then Chip

says, ”So, how come you never got married?”

  ”Well. Never got asked, outside of

Billy Harris, who asked me to marry him in

kindergarten. But that didn’t count, because he

proposed to all the other girls in the class,

too. After that, though ’’’” I smile, shrug.

  ”Oh, listen, I ’’’ It’s none of my

 business. I’m sorry if I           55

embarrassed you.”

  ”It’s okay,” I say. ”I’m used

to it.”

  He smiles. And then his face changes and he

looks away, turns his fork slowly upside

down, then right side up. He leans across the

table, speaks quietly. ”How do you think I

got this, Myra?” His voice is so plaintive,

so vulnerable.

  I shake my head, my throat tight.

  ”No clue?”

  ”No, not really.”

  He sits back. ”Okay. So you’re going

to come every day, right?”

  ”For the time being.”

  ”Uh-huh. Check my incision, and then all that

other stuff: See if I’m starting to get

confused, see how many times a day I barf, or have

a seizure, or writhe in pain. Is that it?”

  ”Well--”

  ”`Fun, huh? And let’s not forget the all

important `patient’s thoughts and feelings”’!

Let’s see if I can remember. `Problem:

Grieving, anticipatory. Intervention:

 Redirect negative thinking.”’”

I swallow. ”Very good.”

  ”I know you’ve been told I’m `refusing

treatment.”’”

  I say nothing, take a drink of my water.

Hearing him so matter-of-factly recite the things

that can--and probably will--happen to him, has shaken

me. Most people deny that such things will occur. Most

people, in fact, go through a long period during which they

deny their diagnosis altogether. Because it doesn’t

belong with them. It doesn’t fit. Because they

don’t have time for it. They think, despite all

evidence to the contrary, that there’s been a terrible

mistake. Later, after they come to accept their

diagnosis, they often think nothing else will

happen--all those terrible symptoms they heard

about were just things that happened to other people; it will be

different for them. Because they are Christian. Because

they meditate. Because so many people love them. Because they

are needed so much. Because they have learned their

lesson, and now they will be good. And then: If they

do have to die, it will be like this: They will by and large

remain themselves. And then one day, they will turn off

a ball game and say, ”All right. I’m ready

to go upstairs and die, now.” But then comes the time

 when there is no more denying.                57

  ”Myra,” Chip says. ”I want to tell you

something, and I need you to hear me. I need you

to hear me. Just last year, a stockbroker I

worked with got bad colon cancer. He was a good

friend. I saw what he went through with aggressive

treatment. I’d rather just ’’’ I don’t want

to endure all that for the promise of a few months.

Well, not even the promise. The remote

chance.”

  ”I understand.”

  ”Do you?”

”Yes, I do.” I think of Mike

Connelly, a patient I took care of when I

was just out of nursing school and working on a medical

floor. He had a rare lymphoma. The first day

he came in for treatment, he told me, ”You

know, I served twice in Vietnam. Green

Beret, real gung ho. I was never afraid of

dying, not once. But I sure am now.” He was

sitting on the bed talking to me, and he looked so

big and strong, the plastic identification band on

his thick wrist so silly. He went through hell

trying to save his life, using both conventional and

experimental therapy. The last time he left the

 hospital, he looked like he’d been through a much

worse war than Vietnam ever was. And he

died three weeks later. Everything he’d tried

had done exactly nothing.

  ”I’d like to stay as normal as I can for as long

as I can,” Chip says. ”And when things start to go,

I’m going to go, too.”

  ”Well, you can’t exactly program your time

of death.”

  ”Of course you can.”

  I look at him, start to say something, then

don’t. Now is not the time.

  Lindy comes over to the table, sets down two

chocolate malts with a flourish. Then she goes

back to the counter to take care of the man who has

begun bellowing about needing another spoon.

”Relax, you old fart,” she tells him.

”Remember your blood pressure.”

  ”It’s you that give me that high blood

pressure!”

  ”You wish,” she says, sniffing.

  Chip leans over toward me. ”I really like this

place.”

”They have a Halloween party every year; if you

want to come, you have to dress like something on the menu.”

   ”What do you come as?”                 59

  ”Me? I never go.”

  ”Why not?”

  ”Well, you know. Parties.”

  ”What about them?”

  ”I hate them.”

  ”Oh. That’s a good reason not to go to them.”

  I take a big drink of my malted.

Delicious. Forty-five million calories.

”When I was a little girl,” I say, ”I used

to think people who went to parties dressed like that all the

time, that they were a certain class of people. There were people

like my parents, who dressed the way they did--you

know, Sears--and they never went to parties. And then

there were the people who went to parties and they got up every

morning and put on their silks and satins and

tuxes and went down to breakfast and talked about where

they would be going that night.”

  Chip nods. ”I didn’t know there were bones in

bodies. I thought if you made a cut through an

arm, it would be all pink, solid flesh, kind of

like baloney.”

  ”I knew the deal with bones,” I say. ”But

that’s all I knew about what went on inside.

I thought there were little cast-iron pots in our

 stomachs that held all the different kinds of food

we ate. Like, there was a little pot for potatoes,

a little pot for applesauce ’’’ One day I was

eating applesauce and I got very worried, because

I figured the pot must be close to full, and

surely it would overrun, and that would kill me.”

  ”What did your parents say when you told

them?”

  ”I didn’t tell them. I never told them

anything I worried about.”

  ”Why not?”

  ”Oh ’’’ They wouldn’t have been much help.”

  One of my earliest memories is of a time I

awakened from a nightmare. I went into my parents’

room and stood beside their bed. ”What,” my father

said, not opening his eyes. ”I had a dream,” I

said. ”I’m scared.”

  ”Anna,” my father said, and my mother turned over

to say, ”So, Myra, you said yourself, it was just a

dream. Go back to sleep, now. Look at the

time.” I hadn’t yet learned to tell time. But

I did learn that night that there were things I must not

ask for.

  Lindy puts down our platters in front of

us, and Chip stuffs a bunch of french fries

 into his mouth. ”Paradise,” he says.    61

”Perfect.” He picks up his saucer-sized

burger, admires it, puts it back down on the

plate to salt it. ”When I was a little boy, about

three or four, I guess, I was sitting

outside one summer day and I all of a sudden

realized that I swallowed my spit. I was just

astounded at this, and I ran inside to tell my

mother. She said, `Oh yes, dear, we swallow

our saliva.”’ I said, `Well, what did

we do last year?”’”

  I laugh, watch him take a huge bite of

his burger, then cup his hand beneath it to catch the

drippings. I hand him a few napkins.

  ”I thought nuns were a third sex,” I say,

and take a bite not much smaller than Chip’s.

  ”Okay,” he says. ”I thought

`technical knockout”’ was when one man

knocked another one out with `technique.”’”

  I laugh so loudly Lindy looks over at

me, one hand on her hip.

  ”Hey Lindy,” I say. ”What’s something you

used to believe when you were a little kid that turned out

to be completely wrong?”

  ”Everything,” she says.

   ”Tell me one thing.”

  She stands still, thinking.

  Al leaves the grill and comes to the counter

to tell us, ”I thought if I looked into the

mirror at my own eyes for too long, I’d go

crazy.” Lindy turns to him. ”Huh. Then you

must have spent a long time looking. Anyway, she

didn’t ask you. She asked me.” She comes

over to our table, says in a low voice, ”I

thought men’s penises were about forty inches long. I

swear to God. I thought they folded up like a

yardstick so they wouldn’t hang out beneath the cuff of

their pants.”

”And?” Chip says.

  Lindy looks at Chip for a long moment, then

at me. ”They’re all like that,” she says.

”Pigs.”

  ”I know it.”

  ”I know it, too,” Chip says.

  ”I thought you made babies by lying down and

praying together,” Also yells over to us. He

flips a pancake up in the air, then turns

to point his spatula at Lindy. ”Don’t you

say a word, either.”

  A man at the counter whom I’ve not seen before

 spins around, coffee cup in hand. He’s    63

wearing a faded blue mechanic’s uniform with

”Buzzy” embroidered over the pocket.

”I’ll tell you one,” he says. ”When I was

about six years old, I used to lie in bed at

night and imagine cutting a sheet of paper in

half. And then cutting that half in half. And so

on and so on. And I would make myself cry, because for

some reason it frustrated me, thinking that eventually

some piece would get cut out of existence, that you could

do that. I guess it scared me.”

  ”It is scary,” Chip says. And right then

everything between us changes. Because we remember

what’s beneath his kerchief. I can feel us both doing

it, together. Both of us thinking, oh, yeah.

  A young woman I knew who had breast cancer

told me that after she was diagnosed, she couldn’t go

to movies anymore. She used to love them, but

she found that they took her out of herself, and reentry

was too hard. ”It’s better to just stay aware of

it, keep it at a slow boil,” she said. ”If

you forget, however briefly, it’s like you have to deal

with the shock of being diagnosed all over again.”

  When that woman’s hair started falling out, she

saved it in a manila envelope and kept it in

 her night-table drawer. I think she was going

to use it to have a wig made. But then she died

suddenly--much sooner than any of us thought she

would, two days short of her thirtieth birthday.

Her mother kept the envelope, moved it to her own

night-table drawer. ”I don’t know why I’m

saving this,” she told me. ”But how can I throw it

out?”

  We eat everything on our platters, then order

dessert. Chip gets cherry pie, and I order

Al’s famous rice pudding--famous for its

inconsistency. One time, it will be delicious; the

next time, it will taste like wallpaper paste.

Today, it’s great.

  On the way home, Chip gets tired. He

doesn’t say so, but I can tell. It’s not in his

gait; it’s in his face--the sagging of certain fine

muscles, the effort that shows in his eyes. I

suggest we stop at a playground we’re walking

past, tell him I want to sit on a bench and

watch the kids. There is a line for the slide--

all boys. On one of the swings, a lone little

girl about eight years old sits still, lost in a

book. Two mothers with babies in matching buggies

sit on the bench across the playground from us,

 earnestly talking. I remember being at    65

this playground as a child. My mother would sit on the

bench and knit, staring straight ahead; she

steadfastly--though politely--refused the

attempts at conversation by the other mothers. Her friends

were back in Poland, she told me, those were her

friends. Eventually, everyone learned to leave her

alone.

  After a while, I say, ”How come you never

married, Chip?”

”Oh ’’’” He stretches his arm out along the

bench behind me. The hairs on the back of my

neck stand at attention. ”Well, for one thing, I

thought I had all the time in the world. And I kept

thinking maybe the next one would be even better.

Stupid. I had an uncle who was a real

womanizer--he was my hero, in a lot of ways.

When he died, he was surrounded by five women.

I always thought that was the coolest thing. Now I’m not

so sure. Now I wonder about him having

to dissipate so much ’’’ energy. Who knows, maybe

it’s what he really wanted. But I think maybe

I should have learned how to be with only one person,

at some point in my life. It would help, now.

But I never learned how to do that.” He looks

 over at me, smiles. ”Don’t you wish we could

have do-overs?”

  ”You only had one girlfr in high school,”

I said. ”For two whole years.”

  ”Yeah, Diann. She wasn’t really the

only one.”

  ”Oh. I didn’t know that.”

  ”Nobody did. She suspected, though.”

He leans back, sighs, then turns to look at

me.

  ”We got back together, not long ago. She’s

a divorce lawyer, now, she has her own

practice. Does real well.”

  ”No kidding.” Well, of course. Of course

he would still have someone. In the pit of my stomach,

something twists.

  ”Yeah, we hadn’t seen each other for years,

but we’d always kept in touch. She got married

right after college, and then, a few years ago,

she got divorced. She moved to New York,

just a little ways from me, and we began seeing each

other again. But we had some problems. Same old

stuff--I kept seeing other women. We broke

up right before I was diagnosed.” He picks at

a piece of paint which has loosened on the bench.

   ”So does she know?”                 67

  ”What?”

  ”Diann. Does she know about you?”

  ”Oh, sure. She was the first thing I saw when

I woke up after the surgery. But I don’t

see the point in ’’’ She called the other night,

wants to come and visit me. I can just see that, her

staying with my parents. They always hated her.”

  ”Really?” Good. ”Why?”

  ”I don’t know. Got off on the wrong

foot, maybe. It was odd.”

  ”Why doesn’t she stay in a hotel?”

  ”Well, she wants to be close by. Here in

Ashton.”

”She can stay with me.” I don’t know why

I’ve said this. I don’t think I mean it. I

think it was just a knee-jerk response, sticking

up for the underdog.

  ”Really?”

  ”Well, I do have a two-bedroom house.

Although it’s small, it’s really very small.”

  ”That’s so nice of you, Myra.”

  I look at my watch. ”We’d better get

going. I need to let my dog out.”

  I stand, shoulder my bag. Chip looks up

 at me, one eye squinted against the sun. ”But

you’ll come back tomorrow, right?”

  ”Yes, same time. And we’ll really need to do

some paperwork then, Chip. Or I’ll get

fired.”

  ”Don’t worry. I’ll give you whatever you

need.”

Oh, those words.

  He stands, stretches, and we start walking. His

gait is steady, if slow. He took one pain

pill, with dessert. He had minor difficulty

reading the numbers on the check, which he insisted on

paying. Other than that, he was fine.

  A block from his house, Chip says, ”I

used to believe that when we slept at night, we

were dead. So death was just a longer version of that rather

pleasant experience. I wish I still believed

that.”

  ”Maybe it is that.”

  ”Yeah. Maybe so. It’s what can precede

it that’s the problem.”

  ”I used to worry about going to heaven,” I

say. ”I thought it would be boring.”

  He laughs. ”You’re an interesting woman,

Myra. I’m glad you’re my nurse.”

”I’m glad, too.” It is such a     69

relief to hear him say this. I was afraid to ask

if he minded an acquaintance serving in this most

intimate of capacities.

  Outside his house, we shake hands. And I

can’t help it, it’s electric.

  ”Do you ’’’ would you like to go to a movie or

something, sometime, Myra? It’s boring, waiting

around. Not working.”

  I laugh, flustered.

  ”I mean it, would you like to?”

  ”Well ’’’ yes. Sure.”

  ”Maybe tomorrow?”

  ”Why not?”

  He starts up the steps, turns back to wave

at me. Then I head for my car, which is right where

I parked it just before the world bloomed.

 

 

 

 

  
Frank is wild to go out when I get home,

spinning in circles so fast I can hardly get his

leash on him. I take him for a long walk through the

woods by my house, watch him zigzag in and out

of the trees. I throw sticks for him, and it comes

to me that it is a miracle I am able to do this:

use my arm, full strength. Follow the course

of the stick clearly. Walk without fatigue or

pain. Assume, with blind confidence, that I will be able

to do this tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that. Spend

an afternoon with someone who has been told their number

is up, and you will regard everything you do later that day

with grateful wonder. I mean, even laundry.

  Home again, I check my messages. One from

Theresa, saying she was sorry, she’d had to bring

Frank back earlier than usual, she had a

dentist’s appointment she’d forgotten about, she

hoped he wasn’t too wild from being cooped up.

”Are you too wild, Frank?” I ask.

He barely looks up from getting a drink.

  The next message is from Marvelous, calling

to remind me to bring her a recipe tomorrow, one I’d

told her about last time I saw her. I found it

in a magazine--it’s very easy, an

 all-in-one-pot chicken and rice and       71

exotic spice thing that’s very good. I made it and

ate it every night for a week, which is what I always

do when I make things that ”serve six.”

  The third message is from Grace. She’d

been crying, it sounded like. ”He slept way too

long today. I know he’s got something bad. I must

of did something. There’s no fever, though, so does

that mean he can’t be sick? Can you call me?” A

pause. ”I wish you were there, you’re not there, are

you? ’’’ Okay, good-bye.”

  I call Grace back, and she says,

”Oh, my God, I’m sorry. He’s, like,

fine now. I guess he was just sleepy. I would

have called you back, but I forgot.”

  ”It’s okay.”

  ”But are you still coming tomorrow?”

  ”I’ll be there.”

  ”Does it hurt him to watch TV with me? It

wasn’t violent, just a Frasier rerun.”

  ”No, that won’t hurt him.”

  ”I didn’t think so.”

  ”You know a lot, Grace. You just need to learn

to trust yourself.”

  ”Yeah, I guess. Oh, one other thing. I

 gave him some beer in his bottle, but I way

diluted it with water. That’s okay, right?”

  There is a long moment while I think of where

to begin, but then Grace says, ”Just kidding.” And

then, ”Myra?”

”Very funny, Grace. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I go into the kitchen, open the refrigerator,

contemplate the contents. I finished the last

”serves six” thing I made last night. I

take the lid off a carton of strawberry

yogurt, smell it, put it out on the counter.

Then I pull out the three shortbread cookies

I have left, take them and the yogurt over to the

kitchen table, and sit down. I like to eat the

yogurt using the cookie as a spoon.

  After I finish, I go back to the

refrigerator and look around some more. I take out

some goat cheese, get sesame crackers from the

cupboard, and eat crackers and cheese standing over

the sink. Then I make a little salad, which I

dress with a very nice vinaigrette. I eat the

salad in the living room while I watch the

weather report for tomorrow. Eighty-two and dry.

After my salad, I look in the

refrigerator once more, eat a strawberry.

 Then I take the Ben and Jerry’s Heath   73

Bar ice cream out of the freezer and have a few

tablespoons of that from the carton while I load the

dishwasher with detergent and start it. It’s not very

full, but it’s been four days.

  And now, the evening. Spread out before me, as they

say.

  Every night, this hollow-stomach time comes. You’d

think I’d get used to it. You’d think I’d have

given up on certain things. But I see ghosts.

The back of a head, coming up over a chair. His

razor, left at the side of the bathroom sink.

Things belonging to our children, left lying around. Those

things change with the passing years: fire engines and

dolls have become car keys and CD cases,

gigantic sneakers. These days, the kids are

only around when they’re home for a visit from

college. Oh, I keep up, even as someone

who’s lost a child says, ”If he’d lived,

he’d be twelve now.”

  I used to pay attention to stories I heard

about women finding someone late in life. But so

few of them were never married. The odds of being

fifty-one and finding someone for the first time are

formidable. Even for the women who are really good

 looking and have social skills.

  And so.

  I come into the evening like I’m coming onto a

stretch of bad road. Tighten my hands on the

wheel. Sit up straight. Wait for it to be

over. The best time is about half an hour before

I’m going to go to bed. I have an astounding array of

bath products. I buy books and stack them

up at the bedside, and I dip into them like a box

of Whitman’s every night: a poem or two, an

essay, a short story, and then some of whatever

novel I’m into. I don’t like mysteries. I

don’t like thrillers. I don’t like historical

fiction. I like stories about our time, featuring

women, where a lot of the action takes place in

kitchens. I like when the women talk about

childhood memories and relationships and being fat

and the dreams they have at night. I like sad books,

too; have ever since I was little. Growing up, ”The

Little Match Girl” was my favorite story.

Now that I think about it, the reason I loved it

is obvious: Child abused in life gets the

reward el grande--a date with an angel.

  Not that I have been truly abused in life.

Unless being ignored is abused. It does

 hurt, being ignored. But I don’t stay   75

home and mope. I don’t. I go to movies,

I go shopping, I take myself out to dinner.

Occasionally I see plays or concerts. Once

I drove in to hear the Boston Symphony

Orchestra, but I didn’t like it. The way coughing

was a mortal sin. The restrained applause. The

age level, frankly, of the audience--I felt

like a toddler there. And anyway, if you really

want to listen to music, put on a CD and

lie down, a pillow held tight against your chest.

Weep to the beauty, if you like; it’s a satisfying

cry.

  I suppose I should work harder at having

female friends, at least. Then I could go out and do

things with someone. But in spite of my great desire

for intimacy, I’ve always been a loner. Perhaps

when the longing for connection is as strong as it is in

me, when the desire is for something so deep and

true, one knows better than to try. One sees

that this is not the place for that.

  When I was seven, my mother once arranged for

someone to come over and play with me--a new

neighbor had a daughter my age. The little girl

came over, I played with her in my room for about

 fifteen minutes, then told her--nicely, I

thought--”Go home, now.” Despite my mother’s

embarrassed urgings, I refused to do anything but

sit on the steps and wait for the girl to leave.

My mother apologized profusely to the girl’s

mother when she came to collect her daughter. After

they left, she brought me into the living room and

sat me on the sofa. ”Shame on you, Myra,”

she said. ”Shame! What’s the matter with you?

Didn’t you like that little girl?” I remember

thinking, Why did she ask me that? Of course

I liked her. There was just nothing more to do. We were

all done. But I didn’t say that. I knew

it was the wrong answer, and I didn’t know the right

one. Instead, I sat staring at my lap, counting

my breaths in, waiting for her to make some noise

of disgust and go back to cleaning. It took four

breaths. I remember, because that was the number it

usually took for her to give up on me again.

  Things didn’t improve much. Teachers’ comments

on my elementary school report cards

regularly offered variations on a theme: Myra

is a pleasant child but spends too much time alone.

Plays alongside, not with, other children.

  I guess what I believe is that, for some of

 us, things end up fitting best inside just     77

one soul. Maybe it’s genetic, maybe it’s

environmental, maybe it’s just rationalization, who

knows.

  On my walks, I like to hear the sound of my

sneakers against the earth; I like to linger where I want

for however long I want; the things that mean the most

to me are simply not translatable. In the

autumn, I look up into the paint-box trees

and can only sigh and feel the pleasant ache that such

a glorious sight brings. What would I say to a

friend? ”Look. Aren’t the trees pretty?”

  Sometimes I feel like I’m looking down at

myself, thinking, Woman alone, living lonely

life. Those are the times my inside edges feel

raw. Most times, though, I just don’t think about

it. I walk through the days: Saturdays, I

cook for the week and pay the bills; Sundays,

I do the laundry and sew. I plant new

annuals every spring, new bulbs every fall. On

my birthday, I buy myself a present, the

price of which must exceed $150. At

Halloween, I dress as a witch and Frank as

a clown (Butterick 4601) to answer the door

for the kids. I give out regular-size candy

 bars, too, not those gypy two-inchers. (I also

give out a few movie-size candy bars

to randomly selected trick-or-treaters, who are

always so shocked they forget to say thank you.) At

Christmas, I have a small tree, each

ornament chosen with care, a wrapped Oinker

Roll for Frank beneath it, a few new toys for

him, too. If someone were to say to me at any

given moment, ”Quick! Are you happy?” I would

answer, ”Well ’’’ Yes. I believe I

am.”

  I do go to bed early. Sometimes it’s only

eight, and in the summer, the sky’s hardly dark enough

for me to sleep. It’s mornings I like, the

promise of them, the unknowability. No dim

accounting. Instead, a blank slate. A chance.

  
After my soak in Crabtree and Evelyn’s

rose-scented bubble bath, I go into my office and

make a few notes on Chip. ”Admission

procedure deferred on first visit per patient

request,” I write. And then, ”According

to distressed parents, pt. is refusing any

treatment beyond surgery. Will work with patient and

family toward realistic decision-making and

 acceptance of patient’s wishes. Will       79

encourage as much independence for as long as

possible.” And then I put my pen down, stare

at the page. What can it feel like for him to wake

up in his parents’ house? Does he think,

Here I am, then. What an end. Does he

look at his watch? Out the window? Does he

run his hand over his cut head, fingering the sutures

and moving his lips to count them, making sure he can

still do that?

I go into my bedroom, lie down and close my

eyes, then cross my arms over my chest.

Body language. I suppose I am guarding

my heart. I think of us at Ned’s Place,

eating lunch and talking so easily. Sitting there,

I felt some stubborn gate creak open. I

felt I could say anything. I think of Chip’s

arm stretched out behind me as we sat on the

playground bench, my softening at the center.

  It might not be hopeless. I once went to a

Bernie Siegel workshop for nurses and cancer

patients. One of the stories told there was about a

guy who went to a hospice to die of his advanced

liver cancer. Once there, however, he did very

well; and finally he said he didn’t want to be

 there any more, he wanted to go home and work in his

garden. And he did. Three years later, they

could find no evidence of his tumor.

That wasn’t a brain tumor, though. But

maybe it could happen with a brain tumor. We

don’t understand everything. Really, we don’t understand

anything.

  I crawl under the covers, start to drift off,

then jump at the sound of the phone ringing. I answer

it and hear Chip’s voice, saying my name.

Don’t let this be a dream, I think. But it

is not a dream. It is Chip, asking if we could

make a meal together, asking if I know how to make

pie.

  ”Well ’’’ what kind?” I am squeezing the

receiver, smiling so hard I have to bite my lip

to keep from laughing out loud.

  ”Lemon meringue.”

  ”Do you like the really sour kind?”

  ”Best kind.”

  ”We could make that. I use my Aunt

Lala’s recipe: citric acid, that was her

secret ingredient. Once I made it and ate

the whole thing myself in the space of three hours.”

  ”Okay, so this time cut it in two.”

   ”This time?”                         81

  ”I mean, how about tomorrow? Why don’t we make

pie for dinner at your house and then go to the

movie?”

  ”Well ’’’” Yes. Yes.

  ”Myra, I need to get out of here. I need

somewhere to go that isn’t so ’’’ hard. Why don’t you

`evaluate”’ me at your house? Could we?

Why don’t we just do everything there?”

  Why? Because it’s unprofessional. Because it will

exclude his parents, who are part of my care

plan. Because it will make what’s happening to me

worse.

  ”All right,” I say.

”So tell me what time to come over. And where you

live.”

  He can’t drive. Surely he’s been told

that. The possibility of seizures, for one thing.

  ”I’ll come and get you when I’ve finished

seeing patients. You’re right on my way

home.” Of course he is not. ”It’ll be about

five.”

  ”Good. And Myra?”

  ”Yes?” He might say anything, now. All

these wonderful surprises. He could say

 anything.

  ”I’m having a problem with ’’’ I’m

constipated.”

  ”Oh! ’’’ Well, see? If you’d have let

me do an admission interview, we would have

discovered this.”

  ”Sorry.”

”You have Colace, right? That’s one of your

medications?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”And you’re taking it, right?”

  ”Well ’’’”

  ”Take some milk of magnesia tonight. Take

the Colace, too, and then keep taking it.

It’s the codeine doing that, binding you up.”

  ”All right. I’m sorry to ’’’ you know.”

  ”Forget it. I’m your nurse.”

  ”But you’re more than that. You feel like a friend.”

  Sometimes, your spirit can rise and sink

simultaneously. ”Well ’’’ Yes. I am

your friend.”

  ”So! I’ll see you in the morning.”

  ”No, five o’clock, Chip. P.M.”

  ”Oh. Right. I guess I wish it were

morning.”

Foolishly, the indicator rises.     83

  ”Myra?”

  ”Yes?”

  ”I just want to say what a relief it is that

it’s you who’s going to be taking care of me for this

’’’ for all this. What a surprise and a

relief.”

  ”Well.”

  ”I mean it. You’re very ’’’ comfortable.”

  ”Thanks.” I guess.

  I hang up the phone and look out the window at

the sky, the pale blue now overtaken by the moody

colors of dusk. You never know. You never know

what’s going to happen from one day to the next. I can

vouch for that. So can Chip. So could anyone, really.

Oh, it’s overwhelming, sometimes, how much we

really are all sharing the same, leaky boat.

  I lie quietly for a while, watching the dark

come, and then I get up and turn on all the

lights.

  I’m going to make a pie. I’ll surprise

him, have it all done so he won’t have to wait for

anything. So we’ll have more time.

 

  My visits today are going smoothly.

Tiffany did a terrific job on Rose’s

apartment--took out all the garbage, stocked her

refrigerator, did the laundry, even washed and

curled Rose’s hair. Ann Peters’s eyes

are improving, and her daughter has agreed to put

in the drops on weekends.

  Fitz Walters bought a new hat, a red

feather at the band, and his happiness at this small

thing is nothing short of inspiring. ”I’ll take

those ladies’ breath away when I show up in this,”

he told me, modeling it; preening. He walked

across the room, a cross between Fred Astaire and

Chuck Berry.

  ”What ladies?” I said.

  He chuckled.

  ”Fitz?”

  He waved his hand. ”Go on, now.”

  ”No, really. What ladies are you talking

about? The ladies from your church, those ladies?”

  ”Aw,” he said, ”you just giving me a hard time,

ain’t you? Yeah, you like to give me a hard time.

You know who I’m talking about! At the Pussy

Cat Lounge, those ladies. You know.”

   ”Yeah, I do. And you’ll knock them    85

out, Fitz, you look like a movie star in that

hat.”

  ”That’s what the guy who sold it to me said!

Said I look like Sidney Poitier.”

  ”Exactly.” I checked his blood

pressure. A little higher than usual, but only

from joy. One night, I’ll ask if I can go with

him to that lounge. Try to differentiate for him between

the real and the silicone. Not that he can see, but

maybe he’d want to know.

  DeWitt was quiet, actually engrossed in

some paperback novel with a torn-off cover, which

he wanted to read rather than talk to me. That was

fine; I was in a hurry. I did ask him what

the book was about.

  ”You ain’t old enough to know,” he said.

  Early in the afternoon, I pull up in front of

Marvelous’s three-plex, note that her dirt

yard has been raked carefully and the porch

swept, as usual. ”I am blessed,” she tells

me all the time, sitting in her tiny,

third-floor walk-up. The place is spotless

on the inside, if falling apart--literally--on the

outside. She has a gigantic velvet

 Elvis painting on the wall above her reading

chair, red plastic flowers in a jelly glass

on the kitchen table. Her bathroom has a

matching pink rug, toilet seat, and tank

cover. On her bedroom wall are pictures of

her long-dead husband, her children and grandchildren The

floors gleam; she has window boxes filled with

purple-and-white petunias. She has an

old, floor-model radio and a television that

doesn’t much come in. She had the components for a

very nice VCR stacked up on her floor one

day, but gone the next. I didn’t ask. I

knew. Her thirty-year-old son, Rodney,

whose ways of making a living are not exactly by the

book.

I have never heard Marvelous rail against all

she must endure: prejudice, poverty, illness.

The nastiest I’ve seen her is one day when she

was talking about the rich people for whom she used to clean.

”Lord, they be complaining,” she said. ”Sitting there

in the lap of luxury and whining from the time they step out

of bed ’til they step back in it. Sometimes I

want to say something to them, say, `Here now, you

know what? You missing something in your soul, be plain

as day you missing something bad.”’ But they don’t

 listen to me. They don’t see me. They   87

say (and here she made her voice high and

affected), `Oh, Marvelous, how you get that

toilet to shine so!”’ Like they couldn’t figure that

out they own self. Like they that stupid. And like I

should be proud my talent in life is cleaning

toilets! I’ll tell you why they walk around

looking at my work before I go, singing my

praises. They looking to see did I take

something.”

  She has affixed her colostomy bag

perfectly today, as she has the last two times;

really, there is nothing for me to do for her anymore.

She understands everything; she knows who to call for

help if she runs into problems.

  After I’ve checked her blood pressure,

we sit together at her kitchen table drinking iced

tea. I give her a copy of the recipe she

requested, tell her I increased the amount of

ginger called for by half. Then I say, ”I have

bad news, Marvelous. Bad news for me,

anyway. I don’t need to come and see you

anymore. You’re an expert now; you could teach

other people.”

  She smiles. ”I could, at that.”

   ”I’ll have to stop seeing you. As a nurse,

anyway. I hope I can still come and see you as a

friend.”

  ”Well, of course you can. You are a friend.

Since the first day, Myra. I liked you right

away. You not a phony like so many.”

  ”Oh, well.”

  She frowns. ”You know something? You need to learn

to take a compliment.”

  ”I guess. Yes. Thank you.”

  ”You need to let the light in.”

  ”Well, that’s ’’’ right.”

  She looks around the kitchen, sighs. ”My

son’s coming tonight; I think I’ll make this

recipe you gave me. I don’t know what I’m

going to do with that boy. Trouble. You lucky you never

had children. They bust your heart wide open.”

  ”I don’t know. I think I might have liked

having children.”

”Well, first you got to get a man. You found

a man, yet?”

  I look at her, say nothing.

  Her eyes widen; she puts her drink down.

Since the first day I met her, she’s asked about

me and men. And always, I’ve said there’s no one.

 I’ve also said that I don’t really want   89

someone. But today is different.

  ”Oh, myyyyyyyyy!” she says. ”Little

Miss Lonelyheart finally got a fish on the

line.”

  ”It’s not exactly like that.”

  ”You got the fever, girl, steam coming out your

ears. All you done was think about him, and your whole

self change.”

  ”Come on, Marvelous; it isn’t that

obvious.”

  She turns in her chair, points to a corner

of the cabinet. ”You see that toaster over there?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”Go look at your face in it.”

  I laugh.

  ”I mean it! You think about that man and then you go

and look at your face.”

  I stop smiling, look down into my tea, stir

it with my finger.

  ”What? You want to tell me about him?”

  ”Oh, Marvelous, it’s completely wrong.

He’s one of my patients. He’s very ill. I

shouldn’t be having these feelings.”

  ”Honey, ain’t no `should”’ when it comes

 to feelings. Ain’t nothing wrong with just feeling

anything! ’Sides, you ever seen that movie, 

West Side Story?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Remember that song in there, ’bout how when

love comes real strong, ain’t no right or

wrong? That’s the truth, Ruth.” She leans

forward, looks deeply into my eyes, then pulls

back, laughing, slapping her knee. ”Oh,

yeah. What can you do, it get you by the throat and you

pinned to the floor. You got no control.” And

then, serious, ”But it’s good. It’s good.”

  ”Did you feel that way, Marvelous? About your

husband?”

  ”Old Gerald?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”Oh, my sweet Jesus. Yes, indeed.”

She gets up, opens her refrigerator. ”I

got macaroni salad. I got hot dogs,

too.”

  ”Yes,” I say. ”Thank you.” And then I

wait for her to feed me more.

               * * *

Late in the afternoon, I go to a gas station pay

phone to check my messages. Two. One from

 Rose’s doctor, increasing her daily    91

dose of insulin. The other from Diann

Briedenbach. I stand perfectly still, watching a

well-dressed man pump gas into his car while

he admires mine, and listening to Diann’s

voice, which has gotten quite low. ”Myra! This is

Diann Briedenbach! Long time, huh? How

are you? Listen, I’m calling because Chip told

me about your offer to let me stay with you when I come

to visit him. That’s so generous of you! I’d like

to talk to you about a few things. Could you call me?

Any time. Really, any time.” She leaves the

number, but I don’t write it down.

Messages can get lost. Power failures, for

one thing. It’s a good thing I left the house

earlier than usual this morning--she called just after

I left.

  Chip is waiting on the steps outside when I

arrive to pick him up. He’s wearing a white

shirt, sleeves rolled up, blue jeans, and his

navy-and-white kerchief. I pull up to the curb

and he comes over, leans in my side, looks

around in the proprietary way men do when they check

out a car. ”Nice machine!”

  ”It is.” Oh God, he’s wearing

 cologne. What can it mean?

  ”I didn’t notice it yesterday.”

  ”It was here.”

  He walks around to his side, climbs in,

slides the seat back. ”Okay. Let’s

drive to Venezuela.”

  ”Buckle your seat belt, first.”

  ”What if we could drive there. Would you?”

  I look at him.

”I’m feeling like that guy on TV who had

six months to live, remember that show? He

looked healthy as hell, and he was running around,

living till he died. I mean living till he

died. Only he never died.”

  ”Right. I remember that show.”

  ”Of course, that guy didn’t have to eat forty

pills a day and he didn’t have a cracked

skull and he could remember things.”

  I say nothing, shift.

  ”S. Are you ready to make pie?”

  ”The pie is done.”

  ”Really?”

  ”Yes. And I have the perfect plates to eat

it on. Yellow and white.”

  ”Or we could eat it right out of the pie plate,

 bite for you, bite for me.”              93

  I stop at a red light, smile over at

him. Then the light changes, and I pull away

a little faster than I have to. Quite a bit faster.

  He laughs. ”Great.”

  And then we keep quiet, listening to the radio,

each of us having our own separate fantasies,

until we arrive at my house and see a red

Lexus pulled up in front of it. A tall

woman opens the door, climbs out.

  ”I wonder who that is,” I say, at the

same time that Chip says, ”Diann!”

  She starts walking over to us as I pull in the

driveway. Waves gaily. She is wearing

tortoiseshell sunglasses, has her hair

(silver streaks now mixed in with the black) pulled

up carelessly and clipped to the top of her head.

Her silk pants and top are the cool

turquoise of swimming pool water; over them,

she wears a white linen blazer, sleeves pushed

up. She has a wide silver bracelet on

one arm, an expensive-looking watch on the

other. Silver hoop earrings. Espadrilles.

Nice woven purse. She comes over to me as I

finish climbing out of the car, pulls off her

 sunglasses, and smiles. There are her blue

eyes. Those eyes. There are her straight, white

teeth. She’s lost nothing. She extends her

hand, and I take it. ”Myra Lipinski,” she

says, though she is not looking at me any more.

”Nice car!” she says, but she is not looking

at it, either.

  From inside my house come the outraged barks of

Frank, who, for two days in a row, now, has

been left home. Well, he’ll come with me

tomorrow. Tomorrow, everything will be back to normal.

  I pull my nurse’s bag up higher on my

shoulder. ”We were just going to have some pie,” I

say. ”I ’’’ made a pie. Come in.” I go

first, alone. They follow, together. I have never been

so ashamed of my back.

 

 

 

 

                                    95

  Ethel Schwartz boiled three bones for

Frank. Two of them she wrapped in

Hanukkah paper and froze so that they would ”last”

until we got home; the third, she has just

given him now. He goes to the corner of the kitchen

where he is allowed, collapses happily, then

looks up to me as if to say, ”Go ahead; I’m

fine.”

  ”I wonder if I could just have a private

moment with you before we do the pills,” Ethel says,

holding onto my arm tightly, speaking in a low

and tremulous voice between her clenched teeth. She

often clenches her teeth when she speaks;

otherwise, her dentures make small, clicking

sounds. I’ve told her those dentures don’t

fit, that she should have them adjusted. She always

waves her hand and says, ”My teeth should be my

biggest problem.”

  She does this every week, asks for a ”private

moment” with me. Then her husband, Murray, has

a ”private moment” with me. Then we all sit

at the dining room table, and while they silently

fume and avoid looking at each other, I dole

out the fifty or sixty pills they’ll each need

 to take that week. I line them up in

Medi-Minders, the divided plastic cases that

keep their pharmaceutical lives, at least, in

order. His case is blue. Hers is pink and

decorated with decoupaged pictures of flowers

she clipped from seed catalogs, seed pearls,

pink mini-rhinestones, and bits of ribbon.

  She yells down the hall toward Murray’s

bedroom that I’m here, then takes me into her

bedroom. She keeps her heavy drapes

closed, and it’s always dark in there,

claustrophobic. She turns on her

night-table lamp and sits on the bed, and I

take my usual position in the Queen Anne

chair she keeps in the corner. I pile four

lacy pillows onto my lap so that I can lean

back.

Ethel crosses her legs and wearily

examines her fingernails, painted a dark rose

color each week by the traveling manicurist.

Then she sighs and says, ”I’m telling you,

Mary, I don’t know if I can take it

anymore; he’s driving me bananas.”

  ”It’s Myra.”

  ”What?”

   ”My name is Myra.”               97

  ”Oh. You’re right. Myra. But anyway,

I mean it, Myra, it’s gone too far. Listen

to this: Yesterday, he took the drapes in the living

room--and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you

those are very expensive drapes, I had them

custom-made--anyway, he takes those drapes

and he yanks them apart and he duct tapes them

to the wall. As God is my witness, he

tapes them to the wall! I said, `Murray,

what the hell are you doing?”’ You know how he

answers me? You know what he says?”

  She stares at me; blinks once, twice.

  ”What did he say?” I ask, finally. She

likes when I enter into the conversation this way. It

makes her feel that I’m on her side.

  ”He said nothing. Can you believe it? Not one

word. He tapes my drapes open and then he

sits down in his recliner and picks up that damn

Golf Digest and says nothing!”

  ”Himmm.” My back hurts a little. I

change my position.

  ”I said to him, `Murray, what are you,

crazy? What are you doing? If you want the

drapes open, then open them. What is it with the

 tape? You just open the drapes.”’ And you know

what he says to me?”

  ”Nothing?”

”Oh, no. Not nothing. Absolutely not. I

wish you could have heard what he said, I only

wish you could. He starts in with me about how I’ll

just shut them again. He starts yelling about `Too

much darkness! Too many curtains all over the

house!”’ Now I ask you, what are curtains

for? What are curtains for? You close them for

your privacy! And then he starts screaming at the

top of his lungs, he says we got too many

things. All over the house, too many things.

Too many scatter rugs, too many

knick-knacks--and you know and I know that that is

what makes a house a home--but he is

yelling and carrying on that he feels like a

prisoner in a junk store, that he can’t move.

I swear to you, Mary, every person in the building

must have heard him. Think of how it felt for me

to face my neighbors the next time I saw them

--my dignity in shreds, you can just imagine.

  ”And that’s not all. Next he starts in on my

doll collection, which I can tell you means a

lot more to me than he does. It is not in his

 way, there is no way he can say it is    99

in his way, you know how I have my darlings all together

in that locked case in the dining room--but he is

yelling about that, about what kind of person am I,

a grown woman who has sixty-five dolls.

Well, I had an answer for him there. I said,

`Listen, you know Demi Moore, that actress

you’re so crazy for’--like she’d bother to look

at him if he was handing her a million-dollar

bill. But anyway, I said to him, I said,

`Demi happens to be a very serious doll

collector! She is crazy for the Gene

Marshall doll, which I was one of the very first

to get!”’” She settles back on her rump,

hikes up a slipping bra strap. ”So then what

do you think he says?”

  I sneak a look at my watch.

  ”All right,” she says. ”Okay. I can

take a hint. I know you’re too busy to listen

to me.”

  Now I feel bad. She’s just an old lady

who used to have dreams, whose life has disappointed

her. I know she picks out one of her baby

dolls to rock every night, Murray told me

once when he was complaining about her.

   ”No, Ethel,” I say. ”I was just thinking it

must be frustrating for you when--”

  ”The point is, Marsha--and I’ll be

brief, here--the point is, he’s losing his

marbles. Okay? Plain and simple. He is

cracking up. All of a sudden, everything I do is

wrong: his sandwich is cut straight across rather than

on the diagnonal; I buy the wrong detergent

--l he should know from detergent!--I park too

close to the curb, I park too far from the curb.

He wants I should stop wearing the perfume I have

always worn, it is my signature scent which, by the

way, he is the one who first gave it to me!”

She takes in a breath, studies me. ”Ma

Griffe, I don’t know if you know it, do you?”

  I shake my head no.

  ”Well, it is a very clean and classic

scent, but now he says the smell bothers him.

Meanwhile, he puts on his cheap cologne a

bottle at a time. He who wears his underwear for

days in a row, I kid you not, I have to pry it off

him! I’m telling you, I’m very sorry to say this,

but I think he needs to be placed.”

  I have no idea what to say. I’m too

tired; I got very little sleep. I lay in bed

reviewing the stupid things I did last    101

night. Examined myself from all angles, like an

EKG looks at a heart, only less

sympathetically.

  ”This is what I’m asking you: Will you just have a

close look at him today? Just see if you

notice anything you could maybe tell your

supervisor? This is all I’m asking.”

  ”Sure,” I say. ”I’ll look at him.”

  ”You want some rugelah before we start? It’s

fresh; I just this morning defrosted it.”

  ”No thanks. I ate a lot of pie last

night.” Six pieces, actually.

  ”Up to you,” she says, slightly offended as

she always is when I reject her offers of food.

She opens the bedroom door to yell to Murray

that I’d like a moment with him, turns back to look

at me significantly. Which is exactly the

way Murray looks at me when I come into his

bedroom.

  ”She’s driving me batty,” he says

quietly, closing the door behind him.

  When Frank and I walk into the house at

four-thirty, I hear the sound of the shower running.

 No one has ever used that shower but me, and it

feels odd, somehow, to hear it working for someone

else.

  I sit on the sofa, hear the water being turned

off, then the sound of the bathroom door opening.

It’s kind of nice to come home and hear the

evidence of another human being, but mildly

irritating, too, as when someone you like calls just as

you’re ready to sit down to a really good meal. I

mean, do I want to hear the shower just now? Do I

want to have to talk to someone else? Not really. I

want to do my notes from today’s visits, and then

call DeWitt’s doctor to let him know

I’ll need to see him for at least another week

or two. I can do that, of course; it’s just that I

feel a sense of inhibition about it.

  As I sit having a debate with myself over

free movement in my own house, I hear

Diann coming downstairs. And then she is standing in

front of me wearing a long, white summer

dress, barefoot, her hair wet, her face

free of any make-up. She looks like an ad

in a magazine. Frank leaps up and runs

to her; sits on her feet.

  ”Frank,” I say.

   ”Oh no, he’s fine.” She         103

scratches him behind his disloyal ears. ”You’re so

full of love,” she tells him. ”Aren’t you?”

  ”A bit overeager.”

”It’s nice!” She squats down, hugs

him, then comes to sit on the sofa beside me. Frank

follows, lies beside her. Who buys the damn

Snausages around here? I’m thinking.

  ”God,” Diann says. ”I’m so glad

it’s you! I thought you weren’t going to be home

until later. I was in the shower and I heard

someone come in, so I beat it right out of there.” She

smiles. ”You know how you never want to be in the

shower when the murderer comes.”

  ”Better to be in the kitchen, making

lasagna,” I say.

  ”Pardon?”

  ”A joke. Not a good one.”

  ”Oh.”

  ”I meant, you know, like it would make a

diff-erence where you were, if it were a murderer.”

  ”Oh! I see. That’s funny.”

”Well. No, it’s not.”

  A moment, now. Each of us tight with the other.

  And then she says, ”I really want to thank you

 again for letting me stay here.”

  ”That’s okay. It’s fine.”

  ”I never got the chance to tell you last night;

you left so fast.”

  Frank finally tears himself away from Diann and

comes to lie down heavily beside me. I have an

urge to smack him, but pet him instead. ”Well,

you know, I really had to get some things done. And

I thought it might be nice for you and Chip to have some

time alone.”

  She nods. ”It was.”

  The phone rings, and with some relief I go

to answer it.

  ”Hey,” Chip says.

  ”Oh, hi. Hold on; she’s right here.”

”Wait a minute, Myra! I’m calling

to talk to you! Why did you leave last night?”

  I say nothing.

  ”I know she’s probably right there, but was it because

of Diann?”

  ”Oh, no. No.”

  ”Well, I wish you hadn’t left.”

  ”Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.

I suppose I wish I hadn’t left either--it

only made things worse. But I felt so

 foolish. We were all sitting at the      105

table, eating pie, when Diann asked why I

became a nurse. I meant to say something pithy

and intelligent, and ended up going on forever,

talking like a person starved for company. Talking like

what I am.

  I told them that the summer I turned

fifteen, my mother was hospitalized for a

hysterectomy. She developed a nasty

infection, and so her stay there was prolonged. In the

room next to her was a sixteen-year-old boy,

dying of some kind of terrible disease. I used to see

his legs when I went past his partially open door.

They were thin and so white, lying on sheepskin,

uncovered. They were always in the same position,

always very still. I learned about his age and diagnosis

from one of my mother’s nurses. ”It’s very sad,”

she said, ”especially since it looked for a while

like he was going to make it.”

  ”Where’s his family?” I asked, and she said,

oh, there was always one of them with him. At least one,

sometimes two. Always somebody there.

  ”Well, why don’t they talk to him?” I

said. ”I never hear them!” My mother,

embarrassed, said that was enough, now; no more questions.

 The nurse said it was all right, it was natural for

someone to be curious. But she didn’t answer the

question.

  Once, walking past the boy’s room, I

pushed the door open wider so I could see all the

way in. There was a visitor sitting by the bed, but

whoever it was didn’t notice me; the chair had

its high back to the door. The boy was awake, and

when the light from the hall came into his room, he

turned toward me. He was bald, and his thin face

was full of a terrible longing. I swallowed,

raised my hand in a silent greeting. He stared;

then, slowly, raised his hand back. The visitor

turned, saw me, and came over to shut the door.

She was an old woman, his grandmother, I

assumed. She held knitting in her hands, a

pale blue sweater she was making. I wondered

if it were for him. I thought, It’s terrible if it

is--he’ll never get to wear it. And then I

thought, It’s terrible if it’s not--it means

they’re showing him they’ve given up.

  I wrote a letter to him. It said, ”My name is

Myra and I’m fifteen. I’m here every day

visiting my mother, who is right next door to you.

If you want, I could visit you, too. I could

 bring a deck of cards and a transistor    107

radio. Maybe you could come outside in a

wheelchair.”

  My mother was upset when I told her about the

letter. ”Why are you doing this?” she said. ”You,

Miss Antisocial!” And I couldn’t tell

her, because if she could ask such a question, she could never

understand the answer. He was my age! He lived in

a small room, attended by medical personnel

and family members who almost never spoke. He

did not get phone calls, he did not put

records on a turntable, he did not read

books or swim or stay up late watching

monster movies. He did not smell cut

grass or walk barefoot down a warm

sidewalk. He did not slowly peel back the

wrapper from a Snickers bar and sniff before he

bit; he did not go to ball games or swimming.

Day after day, he lay in a room with the shades

pulled, silence hanging in the air like fog. How

could you see that and not want to do something?

  When I got no answer to my letter, I sent

another. Which he never got to read, because he died.

When I heard that, I locked myself in a

hospital bathroom and wept. And vowed that I

 would never be helpless in such a situation again. I

would make it so that I could walk into any sick

person’s room and offer comfort, especially when that

comfort was so sorely needed, so sure to be taken.

  I went on and on, talking about how I

decided after high school to go to nursing school,

how I loved every minute of it. I said I found

learning about the body to be an exercise in

sustained astonishment. How could I not? The eye,

the way it translates an image! The

vigilance of the brain; the elegance of the skeleton;

the dark mystery of hormones; the specificity of

muscle tissue types! I described reading

about the awesome workload of the heart; the complicated

balancing of the respiratory system; the

dependence of nerves on the myelin sheath; the

swift passage of red blood cells coursing

through the sixty thousand miles of the circulatory

system.

  Even as a student, I was the one they called

to start IV’S when no one else could. I got

NG tubes down fastest: I, not even twenty,

my hair in a ponytail, my life experience

nil, threaded a tube down an innocent nostril

while some formerly dignified patient, now robbed

 of individuality, sat upright in a       109

patterned cotton gown, hands clenched, eyes

watering, trusting me. And forgiving me.

  I surprised myself by being so good at these

technical things. The suffering, I knew I’d

understand. Knew I’d want to relieve, and would be

able to relieve. The technical part, I came

to see, I was able to do because of the catalytic effect

of love.

  I had been staring at the wall as I spoke,

lost in a reverie. It was as though I were speaking

to myself, creating with my words some sort of movie of

my life. Confirming it, validating it. I said

I thought my job saved me from a thousand hells,

that I couldn’t imagine ever finding anything I

liked better. That what it gave me was too much

to be measured; too much, finally, to be told.

  And then, suddenly, I snapped out of it. The

lights came up. I looked over at Chip,

then Diann. They were silent, just watching me. I

said something about needing to run some errands, and fled.

  I went to a bookstore and drank coffee and

read magazines until the place closed. Then

I went for a drive. Then I went to the grocery

store that stays open all night and bought Ajax

 and a couple of oranges and sunflower seeds for the

bird feeder.

  When I came home the house was dark and

quiet--Chip gone, I assumed, and Diann

asleep. I let Frank out for his final pee,

and then went to the refrigerator for the pie. I

brought it into bed with me and finished it. Then I lay

awake until some time after four. I thought of how

you open a too full cupboard and everything comes

falling out. I thought of how in my job, my hands

regularly touched things others wouldn’t dream of

touching. I thought of how people hated hospitals and

did not like to be reminded of what went on there. I

thought of a time when I was twelve and ate dinner at

someone’s house, and when I was finished eating, she

said, ”Wow, you were hungry,” and her mother shushed

her, and I was suddenly so ashamed. I thought of

Chip and Diann staring at me, the calm blueness

of those stares, their utter apartness from me and those like

me.

  I press the phone closer to my ear, hear

Chip saying, ”Listen, you know how Diann was

going to come and get me to bring me over there? My

parents wanted to know if you’d come here today. Just for

today. They said they have a few questions about the

 medications.”                         111

  ”Sure.” Out of the corner of my eye, I

see Diann’s legs. They are crossed.

Evenly tanned. Doesn’t she know she shouldn’t

lie in the sun like that? Although maybe it’s that

cream, there’s a cream that will tan you, with no side

effects that they know of. Yet.

  ”Then I thought maybe we could go out,” Chip

says. ”Diann and I and you, too.” I start

to excuse myself, but he says quickly, ”Please

don’t say no, Myra.”

  I look at my watch, out the window.

  ”Myra?”

  ”All right.”

  I hang up, tell Diann, ”Chip’s

parents need to talk to me. So I’ll go over there

to see them, and then I’ll bring Chip back here.

He thought maybe we could all go out somewhere.”

  ”Oh. All right.” She shrugs. ”Isn’t it

odd, the way there’s this sort of ’’’ party

atmosphere?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”His attitude is so hard to understand.

Don’t you think? I mean, why isn’t he

grieving?”

   ”He is.” I pick up my nurse’s bag,

sling it over my shoulder. ”I’ll be back in about

an hour.”

  ”Okay.” She stands, yanks at the waistline

of her dress. ”I wish you didn’t make such

good pie. After you left, I ate that whole

piece.”

  ”Oh, well.”

  ”No, I really shouldn’t have. I’m glad you

tossed the leftovers; I probably would have had

more for breakfast. And lunch. I’ve gained five

or six pounds the last couple weeks; I look

like a beached whale.”

”No, you don’t.”

  ”God, Myra, you’re so lucky never to have

worr-ied about any of this stuff! I always thought it

would be so much easier, so much bett-er, to be like

you!”

  I stand with my hand on the door, open my mouth

to say something, then shut it. I feel a small

rush of anger moving from my stomach up into my

throat.

  ”Oh, you ’’’ Please don’t think I ’’’

What I meant is, you always seemed so much

wiser than those of us who were running around

 desperately trying every new fad, you      113

know? You were--”

  ”I’ll see you later, Diann.” I start

to leave, but she comes over and stands between me and the

door.

  ”Myra, I know how it sounded, what I just

said. But I didn’t mean it that way.”

  ”It’s okay.” I reach around her to open the

door.

  She steps out of the way, her hands clasped before

her, speaks quietly. ”I hate when this

happens. I hate when you say something wrong, and

suddenly you’re in this hole you can’t get out of. And

everything you say to try to convince someone of the truth just

makes you sound like more of a liar. Will you please just

consider that I really didn’t mean what you

think?”

  ”What makes you think you know what I thought,

Diann?”

  She sighs. ”Look. I know you won’t

believe me, but I mean this: I always admired

you. I always did. That’s all I meant to say.”

  I step outside.

  ”I wish you weren’t leaving. I hope we’ll

get a chance to talk, later.”

   I take a few steps down the sidewalk,

hear her call my name. I turn around, say

nothing.

  ”I ’’’ Can I still stay here?”

  ”Nothing has changed, Diann. I said you

could stay here. You can stay here.”

  ”Okay. Thanks.”

  ”You’re welcome.”

  ”Why don’t I make us all some dinner?”

she calls after me. ”Pasta? A salad?”

  ”Fine.”

  She closes the door, and the words I put to the

rhythm of my steps are, Why don’t you just

leave, huh? Why don’t you just leave?

  When I start the engine, I look at myself in

the mirror. I don’t know why I’m so mad at

her. She may be a lawyer, capable of star-

spangled lying, but I do believe her. And damn

it, I’m starting to like her.

 

 

 

                                   115

  Chip’s parents are waiting for me at the

front door. They lead me into the living room and

we sit down--all of us, I notice, close

to the edge of our seats. I lean back, meaning

to communicate something I don’t really feel:

relaxation. Confidence.

  ”Chip’s upstairs, getting ready,” his mother

says.

  I nod.

”I understand he’ll be seeing you at ’’’ your

place?”

  ”Well, he--”

  ”Oh, we have no objection. It’s just that

occasionally we’d like to talk to you as well. There are

certain things that may come up. Things we may need

you to do.”

  ”Of course. You’re welcome to call me,

any time. I believe I gave you my number.”

  ”Yes.” Mrs. Reardon smoothes back the

hair at one side of her head, checks her

watch. Recrosses her legs and neatens the

crease line in her pants. Then she looks over

at her husband, pointedly raises her

eyebrows.

   ”I can’t,” he says quietly.

  She sighs.

  ”I can’t!” He turns toward me. ”Myra,

my wife wants me to tell you that we both

believe Chip should aggressively pursue other

options; that he is no longer capable of making

decisions for himself, and we should intervene on his

behalf. There’s a clinic in Switzerland we

heard about. But as I told you before, I’m just not

sure--”

  ”As you told her when?” Mrs. Reardon

asks. ”When did you two talk about this?”

  ”It was just in passing,” I say. ”It wasn’t

really a conversation.”

  ”Ah,” she says. ”Well, I’m just his mother.

Why should I be included?”

  A long moment passes. Finally, I say,

”You know, all of this takes time to work out. There are

so many--”

  ”We have no time!”

  ”Elaine,” Mr. Reardon says.

”No! We have no time! That’s the truth!

We’re going to sit around here talking about his

`feelings”’ and his `options”’ and his `right

to participate in the decision tree,”’ and while

 we’re talking and talking and talking about    117

what to do, he’s going to die! Doesn’t anyone

but me understand what’s really happening here?”

  Mr. Reardon crosses the room, sits on

the arm of his wife’s chair, takes her hand.

”Maybe we’re not quite ready to do this now,” he

tells me.

  Mrs. Reardon stands, looks at me. ”You

don’t even know him.” She leaves the room.

  I clear my throat, reach for my nurse’s

bag.

  ”I’m sorry,” Mr. Reardon says.

”We’ve been ’’’ We haven’t even had any

sleep, lately.”

”I understand.”

  ”Really, we just would appreciate knowing how

he’s doing from your point of view. On some sort

of regular basis.”

  ”I’d be happy to tell you that. And ’’’

Well, you know there will come a time when he can’t come

to my house any more. When he’ll only be here.”

  ”Right. That will not be a good time.”

  ”No.”

  ”I talked to his doctor the other day. If

he gets no further treatment, that time will come

 pretty soon.”

  ”It’s hard to say when.”

  ”Around six weeks, tops, is what he

predicted, before--”

  ”It’s a guess.”

  ”Rather an educated one, though, wouldn’t you say?

I hired a pretty damn good oncologist.”

”I know you did. But it’s still a guess.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Chip coming

into the room. His father stands, and the expression on his

face changes to one of forced cheer. ”Well! Out

for the evening!”

  Chip is wearing a blue blazer over his

jeans, and a blue-and-white striped shirt. His

blue kerchief over his head.

  ”Thought we’d go out to dinner,” Chip says. And

then, ”Hi, Myra.”

  ”Actually, Diann’s cooking,” I tell

him.

  ”Really?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”She never cooks.”

  ”She is now.”

  ”What time will you be home?” Mr. Reardon

asks.

Chip turns toward him. ”What time    119

will I be home?” He starts to laugh. ”Dad.

Jesus. What could happen?”

  In the car, we ride in silence until we

hit the freeway. The more speed I pick up, the

more Chip seems to relax. He turns on the

radio, then says loudly over the music, ”You

can see why I need to get out of there.”

  ”Oh, they’re just ’’’ They want to save you,

Chip.”

  ”I know that.” He stares out the window. Then, more

quietly, ”I know.” He turns toward me.

”How about you?”

  ”Do I want to save you?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”I wish I could.”

  ”I wish you could, too.”

A car honks loudly, narrowly misses us.

My fault; I strayed out of my lane. ”Or

you could kill us both,” Chip says. ”We could go

together.”

  ”`NURSE AND PATIENT GREASED ON

LINDBERG STREET,”’” I say.

  ”`PATIENT’S PARENTS ENRAGED,”’”

 Chip says. ”`NOT WHAT I HAD

PLANNED,”’ SAYS MOTHER.”’”

  I look at him, smile. He shrugs. ”I

don’t worry so much about her.”

  ”I know. It’s your dad who’s the vulnerable

one.”

  ”You understand everything, Myra.”

  ”Well.”

  ”No. You do.”

  The Stones come on the radio, singing about how you

can’t always get what you want. First, we are

silent. Then we sing along.

  When we pull into the driveway I cut the

engine and open my door, start to get out. Chip

grabs my arm. ”Listen. Before we go in, I

want to tell you something. When you said all those things

last night, I was ’’’ I didn’t say anything

right afterward because I thought it was just so beautiful,

Myra. Really. I was sitting there, trying

to take it all in. All those amazing facts about

bodies. And then you were gone.”

  I look away, embarrassed.

  ”Next time you tell me something like that, something

about yourself, I hope you’ll stay. I wouldn’t mind

getting to know you a lot better.”

   ”I can smell the garlic from here,” I   121

say. As though it followed.

  Diann and I are in our pajamas, loading the

dishwasher. ”He gets a few words wrong now and

then,” Diann says. ”Did you notice when he

said, `How much time is it?”’”

  I smile. ”Yes.”

  ”But other than that, he seems so normal. Just

a guy with a bad haircut wearing a kerchief. And

popping pills every now and then.”

  ”I know.”

  ”When will it ’’’ get worse?”

  ”I don’t know.”

  She takes the sponge, starts wiping down the

counter. ”I’m not sure I can do that part, you know.

I’ve never ’’’ Well, I’m just not sure

I’ll be able to stay for that. I don’t know if he

wants me to, anyway.”

  I busy myself wiping wine glasses that are

too delicate for the dishwasher. I bought them

years ago. This is the first time I’ve used three

at once.

  ”Do you think he wants me to stay for ’’’

everything?”

   ”I think you’ll know when the time comes,

Diann.”

  She rinses out the sponge, leans back against the

sink, her arms crossed. ”You know something? This is

the first time I’ve ever been with him that I didn’t

feel competition all around me, all the time. It

was never easy with him, not in high school and not when

we got back together all those years later. You’d

go out to a restaurant with him, and the waitress would

be all over him. Or the waiter. Everywhere you

went, people just ’’’ And even if he didn’t pay

any attention to them, it was still so irritating.

  ”More than that, though, there was this kind of aloofness

in him. Even when we were alone, I felt

continually frustrated trying to reach him, to get to that

place. There was never any sense of sureness.

Of certainty. Even if he told me over and

over that he loved me and seemed to really mean it,

you could feel this holding back. He never really

gave himself away--not to me, and not to anyone else,

either, as far as I know. The irony is that now, when

I think he might finally let himself be fully

loved, I don’t think I can do it.” She

contemplates the floor, then looks up at me,

naked faced. ”Myra, tell me. When he

 dies, what will it be like?”               123

  ”It will just be him,” I say. ”Leaving. I

don’t know how else to describe it, really.

Unless something dramatic happens, something really

fast, you’ll just sort of see him disappear.

There’ll be less and less of him, until he’s

gone.” If I add that witnessing such a thing can be

deeply rewarding, that often times a dying patient

becomes a radiant instructor, someone

wonderful to be next to, she’ll probably

stay. If I tell her it’s unbearably hard,

which it also is, she’ll probably not stay.

  I look at her, meaning to say that attending

someone’s death is really very difficult; not many people

can do it. That it’s best to admit it, if you can’t;

there’s no blame in that. That it may not even be

worth it to do it, because oftentimes the memories you’re

left with are so grim. Better to remember him as

he was. Better to say good-bye now and go home

before the going gets tough. Leave him to the care of his

family and professionals like me. Leave him

to me. But when I open my mouth, what comes out

is, ”I think you should try to stay with him for as long

as you can. I’ll be here. I can help you.”

  ”But if he lasts for weeks and weeks ’’’”

   ”Your work?”

”Oh, no. That’s not a problem. I can work

pretty well from anywhere. No, I mean it’s a

long time to be here. I can’t ask you to put me

up that long. I’d need to get a hotel room.”

  ”No, you wouldn’t.”

  Later, lying in bed, I wonder who has

entered my body and made it say these things I

don’t mean. I turn onto my left side.

Then onto my right. I sit up, rub the back

of my neck. Turn on the bedside light and

pick up a book. Put the book down and turn

out the light.

  Finally, quietly, I cry for a while. And

then I take in a deep breath, oxygenate the

three hundred thousand air sacs in my lungs.

Does he know that? One of the three bones in the

middle ear is no bigger than a grain of rice,

how about that? I’ve got so much I could tell him.

I look down at Frank, asleep at the

side of my bed. Then I look out the window at

the black sky, at the stars separated

by unimaginable distances. When he took my arm

today, I liked that, I liked so much when he took

my arm. I make this thought into a shape, and sleep

 with it.                              125

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
”Woman, you ’bout as crabby as a

politician fresh out of lies,” DeWitt

says. ”You mean! What’s your problem, you got

Monday morning blues?”

  I say nothing, finish taping his dressing. I

need to stop by the office before I go home, pick

up some more tape, more 4 by 4’s too. Saline.

  ”I didn’t do nothin’, I know that. It ain’t

me!” He looks at me from under his heavy

lids. ”You ain’t got a thing to complain about today;

I been Sean Connelly.”

  ”I’ll see you tomorrow, DeWitt.”

  He takes my wrist, gently. ”What’s the

matter now, really? Is it something I can help you

with?”

  His brown eyes are so rich and honest, so open.

I mean to say no, thank you; but instead I burst

into tears. Frank comes running over, sniffing

nervously first at me, then at DeWitt.

  ”Whoa, call off your bodyguard,”

DeWitt says, moving away.

  ”Like he’d hurt you,” I say. I reach for

my nurse’s bag, open up a 4 by 4, blow

my nose into it.

   DeWitt pats the bed. ”Sit       127

down. Tell ole DeWitt all about it.”

Seeing the pat, Frank jumps up on the bed and

curls himself into a neat ball.

  Frank’s not supposed to get on the bed.

Frank’s not even supposed to even be here. One

of these days I’m going to get into real trouble for

all the rules I break.

  I stand looking at DeWitt for a while, and

then, the hell with it, I sit down, too. It

feels so good to be the one taken care offora

change, such a relief. I have a notion to kick

off my shoes, lie in the crook of DeWitt’s

arm, and ask him to sing me a lullaby, to read me

a story that is simple and has a happy ending.

Instead, I sit shyly looking down until

DeWitt takes one of my hands between his own, and

then I start crying again.

  ”You pillowed, honey?”

  I stop crying.

  ”What?!” he says. ”It’s not such a dumb

question. I seen plenty of womens act like you and the

problem is? ’’’ People-Rather-Every-Go-Not-Us-That!”

  ”I’m not pregnant.”

  ”You sure? I got some of them tests in the

 bathroom. Accu ’’’ Accuknocked-up,

something, I don’t know what they call it. But you

can take one. Go ahead, check yourself out.”

  ”You have pregnancy tests in your bathroom?”

  ”Sure do.”

”Why?”

  ”Why you think? I thought you’s a nurse.”

  I don’t know what to say. You never really know

anyone.

  ”You in love, right?”

  I look up sharply.

  ”Bingo. Give that man a cigar.”

  I sigh, stare at the wall.

  ”He don’t love you back, is that what you

think?”

  I nod.

  ”Maybe he don’t know you love him.”

  ”It wouldn’t matter.”

  ”You got to try. Hell, girl, you got

to try!”

  ”Oh, DeWitt, you say that like ’’’”

  ”Like what?”

  Like I would have a chance. Like I am an

attractive woman who can decide to go after

something she wants with some sense of confidence.

 ”He’s one of my patients,           129

DeWitt. And he’s a dying man.”

  He nods slowly, blinks. Then he says,

”We all dyin’, baby.”

  ”Yes, but some of us have longer than others.”

  ”You got an agreement with somebody

important? You got some guarantee you won’t

step out in the street and get run over by a city

bus? Happened yesterday. Downtown Detroit.

Some guy tear-assing across the street, going back

to the office after his workout. Carrying his gym

clothes, thinking ’bout how his body in such great

shape. Now what is he? A memory.”

  ”Oh, I know. I know what you’re saying.

Well, anyway. Thank you.” I stand, pick

up my bag. Frank hops off the bed and heads

for the front door. He’s ready for the next

patient. Grace, who believes that there’s something

wrong with her baby’s scrotum.

  ”Why don’t you bring this chump over, let me

size him up?”

  ”Bring him here?”

  ”Yeah. I want to meet him. What’s his

name, anyway?”

  ”Chip Reardon.”

   ”You’re shitting me.”

  ”No.”

  ”His name is Chip?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”What the hell kind of name is that?”

  ”I don’t know. A white name.”

  He grins. ”You said it, not me. But anyway,

bring him on by. Tomorrow. I’ll help him find a

new name for himself. Give that boy some dignity.”

”Maybe I will.”

  Only yesterday, Chip asked if he could come

to work with me some time. Said he’d wait outside

during the visits, that he’d just like to see where I

go.

  On the way down the steps outside

DeWitt’s apartment, I ask Frank, ”Do you

want to bring Chip here tomorrow?”

  He looks up at me, wags his tail.

  ”Should I ask him?”

  He barks, happily. ”You’re a good boy,”

I tell him. ”Smart.”

               * * *

  ”Look,” Grace says. ”See how it’s

all swollen?”

  She points to her baby’s scrotum, which is

 completely normal. Nonetheless, I      131

look carefully before I tell her that.

”Are you sure?” she says.

  ”Yes. Tell me what concerns you. Have you

noticed a change?”

  She looks away, blushes. She’s wearing a

gray T-shirt over her tiny jeans, no more

than a size four, I’d guess--you’d never know

she recently had a baby. She wears no

shoes. Purple toenail polish, most of it

chipped off. Plenty of makeup, including a

glittery eye shadow. Her blond hair is

twisted up and held in place with a long, silver

barrette. She’s a pretty girl. And smarter

than she knows. I wish she’d look up from her

life and reach for something.

  ”I haven’t seen no change because I haven’t

exactly been checking out the equipment. I

don’t want to give him a complex or something.”

  ”Well, he’s fine. Completely normal.

How’s he doing otherwise? Eating okay?

Sleeping more?”

  She looks at him, runs her finger along his

cheek. ”He’s okay.” She shrugs. ”He’s

not that interesting, really.”

   ”Is that what you really think, Grace?”

  She smiles.

  ”Is it?”

  ”He ain’t interesting that you can, like, talk about

him to someone else. You can’t say, oh he said this

and he said that.”

  ”No, he doesn’t talk yet. But he

does do some interesting things, doesn’t he?”

  She picks him up, sits on her bed, lays

him out gently along the length of her lap. ”I

seen him the other day just ’’’ watching. He’s going

to be way smarter than me.” She slides her

fingers into his tiny hands. ”Watch this.” She

pulls up and her baby hangs on grimly.

”Strong.”

  ”That’s a reflex,” I say. ”That will

disappear.”

  She looks up at me, stricken.

  ”Oh, the ability will come back. But he’ll be

doing it because he wants to.”

  ”Well, that will be even better.” She looks

past me, out the window. ”What’s it like outside?”

Her longing is so subtle. In some ways, she’s

very grown up. Certainly she has displayed

admirable equanimity in coming to terms with all

 she’s had to give up. She was a         133

cheerleader; she still wears the little silver megaphone

around her neck. Posters of rock stars are on

her wall, tickets to concerts she attended.

Bottles of cheap perfume and tubes of

lipstick are lined up on her dresser, along with

plastic cases of blusher and eye shadow, held

together by rubber bands. Stuffed animals are on her

bed, yellowing paperbacks beside it. She reads every

night. Mostly romances, but she will try other

things. I brought her an Anne Tyler once, and

Grace said the characters were strange, but she liked it.

  ”It’s nice out,” I tell her. ”Not as hot

as yesterday. Why don’t you take Kurt out?

Put him in his stroller and take him for a walk?”

  ”Well, he bends over like a rag doll in that

thing.”

  ”He’s fine.”

  ”Don’t his organs get smashed if he

sits like that?”

  ”No, he’s all right in it.”

  ”Okay. Maybe I will take him.” She

goes to the mirror, lets down her hair and

starts brushing it.

I put my stethoscope back in my bag,

 think about the notes I’ll need to make.

Mother’s involution complete. Confidence still

lacking.

  ”How long did it take you to be a nurse?”

Grace asks, suddenly.

  ”Four years.”

  ”Oh.”

  ”But you can go for two years, too. You’d get

a different kind of degree, but you’d still be an

R.ation.”

  ”I don’t want to be a nurse,” she

says. ”I was just curious. Being a nurse is--

I mean, I’m sorry, not to be rude--but it is

gross. Somebody give me a bedpan ’’’”

She shudders.

  ”Nursing’s not for everyone, that’s true. What

about you, what do you want to be?”

”Happy.”

  ”Well,” I say, putting my bag on my

shoulder. ”That’s a good thing to aspire to. That’s

the best thing.” We smile at each other. When

Grace smiles, you see her as one step away

from a flat-chested little girl, reaching for her mother’s

hand.

  In my maternity textbook photos, the new

 mothers were always very attractive. They would    135

be sitting up in their neatly made hospital

beds with a wide ribbon in their hair, smiling down

at the infant held close to their nonleaking

breasts. Off to the side there would be evidence of The

Father: half of a masculine torso, perhaps. A

successful-looking masculine torso wearing a

suit.

  In practice, there were some mothers who resembled

those photographs, if not in looks then in spirit.

But most of the mothers I saw were different than that.

Such as the bitter unmarried woman I once

cared for, a sharp-boned thinness to her, her eyeliner

perpetually smeared, the spike heels she wore

in with her maternity jeans tossed into her clothes

locker, a distance between her baby and her even when

she held him close. There were also a fair

number of older women who had other children at home

--sometimes many children--who kept their cups from their

meal trays and filled them all day long with

coffee from the visitors’ lounge. Who turned

their babies over to the nurses so they could go out and

have a smoke, talk to other mothers about the goddamn

laundry piling up at home that he wasn’t

about to do. Whose nightgowns were old and stained and whose

 bouquets were those that someone else left behind.

  None of those women thrilled to the sight of a

heartbeat in their baby’s fontanel; none held

tiny feet in their hands and felt moved

to simultaneous laughter and tears. None bathed

newborn bodies with a sense of great wonder and

fear.

  If there is something I mean to do for Grace, it

is to let her know all that is before her in that baby,

to help her see the rightness in being profoundly

grateful for something even when it is so hard. I

see the connection starting to form: There is a line between

her boy and her that makes her feel something when he

feels something; there is a start of primal

ferociousness growing beneath her breastbone, taking its

rightful place there.

 

 

 

 

                                   
137

  ”Are you sure everyone knows I’m coming?” Chip

asks. His voice is light, insubstantial.

One heel taps rapidly, though soundlessly,

against the car floor.

  ”They know,” I say. I don’t know why

he’s so nervous. I wish I’d brought Frank,

who makes everybody relax. But he really

needed to go to the groomer’s. Diann will pick him

up. It’s kind of nice having a roommate.

Yesterday she bought groceries, and she brought

home an English cucumber, which I’d never

tried. Very good--hardly any seeds.

  ”Maybe I shouldn’t actually go in with you,

though,” Chip says. ”Maybe I should just wait

outside.”

  ”You don’t have to come in. But you’re welcome

to.”

”But do they know about the way I look?” His hand

goes to his wound. Checking. Still there.

  ”Here’s what I told them. I said you were a

friend of mine from out of town who is recovering from some

surgery, and that you wanted to come to work with me.

They’re all fine with your coming in. Even Ann

Peters, which really surprised me. She wants

 us to have tea with her, in fact.”

  He nods. Then, abruptly, he asks,

”Would you mind turning the radio off?”

  ”Not at all.” I take a quick look at

him. ”Does your head hurt?”

  ”No worse than usual.”

  ”Do you need to take something?”

  ”I did.”

  I pull into the parking lot of a White Hen,

turn off the engine. ”You okay? You still want to do

this?”

”Yes. I do. I’m just ’’’ I was trying

’’’ Oh, goddamn it. What’s today?”

  ”Tuesday.”

  ”Tuesday.” He says the word as though he’s

tasting it. ”Okay. And it’s ’’’ June?”

  ”It’s August,” I say, gently. And

feel my stomach lurch.

  ”August ’’’”

  ”Seventh.”

  ”Okay.” He takes a huge breath in,

smiles. ”God. It’s embarrassing.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”And ’’’ I’m not sure I know anymore when

I don’t know.” He sighs, turns to look out

 the window for a long moment. Then, turning    139

back to me, ”Who can be with me, Myra? Not

Diann. Not Diann, she can’t do it. This is so

lonely, I’m in here so alone. That’s the thing that

hurts the most. Somebody draws this small

circle, you step inside. Somebody stops the

bus and tells you you have to get off and you’re not

nearly where you wanted to go, but you have to get off. And

nobody will look at you the whole way down the

aisle. If only they would look.”

  I take his hand and do that hardest of things; sit

still and say nothing. He lets me hold this small

part of himself while he quietly weeps, and we

sit there watching people come out of the store with bags

full of things for their ordinary lives. And I would

bet everything I own that Chip and I are feeling the

same thing: a longing as wide as the world. On my

wrist, a watch ticks. Second by second

goes by. This is how the days pass. In this

small, measured way. You can see it. The

second hand moves relentlessly around the clock

face. Forward. Forward. Forward. More than once

in my life I have wanted to just stop everything.

               * * *

  DeWitt has cleaned his apartment; there’s the

 scent of Pine Sol everywhere. He offers his big

chair to Chip, then sits beside me on the sofa.

”S. Where you from?”

  ”New York City,” Chip says. ”But I

was raised around here.”

  ”You like living there?” He scratches his chest

lazily. He is in his stocking feet, and one little

toe shows through one of the holes.

  ”I’m not sure anyone does, really.”

  ”So how come you stay?”

  A long moment passes, and then Chip laughs.

”You know what? I don’t have a good answer for

that.” He’s so nervous; his hands are clenched, his

back ramrod straight.

  ”Well, his work,” I tell DeWitt. ”It

was a good place to be for what he does.”

  ”What line of work you in?” DeWitt asks.

  ”I’m a stockbroker.”

  DeWitt leans back, stretches his arm

along the top of the sofa. ”Yeah, I’m a

bidnessman myself. I know sometime you got to do what

you don’t want to do. That’s so, later on, you can

do what you want to do.”

  ”I guess that’s the way it works.” Chip

looks around the living room. ”How about you? Have you

 lived here long?”                     141

  ”Twenty-seven years,” DeWitt says.

And then, abruptly, ”What do you say we take

a tour through my candy store? You tense, man.

You got to re-lax. That’s the first thing. I got

something for everything, and I got something for you.”

  ”DeWitt,” I say.

  ”Just a little something, on the house.”

”DeWitt!”

  ”It’s all right, Myra,” Chip says.

  ”No, it isn’t!”

  ”Now, now, now.” DeWitt goes over

to his hall closet, where he pulls down a

large cardboard box. ”This just something between us

boys. ’Less you want some, too.”

  ”No, I do not.”

  ”Not like you never seen me under the influence before.”

  ”I’m well aware of that, DeWitt.”

  ”Aw, put your feathers down. I ain’t

gonna hurt your little friend, here. I know more than

most doctors do ’bout drugs, that’s the God’s

honest truth. I’ll just help him relax.

Give him just a little something to make him feel

good. He got a right to feel good! Give me a

little something too, then we both feel good. And then

 we gon’ find him a new name.”

”All right,” I say. ”That’s it. We’re

leaving.”

  ”I wouldn’t mind a new name,” Chip says.

  I stand, pick up my bag. ”Come on,

let’s go.”

  I head for the door. No one follows me. I

stand in the hall, call Chip’s name, hear nothing

but the low sound of the men’s voices. I wait for

what seems like hours but probably is less

than five minutes. Then I come back to the

living room.

  ”I am responsible for you, Chip,” I say

quietly.

  He smiles. ”Oh, Myra. No, you’re

not.” He tosses something in his mouth, swallows

it.

  ”What was that?” I ask DeWitt. ”What

did he just take?”

”Two and a half milligrams of Valium.”

  ”That’s all?”

  ”That make you a little less nervous yourself? That

make you relax?”

  I say nothing.

  ”That’s all he took.”

   Chip leans his head against the back of the   143

chair, his eyes closed.

  I could kill DeWitt.

  Chip sits up suddenly, opens his eyes

wide. ”We’re ordering out for Chinese. Shrimp

with lobster sauce. You want some?”

  There’s no way I’m taking Chip home.

All I need is for his parents to see him like this:

lids at half mast, a foolish grin on his

face, his balance equivalent to that of a baby

who’s just begun walking.

”I’m taking you to my house,” I tell

Chip. ”Until you ’’’ For a while. What did

you really take?”

  ”Valium. Val-e-yum.”

  ”I don’t think so.”

  ”Awwww. Don’t you trust DeWitt?”

  I shift, say nothing.

  ”You should trust him,” Chip says. ”He’s a

honest man.”

  ”He’s a drug dealer!”

  ”Yes. As I said. He’s honest. People need

drugs; he just acknowledges that simple truth.

It’s hard here. People need drugs.”

   ”People need a spiritual bank account,” I say.

”Not drugs.”

  ”Oh, come on, Myra. Haven’t you ever

taken rec drugs?”

  I say nothing.

”Nev-er?”

  ”I did, once.”

  ”What did you take? Pepto-Bismol?”

  ”No. For your information, I took acid.”

  ”Whoa! Really?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”When was that?”

  ”In college. A bunch of us did it. It

was my first year, our dorm floor went on a little

outing--to ”bond,” you know. And my roommate and

I and about six or seven others, we took

acid.” I look at him, shrug.

  ”So what happened?”

  ”Oh, it was ’’’ Well, it was on a sugar

cube. This brown stain in the middle of a pure

white sugar cube. It looked to me like sin on a

soul. And I put it in my mouth and I waited for

it to dissolve, and as soon as it was gone I got this

terrible, panicky feeling. It was like realizing

you’d just stepped into quicksand. I sat down in a

 field--we were out in this beautiful park--   145

and I just waited. And after a while, I started

to feel this sense of such ’’’ wisdom.”

  Chip laughs. ”Right. `We are all

one.”’”

  ”Yes. Yes. And my roommate lay down

next to me and she said--in this terrifically calm

voice--she said, `I think I’m going to die

now.”’ She really thought she was going to die, but she

was so calm about it.”

  I realize, suddenly, that I’m talking about

dying to a dying man. But Chip appears unfazed.

It seems that for the time being, he has put thoughts of

his own death out of his mind. As we do.

  ”So she’s lying there,” I continue, ”saying this

stuff, and at first I thought, oh God, maybe

I ought to do something. But I didn’t. I just sat

there. And then I got really calm, too. I

remember thinking, well, that’s okay that she’s

dying. That’s all right. It’s the Mighty

Journey. It’s good. It’s natural. I

started looking into the centers of all the

wildflowers, and I saw this pattern that seemed

to me to be echoed everywhere, within and without, you know, and

I started saying `It’s all right here.”’

 Over and over, `It’s all right here.”’” I

laugh, look over at him. ”I don’t know. In

some ways, I guess I still think that.”

  ”Sounds to me like you had a pretty good time.

I’m surprised you didn’t take it again.”

  ”Oh, it didn’t stay a good time. There came

a point when I had to pee. But I wasn’t

really sure. I mean, I had the sensation, but it

was ’’’ separate. It was as though I were holding the

feeling for someone else.”

  ”I know exactly what you mean.” We are at

a stoplight, and I look over at Chip. His

eyes are closed. He’s smiling.

  The light changes, and I shift gently, not

wanting to disturb him. ”I got up and headed for the

bathroom--it was one of those park bathrooms, log

cabin type, forest green trim, very cozy--and I

went in there and I saw myself in the mirror. And

there were all these pulsating red blobs on my

face. But I didn’t get upset. I was

fascinated; I just kept looking.

  ”But then the sink started to melt off the wall.

And I remember I all of a sudden felt this

terrible sense of regret. I thought, I’ll never

see the world right again. I went into the stall to pee--

 it seemed to take about an hour and a        147

half; it seemed that was all there ” in the world--and

then I came back outside and I couldn’t find

anyone. For a long time. And then ’’’ I don’t

remember this part, but I guess someone found me.

At any rate, I got back to the dorm. And

that night, I lay in my bed thinking, oh please,

let me just be done now, let me come down. I

couldn’t get comfortable--no matter how I arranged

myself. I was just too aware of everything. Finally,

I lay flat on my back and held a pillow

to my chest and stared at the ceiling, thinking, all I

have to do is wait. I just have to let time pass and

everything I think I’ve lost will come back to me.

And my roommate--who had not died, of course--

was weeping. Just crying and crying. And when I

asked if she was okay, if she needed something, she

said, ”No. It’s good. It’s good.”

  I shake my head, look over at him.

”Wow. I haven’t thought of that for a long time.”

He nods. Barely.

  ”Chip? Are you all right?”

  ”It’s good, Myra.”

  ”But are you--”

  ”I’m all right! Really!” He sits up,

 looks out the window. ”Hey, we’re by Carroll

Lake, aren’t we?”

  ”Oh. ’’’ ten minutes or so. Why?”

  ”I’d like to go there.”

  ”It’ll be dark soon.”

  ”Right. So let’s hurry.”

  The sun is starting to set when we arrive,

flattening against the edge of the horizon. No one

else is there. We sit on the sand, near the

lifeguard’s chair. There is a wild wind

blowing--the tree branches look as though they’re

wrestling with each other.

Chip picks up a handful of sand, lets it

sift through his fingers. ”I’m fucked, aren’t I?”

  I say nothing.

  ”Aren’t I?”

  ”It’s bad, what you have.”

  ”Have you ever heard of anyone with this recovering?”

  ”No. But I haven’t heard of everyone. Do

you know what I mean? Sometimes I think there must be

people walking around with terrible diagnoses who never go

to the doctor. And who knows how long they live?”

  ”I’m fucked.”

  I say nothing, draw a line in the sand, make

 it into a cross, then, quickly, an         149

asterisk.

  ”Hey, Myra, are there really sixty thousand

miles in the circulatory system?”

  ”Yup.”

  He sighs. ”I don’t know so much. I

won’t have a chance to learn about so much. That’s one

of the things that’s just driving me crazy. That and ’’’

Well, okay, I’m not going to bounce any

grandchildren on my knee, but I’ve got some time

left. And what should I do with it? I think I should

do what I really love. But, you know, I’m not

sure what I love. Honest to God, Myra.

I feel like I’ve lived my life in a

beekeeper’s suit.

  ”I do know, though, that I love being surprised

by things like that amazing number. By being shown what’s

right before me that I never knew. I mean, did you

ever take a look at all the shelves in ’’’ in

that room in the library? Where you look things up?

Did you ever see all those books? Tomes

dedicated to the life of the alligator!”

  ”I guess I haven’t. I’ve used a

reference room, but I’ve never browsed there.”

Chip stands, brushes the sand off himself.

 ”Okay. Let’s go. I want to show you.”

He’s wide awake now.

  ”You really want to?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”The library closes at nine.”

  ”What time is it?”

  I squint at my watch. ”Eight

twenty-three.”

  ”Well. It’s no problem for you to get somewhere

fast, is it?”

  I throw my keys up in the air, catch them.

  The library is almost empty when we arrive.

There is no one, not even a librarian, in the

reference room. From the children’s room, though, we

hear the sound of laughter. ”Bedtime story hour,”

I tell Chip, as we stroll past the low

bookcases.

  ”What’s that?”

  ”Oh, the kids come in their pajamas and hear a

story.”

  ”Cute.”

  ”Yeah, it is. I go, sometimes.”

  ”Do you?”

  ”Yeah.”

   ”Why?”                          151

  ”Well ’’’” I’m embarrassed now. ”I like

to watch them.”

  ”Ever talk to them?”

  ”Talk to them? ’’’ No.”

  ”Why not?”

  ”I don’t know. I like to just watch them.”

  ”I have to say, I never much liked it when my

parents read to me,” Chip says. ”It was never just

for pleasure--I always had to learn something. I’d

hear a story and then I’d have to take a little

quiz. Were your parents like that?”

  I smile. ”No. No, I had to take the

test before the story--I’d have to have been good enough that day

to be read to that night.” A memory comes to me of

sitting next to my father as he read a book to me,

Parakeet Pete, it was called, wondering

what about the story made him so angry. I

listened carefully to the words, inspected the

pictures closely, thinking, What? What

is it? But it wasn’t the book. It was the way

he saw life, his dark take on everything, the

bleakness of his soul. I don’t think I ever

once saw him smile. And my mother? She read

to me like she swept the kitchen floor: It had

 to be done, it wasn’t the worst job she had

to do; it was, at least, over quickly. It’s

funny; it took such a long time for me to understand that

my parents never wanted children. I was in my

twenties before I realized that nothing I might have

done--or not done--would have made any difference.

My grades didn’t matter, my interests, my

aspirations. Once my mother put a picture of

herself as a beautiful fifteen-year-old next

to my sophomore year school photo and sighed.

But if I too had been beautiful, I don’t

think that would have mattered, either. I don’t think so.

  Chip goes over to a table, sits down,

looks around the room. ”It smells good in here.”

  ”Yes. Books.”

  ”And it feels good, too. There’s a kind of

residue. People have been here. Thinking.”

  ”Yes.” I feel the same weighty richness

in the air. A rough equivalent to the sound the

pendulum of a large grandfather clock makes,

swinging. Or to the sight of someone’s head bowed over

a book, a wash of late afternoon sunlight

illuminating the pages. If we were in bed,

holding hands, lights out, I could tell him these

things.

   ”Myra, show me those blood          153

vessels, will you? I want to see them. I’m

going to just sit down.”

  I look at him.

  ”Just a little tired. Really.”

  I find the section on anatomy, pull down

a book called The Illustrated Guide to the

Human Body. I bring it to the table, find a

page with a map of the circulatory system. Chip

stares and stares at it. Then he lays his head

down on the page. ”You know, I used to believe,

when I was a little boy, that if I lay my head

down on a page and concentrated, everything on that

page would transfer into my head.”

”Whereas I thought the technique was to put your

head next to a smart person’s, and if they

wanted to, they could transfer things from their ear

into yours.”

  ”Come here,” he says. ”We’ll try it.”

  I laugh.

  ”Come on.”

  I put my head down next to his, align

our ears. ”Ahhh,” he says. ”I feel

it.”

  He’s not the only one.

   Over the loudspeaker comes the low voice of the

librarian telling patrons to bring to the desk the

materials they want to check out; it’s closing

time. Chip looks at me. ”Guess that’s that.”

  ”We can come back again.”

  ”Oh well, what for?” He stands, tucks in

his shirt, rearranges the kerchief on his head.

Everything has shifted.

  We walk down the steps to the first floor, see

a couple probably somewhere in their eighties

walking arm in arm out the door. Their heads incline

toward each other: old love. I imagine their

house, their bed, the dust on the windowsills that

neither one of them can see anymore, the bowl of

oranges on their kitchen table, photograph

albums stored on the high shelves of their

closets.

  And now, just ahead of us, a mother with two young children

dressed in look-alike pajamas. She is

carrying an armload of children’s books, telling her

two girls that if they don’t start moving faster,

they won’t have time for another story before bed. Then,

lunging suddenly toward her younger, a toddler who

is moving away from her toward an open display of

birds’ nests, the mother drops her books. Some

land at her feet, others a good distance     155

away, near us. Chip picks up a few, hands

them to her. She smiles and distractedly thanks

him, but when she looks up and sees his kerchief,

her face fills with pity. And fear. She will not

reprimand her children about anything for the rest of the night,

I know. She might hug them so tightly before they

go to sleep that they will pull away in happy

confusion.

  Chip stands taller, raises his chin. I want

to take his arm, but instead just move closer to him.

  We say nothing on the way to the car. Then, as

we pull away from the library, I say gently,

”So, I’ll just take you home, now, all right?”

  A moment. The deejay on the radio

exuberantly announces the weather for tomorrow. Hot

and humid. ”If you don’t mind,” Chip says,

”I’d like to come home with you.”

My heart lifts.

  ”See Diann.”

  ”Oh, uh-huh.”

  ”She can take me home later.”

  ”Right. That’s fine.”

  As for me, I will find something to read while I

listen to the busy silence of the two of them behind the

 closed door in the room down the hall from me.

I know they’ll have sex. Diann asked me last

night if it could hurt him. And I said no. I

saw his chest slick with sweat, his face full of the

sweet pain of pleasure. No, I said, it

wouldn’t hurt him--a little increased intracranial

pressure with orgasm, big deal. Take it

slow, I said. Make sure everything’s all right

with what you’re doing before you ’’’ go on.

  I am his nurse. I am his nurse. My

job is to monitor signs and symptoms,

supervise medications, to educate and support.

My job is also to help him enjoy what is

left for him, no matter who it’s with, no matter

what form it takes, so long as it’s legal.

Then, thinking of DeWitt, I amend this to: so

long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

  I feel a tear slip down my cheek.

Quickly--and with great, misplaced anger--I wipe

it away.

  I am lying in bed reading Rosie’s

All-Butter, Fresh Cream, Sugar-Packed

Baking Book, the recipe for chocolate

orgasms. Close as I’m going to get.

   I am also trying very hard to hear        157

everything that’s going on down the hall from me--without

shame, it’s my house. Not that I’ve had to try

so hard. You can see why Diann was a

cheerleader. At one point, she actually roused

Frank from sleep--he looked around blankly

before he put his head back down on his paws,

sighing. ”Want up?” I asked him, patting the

bed beside me. He wagged his tail, refused.

  Now there is the low sound of Chip and Diann

talking. Maybe they’re reviewing the good time they

just had, doing the usual postcoital filling in of

scorecards. The postcoital experience for me

is always similar to how you feel after a massive

cheat on your diet: You shove food in your mouth,

barely chewing; then, afterward, you don’t know where

to look. Shame lies curled in your belly; you

want to grab hold of your need and shake it.

  I hear Chip laugh softly, then Diann.

Oh, how did this happen? How is it that I am

lying in my bed in the place that is supposed to be

my refuge, listening to a man I so much care for

make love to another woman? On my sheets!

That I spent a long time selecting--and from

Bloomingdale’s, not even Bed and Bath!

   I get up, pull on a pair of jeans and a

T-shirt, go down into the kitchen and open the

refrigerator. Frank comes into the room with his

Frisbee in his mouth. ”Wrong,” I tell him,

looking to see if I have all the ingredients

to make orgasms. A little bit short on nuts

--the irony does not escape me--but enough to make

do. I turn on the oven, take out the mixing

bowl. And turn the radio on.

  As I’m finishing my third orgasm, I see

Chip and Diann coming down the stairs. He’s

fully dressed; she’s in a beautiful blue

silk robe.

  I turn my attention back to the American

Journal of Nursing. An article on renal

failure.

  ”What smells so good?” Chip asks.

  I point to the kitchen. ”Treats, have some.”

There’s no way I’m going to call these what they

are.

  He goes into the kitchen, and Diann sits at

the table with me. ”I’m sorry,” she says

quietly.

  ”For what?”

   ”For ’’’ well, I think I might    159

have been a little ’’’ loud.”

  ”I was down here,” I say, ambiguously.

And then I look up to see Chip, who has come

out with a plate full of orgasms. He sets them

on the table, takes one. Diann looks

longingly, but takes nothing.

  ”Diann,” he says, pointing to the plate, his

mouth full.

  She shakes her head. ”I’m not really

hungry.” She pokes at the edge of one of the

smaller squares, takes her hand away, then

picks it up. ”What the hell.” She breaks it

in half, eats one half; then, quickly, the other.

”I remember the first time I made brownies,”

she says. ”I was so proud. I took them out of the

oven, left them on the stove top, and went to my

bedroom to do homework while they cooled. When I

came back, they were all gone--my brothers and

sisters had eaten every one. That was one of the many times

I wished I were an only child.”

  ”Be glad you weren’t,” I say.

  ”Oh, but wasn’t it ’’’ didn’t you get so

much attention?” Diann asks.

  ”No,” I say. People who had brothers and

 sisters hate it when you tell them this. They want

you to prove them right, support their fantasy that you

spent much of your time seated between two adoring

parents who took turns stroking your hair and

praising you. They don’t want to hear about silent

dinners, awkward vacations, the long hours when your

parents went out and you sat in the living room

waiting for them to come home.

  I go into the kitchen to get a carton of milk and

some glasses, set them on the table. ”Here’s how

great it was being an only child,” I say. ”I used

to cut children out of magazines to be my brothers and

sisters. I taped them up on my bedroom

wall. My mother would yell about tape on the

walls and take them down. Then I’d cut out some

more.”

  ”I pretended a frog was my brother,” Chip

says. ”His name was Sherman. I kept him in

a cardboard box in a corner of my room with a

screen over it. When I did my homework, I

put him on the desk and held him down to keep

him from hopping off.”

  ”You never told me about him,” Diann says,

laughing.

  ”Oh, sure,” Chip says. ”When you have

 brothers and sisters, your fantasy is     161

to be an only child. When you’re an only child, your

fantasy is to have brothers and sisters.”

  ”I guess I didn’t really want to be an

only child,” Diann says. ”I liked playing with

my sisters, and I loved my little brother. Although

I was often terrible to him. Last time I saw him,

he reminded me of the time I--”

  Chip stands suddenly, then heads for the downstairs

bathroom. We hear the sounds of him vomiting.

Diann looks at me, wide-eyed. ”It’s

all right,” I say. ”I’ll take care of it.”

I go to stand outside the door, hear the toilet

flush, the tap water run. When he opens the

door, I say quietly, ”You okay?”

  He laughs, embarrassed. ”I just ’’’ it

all of a sudden came on! I mean, I didn’t

even feel sick!” I nod, not wanting him

to ask me if this is because of the cancer. ”Guess I

ate too many brownies,” he says, and I can

tell from the way he is not quite looking at me that

he knows it’s not that.

               * * *

  The next morning, I call Dr.

Samuelson to let him know about Chip’s

 vomiting. He increases the dose of steroids.

I make the change in the chart, then call

Chip’s parents to let them know. His mother answers

the phone. When I tell her there’ll be a change

in medication, she asks why. When I explain,

she says, ”That’s it. He’s doing too much.

He needs to stay here. I just can’t have him wearing

himself out this way.”

  I say nothing.

  ”Miss Lipinski?”

  ”Yes, I’m here.”

  ”You all seem to think this is some kind of

game.”

  ”No, I--”

  ”Perhaps you’re unaware of the fact that we have

signed papers, all of us, so that Chip’s father and

I can make decisions for him should it become necessary.

I think that time is here. I’m going to have to ask that

Chip stay with us all the time now. And I think,

too, that maybe he should have another nurse.”

  ”Mrs. Reardon--”

  She hangs up.

  Fifteen minutes later, the phone rings.

Mr. Reardon. Asking me to continue seeing

Chip. Asking me to let him continue coming to my

 house.                             163

  ”Maybe it would be best if we were all to get

together,” I say. ”I think we need to talk about

this.”

  ”Well, my wife has agreed to let Chip

do what he wants.”

  I tap my pencil eraser on my desk,

stare at my calendar. Then I say, ”May I

speak with her?”

  When she comes to the phone, before I can say

anything, she says, simply, ”Take him, I

don’t care.”

  ”I’d like to come and see you, Mrs. Reardon.”

  ”I don’t want to see you. I said, take

him. That’s what you want. You don’t need to see

me. I’m not the patient.”

”May I please come and talk with you?”

  Silence.

  ”How about tomorrow afternoon?”

  A long pause. And then, ”At what time?”

  ”Four o’clock?”

  ”Yes,” she says, sighing. ”All right.”

  I hang up the phone, stare out the window,

imagine her doing the same, her well-manicured

fingers to the hollow of her neck, her blue gaze

 steady. I do understand, I want to tell her. I

do.

  A little after eleven that night, I am working in

my office when I hear a noise. I look up

and see Diann, dressed in shorts and Chip’s

T-shirt. ”Can I come in?”

  ”Sure.” I close Grace’s chart. ”Is

he all right?”

”Yeah. Sleeping.”

  ”You can’t, though, huh?”

  ”Well, I’m used to staying up a lot

later. But he gets so tired. You know.”

  ”Right.”

  ”So,” she says, sitting down in the armchair

across from me. ”Big meeting tomorrow!”

  ”Yes. I really need to get some things

straight with his mother.”

  ”Good luck. You know, his Dad’s a real

peach, but that mother ’’’”

  ”Chip told me you two had never gotten

along.”

  ”That’s putting it mildly. From the first time I

met her, she was always very cool toward me. And then

I slept with Chip for the first time in her house.”

   ”You did?”                       165

  ”Yeah, it was toward the end of our senior year.

I’d decided to go ahead and do it, even though

I always thought it was tacky to do it in high school.

But my rationalization was that this was close enough

to graduation. And I was so in love with him, even

then. I really thought we’d stay together forever, get

married, have the two kids, the four bedrooms ’’’

Anyway, Chip’s parents were out of town, they’d

gone to New Orleans. And we made love in his

bedroom, on these very tasteful boy sheets, I

remember they had a thin, navy blue stripe.

His mother had decorated his room like something right out

of a magazine, but there wasn’t much Chip there.

  ”There was some blood, of course. We washed the

sheets, and I remember being so impressed that

Chip knew how to use a washing machine--I

didn’t until after my first year of college.

But we washed the sheets, bleached them, even, and

I was sure no one would ever be able to tell a thing.

Then I ran into her and her husband a few days

after that and I swear she knew everything. Her

husband was very friendly, as usual, but she didn’t

crack a smile, didn’t say a word. She just

stared at me, like, I know exactly what

 happened between you and my son, you whore.”

  ”Huh. I wonder if Chip told her or

something.”

  ”Oh, God, no. He would never have done that.

He’s had a hard time with his mother all his life;

he’s never confided in her about anything. You can’t

get close to someone like that. She’s interested in one

perspective: her own. And I’m not sure she

would ever have approved of anyone for Chip.”

  ”Well, it’ll be an interesting meeting.”

  Diann picks up a seashell I keep on

the windowsill and looks at it, turning it over and

over. ”I’m sure she’s beside herself that I’m

around again.”

  ”She hasn’t really mentioned you. Her big

issue is that she wants Chip to pursue much more

aggressive treatment. She feels he’s not

taking his illness seriously.”

  ”Oh, he’s taking it seriously. But his way

of doing that is to--”

  ”I know.” I’m the one who told you.

  She puts the shell down, stands. ”Well. I

guess you’re busy.”

  ”I do have to get some work done.”

  ”I’m sorry for interrupting.”

   ”It’s all right.”                  167

  ”Would you mind if I watched television?

I’ll keep the volume low.”

  ”Go right ahead.” I open Grace’s chart,

pull my chair up closer to my desk.

  Diann leaves the room, and I make a few

more notes, then close the chart again. I don’t

really have to work. I can do this tomorrow.

  She’s out there watching television in some

stranger’s house, wondering if all the plants

have died in her apartment where she too lives alone.

She came here to try to take care of the man she

has always loved, and she’s failing.

  I go into the living room, sit on the sofa beside

her.

  ”Oh! Hi!” She wipes quickly under her

eyes; she’s been crying. Then she laughs,

embarrassed.

  ”Mind if I watch with you?”

  ”Not at all. Of course, I’m not really

watching.”

  ”Should I turn it off?”

  ”No. I just like the sound of voices, talking

about something else.”

”Right.”

   ”Myra, I have to ’’’ You know why I got

up? I need to do some wash.” She starts crying

again. ”He pissed the bed.”

  ”Oh, Diann.”

  ”I came into your study to tell you, but then I

just couldn’t. I don’t know why.”

  ”Well, this is going to start happening,

Diann. Once in a while at first; then more and more

frequently. How was he about it?”

  ”He was ’’’ mixed up, mostly. He’d been

sound asleep. I felt it right away, and I

jumped up and started yanking the sheets off--I

saved the mattress, by the way. And he ’’’

Well, I told him I’d done it.” She

stares at me, starts laughing through her tears. ”And

he believed me. Told me I shouldn’t drink so

much water before I go to bed. I put on another

set of sheets and he went right back to sleep.”

  ”But weren’t his pajamas all wet?”

  ”Well, he ’’’ wasn’t wearing any.”

  ”Oh. I see.”

  She looks away, then back at me.

”Myra, I just want to say ’’’ I mean, I

know you care. For him. And I’m sorry that ’’’

Well, I’m just sorry.”

   ”It’s all right.” I look at the     169

television. Judy Garland. A Star is

Born. ”This is good. Maybe we should watch

this.”

  Diann squints at the screen, leans forward.

”Oh, I love this movie. The Man Who

Got Away.”

  ”Right.”

  We smile at each other, sharing the

unfortunate irony. And then I lean back in

my chair, sigh deeply. ”Oh, God.

God.” I stand, stretch. ”I’m going to put the

sheets in. And then, do you want some popcorn?”

  ”I’ll do the wash. That part I can do. And then

I’m going to get my glasses and then I would

love some popcorn.”

 

 

 

 

  

  Rose is in the hospital. This is not

unusual; she seems to require a brief stay

there every few months in order to keep her

diabetes under control. So I’ve changed my

usual schedule and have come to see Grace first.

She’s distracted--avoiding eye contact,

fidgeting, not really answering the routine questions I

ask about her and her baby. At first, I think the

change in schedule has thrown her off. But it’s

more than that. After I put her chart in my bag,

I sit on her bed and say quietly, ”What’s

up, Grace?”

  She lays Kurt in his daybed, gently pulls

his tiny T-shirt down to cover his belly. Then

she sits on the bed beside me. ”I been talking

to my mom about giving him up.”

  I try not to let my surprise show. ”Oh?”

  ”Yeah. I bet he could get adopted

by somebody who’d take real good care of him.”

  ”I suppose that’s true.”

”It’s the best thing for him. I don’t have much

prospects.”

  ”Well, Grace, you’re only fifteen. A

lot can happen.”

   ”Do you think I should keep him?”      171

  I look at Kurt, his clear eyes, his pink

cheeks, his reddish whorls of hair. Grace

has been wonderful with him. But it’s difficult

to suggest that raising a child is the best thing for a

fifteen-year-old to do.

  Finally, I say, ”I guess I’m a little

surprised that this has come up. I thought you’d

decided definitely to keep him.”

  ”I had. But me and my mom were talking the other

day, and she ’’’” Grace pushes her face

into her hands and starts to cry. ”You don’t know.

I’m trying so hard.”

  ”Oh, Grace, I do know, I do know how

hard you’re trying. And you’re doing a great job.”

  ”I just love him so much. And I don’t want

to wreck him.” She reaches around me for the

Kleenex box on her night table, wipes at

her nose. ”I know that somebody else could give

him so many more things, too.”

  ”More material things, perhaps.”

  ”What do you mean?”

  ”More clothes, more toys ’’’”

  ”Yeah. Schools.” She reaches toward him,

starts to stroke the top of his head, then stops.

 ”And ’’’ Well, this is it. I mean, it’s at

the now-or-never stage. At this point, he’s still

young enough ’’’” She looks at me. Swallows.

  ”It’s your decision, Grace.”

  ”Yeah. But this is what I was wondering. I

know it might be unfair for me to keep him,

okay? But now that I’ve had him, how can I go

back to not having him? I know this kid at my

school, she had a baby girl when she was

fourteen, and she gave her up. But she didn’t

want to. And she’s allowed to see her and

everything, but all it does is tear her up.

See, what I think is, you can’t really give

a baby away that grew inside you. It doesn’t

work. He’s just always there anyway. Part of you. You

might as well have him in your house if he’s

taking up so much room in your insides.”

  I smile, touch her hand.

  ”Anyways. My mom says I have to decide

by tomorrow.”

  ”So ’’’ you’ll let me know?”

  She walks over to her window, looks down

onto the street. ”Sure. I’ll call you.

’Cause if I let him go, you won’t need

to come see me every week.”

The truth is, I’m only           173

authorized for two more visits, anyway. She

must have forgotten that. But there’s no need to bring it

up now.

  I pick up my bag. ”I’ll respect

whatever decision you make, Grace. But I just

want you to know that you’ve done everything right, and you

don’t have a thing in the world to be ashamed of.”

  She won’t look at me, but she nods.

  On my way out, I see Grace’s mother,

Millie, sitting in the sun parlor reading a

magazine and smoking a cigarette. She’s a

cashier at Stop and Shop; it must be her day off.

I wave, and she nods curtly. She doesn’t

like me, has never seen the need for me ”coming around.”

She pushes herself out of her chair, comes over to the

door to stand beside me. ”She tell you what we

talked about?”

”Yes.”

  ”I don’t know what sense it makes for her

to keep him.”

  ”It’s a hard decision.”

  ”Yeah. One that she has no business making.”

Millie takes in a drag, exhales only

slightly away from my face. One arm is

 crossed over her stomach, the other holds the

cigarette up high. I see that she has lost

one of her acrylic nails. She’s wearing a

pair of black shorts, a white shirt knotted

at her waist, blue plastic bedroom

slippers. Her hair, red this week, is up in

a high ponytail. ”She can barely decide

what she wants for dinner, for Christ’s sake.”

  ”I don’t know, I think Grace has grown

up a whole lot in the last few weeks.”

  ”You have kids?” Millie asks.

”No, I don’t.”

  ”Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She looks

me up and down. ”You even married?”

  ”I’m not.”

  Another drag off the cigarette, a slow

nod. ”Well. Thanks for what you did for her

and the kid, anyway.”

  ”It was a pleasure to see her. And Kurt.”

Not you, we both hear.

  She opens the door, raises her eyebrows

expectantly. For one moment, I think about going

into Grace’s room and asking if she and Kurt

would like to move in with me. But I don’t. I

walk out to my car, thinking, As soon as I

 get home, I’ll call social       175

services. Millie has her weapons, and I have

mine.

  But then I start the engine, and my anger

fades. I know why Millie’s doing what she

is. All around me, it seems, mothers are trying

to save their children.

  On the way to DeWitt’s, I get paged.

Diann. When I find a pay phone and call

her back, she says, ”Oh, thanks for calling.

I need to ask you something. Hold on for just a

minute?”

  I hear her call Chip’s name, say something

to him about needing to talk to someone from work. Then,

”Okay. I’m in your office. Is that all

right?”

  ”It’s fine.” Don’t touch anything.

  ”I called because Chip and I were just sitting

outside having coffee. And he dropped his cup.

I mean, it just fell out of his hand. I know it

doesn’t sound like anything, but there was something so

weird about it. You know?”

  Yes. I know. The brain, being taken over

by cancer cells, fails here, fails there. First,

 you mean to say ”blueberry” and you say

”cranberry.” Then you wet the bed. Then you start

to write something and you can’t spell anymore, nor

is your handwriting quite your own. ”It’s ’’’ to be

expected, Diann.”

  ”Oh. Uh-huh. So there’s nothing they can do for

it? It’s nothing you should call the doctor about?”

  ”No. I’ll let him know next time I

give him a progress report. But it’s not

anything surprising. He also might ’’’ Well,

just to let you know. He may start stumbling a little.

Or falling.”

  I hear her start to cry, then stop abruptly.

”Jesus.”

  ”I know.”

”It’s so scary. It’s so evil.”

  ”I know.”

  ”Well. I’m sorry, I got scared; but

I guess there was no need to call.”

  ”There was a need. You had a question about something that

concerned you. You can call me anytime.”

  ”Okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, one more

thing. We’re going to a movie this afternoon. And then,

will you come with us to dinner? Chip wanted some

Mexican, we were going to go to Tippi’s.”

   ”No, thanks, I--”              177

  ”He told me he was going to ask you to come

along. And I think it would mean a lot to him,

Myra. I don’t want you to tell him no.

Please don’t tell him no.”

  ”All right. I’ll come.”

  I hang up, close my eyes for a moment,

then get back to work.

  
”I’m stoked out,” DeWitt says.

”Illin’ big time.”

  He does indeed look sick--bags under his

eyes, a terrible weariness to him. I check his

pulse and his blood pressure, put a

thermometer in his mouth. When I take it out, I

tell him it’s normal.

  ”Damn. I like to have a fever when I’m sick.

Where’s Frank?”

  ”Not with me today. Is your incision hurting?”

  ”Naw. Where is he?”

  ”He’s with someone who’s visiting me for a little

while. Let’s do your dressing, I want

to take a look under there and make sure you’re not

getting an infection.”

  ”It ain’t that. Most likely be that bait I

 had for dinner last night. I invite this new

lady out, she say she want sushi. I say,

baby, what you want with that Jap crap. She

say, oh, Dewitt. And I know I ain’t

gon’ get laid without I eat some shit like that.

So I do, and then what happens? I spend half

the night in the Porcelain Room, both ends

open for bidness.”

  ”Well,” I say, loosening his dressing.

”At least you had some pleasure before the pain.”

  ”Sheeit,” he says. ”That’s the worst part.

I had to take her home after, she live with her

mama, which, believe me, if I’d been

apprised of that, wouldn’t never have been no

date. And I paid for that dinner! Paid for us both

and left a good tip, besides

  ”Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.” I throw

away his old dressing, inspect his wound. Healing

slowly, but healing.

  ”Oh, no. I always win, baby.”

I look at him.

  ”’Cept this time.”

  I do his new dressing, silent, lost in my

own thoughts. When I’m finished, DeWitt

says, ”Bring your dog tomorrow. He a more

 scintillating conversationalist than you. You   179

getting boring as shit.”

  ”Call me if you get worse,” I say.

  ”Call me if you get better!”

  I sigh, lean against the door frame.

  ”What?”

  ”Just ’’’ Give me a break, DeWitt.

You know?”

  ”Aw, toughen up. Don’t you know you my friend?”

  I stop at a McDonald’s for a quick lunch.

At a table nearby is a young mother with her son,

about four years old. ”My head hurts,” he

tells her. She ignores him. ”Mom,” he

says, ”My head hurts.”

  ”I know, sweetie,” she says, staring off

into middle space.

  I take the last bite of my fish sandwich,

finish my Coke. Then, ”Miss?” I say.

  The woman looks over.

  ”Excuse me, but I couldn’t help overhearing

what your son said. And I just wanted to tell you that

I’m a nurse, and it’s very unusual for a child so

young to have a headache.”

  She stares at me. ”He just bumped it. In the

 car just now, when he was getting out.”

  ”Oh. I see. Well, I’m sorry.”

  ”It’s all right.”

  I get back in the car and sit still for a while,

trying to remind myself that not everyone is dying. And

thinking that, some time, I ought to try hanging up my

cape.

               * * *

  On the way to Fitz’s, I get stuck in

heavy traffic. One of the bad things about doing the

work I do. But I can’t imagine doing anything

else.

  I turn on the radio, tune it to the

classical station. Did they dream the music they

wrote, those composers? Did they rise up in the

morning full of something that made them feel tight

at the center, then write out the notes and feel the

slow release? And when they played it for the people they

loved, did those people really hear it? I wonder

sometimes about the nature of relationships, if

anything that was once perfect in them is ever

sustained. Every time I go to a restaurant alone,

I feel a little sorry for myself until I see

so many couples staring past each other, seemingly so

without. Why enter into anything, when you end up

 scraping the bottom so soon? And yet    181

the alternative makes for such sad echoes off the

canyon walls of self, I know that.

  I think of my parents, ecstatic looking in

their wedding pictures. Years later, neither of them

wore their rings; they were tossed in a dresser

drawer. Once, when I was around twelve years

old, my mother found me sitting on her bed and

playing with those wide gold bands. ”What are you

doing?” she asked. ”Nothing,” I said. She

held out her hand, I put the rings in them, and she

put them back in the dresser, saying, ”Leave

them there.” Why? I remember thinking.

  I wish I hadn’t agreed to go to the

restaurant tonight. Enchiladas suisas for the fifth

wheel, please. What an odd trio we will be.

What will the waiter think? Pretty good looking

guy, if he’d lose the kerchief. Beautiful

woman. And ’’’ must be a friend.

  ”I got something to tell you,” Fitz says.

  I look up from my bag, where I’ve been

digging around for my stethoscope. ”What’s that?”

  He’s been cheating on his diet, I

suppose. He’s neglected to take his

 medication.

  ”I’m getting married.”

  I sit back on my heels. ”Really!”

  ”Sure enough.”

  ”Who’s the woman?”

  ”Well, she called Misty Dream, down at

the club. But her real name Miss Angela

Brooks.”

  ”Well, Fitz. Congratulations!”

  He nods, smiling widely. ”Yes, indeed.

Thank you.”

  ”Will you be doing this soon?”

  ”Tonight.”

  ”Tonight!”

  ”Yeah, after the last show. We found a minister

stays up late.”

  ”And ’’’ will she be living here with you?”

  ”Naw. I’m moving to her place. You can come

and see me there, she got a real nice brownstone

in the South End. Those girls make good money!

I’ll be the house husband, take care of her.

That’s all she needs, someone just to take care of

her, a man to come home to that’s different from the

rest. And that’s me, I’m different! But I can

cook for her, I know how to cook, once I get

 shown where everything is. I’ll clean       183

too, I’m very clean!”

  ”I know you are, Fitz. You keep your place

looking great.”

  ”That’s the same thing she said. I had her over

last Sunday afternoon, made her a chicken dinner.

She was so surprised how I keep things. How

I made her such a nice plate of eats. You

know what she did when I put that plate in

front of her? She started crying like a baby.

Say she misses so much back in Alabama.

Say she started out so different, when she were a little

girl. We had a long talk, and then, I

don’t know, just seemed right, I popped the question.

Sure did. On bended knee! I loved her a

long time, she got a voice like velvet, but I

have to say I surprised my own self saying those

words, `Will you marry me.”’ I been a

bachelor for a long time! And you know what? She said

yes quick as lightning. Just as grateful as can be.

All it is, she need love the same as

everybody else. A place to come home and be

natural. You see someone such a big star like that,

you think they got everything they need. But then you

give them some chicken and biscuits and the truth

 comes out.” He chuckles. ”Yeah, the truth comes

out.”

  I unroll the blood pressure cuff, put

the stethoscope around my neck. ”Well. I’m

really happy for you. Now let’s see if all this

good news has helped out your blood

pressure.”

  I check it, take the stethoscope out of my

ears, smile, and say, ”Guess what.”

  ”You don’t have to tell me,” he says. ”I

already know.”

  Ann Peters is dressed in a white linen

pantsuit when I arrive, a matinee-length

pearl necklace, matching studs. After our

visit, she’s going into Boston for lunch at the

Four Seasons.

  I use the guest bathroom to wash my hands before

I administer her eyedrops. Whenever I go into that

bathroom, I always want to linger, just to admire

everything. The high arch of the gold faucet, the

leaded glass of the window. The curtains are like

nothing I’ve ever seen, some sort of

translucent fabric, a pale gold in

color. They are so full of presence they might

 as well speak. The marble floor is      185

richly veined; the soap at the side of the sink

always unmarred and delicately scented; the towels

so plush.

  Mrs. Peters uses a floral handkerchief

to wipe her eyes delicately after the drops have

gone in. We are sitting in the breakfast room:

French decor in the traditional colors of

blue and yellow, murals of the countryside on the

walls.

  ”Have you ever eaten at the Four Seasons?”

Mrs. Peters asks.

  ”No.”

  ”Really? Never?”

  ”It’s not exactly my kind of place.”

  ”Oh, but it’s wonderful. Really, you must try

it some time. I’ll tell you what, I’m very good

friends with the hotel manager. I’ll arrange for you

and a friend to have dinner there, on the house. In fact,

let me give you a weekend.”

  ”Well, that’s very nice of you. But I really

can’t accept.”

  She straightens, sits back in her chair.

”I would like you to notice something, here.”

  ”Yes?”

”I’m not asking you. I’m telling you. You’ve

been so kind to me. I’ve so much appreciated

everything you’ve done.”

  I laugh. ”But that’s--”

  ”Myra.” She puts her hand over mine,

looks directly into my eyes. ”Please

don’t make me explain how much your company

has meant to me. Your care. I’m afraid it

would be rather embarrassing for me.”

  Before this moment, if you’d asked me if I

mattered to this patient, I would have laughed and said

no. But now I think of the times I’ve spoken

to one or the other of her children, neither of whom has time

for her. I think of the photographs I’ve seen

in heavy metal frames in her house: no one

sitting too close to one another; no one smiling

from the inside out. I realize now that perhaps I am

the one she’s most comfortable with, and it breaks my

heart.

  ”This is much too generous, Mrs. Peters.

But ’’’ all right. I’ll take you up on it.”

  ”I’m so glad. You’ll get a call from the

concierge later today. I’ll arrange everything for

you. You’ll just need to let him know the dates you

want to come.”

   ”I will. Thank you.”                187

  ”I’m thrilled to do it for you, Myra.” She

looks at her watch. ”And now, I think my

driver must be waiting.”

  I walk out with her, pull the heavy front

door shut. And then I watch as she is driven

away. Her head seems so small, framed in the

rear window of a car driven by a stranger who is

focused mainly on getting a big tip.

  At four o’clock, Chip, his parents, and I are

seated in his living room. For what seems like a

long while, there is only the sound of the grandfather

clock ticking, the occasional bird call coming from

outside. Finally, Chip says, ”So! Are we

done yet?”

  Mrs. Reardon looks at me. ”I’m not

sure what the point of this is, Myra. I told

you I’ve agreed to let Chip do as he sees

fit.”

  ”Yes, I know that. But I thought it might be

helpful for all of us to ’’’ Well, just to make

sure each of us feels as though we understand--”

  ”There’s nothing difficult to understand,” Mrs.

Reardon says. ”It’s simple. What Chip

 wants is to make no effort whatsoever to help

himself.”

  ”Ma,” Chip says. ”Je-sus!”

  ”Don’t give her a hard time,” Mr.

Reardon says.

  ”I’m not!” Chips stands; then, abruptly,

sits back down. He turns toward his mother,

shakes his head. ”What do you want, Ma? You

know what the prognosis is. You know I’m not

going to be cured.”

  ”I don’t know that,” she says. ”And neither do

you. I read in the library just the other day about a

man in Italy who had exactly the same thing you

do. When he was diagnosed, they had very little hope

--his sister had died from a brain tumor just two

years earlier. But he had surgery and then

radiation, and he lived. They checked on him

fifteen years later and he was fine--married,

working full time. And the father of two daughters!”

  ”Myra,” Chip says. ”Help me out,

here.”

  ”There are exceptional cases, that’s true,”

I say. ”But the chances for cure are really very--”

  ”You don’t know!” she says. ”No one

does.”

   I lean forward, speak directly      189

to her. ”I think what needs to be decided here today

is how we can best support Chip in the decision

he has made.”

  ”He has made? I’m not so sure about that.”

  ”What are you talking about?” Chip asks.

  She says nothing.

  ”I came here knowing what I wanted to do.

What are you suggesting? I decided my-self

what I want to do, which is nothing, Ma, can’t you

get that through your head, what will get that through your

head? I know everything! Don’t you think I

researched the hell out of this before I decided I

didn’t want to go through the treatment? Don’t you

think I’d want to live if I could?”

”You don’t listen to anyone else’s ideas,”

she says. ”There are things going on in other

places that--”

  ”I researched everything,” Chip says.

”Ma!”

  ”You never used to be a quitter,” she says.

  ”I never used to have a brain tumor. I’m

going to die. I know that. I want to finish what’s

left of my life in the way I want. It

doesn’t make sense to me to do what you want.

 And I know it doesn’t make sense to you what

I want to do. But what else is new? That’s

the way it’s always been between us.”

  ”Chip,” Mr. Reardon begins, but his wife

interrupts him.

  ”Say it,” she says, her chin high.

  ”Say what?” Chip’s voice is so quiet

it’s barely audible. He’s staring down at his

hands shoved between his knees.

  ”Oh, I think you know what.”

  He looks up. ”Ma. I love you.”

  She inhales sharply, and I see her mouth

start to tremble.

  ”I love you and despite everything I have always

loved you and I thank you for what you’ve given me

and are trying to give me now. But you have to let go.

It’s time. Give me some peace, Ma.

Please.”

  I stare at my bag, at the mantel over the

fireplace. Finally, I hear Mrs. Reardon

say, ”What exactly do you want me to do, then,

Chip? Tell me. And I ’’’ I will help

you.”

  Here is the great privilege of being in this

profession. What you see people do! How you come

 to understand what they are capable of, how       191

huge their hearts are. And cracked open, how

wise.

  Chip packs a small bag to bring to my

house. A way of formalizing what he’s already

been doing. For a long time, on the way back, we

say nothing. And then he says, ”S.”

  I smile. ”S.”

  ”Here we are.”

  ”Yes.”

  I make a right turn, stop suddenly for a child

who rides his bike out in the street directly

ahead of me. Chip rolls down the window, starts

to say something to the boy, then doesn’t. I feel

it, too. What will be, will be.

  A few blocks from home, Chip says, ”You

know, it was driving me crazy, her pushing me

to get more treatment. But now that she’s going to stop,

I kind of miss it. It makes me kind of

scared. Everything’s realer.”

  ”I know.”

  ”It’s almost like anger at her was keeping fear

at bay.”

  ”Yes.”

   He clears his throat, taps his fingers

rapidly on his knee. ”S. You ready?”

  I look over at him. Nod.

  At home, Diann has begun a marinara

sauce. She’s making spaghetti and meatballs.

I pour myself a glass of chianti, then leave

Chip in the kitchen washing lettuce while I go

into my office to check messages. Four. The first

is from Grace, who says she is keeping her

baby, and could I make a visit tomorrow instead of

Monday because he stares so much at the light coming through

the window and is that normal and do they make

sunglasses for babies. Next, Marvelous,

telling me she agrees with her doctor that she’s

all right without me, but she would like me to come to lunch

any time. She has tomatoes from her daughter’s

garden coming out her ears. We can have BLINDT’S, she

says, and you can bring the B.

  The next message is from a soft-spoken

concierge at the Four Seasons, wondering when I

would like a room, and telling me with what I can

only describe as restrained glee how very

happy he will be to accommodate any date,

any date at all. The last message is from

 Chip’s doctor, who says that he       193

understands there’s been a change in plans, and am

I sure this is the wisest course. For me, he

means, he’s thinking of me. Call him tomorrow and

let’s talk about this. I stand for a long moment before

my desk, swirling the wine that’s left in my

glass. Then I go ahead and drink it.

         END OF VOLUME I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I awaken to a crack of thunder that shakes the

house. Rain is wild on the roof, against the

windows. Frank, who is terrified of thunder, is

nowhere to be seen. I get up, kneel at the

side of the bed, and raise the dust ruffle. He’s

squeezed under there, shaking. ”It’s all right,” I

tell him. He stares at me, wags his tail

apologetically. ”Come here,” I say, patting

the floor, but it’s no use, he won’t come out.

  I shut my windows, then remember that most of

those downstairs are open as well. I come out into the

hall, turn the light on, and see Chip on his

way up the stairs. For a moment, I feel

embarrassed about my sleepware--my gray

T-shirt and many-times-washed striped bottoms.

But Chip is in his T-shirt and boxers--I’d

call us even. ”Are you going down to shut the

windows?” he asks.

  ”Yes.”

  ”I just did.”

  ”Oh. Thank you. Did any water come in?

Anything I need to wipe up?”

  ”A little. I got that, too.”

   ”Well, thank you.”

  ”You’re welcome.”

  We stand there for a minute, listening to the rain, and

then Chip says, ”Myra, would you check my

blood pressure or something?”

  ”I--now, you mean?”

  ”Yeah. I feel weird. Kind of dizzy.

And just ’’’ weird.”

  ”Sure, let me go and get my cuff.

Maybe you should lie down. I’ll be back up in

a second.”

  ”Would you mind if I went into your room?

Diann’s asleep.”

  I turn around. ”She’s sleeping? Through this?”

  He shrugs.

  ”Sure, go ahead, go to my room.”

I go into my office, grab my nurse’s

bag. I stand there for a minute, thinking. It could be

nothing. It’s probably nothing. Then I sigh,

sit down in my desk chair. Nothing. Right.

  I go back upstairs, pass the closed door

of the guest room, then go back to open it and peek

inside. Diann does indeed appear to be sound

asleep. I can see her clearly in the light from

the hall; she’s on her side, facing me.

 ”Diann,” I whisper. I want her    197

to be awake, in case I need her. ”Diann!”

She doesn’t move. I close the door, head

back to my room.

  Chip is stretched out on the bed, Frank beside

him. I laugh out loud. ”How did you do that?”

  ”What?”

  ”How’d you get him up there?”

  Chip looks at Frank, who looks back

at him. ”I don’t know. He just came out and

jumped up on the bed. Is that okay?”

  ”Yes, it’s fine, but he has never come out from

under the bed when it’s thundering. He gets really

scared.”

  Chip scratches Frank’s butt, and

Frank raises his head appreciatively.

”He seems fine now.”

  I sit on the bed, take out my blood

pressure cuff and wrap it around Chip’s arm.

Has he lost more weight in this last week? Why

have I not noticed this? I position my

stethoscope over his brachial artery, inflate the

cuff. His pressure is normal, and I tell

him that. Then I listen to his heart. After I’ve

gotten a count, I look up into his face.

   ”It’s fine,” I say. ”Eighty and

regular. That’s just fine.”

He looks at me, something in his face.

  ”What,” I say.

  ”I don’t know, you ’’’”

  I wait.

  ”I just ’’’ like you. You have pretty eyes.”

  I frown, start rolling up the cuff.

  ”You do,” he says. ”A lot of green in

there. I never noticed before.”

  ”Yes, well.”

  ”Your eyes change colors, I think.”

  I can feel discomfort rising in me like a wave.

It makes me oddly irritable. ”I wouldn’t

know, maybe they do.” I put my supplies

back in my bag, rest my hands in my lap.

It’s strange, taking someone’s blood

pressure when I’m dressed in my pajamas.

It’s like those dreams where you find yourself naked on a

crowded street.

”So,” I say, appropos of nothing. I

suppose I mean it to be the verbal equivalent

of putting a robe on, an effort to formalize

somewhat a too casual situation.

  He lies still. The rain drums, lightens for a

 moment, then drums on, harder. Finally,   199

”Myra?” he says. ”Would you mind if I

stayed here for a while?”

  ”Of course not, it’s all worked out, you are

staying here.” Oh God, I think, he

doesn’t remember, he’s getting confused.

  ”No,” he says. ”Here.” He pats the

bed, and Frank moves closer to him.

  ”Oh!” Who knows why people ask for the things they do.

Who knows why certain things suddenly bring you comfort.

”Sure. I’ll go down to the sofa.” Chip has

never had the pleasure of sleeping with a dog;

I’ll give that to him.

”No,” he says. ”I meant I wanted

to stay here with you.”

  I swallow, say nothing.

  ”Just for a while.”

  I nod. ”Okay.”

  ”Is this your side?”

  ”Well ’’’ Yes.”

  ”Okay, I’ll move over.”

  He climbs over Frank to the other side of the

bed, punches the pillow and lies down. ”There’s

no night stand over here,” he says, looking

around. ”No light.”

   ”I haven’t exactly needed one.”

  ”You always sleep on the same side?”

  ”Yes, don’t you?”

  ”Yeah, I guess I do.” He looks over

at me, smiles.

  I smile back, then climb awkwardly

back into bed. I am overly conscious of every part of

myself. My legs and arms feel as stiff as if

they were cast. I lean up against the headboard,

smooth the sheets over me. My heart is

knocking in my chest. Frank, panting

happily, makes the bed shake, and for some reason,

this embarrasses me.

  There is a long moment of silence, and then Chip

says, ”Why don’t you lie down?”

  ”Well, I ’’’ thought you wanted to talk a

little, maybe.”

  ”You can talk when you’re lying down.”

  I start laughing. ”You know what? You know what

just came into my head? `That wouldn’t be

professional.”’”

  ”Right,” he says, smiling. Lightning

flashes, and we both look out the window. A loud

crack of thunder follows, and Frank jumps off

the bed and crawls under it again.

   ”God,” Chip says. ”Quite a       201

storm!”

  ”I know.”

  ”Did they forecast this?”

  ”I don’t think so.”

  He looks over at me. ”Nobody knows

anything.”

  ”Well.”

  ”I don’t think they do.”

  ”They’re right a lot of the time.”

  ”They’re wrong a lot, too.”

  ”Yeah. They are.”

  ”You know,” Chip says. ”I first went to the

doctor a couple of months ago. I was having

terrible headaches. The guy told me it was my

sinuses and gave me something for pain. It didn’t

help, so I went back. He gave me stronger

medication. It still didn’t help, so I went

to another guy. I told him what was going on, and

he said, oh hell, it’s not your sinuses, it’s

stress. He put me on antidepressants.

Then I went a third doctor, who actually

might have gone to med school.”

  ”It’s hard sometimes,” I say.

  ”What is?”

   ”It’s not always easy to make a diagnosis

right away. Most of the time, it isn’t ’’’ that.”

  ”Shouldn’t they make sure, though?”

  ”Well, they usually do. Eventually.”

  ”Yeah, when it’s too late.”

  I say nothing.

  After a moment, he says, ”I know.”

  ”What?”

  ”In this case, it wouldn’t have made any

difference, right?”

”Probably not.”

  ”Yeah ’’’ What time is it?”

  I look at the bedside clock. ”Three

forty-three.”

  He takes in a deep breath, closes his

eyes. Then opens them. ”I’m sorry, Myra.

I’m keeping you up.”

  ”It’s all right. The thunder would be, anyway.”

  ”Are you tired?”

  ”No.”

  ”Me neither.”

  He reaches over, takes my hand. I stop

breathing. ”I just want to do this,” he says.

  ”Okay.”

  ”The rain. It makes you kind of ’’’”

   ”Yes.”                         203

  After a while, he says, ”It’s awful to know

how you’ll die.”

”I know.”

  ”Do you ever wonder about that, about how you’ll

die?”

  ”Sure.”

  ”And what do you think?”

  ”Oh, on a good day, I think, `Massive

MI. Cerebral hemorrhage. Airplane

crash.”’ You know, instant death.”

  ”And on a bad day?”

  ”It depends,” I say. ”There’s so much

to choose from.”

  ”Do you ever think you’ll die from a brain

tumor?”

  ”Honestly? I never have thought that.”

  ”I never thought I would, either. Myra?”

  ”Yes?”

  He is silent so long I think maybe he’s

fallen asleep. But then he says, ”Do you think

if you got a diagnosis like mine, you’d consider

suicide?”

  Now it is my time to be silent. The truth

is, I’ve considered suicide plenty of times,

 but for very different reasons. Sitting alone at my

kitchen table, I’ve looked out the window and thought,

in the most dispassionate of ways, ”Well, soon

I’ll have had enough.” It’s because I know what

I’m headed for. More beauty, yes, the world is

rich with beauty. But more of everything else, too.

Unrelenting loneliness, of course. But also this:

Sometimes, reading the paper, I have to put it down.

Sometimes when the news comes on the radio, I have

to turn it off. This ongoing parade of tragedy.

And even if the world were right, there is the wisdom of

biology. The old must make way for the new.

Why should I insist on hanging around after a certain

age? To begin fearing the small descent down my

stairs? To fret over the cost of a can of beets?

  In school, we had to spend a week working in a

nursing home. One afternoon, I sat in a room

where old people in wheelchairs gathered to sing. I

looked at their faces, and some were joyous, but most

were not. And I remember thinking, Not for me.

For one thing, I would not have the relief of family

visiting; I would be one of those for whom the staff

made birthday cards out of construction paper.

Apart from that, I have always thought that there can be very good

reasons to leave life by your own hand. Without

 bitterness. We come, and we go. As we    205

should. The earth turns on its creaky old axis

and gives what it can and takes back what it must.

Why not awaken each morning thinking, It’s a

good day to die, and then go about living, if such is

our choice. Or fate.

  I want to answer Chip’s question honestly,

to say that suicide does not seem like a horrible

option at all, under certain circumstances. But

I am his nurse as well as his friend. I don’t

want to influence a decision that must be his own. And

so I say, simply, ”I might.”

  ”I’m strongly considering it,” Chip says.

”I think you should know that.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Not quite yet,” he says.

  ”No.”

  The rain goes on and on. I think of flowers

in their beds, drowning, birds huddled miserably

in their nests. Chip leans over to kiss my cheek

once, twice. I lie still as stone.

  Then, ”I guess I should go back to bed,” he

says.

  ”Okay.”

  ”Thank you, Myra.”

”I ’’’ You’re welcome.”

  He stands, then grabs for the headboard.

Instinctively, I grab for him. ”It’s when I

stand, sometimes. That’s when it happens. I get

dizzy.”

  ”Does it go away after you’re up for a

second?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”It could be your medications. It could be

orthostatic hypotension--your pressure drops

when you stand up.”

  ”Why don’t I stop taking them?”

  ”If you do, you’ll ’’’ have some problems.”

  He nods. ”Yeah. I know.” He sighs

heavily. ”It’s been so long since I was me.”

  He comes around to my side of the bed, stands there.

Then he sits down, and I start to sit up.

  ”Don’t,” he says.

I lie back down, breathe out slowly.

  ”Yes,” he says. ”That’s right. Now close

your eyes, would you?”

  I close them, hear him turn my bedside

light out.

  ”Good night, Myra.” His voice is so

soft.

   ”Good night.”                     207

  He hesitates, and I think that perhaps he’s

going to kiss my forehead. But he doesn’t.

  And yet he does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

In the morning, I come downstairs early, go

into the kitchen to start coffee, and find Chip sitting

at the tiny breakfast table. ”Hey,” I say.

”Good morning.” I am embarrassed. Bad enough that

he saw me last night in my pajamas. Now

there’s my mussed up hair, my ancient

bathrobe, my morning breath, and my slippers.

They are Bill and Hillary Clinton, a gift

from one of my patients a few Christmases

ago.

  ”Good morning.” He shoves a piece of

paper in his pocket. He’s wearing a light

blue T-shirt with his jeans, and his long legs

are stretched out before him, his bare feet crossed

at the ankle. There are deep circles under his

eyes.

  ”You’re up early,” I say.

  ”Yeah, I never went back to sleep. Did

you?”

  ”I did.” I reach up into the cupboard.

”Want some French roast?”

  ”That would be great. I was going to make some for

all of us, but I couldn’t ’’’ I didn’t know

how to use your coffeemaker.”

   ”Yeah, they’re all different,” I    209

say, though my coffeemaker, the rough equivalent

of those provided to hotel guests, couldn’t be

easier to use. I measure out the coffee, pour in

the water, flick the switch. Then I join him

at the table.

  ”Who are you seeing today?” he asks.

  ”Let’s see. Friday. First Rose, then

’’’ Well, actually everybody.”

  ”Mind if I come along?”

  ”Of course not.”

  ”I can take Frank for little walks while you

go in and see people.”

  ”Why don’t we just leave him here with Diann?

He loves her.”

  Chip leans back in his chair, puts his hands

behind his head. His new growth is crew-cut

length; if he’d even out his hairdo, he could

stop wearing the kerchief. But he seems attached

to it.

  ”You know what, Myra? You look pretty good

in the morning.”

  ”Oh, God.” I go over to check the

coffeepot, to see if it’s ready to give up a

cup. Half a cup.

   ”I like your robe.”

  I stare down at my battered red plaid.

”Well. Thank you.”

  ”And your slippers, too ’’’ Who is that?”

  ”The Clintons.”

”Great.”

  I reach up into the cupboard, take down two

cups, hear the shower turn on upstairs, and

take down a third. With a kind of edgy

pleasure. Family, I’m thinking.

  And now I hear Frank’s tags jingling as he

comes down the steps. He comes into the kitchen and

greets us, snorting and smiling. He puts his

head in Chip’s lap and stands there, lazily wagging

his tail. Chip pets him and I watch those long,

slow strokes.

  After I’ve returned some phone calls,

Chip and I head out. The sky is clear, a

deep blue. Hard to think it’s the same sky that

poured down so much water last night. ”Your

doctor wanted to know how you were doing,” I say,

as we drive down Main Street. ”I said

fine, considering. Is that the right answer?”

  ”That’s the right answer.”

   His doctor also wanted to know if I    211

was really all right doing this, of course, having

Chip stay with me. And I told him that I

understood how unusual it was, but I was fine.

How about another nurse seeing him, and you just being

’’’ his friend, the doctor asked. No, I said.

It’s fine.

  Chip suddenly sits up straighter, points out

the window. ”See that florist?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Stop there, will you?”

  I start to tell him I don’t have time, but he

says, ”I’ll be really fast,” and so I pull

into a parking place. ”Wait right there,” he

says. After a few minutes, he emerges with a

small bouquet of roses. A vibrant

yellow. ”Roses for Rose,” he says.

  I imagine those flowers by her bedside, offering

glorious relief to all that surrounds them. I

see her reaching out to touch each half-open

blossom. ”That’s nice of you, Chip.”

  He turns up the air conditioner. ”Do you

mind? It’s hot as hell out there already.”

  ”I know it.”

  ”It’s summer.”

   ”Sure is.”

  It’s not idle conversation. He’s asking me.

Diann told me that last time she drove him,

he asked if a stoplight were a semaphore.

”I told him yes,” she said. ”Should I have done

that?” I said it probably didn’t matter. ”But

what would you have said?” she asked. And I told her

I would have told him it was a stoplight. She

sighed, looked away from me. ”I can’t do this,”

she said. I told her she was doing fine, and I

noticed how beautiful the shape of her face was from

that angle. Heartlike.

  ”Oh, flowers,” Rose says, after Chip

presents them to her with a flourish. ”Where did you

find these?” She’s still in her nightgown and robe;

we must have awakened her.

  ”Just a shop on the way,” Chip tells her.

”Do you like them?”

  ”Yes. They need a vase. Flowers have to have

water, or they’ll die.”

  ”Do you have one, Rose?” I ask.

  ”I don’t know.”

  ”Well, I’ll tell you what, we’ll just

use a jar. How’s that?”

   ”Not so good.” She frowns, shuffles    213

over to her kitchenette. She pulls a tall

glass out of the cupboard, hands it to me. ”Here.

This is better. You cut the stems, I don’t like

to use scissors. It’s bad for a diabetic

to get cut.”

  ”Where are your scissors?”

  ”I don’t know.”

  I sigh, take a quick look at Chip, who

shrugs, then smiles at me.

  ”Okay, how about a knife?”

  ”Oh, sure, I have that.” She opens a

drawer, takes out a large butcher knife. ”This

was my mother’s. I remember she always used it

to chop nuts for Russian tea cakes, we had

them every Christmas. Russian tea cakes.”

She leans closer, squints at it. ”Well,

I wouldn’t eat anything cut with that.”

  ”It’ll be fine for this.” I take the knife from

her, cut the stems, and arrange the flowers in the

glass. Then I hand Rose her bouquet.

  ”Ohhhhh!” She holds the roses up to her

nose, inhales deeply. She smiles shyly

at Chip. ”See, I didn’t know I was

getting flowers.”

   ”Well,” he says. ”You did.”

  ”You’re a very nice young man.”

  ”And you’re a very nice lady.”

  Rose straightens, adjusts the collar on her

robe. ”Where do you live?”

  ”Well, actually, I’m living with Myra,

at the moment.”

  Rose gasps, spins around, and wags her finger

in my face. ”You didn’t tell me you got

married, you rascal!”

  ”We’re not married.” I dry the knife

I’ve washed, put it back in the drawer.

  ”You’re not?” Her face clouds. Then she

says, ”Well, that’s all right. Don’t

worry. That’s how they do nowadays. Lots of people

do it.” She sets her flowers down on her

kitchen table. ”Now. How about some tea for the

lovebirds?”

  I look at my watch. Ten minutes behind

schedule. ”I’m afraid we can’t, Rose,”

I say, at the same time that Chip says,

”We’d love some.”

  ”Chip!”

  ”Oh, it’s a fight,” Rose says.

”Don’t fight.”

   ”Myra,” Chip says.            215

  ”Rose,” I say, ”you need to get your

insulin now. I have to give it to you right now so you can

be ready for Tiffany. Then you need to get

dressed, okay? She’ll be here soon.”

  ”Oh, she left.”

”Who did?”

  ”Tiffany.”

  ”She’s not supposed to be here, yet. I

want to give you your shot so you can get ready for

her, remember?”

  Rose starts to cry. ”But she’s gone,

Tiffany’s gone, I got a new one now!”

  ”Oh!” I say. ”Oh, I’m sorry,

Rose, I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Who’s

the new one, what’s her name?”

  ”I don’t know. But not `Tiffany.”’” She

pulls a filthy handkerchief out of her robe

pocket, blows her nose.

  I check my watch again, go over to the

refrigerator and take out Rose’s insulin.

It’s close to being used up; I’ll need to call

her pharmacy. I take my pen out, make an

X on my wrist to remind me to do this later.

No time now.

   ”Okay, Rose, go over to your bed, please,

and let me give you your shot.”

  She stands still, her head down.

  ”Rose?”

  ”I have to tell you something first.”

  ”Yes?” I draw up the required number of

units, cap the needle, grab an alcohol

swab.

  ”Can you come here?”

  I walk over to her with some impatience. ”What

is it, Rose?”

  She looks quickly at Chip, then back at

me. ”He’ll have to leave,” she whispers.

  I start to say something to Chip, but he’s heard.

”I’ll wait outside,” he says. ”It was

nice to see you again, Rose.”

  ”Yes. It was nice to see me.” As he

walks out the door, she yells, ”I wish you

all the happiness!” She shuffles over to her bed,

flops down, and hikes up her nightgown so that

I can inject her thigh. She squeezes her

eyes shut, as usual. Says, ”That time I

didn’t even feel it!” as usual. Then she

leans forward to tell me, ”He shouldn’t wear that

kerchief on his head.”

   ”No?” I swab off the injection      217

site, pull Rose’s nightgown back down,

break apart and discard the needle in the cardboard

box designed for used syringes that she keeps under

her bed. It’s almost full; I’ll need to get

her another one.

  ”No. That’s for girls.”

  ”I’ll see you Monday, Rose.”

  ”Is that tomorrow?”

  ”No. Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

”Oh. Isn’t that funny.” She gets up,

accompanies me to the door. ”Happy

honeymoon! All the best to you both!”

  In the car, we ride in silence for a while.

Then I say, ”Chip, I like it when you come with

me. But you need to let me run my own show.”

  ”I’m sorry.”

  ”I don’t want you to feel bad, but I have

to tell you that.”

  ”It’s all right. I just thought, you know, it would have

been nice to spend a little time with her.”

  ”Well, yes, it would have been, but I can’t do

that when I have all the rest of these patients to see.

Today is just a tight day.”

   ”I understand.”

  I stop at a light, listen to the quiet.

Then, ”I’m sorry,” I say.

”It’s all right. I’m the one who should be

apologizing to you. Jesus, Myra, why do you

always ’’’?”

  ”What?” I say.

  ”Nothing.”

  I look over at him. ”What?”

  ”Green,” he says, gesturing with his chin at the

stoplight.

  I turn right, put on some speed so that I can

get to Ann Peters’s and Fitz’s sooner. I

don’t feel like hearing the usual lecture from

DeWitt on how most people learned to tell time in

grade school.

  ”Is this our first fight?” Chip asks.

  ”Oh, I’m just ’’’ tense. I’m late.”

  ”It happens all the time,” Chip says. ”People

fight on their honeymoon.”

  
By the time we get to DeWitt’s, I’ve more

than made up for lost time. We’re actually ten

minutes early. He ought to love that. I knock

on the door, and hear him bellow through it,

 ”What?”                          219

  ”It’s Myra,” I say.

  He yanks open the door, walks away from it

without having seen me. ”Some people wear a watch and

actually look at it,” he mutters, walking

down the hall. ”If I wanted you to come this

early, I’d’ve told you that. I’m not ready,

I’m on the phone. Conference call. You going to have

to wait, and I don’t want to hear nothing about it.

I got a bidness to run.”

  He turns around and, for the first time, sees

Chip.

  ”Oh,” he says. ”I didn’t know you was

here.”

”Hey, DeWitt.”

  ”Be right there, my man.”

  Let’s see. I’ll give Frank

to Diann, and DeWitt to Chip. Wish them all

the happiness.

  After I do DeWitt’s dressing--remarkable

progress, the wound is nearly healed--I get

into the car without Chip. I’m going to finish my work

day alone. Chip is staying at DeWitt’s--

they’re going to watch a movie together. I had

 plenty of misgivings about leaving Chip there, I

did everything but pick him up and carry him out, but

they both insisted it was fine, and in the end, I had

to simply leave without him. DeWitt said he had

roast beef sandwiches, they’d eat some lunch and

enjoy some ”fine art” entertainment. Chip wasn’t

particularly interested in seeing the Schwartzes

again, and I need to spend a fair amount of time at

the agency’s office, picking up supplies and

doing paperwork--it would actually be better not to have

Chip there. I told them I’d be back in a

few hours.

  ”Make sure you not late, neither!” DeWitt

said, walking me out, and when I started to say something

back to him, he said, ”Aw, relax. I don’t

want you in this neighborhood after a certain time

of the day, is all. Be a little funky for you. And

anyway, your boy be tired by then.”

  I pull away from the curb, look up at

DeWitt’s window. I hope none of his

clients come over. But so what if they do.

Nobody will hurt anybody--all of that happens

outside DeWitt’s place. It’s actually more

dangerous bringing Chip in and out of DeWitt’s

than letting him stay there for a while. And if

Chip were to meet a client, it would at     221

least be interesting for him, a better movie than the

one they’re planning on watching.

  I was once at DeWitt’s when a customer

came to do a deal with him. It was because I’d been

late, that’s why our paths crossed, and

DeWitt was none too pleased about it. ”She just

leaving,” he told the man. ”She ain’t even

’posed to be here in the first place and she know that.

She be out of our way in a second.”

  ”Oh, that’s no problem at all,” the man

said. He was well-dressed, a light-skinned

black man wearing diamond studs, rings on every

finger, and several gold necklaces. He sat in

the living room with me as I finished making notes

on DeWitts’s chart and made polite

chitchat. He mentioned the beautiful weather, asked

if I had any children, told me he had a

couple. Or maybe three, he wasn’t quite

sure. As soon as I shut the door, they got

down to business. I know, because I stood there

listening, wondering if I should do anything about it.

Wisely, I didn’t. I remembered all the

places there are in the world, and my place in it.

   When I arrive at the Schwartzes, Ethel

answers the door in tears. ”What’s wrong?”

I ask.

  ”It’s Murray. He’s in the hospital.”

  ”Oh, Ethel. When? What happened?”

  ”Just this morning. We were having breakfast, and

he stood up and said his chest hurt so bad and then

he just fell down. And I called the ambulance and

by the time they got here, he was ’’’ he couldn’t ’’’

Oh God, Mary, I can’t live without him. You

don’t know. He’s in the CCU. I just came

home to get some things packed, and then I’m going

back there. I won’t leave him until he comes

home. I know what I used to say about him, but

I love him, he’s my husband, I’m married

fifty-five years to him. I don’t know life

without him. You must think--”

  ”Ethel. I know how much you love him. Finish

packing. I’ll drive you back to the

hospital.”

  ”Oh, thank you. Thank you.” She wipes at

her nose with the back of her hand.

  ”It’s all right.”

  ”I’m almost finished, I just need to find a

robe that ’’’ I never saw such a slob. I

 tell him, I say, Murray, did it   223

ever occur to you--” She stops, turns to me.

Opens her mouth and then closes it. And then, very

quietly, ”Oh, my God.”

”I’ll go and take care of your medications,”

I tell Ethel. ”You’ll need to take them with you.

You go ahead and finish packing. I can get you there

in less than fifteen minutes.”

  In the kitchen, I put away the milk that’s out

on the counter. Note the list for groceries on the

refrigerator that both of them have contributed to,

though Ethel’s blue ink has crossed out

Murray’s black ”salami.” I put the

breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Dole out

pills for a week. In Murray’s bedroom,

Ethel packs his bag. I believe she feels

her love for him like a second skin, and that although

her hands pack clothes, her mind is back in the

hospital room with him, straightening his

bedcovers, adjusting the blinds, holding a spoonful

of trembling Jell-O up to him, saying,

Here, Murray, take it, open up, darling.

Stay.

  Chip is stoned out of his mind. I lead him

 down the hall, tell him to wait at the door, and

then go back to stand before DeWitt, who’s lying

back in his recliner. Probably because he cannot

get out of his recliner.

  ”What did he take?” I ask.

  ”Mary wanna.”

  ”I can’t believe you did this, DeWitt.”

  He looks up at me, red-eyed. ”Did

what? Made him feel a little better? Let him

have some fun?”

  ”You--”

  ”I didn’t do nothing wrong. And that’s the

truth. You go home and think about it, little girl.

World is way different than you think. You ask my

friend, there; you ask Chip. He got a load

lifted, that’s what happened to him. His head stop

hurting and he didn’t throw up. That’s some kind

of tragedy. You uptight, woman, and you need

to get unwound. Maybe you need to get laid, I

don’t know what your deal is. But for now you get

out my house, I ain’t gonna stand for some bitch

yelling at me ’bout nothing.”

  I stand there for a moment. Then I say, ”I

won’t be back here, DeWitt. I’ll

arrange for another nurse to come and see you.”

   ”Aw, now, you--”                  225

  ”That’s all I have to say.”

  I start down the hall, and he calls after me,

”Get on back here, now. Just relax, all

right?”

  I take Chip’s arm, open the door.

  ”Myra!” DeWitt calls.

  I slam the door shut.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Late Monday afternoon, I am on my way

to my last visit. Chip is with Diann; they were

going to go into Boston to visit the Museum of

Fine Arts. I warned Diann that Chip might

get tired; she should pace things. She said she

knew that, Chip had already told her. She’d

planned on them walking around for a bit, then having

lunch at the caf@e. I pictured them sitting

there, a plate of cheese and fruit before them.

I’ve been to the museum many times, but never with a

date. It must be fun.

  Margaret Thornton is a ninety-year-old

woman I’m seeing just once, as a favor for her

regular nurse. She needs a vital-signs

check, evaluation of the ankle edema she’s started

to develop, and administration of some antibiotic

drops for an ear infection.

  Margaret lives in a retirement hotel where

each resident has a bedroom, a bathroom, a

small kitchen, and a sitting room. ”How do you like

living here?” I ask, after I’ve finished our

visit and am packing up my bag.

  ”Oh,” she says, looking around as though she

too is seeing it for the first time. ”Your own home

 is always better. But after a while, I    227

just couldn’t keep up with it. The stairs, you know.

It’s all right here, but for God’s sake, how

often can you play bingo? Yesterday, I applied

for a job in a bookstore.”

  I laugh. ”Really?”

  ”Really. I volunteer at the library

twenty-five hours a week. But I need some

cash--I haven’t bought an article of clothing in

years. And besides I just ’’’ Well, to tell you

the truth, the people here are just plain hard to be with

sometimes.”

”I can imagine.” I zip my bag, head for the

door.

  Margaret walks along with me, continues

talking. ”For meals, I sit at the same table

with the same people every day. There’s one woman,

Catherine, she’s ninety-three, and I can go and have

a cup of coffee with her--you know. But there’s

another woman with Alzheimer’s and I’ve seen

it progress so fast over the last year. I ’’’

well, I feed her, now. I mean, I literally

feed her. It’s so sad, I go and get something

to cover her up, and then I just sit there with the spoon

’’’ I know the staff would feed her, but they’re not

 very careful. I think she deserves more than that.”

  I know exactly what she’s saying. The baby

bird tenderness you feel for someone when you feed them.

The regret. The way you attempt to give them

back some dignity: small bites, so the mashed

potatoes don’t fall out, a precise dabbing

at the corner of their mouths after the slow, slow sip

of coffee.

  ”Another woman at my table,” Margaret

says, ”is named Evelyn, and she comes from a

wad of dough. She’s always talking about her

family members, what degree this one has, and

that one. And saying that she taught the ballet.

Well, maybe she did.” Margaret leans in

closer to me. ”But I taught with Martha

Graham.” She stands back, nods. ”Yes,

I did. One of the women who works at this hotel,

she knows that and she told Evelyn that I taught

with Martha Graham and that I have a bit of education

myself. So now Evelyn won’t talk to me or

anyone else at the table; she eats her meals

without saying a word.” She shrugs. ”What can you do

with someone like that?”

I smile. ”I don’t know.” I can see

Evelyn, head held high, staring pointedly

 away.                             229

  ”The other woman at the table is always talking

about people stealing from her. Betty’s her name. Every day,

it’s another story of what `they”’ took from her.

Today at lunch she said someone had taken her

girdle. Now, who in the hell would want to steal

a dirty old girdle?”

  And now, I can’t help it, I start laughing.

”Well, I know,” Margaret says.

”Exactly.” She laughs herself. ”I’ll tell

you. As soon as you give up your car, you’re done

for. Oh, you have some friends that say they’ll take you

out, but they get tired of it, and they fall off.

Your world gets very narrow.”

  I look at my watch, then say, ”Listen,

I’ve got to get going now. But how would you like

to see a movie with me tonight?” I’ve never done

this. I feel so nervous, like an adolescent boy

asking for his first date.

  Margaret stares at me. ”What’s your name

again?”

  ”Myra. Lipinski.”

  ”Well, Myra, I would love to go to a

movie. And I don’t care what we see. It

can be trash--I’ll just be so happy to be sitting

 in a theater and smelling that popcorn.”

  ”I’ll pick you up at six,” I say.

”We’ll have dinner first.”

  As I open the door to leave, she says,

”Oh, wait just one second!” She goes into her

kitchen and returns with a paper bag full of

cookies. Gingersnaps, I can smell them.

  ”Thank you, but I don’t want to take your

cookies,” I tell her.

”Please,” she says. ”I bake every day, I

just love to bake. And I can hardly ever find

someone to take anything. Their diets, you know, or

this, or that. There’s nothing worse than having all

this stuff you want to give away and then not being able

to find anyone to take it. You finish these and I’ll

give you more, any kind you like.”

  ”Well,” I say. ”Thank you.”

  ”Thank you.”

  When I come home from the movie, it’s late,

1:00 A.M. Margaret and I snuck into a

second feature, and after that we went to an

all-night diner for pie and ice cream. When I

open the front door quietly, Frank pushes

his head in the crack, and I pet him, whispering,

 ”Yes, I see you, good boy.” Then,    231

coming into the room, I see Diann sitting on the

sofa, a magazine in her lap.

  ”Hi,” she says.

  ”Hi.” I close the door, scratch behind

Frank’s ears. ”Is Chip sleeping?”

  ”He’s not here,” Diann says. ”He went

home. Said he was going to spend a night with his

parents.”

  ”Really?”

  She shrugs, returns to her magazine.

  I head for the kitchen. ”I’m getting something

to drink. Do you want anything?”

  ”No thanks. I got us a bunch of different

drinks today, though--they’re on the bottom shelf

of the refrigerator.”

  I come into the living room with a bottle of

cranberry juice, sink down into a chair.

  ”How was the movie?” Diann asks.

  ”Movies,” I say. ”We went to two. That

Margaret, she’s delightful. Best date

I’ve ever had.”

  ”Do you date much?” Diann asks.

  I look at her. ”Are you serious?”

  ”Well ’’’ Yes.”

   ”I date about three times a year. They’re

desperation dates. You know. The last time I had

a date that wasn’t like that was ’’’ God, it was in

high school. The night of the senior prom, I

went to the mall for something to do and ran into Danny

Roth, you remember him?”

  ”Wasn’t he a preacher’s kid?”

  ”Yeah.” I take a long drink, put the

bottle on the floor. ”He was walking around

killing time, he didn’t have a date, either. We

decided to go to the drive-in. It was actually kind

of fun--we talked for a long time about whether there was

life after death, I remember that. He thought

no.”

  ”Really? A preacher’s kid?”

  ”Yeah. And I remember I said I thought there

was, and that you got to pick what you would look like in

heaven, too. He said that might be enough to make him

believe in it.”

  ”I can’t believe you went to a drive-in and

talked about things like that. Didn’t you make out?”

  ”Actually, yes. A little. It was my first

French kiss.”

  ”I’m not sure I remember him,” Diann

says. ”What did he look like?”

   ”Oh, he was short. Good hair,      233

bad teeth. Well, he was ugly as hell. But

it was the night of the senior prom, it was the end of

high school, everybody was leaving, you had to go and do

something. He wrote me once, from college--

did you know he went to Harvard?”

”Really?” Diann picks up her hair,

makes a ponytail high on her head, drops

it. ”Wait. Did he have green eyes and really

big black glasses?”

  ”No, that was Sam Goodman. I’ll show you

what Danny looked like.” I go into my office,

come back out with my yearbook from senior year.

  ”Oh, God,” Diann groans. ”I

haven’t seen that for so long! I don’t even know

where mine is. Can I see?”

  I sit beside her, flip through the pictures

until we come to Danny Roth. Diann leans

in closer, inspects him. ”Oh. Yes.

Danny Roth.”

  ”Right.” I look at him again, and even after

all this time, he seems so deeply familiar

to me. One date.

  ”He did have nice hair,” Diann says.

”Yeah. I wonder if he has any left.”

   She turns to the very front of the book, and I

feel a sudden urge to put my hand over the

page, to hide the lack of autographs. I

think I know what Diann’s yearbook looks

like--no room for any more messages, all the

space filled by people congratulating her on being herself

and congratulating themselves on being her friend, and telling

her to ”never change.” As though it were a choice.

As though one of our greatest lessons isn’t that

change is the only constant. The seasons tell

us, everything in organic life tells us, that there

is no holding on; still, we try to do just that.

Sometimes, though, we learn the kind of wisdom that

celebrates the open hand. Then we know that letting

go of everything is the only way to keep the things that

matter most.

  ”Where are you in here?” Diann asks.

”Class picture and French club,” I

say. I feel a blush start, then stop.

  She nods.

  ”You’re everywhere,” I say.

  ”No I’m not.” She closes the book, and

I take it from her, look up her name in the

index. ”Look at this. Six lines just to list the

page numbers!”

   I open the album to one of the pages     235

listed. There’s Diann in her strapless white

formal for homecoming, Chip at her side. We

both stare, and then Diann runs her finger down

Chip’s cheek.

  ”My God,” she says. ”He was so

beautiful.”

  ”You were too,” I say quietly. ”You were

always so beautiful!”

  ”It was makeup.”

”Right.”

  ”Well, some of it was makeup. And clothes.”

She closes the yearbook, looks at me. ”You

never did wear much makeup, did you?”

  ”Not much point.”

  ”That’s not true. A little makeup can do some very

good things.”

  ”For people like you.”

  ”For anyone!”

  ”Well.” I pick up the yearbook again,

flip through the pages. ”Look at Sandy

Weller. She got knocked up. I wonder if

she’s still married to the guy. He was way older

than she was.”

  ”Would you let me make you up?” Diann

 asks.

  I look at her. Only kindness there. And a

mild curiosity.

What the hell. ”I might have to get drunk,

first,” I tell her.

  ”I might have to, too.”

  It is with a mix of apprehension and joy that I

head for the cupboard that holds the booze. I’ve

got gin. I’ve got vermouth. I’ve got us

covered.

  ”Now,” Diann says, putting down her

empty martini glass with exaggerated care. ”I

am ready.”

  I eat the last of my five olives. ”Me,

too.”

  ”Let’s go in the bathroom,” Diann says.

Then, standing, ”Where is it?”

  We head for the upstairs bathroom, laughing.

Inside me is a small figure holding her

hand over her mouth. Frank follows us, lies

outside the bathroom door.

  Diann takes down the floral cosmetics

holder she has hanging on the back of the

bathroom door. ”Wash your face,” she tells

 me, digging through her supplies. She      237

hands me a stretchy headband. ”And put this on.”

  I put the headband on, splash off my face,

sit down on the closed seat of the toilet.

”Hey, Diann.”

  ”Himm?” She’s got a couple of pencils

clenched between her teeth, and her eyebrows are

furrowed as she sorts through various bottles and

tubes.

  ”Diann.”

  She looks up. ”What?”

  ”Do you think we need a permit for this?”

  She smiles, returns to her foraging.

  ”Do you know how much this would have meant to me in high

school?”

  She turns to me, hand on her hip. ”Ha!

Do you know how hard a time you would have given me if

I’d asked to do your makeup in high school?”

  ”I would not have!”

  ”Yes, you would.”

  I consider this. She’s right. I would have been

too afraid. I’m still too afraid; I’m just

drunk now.

  Diann comes over to me, serious-faced, a

woman with a mission. She lines up a handful of

 products up on the counter. Gold tops on

frosted bottles, long black tubes, plastic

cases in various sizes. Another kind of

pharmacy. She picks up a bottle, shakes

it. ”Close your eyes,” she tells me, and I

sit still while she puts dots of foundation on my

face.

”I would like to be really beautiful for one day,”

I say quietly. And then have the odd feeling that

I haven’t really said it.

  Silence. She’s working, concentrating on me, and

I like it. She’s gentle, she rubs upward on

my cheeks in a way I can just barely feel.

  When she pencils in my eyebrows, I say,

”I’ll bet it’s great to be so beautiful.

I’ll bet you get everything you want.”

  ”It’s not so great,” she says. ”It’s a

prison.”

  I open my eyes, look at her.

  ”It is.”

  It’s an awfully nice prison, I want

to say, but don’t.

  ”Look down,” Diann says, and carefully

applies mascara. ”I’ll tell you something,

Myra. It makes you retarded, being pretty.

You learn to rely on something that doesn’t   239

last. That isn’t real. You hit the age where we

are now, and you start to panic, because you’ve built

your house on sand.” She does something with eye

shadow, puts some coral-colored lipstick on

me. ”I don’t date much either, now. And I have

the experience of walking in a room and having not one

head turn. I know it never meant anything, when that

happened. But it meant something. And being without it

makes me ’’’ scared.”

  ”People still look at you,” I say. ”You still look

great.”

  ”No,” she says. ”Believe me. I think

one of the reasons I wanted to get back with Chip

is that he still saw me that old way. Selfish,

huh? Stupid.”

  ”I don’t know,” I say. ”I don’t know

what brings people together, really. I’m retarded

myself.”

  Diann laughs. ”Met in the middle after all

these years, huh?” She uses a huge brush

to apply blush to my cheeks. ”Okay. Done.

Take a look.”

  I start to get up, then sit back down.

”Is it funny? It is, isn’t it?”

   ”Not at all.”

  I stand up, look in the mirror. Swallow.

Nod. And pick up a washrag.

  ”Don’t!” Diann says. ”You look

nice! You’re just not used to it!”

  ”I look like ’’’ I don’t look good.

I’m sorry. But I look stupid.” I turn

on the tap water.

  Diann reaches over, turns it off. ”You

stop that, Myra! You leave that makeup on and you

come and sit with me for a while. Then come back and

look again. It looks great.”

  ”I don’t want to,” I say, but she

takes me by the hand and leads me downstairs into the

living room.

  ”I feel like a clown,” I say.

  ”You look just fine.”

  ”I feel ridiculous.”

  ”Feel ridiculous, then. Now sit,” she

says, and points to the couch. Frank, standing beside

me, sits.

  Diann laughs. ”Can I take your dog with

me when I leave?”

  ”No,” I say. And then, ”What do you mean

`when you leave”’? Are you leaving?”

   She says nothing.                  241

  ”Diann?”

  ”You know, I have loved him forever. I really have.

But I’ve been here for over three weeks and I

just don’t think I can do this anymore. Anyway,

he doesn’t want me to.”

  ”What makes you think that?”

  ”He told me. He feels more comfortable with you,

Myra.”

  ”Well, it’s because I can--”

  ”It’s because he likes you. Likes you.

Funny, isn’t it, that even at the end, there’s still

this fucking competition.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
In the morning, I come downstairs and see

Diann at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

She is dressed in the same outfit she arrived

in, and her suitcase is beside her.

  I pour myself a mug of coffee, sit at the

table with her. ”You’re going?”

  She nods. ”Yeah.”

  ”Well, I’m sorry you are. I’ve enjoyed

having you here. I never thought I would.”

  She smiles. ”I know.”

  ”Was I that obvious?”

  ”Even in high school, you were never easy to be

friends with, Myra.”

  I sit back in my chair, open-mouthed. ”I

was dying to have friends in high school!”

  ”Well, who would ever have known? You seemed so

self-contained. So ’’’ superior.”

  ”Superior!”

”You did! You didn’t seem to need

anything.”

  ”Oh, my God.”

  She looks down into her coffee cup, pushes

her hair behind her ears. ”In some ways, you still

seem that way.”

   ”Well, it’s not true. I need a    243

lot.” I realize, saying this, that it’s the first

time I’ve said it out loud to anyone. It feels

horrible, scalding. And yet it feels good.

  Frank comes into the room, puts his head in my

lap. ”I know,” I tell him.

  ”I’ll take him out,” Diann says.

  ”It’s all right. I’ll do it.”

  ”No, I’d like to. I’ll take him for a

walk and then I’ll head out.” She stands,

hesitates. Then she says, ”I want to tell

you, Myra, that I’ve really enjoyed being here.

Even though the circumstances ’’’”

  ”Yes.”

  ”And I hope you’ll stay in touch. I hope

you’ll come and see me.”

  ”Oh, uh-huh.” Here it is, my

automatic pulling back. It’s as though I can

feel myself flattening until the shadow passes.

I can feel it and so can Diann, apparently, because

she puts her hand over mine and stares directly

into my eyes to say, ”I mean it.”

  ”Okay.”

  ”Take good care of Chip. Call and let me

know how he’s doing. And tell him to call me,

 too.”

  ”I will.”

  We stare at each other for a long moment, and then

she says, ”I couldn’t have done it, even if

he’d wanted me to. It takes something that I just

don’t have.”

  ”It’s all right.”

  ”How do you have it, Myra? I mean, when people are

dying, how can you stand it?”

  How to explain this? How to tell her that to look

into a dying person’s eyes can show you a view beyond

that does not frighten, but comforts. The heart settles

in the Hand.

  ”It’s ’’’ I’m not afraid of dying people,” I

tell her. ”I think there’s a richness to that time of

life. In fact, sometimes I envy people who are

dying a good death. Not that I want to die, just that

I want to be that aware. And to have the opportunity

to say things that will be heard, finally, in a way they

never would have been otherwise. Do you understand what I

mean?”

  She nods, but I can tell from her face that

I’ve lost her. You usually do, saying these things.

At least when you’re talking to people who haven’t

attended someone’s death. Not long ago I

 visited a gay man called            245

William, who’d been a very good friend to Angelo,

an AIDS patient I was seeing. When

Angelo died, William was with him. ”I’m so

sorry,” I told William the next day, and

he thanked me. Then he said, ”It was glorious,

at the end.” He looked at me and on his face

was a mix of enlightenment and confusion. ”It’s been

like that every time,” he said. ”You know?” And I said

yes, I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

It’s Thursday, the two-week anniversary of

Chip and me living together. This is how I think of

it, though I never would admit that to anyone.

We’ve developed a comfortable routine. Once in

a while he comes with me to visit patients, but more

often I drop him and Frank off at our little

downtown on my way to work. He reads the paper

in the mornings at the Time Out coffee shop, though

increasingly he is having trouble focusing. He

has lunch at Ned’s, and then sits out in the

common for the afternoon, or goes to the reference room at

the library and looks at random books,

magazines, and newspapers. When I come home,

we cook dinner together or go out to eat, and he

tells me things he’s learned. Such as: The

mourning cloak butterfly survives the winter

almost completely exposed, belly up against the

bark of a tree. A ninety-nine-year-old

woman named Giovanna still bakes pizzelle every

morning--despite macular degeneration and severe

arthritis, she hangs her cane over a kitchen

chair, puts an apron on over her

sweatsuit, and goes to work. In Upper Volta,

crocodiles are venerated because it is believed that

 they are spirits of the departed, protecting their   247

former village.

  I sit there when he tells me these things,

taking it all in, wondering at his ability

to remember, wondering, actually if he is

remembering it, or if he is making some of it

up. It doesn’t matter. The stories are

wonderful pieces of information that say so much more

than they say. As a child, I would lean over my

microscope for long periods of time, then rest

my chin on my hands, smiling. This is that, again.

  Chip goes to bed early, around eight-thirty

or nine; he’s getting more tired than he used

to. Before he falls asleep, I sit at the

side of the bed and talk to him. Or I read to him

--short stories or poetry. He falls

asleep to the sound of my voice. It makes for a

tenderness in me that I’ve never experienced: He

becomes the son I never had mixed with the lover I

always wanted. He has not mentioned Diann, other

than to once wonder aloud whether he’ll ever see

her again. She calls me every day for a report, but,

truthfully, we talk more about ourselves than him.

She’s terribly busy; being away so long took

its toll on her firm. She thinks it will be

 Christmas before she’s back to normal. She used

to try talking to Chip every time she called, but it

became frustrating for both of them. ”I mean,

what am I supposed to say?” Diann asked

me. And Chip said, ”I really don’t know what

she wants to hear.”

  This will be my last visit to Grace. I

spaced out the time between the last two, to get her used

to not having me. When I arrive, I find her

wearing a pantsuit, one that’s a little big for her,

but flattering nonetheless, a powder blue color that

brings out her eyes. She’s going to interview for a

part-time job as a receptionist, then look at a

group home. She’s also planning on getting her

GED in night school. ”This was my mom’s,”

she tells me, when I compliment her on her

outfit. ”But she’s too fat for it, now. It

really pisses her off. She gave it to me, and that

pissed her off, too.”

  I bend over the bassinet to look at Kurt.

He smiles at me, and my heart breaks in the

happy way. He smiles with his whole body, as

babies do: hands clenched and waving, feet

kicking. I give him a brief exam, but there’s

really no reason to. Mother and baby are

 absolutely fine. ”Any problems?”    249

I ask.

  ”No, he’s good. They told me he could come

with me to the interview. I guess he’ll be okay

doing that.”

  ”I’m sure he will. How are you getting there?”

  ”Bus.”

  ”I’ll tell you what,” I say. ”I’ll

drive you there.”

  ”Oh, you don’t have to do that. The bus goes right

there.”

  ”I’d like to take you.”

  The company where Grace is interviewing is in

an industrial park, a small, nondescript

concrete building painted a light green. Some

sort of tool-and-die firm. I pull up in

front of the place and Grace checks her watch.

”Right on time,” she says. And then, turning

to me, ”Do I look all right?”

  ”You look beautiful. And very professional.”

  Before she goes in, we stand together at the curb.

”I just want to say thank you for everything,”

Grace says. ”I wanted to get you a card, but

all the ones I looked at sucked. They

didn’t say what I wanted.”

   ”I know what you mean. And I want you to know

what a pleasure it’s been to see you and your son.

You’ve come a long way, Grace, and I’m so

proud of you. As you must be of yourself.”

  ”Well, I still have a lot of questions, and I

guess some of them are pretty dumb. But I’m

not the only one who has questions. And there’s lots of

places I can go for answers, lots of people who are

ready to help me. My mom, she can’t do it. I

guess it’s because she’s had a pretty hard life

and she just ’’’” She shrugs. ”Whatever. But

I’m ready to do the stuff I have to. I think

I’m the best one to take care of Kurt, and I

think he’ll be all right. Actually, I know he

will be. I can feel it, I’m his mom.” She

hoists him up on her shoulder, gently kisses

his head, then looks at me. ”Okay, so ’’’

’Bye, Myra.” She starts up the walk.

  ”Grace?”

  She turns back, squints in the sun.

”Yeah?”

  ”You can still call me, any time you want.”

  ”Okay. Thank you.”

  ”Good luck.”

  She nods. Then she puts down the car seat,

 waves Kurt’s little hand at me.        251

”Say `’bye,”’” she says. And then, shyly.

”He says to say he loves you.”

  ”Well, you tell him that I love him,

too.” We stand there, both of us smiling, and then

she turns around again and disappears into the building.

  ”Treat her right,” I say, to nobody.

To everyone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Murray Schwartz came home from the

hospital yesterday, and the doctor asked me

to visit today to make sure the new regime for

medication is being followed correctly. Murray

is sleeping when I arrive, and Ethel brings me

into the kitchen to show me how she’s divided all the

pills in the Medi-minder. She’s made a

couple of minor errors, and I help her

correct them. ”Do you understand everything now?” I

ask, and she shrugs.

  ”Anything you want me to go over?”

  ”Yeah. You could go over how to put up with a man

who’s draining the lifeblood out of me.” She

puts the flame on under the teapot. ”He’s got

demands that could put a woman half my age in

her grave.”

  ”Would you like me to see if I could get a home

health aide in to help you?”

”Oh, no. No. I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  ”I’d be happy to.”

  She turns around to look at me. Blinks.

”I’m his wife. Who else should do for him? If

I get sick like that, God forbid, it will be his

turn to take care of me--not that he would do such a

 good job as I am, oh no, not by a long   253

shot, let me tell you. This is marriage,

Marilyn. Don’t let anyone tell you

otherwise. For about ten minutes, you get the

romance. Then you get the rest. Ah, so what. You

know? What are you gonna do?” She gets two

cups down from the cupboard. ”Tea?”

  ”No thanks.”

  From the bedroom down the hall, we hear

Murray calling.

  ”Oy,” she says. ”You see? A hundred

times a day. Two hundred. Coming!” she

yells.

  ”I’ll go, Ethel, and I’ll tell him you’re

coming.”

  ”Ask him does he want his toasted bagel

now, would you, darling?”

  I enter Murray’s darkened bedroom, see

him slowly sitting up. ”I need to take a

shit, Ethel.”

  ”It’s Myra.”

  ”Aw, Jesus. I’m sorry. Raise the

blind, will you? She keeps it like a crypt in here.

I never saw anyone so opposed to sunshine.”

  ”Do you need some help getting to the bathroom?”

   ”She can do it.”

  ”I can, too.”

  ”I’ll wait for her. Not that I don’t

appreciate it, Myra, thank you anyway,

thank you very much.”

”She wanted to know if you’d like your bagel

now.”

  He waves his arm in a gesture of futile

dismissal. ”If I say yes, she’ll complain

because she has to make it. If I say no,

she’ll complain because I’m not eating. So what should

I say? I’ll say yes, and eat half.”

  I sit on the bed, take his hand, and smile

at him. ”S. Murray. You’re happy to be

home, huh?”

  He smiles back at me. ”What are you

gonna do?”

 

 

 

 

255

  Later in the afternoon, I stop in at the agency

to pick up supplies. Sandy, our receptionist,

has a spectacular bouquet of flowers on her

desk. It’s all white: roses,

Casablanca lilies, lisianthus,

freesia, orchids, phlox, sweet peas,

delphinium. ”Wow!” I say. ”Who sent you

that?”

  ”It’s not for me.” She pushes the vase

toward me.

  I laugh. ”Are you kidding?”

  ”Take a look at the envelope. It says,

`Miss Myra Lipinski, R.ation.”’”

  At first I just stand there, taking in the

extraordinary beauty of the flowers, allowing myself

to luxuriate in speculation. Of course I

imagine first that it’s Chip. But it couldn’t be.

Could it? Then I think, No, it’s Mrs.

Peters. She’s the only one who could afford this.

But maybe, somehow, it’s Grace, could it be

Grace? Diann?

  I open the card and read, I surrender.

No signature.

  ”Who sent them?” Sandy asks.

   ”I don’t know,” I look at the envelope

again. Yup, they’re for me. I show the card

to Sandy.

  ”Jeez.” She leans back in her chair.

”That’s cool. Mystery man.”

  The phone rings, and she turns to answer it.

”Enjoy them,” she whispers, and then, in her work

voice, ”Good afternoon, Protemp.”

  I gather my supplies, wondering all the

while about who would send me such a thing. And then it

comes to me. I go over to a desk, pick up the

phone, and call DeWitt. When he answers,

I say, ”Did you send me flowers?”

  He chuckles, low and long.

  ”Is this supposed to be an apology?”

  Silence. Then, ”Well, I guess if this

bouquet ain’t enough, I could spend two

hundred dollars, maybe that get the hair on

your neck back down. People talk about `Don’t

get the black woman mad.”’ But they ain’t

met you!”

  ”This is a very beautiful bouquet, DeWitt,

but it is not an apology. I can’t be bought off this

way.”

  ”Read the card, ain’t there some card come with it?”

   ”I read the card. It says, I     257

surrender.”

  ”Aw, woman, what you want? Want me

to beg and gobble?”

”I want you to accept responsibility for your

behavior, DeWitt.”

  ”Whoa!”

  ”And I want you to apologize.”

  ”Well, fuck.”

  ”As for now, I have to go.”

  ”Aw, wait a minute. Just wait a

minute!”

  I stand still, say nothing.

  ”You still there?”

  ”Yes, I am.”

  ”So you want me to say this all my fault.”

  ”I want you to apologize.”

  ”Well, if I ’pologize, I am

definitely not saying it’s all my fault.

’Cause it ain’t. If I ’pologize, it just

some words I got to say to get you back here,

take care this dressing like it should be took care of.

You sent some nurse here don’t know how to find her

way out of a closet if you put the door knob in

her hand. Plus she sneezed, right in my open

 gut.”

  ”She sneezed in your wound, DeWitt?” I

doubt it.

  ”I swear to God. On my mother’s grave,

I swear to God and cross my heart and hope

to die.”

  ”Well, I’m sure we can find you another

nurse if you don’t get along with Jill.”

  ”Yeah, Kill, that’s what I call her.

But I don’t want another nurse. I told

you, I want you to come back!”

  ”Well. It appears that we’ve reached an

impasse.”

  ”What you mean?”

  ”A place where we can go no further.”

”Oh. I thought you meant one of them things in

canyons, like in the cowboy movies.”

  ”I’m going to hang up now, DeWitt.”

  ”All right, I’m sorry, okay? I’m

sorry. I’m sorry I hurt your tender little

feelings that shouldn’t have been hurt and wouldn’t have

been hurt if you’s a normal person.”

  I sigh.

  ”Okay?”

  ”Fine.”

   ”So ’’’ what time you coming?”           259

  ”It’s too late for me to come today. But I’ll

be back at the usual time tomorrow.”

  ”All right. You bringing Chip?”

  ”No, I am not.” I wave back at

Sandy, who’s waving at me to tell me there’s a

phone call. ”I’ll see you tomorrow, DeWitt.”

  ”Hold on, one more thing. Did they send all

white flowers?”

  ”Yes, they did.”

  ”Yeah, that be my idea. Fit in with the

surrender theme.”

  ”Right.”

  ”You got that, right?”

  ”Yes, I did.”

  ”Yeah, that’s ’cause you smart, not like your friend,

Kill.”

  ”I’ll see you tomorrow, DeWitt.”

  I pick up the other line and take an order

from Mrs. Peters’s doctor for a change in

eyedrops, starting tomorrow. Then I call Chip,

to tell him I’ll be home soon and to ask if

he needs anything, something I always do. No

answer. I look at my watch. He should be

back by now. I try the number again. No

 answer.

I walk quickly out the door, hear Sandy

calling after me, ”Hey, Myra! Your

flowers!”

               * * *

  At home, I call Chip’s name, then

Frank’s. Nothing. I go into all the rooms of the

house. Empty. He might be with his parents.

Oftentimes they come and get him for a while. I sit

at my desk, start to reach for the phone, and it rings.

  ”Myra Lipinski?”

  I feel a sense of dread wash over me.

”Yes?”

  ”This is Dr. Libson, at Memorial

Hospital. We’re calling at the request of

Chip Reardon.”

  ”He’s there?”

  ”Yes, he’s fine, he’s in the emergency

room--”

”What happened?”

  ”Well, he took a little tumble, and we had

to put a couple of sutures in his chin. They’re

just finishing with the dressing now.”

  Tears come into my eyes, and I wipe them

away angrily. When is enough enough?

   ”We think it might have been a         261

seizure, although he swears it was the dog that

pulled him off balance--is it your dog he has

with him?”

  ”Yes. Frank. Where’s he?”

  ”Actually, he’s in the room with Mr.

Reardon. He wouldn’t let us treat him without the

dog being there. Of course, as I’m sure you

know--”

  ”I’m on my way.”

  I arrive at our tiny community hospital in

under fifteen minutes, park in a doctor’s

reserved spot, the hell with it. Chip is in the

waiting room. ”Are you okay?” I ask.

  ”Yeah. Somebody just took Frank out.

They’ll be right back, and then we can get the hell

out of here.”

  ”We can wait by the door.” I offer my arm

to Chip.

  ”I’m fine.” He stands, starts walking out.

He won’t look at me.

  Outside, I see an orderly coming toward us,

with Frank. He hands the leash to me. ”Great

dog.”

  ”Thank you.”

   ”What’s his name?”

  ”Frank.”

  ”Great dog.”

  ”Thanks.”

  Chip says nothing all the way home, until

I pull into the driveway. Then he says,

”Let’s eat out tonight. Agostino’s, okay?”

  ”All right. I’ll just put Frank inside.”

  In the house, I dump some food in

Frank’s dish, turn on the Discovery channel

for him, say ”Be good!” and slam the door behind

me. Then I climb back in the car.

  ”Why don’t we walk?” Chip says.

”It’s only a few blocks.”

  ”It’s further than that.” I start the engine.

Chip is silent the whole way there. I can wait

for a while. But then I’m going to ask him. There’s

no way Frank made him fall.

  We both order eggplant parmesan. After it

arrives, I say, ”S. What happened?”

  ”Frank just jerked the leash all of a sudden and

I fell.”

I say nothing, take a bite of pasta. Then

another.

   ”All right, I don’t know what       263

happened. But it wasn’t a seizure, I do know

that. I just fell, that’s all.” He stops eating,

leans back in the booth. ”Oh, all right,

Myra.”

  I stop chewing, look over at him.

  ”When I had to sign my name at the

hospital, I could barely do it. Things are just

going to keep ’’’” He shakes his head. ”You

know, right after I was diagnosed, I read a lot

about brain tumors like mine. And one of the things I

read was about this guy--big fellow--whose family

took him on a car trip to some relative’s

house for Thanksgiving. When they arrived, they

couldn’t get him out of the backseat. The guy just

all of sudden couldn’t figure out how to do it. You

know how long he sat there like that?”

  ”How long?”

  ”Five hours.” He stares at me, his

face full of sadness, and then, suddenly, he

starts laughing. ”Jesus! Five hours!”

  I can’t help it; I start laughing, too.

  ”Do you think they brought his dinner out to him?”

Chip asks.

  ”I hope so. And a urinal, too.”

   ”Aw, he could have just used his empty wine

glass.”

  I laugh harder. ”It isn’t funny.”

  Chip, who has not stopped laughing either, says,

”I know.”

  Later that night, he is lying in his bed before

sleep and I am sitting beside him. ”You know what

I learned today?” he says. ”Before my field

trip to the ER?”

  ”What?”

  ”Buttercups grow on the Arctic tundra.”

  ”Huh.”

  ”And: butterflies taste with their feet.”

  ”Do they?”

  He yawns. ”Yup.”

  ”Maybe people can, too.”

  Chip frowns. ”I know I’ve never tried.”

  ”Me neither.”

  ”Maybe we should put some peanut butter between

our toes, right now. No time like the present.

Well, in my case, there’s no time but the

present.”

  I smile, say nothing. But then I say,

”You know, Chip, I have a lot of vacation time

 due me. I thought maybe I’d take    265

a few days. Would you like to go somewhere with me? We

could ’’’ I have a free weekend at the Four

Seasons in Boston. Mrs. Peters gave it

to me. Would you like to go there?”

  ”Sure, they’re nice hotels.”

  ”You’ve stayed there?”

  ”Oh, yeah. Not in Boston, though.” He

closes his eyes, breathes out slowly. Then,

”Oh. I meant to tell you. The drain doesn’t

wiggle.”

  ”Pardon?”

  ”The drain doesn’t turn. On the ’’’ thing.

The puller.”

  ”The drain? In the bathtub? What do you

mean?”

  He opens his eyes. ”Never mind. I’m just

tired.”

  ”Okay. You go to sleep. I’ll see you in the

morning.” I stand, and he takes my hand.

”Stay,” he says. ”Just a little bit longer.”

He closes his eyes, then opens them to say,

”That’s a song. Right?”

  I nod. And then I watch him fall

asleep. In my chest is the steady tick of my

 love for him. In the space of a few weeks, I

have so quickly gotten used to this, our life together,

pretend man and wife. That’s what it is, at

least for me. I don’t want to be without it. It

would be like going back into a cave. I think, you

stay. Or let me come with you. The thought comes

unbidden, but naturally. It seems so natural.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

267

  ”These tomatoes are wonderful,” I tell

Marvelous. We are finally having lunch together, and

we are both on our second bacon, lettuce,

and tomato sandwich.

  ”Yeah, my sister knows how to grow them like

nobody else. The goddess of tomatoes, that’s

what she is. She talks to them every day, and she

plays music for them all night long.”

  ”Really!”

  Marvelous nods, wipes mayonnaise from the

side of her mouth. ”It’s the truth. She puts

a transistor radio right out in the middle of the

garden every night, plays music for them.

Classical. One year a neighbor complained,

she called the cops, can you imagine? Never mind

people shooting each other’s faces off, call the

cops on the woman playing music to her

tomatoes. My sister said she’d stop doing it,

but she didn’t. She just turned it way down and the

plants still heard--in fact, that was her best year

so far. So now she always plays it that way, real

soft.”

  I take the last bite of sandwich.

”Delicious. Thank you.”

   ”How ’bout another one?”

  ”Oh, no, Marvelous. I’m stuffed. But

I’ll sit here with you if you want another one.”

  ”I’m full, too.” She leans back,

pats her belly, smiles her wonderful

smile.

  ”You look great, Marvelous. You must be

feeling well.”

  ”I am, I’m feeling good, honey. But not

you.”

  Reflexively, my hand goes to my chest.

”Me?”

  ”Ain’t nobody in this kitchen but you and me. And

I ain’t talking to myself. Least, not at the

moment.”

  ”I’m fine.”

  ”Nope, something after you. Don’t have to be

psychic to see that. Although I do have a little psychic

blood in me, did I ever tell you that? My

great-great-grandmother was a fortune-teller in New

Orleans. Everything she wore, every day, was red.

Anyway, I can tell there’s something weighing on

your mind, Myra.”

  ”It’s just ’’’ I’ve been taking care of

someone--”

   ”That patient you in love with.”         269

  ”Yes. Chip. And I think he wants ’’’”

  She says nothing, waits. Her white kitchen

curtain lifts, falls. Outside a

woodpecker knocks against a tree. I have always

loved that sound, the wild industriousness of it.

Finally, I look at Marvelous. ”Let me

ask you something. Do you think it’s wrong for someone

to commit suicide? When, after very careful thought, they

really believe it’s the right decision?”

  ”This be Chip you talking about, right?”

  ”Well ’’’ yes. I mean, what do you

mean?”

  ”What you think I mean?”

  ”I don’t know.”

  ”Oh, I think you do.”

  ”I’m not thinking of suicide myself. I’m not

thinking that.”

  Marvelous sits quietly, looking at me.

Finally she says, ”What you think I been

seeing, all the times you come here? You think I never

paid attention to who you really are? You think I

don’t know anything ’bout how you feel? I see

you sitting in my kitchen, and I see behind you,

too, girl. But to answer your question, well, who

 knows the answer to a question like that? Answer is in every

person’s heart, and all our hearts is

different.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”’Course, all our hearts is the same,

too, isn’t it the mixed-up truth? But I got

to tell you ’’’” She comes over next to me,

pulls me against her. She is so warm, and her

clothes smell so good. Ironed. ”I don’t

think it’s right for you. Don’t you think about doing that,

now.”

  ”Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.

  ”When my Gerald died, I wanted to go right

along with him. I used to lie in bed at night and

pray for death, I begged Jesus to take me

home. But I’m so glad now I didn’t die.

It took a long time, but I’m so glad I

didn’t. You hold on, baby. You’ll see.”

  ”Well. It’s nice to see you, but I’m very

sorry to hear you haven’t used my gift,”

Mrs. Peters says, after she lets me in.

  ”Oh, but I’m going to,” I tell her.

”I’m starting a vacation today, right after work, and

I’m going there. With a friend.”

   She claps her hands together. ”Good!     271

And you have a wonderful time and I hope you’ll

take advantage of everything that’s offered you.

Please do that, it would mean so much to me.”

  ”I will.”

  ”I really mean it, Myra.”

  ”I really do, too.” We stand smiling at

each other, finishing our conversation in this most

primitive and advanced of ways, and then I head

for the eyedrops.

  At home, Chip tells me he has packed

for both of us and brought Frank over to Theresa’s.

  ”Good,” I say. ”So we’re ready.”

  ”I just need to get the suitcase--it’s on the

bed.”

  ”I’m going up anyway,” I say. ”I’ll

get it.”

  Inside the suitcase, I see a pair of

pants for Chip, pajamas for both of us. My

bathrobe. And that is all. I gather his pills,

add our toothbrushes and his razor, changes of

clothes. Next, I quietly call Theresa

to make sure Frank really is all set. I

sit on the edge of the bed for a while, thinking. And

 then I go downstairs.

* * *

  At Chip’s request, we drive around

Boston for a while, up and down the streets of

Back Bay, then through the different sections of

downtown. We go to the North End for dinner, to a

restaurant where there are only five tables, and

eat zuppe di mare. Afterward, we eat

cannoli at Mike’s bakery. We sit at the

window so that we can watch the summer traffic along

Hanover Street, the slow-moving cars, the

smiling couples and noisy families who walk

along the sidewalk. People point to the salamis and

cheeses, the fine leather shoes, the hand-painted

plates. Just as it is growing dark, we head over

to the Four Seasons.

  ”Ah, Ms. Lipinski,” the clerk says,

when I check in. ”So nice to see you,

welcome to the Four Seasons. We have something here

for you. He turns and reaches behind him for a small

but exquisite bouquet. ”From Mrs. Peters,

who hopes you will very much enjoy your stay here.”

Attached to the flowers is an envelope holding

tickets to the symphony Sunday night. I

look up at the clerk, embarrassed, but he has

 busied himself punching computer keys. ”And   273

I see that we have a lovely upgrade available

for you, one of our junior executive suites?”

  ”Oh, I can’t take that,” I say. ”I--”

  ”We’ll take it,” Chip says.

  ”Certainly, Mr. Lipiniski.”

  I look at Chip and he smiles, then puts

his arm around me. ”Okay?” he asks, and I

say yes.

  The elevator that we take up to the top

floor is beautiful, the hallway too; and when

we open the door to the room, I take a few

steps in and then stand still. Past the bathroom, with its

fine wallpaper and richly-veined marble, is a

living room with a huge window overlooking the

public garden. Heavy silk curtains with

colors of robin’s egg blue and gold, with thin

red stripes. Tie-backs with tassels that must

weigh ten pounds apiece. A table and two

Chippendale-style chairs are arranged before the

window, and a floral brocade sofa is against the

wall, gold-framed prints above it. Off to the

side there’s an antique cabinet with a Chinese

vase-style lamp turned on to a low glow, a

bottle of wine, and two glasses on top of

 it.

  I open the French doors and go into the bedroom,

where there is another large window from which you can see the

gold dome of the state house. There is a bench

before the window, an armoire with a television

inside. And a king-sized bed.

  ”Oh,” I say.

  Chip comes in to stand behind me. ”What?”

  I point to the bed.

  ”What about it?”

  ”I forgot to ask for two beds. I’ll call

down.” I pick up the phone, and Chip takes

it from my hand, puts it back in the cradle.

”We’ll work it out,” he says. And then he

takes me by the shoulders, turns me around, and

kisses me full on the mouth. I don’t move

until he steps back from me. Then, when he

says, ”Okay?” I put my arms around him and

kiss him back.

  We lie down on the bed and I begin to shiver.

”Are you cold?” he asks, and I tell him

no, no, I’m not cold. I close my eyes,

and then do nothing but let myself feel his hands move

slowly up and down my body. His hands, my

body. Behind my lids I see not the man with the

 scars and the failing memory, but the boy     275

with the world at his feet: running off the football

field, his helmet in his hand; dressed in his

suit and tie at the homecoming dance; laughing at

his table in the cafeteria; jiggling his pencil at his

desk, his long legs stretched out into the aisle.

I see Chip Reardon coming down the hall of our

high school, grinning, his books at his side, his

letter jacket sleeves pushed up. He is that

boy again, that one. And I am that same odd-shaped

girl, leaning against my locker, waiting for him

to see me. His blond hair glints in the light

that comes from the windows, his blue eyes scan the

crowds. And then he finds me, and he stops

looking. I am the one, and he takes my hand, and

we walk on together. They all look up and say

nothing; I am the one, now.

  And then I stop seeing the boy and I see the

man with the scar. And the woman with the scar. And I

stop shivering. I open my eyes and help him

undress, and then he helps me.

  I put my fingers to his lips, to the curled

cartilage of his ears. I touch the place where they

cut his head, move deliberately along that

line, as if to finally heal it. I trace the high

 arch of his cheekbone, the underside of his jaw, his

shoulders and chest, his stomach. I reach down and

feel his erect self and then take my hand away

so that he can move over onto me. And then I

open up and let him in.

  Once, at the library, I watched two children,

a boy and a girl, building a popsicle stick

fortress. They did it very slowly, carefully.

When it was finished, the boy stood back and said,

”No,” and began disassembling it. ”What are you

doing?” the girl asked, and the boy said, ”I got

another idea.” He took apart the fortress using

the same deliberate care with which he built it.

And then he made a road, each narrow stick

laid perfectly beside the next. It twisted and

turned, but the path was clear, and something about it

made you want to go on it.

  I am in the bathtub when I hear Chip

call, ”Myra, did you read the letter on the

desk?”

  ”No. What does it say?”

  A moment, and then I hear him start to open the

bathroom door. ”Don’t come in!” I say.

  ”Why not?”

   I look down at myself, consider my    277

nakedness. Which he just spent a good forty-five

minutes considering.

  ”Never mind,” I say.

  He comes in and leans against the edge of the sink.

”Want me to read it to you?”

  ”Yes.”

  He opens the envelope, pulls out a piece

of hotel stationery. ”Well. We are to have dinner

at Aujourd’Hui tomorrow night.”

  ”Oh, no. This is too much, Chip. Really.

I have to tell her no, at some point.”

  ”It’s not from Mrs. Peters.”

  ”Who’s it from, then?”

  ”Me.”

  I sit still for a moment, then laugh.

  ”I mean, I can still charge things.”

  ”Well, thank you.”

  ”You’re welcome.” He sits on the edge

of the tub.

”Want to come in?”

  ”No. I think I’ll maybe just lie down

for a while now, okay?”

  I start to get out of the tub, but he tells me,

”Stay. I’ll be right outside. Just going to take

 a pain pill, though, so if I’m asleep when you

come out, don’t be offended.”

  ”I won’t.”

  He closes the door, and I lean back in the

tub and close my eyes. And I had been thinking

we’d just keep going, check out of the hotel in a

couple of days and take a trip somewhere else.

  When I finish bathing and come into the bedroom,

he’s still awake. ”Look what we get,” I

say, and model one of the soft white terry-cloth

robes that was hanging in the bathroom.

  ”It looks great.”

  ”Well.”

”It looks great.”

  I look at him. ”Thank you.”

  ”That’s better.”

  I go over to the bed, lie down beside him.

”Does your head still hurt?”

  ”Not bad.” He looks over at me,

kisses my forehead. ”Myra? I’ve been lying

here just ’’’ thinking. I lived my whole life

unable to make a vital connection. Not because I

couldn’t; because I wouldn’t. And you know what? It’s

the same for you.”

  ”Well, I haven’t exactly--”

   ”Don’t start that. Don’t tell me   279

you haven’t had the opportunity.”

  ”But I haven’t.”

  ”I don’t think you’ve tried. I don’t

think you ever have. And I want you to, Myra.”

  ”I am. I am now.”

”I know you are now, and I am, too, and that’s

wonderful. But this isn’t going to last. I’m not

going to last. But you are. And I want you to do

something about the way you live, I want you to be with

someone. Because you want to be. And you should be.”

  ”It’s not as easy as you make it sound,

Chip.” I sit up, push the pillows behind me.

”When you look like me--”

  ”Bullshit.”

  ”It’s not!”

  He sighs, turns onto his side. ”Lie

down. Lie down here and look at me.”

  I stay sitting up, stare straight ahead.

  ”Please.”

  ”I can talk from here.”

  ”Myra. I want to look at you. And I

don’t want to sit up.”

  I lie down next to him, and he puts his hand

to the side of my face, stares at me. ”What,

 you’re not a size four ex-model? You have real

hips?”

  I turn away.

  ”Myra. Look at me.”

  Reluctantly, I turn back toward him.

  ”It’s not your looks that keep people away. It’s

you. You need to let people in. If you’d let them

in, they’d see--”

  ”I know what you’re going to say, Chip. But it

isn’t true. It’s not just the way I look.

It’s that ’’’ I just can’t get it right with people. I

don’t know how to be ’’’ I don’t know how

to be. Ever since I was little, I’ve felt apart

from everyone. Maybe that happened because I was so

unattractive. Maybe not. But you have to admit

that when you look like me, you do get sent to the back

of the line. You wouldn’t know anything about that, Chip.

Whether you choose to admit it or not, you’ve used

your looks your whole life.” I rise up on

one elbow, look at him. ”I don’t think you

understand that I’m all right. I’m fine. I’m not

unhappy; I know that, in many respects, I’m

really lucky. I also know I’ll never ’’’ I

mean, I can do my work, and I get great joy from

it, but outside of that, I just ’’’”

   ”Do you have any idea how much the people you    281

work with love you?”

  ”I’m their nurse.”

  ”And?”

  ”They don’t love me. I mean, I know they

appreciate me, but they wouldn’t want to ’’’

; with me outside of our visits.”

  ”What about that woman you went to the movies with?”

  ”Margaret? Oh, that was ’’’ She was

desperate, Chip.”

”We’re all desperate.”

  ”Look. I know what you’re saying. I know.

But I’m just not the kind who will ever be able to have a

relationship like ’’’”

  ”Like this?”

  I look at him. Smile. ”Well. But you

know why we’re doing this.”

  ”Why, Myra? Why are we doing this?”

  ”Because--”

  ”Because of who you are. That’s why this happened.”

  ”This happened because of terrible, extraordinary

circumstances. If you hadn’t been sick, we’d

never--”

  ”Don’t you know that most people who are together never

planned it that way?” He turns onto his back

 and sighs, exasperated. ”I don’t know how

to tell you, Myra. How to show you. But I swear;

I’m going to.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

283

  Saturday morning, he gets up before I do.

At nine o’clock, I find him seated at the desk,

staring out the window. I walk up behind him, put my

hands on his shoulders.

  He says nothing.

  ”Chip? Are you okay?”

  ”I think ’’’ You know, I slept badly.

I’m not in the best shape this morning. Why don’t

you go out and get us some bagels, how’s that? And

I’ll just ’’’ Let me rest a little; and after we

eat, we can go somewhere.”

  ”Why don’t we get room service?”

  ”Oh, those bagels are no good. I’d really

like a bagel from that place on Newbury

Street, do you know where it is?”

  ”Yes. Okay, I’ll get ready and go right

away. It won’t take me long, twenty

minutes, half an hour tops.”

  ”Take your time,” he says. ”I want you

to enjoy being in the city.”

  When I come out of the shower, he’s back in bed,

his eyes closed, asleep or pretending to be.

I close the door quietly. Out in the hall,

two maids chat in Spanish beside their cart, each

 with one hand on her hip. It doesn’t appear that

many other guests are up yet; papers lie at

all of the doors. I punch the button for the

elevator, then stand there, thinking. Something’s

wrong. I’m the one who slept badly. I

awakened many times, at least five or six, and every

time I did, he was sleeping soundly. Maybe

he just wants some time alone. It occurs to me

to think that it’s because he regrets what happened between

the two of us. But I know he doesn’t. I know

it.

  
The bagel shop is crowded; I stand at the end

of a long line, and almost immediately three more people join

it. I can feel the man behind me watching me. And

then he clears his throat and says, ”Nice

morning.”

  ”Yes,” I say, turning slightly,

smiling.

  ”You live here?” he asks.

  ”Ashton,” I say, turning around fully.

He’s a pleasant-looking sort: nice brown

hair, brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.

About my age, well dressed in khaki pants

and a white linen shirt, sleeves rolled up. In

 good shape. A nice smile, too--good   285

teeth. ”I’m just staying in the city for the weekend,”

I tell him.

  He steps up beside me. ”I live here. Right

on this street, I come here every morning. Need a

bagel recommendation?”

  ”Well ’’’”

  ”The `everything”’ bagel’s good,” he says.

”Everything really is in there.”

  ”Uh-huh.”

  ”Well, they’re all good, really.” He

scans the room, spots a table where two people are

leaving. ”Hey,” he says. ”Want to hold my

place in line, and I’ll get us a table?”

  ”Oh, I ’’’ I’ll hold your place. But

I’m not staying. I’m bringing breakfast back to the

hotel.”

  ”Aw, don’t do that. Come and sit with me.”

  ”No, I mean ’’’ I’m with someone. At the

hotel. He stayed there.”

  ”Oh!” The man blushes. Endearingly,

really. ”I’m sorry, I just assumed--”

  ”It’s all right,” I say. ”I will hold your

place, though, if you want to grab that table.”

  ”No, I just thought if you wanted ’’’ You

 seem like you’d be nice to talk to.”

  ”Well, thank you.”

  ”You’re welcome.”

  Rather awkwardly, he takes his place behind me

again. I think, Let’s see. How many times

has this happened? As if I didn’t know the

answer. I remember once turning on the

television and seeing a panel of women talking

about frustrations they had with men. One woman was

saying, ”They’re never interested when you’re

available. But as soon as there’s competition,

they’re all over you.”

  Is that so, I’d thought, idly licking my

finger and running it along the bottom of the bag of

Cape Cod potato chips I’d just finished.

And then I thought, I wouldn’t know. Well,

now I do.

  As I am putting my key into the door, I

hear the low sounds of Chip talking to someone. When

I walk into the room, I see that he is on the

phone. He sees me, says hastily,

”Okay, thanks,” and hangs up.

  He sits on the sofa, smiles. ”I’ve

got the whole day planned.”

   I set the bag of bagels down. I   287

want to ask him who he was talking to, but instead

say, ”Feeling better?”

  ”What do you mean?”

  ”You were so tired.”

  ”Oh. Yeah, I am better. Power nap.”

  ”I see. S. What would you like to do?”

  He holds up a list. ”First, Harvard

Square, some bookstores. Then the science

museum, we can sit in the dark and look at the

stars. I just got off the phone with them--they have a

show starting at three. After that, I don’t know,

I guess I’ll need a damn nap. And then

dinner. How’s that sound?”

  I look down. Nod. Nod again.

  I am just getting ready to wake Chip from his

nap to get ready for dinner when I hear him

quietly swearing. I put down the book of

poems we bought and go into the bedroom. He is

sitting at the side of the bed, wet sheets gathered

around him. He looks up at me.

  ”It’s all right,” I say. ”I’ll just call

down and get some clean ones.”

  ”Jesus.”

   ”It’s all right.”

  He won’t look at me. I go over to him,

kneel at the side of the bed, take his hands between

my own. ”I know you feel embarrassed, but you

don’t have to, Chip. It’s not your fault.

It’s no big deal.”

  He picks up a glass of water from the

bedside table, takes a drink. His hands are

shaking.

  ”Chip?”

  He puts the glass back, then pulls me

to him. ”Myra. I’m scared.”

  ”I know you are.”

  ”You’re here, right? I mean, really here.”

  ”Yes. I’m here.”

  He holds me tighter, then lets go.

Looks into my face and smiles a smile like

nothing I’ve ever seen, that of someone lost inside

himself. And then he says, ”Is it time to go to the

restaurant?”

”Yes, it’s time to get ready. You get in the

shower. I’ll take care of this.” He stands,

steps out of his clothes. I reach out my hand.

  When we arrive at the restaurant, we are

 seated at a luxuriously large table     289

by the window. ”Sorry for the rather inconvenient size,

it’s the only table available,” the ma@itre do’

says.

  ”It’s fine,” I say. I order a martini,

Chip a club soda. I spread my napkin on

my lap, lean back in my chair, and look out

at the beautiful room. Then, coming through the door,

I see Mrs. Peters. ”Oh, my God,”

I whisper. ”Look who’s here!” Chip nods,

smiling. Mrs. Peters spots us, waves, and

heads directly for us.

  ”Wait a minute,” I say. ”What is this?

Did you--?”

  ”Mrs. Peters!” Chip rises to kiss her

cheek. His napkin falls, and I pick it up for

him, put it on his chair.

  ”Thank you for inviting me,” she tells him.

”This is a real honor.” He invited her

to dinner?

  ”Hello, Myra.” Mrs. Peters leans

down to kiss me. She smells wonderful.

She’s wearing a midnight blue dress,

conservatively cut from some beautiful,

crepelike fabric. Diamond-and-sapphire

 earrings, a matching bracelet. Her hair is

styled into an elegant upsweep.

  The waiter glides over. ”The usual,

Mrs. Peters?”

  ”Yes, Basil, thank you.”

  After he disappears, she says, ”Such a nice

man. He’s forty, can you believe it? He

doesn’t look a day over thirty. He’s a

twin, he and his brother live in the South End.

He’s an aspiring actor, quite good, really,

I’ve seen him in a few plays around town.”

  There’s a great commotion at the door, and then I

see DeWitt coming in, wearing a dark suit, a

blindingly white shirt, and an electric blue

tie.

  Open-mouthed, I stare at Chip, who simply

smiles back at me. Who knows what

DeWitt was arguing about, but everything seems to have

been worked out. He comes to the table, smiles

widely at Chip, salutes me, and then, upon

being introduced to Mrs. Peters, leans over and

pumps her hand enthusiastically. ”Very charmed

to make your acquaintance, how you doing?”

  He sits next to Chip, and when Basil comes

over, DeWitt orders a Glenlivet. I am

 about to ask him what was going on at the      291

door, but then I see Murray and Ethel coming

in, followed by Fitz Walters and a beautiful

black woman who must be his new wife.

Marvelous is there, too, dressed in a white

suit and a hat with a feather. They are all beaming,

and as they make their way to the table, every person in the

restaurant is looking at them. What an

assemblage they make: Murray in his lime

green summer suit and floral tie, Ethel in a

pink chiffon dress, the bodice covered in

sequins, a matching scarf draped around her

neck, and strappy silver sandals. Fitz is

wearing a black turtleneck and trousers, and his

wife a simple black sleeveless linen

dress. And then I see Grace coming through the

door, wearing her blue pantsuit and a white

carnation corsage, holding the arm of Rose

Banovitz, who is dressed in an ancient

trench coat and what I hope is not but certainly

appears to be a black slip. And I do not

want to do this, I so much do not want to do this, but I

burst into tears. After everyone is seated and the

introductions are made, I wipe my face with

my napkin and start laughing. ”I’m sorry,” I

 say. And then, looking around the table, ”It’s just

’’’ thank you for coming.” Under the table, Chip

takes my hand. I don’t know the place to put

this kind of happiness.

  ”So what kind of grub they got here?”

DeWitt asks, opening the menu.

  ”Well, I think the tasting menu is always a

good idea,” Mrs. Peters says. ”The

variety is marvelous.”

  ”Oh, yes, I always like a tasting menu,

too,” Ethel says.

  Murray frowns. ”When did--”

  Ethel turns quickly to him, smiles a tight

pink smile. ”It wasn’t with you, darling. It was

with my mah-jongg group.”

  ”I ain’t tasting nothing; I intend to eat.”

DeWitt says.

  ”Yeah, me too,” Murray says. ”I’m

going to live it up and have steak.”

  ”Or fish,” Ethel says. ”You could have fish.”

  ”The ahi is very nice,” Mrs. Peters

says, and Ethel says, ”Oh, I have always

loved ahi!”

  Murray turns to Fitz. ”Who’s she

kidding, the fanciest fish she eats comes frozen

 in a Gorton’s box,” he says       293

quietly. And then, ”Want I should read the menu

to you?”

”Oh, I’ll read the menu,” Rose says.

”I will!” And, standing, she proceeds to do so. With

perfect elocution, if not pronunciation.

  Chip and I are lying in bed, having just put

DeWitt in a cab to go home. He stayed after

the others were taken home by the limo that Chip and

Mrs. Peters arranged for, and the three of us went

to the Oak Bar in the Copley Plaza for a

nightcap. DeWitt and I had martinis, and

Chip had a cigar. ”I don’t know how to thank

you for what you did,” I tell Chip.

  ”I just hope it showed you something.”

  ”I ’’’ It did.”

  ”All right.”

  ”Did you see Rose eating with her hands?”

  ”Oh, well. Egyptians always ate with their

hands.”

”Really?”

  ”Really.” He yawns.

  ”You must be exhausted, Chip.”

  ”I took a nap this afternoon.”

   ”St.”

  ”Yeah, I am tired. But I don’t want

to sleep when there’s so little time left.”

  ”There might be more time than you think. You don’t

know.”

  ”I do know, though.”

  I turn to him. ”What do you mean?”

  He sighs. ”It’s time, Myra. This ’’’

pissing the bed, and all the other ’’’ Look,

I’ve thought about this. I knew a few weeks after

I was diagnosed that I’d be the one to decide

when. I don’t want to hang around to see what

else will happen. I don’t want to be sitting

in a car, stuck for five hours.”

”But you ’’’”

  ”I’m all set. I have what I need. I just

want ’’’ I would like to not be alone. Will you stay with

me when I do it? Can you do that?”

  I say nothing. Inside, it feels as though a

screw is being tightened, then tightened more.

  ”I know it’s a lot to ask. I have a friend in

New York who’ll do it if you can’t. I made

him promise, early on, that if things got bad,

he’d help. He said he’d suffocate me, if

he had to.”

   ”Oh, Chip.”                    295

  ”No. He’s a good friend to agree to it.”

  ”But how are you ’’’?”

  ”I got some pills.”

  ”From where?”

  He says nothing.

  ”Oh, my God. From DeWitt.”

”Well, from a friend of his. A doctor,

actually, who buys his marijuana from

DeWitt.”

  ”Chip, you can’t do that. DeWitt can’t be

trusted. What if--”

  ”He can be trusted. I know exactly how

it’ll work. First, you take something to keep you from

throwing up. Then, in about twenty minutes, you

take the rest.”

  ”The rest of what? What did he give you?”

  ”He thought it would be better if I didn’t

know. I think he’s right.”

  I lie quietly for a while. Then, ”I’m

going with you,” I say.

  ”Don’t be ridiculous.”

  ”I want to.”

  He sits up, turns on the light.

”Okay. We’re going to get this straightened out

right now. Get dressed, we’re going outside.”

  ”Chip--”

  ”Myra, you think you love me, right?”

  I swallow. ”I do love you.”

  He gets out of bed, reaches for the pants and

shirt he left draped on the bench. ”Then come with

me. I need you to do this. Please come with me, I

want to go outside.”

  I push back the covers, head for the closet.

  ”Good evening,” the doorman says, as we go out

the front door of the hotel. ”Good morning” would

be more appropriate. We go across the street, hand

in hand, and sit on a park bench opposite a

fountain. Overhead, a dark shape flies by.

  ”What was that?” I ask.

  ”I don’t know,” Chip says. ”A bat?

Are there bats out here?”

”I don’t think it was a bat. It was too

big.”

  ”Maybe it was a falcon.”

  ”It definitely wasn’t that.”

  ”Well, let’s say it was. We didn’t

really see it, and I like falcons.”

  I look at him, at his fine profile in this

 dim light. ”Why?” I say.          297

  ”What?”

  ”Why do you like falcons?”

  ”Don’t know, really. I have since I was a

little kid. I used to call myself `Falcon,”’

in fact. My best friend Timmy O’Ccner--

remember him?--he was `Eagle.”’”

  I smile. ”How old were you then?”

  He leans back against the bench. ”Oh, let’s

see. About thirty-seven, thirty-eight.”

  I laugh, and he says, ”Ten. Ten years

old. Falcon Reardon, that was me.”

  ”It does have a nice ring.”

  ”Do you know what falcons do when they court

each other?”

  ”No, what?”

  ”First, they fly around in the sky together,

to determine a certain kind of compatibility. Then

they lock talons, and plunge toward the earth.”

  ”Wow,” I say. ”I assume at some point

they reverse the direction.”

  ”Yeah. Just before they crash.”

  ”Where did you read that?”

  ”I heard it on the radio.”

  We sit quietly for a while, and then he

 says, ”You know, Myra, I feel like the only

good thing that can come out of a situation like this is that you have

a chance to finally fix some things. Before I left

New York, I went to this support group.

Diann thought it would be a good idea. It was a

group for cancer patients and those who love them, that

kind of deal. They met every Wednesday night in

some church basement, folding chairs in a

circle, you know the deal. It wasn’t for me. The

group leaders and their glowy-eyed acolytes,

offering you trays of terrible cookies. The

depressed people, sitting bent over in their chairs,

moaning and groaning about loss, loss, loss. The

fear you saw! And then there were the ones who

pretended they weren’t afraid, the ones wearing the

healing colors and sporting their baldness like it was the

latest fad. The ones who knew they’d lived

before and would again, or the ones who knew they’d

`join with Christ in heaven.”’ And there was this grim

competition for who could live longest. Or maybe

it was who could die soonest, I don’t know. I

didn’t want to be in their club, I didn’t

want to be in any club.

  ”But I did like one of the things they said. They said

that this kind of diagnosis gave you notice. You

 could resolve some things that might          299

otherwise never get resolved. I thought about that

for a long time. It was why I decided to come home.

I feel like I’ve made peace with my mother, and

I don’t think I ever would have, otherwise. More

than that, I feel like I’ve made peace with

something in myself, that there’s been a kind of change in

me I never thought I’d experience. I didn’t

plan on that happening, but it did.”

  ”What do you mean?”

  ”Well, just what I was talking about before. I

mean, I spent my whole life walking away from

any kind of real commitment. I never learned how

to be with just one person. I told myself I

didn’t want to be, but that was bullshit. I was just

afraid.” He looks at me. ”I know now,

though, what can come from loving just one person. From

loving, period.”

  I say nothing. Look away.

  ”You know what I’m saying, don’t you?

Myra?” I swallow, try to speak, cannot.

  He takes my hand, kisses it. ”I’m

glad to know what it’s like. I’m glad I get

to have it after all.”

  And now I start crying. ”But you don’t get

 to have it! You don’t get enough time to have it, it takes

time!”

  ”I do have time. It’s here. It’s happening, and

I know it. What else do we get? I’ll

die, yes, but I’ll die knowing I finally did

learn how to love one person. You know why? Because

you’ve shown me what to love in a person.

That’ll be the most important thing, what you’ve

given me. I mean, I look at you and I just

’’’ Oh, Myra, don’t you know that you have so much

to offer someone? Can’t you believe me? Goddamn

it, will you just believe me?”

  It takes a long time; the water is wide, but

finally, in a voice that does not sound like my own,

I say, ”I believe you.”

  ”Ah. Thank you.” He kisses my forehead.

”You know what I think? I think we met up with

each other again so that we could help each other. If

I were going to live, Myra, I would ask you

to marry me.”

  I laugh.

  ”I would!”

  ”Well, it’s easy to say that now.”

  ”It’s not that easy, actually. But it’s

true.” He gets up off the bench and kneels

 before me. ”What the hell. Myra        301

Lipinski, I love you. And your little dog,

too. Will you marry me?”

  I say nothing. My throat aches.

”Don’t. This isn’t funny.”

  He stops smiling, reaches out, and puts his hand

to the side of my face. ”Myra,” he whispers.

”Say yes.”

  The night air is so soft around us. The trees

look like lace. You can hear the water from the

fountain, the small irregularities in the flow.

I think, Don’t ever let me forget one thing about

this moment. And then I say yes.

  He stands. ”All right. And now, as is the

custom, I’m going to present you with a big

rock.”

  He starts off down the path.

  ”Chip.”

  ”Stay there,” he says. And then, bending over,

”Here’s a good one.”

  He comes back and hands me a rock--a

small, round, smooth one. I lay it over my

left ring finger. ”Beautiful.”

  He sits on the bench next to me again, puts

his arm around me. Pointing up to the sky, he

 says, ”Look at that. Look how bright.”

  I locate the star he’s pointing to. ”I

wonder how far away it is.”

  ”Well, Arcturus, which is a bright star, is

36 light-years away, if I remember

correctly. That’s 216 trillion miles.

But we can actually see stars that are 10,000

light-years away.” He looks over at me,

smiles.

  I think about a little girl I once had as a

patient during my pediatric rotation. She was

six years old, in for chemotherapy for some kind of

kidney cancer. I was sitting on her bed,

coloring with her, and she suddenly laid down her

crayon, leaned back, and sighed. ”What’s

up?” I asked. And she said, ”I don’t know.

I was just thinking about how big the sky is.”

  ”Does that scare you?” I asked, and she said,

”No. It makes me feel better.” I think

I understand now why Chip wanted to come outside.

  In the distance, we see a man walking toward

us. He catches sight of us, pauses, then

heads toward us.

  ”Let’s go,” I tell Chip.

  ”Why? It’s so nice out.”

   I look at the man, who is coming      303

closer. Dark hooded sweatshirt. Hands in

pockets.

  I stand up. ”Come on. Hurry.”

  Chip takes my arm, pulls me back down.

”He’s just a guy out for a walk. Don’t

worry.”

  Except that the guy out for a walk now has a

gun pointed toward us. It’s fascinating, in a

way; I realize I’ve never seen one quite so

close up.

  ”Evening, folks,” he says. ”Guess what

this is?”

  ”I don’t have anything,” I say. ”I

don’t have my purse.” I’m shaking; I can

feel my heart beating in my throat.

  ”You got a watch?”

  I take it off and hand it to him. When he leans

forward to take it, I see his face a little

better. A white man, about fifty or so.

Heavy black eyebrows, very thin lips.

  ”That all the jewelry you got?”

  ”Yes.”

”What’s in your hand?”

  I open it. ”A rock.”

   He laughs. ”That ain’t gonna help you

much.” He gestures with his gun toward Chip.

”You got your wallet?”

  ”I do,” Chip’s voice is remarkably

calm. Friendly, really. I want to look at

him, but I’m afraid to turn my head. ”But

I’ll tell you something. I don’t feel like

giving it to you.”

  The man snorts, steps closer.

  ”Chip,” I say quietly.

  ”The reason is, I’ve had just about enough. If

you look at my head, here, you’ll see a scar.

Surgery for a brain tumor. Didn’t work.

You’re robbing a dying man, pal. You don’t

want to do that, your karma will be incredibly bad.”

  The man puts the gun to Chip’s temple.

”Give me your wallet, you stupid fuck.”

  Chip reaches in his pocket, hands the man his

wallet. Then his watch.

  ”I’m going to back away,” the man says,

”and you two are going to sit there. If you move

while I can still see you, I’ll shoot you both.

Don’t think I don’t mean it. It wouldn’t

mean shit to me, I’ve killed lots of people.”

  We sit still. Cars pass on the road behind us,

 the wind blows, then stops. Just as the man   305

is nearly out of sight, he starts coming toward us

again. ”Oh God,” I say, and take Chip’s

hand. The irony, that this is the way we’ll die.

The absurd thought comes to me that I wish I’d

finished my dessert.

  When the man is before us again, he asks Chip,

”You really got a brain tumor in there?”

  ”Yes.”

He stands there, considering. Then, ”What kind?”

  ”It’s called glioblastoma ’’’ I forget

the other part.”

  ”Multiforme,” I say. ”Glioblastoma

multiforme.” Let us live, we’re being so

cooperative.

  ”Huh. Sounds like some Italian food or

something.” He pronounces it ”eyetalian,” and

I have a terrible urge to start laughing.

  ”I tell you what.” The man hands Chip’s

wallet back to him.

  Chip puts it back in his pocket.

”Thanks.”

  The man shrugs. ”What the fuck. My mom

died of cancer. Of the boobs, that kind.” He

takes a watch from his pocket, holds it out

 toward Chip. ”Might as well take that back,

too.” He turns to me. ”Yours I gotta

keep. Sorry.”

  ”That’s all right.”

  ”Uh ’’’ this isn’t my watch,” Chip

says.

  ”What’s yours?”

  ”Mine’s an Omega.”

  ”What do you got there?”

  Chip squints at the face of the watch. ”I

believe it’s a knock-off Rolex.”

  ”Well, which one you like better?”

  ”Mine.”

  The man reaches in his pocket, pulls out a

watch. ”This it?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Gimme the other one back.”

  They make a trade, and then the man

straightens. ”I expect you to let me walk

away. I expect you to sit there for a while after you

can’t see me anymore, and then walk out of here,

you’re idiots for being here in the first place.”

  The man walks backward into the darkness.

Finally, we can no longer see him. ”Can we

leave now?” I ask Chip.

   ”I guess so.”                   307

  We start out of the park slowly, then quickly

cross the street.

  Back in the hotel, I say, ”Should we

call the police from the desk?”

  ”Let it go,” Chip says.

  I turn to him, start to say something, then stop.

Together, we wait for the elevator. When it

arrives, the ding of it sounds so innocent.

Preposterous.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

On Sunday night, we’re back at home,

lying in my bed and holding hands. The breeze through

the window is enough to make us need a light

blanket. ”August is almost over,” I say.

  ”It went fast,” Chip says. ”Well, of

course it did.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”I’m thinking about doing it on Friday,

Myra. Arrive in heaven for the weekend, they

probably have great weekend activities up

there.”

  I say nothing, close my eyes. I feel

him turn toward me. But I keep my eyes

closed.

  ”Maybe Janis and Jimi perform on the

weekend. And Elvis. Maybe Liberace.”

  I open my eyes, look at him. I don’t

want to play.

”What’s the matter?”

  I sit up, turn on the bedside light.

  ”What?” he says, finally. ”Tell me.”

  ”I don’t know. Just, maybe you should look

into some other options. Maybe there’s some

experimental treatment that really is worth trying.”

   ”Oh, Myra. Please.”           309

  ”But maybe there is.”

  ”There isn’t.”

  For a long time, neither of us says anything. Then

I say, ”All right. I’m sorry. I said

I’ll respect your choice, and I will.”

  ”It’s better, Myra, believe me. Now,

I need to talk to you about some specifics. Are you

okay with that?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”If you’ve changed your mind about staying with me

through this, I understand. In fact, if you change your

mind at any time between now and then, I understand.”

  ”I won’t change my mind.”

  ”All right. So I want to do it on Friday.

That’s the day. I thought ’’’ morning. I thought that

might be better for you. I know you have to go to work tomorrow,

I’ll be fine staying here. I need to see my

parents and I want to make some phone calls.

But then maybe you could take a few days off.”

  I nod. Then I turn off the light and

stretch out beside him. It’s Sunday night. Tomorrow

is Monday. Next comes Tuesday. I can’t do

anything about it, and I never could. I read once

about an idea in physics that says time branches

 out into more than one dimension, so that what doesn’t

happen in one world may very well take place in

another. It’s an old habit, using thoughts

to comfort me. It’s something I don’t want to go

back to.

The summer I was ten years old, there was a

group of kids in my neighborhood who played

together every night after dinner. I often watched them from

my window; a few times I even joined them in a

game of hide-and-seek. Once I hid behind

lilac bushes with a boy who stared uncomfortably

ahead for a while, then turned to me and whispered, in

a not unkind way, ”Who are you?” But mostly

I would watch. I would see them sitting on the

grass in a circle, riding bikes around,

playing statue and freeze tag, talking and

laughing about things I couldn’t really hear. There was

a time they set off a cherry bomb, and once they

had a picnic by moonlight: Kentucky Fried

Chicken and lemonade.

  Every night around nine-thirty or ten, those kids

would get called in, one by one. Mothers would lean

around screen doors and call out names, or a

brother or sister might come and round someone up.

I knew the first ones called were full of

 resentment. But they needn’t have been.      311

Nothing ever happened after they left anyway.

Things just sort of ended in a slow motion way, like

petals falling off a flower. You couldn’t have people

leave like that and have anything good happen afterward. Whoever

was left couldn’t pay much attention to anything other

than waiting for their turn to get called in. So

it wasn’t so bad to go first, to head back toward

those deep yellow lights and beds made up with

summer linens. It was much better than being last,

when you would be left standing there alone, finally going in

without anybody calling you.

  On Monday, I visit Rose, Ann

Peters, and Fitz Walters. Then I go to a

convenience store for a tuna sandwich. I eat half

of it, then use the pay phone there to call my

agency and tell them that as of tomorrow, I’ll be taking

an indefinite amount of time off. I tell them that

they can take DeWitt off my patient list; this

will be the last visit he’ll need. Then I call

DeWitt.

  He answers on the first ring, and seems

surprised to hear me. But he doesn’t start

screaming about how I’m calling at the wrong time.

 Rather, he is extremely cordial. ”Yeah, you

can come on by now,” he says. ”I was just about

to make lunch, you can have some with me.”

  ”No thanks,” I say. ”I just ate.”

  ”You ain’t ate this,” he says. ”What I

got here’ll put hair on your chest. Well,

maybe you rather have it on your head. But I made me

some DeWitt’s Chili. It’s three alarm,

baby. It’s five star, too. After you do my

dressing, we’ll have some.”

  ”Twenty minutes,” I say, and throw the other

half of my sandwich in the trash. I’ve got a

feeling DeWitt’s a good cook. And even if

he’s not, I’m going to tell him he is. I

need a favor.

 

 

 

 

 

                                   313

  ”This here bring that cook at the Four Seasons

to his knees, right?” DeWitt loads up

another bowlful of chili for me.

  ”It is good,” I say. ”Where’d you get the

recipe?”

  ”I made it up. First thing you got to do if you

want to cook right is throw out the recipes, just

listen to your own self. Them cookbooks is all

wrote by pussies.” He fills another bowl for

himself. ”You want more cornbread, too?”

  ”No, thanks.”

  ”Suds?”

  ”No, I’m fine, thank you.”

  DeWitt puts the bowls on the kitchen table

and pulls up a chair. ”How’s Chip? How come

he ain’t here?”

  ”He ’’’ had some things to do.”

  DeWitt looks sharply at me, and I

say, ”Not that. Not yet.”

”When?”

  ”I ’’’ don’t know.”

  ”I like to see him one more time, will you tell him?”

  ”Yes.”

  ”I like to tell him good-bye in the proper

 way.”

  ”I’ll tell him. DeWitt ’’’ speaking of

that, I want to ask you something.”

  ”I can’t tell you what I gave him.”

  ”I wasn’t going to ask you that.” I put down

my spoon, push my chair back from the table.

”I wanted to know ’’’ can you get some more of those

drugs? The same combination? Soon?”

  His brow furrows. ”What for?”

  ”Well ’’’” I was going to say something about

Chip wanting to be sure he had enough, but now I

find I can’t lie. ”For me.”

  ”For you? For what?”

”I think it’s pretty obvious for what,

DeWitt.”

  He stares at me. There’s a smear of chili

at the side of his mouth and I have a strong urge

to wipe it away. But I don’t.

  ”Listen, DeWitt. This is very complicated.

I--”

  ”You can just stop right there, ain’t no sense in your

beating your gums ’bout this to me. What you think,

I’m crazy? You think I’m gon’ give you

drugs so you can off yourself? Chip know you axin’ me

this?”

   ”No.”                          315

  ”That’s right. What’s the matter with you? I thought

you’s a smart woman! But this some dumb shit you

be laying on me, now. Maybe you cracking up,

maybe you need one of them rest cures, go lie

around on a lawn chair under a blanket somewhere.”

He stands up, takes our dishes over to the sink.

”Talk ’bout killing your own self,” he

mutters. Then he spins around, arms crossed, and

glares at me. ”You think this some kind of soap

opera? You think you take them pills and then wake

up? Cry some pretty tears and go take a

shower?”

  ”I’m not going to talk to you about why I want

to do this. If you don’t help me, I’ll get the

drugs somewhere else.”

  ”The hell you say.”

  ”I will.”

  ”First of all, good luck, it ain’t easy.

Second, I got connections, remember? I

get the word out on the street, and nobody give you

shit. Nobody.”

  ”DeWitt. Please. Please don’t make

me explain this to you. I know what I’m doing. Just

give me what you gave him. Please.”

   He sits down at the table with me. ”I can’t

give you those drugs, Myra. Don’t even have

them in the first place. And even if I did, I

wouldn’t give them to you.”

  We sit in silence. I hear the call of one

bird, the answer of another. Then I say,

”Let me ask you something, DeWitt. Have you ever

been in love? Have you ever been so much in love with

someone that you didn’t want to be in the world without

them?”

  ”Sheeeit.” He looks out the window.

  ”Have you?”

  ”I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”

  ”Yes, but ’’’ to death?”

  ”Yeah. As a matter of fact, yeah. I was

married once. She died in childbirth.

Nineteen years old. Couldn’t get the fucking

ambulance here fast enough, don’t nobody want

to come here. Bled to death. She be lying on the sofa

with her coat on, just waiting. She got her

kerchief on her head. I’m kneeling right by her,

telling her everything gon’ be all right. Baby

died, too. They took her out of here with a sheet

over her face and I seen that kerchief coming out the

top.”

   ”Oh, DeWitt. I’m so sorry.   317

I didn’t know.”

  ”Nobody knows. That was a long time ago. And

don’t be telling nobody, neither.”

  ”I won’t. But DeWitt, if you loved her

like I--”

  He stands suddenly, and his chair falls to the

floor behind him. He’s breathing fast and you can see

his pulse throbbing at his temples. ”Don’t you

say another word make it sound like what I felt

for that girl any less than what you feel for

Chip! Or what anybody feel for anybody!”

  ”I’m not saying that, DeWitt. I’m not.”

I start crying, and use one of the paper napkins

he laid out for our lunch to wipe my face. ”I

just ’’’ God, I just feel like I’ve lived a

long time, you know? And I’ve been so alone. I

found something with Chip that I don’t think I can be

without anymore, and I know I’m not going to find it

again.”

  DeWitt picks up his chair, sits down

again. ”You don’t know that.”

  ”I will never find it again. And I don’t know

how to tell you so that you understand, I don’t think I

could explain it to anyone. But I will not stay here

 without him. I will not. This is a decision that’s

only about me. I thought that you of all people would understand

the right to make choices, even if they’re outside

the law. But if you won’t give me the drugs,

I’ll use my father’s gun, which is in my

basement. I’ll just use that.”

  ”How? You tell me that. You tell me

exactly how.”

  ”All right. I’ll load the gun the night

before, and I’ll hide it in the linen closet, behind

the towels. Right after Chip dies, I’ll go and

get it. I’ll lie down beside him, really close

to him. I’ll take his hand. With my other hand,

I’ll put the barrel of the gun to my temple.

Then I’ll pull the trigger.”

  He says nothing.

  ”It doesn’t scare me, DeWitt.

Telling you this, I don’t feel anything except

a kind of certainty. One way or another,

I’m going to do this.”

  He looks at me for a long moment, and then he

says, ”You can pick the drugs up tomorrow. Two

o’clock.”

  I nod. ”Thank you.”

  ”Don’t you thank me for that. And I don’t

 want you in my house no more, neither.”      319

He walks out of the kitchen, goes down the hall

to his bedroom, and slams the door. I let

myself out quietly.

  This is how you do it, when you’re standing at the edge

of a high place. You just lean a bit more in the right

direction. A movement so small. Scarcely

measurable. Just a little closer to what once seemed

so far away. And then it takes over and moves

at its own speed, and you can stop thinking. I’ve

always thought that any fall like that must be so quiet.

And that the silence is the sound of relief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

When I come home, I find Chip in the

bedroom, sleeping. He is on his side,

Frank lying next to him. Frank raises his

head and wags his tail, and I whisper, ”Stay.”

Then I close the door quietly and go

downstairs to look in the refrigerator for something

for dinner. Cheese. Eggs. Salsa.

Omelets?

  The phone rings, and I pick it up quickly.

It’s Diann. I can tell by the way she says

my name that she’s been crying.

  ”He told you?” I say.

  ”Yes. And I feel so bad that I didn’t

stay, that I didn’t help more.”

  ”It’s okay. We’re managing.”

  ”I know. He told me about the two of you.

And I think it’s ’’’ Well, I think it’s

good.”

”Yes.”

  ”I’ll come and be with you if you want.”

  ”No, that’s all right,” I say, too quickly.

  ”But it’s going to be so hard for you.”

  ”I know. But I think I’ll need some time

alone right afterward. Maybe after a few days I’ll

 come and visit you.”                    321

  ”I’d love for you to do that. I really would. So

’’’ tell me. How is he, really?”

  I shrug, lean against the kitchen wall. ”I

don’t know, I guess I’d say that he’s

peacefully resigned. He’s really calm. He

seems sure of what he’s doing.”

  ”Is he hurting?”

  ”Well, he takes the pain pills and they

help. But not as much as they did. His balance is

worse, he gets a little confused now and then.

He’s sleeping a lot more. I think he’s

actually timed it pretty well, Diann.”

  ”Oh, it’s so awful. I keep thinking there’s

got to be something I can do, but there isn’t. We

did have a really wonderful conversation, though.” She

laughs. ”Best we ever had.”

  ”Right.” I fiddle with the phone cord. I

don’t have anything else to say. I think from now

on I’ll let the machine handle calls.

  Diann must sense this, because she says, ”I’ll

let you go, Myra. I just want to tell you that if

you change your mind and need me to come, call any

time. I’ll get the next flight out.”

  ”Okay. Thank you.”

   ”And tell Chip ’’’ I don’t know. I

don’t know what. I told him everything. But

tell him, just say that I’m thinking of him all the

time.” She starts crying. ”And that I hope it

goes peacefully. And that I’m so sorry he had

to suffer. And that I love him, tell him I will

always love him.”

  Now I start crying too. ”I’ll tell

him.”

  A long silence. And then Diann says,

”Call me right after it’s over, okay? Please

call and let me know. Will you?”

  That will be hard to do, I think. But I tell her

I will.

  After dinner--Spanish omelets, a salad--

we decide to take Frank for a walk to the

video rental store, three blocks away. The

man who works there keeps staring at Chip, knowing

something’s wrong but unable to figure out what it is.

Chip’s gait is shuffling, uneven. His eyes

are affected by his medication; he looks

slightly demented. His pants hang low on his

hips from the weight he’s lost. I’ve gotten

used to these things, I don’t really notice

 anymore, so to see them anew through the      323

eyes of a stranger is unsettling. I want

to get out of here.

  Chip stands unmoving before the wall of videos.

His sense of time has become hampered; after his

nap this afternoon, he went into the bathroom to brush his

teeth. Fifteen minutes later, I came in

to check on him, and he was still brushing away. I

wasn’t sure what to do, at first. But finally, I

put my hand over his and said, ”I think it’s enough,

now.”

  He nodded and put the toothbrush down. And that

was all.

  ”What do you think?” I say. ”Should we go

over and look in the comedy section?”

  ”Or maybe we could get that movie about the

woman who takes the bus.”

  ”Who’s in it?”

  ”I don’t know, that woman. She’s really

famous. She takes the bus because she wants to go

home.”

  ”The Trip to Bountiful?” the clerk says.

  I have an impulse to tell him to mind his own

business, to stop eavesdropping, and to stop staring,

too, but Chip says, ”That’s it!”

   When we start home, I let Frank off his

leash and tell him to heel. We’ve gone a little

over a block when Chip stops walking. He

stands still, swallowing repeatedly. Then, ”Uh

oh,” he says. He goes to the edge of the

sidewalk, sits on the curb, puts his head

between his knees and quietly vomits. A

middle-aged couple walk by and give us wide

berth. ”Disgusting,” the woman says, just loud enough

for us to hear.

  ”Excuse me,” I say, and when the woman

turns around, I say, ”Fuck you!”

  ”Hey!” her companion says.

  ”Fuck you, too,” I say.

  ”Myra,” Chip says. ”Let’s just go

home.” He stands, puts the leash back on

Frank. ”Come on.”

  I stand there, staring at the couple, who have turned

around and walked away. And then I take Chip’s

arm. ”You okay?”

  ”Yeah.”

  ”People are so stupid.”

  ”Oh, they probably think I’m drunk. It

is disgusting.”

  ”No, it isn’t.”

   He laughs. ”Okay. We’ll       325

call it art.”

* * *

  Fifteen minutes into the movie, he falls

asleep. I watch a few minutes more, then

gently awaken him.

  ”I missed it, didn’t I?” he says.

”I fell asleep again.”

  ”It’s all right.”

  ”Did you watch it, though? I wanted you

to watch it.”

  ”Yes. It was wonderful. It was a great idea

to rent it.”

  He sits up. ”Is it late?”

  ”Not so late.”

  ”I’m so tired all the time. I’m sorry.”

  I move over to sit beside him. ”You don’t have

to be sorry about anything. I’m happy to go

upstairs and go to bed with you. I’m happiest there.”

  He puts his arm around me. ”Well, then.”

  
Tuesday afternoon, right after we’ve finished lunch,

I tell him I need to go and drop some papers

off at my agency, and then get groceries.

”Anything special you want?” I ask.

   ”Ice cream.”

  ”What kind?”

  ”I don’t care. The cold kind.” He

looks at me in a kind of puzzled way. ”I

don’t feel good.”

  ”What is it?”

  ”I don’t know. It’s ’’’ you know, like rubber

bands.”

  ”I don’t know what you mean, Chip.”

  ”Like when they’re loose.”

  I don’t know what he means, but I nod my

head as if I do. ”I’ll stay here,” I say.

”I won’t leave.”

  ”No, you don’t need to. This isn’t new.

It’s just ’’’ more. I’ll feel better after a

nap.”

  I sit beside him until he falls asleep.

I don’t want to leave, but I want those

pills. If I don’t run into any traffic,

I can be back in less than an hour. I call

Frank to come with me, and we go outside and get

into the car.

 

                                   327

  DeWitt has taped a note with my

initials on it to his front door. ”Outside

the place where we do the dressing,” the note

says. Nothing else.

  I look in the bushes outside his bedroom

window and find a large manila envelope, again with

my initials on it. Inside are smaller

envelopes, marked 1, 2, and 3. I

recognize the antiemetic in the first envelope,

but not the other pills--a large number of small

yellow capsules, a few larger red ones. It

doesn’t matter what they are. I fold over the

envelope, put it in my purse. I ring

DeWitt’s doorbell, and hear a shuffling

movement inside. I wait, but the door does not

open. I ring the doorbell again, then finally walk

away.

  Chip is sitting in the living room when I

return. ”I couldn’t sleep,” he says. ”So

I took a little walk to the library. And I have

something startling to report to you.”

  ”Oh?” I hang my purse in my closet,

make sure the zipper is closed. Frank

goes to his water dish and starts taking one of his

marathon drinks. I’m so glad dogs can’t

talk. Hey, Chip. We went to see

DeWitt, so Myra could get some pills,

too!

  ”Are you ready to hear this?” Chip asks.

  ”Yes.”

  ”Okay: Napoleon had hemorrhoids.”

  I laugh, go and sit on the sofa beside him.

”Really!”

  ”It’s true. They bothered him so much he

couldn’t mount his horse to survey the battle of

Waterloo. Call me crazy, but I’d rather be

remembered for having a brain tumor.”

  ”I suppose it is more dignified.”

  ”You want to know something else?”

  ”Sure.”

  ”Hummingbirds can fly backwards, and their

wings beat over one hundred times a second.”

  I smile. ”You know, you are the most beautiful

man I have ever known. And it’s true that I am as

foolish as anyone else, and so the way you look

is one of the reasons I love you. But the bigger

reason is your ’’’ discrimination. The things you

choose to appreciate. Hummingbirds. Mating

 rituals and stars. Rose              329

Banovitz.”

  ”And you,” he says. ”But you know, you’ll do

much better than me. You’ll find someone who’s not

so hollow.”

  ”You’re not hollow!”

  ”I am. Macaroni man, all my substance

on the outside. I’m better, now, it’s true

--dying teaches you a lot about how to live; I’m

sure you know that as well as anyone. But I lived

a pretty shallow life. I kept myself from myself

as much as from others. I know you care for me. But

what you’re in love with, Myra, is the idea of

someone loving you. You’ll find someone so much

better. The truth is, I’m not good enough for you.”

  I feel as though some hand that holds up my

insides has been abruptly pulled away.

”That’s not true!”

  ”It is.” He leans back, rearranges

himself slightly. Something’s hurting. ”What’d you

get at the grocery store?”

  ”I ’’’ haven’t gone yet. It took longer

than I thought at the agency. I had to orient

someone to all of my patients.”

  He nods. And then, carefully, he says,

 ”Myra, is there anything you want to tell me?”

  ”About what?”

  ”About anything.”

  ”No.”

”Good.”

  Frank, finally finished with his drink of water,

comes over to lay his drenched muzzle in my lap.

”Oh, look at this!” I say, jumping up,

incredibly grateful for the distraction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

331

  Early Thursday morning, I’m sitting in the

living room, drinking a cup of coffee. Chip

is sleeping. When he gets up, we’re going

somewhere. Last night he told me he didn’t

want to sit around the house anymore, waiting.

He wants to take Frank and a basket of

food and head out. I’m thinking the ocean, maybe

the small town of Rockport. It’s only a

little over an hour away. There are parks there where

he could stretch out and take a nap, nice

places to walk that are flat, benches everywhere.

  I stare out the front-room window at the cars

moving along the road, trying to make out the

features of each driver. It’s a game I

play sometimes. If I can see them clearly

enough, I make up a life for them. Here, this

red-headed young woman with her hair up in a

ponytail, I make her a receptionist at a

health club. A gum snapper with a big heart,

who dots her i’s with an oblique dash. This

bald-headed older man, driving along with a scowl

on his face: He sells insurance, he’s doing

poorly, and his gout is acting up. Now comes a

woman who looks remarkably like me.

 Remarkably! I stand, strain to see her more

clearly. She’s dressed in a white blazer,

driving a red Sentra. Amazing resemblance.

And what is her life? What is her life,

I wonder.

  The phone rings. I answer it quickly.

  ”Myra,” Chip’s mother says. ”I hope I

didn’t wake you.”

  ”No, I’ve been up for a long time. How are

you?”

  ”Well, I’m ’’’ You know, this is not like me

at all, but I actually called because of a dream

I had last night. I dreamed that Chip had

died. And I know of course that you’d call me if

anything happened. But it was such a strong dream.

He died and then he came over to see me and his

father. He was just the same, only he was dead. He

wanted to go to his room, he said he’d forgotten

something.”

  ”He’s fine, Mrs. Reardon. He’s

sleeping.”

  ”Is he?”

  ”I can wake him up if you’d like to talk

to him.”

  ”No, that’s not necessary. But would you mind ’’’ Oh

 Myra, I know this is silly, but would you   333

please just make sure he’s sleeping?”

  ”Of course. Hold on.”

  I go upstairs with a chill centered at the base

of my spine and starting a slow climb up. What

if she’s right? I open the bedroom door. He

lifts his head, blinks sleepily at me.

”Hi.”

  ”Hi. Your mother’s on the phone. Want

to talk?”

  He picks up the extension, says, ”Ma?”

and I close the door. Then I go downstairs

to hang up the phone. I sit beside it, fussing with

my bathrobe tie, telling myself that she’s better

off not knowing. Late in the afternoon, we are sitting

under a tree on the beach, watching Frank play

with a black Lab. Their energy seems boundless: for

thirty minutes, they’ve been chasing each other in

and out of the waves. Occasionally, one or the other will

drop down for a few seconds’ rest; then they’re

back at it.

  The beach is crowded today: mothers watching their children;

an older couple sitting in beach chairs, reading

the newspaper and sharing coffee from a thermos; lots

of young people, coupled or with groups of friends. High

 overhead, gulls circle lazily, watching for

food. I lie back, close my eyes, and

listen to the sound of the waves. Chip lies down beside

me and takes my hand. ”I want you to tell me

something,” he says.

  ”What.”

  ”I want you to tell me what you’ll do on

Saturday morning.”

  I open my eyes, turn to look at him.

”Nothing. I won’t do anything.”

  ”I want you to. I want you to think of some

way you can be with someone.”

  ”All right. I will.”

  ”No, I want you to think of it now. Tell

me who it will be.”

I feel my eyes start to fill. ”I don’t

want to do this. Let’s just be here, okay?”

  ”Please, Myra. It’s important to me.”

  I look away from him, over toward the group of

four teenaged girls who have positioned themselves around

the lifeguard’s chair. Everything they do is

designed for him. So far, he has looked at

them once. I take in a breath, turn back

toward Chip. ”I’ll call Diann. I’ll go

and visit her.”

   ”Diann.”                       335

  ”Yes.”

  ”You’ll go on Saturday.”

  ”Yes. I guess so. Yes.”

  ”You haven’t thought about it at all, have you,

Myra? About what you’ll do, either the day after or the

weeks after.”

  ”I do have a job, Chip.”

”That’s not what I mean.”

  I sit up, dig in the sand with my fingers.

”It’s getting late,” I say. ”Do you feel

like eating dinner?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  ”Do you? I’m really hungry.”

  ”All right.” He stands, slowly; and we call

Frank, who, after a moment of clear

ambivalence, runs toward us. It comes to me in a

kind of rush that I’ve made no provisions for

him. I’ll leave him with Theresa. He’ll

wait for me for a while, and then he’ll get used

to her. I reach down to pet his wet head, then let

him run on ahead.

               * * *

  When we come home, it’s eight-thirty. Chip

heads upstairs for a soak in the tub. I sit in

 the kitchen, staring out the window at the sun sinking

lower and lower in the sky and thinking about the fact that

I don’t have a will. I suppose it doesn’t

matter--there’s no one to leave anything to. But

I should write a note.

  I go into my office, get out a piece of

paper, and write, I am doing this of my own

volition. And then I stop writing, sit back

in my chair. This is real. It’s real! Someone

will have to sort through my things. Is there anything I

should throw away? Underwear? Journals I started,

then abandoned?

  I go into the basement, survey the metal

storage shelves I have against one wall. I bought

those shelves at Sears, then lugged them home and

put them together. I felt so proud when I’d

finished--it wasn’t nearly as easy to assemble

them as the instructions on the box had suggested it

would be. I’d wanted to show someone what I’d

done, and I remember I spent some time sitting

there with a wrench in my hand thinking, Who? In the

end, I’d cracked open a beer and drank it

while I sat there regarding my handiwork.

  On the middle shelf I see the basket I

use every year to hand out candy to trick-or-treaters,

 those small heads, those open hands.        337

Inside the basket now is Frank’s clown

costume, carefully folded. There are the

leftover paper napkins from last Thanksgiving;

I’d only used two out of the pack of twelve,

and they were pretty; I’d liked them a lot.

Cornucopias.

  There are the Christmas ornaments wrapped one

by one in tissue paper and stored in light bulb

boxes. Scrapbooks belonging to my mother. What

a sad end they will have. I take one down, open it

to a picture of me in the sixth grade. I had

kept my lips together when I smiled, thinking it

would make me less conspicuous. I remember that

day so well, the girls behind me excitedly combing

their hair, me staring at the floor as the line inched

forward. The flatness of the photographer’s face

when I sat on the little stool, the way he kept

telling me look up, look up. I’d clenched

my fists so hard when I had that picture taken

I’d left nail marks in my palm. I flip

to the beginning of the scrapbook, find letters from my father

to my mother from when he was in the army. Love letters.

I close the book, put it back on the shelf.

  I wander past the washer and dryer, my sewing

 machine. I’d been going to make a flannel

quilt before this all started, start it this summer so that

it would be ready by winter. I look for the fabric

I’d been going to use, and lay out the different

pieces next to each other. It’s a nice

combination of colors; it would have been a very pretty

quilt.

  I go back upstairs into the kitchen and open the

cupboards to look at my dishes. There’s the

creamer with the green stripe that I bought one day at

a yard sale, and the mustard yellow plates I

got at Filene’s because they reminded me of

Italy. I’d always meant to go to Italy. And the

Loire Valley. And Japan, too; I

wanted to see those low mountains. I close my

eyes, lean my head against the refrigerator, and

feel Frank’s head come under my hand.

”Okay,” I say, smiling. ”I see you.” I

kneel down, pull him to me, bury my face in

his neck. He stands so still.

  I go to look at the furniture in my living

room, my artwork: the print of a barefoot woman

clad in a thin white dress sitting outside in

the moonlight and playing her flute. An

abstract oil I’d splurged on. The books

 I’ve bought, so many of which are still unread.   339

I sit on the sofa, thinking. And then I

remember that I never paid DeWitt. I never

gave him any money for those drugs. I go into my

office to call him.

  ”How come you ain’t dead?” he asks.

  ”I just realized I didn’t pay you for what you

gave me. I’d like to send you a check.”

  ”You want to pay me.”

  ”Yes.”

  ”Why, you putting your affairs in order?”

  ”As a matter of fact, yes. So how much,

DeWitt?”

  ”How much? I tell you what, I’ll charge you

the same thing I charged Chip: nothing. Be my

tax-deductible charitable contribution. And now

let’s cut the bullshit. You didn’t call me

’bout no payment. You called ’cause you want

me to tell you it’s fine what you doing. Say oh,

good-bye Myra, boo hoo, don’t worry, you

doing the right thing. But what you doing is wrong, and you

know it the same as me. You just a coward, using

Chip as an excuse to back out of what you never

got in.”

  Upstairs, I hear the bathroom door

 opening. I lower my voice to say, ”I have to go.

But I just want to say one thing, DeWitt. You

don’t know anything about my life.”

  ”I know plenty ’bout your life! Any

fool that meets you can see plenty ’bout your

life. Onliest one can’t see, be your own

sorry self!”

  ”Well, I’ll tell you something. I think

you’re the one who’s a coward, staying in a life so

full of despair that you have to numb yourself to it every

day!”

  ”Man, you get stupider and stupider every time I

talk to you. We all on drugs, baby. Just

choose different kinds, is all. Some folks

sit in churches with they butts clamped tight.

Some spend their whole lives buying shit. But

don’t you doubt it for a minute, girl, we is

all of us in the bidness of numbing ourselves. Now I

got a real good idea. Why don’t I hang

up and save us both more grief?”

  ”DeWitt,” I say. But he is gone.

  I hear Chip coming down the stairs and I hang

up the phone, go into the living room, flop down

on the sofa. ”Who were you talking to?” he asks.

  ”Oh, one of those salesmen. I hate when they

 call.”                            341

  ”Selling what?”

”Aluminum siding.”

  ”Really.”

  ”Uh-huh.”

  ”I didn’t hear the phone ring.”

  ”Oh, really? You must have been running water.

He was so hard to get rid of!”

  ”Last time I got one of those calls I

told the guy I had a house made of glass.

And I asked if he had any clear siding. Know

what he said?”

  ”What?”

  ”He said he’d have to check. And he did! He

came back and said no, there was no clear siding,

but how was I set for windows? In a glass

house! I swear it’s true.”

  He sits down beside me, smiles. ”God.

Good to think of things I won’t miss, I

guess.”

”Right. There’s plenty of that.”

  He sighs. ”S. The last night. I wish

I could stay up until morning. But damn it,

I’m tired.”

  ”We can go to bed,” I say.

   ”Let’s just stay down here for a while.”

  I take his hand, lean back against the

cushions. ”You know, Chip, I feel bad that

your parents don’t know.”

  ”They do.”

  I sit up. ”How?”

  ”I told them.”

  ”And they ’’’”

  ”They said for you to call them when it’s over.”

He looks at me. ”Amazing, isn’t it?”

  ”Didn’t they want to be here?”

  ”I asked them not to. We ’’’ talked. I

think my mother said good-bye to me the day she gave

up pushing treatment. And my dad ’’’ We understand

each other.”

  So Chip’s parents will probably be the ones

who will have to figure out what to do with me. I’ll

add something to the note so that the Reardons are not

responsible, the state can decide what to do with

me, I don’t care who decides. I’ll

wait until Chip falls asleep tonight, and then

I’ll figure out exactly what to write. It

won’t be much. It comes to me that this is the

ultimate measure of what your life has been,

what you have to say to those you will leave behind. And I

 don’t have anything to say to anyone.        343

  ”God, I’m tired,” Chip says. ”I

guess I’m going to have to go to bed.”

  I go upstairs with him, and we climb into bed.

He kisses my forehead, my nose, my eyes,

and then, so lightly, my lips. ”Thank you,” he

says.

  I nod, my throat aching.

  ”Ah, Myra. It would only have gotten so

bad.”

  ”I know.”

  ”After I go, I want you to get the hell out of

here.”

  ”I will.” At last, I am not lying to him.

 

 

 

 

 

  

Morning comes. Of course it does. He

awakens first--when I open my eyes, I see

him sitting up in bed beside me.

  I’m amazed I slept. Angry that I

did. After Chip fell asleep, I went

downstairs to finish my note, then sat in my

office for a long time. I came back to bed meaning

to lie awake and keep him company. But

obviously I didn’t.

  ”I love you,” Chip says. ”I wanted that

to be the first thing you heard today.”

  I smile, sit up next to him.

  ”I’ve been awake a long time. And I’m

ready, Myra.”

  Now?

  ”I think I’m supposed to eat something. Just a

little. Maybe some toast?”

  ”Okay.” My God, now? ”So ’’’ should

we go downstairs?”

  ”I would rather just stay here, okay?”

  ”All right. I’ll be right back.”

  I go downstairs and let Frank out into the

yard, then fill his dishes with food and water and

bring them out, too. I pet him, but I can’t

 look at him. ”You’re a good dog,”     345

I say.

  I go back inside and put water on to boil,

then go get my pills out of my purse. Back

in the kitchen, I put bread in the toaster, then

take out a small baggie into which I dump all the

pills. There are five red ones, maybe

twenty-five of the yellow. I squint at one of the

yellow pills, looking for the name of a drug

company. There’s nothing on them.

  ”Myra?” Chip calls down, and I jump,

shove the pills in my robe pocket.

”Yes?”

  ”Don’t butter the toast, okay?”

  ”Okay.” I put two mugs on a tray,

add tea bags, pour in the hot water. I put

the two slices of toast on a plate. My

heart feels huge; it knocks in my chest. I

start upstairs, then detour to my office, where I

read once more the note I wrote last night:

  I am doing this of my own volition. I wish

to be cremated, and my remains can be disposed of

at the discretion of the state. My dog should be given

to my neighbor, Theresa Bartone, of 36

 Russell Road. Proceeds from the sale of my

house and car should be given to Marvelous Brooks,

of 4945 Cedar Street, Number 2,

Dorchester.

  
I look around at my study, think about the rest

of my things upstairs. My clothes, some sheets

and towels. Cough drops in my nightstand, cold

cream in my bathroom drawer. Not so much for a

whole life lived. I sit in my desk chair,

neaten the pens and pencils in my holder.

  One night, I took Frank for a walk around

the block, and I was looking in all the living

room windows I passed. In one, I saw a child

running around a living room in her nightgown,

apparently dancing for her parents, and I thought,

I remember that. I passed a couple reading

companionably in their living room and felt the

usual longing. Then I passed an old woman

sitting out on her porch, and her loneliness was so

apparent. She stared out at nothing, her hands

folded in her lap. I said hello, but she said

nothing back. I thought, I’ll end up like that.

Turns out I won’t. I anchor the note

with a clear glass paperweight and go upstairs.

 This is the last time I’ll climb these   347

steps, I want to tell myself, but the information

remains stubbornly at the door of my brain.

No admittance.

  Chip is coming out of the bathroom when I reach the

top of the stairs. ”Got it?” he asks, and I

say, ”Yes, I’ve brought breakfast for both of

us.” I put the tray at the foot of the bed.

Then, ”Be right back,” I tell him.

  I go into the bathroom and wash my face, brush

my teeth. And then I just stand there, looking into the

mirror. I reach my hand out to touch my

reflection, then wipe my prints from the glass.

I ball up a piece of Kleenex to lay over

the bag of pills in my pocket. Then I go

into the bedroom to lie next to Chip.

”I took the first one about twenty minutes

ago,” he says.

  When I hear him say these words, I feel like

screaming. Instead, I say, ”Oh. Okay.”

  ”Now I’m supposed to eat something.”

  I pour tea for both of us, my hands steady.

I think of the elegant composition of water,

wire-and-wooden-bead models of atoms, the

chemistry class I took one winter and loved.

 I remember the high, arched windows of that

classroom, the smell of heat, the hissing

radiators. Once, it began snowing when I was

in that class, and it was one of those impossibly

gorgeous snowfalls, the flakes so huge they

looked fake, they looked like torn-up pieces

of paper. And the professor looked out the window and

told us all to stop writing and start watching. He

was an old guy, with his priorities in the right

place. He didn’t mind giving up a

lecture on chemistry for a ballet of snow.

  ”Not a great last meal,” Chip says,

smiling.

  I jerk back into the present and look at the

remaining piece of bread on the plate, browned

evenly. ”It is good, though,” I say, taking

one bite, then another. Tea. Toast. It’s a

perfect meal.

  I lean back against my pillow and feel a

sorrowful resignation, a letting go before the letting

go. I think of dandelions gone to seed, that

fragile whiteness held upright and waiting for the

breeze that will both end and begin it. I always loved

dandelions in that state. As a child, I frustrated

myself by trying to make bouquets from them. Over and

 over I would try to bring them together, and      349

over and over they would fall apart.

”I’m supposed to take that big bunch of

yellow capsules next,” Chip says. ”And

then after just a few minutes, I take the red

ones.”

  ”All right.” Now I know what to do.

  ”You’ll help me if I ’’’ if anything

happens, right?”

  ”Yes.”

  He takes my hand, closes his eyes. And

then he starts to cry. ”God,” he says.

”God!”

  I move closer, put my arms around him,

move his head down onto my chest.

  ”Tell me something, Myra. Anything. Just

talk to me.”

  ”Okay. Okay. You just close your eyes, and

you hold on to me. I’m going to tell you something.

I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid for you. Where

you’re going, it’s beautiful. I know that. I

don’t know how, but I know. This won’t hurt you,

you’ll be fine; you’ll just float. And then I think

’’’ you’ll fly.”

  He nods, then holds still, waiting. I clear

 my throat, keep talking. ”Once I met a

man out walking in the woods. And we walked together

for a long time. He was really happy. He told

me he’d been a janitor. He said he’d always

worn a lot of keys on his belt and it always

made him feel so important, like he could open

anything. Said that was the one thing he missed about his

job. But you’re going to have all the keys now, all

the time, Chip.”

  He sighs. I can feel him relaxing into me.

  ”Yesterday I saw a cardinal feeding another

cardinal. It was the male feeding the female. She

could have fed herself; they were both at a feeder. But he

gave to her, and she took it.”

  Outside, I can hear the distant shouting of children,

the sound of the cars passing by.

  ”What else?” Chip asks.

  What else? ”Well ’’’ Once I was at

an airport, and I saw a man who was in the

cab line do a handstand. It was extraordinary--he

just all of a sudden stepped back from the line and did

a handstand! He stayed in that position for a long time,

and he was wearing this brown suit, and the jacket

settled over his head, and the pants rode up on

his legs, and you could see his nice brown socks.

 I don’t know if his back got a       351

spasm and he was fixing it or what. But when I

saw that, I thought, You know? You just never know.

And I wished ’’’ I kind of wanted to meet

him, someone who would do that.”

  Chip pulls away from me, sits up

straight. ”Okay. Okay. Thank you.” He

takes in a breath. ”Okay. I’m ready to do the

next part.”

  He puts a handful of yellow capsules in his

mouth, swallows them with some tea, then leans back

and closes his eyes. Quickly, I slide the first

pill out of my pocket and swallow it. I

don’t want to be too far behind him.

  He takes another handful. Then he sits up

suddenly, holds quite still. After a moment, he lies

back and says, ”I need to wait just a minute

before I take the rest.”

  ”Okay.”

  He takes my hand, looks tenderly at me.

”Myra. I’m so sorry. This is too much

to ask you.”

  ”No. I want to be here.”

  ”I’m sorry anyway.”

”It’s all right.”

   He takes another handful of yellow pills,

and he has finished them.

  ”I’ll take the red ones in just a few

minutes. Remind me.”

  ”I will.”

  ”God. I’m sleepy already. Can that be?”

  ”Are you ’’’ do you want to lie down?”

  ”After. When I’m all done.” He looks out

the window. ”Look. Look what a beautiful

morning it is.”

  I look out at the sky, cloudless, a pale

blue. In my little garden, bees will be crawling

into the blossoms on the foxglove. The lilies

will open a bit more. In the pond in the woods across

the street, minnows will swim like dark clouds from one

side to the other.

  ”Myra? You know, I think ’’’ I should do the

rest alone. I think maybe you should go

downstairs, now.”

  ”No.”

  ”It’s all right. I’m fine. I’m not scared

anymore. I can do it, and then you don’t need

to be here. Just call my folks when it’s done.

You go now.” He gathers up the five red

pills, swallows them. ”I’m fine. I’m

 nearly asleep. Really.” He lies    353

down, crosses his hands over his belly, closes

his eyes.

  I lie beside him, turn his face gently toward

me, and he opens his eyes. ”I’m here,” I

tell him. ”And I will not leave you.”

  ”Oh, Myra. I wish ’’’”

  ”I know.”

  ”Tell me what you’ll do tomorrow.” His speech

has slowed; it’s slurred now. I tighten my

grip on his hand.

  ”Okay. Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll go

over to Hansen’s farm. I’ll get some eggs from

the chicken’s nests, the eggs are always warm, and

there’s a beautiful black-and-white rooster there,

he’s so proud, got these fierce little yellow

eyes. I’ll buy some corn and some basil and

some green beans. I’ll feel the skin of the

apricots, they feel just like babies, and I’ll

pick out a few to bring home and put in a green

bowl on the kitchen table. I’ll look at the

plums and the peaches and all the baskets of red

cherries, and I’ll get some of those too. And when

I come home, I’ll sit out in the backyard and

I’ll feel you all around me, you won’t be

 gone, Chip. You will never be gone from me.”

  His eyes are closed again and his breathing has

become very deep. Cheyne-stoking? Not yet, it’s

still regular. ”I’ll talk to you out loud at the end

of every day, just like I’m doing now. I’ll call you

to come back here for a while. And I know you’ll come,

just like I know you’ll be safe. You’ll be safe from

now on. No pain.” I kiss him. ”Chip?”

  Nothing.

  Very slowly, I take my hand from his. Then

I reach into my pocket, take out the baggie and

pour several yellow capsules into my hand, then

into my mouth. Hurry. They are somewhat bitter

tasting. I sit up slowly, careful not to shake the

bed, and reach for the tea. I put the cup up to my

lips, take in some liquid, and hold everything in

my mouth for a long moment. And then, quietly

weeping, I spit it all back into the cup.

  I lie back down and pull Chip close

to me, say his name. He murmurs something I

don’t understand, and then he doesn’t speak again.

I hold him tightly until his breathing stops.

It takes a lifetime. It takes one half of

one second. Half an hour, maybe; a day

or two.

   I lay my hand on his chest, then put   355

two fingers to his carotid artery. Nothing.

Call a code, some old part of my brain

says. I kiss his cheek, growing cold already, and

then I go downstairs. I sit by the phone for some

time, one of my hands holding the other, and then I

make the call.

  I don’t move at all until I hear the

cab pull into my driveway. I don’t think.

But when I let DeWitt in and he wraps his

skinny arms around me, I finally let loose.

”That’s right,” he says. ”That’s the way. Aw,

baby, here, here; I got you right here.”

  I sob and sob and sob until my ribs

hurt, my back. But I am not thinking about what

you might expect. I am not thinking about Chip at

all.

  I once took care of a

fifty-nine-year-old man who had just moved into a

tiny apartment after having been homeless and sleeping

on grates for six years. The first time I

visited him, I saw a nest of blankets and

sheets and pillows in the corner. ”Are you

sleeping on the floor?” I asked.

  ”Yeah.” He laughed, embarrassed.

   ”Why?”

  He scratched his head, then smoothed down the

few strands he still had left up there. ”Well, that

bed they give me is real nice. But I can’t

sleep in it. Only way I can get any

shut-eye is to sleep on the floor.”

  ”I see.”

”It ain’t permanent,” he said. ”I’m working

on it. I guess it’s about time! In the meantime,

you know what I just put up? Curtain rods! I

didn’t know there even was such a thing!”

  He showed me the rods he’d put up, and the

curtains he’d hung from them. They were obviously

used, but they were lovely, a burgundy-and-cream

pattern made more beautiful by their fading, I

thought, and I told him so.

  Three weeks later, he was sleeping all

night in his bed. ”It never was the bed’s fault,”

he said. ”Bed’s just great. But I’ll tell you

something. Every night, I sit on the edge and think,

`Now, do I want to sleep on the bed or on

the floor?”’ I guess that’s just the way it’s

going to be with me.”

  ”Maybe so,” I said. And then I leaned

closer to him to say, ”But that’s all right.”

EPILOGUE          357

  It’s late October, a beautiful warm

Friday afternoon. I’m out in the woods walking

Frank, letting him get some exercise before I

leave him alone for several hours. I’ve got a

date. Third one with the same guy. Fred, his name

is. A teacher I met when I took care of his

mother after her heart surgery. He’s kind, and rather

nice looking, too. We like a lot of the same

things; we have a good time together.

  I walk slowly, thinking about a fall day just like

this one so many years ago, when Chip had

organized a senior skip day. It was almost

100 percent successful--only Thomas

Osterhout went to school, saying it would be

immoral not to. But the rest of us took a

chartered bus we’d all chipped in for and went out

to breakfast at McDonald’s. Then we went

to Dana-Farber Hospital, in Boston. One

of our classmates, Danny Christianson,

had been admitted there. None of us knew his

diagnosis, but we did know he was never coming

back to school.

  Chip went to the floor and talked to the nurses

 and they ended up letting all eighty-seven of us

come up. Around fifteen at a time went

into Danny’s room, while the rest waited

quietly in the lounge. We all had something for

him: books, homemade cookies, stuffed

animals, girlie magazines. I brought him a

couple of 45’s by the Beatles, and Mandy

Clark, who sat next to me on the bus, brought

him a tin can full of photographs that the

yearbook staff had collected. Chip gave

Danny--who had tried out spectacularly

unsuccessfully for the football team--one of his

own jerseys, so that he would have something to wear besides

hospital gowns. Danny was wearing it when it was

my turn to come in, and I remember being so

grateful, because it helped take away from his bald

head, his thin wrists, the alien equipment

surrounding him.

  However briefly, however incompletely, our

visit to him that day normalized him, let him

turn from isolation and fear to the immeasurable

relief of loving companionship. A note our

class later received from his mother said that our visit

seemed to sustain him until the day he died.

He’d kept everything we brought him in a circle

 around him. She said he died knowing in       359

full measure how much he was cared for. I hope

that’s true.

  I come to a tree so rich with autumn’s golds

and reds it makes for a mild ache. I lie down

under it, close my eyes, and let my mind wander.

I think of all that is happening elsewhere, as I

lie here. Nearby, I can hear the sounds of a

road crew. Somewhere else, monkeys chatter in

trees. A male seahorse becomes

pregnant. A diamond forms, a bee dances out

directions, a windshield shatters. Somewhere a

mother spreads peanut butter for her son’s lunch,

a lover sighs, a knitter binds off the edge of a

sleeve. Clouds gather to make rain, corn

ripens on the stalk, a cancer cell divides,

a little league team scores. Somewhere blossoms

open, a man pushes a knife in deeper; a

painter darkens her blue. A cashier pours new

dimes into an outstretched hand, rainbows form and

fade, plates in the earth shift and settle. A

woman opens a velvet box, male spiders

pluck gently on the females’ webs,

falcons fall from the sky. Abstracts are real

and time is a lie, it cannot be measured when one

 moment can expand to hold everything. You can want

to live and end up choosing death; and you can want

to die and end up living. What keeps us here,

really? A thread that breaks in a breeze. And

yet a thread that cannot be broken.

  I open my eyes, look up at leaf-framed

pieces of the sky. I do hope Danny knew.

I hope Chip knew, too. I hope for

everything, now.

  I get up, dust off my jeans, and call

Frank. It’s time to go home and get ready.

               THE END