SHE MET me at the terminal on Westlake. She jumped from her van as lithe and strong as an acrobat. Vitality sang under her skin, shone in her breeze-whipped hair, flowed like a poem with the pump of muscle as she slid her door shut. Beautiful. She even looked as though she’d slept well, better than I had. The only sign of shock was a barely perceptible pause between my conversation and hers, as though the signal were being routed through some intergalactic wormhole for processing. She seemed to have walled up the whole diagnosis, encysted it somewhere deep inside, to be dealt with later. She smiled cheerfully as she swung herself up into the plane.
The smell of fuel was overwhelming to begin with. The noise was overwhelming for the entire flight; we wore earplugs, and I still felt crushed by the din. Once we were two hundred feet up, I didn’t care.
We were the only passengers on a seven-seater Beaver. We held hands across the aisle, to begin with, but as soon as I realized that meant we would be looking at different things through our separate, tiny portholes, I unbuckled and took the seat behind her. There were no headrests, so I could put my chin on the back of her seat and lay my cheek against hers as we gazed at the water.
The plane stayed almost entirely over water: north over Lake Union to Gas Works Park, then east across two bridges—one was up; toylike cars formed a shiny tail to north and south—to another bay, the university to the north, the green swath of arboretum to the south. East some more, and the water abruptly paled to an almost royal blue, and we were in a steep turn south, flying low over a floating bridge. Down, along beautiful coast-line; west, directly over the city—the Space Needle seemed close enough to touch; a jag south again, down the Duwamish—I tapped Kick’s shoulder and pointed to Kellogg Island and the tiny patch of park. She nodded, and reached up and back. I kissed her hand.
West over West Seattle, then a great curving arc around Alki, and the deep, deep blue of Elliott Bay. From above, the orange cranes looked nothing like brontosaurus.
From up here, everything seemed very clean and tidy and contained, easy to deal with, easy to understand. Beautiful, delicate, precious. The messy details were hidden, the power and angular geometry of humanity’s controlling stamp clear. If we could bend the landscape, surely we could find a way to defeat some autoimmune molecule gone awry?
We flew over the familiar four-chimney building of one of Seattle’s bigger biotech companies. Kick’s head turned to watch it diminish behind us.
Clouds were streaming up from the southwest. The plane bumped a little as it cut over Queen Anne Hill—no fires over Troy in the early afternoon— over Fremont and its troll, Wallingford and Kick’s house, and turned sharply to come south over the northeastern horn of Lake Union.
The pilot turned slightly and made an up-and-down hand shape: bumpy landing ahead. We both nodded and smiled: risk, the spice of life. I left my cheek by hers—soft and dry as a well-handled cotton sheet—all the way down.
The pilot taxied to the dock and turned off the rotor. The silence was shattering. “So,” she said, “want to come back to my place and look at MRIs?”
WE SPREAD them out on the dining room table and I held them up one by one to the light while Kick commented.
“That’s my favorite,” she said. “My eyes look just like pickled eggs.” They did: enormous, bulging white orbs starting from a delicate grey skull. I could see the folds of her brain, the bone of nose and cheek, even a line of ligament.
“The lesion—or plaque, as Dr. Whittle insisted on calling it—is that tiny little fleck of greyish white there. No, there. See?”
I peered at the stiff, plastic film. “No.”
“Give it to me. There. I think. Or maybe there. Hmmn. Do you know where the parietal lobe is?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s where Whittle said it was. The left parietal lobe. If it was a lesion—sorry—plaque at all. He said he wasn’t really sure, it was so small.”
“All right.”
“The parietal is where you store your nouns: chair, hat, cat, mat. So if I forget your name, you know why. Just kidding. Now this one”—she sorted through the slippery pile, pulled one from the bottom—“this one’s where the real action is.”
Looking at her spinal MRI was like looking at something left hanging from a tree after the vultures have been at it: bones, stripped bare, hanging in a knobby, gristly curve in the middle of nothing. I was suddenly, viscerally glad they didn’t do these things in color.
“This, apparently, is the thoracic spine. And there, that big white splotch, on the left side of the spinal cord, is what’s causing the trouble.”
“You sound as though there’s no doubt.”
“Multiple sclerosis means, basically, many scleroses, or plaques, scar tissue, on the fatty myelin sheath of brain and spinal cord. Identification of two definite plaques are required to fulfill the multiple part of the criterion. ” Her voice was impersonal but her eyes began to dart back and forth.
“Kick.”
“There’s no such diagnosis as mono sclerosis. Whittle will only swear to one plaque, that one on my thoracic spine. Which of course is the main trunk line of the power cable system in the body.”
“Kick—”
“No. Let me say it. Think of the spinal cord as a power cable. Imagine the myelin sheathing as insulation. Imagine the plaque as this place where something has stripped away the insulation. Signal can’t get through as strongly. It leaks off. There’s a basic neural deficit. You send a signal and it doesn’t get through, or it gets through scrambled and you get paresthesia, dyesthesia, weakness. Sometimes plaques heal themselves. Sometimes they get worse, and the underlying axons die. Then you are, to put it technically, fucked. Permanent paralysis. No one knows what causes it.”
She paused, and if it weren’t for her eyes, back and forth, back and forth, I could have imagined her at a spotlit lectern, with overheads.
“Mostly it’s believed to be an autoimmune disease, the immune system in overdrive and attacking itself. Some, of course, think just the opposite, that it’s an insufficiency. Everyone agrees that the course of the disease is variable. Sometimes very mild, sometimes leading to premature death. The neural deficit can appear in cognitive thinking, in the autonomic nervous system—which means breathing and heart regulation, digestion, and other basic functions—or it could mean not seeing so well sometimes, or being dizzy, or getting weird tingles down your spine.”
Stop it, I wanted to say, just stop it.
“So there you have it. MS in a nutshell. That’s what I’ve got: some disease that no one knows the cause of, and that they don’t know how to fix. One that might not affect me much at all, or might kill me, or reduce me to a drooling idiot. Though Whittle was kind enough to tell me he thought I had the kind that, quote, wouldn’t make me stupid, unquote. Would you like a cup of tea?”
Tea? It took me a moment to change gears. “Yes. Please.” I didn’t, but she clearly needed something to do with her hands. “So what happens now?”
“We wait and see what develops.”
Develop: grow, change, increase in size. While she filled the kettle and got out tea bags, I stacked the MRIs, and wondered if she’d discussed drugs. We could get to that later. First I wanted to talk to Eric about his contacts in the biotech industry. There might be treatments her neurologist didn’t know about. I concentrated on aligning the slippery plastic sheets.
“So,” she said cheerily, “how was your day?”
“My day.” I found I could remember nothing except bright numerals on my phone. 12:22.
She rinsed cups. “You look tired.”
“Not much sleep.” Maybe she thought I’d been out carousing till all hours, untroubled by the upcoming diagnosis of a woman I’d known barely two weeks. “I spoke to Corning. The woman behind all the set trouble. ”
“Corning?” She paused, one hand on the fridge door, one holding milk. “Right. Why didn’t you say?”
Hi, honey, I have MS. Do you really, how inte
resting, I had an interesting day, too, I found some woman you don’t even know.
She was staring vaguely at the milk in her hand. “What’ll happen to her?”
“She’s spilling her guts to the district attorney.”
I wasn’t sure she’d heard. She seemed utterly focused on pouring milk into her cup.
“I also went to the set. They have money now, but I think Rusen is getting anxious about this stunt finale.”
She turned the cups so that both handles faced out at the same angle.
“He told me he’d offered you the coordinator job.”
She poured tea with great concentration.
“Have you talked to him?”
“Um? Oh. No.”
“They’ll be able to afford to pay you now.”
“Yes. If I decide it’s what I want.”
“But it’s what you do.”
She put the pot down carefully, and turned. “I’m a cook.”
“Yes, and a very good one.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m not patronizing. You’re very good. You know that.”
“But? Being a really good cook just isn’t good enough for you?” What? “I don’t understand. You’re a stunt—”
“Was. Was a stunt performer. Past tense. I’m not anymore. It doesn’t matter what I used to do. What I do now is cook. It’s who I am. Face it. Look at me. Face it. I have. I’m just a crippled diseased has-been who can’t even make a career out of cooking things. And now . . . And now . . .”
I stood.
“Don’t touch me.”
I put my arms at my side.
“You put him up to offering it to me, didn’t you?”
“No. I didn’t need to.” If she would just let me touch her arm, her hand, her hair, I could think, put the words together in a way that made sense. “It’s going to be all right.”
“No, it’s not.” She was very pale. “This thing is inside me like a stain. It’s all different now.”
I took a deep breath, in and out. I sat down again, because if I didn’t she would bolt. “It’s not different.” I held out my hand, unthreatening, like a rancher squatting, hand out, sugar cubes on his palm. “Give me your hand.” She took a reluctant step forward. “Please.”
She slid her warm, small hand into mine. I felt that familiar electric flood, saw the answering looseness in her shoulders, the way she nearly tipped back her head.
“See?” I held her hand very gently. “Not everything has changed. There is still this.”
She folded onto the floor and began to cry.
I held her with one arm, and stroked her hair, her shoulder blades, her arms, her hair again, kissed the top of her head, kissed her ear. Held her, held her, held her.
After a minute, she lifted her face. “Do you really want tea?”
“No.”
“Good.” She rested her cheek against my chest. After another minute I slid down to be next to her on the floor.
“Tell me what you need.”
“I need to do this by myself.”
“All right.”
“I mean it. Don’t meddle. Don’t push me. On anything.”
“What will you do first?”
“I have to tell my parents.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“Will you want to talk afterwards?” Surely it was all right to say that?
“I don’t know. They’re in Anacortes. I might stay over. I’ll call you tomorrow. Or you’ll see me.”
IT WAS after six o’clock and the park by Elliott Bay was empty of tourists. The air was salty enough to lick. My mother and I walked over the undulating grass and I told her about the grass that grew in the pocket park near my warehouse, about how I’d told Kick I was sorry, about going up in a plane, about taking Corning to see Leptke and how easy it had been to get Corning to talk.
“Once she started, she fell in love with the story of her own cleverness. I left them cooking up a way for Leptke to be able to name her as a source. They’re going to go talk to the DA about immunity from prosecution in exchange for full cooperation on council staff corruption.” Eight hours ago. It seemed like a decade, something dimly remembered and unimportant. But it was important. She had ruined Kick’s new career before it got properly started.
We walked on a path for a while.
“And did your—did Kick talk to the reporter?”
“I don’t think it’s top of her list at the moment.” Plus, she didn’t know about it.
In the distance, out of sight, someone began playing a flamenco guitar. “You don’t sound very happy.”
“Corning will lose her condo, and her license, yes, and you might argue that her hundred thousand is already making a difference to the people she hurt most, that it will help them pay their bills, help them keep their jobs, allow for the possibility of success, but, Mor, it’s just money.”
“And money isn’t justice.”
“No.” Dancing and vomiting in Pioneer Square. Bellowing about earthquakes in Nordstrom. The graphite sheen under Kick’s eyes and the molecules chewing at her spine. Stress was the worst thing for MS. Corning had contributed directly to that.
We walked on. The guitar player came into view: an elderly woman. I dropped ten dollars in her guitar case.
“You seem to have stopped losing weight, at least.”
“Yes. I’ve found—Kick showed me some things I could eat.”
“Kick. Will she have dinner with us?”
“It’s not her top priority at the moment.”
“I see.”
I doubted it. “She’s sick.”
“We can postpone, until . . .” Her step faltered, as though she had tripped over an invisible crack in the pavement. “Ah, I see. Is it very bad?”
“It’s multiple sclerosis.”
“I’m so very sorry.”
“She hasn’t died.”
“No.”
“And she won’t die. No, Mor, listen. Please. MS isn’t like that.” And I poured out the conflicting opinions and research I’d read on the Web, and what Kick’s doctor had said. She listened without comment.
When I’d finished, she said, “And she is well currently?”
“She gets a little tired. And when it’s hot she sometimes limps a little, but not always. But she looks . . . You can’t tell. She’s strong.” Very strong. “She only found out today. She is . . .” I wasn’t sure how to describe her offhand cheeriness, followed by her weeping. “She’s in shock, I think. As you can imagine.”
“Yes.”
“I wanted to be with her tonight but she’s with her family. Telling them.” Right now. Explaining, probably, how she wasn’t going to die. Or probably wasn’t.
“What will you do?”
“I don’t know.”
We followed the path to the water’s concrete-bound edge. “The light is extraordinary, don’t you think?” she said.
It was. To the west, the view could have been one from a north European coast, all heather tones: a deep blue sound with hints of slate in the shadows between waves, lacy whitecaps, low islands in the distance, their outlines softened by the low clouds, which were layered, moving in two distinct directions, the way I imagined two armies might, streaming past each other, heedless, in an effort to regroup. I was reminded of the Western Roman emperors: blank-eyed, massive, calm, carved to inhuman size from white marble. The view east from Kick’s window would be more like that of the exotic Eastern Empire: crimson, rose gold, molten brass, the air twinkling with dust rising from the drying dirt, burning to umber. The clouds, too, would be different, gauzy and light, like a bundle of harem silks sliced through with a cheese wire and draped over Queen Anne where the windows would be glinting like the gilded dome and minarets of Hagia Sophia.
Hadrian had built his wall at the westernmost tip of his empire, and turned his face inward, and the Roman Empire had begun to die. In the east, Justinian, at Theodora’s urging, had faced
his enemies, kept expanding. The Roman Empire of the west had merged imperceptibly into the barbarism of the Germanic tribes in the fifth century. Byzantium had continued until the Turks crushed it in the fifteenth.
“. . . glad,” my mother was saying. “Atlanta must be very beautiful for you to want to leave this place.”
LESSON 13
THEY ALL STARED SILENTLY AT THE MATTRESS PROPPED AGAINST THE FAR WALL. It was a brand-new double which I planned to donate to Arkady House when the classes were over.
“Here is a handout covering some of the topics we’ve talked about in the last couple of weeks, and one or two other things that might prove useful.” It was a retread of my previous list, grouped into related headings: information you should never hand out to a stranger, ways to protect yourself at home, and so on. At the top, in big, bold font were phone numbers of Bette’s new associate, who would be eager to represent any of them in an emergency, Arkady House, the Georgia Domestic Violence Coalition, emergency hotline numbers, and the phone numbers of three hospital emergency rooms. Perhaps these numbers would displace mine in their minds and speed-dials. I’d also copied from a website a checklist of items one should assemble before leaving a violent domestic partner: passport, birth certificate, checkbook, medical records, children’s records, etc.
Most of them flipped through the sheaf with one eye on the mattress. Sandra ignored the mattress completely and examined the checklist one item at a time. I studied her. She seemed to have gained weight.
“Put the lists away now.” They all turned to their various bags and back-packs and Tonya flinched as Suze swung her bag quickly from the bench about a foot from Tonya’s head.
The nose looked fine to me, but clearly she was gun-shy. They all were. Time to discuss the elephant in the living room.
“Tonya, how’s your nose?”
“Okay. I guess.”
“It looks good, no swelling. Does it hurt?”
“Not especially.”
“Any problems with breathing? Odd nerve sensation?”
“No. It’s cool.”
“Good.” I let them consider that for a moment. “So how did it feel, to get hurt?”
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