An Abundant Woman

by Elizabeth Neff Walker

  As I lay waiting in the large bed for sleep to come, I remembered the last time I'd lived in the U.S. That had probably been the most difficult period for Cass, when we were all in North Carolina, where she had started kindergarten. She hadn't understood the American children, and they found her accent and mannerisms amusing. Instead of capitalizing on this—as I had done—she became bashful and reserved.

  Though Nigel and I had tried valiantly to temper these characteristics, our love and encouragement weren't completely successful. For one thing, I was too naturally energetic and her father too absorbed in his work to always recognize the symptoms.

  Really, Nigel and I were well-meaning people, but frequently so challenged by our demanding careers that we were able to give attention only to someone or something that exploded with urgency in our faces. Cass's gentle self-effacement sometimes failed to alert us to her needs.

  Having only one child had not been my idea, but, looking back, I think it had been a good one. At least what time and attention I had to give, had been given to her, I thought as I finally fell asleep.

  * * * *

  The dreams I had that night were a mélange of scenes from my youth to my present age, with characters who weren't quite what they should have been. My father, a lorry driver, was meticulously stacking crates of newly hatched chicks at the city dump while my mother, disguised as a nun, dragged my pushchair over a track of computer disks. And then it was Cassandra in the pushchair, except that she was sixteen, and I was explaining to her that sex had to be a mutual decision, a responsible decision. “But it should just be fun,” she insisted, pouting, her enormous brown eyes glaring at me.

  The scene changed again and I was riding a bicycle down an English country lane at dusk. A baby was crying somewhere ahead of me, but try as I would, I couldn't find it. Rain started to fall gently, and then in earnest. I heard Nigel's voice cry, “I've found the baby, Mandy,” but I could locate neither of them. A feeling of despair overwhelmed me and I awoke in my bed in Mayfield House with tears sliding down my cheeks into my ears.

  How bizarre! I thought, rubbing ferociously at my eyes and swinging my legs over the side of the bed. I hadn't cried in years, and I certainly didn't have any reason to do so now. Nigel and Cass were both safe in England, doing what they wanted to be doing, and I was in America, excited about comparing the current practice of obstetrics and gynecology in the two systems.

  It must have something to do with jet lag, I decided as I glanced at the clock and found it was almost time for breakfast.

  Chapter Four

  Sunday was an even better day for touring Madison. Everyone seemed relaxed and welcoming, from the bus drivers to the shopkeepers to the pedestrians. The weather being slightly cooler, I wandered around downtown with map in hand. But as I explored the campus the temperature rose, so that once again I arrived back at Mayfield House overheated. After a refreshing glass of iced tea and cookies, to which I helped myself, I wandered out to the old carriage house that served as a garage.

  The interior was cool compared with the yard. It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the gloom. There were spots for three cars there, but they were empty. Hanging on the walls were a variety of tools and sporting equipment. Dr. Hunter's daughter's purple bicycle wasn't hard to spot, but it was indeed far too high for me to reach on my own, and I had seen no one around the house to ask for assistance.

  Not that I was sure I wanted to attempt the bicycle, but I could see that riding one would be extremely handy. I had no intention of buying or renting a car for the entire six months. My idea had been to rent one when I wanted to leave town for a weekend or a week. Probably I could hitch a ride to the University with someone, but that seemed a dicey proposition. The purple bike was a ten speed, I knew, from having witnessed Nigel and Cass on theirs many times.

  A ladder resting against the workbench at the southern end of the garage looked sturdy enough to give a try, and I moved it to where I could maneuver the purple bike off its unnecessarily large hooks. Why does everyone have to make things so difficult for us short people? In the process of shifting the bike off its hooks, I managed to knock it against the bike beside it. Fortunately that one didn't come crashing down on me, but apparently I'd loosened a pack of some sort, which fell to the ground.

  Thinking that I'd take care of it in a minute, I slowly lowered the purple bike onto the concrete floor, which turned out to be a little lower than I'd expected. This kicked up a bit of dust which made me sneeze and almost topple from the ladder. Eventually I climbed down and picked up the pack, from which several maps of biking trails were extruding. In my attempt to dust off this pack, I dislodged a sheet of paper, making the words on one side partially visible.

  Now, contrary to Cass's opinion, I don't think I'm more nosy than the rest of the world, but I do admit to an untamed curiosity on occasion. It was probably a list of supplies, or directions to some mountain lake. What harm in just peeking at it and then returning it to its snug resting place amongst the folded maps? When I saw that it was something personal, something that looked very much like a poem, I knew I should have tucked it away, but one of the lines caught my attention, and I could not resist reading the whole.

  “The angiogram looks very hopeful,” I told him.

  “I'll go to Crete,” he said, “and see the Minotaur."

  That maze, so like his arteriovenous malformation,

  Where human beings were consumed.

  “When you're well again,” I said.

  But he was a boy, twelve, scarcely begun.

  “Or to Alaska, to see the aurora borealis."

  That wild display of flashing colors and images,

  Like the performance in his head.

  “When you're well again,” I said.

  Sometimes pain overwhelmed him,

  Fear raged through his hairless chest.

  “I can give you something,” I said.

  “Let me travel to a special world."

  “When you're well again,” I said.

  That last night I was so sure.

  He sat with book in hand, entranced,

  His head bowed to the wonder.

  No hands could save him, not mine.

  I will forever see him there, imagining.

  A hot flush rose in my cheeks. This was a very personal poem and I'd had no right to read it. Hastily I refolded and tucked the sheet back in the pack with the bike trail maps. Then I climbed the ladder again and tried to figure out where the pack might have been hanging. There was no obvious spot, so I tucked it under the seat and hoped Dr. Hunter wouldn't notice that it was not perhaps where it belonged. Damn my curiosity.

  The heat had begun to ease by the time I wheeled the purple bicycle from the garage. But outside there was merely a gravel drive and then the street, a sloping road where cars trundled past. Certainly it was not the place for a neophyte bike rider. There was a sidewalk, but it seemed impossibly narrow to me, like the three-inch balance beam gymnasts do all those incredible things on. Walking the bike up and down the drive did nothing to bolster my courage. Despite the fact that everyone in the world balanced the things, the chances of my managing to do so on my first effort seemed very small.

  As I was considering returning the purple machine to its place in the garage, Dr. Hunter drove into the driveway. It had not occurred to me that he would arrive home so early. After all, he had wanted to spend time with his children. Surely he should have taken them out to dinner. He drove the car to where I was standing and stopped there, his face only three feet from mine.

  “How nice of you to take the bike for a walk,” he said.

  “You should have treated your children to dinner,” I said crossly. “Kids love to eat out."

  He had turned off the engine by now and was climbing out of the car. “Mine get fed better at home. Their mother is a gourmet cook."

  “It doesn't matter,” I insisted. “It's the excitement of being in a restaurant."

  “My kids are
far too sophisticated to think of restaurants as a treat. The opera is a treat.” He cocked his head at me, amusement twisting his lips. “Why aren't you riding it?”

  “I don't know how."

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut, as though attempting to absorb this was as trying as coping with a teenager's moods. “Very few people don't know how to ride a bike at all."

  “Well, I'm one of them. I was run down by a cyclist when I was very young and have never had the least desire to learn."

  “Until now."

  “I'm not sure I do now, either. Unfortunately, I don't have a car, and I've found the walk to the hospital irritatingly hot these last two days. But I understand this isn't typical weather for this time of year."

  “It's typical weather for the summer, when you'll also be here."

  Suddenly I remembered the poem and felt a flush rise in my cheeks. Turning away from him, I started to wheel the bike back toward the garage. “Maybe you'd help me get it back up on the wall."

  “I'd prefer to teach you to ride it. Hop in. I'll take you to a deserted parking lot and get you started."

  “Thank you, no. It was a stupid idea."

  He was already lifting the bike out of my grasp and onto a bike carrier at the back of his car. “Where's your helmet?"

  “I don't need a helmet. I'm not going to try riding the bike."

  “We always wear helmets when we ride. Didn't you see them on the wall?"

  “Dr. Hunter..."

  “Jack. Were you going to try to ride without one, when you don't even know how?” He sounded astonished. Maybe it was the neurosurgeon speaking. He'd probably seen plenty of broken heads from bicycle accidents. But it put up my hackles.

  “I don't suppose I ever really intended to get on it. And I didn't notice the helmets.” Maybe that was where the pack had been stuck, in a helmet. I had been concentrating on the bikes so firmly that I hadn't paid any attention to the helmets.

  “Well, get in the car and I'll bring you one."

  “You're not listening to me. I don't plan to learn to ride after all."

  A trace of irony gleamed in his eyes. “Too late. Once the idea of learning a new skill has you in its grip, there's no denying it."

  “Nonsense. I only thought it would be convenient."

  “It would would be convenient. And it's not all that difficult, even for an adult.” He considered me dispassionately for a moment. “You need a good sense of balance, though."

  “I have a perfectly adequate sense of balance,” I assured him, “my weight not withstanding."

  “Right, then. Let's get on with it."

  Well, I thought, I would accept his challenge. If I managed to make a fool of myself, who cared? I climbed in the car, which was black and rather elegant-looking, but not a model with which I was familiar.

  In a short while he was back, a slight frown wrinkling his brow. He opened the door and placed a helmet on my lap, then climbed in as he said, “I usually keep a pack of maps in one of the helmets. Did you see it?"

  It hadn't occurred to me that he might not notice the pack under his bike seat. Trying desperately to control the flush that attempted to steal across my face I said, “Something like that fell on the floor when I took the purple bike down. Since I didn't know where it had come from I put it under the seat of the bike beside it."

  He nodded, satisfied. “Good. I just didn't see it, coming in from the bright sunlight. Do you think you should change to older pants?"

  My slacks were crisply new, to be sure, but I didn't have anything really rugged upstairs either. There hadn't been room to pack my hiking clothes. Another problem had occurred to me. “We might miss dinner if we go now."

  “Sunday is always something of a buffet. There will be plenty left if we're a little late.” He grinned at me. “And if there isn't, I'll treat you to dinner at a real restaurant."

  “Very funny. I'll probably be too bruised to have an appetite left, anyhow."

  As we drove toward the University, he offered a running tour-guide commentary on what we passed. It was obvious that he'd shown a lot of people around Madison. When I queried him about it, he said, “Mostly people applying for residency, either from medical school or further into a neurosurgery residency who want to specialize in pediatric neurosurgery."

  “Why don't you have a junior staff member do it?"

  “Sometimes I do, but I like to get a feel for what the applicants expect. If they're too far into wonderful-land, I offer them some hard truths, along with the potential rewards. I'm on the committee that selects who gets offered a position."

  “Do you find they correlate—your impressions when they come to visit, and after they've been in your program a while?"

  “Fairly well.” He glanced over at me and shrugged. “There are always some surprises, and occasionally in the right direction. We had a man through here a few years ago who struck me as an arrogant jerk when he visited. I would have turned him down, but the others were impressed with his credentials, and he came. For a couple years he was a real pain in the neck, but something happened, and he changed—practically overnight."

  “What happened?"

  His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Nothing obvious. No patient died because of any incompetence. He still maintained a little distance from the families. But the kids themselves ... I think some little girl or boy got to him. I think he finally realized that we couldn't do everything we promised, that these kids weren't going to be brand new again, that most of them would always be affected by physical problems."

  He pinched the bridge of his nose again and pointed out the hospital administration wing. “That's probably where you'll present your credentials tomorrow. The department chair is Lavinia Hager. Have you met her?"

  Alerted by a different quality to his voice, I turned back to observe him, shaking my head. “No. Doug knew her from meetings. The two of them dreamed up the fellowship idea last year.” I remembered overhearing one of their conversations, but I wasn't going to mention that to him. “Since my counterpart insisted, Dr. Hager allowed the exchange to go forward after Doug's heart attack. Doug thinks she's a terrific physician."

  “She's developed a department high on technology. I'm not sure how that will sit with an English OB who's used to midwives and less intervention."

  “I'm here to learn. And I imagine I'll have a few ideas of my own to share. I'm not easily intimidated."

  He flashed a smile at me. “I thought I'd just intimidated you into learning to ride a bike."

  “So you did,” I agreed easily. “But that's not my field of expertise."

  Which was certainly an understatement. When we came to an empty parking lot, Jack abandoned the car and set the bike on the ground. He was dressed in jeans and a short-sleeved plaid cotton shirt, with a pair of sports shoes that had seen much service. No doubt he'd done something energetic with his athletic children that day. Now he held the bike and motioned me to climb onto it.

  “Show me first,” I urged, reluctant to put my life in jeopardy so soon.

  Obligingly he straddled the bike, which was definitely too small for him, and a girl's bike at that. He rode the purple contraption in tight circles around me, explaining about the gears, the brakes, and how to use your feet to keep from falling if the bike tipped too far in one direction. “It's pretty much a matter of balance, as I said before. With kids we use training wheels, but adults don't have that luxury.” He climbed off the bike and held it invitingly for me.

  With a deep sigh I stepped up to it and nervously clasped one of the grips. When he let go, I found I had to hold both grips to keep the bike from falling. So how did one climb onto it, balance oneself, and start to pedal all at the same time? The prospect looked impossible, and yet almost everyone in the world somehow managed, didn't they? Of course, all of them had started when they were kids, not forty-four years old. Jack handed me the helmet.

  The helmet made me feel only slightly more secure, and I assumed it
made me look ridiculous, since Jack was attempting to keep a straight face. The bike was probably a little tall for me, even if it was his daughter's. Lots of fifteen year olds are taller than five-two. I attempted to hop up on the seat, only to hopelessly lose my balance and thrust my legs out to save myself. Jack took an iron grip on the seat. “Do it now,” he said.

  People of my size are always a little afraid that their weight will defeat others, but I did what he said and found the bike held solidly in place. “Now start pedaling,” he said. Wobbling and jerking, I moved the bike forward. Jack stayed with me. “Now faster, and feel your balance."

  My attempt was initially successful, but ultimately failed when I lost my footing on the pedals. Instantly I dropped my feet to the ground to secure myself. “Use your brakes,” Jack said. He was right there beside me, had been the whole way. “Try again."

  After a while that was all Jack said: “Try again.” Long after I was ready to quit trying, he insisted that I was making progress and that I should “try again.” He always let me start with him holding the bike steady, but after I learned to use the brakes and drop my feet properly at a stop, he no longer ran alongside the bike. When I was good and exhausted, he said, “Ride around the edge of the parking lot without stopping. If you can do it once, I'll let you quit."

  Naturally I wanted to tell him that I could quit any time I wanted to, but it's hard to do that when someone is showing infinite patience with you. It took me about a dozen tries to go all the way around the parking lot, with him stabilizing me each time I started, but when I'd done it I felt a real sense of accomplishment. He clapped and held up a V for victory sign, just as though I were one of his kids who'd made him proud. It gave me a very strange feeling.

  “Next time you'll practice getting on by yourself,” he said as we lifted the purple metal frame onto the bike rack. “This one's a little tall for you, but ultimately that won't make any difference. You'll learn to adapt to any size bike within reason. Before the week's out you should be able to ride to the hospital."