Something To Be Brave For

by Priscilla Bennett

  Poised over me, he was breathing hard. I had his cock in my hand.

  “Tell me how to please you,” he said.

  “Oh, God,” I said. “You are. Everything you do,” and I opened my legs and my body to him. He moved into me, and I wrapped my legs around him and drew him in further. His breath was tinged with chocolate hearts and apricot rosé, and we found our rhythm and rocked and rocked, and he cried out when he came. Afterward, we lay together, our limbs entwined. My head was on his chest and his fingers played in my hair. Our hearts’ pounding slowed as Morpheus called us to sleep and dream.

  *

  The summer was slow for job offers. I’d been to a couple of interviews at galleries, but nothing had worked out, and Beth and Isabelle were still away. I thought I’d put the job search off until the Fall, when the galleries would get busy again. And because Claude and I were almost inseparable by now and my focus was entirely on him, I pushed thoughts of work back into a corner of my mind. The idea of a job in a gallery, an apartment with roommates, spaghetti dinners alternating with takeout on weeknights… it all seemed unimaginable now – juvenile, really. Claude wanted me available for whenever he had a free moment.

  “I just don’t want to be without you,” he said. “Is that so crazy?”

  I felt the same and just kept roaring ahead like Claude’s MG, with him at the wheel, driving me. I couldn’t get enough of him – his body in mine, his incessant declarations of love, his gentleness. We made love everywhere. We christened an examination chair, the corner sink that fit my bottom, the bunk bed in the on-call room in between Code 99s – never satiated, always wanting more.

  On my birthday and our three-month anniversary, Claude called with a surprise. “Wear something comfortable and don’t bring a thing – except a sweater!” It was dark when we drove to the North End and parked at Rowe’s Wharf near the aquarium where he took a gold organza sack from the trunk. He pointed to a Catalina sailboat tied up at a dock in front of us. “There she is,” he said. “I know how much you love sailing, and look, it’s a full moon. We’ve got it all to ourselves.”

  “You are the best!” I cried, throwing my arms around his neck.

  On the pier, I took off my espadrilles for better footing, and the captain tipped his gold-braided hat and extended his hand to me. The cushion whooshed an impolite exhalation when I sat down, and the deck prickled like sandpaper under my bare feet. The crew cast off lines fore and aft, and we got underway. The moon lit the landscape in a cool blue light, giving the landmarks along the coast a solemn, lonely presence as we headed out into the harbor.

  “Happy birthday, darling. Here, open it up.” Claude placed a large, pink-ribboned box in my arms. I took out the first present.

  “An LV Speedy – I can’t believe it. How did you know? I’ve had dreams about this bag.”

  “Well, now you have one. I thought you’d love it. Here, a couple of additions to go with or without the Speedy.” He piled up several more boxes – all wrapped with ribbons and Happy Birthday paper. “I brought them on board before I picked you up, to surprise you.”

  “Oh, look – Claude, you’re so adorable. A lace corset with garters and a black satin chemise? I see, said the blind man… oh, and some fancy eyeshades – and there’s more. You Frenchmen are too much with the fancy lingerie. We’re going to have so much fun. Hey.” He already was, with his hand up my skirt.

  “Stop,” I whispered. “There are sailors about.”

  “If you insist,” he said. He placed the organza sack in my lap as the sea rolled us gently and the tiny white lights from shore winked. I untied the drawstring and took out a gold-foil-wrapped bottle.

  “What’s this?”

  “I can’t believe I bought this. It’s a chocolate-dipped bottle of Dom Perignon.” We both laughed at the extravagance – and silliness – of the gift. “Just pull the red ribbon down and the chocolate jacket will come right off.” Claude caught the chocolate pieces that fell, fed me one, then slipped down to the floor on bended knee.

  “Katie, listen to me – I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I can’t give you the perfect ring right now – but I will, and I hope you’ll understand.”

  He wrapped the red ribbon around my ring finger.

  “Of course I understand. A silly ring doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s the thought, the love.” I could hardly breathe, let alone speak.

  “I can’t live without you, and I hope you feel the same way. Will you marry me?”

  “Yes, yes!” I shouted, holding his face in my hands, the red ribbon unwinding in the breeze. “I’ll be the best wife – and we’ll have lots of children – we’ll be a perfect family.”

  I gazed up at the heavens – every star up there was a promise, and every promise was coming true.

  3

  End of Summer 1994

  A week later, on a cool late-August morning, Claude took me to Boston General to watch my father operate. Claude would be part of the surgery, too, though in a secondary role.

  My father had often said that a visit to an operating room was part of a well-rounded education. (Naturally, I had to wonder whose education.) At dinner growing up, his monologues detailed the operations he had performed that day. “Had to take out her eye, sawed off part of her jaw, too,” he would say. “Jack, this isn’t exactly appropriate dinner conversation,” my mother would say, to which my father would reply, “There’s nothing more ‘appropriate’, as you put it. Listen and learn.” And the tutorial often continued after dinner in his study with compulsory viewings of his filmed operations. I sat on the tiger skin he’d brought back from India, watching in horrified fascination as my father delicately cut out bloody cancers. On occasion, I saw my dinner twice, and ultimately I refused any more screenings.

  So, even though time had passed, the thought of watching my father operate frightened, even sickened me. I was afraid that the sight of blood would be so upsetting, I’d pass out; my “education” hadn’t inured me to exposure to the inside of the human body, which I’d just as soon never view up close and personal. But since Claude would be there, I was game. He wanted me to see what he did for a living, and I wanted to do it for him.

  Today, my father had said, he had a special surprise for me. We met him at the elevator on the fifth floor, where he stood in the bright, open space looking at his watch. “Right on time,” he said. “Let’s go.” He strode down the hall, his brown cordovans squeaking, the tails of his white coat flapping, and, like good little ducklings, we followed. Nurses in white uniforms tipped their caps and greeted him. He looked over his shoulder. “If anyone asks, you are an observer,” he said.

  He pushed through a pair of white doors marked SURGERY – POSITIVELY NO ADMITTANCE – DO NOT ENTER. “And there’s your surprise,” my father said, nodding to a woman talking with Claude. “My new fellow.” She turned around and there stood my old sailing teacher and friend from summers on Nantucket.

  “Gillian!” I all but shouted. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Katie, it’s so good to see you!”

  Gillian Beckerman was wearing a pencil skirt and pumps and had a stethoscope draped around her neck – so professional. She came forward and took my hand and we smiled shyly and excitedly at each other.

  “The girls usually go into pediatrics or dermatology – the lightweight stuff,” my father said. “Gillian has a lot on the ball. She’s a good surgeon.”

  “I wanted to call you and try to get together, but your father wanted us to see each other first,” Gillian said.

  I turned to Claude and explained that, growing up, Gillian had taught me everything I knew about sailing.

  “Until I went to medical school,” she put in. “Then we lost touch. You were how old?”

  “Fourteen.” I remembered saying goodbye to her – my adored “big sister” – and my tears. I handed her a card with a picture of a patient in bed with a thermometer in her mouth. The fourteen-year-old Katie had written the word
“ME” above the patient, and inside, “I’ll be sick after you leave! Come back some day and make things better!”

  “Now that we’ve reconnected,” said Gillian, “we’re going to be good friends again.”

  “Yes!” I said. Everything was turning out right.

  “So you’re responsible for Katie’s love of sailing,” Claude said, taking in Gillian’s long, lean shape. I’d noticed that he sometimes regarded women this way – appraisingly and openly. He was French, after all – and a lover of all things beautiful, I told myself. And women often fit that description.

  “Nice of you to say,” Gillian said, “but Katie was one of my best pupils. Won first place three years in a row in the Sunfish race.”

  “Now, you’re embarrassing me,” I said, but I was grinning. It was so good to see her.

  “That’s appropriate. I took her on a moonlight sail when I proposed last week.”

  “You two are engaged? Wow, congratulations, Katie. When’s the date?”

  “We want to do it as soon as possible, with Jack’s permission, of course,” Claude answered before I could speak.

  As soon as possible? Was he serious? I had to plan, I needed—

  “Whatever you kids want to do is fine,” my father said impatiently. “Now let’s get started. Big job today. Katie, you’ll have a front-row seat if you think you can take it.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I lied. Needles alone pushed my panic button; no telling what the bone saws, scalpels and chisels would do. My father had earned his nickname, “The Head Chopper”.

  “Come on, I’ll help you change,” Gillian said quietly, taking my arm and leading me out. “It’s amazing that they want you to see them operate. Typical surgeons. No sense of anything outside themselves.”

  “And you’ve joined the club,” I said.

  “Yes,” she agreed cheerfully. “I must be mad.”

  The rectangular changing room had long wooden benches down the middle with metal lockers lining the walls on either side.

  “Pick one for your clothes, while I get our scrubs. One size fits all,” Gillian said, disappearing around the corner. We undressed, back to back, under the chilly wash of fluorescent light, then slipped into the stiff sterile greens.

  My father was waiting in the scrub room.

  “There you girls are,” my father said. He commenced giving orders. “Gillian, you scrub with Claude and stand together on the patient’s right. Katie and I will be in when I’m finished.” He lathered himself up to his elbows in brown disinfectant, its smell irritating my nostrils with the unpleasant aroma of burnt toast. He took his time working his nailbrush in small circles, inching up and down his arms, hands, and fingers and under his manicured nails.

  “Time’s up,” he said. “Seven fifty-five, and we’re right on the button. Nurse?”

  He held his arms up for the sterile gown, then the nurse pulled the latex gloves over his hands, snapping them into place above his wrists. “They’re ready for you inside, Dr. Callahan,” she said.

  The dimly-lighted operating room theater balcony, filled with visiting doctors and professors, hung broodingly over the oval-shaped stage. The patient lay unconscious on a steel table under lights so bright they erased every vestige of shadow, revealing starkly the unearthly pallor of alabaster skin. Gillian and Claude stood masked, capped, and gowned on the other side.

  “Stand next to me,” my father said, pointing to a spot near the patient’s head. He nodded to the anesthesiologist, who had turned his attention from his monitors to give him a thumbs-up. I moved uneasily into place, so near the patient that I could have reached out and touched him, plucked out his IV, yanked out his breathing tube, and—

  Take it easy.

  “Move back,” my father barked. “You’re too close. Your gown almost touched the drape. You’ll contaminate the area.”

  I stepped back, shivering from the over-refrigerated air and unnerved by his tone. I glanced at the instrument tray filled with his tools, all numbered and laid out straight, ready to be taken up by The Head Chopper. Claude’s eyes locked onto mine, and I felt a moment’s relief.

  My father picked up a black surgical marker from the tray and drew his cutting path on the left side of the patient’s neck.

  “The patient is a forty-five-year-old male,” he announced in a clear voice for the microphone, “married with two children. He has stage four malignant melanoma. I’ll do a neck dissection, remove the nodes and this,” he said, adroitly circling the cancerous mole lying midway between the jaw and collarbone. “I’m giving him six more months of life. Incidentally, I’ve done so many of these. I can do them in my sleep,” he added, putting the marking pen down. He glanced at one of the nurses.

  “Some music, if you please. A little Mozart. The Violin Sonata in G major.” A second attending nurse pulled a mask over his aquiline nose and down to his jaw.

  I could hardly wait for the music. I loved Mozart, but I’d have settled for anything that would distract me from the cold steel, the supine body and the steady whoosh and click of the ventilator.

  “Scalpel,” my father said, extending his right arm. He cradled his instrument between his thumb and middle finger, then using his index finger as a guide he drew the knife under the fleshy earlobe, along the rim of the jawbone to the chin, and down the center of the neck to the soft space between the collar bones, the skin splitting clean and neat, a blood line following. “It’s like making love – the penetration of the knife, the tissue giving way, the violation of a person’s flesh,” he said casually. Claude deftly reached in and clamped the edges of skin, exposing the raw, skinless neck, a bloody, breathing mass.

  Gillian shot me a wide-eyed look. Did he really say…?

  My gorge rose. I swallowed hard, willing myself to stay calm. My mask tightened against my cheeks, my lips stuck, my breath was hot and stale and was suffocating me.

  “Doctor, grab that hemostat,” my father said to Claude. “Let’s stop those bleeders so I can see where the hell I’m going. That’s the boy.” He swabbed the blood with large gauze pads and dropped them to the floor. Claude moved quickly, snapping the clamps into place.

  “See how gentle I am with the tissues my father continued, cutting deeper into the neck cavity, “just like a caress. And here’s the facial nerve. Don’t want to cut that or he’ll have a paralyzed face for the rest of his life, regardless of how short it is – ah, the Allegro di molto, my favorite.” He hummed for a moment, his fingers probing the bloody cavity.

  “Well, look at what we have here. Gillian, large kidney dish, if you please.” He lifted the black, bloody mass for his audience to see, then dropped it into the stainless steel receptacle. “I just love throwing cancer in the garbage can. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let’s get the nodes,” he said, repositioning his knife.

  He made a cut and blood spurted from the patient’s neck.

  I heard Gillian quietly say, “Jesus Christ, what’s happened?” Claude stood as if frozen. Both of them were getting sprayed with blood. Soft sounds of dismay came from the gallery, and glancing up I saw wide eyes, and fingers gripping the balcony rim. A rosy mist hit my glasses, blurring my view as my father flung his bloody, lethal scalpel toward the tray, missing it. It dropped to the floor with a ping. He reached across Gillian and Claude and planted his long, bloodied index finger on the source, halting the deluge.

  He looked up and over his blood-spattered magnifying loupes at his audience and said, “Nicked the carotid artery, a technical error. Without quick action, this patient could bleed to death. Just a quick sew-up and all will be well. Let’s clamp it off. Help me, doctors – suck, suck, suck.”

  Claude flicked the switch on the side of the suction machine, while Gillian moved the small vacuum head back and forth, drawing the remaining blood up into a clear plastic tube and out of sight as my father went to work on the artery.

  The blood – the cancer blood – was on my skin.

  Which means you’re going to die
.

  I felt it oozing in between the top of my glasses and my cap, I could feel it in my eyebrows and seeping into my ear canal and flowing from there into my brain. My armpits were wet with blood, the cancer blood slithering down my body, over my ribs and hips and down across my belly, soaking into the sponge of pubic hair and then a fine rivulet continuing downward and then up into my private parts and seeping up inside my body.

  Stop!

  “Let’s close it up,” my father said. He shifted the skin back across the neck. “I like silk thread,” he went on, as if nothing untoward had occurred. “I used to practice tying knots for hours a day until I could do it with one hand. The smaller and more even the stitch, the better the result.” The audience was no longer restive. As he pierced the skin with the hooked suture, I heard a dull pop of skewered flesh. In one fluid motion, his practiced fingers pulled the fine black thread through, then knotted and cut it.

  “My mother taught me how to sew,” he went on. “I don’t like to admit that I like sewing, because I know that makes me seem a little feminine, but it’s the truth. She sewed me a silk shirt once. God, that was something. Spoiled me a bit, but I loved it,” he said with a chuckle, looping his running stitch across the incision and up the center of the neck, a couture seam. Then he looked up. “I’m finished,” he told his audience. “I hope you all enjoyed the show.” Then, turning to Gillian and Claude, he said, “Clean it up.” He threw his mask and gloves into a pail, and I followed his lead, my bloodied mask falling on top of his, crushed and crumpled.

  Out in the hall, he turned to me and smiled. “Well, it looks like my little observer was able to take it. Some surgeons are afraid to do that procedure. Won’t go near it. Not me. I could take a knife, cut you, and put you back together again like magic.” His ninja-master hands drew an imaginary slice across my face. He was on a surgeon’s high.