The House

by Anjuelle Floyd

  Inside the hospital, Anna went to the information desk. “I’m looking for a young man, shaved head, black. He’s wearing a tan suit and olive tie.”

  “Try the clinic.” The young Korean receptionist pointed around the corner.

  Inquiring of Bryce in the clinic, Anna learned from the nurse, “They’ve taken his father to the hospital.”

  “His father?” Anna was stunned. Bryce’s father was dead, a fact that had drawn Bryce to work for Edward, who had become Bryce’s mentor.

  “Are you the young man’s mother?” the nurse asked.

  “Why, yes.” Anna gathered herself and furthered the interrogation. “Is Edward not doing well?” Anna took a chance and used Edward’s real name.

  “Dr. Dana thought it best to admit him to Berkeley General.” The nurse looked puzzled.

  Anna failed at all the rationalizations she tried forcing upon herself while driving from the cancer center at Hammond Hospital to Berkeley General. Steeped in uncertainty, she walked off the elevator onto the fifth floor of Berkeley General Hospital concerned and fearful. Had Bryce really come to see Edward? Perhaps Bryce was undergoing treatment, or maybe the nurse had been speaking about someone else, someone both he and Edward knew.

  Anna walked to the nurses’ station. “I’m looking for Mr. Manning’s room, Edward Manning.” Everything inside her hoped the nurse would say there was no Edward Manning on the floor.

  Instead the nurse said, “He’s at the end of the corridor. Last room on the right.”

  Anna’s skin burned with fear and dread. Steadily she approached the door, her right hand clutching the strap of the purse hanging from her shoulder.

  Her chest sank on hearing Edward’s voice. “Get the fuck out of here! I don’t want that shit. Get it away from me!”

  “You’ve got to take this, Edward. Let them help you.” It was Bryce.

  “I don’t have to let them do anything. And don’t try that Edward crap with me. It’s Mr. Manning to you. I’m old enough to be your old man.”

  “You are old enough to be my father. That’s why—”

  “Shut up and get the hell out of here.”

  Anna forced herself toward the hospital room. Reaching the doorway, she edged inside. A second, more intense, wave of nausea overtook her. Edward was lying on the hospital bed, his eyes full of fear and anger at being unable to control the situation.

  All heads turned to her. A moment of silence passed. Glancing back at Edward, Bryce moved to stand, then said to the nurse, “This is Mr. Manning’s wife.”

  “Ex-wife,” Edward said as Anna flashed her palm to Bryce indicating for him to remain seated. “Anna is my ex-wife,” Edward finished.

  The young nurse with cropped sandy hair smiled and extended her hand to Anna. “I’m Rachel, Mr. Manning’s nurse for this shift. I was helping him get settled.”

  “It’s good to meet you,” Anna managed.

  Rachel turned back to Edward, and said, “I’ll check on you later,” then left.

  Awkwardness set in. Bryce was avoiding Anna’s gaze as she said to him, “Could I perhaps have a moment with my husband?”

  Walking past her, he left, closing the door behind him.

  Anna drew a chair to Edward’s bedside. Moments passed as she considered the nature of their situation. Barely able to keep track of her thoughts, her mind settled.

  “When did you think I would find out? Better yet, when did you want me to find out?” she asked.

  “Never, if I had my way.” Edward stared at the ceiling.

  “Now that you haven’t told me, what can I do to help?”

  “Nothing short of making my chemotherapy work. Or take this cancer out of me.” He turned to the window spanning the wall across the room.

  “What are the doctors saying?”

  “Six months, perhaps only three.”

  Anna caught her breath and fought back tears. Fifteen months earlier she had filed for divorce. With their children educated, working, and three of them married, she had wanted nothing more to do with Edward and the life they had created. No more regretting that she had not applied to graduate school during her senior year in college, and had instead, married an up-and-coming real estate agent. That life was coming to an end, along with the hopes and wishes shattered by the disappointment of reality, and her new life was transitioning from wife to divorcée as Anna had configured.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said. “I never wanted it to be this way.

  “Nor did I,” said Edward. “Neither did I.” He continued staring at the ceiling, Anna wanting to hold him and say all would be okay, and yet knowing that it would not.?

  Chapter 3

  Three hours had come and gone following her graduation from San Francisco State when Anna introduced Edward to her parents, Elena and Reverend Elijah Chason. The four had eaten dinner together; Anna to the right of her mother at one end, and Edward to the right of Reverend Elijah at the other end. Edward conversed about his work in real estate since graduating Cal Berkeley two years earlier. Elena had said little. Her sharp eyes remained perched upon Edward as if she were an eagle, and he a fish that she was about to swoop down upon, lift from the river, and devour.

  Moments after Edward had left, Reverend Elijah retreated to the bedroom for prayer. Anna went to her mother who was sitting in the living room. Elena had been crocheting, her thin fingers moving smooth and meticulously. “I’m going back to San Francisco in the morning, to the courthouse,” Anna said. “I’m meeting Edward. We’re getting married.”

  “I hope you’re not pregnant.” Elena’s fingers never slowed, her eyes remaining focused upon interweaving the strands of white and yellow yarn with her needle.

  “Why would you think that?” Anna lowered herself onto the chair next to her mother. The clear plastic that covered the chair crackled underneath her. Plastic also covered the sofa and the chair on which Elena sat.

  “We all need affection,” she said without looking up. “... a show of love.” Elena had no affection toward Elijah or Anna. Affection was a commonality that bound Anna to her father. Bitterness, anger, and resentment were cloaked in Elena’s commitment to God. Anna had experienced her mother through a veneer of austerity that was stitched together by axioms such as Pride goeth before destruction. Godliness is next to cleanliness. To God be the Glory. For I am nothing. Elena crinkled her forehead. “I just hope you didn’t marry for the sake of a child just to give a name to someone you hope will love you.”

  Child. Someone. Anna’s head spun with the words. That’s what she had been to her mother. She slid back in her chair. The plastic crackled once more. Waste not, want not.

  Elena continued weaving the yarn as Anna took in the ordered fashion of the room. The sepia-colored framed photo of Elena’s mother was at one end of the fireplace mantel and a photo of Reverend Elijah’s father at the other end. The oak floor, like the mantel, had been devoid of dust. The Bible had been carefully centered upon the coffee table.

  Anna recalled meeting Edward. It had been mid-January 1971, nearly three years in the wake of Martin Luther King’s assassination, and for African Americans—a decade behind their Euro-American counterparts—the dawning of their sexual revolution during which they had been exploring the limits of their power. Twenty years old, Anna Nell Chason had been at a party hosted by a mutual friend when she caught Edward’s stolid gaze across the room. One year after graduating Cal Berkeley, he had seemed self-absorbed, held hostage by whatever imprisoned his thoughts. The loneliness Anna sensed enshrouding him had awakened her own hidden ache. She had wanted to heal him. Anna transferred her hopes and wishful desires of passion, the show of love she needed from Elena, to Ed ward whose financial ambitions burned with a fire that was lit by the poverty of spirit that also dwelled in Elena.

  Three weeks after they met on that cold, damp winter night in San Francisco, she and Edward began sleeping together. Anna had barely entered the spring semester of her junior year when she had placed her breast in h
is hands. Edward had settled his lips to hers, she supping, and he drinking to his fill from the river of unmet needs rising between them.

  “I’m pulling out,” he had said between kisses. He’d been refer ring to his decision to quit working for a San Francisco real estate company that had employed him since graduating college. The owner of the firm, a Jewish man who had escaped Germany during World War II, had mentored Edward during the last twelve months. Three weeks earlier Edward had received his license to sell real estate under his own name.

  “Don’t,” Anna had not been speaking of the company. Edward plunged deeper into her, his life source feeding her desires and sealing their moment of closeness.

  In the aftermath of their lovemaking, he explained. “I grew up not knowing what meal would be my last, and afraid that we wouldn’t survive. Every day Mama came home with almost as little as she had when she left that morning. Seems like the rent was always due. She was always handing over her checks to the landlord. We had no bank account. What little money, if any was left, went for food.” The icy stoicism that had caught Anna’s attention and drawn her to Edward overtook him. His body appeared to go hard like an arrow. He clinched his jaw. “She worked for a doctor, cleaned his office, and the offices of the other doctors.” Edward seemed sad. Then a bitter anger arose. “She was also his mistress, the doctor who hired her. He gave her drugs, prescriptions, to keep her going. She loved him.”

  The stimulants and relaxants Violet Manning received from the doctor delivered a semblance of balance in a world that was strewn with poverty, disrespect, and overwork, yet it never allowed her to reach a plateau of freedom.

  “He got her other cleaning jobs. That’s how we made it.” The light that had burned in Edward’s amber pupils from moments earlier when discussing plans for his real estate business drained from his eyes. Anna felt death sliding over her body. Craving to escape her mother, she reached for Edward’s hand, drew up the covers, and nudged into his chest. She kissed him. He entered her again. The more Anna received of Edward, the more she wanted. And so it continued until Anna’s graduation.

  Anna and Edward had been seeing each other for a nearly a year and a half when Anna graduated college. Anna’s parents had headed back to their car once the commencement services were finished. It was Mother’s Day 1972 and Anna’s heart was full of determination not to return to where she had started. An ache spread through her chest as she walked with Edward. He had sat in a different section of the stadium away from Elena and Reverend Elijah during the graduation services. He would be driving her home to meet them in an hour.

  Anna had given herself to this man and revealed her vulnerability. With no job prospects, she would be dependent on her parents, something she hadn’t thought of when committing to art history as her major. Still wearing her graduation gown, and with cap in hand, she said, “Where do we go from here?”

  “There’s not much I can offer you.” Edward pocketed his hands and angled the heel of his right shoe toward the pavement. “I’m not what you think.”

  “I can’t go back there,” Anna said, speaking of home. “I won’t.”

  “With this degree,” Edward opened her diploma and perused it, “You could do a lot with a house.”

  Like turn it into a museum? Anna silently mused. Or make it a home. She had loved studying the art treasures of Rome, Greece, and Northern Africa and the masterpieces housed in the Louvre of Paris and other museums around Europe.

  “I’m not your father,” Edward said. “I’m immunized against poverty. I may die poor, but it won’t be because I haven’t tried.” Anna quelled the cautious excitement pouring into her stomach. “I’ll give you a home,” he said. “No matter what it takes.”

  We all need a show of affection, devotion, a home. Elena’s words would remain alive long after Anna introduced Edward to her parents. Throughout her marriage, with Edward away on long business trips, she would recall her determination not to return to living with her parents.

  Chapter 4

  A young man with the name Dr. Grimes embroidered above the pocket of his white coat entered the hospital room.

  “This is my oncologist,” Edward said.

  Anna stood and extended her hand. “Anna Manning. Edward’s wife.”

  “Paul Grimes. Pleased to meet you.” The young physician’s eyes glittered with surprise. He glanced down upon Edward lying in bed, and then back to Anna. “Will you be helping Edward in the coming weeks?”

  “It’s time for you to go, Grimes,” Edward barked.

  “As your physician, Mr. Manning, I have to ask these questions.”

  “Don’t try that shit with me. Mr. Manning is for an old man. I’m not dead yet.” Edward threw back the covers, swung his legs around, and placed both feet on the floor. “You’ll get the answers when I give them.” The contradiction Edward exhibited toward being called Mr. Manning surprised Anna.

  “Okay, Edward, let’s talk about what the next couple of months are going to be like in that—”

  Edward stood. “You may be knowledgeable in what you’re doing, but one thing you seemed to have forgotten, Dr. Grimes, is that this is still my life.” Edward poked his forefinger on his chest pointing to himself. “These next few months are mine.”

  “I don’t think he meant it that way,” Anna chided Edward.

  “The only way he can help me is to continue my chemo. And since he won’t do that—” Edward brushed past Grimes and headed for the closet.

  “Where will you go?” the young oncologist asked.

  “I sure as hell won’t die here.” Edward began pulling his clothes from the hangers.

  “Contrary to what you may think,” Grimes said on approaching Edward, “I care about my patients, each and every one of them. I want to know what’s going to happen to them once they leave the hospital.”

  “You mean you feel guilty for having failed at your job, giving me the death slip,” Edward said.

  “Mr. Manning, Edward, the chemo is not working.” The oncologist spoke to Edward’s back.

  “I said I’d pay for more.” Edward turned from dressing; fear shadowed the amber hue of his eyes. Edward was fighting a battle that neither his money nor his craftiness or expertise could help him win. “I can’t give the order for more chemo,” Grimes said. “I won’t.” Edward clinched his fist.

  “Your system can’t tolerate another round,” Grimes said. “The chemotherapy is robbing you of valuable time. You may have already lost weeks. It’s killing you.” The oncologist’s shoulders slumped.

  A solemn silence overtook the room. Like Bryce and all young men who worked under Edward Manning, Dr. Grimes had submitted himself as one of Edward’s followers. He revered Edward as a god. Now life had summoned the deity from his pedestal to enter the world of mortals.

  What can I ever say to David and Theo? Anna pondered. Outside Edward’s hospital room, Grimes explained the prognosis. “Mrs. Manning, your husband—”

  “Please call me Anna.”

  A faint smile stole upon Grimes’ lips. The name tag above the pocket covering his heart seemed to pulsate. “Anna, your husband is dying from advanced stage gall bladder cancer.”

  “How much time does he have?”

  “Five months at the most, six if we’re lucky,” Grimes said.

  It was then late August. Anna took in a deep breath. Her heart settled.

  “In my estimation, three is your safest bet for clearing up all financial and emotional matters.”

  Anna’s hands grew cold. She felt even more nauseated. She looked at the nameplate beside the doorway, Edward Manning, then glimpsed at Edward back in the hospital room. He was fully dressed and ready to leave.

  “This is hard work you do,” she said to Grimes.

  “Patients like your husband are the worst.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that. I was married to him for over thirty years.” Anna fought back tears with a bitter smile.

  “I thought you were still married.”
Grimes frowned. “You said you were his wife.”

  “Technically, I am. We’ve been undergoing divorce proceedings for the last year.” Anna glanced at her watch. Two-thirty. Henderson would be filing the papers at 3 P.M. She needed to call him.

  “I appreciate your honesty.” Anna ended the conversation and started back to Edward’s room.

  “Anna,” the young oncologist called after her, “what I said about Edward being the most difficult of patients—I didn’t mean that in a negative way.” He walked toward her. “People like your husband have fight, spirit, and gumption. They’re willing to work with their doctor.” A misty sheen slid over Grimes’ dark eyes. His brown face took on a sad glow. “But despite everything, I can’t save them.”

  “I know.” Anna touched Dr. Grimes’ hand and left.

  Nurses whisked past Anna as she moved in stride with the family members of other patients and continued toward the end of the corridor. Reaching an alcove, she sat on the couch and dialed Henderson.

  “I was worried,” he answered when Anna spoke.

  “I’m here at the hospital with Edward.”

  “Hospital?”

  “It’s a long story. No, in fact, it’s quite short. Edward is dying of cancer.”

  Henderson’s silence revealed his shock.

  “I don’t want you to file the divorce papers,” she said.