CHAPTER 4
I WOKE BEFORE IT WAS LIGHT. The new normal. Michael was not in bed. That was normal now too. At night when I switched off the lights he would lie beside me, fully dressed, until I fell asleep. In the morning he was always gone.
Restlessness is contagious, of course; I never slept through the night anymore either. I’d climb out of bed and navigate by the light of various digital clocks—on the bedside table, the TV. I might find him snoring on the couch, still dressed. Or drinking coffee in the kitchen with papers spread all around, and I’d pull out a chair and sit by him with no one talking. I wanted so badly just to hold his hand. Or I’d see his truck was gone, Michael out driving who knows where, and he wouldn’t return home till after I’d left for work.
At least that option was nixed for ninety days. Pulling a quilt from the bed, I wrapped it around me and padded through the predawn house. I checked the kitchen first because the little light over the stove was on. There was a coffee mug on the counter, but a sip told me it was cold.
On the table I saw his drawings again.
Now more of the faces were familiar: the sunglasses guy, the one with a scribble next to him, the one with mouse ears, and others whose significance I could only guess. Maybe someday he would clue me in. Thirty-one mysteries.
That morning the pencil beside the papers was broken in the middle.
Was Michael broken in the middle? Was I? What about those people he kept drawing?
Maybe it was all of us. The cop. The Vietnam vet. The Professor. Maybe every single person on earth was broken in the middle.
A blanket on the living room couch showed where Michael had tried to sleep, or had watched TV in the hope of getting bored enough to doze off. Instead, the blanket was wound in a knot.
Finally I found him in the guest room, sleeping on his back on the rug. No blanket, no pillow, beside him a plastic bag filled with water that earlier in the night had probably held ice for his shoulder.
My sister Robin said when her babies were newborns, she could spend hours staring at them. That’s how I stood over Michael on that early morning in the gray light. He was large—sometimes I forgot—so much bigger than me. One arm was thrown out wide, but the hand on his stomach was thick and broad. His chest swelled and shrank like a bellows. Keep breathing, lover, just keep breathing.
The bend of his leg reminded me of a weekend trip up to Seattle, one rainy January years back, in a semi-fancy hotel room where we got a little wild. I wound up riding his thigh like a horse until the gallop took possession of me, and I came so hard he laughed afterward. The memory brought a wave of longing so strong my knees almost buckled.
Now his head had fallen to one side, and it appeared uncomfortable. I took a pillow from the guest bed and tucked it under his neck. It didn’t wake him. Spreading the quilt over both of us, I nestled under his arm. Michael shifted, and I worried that he might roll on his side, with his back to me. He started that way, but his hurt shoulder made him turn back, and I moved with him so that we wound up spooning.
As Michael’s arm circled my waist, his hand came up and cupped my breast, warm and still. No caress, he just held me, steady, and continued to sleep.
Dear God, what I felt to be touched by him. I lay there with eyes wide.
LATER, AFTER DAWN, I heard my alarm from the other room. Michael had returned to sleeping on his back, so I was able to slip away. While a pot of coffee brewed, I checked email from work. Central Office wanted to know if I was returning to the Professor’s that day, and I replied yes. I was in for the duration if he was.
Before leaving for Lake Oswego, I checked on Michael. He was awake and putting down his cell phone. “Gary’s coming by to bring me in today. I’ll see at work about getting a ride back.”
“I’d be happy to pick you up on my way home.”
Wincing, he stretched his shoulder forward and back. “I’m the one who made this stupid mess. I should be the one to clean it up.”
EIGHT YEARS HAD PASSED since I finished my social work degree, and somehow I had not returned to the Portland State University campus once. I’d expected to visit often, to attend lectures or audit conferences. But then I moved in with Michael, and work proved to be plenty educational.
Not to mention pouring all my time into patient care. I couldn’t see myself informing some dying man or woman, “Hey, I’d love to stay and help you with your anguish, but I have to go hear a lecture on anguish.”
Still, I pulled onto campus that morning feeling as though I had been missing something. Maybe I would try harder to follow department doings. Not long ago, those people had been my kin.
The parking lot I’d used was serving as a staging area for construction of a new building, so I had to hunt for a place to park. Then I hoofed it over to the library, a U-shaped building of glass with giant stone monoliths at either end. Everyone I passed on the sidewalk seemed incredibly young. Which probably meant that, to them, I looked incredibly old.
That early in the day, only a few people were working in the computer area. I sat at a terminal, and they did not even lift their heads. My old screen name and password were still valid—like access to the library, a little gift to local alumni.
When I searched nonfiction books in stock for the name Reed, the screen listed a biography of former U.S. House Speaker Thomas Reed, and a collector’s guide to fine china by Alan Reed. That was all. I did another query under Reed, B., and the sole item was a textbook on quantum mechanics by B. Cameron Reed.
“Pardon me,” I said to the young woman at the information desk.
She wore a Chinese-style military jacket, and below her ear she had a tattoo of a turtle. Such a tender place. I wondered how much the needle had hurt.
The young woman set aside a textbook she was reading; the cover said something about chemistry. “How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for books by Barclay Reed. The historian.”
“One second.” She slapped keys with the speed and punch of an airline attendant dealing with an overbooked flight. “I’m finding several Reeds. What did you say the first name was?”
“Barclay.”
She ran her thumb down the right-hand side of the screen. “Barclay, Barclay. Nope. Sorry. No books here by that guy.”
That was puzzling. “Why would the university library not have a former professor’s books?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Let’s try books in print.”
The young woman pounded away on her keyboard. “Here we go, there’s a bunch of them. Just none on our shelves, for some reason. Weird.”
“Are they about World War II?”
“Titles look that way. I can try interlibrary loan, if you want. He’d probably be on the shelves at Lewis and Clark. It takes two days.”
“No thanks.” I backed away. “I’ll figure something else out.”
CHERYL WAS STANDING in the garden when I arrived that morning. I couldn’t help giggling. “Did he evict you?”
“The Professor is having stomach discomfort. He does not like to pass gas with a woman in the house. Aren’t these azaleas lovely?”
They really were, extravagant pink bushes along the house’s side yard. The rest of the garden was mathematical, as if it had been mapped on paper before anything was planted. “Do you think he did this landscaping?”
“Once upon a time, perhaps. But I’m afraid his gardening days are ended.”
“I suppose.” And then I heard his voice, booming inside the house. Cheryl had left the front door open a few inches. “The call of duty,” I said.
Cheryl gave my arm a squeeze. “Have an interesting day.”
“SHE HAD THE TEMERITY TO RETURN,” he said, snapping the newspaper to keep it upright between us. “Bravo for Nurse Birch. I wager at the office they all say, ‘What a plucky gal she is.’ ”
I stoo
d at the foot of his bed. “I have something to get off my chest.”
“Don’t we all?”
“I suppose. But my own conscience is enough for me to worry about. And I would appreciate the courtesy of face-to-face for one minute, please.”
Ever so slowly he lowered the top half of the newspaper. His hair remained in its upright shock, his eyes glinting with mischief. He must have had a good night’s sleep. “Proceed.”
“I was not completely truthful yesterday about something.”
“Let me guess. You’re not actually a nurse. I could have determined that by the degree of competence you demonstrated.”
This man was a skilled conversational swordsman, thrust and parry and hop out of range. Regardless, I fenced on. “I told you the truth when I said I didn’t strike your gong yesterday. But I did touch it.”
He dropped his arms, crumpling the newspaper in his lap. “Everyone touches it, Nurse Birch. That gong is irresistible.”
“Maybe so. Anyway maybe that touch was what you heard.”
“I didn’t hear anything. I simply wished to reveal to you how predictable and common you are. How unspecial.” He frowned at the newspaper. “I was being a . . . I believe your word is ‘tester.’ You failed.”
And he snapped the pages up between us again.
LATER IN THE DAY, the Professor permitted me to bathe him.
By that time in their illness some people have lost modesty, the body a flagrant display of medical facts they no longer have the stamina to deny. But for most patients I’ve cared for, it’s important to maintain every modicum of dignity possible. The ego relinquishes its powers with a reluctance that I do not judge, but rather admire.
I remember Tanya, a woman with ovarian cancer who insisted that I refresh her bright red lipstick every two hours. Easy enough. I met Tanya’s need like clockwork. After she died, the first thing I did was apply a fresh layer.
There was Ted, a fireman with an inoperable stomach tumor. His wife made a poster of an old news photo that showed him carrying a limp boy from a building, the background all smoke and flames. The boy, Ted told me nearly every day, survived. The last time I saw that fireman, he was flattened with illness. But he still had the strength to hook a thumb at the poster and whisper one word to me: “Lived.”
I love that. I love the times that people celebrate themselves for as long as they can. All dead people are the same. No two living people are.
BARCLAY REED WAS TOO FRAIL to lower himself into the tub, much less lift himself out. Assuming he would be of the modest kind, I managed to keep a dark blue hand towel draped over his privates the whole time. Likewise, I remained perfectly matter-of-fact while drying him off.
But after dressing the Professor, I did not take him directly back to bed. Instead I wheeled his chair around from the living room and sat him in it.
“Are we off to the rodeo, Nurse Birch?” he asked. “Giddyap.”
I draped a blanket over his shoulders, which of course made me think of covering Michael a few hours earlier. I hoped my husband’s day was going well. I had resolved not to check on him. He had made clear his wishes to reckon with yesterday’s mishap on his own. Still, I was allowed to worry.
I rolled the Professor to the sliding doors and pushed one back. It was a cloudy day, the lake as still as a painting. I wheeled him out on the dock, then locked the brakes.
“Such adventures you take me on, Nurse Birch. I feel intrepid.”
“Did you swim from here very often?”
He shook his head. “Swimming prunes the skin and makes a body clammy.”
Well. So much for my fantasy of taking a dip from that deck. Lake Oswego would remain unsullied by the unwashed likes of me.
The Professor continued: “I live here because of the light.”
“Off the water, you mean? I love that too.”
“That is not in the least what I mean. Please do not speak for me. Save that for when I am dead.”
I let the word hang there, not responding, letting him know that it did not frighten me, that I felt no awkwardness or hurry to fill the silence and thereby mute what he had said.
Sure enough, a moment later he spoke again. “The light I mean is the dawn. The eastward view is finest at the break of day. I have few regrets in this life. But had I known the extent to which the last phase would confine me, I would have installed a larger bedroom window to allow the early light.”
“If you like, Professor, I can come earlier in the day, and bring you out here for the sunrise as long as your energy lasts.”
“Nurse Birch, that idea . . .” Instead of finishing the sentence, he closed his eyes and breathed with it for a while. He opened his eyes again. “That may be the first genuinely intelligent suggestion you have made.”
“Thank you. I think.” And I let him see me smiling.
But he coughed into his fist. “At this juncture, I must content myself with memory. I have seen a great many sunrises here. They must suffice.”
“If you change your mind, let me know. Because the offer stands.”
He said nothing for a while. A motorboat trolled past, sleek and clean, making a small wake that slapped the dock but did not splash. The couple on board waved to us. I waited, not responding, hoping to see the Professor raise one hand. They had turned forward by the time he did, a tepid gesture but at least he had acknowledged them.
“A great many sunrises, you said. Have you lived here a long time?”
“That is the only way an academic can afford a palace such as this,” Barclay Reed sniffed. “By purchasing his house decades before a glorified pond becomes a domain of luxury and wealth.”
“That reminds me.” I moved in front of him. “A strange thing happened today. I went to the university library to check out one of your books.”
“That is indeed strange, Nurse Birch. My work is not the sort of popular pulp with which I suspect you normally amuse yourself.”
I was learning to let the Professor’s insults go. They were a habit of his, condescension by reflex, and had no sting. “Actually, the strange thing was that they didn’t have your writing there. Not one copy of one book.”
His eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”
“I’m all done fibbing with you, Professor.”
“Blast it all.” He was grinning. “How perfectly proper of them.”
“You’re not surprised?”
His smile vanished. “What if I told you that in August of 1945, after two mass murders by atomic detonation, the American military possessed two more bombs, ready for use? That, had the Japanese not surrendered, our nation was prepared to destroy two more cities and kill everyone in them?”
“Is that true?”
“You tell me, Nurse Birch.”
“I don’t know, Professor. I’ve never heard about two more bombs.”
“But do you believe me? That is my primary concern.”
“I guess. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Why not, indeed.” He rubbed his bony hands together. “Furthermore, what if I told you that the Allies dropped thousands of leaflets on Hiroshima and Nagasaki beforehand, urging people to run for their lives?”
“We warned them? How could I have spent a full year of high school history on World War II and never heard about that?”
“And yet you believe me?”
“Well, you’re blowing my mind a bit. But sure, I believe you.”
“Fair enough.” The professor spun his wheelchair to face me. “In my view, both uses of atomic weapons were justified. More to my point, however, may we stipulate that there remain significant untold stories from the Pacific theater of World War II?”
I had no idea how these questions connected to his books not being in the library. But the Professor was more fervent than I’d seen him. This was energy far beyond his insul
ts, and I would not interrupt. “All right.”
“Might we also agree that there could be keen interest among the public in learning such things? Might a scholar expect that his research on this topic would be in high demand?”
“Which topic? I’m not quite following you.”
But the Professor was not speaking to me any longer. He had wheeled his chair back and was orating to the lake. “Now to the heart of our argument. Let us take as given that human ambition is a vile, pernicious form of entropy.” He was not lecturing. He was ranting, and at an increasing volume. “Let us imagine a doctoral student, bright and able and oh so ambitious, an acolyte whom a professor therefore entrusts with certain discoveries in confidence, in advance of their publication. Might that young scholar experience a temptation to appropriate the findings for himself?”
“Wait. Someone stole your ideas?”
His fists pounded the chair arms. “Yes, blast it, yes. He might have succeeded too, but for a fortuitous coincidence. A faculty member on his thesis panel also served as history editor of the university press. When the young man presented a dissertation abstract nearly identical to my new book proposal, the editor knew at once that someone had plagiarized. He confronted the student, who alleged that I had filched his work.” Barclay Reed shook his head. “It was admirably brazen.”
“You put up a fight, of course.”
“Nurse Birch, try to understand.” Barclay Reed held out both hands, weighing each side of the argument as if he were a scale. “The young man was my protégé, whereas I was one semester shy of retirement. He stood at the dawn of his career, while I hardly needed one more publication for my résumé.” He lowered his hands. “I believed it would be gallant to step aside, a graybeard making room for the young novice. Moreover, I assumed that with my imminent move to emeritus status, the whole dispute would evaporate.”
The Hummingbird Page 5
