by Charles Bock
“Late or not, we have an appointment. It’s not like they’re going to refuse to see me.”
“Oh, that?” he answered. “I forgot all about that. I’m still stuck on, if there’s no way crabs are in season, how can that place be having mondo crab nights?”
She could have screamed. What did he expect her to do? She hadn’t found the right nanny yet, and Monday morning was a nuclear waste zone for sitters, and his parents sure weren’t about to hightail it across the country from Bakersfield to help. Which meant there wasn’t any choice but to bring the infant, was there? Since they didn’t have a baby car seat, she’d asked the driver to go slow. Was it her fault he made a beeline for the far right lane, or idled behind each double-parked delivery truck, every fourth dry cleaning van? Yes, blame her because progress up First Avenue no longer seemed the result of an engine, wheels, and unleaded gasoline. Osmosis was more like it. Magnets, maybe.
“My sweet lummox,” Alice said. “The reason Crab Fest is a sensation is because nobody can figure out how the restaurant can be getting fresh crabs off the East Coast during the third week of January. They’ve had inspectors, government regulators. New York magazine literally staked out the restaurant. One shift of reporters in a van with a telephoto lens focused on the delivery dock. Another crew watching the front entrance through a telescope from a ninth-floor office across the street—”
“New York magazine doesn’t have anything better to do?”
“Nobody has anything better to do.” She laughed. “It’s turned into this whole thing. I’m telling you, every know-it-all in the tristate area wants to partake in these magical mystery crab boils. Apparently people are crammed into these long public tables covered in newspapers. All kinds of hoi polloi and celebrities are in with you, cracking shells with their hands and thwapping claws with little hammers. Shards and crab goo flying hither and yon, the only thing anybody’s talking about is whether they’re all being played for fools.”
Oliver’s grunt suggested a grudging curiosity, even bemusement. “I bet they just flew them in from Australia.”
—
Between Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth, the west side of York was nothing but sandstone, limestone, and marble. Remnants of the building’s previous incarnation were apparent: Gothic stained-glass windows, a central cathedral, a rectory spire, parallel statues of the Virgin Mary with her arms out, accepting all in need. Where turrets guarded each building corner, however, the baroque ended, gleaming steel and glass blocking out the dishwater sky.
Alice reminded herself to breathe. So long as she kept breathing, the time would pass, she would get through this. Every day brought more humblings, she told herself. It was up to her to accept them.
She patted the sprouts of hair atop Doe’s skull. The follicles were silky on her fingertips. Pressing lightly, Alice made an effort to absorb each single sensation. Appreciate each stroke. In the puffy pink winter coat Oliver’s mother had bought, the little girl was a living doll. Alice kissed the center point on Doe’s crown. She raised the miniature hood and its pink fringe over the child’s head, and did not rush in passing her girl to Oliver, who was already out of the cab, waiting with the shoulder bag.
On the curb now, reeling from a blast of wind from off the East River, Alice burrowed into her own coat, watched her exhaled breath vanish. Keep doing the simple things, she reminded herself. She made sure to plant her feet, took steady steps toward the back of the cab, where the driver was lifting the stroller out of the trunk. Alice thanked him, saying, “I can use all the help I can get.” His eyes returned a kindness that shocked her; she wasn’t prepared for such dazzling pity. The wind whistled, truly foul, blue tendrils of Alice’s wig swirling into her line of sight. Alice knelt, busying herself with the collapsed metal bars. Two well-placed yanks and the carriage came alive, straightening, its alacrity almost justifying the ridiculous price. Instinct told Alice to grab her daughter back, but Oliver was already setting Doe into the buggy. Watching her husband’s ministrations—at once unskilled and suffused with care—relaxed Alice, a bit. “Settle up with the cabbie,” she said. “I didn’t bring any cash.”
Leaving his answer behind, she commandeered the buggy’s driving position—it was selfish, fine, and she’d need all her energy today. Still, Alice began pushing toward the sliding doors. She was halfway beyond a mulling cluster of doctors on their cigarette breaks. A security guard came out—to offer a wheelchair?
“I just love seeing moms work them baby contraptions,” he said. Hands jerked, kung fu motions. “BAM BAM.”
The foundry stone carved with SANTA MARIA RECTORY 1896; the ornate marble archway with small carved nun; the large letters of modernist font and industrial steel, appearing without any context, spelling out WALT WHITMAN MEMORIAL. Marble walls yellowed by age appeared that much more decrepit thanks to institutional lighting. With them came the warmth ubiquitous to certain types of lobbies, large rooms open and busy as the waiting area of a train station. A man and woman were inside the entranceway, guiding a dowager so old as to be mummified, all three visitors searching for the location of a certain bank of elevators. People in scrubs zipped past, carrying their morning bagels and coffees. Near the escalator row, scattered commuters paused long enough to grab one of the morning tabloids from the nearby blind guy, make change from out of his Knicks cap.
Alice noticed, near one of the saggy ferns, the man in light blue jammies—he was expectant, tracking comings and goings from the front entrance. He had no lower jaw. Instead of staring at his deformity, she forced her attention elsewhere, to the nearby gentleman wearing that season’s nattiest three-piece suit, who was pushing a little boy in a wheelchair. The boy’s hair was piecemeal, patchy, almost like Alice’s had been before Oliver had plugged in those shears.
Her grip around the baby carriage handles tightened. Memories assaulted her now, visceral and consuming: the pungent, liquid-plastic odor of surgical gloves; the sensation of ice chips rattling around inside her mouth—a recollection so strong she could almost feel the ice against her teeth. In her mind’s eye she saw the postcard with the ballerina that Oliver had taped onto the wall across from her bed. She remembered feeling so weak that the act of lying in bed was a chore, so weak that keeping her eyes open was itself exhausting, but also staring for what felt like long stretches, centering her thoughts on that gorgeous ballerina, her poise, her strength. Now Alice remembered the middle of the afternoon when she woke from a nap, and her eyes focused, and inside that hospital room in New Hampshire, she saw Tilda, and her mother, and Doe, each of them peaceful and asleep, slouched in a chair or lying on the foldout bed. Alice remembered thinking that she had to watch them sleep, she had to appreciate the sight of these three astounding women, she had to stay in this moment and soak in this experience, because she had no idea how many more times she might have it, or if it would come her way again.
There were other memories: yanking on the plug of her IV tower battery, pushing the tower toward the bathroom and yanking down her mesh hospital underwear; squatting just in time and releasing yet another diarrhea blast into the little plastic hat they kept over the toilet and feeling relief, she’d made it, she wouldn’t be shitting herself this time, and feeling emptied out, too, because nothing was left inside, and she felt herself bleeding from her vagina, and bleeding from her behind, and then, her body unclenched once more, shitting out another burst.
Inconceivable. It was starting up again. She was back in this.
“It’s just a get-to-know-you visit,” Oliver said.
Alice nodded. “We’re just going to get on the same page.”
“No reason to worry about anything except what’s right in front of us.”
Her hand was clutching his. She welled up, swallowed, and said: “Tu esta mi favorito.”
“Tu esta mi favorito,” he said.
And in this way, they kept going, following the directions Alice had written in her to-do notebook, muddling through the lobby, their hands
together on that stroller, the sick woman in the blue wig, and her dapper, stubble-headed husband, and their baby, too, a small, quiet family, shrinking, moving forward.
Yes, Everything Was Moving Forward
THE LIGHT HUE commonly associated with Creole heritage. Tiny and pretty, dark hair pulled back and away from her face, further highlighting bone structure that was delicate as a bird skeleton’s, placing attention on eyes that were small and brown and entirely empty. She had the faint makings of a mustache. She took in Alice’s wig and smiled in a manner that was either polite or perfunctory. Introducing herself, she asked, boy or girl, and how old Doe was, and the whole time reminded Alice of a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.
Alice had to make sure her hands did not tremble, but she managed to write a legible Culpepper in her notepad. Small letters followed: “intern?” Without fuss, Miss Culpepper led the family beyond the registration desk, into a short corridor. On the walls were framed, yellowing pictures from bygone eras—wimpled nuns tending to immigrants, beehived nurses aiding the bedridden. An obese woman stood just inside the hallway and was using a rolling chair as her support crutch while she placed manila folders into a filing cabinet.
“Before you can proceed to your appointment,” Miss Culpepper said, her voice high, “I just need to make sure that all your paperwork is in order.” Entering a low-ceilinged cubicle area, she pulled out a chair. The desk surface empty save for a boxy desktop computer (its plastic faded to the color of curdled milk), an opened carton of orange juice, and a series of elaborately framed photos, the same child: smiling in a tutu, smiling with her dollies.
“She has your lovely skin,” Alice said.
Miss Culpepper blinked, a few times, as if figuring out how to respond. Allowing herself another minor grin, she sat, smoothed out the front of her skirt. A few taps at the desktop brought a pair of fresh pages from a printer the size of a minifridge, at rest on the floor behind her. “Review these. If the information on these pages is accurate, the hospital asks you to sign on two individual pages. This first one authorizes us to bill and share the information with your health insurance. Next to the Post-it, please.”
Alice gripped the pen. Keep doing the simple things.
Miss Culpepper kept typing. A new page arrived. “This form, in case your health insurance doesn’t cover the costs, or refuses payment. You acknowledge responsibility for the outstanding charges.”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said. “Our policy covered most of New Hampshire, my chemo induction. There’s no reason to think this should be different?”
The baby rattled and chirped inside the carriage. Three of the lines on the desk phone were blinking.
“By the Post-it,” said Miss Culpepper.
As if this was his cue, Oliver shifted, jutting halfway across the desk. “We signed a proxy that authorizes me to talk about these matters—I faxed it at least three times. I’m sure a copy got to you.” He unfurled a smile designed to be charming. “Miss Culpepper? My wife’s dealing with enough on her plate. I’m sure you and I can discuss this separately?”
Miss Culpepper’s eyes were large, but not engaged, or particularly interested. She nibbled her lip. “We here at Whitman do offer significant financial aid, available for those patients that qualify.” She cleared her throat. “If and when the time comes that you should feel you need help, I can provide you with that paperwork.”
“So nothing’s necessarily wrong with our insurance?” Alice asked her.
“Hospital policy is, we can’t let you see the doctor unless you sign this form.”
“You’re not answering my question,” Alice said.
“Just let me worry about that,” Oliver said. “Okay?”
—
Yes, everything was moving forward. Alice was even remembering to breathe. Even now she was breathing, releasing her worries as if they were doves outside an elaborate wedding. For the third time since her arrival at the check-in desk, Alice apologized for the confusion in getting her slides transferred from Dartmouth. Alice told Beth there had never been a doubt the mess would get straightened out, and she thanked Beth yet again for her patience and competence, and, Alice agreed, it was nice to see someone in person after so much time on the phone—she felt like she knew Beth already.
Squarely in her line of sight were placards informing of the high risk of infection among patients, and asking that any registering patient let the staff know about cold symptoms, and if you had any kind of rash. Holding the sheet with her orders for blood work, Alice turned her torso away from the desk, and began scribbling in her little pad, two lines beneath her notes about Culpepper, reminders for how to identify Beth.
Everything will be fine.
One of the other receptionists was occupied by the task of training a new hire, and the morning’s backlog of patients was lined up behind Alice, with two elderly ladies bonding over the horrible traffic and how worried each had been about missing her appointment. Pushing herself upright, Alice eased between them, apologizing with a deference one normally reserves for royalty. She felt a light-headedness, as if billions of carbonated bubbles were dancing and popping inside her brain. Way to sabotage yourself, pushing that carriage all over the hospital.
She leaned on a chair for support, wiped her brow, adjusted the pinch of the mask on her nose, and took her good sweet time, unzipping, removing, and folding her winter coat.
Your body can only do what it can do.
Over a long thermal shirt, she was wearing a tight, bright yellow tee. Across her chest, black iron-on letters screamed: GOOD GIRLS GO TO HEAVEN. BLONDES GO EVERYWHERE. She was wearing Thierry Mugler jeans strategically shredded with a straightedge razor. She was wearing combat boots with three-inch black rubber soles that were laced to the middles of her calves. She made sure the metallic-blue bob was secure on her head. She straightened her back, though not too straight, and lifted her chin, though not too high—she knew better from being behind the scenes at runway shows, altering and sewing up dresses at the last second while designers barked instructions at models. Alice swallowed the bile that had accumulated in the back of her throat, and, with the poofy jacket a black octopus bulging out from beneath her arm, she returned her focus to nailing each landed step, assuring firm balance. In this way she started back into the waiting room’s garden party color scheme, pastels and soft greens, its walls adorned with Impressionists’ landscapes.
The blood cancer waiting room is how she thought of it.
Golf shirts and elastic waistbands and old-lady Afros and blue surgical gloves, paunches and waddle necks, and oxygen masks and IV stands with clear plastic tubing; elderly people, mostly, reclining or sitting stiffly on comfy couches, their liver-spotted or gloved hands fidgeting, their eyes darting or downcast. They sat in small groupings, usually pairs. Who wanted to go through this alone?
On the nearest couch, a scarf of bright colors was wrapped around the head of a plump woman. A glance showed her to be a fright—swollen forehead, red rashy skin, a huge gauze patch where her left eye should have been, and that ubiquitous egg-blue bandit mask covering her nose and mouth. As Alice passed, the woman’s good eye rose from her paperback copy of A Time to Kill. Her mask widened, scarcely containing an obvious grin. She nudged her husband: his white brush of hair rose from a hardback copy of The Firm; he took in the sight, and broke out as well, his face going joyful.
Alice walked past a patient strapped onto a stretcher; the bored EMT gave Alice a wink.
Past a doctor leaning over and talking softly with two pear-shaped seniors, telling them it would be at least a half hour before results came in. “Maybe you want to get some breakfast? When you get back, just tell the desk to let me know.”
A man looked up: thin as a twig, gnarled, with a grotesquely humped back. His skin so gray it was almost green, his sunken eyes lively, almost joyful as they tracked her.
She noticed an immaculately attired Japanese couple watching her—how excel
lent the woman’s boots were; Alice would have killed for those boots.
If these people took something from her defiance, she was happy to be able to provide it. In spades and clovers she could provide defiance. God bless them all, she thought.
Oliver had set up an outpost in a corner alcove, and, by the time Alice arrived, she was exhausted, and exhilarated, and deeply emotional, ready to cry, vomit, scream. “I have to remember that we all have our own times and journeys,” she said. “Their situation is not my situation. I’m young and I’m strong and I have every reason in the world to get past this.”
“Of course you do,” he said. “You will.”
She snatched her baby from Oliver’s arms: the Blueberry was squirmy—exposure to day after day of passing nurses and doctors had turned her into an expert flirter, with an advanced degree in seeking out strangers, but this waiting room was proving to be too much, the child was overstimulated, turning cranky. Mommy. She needed Mommy.
Alice’s hand went behind her daughter’s head. She brought Doe in toward her bosom, the infant’s eyes widening. Doe spread open her mouth, revealing the pink mountain ridges that were her toothless gums. Instinct taking over, she went straight for Mommy’s breast.
Alice veered her off and rocked her in place and made clucking sweet sounds. In the child’s lumpy potato of a face, Alice still got a thrill from recognizing Oliver’s nose, his hard, dramatic brow, his protruding ears. She also felt chagrin, the child had not escaped the curse of Mommy’s weak chin. Nonetheless, Doe was clearly her own self, this evident even as she satisfied another textbook baby cliché: her baldish head, wondrous eyes, and pink visage belonging to infancy, yes, but also to the ancients. Indeed, Doe’s resemblance to so many of the seniors in the blood cancer waiting room was unmooring, and took Alice to a dark place, one deep inside her, a place of fathomless horrors.
Behind Oliver, just over his shoulder, a bronze plaque memorialized a beloved patriarch whose family had donated a wing. The air was cool and dry, which Alice knew was to prevent any germs from carrying. On the side table, a half-filled blue coffee cup was leaving ring stains. The table was covered with back issues of Schlep—“For Jewish Seniors on the Go.” Oliver had been trying without success to get Doe to take her formula. He also had bottled water ready for Alice; all she had to do was glance a certain way. Alice crammed her fears back down into their deep dark resting place, and guided the plastic bottle toward Doe’s open mouth.
