Have You Found Her (26 page)

“Of course.” And yet she’d managed to call Maria, I noticed. What a stupid time for me to be jealous, when her life was at risk. I was in shock, that was my only excuse; I wasn’t thinking straight. “Thanks, Maria.”

Bill came home that night to find me smoking and surfing, smoking and surfing, dripping ashes all over my keyboard, relentlessly clicking. “Sam’s in the hospital again,” I told him, distracted by a flashing banner on the New York State Department of Health AIDS services website. “Oh, and I heard from the deejay; he got the check from my dad and everything’s set.”

Bill shook his head at me. “See, in my business, they call that ‘burying the lede.’ What happened this time?”

“Meningitis.” I took another hit off the joint and starting coughing up a lung. “Not sure what kind yet,” I wheezed.

“Oh, babe.” He sought refuge in the easy chair. “This is happening way too fast.”

“I know.” Although, according to the Internet, this was how things went when you had advanced AIDS. You got infections, and sometimes you recovered from them, but they always left you weaker than when you started. And then you got another infection, and maybe you recovered from that one, too. But only 60 percent of your full health. And you kept getting sick, and never fully getting better, until finally you just died. That was how things went.

I tortured myself all night—I should have been spending more time with her, knowing how short time could be; I shouldn’t have let her get this sick. I was supposed to be keeping an eye on her; instead, I’d been letting her run around working a part-time job, smiling at her stories about riding her skateboard and wading in the Bronx River. I should have warned her to take it easy. I should have been more conscious of her health. I should have talked to her pulmonologist. I shouldn’t have let her and Valentina live alone.

I thought about those Disney reservations.
She might not make it to December,
I realized.
She might not even make it the six weeks to the wedding.

The next day, I rode the subway for an hour to the hospital in the Bronx, where they’d determined her meningitis was viral—good news. Or, goodish—none of it was really “good.” I came into her room just as she was waiting for a spinal tap.

“Hey, babe.”

Sam was in the fetal position on a flat bed, shivering, white as an eggshell, face contorted with pain. She couldn’t answer, could only open one eye in acknowledgment, but I knew she was grateful to see me. I dropped into the visitor’s chair, and she extended her hand, which I grasped and held. It was clammy and cold, like she’d been squeezing ice in her palm.

“Thanks,” she croaked feebly.

“Shhh,” I told her. “Save your strength.”

The door to the room opened, and a nurse and a doctor entered, bearing a tray of hideous implements: a long, wicked, pointy metal pick, and a needle and syringe the length of my forearm. I was glad Sam’s eyes were closed. The doctor, a stout blond guy, smiled at me as he addressed Sam. “Okay, Sam, I’m glad your friend’s here, but we’re going to try the tap again. I know this isn’t fun, but we’ll make it as quick as we can.”

“Should I go?” I asked, hopeful.

He glanced at me, as the nurse applied a local anesthetic to Sam’s lower back. “Well, you can stay, if she wants you to.”

Sam gave my hand a faint squeeze—
Stay
. “I’ll stay,” I decided, bracing myself.

“Ow!” she chimed, as he dug in the needle, a sharp, bright note of pure pain, and her hand clamped onto mine.
“Ow!”

The doctor winced along with her. “I’m sorry, Sam, I know it’s uncomfortable. We’ll get it as fast as we can.”

“Ow!” Her whole body spasmed and flailed, her bony hand jerking mine in its tight grip. I could feel the pain flowing through her body; I felt sick just witnessing it.

“Try to stay still, if you can; I know it’s hard.”

“Ow!”
Jesus!
Sweat and tears poured from her face; her mouth was open and distended in agony. What were they doing to her? It looked like torture, actual torture, like what evil governments do to political dissidents in back rooms. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn’t close myself off from the sound, the grip on my hand, the waves of pain coming off of her. “Ow!”

Both the doctor and the nurse looked miserable, brows furrowed, wincing as she did. “We’re really sorry, Sam, we’re almost done here.”

“Ow!”

I felt the blood rushing from my head, the clammy nausea coming over me. I kept my hand on hers, tried breathing deeply. “It’s going to be over soon,” I crooned. “It’s going to be over soon.” Sam gave another jerk and cry, and I cried out with her. “Ow!”

“All right, all right. I think we got it.” The doctor pulled out the needle, put it on the tray. I didn’t dare look at it. Sam gave one last cry as he withdrew, then her hand went heavy in mine. “That was tough, I know.”

He pulled off his gloves and mopped his brow. Sam looked as though she was about to faint dead away. “Okay, honey,” said the nurse. “You rest now, all right?” They prepared to leave the room with their infernal tray, but I interrupted.

“Is she…is she going to be okay?”

The doctor gave me a blank smile. “We think so.”

The nurse opened the door.
Wait!
They couldn’t leave without giving me some information, some idea of how bad this was or wasn’t going to be; they had to tell me whether she was going to make it through this or not. “Is there any idea how long she’ll be here?”

Either the doctor didn’t know, or he wasn’t going to answer. “Until she gets better. Okay, Sam, we’ll see you later.”

Sam was limp, her breathing shallow, her wet hand dangling in mine. I sat alone in the room with her, listening to her monitors beep, watching her chest rise and fall. Just three days ago we’d met downtown in the park, walked around and browsed the magic shop on Fourth Avenue, talked about her taking the October SATs. Now here she was, drained of everything vital, stuck like a soggy noodle to a dampened hospital bed she might never get out of.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she twitched and pulled her hand from mine. “Hey,” I said, frowning. “Hey,” she said thickly. “Hurts…so much.”

“I know, oh god, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you’re going through this right now.”
Right now,
as opposed to when? The ten times she’d already gone through it this year, the ten times yet to come? “Just rest. Is there anything I can get you?”

She couldn’t even shake her head no. “Thanks. I’ma…” She settled in a little, face screwing up as she bumped the site of the spinal tap. “Eeeyagh.”

“Oh god.” I could feel the pain in every pore, every muscle of my own. I writhed in my seat. “I’m so sorry, babe. I’ll just sit right here and be quiet while you sleep for a while, okay?”

Nor could she shake her head yes. “Thanks,” she said again, her heavy eyes closing.

I sat and got familiar with our new room, a room I knew I’d be seeing for a while. It was a children’s hospital she’d been admitted to—she was on the floor for teenagers—and the perimeter of the room was bordered with a historical time line of New York City: dinosaurs and rocks in one corner, crowds cheering at Yankee Stadium wrapped around the other. The TV on the wall was flat-screened, and there was a wireless keyboard on the nightstand—they must have had some kind of child-safe Internet access here. A stack of kids’ books sat on the far windowsill. I strolled over and browsed the titles. One of the
Chronicles of Narnia
books, favorites of mine in grade school; a book called
McGrowl,
about a crime-solving robotic dog.

Sam stirred in her bed, made an unhappy noise, went back to sleep. I looked out the window at the neighborhood below. Her apartment was only four blocks that way. I thought of her as I’d seen her just the week before, when I came up to take her out for Chinese food, and she answered the door with the toilet brush in her hand. “Just cleaning up,” she announced, beaming, so proprietary, so proud. “Would you mind taking off your shoes? The floor’s wet.”

I picked up
McGrowl
and sat down again at Sam’s bedside. Might as well make myself comfortable. It was going to be a long week.

“Hey, Janice, it’s Maria. Just wanted to see what time you were going to be at the hospital today. I have to work until five, but I should be there by quarter to six; if you’re still there, maybe we can talk about a few things. Thanks. Take care.”

“Hey, Maria, it’s Janice. I’m on my way home now; sorry I missed you today. But she looks better; she’s keeping down clear liquids, and they’re hoping the seizures were just a fluke. Um, I’ll be there tomorrow around six. Maybe we can connect then. Hope all’s well, and I’ll see you soon.”

“Hey, Janice, it’s Maria. I’m not going to be able to make it today; I’m working a double. I didn’t want to call Sam because I know the headaches are still pretty bad, but if you could give me a call when you can, let me know how she’s doing, I’d really appreciate it. Okay. Take care. Thanks.”

“Hey, Maria, it’s Janice. They moved her to the ICU because of the seizures; I was trying to get a doctor to tell me what was up, but no luck. But she’s definitely improving, aside from the seizures—the antibiotics seem to be working on the meningitis, she’s eating again, and she seemed like she was feeling better, painwise. But, um, I hope we’ll see each other soon; we should definitely talk. Hope you’re well. Catch you soon.”

This was how the first ten days of August went: Every day after work, I got on the subway uptown, with a book and my notebook and my cardigan in my bag, because the train and the hospital were both freezing cold, and I rode for an hour to the Bronx, then walked the six blocks through the wilting sun to the hospital. If Sam had been able to take liquids or food the day before, I stopped and bought her a rainbow ice pop from the Mister Softee truck; if not, I just went straight to her room. Sometimes she was sleeping, or she was out of her room while they ran a test on her, a scan or a sonogram or an X-ray; if so, I just wrote in my notebook or read. Then she’d wake up, or return, and I’d hear about her day.

“I feel better than yesterday, but it’s still painful sometimes—like, I still can’t read or watch TV, or my head starts killing me. But the doctors say the infection’s getting better, and I haven’t had any seizures since yesterday, so that’s good. And Maria came after you left. She said to tell you hi.”

Or, “They did the CAT scan, and it looked normal, but they still want me to wear these stupid discs on my head. I look like an alien. And it’s uncomfortable when I lay down, but it’s worse when I try to keep my head up. I just want to it stop hurting, already.”

Or, “Last night was real bad. I kept throwing up my food, and my head was really aching, but I feel a little better today. And Valentina stopped by, she said the apartment’s boring without me. I signed over my last paycheck to her, so I’m covered for the next two weeks. But I think the social worker here is going to help me apply for benefits.”

And I’d try to sort through all of it. “So, wait. The neurologist said he thinks the seizures
weren’t
linked to the meningitis? Or they
were
? Okay. And the internist says what? So he thinks they probably won’t recur, once you’re done with the antibiotics? And they’re keeping you on those for how long? And wait, how long does the social worker think it’s going to take for you to get benefits? Did she talk to you about the health-care proxy?”

I’d filled out a health-care proxy form with my name and information (
Relationship to patient: Friend
); it would entitle me to talk with her doctors about her care, and to make decisions for Sam, should she become impaired. Until she signed it, though, I was stuck trying to cadge information from nurses and orderlies, who took increasing pity on me the more they saw me sitting in that chair in that darkened room, squinting as I read. “Your girl is doing better today,” they’d say as I passed them in the hallway. “They took the electrodes off last night, and she got some decent sleep. She could go home in a few days, if she keeps this up.”

At the mention of the proxy, Sam pressed her lips together tight. “Yeah, the social worker said something about that, but we didn’t really get around to talking about it, ’cause she had to go.”

I conferred with Maria one evening when we’d overlapped, while Sam was busy getting a sponge bath from a nurse. We ducked into the hallway, leaning against the wall like smokers without cigarettes. “She doesn’t want to sign the health-care proxy because she doesn’t want to face it,” said Maria. “You know how sensitive she is about talking about her AIDS.”

“I know. She always calls it ‘my diagnosis,’ or ‘that other thing.’ It’s like she doesn’t even want to say the words.”

Maria’s lively brown eyes were drooping at the corners, I noticed; she looked like she’d been awake for days. “Well, she may want to stay in denial about it, but I don’t know how long she’s going to be able to. They say she’s getting better, but this thing knocked her flat on her ass. Last time I got her to talk about it, she said her T cells were around a hundred—that’s
awful
. I want one of us to be able to talk to her doctors, soon.”