Emily, Alone

by Stewart O'Nan

  Being sick was news. She made use of it, broadcasting to all points as if something interesting had happened to her. On the phone with Margaret she called it Sarah’s Christmas present, a joke she recycled for Kenneth, who worried it was strep. She appreciated his concern but discounted his diagnosis. Sarah didn’t have strep, just a bad cold. No, as Arlene warned, at their age the thing Emily needed to be careful of was pneumonia.

  “What are you taking for it?” they asked, and gave her the names of pills she’d never heard of and didn’t trust.

  She needed to rest, everyone agreed, but there was too much to do.

  “Like what?” Margaret asked, and then suggested Arlene could return Emily’s library books and pick up her mother’s good tablecloth.

  “I’m not bedridden,” Emily said. “I just don’t feel well.”

  “I’m sure she’d be happy to help.”

  “I promise, if I need help, she’ll be the first person I call. How’s that?”

  “But you won’t,” Margaret said. “Because you’re stubborn.”

  Later, Arlene called to offer her services.

  “Why do I feel like I’m being ganged up on?” Emily asked, when of course she’d brought it on herself. Of the modern saints, she admired, above all, those martyrs who suffered in silence—Bonhoeffer, von Moltke—partly because she couldn’t.

  Ten in the morning and all she wanted to do was sleep. She wrote her thank-you notes, befogged, made herself some soup and toast for lunch, tipped back a noxious capful of DayQuil and put herself to bed. It was blustery out, the telephone wires swinging, and for a while she lay watching the changing light on the ceiling and listening to Rufus breathe, her swirling thoughts magnified by the silence. Her lungs were tight, her sinuses clogged, and, contemplating the closed door, she recalled how when she was sick as a child her mother would make soup and bring it up on a tray, tucking a napkin into the neck of her pajamas. Being cooped up in a room with two dozen first-graders, her mother was always coming down with something, and several times as a teenager Emily had the chance to return the favor, ceremonially bearing the tray from the kitchen up the stairs and down the hall. “Bless you, dear,” her mother said helplessly, propped on her pillows, and Emily felt the satisfaction of repaying a debt, just as now, though she protested she would be fine, she felt she’d been left to fend for herself, and, overcome by weakness and the unfairness of it all, gave in to childish tears, then, spent, descended into a restless sleep, dreaming of summer in Kersey, and Henry and her in London, trying to flag a taxi and having no luck. They were stuck in the middle of a roundabout, traffic surging from all directions. Every time he stepped into the street she was afraid he’d be killed, and tried to pull him back to the curb, tugging at the sleeve of his old trenchcoat.

  When she woke, the room was dark, the covers smothering her. She was sweaty and flushed, feverish, a development the thermometer confirmed. The Bufferin hurt going down.

  She put on her robe and slippers and fed Rufus, but had no appetite herself. She sat at the breakfast table, rumpled and fusty, picking at some leftover turkey and mashed potatoes, dreading every swallow. It was too late to call Dr. Sayid’s office. Instead she called Arlene, who agreed her plan made sense.

  In the morning she was hoarse. Tiffany at Dr. Sayid’s office took pity on her and fit her in. Arlene drove, reprising her old role of chauffeur, for which Emily was grateful. The Taurus stank freshly of cigarettes, but she was too far gone for it to bug her.

  She’d been seeing Dr. Sayid since Dr. Runco retired, leaving him his patients. From the first she liked him better, which came as a great surprise. He was younger, yet formal in his manner, crisply enunciating each syllable in a charming Bombay accent. A fellow crossword fiend, he’d done his residency at Johns Hopkins, and, unfairly perhaps, she considered him sharper than Dr. Runco, a graduate of her own alma mater, Pitt. As her father would say, he was on the ball. He was also more direct with her, treating her as an equal, which, not being squeamish, Emily appreciated. He could deliver the worst news with no preliminaries whatsoever and expect her not only to accept it but to immediately discuss treatment options. At this point in her life, as she told anyone who would listen, that kind of practicality was exactly what she needed.

  Today, after a half hour in the crowded waiting room, she saw Mary, the nurse practitioner, who briskly took her history, checked her vital signs and updated her chart. Mary swabbed the back of her throat, making Emily gag, asked her to change into a flimsy gown and left her alone again.

  Waiting and illness were both a kind of limbo. Combined, they produced a hypnotic daze, and sitting there on the paper-covered examining table in the spare little room decorated with anatomical drawings, aware of her faulty posture, Emily experienced a blank timelessness, as if the rest of the world and not she had come unmoored.

  She saw Henry in the dream, hailing a black cab—Death, she suspected, or was that too simple? She grabbed at his coat, trying to hold him back. She’d never had a dream like that about Louise, only the one in the museum, the two of them browsing the endless glass cases of stuffed birds, all silently, a scene out of Louise’s favorite, Bergman. She would have loved to hear what Louise made of it.

  When the doctor walked in she tried to smile for him, as if she were putting up a brave front. He apologized for taking so long. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, and rolled his stool over. Under his lab coat he had on a striped tie topped with a perfect Windsor knot. “All right, let me take a look at you.” He clicked his penlight and peered into her mouth. “Wider, thank you. Oh my, yes. I can see why we’re having trouble swallowing. You’ve got some redness on both sides.”

  “You think it’s strep?”

  “There’s a strain that’s been circulating.” He felt her glands, turning her head right and then left. “We’ll have to see what the culture tells us, but I’d be very surprised if it isn’t.”

  He stood and warmed the disc of his stethoscope between his palms before having her lean forward and breathe deeply. As he moved it from place to place on her back—“Again,” he said—she marveled at how unaccustomed she’d become to another’s touch.

  In the midst of this, there was a knock on the door. The doctor pulled her gown closed before calling, “Hello, yes?”

  It was Mary, with a printout for him. The test had vindicated Kenneth—it was strep.

  The doctor was also worried about her weight. She needed to be gaining, not losing. “Tell me what you had to eat yesterday.”

  She was too miserable to defend herself, and told him the truth, essentially. How could she explain? The fridge was stuffed with leftovers, she just wasn’t hungry.

  He shook his head as if it were unacceptable. “You have to do better—for yourself and for me as your doctor. You can make my job easier or you can make it harder, it’s up to you.”

  He prescribed antibiotics, and a nasal spray for her sinuses. He also wanted her to supplement her diet with Ensure, and had Mary give her a sample can which Emily was embarrassed to carry through the waiting room.

  “I’ve got some at home if you want it,” Arlene said in the car. “It’s really not so bad.”

  “It’s old people chow.”

  “We’re old people.”

  “What I resent is the implication that I can’t take care of myself.”

  “You’re a terrible sick person,” Arlene said, “you know that?”

  “I know. I’m sorry. You’re a good one.”

  She scoffed. “I overcompensate, that’s all.”

  “Me too,” Emily said, “I just go the other way.”

  “Probably healthier for you.”

  “I doubt it.” And that, being the truth, they let stand as the last word.

  They swung by the Rite Aid on Highland and dropped off her prescriptions. In the far corner, customers were lined up against the wall and sitting in the blood pressure chairs. The pharmacist said it might be a while, so Arlene drove her home and settled her
in bed. When Emily resurfaced, hours later, on her nightstand sat a small white bag with her pills, the stapled receipt holding it closed. Emily had to put on her glasses to see how expensive it was and then wished she hadn’t.

  TAKE WITH FOOD, the label warned.

  Arlene was way ahead of her, bringing up a steaming bowl of turkey noodle soup on the same varnished rattan tray the children used to serve Henry breakfast in bed on Father’s Day. As she settled it over Emily’s legs, she leaned in, treating Emily to a close-up of her scar. The new skin was the color of bubble gum. On the surface of the soup floated dozens of tiny yellow circles of fat like breeding amoebas. The turkey chunks were stringy, the carrots pale orange coins.

  “Did you make this?” Her voice was a whisper.

  “I got it from the Crockery while I was out. I know how you like them. All I did was stick it in the microwave. If it’s too hot, I can add an ice cube.”

  “No,” Emily said. “Thank you.”

  “Eat,” Arlene said, trying a Yiddish accent, “it’s good and good for you.”

  She was right—the broth was rich and salty—but each mouthful stung going down. It was an effort, and Emily found herself apologizing.

  “It’s okay,” Arlene said. “Just eat what you can. Maybe we’ll have some ice cream later, how does that sound?”

  She was enjoying playing nursemaid too much, and yet what a relief it was to cast off the last shreds of her dignity and surrender to her. Emily had no strength left, and let her open the cider-colored vial and tip out her pill, a formidable tan football. Arlene passed her a glass of water and took it from her when she was done, then decoded the instructions of the nasal spray so all Emily had to do was squeeze the thing twice and sniff in before handing it over and going back to sleep.

  Later, waking in the dark, she told Arlene it was okay, she didn’t have to stay the night. Arlene laughed. She hadn’t. It was morning. She’d slept at home and let herself in with a key. She was making oatmeal for her, if she was hungry.

  “Thank you,” Emily said.

  She thought they’d caught the infection early enough and that with each dose of Levaquin, once she established a base, she’d get progressively better. She was right about one thing—this was just the beginning.

  She’d forgotten what it was like to be sick. The days were shapeless, her room a burrow. Arlene made it too easy, pulling the blinds and closing the drapes, taking Rufus downstairs with her. When the phone rang, Arlene answered. When the mail came, Arlene brought it up with Emily’s lunch. It was the darkest part of the year, when the arrival of the spring seed catalogs was all that sustained her, and now she didn’t have the energy to read them. The pills gave her diarrhea, taking away what little appetite she had. Her mouth was foul, the roof tiled with dried mucus. On her nightstand gathered unruly blossoms of used tissues and stale glasses of water. Henry ran after the cab, and she ran after him, his trenchcoat flapping behind him like a cape. Sometimes when she woke, the radio was playing softly, and sometimes she only thought it was, imaginary viols sighing fantasias composed by her own ears. She missed church for the first time in ages, along with the crossword, and then, Tuesday, woke blearily to a new year. She noted, more with ironic astonishment than self-pity, that time had literally passed her by.

  “You’ve got your sense of humor back,” Arlene said, checking the thermometer. “That’s a good sign.”

  “I suppose it is,” Emily said, though she wasn’t trying to be funny.

  She was tired of lying in bed, and pestered Arlene to let her go downstairs in her robe and slippers and sit at the breakfast table with the paper while she made their lunch—grilled cheese and tomato soup. The stovetop was spotted with grease, and Betty was supposed to come tomorrow. Out of habit, Emily wetted a sponge.

  “Sit,” Arlene said, as if she were talking to one of her students. “Do you need to go back to bed?”

  “I’m feeling much better,” Emily said, but her voice was a husk.

  “I’m glad. Now drink your juice.”

  “Did you water the tree?”

  “I watered it when I watered the plants this morning.”

  It was hard for Emily to imagine anything going on in the house without her knowledge, and as grateful as she was, it was also, subtly, an affront. There was so little she could call her own.

  Under the table, as if starved for attention, Rufus rested his head on her knee. After they ate, he preceded her upstairs, curling around the far side of her bed where the box spring blocked the gray light from the windows. He flopped down, rolled over, and in minutes was dreaming, his scraping snores providing accompaniment to a Debussy étude.

  She knew it was perverse, she knew she needed to rest to get better, yet she resented that, with so many things that needed to be done, nothing was expected of her. She leafed through her seed catalogs, dog-earing pages, and sniped at the Times crossword. As she was rereading her mother’s tooled leatherette copy of Hardy’s Life’s Little Ironies, a sour, toofamiliar stench reached her—Rufus had let one loose.

  “P.U.,” she said, and then, when he didn’t wake up, called out loudly.

  He knew what it meant, but didn’t budge.

  “Go.”

  He looked up at her moonily.

  “Go,” she said, and he did, settling by her dresser, huffing once. “You know I love you, but you stink.”

  Her intention was not to nap but to get back on a normal schedule, especially with Betty coming tomorrow, but Life’s Little Ironies was not Hardy’s best, she was full from lunch, and the bed was warm. When she’d read the same sentence three times with no success, she closed the book and, holding it to her chest like an amulet, closed her eyes.

  When she opened them it was dark out—tricked again. The streetlight was on, and she could smell onions frying in butter. Rufus was gone, a blow, since she’d hoped to feed him his dinner.

  The Bolognese Arlene had made upset her stomach, but Emily didn’t mention it, or that she thought it an odd choice. Never having had to cook for a family, Arlene had a limited repertoire, and Emily counted herself lucky that it wasn’t her game-day chili. Under Arlene’s watchful eye, she ate with gusto and then offered to help with the dishes, only to be rebuffed.

  Arlene wouldn’t let her wipe down the counters either.

  “There must be something I can do.” But her voice undercut what she was saying.

  “You can go sit down and rest, that’s what you can do.”

  In protest, she let Rufus out. They were getting low on treats, so she added it to the list Arlene had started.

  “What are you putting on there?” Arlene asked, as if she were trespassing.

  “Only the most important thing in the house.”

  Later they had ice cream, which Emily didn’t want, after the pasta. She appreciated that Arlene wasn’t pushing the Ensure, but once she left, Emily had to use the john. She was noisy, and reached over Rufus, who was flat on the bath mat, to flick on the fan.

  “I’d say I’m sorry, but turnabout is fair play.”

  Before bed she set her alarm, something she hadn’t done in years. In the morning, achy and muddleheaded, she showered and dressed as if it were a regular day. She brought in the paper and made herself toast and tea, stirring a spoonful of honey into her cup. She did her dishes and took her next-to-last pill, and by the time Arlene arrived, she was plucking ornaments from the tree and fitting them into their boxes.

  “What are you doing?” Arlene asked, aghast.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m taking down the tree.”

  “It can’t wait till the weekend?”

  “It’s easier when Betty’s here.”

  “Oh my God,” Arlene said. “Margaret was right. You’d rather kill yourself than let someone help you.”

  The irony of this insult was self-evident, Emily thought, given Margaret’s history, but she didn’t take the bait. “That’s not true. I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Honestly, I
don’t know what I would have done without you. But I can’t stay in bed forever, that’s not going to help me feel better.”

  “Thank you, but … Just don’t overdo it. I’m supposed to be looking after you.”

  “And you did a fine job of it,” Emily said, presenting her upright self, with a model’s flourish of a hand, as evidence.

  “You still sound awful.”

  “I only have one pill left.”

  Arlene remained skeptical. Betty knew the situation, and all day the two of them watched Emily, as if testing her. She pretended to ignore their scrutiny, using her rare moments alone to rest and regroup. Together they wrestled the tree out to the curb, along with the garbage, and stored the ornaments safely in the basement.

  At the end of the day Arlene asked Betty for a ruling, casting her as an impartial observer, but, having worked for them so many years, and preferring to continue, Betty wisely refused to choose a side.

  “I don’t think you’re a hundred percent yet,” she said, “but you’re getting there.”

  Emily paid her and they saw her off, leaving them to play out an awkward scene in the front hall. Arlene, trying to do her duty, wanted to stay and make dinner. Emily, exhausted from putting up a front, wanted her to leave so she could collapse in peace. She thoughtfully considered her offer, as if she might accept it—because she was grateful, and Arlene had been a dear—but she hadn’t fought all day not to win her independence, and gently she said, “Thank you, but I think I can manage.”

  “Okay,” Arlene said, with reservations—or, did Emily imagine it, with relief? “You’ve got to eat, though.”

  “I will.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow to see how you’re doing.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I know I don’t have to.”

  Emily reached into the closet and handed her her jacket, helping her find the armhole. “Let me call Margaret.”

  “I’m many things, but a tattletale isn’t one of them.”