Permanence (2 page)

Doctor begins to choke. He coughs until his eyes water. He coughs and struggles for the air that will not pass into his throat.

Doubled over, doctor places his open hands to his stomach. I am helpless. I stand here by the window. I watch doctor drown from swallowing water from a glass. Listen: I want to scream: Help! Anyone! Is there a doctor in the house?

I want to call for Wendy, doctor’s receptionist. But this is late Friday afternoon. Doctor’s receptionist is already gone for the weekend. The reason I come here on late Friday afternoons is that doctor’s receptionist leaves early on Friday. She leaves me alone with doctor because that is the way doctor wants it. Alone, doctor tells me, is the only way he will be with me.

Here’s what I do: I go to doctor to try to help him, to save his life. I stand over him, where he is doubled over behind his wide mahogany desk, and begin to slap him on the back.

I am scared to death.

I lean over to get a better look at his face. But doctor, still doubled over, pushes me away. I am only making matters worse for him.
Doctor
is not a
baby
. I am not a mother anymore. I want to scream for the help I know does not exist.

So here’s what I will do: I will do nothing.

I just stand there and watch.

Then, just as suddenly as the coughing starts, the coughing stops. Doctor manages to catch his air and attempts to regain his composure. He does not drown in the water poured from the pitcher.

I move closer to him. But he waves me away. He performs this act convincingly, as if to say this: Don’t worry, I’m not dying. Not yet.

And I believe him.

He is my doctor, after all.

Part of his job, doctor told me six months ago, was to make me believe him, no matter what. We wouldn’t work well together if I couldn’t believe him. I wouldn’t make any progress. I would never get over the death of baby or the loss of Jamie. I have never considered myself a naive person, a person easily convinced. But I make it a point to trust doctor at face value. Maintaining that trust, he says, is my job as a patient.

I feel a slight, nervous cramping just below my stomach.

I move away from doctor, slowly, as if at any moment the drowning might begin again.

“Are you all right?” I ask. I stare at doctor’s Adam’s apple bobbing up and down inside his throat in a way that seems unnatural.

Pain, I think.

Doctor rubs his throat with his hands. “Wrong pipe,” he says, with a raw, hoarse voice. Doctor smiles despite the obvious pain he is feeling. This is the first and only smile I’ve seen today. Or this month, for that matter.

Doctor’s smiles are not feeling smiles. His smiles are forced and in this case, the result of embarrassment. But listen to this: I am the one embarrassed. I am feeling for doctor in my heart at a time when doctor should be feeling for me.

The affects of water

I turn away from the window and look for doctor.

Outside, the rain makes small pools and puddles in the blacktop on this late September Friday afternoon. The glow from the overhead street lamps is orange colored and reflected in the puddles that collect in the pavement.

I am dead tired.

I brush my jacket with my open hand, straighten my skirt, run my open hands against my dark, shoulder-length hair. I want to be more appealing to doctor. But I know this: the way I look should have nothing to do with my reasons for being with him. But they do.

I see doctor absorbed in the dim orange light coming from his desk lamp. He sports closely cropped hair and a trim, salt-and-pepper beard. He wears an old, loose-fitting, gray wool suit with matching vest and a pocket watch in his left-hand pocket. He is bent forward, his chin nearly touching the top of his desk. We say nothing for some time. But we communicate.

Rain comes down in sheets against the pavement.

I go to doctor. I reach for the pack of cigarettes on his desk. I tip over the entire pitcher of water. Water gushes out, spills across the desk, expands and puddles over the stacks of papers.

I jump away from the desk. I swallow my breath while the water spreads across the entire desktop.

Doctor springs back into his leather chair. He produces a handkerchief from his pocket. He does this quickly, faster than I ever thought him capable. His facial expression collapses. His indifferent frown becomes a mourning frown. Absolute sadness. At least, I think it is emotion.

There is a knot in my stomach.

But doctor proves himself a professional. He does not forget about his role as the problem solver of my life.

“Don’t worry,” he says, in forced whisper, patting his handkerchief helplessly into now soaking papers spread out across his desk. I step closer, attempting to dry the water simply with my presence. But there is nothing to dry the water with. I lift the empty pitcher from the desk. I stand it upright. But this small gesture corrects nothing.

Then I see the water-soaked papers.

The papers are from my file. The ink from my papers is already beginning to smear. I can see my name floating away in a wave of blue ink and water.

“Nothing to worry about,” says doctor, as if nothing has happened, as if the damage caused by the spilled water will have no consequence.

Doctor is back to frowning his familiar frown. He is so difficult to interpret. But I know he is only doing his job. For instance, part of doctor’s job is to tell me not to worry.

Here’s what I do to combat the effects of worry: I place one of doctor’s cigarettes into my mouth. The cigarettes have survived the spill. I do this with a trembling hand. This is the first cigarette today, my habit having begun not years ago, but only fourteen months ago, after baby died and Jamie left me. Smoking had never been a question for me. I despised smoking and smokers and would not have married Jamie had he been one. Now I can’t think about going a day without smoking.

The cigarette is tight between my pressed lips. Doctor emerges with fire from his Zippo lighter. He does this, I imagine, without thinking.

Listen: Doctor is not the type of doctor who will tell you to quit smoking. Doctor is a doctor who smokes cigarettes. His one-room office smells of stale tobacco and cologne. These are the mild aromas I will forever associate with doctor.

I take a long drag of the cigarette and exhale through my nose. I breathe the smoke and feel the familiar nicotine rush. For a moment I am a million miles away from doctor, a million miles above the solid earth.

I close my eyes and drift away.

I open my eyes and I am back.

I look at the top of doctor’s desk and see the soaking, ink-stained now nameless papers. The papers will never recover from the affects of water. Doctor will never recover. His notes are destroyed. These are six months’ worth of conversation and observation. Doctor and I will have to start over again.

And what about doctor’s mahogany desk?

There will always be dark, gray water spots on the wood. I am convinced of this: the water stain will be forever. I know the power of water because baby and I know about the things water can do.

Touch

We touch.

We touch the way I have come to expect touching and being touched. Doctor runs his hands through my straight, dark hair. He runs his hands slowly down the length of my back when we lie together on our sides, facing one another on the cool leather of the patient’s couch. I feel the sharpness of his fingernails, smell the acrid aroma of his breath. This is nearly an hour after I should have left doctor’s office and after we have wiped away the water that spilled onto his desk and destroyed my file.

But I know this: the water persists.

We could not eliminate the dark gray water stains that appeared on doctor’s desk. Doctor does not blame me for the damage. But I know this: part of doctor’s job is to separate me from my guilt. The destruction of my guilt is what I expect to receive from doctor. The destruction of my guilt is why I need to be with doctor.

My stomach constricts, twists itself in knots.

We could not save the now nameless papers that belonged to my file. But I am still me.

“The files,” says doctor, “can be replaced.”

Perhaps doctor can reshape my past. He can fill out new papers. He can transcribe his notes from memory. But can he erase the memory of baby? Can he eliminate the memory of my husband, Jamie? Can he write a new life for me? A new past? A new life is all I want, safe from the memory of baby and Jamie.

The past is permanent.

I am holding doctor to my body, tightly. I do this with passion. Doctor’s familiar gray suit and underwear are neatly folded and resting against a black captain’s chair with the name of doctor’s college printed upon the backrest in gold lettering. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE is barely discernible against the black background, the letters nearly worn away with age and use. My miniskirt is pulled up over my hips. My underwear is tangled around my ankles. My bra is pulled up over my breasts, loose around my neck.

This is the way doctor likes it when we touch. I know this is the way doctor wants it to happen. He is my saving grace. I trust doctor. I have no choice but to believe in him. I need him.

The cool air in doctor’s office surrounds my bare breasts. My nipples rise and stiffen, become tender. The cold is neither a good nor a bad feeling. It is feeling, pure and simple. It is awareness and sensation.

“Listen to the rain,” insists doctor, from where he is kneeling on the floor, his hands poised against the leather patient’s couch, his face hidden entirely between my thighs.

“Isn’t the rain romantic?” he asks, raising his face so that I might see it and so that he might see me. I know this: he wants me to feel good. And I do.

“Concentrate,” he says. His voice is not like doctor’s normal voice at all.

This is a voice I can feel inside of me, with the motion of doctor’s mouth and tongue.

I feel that I cannot possibly spread my legs any farther. I can feel the slow, patient motion of doctor’s mouth—the fluttering, moist, lapping motion of his tongue.

I concentrate while I tightly grip two small throw pillows, one in each hand, my fingernails digging into the fabric. I try to forget that doctor is the person performing this operation. I close my eyes, lay my head back against the couch, arch my back, and release a breath.

I think about Jamie.

I see Jamie’s face in imagination.

I want to remember it—the thick lips, the short brow, the thick black hair cut well above the ears, the day-old beard. And then it happens between my legs, below my belly, into my thighs. I close my legs but my legs will not close completely with doctor’s head between them. I feel my body tremble—convulse—until the intensity stops. I try to push doctor away. I can’t take the feeling anymore. But he only moves his face farther into me. I breathe exaggerated breaths.

I open my eyes and stare up at the hospital-white ceiling.

“I am listening to the rain,” I tell doctor. But this is a lie. What I do not tell doctor is that I listen to nothing. Though I hear him, I do not listen to doctor speak. Though I feel him, I pretend that what I feel does not come from doctor. I close my eyes so that I do not have to see him. Not like this.

We do not talk about love.

We talk about healing.

What I want is for doctor to touch me the way I remember being touched by Jamie. I want doctor to touch me the way Jamie used to touch me before baby was born; the way Jamie would sometimes touch me after baby was born; the way Jamie refused to touch me once we lost baby.

I am dead tired.

Doctor rises to his knees and brings his moist, bearded face to mine. I feel the sharp stubble of his beard, smell my smell against his lips and face.

I do not forget about my baby.

Here’s what I do: I release the pillows and raise myself up on the couch. I have no choice but to do this. I kiss doctor hard, his teeth smacking against my teeth. I use both hands to bring his body closer to mine. Our teeth chatter. I slide out from beneath doctor, roll over onto my knees. Doctor lies back onto the couch. Using my knees, I position myself on top of doctor, his torso between my legs. I reach for doctor and guide him into me.

I close my eyes.

I want to forget about Jamie, but I can’t help but see him. I see his face as clearly as the morning he left me so many months ago. I hear Jamie’s mild, soothing voice. I feel his smooth hands against the back of my neck and his solid, compact body against my own. Jamie was older than me, but only by a few years. Jamie was an engineer and a designer of dams and bridges. He used to say he performed God’s work, not because he could make a child with me, but because he had the ability to reshape the earth. We used to laugh when Jamie said that, but there was truth to it and he believed it, I’m sure. “God and mechanics,” Jamie used to say. “Mechanics and God.” He was my husband before we lost baby.

I listen for the sound of rain, but the rain is not romantic.

I open my eyes. I keep them wide open. But doctor keeps his eyes closed while we begin the familiar hip motions. This is motion and emotion. We move together. I feel doctor inside of me and I swallow my breath. I do this to forget about baby. But trying to forget about baby makes me think of him all the more.

Outside, the rain falls to the pavement.

As I take doctor into my arms and bury my face into his neck, I am remembering baby and Jamie in a way that breaks my heart.

God, fate, and Jamie

Jamie was a logical man. He understood machinery—auto engines, turbines, and computers.

“Mechanics is control. Control is mechanics,” Jamie used to say like a small prayer. And he believed.

Jamie trusted mechanics and engineering like a religion. As though God and mechanics were the same (“God and mechanics,” Jamie used to say. “Mechanics and God.”)

Listen: I don’t trust machines or mechanics of any kind. I don’t like anything that takes control—anything that does not live or breathe. I ride over a bridge, I picture its collapse. I see a dam, I imagine the water breaking through. I see a jet plane taking off, I imagine disaster.