Grand Avenue

by Joy Fielding

  Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks.” Susan smiled at Vicki, who sat erect beside her, her canary yellow pantsuit clashing with the too pink walls and burgundy vinyl furniture of the hospital waiting room. The August sun streamed in the windows through thin venetian blinds, casting dark shadows, like the stripes of a zebra, across the white linoleum floor. Stacks of surprisingly up-to-date magazines sat on various small tables scattered around the large room. Artificially cold air blew toward their faces from several nearby vents. Susan wondered how it was possible for a room to be too hot, too cold, and airless all at the same time. “I can’t tell you how much your being here means to me. I know how busy you are.”

  “Slow day,” Vicki said.

  Susan knew Vicki was lying, that she’d probably canceled several appointments to be here.

  “How’s she doing?” Vicki asked.

  “Not good.”

  “What do the doctors say?”

  “That there’s nothing more they can do, that she probably won’t last the week.” Susan glanced down the long hospital corridor toward the room in which her mother, barely recognizable beneath the ill-fitting blond wig Susan had bought her when she’d started losing her hair, lay sleeping. Years of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation had reduced the poor woman to less than half her normal weight, robbed her of the strength she needed to fight the unmerciful progression of her cancer.

  Vicki nodded understanding, clasped Susan’s hand inside her own. “What can I do for you?”

  “You’re doing it.”

  “Do you need me to call anyone? Your brother and sister …?”

  “Kenny’s flying in tonight. I’m still working up the nerve to call Diane.”

  Susan pictured her older brother and younger sister, the tortoise and the hare, her mother had once jokingly referred to them. Kenny was tall, stocky, sedentary, whereas Diane was gaunt, wiry, and never able to sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. While Kenny moved slowly and methodically through the various stages of his life, Diane, for all her excess energy, always seemed to be running around in circles. Running away, Susan decided now, remembering how her sister had fled when she’d emerged from the water with her legs covered in leeches. Not much had changed in the ensuing decades. Her sister was still running away from even the vaguest hint of unpleasantness.

  “The last time I spoke to Diane, she said she’d love to come see Mom,” Susan told Vicki now, “but it was a real bad time for her. I think the moon, or something, was in the wrong planet. I don’t know.”

  “Why don’t I try her for you now?” Vicki offered.

  Susan scribbled her sister’s Los Angeles phone number on a scrap piece of paper she found in her purse and handed it to Vicki, watching as her friend approached the pay phone on the far wall. Poor Vicki, Susan thought. She has no idea what she’s in for.

  Diane was one of those people who thought death was contagious. When her husband had died of a sudden heart attack in his sleep five years earlier, Diane had thrown out not only the sheets, but the bed as well. She’d immediately put their house in Westwood up for sale and moved into a small cottage in the Hollywood hills. There were no children because she’d always been convinced she’d die in childbirth; she refused to fly because she was absolutely certain the plane would crash; she even had a thing about driving over bridges.

  “I don’t think the doctors expect her to last that long,” Susan heard Vicki say quietly into the phone. “No, I understand that. It’s just that …”

  Susan took a deep breath and forced herself out of her chair, her brown cotton pants sticking to the vinyl of the seat, making a rude sucking noise as she pulled away. “I better speak to her,” she whispered, holding out her hand for the phone. Vicki might be a genius when it came to handling wily criminals and clever DAs, but she’d never run up against anyone quite like Diane.

  “You know I really want to be there,” Diane whined as soon as Susan said hello. “It’s just that this is a real bad time for me.”

  The correct word is really, not real. It’s an adverb, Susan wanted to shout. Instead she said, “There isn’t much time left.”

  “Aren’t you being a tad melodramatic?”

  Susan had always hated the word tad. She had to bite down on her tongue to keep from screaming.

  “She’s been like this for months now,” Diane insisted.

  Susan heard the puff of her sister’s ever-present cigarette. “This is different.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I’m here every day.”

  “And I’m not, is that it? Is that what this is really about?”

  “It’s about our mother,” Susan said slowly, picturing the ashes of Diane’s cigarette hanging precariously from their filter, then breaking off and falling toward the floor, scattering in the air like dust. “Who is dying.”

  “She’ll get better.”

  “She’ll get worse.”

  “You’re being obstinate.”

  “You’re being obtuse.”

  “Hang up,” Vicki instructed impatiently from beside Susan. “Don’t waste your breath.”

  “Who is that?” Diane demanded. “Did she just tell you to hang up on me?”

  “Diane, I have to go.”

  “Look, I’ll see what I can do,” Diane said grudgingly, exhaling a long puff of smoke from her lungs into Susan’s ear.

  “That’d be great,” Susan said, hanging up the phone.

  “Isn’t she a charmer,” Vicki said.

  Susan laughed, thinking of her older daughter. “I guess there’s one in every family.”

  “Ariel still giving you a hard time?” Vicki asked, as if she had access to Susan’s brain.

  Susan shrugged, sinking back into a waiting chair. “I don’t know how my mother did it. She was always so calm, so fair. I don’t remember her ever raising her voice in anger.” Susan shook her head in wonderment. “I try so hard to be like her.”

  “Just be yourself.”

  “I’m always yelling. I don’t remember my mother ever yelling at me the way I yell at Ariel.”

  “That’s because you aren’t your mother, and Ariel isn’t you. It’s a whole different dynamic. Trust me, I bet your mother yelled plenty at Diane.”

  “You think?”

  “You’re a great mother, Susan. Stop being so hard on yourself.”

  “Ariel hates me.”

  “Of course she hates you. That’s her job.”

  Susan smiled gratefully, collapsing against Vicki’s side as the other woman wrapped her arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  “So am I.” Vicki kissed the top of Susan’s head.

  The two women rocked gently together, the sound of their breathing filling the room. Gradually, Susan became aware of other voices, other people—a couple whispering in the far corner, a man flipping through the bathing suit issue of Sports Illustrated, a woman trying to read a book through eyes blinded by a steady stream of tears. “I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle this.”

  “You’ll handle it.”

  “I’m not ready to let her go.”

  “I don’t think children are ever ready to let go of their parents,” Vicki agreed, a sadness in her voice Susan hadn’t heard before. “You know, I could really use a cup of coffee. How about you?”

  “Okay,” Susan said. “Double cream. No sugar.”

  “Be back in a few minutes.”

  “I’ll be in with my mother.”

  Susan watched Vicki until she was out of sight, then she pushed herself off her chair and walked down the quiet hospital corridor. Her mind had long ago absorbed the steady flow of hospital sounds—bells ringing, carts being wheeled across the floor, announcements over the PA, patients moaning behind half-closed doors—so that she barely heard them now. They blew past her ears like a train whistle in the distance.

  She reached the door to her mother’s semiprivate room and pushed it open slowl
y, afraid of what she might see. “Hello, Mrs. Unger,” she said to the sweet-faced, white-haired woman in the bed beside her mother, and the woman smiled her response, although her eyes shone with the blank stare of someone who had no idea who she was. “Hi, Mom.” Susan sank into one of the two chairs pushed up against her mother’s hospital bed, lifting her head to her mother only gradually, preparing herself for her matte gray pallor, for the skin stretched so tightly across her face it seemed in danger of splitting in half, for the eyes riddled with confusion and pain. But her mother’s eyes were closed, her face relaxed. Susan’s breath caught in her lungs as she listened for sounds of her mother’s breathing, heard none.

  Only when she saw a slight twitch beneath the hospital sheets did she know her mother was still alive. Susan stilled the trembling hand beneath the bedcovers with her own, although it too was trembling, and kissed her mother’s chalky, dry forehead, dislodging the too blond wig that sat atop her head like a lopsided beret. Susan pictured her mother’s natural hair, how each strand had always stayed exactly in place from one washing to the next, not requiring so much as a comb to touch it up. Her mother’s hair had been one of the marvels of Susan’s childhood, she recalled now, trying to adjust the wig without disturbing her mother. She sank back in her chair, straining for a comfortable position. “Kenny’s flying in from New York tonight. And I spoke to Diane. She’s going to get here as soon as she can. So you better perk up.” Susan swallowed the threat of tears. “You know how Diane is around sick people.”

  “Diane’s coming?” her mother asked without opening her eyes or moving her lips.

  Was it possible Susan had imagined she’d said anything at all? “Yes, Mom, she’s trying to make arrangements right now.”

  “I must be very sick,” her mother said, lips twitching into a smile.

  “No, in fact you’re doing very well. The doctor said he saw a definite improvement.”

  “Susan.” Her mother opened her eyes, said nothing further, as if Susan’s name had exhausted all her strength.

  “I don’t want to hear any negative talk. You know how important they say it is for you to think positively.”

  “They aren’t the ones in constant pain,” her mother whispered slowly.

  “Are you in pain now, Mom? Do you want me to get you something for it?”

  Her mother nodded slowly. Immediately Susan buzzed for the nurse.

  “We’ll get you something, Mom.”

  Several long minutes later, a nurse appeared in the doorway. She was tall and angular. Small, wireless glasses balanced on the tip of her long, patrician nose.

  “My mother’s in pain,” Susan said, trying to keep the sharpness out of her voice. What had taken the stupid woman so long to respond to her buzz? “She needs some medication.”

  “I’ll check with the doctor,” the nurse said, gone before Susan had a chance to say more.

  “Would you like some water, Mom?” Susan realized she felt as helpless with her mother as she did with her older child. Mothers and daughters, she thought. Is there any relationship in the world more complicated, more fraught?

  Susan filled a glass with water from the pitcher on the nightstand beside the bed and extended it toward her mother’s cracked lips. She watched her mother sip dutifully at the clear liquid, although she doubted any reached her throat. “I love you, Mom.”

  “I love you too, darling.”

  “There’s so much I want to say to you.”

  “You have a captive audience.” Her mother tried to smile, winced instead.

  Susan blinked back tears, stilled the quivering in her jaw. Could she say all that needed to be said, all that was in her heart, without breaking down? “I just want to thank you,” she began slowly. “For everything you’ve done for me. For helping me with the kids. For always being there when I need you. For loving me. For taking such good care of me all my life.”

  Tears slowly trickled down her mother’s cheeks.

  She understands I’m saying good-bye, Susan realized. “I want you to know what a privilege it’s been to know you,” she said, crying openly now. “You’ve been the best mother a girl could ever hope to have. And I love you so much.”

  “It’s been my pleasure, darling,” her mother said, trying to smile, crying out in pain instead.

  Susan was immediately on her feet. “Where does it hurt, Mom?”

  “Everywhere.”

  Susan looked anxiously toward the door. “The nurse should be back in a minute with the medication.” Where was that damn woman? What was taking her so long? If she didn’t come back soon, if she didn’t come back right this second, then Susan was going to write an angry letter to the hospital. No, forget that. She’d write an article for the Cincinnati Post. She’d make sure this issue got the attention it deserved, even if it meant suing the hospital. Patients shouldn’t be forced to suffer needlessly. Her mother shouldn’t have to spend her last days in excruciating pain.

  As if on cue, the door swung open. “Thank God,” Susan said. Only it wasn’t the nurse. It was an orderly with the food cart. The orderly was short and black, and his head was as bald and shiny as a bowling ball. “Dinnertime,” he announced.

  Susan checked her watch. It was barely four o’clock in the afternoon.

  “It’s the early-bird special,” the orderly said, answering the look in Susan’s eyes as he lifted the covers from the plates. “Let’s see what you ladies ordered. Roast beef in a yummy-looking beige sauce for Mrs. Unger, and chicken in a yummy-looking beige sauce for Mrs. Hill. Good choice, ladies,” he said, depositing the food on the appropriate trays. “And let’s not forget the lime Jell-O for Mrs. Unger, and the cherry Jell-O for Mrs. Hill. Personally, I prefer the cherry. Bon appétit.” He waved on his way out the door.

  Susan stood for several seconds staring at the unappetizing display. “Well, doesn’t this look … awful,” she said, unable to lie. Just because the cancer had reached her mother’s brain didn’t make her an idiot. “What do you think, Mom? Think you’re up for some cherry Jell-O?”

  Her mother’s answer was a sharp cry of pain.

  “Okay, that’s it. Where’s that damn nurse?” Susan looked frantically toward the door as her mother’s plaintive moans filled the room. “Try to hold on, Mom. I’m going to get a doctor. I’ll be right back.” She ran to the door. “I’ll be right back.”

  Susan raced down the hall to the nurses’ station. Three nurses sat chatting behind the counter. None looked up as Susan approached. “Excuse me,” Susan said, banging on the countertop, securing their attention. “I asked a nurse for painkillers ten minutes ago. My mother is in agony.”

  “Could you lower your voice please?” one of the nurses said from her seat behind her computer.

  “Could you get up off your ass and get my mother something for her pain?” Susan shot back.

  The oldest of the nurses stood up, approached Susan slowly, cautiously. “Okay, can you just calm down now? We don’t want to scare the other patients.”

  “We don’t give a damn about the other patients,” Susan told her. “We just want to get my mother some morphine.”

  “Please try to keep your voice down,” the nurse, whose black skin was topped by a short mop of curly, orange hair, advised. “Your mother is …?”

  “Roslyn Hill. In room four oh seven.”

  The nurse checked her chart. “Mrs. Hill had a shot of morphine at two o’clock this afternoon. She isn’t due for another one until six.”

  “She’s in pain right now.”

  “I’m sorry.” The nurse lowered the chart to the desk.

  “That’s it? You’re sorry?”

  “There’s nothing I can do.”

  “I want to speak to Dr. Wertman.”

  “Dr. Wertman isn’t here right now.”

  “Then I want to speak to another doctor. Any doctor.”

  “I already spoke to Dr. Zarb,” one of the other nurses piped up, the same sharp-featured nurse who’d responded to her
mother’s buzzer. She looks exhausted, Susan thought, refusing to feel sympathy. “He says he’d prefer to wait at least another hour.”

  “Really? And would he prefer to wait another hour if he were the one with cancer?”

  “Please, Mrs. Hill …”

  “It’s Mrs. Norman. My mother is Mrs. Hill. She’s the patient, and she has cancer. That cancer has spread from her breasts to her lymph nodes to her lungs and her spine and now her brain. She is terminal. And she is in horrendous pain. And you just sit here and do nothing.” Susan looked helplessly down the long corridor, watched it blur with her tears as her voice echoed down the hall. “I don’t understand you. My mother is dying. What would be the harm in giving her more painkillers? Are you afraid she’ll become addicted? Is that it? Are you afraid she’ll die a drug addict?”

  “Susan?” Vicki was suddenly beside her. “Susan, what’s the matter? Has something happened?”

  “My mother’s in horrible pain, and nobody will help her.”

  “I’ll try to contact Dr. Wertman,” the third nurse volunteered.

  “Please try to calm down, Mrs. Norman,” the second nurse advised. “Your hysteria won’t help your mother.”

  “Fuck you!” Susan’s arms flailed wildly at the air as she took off down the hall accidentally knocking the Styrofoam cups filled with hot coffee from Vicki’s hands.

  Vicki trailed after her. “Susan …”

  “Please don’t tell me to calm down.”

  “I don’t want you to calm down. I want you to wait up.”

  Susan stopped, took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I spilled coffee all over you.”

  “No. Mostly you got the floor.”

  “Think they’ll call security?”

  “Let them try,” Vicki said as they reached room 407, and entered the room together.

  Susan’s mother was lying in bed, her neck and back arched in pain, her eyes tightly closed, bony hands clawing at the bedsheets.

  “Oh, God, look at her,” Susan whispered, her hand covering her mouth. “She’s in such pain.” She approached the bed, collapsed into the chair beside it, cried softly.

  Her mother opened her eyes, used all her strength to raise her head from the pillow. “What’s the matter, baby?” she asked Susan. And then another spasm ripped through her body and she cried out, a loud, piercing scream that brought the nurses running, and a young doctor scrambling for medication. Susan watched gratefully as the resident administered a shot of morphine, felt her mother’s twisted body gradually begin to unravel and stretch out, the lines on her face uncreasing, like a crumpled piece of paper relaxing in an open fist.