Morningside Heights

by Joshua Henkin

  Dawn was ascending; daybreak would be coming soon. Maybe the Zenithican would save his father. Then his father would appreciate him. But his father had never appreciated him, and if he made his father better, his father would go back to not appreciating him.

  Arlo got down on the floor and did two hundred push-ups.

  When he was done, he stood by the window as daylight spilled in, stood shirtless, in his boxers, scrutinizing himself. I’m alive, he thought. I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive—the words coursing through him as he got dressed and waited for the car to take him to his office.

  35

  The first part of the drug trial would last two months. Three days a week, Pru would take Spence to Georgetown Medical Center for an injection. He’d be monitored by doctors and have his blood drawn, given EKGs and cardiac echos. And when the summer was over, he would return to New York for the maintenance part of the trial, where he’d be given a pill once a week.

  That first day, Ginny accompanied Pru, Spence, and Sarah to the hospital. She and Rafe had moved to D.C. for the summer; Arlo had found a house big enough for them all. But once they got to the hospital, Ginny let Sarah take over.

  There were forms to sign, and Sarah had Pru sign them. A few side effects had been observed in phase 1: sleeplessness, agitation, diarrhea. A couple of subjects had experienced a drop in blood pressure, but that had been rare and non-life-threatening.

  “I’m a doctor,” Sarah explained, and the nurse, taking out a blood pressure cuff, said, “It’s good to have one of those in the family.”

  Sarah supposed it was. But there wasn’t much she could do besides explain to her mother the purpose of these tests. “They want baseline levels,” she said. “They’ll be looking for adverse reactions.”

  “Okay,” the nurse told Spence, “you’re good to go,” and Spence pushed himself up from his seat before the nurse said, “Good to go, meaning you’re ready for your injection.”

  With a cotton ball, she rubbed alcohol across Spence’s arm and removed the syringe.

  Spence looked away, and so did Pru. Ginny lowered her head like a penitent. Only Sarah stared straight-on. Hazard of the job, she thought, making sure everything went as it was supposed to.

  “Do we have to do this every time?” Pru said.

  “The injection?” the nurse said. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “I meant the blood work.”

  “That’s just at the beginning,” Sarah said. “Though periodically they’ll want to repeat the tests.”

  “In the meantime,” the nurse said, “keep an eye on him.”

  “I’ll be watching him like a hawk,” Sarah said.

  “I’m already watching him like a hawk,” Pru said.

  “I am, too,” Ginny said.

  “Three hawks are better than one,” the nurse said, and this time Spence rose from his seat and led them out of the hospital.

  * * *

  —

  Back in their temporary home on P Street, sitting in someone else’s living room with the twill cream slipcovers and the Eames lounge chair, seeing Spence lugubrious and depleted once more, Pru became downcast. “What if he doesn’t get better?”

  “Be patient, Mom. Give it a chance.”

  What else was she doing besides giving it a chance? She’d quit her job and moved them down to D.C. She’d uprooted them both.

  “It could take months before we see improvement.”

  If they saw it at all, Pru thought. They were guinea pigs, these subjects. And it was a double-blind study, which meant Spence could be getting a sugar pill. In which case, he wasn’t just a guinea pig but a fool, and she was the biggest fool of all for having brought him down here.

  * * *

  —

  Over breakfast one day, Ginny showed Rafe a map of the Smithsonian. “An entire mall of the world’s greatest museums, and you don’t have to pay a cent.”

  “I hate museums,” Rafe said.

  “Do you know what the world be would like without museums?”

  “It would be a world in which I didn’t have to go to them. I want to be a doctor someday. What does going to museums have to do with that?”

  “You think doctors don’t go to museums?”

  “Not this doctor.”

  “There could be a passage about museums on the SAT.”

  Rafe would be taking the SAT in December. He’d brought his Barron’s book down to D.C. and he’d agreed to study an hour a day, but Ginny wanted him to study more. She wanted him to read too, because that was the best way to build his vocabulary.

  “Don’t I get a break over the summer?” Rafe was hoping to explore D.C. with his friend Carlton, whom he’d met at chess camp, and whose family had relocated to D.C.

  “You can explore D.C. when you’re done studying.”

  So Ginny and Rafe came to an agreement. Every morning, Rafe would spend an hour studying for the SAT followed by three hours of reading, after which he could do what he wanted. Ginny even made him a reading list—1984, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass—and she took him to the public library to borrow the books.

  * * *

  —

  When Spence was home taking a nap, Pru and Sarah would stop by Arlo’s office.

  “How’s he doing?” Arlo said.

  “About the same,” Pru said.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “You’ve already done everything.”

  They just stood there, Pru and Sarah in this huge office with the tropical fish doing their laps, and it became clear that these updates were making everyone uncomfortable and Arlo had, in fact, done what he could.

  “Call me if you need anything,” Arlo said, and they told him they would.

  * * *

  —

  When Pru was out running errands, Ginny, who at the hospital deferred to Sarah, would, when they were home, take charge. She wouldn’t rebuke Sarah, exactly, but she’d correct her ways. The professor liked his grapefruit divided into sections and cut smaller; his hamburger needed to be mashed so he wouldn’t choke. One time Ginny said, “The professor prefers his applesauce strained.”

  Oh, does he? Sarah thought. On what authority did Ginny base this—Ginny, who had known her father for a couple of years, whereas Sarah had known him her whole life. But Ginny was right: her father did prefer his applesauce strained, the fact of which Ginny knew because she was the one who made it from scratch, which Sarah had never done.

  Another time Sarah poured her father tea, and Ginny looked on disapprovingly.

  “He takes his tea light,” Sarah said. “ ‘Just a little colored water’ is what he says.”

  But it wasn’t the color that concerned Ginny, but the heat. “The professor’s hands shake. The tea needs to be lukewarm or he’ll burn himself.” She dropped a couple of ice cubes into the tea, and only then did she let him drink it.

  Still another time, Sarah gave her father a hard-boiled egg, and Ginny said, “He doesn’t eat lunch until noon.”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “He needs to be on a schedule.”

  “Why?” Sarah said. “He’s not in the Marines.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be back in L.A.?” It was clear Ginny couldn’t wait for that to happen, which made Sarah unable to wait for it, too.

  * * *

  —

  Then Sarah was gone, and Pru was lonelier than ever. She’d been checking email once a day; now she started to check it twice a day, even more.

  Dear Walter,

  I’m in D.C. with Spence. The drug trial is…a drug trial. They give you some chemicals and see what happens to you. The scientists find it fascinating. So far no improvement, but the good thing is he doesn�
�t seem worse. D.C. is as hot as advertised. I’ve been turning on the A.C. while Spence is asleep. He’s always hated wasting electricity. And he gets so cold, even when it’s ninety-five degrees out. So I wrap him in blankets while I walk around in shorts. We’re like some bad version of Jack and Mrs. Sprat. I hope New York isn’t quite as hot, and that you’re enjoying your summer.

  Fondly,

  Pru

  Pru—

  It was good to hear from you. It’s like they say, the two great inventions of the twentieth century were penicillin and A.C. I’m sorry about what you and Spence are going through. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

  —Walter

  I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy? What was this, Pru thought, some sympathy card? But her email had sounded like a sympathy card, too. Fondly? She’d never used the word fondly in her life.

  Did she think she and Walter were going to be friends? They were long-distance now, and there was a reason for that. She didn’t email him back, and he didn’t email her either. That was it: she was alone.

  * * *

  —

  She woke up one Saturday and went to shul. Maybe here in Georgetown, at Kesher Israel, she would find her community. Or maybe she could commune with God.

  A man was chanting from the Torah when she arrived. Someone announced the Blessing for the Sick, and the congregants lined up to say the names of their loved ones. Was she really going to do this, say a prayer for Spence, the legendary atheist, and she, an atheist, too, prostrating herself before the God she didn’t believe in, in the company of a congregation she didn’t know?

  But as the other congregants approached the bimah, she got in line too. Me she’bayrach avoteinu Avraham Yitzchak v’Yaakov, Moshe v’Aharon David oo’Shlomo, hoo Yivaraich v’yirapai et ha’cholim. She reached the front of the line, and the man reciting the prayer asked whom she was blessing.

  “Spence,” she said.

  The man looked at her.

  “Shulem.”

  “Shulem ben who?” the man said, and Pru remembered: when you blessed the sick, you said the name of the sick person’s mother. She racked her mind for Spence’s mother’s name but couldn’t come up with it.

  As the man leaned forward to chant the words, his tallis brushed her arm. Then his voice rang forth. “Shulem ben Sarah.”

  Later Pru would recall that when you didn’t know the mother’s name you said Sarah, the Matriarch, but at the time she forgot, and she stood beside the bimah, poleaxed, thinking the man was referring to her Sarah, and how in the world did he know?

  * * *

  —

  “Your mother’s name is Ruth,” she said when she got home. She’d remembered it the instant she walked into the house.

  Spence just stared at her.

  “I tried to bless you,” she said, “but I couldn’t remember your mother’s name.”

  He was quiet.

  “Oh, darling, I wish I knew your parents.”

  “You did know my parents.”

  “I didn’t, darling. They died before we met. I have no idea where you come from.”

  “I come from the Lower East Side.”

  “I meant the people you come from.” She took his hand.

  “Where did you bless me?”

  “In synagogue.”

  “You used to go to synagogue.”

  “That’s right.” Why did Spence remember some things and not remember others? Why could he tell her what had happened years ago but couldn’t tell her what had happened yesterday?

  “When did you go to synagogue?”

  “When I was growing up,” she said. “And when I met you.”

  “Why?”

  Why did she go? Why did she stop? Why, she wondered, did she no longer believe? “I’m sorry for forgetting your mother’s name.”

  “I forgive you,” Spence said.

  She started to cry.

  36

  One morning, Spence looked down at his plate of scrambled eggs and said, “This meal seeks.”

  Could he possibly have meant his meal sucks? No, Pru thought: he’d never spoken that way in his life. The word sucks was vulgar—it was boorish, it was crass—and no disease could ever change that.

  But Spence kept saying This meal seeks, becoming more agitated each time. Finally, he lowered his head to the table and didn’t say anything more.

  At the end of the day, Pru realized something. “Darling, you meant your meal reeks! You didn’t like the smell of your scrambled eggs!”

  * * *

  —

  Then something remarkable happened. Spence had been in the drug trial for a month, and suddenly he was improving. Maybe he hadn’t said reeks, but he’d started to use other higher-order words. At dinner one night he said the word quotidian. “Do you think he’s doing better?” she asked Ginny.

  “He might be,” Ginny said.

  Pru called Arlo. She called Sarah too.

  * * *

  —

  Another week passed, and it became clearer: Spence was improving, indisputably. He was staying awake until ten at night, having a go at The Washington Post.

  He was moving better, too. He walked with Ginny to K Street and back and barely used his cane.

  There had been improvement, too, in his manual dexterity, in how he wielded a fork and knife. There were shades of the old Spence: clean, fastidious, the dabbing of his napkin to his mouth.

  One morning, Pru let her gaze fall on the Times crossword. Late Missouri Senator Thomas. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken the clue aloud, so she was startled when Spence said, “Eagleton.”

  She reached out and touched him. “What did you just say, darling?”

  “Eagleton,” he repeated.

  She very nearly leapt out of her seat. Thomas Eagleton, longtime senator from Missouri! George McGovern’s vice presidential nominee, forced to withdraw because of electroshock therapy! “Spence, you did a crossword!” And it was Friday, late in the week, when the crosswords were harder.

  A minute later she tried again. “Late Missouri Senator Thomas.”

  Spence just stared at her.

  “Come on, darling, you said it before. What’s the last name of the late senator from Missouri whose first name is Thomas?”

  Spence was silent. Finally, he said, “Why’s the senator late?”

  But it didn’t matter, because a minute ago he’d gotten the answer right. They said if you put a chimp in front of a typewriter, eventually he’d type Hamlet. But if you asked a chimp who the late Senator Thomas from Missouri was, he would never, in a billion years, say Eagleton.

  37

  Ginny had made two rules: in the morning, Rafe had to read and study for the SAT, and he had to be home by six for dinner.

  One night, Rafe came home at seven and Ginny was waiting at the door. “Where were you, young man?”

  “I got confused.”

  She just stared at him.

  “I’m tired of being under your thumb.”

  “When you’re an adult you can stop being under my thumb. We made a deal that you’d be home by six.”

  “I want to renegotiate.”

  “Deals don’t get renegotiated.”

  “Sure they do.” Rafe invoked the names of several pop stars and a couple of professional athletes.

  “Here’s what’s being renegotiated. You’re grounded.”

  “For how long?”

  “Three days. And if you sulk about it, it will be longer.”

  When three days passed, Rafe was allowed to go out again, provided he was home by curfew.

  He followed the rule for several days, but on Saturday six o’clock came and went, and there was no sign of him.

  Ginny stood at the window.

  “It’s the we
ekend,” Pru said. “You should give him a grace period.” And when Ginny gave her a look, Pru said, “I’m sorry, it’s none of my business,” and Ginny gave her another look to say she was right.

  Six thirty passed, then seven: Ginny was starting to get worried. She called Rafe’s cell phone, but he didn’t pick up. She called Carlton’s cell phone, and he didn’t pick up either.

  It was eight thirty when Rafe got home. Ginny was about to say, You’re two and a half hours late, young man, when she saw Rafe and gasped. There was dirt on his face, and his hands were scratched. “What in the Lord’s name?”

  “I fell.”

  “Where?”

  Rafe walked past her, but Ginny grabbed his arm. “Sit down and tell me what happened.”

  “I got into a dustup.”

  “A what?”

  “A fight.”

  Now it was Ginny who had to sit down. “Are you trying to kill yourself, Rafe? You’re a hemophiliac, in case you forgot.”

  “I don’t care what I am. Ground me all you want. I hate it here.”

  * * *

  —

  When Pru woke up the next morning, Ginny had already packed their bags. “We’re going home to New York. It’s not working out for Rafe down here.”

  Rafe, chastened by a night’s sleep and having cleaned himself up, said, “I’m sorry, Pru. I know you need my mom. I promise I’ll do better.”

  Ginny said, “It was foolish to come down here in the first place.”

  “I like it here,” Rafe insisted. “I want to stay.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ginny said, “because in another few weeks you have to be back at school.”

  It was true, Pru thought. At the beginning of September, she and Spence would be going home, too. The first part of the drug trial would be over and the maintenance part would begin.