Have You Found Her

by Janice Erlbaum

  Sam stirred in her bed, made an unhappy noise, went back to sleep. I looked out the window at the neighborhood below. Her apartment was only four blocks that way. I thought of her as I’d seen her just the week before, when I came up to take her out for Chinese food, and she answered the door with the toilet brush in her hand. “Just cleaning up,” she announced, beaming, so proprietary, so proud. “Would you mind taking off your shoes? The floor’s wet.”

  I picked up McGrowl and sat down again at Sam’s bedside. Might as well make myself comfortable. It was going to be a long week.

  “Hey, Janice, it’s Maria. Just wanted to see what time you were going to be at the hospital today. I have to work until five, but I should be there by quarter to six; if you’re still there, maybe we can talk about a few things. Thanks. Take care.”

  “Hey, Maria, it’s Janice. I’m on my way home now; sorry I missed you today. But she looks better; she’s keeping down clear liquids, and they’re hoping the seizures were just a fluke. Um, I’ll be there tomorrow around six. Maybe we can connect then. Hope all’s well, and I’ll see you soon.”

  “Hey, Janice, it’s Maria. I’m not going to be able to make it today; I’m working a double. I didn’t want to call Sam because I know the headaches are still pretty bad, but if you could give me a call when you can, let me know how she’s doing, I’d really appreciate it. Okay. Take care. Thanks.”

  “Hey, Maria, it’s Janice. They moved her to the ICU because of the seizures; I was trying to get a doctor to tell me what was up, but no luck. But she’s definitely improving, aside from the seizures—the antibiotics seem to be working on the meningitis, she’s eating again, and she seemed like she was feeling better, painwise. But, um, I hope we’ll see each other soon; we should definitely talk. Hope you’re well. Catch you soon.”

  This was how the first ten days of August went: Every day after work, I got on the subway uptown, with a book and my notebook and my cardigan in my bag, because the train and the hospital were both freezing cold, and I rode for an hour to the Bronx, then walked the six blocks through the wilting sun to the hospital. If Sam had been able to take liquids or food the day before, I stopped and bought her a rainbow ice pop from the Mister Softee truck; if not, I just went straight to her room. Sometimes she was sleeping, or she was out of her room while they ran a test on her, a scan or a sonogram or an X-ray; if so, I just wrote in my notebook or read. Then she’d wake up, or return, and I’d hear about her day.

  “I feel better than yesterday, but it’s still painful sometimes—like, I still can’t read or watch TV, or my head starts killing me. But the doctors say the infection’s getting better, and I haven’t had any seizures since yesterday, so that’s good. And Maria came after you left. She said to tell you hi.”

  Or, “They did the CAT scan, and it looked normal, but they still want me to wear these stupid discs on my head. I look like an alien. And it’s uncomfortable when I lay down, but it’s worse when I try to keep my head up. I just want to it stop hurting, already.”

  Or, “Last night was real bad. I kept throwing up my food, and my head was really aching, but I feel a little better today. And Valentina stopped by, she said the apartment’s boring without me. I signed over my last paycheck to her, so I’m covered for the next two weeks. But I think the social worker here is going to help me apply for benefits.”

  And I’d try to sort through all of it. “So, wait. The neurologist said he thinks the seizures weren’t linked to the meningitis? Or they were? Okay. And the internist says what? So he thinks they probably won’t recur, once you’re done with the antibiotics? And they’re keeping you on those for how long? And wait, how long does the social worker think it’s going to take for you to get benefits? Did she talk to you about the health-care proxy?”

  I’d filled out a health-care proxy form with my name and information (Relationship to patient: Friend); it would entitle me to talk with her doctors about her care, and to make decisions for Sam, should she become impaired. Until she signed it, though, I was stuck trying to cadge information from nurses and orderlies, who took increasing pity on me the more they saw me sitting in that chair in that darkened room, squinting as I read. “Your girl is doing better today,” they’d say as I passed them in the hallway. “They took the electrodes off last night, and she got some decent sleep. She could go home in a few days, if she keeps this up.”

  At the mention of the proxy, Sam pressed her lips together tight. “Yeah, the social worker said something about that, but we didn’t really get around to talking about it, ’cause she had to go.”

  I conferred with Maria one evening when we’d overlapped, while Sam was busy getting a sponge bath from a nurse. We ducked into the hallway, leaning against the wall like smokers without cigarettes. “She doesn’t want to sign the health-care proxy because she doesn’t want to face it,” said Maria. “You know how sensitive she is about talking about her AIDS.”

  “I know. She always calls it ‘my diagnosis,’ or ‘that other thing.’ It’s like she doesn’t even want to say the words.”

  Maria’s lively brown eyes were drooping at the corners, I noticed; she looked like she’d been awake for days. “Well, she may want to stay in denial about it, but I don’t know how long she’s going to be able to. They say she’s getting better, but this thing knocked her flat on her ass. Last time I got her to talk about it, she said her T cells were around a hundred—that’s awful. I want one of us to be able to talk to her doctors, soon.”

  “Me too. I mean, I don’t want to push her, but—”

  “You’re going to have to. We both will.”

  Maria was right. I was going to have to be more forceful. Just the day before, one of the doctors had dropped by when I was there, and Sam asked if I could “give them a minute.” And I thought, Take all the time you need; I’ll just be right here listening and asking questions. But then I realized she wanted me to leave the room. “Oh,” I said, hopping up from my chair. “Sure, I’ll be in the lounge.” I sat in the lounge for ten minutes, my face hot with mortification and resentment. How dare she ask me to leave? What did she have to discuss with the doctor that she couldn’t discuss with me? What was I, chopped liver? I had to compose myself before I walked back into her room with a smile. So, what’d he say?

  “So I’ll nag her again tomorrow,” I said to Maria. “And you stay on her, too.”

  “Right.” She touched my arm, the signal to go back into the room. An almost wifely gesture, from my co-parent.

  I didn’t know what I would I have done without Maria, without somebody holding my hand through this every step of the way. At least Maria was right there next to me, going through the same experience. Jodi, meanwhile, was busy with her new job and her own kid, and though she tried to call and visit when she could, she lived way out in Brooklyn with no car; it was more than an hour and a half by subway to get to the hospital. “And frankly,” she’d told me over the phone, matter-of-fact, “I can’t really handle what’s coming. I can’t stand to watch. You know, besides my son, I’ve got a daughter only a year older than Sam. I’ve seen what happens to these kids before, and I know I’m not going to be able to bear losing her like that.”

  I looked across the hallway of the Intensive Care Unit, through the open door of the room there, saw the crib, the electrodes, the monitors. The toddler sleeping fitfully, its thumb in its mouth. Poor baby.

  I put on my brave face to match Maria’s and reentered Sam’s room, smiling. “So, kid, you smelling any better?”

  By the next week, Sam was looking so much better that the doctors moved her from Intensive Care back to the teenagers’ floor, and started saying that magical word—home. Home! Our visits, and my phone calls with Maria, took on a celebratory air—she’d managed to kick meningitis while severely compromised—look how strong she was! That was Sam for you: give her odds, and she’d defy them for you. If anybody was going to exceed her doctors’ expectations, it would be Sam.

  She was full of pla
ns for her release. “It’s gonna be a week or two before I can go back to work, but I already called and they said to come in whenever I’m feeling better, so that’s good. And Maria said she was gonna get us tickets to see a Yankees game. I never seen a ball game in person—closest I ever been to Yankee Stadium was to cop some dope on a Hundred Eightieth Street first week I was in town. It’s gonna be so cool.”

  “I bet it is.” I smiled—I could afford to again. I didn’t have to watch her monitors and worry, or writhe with her through a spinal tap, or nag her about the health-care proxy—not right now, anyway, since she was on an upswing. “Did you give that money to Valentina?”

  I’d taken the liberty of giving Sam $150 to give to Valentina to cover the next two weeks of her rent. I figured the “don’t give them money” thing didn’t apply as much anymore, not when we were trying to keep Sam living indoors. “Yeah, I did. Thanks so much, Janice. I swear, I really am going to pay you back for all this.”

  “I know. Don’t worry about it. I’m glad I can help.”

  She nodded and settled her head back against the pillow, eyes heavy. She still got worn out so easily; twenty minutes of animated conversation could sap her strength.

  “Do you want me to read to you?” I suggested. We were reading McGrowl together, only a few pages every day, as she tended to fall asleep. Then I’d stop reading aloud, and she’d wake up enough to chastise me in a murmur, “You’re not reading.”

  “No, I don’t want to fall asleep. I want to wait until you have to go.” She repositioned her pillow, leaned back again. “It’s so boring here. I’m so sick of being in the hospital. All I do is look forward to seeing you and Maria.”

  “We look forward to seeing you, too,” I assured her. “Although we’re kind of sick of the setting.”

  She gave me a little smirk, like, Tell me about it. “And when I’m out of here, we have to go to Coney Island with Bill, like you said.”

  “Absolutely. He’s looking forward to it. It’ll be advance training for Disney World.”

  Sam looked pleased, her calendar in place. “How’s the wedding coming along?”

  “Great. I think it’s going to be really great. A lot of our really good friends will be there. I can’t wait for you to meet everybody.” They’d certainly heard enough about her. The legendary Samantha was going to be one of the main attractions among my friends and family—her, and my legendary mom, if she would ever RSVP.

  “Yeah. Valentina’s real excited about coming with me. She’s getting a new dress and shoes and everything. I said I might even let her put makeup on me, just to see how it looks.” She couldn’t contain a laugh at the idea. “Can you even imagine me in makeup?”

  “That would be something,” I said, laughing along. Thinking, It’ll be something if she makes it to the wedding at all, much less in makeup.

  But again, she looked all right now, if not fully robust—too skinny, but red-cheeked and high-spirited, talking about all the writing she was going to do now that she could sit up and hold a pen again. “I still really like the idea we came up with together,” she assured me, “but I think I might want to write my own book first, about my life, and everything I been through.”

  I remembered the excerpts she’d sent me from the halfway house, the pieces she’d shown me since then. Baby Dunleavy was born seven weeks premature. Her mother told the nurses to give her an American name…

  Write fast, I thought. “I can’t wait until you do.”

  Sam closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillow again, a slight smile on her face. “Then I’ll be totally famous.”

  I laughed. “Just remember who your friends were.”

  Her hand snaked out toward mine, her grasp bony but firm. “Always. I’m always going to remember what you’ve done for me, Janice.”

  I gripped her hand tight in reply. “And you for me.”

  Her hand got heavier in mine. She was fading for the day. “Do you want to read some more McGrowl now?”

  “Sure.” I picked up the book, tented on the nightstand next to me, and found the place where we’d left off. Sam snuggled deeper into her bedclothes, satisfied. “’Even Mrs. Wiggins had to admit that Thomas had a special way with animals…’”

  Two days later, Sam went home to her apartment. She called and left me a message: “Hey, they let me go this morning. You can come up if you want, but I’m just gonna take it easy today. Give me a call if you wanna hang out this week. Thanks for everything, and I’ll talk to you soon.”

  But it was Maria’s call I returned first. “She’s home!” I exulted.

  “Hallelujah!” she agreed. “I just hope she stays there for a little while.”

  “Seriously.” I looked over at the FRIENDS plaque on my bookshelf and sighed with relief. “That was a hell of a scare, there.”

  “It probably won’t be our last.”

  I got that familiar seasick feeling I got every time I looked too far ahead. “I know. I wish we had a better idea of what to expect. I mean, we know what to expect, but when to expect it.”

  Maria’s voice stayed firm and counselor-like. “Me too. Me too. But we’ll stay on top of her this time, and you and I will stay in touch, too. She doesn’t get to go back to work until she’s feeling a lot stronger. And any time she’s not feeling well, she goes straight to the ER.”

  “Agreed.”

  “She’s got to take it easy,” Maria emphasized.

  “I know.”

  And yet we both knew that we couldn’t contain her, we couldn’t slow her down. We couldn’t ask her not to run around and ride her skateboard while she was still able, even if it shortened her life. We were going to take her to Coney Island, to a Yankees game, to Disney World, if we could; we’d take her everywhere she wanted to go. Maria and I would become a two-woman Make-A-Wish Foundation—wishing as hard as we could for Sam to survive.

  Chapter Eleven

  Good Times

  Bill and I sat in the private dining room of a hotel near Union Square, a surfeit of dishes in front of us, the banquet manager seated across the table. A waiter stood by proffering a towel-wrapped bottle of wine.

  “Would you like to move on to the white wine?” he asked. “Or do you prefer to stay with the champagne for now?”

  “The white would be great,” said Bill, already two glasses deep into the champagne.

  “Just a little for me, thanks,” I said, trying not to slur my words. It was two-thirty in the afternoon, and I was hammered like a bent nail.

  “So you can choose three of the cold appetizers, and three of the hot ones,” explained the banquet manager, waving over two more waiters with trays. “And then we’ve got a selection of pastas and salads for you to try.”

  “Uccch,” I complained to Bill. “This is all so good. I can’t stand it.”

  He dug into a plate of gnocchi. “Suck it up, Champ, we’ve got three more courses to go.”

  “It’s a lot of food,” the manager agreed. “It’s a shame your parents weren’t available to join us this afternoon. We made enough for four people.”

  “I should have asked Sam and Valentina,” I said to Bill. They would have loved sitting around in this exquisite room, being served by jacketed waiters; what a treat it would have been. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.”

  “Who are Sam and Valentina?” asked the manager politely.

  Bill and I caught each other’s eyes. “They’re our…hungry friends.”

  They’re our homeless kids! I wanted to say, full of boozy bravado. They’re ex-hookers and junkies, and they broke out of their halfway house, and I got them an apartment in the Bronx! Sam’s a genius, and I’m going to adopt her! She has AIDS!

  “Would you like to try the red as well?” The waiter started filling yet another glass in front of me.

  “Oh.” I smiled at him warmly. “Maybe jus’ a little.”

  We finally wobbled out of the hotel at about four-thirty, utterly ruined. “Good thing I swapped days w
ith Ted,” Bill groaned, holding his stomach as we walked across the park. “I’d hate to have to go to work right now and throw up on everyone.”

  “Well, I’m supposed to meet Sam in a half hour,” I reminded him. I tried using my thumbs and forefingers to open my sleepy eyes wider. “I gotta sober up.” She’d seen me stoned before—everybody in my life had seen me stoned—but stoned was my default setting; I covered for it well. Drunk, on the other hand, I wasn’t so good at hiding.

  “I’m drunk,” I announced to Sam, meeting her by Valentina’s school in Chelsea. “I totally apologize. It was an accident. It should wear off soon. In the meantime, though, I’m totally drunk.”

  She looked me over and laughed. “So I guess you had fun at your tasting.”

  “Uccch.” I put my hand on my belly, as Bill had. “A li’l too much.”

  We started walking toward the subway, Sam filling me in on the events of the past few days. “I been feeling pretty good, mostly, a little tired sometimes. But that’s probably because I haven’t been sleeping so good.” She shot me a look, like, you know what I mean. Nightmares again.

  “That sucks. You think you could get something from the doctors to help?”

  She twisted her mouth to one side. “I dunno. I don’t want to start messing with too much prescription stuff like that; it’d be real easy to relapse into everything else. Like, every time I go into the hospital, and they give me painkillers, it’s hard when I come out not to just go pick up.”

  Pick up. That’s what they said in 12-step groups. Which reminded me—“You still going to meetings?” It was absurd, me wobbling like a wino and wagging my finger at her about sobriety, but she took it seriously.