Five Days (11 page)

‘Most of us read
The Scarlet Letter
at some point in school.'

‘And most of us have forgotten all about it.'

‘Well, I can't say I've downloaded it onto my Kindle . . . not that I have one.'

‘You prefer paper?'

‘I prefer real books. And you?'

‘I'm afraid I've crossed over to the dark side.'

‘It's not a mortal sin.'

‘I do have twenty books in my in-box right now.'

‘And what are you reading right now?'

‘You wouldn't believe me if I told you.'

‘Let me decide that. What's the book?'

I could see him blush. And stare down at his well-polished black cordovans.

‘Nathaniel Hawthorne's
The Scarlet Letter
.'

‘That
is
a coincidence,' I said.

‘But the truth.'

‘I'm sure.'

‘I could show you my Kindle if you don't believe me . . .'

‘No need, no need.'

‘Now I'm sure you think I'm weird.'

‘Or just weirdly literate. Anyway,
The Scarlet Letter
. Hester Prynne and all that.'

‘It remains a great novel.'

‘And rather prescient, given the current wave of religiosity sweeping the country.'

‘“
Prescient
”,' he said, phonetically sounding it out as if it was the first time he'd ever spoken it. ‘Nice word.'

‘That it is.'

‘And even if I don't agree with a lot of what the Christian Right bangs on about, don't you think there are certain things about which they have a point?'

Oh, no. A serious Republican.

‘Such as?' I asked.

‘Well, such as the need to maintain family values.'

‘Most people with families believe in family values.'

‘I wouldn't totally agree with that. I mean, look at the divorce rate—'

‘But look at the time before divorce, when people were trapped in marriages they loathed, when there was absolutely no latitude for anyone, when women were expected to give up careers the moment they got pregnant, when if you dared turn your back on a husband and children you were considered a social outcast.'

I realized I had raised my voice a decibel or so. Just as I also saw Richard Copeland a little taken aback by the vehemence with which I had rendered that homily.

‘I didn't mean to upset you,' he said.

‘I'm not usually so fierce.'

‘That wasn't fierce. That was impressive. Even if I disagree with much of what you said.'

He delivered that last line with his chin pointed down at his tie, as if to dodge the heated exchange he was nonetheless courting. I didn't like this. It struck me as timid-arrogant. Say the controversial thing – but do it in such a way where you don't bury its import by speaking it into your damn shirt.

‘Well, I'm hardly surprised to hear that,' I said.

‘What I meant to say was—'

‘You know what? I think this is a good moment to draw a line in the sand and simply say: Have a nice weekend.'

‘Now I feel bad. I really didn't mean—'

‘I'm sure you'll get over it.'

At the reception desk there was a young woman in a maroon suit with a yellow shirt and a name tag that let it be known she was called Laura.

‘Hey, Laura, say hello to Laura,' she said after perusing my driver's license.

‘Hi, Laura,' I said, hoping I didn't sound too dry.

‘And how's your day been so far?'

‘Curious.'

This caught her by surprise.

‘I guess curious is better than boring, right?'

‘That is a very good point.'

‘Let me see if I can turn your “curious” day into a better day – by offering you a complimentary upgrade. Top floor, king bed, view of the pool. How does that sound?'

‘Just fine,' I said. ‘Thank you.'

The pool view was only possible if you opened the window, stuck your head out and engaged in some serious vertigo as you looked straight down onto the cinder-block patio below. The problem was, when you opened the window you were hit with an interesting amalgamation of traffic noise and traffic fumes – and this was clearly the quiet side of the hotel with the preferred view. So after a quick look down and into the near distance – more gas stations and parking lots – I closed the window, shutting out the outside world.

I sat down on the bed and wondered why I was feeling so cheerless just now. Maybe it was something to do with the less than inviting nature of this room, with decor that hadn't been updated in over twenty years. A floral carpet with faded coffee stains. A floral bedspread and matching floral drapes that all looked like they belonged in a home for the aged. The bathroom had a tub in molded plastic and a shower curtain that had begun to mildew. Oh, well, you're only sleeping here this weekend – and it is just for two nights. But these were the only two nights I would be away from home this year. Had I the money I would have checked myself out of this sad place immediately, grabbed a taxi into Boston, and checked myself into something nice overlooking the common. But that was so out of my financial league, so beyond anything I could afford.
Make the best of it . . . enjoy the freedom of being away from everything for a few days
.

And, of course, before I heeded that advice (could I heed that advice?) I popped open my phone and began to text my son:

Sorry we didn't connect last night. In Boston now. Please send update on life and art when you have a moment. Or if you feel like calling, even when I am in conference about lymphatic dyes (yes, there is one!) my cell will buzz silently. Will also do me a huge favor by getting me out of ‘The Case for Fewer Colonoscopies' . . . not that I will be at that one! Miss you. Love – Mom

Then I sent a fast text to Sally:

I know things can get difficult between you and your father. Just as sometimes we get up each other's noses (excuse the metaphor!). Please know I am always here for you, always in your corner. If you need me this weekend just pick up the phone day or night. Love you – Mom

Once the text was sent, I had two more duties. The first was a call to Dan – but I got his voicemail, making me think he might have headed to the gym or the beach. He started work again at four a.m. Monday morning – and though I was certain he was already dreading the job I hoped that, at least, he was finding a way of relaxing for these three final days before he was back in the workaday world. I also hoped that he was taking a long view when it came to the job and saw it as a way back into the company which had tossed him away like an ill-fitting shoe twenty-one months earlier; a stepping stone to better things.

You really do try to see the best in everything, don't you?

But is there anything truly wrong with that? What else can any of us do except travel hopefully?

‘Hi, hon,' I said, speaking after the beep commanded me to leave him a message. ‘In Boston. The hotel could be better. And it would be lovely if you were here to share the city with me. I hope to go there sometime tomorrow. Anyway, just wanted to say hi, hope you're having a lovely day. Miss you . . .'

As I clicked the phone shut it struck me that I hadn't said: ‘Love you.' Did I still love Dan? Did he still love me?

No. Not now. Not this weekend.

The endless refrain.

I stood up. I checked my watch. I glanced down at the convention welcome pack on the bed. I saw that the talk on ‘CT Scanning and Inoperable Stage Three Lung Cancer' was beginning in ten minutes. Better than loitering in here, thinking, thinking. Imagine using a seminar like that the way most of us use a movie we know isn't going to be very good – as a form of pure escapism. Still, anything is better than this room.

I grabbed my convention badge, attached to a red ribbon. I dropped it over my neck and gave myself a fast glance in the mirror, thinking:
God, I'm looking older.
Then I headed downstairs, thinking over that curious conversation I had with the insurance man from Bath – and how I had enjoyed the banter, the harmless flirtation, before he began to sound like a knee-jerk Republican.

No, that's not fair. He was literate (who makes a reference to Nathaniel Hawthorne these days?) and clearly well-informed and, like me, nervously enjoying this exchange. And you overreacted when he said something that you took the wrong way.

Was I overreacting because I was flirting with him? Was my petulance bound up in the sense that I was doing something I shouldn't have been doing . . . that I can never recall having done before during all the years of my marriage?

Oh, please. It was conversational give-and-take, nothing more. The guy was as awkward as you are – so it was clearly something he didn't engage in very often either. But he was also far more intelligent than any insurance man you've ever encountered . . . not that you've exactly encountered vast numbers of men selling you indemnity against life's possible horrors.

Still, I shouldn't have snapped at him like that.

In the elevator going down to the main lobby there was a woman who stood about five foot four. Slight to the point of being petite, yet with eyes that seemed so animated. She was wearing a plain mid-brown pants suit. Her gray hair was cut simply. She was a woman so unimposing that you would pass her on the street without noticing her. Until you caught sight of her smile. A smile which hinted that she was one of those rare souls who have a sanguine way of looking at the world. I glanced at her conference badge:
Ellen Wilkinson / Regional Memorial Hospital / Muncie, Indiana.
Standing next to her (with her back to me) was a tall, spindly woman, also in her mid-fifties. As the elevator door closed behind me I heard Ellen Wilkinson tell this lofty woman:

‘. . . what can I say? I come home after a day full of horror in the scanning room. And Donald is there. And after thirty-eight years together I still look at the guy and think:
Lucky me.
And from the way he always smiles at me – even if he too has had a terrible day – I know he's thinking the same thing.
Lucky us.
'

Out of nowhere I found myself lowering my head as my eyes filled up with tears. I turned away, not wanting these two women to see my distress; a distress that had caught me so unawares. But Ellen Wilkinson of Muncie, Indiana, clearly caught sight of my upset, as she put her hand on my shoulder and asked:

‘Are you all right, dear?'

To which I could only quietly reply:

‘Lucky you indeed.'

Then the elevator door opened and I walked straight into the seminar about ‘CT Scanning and Inoperable Stage Three Lung Cancer'.

SOMEWHERE DURING THE
third seminar of the late afternoon – no, it was now early evening – the thought struck me:
I've not absorbed a word of anything I've heard.
Deep technical discussions about the new MRI techniques for uncovering cerebral arterial sclerosis. A long, badly delivered, but still important (I suppose) paper from a research fellow at the Rockefeller Institute about the complexities of coronary valve imaging. Two radiographic technologists from St Louis doing a double act on a pioneering technique they developed for early ultrasound detection of ectopic pregnancies (I was cheered by my fellow technologists being saluted for a breakthrough that research scientists usually handle – and which they discovered through sheer application of all their years of technical knowledge). And a talk about advances in intravenous radiographic dyes and their heightened efficacy.

Yes, I did listen to everything being said in these back-to-back sessions. Yes, my brain occasionally did register interest in what was being discussed. But, for the most part of the long afternoon I spent in that large, overheated conference room, I was elsewhere. It was all due to that overheard conversation in the elevator. A declaration of long-term marital love that I'd never heard expressed in such a direct and simple and touching way. And behind my distress was a certain envy. How I so wanted to look at the man who shares my life and think:
Lucky us.
But that was simply not our story. And that made me cry. In public. A fact which so unnerved me. Because, yet again, tears arrived without warning, and I had let my guard down. The same heavily guarded self which had enabled me, for all these years, to never hint to anyone (outside of Lucy) that I come home to unhappiness night after night. Then again, I was brought up with the idea that complaining was a shabby thing to do. My mother couldn't tolerate anyone who moaned about how difficult things were in their life. ‘You can complain all you want when you're dead – and then not be able to do a damn thing about it. But while you're alive and kicking, you just keep working. Complaining is lashing out against things over which you largely have no control . . . like the smallness of other people.'

Mom said all that to me on a Saturday afternoon four years ago when I went up to see her at her home. She had just completed her last chemotherapy session and was rail thin with little hair.

‘The oncologist is making all sorts of noises about him being the General Patton of cancer doctors, and leading an onslaught against all those crazy T-cells that have landed me in this mess. But I'm not convinced.'

‘Oncologists rarely say positive things until they believe they can deliver good results,' I said.

‘Well, this guy would tell a man already half-eaten by a shark: “Hang in there, there's still a way out of this.” But I know my body better than anyone. And my body is telling me:
This is a battle we're going to lose.
I am resigned to that. Just as I am resigned to the fact that I should have done more with the time I had . . .'

‘Mom, you've done loads . . .'

‘Now you are talking nonsense. I've had a rather small, little life. Outside of your father, yourself and a few friends, my passing will be noted by no one. I am not being excessively morbid, just honest. I have spent my whole life in one corner of Maine. I have worked in a library. I have been married to the same curious man for forty-four years and have raised a daughter – who is a much more accomplished person than she gives herself credit for. And that's about the sum total of it all . . . besides the fact that I should have made more of things over the years.'