“Goodness, Andrea, cheer up,” she says. “I can’t promise, but I’m fairly certain I’m not going to die before we get to the doctor’s office.”
“That would be good. Especially since you’re driving.”
“I assume my well-being is the reason for the long face?”
Andie’s not about to get sucked into that conversation, not when she’s Gert’s captive for the next twenty minutes. “Of course,” she says, then flicks on the radio and fiddles with the dial. The college station from New London is playing some unintelligible world music, but the drums drown out any chance for conversation, so Andie leaves it on.
When they pull into the hospital parking lot, they have to circle twice around before they find a free space. “Mondays,” Gert says, shaking her head before she carefully backs the station wagon into the spot. “Everyone always waits until after the weekend to be seen.”
On the walk from the parking lot, the hospital looms over them, a brick and glass structure that casts a cool shadow. The doctor’s office is attached to the main building, so they walk through the lobby on their way. They’re almost at the elevators when quick, rubber-soled footsteps echo faintly off the walls. Gert glances back just as a nurse turns the corner, a wide smile stretched across her face.
“Gert? Gert Murphy? I knew it was you!” the woman exclaims, wrapping Gert in a hug.
“Doris, such a nice surprise,” Gert says, gently disentangling herself.
“Surprise my foot. Where else would I be?” The woman eyes Andie expectantly, so Gert makes the introductions, adding “Doris is the charge nurse here.”
“Thanks to you.” The woman turns to Andie. “If it weren’t for your aunt, I’d still be a nurse’s aide.”
“You would have done just fine on your own,” Gert says. “Besides, that was all a very long time ago.”
“I can still hear her voice in my head sometimes,” Doris says to Andie. “I think everybody was a little afraid of her, but boy, did we learn.”
“I know what you mean,” Andie says. It is likely that she’s met Doris before, although her face isn’t familiar. As a child, Andie spent plenty of time visiting Gert at work at the hospital. Clara would bring her over at lunchtime, and as a treat they’d usually make a meal of the sloppy joes and red Jell-O the cafeteria served. There was almost always a group of serious young women clustered around Gert, speaking in hushed tones about stomas and amputations and other unappetizing conditions. Her aunt, graced with a natural authority, also had the distinction of working during the school term at a teaching hospital in upstate New York, where she saw more emergencies in a weekend than Hartman encountered all year. Summers, the administration was more than happy to have the illustrious Gert Murphy fill in for vacationing staff.
“Not much of the old crowd is left,” Doris is saying. “Mary’s still down in neonatal, and Anne works as a floater during the school year, but that’s about it. You should have called me, I would have gotten everybody together for lunch.”
“Yes, well, perhaps next time,” Gert says, and takes a step closer to the elevator.
“You know Dr. Thompson retired last year, right?” Doris says, moving right along with her. Gert nods. Andie remembers Thompson as a bear of a man with a delicate touch. For years, even after he was promoted to chief, he did her back-to-school checkups as a favor to Gert. “The guy they found to replace him is okay. They brought him in from New York, and he has all these big ideas about how a hospital should be run. I tell you, I’m counting the days until retirement. The fun’s gone out of it for me.”
“You’re a very capable administrator, Doris. Don’t let anyone tell you differently.” Gert pats her on the shoulder, then steals a glance at her watch.
“Yeah, well, enough about me,” Doris says, looking pleased. “What about you? Not here for anything serious, I hope?”
“When you get to be my age, everything is serious,” Gert says. She reaches the elevator call button and pushes it. “But no, just a routine checkup.”
“Well, I hope you get a good report. Who are you seeing?”
“Dr. Littleman,” says Gert. The elevator dings and the doors open.
“Littleman? He’s not a GP,” Doris says, then looks at Andie.
“I hate to rush, but I’m going to be late if I don’t hurry,” Gert says, stepping into the elevator. She holds the door open for Andie, who has no choice but to follow. “It was wonderful to see you again, Doris.”
“You, too. Stop by the nurse’s station on the way out if you get a chance,” Doris calls as the doors slide shut.
Andie waits until the elevator has started its ascent before she turns to her aunt. “What did she mean, Littleman isn’t a GP? I thought this was just a checkup.”
“It is, of a sort. Dr. Littleman is a cardiologist,” Gert says. She gives an odd little smile. A grimace, really. “It appears, Andrea, that there’s something wrong with my heart.”
GETTING to Dr. Littleman’s office requires wandering through the internal maze of the hospital. Andie follows her aunt to the third floor, across the glass-filled, sunlit bridge to the new building, where doctors have their private practices, and down again to the warren of individual rooms on the lower level.
At last they reach their destination, the second to last door on a nondescript corridor in the bottom of the building. Gert pushes it open. The waiting room has half a dozen plastic chairs, two round tables filled with magazines, and a poster illustrating the inner workings of the heart.
While Gert checks in with the receptionist, Andie finds two vacant seats together and sits down. She picks up a women’s magazine and leafs through it. “How to Tell If He’s Cheating—Again!” blares the headline. She turns the page. “Sex Secrets Younger Men Know” is the next story. She’s reading, openmouthed, when Gert plops into the seat next to her.
“Ridiculous—the amount of time it takes simply to check in these days,” her aunt grumbles.
“Un-huh,” Andie says without looking up.
“Interesting article?” Gert asks, leaning over to see. Andie hastily flips the page.
“‘Why Comfort Foods Are Making a Comeback,’” Gert reads aloud. “Nothing wrong with meat loaf and mashed potatoes, is what I’ve always said.”
“Here, take it, I’m done,” Andie says. She thrusts the magazine at her aunt and takes the next magazine on the pile. It’s about financial planning, and she spends the next forty-five minutes reading about index funds, stock options, and IRAs, which allows her to worry about the fact that she has virtually no savings, no income, and no job on the immediate horizon. It’s enough to distract her, mostly, from memories of what she’s found young men to be particularly adept at. That doesn’t keep her from noticing that when Gert’s name is finally called, it’s with reluctance that her aunt puts down her magazine.
“About time,” Gert grumbles as an aide leads them down the hall and into a small examining room painted seafoam green. Andie parks herself on a chair in the corner.
“Please strip to your underpants and put on the gown,” the woman says. “The doctor will be in to see you in a minute.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence after the door closes. Andie’s not sure she’s ever seen her aunt naked before. She averts her eyes, but when Gert asks for help tying the strings on her gown she can’t help but look. Her aunt’s back is smooth, surprisingly unwrinkled. There are age spots freckled across her shoulders. Andie ties the gown at waist and neck, and when she accidentally brushes the skin there Gert reaches up and squeezes her hand. Her fingers are cold. Andie squeezes back, and they stand that way, holding hands, until there’s a light rap on the door.
“All set?” a male voice calls. The door opens and the doctor bustles in before they can respond. He’s not much taller than Andie, with dark-rimmed glasses and a head of full, curly hair. He’s clutching a manila folder in one hand.
“Sooo, Mrs. Murphy,” he says, skimming through the paperwork. “How are we today?”
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“About the same, thank you,” Gert says. She releases Andie’s hand.
“Meaning?” The doctor closes the folder and leans forward.
“On a day-to-day basis, I’m fine. It’s just these…” She waves a hand. “…little spells.”
“Hmmm. Had any recently?” He unfurls his stethoscope from around his neck and steps next to her.
“One or two,” Gert admits. The doctor presses the stethoscope against Gert’s chest and listens for what seems like an eternity to Andie, then moves it around to her back and listens there.
“And we have you on, what?” He removes the stethoscope from his ears, checks Gert’s file, and scribbles a note in it. “Metoprolol?”
Gert nods.
“And are you finding yourself fatigued while on it?”
“A little,” she says. “But it’s manageable.”
“Good. I’d like you to continue to take it, but frankly, I think we need to take additional steps here. I’m not comfortable with the fact that you’re still having these episodes, and I’d really like to get to the root of the problem.”
Andie steps forward. “I’m sorry, but I’m a little lost here. What’s going on?”
The doctor glances at Gert, and she gives a slight nod.
“Okay, your, uhhh,…”
“Aunt,” Andie supplies.
“Right. Your aunt came to see me…,” he glances at the file, “approximately eight months ago, complaining of heart palpitations, dizziness, and shortness of breath. We did an EKG to see what was going on, and it came back normal. An X-ray showed no fluid in the lungs. She refused further testing, so we started her on a beta blocker, which was supposed to help control the problem, but it sounds like it’s not working.”
“So what do we do?” Andie asks. Behind her, Gert snorts at her use of the pronoun, but Andie keeps her eyes focused on the doctor.
“Well, frankly, I’m at a bit of a loss,” he says. He rests his foot on the chair again. “Afib isn’t all that uncommon in someone your aunt’s age. But the medicine should be controlling the symptoms. The fact that it’s not is a bit worrisome.”
Andie shakes her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Afib—atrial fibrillation—simply means that the atrial part of the heart is beating too fast. If that’s what she has, the medicine should control it. The fact that it’s not…” He trails off, stroking his chin. “What I’d like to do—what I wanted to do in the beginning—is order some more tests. But your aunt, as you probably know, can be difficult to persuade.”
“I’m sitting right here,” Gert says irritably.
“I’ll persuade her,” Andie says. “What kind of tests are we talking about?”
“Well, I’d like to do another EKG, and an echocardiogram to check heart function. And maybe some bloodwork, to look for anemia, or thyroid problems.” He ticks them off on his fingers.
“Okay,” Andie says.
“Ideally, I’d like to admit her. Then we could monitor her over a twenty-four- to forty-eight-hour period, and have a better idea of what’s going on.”
“Absolutely not,” Gert says.
The doctor sighs. “Well, these tests should at least help us rule some more things out. I’ll see if we can get you in today, so you don’t have to come back.” He scribbles another note in the file, stands, and heads for the door. He pauses with one hand on the knob. “So, any questions?”
“Any idea what it is, if it’s not the afib thing?” Andie asks.
“None that I’d like to speculate on just now.”
“But you must have some idea.”
The doctor looks at Andie. “If I had to bet money—and I’m not a betting man—I’d put my stake on a dropped heart beat. For some reason, it’s just not showing up.”
“Well,” Andie says. “That doesn’t sound too bad. Right?” She looks at Gert, still sitting quietly behind her, then back at the doctor.
“Let me put it this way,” he says, lowering his voice. “If you can’t persuade your aunt to listen to reason, the next time she faints, she might not wake up.”
THE afternoon passes by in a slow blur. Andie traipses with her aunt from department to department, the sharp smells of alcohol and disinfectant lodged in her nostrils. Her aunt submits to the tests, grumbling only once, when the technician fails to find a vein on her second try. She tells the unfortunate woman to go practice on an orange.
By the time they’re finished, Andie has no problem persuading Gert to let her drive home. The spot where her aunt had blood drawn is starting to bruise, an ugly, purple mark. When they’re on the highway Andie glances over. Gert’s eyes are closed, her shoes slipped off. Andie lets her be as the miles tick by, but when they get off at the exit, the McCallister farm spread beneath them like a quilt, she clears her throat.
“I’m resting, not dead,” Gert says, keeping her eyes closed.
“Yeah, well, that can change if you don’t start listening to the doctor,” Andie says.
“Doctors,” Gert says irritably. She shifts in her seat, sits up, opens her eyes. “Just because they have penises, they think they have all the answers.”
“Aunt Gert!”
“Oh, don’t look at me as if you’ve never heard the word. Most of the men I worked with thought that their getting out of bed each day was enough to hang the moon. And I’m sure the women doctors of today are just the same.”
“Okay, fine,” Andie says. “But he’s worried about you, and so am I. Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”
“Why?” Gert asks. “What difference would it have made?”
Andie’s about to protest, but the words sit uneasily in her throat. She thinks of her life eight months ago, the hours spent at cafe tables, the markets, the dust motes drifting down through the palazzo. Neal’s affair had not begun eight months ago. Or maybe it had, but not for Andie.
“You should have told me,” is what she says instead. “I should have known.”
They’ve reached the cottage’s driveway, and as they bump over the pitted gravel lane, wild rose branches and forsythia reach out to scrape against the car’s side. Just ahead of the car, a turkey stops in the middle of the driveway, perfectly still. Eight babies muddle around her, darting this way and that, until she turns and leads them off into the undergrowth.
The two women watch until the last chick has disappeared, and then Andie takes her foot off the brake and they creep their way to the house.
“Well, thank you for coming,” Gert says. “I hope it wasn’t too trying.”
“Want me to come in and help you get settled?” Andie asks.
Gert snorts. “Please. Despite what that young cub of a doctor seems to think, I am perfectly capable of getting myself inside.”
“Just take it easy, okay? I know you think he’s an idiot, but he really seemed worried that you have this dropped heartbeat thing.”
“I don’t,” Gert says. “I’m fine, so please don’t worry, Andrea.”
“Aunt Gert, a few weeks ago you fainted practically on top of me. You look—no offense—exhausted. Something’s not right,” Andie says. She never contradicts her aunt, but since she’s started, she might as well keep going. “If you don’t think it’s a dropped heartbeat, okay, but tell me what you think it is, please. Because you know something is wrong.”
Gert’s already opened the car door and swung her legs to the ground, but now she leans back against the seat. The two women sit for a long time, listening to the start of the evening sounds around them: the rustle of the tall grass in the cooling wind, the slowing of the crickets’ song, the long, liquid silences that run beneath everything else. Gert rubs her eyes, and just when Andie thinks she’ll never speak, she does.
“It’s regret, mostly,” she says, before turning and gazing out again through the open car door.
Andie waits patiently, but when Gert doesn’t say anything more, she reaches across the console and touches her on the shoulder
.
“Aunt Gert?” she says, and when her aunt turns it’s as if she’s coming back from some far-off place, a distant voyage. She looks at Andie’s face. “Oh, it’s not so bad as all that, Andrea,” she says, patting Andie’s hand. “I’ve had a fine life, don’t get me wrong. And you have always been the best part of it. But there are things I’ve left undone, and now, when it’s far too late, I find it…difficult…to live with that lack.”
Andie doesn’t know what to say, so she says nothing.
“Take it from me. There’s not always time to go back and fix things the way you should, so you need to get it right the first time. You need to pay attention.”
“To what?” Andie asks. Her aunt smiles, but it’s a sad smile. She lets go of Andie’s hand, leans over, and kisses her niece on the forehead as if she’s a child.
“It’s not to what, Andie. It’s never to what. It’s to whom.”
Frank
FROM my window in the attic I watch the station wagon as it winds its way along the dusty track of the driveway. I follow its path to the road, watch it dip and rise and finally be lost to sight on its journey to the hospital. I can hear Neal Roberts moving about in the rooms beneath me. He’s in the spare bedroom now, looking, no doubt, for something small and precious he can slip into his pockets. The silver snuffbox that sat on my grandfather’s desk in the living room is missing, as is the small oil landscape that graced the parlor’s mantel. I have an idea as to where they have gone.
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