Gabby steps in to defend me. “Dad, don’t.”
He looks defensive. “I’m just asking a question.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say, “I don’t.” I look at the wineglass in front of me. I can’t bring myself to drink any more of it. I don’t want to have to smell it again. I grab the water next to it and sip. “But I will!” I add. “That’s on my list. Car. Job. Apartment. You know, the basic tenets of a functioning life.”
“Do you have money for a car?” Carl asks.
“Dad!” Gabby says. “C’mon.”
Mark stays out of it. He’s too busy scratching his arms. Also, I get the impression that Mark usually stays out of a lot of things.
“Gabby! The girl lived with us for almost two years. She’s practically my long-lost daughter. I can ask her if she needs money for a car.” Carl turns to me. “Can’t I?”
It’s a weird relationship I have with the Hudsons. On the one hand, they are not my parents. They didn’t really raise me, and they don’t check in on me regularly. On the other hand, if I needed anything, I’ve always known they would step in. They took care of me during one of the most formative times in my life. And the truth is, my parents aren’t here. My parents haven’t been here for a while.
“It’s fine,” I say. “I have some money saved. I have enough for a down payment on a car or first, last, and security on an apartment. If I can find a cheap option for each, then I could maybe swing both.”
“You’re saying you have about five thousand dollars, give or take,” Carl says.
Gabby shakes her head. Mark is smiling. Maybe he’s just glad the heat is off him for now.
Tina pipes up before I can. “Carl, why don’t we save the hard stuff for after dinner?”
“Hannah,” he says directly to me, “am I making you uncomfortable? Is this bothering you?”
C’mon! What am I supposed to say to that? Yes, talking about how broke and unprepared for life I am makes me a little uncomfortable. But who on this planet, when asked directly if they are uncomfortable, admits they are? It’s an impossible question. It forces you to make the other person feel better about invading your personal space.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Really.”
Carl turns to Gabby and Tina. “She says it’s fine.”
“OK, OK,” Tina says. “Who wants more wine?”
Gabby raises her glass. Mine is untouched. “I’m good,” I say.
Tina looks at my plate. “Are you done?” she asks. Everyone else’s plate is fairly clean except for a bite here or there. Mine is empty except for all of the brussels sprouts. “I have a fabulous dessert to bring out.”
I know it’s childish, but I’m honestly worried she will judge me for eating dessert without finishing my vegetables. I start casually eating them quickly. “Sounds great,” I say between bites. “I’m almost done.”
Tina leaves and heads into the kitchen. Carl has started to ask Mark how the dental practice is going when Tina calls for Carl to help her get another bottle of wine open.
“I’m sorry my dad is hounding you,” Gabby says once both Carl and Tina are out of earshot.
I take the last of the brussels sprouts on my fork and cram them into my mouth. I chew quickly and swallow them down. “It’s fine,” I say. “I’m much less worried about your dad’s questions than I am about your mom’s judgment if I don’t finish my vegetables.”
Gabby laughs. “You’re right to be worried.”
Mark joins in. “One time, I didn’t put any of her cooked carrots on my plate, and she pulled me aside later and asked if I was at all concerned about a vitamin A deficiency.”
I take another sip of my water. I may have overshot it with the brussels sprouts. My stomach is starting to feel bloated and nauseated.
“I shouldn’t have eaten them so quickly,” I say, rubbing my stomach. “I suddenly feel . . . ugh.”
“Oh, I’ve learned that one before,” Gabby says, laughing.
“No, this is . . . I really don’t feel well all of a sudden.”
“Queasy or what?” Mark says.
“Yeah,” I say. I burp. I actually burp. “Very queasy.”
Tina and Carl come out, Tina with wine, Carl with a very large, very gooey, very aromatic batch of cinnamon rolls.
I smile wide as Tina winks at me.
“Do we know Hannah, or do we know Hannah?” Carl says.
He puts it down in front of me. “You get first dibs. I would expect nothing less of you than to pick the one with the most icing.”
I inhale deeply, getting the smell of the cinnamon and the sugar. And then, suddenly, I have to get out of here.
I slam my chair out from under me and run toward the hallway bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I’m just in front of the toilet when it all comes back up. I feel faint and a little dizzy. I’m exhausted.
I sit down in front of the toilet. The cool bathroom tile feels good against my skin. I don’t know how long I sit there. I’m startled back to reality by Gabby knocking on the door. She doesn’t wait for me to answer before she comes in.
“Are you OK?” she says.
“Yeah.” I stand up. I feel so much better now. “I’m good.” I shake my head in an attempt to snap out of it. “Maybe I’m allergic to brussels sprouts?”
“Oof,” she says, smiling. “Wouldn’t that be nice?”
In a few minutes, after gathering myself and finding the mouthwash, I make my way back to the table.
“I’m so sorry about that,” I say. “I think my body was shocked that I fed it vegetables.”
Tina laughs. “You’re sure you’re OK?”
“Yeah,” I assure her. “I’m feeling completely normal.”
Gabby grabs her purse and my jacket. “But I’m thinking we should take her home,” she announces.
I really do feel as if I could stay, but it’s probably smart to head back. Get some sleep.
“Yeah,” Mark says, scratching again. “I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by the dog, too, if I’m being honest.”
I don’t know if anyone notices it except me, but Gabby rolls her eyes, ever so subtly. She’s annoyed with him. For being allergic to dogs. I guess it’s the small things in a marriage that grate on you the most.
“Oh, we’re so sorry,” Tina says. “We’ll keep medication for you here from now on. In case you forget another time.”
“Oh, thanks,” Mark says. “Admittedly, the pills don’t help that much.” He then proceeds to talk for a full five minutes about all of his symptoms and which ones are and are not helped by allergy pills. The way he talks about it, you’d think being allergic to dogs was like being diagnosed with an incurable disease. Christ, even I’m annoyed with his allergy now.
“Well,” Carl says as we move toward the door, “we love having you all here.”
“Oh!” Tina says. “Hannah, let me pack up some cinnamon buns for you. Is that OK?”
“I’d love that,” I say. “Thank you so much.”
“OK, one second.” She runs into the kitchen, and Gabby goes with her. Carl and I are standing by the front door. Mark is standing by the steps. He excuses himself to use the restroom. “My eyes are starting to tear,” he says by way of explanation.
Carl watches him go and then pulls me over to the side.
“Buy a car,” Carl says.
“Hm?”
“Buy a car. Live with Gabby and Mark until you earn some money for a deposit.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That sounds like the smart way to play it.”
“And when you have the car, call my office.” He pulls a business card out of his wallet and hands it to me. Dr. Carl Hudson, Pediatrics.
“Oh,” I say. “I’m not sure I—”
“We have a receptionist,” he says. “She’s terrible. Absolutely terrible. I have to fire her.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say.
“She makes forty thousand a year plus benefits.”
I look at him.
“
When we fire her, we’re going to be looking for someone who can answer phones, schedule appointments, and be the face of the office.”
“Oh,” I say. He’s offering me a job.
“If you tell me when you think you could take over, I’ll keep her around for a few weeks. Make sure the job is available for you.”
“Really?” I ask him.
He nods. “Wouldn’t think twice about it. You deserve somebody looking out for you.”
I am touched. “Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”
“When they ask how much you want to be paid, say forty-five. You’ll probably get forty-two or forty-three. Full benefits. Vacation time. The whole kit and kaboodle.”
“I’m not really trained for working in a doctor’s office,” I say.
He shakes his head. “You’re bright. You’ll get it quickly.”
Tina and Gabby come out of the kitchen with tinfoil-wrapped cinnamon rolls and Tupperware full of leftovers. Mark comes out of the bathroom.
“Shall we?” Gabby says, heading for the door. She gives me some of the leftovers to carry and opens the front door.
Barker comes running toward us and paws me. I push him down. Mark jumps away from him as if he’s on fire.
“You can heat those up in the microwave,” Tina says. “Or in the oven at three-fifty.”
“And let me know,” Carl says, “about what we talked about.”
The thank you that comes out of my mouth is directed at both of them, but it cannot possibly carry all the emotion I have behind it.
I say it again. “Thank you. Really.”
“Anytime,” Tina says as she gives me a hug good-bye.
I hug Carl as Tina hugs Gabby and Mark. A few more seconds of good-byes, including a heartfelt one from Gabby to Barker, and we are out the door.
Mark gets into the driver’s seat. Gabby takes the passenger seat. I lie down in the back.
“How are you feeling?” Gabby asks.
“I’m fine,” Mark says before he realizes she means me. He lets the moment pass.
“I’m good,” I say. I mean it. Truly.
When I left the Hudsons’ to go to college, it never occurred to me that I could come back.
I kept telling people, “My family is in London, my family is in London,” but I should have said, “I also have family in Los Angeles. They live on a quiet, tree-lined street in a Craftsman-style house in Pasadena.”
My family left at around nine tonight only after I insisted that they sleep at their hotel. They wanted to stay the night, but the truth is, there isn’t anything for anyone to do but sit beside me and stare. And sometimes I need my own space. I need to not have to put on a brave face for a little while. Now I am alone in the peace and quiet. I can hear the hum of electricity, the faint beeping of other patients’ machines.
People have been bringing me books left and right. They offer them up as a way to pass the time. Books and flowers. Flowers and books.
I pick up a book from the stack Gabby has made, and I start to read. The book is slow to start, very descriptive. Slow and descriptive would be fine on a normal day, on a day when I’m not trying to quiet my own voice, but that won’t work for me right now. So I put it down and pick up another one. I go down the stack until I find a voice quick and thrilling enough to quiet my own.
By the time Henry comes in to check on me, I’m so engrossed that I’ve temporarily forgotten where I am and who I am. A gift if I’ve ever been given one.
“Still up?” Henry says. I nod. He comes closer.
I look at his tattoo again. I was wrong before. It isn’t Isabelle. It’s Isabella. The image in my head instantly changes from a glamorous blond waif to a voluptuous olive-skinned brunette. Good Lord, I need to get a life.
“Do you ever sleep?” he asks me as he puts a blood-pressure cuff around my arm. “Are you a vampire? What’s going on here?”
I laugh and glance at the clock. It’s just after midnight. Time means nothing in the hospital. Truly. When I was out in the real world, functioning in everyday society, and someone would say “Time is just a construct,” I would roll my eyes and continue to check errands off my To Do list. But I was wrong, and they were right. Time means nothing. Never is that more clear than in a hospital bed.
“No, I’m OK,” I say. “Last night, after I saw you, I fell asleep for at least nine hours.”
“OK,” he says. “Well, keep me posted if that changes. Sleep is an important part of healing.”
“Totally,” I say. “I hear you.”
Henry looks even more handsome today than he did yesterday. He’s not the kind of handsome that all women would be attracted to, I guess. His face isn’t symmetrical. I suppose his nose is a bit big for his face. His eyes are small. But something about it just . . . works for him.
He puts my chart back into the pocket on my bed.
“Well, I’ll see ya—” he says, but I interrupt him.
“Isabella,” I say. “Is that your wife?”
I’m slightly embarrassed that I have said this just as he was clearly saying good-bye. But what are you going to do? It happened.
He steps back toward me. Only then do I think to look and see if he has a wedding ring. You’d think I’d have learned this shit by now. No ring. But actually, you know, what I have learned is that no ring doesn’t mean no wife. So my question still stands.
“No,” he says, shaking his head. “No, I’m not married.”
“Oh,” I say.
Henry doesn’t offer who Isabella is, and I figure if he wanted to tell me, he would. So . . . this is awkward.
“Sorry to pry,” I say. “You know how it is around here. You get bored. You lose your sense of what’s appropriate to ask a stranger.”
Henry laughs. “No, no, totally fine. Someone has a huge name tattooed on his forearm, I think it warrants a question. To be honest, I’m surprised people don’t ask about it more often.”
I laugh. “Well, thank you for checking in on—” I start to say, but this time, it’s Henry who talks over me.
“She was my sister,” he says.
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “She passed away about fifteen years ago.”
I find myself looking down at my hands. I consciously look back up at him. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Henry looks at me thoughtfully. “Thank you,” he says. “Thanks.”
I don’t know what to say, because I don’t want to pry, but I also want him to know that I’m happy to listen. What do I say, though? My first instinct is to ask how she died, but that seems like bad form. I can’t think of anything, so I end up just staring at him.
“You want to ask how she died,” Henry says.
I am instantly mortified that I am so transparent and also so tacky. “Yeah,” I say. “You caught me. How terrible is that? So morbid and unnecessary. But it was the first thing I thought. How did she die? I’m terrible.” I shake my head at myself. “You can spit in my breakfast if you want. I’ll totally understand.”
Henry sits down in the chair and laughs. “No, it’s OK,” he says. “It’s such a weird thing, right? Because it’s the first thing the brain thinks to ask. She died? How did she die? But at the same time, it’s, like, sort of an insensitive question to ask.”
“Right!” I say, shaking my head again. “I’m really sorry.”
He laughs at me. “You didn’t do anything wrong. She was sixteen. She hit her head in a pool.”
“That’s terrible,” I say. “I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah,” he says. “She wasn’t supposed to be diving. But she was sixteen, you know? Sixteen-year-olds do things they aren’t supposed to do. She was rushed to the hospital. The doctors did everything they could. We actually thought she might survive it, but . . . you know, some stuff you just don’t come back from. We kept waiting for her to wake up, and she never did.”
“Wow,” I say. My heart breaks for him and his family. For his sister.
You spend so m
uch time being upset about being in the hospital in the first place that it is almost jarring to realize how many people don’t ever leave. I could have been just like his sister. I could have never woken up.
But I did. I’m one of the ones who did.
I consider for a moment what would have happened if I’d been standing just a little bit farther in the road or a little bit off to the side. What if I’d been thrown to the left instead of to the right? Or if the car had been going five miles per hour faster? I might not have ever woken up. Today could have been my funeral. How weird is that? How absolutely insane is that? The difference between life and death could be as simple and as uncomfortably slight as a step you take in either direction.
Which means that I am here today, alive today, because I made the right choices, however brief and insignificant they felt at the time. I made the right choices.
“I’m so sorry you and your family have had to go through that,” I tell him. “I can’t imagine what that must feel like.”
He nods at me, accepting my sympathy. “It’s why I became a nurse, actually. When I was in the hospital, with my parents, waiting and waiting for news, I just felt like I wanted to be in the room, helping, doing something, being involved, instead of waiting for someone else to do something or say something. I wanted to be making sure I was doing my best to help other people in the same position as my family was in back then.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” I say. I wonder if he knows how honorable it sounds. My guess is he doesn’t, that it’s genuine.
“It was a few years ago, the tenth anniversary of her death. I was in a daze, really. There was so much I hadn’t dealt with that just sort of came out around then. By that point, my parents had divorced, and both had moved back to Mexico, where they are originally from. So I was just sort of dealing with the anniversary myself. Anyway, getting the tattoo made me feel better. So I did it. Didn’t think too much past that.”
I laugh. “That’s my life story!” I tell him. “Made me feel better. So I did it.”
“Maybe you should get that tattooed,” he says.
I laugh again. “I don’t know if I’m a tattoo sort of person. I’m way too indecisive. Although, I admit, yours is striking. It was the first thing I noticed when you walked in here.”
Maybe in Another Life Page 9