Ask Eleanor (Special Edition With Alternate Ending)

by Briggs, Laura

  Her heart seemed to be flying away at this moment, a bird finding an open window in an aviary and soaring skywards in a heartbeat's time. The return to earth was made only by the sound of a hospital announcement being paged. A blaring call for a code, or a physician to his patient, the true meaning lost on Eleanor at this moment.

  "As soon as we're ready, that's what happens," he said. "Slow or fast. But only after all of this is over and everything's fine again."

  A bright future. A rosy horizon. All she had to do was cling to those words and surely everything would be as promised.

  She released her hold on his hand, gently sliding his hand free of her own. "You should go," she said, softly. "I'm going to stay tonight. You have work in the morning, and there's no reason for you to wait here."

  "I can," he said.

  "But you don't need to do it," she answered. "I'll be fine. Now, go."

  She met his eyes, trying to read the emotions within those clear depths. She could not see everything, except for touches of guilt or disappointment, perhaps. But they were lost when his own closed, his face moving forwards to brush against hers. Kissing her lightly on the lips.

  "Goodnight," she whispered. She did not open her own again until he was gone. The waiting room was empty when she did so, with nothing in sight except the peach-colored lamp and untidy magazines, the faded sofas and chairs crowded together in this alcove. She felt lonely and disconsolate at the sight.

  Spending the night in Marianne's room was out of the question, apparently. Eleanor pleaded, rationalized, reasoned with them, but all in vain.

  "No one can stay with the patients on this floor as a guest," the nurse answered. "I'm very sorry, but it's the current hospital policy. But if everything's fine tomorrow, then she'll be released from the hospital without a second night's stay."

  Eleanor spent the night in one of the faded chairs, huddled there in her coat now dry from the rain. She awoke with a stiff neck and sore shoulders. There was a noise in the nearby room, a file closet or storage room of some sort; the nurse's station was momentarily unmanned, she noticed.

  Standing up, she slipped on her shoes and crossed to Marianne's room. Her sister was lying there, her eyes only half-open as Eleanor entered.

  She took Marianne's hand. "Hi," she said, softly. "How are you feeling?"

  Marianne gazed at her without expression. "Get her for me," she mumbled. "Please. Get Mama." With that, she closed her eyes again, rolling towards the opposite wall.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "The bleed worries us for a lot of reasons. It's possible that there are complications with the pregnancy that we didn't foresee. Marianne missed her last two prenatal appointments and I'm concerned about her blood pressure and level of physical exertion ..."

  The doctor held a chart in his hands – Marianne's, Eleanor knew, with apprehension for the various test results she could see in the folder beneath it.

  "Right now, we're trying to bring down her fever and find the underlying cause. It could be an infection, complications with an autoimmune condition ..."

  "She asked for her mother," said Eleanor. "Who's been dead for several years." Her voice trembled with fear. Marianne had said other, equally senseless things in the past hour.

  "Again, that's the fever interfering with Marianne's state of consciousness. Until we bring it under control, we'll be battling Marianne's symptoms while pinpointing what's responsible."

  Eleanor's lips were not working properly; nor were her legs, which swayed slightly as if unable to balance any longer on such high heels. "What about the baby?" she asked.

  The doctor's expression changed subtly. "There is a chance that your sister could experience a miscarriage as a result of all this," he answered. "Stress is not ideal for her pregnancy. And bleeding is sometimes indicative of a problem with the body's ability to carry a child to term."

  She wanted to sit down, but there was no place to sit at the nurse's station.

  "We're doing everything we can," he said. Sympathetically, as he touched Eleanor's arm.

  She had a cup of coffee from the cafeteria. She bought a muffin which she did not touch. Pacing in the waiting room, she glanced from the corners of its walls to the same potted palms stationed on either side of its doorway, to the same pink pencil holder on the nurse's station desk.

  When the elevator doors opened, Brandon emerged. In his hand was a bag, Eleanor's overnight one from her flights, which he carried in the same manner as a briefcase.

  "I didn't know what all you needed," he said. "I put some things in it. Enough for a day or two. A sweater and some jeans and a book that was on your table. I didn't know if you had read it or not..."

  "Thank you, Brandon. I can't tell you how grateful I am," she said. She took hold of it, surprised at its weight, now that it was in her own grip. "I don't know how long – they're a little afraid for the baby –" she wanted to bite her lip and refrained from doing it. She looked away, avoiding his eyes as the tears built up in her own.

  Brandon's hands were on her arms, a firm grasp as if holding her up. "Are you all right?"

  She made herself nod. "I am," she answered, unsteadily. "I'm afraid, of course."

  "I know," he answered. His thumbs rubbed against the sleeves of her dress, a soft rhythm of motion. "Have you eaten anything? Had coffee or something?"

  "I have," she nodded. She met his eyes, now that the threat of crying was momentarily past. She could see his concern there, beneath the rather stony expression he wore when listening.

  "All right," he said. He released her and sat down on one of the chairs.

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Sitting down. It's uncomfortable to wait, standing up."

  "I was going to change later," said Eleanor, meekly. "I didn't intend – I didn't need you to wait and take the things back for me."

  "I'm not waiting for that," he answered, as if surprised that she mentioned it. "I thought I would stay. Keep you company for awhile. Hear the doctor's prognosis, whenever they turn up."

  She smiled, faintly. "You don't have to do that," she answered. "I can call you."

  "I know." He lifted one of the magazines and began flipping through it. An issue of Reader's Digest with a smiling woman in a lab coat on its cover.

  Brandon stayed for three hours, long after Eleanor had changed her clothes, pretended to eat lunch, and heard the latest diagnosis from Marianne's physician. It was not good; Marianne's fever was still too high. Her blood tests were inconclusive. The doctor had recommended a course of antibiotics, which he hoped would clear the undiagnosed infection from Marianne's system.

  "Lowering Marianne's temperature is the current goal," the physician explained. "We need to stabilize her as much as possible until we find a treatment she responds to. I've ordered another round of stronger antibiotics–"

  "What about the blood tests?" Eleanor asked. She raked her fingers nervously through her hair, ruining the coif in the back, if she knew or cared. "What did those reveal?"

  From the physician's face, she knew the answer already. "The results were inconclusive," he answered. "It's possible that your sister's condition is caused by something else. Fungal, viral, any number of causes with variable methods of diagnosis ...sometimes we never find a conclusive cause," he admitted. "In those cases, we often cure the infection before we ever confirm its existence."

  She had stopped listening. She had smiled pathetically, nodded numbly at the conclusion of their conversation, and then returned to the waiting room, where Brandon was still thumbing through issues of People and US Weekly. He grunted. "Magazines in waiting rooms are always two years old," he said. "Half these people are probably divorced from each other by now. Obsolete names in the celebrity pool."

  She shoved aside her book as she sat down. He noticed her face. "The doctor," he said. "You saw him. What did he tell you?"

  Eleanor shrugged. "That they still have no idea what's happening to her. They did some tests and the results
weren't helpful. Now all they can do is wait and see if any treatments work."

  "I see." Brandon tossed his magazine into the pile.

  "They don't say the rest of it, of course," said Eleanor. "Which is that time is going to run out, eventually. She'll either lose the baby, or she'll grow too weak from her condition and die." Without realizing it was happening, she was on the verge of tears again, pools of stinging salt forming beneath her eyes.

  "There's nothing I can do. That's really the worst part. I feel so helpless. If I could just ... do something. Donate blood, a kidney– if I had an active role, at least I would feel I gave her a chance and didn't just sit here, passively waiting."

  It was true that the illness defined was vague, but somehow, it made her more afraid. Was not knowing worse than knowing? The dreadful condition which was making Marianne delirious was a nameless substance, an undefined monster, a shadowy threat.

  She looked at Brandon. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to say those things aloud, really. Not that you mind...but there's nothing you can do, either, so I'm just burdening you in a way. Making you feel helpless and useless, too, most likely."

  Brandon's hands were interlaced, his body bent forwards as if he studied the carpet below. He cleared his throat with a slight cough. "Marianne will be all right," he said.

  "You don't need to say that to make me feel better." Eleanor gently touched his arm. "It's all right."

  "I'm serious. She has a chance because she's resilient. Much like her sister in many ways–not on the surface, but in terms of character." He studied the pattern woven by his finger's spacing. "You're both the same underneath. Like you, she'll fight it. She won't give up easily."

  "I never thought of myself as strong," Eleanor said. "Steadfast, perhaps. Stuck, maybe..." Her lips twisted in a wry smile.

  "Stubborn's the word," Brandon volunteered. "But you are strong. And capable. You are capable of more than you realize. That's your greatest problem, not believing it's true." He glanced at her, then looked away again. "I've always had the highest respect for you. Admiration for you. If Marianne has even a fraction of you in her, then she will be all right."

  A red flush had crept up Eleanor's neck as she listened, now filling her face with a burning heat. "Thank you." Her voice was soft.

  "Well, I meant it." His voice was slipping into gruffness again. He sat upright, hands on his knees, his glance moving from the pile of magazines to Eleanor's face again, briefly.

  "Cup of foul coffee?" he asked. "It's the only thing here worse than the magazines, but it's better than nothing. I'm having one; I'll bring you one, too." He rose from his seat and made his way towards the corridors of movement, leaving Eleanor temporarily alone with her book and her worries.

  When Brandon was gone, she spent the remainder of the day beside Marianne. Her sister tossed and turned in her hospital bed. Restless and fearful, murmuring things which were incomprehensible to Eleanor and to the nurses. Not words, Eleanor realized. Sounds, followed by silence in which Marianne was neither asleep nor conscious.

  When her eyes opened, there was no recognition in them.

  Eleanor sat in a chair, a stiff, wooly one which was grey and drab compared to the waiting room's furniture. Countless unhappy family members had sat here the same as herself. Siblings and extended relatives in watchful vigils. Grown children waiting for elderly parents to breathe their last. Husbands or wives waiting for the best or worst outcome of surgery or treatment.

  She waited in the same manner. Marianne's hand in hers, the fingers twitching or moving occasionally, without recognition of the hand holding them. She stared across the sheets and blankets drawn around her sister, imagining the child beneath them, sheltered inside Marianne's prostrate body. A half-formed being whose existence was so very frail and fragile at this moment, beneath the tide of Marianne's illness.

  If she lost the baby – what would she do? Eleanor pondered the possibilities. It might drive her further into despair and grief, a strong possibility after Will's loss. Or would severing the tie with him, even in this painful fashion, be a strange sort of relief to her sister? She shuddered. It did not do to think about these things. The terrible aspects of human pain, the worst-case scenarios of their existence.

  None of these things would help Marianne. She needed to feel stronger, to wake up and be herself. She needed to be stronger for the sake of the child and for whatever future lay in store for both of them. Eleanor's grasp on Marianne's fingers tightened.

  There was no change by evening. By nightfall, it was worse.

  Changing the antibiotics. A new course of medication. Words like this had no meaning for Eleanor, a nonsensical parade of babble as she listened with arms crossed and hollow eyes fixed upon the clock. It was eleven p.m. More than twenty-four hours since her wonderful evening with Edward, the bliss of seeing him on the rooftop of the Sun Building.

  Brandon was gone, long gone since this afternoon for the sake of an appointment with his publicist which could not be canceled. She had not called Edward. Until now, it hadn't occurred to her that she should keep him informed of what happened.

  The thought of hearing his voice was comforting. She tried to picture him answering the phone. Where would he be? A crowded restaurant with friends, his office at the law firm, perhaps in the living room of his apartment. She had never seen the places where he spent his time and had no power to picture them effectively as a result. For some reason, this notion caused her pain, as if Edward's existence was nonexistent to herself.

  She didn't know his number, she remembered. And there was no one she could ask for it – except for possibly her ex-assistant. Whose absence was the reason Eleanor herself phoned the paper about her column and had Brandon check her mail when he entered her apartment to pack her bag.

  At two in the morning, Marianne was worse. They were administering something to counter the bleeding. Eleanor vaguely recognized the medication's name, and recognized nothing at all about the second drug administered.

  She knew what it was for, in so many words. An attempt to keep Marianne from losing the baby.

  In her hand, Marianne's fingers had grown sweaty and heated. The beep of the monitors had become an unbearable rhythm to Eleanor's mind. She thought of nothing as she gazed at the rise and fall of Marianne's breath. It was harsh, rasping to her ears, coming in too-quick motions.

  If she pushed the button, someone would come, but what would they do? There was nothing else they could do at this point. They were trying everything, and all to no avail.

  What if Marianne died? The thought too dreadful to come to her before came now, with a clarity which never could have manifested itself in the rainy car ride to the hospital. What would she do? All alone in the world, with no one left who knew her past. Who understood her, even in the pointless, heedless fashion in which Marianne comprehended her life.

  A pain ripped through Eleanor's heart. A deep cavern opening wide with this picture of the world. No Marianne, no paintings, no future children, no breezy and unconcerned voice over the phone when Eleanor answered it. No link to Ellen Darbish's gentle and practical existence, to the childhood streets of her Montpelier home, with the maple leaves thick upon the sidewalk and lawn each fall.

  "Do you remember, Marianne?" Her voice was thick, soft in tone. "Remember the house in autumn? Sometimes I forget –" her words faltered, "–forget how bright the leaves were from the tree. The big maple near the street."

  She swallowed hard. "They were orange ... not red. But they had these streaks through them. It wasn't yellow, but more like a – a wine color. I can't picture them. You can, I imagine. You used to build a big pile and bury your hands in it. There wasn't enough to do more, not after the storm winds blew them away ..."

  She didn't go on. Her voice was disappearing on its own, as if the words were too thick to emerge from her throat. The taste in her mouth was not fear, but sorrow. The taste of tears, which were now emerging in swift, rolling paths down her cheeks, as if
there were too many to travel the same course of descent.

  "Oh, Marianne," she whispered. "Don't do this. Don't go. Please, don't go. What will I do? I'll be all alone, Marianne. It's not fair, it's not fair, so please. Please don't."

  Her face rested against the sheets, almost against Marianne's shoulder. "Please," she whispered. Begging, even as the rest of her whispers died beneath sobs. Her chest was shuddering with them as she buried her face against the mattress and cried into its softness, muffling the sound from the hearing of anyone but herself and her sister.

  No one awakened her. No one told her to leave, or gently requested she move aside for a procedure to be performed or some change of medication. Eleanor didn't realize this until morning, when she opened her eyes. A hazy vision of the white hospital sheets, of the clock on the wall ticking past five-thirty in the morning.

  "Have you been there all night?" A croaky voice uttered these words. Not Brandon's or the nurse's, but Marianne's.

  It was her imagination. That was Eleanor's first, fleeting thought before her sister moved. Eleanor sat up on her elbows, looking into the face of the girl propped against the pillows.

  A white face. A sweaty one with red-rimmed, hollow eyes and bloodless lips – but a comprehending face. Marianne, conscious, awake, and alive.

  "All night," Eleanor answered. Her voice was very faint, whether with fatigue or wonder, she neither knew or cared.

  "Oh, El." Marianne groaned a little. At this familiar sound, Eleanor felt tears form in her eyes.

  "Well, I couldn't leave you," she answered. "You've been here for two days now."

  Marianne's eyes closed. "I remember...asking the Colonel..." she began. "But I don't remember what happened afterwards."

  Eleanor's hand took hold of Marianne's. "You're going to be fine," she said. "You and the baby are fine." She squeezed her sister's fingers tightly.

  ******

  Eleanor did not go home until that afternoon. Marianne was spending another day for observation – a word Eleanor now dreaded, against her better sense – and there was nothing at her apartment which she either wanted or needed, apparently. So Eleanor took a cab to her own apartment as the day drew to a close.