them.”
“Guilt goes with the territory,” Neil says.
“Why?” Wayne asks, perfectly seriously.
Neil doesn’t answer. He lies back in his seat, closes his eyes, imagines he grew up in a house in the mountains of Colorado, surrounded by snow—endless white snow on hills. No flat places, and no trees; just white hills. Every time he has flown away, she has come into his mind, usually sitting alone in the dark, smoking. Today she is outside at dusk, skimming leaves from the pool.
“I want to get a dog,” Neil says.
Wayne laughs. “In the city? It’d suffocate.”
The hum of the airplane is druglike, dazing. “I want to stay with you a long time,” Neil says.
“I know.” Imperceptibly, Wayne takes his hand.
“It’s very hot there in the summer, too. You know, I’m not thinking about my mother now.”
“It’s O.K.”
For a moment, Neil wonders what the stewardess or the old woman on the way to the bathroom will think, but then he laughs and relaxes.
Later, the plane makes a slow circle over New York City, and on it two men hold hands, eyes closed, and breathe in unison.
Counting Months
Mrs. Harrington was sitting in the oncology department waiting room and thinking about chicken when the realization came over her. It was like a fist knocking the wind out of her, making her need to gasp and whoop air. Suddenly the waiting room was sucking up and churning; the nurses, the magazine racks, the other patients turning over and over again like laundry in a washer. Faces grew huge, then shrank back away from her until they were unrecognizable. Dimly she felt the magazine she had been reading slip out of her hand and onto the floor.
Then it was over.
“Ma’am?” the woman next to her was asking. “Ma’am, are you all right?” she was asking, holding up the magazine Mrs. Harrington had dropped. It was Family Circle . “You dropped this,” the woman said.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Harrington. She took the magazine. She walked over to the fish tank and dropped herself onto a soft bench. The fish tank was built into a wall that separated two waiting rooms and could be looked into from either side. Pregnant guppies, their egg sacs visible through translucent skin, were swimming in circles against the silhouette of a face, vastly distorted, that peered in from the other waiting room. One angelfish remained still, near the bottom, near the plastic diver in the corner.
Mrs. Harrington’s breath was fogging the fish tank.
The thought had come to her the way the carrier of a plague comes to an innocent town. She was reading a Shake ’n’ Bake ad, thinking about the chicken waiting to be cooked in the refrigerator at home, and whether she would broil it; she was tense. She began to consider the date, December 17th: Who was born on December 17th? Did anything historic happen on December 17th?
Then, through some untraceable process, that date—December 17th—infected her with all the horror of memory and death. For today was the day she was supposed to be dead by.
Mrs. Harrington?” she heard the head nurse call.
“Yes,” she said. She got up and moved toward the long hallway along which the doctors kept their secret offices, their examination rooms. She moved with a new fear of the instruments she could glimpse through slightly open doors.
It was an intern who had told her, “Six months.”
Then Dr. Sanchez had stood in front of her with his greater experience and said, “That’s youthful hubris. Of course, we can’t date these things. We’re going to do everything we can for you, Anna. We’re going to do everything humanly possible. You could live a long time, a full life.”
But she had marked the date on a mental calendar: six months. December 17th would be six months. And so it was. And here she was, still alive, having almost forgotten she was to die.
She undressed quickly, put on the white paper examination gown, lay down on the cold table. Everything is the same, she
“Guilt goes with the territory,” Neil says.
“Why?” Wayne asks, perfectly seriously.
Neil doesn’t answer. He lies back in his seat, closes his eyes, imagines he grew up in a house in the mountains of Colorado, surrounded by snow—endless white snow on hills. No flat places, and no trees; just white hills. Every time he has flown away, she has come into his mind, usually sitting alone in the dark, smoking. Today she is outside at dusk, skimming leaves from the pool.
“I want to get a dog,” Neil says.
Wayne laughs. “In the city? It’d suffocate.”
The hum of the airplane is druglike, dazing. “I want to stay with you a long time,” Neil says.
“I know.” Imperceptibly, Wayne takes his hand.
“It’s very hot there in the summer, too. You know, I’m not thinking about my mother now.”
“It’s O.K.”
For a moment, Neil wonders what the stewardess or the old woman on the way to the bathroom will think, but then he laughs and relaxes.
Later, the plane makes a slow circle over New York City, and on it two men hold hands, eyes closed, and breathe in unison.
Counting Months
Mrs. Harrington was sitting in the oncology department waiting room and thinking about chicken when the realization came over her. It was like a fist knocking the wind out of her, making her need to gasp and whoop air. Suddenly the waiting room was sucking up and churning; the nurses, the magazine racks, the other patients turning over and over again like laundry in a washer. Faces grew huge, then shrank back away from her until they were unrecognizable. Dimly she felt the magazine she had been reading slip out of her hand and onto the floor.
Then it was over.
“Ma’am?” the woman next to her was asking. “Ma’am, are you all right?” she was asking, holding up the magazine Mrs. Harrington had dropped. It was Family Circle . “You dropped this,” the woman said.
“Thank you,” said Mrs. Harrington. She took the magazine. She walked over to the fish tank and dropped herself onto a soft bench. The fish tank was built into a wall that separated two waiting rooms and could be looked into from either side. Pregnant guppies, their egg sacs visible through translucent skin, were swimming in circles against the silhouette of a face, vastly distorted, that peered in from the other waiting room. One angelfish remained still, near the bottom, near the plastic diver in the corner.
Mrs. Harrington’s breath was fogging the fish tank.
The thought had come to her the way the carrier of a plague comes to an innocent town. She was reading a Shake ’n’ Bake ad, thinking about the chicken waiting to be cooked in the refrigerator at home, and whether she would broil it; she was tense. She began to consider the date, December 17th: Who was born on December 17th? Did anything historic happen on December 17th?
Then, through some untraceable process, that date—December 17th—infected her with all the horror of memory and death. For today was the day she was supposed to be dead by.
Mrs. Harrington?” she heard the head nurse call.
“Yes,” she said. She got up and moved toward the long hallway along which the doctors kept their secret offices, their examination rooms. She moved with a new fear of the instruments she could glimpse through slightly open doors.
It was an intern who had told her, “Six months.”
Then Dr. Sanchez had stood in front of her with his greater experience and said, “That’s youthful hubris. Of course, we can’t date these things. We’re going to do everything we can for you, Anna. We’re going to do everything humanly possible. You could live a long time, a full life.”
But she had marked the date on a mental calendar: six months. December 17th would be six months. And so it was. And here she was, still alive, having almost forgotten she was to die.
She undressed quickly, put on the white paper examination gown, lay down on the cold table. Everything is the same, she
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