Above The Thunder

by Renee Manfredi

  Anna felt her temper flare, as though she might lost control, something that hadn’t happened in years. What was wrong with Elizabeth today? And what had happened to Christine? The girl was usually as solid as a brick.

  “Let’s move on,” Anna said. “Unless you want to add something else, Elizabeth.” Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Marvin’s hands moving like caged birds. He was spreading his fingers out, then together, out, then together in the way her grandmother used to open a hairnet.

  “This is a support group. We are here to share,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes,” Anna said, “you’re right. Except we don’t do that by letting accusations fly.”

  “Yes. Amen, again, sister,” Jack said. He was beginning to like this broad.

  “But if one member of the group makes us uncomfortable, shouldn’t we be able to ask him to leave?”

  “No,” Anna said, “That’s not for you to decide.”

  Michael, partner of Alan, who had had the blue sock fight with his partner at the very first meeting said, “And is it your decision?” He looked at Anna.

  “Yes, it is. Mine and Christine’s.”

  At the mention of her name, Christine said, “Yes. Anna and I are here to keep the lines of communication open and flowing.”

  Jack snorted. “It looks like your communication is flowing, all right. Right to Anna’s son.”

  “You’re hateful!” Elizabeth said. “I’m sick to death of your sarcasm.”

  “Sweetheart, you’re sick to death anyway.”

  “Why don’t you and Anna go and have a drink next door? The two of you can trade vitriol to your heart’s content.”

  “My heart’s content,” Jack repeated, laughing. “My heart is not content. The contents of my heart are incontinent. The invalid was found to be invalid.”

  “All right,” Christine said. “Can we at least get back to introductions? After that, we can take the meeting in whatever direction you all want, but I’d at least like to know everyone’s name.”

  “Fuck it,” Jack said. “Fuck it all to hell.”

  “Jack, stop!” Stuart said. “Be quiet.”

  Jack threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m done sharing.”

  The group fell silent. Christine turned to Marvin, who was seated next to Anna. He spoke now. “I’m Marvin Blender, Anna’s son-in-law. I’m a sculptor in three mediums. I have a daughter, Flynn. We’re visiting Anna from Alaska, hoping to mend all broken fences and share quality time. I love to tango.”

  “It takes two,” Jack said, and smiled. “How did you get the goods?”

  “What?” Marvin said.

  “How did you contract the virus?”

  “Oh, I don’t have—”

  Stuart spoke up. “No fair, Jack. You don’t want to share anything about how you got it, so you can’t in good conscience ask someone else this.”

  “Nothing’s good about my conscience, darling, which is why we’re here, isn’t it?” He patted Stuart’s knee.

  “Uh, well, anyway I don’t—”

  “Don’t answer,” Anna said. She turned to Jack. “I thought I made it clear that asking about someone’s health history was unacceptable.”

  Jack leveled his look at Anna and fell silent. He shrugged.

  Anna resolved to keep quiet for the rest of the meeting. This was terrible. All of it. The illusion that this meeting supported or helped anything. The indignity of the deaths most of them faced. Nick told her early on to emphasize living with AIDS, not dying from it, but that was absurd. The war was over the second the virus entered the body. There was no exhausted surrender after a valiant fight; this was immediate occupation after an unfair siege. Anna thought back to the last days of Hugh’s death, the extended trips to the house in Maine because he wanted to die there, soothed by the crash of the surf against rocks, the sea breeze wafting in at night. He’d died well, she supposed, which was to say quickly and without undue suffering. This, she thought, looking around now and smelling something sharply intestinal, was not how it was supposed to be. She turned to glance at the man in the wheelchair who was hiding his face in his hands. Others had smelled it, too. The nasty man, Jack, caught her eye and looked away.

  Stuart caught Jack’s eye then bent toward Robert, rested his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair. “Do you want me to take you to the bathroom?” Stuart asked. Robert’s breath was a panicked staccato. Stuart knew who he was—anyone who followed gay rights in Boston had at least heard of him. Robert was in his fifties, a political activist who lobbied for antidiscrimination policies. He was tenured at Yale at thirty, a brilliant astrophysicist whose book, An Amateur’s Guide to the Stars, had been on the New York Times best sellers list for a few months. When he and Jack first walked in, Stuart was sure he recognized Robert from somewhere, but it hadn’t clicked until he excused himself to go to the restroom, and glanced at the bookshelves in the back. The noisy chaos in the room had intensified by the time Stuart returned, so he took Robert’s book back to his seat.

  “Look,” Stuart had said quietly, putting the book in Robert’s hand. There were at least three conversations happening at once, including a heated discussion between Anna and the woman in the lavender hat. “Look at what I found in the back.”

  Robert had turned the dog-eared copy over. The photograph was taken about ten years ago. He was beautiful then, a young Cary Grant. It was unmistakably the same man, but Robert looked thirty years older than he did in the photograph.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve heard of this guy. I think I built a house for him once.” Robert went on to tell Stuart about a life he remembered as a carpenter. He rambled on about dovetail joints and masonry anchors, how to recognize a fine body of wood grain at such length, that Stuart would have assumed he’d been mistaken had he not checked Robert’s last name and date of birth on Robert’s hospital bracelet against the information on the book’s Library of Congress page. The same.

  All eyes were now on Stuart and Robert.

  “I’m sorry,” Robert said. “My dreams nudge everything out of the way. If I pay attention to what’s in my head, I lose track of what’s happening with my bowels. What a rotten cage.”

  “It’s all right, Robert. Don’t worry. Everything is okay,” Christine said.

  Stuart stood and got behind Robert’s chair. Christine mouthed, “Room 219.”

  Stuart nodded.

  “It’s fine,” someone said. “Accidents happen. It’s okay.”

  Before Anna could censor herself, she stood, angled her chair out of the circle to get out. “No,” she said. “It is not fine. Nothing about this is okay.” She walked out of the dayroom, paced the hallways. Her outburst was inexcusable. She’d have to go back in there and apologize. Or show up for fifteen minutes next week to do it. If she thought the group would accept a simple apology without insisting that they explore her anger, Anna would do it now. Anger was anger. Did one need to look at the roots of a tree to identify it? Outrage, like a maple, shed its leaves in season.

  At the break, Jack went in search of the Chanel grandma. He followed the scent of her perfume—his sense of smell was razor sharp these days—to the waiting room at the end of the hall, where she was sitting in the corner and shredding the leaves on a potted palm. She looked up as he walked in, then back to the television. “Now what,” she said, so softly that he wasn’t sure he heard correctly.

  “I’m Jack,” he said, and sat beside her.

  “I know.”

  “I want to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “For assuming things I shouldn’t have.”

  She tipped her chin up, though he couldn’t tell if the gesture was dismissive or accepting.

  “I’m a bitter man,” he said. “I’m good-looking enough to get away with things the less endowed couldn’t.”

  She laughed then in a way that gave her whole face a girlish radiance. The silly pink suit now seemed touching instead of aggressive. He felt something in him give way, the sharp geometr
y of anger and pain blunted a little in her presence.

  “You’re not that good-looking,” she said. “Thank you, anyway, for your apology. Was that an apology?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And add to that a salute to your bravery.”

  He saw her reach for something in her purse, and was astounded when she pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and lit up as confidently and easily as if they were sitting in a bar. “Bravery? Is this the nasty Jack coming back?”

  “No, I mean it,” he said, and reached for one of the cigarettes. The smoke curling through his lungs felt somehow therapeutic. “It takes guts to say something like that. To cut away the pretty wrapping and see the crap inside.”

  Anna raised an eyebrow. “So to speak.” She took a deep drag off the cigarette. “I suppose I should go back in there and tell them I’m sorry. But I don’t want to say more than that. Never ruin a perfectly good apology with a cheap excuse. Even if there is a cheap excuse. My motto, anyway.”

  “You should absolutely not apologize,” Jack said. “It was good to shake them up. You’re right. There’s nothing about this illness that’s okay.” He paused. “Except maybe one thing.” He held out his cigarette. “Being terminally ill means that nothing else can lead to my premature death.”

  A nurse walked in, her nose wrinkled in a rabbit-like way. “There is absolutely no smoking in here!”

  “Yep,” Anna said. “We’re on our way out.”

  Jack followed Anna outside. “Let me buy you a drink,” she said, and nodded to what looked like a sedate little fern bar across the street.

  “Sure, I’ll let you. But only if you let me buy you a drink next, and I get to choose the next bar.”

  “Deal,” Anna said. They walked in and Anna ordered them a round of tequila shots with martini chasers.

  “You go, girl. There will be no beating around the white-wine spritzer bushes here,” he said.

  “That’s right. Either you’re drinking, or you’re drinking lemonade.” She clinked her glass against his and downed the shot in one smooth gulp. “And by the way, to you I will apologize.”

  “Oh?” Jack said, and worked the Cuervo down in three sips. He glanced over and saw the bartender smirking. Just to spite him, he shot the martini, slammed the glass on the counter, and nodded for another.

  “I lied before. You are that good-looking.” His eyes were remarkable, Anna thought. Green with flecks of gold and blue and brown, mottled as river stones.

  “Ha,” Jack said, cupping his chin in his hand. “A face that launched a thousand quips.” He reached for a bowl of pretzels on the bar. “You should see the man I’m in love with. I am pond scum next to him.”

  “I did see him.”

  His heart clenched, and he almost whirled around on his stool looking for Hector when he realized she assumed he meant Stuart. He nodded, and let it go. “Do you suppose our loved ones are done sharing?”

  She gulped the rest of her drink. “We should probably get back. I didn’t tell my son-in-law where I was going.”

  Jack’s mood sank a little at the phrase son-in-law. Still, that man was either closeted or bi, he was sure of it. “But you and I are bar-hopping.”

  Anna put some money on the counter. “I’ll have to take a raincheck, I’m afraid.” He looked so dispirited that Anna was taken off-guard. She wouldn’t have guessed he had this in him.

  She stood, walked toward the door. Jack followed. “Was this really your last meeting?”

  “It was. I was just filling in, anyway, doing a favor for a friend.”

  They stood at Anna’s car. He took a business card out of his pocket. “All my phone numbers. If you don’t let me take you for drinks, I’ll be very upset. Call me.”

  Anna put the card in her purse. “I will,” she said, knowing the instant she said it that she never would. She saw in his expression that Jack knew, too.

  “Well, maybe you’ll change your mind and come back next week.” He drew a martini glass in the dust on Anna’s car.

  “I won’t change my mind. You can’t imagine how glad I am to be done with this.” She paused. “Listen, I’m not much into bars, but I would love it if you would stop by for drinks. Your partner too, of course.” What was she doing? The last thing she wanted right now was company, especially this man, whose nastiness was probably too close to the surface to make the occasion comfortable. She was too tired and edgy lately to cater to anybody’s sensitivities. Besides, she couldn’t believe he had any real interest in socializing with her.

  Jack, for whom even the smallest goodbye these days was painful, said, “Yes, we’d love to,” understanding Anna’s invitation was only partly in earnest, and understanding his acceptance of it was composed in equal parts of curiosity about her gorgeous son-in-law, guilt for being so nasty earlier, and some inexplicable spark he felt between them.

  Anna gave him directions to her townhouse though he didn’t write them down. From the faraway look in his eyes she doubted whether he’d remember.

  “Oh, here come our loved ones now,” Jack said. “Looking ever so stricken, empty, and bereft. Ain’t life grand?”

  Marvin and Stuart walked up to Anna and Jack.

  “We’ve been invited for drinks, sweetie,” Jack said, linking his arm through Stuart’s. Stuart smiled warily. Marvin looked at Anna then cut his eyes away to study the ground.

  “How nice,” Stuart said. “But I think we should be heading home.”

  “Why?” Jack said. There was nothing at home.

  “Just one drink somewhere,” Anna said. “Or, come to my place.”

  Jack checked Marvin’s response, but he was unreadable. Marvin’s arms were crossed, his hands balled into deliberate fists, as though he didn’t trust what they might do. His attention was on the hospital’s entrance, glancing over every time the door opened or closed.

  “Maybe next week,” Stuart said.

  “Except that there is no next week,” Jack said petulantly.

  “Some other time then,” Anna said.

  At home, Anna heard the television blaring before she opened the door, some awful MTV screeching of an amped guitar and heart-stopping bass. Marvin trailed in behind her.

  “Flynn?” Anna called. She walked into the TV room and found a teenaged boy slumped on the couch. He looked vaguely familiar. “Oh. Who are you?”

  “Jeremy. I deliver your newspapers.” He sat up, put on his sweatshirt. “Your neighbor asked me to watch Flynn until you got home.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Flynn? I think she went in to take a nap.”

  “Where’s Greta?” But instead of waiting to hear his answer, she walked into her bedroom to check her answering machine. The light was blinking. “I think I’m in labor,” Greta’s voice said. “Jeremy said he would watch Flynn until you got home. Can you call Mike? I mean, can you keep trying? I don’t know where he is.”

  Anna dialed the number for Boston General—Greta didn’t say which hospital she was going to—she wasn’t there, or at the next two. “Drive that boy out of here, will you?” Anna said, as Marvin headed toward Flynn’s room. “I mean, will you drive him home? Pay him. Here,” she said, and handed him her wallet. “And can you turn that music off?”

  Marvin blinked at her with a blank expression, as if he was new to the language. “What’s going on?”

  “Greta’s in labor.”

  “Already?” he said. “I thought she was just in her fifth month.”

  Anna nodded, and when someone in the ER at Brigham and Women’s picked up her call, and after Anna lied and said she was next of kin, the operator said yes, they’d admitted Greta. “Can you patch me through to her room?”

  Anna handed Marvin her car keys, and pointed at the babysitter boy.

  “Okay. Is Greta all right?” Marvin asked.

  Anna shook her head, walked away from him and peeked in Flynn’s room. The bed was empty, still neatly made. She stepped in, spotted Flynn, asleep in some sort of good-witch or angel
costume—an angel, she saw now, from the wings—on the windowseat. Flynn had plugged in Christmas candles. On the steamer trunk where Flynn kept her clothes, she had set up a crèche that had been Hugh’s mother’s. Where had she found that old thing? Anna didn’t recall moving in any holiday decorations when she rented this place.

  Greta finally answered her phone.

  “It’s me,” Anna said quietly. She went back into the hallway, closed Flynn’s door.

  “I had the baby,” Greta said. “It was a little girl. She was too small. They couldn’t do anything to save her. They’re saying she’s dead.”

  “Oh, Greta,” Anna said. “Is Mike with you?”

  “No. I can’t find him. Nobody can find him. He’s not answering his cell.”

  “I’ll keep trying his numbers,” Anna said, and sat on the floor, her back against Flynn’s door.

  Greta was crying. “She looks perfect. Tiny, but perfect. Do they ever make a mistake?”

  “What do you mean, dear?”

  “I mean, is it possible that she’ll come back to life? You hear all those stories about children being under water for half an hour, then end up being fine. Children are much more resilient than adults. I named her Stella. She’s a bright little star.”

  Greta sounded heavily medicated. “I’m sure the doctors did everything they could,” Anna said. “It might help if you hold her. Did they let you hold her?”

  “I’m holding her now. I’m re-warming her. It hasn’t been that long, she could still wake up.”

  “Is there a nurse in the room with you now?”

  “Christ, they won’t leave me alone. They want me to give her to them. But she’s mine.”

  “Do you think I could speak to one of the doctors in the room?” Anna said.

  Greta began sobbing. “Not you, too. I thought you were my friend. I know what they do with babies. I know they’re going to cut her open and experiment. She’s getting warmer. Why can’t everybody just be patient?”

  Anna waited for Greta’s crying to subside then said calmly, “As soon as Marvin comes back with my car, I’ll come over.”