The Night Remembers

35

In the rooms of the dying there is a silence the ocean floor could not equal. In the rooms of the dying there is the first faint roar of the nothingness that awaits us all.

I sat on the chair next to the bed and smoked two cigarettes. I knew better than to say anything.

She lay across the bed, arms out crucifixion-style. She wore a blue two-piece suit wrinkled now from sitting. On the backs of her knees you could see where her hose had chafed. There was a spot of mud on the heel of her right blue pump. On her left pump there was a small tear in the leather.

After a time she quit crying. She drew into herself physically, putting one hand to her nose, the other against the back of her head. She kicked her pumps off. They were loud hitting the floor. She drew her knees up, hose scraping, so that she was in a semi-fetal position. The only sound she made was sniffling.

I got up and lighted another cigarette and went to the window and looked out at the parking lot. I’m not sure I saw anything. I couldn’t quite focus.

She said, “I’m sorry.”

I turned around and walked to her. “Why would you be sorry?”

“Because I’m not stronger.”

I sat down on the bed. The springs squawked. I took her hand.

She said, “I wish you’d quit.”

I felt a speech coming on. I put out the cigarette.

“I’m afraid if I start telling you about it, I’ll start crying again.”

“I like it when you cry.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, that way you can’t talk.”

She smiled and snuffled at the same time. “I do talk too much sometimes, don’t I?”

“We all do.”

“They did a biopsy.”

“Oh.”

“The mammogram... well, it was inconclusive, but there are certain characteristics they look for and... well, they found a few of those characteristics. It could be malignant.”

“But then again it may not be.”

“See, that’s why I wish I were stronger. Like my college roommate Sandy.”

“She’d handle this pretty well, huh?”

“She wouldn’t even worry about it. She’d just go on with her life until they called her. I’ll just sit by the phone waiting for the results. I won’t be able to think of anything else.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to break down and take you to a movie. Maybe it’s time we take Hoyt.”

“Oh, God, you know what babies are like in theaters and churches. I love Hoyt, but I wouldn’t want to inflict him on anybody.”

“I had a nice time this morning. Making love.”

“What if they find something?”

“If you read the brochures carefully, Faith, you know that you’ve got pretty good odds with breast cancer.”

“If they caught it soon enough.”

“You don’t seem to even consider the alternative.”

“What alternative?”

“That the biopsy will show you’re fine.”

“But I’ve been through two tests now and neither one of them was fine.”

“That isn’t exactly true, hon. The first test just showed that you had to have a second test and the second test showed that you needed to have a third test.”

“Did you ever have to go through something like this?”

“With my colon.”

“Really?”

“Ten years ago. I just went in for one of those tests where they give you a barium enema and something showed up on the screen. I knew something was wrong because they wouldn’t let me leave the hospital and they just kept calling me back for more X-rays. Everybody in the waiting room knew something was wrong, too. I was embarrassed; I hate being watched by people. But every time I’d be called back, the people waiting would get more and more fascinated with me. They started shaking their heads and looking very grim. One couple even started whispering about me. They seemed sad, as if they were convinced I wasn’t going to make it. I was there all morning and then I went home and lay down and I was very scared and I called my doctor. He was busy, his nurse said, and he’d get back to me. I asked her if she’d call Mercy and get the results. She said they usually didn’t do that, that the hospital just mailed the X-rays over. But she relented finally and agreed to check it out. So I waited and when the phone rang two hours later, I got it on the first ring, and I said, ‘Did they find something?’ and the doctor said, ‘Yes, they found something. We’re not sure what it is yet, but there’s a shadow on the X-ray.’ And from there things moved fast. Even though the doctor explained that the shadow might be nothing more than a piece of stool that hadn’t gotten washed out by the enema, they sent me to see a surgeon and he took out this piece of white paper and proceeded to draw my colon and show me exactly what he would have to do with it, where he’d be cutting and what he’d be looking for. Maybe I would have felt better if Sharon had been in better health. I was worried about both of us — who’d take care of us if we were both sick? I started to put everything in order. I called my insurance man, and I double-checked on the burial plot that I’d paid for in advance, and I patched things up with my youngest son because we’d had an argument a few months earlier, and then I just waited. My doctor said they’d want to give me the barium test again just as a precaution. So this time I wanted to get cleaned out as well as possible, and I went to the hospital and I was there for two hours and just as I was getting dressed, the radiologist who had taken the X-rays came in and said, ‘I know what they thought you had,’ and he smiled: ‘But you don’t have it. The X-ray is clear.’ ”

“God, you must have really been happy.”

“All I could think of was those old movies where the man in the electric chair gets a last-minute reprieve.”

I took her hand and brought it to my cheek and closed my eyes. “It’s going to be like that for you. They’re not going to find anything.”

She lay down on her back and stared at me. “I’m glad nothing was wrong with you.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re the only nice man I’ve ever had a relationship with.”

“Oh, there must have been at least one or two others who were nice.”

“Not the way you are.”

“Well, that’s very flattering.”

“You know what I’m afraid of?”

“What?”

“I mean, besides dying?”

“Huh-uh. What?”

“That if they have to remove the breast, things won’t be the same between us.”

“Oh, God, you’ve got to know better than that.”

“All my life I’ve managed to get by on my looks. You know that?”

“I know that.”

“But if they took my breast—”

“They’re not going to take your breast.”

“But if they did—”

“If they did—”

“Then people would start feeling sorry for me and that would be terrible. It really would.”

“They’re not going to take your breast.”

“You’d start feeling sorry for me.”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“Yes, you would. At least a little.”

“Maybe a smidgen.”

“And then our relationship would change. I wouldn’t be this appealing young woman to you anymore, I’d be this — thing of pity.”

“That’s kind of tough to imagine, kiddo. You being a thing of pity, I mean.”

“But it could happen. And you know it.”

“Everything’s going to be fine.”

And she started crying again, so hard her entire body shook, and she put her arms out to me the way a child would, and I took her inside my arms and I held her tighter than I ever had, stroking her hair and feeling her soft warm tears on my face, and her trembling body pressed against mine.

Gently, I eased her back down on the bed and got a pillow under her head and took the extra cover from the end of the bed and spread it over her.

“Shouldn’t I see Hoyt?” she said.

“Why don’t you try to take a nap first? You’re exhausted. Then you can see Hoyt.”

“He really is your son, you know that now, don’t you?”

“Yes; yes, I know that now,” I said.

I went out and closed the door. I went into the living room and sat on the edge of the recliner. I smoked a cigarette with almost suicidal need. Her tears were still wet on my face. My hands were shaking.

Next to me, the phone went off like an explosion. I picked it up. A woman’s voice said, “You better get down here.”

“Where?”

“The office.”

“What’s wrong, Irma?”

“There’s a guy.”

“A guy?”

“Yeah, and he’s—” I hadn’t realized till then how rattled she was.

“There’s a guy, Irma, and he’s what?”

“He’s dying.”

“What?”

“He’s dying. He opened the door and asked for you and then he fell on the floor.”

“Call an ambulance.”

“He won’t let me.”

“How can he stop you?”

“He’s got a gun pointed at me. He made me call you. He wants you to come down here right away.”

“Did he give you his name?”

“Huh-uh.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I went in to kiss Faith goodbye. She slept. She was as warm as a slumbering child. I tiptoed back out, got my shoes and heavy winter jacket on, and headed downtown.