Henry, Himself, page 5
He capped the last feeder and gathered up the bags. Rufus nosed at the spilled sunflower seeds. “Come on, Tubbo. All done.”
Rufus ignored him.
“Come!” Henry called, and Rufus dashed past him for the door. “Why do you have to make me say it twice?”
By dinnertime, through Emily’s web of church, University Club and Friends of the Library friends, they knew Dr. Runco was in St. Margaret’s cancer unit. Henry was surprised they didn’t know his prognosis.
“You’d think he could arrange something on an outpatient basis,” Emily said. “The hospital’s the last place I’d want to be.”
Henry didn’t want to speculate, and chewed his chicken à la king.
“Of course at this point he may not have a choice. The chemo makes you so weak. I remember Millie, she was completely out of it. You’d have to have a nurse. He’s still married, isn’t he?”
“As far as I know.”
“It’s awful. It doesn’t help you with your knee either.”
“My knee will be fine.”
“Who knows how it’ll be in three weeks. I think you’ve let it go for too long as it is. Maybe we should try somewhere else.”
“I’m not going to get in anywhere else in three weeks without a referral.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“It’s not an emergency. I can walk on it.”
“You probably shouldn’t be.”
“The sky is blue,” Henry said.
“It’s night out, so it’s black, smart-ass. Fine. If you want to hobble around for the next three weeks and make it worse, go right ahead, but don’t expect me to play nurse when they have to operate.”
Forty-eight years, and he would never get used to how quickly she could turn. Sometimes she apologized, but he’d learned not to wait. He wanted to think she didn’t mean what she said, though it was the tone that hurt the most—as if, like a willful child, he’d purposely driven her beyond the limits of her patience.
Were they really talking about his knee, or was it the fact that he and Dr. Runco were the same age? He didn’t blame her for being afraid. He wasn’t sure what he could do, beyond promising he wouldn’t die.
The next morning he called the office to see if they could move up his appointment in case of a cancellation. He was free anytime, and they were three minutes away. His knee was causing him pain, he said, which wasn’t a lie. Linda said she’d make a note in their system. He apologized and asked her, again, to give his best to Dr. Runco, but as he hung up he thought the sentiment rang false. As someone who valued his privacy, he couldn’t think of anything worse than everyone knowing your business, especially when you were helpless, and all morning as he chipped away at their taxes, whenever it crossed his mind he went sullen, clenching his lips as if he were the object of his own misguided pity.
When a few days later Linda called to say there’d been a cancellation, he thought Emily would be pleased.
“It’s only been what, a month? If you’d gone in when you should have, you’d be better by now.”
“I’m just glad they could fit me in,” he said, and let it rest there, a stalemate if not a draw.
He expected Dr. Prasad to be Indian, like so many doctors around town now, older and gnomelike, with glasses, a heavy accent and white lab coat, and was unprepared for the rangy young man in rolled shirtsleeves and a leather tie who shook his hand like a car salesman. He was American, his smile the obvious product of orthodonture, his hair gelled and sleek as a male model’s. He set Henry’s file aside and squatted to palpate his knee while Henry described the fall and his symptoms.
No, he had no history of knee problems. He was in relatively good health besides his cholesterol.
The doctor held Henry’s shin with one hand, instructing him to push against it.
“Hard as you can.”
“That’s it,” Henry said.
The doctor cupped his heel. “Pull. Does it hurt?”
“It feels weak.”
Dr. Prasad stood. “PCL. Probably just a partial tear, but we’ll do an MRI to make sure.”
Posterior cruciate ligament. He could walk on it, but he should try to avoid stairs. The doctor gave him a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and a month of physical therapy. There was a good place in Oakland, and another in Squirrel Hill, if that was easier. It was a matter of doing his exercises and giving the knee the best chance to heal.
“Did Carmen take your height and weight when you came in?”
“Yes,” Henry said, knowing what came next. Strangely, it was then, during the lecture, that he missed Dr. Runco the most.
Emily was right—he should have called them as soon as it happened. But he didn’t tell her that. She seemed satisfied that they didn’t have to operate. She was less interested in the details of his physical therapy. “So, did you hear anything?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Linda?”
“No.”
“You have to ask. How else are you going to find anything out? I knew I should have gone with you. I swear, you drive me crazy.”
As always, he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. “I’m not trying to.”
“I know you’re not,” she said. “That’s what makes it so frustrating.”
The Second Sunday in Lent
Sunday in the Maxwell household was Call Your Mother Day, so late that afternoon when the phone rang, he paused above the overturned kitchen drawer he was regluing and glanced up at the floor joists, waiting for Emily to get it. The footsteps he expected never came. The phone rang four, five times before the machine answered, and then, instead of leaving a message, the person hung up. He’d thought she was doing her crossword by the fire, but it was possible she was taking a nap. It was a day for it, gray and rainy, the parking lot at church a lake. He leaned into the heat of his work lamp and squeezed a bead of glue along the last seam, capped the tube and gently pressed the two pieces together. While he was holding them tight, the phone rang again.
“It’s like Grand Central Station,” he said.
Again, no message.
The glue was a new epoxy that was supposed to work in thirty seconds. He stood there with the drawer in his hands, careful not to get epoxy on them, silently counting to sixty before he placed it on a clean sheet of newspaper and applied the clamps. It was an interesting problem. Under normal use, the drawer was more than strong enough, but in fits of culinary frustration Emily had the habit of slamming it so the overloaded silverware tray rammed the rear wall, weakening the three joints there till they failed. Without the rear wall for structure, the bottom gradually separated from the sidewalls so that weeks later, without warning, when Emily opened the drawer too quickly the entire contents fell out the back. At this point, rather than try to minimize the damage, she yanked the broken pieces free and dashed them to the floor, swearing, saying they needed all new cabinets, a threat he discounted as empty, since they couldn’t afford them. His strategy, as with the Olds and the rest of 51 Grafton Street, was to keep things going while spending as little as possible, a plan that succeeded only because he was handy. When he was gone the place would fall apart, but at that point, as the joke went, she would have his insurance. Till then he played the superintendent, always on call.
According to the instructions, for maximum strength he should let the glue set for five minutes. He’d give it thirty, leaving more than enough time to put the kitchen back together before Emily started dinner. He made sure the cap was screwed on tight, hung the extra clamps on the pegboard and turned off the lamp.
Upstairs her music played, softly. She was sitting in her chair where he’d left her, doing the crossword. Beside her, resting facedown on the end table, in case the children called, lay the phone.
“I thought I heard the phone ring.”
“You did. I didn’t think you’d want to be bothered.”
“Who was it?”
“Who always calls right around this time?”
Meaning Arlene. “The kids.”
“Here’s a hint: Someone who can’t just leave a message.”
“She doesn’t call every Sunday.”
“She did last Sunday.”
“She needed help with her doorbell.”
“Call her,” Emily said. “I’m sure she’s got some chore for you to do.”
He would never understand this pointless jealousy, and thought it was because he was a man. What he knew about women he’d learned from his mother and Arlene, and then Emily and Margaret, all of them strong-willed and uncompromising if not always rational. How much energy they spent rehashing old grievances. Attuned to the tiniest slight, they kept score, forming new alliances doomed to explode. To Arlene’s chagrin, their mother was fond of Emily, even more so after the children were born, while Arlene, like Margaret, once the favorite, became Margaret’s confidante. While their mother was still alive, having the four of them together was a trial. Early on he learned from his father how to play the diplomat, sympathetic to all, but as a husband he owed Emily his final allegiance, though sometimes, as in the case of Margaret’s weight, he might disagree with her methods. He could see Kenny taking the same role with Lisa as if it were inevitable, and wished he’d set a better example. Being agreeable didn’t make people less difficult.
He took the phone into the kitchen, shadowed by Rufus, who was hoping he might put him out. Henry used it as an excuse to stand on the back porch and watch as he chose a spot in the patchy snow. Rain dripped from the sycamore.
“There you are,” Arlene said.
“Sorry. I was doing something in the basement and couldn’t get to the phone.”
“I thought maybe you were at the home and garden show.”
“No.” They’d gone once, years ago. “So, what’s up?”
It was her disposal. She was in the middle of making lemon squares for the library bake sale when it stopped working all of a sudden. Could he come take a look at it?
“Did you check the breaker?”
“That’s the first thing I checked.”
“Okay,” he said, “I’ll be over,” though he had no idea what he could do.
He had Rufus stand on the mat so he could wipe his paws, kneeling on his good knee. The physical therapy was helping, but he still needed to use the counter to pull himself up. “Good boy, yes, let’s get a treaty-treat.”
He returned the phone to the end table.
“Well?”
“Her disposal’s not working.”
“Say hello to her for me.”
“I will,” he said.
Conveniently, Arlene lived ten minutes away in Regent Square, where she rented the top half of a duplex a few blocks from Frick Park. Her apartment was crowded with their mother’s furniture from Mellon Street, the same familiar pictures from childhood on the walls, the same books on the shelves, all perfectly preserved yet somehow wrong removed from their original context. The Wax Museum, Emily dubbed it, and while Henry defended Arlene’s (and his mother’s) taste, he dreaded his visits, as if by marrying and having a family of his own, he’d abandoned her.
Her street was red brick and slippery. There was a spot in front, and he angled for it, letting the Olds coast to a stop. He’d brought his toolbox and lugged it up the walk like a plumber.
She must have been watching. As he neared the crumbling front steps, she came out on her balcony and tossed down her key—attached, for that reason, to a white plastic parachute that did nothing to break its fall. They were neither Irish nor Catholic, yet her door sported a flashy St. Patrick’s Day wreath too new to be left over from her teaching days.
She was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. “How’s the knee?”
“Getting there.”
“You look like you’re moving better.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’m ready for spring to get here.”
She wore a candy-cane-patterned apron over a scarlet cardigan that hung on her like a bathrobe. Growing up, she’d been taller than him until he reached the ninth grade. Now every time he saw her she seemed hunched and shrunken, as if she were dwindling away.
“Sorry to bother you. I didn’t think it could wait till tomorrow.”
“It’s no bother. I just hope I can do something.”
The living room smelled of burnt sugar and her cigarettes. Like their father in his condo, she kept the lights off to save electricity. In the gloom, an aquarium shone from one corner, garish as a beer sign. She led him back past their old dining room table to the kitchen, where she’d laid out her meager array of tools on the counter, including a hammer.
Like a detective, he craned over the sink, aiming his flashlight down the drain.
“It was making a lot of noise before it stopped, but it always does that with lemons. It’s old.”
“This it?” he asked, and tried the switch by the window. Nothing.
He ran the tap to see if there was a clog. “You can use it for water at least.”
“That’s good to know,” she said, as if he’d done something.
She’d cleaned out the cupboard beneath the sink so he could get to the disposal—old but solid state, no fuses. A corrugated hose ran from the dishwasher to the side of the drum, held firmly in place with a clamp. He ran a finger along the underside of the hose to make sure there were no leaks. He was convinced the problem was electrical, a fried motor or solenoid, beyond his skills. With parts and labor, probably not worth fixing, which was fine—her landlord would have to shell out for a new one—and yet, with her standing there watching, he couldn’t quit.
At Jackass Flats, when anything went wrong, the techs said, “It’s not rocket science,” and invariably they were right. The reactor never failed, or the engine. Their design worked. It was always something basic like a relay or a pressure gauge that stopped them from launching. A fix could be as simple as: Is it plugged in?
It was. He unplugged it, counted five and plugged it in again.
“Try it now.”
“I am.”
“Okay, turn it off.”
He propped the flashlight in the corner, shining straight up, rolled onto his back like a mechanic and knocked it over so it bonked him in the face. “God love you.” The space was tight, and he shifted to his side, balancing awkwardly on a hip. Straining, one arm trapped beneath him, he reached around to where the waste pipe connected to the drum, PVC attached with a ribbed collar. He had his wrenches. He could pull the whole thing out, but that would take time and then she couldn’t use the sink. Blindly he felt along the joint and the pipe that ran to a cutout in the wall, checking for moisture, and then, finding none, down around the bottom of the drum. The metal was warm, a sign the motor might have overheated, and as he traced the base plate, feeling open holes and raised bumps that might be the heads of screws, his fingers dipped into a beveled depression and hit a plastic nib like the plunger of a pen that gave under his touch. He pressed it in. It seemed to stay.
“Try now.”
The motor whirred, the chamber rattling, spinning empty.
Off. On. It was fine.
He squirmed free and clambered to his feet, red-faced and light-headed.
“What did you do?”
“There’s a reset button on the bottom. It probably just overheated. From now on throw your old lemons in the garbage.”
“Thank you,” she said, as if he’d saved her, and he was glad he’d come.
She wanted him to take a plate of lemon squares, but he knew Emily wouldn’t appreciate them, and took just one, the gooey, still-warm middle square, wolfing it in the car as he splashed along Penn Avenue, inhaling the powdered sugar so he nearly choked, then brushing the crumbs off his front. As good as their mother’s, he wanted to say, magnanimous after his victory. While it was just dumb luck, and the sugar high would burn off soon enough, for now he was inordinately proud of himself, filled, Scroogelike, with goodwill toward the whole world.
He thought he’d been quick, but when he got home, Emily had already started dinner—a lamb roast crowned with sprigs of rosemary. To make room on the counter, she’d exiled the silverware tray to the corner by the door. The sink was a jumble of mixing bowls and measuring cups.
“How is Arlene?” she asked stagily, as if it were expected of her.
“She’s fine.”
“Did you fix her disposal?”
“I did.”
“Good. I moved your thing over there because it was in the way. Just let me get this in the oven, then you can do whatever you want.”
He waited till she was peeling carrots at the sink to bring the drawer up and fit it into the track. He squirted a dash of silicone spray on the rollers, opened and closed the drawer to spread it around and replaced the silverware tray.
“Ta-da,” he said.
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” she said, testing it. “But thank you.”
The Record
Every night before bed they watched the weather, yet when spring finally arrived it was a shock. One morning they woke to fog in the trees and robins on the lawn. By noon the snow was gone, the gutters glinting with runoff. The sunshine felt like a reward for surviving the winter. The crocuses beside the basement hatch poked through, and the daffodils around the birdbath. While Emily weeded in her coolie hat and kneepads, he scooped the thawed poop and bundled the fallen branches, picturing Ella and Sam hunting Easter eggs. It was too early to mulch, according to Emily, so he satisfied himself with taking down the feeders and vacuuming up the chaff, terrorizing Rufus with the hose. Though it was still cold enough that he had to wear a jacket, she opened the windows and aired out the house.
