As Close to Us as Breathing: A Novel (8 page)

That moment was a turning point for Vivie, who felt more free from then on to rise from her chair behind the reception desk, walk out to the sitting area in the waiting room, and engage a needy patient. Sometimes she brought a person a glass of water. Sometimes a better, more recent magazine. Sometimes she sat there and listened as patients complained about their aches and pains. Often they told her they didn’t know what they’d do without Dr. Shapiro.

He was an unusual physician, she gradually understood, someone who frequently took in patients with unsolvable problems, people other doctors had given up on or considered overly sensitive, the kind who only imagined themselves to be sick. But in Dr. Shapiro’s office, under his uniquely generous care, she watched those weakened souls gain hope, even much-needed color in their cheeks. Soon, a number of them would gain weight on their bones and energy in their step. Not everybody in this category of patients got better, but enough improved that Vivie began to wonder if Dr. Shapiro had a magic formula he passed out behind the closed doors of his examination rooms. She wouldn’t mind seeing him herself, she often thought. But when Tillie Hirschfield told her that when all else failed Dr. Shapiro ordered the daily ingestion of cod liver oil along with more broccoli than you’d ever think to eat, Vivie’s desire for Dr. Shapiro’s special treatment, however helpful it apparently was, quickly waned.

One night in early summer, following a quiet day at the office—like everybody else even the sick were on vacation, Dr. Shapiro had joked—Vivie walked up Main Street to stop at a pharmacy before heading to the Bloombergs’. Because Leibritsky’s Department Store was also at the street’s north end, she’d not taken a step in that direction for months. But the pharmacy wouldn’t take her nearly that far, she reasoned. She passed any number of businesses before she got to the pharmacy, and as she walked she took an interest in them, staring into the window displays of a florist’s shop, a shoe store, a beauty parlor, an Italian food market. She was just passing a five-and-dime store when she spotted a couple sitting on stools at the closed lunch counter. The woman, wearing a blue sleeveless dress, held her arms outstretched toward the man beside her, who had shifted on his stool so that he faced her and not the counter. Whatever he was saying made her laugh. He leaned forward then, into her arms, and kissed the woman.

Vivie slowed her steps, fascinated. At some point, just like the woman through the window, Vivie raised an arm, though only to clutch at her chest. Then she stumbled forward. By the time she arrived at the pharmacy she was blinking back tears, embarrassed when the pharmacist called to her asking if he could help. She was fine, she told him, though as she raced home that night, and for many nights and days to come, she felt the deep pain of it: her loveless life, her dull routine, her bleak future, the one without Mort, the man she’d counted on, had seen that future in, the man who suddenly cropped up in her mind—despite everything, despite how far she thought she’d come—again and again.

Mid-July, while her parents and Bec, along with Ada and Mort, were away at Woodmont, and while Vivie stayed behind in Middletown to hold down the fort, as she put it, at Dr. Shapiro’s, she decided she would go out to dinner one night with Tillie Hirschfield. Why not? She’d saved her money, could afford a little extravagance. They ate at Angelina’s, one of Middletown’s many Italian kitchens. Tillie wore a string of fake pearls around her neck. Vivie wore an old charm bracelet. They talked about this and that, mostly their childhoods. Tillie was from West Hartford. “It’s pretty there,” she said wistfully, as if the place no longer existed.

They didn’t meet any single men. The three other tables were filled by families. “Oh, well,” Tillie had said, early into the evening. “Might as well eat up then.”

And they did. They were delighted with the veal Angelina brought them, along with side bowls of pasta and marinara sauce. Their bellies full, they took a walk afterward, down Main Street, arms linked.

“I bet you’re some sister,” Tillie told her, leaning her head toward Vivie.

“I’m not so sure about that,” Vivie answered, matter-of-fact. But when Tillie began laughing for no reason—the wine at dinner probably gone to her head—Vivie laughed too, because even without the aid of so much alcohol she felt strangely carefree. She’d have to buy herself more meals, and maybe some new stockings, maybe even a new dress. That’s what a working woman could do, she suddenly knew. And that thought made her laugh again, louder.

Early that fall, even before her mother told her about Mort and Ada’s engagement—arriving at Mrs. Bloomberg’s doorstep to do so, sitting with the woman at her kitchen table, the two of them across from “poor Vivie,” as they’d said in unison—she’d heard about it already. A patient of Dr. Shapiro’s had told her by way of congratulating her, assuming she already knew.

What surprised her upon hearing the news was that it didn’t knock her over. She did open her eyes wide. She also gasped, but almost silently. Then she resumed her work. Seated in the waiting room was that same tired mother she’d helped before, a person she now called Frances, and her son, Thomas, and soon Vivie rose, moving away from the patient who had told her the news and toward Frances and Thomas, both of whom obviously wanted her company, the mother for comfort, the child for some kind of new game to play, some kind of treat.

In November there would be a family dinner celebrating the engagement, and Vivie was to come. “You can’t avoid them forever,” her father, Maks, had said firmly, her mother and Bec nodding behind him.

“I’ll come,” Vivie said, simply enough.

The night of the family dinner Vivie was seated at the far end of the table, away from Mort and Ada, even away from Mort’s parents. For starters soup was served but her appetite wasn’t hearty. A light patter of conversation ensued, but Vivie remained silent, listening. Brisket, potatoes, and green beans came next, and while the meal was being eaten she didn’t even attempt to engage in small talk with Bec, who, seated beside her, kept turning Vivie’s way, a caring and constant vigil Vivie knew the whole family assumed was needed.

By dessert the talk focused on the impending wedding and it was Ada who then dominated, telling them what food she’d like at the reception, how the tables at the synagogue were to be arranged, whom she’d like to invite, which tailor she’d already visited to get fitted for a dress. She barely paused between sentences. Her excitement and sense of importance were on grand display, and there was Vivie, quiet at the other end of the table, comprehending what the moment meant to Ada while simultaneously thinking about the upcoming week at work, which patients would be coming on which days, Frances and Thomas again on Monday, a wheezing but lovable Mable Stump on Tuesday, a new patient, a fellow named Leo Cohen, with some kind of chronic cough, on Thursday. She thought of Tillie, too, her sad desperation, and a sense of tenderness for everybody she knew through her work with Dr. Shapiro, the world’s wounded, filled her heart. Ada was blabbing on and on but to Vivie all that talk didn’t really matter.

Until suddenly it did. “You’re not always going to feel this big,” she told Ada, abruptly interrupting her sister’s eager monologue. These were the first words she’d directed Ada’s way since the betrayal and they came out in a voice Vivie didn’t know she had: confident and clear.

The talk in the room stopped.

“What? What did you say?” Ada asked, obviously surprised to hear Vivie address her.

“You’re not always going to feel so big,” Vivie repeated, her voice still full with the truth of her words. She was well aware that everyone was staring at her and that no one looked particularly happy to be doing so.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ada asked. She held her hand at her collar bone and she tipped back slightly, as if knocked off-kilter by Vivie’s words.

“Now’s the time to be happy,” Vivie answered. “Ada, enjoy your happiness while you have it. That’s all I’m saying. Be happy, Ada. Be happy right now.”

Around her the staring faces looked confused, as did Ada’s. Then Ada nodded, said, “Thanks, I am happy. Very happy,” and in the next moment the monologue of the bride-to-be resumed. Vivie sighed.

Six months after Davy’s death, my aunt recalled her words to my mother that evening so long ago. Back then she’d meant to upset her, to pull her down a peg or two. “Enjoy your happiness while you have it,” she’d told her younger sister, which wasn’t so bad a thing to say, really, but was just bad enough, enough to cause Ada’s flushed face to blanch. As the years progressed, and Vivie married a man she adored, it was obvious to Vivie that Ada’s happiness had in fact shrunk, long before Davy’s death, and her long-ago warning had come to seem like a bit of prescience rather than the bit of hate it really was. By then Vivie no longer felt such hatred, only compassion as she saw Ada’s confused dissatisfaction take root. Ada obviously felt stuck in a rut but was cursed, Vivie could see, with the inability to fully understand it much less pull herself out of it. But after Davy’s death, the idea that she had wanted Ada to suffer—even back then, when such a desire was understandable—haunted Vivie. She wondered if she’d really released all that early hate. “I’m so sad for you,” she told her sister over and over again.

“What’s that?” Ada once responded when Vivie called to say the words yet one more time. “Who’s this?” she then asked, the bewilderment in her voice part and parcel of the tailspin, Vivie knew, of such a severe, unacceptable loss.

“It’s Vivie,” Vivie told her, saying her name slowly, as if it were a foreign word.

“Oh. Vivie,” Ada said, her voice flat.

“Yes, yes, it’s me. I’m so sad for you, Ada. Do you know that I’m sad? Truly and deeply sad?”

“Not as sad as me,” Ada whispered.

“No. Of course not. No one could be as sad as you,” Vivie finally said.

At Mort and Ada’s wedding, a month after the engagement dinner, Vivie kept to herself, standing in a corner where she told herself she could fall quietly if in fact she were to faint, but to her surprise her legs never gave way and her head never felt at all woozy. In another corner an elderly aunt of Mort’s—a woman she’d met once before at the store, a woman now clearly losing her wits—was sitting by herself in a chair, and Vivie dragged over another one to seat herself beside the old woman.

“Let me get you some food,” Vivie told the woman, who nodded.

She brought back herring and a bagel, and some slices of tomato. On another plate she brought the good stuff: wedding cake, rugelach, and grapes.

When it appeared that the woman couldn’t hold a fork steady in her hand, Vivie took the fork and gently fed her. While she did, a relative of the woman walked over, identified the woman as “Old Rose,” patted her head, and walked away. Vivie continued to feed the woman, talking to her as she did, calling her by her name. “Eat up, Rose,” she urged, “we’re at a party.” She wiped her mouth, and, the meal done, held Rose’s hand. All the while, Rose stared ahead, vacantly. But then her mood shifted, something focused, and she turned to Vivie, her eyes comprehending.

“I know you,” Rose told Vivie, and the limp hand inside Vivie’s came alive and gave her hand a squeeze.

Smiling, Vivie said, “I know you too, Rose.” Then she and Rose continued silently watching. By this time Mort and Ada were being lifted in chairs. A crowd danced around them, clapping. Yet louder than their clamor was Ada’s voice, screeching with delight. In her corner with Rose, Vivie nodded her head in time with the music. She noticed that Rose did the same.

“Care to dance?” Vivie asked the woman jokingly.

“Not today,” Rose answered. “Come back tomorrow, won’t you?” Vivie looked her way as Rose continued, confused, “Maybe I’ll buy something from you tomorrow. Yes, I’ll have the money tomorrow…”

In this way Vivie survived her younger sister’s wedding. She was still not speaking to Ada, still stunned by her sister’s old lies. But at least Vivie could move back home now that Ada had moved out.

Bec was still there, finishing high school, that and dating her classmate Milton Goldberg. For some time once Vivie moved back home the days passed uneventfully. She was relieved to be there, though a certain amount of pressure was being put on her, by way of her father, to consider a long-term career. There was always teaching, Maks said. And then there was nursing.

“I’m happy with Dr. Shapiro,” she told her father, her voice once again filled with that confidence that she didn’t quite know how she’d acquired.

At work Frances no longer needed to bring Thomas in. But by then Vivie had made other friends. In particular, she was always eager to see a young woman named Ruth Brintler, who had begun to see Dr. Shapiro for the treatment of significant fatigue. Dr. Shapiro, Vivie learned, was having trouble finding the root cause of her symptom, as were the other doctors Ruth had seen, but Dr. Shapiro insisted she not despair. Yet Ruth was alone in the world, unmarried, without relatives nearby, supporting herself by working in a library, and she was finding that work unbearable under the weight of her exhaustion. Despair was the hardest thing not to feel, she told Vivie once. That’s when Vivie began to cook for Ruth once a week and bring the meal to her home. Ruth lived in an apartment above the Italian grocery on Middletown’s Main Street, and it was there that the two woman dined together each Tuesday evening, not talking so much as listening to the various sounds issuing from the store below. Soon enough Thursdays became another regular night out as Mrs. Bloomberg and Lorna missed Vivie and insisted she come at least once weekly to dine with them. They wanted to know everything, they told her, as if when she left their home Vivie’s life had taken on an adventurous edge they could only imagine. Mrs. Bloomberg dropped the “poor” and now simply greeted her as “Vivie.”

A year passed this way, with work, her regular Tuesday and Thursday evening engagements, a few nights out with Tillie Hirschfield, and several awkward Shabbos meals at home with the newlyweds there, Ada still puffed up with the self-importance of being a new bride. The first Passover seder was no different—there was Ada, glowing and gabbing, which by this time only made Vivie feel tired. But the second seder redeemed the first. Vivie was invited that year to Dr. Shapiro’s house, along with Tillie, and there, seated at Dr. Shapiro’s dining table, interested to see him wearing a suit and yarmulke rather than his white doctor’s coat, delighted to see him feign shyness when his wife, Penny, complimented his recent haircut, thrilled when he began the service not by lighting candles but by acknowledging her and Tillie as his second family, Vivie found herself stirred more deeply than usual by Dr. Shapiro’s warmth and glad to have broadened her life such that it now was touched by what she thought of as the special grace of his.