The Child

by Sarah Schulman

“Sure. The thing is, they claim they can stabilize my eyes with lower doses, but how can they do that if they already did this?”

  Your call is important to us. Please do not hang up. An operator will be with you shortly.

  “How can they?” Then she pointed to the phone. “I’m on hold.”

  Eva didn’t bother Hockey with her life, but she had been on hold for weeks trying to get through to her insurance company. Dr. Kumar was nice on the phone, but very expensive. Eva couldn’t even schedule the examination until she knew for sure what the insurance company would do about it.

  “I mean, I’m already at the end of the pipeline,” Hockey said placidly. “There’s nothing left that works for me, so I have to try anything new, no matter how toxic. Why aren’t you shocked? I know the answer to that question.”

  “But are you still better than you were?”

  “Yeah. Don’t you think so?”

  “I think you are.” Being on the phone was no obstacle to conversation these days. Most people holding phones to their ears were actually on hold.

  “I am. I’m better. I guess so. Much better. Lucky to be alive, I guess.” Hockey shrugged in his pajamas.

  “Okay.” Eva shifted receiver shoulders. “Let’s just pick up where we left off last time, and if the insurance company ever answers this phone call, I’ll just deal with it then.” She sat back in the visitor chair, receiver scrunched on her shoulder, going through her notes. “I want to argue selective prosecution. That if David had been involved in an intergenerational heterosexual relationship, the courts would not be asking for twenty-five years. In fact, if Stew had been involved with an older woman, in most situations his family would be winking and patting him on the back.”

  “Better be careful there,” Hockey said, groping on the nightstand for his sippy cup of water. “If the judge can locate one case where some straight person got punished, your argument goes out the window.”

  “I’m ahead of you. I found the Miller case. A thirteen-year-old boy had sex with his forty-year-old female teacher and impregnated her. The courts sent her to prison. But, Hockey, can the judge really use that case against us? Stew is fifteen, not thirteen. No one got pregnant, and David wasn’t his teacher.”

  Hockey was methodically trying to find the cup.

  “Obviously this straight person was way out of line,” Eva continued, allowing him the achievement of finding it himself. “Miraculously she got punished, probably because it was a woman. That doesn’t mean blaming two guys for being in love is fair just because one way-out straight woman got punished, too.”

  “I know. Where’s my water?”

  “Three o’clock.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But it’s hard for the judge to see the differences.” Eva watched Hockey with concern but stayed blasé. “They’re always looking for the one extreme exception to prove that homophobia doesn’t exist.”

  “They don’t understand comparisons. Like how I’m comparatively better.”

  “Yeah,” Eva said. “You know, those judges think they’re being fair if they rule half the time for landlords and half the time for tenants. But the landlords are wrong ninety percent of the time. The nuances of justice are what elude most people.”

  The nurse’s aide, Mrs. Hernandez, came in with Hockey’s lunch on a tray. He smiled and waited politely until she left the room. That was one skill all frequent hospital-goers quickly learn–to find out the names of the aides, how the TV works, how to move the food tray, where to store his wallet.

  “Should we bring in experts? Get that food away from me, the smell will make me throw up.”

  “Okay, here–hold the phone.” She handed over the receiver and moved the tray. “What about the fruit? You might want it later.”

  “Okay, leave it on the windowsill.”

  Eva wheeled the food out into the hallway. “God, Jose left you great insurance.”

  Una Owens, another aide, came in to change Hockey’s sheets.

  Throughout his illness, Hockey was constantly horrified at the way that black people and Latin people had to clean up his shit, serve his food, and administer his medication. He didn’t want to be in that position, and yet when push came to shove, here he was. When Jose died, his whole family was in the hospital every day, speaking Spanish to the Dominicans on staff. It made everything easier. They knew each other’s relatives and talked a lot about old friends and new. But now that Jose was gone…. If Hockey was sick at home, he did everything himself, even if it took hours. But once you’re in the hospital, that’s it. There are servers and served, especially for people with decent insurance. The end.

  Eva stood out in the hallway with the phone cord pulled tight. She couldn’t go anywhere, but she wanted to leave Mrs. Owens and Hockey some privacy. She looked out down the hall at the faraway window. There was the East River and FDR Drive. She wanted a cigarette. She was still on hold. There must be some way to show the judge what homophobia looked like so that he would be able to recognize it in this case. But it was so difficult to represent. Any judge with a TV had seen some representation of homosexuality. But nothing showed the homophobia. That’s what she and Hockey really needed. The only movies she could think of were the ones where the person who hurts the gay guy turns out to be a repressed homosexual himself. That wouldn’t work. It let straight people off the hook.

  Your call is important to us….

  Mrs. Owens finished her tasks and Eva stepped back into the room. Hockey was depressed, she could tell. He was still, depleted. He couldn’t see. The sadness was so familiar. The resignation like old times.

  Please do not hang. ... “Hello? This is Shelley speaking.”

  “Oh my God, Shelley? Don’t hang up. Do you know that I have been trying for six days to get someone on the phone?” Eva could never move from one disaster to the next. She wanted justice for all of them.

  “Can I help you?”

  Shelley was already annoyed.

  “It’s this letter I got from you. I might need to have a surgical biopsy, and I’m trying to figure out the cost.”

  “Well, do you need it or not? If you don’t need it, we won’t reimburse.”

  “Well, I can’t go to the doctor to find out if I need it until I find out how much of that visit would be covered. You see, it’s a Catch-22.”

  “What’s that? A diagnostic code?”

  “No, an expression from the sixties. According to your letter, my doctor’s fee of three thousand dollars would be reimbursable for twelve hundred dollars? The facility fee of four thousand dollars would be reimbursable for six hundred? What kind of insurance in that?… All right.” She sighed.

  Hockey was dilating his pupils. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m back on hold. It’s so hard for people to conceptualize beyond their task.”

  “I just had a revelation.”

  “What is it? That I need new insurance?”

  “No. We won’t get justice by showing the unfairness,” Hockey said, holding the dropper over his eyes. “Because they can’t see things that way. If we bring in five thousand examples of men being severely punished for sex with consenting minors and they have one case of a straight woman sent to the slammer, then we lose. But we would deserve to lose, because we’re appealing to a sense of justice that isn’t there. We’re hallucinating. It’s wishful thinking. We’re deluded….”

  “And therefore…?”

  “We have to appeal to their egos, not their hearts. Our truth is too difficult to explain.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Fucking Shelley disconnected me. She disconnected me.” Eva sat down on the bed. “Do you have room under the covers?” She hung up the phone and lay back on his pillow.

  “You know, Hockey, I feel so insecure about so many things. I cringe at the end of every day. I never know how to act. I have trouble making the right decisions. But there’s one thing I really know, and that’s the law. I th
ink if you really work with the truth and you’re fucking smart, you can win. And I really, really want to know what it’s like to win.”

  She kicked off her shoes and threw her feet up on the bed.

  “Maybe it’ll be fun,” he said, lying back to join her. “Pass me those canned pears, will you? I guess I’m feeling better.”

  19

  Brigid was afraid of what she would find when she got back from work. On the other hand, she hoped that Marty had taken care of everything. That he’d called Wisotscky and that Stew was already out of the house. She would have stayed home and packed Stew’s stuff, but she couldn’t miss another day. Mr. Soto had made that very clear. He needed her, since she was the only one who knew how the invoice system worked. Those days off she’d taken because of the Stew thing were screwing up everybody on the job, and they had let her know about it one, two, three. Threatening to bring in computers. Those computers were the devil; they ruined everybody’s life.

  When she walked in the TV was on. That was a good sign; it meant Marty was home. For one year she had walked in every night to nothing. Nothing. She came up the walk, turned her key in the lock, and heard nothing. There was no point in even going in the house after that. It would just be another night of desolation. That year while Marty was gone, all day at work she’d dream of coming home and hearing the TV on, then she’d be there and it would be off. She spent many hours sitting on the front step weeping, unable to enter. Or crashed in a chair at the dinette set, sleeping in her coat, clutching her keys.

  But now the TV was on, Marty was home waiting for her. Her man was home for good.

  “Hi, honey,” Brigid said. He looked so young, like when he first came back from Cambodia. “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know where Stew is. He never came home. I took the day off to talk to him, like we said. I wasted the whole fucking day here and he never came home. What, he just ran out the door?”

  “I told you. When Carole confronted him about Victor, he just ran out the door.”

  “Well, I don’t know where he’s been all night.”

  “Did you eat?”

  “I microwaved that meatloaf.”

  “Good, it was for you.”

  Brigid went into the kitchen and helped herself to some food. Then she opened a Diet Coke and came back into the living room.

  “What are you watching?”

  “Some crap.”

  She hoped Stew would go out and earn his fortune. Meet a nice girl, get married, have kids. Someday they’d all drive up in a big car for Thanksgiving and everything would be all right. She’d cook a big ham. She and Marty couldn’t help him; he had to get out of there and do it on his own, get a job. He was big enough. She had worked when she was just a kid. It’s normal.

  “Marty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “They hired a new manager today and it wasn’t George.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because of his drinking. I told you. So guess who got it?”

  This was the life she loved. Coming home from work to the sound of her husband’s TV. Eating dinner together, talking over their day. She’d worked all her life for this.

  “Who?”

  “Guess!”

  “Who?”

  “Why can’t you guess?”

  Marty pointed the clicker like a gun. “How am I supposed to know?”

  “Either you’re helpless or you’re not. Which is it?” She hated herself the minute she said it. She knew it was wrong. “Oh, Marty, I’m sorry. Please.”

  Brigid wanted to get down on her knees in front of him, beg him for forgiveness. Rub her face into his crotch, bend over on the carpet before his desire. Stew was gone now, so he could fuck her in the living room. He could make her asshole bleed. She wanted him to fuck her in the ear, so that her brain would come out the other side. She hated her own mind. She couldn’t stand it. She’d cut her tongue out if he would smash her brain with his penis. She wished she could rub her face in it, that he would beat her with it until she was black and blue. She wanted his dick to be enormous, a two-byfour, filled with nails to gouge her heart out. Why couldn’t he just beat the shit out of her? Fuck her and stab her a few times? Hit her over the head with a hammer? Then everything would be all right. He’d feel better and she could relax.

  “You. You got the job.”

  “No,” she said. “It was Louise from purchasing. She wants to cut lunch from one hour to forty-five minutes. I told her that’s why it’s called a lunch hour, not a lunch forty-five minutes.”

  Marty raised the volume on the TV. He was channel surfing with the volume up. It was like he was fucking her in the mouth and her head was banging against the wall. A battering of partial sound. No sense, so relief, no control. Then he stopped.

  “Look at that man ride a horse.”

  “What is it?”

  “Red River.”

  “Is that John Wayne?”

  “You know damn well it is. Please give me a break, Brigid. I can’t go five minutes without you telling me what the hell is wrong with me. I can’t live with that, do you understand? I’m doing the best I can. I don’t want to hear what’s wrong with me. This is it. I’m not getting better. I don’t want cops and shrinks and wives telling me what’s wrong with me. I can’t do anything about it.”

  “You’ve only got one wife as far as I know.”

  Brigid went into the kitchen and got some more supper. She came back to the living room resolved to try a softer tone.

  “Kathleen at work is pregnant. Don’t tell anybody.”

  “Where is Stew? I don’t like this. Why is he running away?”

  “He must be guilty.”

  “I know he’s guilty. Our kid is sick.” Marty stared at the TV. “Now he’s gonna get it.”

  20

  There were clean magazines and up-to-date newsletters in Dr. Kumar’s waiting room. Everything was so crisp it was disconcerting. Efficiency overkill.

  “You’re the youngest person here,” Mary said, and Eva found that comforting. They were having the same observations, even with new and upsetting experiences. They were still sharing assumptions. Eva felt reassured that if worse came to worst, Mary would let her have the mastectomy, all the chemo and other toxic medications. She wouldn’t ask her to go to an Icelandic faith healer and eat quinoa. Eva had the kind of personality that was only compatible with official medicine. New Age worked for holistic people, but partial people needed radiation.

  “I wonder if all these cancer waiting rooms are the same,” Eva said. “Average age, fifty-five. I haven’t been the youngest in years. I feel so strange.”

  “About having breast cancer?”

  “I don’t have breast cancer.” She looked around the room. How many women were wearing prostheses? “No, about going through this and no one in my family having any idea.”

  “So tell them.” Mary started reading a strategically placed list of support groups. She seemed hurt.

  “Mary, honey, we talked about this five times, and we decided together that there was no point in getting them involved.”

  Of course Eva was whispering. It was a murmuring kind of environment, and these very lesbian conversations were habitually muffled. Nobody wants to hear two female lovers talk about anything real, and no one wants to hear them struggle with each other. It was instinctual knowledge, fear masquerading as privacy.

  “They don’t love you and they’re not going to help you. They don’t know you and they don’t respect your feelings. For God’s sake, they wouldn’t even invite you to the baby shower. How are they going to help you when you’re dying of breast cancer?”

  Five other patients looked up at this point, and Eva realized that breast cancer was something that had happened to some of them a long time ago. Those were their good old days.

  “I don’t have breast cancer. I have a minuscule mass.” This line was starting to feel ridiculous to say.

  “But what if you do have it?”


  “I don’t know. You mean what would I do tomorrow morning? Have breakfast. Be freaked out. Go to work. Help you.”

  “Help me what?”

  Something was going wrong all of a sudden.

  “Tomorrow’s your meeting with Ilene,” Eva said quietly. “I want it to go well.”

  “It’s the beginning of our new life.”

  “I’m so glad.” Eva held her hand. “I hope this isn’t the beginning of my new life. I don’t want to be afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “The fear, the pain, the details.”

  “What kind of details? You mean what if I’m not good enough?”

  Oh, that was it.

  “I know you love me,” Eva said truthfully. “And that’s what no one else can do.”

  “When my father died, it was horrible. I’m just not that experienced with doctors. I don’t know how to make those decisions.”

  Listen. Listen, Eva told herself. She’s telling you how she feels. Believe her.

  “You’re right, we need to keep my family out of it.”

  “I want to tell you something,” Mary said, feeling heard, putting her forehead on Eva’s forehead. “I am your family. I will take care of you. Don’t ever speak to them again.”

  Eva looked into those soft blue eyes. Yes, that was the truth. Mary is her family. Someone in this world cared about what happened to Eva. Someone was accountable. Mary.

  The receptionist called out Eva Krasner. Eva stepped behind the divider and into the expensive presence of Dr. Gita Kumar.

  She had planned this conversation for a while now, and yet was unable to carry it out in an orderly and expected fashion. So after only a few minutes of one-to-one contact with Dr. Kumar, Eva, again in an examination gown, opened her big fat mouth.

  “Excuse me, there is something I want to tell you about Dr. Pollack, the doctor at the clinic.”

  “There does seem to be a tiny presence here on the film,” Dr. Kumar mused, with her back to Eva, in the light of the fluorescent mammogram. “It looks like some microscopic mass inside of a milk duct.”

  Eva felt nauseous. But why? She was a grown woman, so was Dr. Kumar. This kind of thing, being molested by Dr. Pollack, shouldn’t throw either of them. Everyone knows it happens regularly. So it had happened to her. Other people had spoken out about it, and now she was going to do her duty.