An Abundant Woman

by Elizabeth Neff Walker

  “Yeah. Thanks. Even the kids have noticed."

  “I'm glad, Jack. I should have noticed the change sooner."

  He shrugged. “Around you I've never felt as depressed as I did at other times. You make me feel good."

  Embarrassed, I quipped, “I'm an angel of mercy."

  “You're a beguiling woman who's having trouble resolving a sticky situation, Mandy. We don't have to resolve it, of course. We can go on exactly as we are. But I don't think that's what either of us really wants. I know it's not what I want."

  Just his voice made me ache inside. I wrapped my fingers around the apple, trying to still the shiver that passed through me. “Look, Jack. I don't have any qualms about sleeping with you. My marriage is mostly a convenience now. But I feel as if you've sent me digging in hazardous emotional mine fields, expecting me to resolve everything in order to make the way clear for us to go to bed together. Trust me, I don't need that."

  As earnest as I sounded, he merely laid his hand over mine and replied, “I don't want you to be crying when we make love."

  “I won't be! That was just an aberration. Probably jet lag."

  He shook his head. “You haven't slept with anyone else, Mandy, in spite of opportunity."

  “There hasn't been anyone I was attracted to strongly enough to make it worthwhile."

  Jack considered this briefly, gazing out over the wildly blooming garden. “But you thought being away from your husband, being in America, would make a difference."

  “I thought, I knew, that you would make a difference, Jack. Not Wisconsin. Not being away for six months. If I'd run into you in London, my reaction would have been the same."

  “I like to think so,” he said.

  That flare of desire sparked in his eyes again, brightly, and he leaned over to kiss me. His lips urged mine to meld with his, to join with his yearning. He nudged my mouth open with his tongue, gently, persistently tracing the hungry recesses. His hands traced warm, tingling paths on my back. He pressed my body against his chest for several minutes and then let me go. Moved back on the slatted bench and sat still, his eyes pleading with me to open up to him.

  “Nigel and I haven't had sex in years,” I whispered.

  This was not, I think, what he'd expected.

  “Years? Like two or three years?"

  “Much longer than that."

  “How much longer?"

  “Jack, you don't need to know that."

  “Why don't you want to tell me?"

  I had to fight hard to keep the moisture from my eyes. “Because it makes me feel ashamed,” I said fiercely.

  His brows pulled down. “Ashamed of what, Mandy?"

  “Of myself, of course. Of my body, this stupid, great, unattractive body of mine. How can I accept my body when my own husband rejects it? When through years of marriage he's been so repulsed by it that not once has he reached out to touch me? Don't you think that's something to feel ashamed of?"

  “For Nigel, maybe. Not for you."

  “You simply don't understand.” Distressed, I rose from the bench. I hadn't given him a chance to understand, I knew, but I couldn't say anything more. I'd said too much, betraying myself and my husband. All for what? For the excitement and comfort of sex. Trusting to a man I hardly knew, the knowledge I'd lived with every day but buried deep from other eyes. “I need to go in now. I need to be alone."

  “Not a good idea,” Jack protested, but he allowed me to pull free of his supportive hand. “Let me stay with you for a while. Let me hold you."

  I shook my head. “You can't help me now, Jack. I shouldn't have told you. This is something I've always known I had to handle on my own. Please forget I said it."

  “You know I won't be able to do that.” It was so dark now that I couldn't make out his expression from the distance I'd put between us. As I retreated farther, backing up the brick path, he called, “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Mandy. Try to believe that."

  “Sure,” I said, and fled.

  * * * *

  A light tap had come at my door half an hour later, but I'd told Jack I still needed to be alone. He slipped a Hershey's candy bar (with almonds) under the door. The gesture moved me profoundly. Here was a man saying my weight was okay with him, that I should have something sweet if I wanted it. And I wanted it.

  Though I'd told Jack I wasn't going to be the one to speak to Lavinia Hager about her prejudice, I changed my mind overnight. As Jack said, I was precisely the person who should talk to her, and should agitate within her department if I didn't receive some assurance that this sort of behavior wouldn't be repeated.

  Vaguely I was aware that I was allowing myself to get so exercised over this situation to avoid facing the issue with regard to Nigel, but energy in a good cause is worthwhile wherever it comes from. When Jack sat down beside me at breakfast, I said, “Thanks for the candy bar. That was very dear of you. And I've decided I'm going to speak to Dr. Hager after all."

  He looked surprised, and studied my face for a moment. “If you're sure, Amanda.” (He was always careful to call me Amanda when other people were around.) “She could use it against you, if you became ... emotional."

  That was very good counsel, and I nodded. “God save us from emotional women! Don't worry, Jack. I'll be very professional—full of righteous indignation, but with my anger well under control."

  Under the table he squeezed my hand.

  Lavinia Hager's administrative assistant got me into her office at 2:00. The department chair looked both irritable and harassed. “What was it, Dr. Potter?” she asked, waving me to a chair opposite her desk. “Carol said you insisted on seeing me, but I have a really full calendar."

  “This is a matter that needs to be dealt with immediately,” I said, squeezing into that narrow chair once again. “Your behavior toward me yesterday was inexcusable."

  She sat with hands folded in her lap and a frosty smile. “You've been insisting that I let you see high risk patients, Dr. Potter, and I allowed you the opportunity. It was a pity you weren't able to show us your expertise by doing a c-section on the woman."

  “Not a pity for her.” I matched her frosty smile with one of my own. “Yesterday you attempted to humiliate me by making me present a morbidly obese woman on rounds. This apparently was my punishment for being fat myself and having the temerity to wish to be active in obstetrics here. It's demeaning to your whole department, Dr. Hager, when you attempt to pass on your own fat phobia to students and residents."

  “I'm not fat phobic, Dr. Potter."

  My brows rose. “You have a prejudice against obese people, patients as well as colleagues. It's as insupportable a prejudice as a racial or ethnic one. Every patient has the right to be treated with dignity. And frankly, I believe every colleague does as well."

  Lavinia Hager, as Cliff had pointed out, had a reputation for being an accommodating woman. I had seen her myself facilitating compromises between staff members and between staff and patients. Ordinarily she showed a real respect for our patients and for her colleagues. Apparently on this issue of weight alone her vision was completely skewed.

  She regarded me with unflappable calm. “You're quite mistaken, Dr. Potter. I have no prejudice against obesity, other than my very natural concern for an individual's health."

  “Photos from years of residents show there hasn't been one large man or woman in your training program. There are almost no nurses on staff who are overweight. I think that reflects your attitude."

  “My attitude is that we choose health-conscious healthcare personnel, Dr. Potter. They provide a good example to our patient population.” She shifted papers impatiently on her desk. “My guess would be that you feel a trifle uncomfortable in such an atmosphere because of your own weight difficulties. I can recommend a staff psychiatrist who has had good success with obese patients."

  Both a flash of anger and a jolt of shame rushed through me. But I struggled to remembered Jack's warning. “You don't seem to have kept cur
rent with the literature about obesity, Dr. Hager. It becomes clearer daily that people are pre-programmed with regard to their weight."

  “Thousands upon thousands of people lose weight on diets."

  “And almost no one keeps it off. Perhaps I could send you a recent editorial from the New England Journal of Medicine,” I suggested helpfully.

  “That won't be necessary. I'm well versed in the subject.” She glanced significantly at her watch. “I'm way behind today, Dr. Potter, if you will excuse me."

  “What I won't excuse is any more demeaning behavior with regard to my weight, Dr. Hager.” I rose, careful to leave the narrow chair as gracefully as possible. “I have an agreement with your university which I intend to carry out. I expect your cooperation and your recognition of my position. My weight has nothing to do with my capability, nor should it cause a lack of respect from you."

  Lavinia Hager shook her head as though bewildered by my tirade. “I'm very much afraid it's your perception on the subject that's distorted, Dr. Potter. I'll have a word with Dr. Lattimore. He may have some insight into why you'd react so strongly to a simple change of attending on a high risk patient. Dr. Lattimore, as I recall, had some reservations about your taking his place. Perhaps he'll feel you should return."

  Dr. Lattimore is an asshole, I informed her mentally. Aloud, I said, “You must do as you see fit, Dr. Hager. I've been perfectly clear about where I stand."

  She kept a dignified, dismissive silence and I left her office, carefully closing the door behind me so there was no whisper of a slam. I smiled at her secretary, thanked her for her assistance, and left the office. Rage is not too excessive a word for how I was feeling. Always, when people threaten to damage my career because I stand up to them, I feel the same white-hot anger burning in my gut.

  It's not that I'm particularly vulnerable to that kind of tactic, but the abuse of power makes me crazy. How about people who can't combat such a threat? What do they do? Lie down and take it? The academic system is uniquely designed for such abuses. Similar things have happened in England. Look at Wendy Savage, a fellow OB/GYN who was only reinstated in her position after an inquiry cleared her of charges lodged by a superior who simply wanted to get rid of her.

  The training in America, too, was of such a hierarchical nature that the whole time you were in the system you had to bite your tongue even when you knew you were right. Well, I wasn't in training, and I had no investment in Dr. Hager or her university. I didn't even much care what she said to Lattimore, because we already had our difficulties.

  I just wished I'd been more successful in impressing on Lavinia Hager the magnitude of her prejudice.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “So how did it go?” Jack asked when I found him waiting at the bike rack.

  As I unlocked the purple bike, I shrugged my shoulders. “About as I expected. She denied that she had a prejudice against fat people, threatened to talk with my London boss about my behavior and offered to recommend a psychiatrist for my weight problem."

  Jack laughed. “Exactly as expected. Are you glad you did it?"

  “Yes. I've made a policy during my medical career of speaking up."

  “But not in your home life."

  I tried to give him my haughty look, but I wasn't particularly successful. “No, not in my home life."

  We were riding along the road between the hospital and the Veterans Administration and it was uphill, so I didn't have to say more. Then there was a downhill and a levelish stretch before we had to ride up the next hill, where Mayfield House was perched amidst some charming older, larger buildings. The ten speed bike made it possible for me to manage this last great exertion, though when I was riding alone I sometimes took a more devious zigzag route to make the ride easier.

  Jack hooked his helmet on the garage wall and reached for mine. Only then did I notice how deeply troubled he looked. “What's the matter, Jack? Did something happen today?"

  He nodded. “It's not something I can talk about."

  “But it has to do with work? You haven't had any bad news about your family?"

  He lifted first his and then my bike up onto the wall hooks. His face had a drained quality about it. How could I have missed this when we met? I must have been so full of my own concerns that I wasn't paying much attention. And he'd been doing well with the Prozac lately, looking more relaxed and happier.

  “No, it was work,” he said. “Not just one thing, a series. You know how you have days like that."

  “Yes, very well."

  Though it was apparent he wanted to drop the subject, he seemed compelled to add, “A little girl came in with her parents. She was the most adorable, lively child and it was obvious they doted on her. But the MRI showed a grade IV astrocytoma, Mandy. There was really nothing I or anyone else could do for her. It breaks your heart."

  “I know it does.” I took hold of his hand, squeezing it hard. “I hate feeling helpless in the face of disease. It must be even more difficult for you with kids."

  His hand tightened convulsively on mine. “And then scans came back from two patients I'd operated on just a year or two ago and both of them showed new growths. Two of them. What are the odds of that happening? They were both malignant, and I hadn't been able to debulk them more than sixty or eighty percent, but, hell, that should have given them more time."

  I was silent, just holding firmly to his hand. He stood looking out the open doorway into the garden, pretending, I think, that I wasn't there. Because he had even more to say.

  “I can stand it when they die. Usually they've had more time than they might have, their parents have started to accept that their kids won't always be there, and the kids somehow absorb that knowledge. Or their handicaps are so desperate that they need the release. But what I can't stand is an operation going wrong, for no discernible reason."

  His shoulders slumped as though under a great burden, and he kept his eyes focused on the gravel garden path. “This was the second time I'd operated on Kevin for a tumor. Everything went perfectly the first time. He was back playing baseball in a couple of months. But this time..."

  For a long moment I didn't think he was going to continue. Then he shifted toward me, drawing my hand into both of his, and said softly, “Everything went perfectly in the O.R. Nothing looked wrong. Nothing. There was no abnormal delay in the transmissions. The electrical activity between the tumor and the normal tissue wasn't disturbed. We didn't have to back off with the Cavitron or loosen up on the retractors. The operation went perfectly."

  Jack let out a long, ragged breath that tugged at my heart. “He's paralyzed. Walt called me from the recovery room and I went straight over. There's no reflex movement at all."

  “Couldn't things get better?"

  “They could, but I don't think they will. This has happened once or twice before and we've ended up with quadriplegic kids. In some ways I think it's worse than their dying. For them, for their parents. These poor parents will watch for every sign of movement, for the smallest hope, and I don't think they'll get it."

  I wanted to take him in my arms and comfort him, but he was maintaining an emotional distance that warned me off. “I'm so sorry, Jack. How terribly sad for everyone."

  “Yes.” He met my sympathetic gaze with a pained one of his own. “When you know what went wrong, at least you can learn something. But today, there wasn't even that solace."

  “No.”

  We remained standing there, my hand crushed in his. Eventually, to my relief, he put his arms around me, and held me tightly against him, so that I could hug him back with all the empathy I felt. There was nothing more that needed to be said. From my own professional experiences with death and disability, I had some idea of the pain and loss he was feeling.

  But we're each alone at times like that. No one else can know exactly how we feel. Jack might be blaming himself, or he might be cursing fate, or he might be reevaluating whether pediatric neurosurgery had sufficient rewards for him. I cou
ld only hold onto him and hope he knew how much I wanted to offer the support and healing balm he needed.

  When he eventually drew back from me he said, “You know, Mandy, one of the things I was concerned about in taking an antidepressant was that I'd lose my ability to feel deeply about something like this.” He mouth twisted mournfully. “I needn't have worried."

  A car drove up outside the garage and its horn tooted shortly. Jack brushed the hair on my forehead with his lips and moved farther away from me. “Cliff said Angel was picking him up this evening. I'm sure she'd like to say hi to you."

  I frowned. “But, Jack, I'd rather stay right here with you if I can help you."

  “I could use some time alone. Thanks, Mandy.”

  By now I could hear Angel talking with Sherri. Jack slipped out the back way and I distracted attention from him by erupting out onto the gravel drive. Angel, looking wonderfully attractive in a green silk suit with a cream-colored blouse, had stepped out of her car to greet Sherri.

  Sherri was delivering the news that Cliff had been held up at the hospital. “He asked me to tell you he wasn't sure when he'd be finished,” Sherri admitted, her voice sympathetic.

  “Damn.” Angel heard me and turned to smile. “Amanda. How great to see you. I've been very lax about getting you out to the house for dinner, haven't I?"

  “Not to worry,” I said, giving her a warm hug. “You look gorgeous. Planning on a big evening?"

  She gave a moue of disappointment. “I was. A favorite artist's gallery opening and then dinner at L'Etoile. We've had this planned for a month."

  “Well, maybe he'll still get here."

  Sherri shook her head. “It didn't really sound like he'd be done any time soon. He suggested that you go on ahead and he'd catch up."

  “Oh, right,” Angel snorted. “He'll come here and look at the clock and say to himself, ‘Well, it's too late now,’ no matter what time it is."

  She imitated Cliff so perfectly that both Sherri and I laughed. But there was a somewhat drawn look to her face. Suddenly she turned to me and asked, “Why not come with me, Amanda? I think you'd enjoy the opening. Gail does remarkably good photography. And Sherri could save your dinner for poor Cliff when he eventually gets in. You haven't been to L'Etoile yet, have you?"