“Did Helen Palmer tell you anything?” Nell asks.
The roll of cash falls out of Megan’s bra again. An impossible sum. Nell snatches it up and shoves it into her pocket. Megan starts to laugh, then quits.
“It would be nice to know something,” Nell says.
“Nice? You gonna write a lab report?”
“What if something goes wrong? What if . . . ?”
“Shut up.”
“How long does it take? Does it hurt?”
“Of course it hurts.”
“Billy . . . ”
“Is a million miles away.”
“You need to tell him.”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Did you use protection?”
Megan lets the question hang in the air.
There are no lights on outside the house as they make their way to the back door. They wait on the porch for long minutes before the woman lets them into the kitchen.
She is older than Nell expected, older than her mother, wire thin, wiping her hands on a towel. She pours a drink, sits at the table, unlocks a moneybox. Looks at Megan expectantly. No greeting, no small talk. There are dirty dishes piled in the sink, a congealed pan on the stove. The house smells of cigarettes and cat.
Nell watches the woman’s hands, counting Megan’s money, and wants to bolt.
“It’s all there,” Megan says.
“That’s what all you girls say.”
She stands, moneybox under her arm, says to Nell: “You wait here. Don’t touch anything.”
Megan follows her out of the room, won’t let herself look back.
Nell stands in the dirty kitchen, thinking about blood and tissue, a collection of cells, her brother’s cells, the lab at school, dissecting a pregnant cat, then the embryos, each sac heavy with possibility. Sweet sixteen, what a joke, this is the worst year of her life.
She walks down the dark hall, moving silently as Billy has taught her, places her hands on the doorframe. She needs to be here for Megan, for Billy. She wants and does not want to be inside that room.
Megan takes off her skirt and underpants as instructed while the woman washes her hands. Smells ammonia, blood, her own sweat. Looks for a sheet. Sees the instruments on top of a chest of drawers, jumbled in a glass baking dish; the alcohol bath sharp in the air.
She climbs on to the improvised operating table, wishing for something to look at: a picture, a window; wishes for Nell, wishes for her mother when the procedure begins. The cold speculum, the woman’s rough hands; the lamp she brings close.
“This is going to hurt.”
Gripping the edge of the table, she whispers to herself: I don’t care, over and over.
“Be still, now!”
She feels sick. How could any of this: the rusted lamp, the metal bucket on the floor, the warm gush of blood, have anything to do with Billy and what they’d done every chance they got?
Why isn’t there a sheet, something, a towel to cover herself? Is this part of the anger she feels radiating from this woman, who did not ask her name or share her own, yet here she is scraping out—
“Is everything okay?” Megan asks.
“Think I can see the future, lookin’ up here between your legs? Start using what’s between your ears or you’ll be pregnant again before I can spit. And just so you know: Ain’t nothin’ going up there for six weeks. You hear me? Nothin’.”
Megan cranes her neck to look at the woman as she pulls out the wand, removes the speculum.
“You’re gonna ache and you’re gonna flow, like you’ve got a real bad period. Three days, four, that’s normal. You get fever, you start vomiting, losing more blood; you go to the doctor. If the doctor’s closed, you don’t wait til morning, you go straight to the hospital. They ask you what happened, you had a miscarriage: cramps, clots. You don’t know my name; you already forgot my address. You got that?”
“You have kids?” Megan asks.
“That’s none of your business.”
“A daughter?”
“Your friend out there, she’s gonna stay with you tonight.” It was not a question. “Tomorrow you stay in bed. Make up some lie. Looks like you’re good at that.”
She opens the door, brushes past Nell. Nell sees the slop bucket, a vivid swipe of blood on the floor, the mess of being a girl.
Walking to the bus station Megan is giddy with relief. She wants to run, pretend, forget; cuts her eyes away every time she feels Nell watching her. She does not want to talk, to make this moment real by naming it. She’s craving something, anything to bury this night. When’s Billy’s next leave? She’ll never tell him; they’ll never tell him, right, Nell? It’s over. It never happened.
The dark of Dorset Street gives way to the lights of lower Main, the bars and pool halls, soldiers spilling onto the street. So many boys, and every mother’s son of them wants Megan. They crowd around her, offer drinks, a ride, a burger, propose marriage, a weekend, a dance. Bring your friend, they say, uninterested in the awkward, too tall Nell, but willing to do just about anything to get their hands on Megan. She laughs and says no. You can’t blame them for thinking she means yes. That killer smile.
Megan walks through the door at the bus station and pauses.
“Are you okay?” Nell asks.
“I want a beer.”
“You can’t. You’re . . . ”
“Watch me.”
She is thin, pale, her skin chalky, but even in the fluorescent light her red hair sparks. She wades into a new group of soldiers; they eddy around her like a school of fish. Megan does the choosing: this one, not that one, changes her mind, chooses again. Leaves the station.
Nell tries to stop her. Megan dances away, arm in arm with her soldier, laughing, nearly running, like a kid let out of school. Angry, Nell waits in the doorway, watches the clock. The last bus home is already idling in its bay.
A soldier approaches: stiff new fatigues, shiny boots, razor burns and acne, hair so short, so badly cut, he looks like a shorn sheep. Did they do this to her brothers? Is it any better in the Army? What does better mean?
He starts talking. Southern accent. Skinny as he is, his voice is rich. If he sang he’d be a baritone.
“Where you from?”
“Geneva.”
“Where’s that?”
“About forty minutes from here.”
“You waitin’ on your friend?”
“I am.”
“Could be awhile.”
“I know.”
This boy wants to touch her, the way Billy touches Megan, the way she wishes Harlow would touch her and never has. But even that isn’t true. He wants to touch a girl, any girl, and she just happens to be in front of him.
He buys two sodas; they lean against a dirty wall. His unit is headed for Vietnam. He’s a radio operator, says he wants to open a shop when he gets home: radios and television, sales and service. Says he has a girlfriend. Only sixteen. Isn’t sure she’ll wait for him. Two years. Anything could happen. It’s a lot to ask a girl.
“You love her?” Nell asks.
“Since first grade.”
“You think you’ll make it?”
He looks at her, surprised. “Mostly we don’t talk about that.”
“But you think about it.”
“Try not to.”
He asks if he can hold her hand. So polite it’s hard to say no. Asks, then, if he can kiss her.
“It’s not me you want to kiss,” she says.
“You’d be surprised,” he says, leaning in to her.
His lips are sticky with Coca-Cola, his breath sugary. She pulls away.
He shoves her, hard, hisses: You little bitch! And walks away.
Megan appears, extricates herself from the soldier, sloppy now, he doesn’t want t
o let her go. She grabs Nell by the hand, runs up the steps to the bus, a cold beer hidden inside her shirt. Chooses a seat in back where the driver can’t see them.
“What’d you do with that soldier?” Nell asks.
“Went to the liquor store.”
“And?”
“Bought a few beers.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“He’s just a nice guy?” Those sudden spots of color on Megan’s cheeks. “I don’t understand you.”
“C’mon. A couple kisses. What’s the big deal?”
“Billy . . . ”
“Is never gonna know anything about this night.”
“Megan . . . ”
Megan looks at Nell for a long moment, eyes swimming. She leans against her, rests her head on Nell’s shoulder, “Don’t be mad at me, Nellie,” and falls asleep before Nell can answer.
Nell digs Billy’s latest letter from her pocket. He’s heading for flight school. Hours and hours in the sky. A full year of training after he completes Basic. Four hundred helicopter pilots graduating every month. To replace four hundred helicopter pilots who . . . ? Nell can’t complete the thought. Billy’s excitement. The language: birds, choppers, airborne. Her brother will be airborne.
On the back of the letter, a sketch of a scarlet tanager with the caption:
It Had Seemed Such Innocent Pleasure.
The bus is half empty. They’ll head to the boathouse, see if they can sneak inside to sleep, to complete the lie of the slumber party at Janet Sims’s house, the last hurrah before school begins on Monday.
Nell’s stomach grumbles. If only they had a few bucks for breakfast. The bus pulls in, doors wheeze open. She wakes Megan for the long trek to the boathouse.
Standing next to Billy’s hospital bed, Nell knows it’s too easy to blame Megan, but she can’t let it go; wonders if she’ll ever let it go. She shakes off the memory, crosses to the window where an American Redstart huddles in the cold. Coal black with vivid orange patches on its sides, wings, and tail. Much too soon to be this far north.
She feels a shadow pass over her, dark and cold. She doesn’t believe in luck, in signs or omens. Or does she?
Marion Flynn follows the surgeon to a pair of chairs in a busy hallway, so alarmed by his youth it’s hard to concentrate on what he’s saying. Good lord, she thinks, he’s still having trouble with his skin.
“Are you an intern?” She asks.
“No, I’m not.”
“You look like an intern.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Are you in charge of my son’s care?”
“I am.”
“Do I call you Don or Doctor Dienst?”
“Doctor Dienst will be fine.”
“You can call me Mrs. Flynn.”
“I was intending to.”
He opens Billy’s file. Thick. Dark green. Marion looks for an ashtray. In a pinch, a metal wastebasket will do. Pulls out a pack of cigarettes.
“Do you mind if I . . . ” she asks while striking a match.
“I’m afraid I do. Mind.”
She narrows her eyes at him, but he misses the intended effect, having already gone back to the file. Son of a bitch, she thinks, blowing out the match. How is she supposed to cope without her husband or one of her daughters? It’s too much. Anyone with a shred of sense would know that. Is he stupid? They’ll need to replace him if he’s stupid.
“What did they teach you in medical school?” she asks.
“Excuse me?”
“About how to deal with distraught parents of wounded or damaged children?”
“I don’t . . . ” He tries to retreat to the file again, she holds his gaze.
“There’s not a unit on making eye contact, touching a shoulder, offering a cup of tea or a glass of water? Though why would there be? Your own mother would have taught you these things.”
“Mrs. . . . ” He looks at the file again. “Flynn . . . ”
Oh, God, he’s going to tell me he’s shy or has a speech impediment of some kind.
“Let’s talk about your son.”
Nell is waiting in the hall when Marion appears. She braces herself before going into the room. Billy is asleep or just plain gone with the new morphine drip that finally arrived after repeated requests. Marion stands beside the bed, one hand wrapped around his good arm, the other resting lightly on his chest. She touches his hair, his lips. Nell sees her head snap up as she begins to register the smells, the crusted bandages, the dead soldier still lying in the room, waiting to be moved to the morgue.
“Let’s go home,” she says, joining Nell in the hall. “There’s nothing we can do for him right now.”
“I’m not leaving him alone.”
“I don’t want to argue with you.”
“What’s wrong with this place? It’s not . . . It’s like a warehouse. Is there another VA hospital? A better one? In Rochester, maybe. Can we move him there?”
“One thing at a time.”
“When Dad sees this . . . ”
“Can you drive? I don’t think I can . . . ”
“I’m staying, Mom.”
“How will you get home?”
“The bus.”
“School?”
“I’ll be a little late.”
Marion opens her wallet, hands Nell a five-dollar bill.
“Find something to eat.” A quick hug. “Call your sister.”
“Sheila’s not home. I called her school. She took a few days off to go to the city. Protest march, I think.”
“I hear that kind of thing, I feel like my head is going to explode.”
“She might have a point, you know.”
“Don’t ask me to be reasonable. Not today.”
Nell locates the cafeteria after getting lost twice in the warren of hallways that wind through the basement. Closed. Finds a few vending machines near the elevators. Searches her pockets for change, enough for a candy bar.
Back on Billy’s wing a janitor is slowly washing the floor, hands twisted with arthritis. He makes his way into Billy’s room, mops up the mess, then draws the sheet over the face of the dead soldier.
“Where are all the nurses?” Nell asks.
“Sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, kid. Two nurses quit yesterday. First job. Right out of school. Scared to death. Happens all the time.”
She carries a chair into the room and sits beside her brother. Tries to comfort him when he thrashes in his sleep. Wonders just how bad it is under all those bandages.
Leaving the hospital the next morning, Nell, groggy, gets turned around. Ends up walking past the neurosurgical intensive care unit where soldiers are paralyzed from the neck down. Meets a guy coming off shift, lighting a cigarette as soon as he gets outside. His face is empty, eyes worst of all.
He searches his pockets, unearths a pill bottle. Reads the label, offers it to her. She shakes her head. He pops the top off the bottle, fumbles, pills go flying, scattered in the snow and slush.
“Shit,” he scrapes up a handful of snow, crams it in his mouth.
“What are you doing?”
He counts the pills that are left, swallows three, four, five.
“Hey! What is that?” she asks.
“Slow me down, help me sleep. And then I’ve got these,” he produces another bottle, “to keep me up all night. Up, down, round and round.”
“Where’d you get those?”
“Where do you think?”
“It’s crazy in there.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Brother.”
“Where is he?”
“The burn unit.”
“Get him out of there. They’ve got a lousy mortality rate. Almost as bad as ours.” He laughs. Catches himself. Tries
to stop, can’t.
“Sorry,” he says.
“Who are you?”
“Orderly. Flunked out of med school. Actually got booted out. A little drug problem as you can see. Medical leave, they call it. That’s funny, right? VA had no problem with my record. Nobody wants this job. They die at night. Wait all day and then die on my shift. I can’t take it anymore.”
He lights another cigarette, eyes getting dreamy, face going soft.
“The mothers come, the teenage wives, the sisters. They’re a complete mess. The kid in the bed’s gotta endure all that: the tears, the touch he can’t feel. The fathers come in and it’s worse. They can’t look at their sons. Big men. Working men.
“Kid goes through all that. And dies on my shift. It’s fucked. You wanna come home with me?”
“No, thanks.”
He orients toward the parking lot, puts himself in gear.
“You okay to drive?” she asks.
“Oh, yeah. Do it all the time. ” He gives her a woozy smile. “What’s your name?”
“Nell.”
“Allie. Alistair. But that’s a stupid name.”
He has a nice smile. Straight teeth. Braces, maybe, with a name like that.
“Get your brother out of here,” he says, suddenly serious. “Whatever it takes.”
The bus to Geneva is full and so overheated she feels carsick. She can’t face school. The long walk home calms her stomach at least. She wishes Harlow Murphy would drive by, give her a ride, stop ignoring her, stop treating her like a kid, tell her everything’s gonna be all right, even though it’s a lie.
At home she climbs the stairs, pinches the bridge of her nose, eyes prickling. She feels that old thudding ache in her chest, hears crows rasping outside. Cry it out, her mother’s oft-heard advice, but whatever is grappling around inside of her feels too big. Her brother in that hospital bed, a fist in her throat, tears threatening to ambush her.
She opens the door to Billy’s room; lies down on his too-neat bed, the walls alive with his paintings and drawings. Her gaze sweeps the room, the jars full of colored pencils, paintbrushes, feathers of all kinds. Nests, lichen-starred branches, reindeer moss on the windowsills, eggs of every size and shape and color, the Encyclopedia Britannica, borrowed from downstairs, never returned. Sketches of birds large and small, in piles on his desk. She reaches to touch the bird beside the bed, follows the gaze of the great blue heron, poised, ready to strike.
A Catalog of Birds Page 2
