“I’m Dr. Crane,” the short, bald man said.
“I phoned you at nine this morning, but your hotel said you’d already left,” Mill said. “So there was no way . . .”
“It’s nine forty-five” - Jay brandished his watch – “and you told me to be here at ten. Nothing’s happened?”
Nobody answered for a moment, then the three talked at once. Crane’s low bass voice cut the others off.
“At eight-thirty this morning, Mrs. Lawson became considerably weaker and I was called. She was having trouble breathing, so we placed her in an oxygen tent and although she responded to it for a few minutes . . .”
“Oh no,” Jay gasped. “No, no.”
“She died at ten minutes to nine,” he continued while the other two nodded their heads and made clucking sounds with their tongues. “No one suspected that she might have a blood clot.”
“Suspected?”
“An embolism. A blockage of the blood supply in the lungs. It’s very unusual in a case like this, but it does sometimes occur.”
“It has - !” Jay heard his voice, but he couldn’t believe that it belonged to him. His head reeled, and the doctors’ white coats had blood stains on them. He pushed through them and opened the door to the room. They stood in the doorway, and Mill said:
“I’ve never had a case like this.”
“You’ve got to inform her husband,” Crane replied.
“But surely . . .” the other doctor said.
“The husband has to claim the body.”
“Blackman has no legal rights.”
“He’s a doctor as well,” Mill said.
Jay closed the door of the room and went over to the bed. Her features were distorted by the translucent tent-covering and her head hung to one side. He lifted the tent off, and it crackled as it slipped to the floor. He shifted her head and brought it to the center of the pillow, then he kissed her on the lips. Her hands were still warm, but her lips, dry and cracked, were cold. Her forehead shone, and he rubbed his hand over it. Her skin had that niveous slightly bluish cast that he had seen before when his mother was dead. He got up and went to the window, and his breath fogged it. There were frozen crystals on the panes and on the small, faded stone ledge icicles hung precariously. He turned back to the bed, blinked, and noticed that when he opened and closed his eyes rapidly, she appeared to move. He knew that it was useless. She was dead. He picked up her hand and slipped his gold marriage band on her finger, for she had stopped wearing one when she left Mitch. The door of the room was pushed open, and the doctors stared at him.
“. . . The child last night,” one of them said.
He started to walk through them, and they moved out of the way.
“We’re all deeply sorry, Mr. Blackman. But there’s the legal position to consider,” Mill said. “We’ve got to contact Dr. Lawson.”
Jay took the lawyer’s letter out of his pocket and handed it to him and then walked down the corridor. He was conscious of hunching his shoulders; with a great effort he straightened up. At the front door, he paused and looked into the street. It was snowing again. He stood watching a little boy pulling his sled across the street. The metal runners cut furrows in the soft snow, and the boy stopped on the corner, looked both ways for cars, then crossed over. The road was empty.
Rhoda wiped her eye with the corner of her handkerchief, and Jay lit a cigarette then crumpled up the pack and dropped it on the platform. The train pulling out of the station unleashed a sharp gust of wind which almost blew her hat off.
“Jay,” she said nervously, “Neal doesn’t hold anything against me?” She waited for an answer. “He kissed me good-bye and I felt that he had his heart in it.”
“You’re his mother, he loves you,” Jay said tonelessly.
“I’ve done my best. More, nobody can ask. He’ll understand when he’s older, won’t he? And he’ll get a good education at Carlisle. It’s the best thing for him . . . to be away,” she said, unable to take the thought any further. Jay started for the staircase, and she trailed him. When he reached the top, he waited for her to catch up. The enormous groined vault of Pennsylvania Station encased them like a tomb. The bustling people rushing up and down escalators and the loud, clear train announcements disoriented him. She came alongside him; his arms flailed the air, and she was overcome by panic. “What’s the matter? You okay?”
“For years I’ve been moving. Years.” She looked at him uncomprehendingly. “Moving so fast that I never knew where I was. And now I’ve stopped, I can’t believe it.” He gesticulated wildly. “Is this where I am? I mean, has everything I’ve done and tried to do with my life . . . brought me to this spot and this situation? Because to tell you the truth, Rhoda, I don’t know where I am or for that matter what I’ve done. What’s it all about? Do you know? Have I got what I deserved?” He began to walk away, taking long rapid strides, and she chased after him.
In a breathless voice she said: “You’re a survivor, Jay. We both are.”
She watched his shape recede in the milling throng of rushing people. They were survivors, but what had happened to their lives? She couldn’t answer the question.
Published by New Word City LLC, 2014
www.NewWordCity.com
© Norman Bogner
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher.
978-1-61230-832-6
Seventh Avenue Page 49
