Rules Get Broken

by John Herbert

  “Shit,” Ted muttered.

  “What now?” I asked as I rang the doorbell.

  “Nothing. Other than that I’m soaked.”

  I was about to tell him to stop complaining when I heard the lock turn on the inside of the front door. A second later and the door opened, bathing both of us in the bright light from Sarah’s front foyer.

  “Hi,” Sarah said cheerfully. “I thought maybe you’d be late, what with the rain and all.”

  “Naw, it’s not that bad,” I replied, giving Ted a gentle push forward to signal him to enter first.

  He took one step forward into the foyer and then stopped just inside the front door. In an instant, he transformed himself from grouch to charmer and, ever the shy one, wrapped a wet arm around Sarah’s shoulders, pulled her into his side and gave her a quick but firm kiss.

  “Happy New Year, Sarah,” he boomed.

  “Happy New Year to you too, Ted,” Sarah giggled, turning away and out of his grasp, “even if it is four and half hours too early.”

  “And who do we have here?” he asked, still blocking the front door and oblivious to the fact that I was still standing outside on the front porch.

  “Hey, Ted, any chance we can all meet one another after I get inside?” I interrupted, starting to push him further into the foyer so I could come in too.

  “Oh, yeah,” he replied. “Sorry.”

  “Hi, John,” Sarah said, still giggling at Ted and his boldness. She took my hand, pulled me inside and gave me a little peck on the cheek. “How are you?” she asked.

  “Wet. How about you?”

  “I’m fine,” she answered. She closed the front door, then turned around and looked at me.

  “And now,” she announced dramatically, “I’d like you to meet my very best friend, Peggy Reilly.”

  It was only then that I saw the woman who until now had been blocked from my view by Ted’s bulk. She stepped partly around Ted and toward me and extended her hand.

  “Hi,” Peggy Reilly said. That was all. Just “Hi.”

  She gave me a quick smile that faded as quickly as it had appeared. A smile that immediately made me wonder what kind of first impression I had made on her. Apparently not great, I thought as I shook hands with her.

  But Sarah was right. This Peggy Reilly was beautiful. Truly a striking woman. She was tall, like Sarah had said. Tall and slender. She had thick, black shining hair that hung in gentle waves down to her shoulders, and the contrast of the black hair against her white skin only made her more striking. She was wearing a simple tailored black dress with a small string of white pearls around her neck. Again the contrast of the black dress against her white skin was wonderful. But the thing that impressed me most in the few seconds that her hand was in mine was her eyes. Her incredible eyes. They were brilliant, brilliant blue. Bluer than any eyes I had ever seen, and so clear and sparkling I felt like I could look into them forever.

  “Hi. Nice to meet you,” I stammered.

  “Nice to meet you,” Peggy replied.

  “Let me have your coats,” Sarah interjected. “Then we can go downstairs, and you guys can make us a drink before we leave. What time are our reservations?”

  “Eight-thirty,” I said, struggling to get out of the wet raincoat. “So we have a little time.”

  The raincoat over my sport jacket was not an easy combination to undo. Ted had had time to get out of his raincoat while I was being introduced to Peggy, and he immediately handed it to Sarah. For some reason that put me under pressure to get rid of mine equally quickly, and I started to hurry. Seeing me struggle, Sarah tried to help me by grabbing the back of my raincoat while I tried to get my arms out of its sleeves without pulling my jacket off at the same time. Thanks to our combined efforts the raincoat suddenly came off, but when it did, it came off in a wide sweeping arc, hitting an umbrella stand to the right of the front door, knocking it over and sending four or five umbrellas skittering across the foyer floor.

  The umbrellas hadn’t come to a complete stop before Ted added to my embarrassment. “Nice move, John,” he boomed again. “Why don’t you wreck Sarah’s house while you have a minute?”

  But more notably, Peggy, who by now was standing a little apart from Sarah and me with her arms folded across her chest, also chimed in.

  “Gee, Sarah, he’s not even cool.”

  “You got that right,” I reluctantly agreed with a laugh.

  I looked over at Peggy as I picked up the umbrellas one by one and put them back in the now upright stand and tried to estimate how much damage I had done to myself. She stood perfectly still, her arms still folded across her chest, taking in everything I was doing. Our eyes met, and she gave me a wink and a smile. And in the split second we stood there looking at one another, I realized her “Gee, Sarah, he’s not even cool” comment had been a test, and I had passed.

  I looked at her for another second or two, smiled and turned towards Sarah. “You were right, Sarah,” I said.

  “About what?” asked Sarah, as she finished hanging up my raincoat and closed the foyer closet door.

  “About Peggy Reilly. She is beautiful.”

  Five

  Peggy Reilly and I dated for twenty-one months. On Friday night, October 3rd, 1970, I took Peggy to Harry’s New York Bar in Manhattan and asked her to marry me. She said yes.

  We were married on October 10th, 1971, at Saint Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church in Englewood, New Jersey, the church where Peggy had been baptized, had received her First Communion, and had been confirmed. The ceremony was to have been presided over by Peggy’s parish priest, who was, of course, Roman Catholic, and by my parish priest, who was Episcopal. But my parish priest never showed up. The ceremony was beautiful anyway.

  Our wedding reception was at Tamcrest, an exclusive and expensive country club north of Englewood. Peggy’s mother had suggested the Knights of Columbus hall because that was all she could afford, but Peggy had a vision of her wedding day, and the Knights of Columbus hall wasn’t in it. So with her mother’s permission, she paid for the reception herself. Coming up with that kind of money wasn’t easy, and she almost came up short, but almost doesn’t count.

  For two and a half years we lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Freeport on the south shore of Long Island. The apartment was only a two-block walk to the Long Island Railroad station, which was great for Peg’s commute into Manhattan and only a twenty-five minute drive to where I worked in Westbury, which was great for me.

  In 1974 we bought our first house, in Huntington on the north shore of Long Island. A delightful old center-hall Dutch colonial with four bedrooms, a bath and a half, a small but adequate kitchen, a living room, a dining room, a beautiful sunroom, and a spacious addition to the original house that became our family room. We worked on our house constantly. We scraped, spackled, sanded, painted and papered. Together, we made our house our own.

  In 1977 we had our first child, a daughter named Jennie, and in 1979 our second, a son named John.

  Life was good. Together we built a life that made our families proud, and the Irish girl with the thick, black shining hair and the brilliant blue eyes became the center of my world.

  Book One

  Six

  Monday morning, July 28th, 1980, twenty minutes after nine.

  “Good morning. North Shore Medical Group. How may I direct your call?”

  Peg sat at the kitchen table, her third cup of coffee in front of her. John sat in his high chair next to her, happily sucking away at his bottle, Jennie across from her trying very hard to keep her crayon inside the lines on this her fourth picture of the day. Unwashed dishes were stacked in the sink, and a basket full of dirty laundry stood in front of the cellar door waiting to be taken down to the laundry room.

  “Uh, yes. Dr. Edwards’ office, please.”

  “One moment please,” the operator replied.

  Peg was put on hold for several seconds and then heard another line start to ring. Once, twice, three ti
mes, five times.

  She looked absentmindedly at Jennie, then at John. What beautiful kids, she thought as the telephone on the other end of the line rang for the tenth time.

  Jennie with her light brown hair. Wavy. Wispy. Her chipmunk cheeks. Her excited little smile. Those beautiful big blue eyes. A china doll, her grandfather called her.

  And John. The happiest little guy you could imagine. Big, square head. Super fine, pale brown baby hair lying flat on his scalp. Big grin. Big dimples. The perfect little Irishman. Ready to tackle the world and everything in it.

  “God, I’m beat,” she said out loud. She picked up her coffee cup only to realize it was empty. She shook her head in exasperation and wondered how someone could listen to a telephone ring this many times without picking it up.

  Finally, a voice came on the other end of the line. “Dr. Edwards’ office.”

  “Hi. Good morning. This is Peggy Herbert. I’m a patient of Dr. Edwards.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Herbert. How are you?”

  “Well not too good, I guess. Which is why I’m calling. I spent most of the weekend on our couch, too tired to do anything. I’m not in pain or sick to my stomach or anything like that. I’m just exhausted. More tired than I’ve ever been in my life. Anyway, I was wondering if Dr. Edwards could see me today?”

  “Oh, I don’t think today will be possible,” said the voice on the other end of the line. “But let me check.”

  Peg could hear the woman sigh and “tsk” and “hmmm” as she scanned an already overbooked appointment book.

  “No, I’m sorry, Mrs. Herbert. Unless this is an emergency, there’s no way Dr. Edwards could see you today. I can fit you in tomorrow morning, however. Say around eleven o’clock? Can you come in then?”

  “Sure. If that’s the best you can do. Eleven o’clock? Is that what you said?”

  “That’s right, Mrs. Herbert. Eleven o’clock tomorrow.”

  “Fine. I’ll see you then.”

  “All right, Mrs. Herbert. Bye-bye now.”

  Peg got up from the kitchen table and hung up the receiver. “Damn,” she said to herself, suddenly feeling despondent. “I’ve got things I wanted to do today, but I feel like I’m slogging through quicksand.”

  “What’s the matter, Mommy?” Jennie asked, looking up from her crayoning for the first time in several minutes.

  “Nothing, sweetheart,” Peg said, rubbing her forehead with her fingertips, trying to push away the fatigue that threatened to overcome her. “Mommy’s just a little tired. That’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

  Seven

  She was trying to be patient, she told herself. She really was trying.

  I mean, it’s not like I was supposed to be here today, she thought. She looked around the waiting room Tuesday morning at the twenty or so other people waiting with her. I’m the one who’s being squeezed in, not the rest of these people. And it’s only been what? She looked at her watch. Thirty-five minutes. So there’s no reason to be upset.

  She was sitting in a leather wingchair in the far right corner of the North Shore Medical Group waiting room next to a small end table piled high with year-old, dog-eared magazines. She looked down at the magazine in her hands and continued to flip through it as she had been doing since she arrived, going through the motions of reading without seeing a single word.

  Somewhere a telephone rang. No one answered it.

  She took a deep breath and tried to regain her composure. She knew she wasn’t herself, that fatigue was making her uncharacteristically short-tempered.

  I have to stay calm, she admonished herself. There was nothing that important I had to do today anyway. No reason to get upset.

  “Mrs. Herbert?” a nurse half called, half announced. “Mrs. Herbert?”

  “I’m here,” Peg answered, feeling for a moment like attendance was being taken. “I’m right here.”

  She closed her magazine quickly, carefully placed it atop the pile and walked across the waiting room to where the nurse was standing.

  “Right this way, Mrs. Herbert,” the nurse said, and she held open the door leading to the examining rooms and the doctors’ offices.

  Peg followed the nurse down the hall until they reached an examination room with an open door. The nurse stopped, turned and indicated that Peg should enter the room. “Dr. Edwards will be with you in a few minutes,” she said, and she closed the door.

  Peg stood in the middle of the little room and debated whether she should stand, sit on the one chair in the room, or climb up on the examining table. She decided to stand.

  Two minutes later Dr. Edwards knocked on the door. He was a tall man, over six feet, and in his early forties. He always looked collegiate, almost preppy, with his over-the-collar, wavy brown hair, his round tortoise-shell glasses, brightly colored sport slacks and penny loafers. The slacks and the loafers were his attempt at informality, but were more than offset by a white button-down shirt, a tie and a crisply starched white knee-length lab coat. The nicest thing about him was that he always gave the impression of warmth and genuine concern whenever he spoke.

  “Good morning,” he said cheerfully as he lifted Peg’s file from the Plexiglas rack on the outside of the door and entered the examination room.

  “Good morning,” Peg answered.

  “Why don’t you have a seat up there?” he said. He gestured towards the examining table and took the chair.

  He waited until Peg had climbed up on the table before saying anything else. “So, I gather you’re not feeling too well today.”

  “I feel like hell,” Peg replied, “but I don’t feel sick. At least not what I call sick. But all weekend and all day yesterday and today, I’ve been more tired than I’ve ever been in my life. A weird kind of tired. Not the kind you can push through. My husband and I were supposed to go sailing Saturday night with the couple across the street, but I bailed out a few hours before we were supposed to leave because I was exhausted. So tired I could barely move. And since then I haven’t been able to make myself do anything that requires the slightest bit of exertion. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t push through it.”

  Dr. Edwards looked at Peg for a few seconds before he spoke again.

  “Any other symptoms? Any pain anywhere? Nausea? Diarrhea? Anything other than the fatigue?”

  “No, nothing. Just this overwhelming tiredness.”

  “I see,” Dr. Edwards said thoughtfully. “Have you been out much this summer? Out in the sun, I mean?”

  “Yes. All the time,” Peg replied, surprised at the question. “Why?”

  “Well, you look very pale to me…” Dr. Edwards’ voice trailed off as he leafed through her file looking for something. When he didn’t find it, he looked at her again, deep in thought.

  “Why don’t you get undressed,” he said, “and slip into that gown next to you? I’ll come back in a few minutes.”

  When Dr. Edwards returned several minutes later, Peg was sitting on the examination table just as he had left her, but clad now only in a thin pale blue open-backed gown, her arms wrapped around herself in an attempt to stay warm in the air-conditioned room.

  He walked over to her, gave her a quick smile and took her hands in his. He looked at the top side of each of them, then turned them over and looked at her palms and wrists. He felt her neck under each side of her jaw and down her neck on either side of her throat. He slid the gown off of her shoulders, allowing it to fall to her waist, lifted each of her arms and ran his fingers under her armpits and around and under her breasts. He placed his stethoscope on her chest and back and listened to her breathe and tapped on her back in several spots. He asked her to lie down, and he pushed and prodded her stomach and abdomen and ran his fingers up and down the inside of her thighs. He told her she could slide her arms back into the gown, and when she had and was once again covered, he took her pulse and looked in her ears and her mouth. His manner was unhurried but efficient, without wasted motion or effort, and his skilled hands gave him th
e information he sought.

  When he was done, he sat down on the chair at the foot of the examining table, folded his arms across his chest and looked directly at Peg for several seconds, as if he were reviewing in his mind one more time everything his examination had revealed to him.

  “Well, two things are very apparent. First, judging from your color and your fatigue, I think you’re suffering from anemia, so I want you to make an appointment with the lab for a blood test. Second, a number of the lymph nodes in your neck and under your arms are swollen. We need to find out why. But we’ll start with the blood test. Okay?”

  “Of course,” Peg replied, as Dr. Edwards began to fill out a form for the lab detailing the tests he wanted done. “Then what?”

  “That’s going to depend on the results of your blood test,” he said when he was finished, and he handed the form to her.

  Peg gave a little shrug and looked down at the form in her hand, not overly comfortable with his answer.

  “I suggest you go to the lab when you leave here,” he continued. “If you do, we’ll have the results by tomorrow morning. Then give us a call some time after ten o’clock, and my nurse will let you know what we need to do next. Okay?”

  “I guess so,” Peg replied.

  Dr. Edwards gave her a warm smile and stood up. Then he wished her a good day, shook her hand and left the examination room on his way to his next patient.

  Eight

  Wednesday morning, July 30th, eight minutes after ten.

  I’ve been here before, Peg thought. The phone in Dr. Edwards’ office rang for what had to be the twenty-fifth time. Finally a voice on the other end of the line. “Good morning. Dr. Edwards’ office.”

  “Yes. Good morning. My name is Peggy Herbert, and I had a blood test taken yesterday afternoon at Dr. Edwards’ request. He told me to call you this morning and said you’d be able to let me know what I’m supposed to do next. Based on the results of the blood test.”