Christmas, Present (3 page)

“I’ll go, of course,” Miranda replied, “but what is the matter with Laurie?”

“She has a terrible pain in her head . . .”

“In her neck?” They both fell silent, the recollected threat of Annie’s meningitis unmentionable between them.

“No, her head. And pressure. They’re doing a CT scan . . .”

“Really!” Miranda said. “Should I simply bring the girls there?”

“Not yet,” Elliott said. “Don’t wake them. Use the key behind the light. Just wait for me to call you. I appreciate this, Miranda.”

“Don’t think of it,” she said seriously. “You’ve never asked me to help with anything. I’ve felt quite privi- leged.” What an odd way to put it, Elliott reflected.

He wandered back to the scanning lab, but Laura was gone, as was the doctor with the musical name. He saw the younger physician, a resident or an intern, leaning against a cabinet, filling out a form on a clip- board. “My wife,” he said.

The young man smiled at Elliott, a dog’s grin, slant and cringing. “You can talk to Doctor Campanile”— he pointed with his pen—“she’s upstairs on the med- ical floor, 202, bed B. They’ve admitted her.”

“For more tests?” Elliott asked.

“They’ve admitted her to the hospital,” said the intern.

“For overnight?”

The younger man seemed to consider this. Finally, he said, “Yes.”

Elliott jogged up the two flights and easily found Laura, propped high on pillows, dressed only in her white peasant blouse and satin undies. Dr. Campanile, as if he had been waiting in the wings for his entrance, instantly appeared at his elbow. In the other bed, an ancient, toothless crone with yellow matted hair moaned ceaselessly, “Come here, baby. Come here, baby. Come here.”

“I know,” Dr. Campanile told Elliott softly. “We will move her the moment we can. They are readying a private room next door.” He took Elliott’s arm, then gingerly, as if waiting for permission, placed his hand on Elliott’s shoulder and led him to an adjacent room, where four chairs faced a low, scarred table. Three hands of poker lay abandoned on the table. Above a battered vinyl couch, a single string of white twinkle lights was strung around a stitchery sampler that read “Peace on Earth.”

“The poor soul,” Elliott said.

“She has no children but in her mind,” Dr. Cam- panile told him. “They are all dead.”

“Imagine, your child dying before you do.”

“Yes, it is very bad. Does your wife have a family?” “Two sisters and a brother, and her mother.” “Close by?”

“Her brother lives in Cambridge and her mother in Natick. Her sisters live, one in California, one in Chicago. She’s in medical school, Angela, the one in Chicago. She was a science teacher, but she decided one year she’d always wanted to practice medicine . . .”

“You should call them.”

“Why?” Elliott asked, stifling the little boy’s fright- ened pipe in his voice. “Does my wife have a brain tumor?”

“No,” said Dr. Campanile, without amplification. “Is she very ill?”

“She will be spared a long illness,” he said, “but yes, she is very ill. Let me explain what I have seen in these pictures.” Deep in Laura’s brain, a weakened vein, widened like a dammed estuary, present probably since her birth, had burst. “This is why she feels no

pain now,” the doctor continued. “It is already hem- orrhaging. The pressure is gone, so there is a relief.”

“But when did it burst?”

“We think perhaps in the car, some time ago.”

“In the car? While we were pulled over? Why didn’t I get her here sooner? What now? Will you operate?”

The doctor paused, examined his clean, clean hands, and looked up at Elliott with an anguishing discernment more expressive than words.

“Are you saying,” Elliott persisted, “that Laura will be brain damaged? How bad will this be? Will she be able to function? Speak?” Read? Smile at him? Care for the children? he thought. How would they manage?

“No,” Dr. Campanile replied, “she will not be brain damaged. This also she is spared. She is a strong and beautiful woman. We cannot operate, because there is nothing left for us to operate on. Nothing to remove or to clamp. There are smaller vessels in the brain, less important vessels, if you will, that can be clamped if the aneurysm is discovered in time, or the bleed caught on a scan with minimal damage. But this is a major vessel, and it is long since hemorrhaged. That is

the tragedy. We could not have known it was there.. .” “I should have known!”

“No, Mister Banner, you could not have known. She herself could not have known. She would not have had symptoms.”

“Now what?”

“Now, how can I say this? It is too late. She will die, and I am sorry beyond an ability to tell you. Often, and I say often, though this condition is very rare alto- gether . . . this, this bubble, which is so thin, will break when the woman is in labor, so in this you are lucky, you have your children . . . and she has lived with her children and loved them. She has told me you have three girls, one large, one middle, one very small.”

“Wait!” Elliott cried. “She’ll die?” “Yes.”

“How long? How long does she have? How many months? Weeks?”

“Mister Banner, Elliott, it is not a case of that. I will explain to you exactly how this will happen. In several hours, or perhaps one hour, your wife will have a seizure. She will feel no pain. If she chooses, we can

sedate her so that she has no awareness at all of this. She has said she does not wish us to do this.”

“You
told
her?”

“She asked me. I would not lie to an intelligent per- son.”

“You
told
her this, without me?”

“She has said she knew she was dying.”

“My God! My God!” Elliott began keening. The doctor rose and gently closed the door.

“Mister Banner, let me tell you the rest of this, and then I will answer all of your questions. In one hour, or several, your wife will have a seizure, perhaps very small. She will have another, several hours later, in the morning. She may have one more, and then she will sleep; she will fall into a coma, and die this way.”

“There must be something you can do.”

“There is not. But, when I leave you, I will go on the Internet . . .”

“The Internet?”

“I will go on the Internet and ask all my colleagues I can find whether there is any experiment, any hope or practice . . .”

“It’s the middle of the night!”

“Not in England, Australia, Germany . . .” “But if you say there is nothing we can do . . .”

“If there is, I will find it. There are changes daily. Whatever is being tried, we will find. But I think there is nothing that can be done, except this. You can spend these hours with your wife and children, and if you wish, her family, and you can learn what she wishes. Do you have a living will?”

Angrily, Elliott told him, “Of course.”

“This is a Catholic hospital. I am a Catholic. The practice, barbaric, would have been years before, to place her on life supports . . . we will do that now only if Laura chose to donate her eyes and her heart . . .”

“Her eyes and her heart?” These are mine, Elliott cried silently. His whole head was a single, black shout. “How long are we looking at?”

“Eight hours. Twelve. We cannot say.”

“Twelve hours from now! But my wife was a healthy woman. She lifted weights! She did cartwheels!”

“She has lived a long time, forty years? With this in her, like, you might say, a time bomb . . .”

“How will I tell my children?” Elliott asked.

“We have a social worker who is on her way here. To stand by. And I will tell them, if you need my help. I also have two daughters. And two granddaughters.” The doctor placed his hand over Elliott’s. “Are you a religious man? Is Laura religious?”

“I . . . was raised a Catholic. Laura takes the chil- dren to church when they’ll get up on Sunday morn- ing. They’ve had their First Communions, the older ones. Laura calls herself a practicing Catholic, practic- ing to get it right,” said Elliott, and astonishing him- self, he laughed. “I suppose I’m an atheist. Or an agnostic. Too cowardly to be an atheist.”

“Your wife has asked to see a priest, later. Father Conley is on his way. He can wait until she is ready.”

“How . . . is Laura?”

“Well, she is not afraid. I have told her there will be no pain. That was what she feared. And she has said she is . . . she has said, like the old woman, ‘My babies, my babies.’ ”

Now Elliott began crying in earnest.

“It is comforting, sometimes, to give up our doubts at such occasions,” said Dr. Campanile, reaching out a hand, barely grazing Elliott’s shoulder. “I must do it. Otherwise, I think I could not survive my work and ever eat or drink a glass of wine. We may hope, perhaps, as Our Lady instructs, for a peaceful death. Peace is not to be snored at.”

“Sneezed at,” Elliott corrected him, with a con- cealed sniff.

“I make these idiomatic mistakes all day.” The doc- tor smiled. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m distraught. I’m . . .”

“Of course.” Dr. Campanile brushed away the apol- ogy. “Are you ready to see Laura?”

Together, they walked, Elliott shuffling, conscious of his vast weariness; he might sleep for twelve hours or never again, turning into a room a door away from the sobbing old lady, whom a nurse was telling, “Soon, they will be here . . .”

“Hi, honey,” Laura said, “I’ve really done it up now, huh?”

“Can she understand?” Elliott asked the doctor. “Yes, I can, Ell,” Laura said. “I can think as clearly

as I ever could. Not that that was ever so much.”

“I’ll leave you alone,” the doctor interrupted. “As I said, I would like to use the computer . . .”

“He’s going to try to find something to help,” Elliott said. “Some experimental process, somewhere in the world . . .”

“Oh, that would be wonderful,” Laura said. “But realistically, he’s not going to.”

“How can you be so calm?” Elliott cried, dropping to his knees and grasping her hand, which smelled faintly of popcorn and her cedary cologne. “I can’t bear this. Laura, I love you. I need you. There’s never been anyone else for me.”

“You’ll be all alone.” Laura reached for his cheek. “I’ll be all alone? That doesn’t matter. I’ll be without

you
, Laura. You, which is actually the best of me. I can’t

even comprehend it. I thought we would grow old together. We didn’t smoke. We didn’t do drugs. We ate cauliflower and drank red wine. Laura . . . your energy. You never stop, Laura. How can this be happening?

How can you stand it? Are you terrified? I shouldn’t even ask that. I’m an idiot. Laura, I just want to take you in my arms and run and run until we run away from this. How can you be even sane? Sweetheart, I can’t take this in! Is it true? I’m losing you . . . it’s impossible for me to think past this, this black wall. I’d be jibber- ing like a psycho. I wouldn’t be sitting there smiling.”

“Why, I don’t know what else to do,” Laura said, the moue of her full lips suffused with pity. “I had this moment of horrid, bitter fear. I wanted to scream and hit and scratch. Then, I thought it would be easier for me than for all of you. I knew what he was going to say, Elliott. That’s why I insisted so hard at the Big Dig. I thought it over. One good thing is, I won’t know. I’ve been watching the sky, spitting snow on and off, and wondering how Mother will get here, driving five miles an hour the way she does if it drizzles. I’ve been watch- ing the snow and thinking that this is the last time I will ever see snow. I’m glad it’s now, Ell. Not in summer. I’ve been thinking that the girls would be miserable, with their birthdays in summer . . . though Christmas will always be a problem.”

A problem, Elliott thought. A
problem?

“Ell?” Laura roused him. He had fallen asleep with his head on her blanket. “It’s okay. I know you’re exhausted. I would sleep myself if I dared . . . miss anything. I’m so tired. But my head. You know, Ell, it feels wonderful. Just having that pain vanish. Free. I want you to do something for me.”

“The donation forms.”

“Oh, I did that. While you were talking to the doc- tor.”

“You did? You didn’t ask me?”

“Did you want my liver?” Laura smiled, peeking up at him like a pixie and ruffling her short blond fringe. “No, I simply, I just thought we would discuss it.” “Ell, there’s no reason for anything . . . in here to go

to waste. They can even use a person’s ovaries . . .” “Laura! I can’t think of that.”

“Well, don’t then. Because that isn’t what I want you to do. I want you to go to the CVS . . .”

“Laura!” Elliott cried. “We’re in a class A trauma center. What could you possibly need from the CVS drugstore?”

“Cards,” Laura said. “I want you to get three wed- ding cards for the girls, and three graduation cards, and three blank cards, and a graduation card for my sister Angie. And a pen, a nice color. Maybe purple. And sticky notes. Can you remember that?”

“Yes, but . . . what if they don’t get married?” “Ell, most people get married.”

“What if they find it grotesque?”

“They won’t. It will be a shock. But they’ll find it comforting. You could get a tape recorder, too, and some tapes; but I think
that
would really be more grotesque, their mother’s voice . . . beyond the grave.” Laura’s smile was watery. “I don’t really think that. I’m lying because I know I’d foul up whatever I had to say, or bawl, and that would break their hearts. Can you give me my makeup kit?”

“What about me?”

“I’ve left you a card. Remember? In the nightstand at home.”

“What about me? Forever?”

“Well, I’m sorry it has to be you, my love, my dear love, but you’ll be good at this, Elliott. You’re a very

practical person. You make conscious choices. You think everything over.
Everything.
And we’ll make notes. Before . . . anything happens. Before I call Mother to bring the girls. I don’t want her to wake them now.”

“Are you sure you want me to leave you now and go to the CVS?”

“It’s only a block away. It’s open twenty-four hours, I’m sure.”

“I mean, leave you?”

“They said it will be hours, or an hour at least . . . before . . . and then I’ll be . . . pretty okay until the next one. The doctor said.”