Rules Get Broken

by John Herbert

  Dave and Beth and the folks know, and they’re all trying to keep things normal with the children. Folks took kids home with them.

  I can’t sleep. I just cry and cry. Seems like no one wants to answer my call button. Two transfusions of blood.

  Thursday—I wake up crying. I feel so alone. I question and keep thinking how I’ve always felt so damned blessed. Everything. School, marriage, my beautiful babies that weren’t possible. Sooner or later I knew I’d pick a wild card.

  Father Bob came in to see me. He was consoling and promised many prayers. I asked him to pray for Mom because I know her faith will be so shaken again.

  Dr. Goldstein came to talk to me. He outlined everything I have. AML…acute myelogenous leukemia. I have an excellent shot because of my age and physical condition. The therapy…DAT…is straightforward. Kill all the bad cells and at the same time, all the good cells and come back from there. The complications and infections could kill me. In the meantime, lots to look forward to—nausea, vomiting, mouth sores, no hair, fever, etc. One day at a time.

  The day is a torture of tests. Blood, a tube into my vena cava, spinal tap, X-rays, EKG, more blood tests. Finally I can lie flat on my back for two hours.

  People are mobilizing all over. Dave put John in touch with a Dr. Werner at New York Hospital. People calling with other recommendations. Blood drives at Chemical and in the neighborhood. Beth and Dave organizing all sorts of things. I keep breaking down but got good reports on my behavior during all the tests. I’m pretty cried out today so I guess they thought I was being brave.

  So many thoughts. Should I write letters to my babies in case I die? Should I hurry up and finish the family albums? Morbid, but I can’t help it.

  Tomorrow I’m moving to New York Hospital. I’m scared, but I think it’s right.

  Friday—Left Huntington Hospital at eight-thirty. New York Hospital is very intimidating at first, but I have a pretty good room. River view. I guess that will be important later when I’m here for a long time. The bone marrow slides from Huntington Hospital were not good enough, so everything was done again. That was horrible, but what a team! Dr. Werner (old before his time, very serious, very thorough), Dr. Levy (very compassionate, also seems good, a woman and I think I’ll appreciate that), Dr. Porter, Dr. Burton, Dr. Graff. All went over me with a fine-toothed comb. More X-rays. Another EKG.

  Dr. Porter came back later in afternoon and took out neck IV. Back in right arm.

  Phone ringing off hook. Erin here for a long time. John here at seven to talk to Dr. Werner. Dr. Werner’s not in agreement with Huntington Hospital’s diagnosis. All results aren’t in. Can’t start treatment until Monday.

  Saturday—Slept well. No pills. Ring of interns around me this morning. Dr. Werner in to see me. Kind of gruff but nice. I should anticipate fever over weekend. He’s surprised I don’t feel sick. (Good sign?)

  John called early. I talked to Jen. “When you come home next week, I can splash you.” She’s getting a lot of swimming done. Erin and Mom here for a couple of hours. They’re calm now too. Beth and Dave sent “Anatomy of an Illness,” and I caught the author on TV. I’ll be getting fruits and vegetables from home. Mike called. Very understanding having been in this position one month ago. Only low moment was after they started transfusion at four. Slight fever. Dizzy trying to eat dinner. Reality of it creeping back. Seeing John, I burst into tears. He and folks brought goodies…pictures of kids (John Jr. with a beer can), fruit, etc. I’m really getting settled in. Thank God for my own room. Two pints of red blood today.

  Monday—Fever last night. They started antibiotics. Sweated most of the night. This morning I had my first shower. Wonderful! Broke down talking to Jennie. “Mommy, maybe tomorrow Daddy and me could pick you up, and you could come home and make my lunch…”

  That was the last entry.

  I sat on the bed as I had with Cal’s letter and stared at her words, at her precise yet flowing script, and wondered why she had stopped making entries. Was the pain or the nausea or the fever simply too much by Tuesday?

  I shook my head in sadness and bewilderment.

  It was time for bed.

  Forty-Six

  I learned quickly that keeping busy was the key to sanity, and that keeping busy was most important during those two or three hours after dinner and before bed. So Wednesday night, August 27th, after putting Jennie and John to bed, I decided to go through more of the paperwork in the top dresser drawer. I again ignored the hospital-related material and instead pulled out the stack of legal-size paper I had passed over the night before. The yellow sheets were numbered, page one to nineteen, and entitled “Blood Donors.” With no recollection of ever having seen these sheets before, I decided to scan the names before throwing the list away.

  As I leafed through the pages, I was stunned to see the number of people who had been contacted by Peg’s friends and co-workers, and who had agreed to donate blood or plasma on her behalf. Hundreds upon hundreds of names appeared on the yellow pages, most of them unknown to me. All of the entries were handwritten. Some looked like they had been entered by the person listed, but most of the names, judging by the similarity of the handwriting, had been entered by only four or five people. I shook my head in amazement at the realization that all these people had agreed to help Peg and in sadness that they never got the chance.

  On the fourth page I noticed a name I recognized—Nancy Charlton, the daughter of Shirley and Donald Charlton, our next-door neighbors. But the address wasn’t Shirley and Don’s; the address was in Roslyn, a town fifteen miles to the west of Huntington. I wondered if maybe this was another Nancy Charlton, but decided that would be too much of a coincidence. I was surprised my eye had caught Nancy’s name out of the hundreds of names listed, because although Peg and I knew who she was, neither of us had ever spoken to her. She was for all intents and purposes a stranger.

  And yet perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that her name stood out, because in one sense Nancy Charlton was anything but a stranger. To the contrary, she was a joke Peg and I had shared many times. A nice joke, but a joke nevertheless.

  For reasons I could never explain to myself or to Peg, I was intrigued by Nancy Charlton from the moment I first saw her washing her car in her parents’ driveway. Peg said the wet shirt had caught my eye, but there was something else. I could never figure out what that something else was, but Peg knew I thought Nancy was special in some unspecified way.

  Peg also knew I watched Nancy turn out of her driveway almost every morning on her way to work. I didn’t know why, but something made me go to the window as soon as I heard Nancy’s tires crunch on the driveway gravel. And something made me watch her stop at the end of the driveway, carefully look both ways up and down the street, then turn left and drive slowly past our house on the way to the railroad station, peering intently over the hood of her ancient gold Chevy Impala sedan.

  And Peg knew how angry I had gotten one Saturday night when a date pulled up in front of Nancy’s house, sat in his car and beeped his horn for her. I stopped getting dressed, went to the side window of our bedroom and waited for Nancy to come out of her house while this clown leaned on his horn. Even though I had never said a word to Nancy Charlton, I was annoyed that this guy sat in his car expecting her to respond to his horn instead of treating her like a lady and getting out and ringing her doorbell. I watched Nancy walk down her front walk and get into the guy’s car, and then I turned away from the window and made some comment to Peg about the situation. I remember her asking why I cared, and I remember I had no answer for her. I just knew I did.

  Anyway, here she was again. Her name, her address, her daytime phone number, her evening phone number. I looked at her line on the page and felt almost like a voyeur, privy to information not really mine to know. But I continued to stare at the listing and wondered who had called her and when and what she had said when she was called and why she had agreed to help. And then I decided I would call her at work the ne
xt morning. To thank her for agreeing to donate blood to Peg. That would be a nice thing to do, I thought.

  Whoa, John, a voice said, somewhat harshly, from somewhere in my head. Tell me again why you’re going to call this woman.

  “To thank her,” I said to the voice.

  Great, it replied. And what about the other four or five hundred people on the list? You gonna call all of them too?

  “No, I couldn’t possibly do that.”

  Yeah, I know that. I also know there’s no goddamn reason on earth why you should call this young lady. Bad idea, my friend. Bad idea.

  “Why is it such a bad idea?” I asked the voice. “All I’m going to do is call this Nancy Charlton and thank her for being willing to donate blood to Peg. That’s all. Where’s the harm in that?”

  No harm in that at all, the voice agreed, if that’s the reason you’re calling her. But I think there’s more to it, which means this is a call you shouldn’t be making. Like I said, it’s a bad idea, my friend. A bad idea.

  “Maybe,” I thought to myself, “but I’m still going to call her.”

  I shook my head to end the conversation, put aside the sheet with Nancy’s name and address and telephone numbers, and continued to go through the paperwork in the dresser drawer.

  Forty-Seven

  On Thursday, August 28th, the single sheet of yellow legal paper remained on the left side of my desk all morning. I looked at the sheet countless times and picked it up several times, but each time I picked it up, I put it down almost immediately, deciding that the time wasn’t yet right for me to make my call.

  The sheet of paper was still on the left side of my desk when I got back from lunch. I picked up the sheet again and was about to put it down again when I heard the voice from somewhere deep inside.

  What the hell is going on here?

  “What do you mean, ‘what the hell is going on here’?” I asked. “I’m just trying to decide if now is a good time to make my call.”

  Why are you waiting for a “good time” to call? the voice shot back. I thought all you were going to do was thank the young lady for agreeing to donate blood. Or am I missing something here?

  “You’re not missing anything.”

  So again I ask why you have to wait for a “good time?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied, suddenly feeling foolish.

  I stared at the yellow paper in my hand, at Nancy Charlton’s name and business number, and wondered if she were there now.

  “Probably,” I said to myself, still staring at the sheet of paper.

  My intercom buzzed. I ignored it.

  This is absolutely ridiculous, chided the voice. You know you shouldn’t make this call. That’s why you’re stalling. Admit it, for Christ’s sake, and forget about calling Nancy Charlton.

  A moment of mental silence.

  So are you going to stop the bullshit and get on with your work? the voice asked.

  I rubbed my lower lip for several seconds as I deliberated.

  “I’m going to call her right now,” I said to the voice finally. “There’s no reason to be nervous, and there’s no reason to put off my call. I’m just being stupid.”

  Before I could change my mind, I quickly picked up the receiver and dialed Nancy Charlton’s number.

  One ring, two rings, three rings, then a woman’s voice. “Good afternoon, Nancy Charlton’s office.”

  “Uh, good afternoon. My name is John Herbert. I’m calling for Nancy Charlton. Is she available?”

  “I’m sorry, but Miss Charlton isn’t back from lunch yet. May I take a message?”

  A split second of hesitation. Should I leave a message, I wondered, or should I just forget the whole thing?

  Decision made. “Uh, yes. Please. If you would. Would you let her know I called, and ask her to give me a call back when she gets a minute?”

  “Of course. May I have your number, Mr. Herbert?”

  “Sure. 516-334-6500.”

  “Fine. I’ll see that she gets your message. Thank you for calling.”

  “Thank you. Have a good day.”

  I placed the receiver back in its cradle, put my hands behind my head and leaned back in my chair. I had made the call. I looked at my watch. It was one thirty-five.

  I wondered when Nancy would return my call. Then I wondered if she would return my call. Then I decided to stop wondering anything and got to work.

  Forty-Eight

  Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, finally seventeen. The elevator doors slid open, and Nancy Charlton stepped out of the elevator onto the deep piled carpet of the seventeenth floor of the Exxon building and the New York sales offices of National Geographic magazine. She looked at her watch as she started to walk to her office. “Five minutes of two,” she said to herself. “I could’ve sat in the sun another couple of minutes.”

  A left at the end of the elevator lobby towards the east side of the building, and then a right down the hall, past her boss’s office and the salesmen’s offices on the left and the secretarial cubicles on the right.

  She walked into her office and was halfway to her desk when the secretary who had covered for her during her lunch hour bolted out of her cubicle waving a pink “While You Were Out” telephone message slip.

  “Nancy, wait. You had a telephone call while you were out to lunch!” she exclaimed excitedly.

  Nancy stopped, turned around and took the message slip from the secretary’s extended hand. “Thanks, Judy,” she said, dropping the slip on her desk without reading it.

  Nancy walked behind her desk and tossed a paper bag containing an empty yogurt container and an empty soda can into her wastebasket. She bent down, opened the bottom right hand drawer of her desk and took out her pocketbook. When she straightened up, she saw the secretary still standing in the doorway.

  “It didn’t sound like a business call,” the secretary volunteered. “It sounded more like a personal call.”

  “Really?” Nancy asked disinterestedly as she looked into her compact mirror, pursed her lips and put on fresh lipstick.

  “He sounded very mature.”

  “He?” Nancy asked. She closed the lipstick tube and began to apply makeup to her cheeks and nose.

  “A John Herbert. Do you know a John Herbert?”

  By now, a second secretary had joined the first, and the two of them stood half in, half out of Nancy’s office.

  Nancy stopped applying her makeup, snapped the compact case closed and picked up the message slip with her free hand. The message was simple.

  Mr. / Ms.—John Herbert

  From—Judy

  Phone No.—516 334 6500

  The “Please Call” box was checked, and the Message portion read “personal (?).”

  Nancy swallowed hard. My God, she thought. Why is he calling me? Shit!

  The two secretaries remained where they were, watching her face intently, trying to read her every expression. “Do you know him?” the second secretary asked.

  “I know of a John Herbert,” Nancy replied. “He’s my parents’ neighbor. Lives next door to them. Anyway, thanks for taking the call.”

  The answer didn’t satisfy either of the two women, but they realized Nancy Charlton was not going to reveal anything more. Reluctantly, they withdrew from the doorway and returned to their cubicles.

  Nancy sat down at her desk, put her lipstick and compact case back in her pocketbook, and closed the open desk drawer. Then she picked up the pink message slip again and stared at the name, carefully printed in block letters.

  “John Herbert,” she said aloud to herself. “Why are you calling me? And what can I possibly say to you?”

  She swung her chair around and stared out the window at the office building opposite hers across the Avenue of the Americas.

  Maybe I shouldn’t return the call, she thought. Maybe I should just pretend I didn’t get the message. That would certainly be the easiest thing to do. I mean, after all, what am I supposed to say to a guy who’
s just lost his wife?

  She turned away from the window and noticed for the first time seven other pink telephone message slips spread across her desk. A little smirk crept across her face as she scanned them. Funny no one hand delivered these to me, she thought.

  She sighed and picked up the John Herbert message again. “I can’t not call you,” she said, staring at the name. “I just can’t do that.”

  She picked up the receiver and started to dial.

  Forty-Nine

  At five minutes after two my intercom buzzed. I picked up the receiver and heard my secretary announce that Nancy Charlton was on line 3 returning my call. I thought I detected a question somewhere in her delivery, but I ignored it and punched 3.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi. This is Nancy Charlton. I’m returning John Herbert’s call.”

  “Hi, Nancy. This is John Herbert. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.”

  She didn’t reply, so I plunged ahead. “I…uh…called earlier just to thank you for agreeing to be a blood donor for Peg. That was very…kind of you, and I…I wanted you to know I appreciated it.”

  “Well…that was the very least I could do,” Nancy replied. She paused, then continued. “I just wish I had had the chance to actually be a donor.”

  Another pause, but longer this time. “I’m sorry about Peggy. My mother told me she was sick, and then last week she told me what happened. I really am sorry.”

  I could tell from the tone of her voice she was being sincere, and I wondered what I should say in response that I hadn’t already said a hundred times. I wanted to say something meaningful—something I hadn’t already said, something that would let her know I appreciated her sincerity—but I realized almost immediately I wasn’t going to come up with anything earth-shattering at that precise moment.