up so I blew a kiss to Martin, who waved at me, and then I tip-toed out of the room.
9
D R. BROCK HAD A bad cold. In fact, his nurse confided, he had come to the hospital specifically to see me. This news so rocked my being that I had to touch the wall for balance on the way to his consultation room.
He blew his nose with a noise of geese honking and he motioned me into the chair facing him. There we sat for a few moments, each studying the other’s face. I sighed then, a signal that I was ready, and he began. “Mrs. Kaufman, I’m very, very sorry,” he said, and I held up my hand to ward off his news, to bring the onrush of traffic to an instantaneous halt. But he continued, his running nose and eyes giving the illusion of weeping, his voice a monotonous counterpoint to his words. “I can’t make it easier,” he said. “I don’t know how. It’s in his very bones. In the marrow.” He waited. Then, “It’s called multiple myeloma. Tumors in the marrow, actually.”
Marrow, marrow, I thought wildly of soup bones.
He paused, waiting for me to speak, to ask questions and lead him into answers. But I was struck dumb and he began again, like an actor picking up the cues for some poor cluck mute with stage fright “He’s not in much pain. He may not be.” His voice rushed through the tunnel of wind in my ears. “There aren’t remissions with this, usually. We’ll give him medication, and we’ll keep him as comfortable as we can. But he will grow weaker. It will probably be a matter of weeks, maybe months.”
I stared at him as if the words themselves were visible as they left his mouth, rising over his head and dissolving in a vapor. Was he thinking then of going home, to hot tea and lemon, of his wife pulling off her slip at bedside in a white pool of lamplight? Why didn’t he call me by my first name if he wanted me to believe those terrible lies he told me about my husband, about his poor invaded bones, his failure to do well on tests, his irrevocable doom? Then my voice came up through my throat like rusty water forced through unused plumbing. “And Jay?” I asked. “What about Jay?”
Dr. Block knew what I meant. He stroked his jaw, was thoughtful. “No, I wouldn’t tell him,” he said finally. “Not yet, I think. Because”—he rummaged in his bag of words—“because then you remove hope.”
Hope! The word was senseless, a stupid, blunt dud of a word.
“Of course,” he said, “we don’t know everything. There is always some element of hope. There is research …” I raised my hand. He touched it in midair and it fell to the desk between us.
In the parking lot, two women with linked arms walked cautiously across the ice to their car. “Be careful or we’ll break our necks,” one said.
“Just what I need,” said the other.
It was a clear night, the roofs of the cars frosted in artificial light. I looked back at the hospital, where only shadows moved behind the yellow blocks. The motor of the women’s car gunned in the silence and then they were gone. I walked to my own car, surprised that I remembered where it was parked.
In the distance a dog barked a high yipping complaint and I thought that dogs have no foreknowledge of death. If Jay had been a dog he would die anyway, but without dread and without longing. Jay loved dogs, had always wanted one, but they don’t allow animals in our apartment building. The lifespan of a dog is very short. Do dogs mourn for dead people? Our children had turtles kept in a glass bowl with a plastic palm tree on a center island. Harry would let them walk up the soft flesh of his inner arm. I will never to the end of my life know what Harry is feeling. Is there something wrong with Harry that I cannot know what he’s feeling or thinking? Is there something wrong with me?
I didn’t want to go home or anywhere else. What if I had not come at the doctor’s summons? Would that have kept Jay’s sentence suspended in time? I leaned against the
9
D R. BROCK HAD A bad cold. In fact, his nurse confided, he had come to the hospital specifically to see me. This news so rocked my being that I had to touch the wall for balance on the way to his consultation room.
He blew his nose with a noise of geese honking and he motioned me into the chair facing him. There we sat for a few moments, each studying the other’s face. I sighed then, a signal that I was ready, and he began. “Mrs. Kaufman, I’m very, very sorry,” he said, and I held up my hand to ward off his news, to bring the onrush of traffic to an instantaneous halt. But he continued, his running nose and eyes giving the illusion of weeping, his voice a monotonous counterpoint to his words. “I can’t make it easier,” he said. “I don’t know how. It’s in his very bones. In the marrow.” He waited. Then, “It’s called multiple myeloma. Tumors in the marrow, actually.”
Marrow, marrow, I thought wildly of soup bones.
He paused, waiting for me to speak, to ask questions and lead him into answers. But I was struck dumb and he began again, like an actor picking up the cues for some poor cluck mute with stage fright “He’s not in much pain. He may not be.” His voice rushed through the tunnel of wind in my ears. “There aren’t remissions with this, usually. We’ll give him medication, and we’ll keep him as comfortable as we can. But he will grow weaker. It will probably be a matter of weeks, maybe months.”
I stared at him as if the words themselves were visible as they left his mouth, rising over his head and dissolving in a vapor. Was he thinking then of going home, to hot tea and lemon, of his wife pulling off her slip at bedside in a white pool of lamplight? Why didn’t he call me by my first name if he wanted me to believe those terrible lies he told me about my husband, about his poor invaded bones, his failure to do well on tests, his irrevocable doom? Then my voice came up through my throat like rusty water forced through unused plumbing. “And Jay?” I asked. “What about Jay?”
Dr. Block knew what I meant. He stroked his jaw, was thoughtful. “No, I wouldn’t tell him,” he said finally. “Not yet, I think. Because”—he rummaged in his bag of words—“because then you remove hope.”
Hope! The word was senseless, a stupid, blunt dud of a word.
“Of course,” he said, “we don’t know everything. There is always some element of hope. There is research …” I raised my hand. He touched it in midair and it fell to the desk between us.
In the parking lot, two women with linked arms walked cautiously across the ice to their car. “Be careful or we’ll break our necks,” one said.
“Just what I need,” said the other.
It was a clear night, the roofs of the cars frosted in artificial light. I looked back at the hospital, where only shadows moved behind the yellow blocks. The motor of the women’s car gunned in the silence and then they were gone. I walked to my own car, surprised that I remembered where it was parked.
In the distance a dog barked a high yipping complaint and I thought that dogs have no foreknowledge of death. If Jay had been a dog he would die anyway, but without dread and without longing. Jay loved dogs, had always wanted one, but they don’t allow animals in our apartment building. The lifespan of a dog is very short. Do dogs mourn for dead people? Our children had turtles kept in a glass bowl with a plastic palm tree on a center island. Harry would let them walk up the soft flesh of his inner arm. I will never to the end of my life know what Harry is feeling. Is there something wrong with Harry that I cannot know what he’s feeling or thinking? Is there something wrong with me?
I didn’t want to go home or anywhere else. What if I had not come at the doctor’s summons? Would that have kept Jay’s sentence suspended in time? I leaned against the
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