The Shadow of Your Smile

46

Ryan Jenner did not like to admit to himself how bitterly disappointed he was at Monica’s obvious annoyance that they had been gossiped about in the hospital. The fact that her secretary had dropped off the Michael O’Keefe file at his office without any kind of personal note from Monica had also been a clear message that she wanted no direct contact with him.

I know now that she wasn’t in her office to give me the O’Keefe file last evening because she stayed so late in intensive care with the Carter baby, he thought on Friday afternoon, after his last surgery, as he stopped in the hospital cafeteria for a cup of tea. And then Monica was nearly run over by a bus on the way home…

The possibility that Monica might have died sent a cold shudder through him. One of the operating room nurses had told him that she heard on the radio the old woman who was a witness to the near tragedy. “She swears that Dr. Farrell was pushed,” the nurse told him. “It would raise the hair on the back of your neck to hear that lady describe how she thought the wheels of the bus had gone over Dr. Farrell.”

It does raise the hair on the back of my neck, Ryan thought. Monica must have been so frightened. How would it feel to be on the ground with a bus bearing down on you?

The nurse also told him that Monica had passed the word this morning that she was sure it was an accident. Meaning, let it go, Ryan thought, but then I asked her about it, and made a personal remark about how wonderful she is with children in front of the nurse. I was overstepping myself. Maybe if I wrote her a note and apologized she’d understand?

Understand what? he asked himself. I am interested in her. Last week, when she came to the apartment, she looked lovely. I swear when her hair is loose on her shoulders, she could pass for twenty-one. And she was so apologetic about being late. That’s why it’s funny that when she sent the O’Keefe file this morning, knowing we had made an appointment for six o’clock last evening, she didn’t just scrawl a few lines to say that she’d been delayed at the hospital. It’s just not like her, he decided.

As if it were happening now, he could feel again the sensation of their arms touching as they sat next to each other at the crowded table in the Thai restaurant. She was enjoying herself, too, Ryan told himself. There’s no way that was an act.

Is there some guy important in her life? Maybe she was just being kind to warn me off? I’m not going to give up that easily. I’m going to call her. Last night, if she had been there, I intended to ask her to have dinner. Earlier this week, when I looked at the O’Keefe file in her office, I would have asked her to go out for dinner, but Alice had already roped me into going to that play.

Ryan finished his tea and got up. The cafeteria had thinned out. The daytime people were all in the process of leaving, and it was too early for the evening shift to have a dinner break. I’d like to go home, he thought, but Alice is probably still hanging around. She said she was busy tonight, but what does that mean? I don’t feel like sitting over a glass of wine with her until she goes out. I don’t know what time her plane is tomorrow, but as soon as I get up I’m leaving the apartment. I don’t know what excuse I’ll make, but I’m not sitting across the breakfast table with her while she’s still in her fancy bathrobe. I feel as if she’s trying to play house with me.

Now if it was Monica across the table, it would be different…

Impatient and out of sorts, Ryan Jenner walked out of the cafeteria and went back to his in-hospital office. Everyone had left, and the cleaning woman was emptying wastebaskets. Her vacuum was in the middle of the reception area.

This is ridiculous, he thought. I can’t go home because I’m a nonpaying guest in my aunt’s apartment and I’m annoyed that she is allowing someone else to share it. I think that an impartial observer would call that colossal nerve on my part. I know now what I’m going to do tomorrow: I’m going to start hunting to find my own place.

The decision cheered him. I’ll stay here and go back through the O’Keefe file, he thought. Maybe I missed something when I looked at it the first time. Brain cancer doesn’t simply disappear. Could there have been a misdiagnosis? The general public hasn’t a clue how many times some seriously ill patients are given an all clear, and others are treated for conditions that don’t exist. If we were more open about it, the average person’s trust in the medical community would be shaken to the core. That’s why smart people get second and third opinions before they submit to radical treatment, or if after they’re told there’s nothing wrong, they listen to their own bodies telling them they have a problem.

The cleaning woman spoke. “I can vacuum later, Doctor,” she said.

“That would be great,” Ryan said. “I promise I won’t be too long.”

With a feeling of relief, he went into his private office and closed the door. He settled at his desk and reached into the drawer for the Michael O’Keefe file, then realized that his mind was churning with a question: is there any possibility that some nut is stalking Monica?

Ryan leaned back in his chair. It’s not impossible, he decided. There are all kinds of people in and out of this hospital around the clock. One of them, maybe a visitor to some patient, might have seen Monica and become fixated on her. I remember my mother telling the story that years ago, when she was a nurse in a hospital in New Jersey, a young nurse was murdered. A guy with a history of assault had spotted her when he was visiting someone, followed her home, and killed her. It does happen.

Monica is the last person to want any kind of sensational publicity, but is she making a mistake not taking that witness seriously? I’m going to call her, Ryan decided. I simply have to talk to her. It’s just six o’clock. She might still be in her office.

He dialed, hoping against hope that she would either pick up the phone herself, or that her receptionist would still be there and pass it on to her. Then, when the message machine took over, he quietly replaced the receiver. I have her cell phone number, he thought, but suppose she’s out with some guy? I’ll wait and call her Monday, when I can catch her in her office. Intensely disappointed at not hearing her voice, he opened the O’Keefe file.

Two hours later he was still there, going back and forth between Monica’s reports on the early symptoms of dizziness and nausea that Michael had experienced when he was only four years old, the tests she had conducted, the MRIs from the Cincinnati hospital that clearly confirmed Monica’s diagnosis that Michael had advanced brain cancer. Michael’s mother had stopped bringing him in for treatment to relieve the symptoms, then months later when she did set up an appointment with Monica, the next MRI showed an absolutely normal brain. It was astonishing. A miracle?

There is no medical explanation for this, Ryan confirmed to himself. Michael O’Keefe should be dead. Instead, according to these notes, he’s now a healthy kid on a Little League team.

He knew what he was going to do. On Monday morning, he was going to phone the Bishop’s Office in Metuchen, New Jersey, and volunteer to testify that he believed Michael’s recovery was not explicable by any medical standards.

After making the decision he leaned back in his chair, his thoughts on the day when he had been fifteen years old and at the bedside of his little sister, who died of brain cancer. That was the day I knew I wanted to spend my life trying to cure people with injured brains, he thought. But there will always be some people who are beyond our human skills to help. Michael O’Keefe was apparently one of them.

The very least I can do is to testify that I believe a miracle was performed. I only wish to God we had known about Sister Catherine then. Maybe she would have heard our prayers, too. Maybe Liza would still be with us. She’d be twenty-three years old now…

The wrenching memory of four-year-old Liza’s small flower-covered white casket filled Ryan Jenner’s mind as he left his office, went down to the lobby, and left the hospital. He walked to the corner and waited, as a Fourteenth Street bus thundered past him. The thought of Monica lying in the street in the path of that bus sent sickening fear rushing through his body.

And then, as if she were standing there, he remembered the moment when Monica told him she once played Emily in Our Town. I told her that I still get choked up at that last scene, when George, Emily’s husband, throws himself on her grave.

Why do I think about Monica as Emily? Ryan asked himself. Why do I have this awful premonition about her? Why am I filled with dread that Monica is going to relive the role she performed in that high school play?

It’s exactly the way I felt when I was kneeling beside Liza’s bed, knowing her time was running out and I was helpless to stop it…