by Sarah Smiley
Oh, my gosh! Is that what I just said?
He picked up the chart and started to make notes.
“Yes, and I think I read something on the Internet about that being a sign of some disease,” I said.
“I’ve told you to quit reading that stuff on the Internet,” he said, smiling.
“I know. I know.” I covered my face with my hands.
“Well,” he said, “there is a metabolic disease involving amino acids which can present itself with urine that smells like syrup, but Owen had a PKU test after birth.” Dr. Ashley stood up and kicked away the rolling chair with his foot. “Nevertheless, let’s get him undressed and do a little exam.”
I took Owen out of his carrier and took off his footed pajamas and diaper. He wriggled and cried when the cold air hit his stomach, but Dr. Ashley was thoughtful as always and rubbed his hands together briskly before touching him. Then he was poking and probing around Owen’s groin.
I had to look away.
“I think that purple tint you’re seeing is normal,” Dr. Ashley said. I heard the latex gloves snap as he took them off. It was safe to look again.
“He’s still recovering from the circumcision and things will be irritated for a while,” Dr. Ashley said. Then he turned around and searched through a drawer cluttered with tongue depressors, Band-Aids, and cotton balls.
Owen’s chart was lying on the paper-covered exam table and I inched closer to peek at it. There, in all capital letters, it said: MOTHER EXTREMELY ANXIOUS. COMPLAINS OF SYRUP SMELL AND PURPLE PENIS.
Oh, no! That was going in his permanent record? Mother “extremely anxious”?
Dr. Ashley turned back around and I quickly looked up from the chart.
“As far as the smell goes,” he said, “it may be a reaction to something he’s sensitive to in the breast milk. But I’m not worried about it.”
I blinked when he said “breast.”
“Now,” he said with a sudden loudness and clapped his hands together, “go ahead and get Owen dressed and back in his carrier. I’ll give you a few moments to get yourself into one of the paper robes on the counter, and then I’ll be back with an assistant to do your exam.”
He winked and patted my shoulder before turning to leave and closing the door behind him.
My heart was pounding in my throat. I looked over at Ford sitting in a plastic waiting chair with a Superman book in his lap. His chubby shoulders were hunched over and his short legs stuck straight out across the seat. He was absorbed in the picture book and didn’t notice me, but I felt my eyes moisten when he distractedly bounced the heel of one of his chunky white tennis shoes on the plastic edge of the seat. He looked so much like his dad, it was stunning, and I wondered why I had never noticed the resemblance until just then.
When Dr. Ashley returned a few minutes later, I was sitting on the exam table, completely naked—except for my watch—and wearing a mint green paper gown like a toga.
I chewed on my thumb and stared at my feet dangling from the table. My knees were purple from the cold, and that made me feel somewhat like a child sitting at the lunch table with a carton of milk. Plus I had red bumps up and down my shins from shaving.
Dr. Ashley sat down on the round twirling stool and looked at me with a thoughtful frown.
“I’ve decided to wait a moment before we do the exam,” he said. “My assistant will be here shortly. But first I want to talk with you. You seem a little on edge, Sarah. Where’s the peppy girl I know?” He playfully punched at my shoulder. “Where’s that smile? Is there something on your mind?”
“What would be wrong?” I said with a little laugh. “Besides the purple . . . um . . . thing, and pancake smell, everything is great.”
“Come on, Sarah,” he said. “I know you better than that by now.”
I instinctively ran my fingers through my hair.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” he said again.
My eyes met his and suddenly I relaxed. “Well, Dustin left for deployment,” I sighed. “They weren’t supposed to leave for a few more months, but with everything that’s going on . . . but I’m doing fine. Really.”
A crease formed between Dr. Ashley’s eyebrows. His head was tilted slightly back, and he seemed to be studying me from underneath the rim of his glasses. I knew by the way he turned the corners of his lips down that he saw right through me.
“And you’re scared, aren’t you?” he said.
I waved my hand. “Oh, gosh, no. Are you kidding me? I’ve done this before. . . .” My voice trailed off and started to crack.
Don’t cry, I told myself. Whatever you do, don’t cry.
I tried to smile but my lips were quivering.
Dr. Ashley stood and handed me a tissue just as tears spilled down my cheeks. “Thanks,” I said and dabbed at my eyes. “Oh, God, I didn’t mean to cry. How stupid.”
He put a hand on my shoulder, and the paper gown crinkled. “This is an emotional time for you,” he said. “You just had a baby and your husband’s gone. No wonder you’re a little on edge. But I have faith in you, Sarah.” He was squeezing my shoulder. “I’ve seen you coming in and out of this office for ten months now, and I know that anyone who can break her elbow tripping over a baby gate and then refuse pain medicine in the ER is someone who can deal with anything.”
I laughed and blew my nose. “I only refused the pain medicine because I was afraid it would make me loopy. Basically I was more afraid of the medicine than I was of the pain.”
Dr. Ashley grinned. “I know,” he said softly. “But trust me. You’re going to be fine. And I’m here to help you.”
I straightened my back, took a deep breath, and said, “I don’t want to get upset right now. If I break down, I might never stop. Let’s just go ahead with the exam.”
He stared at me a moment while I sniffled and wiped away more tears. Then he said, “All right,” and walked back to his clipboard.
“By the way,” he said, looking up, “the nurse noted that your heart rate was a little fast today. That’s unusual for you, so I think I want to follow up on it.”
I put two fingers at my throat and felt my pulse.
“Are you nervous about something, Sarah?” Dr. Ashley said.
Yes, having your hands under this gown, I thought. But what I said was: “Well, I did walk up five flights of stairs to get here.”
“What? Why didn’t you take the elevator?”
I smiled. “I’m afraid of elevators. I thought you knew that. Didn’t you know I walked eight flights to labor and delivery the day Owen was born?”
“Interesting,” he said under his breath. He stared at me and his eyes seemed to be searching me in a reflective way that I had never experienced from a doctor before. “Well, anyway,” he said, shaking his head as if coming out of a trance, “I’m going to write down the name of a counselor at Fleet and Family Support. If you think it might help to talk to someone, give them a call.” He scribbled something in the chart and looked up at me again. Our eyes met for a second, but then I looked away.
“Right now, though, I think you should take care of that one over there.” Dr. Ashley pointed with his pen at Ford and I turned to look at him. He had gotten into my purse and scattered lipstick and tampons and money across the floor.
“Oh, my gosh,” I said, jumping down from the table. “Ford, I told you not to touch the hospital floor!”
“I’m sorry, Momma,” he said. “Waterless soap?”
Dr. Ashley laughed.
I bent down to pick up my wallet and a box of baby wipes, and when I did, I felt a rush of air go up my backside. Clutching the edges of the gown closed behind me with one hand, I shrieked and spun around.
Dr. Ashley was covering his smile with a hand. He stepped forward and bent down to pick up a small blue rectangular book off the floor. He handed it to me and said, “Here, you don’t want to forget this.”
“The checkbook!” I whispered. “He left the checkbook.” I meant to say this to mys
elf, but Dr. Ashley heard and said, “You didn’t want Dustin to leave you with the checkbook?”
I flipped through the pages filled with Dustin’s minuscule markings and arithmetic. “I’ve barely even looked inside this thing except to write checks,” I said.
When I looked back up, my eyes met Dr. Ashley’s and he smiled. “You’re something else,” he said, patting my shoulder. “Dustin’s a lucky man.”
He gathered up my charts. “I’m going to go get the attendant so we can start your exam,” he said. “But before I forget, I want to give you this.” He handed me a small piece of paper with an advertisement for Viagra across the top and a phone number scribbled in the middle. I already had the appointment-line number, but this one looked different.
“Now listen,” he said, “if you need anything—anything at all—just give me a call.”
I tucked the paper into my purse and said, “Thanks.”
“I’ll be back in a minute.”
Dr. Ashley’s assistant played with Ford and cooed at Owen while I lay with my feet in the stirrups, chattering nonstop from nerves.
“I’ve always thought of you as more of a friend than a doctor,” I said to Dr. Ashley.
“Uh-huh,” he said distractedly. Metal instruments clinked together on a tray.
“The only difference,” I said, “is that you see me naked ninety percent of the time.”
Dr. Ashley peered up at me with a surprised look on his face.
I am such an idiot.
“So how about incontinence?” he asked.
“Inconti-what?”
“Your urination. Do you feel like you’re going to the bathroom often?”
“Nope! All good!”
He slid across the room with the rolling chair and peeled off his rubber gloves before tossing them like a basketball into a trash can. “So everything looks great,” he said.
Everything?
I pulled myself up on my elbows and Dr. Ashley lent his hand and helped me sit up.
“You’re good for another year,” he said and gathered up my chart.
“Hey, thanks for everything,” I said. “I mean, you always know exactly—”
Dr. Ashley smiled. “Don’t mention it,” he said. “Anything for my favorite patient. And remember, call me anytime.”
His favorite?
He walked to Ford and tousled the top of his fine hair. “Take care of your mom,” he said. “She’s a special lady.”
Then Dr. Ashley closed the door behind himself and the assistant, and for a moment I felt like a piece of me had walked out with him.
I was alone again.
6
YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF
It was Friday afternoon and the weekend was ahead of me. Most military wives will tell you that weekends are the worst, because that’s when other families—families that are intact—take trips to the zoo, attend birthday parties, and share a pan of lasagna over a loud, but lively, dinner table. That’s when the reality of being a family separated by an entire ocean and a few continents becomes painfully obvious.
There is no easy way to get around the inevitable pain when you see your neighbor’s husband come home and take his kids outside to play ball, but some wives fill the void by taking up a new hobby. They become interested in art, yoga, or learning a new language. Some even go back to school.
But these ventures all require money, so our Spouse Club came up with something entirely different and a lot less intellectual: BUNCO. I’m not even sure I liked BUNCO, but staying home alone and missing Dustin was not an option if I wanted to survive.
Jody was hosting the game at her house on this particular night, so I left the boys with Lauren and showed up early to help with the preparations: tossing baseball bats and Matchbox cars into random closets, and stowing away the stack of romance novels Jody kept on the back of her guest bathroom toilet.
I opened the front door and let myself in without knocking. “Jody?” My voice echoed off the bare walls and floors.
“Come in, Sarah,” she yelled from a back room. “I’m giving the boys a bath.”
I walked through the kitchen and smelled Lysol and Mop & Glo. That was encouraging. But then I rounded the corner and came into the living room, where Michael’s bicycle was leaning against the purple-and-green-plaid sofa.
It was good that I had come early.
I looked around the cluttered room, wondering where to start first. Jody’s house was so much like herself: simple, unrefined, and sporty. She is not at all interested in home decor. In fact, I think she once threatened me with eating canned ravioli if I ever brought a copy of Martha Stewart Living into her home again.
Whereas I consider painting the walls of my house various shades of red and brown just as necessary as unpacking and plugging in the toaster, Jody prefers to leave hers “the way they came.” The three most decorative items in her house were a framed print of a moose, which hung above the couch, café curtains in the kitchen with lighthouses on them, and a fake (although very lifelike) squirrel that sat atop the television and changed his attire with the seasons.
I passed Mr. Squirrel and felt compelled to pet him. I always imagined his eyes following me like those of the Mona Lisa. But on this night, he was still wearing a red Santa hat, and that disturbed me.
Michael and Brandon streaked through the living room, giggling and leaving a trail of wet carpet. Jody came after them with a handful of wet towels.
“You need to take down that Santa hat,” I said. “It’s depressing me.”
“Not until Valentine’s Day,” she said, “when Mr. Squirrel can put on his red sweater.” She ducked into the laundry room and called out over her shoulder, “If it bothers you, just don’t look at it.”
She was always so practical.
The rest of the wives arrived in spurts, until soon Jody’s cavernous house was bustling with gaggles of women clustered in cliques and doing the mandatory party talk.
I watched the parade of high heels, painted nails, and blond highlights. Each woman was so different, yet fundamentally alike, and all of us were alone. Spending the evening with them was like visiting family. It was just as painful and tedious as talking to my husband’s aunt’s niece’s boyfriend at Thanksgiving dinner, but also felt just as necessary. As much as I disliked some of the other wives, in that moment, with our husbands out at sea, we were bonded in a way I could feel, but couldn’t necessarily define.
Besides playing BUNCO, we were also welcoming a new spouse to the Club (Lynette) and celebrating the recent engagement of Trish, whose fiancé hastily popped the question after receiving news of the sudden detachment-now-turned-deployment. In an unexpected gesture, Jody had made a congratulatory cake in the shape of a diamond ring. I didn’t even know Jody could bake. She also pulled out decorations from her own wedding to use as centerpieces. In the center of each rickety folding table were light blue fabric flowers sticking up from bud vases of etched glass, and tapered candles leaned precariously from porcelain holders shaped like doves. The candles showed no signs of having been burned before, and I wondered why Jody hadn’t lit them at her own reception six years before. Then again, did I really want to ask? Anything was possible with Jody and Steve. Their cake topper had been R2-D2 and C-3P0 from Star Wars.
For the first round of BUNCO, I sat at a table with Lynette, Courtney, and Trish. I was surprised by how much Lynette reminded me of my mom. It wasn’t just her shoulder-length, flipped-out hair that was so black and straight, it almost looked blue, or the way she smelled like Chanel No. 5; rather, it was mostly because she claimed to be an e-Bay fanatic and to love anything vintage or antique. As I listened to Lynette talk about her “sales,” I had flashbacks to my last few years living at home, when the upstairs hallway was always cluttered with boxes and bubble wrap and Mom’s odd e-Bay finds, like the antique dolls that were shipped with the bodies in one box and the heads in another. The rubber of the dolls was so old, it was sticky, and I still hav
e nightmares of them coming to life and chasing me through a garage, only I can’t get away because my feet are sticking to packaging tape on the floor. It’s because of stuff like this, plus the fact that no furniture in my childhood home was less than a hundred years old, that I steer clear of anything “gently used.”
Soon the conversation switched to Trish’s wedding plans, because that’s the direction all brides-to-be steer conversations. And like romance-starved lunatics, we probed her for details about every last thing: What kind of dress did she want? How many bridesmaids would she have? Buffet or sit-down?
But Trish seemed primarily (for the moment) focused on the idea of music, and only wanted advice on that: Should she use a DJ or a band? What did we think about having someone sing during the ceremony?
Courtney told Trish about her wedding at the United States Naval Academy. It was a story I had heard a thousand times, and I wondered why married women feel compelled to tell brides all about their weddings. It must be the same compulsion that makes us tell pregnant women about our ruptured membranes and mastitis. We have so few opportunities to be experts, I suppose.
“What songs did you guys use for your first dance?” Trish wanted to know, and after Courtney finished her long-winded, off-topic tale about the canapés at her reception, I told Trish that Dustin and I danced to “The Long and Winding Road,” by the Beatles.
“That’s an interesting song to dance to,” Lynette said. “What made you pick it?”
“Sarah and Dustin have known each other since they were babies,” Courtney said, obviously pleased to know so much about me that she can finish my own sentences. Although I never had a sister growing up, I imagine if I had, she would have been like Courtney.
“Really?” Lynette and Trish said in unison.
I took the dice and rolled my turn. “Yes, it’s true. Our dads flew together in the same squadron, and our moms were in the Spouse Club. So when I was born, Mrs. Smiley came to Mom’s baby shower and they became friends. Dustin was one year old at the time, and my dad was on deployment, so technically I met my husband before I ever met my dad.”