“You came,” she said again.
Same amount of amazed as the day before. But slightly less pallor today, I noted as I walked into the room. There was a nurse by her bedside, refitting two new bags of antibiotics to the pole of Sam’s IV, resetting the monitor so it dripped on schedule.
“This is my friend Janice,” Sam told her. “The one I was telling you about.”
The nurse smiled at me as I lowered myself into the visitor’s chair, beaming. “That’s nice,” she said.
I peered at the writing on the bags, a discordant mix of syllables, clindamycin, aztreonam. It all sounded horribly toxic, like floor cleaner, and it was going right into her veins. Well, I thought, her veins have seen worse.
The nurse left—“I’ll be back to check on you soon,” she promised—and Sam inspected the IV, straightening a tube so it flowed more evenly.
“How’s it going?” I asked, noting the bruises on her inner arm where the IV was taped, the crease in her forehead, her hair, damp with sweat around the hairline.
“Okay. She had trouble finding the vein. They usually do.” She tried to smile. “The good news is, they said I’m doing better today.”
“That’s great. So the medication is working.”
“Looks like.” She frowned, leaned over, and restraightened the tube. Her voice got perky again. “And I’m probably not going to lose my hand, so…”
“That’s good.” I laughed, relieved, and picked up an empty Styrofoam cup, tapping it against an empty juice cup in a toast. “Merry Christmas Eve!”
“Merry Christmas Eve,” she agreed. “Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for having me.” I reached into my bag and pulled out the small stack of reading materials I’d gathered—some memoirs; a comic-book anthology called Hothead Paisan, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. I hefted the stack in front of her and placed it on her nightstand.
“Wow,” she said, scanning the spines. “That’s so cool. I haven’t had anything good to read in weeks.”
“Well, this should keep you busy overnight.”
She looked from the books to me, her eyes full of gratitude. “Thanks, Janice. You been so awesome to me, I can’t even—”
“Oh, stop thanking me. I’m glad to be here. I just want you to feel better soon.”
“I know.” She sank back into her pillow and smiled. “It’s just, it’s Christmas Eve, I’m sure you got better things to do.”
I cocked my eyebrow. “As a matter of fact, I’m Jewish. Therefore, I have nothing ‘better’ to do tonight. My boyfriend, Bill, went to visit his family on Long Island for the night, and I’ve got no family plans until tomorrow. I’m actually going up to the shelter later, bringing some movies with me—I figured I’d see if they’ll let me spring for some Chinese food for everyone. So this is the perfect way for me to spend the afternoon.”
She nodded, approving and a little wistful. “That sounds fun, tonight. I wish I was gonna be there.”
Yeah, she’d be missing so much—sitting around the shelter eating greasy takeout and watching the Blade movies. “Well, this isn’t so bad, either—this is like a one-on-one Christmas party.” I toasted her empty cup again. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” she said.
She wanted to know more about my holiday plans, about Bill. “Bill? Let’s see. He’s six years younger than me, but you can’t tell by looking at him. He’s prematurely mature, you know? He’s a newspaper designer. He’s so smart, and so funny, and he’s so good to me. We’ve been together almost three years; he just moved in two months ago.”
I had a Polaroid of Bill tucked into my notebook, one of the extra snapshots I had taken to send to my mom with her biannual update—Here’s a picture of Bill, all moved in; here are the cats—look how big and greedy they are. I pulled out the picture and showed it to Sam. She took it carefully by the edges with her fingertips and studied it.
“He looks nice,” she decreed. “He looks…normal.”
I laughed again. The glasses and the short hair fool everyone. “He is, on the outside. On the inside, he’s got his stuff. He had his own abusive dad; he’s survived some shit. But he’s managed to have a good life,” I emphasized. Just like you will.
She passed the picture back to me, thoughtful, her gaze slipping to the far wall as though she were in a reverie. “What about tomorrow? Are you doing anything for Christmas?”
I hesitated—I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell her all about the fun, fantastic things I was going to be doing while she was here, gnashing her teeth in agony. “Bill and I are seeing my dad and stepmother and some of their old friends for dinner—they’re like my honorary aunts and uncles. It’s a little Jewish Christmas tradition we have. It’s nice, it’s low-key.”
She nodded, still with that faraway look. “I guess you and your dad made up, after…everything that happened in the past.”
I’d filled Sam in on the troubles I’d had with my dad in my childhood, troubles he’d atoned for long ago. “He went to a lot of therapy,” I said. “And so did I. A few times we even went together.”
“Wow.” Her eyes closed, like she was trying to imagine her father walking into a therapist’s office, as mine did, saying, I know what I did, and I’m sorry for it. I tried to imagine it, too. I pictured a tall, weathered man, with a hard, scarred face, brown teeth, and evil, brilliant eyes, wearing a mesh ball cap over his overgrown hair, clothes soaked in fumes. Just conjuring his image made me want to shudder.
“I really hate Christmas,” said Sam, eyes still closed. “One year, when I was eleven, my dad disappeared for a couple weeks—which wasn’t always a bad thing.” She stopped and took in a deep breath, opened her eyes. “But we didn’t have any money, because my mom was useless without him.”
I sat and squeezed the arms of my chair as Sam told me the story of Christmas Eve 1996, when her mother made her hustle in downtown Scottsdale, Arizona, until she’d made enough money for dinner from McDonald’s, drugstore toys for her younger sister, and a bundle of dope for Mom. Her mother bought one of those foot-high novelty singing trees for the table, and wrapped the toys, and sang carols all over the apartment until 4 A.M. In the morning she wasn’t speaking to Sam anymore, lavishing attention on the other kids instead. She told Sam that she was a whore and didn’t deserve any presents.
“And any time I see one of those fake trees…”
Her eyes, still unfocused, were fixed on the far wall; I was free to look straight at her. She was as white as a vampire, bloodless with grief. This was my chance to say something, something epic and profound, something that would undo some of the violent damage that had been done to her.
“That will never happen again,” I promised. “Nothing like that will ever happen again.”
“I know,” she said softly. Two tears rolled out of the far corners of her eyes, still staring at the horror of the past now playing on the far wall.
I wanted to reach over and take her good hand, but I stayed very still, kept my voice low and steady. “It won’t. That’s over. You’re going to be protected now. Now that you’ve asked for help, you’re going to get as much help as you need. You went to the right place, and they’re going to help get you to the next right place. And you’ve met some people who are going to keep helping you, right? Now you’ve got some people who really care about you—you’ve got Jodi, and you’ve got me, and you’re going to keep meeting people who want to help you, who recognize how special you are…”
She pressed her head back against the pillow and squeezed her eyes closed, more tears tracing the tracks of the first. Her good hand was right there for the taking. I had never hugged her, not once yet, not even when I left the hospital the night before. The tears slipped from her closed eyes, her body barely moving as she suppressed what sound she could.
“It’s okay,” I said. I moved my chair closer, put my hand on her shoulder, right above the tattoo, over the self-abuse scars. “It’s going to be okay.”
She continued to cry, an
d I kept my hand there on her shoulder, drinking it in through my palm like a faith healer, the waves of pain and exhilaration, contraction and release. Pressing the message into her, as she pressed back against me:
Let it out. They can’t hurt you anymore. This is today. You’re going to be okay.
“No way,” she said as I entered her room on Christmas Day.
“Merry Jewish Christmas,” I replied, smiling, shaking off my coat. “And Happy Chanukah, and Kwanzaa, too.”
She was sitting up in bed today, far rosier than the day before, and the TV was on, a repeat of Law & Order.
“You got TV?” I asked, surprised.
“Yup, and phone.” She grinned, a decent approximation of her old, pre-hospital grin. She must have sweet-talked someone into turning them on for free, unless Medicaid was now footing the bill for hospital extras, which seemed unlikely. “I’m feeling a lot better, too. I even ate those cookies you brought the first day. They were good.”
“I’m glad.” I glanced at her arm on my way to my chair—it looked much improved, and the mitten of gauze around her infected hand had been reduced to a fingerless glove. “Have the doctors said anything new?”
She raised the hand to show me the fresh bandage. “They’re saying I’m healing really well, and the infection’s pretty much under control, so that’s good. Pain’s still pretty bad, but I might get to go home sometime next week. Well, not home, but…” She grinned again, flush with satisfaction.
“Fantastic. That’s fantastic. See? You’re totally a superhero, you’re kicking this thing’s ass.”
And here I’d been worrying to Bill all week, “She’s so sick, and her kidneys; what if she doesn’t make it?” Chewing my fingernails, smoking joints, trying unsuccessfully to calm myself down. “The stories she was telling me, babe—I don’t know even how she’s lived this long.” Pacing around last night like I was waiting for Santa, waiting for the next day to dawn so I could unwrap the present of seeing her again, the privilege of sitting by her side. There was no question this afternoon when I started to make noises about “maybe, just for an hour, before we go to the folks’, just running over to say hello.”
“Go,” said Bill. “And give her my best.”
Today’s was an upbeat visit all around. I told her all the gossip from the shelter the night before—“Dime went AWOL with that girl Trini three days ago. Princess Jasmine told me. She said Trini was about to get her Section 8 but now she’s blown it. And Hericka says hi. She’s sorry she hasn’t been able to visit.” Here Sam pouted for a second. “But Nadine said if she doesn’t get a job by the New Year, she’s gone, so as soon as she gets a job she’s coming to see you. And I told everybody you’re doing well—I told them you have your own room with a private bathroom, and now everybody wants to get in here.”
She smirked, gloating over the others in absentia. “This is kind of a nice setup, right? Food’s not bad…”
“And you get to eat it in bed.”
“I know!” She gestured grandly around the room with her good arm. “And now I got a private phone and TV—I even get drugs every couple of hours, and I don’t gotta go out and score!”
I laughed. “This is the life, all right.”
“And here, the Bead Lady comes every day. Even on Christmas!”
And all she had to do to enjoy it was almost drop dead of an infection. How sad, that this was the highlight of her year, a near-fatal attack of sepsis; that for her, St. Victor’s was the Ritz-Carlton. Her overwhelming gratitude for everything—the food at the shelter, Jodi’s full house restriction, a nurse who didn’t stab her for a full half hour before getting the IV inserted, a visit from me—it was kind of sickening, actually. I tried to smile, but it came out flat.
Sam saw it cross my face; she immediately pulled back. “I mean, I know you won’t be able to come every day, I don’t expect—”
“Ah ah ah,” I warned her. “I’ve told you, I want to come, and I will come whenever I’m able, and when I’m not, I’ll let you know in advance. All right?”
She smiled grudgingly; she’d let me have this one, for now. “All right.”
So we talked about the books I’d brought; about feminism, the sex industry, victimless crime, and vigilantism; about whether or not people were essentially good or essentially bad. “What do you think about Nietzsche?” she asked, and I said, “Uch, fuck that sociopath.” Soon enough, I had to pull out my cell phone to check the time. She noted it with a quick, involuntary frown. Another hour in her company had sped by; it was time for me to leave.
“I’ve got to go,” I said with regret. “But I’m glad you’re feeling so much better today. Take it easy, and keep improving, okay?”
“I will,” she promised, her voice small and high again. A sad look down at her lap, then a smile for me. “Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for having me.” I shrugged on my coat, fished my hat from the pocket. I’d be running home through the fresh snow on the sidewalk; even so, I’d be a few minutes late.
I stood at the foot of her bed, not knowing how to say good-bye. Yesterday I had held her shoulder, clasped it when it was time to go, and she had reached up and grasped my hand. Today I was all the way down by her feet.
“Have a good time with your family,” she said.
I reached out and grabbed her foot, squeezed it for a second, let it go.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“Just an hour,” I told Bill the next day. I don’t even know how I justified it to him, taking time away from our postholiday Sunday to go be with Sam, but he didn’t ask me to. He just said, “See you in an hour.”
I ran the blocks through the fresh snow, sweating in my down coat, ripping off my hat, catching my breath in the elevator. A young male doctor was in Sam’s room, unpacking the dressing from the wound, picking out chunks of pus like cottage cheese with a pair of tweezers. She had a brave face on, but when he hit a nerve, she writhed and gagged in pain.
It was a down day; her infection had flared, her organs were inflamed again, her kidneys throbbed and ached. She didn’t want to talk about anything, not books, not the essential nature of humankind, not how good things were going to be when she got out of rehab in a year, sporting her GED and some vocational training, a year of therapeutic sobriety under her belt. She had no appetite, no patience for TV. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I just feel crappy right now.”
“I understand,” I said. I didn’t know whether to stay or go. I wanted to let her know that she didn’t have to entertain me, that I’d be by her bedside through the rough days as well as the good. And yet I wasn’t sure she wanted me there. She seemed almost angry, or maybe it was the frustration of the setback. Maybe it was the pain. It was palpable in the room, the way she gritted her teeth, the whimpers as she thrashed around, looking for a position that would give her relief. The doctors were still being stingy with the painkillers—she wanted them to be stingy, she didn’t want to undo whatever progress she’d made, however many sober days she’d been able to collect. But in the hours between meds, she was in agony.
As was I. I sat in the visitor’s chair, watching her eyes dart around behind her closed lids, then fly open wide, then shut in exhaustion again. Sat there saying meaningless things, like, “I wish there was something I could do for you.” Worrying—She’s crashing again. The sepsis is recurring. Her kidneys can’t take the stress. She’s not going to make it after all.
She rolled over, moaned. I couldn’t stand the pain, and I was three feet away from it. “Do you want me to call the doctor again?”
She shook her head. “There’s nothing they can do, I just gotta…” Speaking was too much effort. She collapsed against the pillow. “Maybe…you should go.”
“I’d rather not leave you like this.” Another stupid thing to say; what was I going to do, wait until she felt better? She was in a hospital; I was going to have to go home at some point. She was telling me to go.
I felt like I could
see her watching me through her closed eyelids, like she was just waiting for me to leave so she could write me off. Meanwhile, the clock in my pocket was ticking; Bill was waiting for me at home. If she really didn’t need me, I knew somebody who did. Somebody, and three cats, and a long list of people to call to say Happy holidays, I love you. Suddenly, sitting there in the visitor’s chair—yet another uncomfortable chair, in yet another institution, that smelled yet again like disinfectant and pain—I felt unbearably homesick for our apartment, just a few blocks away.
“All right,” I said, rising, though she hadn’t said anything. “I’ll let you get some rest. I hope it gets better by tomorrow. I’ll come by and check on you, okay?”
Sam’s jaw clenched in confirmation, or maybe it was a nerve twinge. She kept her eyes closed, shifted her drowsy head, and muttered, “Right.”
Was that supposed to be sarcastic? Or did she mean “all right”? I’d never promised her something and not delivered; I never would. I would be there tomorrow, and we both knew it.
“Okay,” I said. I reached out tentatively for her foot, but she shifted again, and my hand fell short of it. “All right. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The door to her room was closed when I arrived the next day.
I knocked softly in case she was sleeping or didn’t want company. Yesterday had been a bad day; maybe today was worse.
Sam’s voice, cheery and airy. “Come in.”
I entered, bearing today’s books and cookies, and grinned at Sam, sallow but happy, propped way up in her adjustable bed with pillows. Then I stopped short. There was a woman in the visitor’s chair, my chair. She was in her mid-forties, with graying, shoulder-length hair and a wry smile on her face. She held out her hand. “I’m Jodi,” she said, in her thick Brooklyn accent. “Lemme guess, you must be the Bead Lady.”
I beamed at her, shaking her hand. Here she was, my competition for Sam’s affection; totally likeable, of course. Not to mention: a grown-up, with real credentials, who might actually be able to help Samantha in a substantive way, who’d already helped her so much. I was instantly grateful for and relieved by her presence—I’d been starting to feel overwhelmed by the extent of Sam’s emotional damage, wondering how I was going to single-handedly see her through to rehab and beyond, but now Jodi was here, in person, ready to take over and show me how it was done. “I’m Janice. I’ve heard so much about you. It’s great to meet you.”
Have You Found Her Page 7
