Other Plans

by Constance C. Greene

  “Oh yes, Mr. Hollander,” she said in a sprightly manner. “Doctor said we could expect you.” She was young, not much older than Leslie. Blonde and quite homely. Where were all the pretty nurses hiding? The television screen was crowded with pretty nurses. He hadn’t seen one since this business started.

  “Down the hall.” The nurse half rose from her chair, pointing in the direction he was to take. “It’s room one-sixty-seven, Mr. Hollander. I’d take you but I can’t leave here, we’re short today. Turn left, go as far as you can, then turn right. You can’t miss it. Room one-sixty-seven.” She repeated the room number. Maybe she caught some indication of what he thought of as his approaching senility. He did find it difficult to concentrate lately. Only last week, when Burrell had been showing him the plans for a building the firm had contracted to do, asking him for his ideas, his attention had wandered so noticeably that Burrell, not a patient man at best, had said something sarcastic about snapping out of his daydream and focusing on the matter at hand. That was bad. One lapse was excusable. Two was cause for concern.

  He followed directions. Unaccountably, when he made the final turn and had gone as far as he could go, the walls suddenly became yellow, bright yellow, one of his favorites. A good omen. The nurse had given him perfect directions, and he had remembered them. He knocked.

  “Come in, please.” They were expecting him. He felt like a character in a Kafka novel.

  It was 9:20 A.M. A Saturday. Ordinarily, he would be having a third cup of coffee, a weekend indulgence, reading the paper, enjoying the feeling of freedom a Saturday always brought. He liked Saturdays, the open feel of them. He could do anything he chose to do on a Saturday. This was a holdover from childhood, he knew. On his way to the hospital he had stopped at the library to return some books and was surprised, indignant, really, to learn the library didn’t open until ten. In a month or two, his golfing pals would be after him to play a round or two. He was terrible at the game, and he played only for the camaraderie. Still, there was nothing nicer on a shining green day than to be out there, swinging, walking, swinging again, just trying not to make a damn fool of himself. Except to garden. This weekend Leslie would be home. That had been his first thought after waking. His heart grew lighter thinking of his daughter’s imminent arrival. Once more, they would be a complete family. He knew she was bringing a friend and dismissed the thought from mind, the way he did most thoughts that didn’t meet with his approval. There would be the four of them again. It had seemed to him for some time that when any one of them was absent, there was a hole. An empty feeling. He recognized the absurdity of this, since it was only a matter of a few years before he and Ceil would be alone, childless, as alone as when they were first married. But with a difference.

  In recent weeks, apprehension had been his constant companion, walking side by side, holding him in its delicate, unbreakable grip. Apprehension of what, he didn’t know. It was only when the four of them were together that he breathed easier. As if by having them all in his sights, he could keep them safe forever. His father had been right; a family is a tremendous responsibility.

  “Mr. Hollander, we’re ready for you now.” They have asked him questions, so many questions, the answers to which they solemnly record. He donned another backward hospital gown, looking down at his skinny white shanks with distaste, hating the indignity of a physical examination.

  The X-ray technician was a burly black man wearing several gold chains and a heavy gold ID bracelet. Surreptitiously, he checked the man’s earlobes and was relieved to see they weren’t pierced.

  “Bring your chin up, please. Chest a little to the left. Very good. Good. All right now, take a deep breath, please, and hold it.… Terrific.” The man showed magnificent teeth when he smiled. “Okay, relax now. We’ll have you out of here in no time. Plenty of time for your big Saturday night bash, right?” The man winked at him, sliding plates in and out of his machine with dexterity. He would wink back if he could, but he’d never mastered the art. He simply wasn’t able to. As a boy he’d spent considerable time in front of the mirror, practicing winking. He’d heard girls liked it if you winked at them, that it was a sexual come-on, but he had only managed to look as if he had a tic.

  The man continued to smile, probably thinking of something that had happened to him on his way here this morning. Some funny incident he’d tell his wife when he got home.

  “Okay, now if you don’t mind, let’s try for one or two more, just to be on the safe side, all right? That’s good, very good.” They regarded each other fondly, two old friends. He felt like a child again, having his picture taken. It had been a long time since he’d had so many compliments on his behavior.

  The technician, through at last, packed up and went away, without even a glance. It had been an act, the whole thing. The smiles, the bonhomie, all faked. He felt a tremendous sense of disappointment.

  The nurse took several more blood samples. He wondered if he could still function, they’d already taken so much. Nobody told him anything. If he were inclined toward paranoia, he might think there was a conspiracy against him. When he asked a random question, their faces seemed, literally, to close in on themselves, like flowers drawing in their petals when night came. In an effort to be helpful, he said, “I think it might be my gallbladder.” This was met with such blank hostility that he stopped in mid-sentence, embarrassed and confused.

  Maybe it’s an ulcer. He kept this thought to himself, not wanting to further offend them. I wouldn’t mind a bland diet, he thought. I could handle cottage cheese and yogurt.

  They gave him a glass of orange juice and told him the doctor would be along soon. The nurse’s eyes and hair were the color of horse chestnuts. He had once been in love with a girl whose hair had been the same color. The nurse wore glasses. His love had had eyes of a glittering green. He would have liked to linger, to talk to the nurse; thought her face kind, although, again, she wasn’t pretty. But this was not to be. She was brisk, busy, probably a fine nurse, but she had no time for him. The minutes stretched into an hour. A doctor is not to be hurried, a doctor is not to be detained. A doctor’s time is sacrosanct. He too was eager to be gone, and he considered, in a moment of uncharacteristic daring, just putting on his clothes and walking out. Let them come after him if they wanted. The moment of daring passed.

  This afternoon he planned to shop. He liked to shop, although it wasn’t considered masculine, he knew. But he enjoyed marketing, liked pushing the cart, buying things they didn’t really need. Ceil had told him he reminded her of the children when they were little, loading stuff in when she wasn’t looking, so many things that sometimes, when she reached the checkout counter, she didn’t have enough money to pay for it all. He had a tendency to buy pastry brushes, capers, anchovies, herring in cream sauce. Snails. In a supermarket he was overcome by desire and greed, finding the most improbable things irresistible. Like a man in love, he acted with abandon.

  When he’d about given up, the doctor appeared. “Ah there, Mr. Hollander, they’ve taken good care of you, have they?” The doctor, smelling of Listerine, pressed and poked him, not expecting an answer. The doctor’s face was carved of granite, revealing nothing. He wondered if doctors took a course in making their faces immobile, if they had to pass the course before they got their medical degrees.

  “I imagine you’re anxious to be off this fine day,” the doctor said. “We’ll let you go now. I’ll have the nurse call when we get the results.”

  He sat up. “When will that be?”

  “I shouldn’t think much before Tuesday.” The doctor washed his hands at a tiny sink.

  “Not before then?” he said in such a desolate voice that the doctor relaxed his stiff demeanor and smiled.

  “We’ll try for late Monday, Mr. Hollander. I can’t promise anything but we’ll try. We have your office number?”

  “I may be out of the office Monday,” he said. “Suppose I call you instead? Would that do?” Then, “Doctor, do you have any
ideas what it might be? Do you think it might be an ulcer? Or gallstones? My brother had his gallbladder out and his symptoms sound much like mine.”

  “I wouldn’t hazard a guess, Mr. Hollander.” The doctor reached out to touch his wrist. He thought that a kind thing to do, felt reassured by the doctor’s touch.

  “We won’t know anything until we get those pictures. Then we’ll have something to go on.” The doctor looked at his watch. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m late for my next patient. Have a nice weekend,” and the doctor flapped a hand in farewell.

  He dressed hastily, fearful that they’d come in, find him still there, and decide to take more X-rays, more blood. He escaped into the afternoon, the cold, thin light of February on the wane. February was his least favorite month. Nothing good ever happened in February, he thought. Still, he felt a sense of jubilation as he skimmed out the revolving door and headed for his car. He felt as if he’d been released from a long illness, a hospital bed he’d been occupying for several months, at least, and told to go home and never come back. He climbed into his car and, tires squealing, drove back down the hill.

  On impulse, he stopped at a florist to buy Ceil some roses. “Would you like me to go with you?” she’d asked, when he told her he had to go to the hospital for some blood tests. He had said no, it’s nothing. He wanted to go alone. It was one of the few times in their marriage he didn’t want her with him. Instead of roses, he chose a cyclamen plant. They were so beautiful and did well when planted outside in a shady spot. He took his time choosing between a pink and a white one, settling on pink. The florist, a dour man with a large wart nestling by his nose, wrapped yards of thin gauzy green paper around the plant, as if it were Valentine’s Day.

  “When is Valentine’s Day?” he said. The florist looked at him and said, “You missed it” in a flat voice, shaking his head, as if to say, “What kind of man are you, to miss Valentine’s Day? What kind of a sweetheart are you, anyway?”

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, smiling at the man. The florist, tiny black eyes pinpoints of hostility, stared back. He carried the plant out to the car and put it on the floor so it would be safe, and drove home sedately, cautiously, wondering where his earlier feeling of elation had gone.

  12

  When Leslie arrived at last, it was almost anticlimactic. His mother had finished the crossword puzzle and was gnashing her teeth over the double crostic. His father, weary of peering out, checking the sky for snow, the road for cars, his watch for the correct time, had taken to muttering.

  “They should be here by now. If they left right after breakfast, and didn’t run into any trouble, they should be here by now.”

  “Henry, please. Don’t drive them every inch of the way. You know that drives me crazy,” his mother begged. His father habitually sounded a mental starting gun for Leslie’s probable departure time, then followed her as she made her way homeward, indicating on his map the routes he thought she should take, places to be avoided, clogged bridges, weather conditions, spots where the cops were known to be extra vigilant. He didn’t miss a trick. He turned on the radio for the weather report, turned on the TV news to learn of incipient blizzards. Reports of a tornado wouldn’t have surprised him. He expected the worst, muttering under his breath, pacing.

  “They might’ve stopped for lunch, I suppose.” His father’s voice was filled with doubt. “God knows there isn’t a decent restaurant anywhere along the way. If they were smart, they’d pack sandwiches, a thermos of coffee. Save money, too.” He clocked them as they stopped for gas, gave them a brief hiatus for visits to the rest room. There was always the chance, though he gave it short shrift, that they’d had a flat. Leslie could change a flat tire. He’d taught her himself. But would there be enough air in the spare? Another possibility: a drunk driver going the wrong way down the highway. Or crossing the divider, a head-on collision. These things he did not say aloud.

  As if he were playing Parcheesi, he moved them toward home, step by careful step.

  “Henry, you wear me out. I’m exhausted and I haven’t done a thing all day. I’m going up to take a bath.”

  His father looked hurt. “All I want, Ceil, is for them to get home safely. I haven’t done anything to tire you out.” His mother piled the Sunday papers into a neat stack and said nothing. “Guess I’ll go for a walk, get some air,” his father said, looking at both of them expectantly. No one urged him not to go. Reluctantly, he followed through, the sound of his feet crunching forlornly on the frozen ground as he went down the path to the street.

  He was alone at last, smelling the leg of lamb roasting in the oven, his mother’s bath salts sifting through the bathroom door, slithering its way down the stairs. He had just settled in with an old Bogart movie on TV when he heard a car, heard a horn blasting, then the front door banged open and Leslie yelled, “I’m home!”

  He leaped up, then made himself sit back down, stay put, so she’d have to come and find him.

  “John!” She grabbed him and held on, kissing him fiercely on both cheeks, her face cold against his.

  “Come on in, Emma!” she shouted, throwing off her jacket, her cap, her muffler, stepping out of her boots so she could feel her feet solid on the floor and know she was really home.

  “I don’t believe it!” she said joyously. “I thought I’d never make it. Come on in, Emma!” she shouted again. John stood watching her, smiling, trying to look disinterested, as if she came home every day.

  Leslie made another run at him. “Aren’t you glad I’m home? Why aren’t you delirious with joy, you toad!” She rubbed her face against his and cried, “Oh John, you need a shave! I can’t believe it! You actually need a shave. Imagine that, Emma. He needs a shave.” He frowned at her, telling her to cool it. “Emma, this is my brother, John. John, Emma Kendel.”

  “I already figured out this was John,” Emma said. “Hello, John.” She held out her hand, which was small and cold and full of bones. He took it in his and bowed slightly, as he’d seen his father do. She was tall, almost as tall as he. She stood very straight and the gestures she made were slow and languid, as if she’d just awakened and wasn’t sure where she was. She wore a fur jacket, and had a woolen hat perched precariously on the side of her head. Her hair was long and dark and shiny. As he watched her covertly, she shook some strands away from her face and smiled at him.

  She’s shy, he thought, entranced. Her gray eyes were set wide in her face, and her mouth was full and very red. She was good-looking in an offbeat way, he decided, trying to keep calm. She wasn’t quite as good-looking as Leslie, though. But almost.

  “Where are they?” Leslie cried, running into the kitchen, then back to where he and Emma stood, regarding each other silently. “Mom and Dad. Where are they?”

  “Dad’s been pacing all afternoon,” he said. “Finally, he drove Ma nuts and she’s taking a bath and he’s off and running outside to clear his lungs, get a little exercise.”

  They heard the front door open. “Leslie! Is that you?”

  “He must’ve been hiding down at the end of the street, planning to ambush you,” he said of his father. Emma laughed, exposing small, pointed teeth.

  “Daddy!” Leslie hurtled into her father’s arms, almost knocking him over. He held her for a minute. John stubbed his sneaker on the rug, felt Emma looking at him.

  “Are you all right?” Leslie cried, as she always did when she’d been away. She held her father off and looked hard at him.

  “Are you really all right, Daddy?”

  “Don’t I look all right?” he said. “What kept you? I thought you’d lost your way.”

  How come he never hugs me? he thought.

  “Daddy, this is my friend, Emma Kendel. Whoops, sorry!” Leslie cried. “Emma, this is my father. Ladies first, right? Mother!” Leslie discarded her father and leaped upon her mother, who arrived, pink and flushed from her bath, tying her robe around herself.

  “Leslie, cut it out! I can’t breathe!” she cried, and Les
lie let her go. “The minute I got in the tub, I heard you come in. Your father’s been like a wild man. He clocked you coming through the toll booths, coming across the bridge, then while you had a hamburger and went to the ladies’. You know him. Hello, I’m Leslie’s mother. You must be Emma.” She held out her hand. “We’re delighted to have you.”

  “I’m sorry. I get so excited when I first get home I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. Emma, forgive me. Mother and Daddy, this is Emma Kendel. How’s that?” Leslie said, beaming. “Formal enough for you?”

  They were not a demonstrative family. But when Leslie was among them, the atmosphere became charged. Emotion was rampant. She had that effect on them all. Being male and sixteen, he fought it. But eventually, he succumbed. Overnight, they became kissers, huggers, criers, laughers. Everything in the extreme. When Les left, taking herself and her electric charge back to college with her, they collapsed. His mother and father went to bed early for a week, recovering from his sister’s impact. They craved sleep. He would’ve loved it if she’d stay longer, another week, providing lights and action.

  “I’m so glad to see you all I can hardly stand it!” Leslie spoke in exclamation points. “Emma, I didn’t mean to leave you standing there. Let’s take our stuff upstairs and get you settled in.”

  Emma spoke. “John,” she said directly to him, “why don’t you show me where I’m to bed down and let Les talk to your parents. How would that be?” She gave him another of her pointy-toothed smiles and he fielded it as if it were folding money, astonished at the ease with which Emma seemed to have taken charge.

  “That’s a good idea. Show Emma to her room, why don’t you, John.” His mother’s face was bland. His father’s arm was around Les, who was looking up at him, saying something.

  “Sure,” he agreed. “Put her in the guest room, Ma?”