Soon after that, they left us alone. I sat with Anna, holding her, telling her how much I loved her, assuring her that everything would be all right. She told me that she loved me, too, and that she was very frightened. She said, “Do you wish you had cancer instead of me?” and when I said yes, I really and truly did, she smiled, a real smile, and then she burst into tears. I held her tightly after that; our flesh had always been a comfort to us both when pressed against each other’s. I held her until an aide came and wheeled her bed away, toward the operating room.
* * *
It was a four-and-a-half-hour operation. While she was still in recovery, Alfredson came to Anna’s little room, where I was sitting alone just staring into space. He told me that her body was riddled with cancer and that she would be lucky to live for another few months.
She stayed in the hospital for several days because they thought it would be too risky to move her, and too painful. After that, she came home, along with a hospice worker, an enormously empathetic and comforting elderly black woman named Liza.
My mother came down from upstate New York. She helped feed and bathe Anna, and she let me cry when we were alone.
Teddy and Hilts flew in from California. I didn’t ask Teddy to come; he just showed up. He made sure to tell me that a friend in L.A. had paid his airfare. I didn’t have the strength to dislike him or shoo him away. He hugged me a lot and told me he loved me. “Whatever our problems,” he said, “this is more important. This trumps everything.”
He insisted on taking me out for a drink and I burst into tears at the bar. He was remarkably comforting. It was a strange reversal of roles: I was the one collapsing and he was the one holding me up. He asked me questions, just like the old days, and I answered. I was relieved to have someone I could confess to, someone who would allow me to share my doubts and fears and weaknesses. I told him things I had barely been able to face up to myself, and it was remarkable how the simple fact that Ted was family made it all right.
My brother let me talk and sob myself to near exhaustion. And when the exhaustion came, it brought a deep relief, until I looked up at him to say thank you. What I saw chilled me to the bone. He was staring at me with a kind of contempt. No, not contempt—that’s too simplistic; his expression was more triumphant than that. It was as if we were engaged in some kind of mammoth struggle and he’d just won this round. He now knew things about me, secrets he could use, and that’s what was most chilling: What I saw in his eyes was that he knew that he’d just been given privileged information and was already formulating ways to use it.
I ran into the men’s room and threw up the alcohol I’d just poured down my throat. It came up in a coarse-tasting, thin, brown stream. I went back to the bar, wiping my mouth with my hands. Ted came over and hugged me again and assured me that everything would be all right. This time, instead of giving me comfort, his touch gave me the creeps and his words rang disturbingly hollow. I broke into a cold sweat and was still sweating when we got back to the apartment, where Hilts was waiting with my mother. The boy was terrified by everything surrounding him, from Anna’s sickly appearance—he was afraid to look at her, much less talk to her or touch her—to my tears and my mother’s sadness. He didn’t really understand what was happening, and his struggle to comprehend was not easy to watch. Ted quietly explained the concept of death to his son. Listening to him talk about peace and heaven and the human soul made me want to puke a second time. Knowing that he had used my vulnerability to pierce my protective armor made my pain even more palpable. And the memory of what I’d told him was like a throbbing headache that I knew wouldn’t disappear anytime soon.
I called Anna’s father, which only added to the surreal fog enveloping me. When I told him the news, he didn’t know what to say to me, didn’t have any way to cope with the emotion he must have been feeling. He said I should tell Anna that he loved her. I said that I would. He did not offer to come to see her, and I didn’t ask.
Anna’s mother called me an hour later. She said she was flying to New York. I asked her not to. I wanted to tell her that she had killed her own daughter, that she and her fucked-up family had destroyed her daughter’s life. But in the end all I said was that she would be a lot more help to her family in Kentucky than she could be to Anna. She called again the next day, and the next, each time sobbing louder than the day before. After the third day, I stopped taking her calls.
Eight days after Anna came back to our apartment, Liza called me into the bedroom. Anna was surrounded by our animals, all of them standing guard, all of them bewildered and wondering why the woman they loved and had depended on for so long now barely acknowledged their existence. Waverly, Anna’s special Irish setter, was on the bed, licking Anna’s cheek and making noises that sounded like whimpers.
Liza told me that I shouldn’t be afraid to touch Anna, and I said that I wasn’t. I could never be afraid of touching my wife.
I put my hand against her cheek, and she stirred. A tiny smile appeared on her lips.
“I called you,” she said. Her voice was tiny and cracked.
“When?” I asked.
“At the hotel.”
“What hotel?”
“Florida. I called you. When I was sick. You weren’t there.”
“I know.”
“She said you’d checked out.”
“Who, sweetie?”
“The woman at the hotel.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d already checked out.”
“I forgive you,” she said. “I forgive you.”
When I didn’t answer, she repeated it: “I really forgive you.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I said. “I love you so much. Please don’t leave me.”
“I love you, too,” Anna said. “I told you, didn’t I?”
“You’ve told me everything there is to tell.”
She smiled again. And very gently shook her head.
She did her best to move her hand. It grazed Waverly’s coat, and her fingers splayed, just a tiny bit, so I knew she was somehow including Rocky and Margo, Scully and Larry and Che, who was snuggled up under Anna’s armpit.
“Not everything,” she said. She rolled her eyes to take in the animals. “Them.”
“The guys?” That’s what we called our menagerie.
She nodded. “You love them.”
I nodded. “I do.”
“Do you think they’re more than human?”
“What?” I said.
She didn’t answer. I don’t think she could. The faint movement, the quiet whispering had exhausted her.
A minute or two went by. Then, in a stronger voice, almost clear, she said, “They’re not. Don’t let them be. It’s too easy.”
I didn’t know exactly what she meant, but I nodded and said, “Okay.”
“But they really are,” she whispered. “More than human. They really are.” And still whispering, but urgently now, the most important message in the world: “I’m not,” she said. “I’m not.”
She gave me one more smile. A very, very faint one before saying: “I knew I shouldn’t’ve gone to the doctor.”
Then she stopped speaking.
Liza explained to me that soon a glow would come over Anna; it was why people thought there was often something mystical about death. She said it wasn’t mystical at all; it would be the last rush of energy leaving her body. She said I would understand what death was when I looked in Anna’s eyes after she took her last breath.
I told her I knew what death was and wasn’t scared by it. I’d seen it up close many times. It was not anything terrifying; it was just the end, the absence of life. But this wasn’t just an end. It was the end of Anna. It was the end of love. What I really thought was that it was also the end of me.
Liza left the room, and I stayed. I stayed until that rush of energy came and then Anna’s eyes turned cold and still. I leaned in close to her. I kissed her cheek and told her I loved her. It seemed inadequate, but I didn’t have anything els
e to say.
I stayed by her side for quite a while. I’m not sure exactly how long. It was light when she died and it was dark when I went through the living room and into the kitchen. Waverly stayed on the bed next to her, one paw over her arm. The other animals only left because I did. And I only left because Rocky was rubbing up against my leg, quietly meowing. He was hungry.
It was time to eat.
PART TWO
CAMILLA
* * *
From the New York Daily Examiner:
ASK DR. BOB
Dr. Robert Heller is one of New York’s leading veterinarians. He is the author of two books about taking care of pets, They Have Nothing but Their Kindness and More Than Human, and is a regular on the Today show with his weekly segment, “The Vetting Zoo.” Dr. Bob takes care of cats, dogs, horses, birds, snakes, turtles, frogs, snails, small pigs, a surprising number of fish, and many varieties of rodents. You can e-mail him at [email protected] and ask him any question about the animal you love. His column runs Tuesdays and Thursdays in NYC’s most popular newspaper.
Dear Dr. Bob:
I will try to make this as simple as possible. I was moving into a new apartment several months ago, and in the moving process a lamp fell off a table and hit my gorgeous little Pekingese, Leyla. She suffered a broken leg, and I do mean suffered. The operation was a success, and the only trace of what happened is that Leyla walks with a slight limp. Even that should disappear in time, according to the vet who performed the surgery. The problem is that Leyla isn’t the same dog. She seems sadder. She’s less active. She used to talk to me all the time, but now she barely barks at all. She also seems a bit skittish, as if frightened that some new calamity might strike her at any minute. I just don’t know what to do. Can you help?
—Leyla’s Mom
Dear Mom:
Here’s the thing: Wounds heal on the surface. Broken bones mend, physical scars fade, cuts and bruises ultimately become invisible. But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen. And it doesn’t mean that the effects of those wounds disappear when they can no longer be seen. This is when Leyla needs the most attention. It’s easy to pamper someone when their physical problems demand that they be pampered. It’s much harder on us when we have to remember to pamper someone whose pain is under the surface. Just because people look normal, it doesn’t mean that they have recovered from their pain and returned to their normal lives. The same applies to our pets. Things may look all right, but we need to peer below the surface and intuit the possible turmoil that lingers on. Please remember: Wounds do heal, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a permanent impact. Leyla’s leg may look fine and may even be fine, but she is not the same dog she was before the accident. She is a different animal, a different Leyla. Treat her as such. She is still the dog you love. She is just changed, even if she looks the same.
—Dr. Bob
* * *
CHAPTER 7
NATALIE SPITZLE
Natalie had been coming to Marjorie’s clinic longer than any other person. By the time I arrived on the scene, she was in her mid-seventies, had been bringing her pets in for twenty-seven years, and was on her ninth cat (no, she was not a feline serial killer; she usually had three or four at a time). Natalie was also on her fifth husband. Actually, she was on her sixth, but she’d married the third one twice.
She drank the cheapest possible scotch and smoked three packs a day. She hadn’t been to a doctor or a dentist in several decades; she didn’t care about her teeth (partly because she had very few left), and she didn’t believe that doctors knew anything (although she thought that vets knew everything; she tried many times to convince me to treat her as well as her cats). Natalie had, at various times, been a professional backgammon player, a book editor, and a saxophone player with a touring jazz band. When I began treating three of her cats, all rescued from shelters, she was a cashier at a delicatessen on the Upper West Side. She told me that she should have retired several years ago but two things held her back: She dreaded the idea of being isolated, and she didn’t have any money. Her fear of isolation was understandable; despite her many husbands, she had no children. Her lack of money was even easier to explain: Natalie was a compulsive gambler. Every Tuesday and Thursday at six a.m., she took the bus to Atlantic City. She would spend more than ten hours gambling and then take the nine p.m. bus back to the city. She loved nothing better than playing craps and blackjack, she told me, and that included eating, sex, living in a nice apartment, and visiting friends.
She tried repeatedly to describe the thrill of a hot craps table to me, and it frustrated her that I was unable to comprehend the appeal. One day, after I’d completed an acupuncture treatment on her oldest cat to ease the pain from his arthritis—a technique I’d taken six months of classes to learn—she grabbed hold of my wrist and said she wanted to talk to me.
“Everything’s a gamble,” she said. “Everything.”
I told her that I understood the concept.
“You can’t win if you don’t play,” she continued.
I told her that I understood that as well.
“Yeah, well, maybe you do. But there’s something nobody understands who don’t gamble,” Natalie said.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll bite. What’s that?”
“People think that if you don’t gamble, you can’t lose.”
“And that’s wrong?”
“You bet your ass it’s wrong,” she said. “I want you to listen to me.”
“I’m listening.”
“I mean really listen.”
“I’m really listening.”
She looked at me intently, trying to determine whether I was telling her the truth. I could see that she wasn’t totally convinced, but she gripped my wrist even tighter, grinned her semi-toothless smile—a crazily angelic smile—and said, “The only way you can ever lose is if you don’t play.”
* * *
I met Elizabeth Gold under what I would call imperfect conditions.
It was four o’clock in the afternoon, nearly three years to the day after Anna died, and I was standing in Anna’s closet, smelling her clothes, reminding myself of her odor, which was fading from my memory as well as from her blouses and skirts and jackets, which I still couldn’t bear to give away. Trying hard to conjure the lovely combination of powder and shampoo, sweat and skin, I was holding a light gray sundress to my face, smothering myself in it. As I inhaled deeply, I began to cry quiet tears. That’s what time does. It not only slowly removes all physical traces of a presence both real and ethereal, it also dissipates your grief, no matter how much you want to keep hold of it. I don’t know if it’s a kindness or not, but time eventually reduces sobs to quiet tears.
I was not, thank god, talking to either myself or my dead wife—I was never reduced to either of those practices. I was not crazy or newly spiritual; I was just deeply, deeply sad, and had been since the day Anna died.
But I was, let’s face it, wrapped in a dress and crying. And standing in a closet filled with my dead wife’s clothes.
That’s when Elizabeth walked in to introduce herself. It was not my most dignified moment.
She handled it well, looking appropriately embarrassed but also concerned. She was able to almost completely hide her suspicion that there was a reasonable chance that she was staring at an unstable transvestite having a nervous breakdown. She wasn’t at all sure whether she should stick around or quietly make her way back down the stairs—at which point she could pretend that none of this had ever happened, at least until she was in the safe confines of some cocktail party and found a good opportunity to say, “You think you had a weird day…”
I, on the other hand, wasn’t just mortified. I was shocked and bewildered, because I couldn’t figure out what this woman, whom I didn’t know, was doing in my apartment, much less my closet. She was attractive in a slightly severe way: tall, maybe five foot ten, and thin, with close-cropped, dark red hair (it was a distinctive color, o
ne I can only compare to a shade described in my favorite childhood books of all time, The Black Stallion series by Walter Farley, in which a second stallion, Flame, competed with the Black and in fact eventually wound up with his own series of books, The Island Stallion, and Flame was said to be dark, dark red, and that’s the color I always thought of when I looked at Elizabeth), and she was wearing a very professional-looking woman’s suit, a tweedy kind of jacket with a matching mid-thigh-length skirt and a white shirt under the jacket, and she had good legs and remarkably clear skin—and yes, I did notice all of that in my initial glance over at her, even as I was crying and smelling Anna’s dress. Whatever else I am, I’m a guy, and we guys will notice every detail about an attractive woman even if we’re being stomped on by a herd of wild elephants.
It turned out that I had an appointment with Elizabeth Gold, although I’d forgotten all about it in my outburst of grief. She was a professor-turned-administrator at Cornell, where I’d gone to veterinarian school, and where I’d met Marjorie Paws. Over the past month or two, Elizabeth and I had been e-mailing; she’d been trying to work out some kind of arrangement for me to be a guest lecturer at the vet school for a semester or two, and when she mentioned that she would be in the city on school business we’d made a date to meet and talk. Initially she’d gone to the clinic on the main floor, and because Lucy, at the reception desk, knew about the appointment, she’d just sent Elizabeth upstairs. Elizabeth had knocked on the door, but I was crying in the closet, which made it difficult to hear a delicate rap several rooms away. So she’d turned the knob, found the door open, and stepped inside. As she walked through the apartment she met most of the menagerie except for Rocky, who was sitting at my feet in the closet, half-wondering why I was making odd noises and half-wondering why I wasn’t petting him every moment.
Ask Bob: A Novel Page 15