The Right Thing to Do

by Josephine Gattuso Hendin

  She interrupted. “You’re going to say you’ll see for me; you’ll see a better world, you’ll see,” she started to laugh, “a higher beauty.”

  He backed off. “Are you making fun of me?” he said uncertainly. She could be cutting, he remembered. He didn’t mind that—she could be terribly funny about other people, and harsh in her judgments. He supposed that had enabled her to come to him, and, he foresaw, would keep her loyal to him no matter what anyone said. She would simply cut them down. But so far her bite had been for everybody else, not for him. He didn’t doubt that her will would never confront his; she wasn’t like that. But her tongue was another matter.

  “I’m not making fun of you,” she said, finally. She hugged him and began to stroke his back. “It’s probably better to see everything through you.” She pressed her face into his chest. My God, she thought. I’ll say anything now. He kissed her and they lay down, slipping out of their clothes on the way to the bed. They lay pressed against each other. His skin felt like sunlight on a warm summer day, a loosening, silken heat. There was nothing like getting lost in it, the great wash of tenderness and urgency that seemed to flow out of his touch.

  The phone rang. “Ignore it,” he said.

  She didn’t answer, but the telephone rang and rang. It seemed to ring for hours, until, unnerved, he picked it up. He listened for a moment and handed it to Gina.

  “Where are you when I need you?” Laura demanded.

  “What do you need me for?” Gina asked, upset by Laura’s voice here in the room. It didn’t seem right to be undressed while she spoke to her.

  “I need you,” Laura said, “to keep me company while your father dies. Do you think I would call you if it wasn’t important?”

  “No,” Gina said, “I don’t. Where are you?”

  “University Hospital, fourteenth floor.”

  “I’ll be right there.” She hung up, forgetting Alex for a moment, looking absently for her sneakers.

  “What’s that about?” said Alex irritably, sitting up in bed.

  “My father’s dying; my mother said to come.”

  “Where is he?” Alex asked.

  “University Hospital.”

  “How do you know he’s really dying? What’s he dying of? He didn’t seem that sick when I saw him.”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say, but she wouldn’t tell me he was dying if she didn’t believe he was dying. It’s not the kind of thing she would do.”

  “You don’t know what she would do. She’s never been in a situation like this with you before. Maybe she just wants to get you back.”

  “It’s not that far,” Gina said. “She’s waiting for me. How can I not go?” she asked bluntly.

  “Well, when you left, you left. Did they care what happened to you? They can’t just phone in the middle of the night and expect you to run when they behaved the way they did. I don’t think you have to drop everything.”

  Gina looked at him. She began to put on her clothes. “You’re really mad, aren’t you?”

  “You get up when we’re in the middle of something. The dishes are still on the table from dinner. And you’re ready to walk out. Just like that. What about me?” Alex complained.

  “What about you? You can find something to do. Keep busy, read a book. Better yet, wash the dishes.”

  “I don’t see why you can’t go later or in the morning,” Alex persisted.

  He doesn’t really expect me not to go now, Gina thought. He just wants to be apologized to, reassured that he’s more important than anyone. It was ridiculous. The more committed he was to her, the more he seemed to expect her to revolve around him. He had a way of accusing her of not feeling or doing enough for him that upset her. At times she felt she was on a treadmill, trying to please someone who refused to be pleased. At other times, she just wanted to get away from the tension and anxiety he aroused.

  Still, Alex had a point. Nino and Laura had ignored her since she left. And now Laura asks: Where are you when I need you? Where was she when I needed her? Always kowtowing to Nino. She was there for me all the same, Gina acknowledged. As much as she could be. It was insane to think otherwise.

  “Well,” Alex demanded.

  Gina pulled on her sweater and sat down on the bed.

  “Alex,” she said dryly, caressing his cheek, “when you’re dying, you can come first, too.”

  “OK, OK,” he said, beginning to look sheepish. “Come back as soon as you can.”

  Gina rose and walked to the door. “I’ll see you later.” She closed the door behind her. As soon as she was in the hallway, she began to run. She ran to Fourteenth Street and Avenue B and started walking west to First Avenue. She saw the bus coming and ran for it.

  “What took you so long?” Laura asked when she got there.

  “I came as soon as I could,” Gina said.

  “Well, I’m glad to see you. I’m glad you came. Look at him. I feel it’s all my fault,” she said, breaking down. “I took him here to get decent treatment and look what happened.”

  “Can he hear us?” Gina asked.

  “Who knows?”

  “Dad,” Gina said, moving next to him. “Do you know we’re here? Can you hear anything?” His sheets were stained with blood; his arms were wired, one to an IV bottle, the other to the monitoring equipment. He made no sign.

  “Let’s go outside for a minute,” Laura said. “I didn’t want to say this in front of him,” Laura said in the corridor, “but that’s how they look when they go.”

  “Did they tell you he was dying?”

  “They say a lot of things. They’re worse than the weather bureau.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Gina said. “You did the right thing. How could you know in advance that this would happen?”

  “He doesn’t look to me like he’ll come out of here alive. I’m going to wait here. You sit there,” she said, pointing to the other end of the bench.

  “Did you have anything to eat?” Gina said.

  “No,” Laura said. “Go and get me something, will you? There’s a delicatessen across the street.” Laura handed her some money.

  Gina walked into the elevator, dreading the long night in the waiting room. What if he did die? There was so much bad feeling between them. That almost made it harder if he died now. He can’t die. He won’t die, she corrected. Not with so much unfinished business. It wouldn’t be like him. She paid for the sandwiches and bought a bottle of red wine with a screw cap.

  “You forgot cups,” Laura said. “And the nurses here don’t knock themselves out getting things for you.”

  She was right. It took Gina a while before she found an aide who would bother getting her some paper cups.

  “Red,” Laura said appreciatively. “It’s the best thing for the blood.” She sipped quietly for a moment. “If he doesn’t die, he’ll be crippled.” She took a bite of the sandwich. “Salami, Genoa salami,” she noted. “What can I say. It’s just my luck. He always wrecked my luck,” Laura said. “You know, when I was pregnant my mother got very sick from a heart attack. I made a novena to Saint Anthony and promised to name my baby after him if she got better. Well, she got better and when you were born I intended to name you Antoinette. But in those days they kept you in the hospital for ten days. While I was laid up, your father went to City Hall and had your name registered as Gina, after his mother. After I had promised you to Saint Anthony. I was furious. What if my mother had gotten sick again because I hadn’t kept my word?” She took another bite of the sandwich. “They put too much pepper in this salami,” she remarked. “To make a long story short, I had to get up out of bed and go to City Hall to try to change the name and pay to have it done legally. A week or two old and a baby with legal fees because of him,” she said, gesturing toward Nino.

  “Did your mother get better after that?” Gina asked.

  “Of course,” Laura said. “But no thanks to him. He went and changed it back. I never forgave him for that. I shouldn’t sp
eak ill of him in his condition.” She crossed herself and took another sip of wine.

  “I don’t know why,” Gina said. “He’s not dead yet, and there’s plenty of time to look at his good qualities later on.”

  “He was always very loyal,” Laura said.

  “He isn’t dead yet.”

  “Well,” Laura admitted, “it’s probably not right to speak ill of the sick, either. But after all, you have to say something. I remember in a situation like this Concetta promised to walk on her knees all the way to the Church of Saint Jude. Well,” Laura considered, “I never had much to do with Saint Jude. And given what your father did to Saint Anthony, I doubt that he would care. He is forgiving, though,” she said.

  She never rules anything out completely, Gina thought, amused. She would take him to the best hospital she could think of, but then she would cast around for the right saint, just to be sure. But it all goes wrong in the end, anyway.

  “What if he wakes up?” Gina asked. “Do you think it would be worse if he knew I was here? He never has much to say to me, anyway.”

  “He’ll talk to you when he’s ready to talk to you,” Laura said. “It doesn’t matter that you . . . ,” she groped for a neutral word. “It makes no difference,” she concluded. “It’s true you don’t get along, but who does he get along with? Now he just mopes around. He wasn’t even getting angry anymore, the way he used to. When he first got the fever, I thought he was just blue.”

  “I don’t think there was much you could do once it started.” Gina said. “It’s not like an infection from the outside. It came from his own system.”

  “It came from the slow blood,” Laura agreed quickly. She poured Gina another cup of wine. “How are you doing in school?”

  “OK. It’s interesting. Everyone is running around, doing things. There’s a lot going on,” she said wistfully.

  “You have time to do homework and do things too, what with working every day?” Laura asked.

  “Yes,” Gina lied.

  “I wish you’d meet someone else,” Laura said. “You know we’ll be here all night.” She looked into the room at the monitoring screen. “Does he know you’ll be here all night?” she asked Gina.

  “No,” Gina admitted. “I thought I’d be back soon.”

  “You better call him or he’ll worry.”

  “He won’t worry.”

  “Call him,” Laura said, handing her some change.

  She took the money and went to a phone, but there was no answer.

  “He’s out,” she said, returning.

  “Out? It’s almost midnight.”

  “He’s out,” Gina repeated. “Sometimes he stays out until three or four.”

  “He runs around?” Laura asked.

  “No. He stays up talking with his friends.”

  “Arthur would never do that. I’m sure he doesn’t know anyone who stays up that late. And when I think how good he is to his mother. How a man treats his mother is how he’ll treat you. Arthur would never stay out just to talk to his friends. Do they play cards?”

  “No. They just talk or walk around.”

  “What can they talk about for so long?”

  “This and that,” Gina said, amused. “What else?”

  “Arthur never had that much to say. A man who keeps talking like that, you can’t trust,” Laura said.

  “Why not?” Gina asked.

  “Because he’s wasting his time. If he has something on his mind, he should do something about it. If he thinks, it should be for his work. If it’s for his work, he should be making use of it. If he’s not making use of himself, then”—she waved her hands—“he’s just an idler. If he’s an idler,” she concluded, “he’s not for you. Your father said you would come back when you saw he was right.”

  “He probably thinks I’m an idler too,” Gina said.

  “No, he doesn’t think that,” Laura said flatly. “He thinks you’re a sneak and a plotter, and that you can’t make up your mind. Because you can’t make up your mind, he thinks there’s something wrong with your character. But he doesn’t think you’re an idler,” she continued reassuringly. “He thinks you want that boy because you think he’s one of them. But he says you’ll find out he isn’t one of them either, and since he isn’t one of us, you’ll be left stranded.”

  “He really thinks ahead, doesn’t he?” Gina said, glancing at the blipping monitor.

  “He always thought a lot,” Laura agreed. “But the more he thought, the madder he’d get. Now he doesn’t think and he doesn’t get mad. He just . . .”—she paused—“sits.”

  “I think I’ll try to call again,” Gina said, getting up. She felt bad, so bad she couldn’t separate all the reasons she had for being down. It was Nino going, it was Laura looking so forlorn that brought her down. It was making Alex angry. Why was it hard for him to be a good sport? What else could she have done when Laura called. He had hit her where she hurt, in her fear that she really didn’t care enough. The trouble was, she must care, or his words couldn’t sting her the way they did. She was angry and anxious at the same time. The phone kept ringing and ringing. It was 2:30 A.M.

  Why does he have to make himself unreachable? she wondered. For all she knew he was there, not bothering to pick up the phone. Whatever she did, he never stopped raising the demands he made. They were unsatisfiable because they kept changing and ascending. His need for her to be everything, his softness, was as effective as a shotgun. At least with Nino you knew where you stood. You did what he wanted or he blew up. His needs turned the house into a shambles, but didn’t seep into your soul. He didn’t put anxiety and panic in your heart. She had gotten hooked into Alex’s tenderness and because of it, she was going to hurt more than ever.

  Alex had given up nothing. His life, in fact, was cozier than before. She had somehow cemented his friendships; his parents thought she would press him to finish school. But there he was, throwing himself in her way. “You think I’m crude, insensitive,” Nino had accused her. “But let me tell you, if I’m blunt it’s because I know what’s right and I don’t waste time fuzzying the truth. I put my cards on the table; you play the game or not.” She had thought the point wasn’t playing any game, but all the things that happened between moves. She was tired of everything being as black-and-white as Nino said. What really counts, she told herself, is texture and depth. Alex has that, she thought dryly. He has too much depth. She was beginning to lose her way in him. He knew how to make her feel obliged to make up for whatever his life lacked. She sat down heavily on the bench next to Laura, who was staring at the screen.

  “No change,” she said to Gina. “Nothing new. Is he back?”

  “No,” Gina said.

  They sat in silence.

  “So you’re still here?” they heard behind them. Turning, Gina saw Alex walking toward them. He shook his head. “I couldn’t believe you’d still be here.”

  “Where else would she be?” Laura asked pointedly. Alex blushed.

  Gina felt a rush of tenderness. He had regretted what he had said to her.

  Laura looked at the two of them and said nothing. Troubles come in bundles.

  “It’s been hours since you left,” Alex reminded Gina.

  “What did you expect?” Laura said wearily. “He doesn’t always make a quick decision.”

  “Who?”

  “Him,” Laura said, pointing up.

  “Relax,” Gina said. “Let Alex keep us company if he wants to.”

  “I don’t think that’s what he came for. Is that what you want?” Laura asked.

  “I’ll stay for a while,” he said uncomfortably.

  “You know,” Laura said earnestly, “I don’t have anything personal against you. The reason I don’t want you around is that you ruined our family.”

  “You’re very upset,” Alex said soothingly.

  “Of course I’m upset,” Laura answered. “Only an idiot wouldn’t be upset at a time like this. My daughter runs away, my husband
is dying. I would be out of my mind if that didn’t upset me.”

  “Somehow I don’t think he’ll die now,” Gina said.

  “To tell you the truth,” Laura said, “I’m beginning to think he isn’t ready to leave. I thought he was, before, but he looks less and less the way they do when they go.”

  “Then why are you sitting here all night?” Gina asked. “Why don’t we go home and come back tomorrow?”

  “Because he expects it,” Laura said. “It wouldn’t be right to go.”

  Gina moved into the room so she could see him directly instead of through the window. His color was better. He looked less gray than before. Alex came up behind her and stood beside the bed, looking down.

  “He does look really bad,” he murmured, chastened. “Why don’t you ask a doctor how he is? You can stay if you want to, but if he’s going to survive, it’s better to come back when he’s conscious.”

  “She won’t leave,” Gina said.

  “That’s her decision,” Alex answered.

  “I can’t leave her alone.”

  “I can’t stay all night,” he said.

  “I can’t go with you. Not now.”

  Whether it was their voices that roused him or just that he had turned some corner back to life, Nino opened his eyes. He gazed up through what seemed like a thick film and made out the bristling yellow outline of Alex’s beard.

  Gina reached for his hand. “Can you see me?” she said softly. “It’s Gina.”

  He gripped her hand weakly, his clawlike nails brushing her wrist. He looked at her. Her eyes filled with tears. Blinking them back, she could see him study her face, then shift his eyes to Alex. He murmured something. She leaned closer to hear, the tears falling down her cheeks, onto his pillow. He was murmuring the same words over and over. At first she couldn’t make out what they were. “He’s speaking Italian,” she said. “Go call Laura.” She pressed her face toward him. And she heard, finally, the round, smooth syllables he had been murmuring like a litany: “Putana, putana, putana. . . .”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, releasing his hand.

  She brushed past her mother. “He’ll be OK,” she said as Laura went past her to the bed. She walked so rapidly down the hall that Alex had trouble catching up.