Cannie Shapiro 02 Certain Girls

by Jennifer Weiner

  We walked through the revolving doors into the lobby. Cara signed us in at the desk and got us stickers that said VISITOR and our names. We walked down the wide white hallways, over scuffed tile floors with empty gurneys parked on the sides. I took one of the oranges out of the bag and sniffed it, then held it in my hand, thinking that the world was like an orange, that I could split it open with my thumbnail and find a whole different world, the grown-up world, the secrets underneath the skin.

  The elevator doors slid open. I followed Cara's pink shirt down the hallway to room 632. A little boy sat in the bed wearing a hospital gown and a Phillies cap. He had an IV in his arm and dark shadows under his eyes. His parents sat on either side of him, and there were cards spread over his lap. They were playing Concentration.

  "Hi, Harry!" Cara sang out. I blinked in confusion, wondering where this cheerful, beaming little girl had come from as Cara crossed the room and kissed her brother. I smiled and said hello when she introduced me to Harry and her parents, who looked more tired than I'd ever seen two people look and still be awake. I sat quietly, perched on the edge of a radiator, thinking how maybe there were faces we only ever wore in front of our families, the ones who'd known us the longest and loved us the best.

  "It's nice to meet you," Cara's mother said to me, trying for a smile. "We've heard a lot about you. Let me find you a chair."

  "I'm okay here," I said. I lined the oranges up on the windowsill. Someone had tied balloon Bert and Ernies to the curtain pulls, and there was a bouquet of daisies wilting in a vase. I filled the vase with fresh water. I untangled the strings of the balloons. Then I perched on the windowsill and watched them play cards under the fluorescent lights while nurses came in and out to check Harry's temperature or peer at the screen on his IV. I stayed with them until the sun went down, until my oranges were the brightest things in the room.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  I'd been digging in the garden when the call came. It was an unreasonably hot Sunday morning. Peter and I had slept late, then he'd gone to the office to catch up on paperwork, and I'd spent the morning outside, cutting back the roses, fertilizing the hydrangeas, replanting sweet peas and stargazer lilies.

  It had been a quiet weekend. Samantha was in Pittsburgh at her brother's wedding, which she'd finally, reluctantly, decided to attend on her own. "How bad can it be?" I'd asked, helping her carry her bags to her car. "Don't ask that if you don't want the answer," she'd said. I'd hugged her and told her to call if she needed me.

  I was on my knees, up to my elbows in dirt when the phone started ringing. "Joy, can you get that?" I yelled toward the house. No answer. The phone kept ringing. I wiped my forehead on my shoulder. "Joy!" I shouted. Nothing. Maybe she'd left for the Ronald McDonald House. She'd already done her six weeks of bat mitzvah-mandated service and had just kept going. "What do you do?" I'd asked her, and she'd shrugged and said, "Dishes, mostly. And I listen to people, if they want to talk."

  I jogged over to the little table next to the gas grill. I had time to glance at the caller ID as I lifted the receiver to my ear. U OF P HOSP, it read, but it wasn't Peter's extension.

  "Hello?"

  "Ms. Krushelevansky?"

  "Yes?" I said.

  "This is Dr. Cronin at the University of Philadelphia Hospital. I'm calling from the emergency room. We need you to get here as quickly as possible."

  I was detached enough to think, even as I sank onto a white wicker chair next to the koi pond, that on some level I'd been waiting for this call for over thirteen years. In a voice that didn't sound like mine, or even human, I heard myself asking, "Is it my daughter? Joy Krushelevansky? Did something happen? Is she--"

  The voice--young, female, harried, worried--cut me off before I could finish. "We have a Peter Krushelevansky here. In the emergency room, ma'am, and it's urgent that you come as soon as you can."

  I said, "Oh my God." I said, "Yes, of course." From my knees, on the bricks, where I'd somehow landed, I turned my head toward the doors and screamed my daughter's name. No answer. I scribbled a note: At hospital, call cell. I told myself as I whizzed along Front Street, then up Lombard, that it could have been a mistake or a mix-up. Peter sometimes saw patients in the emergency room. He could be with a patient. It could all be a big misunderstanding. But as I turned the car onto Twentieth Street, then onto Walnut, I knew that hospitals didn't make that kind of mistake. I knew it in my breath, in my bones, with every step I took through the shocking cool of the lobby and into the emergency room, as the doctor, who had blue eyes and freckles and the kind of lovely alabaster skin you have only, if you're lucky, until you're thirty, took my arm and led me to a chair beside the window.

  It was a cardiac event. It was quick.

  "So he's..." I swallowed hard. It felt like my mouth was full of cold caramel. "Peter's dead?"

  Dr. Cronin patted my knee. "I'm so sorry. So very sorry." I could see her hand on my knee, could observe its movements, but I couldn't feel anything. It was as if I'd left my body, had floated up to the tiled ceiling and was looking down without feeling anything at all.

  "Event," I repeated. "That makes it sound like a party." I laughed. "Was it catered?"

  She stared at me. I wondered whether young Dr. Cronin had had a lot of experience with the bereaved, whether I was the first person she'd ever had to tell that a loved one had died in her care, and whether, for the rest of her working life, she'd expect every brand-new bereaved person to be my particular brand of spacey and strange. "I want to see him," I added.

  "Of course," she said, not even trying to hide her relief. Was it catered was confusing. I want to see him she could deal with. "The nurses cleaned him up."

  "So you tried--"

  "I'm so sorry," she said again then repeated what she'd said before. It was a cardiac event. It was quick. He was dead by the time he'd gotten to the emergency room, and no, there were no symptoms, and no, there were no signs, no way of knowing, no way of telling. He'd had a stomachache, his administrative assistant, Dolores, had told them, and he'd put his head down on his desk, and when she went to check on him to see if he wanted some water or Alka-Seltzer or just to lie down, he was unconscious. Dr. Cronin said cardiac event again, until I just wanted to shake her and say, Heart attack, just call it a heart attack! She said quick. Her voice was like a radio station fading out of range as I drove away. He didn't...Such a wonderful...All of us who worked here...

  I watched from my perch on the ceiling as my body got up off the chair and lurched down the hallway. I observed my hand pushing back the curtain and my legs crossing the green-and-white tiled floor over to the bed where my husband lay.

  Someone had pulled a white sheet up to his chin. His eyes were closed, and his hands had been folded on top of the sheet, on his chest, and whatever tiny spark of hope that still existed--that this was all some monumental mix-up, that maybe my father had come back to Philadelphia and that it had been Dr. Shapiro, not Dr. Krushelevansky, who'd had the cardiac party--guttered briefly and then went out forever. Peter looked like he was sleeping, but when I bent closer I saw it wasn't like that at all. His body was still here, more or less the same, but Peter, my husband of eleven years, the love of my life, was gone.

  "Oh no," I heard. "Oh no." The voice came from the doorway. I turned and saw Dolores, who'd baked him biscotti every December since I'd known him. She stood at the edge of the room with her hands bunching up the neckline of her blouse. "Oh no, oh no, oh no."

  "It's all right," I said, and patted her arm before going back to the bed. My hands, as I smoothed the sheet over his chest, were dirty; the back of my wrist was bleeding from where I'd gotten slashed with a thorn. I bent over him, then knelt in front of his bed, the way I'd knelt in front of the roses.

  My cell phone rang. I yanked it out of my pocket with nerveless fingers and let it clatter to the floor. "Cannie?" asked Samantha's disembodied voice. "Can you hear me? Listen, you won't believe it! I met a guy. Here! In Pittsburgh! At the wedding! There's some k
ind of magicians' convention at the hotel..."

  Dr. Cronin must have picked up the phone from the floor where I'd dropped it and carried it outside. I don't know what she told Samantha. I don't know where Dolores went. I didn't hear anything, couldn't see anything, except my husband's body on the table, my dirty hands, grimy fingernails on the clean white sheet, my mouth warm against the cool curve of his ear. "Peter," I whispered low, so that only he could hear. "Cut it out. You're scaring everyone. Wake up. Come home."

  "Mrs. Krushelevansky?"

  Someone took me by the shoulders and guided me into a chair. Wake up, I whispered again, knowing that he wouldn't, that this wasn't a fairy tale, that no kiss, no wish, no amount of love could bring him back to life. Peter. Oh, Peter, I thought...and then, How will I tell Joy? I pressed my fist against my mouth, tasting dirt and salt as I started to cry.

  Cannie.

  I groaned and rolled over with my eyes still shut. I had been having the sweetest dream about Peter, the first time we'd slept together, in his old apartment.

  Cannie.

  "Five minutes," I muttered with my eyes still shut. Not fair. Not fair. Did I really want to live in a world without him? Oh no. No, indeed. No mas. Maybe I'd just stay in bed.

  Cannie, wake up.

  Fuck that, I thought. Fuck that noise. I had a black satin eye mask with ALMOST FAMOUS written on the front in sequins--Maxi had given it to me as a joke, years before. I had blackout blinds on the windows. I had frozen pizzas and frozen waffles and frozen vodka in the freezer, money in the bank, and many pairs of comfortable pajamas. I could stay up here a long, long time.

  I heard a door opening, then shutting. Snatches of conversation, female voices. Do you think and Should we try. I yanked the comforter over my head. Peter wasn't dead. We were together in his apartment. There was light streaming through the blinds, dust motes dancing in the air. He was sitting on the couch, legs spread, leaning back. Let me see you, he'd said. Take me dancing first, I'd said. I could hear his breath coming faster as he'd said, I'll take you wherever you want, but I want to see you right now.

  Cannie?

  I squeezed my eyes shut. I was in Peter's old apartment. I was twenty-eight years old, three months postpartum, half out of my mind with anger and desire. He was on the couch and I was standing above him, thumbs hooked into the waistband of my jeans, bra still on but unhooked in the back, hair bed-tossed, lips swollen and parted. He was looking up at me like I was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. If I tried hard enough, if I blocked out everything, I could feel the way the temperature changed as I leaned closer to his bare chest, I could see a trace of my lip gloss on his shoulder, I could will myself back to that apartment and stay there as long as I had to. I could stay there and never come back.

  Rise, huntress.

  I opened my eyes on the bone-white sands of the plains of Said'dath Kahr. A hot wind blew my hair into my eyes. I sat up, blinking, brushing grains of sand from my palms. Lyla Dare stood over me with her back to an empty firepit, smoke curling into the darkening sky behind her.

  "So you've come," she said.

  I looked around at Lyla's desert, an ocean of white beneath the twinned moons. There were the caves, and there the oasis, just the way I'd imagined them for the last ten years. Everything was where I'd left it. A thousand stars, pinpricks of light in the darkness, wheeled in the sky. Lyla sank onto the ground beside me, twisting her hair into a careless knot at the nape of her neck. "Will you stay?" she asked.

  It was a thought. To live here forever, to go with Lyla on her adventures through the cosmos, to kick ass and take names and never look back and never go home.

  Lyla gave me a slanting half-smile and pulled a skin bag from her shoulder. I watched as she poured the wine into embellished gold cups. I recognized them from my own bat mitzvah. They were the gift that my congregation's Sisterhood had given me for when I'd celebrate Shabbat in my own home, light my own candles, pour my own wine. If I lifted one and ran my thumb underneath it, I would feel my own name engraved there.

  "Drink with me," she said.

  I hesitated. I knew if I drank what she gave me, I would stay here forever. It was my mind's version of Persephone's pomegranate seeds, the curse that lived inside each happy ending, each act of magic. I could stay here, but I'd never see my child again.

  Lyla held the cup, her eyes black shadows in the darkness, her lovely face expressionless.

  "You don't understand," I said.

  She tilted her head.

  "He saved me," I said. My voice was a croak. "He saved me."

  "We only save ourselves," said Lyla. "You know how, don't you?" Her hand was steady as she held out the wine.

  "It isn't fair," I said.

  "No," she agreed. I watched as she poured the wine on the sand, which instantly absorbed it, erased it.

  I pressed my hands against my eyes, and when I took them away, Lyla leaned close. I could feel her lips moving against my forehead as she whispered, "Then I set you free." She kissed my forehead with a tenderness I'd never guessed at, had never written about. When she spoke again I heard the warrior's voice I'd only ever heard in my head ringing across desolate plains and down dungeons' depths. "Now wake up!"

  "Wake up," said the voice. "Mom, you seriously have to wake up!"

  I opened my eyes in my own world, in my own bed. Joy was standing over me, her eyes red and swollen, her face pale. She was wearing her Class Day dress, unzipped, with two mismatched shoes in her hand.

  "Mom?" she said. Her voice was shrill. "My dress won't zip, and I can't find my shoes."

  "Okay." I threw back the covers and sat up. My head felt heavy and my mouth was as dry as if I'd spent all night in a desert. Where to begin? "What day is today?"

  She stared at me, looking panicked. "Tuesday," she said. "Daddy's funeral's in two hours. Grandma Ann and Aunt Elle and Aunt Samantha are all here already. You have to wake up!"

  "I'm up," I said a little grumpily, and I patted the bed beside me. "Come here."

  Her eyes widened.

  "Just for a minute," I urged her. "When you were little, you used to love to come in here. You'd stand by the edge of the bed, and you'd say..."

  "...can I be the middle girl?" said Joy. There wasn't any of the old familiar exasperation in her voice. Her lips trembled. No Peter on the opposite pillow. She'd never be the middle girl again. Joy dropped her shoes on the floor and climbed in beside me and let me hug her.

  "See, that's not so bad," I murmured into her wet hair.

  When I looked up, my sister was standing at the doorway. "Are you awake?" she asked.

  "Obviously."

  Elle walked across the room, kicked off her heels, and got into the bed next to Joy. "Fancy," she said, wriggling back and forth. "Is it a pillow top?"

  "I think so."

  "Can I have it?"

  "Can you have it?" I repeated.

  "Well, you'll probably want a new one. You know. The memories."

  "No, Elle," I said with exaggerated patience. "You cannot have my bed."

  "She wants the memories," said Joy. Her voice was muffled by the pillow. Peter's pillow.

  "Who wants what?" This was my mother, standing at the door, with Samantha looking over her shoulder.

  "Your daughter's already making a play for my earthly possessions," I said.

  Elle sat up indignantly to defend herself. "I read that after a long marriage sometimes the surviving spouse dies, like, a few days after. You know, from the grief. And all I'm saying is that if you haven't made plans--"

  "She's not going to die," said Joy.

  My face felt strange. It took me a minute to realize that I'd smiled. "Doesn't that usually happen with old people?"

  "Like I said!" said my sister, rolling her eyes at me.

  "I'm not that old, and you can't have the bed."

  "Good. I always liked it. Scooch over," my mom said to my sister, and climbed aboard, displacing Joy and Elle, who recoiled in horror.

&
nbsp; "Ew! Stop touching me! You know I don't like to be touched!" Elle complained.

  "Well, it's getting crowded, is all."

  "Ladies," said Samantha. I stared at her expectantly. She sighed, shrugged, and perched one hip on the very edge of the bed--a symbolic gesture at best, but one that I appreciated.

  "Okay," I said. "Leaving the nest now." I swung my feet onto the floor. For a minute I could imagine the sands of an alien desert drifting from my palms onto the floorboards. Philadelphia, I told myself sternly. Tuesday. Peter's funeral in an hour and a half. I turned to Joy. "I think you can wear a gray skirt and a nice blouse. Your sandals should be okay. They're in the closet downstairs." I slid my bare feet along the floor. One step. Two steps. Okay. Breathe. I'd brush my teeth, comb my hair, find my black Today show suit, the one Joy had told me would be perfect for a funeral. I'd get the two of us dressed and out the door, even though all I wanted to do was curl up on my bed and howl into my pillow. I would get through this, and the next day, and all of the days that came after that, days that would pile up endlessly, empty, because I didn't have the luxury of falling apart or departing for some imaginary desert. When you're a mother, you can't. I raked my fingers through my tangled hair. Oh, Peter, I thought. "Come on, baby," I said to Joy. "Let's go."

  Goldstein's Funeral Home on North Broad Street was filled to capacity with our friends and Peter's colleagues, my family and what was left of his. I saw Dolores weeping into a wad of Kleenex, and Dr. Gerlach, the head of his department, who squeezed my shoulders in a half-hug and told me what a terrible loss this was, for the hospital, for Philadelphia, for all of us.

  Two rows were taken up by Peter's large ladies, including Mrs. Lefferts and her daughter. Three rows in the back were crammed with Joy's classmates. The boys looked uncomfortable in the button-down shirts and ties they'd undoubtedly purchased for their classmates' bar and bat mitzvahs; the girls, in skirts and heels, were wide-eyed and whispering as Maxi, in a wide-brimmed black hat, made her way down the aisle and came to sit beside me.