“What is going on?” exclaimed Zadie, startling us both. She placed a restraining hand on my arm. “It’s okay, Em. This is ancient history. Why are you cursing at each other?”
“Because we are standing here talking to fucking Lucifer,” I hissed, “and I’m trying to protect you.”
“Well, there’s an interesting concept, you protecting Zadie,” Nick drawled.
Maybe it was the alcohol; maybe it was the unaccustomed release I’d felt by hurling the f-bomb at this man I hated, but every molecule of my being was consumed by a sudden incandescent fury. “Stay the hell away from her, Nick,” I said, when I could form words again. I forced myself to speak slowly. “Stay away from me, too. You are a despicable human being.” I turned to Zadie. “Come on, let’s go.”
I extended my hand to her, and like a bewildered child, she took it. We started for the door.
“Zadie,” called Nick. He held something out to her. To my dismay, she looked back over her shoulder, her eyes widening at the flat object in his hand. She reached for it.
The physicists have a term: “gravitational time delay.” It’s derived from Einstein’s theory of general relativity, referring to the fact that speeding objects seem to slow down as they near the gravitational pull of a massive physical object—thus effectively producing the slowing of time. With dim amazement, I observed with my own eyes as time slowed to a crawl, hobbled by the enormity of the betrayal Zadie was about to discover. I spun helplessly in a suspended animation of my own creation, as Zadie’s hand inched ever closer to Nick’s.
She took the photograph from him. She looked at it.
She began to cry.
Chapter Thirty-two
A COLLECTION OF MARBLE ANGELS
Late Autumn, 1999: Louisville, Kentucky
Zadie
Graham’s funeral took place on a day so sunny I sweated through my one good black dress. As I scanned the crowd filing in to the hushed marble interior of the Cathedral of the Assumption, the wash of grim solemnity on every face struck me. It looked as if body snatchers had replaced my friends with black-clad cheerless automatons.
Conspicuously missing was Emma. A couple days after Graham’s death, she’d managed to contact his father, Dr. O’Kane. He had retired from his active medical practice at this point, but he kept busy working as some sort of consultant to the orthopedic device companies that manufactured his widget. In addition to that, he and his current wife ran a foundation supporting reactionary political causes; because of this he owned a private jet from which he was evidently deplaning as they spoke.
I could faintly hear Dr. O’Kane’s side of the conversation. Emma and I were huddled together in a cubicle at the back corner of the residents’ lounge where there were telephones for dictating encased in little glass partitions. Though sound was rendered tinny and distant by the gap between me and the telephone and by the machine hum of the plane in the background, it was still possible to hear the barely controlled annoyance in Dr. O’Kane’s voice as Emma held out the receiver. “You say you met him at the hospital? Are you a nurse?” he inquired, after Emma had finished her plea for him to contribute to Graham’s memorial service.
“I’m a classmate of Graham’s. We’ve been friends for years and dating for—”
“Classmate.” Dr. O’Kane sighed with faint scorn. “Well, listen, Emily—”
“Emma.”
“Emma, then. Do you have any idea what a tremendous embarrassment it is to have to speak to the bishop about planning a funeral mass for someone who died in this manner?”
“Would it be all right if I read something?”
Another disdainful sigh. “I know you mean well. And it is touching he had anyone willing to stand up for him. But I think it would be best if you left this to the family.”
“I am also going to contact his mother,” Emma said in a small voice.
A sharp, almost barking laugh: “Graham’s mother made the decision to leave us close to ten years ago. I doubt very much she’ll be attending since she’s had no contact with him, and she certainly will not be making any decisions regarding the arrangements. Marilyn and I will handle that. Now, if you don’t mind—”
The line buzzed with an angry dial tone. Emma replaced the receiver in its cradle with an incongruous gentleness.
“Whoa. No wonder Graham was . . .” I trailed off, unable to complete the sentence both inoffensively and accurately. “Sad,” I finished lamely. “What a jackass.”
“Was it something I said?”
I looked up. Nick peered around the partition at me. In open defiance of Dr. Markham’s sartorial policy, he wore a white coat over scrubs and again had dissolute stubble blurring his face, but his expression was unfiltered: alert, amused, slightly sardonic.
“If there is simultaneous crying and cursing in here, it’s a given that you’re going to be in the vicinity,” he said. “I don’t know how I survived the boredom before.” He started to say something else, then stopped abruptly as he caught sight of Emma.
Emma’s face was unreadable. “I need to freshen up,” she said. “I’ll take my theatrics elsewhere.”
“Well . . . bye,” I called to her retreating back. She did not look up.
So Emma did not attend Graham’s funeral. After the conversation with Dr. O’Kane, she refused to go, mumbling to me that she would rather mourn him in private.
It wasn’t a bad service. As Dr. O’Kane had promised, it seemed impersonal; but despite that, it was lovely. The ceremony conjured a mournful grace, an ancient sense of the sweeping and adversarial nature of death: Do not rejoice over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will arise; though I sit in darkness, the LORD is my light.
The light in the church filtered in through windows so high and celestial that the rays of sun, shot through with lazily dancing golden dust motes, seemed to be tendrils reaching from heaven, an impression reinforced by the majestic blue starry-night ceiling. Everything was luminous marble and lustrous gilt; all the opulence was as un-Graham-like as it was possible to be, but a place of such somber, magnificent glory somehow seemed right for grieving my friend. The beautiful unearthly voices of the choir washed over me with almost palpable grace, soaring and swooping and hanging in the air above the congregation as if they were the very soul for whom they mourned, finally twisting up with the shafts of light from the upper windows until they vanished into the eternal sky. For moments afterward, I observed the mourners sitting perfectly still, seemingly not even breathing, a collection of marble angels watching one of their own depart.
After the last note from the last song died away and the priest finished, and the rest of my classmates had clambered past me, I finally stood. The sanctuary was empty as at last I walked out.
When I arrived back at the apartment, Emma was gone. I found myself in an unfamiliar situation: a block of time with nothing to do. Feeling hollow, I wandered into Emma’s room, wondering again how much she had known or suspected prior to his suicide. I’d barely seen her: unlike surgery, our ER rotation lacked thirty- or forty-hour periods of enforced wakefulness, but the constant switching between day and night disoriented me. I hadn’t seen Emma for days.
I looked around. Emma was irritatingly organized. Her clothes hung with precision on identical hangers; her bed was crisply made; her makeup was neatly arranged in clear Lucite dividers: an obedient little regiment of lipstick soldiers. I reached for one, an unassuming pink shade, and absently twirled it up and down. An image of Emma and Graham sitting on the bed rose in my mind: Emma, wearing little granny glasses, her long hair caught up in a golden bun, her cheekbones appleing up as she laughed, leaning into Graham. His face had been partly hidden—he was turned to the side and looking down—but even from the partial glimpse of one eye and half of his mouth, it was obvious he was gazing at Emma, looking both fierce and fond, his contentment visible. He was whole and young, his skin wa
rm, his heartbeat thrumming steadily, his eyes quick and aware. The trillions of cells in his body were vibrant, industrious little factories; electrolytes moving, ion channels opening, neurons firing. Alive. There was nothing, no hint, that all of this could just cease to be. One moment someone you know was whole, and the next he could be stilled and buried. The thought of Graham’s beautiful body alone under the ground suddenly doubled me over; despite the deaths I’d seen this year, my thoughts had not extended to what came after.
I tried to catch my breath, but all I could manage was a shuddering gasp; it took a second to realize I was on my knees, tears caught in my throat. I bowed my head and howled.
When my grief storm finally dimmed, I got to my feet, my mind blank. I paced around the generously sized room. My bedroom had an attached bathroom, but Emma had opted for the prettier space; it had high whitewashed wood ceilings and two big dormer windows, and the floor was padded by a lovely old oval braided rag rug. She had a fat red reading chair and a huge painted oak bookcase, which was filled with hardbacks, alphabetized and grouped by category, their dust jackets removed to reveal muted jewel-toned spines. I ran my finger along them: here, the history books, there, the biographies, then the fiction: Sophie’s Choice, The Bonfire of the Vanities, Bridget Jones’s Diary, The Secret History, A Prayer for Owen Meany. Among the many things causing me to envy Emma, her book collection was foremost. She had hundreds of well-loved volumes, most of them hardbacks, which had value not only for the inherent pleasure of reading them, but also for their beauty. More classifications: poetry, beloved children’s books, science texts, and finally a sizable selection of popular psychology and spirituality, a little surprising for Emma. Although she respected my attempts to attend church, she believed the only rational position on religiosity was agnosticism; she also considered clinical psychology to be a load of bunk. Something about this last group of books drew my eye. What was it? I regarded them again and realized one slender volume had broken ranks, sticking out an inch or so from the others. I pulled it free from the shelf.
It was The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis. I’d been a huge fan of the Narnia series as a child but hadn’t read much of Lewis’s overtly religious writing. I knew vaguely of the theme: the demons plotting for the damnation of a human life, hoping to enmesh their victim in his own failings and temptations, the final betrayal. But I had never heard Emma mention it as a favorite.
I opened it, and a folded sheet of paper fell out. It was a poem, to Emma from Graham, dated October 18, the day he had died.
I walked all night
through clouds and mist
My blurry tears concealed the stars
and melted the air around me.
I called your name
but there was no answer
My voice echoed through the darkness
reaching every corner of the sky
but you were gone and did not hear me.
I found a painting in shades of blue
My hungry eyes saw your image
walking in the rain
I reached out to pull you through
and hold you in my arms
I grasped and clawed throughout the dampness
searching for your hands
but you were gone and did not feel me.
I had a dream
of dark content
My sleepless soul felt your body
looming over me
I struggled upward
to kiss your face and touch your hair
and hold you close once more
But I awoke and you were gone.
I read the words again. A swirl of new confusion enveloped me; had Emma and Graham broken up before he died? The paper on which the poem was printed held an unexpected heft; I turned it over, figuring something was stuck to the back.
A photograph: taped neatly on all four sides with the picture side facedown. I fingered the tape-blunted edges, burning with curiosity. It appeared Emma had not untaped it to see what it was.
Hesitantly, I picked at one edge of the tape, beginning to elevate the edge of the picture when I heard a rustling noise behind me. Shrieking, I whirled around with my hands up, only to realize the air-conditioning had activated, rustling the crackly dead leaves of Emma’s houseplant. My heart pittering in relief and embarrassment, I retrieved the piece of paper, which had gone flying under a chair as I’d surrendered to the plant. Hastily refolding the paper, I placed it back in the book and fled from the room.
Our old house, usually so cheerful on sunny days like this one, felt oppressive. The bright pillows and posters, and the dozens of framed photographs, were a silent rebuke: where are the people who belong here? It was creepy, like an empty home in an apocalyptic film, the now-useless possessions outlasting the human occupants. Suddenly I could not bear to be alone another second. I grabbed my handbag and ran out.
I had seen Graham every day for months. He was more than a friend to me; he was like a benevolent brother. Shouldn’t I have noticed something terrible was happening to him? How much pain did it take to decide ending your life was the better option? And now that he was gone, Emma must have been feeling everything I was, only on a magnified scale. People should not have to deal with the horror of death when they are in their twenties, a sentiment I knew all too well. Death should be reserved for the very old.
By the time I neared Bardstown Road, I was regretting the decision to walk, since I was still in my funeral dress and a pair of seldom-worn heels. I limped along, forlorn. The sunshine faded: the molting trees loomed with bereft spikiness along the side roads, their branches rattling a little in a blast of cooler wind. My earlier agony had subsided, now superseded by more banal concerns—chiefly, an intense hunger and an absolutely killer blister on my left big toe. I decided to go to Wick’s.
Inside, I slid into a seat and ordered, slipping off my stupid shoes. Ahhh. Better. I was going to have to rustle up a ride, because there was no way my battered feet were trudging all the way back home. It was an Immutable Law of the Universe that I could not go out to eat without running into at least one person I knew, generally a disgruntled former boyfriend on a hot date, or someone to whom I owed money. Still. As long as they owned a car.
My food arrived—yes!—and I dove in with piggish abandon. It was certainly possible I looked like a total loser, ensconced solo at a large table eating as fast and as much as possible, but this was kind of liberating in a way. I did not require social validation for every little thing, and furthermore I was able to comfort myself on a horrific day without going to pieces again just because I was unexpectedly alone. I was self-reliant! The sort of person who could find solace in her own company when things were bad! The sort of person who— Oh, thank heavens, there was Rolfe.
He slid into the booth next to me and gave me a hug. “How you holding up?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. Rolfe nodded. I seemed to be having little respites, where I would forget for a moment or two, and then I’d remember, like a sucker punch to the gut. Through waves of disbelief, I’d feel myself adjusting, again: Graham is gone. Then I would forget for a moment or so, and the cycle would repeat.
“Have you seen Emma?” I asked.
Rolfe nodded. “She’s in Cherokee Park,” he said. “With Baxter, Graham’s dog.”
“She’s in the park?” I was surprised. “How do you know?”
“Landley saw her there, early this morning. She’s sitting on a blanket, on Dog Hill. He and I went by again, before I dropped him off, and she was still there. We tried to get her to leave with us, but she wouldn’t budge. She wouldn’t talk, either, except for saying it was because of her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling my stomach tighten.
Rolfe met my eyes. “What Graham did. She said it was her fault.”
Chapter Thirty-three
A
VOID THE PATIENTS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE
Late Autumn, 1999: Louisville, Kentucky
I glanced across the room at Emma, who was staring straight ahead, her features expressionless. Even at a casual glance, it was apparent she did not look good. She’d lost at least ten pounds in the three weeks since Graham’s death, and though both of us were slender, I was also curvaceous; Emma’s angular form did not have ten pounds to spare. She’d always liked to run, but now she ran obsessively, sometimes for hours. Her face was gaunt, with shadowy hollows beneath her sharp cheekbones; her look had edged from modelesque to heroin chic to cancerous. She steadfastly refused to talk with me about what had happened between her and Graham, and since she was working nights and I was working days, I hardly ever saw her.
The topic of this morning’s ER lecture was acid-base disorders, a subject that might not enthrall the average listener, but it aroused great ardor in Dr. Elsdon, who raged with evangelical zeal around the room.
“Henderson-Hasselbalch equation! Go!” he shouted, whirling around and pointing at James, who gaped helplessly.
“Aaah . . .”
“Nothing? You’ve got nothing? Let’s back up a little.” He spun around again with his index finger outstretched, this time landing on Cameron Dooley, a full-on dud who was known for remaining virtually mute during the first two years of school. Perhaps he suffered from a debilitating social phobia. In any case, he was now cowering in a seat in the back, Dr. Elsdon clearly representing his absolute worst nightmare.
“Give me five causes of normal gap acidosis!”
“. . .”
“What? What? Has nobody had their coffee this morning? HARDUP? MUDPILES? Ring any bells?”
Tonelessly, Emma came to the rescue. “HARDUP. Hyperventilation, Addison’s disease, renal tubular acidosis, diarrhea, ureteral diversion/ureterosigmoidostomy, pancreatic fistula.”
“Excellent!” roared Dr. Elsdon, his wild hair electrified. “Now give me the causes of elevated gap acidosis.”
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