Don't Cry Now

by Joy Fielding

  “The human body is not infallible. It’s prone to all sorts of infections and viruses, and our susceptibility can depend on any number of different factors, including diet, exercise, general conditioning, and stress. But mostly, good health depends on good genes. And a lot of plain dumb luck.” He smiled. “Of course, there could be a simpler explanation for the way you’re feeling.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Is there a chance you could be pregnant?”

  “What?”

  “Is there a chance you could be pregnant?” he repeated, although they both knew she’d heard him the first time.

  “No,” Bonnie scoffed. “Not a chance in the world. I’m on the pill.” Hadn’t she told him that the last time she was here?

  “The pill isn’t one hundred percent foolproof. Isn’t it possible, what with everything that’s happened in the last little while, that you might have forgotten to take it for a day or two?”

  “No, it isn’t possible. I take it every day without fail. I never forget.”

  “You sound very sure.”

  “I am very sure. I decided a long time ago that I only wanted one child. I’m very careful to make sure there are no accidents.”

  “That’s very interesting. Why is that?”

  “Why is what?”

  “Why did you decide you only wanted one child?”

  “You don’t think the world is overcrowded enough?”

  “Is that why you did it?”

  “You don’t think that’s a good enough reason?”

  “It’s a perfectly admirable reason. But is it your reason?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If you’re so adamant about wanting only one child, I’m curious as to why you haven’t had a tubal ligation.”

  The remark caught Bonnie off guard. A slight trickle of perspiration broke out along the top of her forehead. “I’m not a fan of unnecessary surgery,” she said.

  “Could there be another reason?”

  “Such as?”

  “You’d have to tell me. You have a brother, if I remember correctly.”

  Bonnie found herself holding her breath, waiting for Dr. Greenspoon to continue.

  “Older or younger?” he asked.

  “Younger, by six years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “My mother suffered several miscarriages in between.”

  “I see. So, your brother must have been very special to her.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “And how did that make you feel?”

  “How did that make me feel?” Bonnie repeated, dully. “I really don’t remember. It’s a long time ago. I was only a child.”

  “A child who’d had her mother’s undivided attention for six years. I imagine it was quite a shock to suddenly have to share her with someone else.”

  “Are you suggesting I was jealous of my brother?” Bonnie asked. Was he really resorting to this oldest of psychiatric clichés?

  “I think it would be only natural.”

  “I loved having a brother, Dr. Greenspoon. Nick was the sweetest baby in the world.”

  “Then why are you so adamant about having only one child yourself?”

  “My husband already has two children from his first marriage,” she reminded him. “Besides, some people are only suited to have one child. They know deep down that there isn’t room in their hearts for more than one. They know they couldn’t love both children equally, that one would end up getting short shrift.”

  “Is that how you feel?”

  “Isn’t that what I just said?”

  “No. You said some people.”

  Bonnie bit down on her bottom lip. “Just an expression.”

  “Tell me about your family.” Dr. Greenspoon leaned back into the sofa and unbuttoned his jacket.

  “I’ve been married for five years,” Bonnie said, relaxing a little now that they were on more comfortable terrain. “I have a daughter, Amanda.”

  “Your family of origin,” he corrected. “Your parents.”

  Bonnie immediately stiffened. She cleared her throat, leaned back, then forward, crossed then uncrossed her legs, tugged at her hair. “My mother is dead,” she said, her voice so low that Dr. Greenspoon had to lean forward again to hear her. “My father lives in Easton.”

  “How long ago did your mother die?” Dr. Greenspoon asked.

  “Almost four years ago. She died a few months before Amanda was born.”

  “That must have been very hard for you, losing your mother just as you were becoming one yourself.”

  Bonnie shrugged.

  “Was her death sudden?”

  Bonnie said nothing.

  “Is that a difficult question, Bonnie?” Dr. Greenspoon asked, curiosity bringing his eyebrows together at the bridge of his nose.

  “She’d been sick a long time,” Bonnie answered after another long pause. “But it was still sudden.”

  “You weren’t expecting her to die?”

  “She’d been sick for years,” Bonnie told him impatiently. “She had allergies, migraines, a weak heart. She’d been born with some sort of heart defect, so there were a lot of things she couldn’t do.”

  “She spent a lot of time with doctors?” Dr. Greenspoon asked.

  “I guess,” Bonnie admitted uneasily. “What are you getting at?”

  “You don’t think it’s curious that your mother had all these physical problems, yet you deny yourself even the possibility of being sick? That she spent a lot of time with doctors, yet you won’t even consider going for a checkup?”

  Bonnie twisted in her seat, her right foot tapping furiously on the floor. She shrugged, said nothing. Why had she come here? He was only making her feel worse.

  “How did she die?” Walter Greenspoon asked.

  “The doctor said it was a stroke.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “I don’t think it was quite as simple as that.”

  “How so?”

  “I’d really rather not get into all that right now.”

  “As you wish,” the doctor said easily. “What about your father?”

  “What about him?”

  “Is he healthy?”

  “He seems to be.”

  “Are you close?”

  “No.”

  “Can you tell me why?”

  “My father walked out on my mother a long time ago. I didn’t see a whole lot of him after that.”

  “And you naturally resent him for that.”

  “It was very hard on my mother.”

  “Was that when she started getting sick?”

  “No. She’d been sick before. I told you, she had a bad heart. But she got worse after he left, no question about that.”

  “And your brother? Did he live with your father or did he stay with you and your mother?”

  “He stayed with us.” Bonnie laughed. “It’s ironic when you think about it because now he’s living with my father and my father’s wife, wife number three, if you’re counting, and they’re all living in my mother’s house. Happy as peas in a pod.”

  “You don’t sound very happy.”

  Bonnie laughed again, louder this time. “It’s really funny how things turn out, don’t you think, Dr. Greenspoon?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Look, why are we talking about all this? It’s not relevant to anything.”

  “How often do you see your father?” Dr. Greenspoon asked, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  “I just saw him a few weeks ago,” Bonnie answered, knowing this wasn’t exactly an answer to the question Dr. Greenspoon had asked.

  “Before you started feeling sick?”

  “Yes.”

  “And when was the last time you saw him before that?” he continued, refusing to let her off the hook so easily.

  “The last time I saw him before that was at my mother’s funeral.”

  Dr. Greenspoon took several seconds to consider her answer. “Do
you blame your father for your mother’s death?”

  Bonnie scratched at the side of her nose, pulled at her hair, rocked back and forth in her seat. “Look, what are you trying to say? Are you trying to tell me that my long-pent-up feelings of hostility toward my—what was it you called it? my family of origin?—that these long-repressed feelings are the cause of my current symptoms?”

  “Do you have long-repressed feelings of hostility?” he asked.

  “I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out the answer to that one, do you, Doctor?”

  “Have you ever talked with your father about your feelings?”

  “No. What for?”

  “For you.”

  “What possible good would it do? He’s not going to change.”

  “You wouldn’t be doing it for him.”

  “You think if I talked to him, that I would suddenly start to feel better? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “It might prove liberating. But what’s important here is not what I think—it’s what you think.”

  Bonnie stopped rocking, sat perfectly still. “In that case, I think I could have saved myself a lot of money if I’d gone to my family doctor for a checkup instead of coming here.”

  “Probably true. Do you have a family doctor?”

  “No,” Bonnie admitted. Amanda had a pediatrician, and Rod went for annual checkups, but she had no one.

  “Would you let me recommend someone for you?”

  “Why? You obviously think my problems aren’t physical.”

  “I think we’re dealing with two very different things here,” he told her, “one of which we can clear up fairly easily with a visit to the doctor. The other will require more time.”

  “I just want to start feeling better,” Bonnie told him, verging on tears. She hated feeling this helpless, this out of control.

  Dr. Greenspoon walked over to his desk, pressing down on his intercom. “Hyacinth, can you get Paul Kline for me on the phone?” He looked back at Bonnie. “His office is just around the corner, and he owes me a favor. He’s a nice man. I think you’ll like him.”

  A moment later, the intercom on his desk buzzed. “I have Dr. Kline on line one.”

  “Paul,” Dr. Greenspoon said immediately. “I have someone I’d like you to have a look at right away.”

  24

  “Take a deep breath. That’s good. Now, let it out. Good. Again.”

  Bonnie took another deep breath, then slowly released it. Again the doctor complimented her on her breathing. Again she felt strangely grateful.

  “And one more,” Dr. Kline instructed, maneuvering the stethoscope underneath the blue cotton robe the nurse had given her to put on. The metal felt cold against her bare skin. “How long has it been since you had a checkup, Mrs. Wheeler?”

  “I can’t remember,” Bonnie told him. “Years.”

  “And the general state of your health?”

  “Good. I never get sick,” she told him with less conviction than earlier such pronouncements.

  “Do you have a gynecologist?”

  “I saw one when I was pregnant,” Bonnie said, although, in truth, she’d only availed herself of the woman during her last trimester, and only then at Diana’s insistence. “I’m not sick,” she’d told Diana, “I’m pregnant,” “I’m not pregnant, am I?” Bonnie asked now, surprising herself with the question she hadn’t meant to ask. “I mean, I couldn’t be pregnant. It’s not possible.”

  “When was your last period?” Dr. Kline asked.

  “Three weeks ago. And I’m on the pill. And I never forget to take it.”

  “Then the odds are you aren’t pregnant,” Dr. Kline assured her. “It’s a little early to be having morning sickness, particularly such severe symptoms. But we’ll do some blood tests and get a sample of urine. That should help explain why you’ve been feeling so poorly. Turn this way,” he said, drawing down on her lower eyelid and shining a narrow beam of light into her left eye.

  Dr. Greenspoon was right—Dr. Kline was a nice man, not too tall and a little on the plump side, but possessing a natural grace and dignity. He was about forty years old, had thinning brown hair, and warm hazel eyes. His hands were small and soft, his fingers surprisingly long. When he touched her, it was always gently, as if he understood she was fragile, but firmly, as if to reassure her of his own strength.

  The office, on Chestnut, only a five-minute walk from Dr. Greenspoon’s office, was on the ground floor of a three-story brownstone that had been converted into a mini-medical building. Stately old wooden beams mingled with the latest in technology and equipment. Built-in bookshelves filled with giant medical tomes lined the walls. A traditional eye chart was tacked to the wall opposite the window, surrounded by a coterie of impressive degrees: a diploma from Harvard’s medical school, another from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and several others she was too tired to read. Pictures of Dr. Kline’s family lined the top of his large cluttered desk. Three sons and a pretty, dark-haired wife, the snapshots charting their growth from babies to teens with the wife remaining remarkably the same throughout, give or take a few pounds. Dr. Kline’s nurse, a woman about Bonnie’s age, with frosted hair and an engaging smile, stood discreetly off to one side of the room, looking eerily like a statue by Duane Hanson, monitoring the proceedings without moving.

  “How’s your vision been?” Dr. Kline asked, peering into her other eye.

  “Fine.”

  He handed her a piece of black plastic, instructed her to place it over her right eye, then read the third line of the eye chart on the opposite wall. She did. He then asked her to put the plastic cover over her other eye and read the fourth line. She did that too. “Good,” he said, pulling gently on her earlobe, examining the inside of her ear with another instrument. “Any earaches?”

  “No. Why? Do you see something?”

  “A little wax. We can get rid of that easily enough.” He moved to her other ear. “Dizziness?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “And you said you were nauseous.”

  “All the time.”

  “Vomiting?”

  “On a number of occasions. What does that mean?”

  “Could be an inner ear infection.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked again.

  “Inner ear infections manifest themselves in different ways. It usually affects your balance, which can result in dizziness, nausea, general malaise.”

  “And what can be done about it?”

  “Not much, unfortunately. It’s viral, so antibiotics are of no use. It’s something you basically just have to wait out.”

  “So, there’s nothing you can do,” Bonnie stated, as if she’d known it all along.

  “I didn’t say that,” he told her, his hands on her throat, pressing on her glands.

  “You said we just have to wait it out.”

  “I was referring to inner ear infections. I’m not sure that’s what we’re dealing with here. Open your mouth and say ‘aw.’”

  Bonnie opened her mouth. Dr. Kline stuck a tongue depressor inside it, pressing down against the back of her tongue. “Aw,” she said, and immediately felt herself gag.

  “You all right?” Dr. Kline removed the tongue depressor, discarding it in a nearby wastepaper basket.

  “You’re the doctor. You tell me.”

  “Well,” he began, “you don’t have a fever; you don’t have a cold; your eyes are fine; your lungs are clear; your throat is good; your nasal passages are clear, and you don’t have swollen glands, at least in your neck. Let’s see about the glands in your groin. Could you lie down, please?”

  Bonnie stretched back on the examining table. Immediately the doctor’s hands were pressing into her stomach and groin. The area felt tender, and she winced.

  “That hurt?” he asked.

  “A little.”

  “A few swollen glands here,” he said, manipulating the glands in her groin. “Okay, you can sit up now.” He handed
her a small bottle. “Why don’t you give me a urine sample,” he said. “Debbie will show you where to go, and when you come back, we’ll draw some blood.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we’ll wait a day or two for the results, and we’ll go from there. In the meantime, I’m going to give you a prescription for some antibiotics that I want you to start taking right away.”

  “I thought antibiotics wouldn’t help.”

  “They won’t help if the infection is viral. If it isn’t viral, you could start to feel better as early as tomorrow. At any rate, it’s worth a shot. Are you allergic to penicillin?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  He scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Okay. Then let’s try these. Take two immediately, then one every six hours after that. You can take them with food or without, it doesn’t matter. If you’re not feeling any better in a couple of days, we’ll know that whatever is making you feel this way is viral. But hopefully, these will do the trick. At any rate, I’ll call you with the test results as soon as they come in. Call me if you don’t hear from me by Friday. Now go get me that urine sample.”

  Bonnie did as she was told, then returned to the doctor’s office to let him draw blood. He filled four vials. “That’s a lot of blood,” she told him, surprised by how dark her blood looked in the small bottles. “Are you testing for AIDS?”

  “Should I be?” he asked.

  “Isn’t it standard?”

  “No, it’s not.” His eyes narrowed, peered deeply into hers. “Should I be testing for AIDS, Mrs. Wheeler?”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know,” Bonnie answered finally. What was she thinking?

  “Have you taken any intravenous drugs in the last decade?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Have you had any blood transfusions?”

  “No.”

  “Have you engaged in any high-risk sexual activities?”

  Bonnie pictured herself tied to her bed, her legs wrapped around her husband’s shoulders. “What do you mean exactly?” she stammered.