Six Figures (Harvest Book), page 11
“That was Daddy!” Sophie said. “Daddy was on television! I want to see it!”
“Sophie.” Ruth came and sat at the table with her. She was standing on her seat, waiting for the television to turn back on. “It’s a little early yet. There’s the sugar. Help yourself.”
Sophie lifted the lid from the cobalt sugar bowl and began spooning around in it. She showed her a small heap. “Is this all right?”
“Yes.”
She doused her oatmeal with sugar. “Why was Daddy on television?”
“I don’t know, dear. I didn’t hear.”
“We could turn it back on.”
“It’s too early, dear. Look, Pop-Pop’s still asleep.”
“Pop-Pop?” Sophie said. She peeked at the bed. “Oh, I didn’t see.” She giggled, colored in her oatmeal with cinnamon.
“That’s enough,” Ruth said.
She started to eat it in half-falling-off spoonfuls. “Why do you think Daddy was on television?” Ruth looked at her and shrugged. “Am I going to school today?”
“Probably not,” she admitted.
“I want to see Mommy. And when’s Granny Nan coming back?”
“I don’t know, dear.”
“Mommy has a lot of machines tied to her. Granny Nan showed us.”
It was after seven. She was almost done with her oatmeal. “Maybe it’s time to turn the television on,” Ruth said.
“Okay.” She gulped at her milk. “Will you call the hospital now?”
She had reached to clear the bowl, but now she stopped.
“If you don’t know the number you can hit redial. Daddy and I called it all the time last night. I bet Granny Nan did, too.”
She’d called the police station, she’d called Ronald in New York. She hadn’t thought of calling the hospital. What was the matter with her? She didn’t even know which hospital.
“Sophie, do you remember the hospital’s name?”
“I think,” Sophie shut her eyes, “it’s called Memory.”
In the Yellow Pages, Ruth found Memorial. She dialed the general number, asked to be put through to the ICU, and told the woman there Megan’s name. “There’s someone in there you can speak with,” the woman said curtly.
“Wait,” Ruth said.
The phone rang again.
“Hello?” It was Nan.
“Hi, Nan,” Ruth said weakly. “It’s Ruth. Sophie—we—wanted to know how it was going.”
“Same as before. I think we’ll hear more when they do the rounds. Could you put Sophie on?”
She moved with the cordless out to the table, where Sophie sat eating her oatmeal.
“Granny Nan wants to talk to you,” she said.
The girl dropped her spoon in the bowl and reached for the phone. “Hello, Granny Nan?” she said. She smiled as she listened. “Why can’t I talk to her?” Her face fell a little, but she nodded her head. Ruth patted her shoulder, and she shrugged it off. “When will I see you?” she asked. She listened intently and smiled. “Okay. Bye.” She handed the phone to Ruth. “She’s going to take me shopping today,” she said.
“Nan?” Ruth said in the receiver.
The line was empty.
“I guess she had to go,” she said, shutting off the cordless.
“She said Mommy’s getting better.” Sophie tried to smile. “She said Mommy’s resting. That’s why she can’t talk.”
“I see,” Ruth said.
“Can I watch television now? We can’t call again for a hour, I think.”
“Absolutely.” Ruth got her glasses and read the channel numbers, turned on PBS, turned up the sound. Sophie sat at the table watching.
“I’m going to get dressed,” Ruth said.
“All right. When do you think Pop-Pop will get up?”
“I’ll wake him soon.”
In the tight powder room she got back into her office clothes because she was going to the arraignment and she supposed that this was how you dressed when your son was getting arraigned. Ronald had said that they’d definitely set a reasonable bail, although it was not his field of specialty. She hadn’t called any of the other kids, and she hadn’t asked him to. She wanted to wait. She couldn’t bear it. She wished Alan would wake up.
For reasons she could not quite discern the medical staff were beginning to drop in and out of her daughter’s room. It was something about Megan’s pupils in conjunction with the blood pressure. The pictures were supposed to be conclusive, but perhaps they weren’t. Nan couldn’t pick up everything, and she didn’t want to interrupt. She pressed herself against the wall and tried to understand.
The pupils were no longer equal in size. The brain’s pressure on the skull seemed to be in ascent. The numbers that mattered were up. The head nurse called the OR. The OR was free.
“Thirty minutes,” said a middle-aged man in green, looking past Nan to nurses tapping new wires into Megan. “We’ll shave her here.”
“Excuse me?” Nan said.
“That’s the mother,” another nurse said.
“Dr. Lyons.” The doctor extended his hand, shook hers. “As you’ve no doubt heard, your daughter is destabilizing. We’re going to have to relieve some of the pressure caused by the swelling of her brain. It will be a relatively simply procedure.”
“I thought she was stable,” Nan said. She felt herself clutching her necklace, but she didn’t care.
“These situations can be fluid. The brain is suspended in liquid, and when there is external trauma, it can get knocked around against the sides of the skull, injuring the tissue. There were three—perhaps more—traumatic events to your daughter’s brain. While her numbers were stable, we could regard her situation as stable, but her situation has always been uncertain. The numbers we have now indicate that the brain is swelling and putting too much pressure on the skull. We need to reduce some of that pressure.”
“Brain surgery?” Nan found herself nearly ripping off her necklace.
“Not quite. We’re going to open up a bit more breathing space for the brain by taking a bit more out of the skull.”
“But the doctors last night said…”
“Ma’am, your daughter’s situation has changed.”
At the bedside an electric razor began to drone. Nan pointed to it.
“Don’t you generally do that in the OR? Isn’t the fact that the back of her head is already shaved enough? Shouldn’t this all wait?”
“No, ma’am. Katy?” A nurse appeared. “Why don’t you take Mrs. Kendall down to OR waiting? We’ll all be along shortly.”
Katy began to firmly lead her from the room.
“Don’t you…” Nan twisted just as firmly but she hoped not ridiculously in her grip. “Don’t you need me to sign something?”
“Oh no, ma’am,” the neurosurgeon called after her. “Her husband did.”
“But—” But she was out the door, and the door was shut, and through the window she could see them shaving Megan’s head. “This is a new surgery,” she heard herself saying. “I don’t even know this guy. I don’t know if he’s any good.”
“He’s very good, Mrs. Kendall,” Katy said crisply.
“Really.” She looked at Katy. That scrubbed, unblemished face. A year out of nursing school at most. “I need to make some phone calls. I’m sure I can find the waiting room myself.”
She ducked into an empty rest room and pulled out her cell phone and electronic Rolodex. Eight o’clock. Everybody would be in transit. The signed release by the accused assailant was a legal issue with which she had absolutely no familiarity. It sounded like Von Bulow territory. Her staff wasn’t due in until eight-thirty, her legal and medical sources at Corporate often didn’t arrive before nine. She stared at the blank screen of her Rolodex. She should have anticipated the potential restraining order, her guardianship over both Megan and the children. With a sudden horror she realized that she herself was supposed to be at Corporate by ten for a management team meeting with the CEO. She reached into a stall and snatched at a roll of soft tissue. She didn’t need to cry. She was crying. They were going to open up her skull even more. It could draw a line between who she was and who she would be afterward. Could she die? She couldn’t die. You didn’t outlive your children. That was absurd. She was weeping. The door opened, and she looked up with bits of tissue sticking to her face and there was Katy looking at her.
“Your daughter’s outside,” she said softly. “If you want to…”
“Yes,” she sniffled. “Yes, thank you. Everything’s happening so fast.”
“It can sometimes,” Katy said in what struck her as a profoundly gentle way, holding open the door.
Nan wiped at her face and went out. In the still hall her daughter’s head was shaved, her eyes shut inside darkened rings of skin. Her face was white, and her mouth seemed to take in the respirator in a sucking manner. “Oh, sweetie,” Nan said, kissing her on the cheek. “You’re going to be okay, sweetie. I’ll see you so soon.” She lay remote on the gurney. She began to roll away. Nan’s lips brushed her cheek. The gurney clanked past. Nan dabbed at her eyes. Now she was alone in the wide hall.
When his old gray suit came into the cell he shook his head without words and marveled at his mother, somewhere out there beyond the walls, who had saved him again. Who was always saving him. Why couldn’t he remember that whenever he felt all that hate for her, all that impatience, all that superiority? His head ached from the lack of alcohol the previous night, and he felt dizzy. He hadn’t eaten in a while. He hadn’t really slept.
He picked up the suit. Inside a jacket sleeve his mother had stuffed a neatly rolled-up pair of boxers and black socks. A pair of dress shoes were in an accompanying plastic bag. He thanked the officer and waited for him to leave. He began to dress, his back to the window. As he was buckling his pants there was a knock at the door. He turned. A woman with short brown hair parted in the middle waved at him. The door opened, and she strode in. Even in high heels she was shorter, slight. She wore brown.
“Polly Edwards,” she said, shaking his hand. “Your court-appointed attorney.”
“We’re meeting in here?” he said.
“Sometimes things get a little backed up.” She didn’t really smile; she kept a fixed near-friendly expression. “How are you going to plead?”
“Not guilty.”
“Well, wait a minute. I need to tell you the situation. Your wife’s in surgery. She’s iffy—”
“Ohhh,” he moaned. He knew she was critical. He knew the kids were without them. He knew today he was losing his job. He knew that the house was over. But through the night, as he dipped near and away from sleep, he’d wondered in abstractions—what kind of husband he was, what kind of father, what kind of son, what kind of brother. He hadn’t thought his way out. He hadn’t thought.
“I’m innocent,” he said.
She looked at him. She wasn’t anywhere near southern, and she looked him in the eyes and tried to tell.
“Okay,” she said matter-of-factly. “We can always change it, but it will only be worse.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly.
“Bail will be anywhere between one hundred thousand and a million.”
That knocked the wind out of him. He felt how cold his sockless feet were.
“If you can meet ten percent, then the rest can be arranged.”
Numbly he nodded. “Do you have a pen? Paper?”
She handed him both, and he explained to her as he began to write a note to his mother.
“Have you told her yet?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together, as if trying to assimilate the fact that he had a mother. “You can assume there will be some kind of restraining order. Getting out on bail won’t mean going home.”
“Okay, okay.” He was beginning to feel a little clobbered.
“So the family’s all in,” she said, in a way that made it sound like they’d arrived for a wedding. He didn’t reply; he was still writing his mother instructions for accessing their savings account. He gave her the note. “Well,” she said awkwardly. “I’m glad we’ve met. I’ll see you in an hour or so.” She tapped on the door and was released.
His head throbbed. So she didn’t believe him. Who the hell would? He knocked on the door and asked to use a phone. He was politely denied. Quickly he pulled on his socks and tied his shoes, buttoned the collar of his shirt and knotted his tie, drew on his jacket. He was glad there was no mirror. His breakfast sat on a plastic tray. Corn flakes in milk, a banana, a glass of juice, a room-temperature cup of coffee. Again he tried the coffee. It was colder. He made himself drink it. It was thin and metallic and inoffensive. His window was empty. He waited.
On the sofa Pop-Pop was joggling Daniel. Daniel bawled. Pop-Pop looked at her almost for advice. He was too fat to get off the sofa with Daniel on him. Maybe he was too fat to do anything.
“Is it a hour yet?” she asked.
“What?” Pop-Pop said. Pop-Pop was hard of hearing.
“A hour,” she shouted. “I want to call Mommy.”
Pop-Pop tried to set Daniel beside him. Daniel wriggled and cried. He looked sweaty. Beside him Pop-Pop picked up the phone and hit the redial button, his face baggy. Daniel shrieked or was still. His high-chair tray lay on the floor between them. She was sitting cross-legged, listening hard through Daniel. “What?” Pop-Pop was saying. “What?”
“Let me talk,” she said.
He shook his head hard and slapped at the air. He was sour. Daniel’s diaper smelled. Pop-Pop was really old. He’d had a lot of operations. He was sick. She didn’t let herself talk while he held the phone tight to his head and tried to amuse Daniel with his fat fingers. Finally, he hung up. He looked sad.
“No news yet, Sophie,” he said, his voice groggy and choked. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said. She picked up a doll and held it. “We can call in a hour.”
With all his might Pop-Pop lifted Daniel from the sofa and placed him carefully on the floor. Then Pop-Pop got down on the floor beside him, down on his belly. Daniel swatted at him, smiled, and began to crawl on Pop-Pop’s back. Pop-Pop was a mountain on the floor. He groaned happily. She rested her doll and drew near. He was sweet on the floor like that, smiling and cooing through the smell of Daniel’s diaper, his face round and fat and bald. He could have been Santa. He could have been a clown. She was glad he was Pop-Pop.
Nan worked the phone all morning, checking on Lyons, the restraining order, the outcome of the arraignment, possible guardianship, the management team meeting, and why the flowers she had ordered had never arrived. Around her the waiting room filled with anxious mothers and fathers and daughters and sons and assorted relatives awaiting news from the operating suite. She talked into the receiver in a low, precise voice and the others read or worked on laptops or gazed distractedly at magazines. There was no television.
Warner had been assessed $400,000 in bail and instructed that he could not at this time reside with the children or be within one thousand feet of them without the presence of one of the three court-appointed adults—herself and his parents. He was in any case not to visit or see or speak to his wife. She heard he was in the process of leveraging funds for the bail. She had tried to freeze their savings, but he’d got what he needed and the rest wouldn’t take more than a few hours. At the expense of the embarrassment of her explaining the reason, she’d been excused from the management team meeting. The florist would credit her account for the undelivered flowers. From the operating suite came no word of her daughter. Whenever Nan stopped talking on the phone, she felt overwhelmed with panic. In her Rolodex she searched for more people to call.
She tried to remember a time when she was unconscious, years ago when they’d taken out her appendix. Under anesthesia there was only darkness, separation, no process, nothing beyond or between. It was only time lost. Or gone: time gone. She’d woken up and thought it hadn’t even happened yet, until she felt the actual pain. Then she knew it had happened and she had somehow missed it. Megan was missing it. That was a comfort, to know at this point, under anesthesia, she wasn’t enduring anything. She was not a part of it. She was missing it.
Was the color of being anesthetized black or white? She thought it black, deep, like Frost’s woods. Not like Eliot’s yellow. It had been a long time since she’d thought like this. Now she read whatever was on the Oprah list, even though she didn’t watch Oprah. She went to movies and restaurants alone, or with couples. At night, if she was lucky, she’d be home in Buckhead with a Bailey’s on ice, reading, perhaps a little paperwork, a call to Megan before bed. That was her routine. She tried not to call every day. Some days she couldn’t help it. She wasn’t traveling, she’d had Bailey’s, the suburban house was big and empty, the phone was in her hand. Weeks could go by like that. Other weeks she’d be at a conference, or on those long vacations she made herself take—arctic cruises, Southeast Asian swings, adult tennis camps—and she couldn’t call, and Megan’s sense of relief across all that silence seemed palpable to her.
She rested the phone in her lap and held her hands together. Whenever she was nervous she liked to sit like this, one hand holding the other, the four fingers of the right hand caught by the thumb and index finger of the left hand, each hand wrapped around the other; they had to meet exactly the same way each time. When she was younger she did it because her college roommates always joked about how she waved her hands whenever she got too excited at parties, then she did it to keep looking professional at all the meetings she had to attend and during all the presentations she had to give, and now she held tight to herself whenever she felt a loss of control. It no longer happened at work, never happened on vacations. She thought it only happened with Megan, or when she was thinking about Megan. Megan had tried to tease her out of it; she even would reach across and try to unglue one hand from the other. Finally she had quit saying anything. A tic. A standard ploy to keep yourself from giving your nerves away. No big deal. Was it so bad to sit quietly and clasp your hands together? Her therapist had told her it meant that she was her own best source of strength. Megan had said that she was just stepping on herself. If it was the one aftereffect of her horrible marriage and her unsatisfactory history with men, it was worth it. How long had it been since she had really kissed anybody? How long had she—successful, good-looking—been alone? She was aware she was losing sensation in both hands. Her thumbs and her knuckles were white. Soon they would stop. Soon she could take one hand from the other and figure out what to do next.
