Midnight
6) AND SO TO BED
Into the waiting car and uptown to Ursula’s apartment. People still crowd the streets. Unlike Passamaquoddy, this is a city that does not sleep. Annie puts on her flannel nightgown. Ursula drapes herself in a negligee ruffled with marabou feathers. She kisses her daughter good-night. “Sweet dreams,” she says. “Thank you,” Annie replies, and because the words sound so inadequate, she adds, “Merci beaucoup.” “Mon plus grand plaisir,” answers Ursula.
* * *
Annie crawls into bed and checks her cell phone. There are several texts from Sam: Where are you? What’s going on? Hell, it’s awfully late. Whatever has Ursula done with you? Are you getting my messages?
She listens to her voice mail: three calls. More of the same. So, where are you? he asks, his voice registering successively louder. I assume you’ve turned off the phone, he declares. Then, unconvincingly, I hope you’re having fun.
She opens her email. Sure enough, there’s a message from him:
Hi, Annie. I already miss you like the dickens. Our bed is going to be one lonely place tonight, though I can spread out and snore to my heart’s content. While you’ve been living it up in the big A, Rachel and I have been checking out refrigerators. You’ll be glad to know that she finally made a decision. She’s picking the Amana. It’s got some neat features, like an icemaker on the outside and a water filter, and it will be delivered next week. We grabbed a pizza afterwards at Pat’s. Not great, but even I couldn’t look at another Bunyan. Rachel’s a lot of fun. No wonder she’s your best friend. There’s that concert at the auditorium which you and I ordered tickets for. I assume you won’t mind if I go with Rachel. It’s nice to have her company. We may take in a movie later on. We invited Megan, but it seems she’s got a new beau, a student at Bowdoin. Rachel’s pleased he’s not some townee with tattoos and piercings. There’s a new Clint Eastwood playing at the Bijou. Not your favorite, but Rachel’s game. She’s a good sport. BTW, I think Mr. Aherne will actually sell his place. I’ve been drawing up more plans for the annex. I really like doing this; the drafting, the designing. Perhaps I’ll take a course in architecture and blueprint-making or whatever it’s called. One of the codgers, Jimmy—the short redhead in the overalls and lumber jacket—has a niece who’s a single mother and needs a job. I may interview her to help out. I doubt Megan will be making a career out of ringing up our cash register. Right after you left, I twisted my back, but I’ve been alternating ice packs and a heating pad and am almost as good as new. How long are you planning to stay with Ursula? Give me a call. I should be home from the movies by nine at the latest. Unless Rachel and I go for a nightcap—Fat chance. Where would we get a nightcap here? Lotsa love, xxxoooxxxooo, Sam
Annie is so exhausted that she can only manage to text back More later. Ursula’s worn me out. Try a couple of pillows under your back. Miss you, too, then add a cut-and-pasted exact configuration of Sam’s own xs and os. She sets her phone in the charger, pulls up the satin comforter, and then turns off the light. Tomorrow is the doctor’s appointment. Tomorrow she’ll wake up to reality. But she’s grateful to her mother for this magical interlude. And relieved it’s too late to call home. She feels guilty because, well, she’s had so much fun. And ashamed, too, that in the last eight hours—Eight Hours in Manhattan (With Ursula)—she’s barely thought of Sam.
Chapter Seventeen
In a curtained-off cubicle, Annie lies on a hospital bed waiting for an open lung biopsy. She’s wearing a johnny and matching drawstring pants, all huge. Ursula has double-wrapped the johnny and tied it, obi-sash-style, then rolled the pants into cuffs. Annie fears the whole effect is less Japanese minimalist and more J. Alfred Prufrock AARP. “One size fits all,” Ursula scoffs. Which does not include Ursula and her progeny.
In truth, her mother’s nose is out of joint, her toilette restricted by the fragrance-free environment—no perfume, no hair products, no vanilla-smelling lipstick, no lilac hand lotions, no face creams, no powders, not even deodorant.
An unscented Ursula is now sitting on a patched vinyl chair at the foot of Annie’s bed. A handful of fashion magazines and a screenplay peek out from her Hermès tote. She plans to get a lot of work done during Annie’s surgery. She may even run across the street to investigate a just-opened boutique. “Retail therapy,” she claims. Annie’s not to worry—of course there is nothing to worry about—since Ursula can be summoned in an instant if she’s needed.
Ursula is needed. Without her, Annie would never have managed to get through any of the preop tests—the X-rays, ultrasound, blood work, lung function, EKGs. Even her teeth have been subject to scrutiny. “Those molars, those incisors, could shatter during intubation,” the tech explained.
If Ursula hadn’t been at her side, Annie doubts she would have survived the consultation with the surgeon either. Ursula grabbed her hand while Dr. Albright recited the legally mandated, cover-your-ass litany of everything that could go wrong—the lung could collapse, the heart could be punctured, there could be unknown metastases calling for us to remove parts of the organ, the risks of anesthesia itself, the risks of intubation, pulmonary aspiration, air leakage into the lungs, perforation of the esophagus …
“Nonsense,” Ursula cut in.
Dr. Albright, reading robotically from a script, made no eye contact. Ignoring both of them, he continued.… the chance of an infection, a severe hemorrhage into the lung causing respiratory compromise, a blood clot to the brain …
“Just shoot me now,” Annie said.
Ursula reached over and patted Annie’s knee. “Health care is so utterly ridiculous these days. If you need the teeniest splinter removed, they threaten to amputate the whole limb.”
* * *
Now researchers with clipboards and consent forms surround her bed. Will she help her fellow sufferers and donate her freshly excised tissue? Permit her blood to be syringed weekly? Allow the monitoring of her lungs? All for a new study.
What kind of person would not rush to volunteer her body to advance medical science? Annie asks herself. What kind of person would prefer only to be left alone? The answer’s clear: somebody like her. Somebody who lacks a social conscience and a sense of responsibility to her fellow man.
Ursula takes charge. “Just say no, Arabella,” she decrees.
Another nurse approaches, lugging an additional stack of forms. “Do you have a living will?” she inquires.
“Leave my daughter alone,” demands Ursula.
As soon as these intruders disappear, Annie notices—by looking underneath the curtain that does not reach all the way to the floor—several pairs of feet crowded in the adjacent cubicle. The voices attached to them first murmur, then rise. “Don’t worry,” says one, “because you are in God’s hands.”
“Give yourself up to God,” advises another.
“Everything happens for a reason,” confirms a third.
“Good lord!” Ursula stage-whispers, not loud enough to impinge on any First Amendment rights.
Kaleidoscope-like, the brown oxfords, white sneakers, black clogs, red boots, and tan moccasins reshuffle into a circle. A prayer circle, obviously, because Annie hears “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” When at last the beseechers reach “Amen,” she figures—hopes—they’re done.
No such luck. They segue into “O my God, relying on your infinite mercy and love, grant the forsaken life and good health and overturn the diagnosis and steady the hands of the healers.”
Annie’s heart races. The incantations coming from the next bed underscore the prospect of life’s end more strongly than any surgeon’s recitation of dire consequences. Why is she putting herself through this torture? She remembers the Jewish prayer for the dead at the funeral of Sam’s aunt Edie, a lament her mother-in-law described as an act of loving-kindness, helping the soul ascend to heaven. Annie doesn’t want to ascend to heaven but prefers to stay here on earth for as long as possible. “Into your hands, I com
mend my body and my soul, while all the trees of the field applaud and I shall go forth in joy. Amen,” the worshipers behind the curtain chant.
“Jesus Christ!” Ursula mutters.
As if “Jesus Christ” is his cue, a man in a somber suit and tie pulls aside one drapery panel and steps halfway into their cubicle. “I’m the chaplain,” he announces.
“Go away,” Ursula orders.
“Are you sure?”
“Never surer.”
“You may regret …”
“Go!”
The chaplain turns to leave. “Just remember”—he smiles beatifically over his clerical shoulder—“God comes, bidden or unbidden.”
By the time the intake nurse arrives, Annie’s blood pressure registers as “off the charts.” “I’ll give you a little something to calm you down,” the nurse offers as she sets up an intravenous line.
Within seconds, Annie understands why people become drug addicts. A warmth and peace descend. The hospital hustle-and-bustle fades. Ursula turns into a blur. The voices next door mute into a celestial choir. The curtains waft slightly, like tropical trees in a breeze. In the distance she hears wheels rolling, machines pinging, rubber-soled shoes squeaking. Somebody laughs. Is her departed soul ascending to heaven? If so, it’s not all that bad. Annie giggles.
Into this nirvana steps Dr. Albright, the reality check. He’s wearing full surgical scrubs in the noxious green color of Annie’s just-discarded coat. He smells of bleach and ammonia. The operating room is ready for her.
A vision of Sam springs up in front of her eyes. Sam! Right now he seems so far away. He is so far away. For the first time in decades, he has no idea what she’s going through.
How sad it’s come to this: she’s in a New York hospital bed facing death while Sam is assessing refrigerators in Maine. At least there’s the manual. Her no-longer-living living will. If she had her laptop with her now, she’d type her own prayers for Sam. Ask him to forgive her her trespasses and instruct him to go forth in joy. Amen.
“How soon will you know, James?” Ursula asks Dr. Albright.
“The frozen biopsy will yield preliminary results right away. Final pathology will take up to a week.”
“But you’ll inform us of the preliminary diagnosis?”
He nods. “Though we have to wait for the complete report to be absolutely sure.”
Then he does something that, in her drug-induced haze, Annie assumes she might be imagining: he squeezes her hand. Is this a gesture of empathy? Sympathy? A once-more-unto-the-breach salute? A final farewell?
* * *
She awakes in yet another hospital bed, in yet another curtained cubicle. Her first thought: she must be alive. Her throat is sore; her chest hurts—dull aches blunted through layers of cement. She assumes the anesthesia has not yet worn off. She runs her tongue over her teeth; she seems to have all of them still. At the foot of her bed stand two figures: Ursula and the surgeon. They’re either the masks of comedy and tragedy, Annie supposes, or a mismatched couple accidentally assembled from separate wedding cakes.
“The best news on the face of this earth,” Ursula cheers. She claps her hands.
“Not so fast,” Dr. Albright cautions.
Annie looks from one to the other.
Ursula takes over. “Tell her.”
Dr. Albright picks up a clipboard. He is still wearing his green surgical scrubs but has removed his cap. She doesn’t like Dr. Albright, she decides in kill-the-messenger despair. She forces her wandering mind to focus on the words spilling out from between his lips.
“According to preliminary reports—let me stress preliminary—it appears as if there are no signs of malignancy,” he says.
She tries to lift her head. “Could you repeat that, please?”
“No sign of malignancy. So far. To be absolutely sure, we will have to wait about a week for the final report.”
“Which means …?”
“I assume the final report will corroborate no evidence of malignancy,” he concedes. He turns to Ursula. He smiles. “Just don’t quote me on that.”
Annie must be shamelessly fickle, because now she likes Dr. Albright just fine. He has a cute chin, she realizes, with a hint of a dimple in it. “Did I just hear …?”
“You did.”
She takes a breath. It hurts to inhale. But even though her rib cage is getting sorer by the minute, a warm bath of relief floods her from the top of her head to her now-wiggling toes. Her whole body unclenches and floats. I have to tell Sam, is her first thought, followed by I can’t tell Sam what I haven’t told him in the first place.
“Though,” the surgeon continues, “you do have two granulomas on your lungs. Suggestive of sarcoidosis.”
So here it comes.
“Which seems confined to the lungs, and is the cause of your nonproductive cough and your lymphadenopathy as well as myalgia …”
“Excuse me?”
“Enlarged nodes and muscles aches. The reason for your Maine physician’s”—his cute chin tightens with scorn—“alarm. According to our tests, it presents as a small inflammation. We can treat you with prednisone. Often the symptoms improve even without treatment.”
“You mean, I’ll live?”
“Very likely.”
“Unimpaired?”
“Probably.”
“How did I get this?”
“We don’t know the cause. It can be chronic or can simply disappear. It looks entirely manageable in your case. We’ll recommend a pulmonary specialist. You’ll need to be checked annually to head off any flare-ups.”
Annie falls back against the pillows. “I thought I had lung cancer,” she says.
“It can be hard to tell on X-rays and scans. Especially without further tests, especially in the hands of one unfamiliar with this disease … such as a general practitioner.”
“A very experienced, caring one,” huffs Ursula.
“Who sent my films to a thoracic specialist; who referred me to an oncologist,” Annie says in defense.
“In Maine?” Without waiting for an answer, he continues, “Evidently, you didn’t follow up with more state-of-the-art technology. Fortunately, you came to me, to this hospital,” Dr. Albright says.
“And you are a veritable miracle worker, James,” Ursula declares. “As soon as Arabella is settled, I will phone Ambrose with the good news.”
The drug must be wearing off, since Annie is starting to feel crummy, however elated and relieved. Considering the alternative, her new diagnosis doesn’t sound that bad. She wonders if God came through for the person in the next cubicle, if the prayers worked. Maybe God, however unbidden, came also to Annie Stevens-Strauss. “What about the patient in …?” she begins to query Dr. Albright. She stops, remembering the strictures of confidentiality, strictures she used to her own advantage. “When can I go home?” she asks instead.
“You’ll stay a few days in the hospital. Then we’ll discharge you to your mother’s care.” He nods at Ursula.
Dr. Albright walks to the side of the bed and pats Annie’s blanket-swathed leg. “No traveling for at least a couple of weeks.”
She’s too tired to protest. “Thank you,” she manages. “So much,” she appends. She must remember to send him a half dozen Bunyans and a package of whoopie pies as a token of her gratitude. Right now, all she wants to do is sleep.
“I’ve arranged a private room for you, darling,” Ursula says.
“That’s not at all necessary.”
“With a view of the Hudson River,” Ursula adds. “And a restaurant delivery service.”
Chapter Eighteen
Annie is back in Ursula’s guest quarters, back in the lap of luxury, though the hospital’s private accommodations were by no means a hardship post. She’s been sprung, thanks to Ursula’s promises of devoted care and Annie’s time off for good behavior: that is, peeing, walking, crackle-free breathing, acceding with grace to needles and pills and saline infusions, a healthy appetite unmarred
by Jell-O or tapioca pudding but still leaning toward the throat-friendly and easy-to-digest. Further aiding her escape, an entourage from Dubai, having booked a whole floor, needed her room for their food taster.
Ursula has perfected a Florence Nightingale worthy of a standing ovation. Bouillon in lacquered bowls appears at her bedside on the hour. Pillows are plumped into clouds of down the second she leaves the bed for the bathroom, where a bath is drawn with scented oils, lit candles around the rim, towels as thick and as soft as Ursula’s mink. Though Ursula has had two tote bags full of best sellers and recent DVDs delivered, Annie wants only to sleep and to eat one of the delicious and medically soft concoctions Ursula orders from restaurants bearing a Zagat rating of twenty-two and above.
One night, Ursula reads to her from a collection of Alice Munro’s short stories. The rise and fall of her mother’s syllables stirs a distant memory. Did Annie as a child once listen to this same voice narrate Eloise’s antics at the Plaza, Wilbur the Pig’s testament to Charlotte, or Marmee’s advice to Jo, Amy, Beth, and Meg? No, the drugs and the perfection of her sickroom must have confused her; it was her father who always read to her, who nursed strep throat, pneumonia, her recovery after her appendix was removed, who acted out the stanzas of Dr. Seuss and the adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Now Ursula appears with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice on a silver tray.
“You are taking such good care of me,” Annie says.
“I am your mother.”
“And a Mother Teresa as well.”
“Au contraire. Those shapeless robes and not a lick of makeup and all that praying and hugging and blessing …” Ursula straightens the edge of a sheet and tucks a blanket under Annie’s knees. “Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment.” She studies her daughter. “Would you like to check your email? That husband of yours must be jamming up your inbox, not to mention all those phone messages. Thank goodness for call waiting and my voice service. Otherwise I’d miss theatrical opportunities and reporters waiting to interview me.”
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