The Age of Grief

by Jane Smiley

  She said, “Not go to bed.”

  “Yes, I’m tired. I’ll walk you in the morning.”

  “Picky up.”

  “I’m going to take you to your bed now. You can have a bottle of juice. Tonight, even the dentist says you can have a bottle of juice.”

  “Picky up.”

  I carried her into the kitchen, filled a bottle with diluted juice, and began up the stairs.

  “No bed.”

  “Time for bed. I’ll lie down beside you on the floor.”

  “No bed.”

  I put her in. She was wide awake. I lay on the rug, and she rolled over and looked down at me through the bars. Her eyes were big in the dark. She reached her hand through the bars, and I gave her mine, though it was awkward. She looked at me and held my hand, and I fell asleep. Maybe she never fell asleep. We were up and walking by six. When Dana got up, I said, “I talked her into letting me get some sleep. I talked her into it.” Dana handed me a piece of toast. I grew, once again, overconfident. The goodness of warm toast, the sweetness of cold orange juice, the attentions of my wife, the new maturity of my two-year-old. “Two years old!” I said. “I talked her into it.” I thought I knew what I was doing.

  We walked all of that day, until about six, when she got down out of my arms to interfere with Lizzie and Stephanie at their Parcheesi game. After dinner her fever went up and we walked until eleven. On Tuesday, we walked from six fifteen in the morning until ten thirty, when she got down for good at the sight of the Barbie bubbling spa boxed up in the front hall closet. I set it up. I found every Barbie and every water toy in the house, all the hair ornaments and four spoons. I gave her Tylenol and a bottle of juice, and then I went into the living room and collapsed on the couch. After a few minutes I could hear her start talking to herself and humming. I ached from the soles of my feet to my chin.

  At noon I still hadn’t moved, and Leah came in the living room to chat. She said, “Are you sleeping now?”

  I said, “You’re soaking wet.”

  She said, “Are you sleeping on the couch?”

  I said, “Let’s go upstairs and change out of your pajamas. Is your diaper wet?” And just then Dana walked in, her face as white as her jacket, which she hadn’t bothered to take off. She closed the door behind her and, without speaking, turned and climbed the stairs. I said, “What’s the main symptom?” and she said, “Aches and pains. My joints feel as if they’re fracturing and knitting every second.” Her voice trailed off and I sat up on the couch. Leah said, “Are you waking up now?”

  Stephanie and Lizzie came in at three ten, when I was thinking about dinner. I hadn’t thought about dinner in four days, and I was ruminating over steak and baked potatoes and green beans in cheese sauce, my father’s favorite meal. They threw down their backpacks and called for milk. While I was in the kitchen, someone turned on the TV. By the time I had returned, Stephanie was face down on the couch. I was nearly jovial. I thought I knew what I was doing. I said, “Is it your turn, Steph? Have you got it?”

  She rolled over. She said, “I feel bad now.”

  “Do you want to go upstairs? Mommy’s up there. She’s got it, too, but I have a feeling it will go away fast for you and Mommy.” She held out her arms and I picked her up. There was Tylenol in every room in the house, and I grabbed some. She said, “Ooooh.” It was a long-drawn-out and deeply resigned moan, the sound, it later turned out, of the fever rising in her veins like steam in a radiator. By the time I had carried her to her room, my shirt where she lay against me was soaked with her sweat. She said, “The yellow one.”

  I thought she was asking for a certain nightgown. I said, “Sweetie, you don’t have a yellow one. How about the pink one?”

  “Throw away the yellow one. My house.”

  I sat her on the bed and counted out five children’s Tylenol. She collapsed, and I sat her up, opened her mouth with that practiced dental firmness, and put in the tablets, one by one. Her hair was soaked with sweat. She said, “Melon. Melon, melon, melon.” I laid her out, and put my hand across her forehead. She was incandescent. I took my hand away and placed it in my lap. From downstairs came the sound of the Superfriends. From down the hall came Dana’s voice, low and annoyed, saying, “Shit. Oh shit.” She is not long-suffering in illness, and generally keeps up a steady stream of expletives as long as she feels bad. I sat quietly, because in myself I felt panic, a little void, needle-thin but opening. The thermometer was on the table next to Lizzie’s bed. I stared at it for a long time, then at Stephanie, then at my hand reaching for it, then at my hand putting it in her mouth. The Superfriends broke for a commercial, Lizzie called, “Daddy!” Dana said, “Damn I hate this,” and the thermometer, held up to the light, read 104.2.

  There is the permanent threat of death. In the fifties, people used to grow trees through the roofs of their houses sometimes, and I often think of death as an invisible tree planted in our living room. When the doors are closed and locked, the insurance paid, the windows shaded, injury and the world excluded so that we, thinking that we know what we are doing, can sit complacently at the dining room table, that invisible tree rustles, flourishes, adds a ring of girth. Any flight of stairs is treacherous, the gas furnace is a bomb waiting to go off, Renuzit may stray, unaided by the human hand, from top shelf to bottom. A child carrying a scissors might as well be holding a knife to her breast; bicycles beside the door yearn to rush into traffic. A tongue of flame can lick out of the wall socket, up a cord carelessly left plugged in, and find the folds of a curtain. From time to time, unable to sleep, I have lain in bed counting household hazards: radon in the basement, petroleum products in the carpeting, gas fumes in the stove. I don’t often think of illness, but a child in the next block had meningitis last year. When Eileen, that is the mother, went to the hospital, they looked her in the face and said, “Twenty-five percent chance of death, twenty-five percent chance of severe brain damage, twenty-five percent chance of minimal brain damage, twenty-five percent chance of full recovery,” and they were so matter-of-fact, Eileen says, that she just nodded and said, “Oh. Thanks,” as if she were taking a rain check on a sale at K-mart.

  I wonder once in a while how my father would have reacted if one of us had died. It seems to me that he would have noticed something missing, that my absence, or my brother’s, would have prickled at him through the day, and he would have upheld the forms of grief, but I don’t know that he ever really looked at us, or perceived enough about us so that the removal of one of us would have been a ripping of flesh. Soon enough he would have gotten behind the stove or the clothes dryer or the dehumidifier with his electrical meter and forgotten about it entirely, as he did about us alive. Dana said that I often underestimate him, but in this case, I think he was a wise man, to have addressed himself to the world at large like that, to have stood in front of us, only half perceiving us, reassured by the shuffle of our feet and our sighings and breathings that all of us, whoever we were, were back there.

  When you are in the habit of staring at your children, as almost everyone my age that I know is, of talking about them, analyzing them, touching them, bathing them, putting them to bed, when you have witnessed their births and followed, with anxious eyes, the rush of the doctor and nurses out of the delivery room to some unknown machine room where some unknown procedure will relieve some unknown condition, when you have inspected their stools and lamented their diaper rash and, mostly, held their flesh against yours, there is no turning away. Their images are imprinted too variously and plentifully on your brain, and they are with you always. When I agreed with Dana that I wanted to be “an involved father,” I foresaw the commitment of time. I didn’t foresee the commitment of risk, the commitment of the heart. I didn’t foresee how a number on a thermometer would present me with, paralyze me with, every evil possibility. Stephanie lay there, stupefied with fever. Lizzie came into the room. She said, “Didn’t you hear me? I want some more milk.” She sounded annoyed.

  “You ca
n pour it yourself.”

  “I can’t. It’s too heavy.”

  “Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice. Can’t you say please?”

  “Please!”

  “Say it as if you mean it.”

  She drew it out. “Pleeeeease.”

  “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  “It’s always in a minute. That’s what you and Mommy always say—in a minute. Then you forget.”

  “You aren’t the only person in the house, Elizabeth.”

  “You always say that, too.” She backed away, not sure how far she could take this discussion. She glanced at Stephanie on the bed. I said, “Stephanie has a very high fever.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  I turned the word over in my mind, because it is a big word in the family vocabulary, a dangerous word, in fact, that always signals to Lizzie that she ought to panic. I was still rather annoyed about her recent demanding tone. I contemplated sobering her up, but I needed her as my ally, didn’t I? I said, “It’s not good, but it’s not dangerous.” She nodded. I said, “Do me a favor, and go ask Mommy how she feels.” She turned in the doorway and called, “Mommy! How do you feel?” Dana groaned. I surveyed Lizzie and wondered, Is this defiance on her part, ill-taught manners, stupidity? I said, “Go ask her. Be polite. I need you to help me.” Now she surveyed me. I was not kidding. She went into the master bedroom, and I stuck the thermometer back in Stephanie’s mouth, thinking that the Tylenol would have had time to take effect. 104.1. Lizzie returned. “She feels as if she’s been run over.”

  “What’s Leah doing?”

  “Watching TV.”

  “Can you do everything I say for the next two days?”

  “Do you mean like cleaning my room?”

  “I mean like getting me stuff and watching Leah, and getting stuff for Mommy.”

  She shrugged.

  “I think you can. It’s important.”

  “Okay.” She and I looked at each other. Her eyes are blue, too, but darker blue than Dana’s, more doubtful. Simultaneously I thought that this would be a good lesson in responsibility for her and that no lessons, however good, would preserve her from her own nature. I said, “Go into the bathroom and get a washcloth and wring it out in cold water. I’m going to talk to Mommy for a minute, and then we are going to try and cool Stephie off, okay?”

  Dana lay on her side with her eyes closed. The lids were purple all the way to her eyebrows, as if she had eyeshadow on, but the skin of her face was opaquely pale. The blood was elsewhere, heart, brain. She was not sleeping, but I don’t think she was aware of me. Her lips formed words, Fuck this, I can’t take this, dammit. I leaned down and said, “Can I get you anything?”

  Her eyes opened. She uttered, “Did you have these aches and pains?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’ve never felt anything like it. It must be what rheumatoid arthritis is like.”

  “Anything else?”

  “A little woozy. How’s Stephanie?”

  “Temperature.”

  “How much?”

  “Lots.”

  She looked at me for a long moment. “How much?”

  “104.”

  “Did you call Danny?”

  “He’ll just say bring her in at 105. I gave her some Tylenol and I’m going to give her a lukewarm bath.”

  “Oh.” Her voice was very low. She closed her eyes. After a moment, tears began to run through the lashes, over the bridge of her nose, onto the pillowcase.

  “She’ll be all right.”

  She nodded, without opening her eyes.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sad for us.”

  “We’ve had the flu before.”

  “I’m sad for us, anyway.” She snorted and wiped her face on the quilt.

  “We’ll be all right, too.” She opened her eyes and looked at me, sober, speculative, in retreat. Not if she can help it, I thought. I said, “I love you.”

  “I know.” But though she continued to look at me, she didn’t reciprocate.

  Finally I said, “Well. I’m going to work on Stephie.” She nodded.

  Lizzie was doing a good job. Stephanie lay on her back, with her eyes closed and her chin slightly raised. Lizzie was smoothing the washcloth over her forehead and down her cheeks. She had a look of concentration on her face, the same look she gets when she is writing something. I stood quietly in the doorway watching them and listening to Leah mount the stairs. Soon she came into view, her hand reaching up to grasp the banister, her eyes on her feet, careful. She looked up and smiled. I would like to have all these moments again.

  Just then, Stephanie threw out her arm, smacking Lizzie in the face. Lizzie jumped back in surprise, already crying, and I was upon them with reassurances. “She didn’t mean it, honey. Stephie? Stephie? Are you there, sweetie? Do you want to take a little bath?” She was tossing herself around the bed. She said, “Megan, don’t. Don’t!” I picked her up to carry her into the bathroom and she nearly jerked out of my arms. She was soaked with sweat and slippery. After the bath, she was still above 104. It was like a floor she could not break through.

  I kept a record:

  6 p.m.: 104.1

  6:40 p.m.: 104.2

  8 p.m. (more Tylenol): 104

  9 p.m.: 104.2

  10:35 : 104.2

  Midnight: 104.4

  12:30 : 104.4

  3 a.m.: 104.6 (another bath)

  4 a.m.: 104.4

  6 a.m.: 104.2

  I longed for some magic number, either 103.8 or 105, for either reassurance or the right to take her to the hospital. She writhed and spoke and sweated and grew smaller in my eyes, as if the flesh were melting off her. I kept reminding myself that the fever is not the illness but the body fighting off the illness. It is hard to watch, hands twitch for something to do. And I was beat, after those nights with Leah, but even if I dozed, I would wake after an hour, and my first feeling was raging curiosity: what would it read this time?

  8 a.m.: 104.2

  Lizzie walked to school alone and I took Leah to her day care. I ran home, my fingers itching for the thermometer. I was ready to believe any magic, but none had taken effect. I gave her more Tylenol, another bath, took a shower, stepped on the scale. I had lost twelve pounds since Dana’s opera. The High Stress Family Diet.

  9:30 a.m.: 104.4. Dan, the pediatrician, told me to keep taking her temperature.

  11 a.m.: 104.4

  1 p.m.: 104.4

  3 p.m.: 104.4

  6 p.m.: 104.4

  After I read it, I shook the thermometer, just to see if the mercury was able to register any other number. I called the pediatrician again. He said that it would go down very soon. I said, “It’s not impossible that it could just stay at this level, is it?”

  He said, “Anything is possible.” I was glad to hear him admit it.

  8 p.m.: 104.6

  10 p.m.: 104.6

  I should say that I talked to her the whole day. “Stephanie,” I said, “this stinks, doesn’t it? We’ve been at this for days, it seems to me. Pure torture, an endless task. Sisyphean, you might say. I remember the myth of Sisyphus quite well, actually. We read it in seventh grade. You will probably read it in seventh grade, too. I also remember the myth of Tantalus. He kept trying to bite an apple that would move out of the way when he leaned his head toward it. Sisyphus had to roll a stone up the mountain, and then watch it roll back down again. I think I remember it because that’s what seventh grade seemed like to me. Anyway, sooner or later you will know all this stuff. And more. The thing is, after you know it, it will float in and out of your consciousness in a random way, so that if you ever just want to sit and talk to your own daughter like this, not having a conversation but just talking to keep her ears greased, as it were, then all of this stuff will come in handy. But I am here to tell you, Stephie dear, that every word, whatever its meaning, gets us closer to tomorrow or the next day, when you will sit up and look around, and I will bre
athe a long sigh of relief.” The paternal patter. During the night, it eased toward 105, and I took it every forty-five minutes. At two, Dana got up to spell me, but when I got up at two thirty, I found her passed out in the hallway and carried her back to bed.

  She is light. She is only 5’ 4”, though she seems taller to the patients because she always wears those three-inch Italian heels in the office. People marvel at this, but in fact she doesn’t stand on her feet all day, she sits on a stool. The shoes flatter her ankles, her hips, her waist, everything up to the back of her head, because everything is connected, of course. She is thin. She weighs 107 or 108. Once I had a good grasp on her, I could have carried her anywhere. She was wearing a white flannel nightgown scattered with tiny red hearts. She was warm and damp, her hair was askew, she would have said that she didn’t look her best. A silk shirt, those heels, a linen or cotton or wool skirt, a good haircut, lipstick—that is looking her best, she would have said; a fine-grained surface, a sort of enameling. Women who are more relaxed find her a little cold, or archaic, or formal, but it seems to me that she has poured herself into a sort of dental mold, too. Dentists make a lot of money. Dental conventions are full of dandies. Two dentists in conference in the lobby of the Dallas Hyatt are more likely to be talking about tailors than about inlays. Her body is not yielding. It has a lot of tensile strength that is inherited, I think. Her brother Joe can bench-press 250 pounds, though he doesn’t lift weights as a hobby. In any pickup softball game, her sister Frances has amazing power at the plate. To lift Dana in one’s arms is to feel not weight but elastic resistance.

  To take Dana into one’s arms, and to be taken into hers, is to feel, not yielding, but strength. When she holds your hand, she grips it hard. When you hug her, she hugs back. When you kiss her, her lips, which are firm, press against yours. Picking her up reminded me of those things, reminded me that retreat isn’t always her mode, is rarely her mode, has never been her mode, is, in fact, a function of point of view, of where you are in the field of her activities. I pushed the covers back with my foot and laid her down. She groaned. I pulled her nightgown over her feet, pulled the sheet up to her chin, then the blanket.