by Tara Ison
No, she told them. We have no other family. It’s just the two of us.
She makes very sure, each time she leaves, that they have her cell number.
SHE LIKES THE Botanical Garden. There’s an Orchid House, and a section devoted to mutant roses, and a lily pond with enormous flat fronds the pamphlet tells her native women used to let their babies sleep upon while they pounded clothes clean. There’s a Shakespeare Garden, with multiple references to Ophelia. There’s a Japanese section, with bonsai and small beds of pebbled sand raked into rows to evoke Zen. She takes deep breaths as she strolls here; this place should bring peace of mind, without asking, like flight attendants bring the beverage service at twenty minutes in. A diminutive river flows along, a clear green swath. There are a dozen varieties of koi, here at the Missouri Botanical Garden, the pamphlet tells her. She’d like to see them and their dozen varieties, but there is always a throng of tourists clogging the red wooden footbridge, usually couples and families with small children, and they’re always very loudly engaged by the fish, laughing and pointing as they throw food. The children jump up and down. It’s now her third trip to the Botanical Garden, and she’s increasingly annoyed by this agitation. The Japanese section would be very peaceful, if it weren’t for all the squealing and fish-pointing. The camera-clacking. She can’t remember her family ever taking little sight- or fish-seeing excursions like this. Perhaps when she was very small. She tries to recall. All those smiley photos her uncle had taken and kept, yes, the outings as a family group. But she more readily pictures the moments left unshot, unsnapped. Her sister’s attention-demanding tantrums in shopping malls and amusement parks that provoked their parents to hurried exits, without anyone getting the promised roller-coaster ride or the art supplies needed for school. She thinks of her brother’s inevitable asthma attacks and inconsistent food allergies, the relentless parental attention to air quality and the ingredients of his meals, the usual vomiting of popcorn or jelly bellies or carrot sticks wherever they went. She remembers cleaning up his colorful vomit. All the turmoil and fuss. This time, she decides, she will claim the bridge for herself. She wants to feed the fish, too. It is her right, after paying her Botanical Garden admission fee. Feeding the fish, quietly, will bring the peace, will be the Zen thing to do.
She waits for the crowd to move off in their two- and three- and foursomes, which takes a very long time. She resolves to wait it out. She paces a side path by herself, she taps her foot. She reads about the beauty and tranquillity of koi in the pamphlet. She coughs loudly. She buys, to be at the ready, a quarter’s worth of fish food from the small gumball-looking machine: a handful of grainy brown crumbles, suspiciously fish-scented. She wonders if the Botanical Garden grind their dead fish into fish food. She wonders if this causes mad cow disease among koi. Under the right conditions, koi have a possible lifespan of one hundred years! the pamphlet tells her. Unlikely, then, that they’re forced to feed on their dead own.
The last of the crowd is finally gone, and she eagerly approaches the bridge. The little green river has rippled out to glass. The food sticks to her palm, and she imagines a scattering of flakes from her gentle, Lady Bountiful hand, the grateful fish swimming near with beauty and tranquillity, taking nourishment from her, then swimming off and away with content grace. But the moment her foot hits red wood there’s a wet flapping, a swell. The water turns orange and yellow, turns spotted black and white, turns garish, comes alive with writhe. She steps up fully on the bridge and looks down; there are a dozen of them, more, rushing the water at a stress, cramming together and up at her. They are large fish, the size of dachshunds. They cram together in a thrashing mass. It’s horribly untranquil, unbeautiful. Their black eyes are fierce. Their open mouths are stretched open hard, surging, breaking the surface by inches. If fish could scream, there would be screams. She remembers a gaping, pulsing mouth like that. She remembers a sharp hook pierced clean through, off fishing with her uncle that time, the two of them, the celebration of her first silvery-in-the-air catch flashing to horror, becoming a cold little fish caught by its hooked mouth, screaming, the special treat of a day at the lake turned ugly and twisting and wet in her hand.
She opens her fist; the brown crumbles drop down into throats but the lurching mouth rings don’t stop. A glowing red fish with yellow-ring’d black eyes leaps up, angry. There’s an insidious turmoil from the rest. She swipes the last of the food from her sweaty hand and stumbles backwardly off the bridge. She turns to run when she hits the regular footpath, bordered by smooth stones and beds of combed sand.
HE IS HANGING On, the desk nurse tells her. Probably for you.
She doesn’t know how to respond to this. It feels like both tribute and blame.
You can tell him it’s okay, a nurse’s aide tells her, quietly, when they are alone with her uncle. Let him know he doesn’t have to hang on for you. You can tell him he can let go.
But that never works, she thinks.
She pats her uncle’s hand, the one uncomplicated by an IV. It is dry, liver-spotted, the ridged nails extending just beyond the spatulate tips. His eyes flicker open at her touch, the lids then droop closed. One doctor has told her it’s mere reflex, this reaction; a nurse has insisted he sees her, logs her in, that her familial presence is oxygenating or strength-maintaining, the thing that inspires his heroic endurance. Even if he does see her, she wonders, would he know her? And what would he say to her, now?
The nurse’s aide is combing her uncle’s strands of hair into neat rows across his scalp. They do a nice job of keeping him tidy, she has noticed. They talk about dignity. A dignified, peaceful end, that’s what they promise. In kind, sepulchral tones. No discussion of actual timeframe, though, no guarantees there.
Would you like to do this? the nurse’s aide asks, offering an instrument. It is a pair of nail clippers, shiny and mean. Sometimes the family likes to do this kind of thing, he tells her, Sometimes it’s comforting. If you want to.
She takes the nail clippers from him. It seems undignified to manicure herself right now, here. No, she realizes. This is so I can tend to him. Do it to him, for him. She takes a deep breath, tries not to look at the clock on the wall. She tries not to look horrified. She picks up her uncle’s hand, the one she already patted, had finished with. This is not her job.
Let go, she wishes. Let go, let go. Go.
But the aide, dissatisfied with the tidiness of the first parting, is still arranging her uncle’s rust-and-gray hair, carefully raking new rows. Humming an indistinguishable tune under his breath while not leaving. A bulge in his mouth shifts cheeks, and she realizes he is sucking on one of her hard candies. He has that swollen midwestern look, skin shiny and pink and stretched taut, the aspect of a ceramic piggy bank. She feels people in the health industry should not allow themselves to grow to such proportions. They are in a position of authority; they should set a healthy, positive example. Her uncle, while withering, is still huge to her, like when she was little. She pictures him in the oven, skewered, his fat bubbling then dripping to a sizzle. She starts with his thumb, his large, unfrail thumb. She takes it in her fist and feels how the skin is loose now around the bone. She remembers his powerful hands on her shoulders. She remembers his hands thrusting a wet bait worm onto a hook. Beeps from the heart machine above her uncle’s head accelerate; she watches the little neon spikes multiply briefly across the screen, then slow to normal. Is this a reflex? she wonders. A body’s natural response to stimuli? Or does he know it’s her, does he recognize the familiar, familial feel of her hand? She grips him harder, to hold the thumb shaft steady, and catches the edge of dry yellow nail in the clipper’s jaws. She hesitates, tells herself it’s just a ridge of dried protein, a bit of human glut, it is nothing to fear. She tells herself this is the least she can do. Her mouth is dry; she wishes for a sweet hard candy in her mouth.
I don’t want to hurt him, she murmurs to the aide. Really.
Oh, you won’t, the aide assures. Besides, his
voice drops to discreet, wafts butterscotch at her, He is so doped up anyway. You just go on. It’s a nice thing to do. He steps back, admiring his own work. He adjusts a reddish hair. The humming begins again, as if a small insect has flown into the room.
She snips at the excess nail, careful not to cut skin, working her way across. The nail is tough; the clipper squeezing takes more force than she would have thought, and it grows slippery in her sweating hand. She tries to swallow. A jagged yellow moon of nail finally drops to the white sheet.
There you go! the aide encourages, That’s it. He puts the comb away in a wicker basket of toiletries. He wipes a bit of moisture from her uncle’s loose mouth with a tissue, tosses it in the wastebin by the sink.
I like to involve the family, he says. I think it brings a good feeling.
Yes, she says.
He washes his hands, gathers his things, his basket, adjusts the blood pressure cuff hanging in a wire bin attached to the wall. He tugs the plastic liner from the wastebin, hefts the small bag of trash. I’ll be back! he announces cheerily as he leaves. The insect hum goes with him down the hall, grows fainter then gone.
She hurries to finish, finger, finger, finger. She pauses to wipe her hand on her sweater. It seems to be taking a long time, and her morning fifteen minutes are almost over. More clippings drop to the sheet. Almost done. She doesn’t want the aide to return to find she didn’t finish her job; she doesn’t want to be there when he returns. What’s next, Q-tips to swab his ears, wipe crust from his eyes, a shave? Ointment on weeping bedsores? No, she isn’t going to be hooked in like that. She pushes toward the end, her hand aching. The last clipping falls; the sheet is littered with them. She puts the instrument down on the Formica table arm that swings across the bed. She gathers up the hard, sharp moons in her sweaty palm; there is nowhere to leave them, the wastebin liner has not been replaced. She puts the clippings in her sweater pocket, next to a hard candy. She wants desperately to scrub her hands but doesn’t want to be caught exhibiting such distaste. She hurries away, down the disinfected hospital hall, before she is spotted and asked to do anything else.
THERE IS NOTHING to fear, she tells herself. She heads along the path, toward the little red footbridge. The Garden is tranquil; it’s the middle of a school day, a work day, and there is an audible lack of family or tourist noise. A discreet cricket or two, a muted breeze through a world-famous variety of trees, loosening their dying autumn leaves. The river wholly still, as if empty of life. It’s just as she hoped this time. This is the experience she’s come for. This serenity, this peace. She inserts a quarter in the almost-empty gumball machine, receives her pellets of food. There’s a flicker in the river, perhaps a trick of current and algae and sungleam. Then, that’s all. She exhales, steps upon the red wooden slats of the bridge. A tailfin flaps; by the time she is midway across the bridge a single fish has appeared, its black-and-white spotted fish skin clearly visible through the clear liquid green. A small koi, sweet, perhaps not fully grown. It raises its mouth to the surface, partly open, polite, a hopeful request without insistence or force. She drops a few pellets into the fish’s mouth and watches it swim away, appeased. Then another mouth appears; another fish, this one marked in pretty lemon stripes, has surfaced without causing a ripple in the water, must have swum straight up from the murky below. The first fish returns, quietly, its mouth apologetic and grateful. The beauty and tranquillity of koi, how true. She decides to spend another quarter on another fistful of food. She steps back on the bridge and there, the flapping begins again, more and more fish now, the river is abruptly alive with their thrashing and foam, their garish colors mottling the green. Those appalling mouthtubes, thrusting out of the water at her. She shakes her hand over them, releasing the food straight down into gullets, but their frenzy grows. The large red one lunges up, its black, yellow-gleam eyes glaring. It remembers her, she is sure. She looks around for help—where are the families, the tourists? The food is all gone; she searches in her pockets for something, finds only an empty cellophane wrapper and hard bits of, what? She scoops the nail clippings up, mingled with bits of lint, leans, drops them into the red fish’s mouth. She hopes the sharp sickles pierce holes in its fish insides, tear its guts apart. But its thrashing, its glaring at her goes on. Its appetite is livid, obscene, impossible to satisfy. She backs up and away, she flees the Garden. At least she can do that now, at least she has the power to run away.
THERE IS A new party line: This Could Take Awhile. His signs, the output of fluids, the cell counts, are not all merely holding steady, they are improving. He is a very strong man, they tell her. He could live to be a hundred, at this rate. She is furious, feels lured here by false promises. She is suddenly suspicious of the hospital staff; have they been conducting procedures behind her back? Deliberately prolonging this, putting heroic measures or artificial means into play the moment she leaves the room? Are they ignoring the family’s wishes, misusing their authority? She cannot imagine staying here much longer; she has a life, after all. What will she do, she wonders, with his plastic bag of clothes? With his mail? Will he stay here, or will she have to find him a nursing facility? How much more will she have to do? To manage? To pay? And what if he becomes fully conscious again, becomes aware of her, regains the power of speech?
She thanks the morning nurse for the good news, says she’ll be back that evening.
Her cell phone startles her. She is at the coffee shop next to the hospital, eating a club sandwich whose asymmetrical layers look nothing like the photograph on the menu. She is embarrassed by the loud ringtone but then notices other people on cell phones, locals talking in between large mouthfuls and swallows of their fatty food. Perhaps they are all playing the Waiting Game, too, on the phone with the doctors next door, getting updates on liver enzymes and biopsies and heart rates. Perhaps it’s a mishap at work, a minor emergency she’ll need to fly home and attend to at once. She answers her phone.
It’s her mother. Again, she is startled. She has not spoken to her mother in over a year.
How is he? her mother wants to know. Are they taking good care of him, is there anything he needs?
She tells her mother her uncle is doing fine. Better than fine. Doing very well. He could live to be a hundred, at this rate. Under the right conditions.
Her mother does not ask what conditions those would be. Instead, she asks if he is in any pain.
She assures her mother he is in no discomfort at all. That all his needs are being tended to. Her mother can call the hospital herself, to check, if she wants. Really.
No, no, dear, that isn’t necessary. Her mother is sure the doctors know what they’re doing, that they are doing what’s best.
Let go, let go, let go, she thinks.
Such a shame, her mother continues, Such a shame it all had to be this way. There’s a pause, then: You aren’t, you aren’t bringing up any of that old fuss to the doctors, are you?
No, Mom. I am being a wonderful niece, she says. She sips coffee into her dry mouth. She feels again the conflicting yet familiar sense of both tribute and blame.
I’m sure you are, her mother says. But the voice sounds skeptical. Of course, her mother rarely believes her, or takes her side, about anything. She rarely ever has, in the end.
SHE RETURNS TO her uncle’s hospital room to find the piggy nurse’s aide giving him a trim, snipping the hairline clean above her uncle’s baggy ears. The aide is in on it, he must be. They are trying to bring him back to life. There would be no need, otherwise, to keep her uncle so tidy and trim.
Well, you’re back! the aide says. Weren’t you already here this morning?
Yes, she says.
She watches the steady spikes on the monitor, listens to the regular beeps, tries to hear if his breathing has become stronger, more profound. She watches thin snips of hair fall to the pillow. She could gather those up, make a clump, tell the nurse’s aide it’s for a mourning locket, like in Victorian times. She could gather up more nail c
lippings. She could keep snipping away at him in the guise of care, cutting off bits of flesh here and there, calluses, moles, a polyp, those fleshy earlobes, work her way up to fingers and toes. Split his belly when no one is there to see, tug out a shiny organ or two. Cut out his fat tongue. Yes, perhaps the red fish would choke on that. Or perhaps it would be satisfied, at last, to have eaten its fill.
THE FOOD MACHINE has yet to be refilled. She wonders what on earth her Botanical Garden admission fees are being spent on. She should complain to someone. Make a fuss. Never mind. She is determined, wrapping her sweater around herself tight. She’ll stand her ground, this time. Let it thrash. Let it scream those silent screams. It can’t touch her. The Garden seems deserted. A few leaves float down. The little river is still. There’s no disturbance when she steps up on the bridge. She waits a moment, then marches across to her spot. No sound, no uproar. She peers down into flat, immobile water, sees nothing. Stomps her foot. A leaf lands on the empty clear water, skates lazily along. It must be hiding. Lying in wait for her. Waiting to catch her alone like this, get her off-guard. She backs off the bridge, grabs a handful of pebbles from the nearest raked row. She throws a few pebbles into the water, causes minor ripples. She can see the pebbles sink clear to the river floor. She throws a few more, harder. Nothing. Are they sick? Have they died? She imagines tourist families fishing, angling for the fish, laughing as they bait and hook them, swinging them bleeding through the air, dumping them to choke and gasp on the bridge, gutting them, taking them away to a cornmeal dip and hot oil fry for Sunday dinner.