All the Difference

by Patricia Horvath

  The night nurse had a way of announcing herself, a horsey gait. Jimmy ducked into my closet. Denise ran to her bed. The nurse flipped on the light. Denise yawned and stretched, pretending to be awakened from a deep sleep. I put my hand over my mouth.

  The nurse was looking for someone. We knew who, she knew we did, and if he was found in our room . . . well, he better not be, did we understand? Perhaps she suspected he was hiding and chose not to look. What could happen? Jimmy did not stay long. He kissed me chastely on the cheek, slowly kissing his way toward my mouth, small pecks, moving closer. Good night, he said between kisses. Good night and good night and good night. He took off his glasses. I shut my eyes. I wasn’t certain what to do. I let him, he seemed to know, and then I was kissing, all broken and hot.

  My sense of hospital time is attenuated. Looking back, it seems Jimmy and I were together in the hospital for weeks, but this cannot be. He was there for only a couple of days. I next saw him in the afternoon, miraculously recovered from surgery, which, he confided, was actually a circumcision, not a stomach operation. He mumbled as he said this; he looked at the floor. I said something to the effect that all boys have those—don’t they?—only why, I wondered, did his parents wait so long? He didn’t know. He offered to wheel my bed around the ward again, but I did not want to see anyone else. When my mother came to visit, she found us alone in my room holding hands. I pulled my hand away, stuck it under the covers. Jimmy stood up, shook my mother’s hand, introduced himself. The hunch in his shoulders disappeared. He seemed confident, as though he’d spent a lot of time talking to girls’ parents. My mother gave me the “Who’s this?” look. Had I been able, I would have shrugged. I did not think I would see him again, so I did not think it mattered.

  That night he promised to visit me at home. He’d hitchhike, he said, take the train, what was wrong, didn’t I believe him? Of course I did, I told him so; I believed he meant it. I also believed he’d forget all about me the moment he went home.

  In the morning he came to say goodbye. He wore jeans, an untucked oxford shirt. His mother was waiting, he could not stay. Already he belonged to that other world, the one where busy people moved about freely. He kissed me quickly, turned to leave, came back. I wanted to hold him, get out of bed, hug him goodbye. I opened my arms. It was all I could do. Jimmy put his knee on the mattress. He leaned over me. I reached up and pulled him against my body cast. I could feel his shoulder blades, the muscles in his back. I wanted to remember him. His hair was coarse. His body felt small and strong. My body was concealed. There was only my face, which he kissed—nose, cheeks, mouth. I have to go, he said.

  All the Difference

  I was sedated for the ambulance ride home. I do not remember it—the shock of February air, whether the day was sunny or dim, nor if the orderlies chatted with me. Did they blare the siren? Was my mother in the ambulance?

  I went to the nurses’ station to order an ambulance, my mother said. And they told me, Oh, you don’t need an ambulance, just borrow a station wagon and put her in the back. Like maybe you were the groceries. You realize she can’t move, I said. You realize she’s in a hospital bed and can’t sit up. They got the ambulance. I made sure you were strapped in safe and then drove home and the ambulance followed.

  I was carried on a stretcher into the house, through the living room and up the stairs. I have a vague recollection of dizziness, of seeing familiar objects from unfamiliar angles. My mother had rented a hospital bed and I was settled there beneath a mound of blankets and the pink and green spread that my father’s mother had crocheted.

  An adjustable hospital table had been set up beside my bed. It became a catchall for books, paper, pens, tissues, water pitcher and glass, telephone, hand mirror, brass bell. The telephone was a private line that my mother had installed while I was in the hospital. Like my bedroom walls, comforter and sheets, it was pink, a pink Princess Trimline with a push button dial in the receiver. The dial lit up so I could make phone calls in the dark, late at night, when I was supposed to be sleeping.

  With my hand mirror I could see the outside world, reflected through the window behind my bed. By tilting the mirror just so, I was able to glimpse my mother’s light blue Volkswagen, Tom’s dark blue Audi, two or three bare-boned trees, a snowy patch of yard. In this way, I watched the days change. The bell belonged to my mother’s mother. Its brass was etched in a swirling pattern, and the handle was teak. Before my surgery it had been displayed on a three-tiered mahogany shelf, part of a motley collection of treasures that included two powdered geisha dolls in red silk kimonos, a floral porcelain demitasse set, a Royal Doulton clown mug and a brass opium pipe. I had needed permission to touch any of these things. Now I rang the bell, a princess, whenever I needed food, water, a bedpan.

  For the bell to be heard throughout the house, my bedroom door had to stay open whenever I was alone. My sense of privacy was thus further eroded. Only at night, when my mother could hear me through our shared bedroom wall, was the door kept closed. Under the circumstances, I believe she had little difficulty convincing Tom to relinquish their bedroom stereo for the duration, enabling me to use headphones, the same headphones he’d ripped from the jack whenever I listened to music downstairs. Now they protected him from having to hear Aerosmith, Blue Oyster Cult, and David Bowie.

  The stereo was relocated bedside, to a white enamel table. On its twin was a milk crate full of records. With practice, I learned to propel myself onto my left side, flip one-armed through the crate for the album I wanted, set it on the turntable, and hit the play switch. This proved useful the morning one of my caretakers fell asleep. I woke, needing the bedpan. I rang and rang the bell. I telephoned the other line. My mother would not have left me alone; someone had to be somewhere. I shouted—no use. Finally, despairing, about to soil myself, I had an idea. I put Led Zeppelin on the turntable, cranked up the volume on “Black Dog.” It worked. The college girl my mother had hired for morning duty had fallen asleep on the couch in the den, two flights down. When she heard the music, she thought at first that angels were announcing some end of world event. Then she’d realized where she was.

  I listened to records, watched TV. My mother had replaced my black and white set with the remote controlled television from her room, balanced high on the bookcase so I could see it from bed. Late at night, unable to sleep, I’d stay up watching whatever was on: reruns of The Burns and Allen Show, You Bet Your Life, or, if I was lucky, an old movie on The Late Late Show. I watched Marilyn shimmy in and out of trouble; Fred and Ginger, so liquid, glide through high society. Something about the night, its extreme stillness, discomfited me. If nothing was on, I’d read. But reading, my greatest pleasure, had a new way of exaggerating my sense of confinement. Because I could not lift my head, I could not read in comfort. I’d stretch my arms above my head until they ached then turn onto my side, which eventually made me cross-eyed. Then back again, lying flat, my arms tiring more easily with each attempt until, after less than an hour, I’d be forced to give up. Sometimes, edgy from a day of doing nothing, I implored my mother for Valium. Try, she would say. Try to sleep. Eventually she would relent and I knew this, knew the delay was a necessary ritual, her way of expressing concern that I might become addicted to the sedatives the doctor had prescribed.

  Around dawn, with the first light, something loosened in me. I felt then that I could relax. Soon there would be noises in the house: water running, my brother getting ready for school, my mother frying bacon, voices in the kitchen. I would drift off, waking in the late morning, groggy, hungry, needing to pee, not always remembering what day it was and who would answer the bell.

  During my second week in the hospital my mother had returned to work. This was economically necessary, but necessary too for mental health—mine as well as hers. She recognized that we both needed a break from her near constant care. My father’s mother had been a nurse. She knew how to change a bedpan, give a shot, ward off bedsores. She came to see me often, and I k
new she’d offered to help, but she was in her seventies and no longer capable of the hard physical work that caring for me entailed. My mother came up with a plan. She posted a notice at the local university for a part-time companion and aide. Five mornings a week, from nine to noon, one of three Fairfield University students stayed with me. MJ—small, blonde, perky—laughed a lot and made fun of herself. She was the one who’d fallen asleep on the couch. Sandy was dark-haired, stately, and tall. I thought her beautiful and was always a little startled whenever someone mentioned the wine-colored birthmark on her cheek because after a couple of days I stopped noticing it. Eileen, a nursing student, was serious and gentle. She tucked Saran Wrap into the openings of my cast and bathed me with a warm cloth. I’d kept my hair defiantly long, not cutting it for surgery, clinging to my pre-op self. Had I been able to stand, it would have fallen to my waist. Alone among the three of them Eileen brushed and washed my hair, sliding a shampoo board beneath my head, pouring heated water from a watering can, sudsing my scalp with manicured nails, my hair streaming into a blue plastic basin, the room fragrant with shampoo.

  Very quickly I came to love these girls. They were like sisters, imagined ones, who never argued or fought.

  All three whiled their mornings away in my room. They rolled me in and out of bed jackets, made breakfast, brought me orange juice, gossiped about their boyfriends, told family stories, complained about exams. But each weekday, promptly at noon, they were replaced by Mrs. Brattle, Visiting Nurse. This was a stringy woman in her sixties in full white regalia: clunky shoes, stockings, pressed uniform, starched white hair, and cap. Just seeing her made me feel like an invalid. Mrs. Brattle’s manner was all brisk condescension and when I did not need her, she stayed downstairs. On her first day, she complained to my mother about my music. I knew this because my mother complained to me—about Mrs. Brattle. A teenager, what the hell does she expect—Mozart?

  My mother called the agency. Someone younger, she said, someone who’d be good with a teenage girl. A shortage, she was told, we’ll see what we can do.

  I began treating Mrs. Brattle as I did Tom—someone to be borne, better ignored. When I needed the bedpan, I tried holding back until my mother came home. The university girls always laughed off my embarrassment, and I felt at ease with them. Mrs. Brattle fed me, wiped me, changed my sheets, but neither one of us deigned to speak beyond what was essential. Sometimes, when I couldn’t sleep, I wondered about Mrs. Brattle. Did she have a family? Was there a Mr. Brattle? Did she like to read, watch old movies on TV? I never found out. She was there for business, and I was her job.

  There were seven channels: three network, one public, three local. Weekdays the choices were soap operas (network), children’s TV (public), or sitcom reruns, interrupted by long commercials for a host of strange inventions—a vacuum cleaner attachment that could be used to dry hair, mechanical knitting needles, a tool that transformed beer bottles into jewelry. I watched, knowing all the sitcom plots: the greedy would be punished (Twilight Zone), the bumbling rewarded (F Troop); the powerful woman (Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie) would be humbled, but not before showing up her hapless, bossy spouse. I should have been doing homework, I knew, preparing for the tutors who would come after school. But I had scant interest in quadratic equations, igneous rocks, irregular Spanish verbs. I’d do the minimum required, just enough to get by, knowing my tutors would go easy on me.

  Four hours a day I was tutored in each of four subjects: English (Mr. Martin), Geometry (Mrs. Rector), Earth Science (Mr. Dillon), and Spanish (Mrs. Kendall). I especially liked Mrs. Kendall, a grandmotherly woman, easily distracted. Whenever we approached the subjunctive, I would begin an exaggerated series of yawns, stretching my arms, making a cavern of my mouth. You must be getting tired, dear, she’d say. Let’s try something else. And once again we’d go over the novel we were reading—about (I think) a saintly widow who was being either delighted or tormented (I was confused on this point) by her dead husband’s ghost.

  When I got bored with the woman and the ghost, I’d ask about Mrs. Kendall’s granddaughter. Out would come the wallet snapshots: There’s Rosie’s first birthday party. Look at her little hat. Oh, and she did the cutest thing with the cake . . .

  Late winter sunlight streamed into the room. Mrs. Kendall went on and on, her voice like water over rocks—soothing, soporific, expecting nothing in the way of real attention. After she left, I always napped.

  I liked Mr. Dillon, too. He reminded me of Captain Kangaroo, if Captain Kangaroo had worn aviator glasses and carried around a bag of rocks. Igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic. Rocks born of fire, water, evolution, dull unchanging rocks taking shape from the earth’s upheavals. I held them, examined their veins and glassy surfaces, this little bit of nature relocated to my hot pink bedroom. Mr. Dillon projected slides onto the ceiling—volcanoes, crashing waves. The Origins of Earth. He talked about rocks the way my friends and I talked about rock bands—reviewing their histories, their individual merits, playing favorites. I tried to share his enthusiasm; clearly the rocks meant so much to him. Is this really sedimentary? I’d say, picking up an igneous rock. No, no, he’d say again, patiently. Look at the veins! I could rarely make it through the two hours. Despite myself, feeling sorry for Mr. Dillon because he was trying so hard, my mind wandered. I nodded during slide shows, mistook stalactites for stalagmites, plopped Paleolithic rocks into the Mesozoic era. Okay, Mr. Dillon would say, defeated once again by my ignorance. Let’s wrap up. Doubtless he was relieved at the prospect of early release from the bedroom of a bored fifteen-year-old girl.

  Unfortunately, nothing could distract Mrs. Rector from her protractor and compass. Neither snow nor rain nor my vaudeville yawns . . . she was stolid, a post office of a woman, squarely built, every hair sprayed into place. Math was my worst subject. Mrs. Rector and I slogged through equation after equation. She drew triangles, circles, trapezoids. We measured angles and curves and subtracted little y’s from little x’s. It was nearly enough to make me long for Mrs. Brattle.

  Don’t you think that’s a bit adult for you?

  I was reading Catch-22. It wasn’t on the syllabus, but I liked it far better than A Separate Peace, which Mr. Martin had assigned. A couple of spoiled rich boys in prep school—what did they have to complain about? So Phineas was on crutches, so what?

  Do you understand it? Mr. Martin asked.

  I narrowed my eyes. Who did he think he was talking to? One of the cheerleaders whose flirtations made him blush to the roots of his scant blonde hair? A jock who needed vocabulary words explained because she was too lazy to look them up?

  It’s better than Separate Peace, I said. All Gene does is sit around and brood. Who cares?

  I could, of course, have been talking about myself.

  We read about Silas Marner with his miser’s sacks of gold. We read Shakespeare’s sonnets and Robert Frost:

  Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

  I took the one less traveled by,

  And that has made all the difference.

  What difference? I thought. And what difference could there possibly be when others did all the choosing—what things would be within my reach, whether there would be water to quench, food to sustain, pills to soothe, whether curtains would be open or drawn, sheets rumpled or tucked, pillows flat or plumped, whether, indeed, I would be able to walk a road, any road, ever.

  I could not walk, but I could talk; that indeed made a difference. Whether my needs were to be met, though, or when, or how, was up to someone else. The man who chose the road had no wrong decision to make. The fact that he could choose was enough and I resented his blithe freedom, my condition coloring all that I took in.

  After the tutors left came the dead time of late afternoon—lessons finished, my mother not yet home, Mrs. Brattle busying herself somewhere in the house, out of sight but within earshot of my bell. Strangely, I have little memory of Chipper. Where was he during this time?

  I was scared of you.
I didn’t know how to talk to you, what to say, so I stayed in my room a lot, hiding from Tom, listening to Kiss. Because it’s your sister, someone you grew up with and fought with and still love, and she’s in this iron lung thing. I was a little freaked out.

  As he tells me this, I note the shift in pronouns, the direct address slipping into third person, “you” becoming “she.” Even at a distance of thirty years, the visibly disabled must be kept at some remove.

  He knows, he says, he should have been more present. I tell him it was long ago, he was thirteen and couldn’t help how he felt; besides, a lot of people, much older people, were uncomfortable around me. Mrs. Brattle was paid to care for me, yet she barely came to my room. My father stayed away. My uncle sent Tolkien books. My aunt had five children to raise, and my maternal grandmother had her own difficulties just getting out of bed. None of these people, however, mattered to me the way my mother and Chipper did. None of them felt vital to my daily life.

  Disabled people freak people out, my brother confesses. He’s right, of course. I couldn’t even look at the Down syndrome girl in the brace. Her dual disability—one so foreign, the other so familiar—freaked me out. And she wasn’t even someone whose name I knew. I had no stake in her fate. It cost me nothing to avoid her, nor was she aware of my aversion. How much more difficult for a child to confront a sibling’s deformity, the word doctors used to describe my condition. How much more painful for that sibling—the patient—to be shunned. Because we’d always been close, Chipper could not bear to see me, his anguish isolating us from each other, making of me a pariah.

  As soon as she came home from work, before changing clothes or talking to anyone else, my mother would run upstairs. I’d hear her coming and a great feeling of relief would overtake me—someone to talk to, albeit briefly, a change in the tempo of the day. Later I would hear her making dinner, smell meat cooking. I ate alone. I did not want to be seen eating. When I needed something, I rang the bell. I rang for the bedpan, a new pitcher of water. I rang for pillows to be moved so I might try again to read. Chipper stopped in to say good night, sometimes carrying the cat, who fidgeted in his arms. I watched TV and rang for pills and eventually was given them so that I could sleep, waking once again to ring the bell.