The Nakeds (5 page)

His buzz was wearing off, but his lips and tongue still tingled from the jalapeños. He got in line with the snow globe and stared at the head of the old man in front of him. He could see the thick gutters where a comb had made its way through the man’s white hair and a birthmark or an age spot shaped like Nevada on his neck.

Martin thought that maybe he’d move to Nevada or some other state where no one knew his name.

He tried to remember if he put the orange juice back in the fridge before he left his parents’ house.

He hoped Hannah Teller didn’t die.

He wished the cashier would hurry up.

He imagined telling his parents that the line at the registrar’s office was impossibly long or promising to go to trade school.

He wondered what else the teenage boot-thieves would steal today. Maybe they’d go to the multiplex and slither from movie to movie until it grew dark outside.

He wondered if maybe the fat shoe salesman was aware that the girls were stealing from the store and didn’t care. He thought it was possible to be that lonely.

Martin stood in line, waiting, shaking the snow globe, and watched the white flakes fall on the tiny boys inside.

HER GRANDPARENTS
in New York sent a card and a pair of soft pajamas, blue cotton with little white flowers. Her grandmother in Philadelphia sent a blanket that she knit herself. There was a trampoline her uncle had sent, which Nina kept in the box, put up on a shelf in the garage, and didn’t mention to Hannah. There were brownies and chocolate chip cookies from neighbors that Nina shared with the nurses. There was a round
Get Well Soon
card as big as a globe with every first grader’s signature. Some kids sent individual cards wishing her well. Eddie Epstein sent cards two weeks in a row. Nurse Penny, in an effort to cheer Hannah up, hung a corkboard on the wall so the cards could be displayed. Nina gushed a thank-you to Nurse Penny and tacked the cards to the board with colorful pins.

Her mom brought things from home: Hannah’s stuffed tiger, a favorite pillow, and a family picture of the three of them at the entrance to Disneyland that she’d snatched from Hannah’s bedroom dresser. Watching the hospital room morph into her bedroom only made Hannah feel worse, as if she were never going home.

When Hannah was especially cranky, she asked about her dad, and Nina would change the subject or walk over to the board and point out how popular Hannah had apparently become. There were more gifts and toys and things waiting for her when she got home, her mom said. There were books Nina read to Hannah before she left in the evenings. Hannah’s favorite,
Nobody’s Boy,
was translated from French, and had appeared, like some of the other gifts, out of nowhere. Mysterious paper doll sets and coloring books and a snow globe without a card or note attached.

Nina suspected that Nurse Penny bought Hannah the mystery gifts and didn’t want credit because she didn’t want to play favorites or let on how much Hannah meant to her. Or maybe it was even Dr. Roth, who looked upset when he told Nina and Asher that their daughter would be more prone to infection without a spleen. “She might be sickly,” he said.

“Sickly? That’s a terrible word,” Nina told him.

“Maybe it is,” he said. “But she might be fine. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Dr. Roth said Hannah was a good girl, a mature girl. Penny said she was six going on twenty-six. They said she was smart enough to become a doctor herself one day.

After the first rough week, Hannah’s improvement was quick and steady. The oxygen tent disappeared—one night she fell asleep inside of it and the next morning it was gone. The rolling tray that had stood at the foot of the bed now stood by her side and she could pull it to her chest at will. She poured her own water into a cup when she was thirsty. She watched TV, ate Popsicles, requested a chocolate milk shake, and wanted her hair washed.

Today Dr. Roth stood by her bed, obviously pleased. Penny was pleased too, smiling, standing just behind him. Her parents, like a pair of boxers, stood in opposite corners of the room.

“You’ll have a story to tell the kids at school,” the doctor said without looking up. He had just finished listening to Hannah’s heart and taking her pulse and was now writing something down on a clipboard.

“It’s a
mitzvah
—what you’ve done for Hannah,” Asher said, stepping forward, moving closer to her bed. He had a patch of gauze taped to his cheek and his hair was a curly mess.

“It’s my job,” the doctor said.

“You’re modest,” Asher said.

Nina stepped forward too. “I don’t know what I would have done without her.”

“
We
,” Asher corrected her. “What
we
would have done.”

“There is no
we
,” Nina said quietly, just for Asher, but Hannah heard and so did the doctor and the nurse too, who looked up at the doctor, raising her eyebrows.

“I’ve been meaning to ask what happened to your head,” Dr. Roth said.

“I ran into a door.” Asher reached up to touch his face.

“You see how bruised the area is, Dr. Roth?” the nurse offered.

Nina shot Penny a look.

“I need to be more careful,” Asher said.

“You do,” Nina agreed.

Dr. Roth nodded.

“I’ve been preoccupied,” Asher admitted.

“I’ll say,” Nina said.

“Well . . .” Dr. Roth said, obviously uncomfortable.

“So . . .” the nurse said.

“So . . .” Dr. Roth said.

Then everyone was quiet—Hannah, watching the IV bottle’s slow drip, her mother’s painted lips in a tight line, her father’s arms crossed, a vein on his neck blue enough to see.

Finally, Penny said, “What’s a
mitzvah
?”

MARTIN STOOD
in the elevator with his back against the wall, watching the numbers light up. He was heading to the children’s ward on the sixth floor. An orderly with a shock of bright red hair and an empty gurney stood across from him. Martin’s hands shook and he could feel the sweat at the back of his neck, but when the orderly nodded hello, Martin forced himself to make a sound. “Hey,” he said.

The orderly leaned down and straightened the white sheet on the gurney and centered the tiny pillow.

“Good work you do,” Martin said awkwardly.

The orderly shrugged.

“Helping sick people, I mean,” Martin continued.

“I’m not a doctor,” the orderly said.

“Yeah, I know, but still.”

The elevator stopped on the third floor and the doors dinged open and the orderly stepped out, pulling the gurney behind him. “Catch you later,” he said as the doors closed.

I certainly hope not,
Martin thought to himself, grateful when the elevator began moving again and for the few seconds alone. On the sixth floor, he stood outside the elevator doors a moment and tried to compose himself, reminding himself to breathe. He took one step toward the nurses’ station and then another. And once his mouth opened and the words poured out, it was surprisingly easy.

“I’m a friend of the Teller family,” he told the nurse. She was old, at least sixty, he thought, and her white hat was pinned to her stiff, white hair. She was kind, listening sympathetically as he stood there lying to her. “Terrible thing that happened to Hannah. I’m a good friend of the family. I’m
like
family.” He paused, standing there awkwardly. “It’s been an ordeal for all of us.”

The nurse nodded kindly. She adjusted her hat, pulled a bobby pin out, and then reinserted it. “You want to see her?”

“Yes,” he said. “Please.”

And she pointed him down the hall. “Room 614,” she said. “Visiting hours are almost over. Better hurry.”

“OK.”

“She’ll probably sleep right through your visit.”

“That’s great,” he said.

The nurse cocked her head. She picked up a chart from the desk and looked at it.

“I mean, I’m glad she’s resting. It’ll be good to see her rest.”

“Last door on the left,” she said, without looking up.

He stopped midway and sat down on a bench. He watched orderlies wheeling dinner trays out of rooms, a couple girls about his age dressed up like candy canes, and nurses with their Dixie cups of pills come and go. He decided to move to the lounge, where he had a good view of the happenings in the hall but wouldn’t be as conspicuous. He heard televisions and he heard voices, visitors saying
good night
and
we’ll see you tomorrow
and
rest up now.
He picked up a newspaper from the coffee table and tried to read about Nixon’s latest lie, but he couldn’t focus. An old man and a young woman sat on the couch directly across from him and he tried to avoid eye contact. When the old man started weeping into his hands, Martin felt his own eyes welling up and decided he’d had enough. He stood up from the couch and decided to go back to the bench.

When the last TV was turned off and the hall was finally empty, he slinked down the hall and stood outside Hannah’s room for a few minutes and watched her sleep. Satisfied that she was out for the night, he opened the door and slipped inside like a thief. He carefully set the snow globe on the nightstand beside her bed. She was smaller than he remembered, pale with long dark hair fanned out against the pillow, an IV in her little hand and some machine beeping to the left of her. One of her legs was suspended in midair. There was a rolling table and an orange plastic pan that was shaped like a quarter moon. A nasty, meaty smell emanated from under a silver lid. A television hung high in a corner. There was a curtain separating Hannah from another patient. He heard the other patient mumble something in her sleep. And he heard Hannah’s snore, so slight it might be called breathing. He approached Hannah’s bed and stared. The metal bars pulled up around the mattress made Martin think of jail, where he knew he belonged. He had the urge to release the bars and whisper something in her ear, an apology or confession, but just as he was leaning down, a nurse entered the room. He straightened up and backed away from the bed.

“Hi,” she said, smiling. She wasn’t the nurse who’d greeted him earlier but a younger, pretty nurse with silky skin and a perfect smattering of freckles across her cheeks.

“I know visiting hours are over,” he said defensively.

“Take it easy,” she said. “I’m not a good enforcer.” She was still smiling and the lines around her eyes told Martin she wasn’t as young as he’d thought, probably near thirty.

“Good thing,” he said, loosening up.

“When you love someone, you should get to visit them whenever.” She took the thermometer out of its sleeve and shook it. “How are you?” she asked. “You look a little peaked.”

“Peaked?”

“Worn out, sort of tired,” she said. “I’m Penny,” she offered. “How do you know Hannah? Are you her uncle?”

He wondered if she was suspicious or just friendly, but didn’t want to stick around to find out. “Really good friend of the family,
like
family.” He moved toward the door.

“Oh,” she said.

“I was just leaving,” he said, stepping into the hallway.

“Wait, what’s your name?” she said. “Who are you?” she wanted to know, but he was already walking away.

•  •  •

Back in his apartment he drank vodka and orange juice. He thought about Penny the nurse and beat off. He drank some more, popped a frozen pizza in the oven, and while he waited for it to cook, he beat off again. When he ran out of orange juice, he mixed the vodka with fruit punch. While he drank, he thought about how little it helped, really. There was always a guilty, anxious Martin waiting for him when he sobered up, and after the last joint was lit and the bowls had all been sucked empty, there was always his dry mouth, always his belly to feed, and always the persistent images of the crash itself—vivid enough to startle him all over again. There was always the impact, the sound and sensation, the girl’s limp body by the curb, and his decision: his own heavy boot on the gas pedal.

•  •  •

Bay Shore Hospital was more informal than Martin had expected, loose with the rules. It wasn’t just Penny the nurse who wasn’t a good enforcer. Visiting hours were from ten to two and four to seven every day, but anxious relatives and friends could be found at all hours roaming the halls, bent over the nurses’ station, complaining or just chatting, or sitting by a patient’s bed. Even though there were signs posted around the hospital stating that kids weren’t allowed, Martin had seen the same obnoxious pair several days in a row, obviously brother and sister, playing cards on the floor. They thought they owned the place, sitting with their legs spread out in the hall, and they were loud when they won or lost, like grown men at a sporting event.

Martin made up his own rules about going to the hospital, and one of them was to shave and shower before a visit, which wasn’t really a visit, more like a slinking around, a skulking. Another was to always dress nice, so maybe people wouldn’t recognize the skulking. He wore button-down shirts and pressed slacks, the clothes his mother bought him to wear when the new restaurant finally opened. Martin felt that it was important to show respect to the sick. Also, as much as he was drinking these days, he promised himself that he’d never show up drunk to the hospital. He didn’t want to get kicked out and he didn’t want to be discovered. He needed his wits about him. He wanted to slip the presents, the kaleidoscope, that French novel
Nobody’s Boy
that he’d loved himself as a kid, a baby doll with blue, blinking eyes, inside Hannah’s room without waking her up.

The last thing he wanted to do was to scare her.

Last week Martin was sitting in the lounge, waiting for Hannah’s visitor—a man he assumed was her father—to leave, and for Hannah herself to fall asleep so he could drop off the paper dolls he’d bought. The door to the room across the way was open and Martin could see in. He watched a little boy with a newspaper in his lap, reading aloud to a sick old man. More kid visitors, he was thinking. What about the rules? What about the red sign that said
No Exceptions
? Didn’t kids carry all sorts of germs? Didn’t they play with bugs and eat dirt? Martin could see the boy’s lips moving and the old man nodding his head. He watched as the old man lifted the oxygen mask off of his face to shout, “Nixon is a lying jackass!” The man was wagging his finger in the boy’s face. “I told your mother he’s a liar. Tricky Dick!” the man shouted and then started to cough and struggle. The boy shot up from his chair, letting the newspaper fall to the floor, and tried to calm the old man, rubbing his arm, and when that didn’t work, he tried to pry the oxygen mask from the man’s clenched hand. The old man pulled away from the boy and continued shouting. “It’s not OK! How the hell can you say it’s OK? What do you know? You’re eleven!” he shouted, before letting the mask snap back against his face. He was taking deep, almost violent breaths, sucking in air, and Martin was thinking that some things needed to be said out loud, like condemnations or apologies, some things a man needed to say and he would skip breaths to say them.