Sensing Light

by Mark A. Jacobson

  Gwen opened her palm. A bead of blood covered the puncture wound.

  “It went in deep.”

  She finally looked at him. The apprehension she saw in his face registered.

  “Unbelievably fucking stupid!” she screamed.

  Kevin disappeared and returned seconds later with a basin of iodine solution. He plunged Gwen’s hand into the basin and held it down. The force of his hand on hers, pressing it to the bottom of the sterilizing bath, soothed her.

  “Thank you,” she said, sniffling.

  “Gwen, I know you’ve heard about IV drug users in New York with the syndrome. But think about it. A lot of immune deficiency patients have been hospitalized in the last two years, and not just here. Lots of hospital staff have had accidental needle sticks. Nobody has gotten sick.”

  “Kevin, what about that nurse in Los Angeles who…”

  He cut her short.

  “Urban legend. The CDC has been searching hard and hasn’t been able to document a single case in a health care worker who didn’t have other risk factors—that’s code for being gay or injecting drugs. You don’t cruise bars in the Castro, do you? Been shooting heroin or speed with your buddies in the Haight lately?”

  Gwen tried to smile.

  “I’d be scared too, but think about facts. If whatever causes this disease can be transmitted by an accidental needle-stick, it hasn’t happened yet. Which means the risk has got to be very, very low.”

  She looked at the basin and said, “Kevin, the only thing reassuring me is the smell of iodine.”

  They lapsed into silence, hands immersed together for the next five minutes. Then she stood up.

  “Think that’s long enough?”

  “Probably. Go home, Gwen. I’ll take care of Miller.”

  “No, I don’t want anyone else to know about this. If someone sees you putting in his IV, they’ll ask questions.”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone. Come on, Gwen. You’ve been here for thirty-six hours. If I tell people you don’t feel well and I’m mopping up for you, they won’t start wondering if you stuck yourself. They might think you’re getting soft or maybe that I’m not really gay and have the hots for you.”

  She didn’t smile.

  “I need to go back to work and stop thinking about this.”

  “Gwen, you need to go home. Get some sleep.”

  She gave him a look of utter incredulity.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “OK. If you can’t sleep, at least get some rest.”

  “Right,” she said, washing off the iodine.

  “Talk to Rick. He’ll be there for you.”

  She didn’t respond. Head bowed, Kevin followed her back into the ICU.

  XVIII

  THE MOMENT KEVIN OPENED his front door, Marco shouted from the bedroom, “Your mother called.”

  “Did you talk to her?”

  “Briefly.”

  Marco’s evasive reply fueled Kevin’s rising panic.

  He ran to the bedroom and demanded, “What did she say?”

  “She wants you to call her back, tonight. It’s an emergency.”

  “Details?”

  “Come on, Kevin. I didn’t ask. She doesn’t even know who I am.”

  Kevin blanched. His mother had never done anything like this since he had moved to California. Either his father, Katherine, or one of Katherine’s children, must have died or be seriously ill.

  His mother didn’t answer until the sixth ring.

  “Mom! What happened?”

  “Kevin, your father went to the doctor today… He has lung cancer.”

  “Jesus, Mom… I’m sorry.”

  “They say it can’t be cured.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  His mother started weeping.

  “I wish there was. He says he won’t talk to you. I don’t know if you should come home or not.”

  Kevin wanted to be supportive but couldn’t control his rising anger. He remembered a stifling August afternoon in the garage, sitting on a brake fluid drum, cleaning used lug nuts and wheel studs with a wire brush while two mechanics carried on a lively conversation.

  Kevin had tried not to listen as they mimicked Red Sox radio announcers and described the delectability or ugliness of every woman who walked past the open garage door. They expertly analyzed visible body parts and speculated on what was hidden underneath halter tops or shorts. To Kevin, it was cruel and demeaning. His father was standing right beside them, repairing a transmission. It was impossible that he could be naïve enough not to understand what they were saying. Yet he didn’t tell them to stop.

  No, Kevin thought, my father doesn’t judge other people, just me.

  “Will you ask him something?”

  “All right.”

  “Ask him how much more he needs to punish me? Tell him that people don’t get life sentences unless they commit murder. I don’t think being gay qualifies. Tell him it’s time to commute my sentence.”

  After a long pause, she said, “Say that again, Kevin, so I can write it down.”

  His catharsis didn’t last long. Ten minutes after hanging up, Kevin was distraught. He had no information and doubted it was possible to get any more from his mother. He would have to call Katherine, a most unpleasant prospect. As he dialed her phone number, he tried to be positive. When he last saw her, two years ago, it hadn’t been as bad as he anticipated. Though she barely concealed her cold sarcasm, at one point she did ask about his work with genuine interest. Neither of his parents had ever done that. And at the end of her son’s confirmation service, she confided in him—another quantum leap. She planned to stop being a stay-at-home mom. Douglas was old enough for her to get a job without feeling guilty. She had enrolled in a training program to become a licensed vocational nurse.

  “It’s Kevin. I heard about Dad…”

  “Well, isn’t it nice of you to call.”

  There was no mistaking her indictment. A wave of resentment passed through him. He made no effort to suppress it. Instead, he took a deep breath and imagined the hair color, freckles, and jaunty tip of the nose they had in common. He thought of what they shared only with each other—growing up beholden to these two people, now so diminished.

  “I know I’m not the perfect son who turns the other cheek. But what can I do if he won’t talk to me?”

  He prepared to be lambasted again.

  She surprised him by saying, “OK, that’s fair.”

  “So what should I do, come to Boston and force myself on him?”

  Kevin was even more surprised to hear himself make that suggestion.

  “Yes!” she said, her voice breaking as she gave in to grief.

  He had heard her cry before, behind the closed door of her bedroom, but not since she was a girl and never in his presence.

  “He’s going to die, isn’t he?” she wailed.

  “I don’t know. I mean yes, but I don’t know when. Some people with incurable lung cancer die in a month or two, some live for three or four years. The prognosis depends on the biopsy and x-ray results, and he doesn’t want me to know anything. For sure, he won’t give his doctors permission to talk to me, and it’s a long shot I’ll be able to get Mom to ask them the right questions.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Let me think.”

  He grabbed on to one redeeming fact. As stubborn a bastard as the old man was, he had provided each of them with a tiny space, eight by ten feet, that was inviolate, exclusively theirs. At age thirty-three, after years of taking care of people who had been given far, far less in their childhood than he, Kevin appreciated that gift.

  “Would he let you go with him to his next doctor’s appointment?”

  “I guess.”

  “With real information, I could give you an idea of what to expect. How much time he’s likely got left. How much radiation or chemotherapy might extend it and what the typical side effects would be if he’s offered one
of those treatments. Once you know that, you can help him figure out what he wants to do.”

  “Fat chance he’ll want my advice.”

  Before he could respond, she blurted, “Come home, Kevin. Would you? Please.”

  Kevin was trapped. Now he had to go. At least he had friends to stay with in Boston. Sleeping under the same roof with his father or Ben would be out of the question.

  “OK. You get more information, and I’ll see when I can get time off.”

  Kevin hung up the phone and poured two inches of tequila into a glass tumbler. He downed it while undressing in the kitchen. He went to the bedroom, grabbed the journal Marco was reading, and tossed it on the floor.

  After sex, Kevin gave Marco a terse account of his family drama and refused to discuss it further. That door closed, Marco asked how Miller was doing.

  “The same. I don’t think he’s going to walk out of the hospital.”

  Marco waited for details, but Kevin didn’t elaborate.

  “So, did you find out anything more about his past? Was he into bathhouses and poppers like the others?”

  “I don’t know. The friend who brought him to the ER wasn’t sure.”

  Marco nodded solemnly. He knew that nearly all of Kevin’s patients, prior to getting sick, had regularly inhaled amyl nitrate sold on the street in glass ampules that could be broken or popped to release the vapor. He also knew the explanation for GRID Kevin secretly favored had to do with the drug’s effect of enhancing orgasm by dilating blood vessels in the penis and anus, thus allowing access for vast numbers of sexually transmitted microbes to invade the body and destroy the immune system.

  Although Kevin had never gone to a bathhouse, Marco had before they met. Not to the extent of Kevin’s patients, a dozen anonymous partners at most. But Marco couldn’t tolerate poppers. The one time he sampled the stimulant, he became too nauseated to have sex.

  As Kevin looked into Marco’s eyes, the tequila resurged in his head with the promise of sleep.

  He resisted it long enough to kiss Marco on the lips and say, “Don’t worry, baby. We’re safe.”

  XIX

  GWEN GOT HOME AT eleven. Rick and Eva were already asleep. She sat at the kitchen table, arms wrapped around her chest, trembling.

  I need a plan, she thought. No, two plans. One for dealing with the fear. Another for what I’m going to say to Eva and Rick. She started on the latter, thinking of words that wouldn’t suck the three of them into a self-perpetuating cycle of anxiety. An hour later, she had made no progress.

  Eva’s backpack lay on the table. Gwen noticed a folded piece of paper spilling out the top. She opened it. The first line was in someone else’s handwriting, the second in Eva’s.

  “Why him?”

  “Because there isn’t any other boy I like.”

  “You’re wasting your time.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of the way he looks at Carla. Sorry, he doesn’t look at you that way.”

  Gwen was afraid to put the note back. Refolding it would be handling a razor blade by the cutting edge. She was ashamed and instantly realized shame was a convenient way to erase the glimpse she just had of Eva’s vulnerability. Gwen stared at the stove, ignoring the note on the table, denying it would pop into her mind whenever she was unguarded, a reminder she might not be there when Eva finally did need her mother’s comfort.

  Gwen climbed into bed and rustled the sheets. Rick didn’t wake up. What could she tell him anyway, besides the essential facts. She had been stuck, deep in the hand, with a bloody needle from an immune deficiency patient. Of course, he would understand the implications. She might die as a result. They would have to take precautions for his protection. More than ever, she was glad they weren’t married. She couldn’t tolerate the thought of being a burden, seeing him bear the responsibility for taking care of her.

  Gwen ruminated over what to say, if anything, then lost the will to continue, approached sleep, became alert again, looked at the clock, felt dread twisting her intestines, and weighed her options once more. By two in the morning, she knew this wasn’t going to work. She had to deal directly, definitively, with her own fear before considering what to tell Eva and Rick.

  She could think of only one solution. She shut her eyes tightly and forced herself to imagine Eva distraught, using drugs, casual sex, anything to fill the emptiness after her mother’s death. A great moan passed through her, loud enough to stir Rick. She cast out this vision of a desolate Eva. She was absolutely certain she had the resolve never to let it back in.

  Suddenly, she could think rationally. Gwen understood that in the worst case scenario she would survive until Eva graduated from high school, which was enough. It was futile and dangerous to think of the future beyond Eva turning eighteen. And there was no sense in telling Eva about the needle-stick. That could only do her damage.

  Rick was sitting up, looking at her with concern.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I stuck myself…”

  She had begun calmly but now lost control.

  “With a bloody needle,” she sobbed, “from a GRID patient.”

  This is the last time I cry, she swore silently.

  Rick breathed in and in. His diaphragm was in spasm. He couldn’t exhale. He couldn’t even speak. He touched her tentatively, afraid she might become hysterical.

  Gwen knew he hadn’t a clue about what she needed him to say or do. This had to make him feel inadequate, if not somehow at fault. She took his hand and squeezed.

  “Jesus!” he expelled.

  He reached for her and said. “I’m here for you, baby.”

  Gwen curled into him and whispered, “Please say that again.”

  XX

  KEVIN AWOKE IN THE middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. He sat at his desk calculating and typing, trying not to think about Gwen or Boston. Four hours later, he had a headache. His protocol, he decided, was at the point where “better is the enemy of good.” He had learned this shibboleth from the mechanics in his father’s garage and still believed in its wisdom.

  Marco, who had arisen at six to run at a nearby high school track, returned soaked in sweat.

  “Nice run?” Kevin asked, rubbing his scalp to ease the pain.

  “Así, así. I didn’t push myself today.”

  “No? What was your time?”

  “Thirty-five minutes, más o menos.”

  “Christ, Marco! That’s under a six-minute-mile pace. You don’t call that pushing yourself?”

  “Sweetheart, I’d be happy to jog ten-minute miles with you. Just two miles, three times a week, would be so, so good for your body.”

  “Marco, you knew when you met me I’d never be buff.”

  “I love your body. You know I don’t want muscles. I want health. You’ve got a family history of coronary disease, and you’re already in your thirties.”

  “I have a headache, too. Let’s change the subject…Oh, my God! I forgot to tell you about Gwen.”

  After Kevin finished recounting the details of her accident, Marco asked, “Is there anything we can we do?”

  “I wish, but it’s not the sort of thing you can bring over a casserole for.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an American custom. Sorry, that was a stupid thing say. The truth is I don’t know what to do. Wait until she’s ready to talk about it, I guess.”

  “You think they might want to know how we deal with the uncertainty?”

  “That’s not a good idea. We can ignore it. She can’t. She’s got a kid.”

  Marco turned sarcastic.

  “I could tell her about your macho attitude. Que será, será, eh?”

  “Marco, come on. If anyone’s anxious here, it’s me.”

  “Ignoring the sword over our heads was my idea?”

  “Jesus, Marco! I worry enough already. I don’t need to add that to the list. Anyway, there’s nothing we can do now, besides staying monogamous, and that
still works for me.”

  Marco leaned against Kevin and massaged his neck.

  “Don’t get upset, sweetheart. We’re on the same page.”

  At noon, Kevin was leaving clinic when his pager beeped and displayed the ICU phone number. He had heard “Code Blue” announced on the intercom earlier and hoped it wasn’t Miller.

  Kevin reached the ICU breathless from running up four flights of stairs. He found Gwen standing over Miller, her arms extended, her palms on his sternum. She rocked downward at one second intervals, counting the compressions aloud. As soon as she saw Kevin, she let her medical student have a turn.

  “Miller arrested twenty minutes ago. I was just waiting for you or Herb to OK pronouncing him dead.”

  He glanced at the flat line on the monitor and agreed they should give up. With no heart activity after this long, there was zero chance of survival. Gwen signaled her student to stop. She stated the time of death for the nurse keeping the resuscitation log.

  As they walked back to the unit’s central work station, Gwen looked straight ahead.

  “You OK?” he said.

  “I’m fine, Kevin.” she said with enough force to make it clear he shouldn’t ask again.

  He watched her write a final order in Miller’s chart and depart. As the door was closing behind her, Tom Redding appeared. Kevin saw him talk to the first nurse he encountered. His posture sagged with the news of Miller’s death.

  Kevin offered his condolences and escorted him to the bedside.

  “I’m so sorry.” Kevin said. “We did everything we could…”

  “I have no doubt of that. What you people are doing here is tremendous. But I have some questions. I’ve been looking into GRID. What the CDC is reporting makes it sound like an epidemic. If the number of patients is doubling every couple of months, isn’t that an epidemic?”

  “We think so.”

  “And the federal government, what are they doing? I’ve heard there’s no research going on, other than the CDC tracking cases.”

  “Not yet.”

  “That’s not right. It wasn’t how the feds responded to the Legionnaires’ outbreak. We’ll be talking to some congressmen, pressuring them to lean on NIH. And by the way, the mayor is going to beef up funding for your clinic.”