Above The Thunder Part 15

Stuart caught Jack's eye then bent toward Robert, rested his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair. "Do you want me to take you to the bathroom?" Stuart asked. Robert's breath was a panicked staccato. Stuart knew who he was-anyone who followed gay rights in Boston had at least heard of him. Robert was in his fifties, a political activist who lobbied for antidiscrimination policies. He was tenured at Yale at thirty, a brilliant astrophysicist whose book, An Amateur's Guide to the Stars, had been on the New York Times best sellers list for a few months. When he and Jack first walked in, Stuart was sure he recognized Robert from somewhere, but it hadn't clicked until he excused himself to go to the restroom, and glanced at the bookshelves in the back. The noisy chaos in the room had intensified by the time Stuart returned, so he took Robert's book back to his seat.

"Look," Stuart had said quietly, putting the book in Robert's hand. There were at least three conversations happening at once, including a heated discussion between Anna and the woman in the lavender hat. "Look at what I found in the back."

Robert had turned the dog-eared copy over. The photograph was taken about ten years ago. He was beautiful then, a young Cary Grant. It was unmistakably the same man, but Robert looked thirty years older than he did in the photograph.

"Oh, yes. I've heard of this guy. I think I built a house for him once." Robert went on to tell Stuart about a life he remembered as a carpenter. He rambled on about dovetail joints and masonry anchors, how to recognize a fine body of wood grain at such length, that Stuart would have a.s.sumed he'd been mistaken had he not checked Robert's last name and date of birth on Robert's hospital bracelet against the information on the book's Library of Congress page. The same.

All eyes were now on Stuart and Robert.

"I'm sorry," Robert said. "My dreams nudge everything out of the way. If I pay attention to what's in my head, I lose track of what's happening with my bowels. What a rotten cage."

"It's all right, Robert. Don't worry. Everything is okay," Christine said.

Stuart stood and got behind Robert's chair. Christine mouthed, "Room 219."

Stuart nodded.

"It's fine," someone said. "Accidents happen. It's okay."

Before Anna could censor herself, she stood, angled her chair out of the circle to get out. "No," she said. "It is not fine. Nothing about this is okay." She walked out of the dayroom, paced the hallways. Her outburst was inexcusable. She'd have to go back in there and apologize. Or show up for fifteen minutes next week to do it. If she thought the group would accept a simple apology without insisting that they explore her anger, Anna would do it now. Anger was anger. Did one need to look at the roots of a tree to identify it? Outrage, like a maple, shed its leaves in season.

At the break, Jack went in search of the Chanel grandma. He followed the scent of her perfume-his sense of smell was razor sharp these days-to the waiting room at the end of the hall, where she was sitting in the corner and shredding the leaves on a potted palm. She looked up as he walked in, then back to the television. "Now what," she said, so softly that he wasn't sure he heard correctly.

"I'm Jack," he said, and sat beside her.

"I know."

"I want to apologize."

"For what?"

"For a.s.suming things I shouldn't have."

She tipped her chin up, though he couldn't tell if the gesture was dismissive or accepting.

"I'm a bitter man," he said. "I'm good-looking enough to get away with things the less endowed couldn't."

She laughed then in a way that gave her whole face a girlish radiance. The silly pink suit now seemed touching instead of aggressive. He felt something in him give way, the sharp geometry of anger and pain blunted a little in her presence.

"You're not that good-looking," she said. "Thank you, anyway, for your apology. Was that an apology?"

"Yes," he said. "And add to that a salute to your bravery."

He saw her reach for something in her purse, and was astounded when she pulled out a pack of Marlboro Lights and lit up as confidently and easily as if they were sitting in a bar. "Bravery? Is this the nasty Jack coming back?"

"No, I mean it," he said, and reached for one of the cigarettes. The smoke curling through his lungs felt somehow therapeutic. "It takes guts to say something like that. To cut away the pretty wrapping and see the c.r.a.p inside."

Anna raised an eyebrow. "So to speak." She took a deep drag off the cigarette. "I suppose I should go back in there and tell them I'm sorry. But I don't want to say more than that. Never ruin a perfectly good apology with a cheap excuse. Even if there is a cheap excuse. My motto, anyway."

"You should absolutely not apologize," Jack said. "It was good to shake them up. You're right. There's nothing about this illness that's okay." He paused. "Except maybe one thing." He held out his cigarette. "Being terminally ill means that nothing else can lead to my premature death."

A nurse walked in, her nose wrinkled in a rabbit-like way. "There is absolutely no smoking in here!"

"Yep," Anna said. "We're on our way out."

Jack followed Anna outside. "Let me buy you a drink," she said, and nodded to what looked like a sedate little fern bar across the street.

"Sure, I'll let you. But only if you let me buy you a drink next, and I get to choose the next bar."

"Deal," Anna said. They walked in and Anna ordered them a round of tequila shots with martini chasers.

"You go, girl. There will be no beating around the white-wine spritzer bushes here," he said.

"That's right. Either you're drinking, or you're drinking lemonade." She clinked her gla.s.s against his and downed the shot in one smooth gulp. "And by the way, to you I will apologize."

"Oh?" Jack said, and worked the Cuervo down in three sips. He glanced over and saw the bartender smirking. Just to spite him, he shot the martini, slammed the gla.s.s on the counter, and nodded for another.

"I lied before. You are that good-looking." His eyes were remarkable, Anna thought. Green with flecks of gold and blue and brown, mottled as river stones.

"Ha," Jack said, cupping his chin in his hand. "A face that launched a thousand quips." He reached for a bowl of pretzels on the bar. "You should see the man I'm in love with. I am pond sc.u.m next to him."

"I did see him."

His heart clenched, and he almost whirled around on his stool looking for Hector when he realized she a.s.sumed he meant Stuart. He nodded, and let it go. "Do you suppose our loved ones are done sharing?"

She gulped the rest of her drink. "We should probably get back. I didn't tell my son-in-law where I was going."

Jack's mood sank a little at the phrase son-in-law. Still, that man was either closeted or bi, he was sure of it. "But you and I are bar-hopping."

Anna put some money on the counter. "I'll have to take a raincheck, I'm afraid." He looked so dispirited that Anna was taken off-guard. She wouldn't have guessed he had this in him.

She stood, walked toward the door. Jack followed. "Was this really your last meeting?"

"It was. I was just filling in, anyway, doing a favor for a friend."

They stood at Anna's car. He took a business card out of his pocket. "All my phone numbers. If you don't let me take you for drinks, I'll be very upset. Call me."

Anna put the card in her purse. "I will," she said, knowing the instant she said it that she never would. She saw in his expression that Jack knew, too.

"Well, maybe you'll change your mind and come back next week." He drew a martini gla.s.s in the dust on Anna's car.

"I won't change my mind. You can't imagine how glad I am to be done with this." She paused. "Listen, I'm not much into bars, but I would love it if you would stop by for drinks. Your partner too, of course." What was she doing? The last thing she wanted right now was company, especially this man, whose nastiness was probably too close to the surface to make the occasion comfortable. She was too tired and edgy lately to cater to anybody's sensitivities. Besides, she couldn't believe he had any real interest in socializing with her.

Jack, for whom even the smallest goodbye these days was painful, said, "Yes, we'd love to," understanding Anna's invitation was only partly in earnest, and understanding his acceptance of it was composed in equal parts of curiosity about her gorgeous son-in-law, guilt for being so nasty earlier, and some inexplicable spark he felt between them.

Anna gave him directions to her townhouse though he didn't write them down. From the faraway look in his eyes she doubted whether he'd remember.

"Oh, here come our loved ones now," Jack said. "Looking ever so stricken, empty, and bereft. Ain't life grand?"

Marvin and Stuart walked up to Anna and Jack.

"We've been invited for drinks, sweetie," Jack said, linking his arm through Stuart's. Stuart smiled warily. Marvin looked at Anna then cut his eyes away to study the ground.

"How nice," Stuart said. "But I think we should be heading home."

"Why?" Jack said. There was nothing at home.

"Just one drink somewhere," Anna said. "Or, come to my place."

Jack checked Marvin's response, but he was unreadable. Marvin's arms were crossed, his hands balled into deliberate fists, as though he didn't trust what they might do. His attention was on the hospital's entrance, glancing over every time the door opened or closed.

"Maybe next week," Stuart said.

"Except that there is no next week," Jack said petulantly.

"Some other time then," Anna said.

At home, Anna heard the television blaring before she opened the door, some awful MTV screeching of an amped guitar and heart-stopping ba.s.s. Marvin trailed in behind her.

"Flynn?" Anna called. She walked into the TV room and found a teenaged boy slumped on the couch. He looked vaguely familiar. "Oh. Who are you?"

"Jeremy. I deliver your newspapers." He sat up, put on his sweatshirt. "Your neighbor asked me to watch Flynn until you got home."

"Where is she?"

"Flynn? I think she went in to take a nap."

"Where's Greta?" But instead of waiting to hear his answer, she walked into her bedroom to check her answering machine. The light was blinking. "I think I'm in labor," Greta's voice said. "Jeremy said he would watch Flynn until you got home. Can you call Mike? I mean, can you keep trying? I don't know where he is."

Anna dialed the number for Boston General-Greta didn't say which hospital she was going to-she wasn't there, or at the next two. "Drive that boy out of here, will you?" Anna said, as Marvin headed toward Flynn's room. "I mean, will you drive him home? Pay him. Here," she said, and handed him her wallet. "And can you turn that music off?"

Marvin blinked at her with a blank expression, as if he was new to the language. "What's going on?"

"Greta's in labor."

"Already?" he said. "I thought she was just in her fifth month."

Anna nodded, and when someone in the ER at Brigham and Women's picked up her call, and after Anna lied and said she was next of kin, the operator said yes, they'd admitted Greta. "Can you patch me through to her room?"

Anna handed Marvin her car keys, and pointed at the babysitter boy.

"Okay. Is Greta all right?" Marvin asked.

Anna shook her head, walked away from him and peeked in Flynn's room. The bed was empty, still neatly made. She stepped in, spotted Flynn, asleep in some sort of good-witch or angel costume-an angel, she saw now, from the wings-on the windowseat. Flynn had plugged in Christmas candles. On the steamer trunk where Flynn kept her clothes, she had set up a creche that had been Hugh's mother's. Where had she found that old thing? Anna didn't recall moving in any holiday decorations when she rented this place.

Greta finally answered her phone.

"It's me," Anna said quietly. She went back into the hallway, closed Flynn's door.

"I had the baby," Greta said. "It was a little girl. She was too small. They couldn't do anything to save her. They're saying she's dead."

"Oh, Greta," Anna said. "Is Mike with you?"

"No. I can't find him. n.o.body can find him. He's not answering his cell."

"I'll keep trying his numbers," Anna said, and sat on the floor, her back against Flynn's door.

Greta was crying. "She looks perfect. Tiny, but perfect. Do they ever make a mistake?"

"What do you mean, dear?"

"I mean, is it possible that she'll come back to life? You hear all those stories about children being under water for half an hour, then end up being fine. Children are much more resilient than adults. I named her Stella. She's a bright little star."

Greta sounded heavily medicated. "I'm sure the doctors did everything they could," Anna said. "It might help if you hold her. Did they let you hold her?"

"I'm holding her now. I'm re-warming her. It hasn't been that long, she could still wake up."

"Is there a nurse in the room with you now?"

"Christ, they won't leave me alone. They want me to give her to them. But she's mine."

"Do you think I could speak to one of the doctors in the room?" Anna said.

Greta began sobbing. "Not you, too. I thought you were my friend. I know what they do with babies. I know they're going to cut her open and experiment. She's getting warmer. Why can't everybody just be patient?"

Anna waited for Greta's crying to subside then said calmly, "As soon as Marvin comes back with my car, I'll come over."

"No. Don't. I want to be alone."

"Let me help you," Anna said. "Let me be with you."

"You can't help me. You can't possibly understand."

"I'm a mother, too."

"You're a mother who never wanted her child. I want my child. Dead or alive, she's my daughter." Greta hung up.

Anna took a deep breath. She was so ready for this day to be over. She dialed Greta's home number and left an updated message for Mike on their machine. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Greta would be better off without him.

She crept back into Flynn's room. The girl hadn't stirred. Anna sat and watched her as she slept, the soft light of the Christmas candles spilling over Flynn's gorgeous face. Anna imagined that Flynn must have been a beautiful baby, a Botticelli angel with her dark curls, round, dimpled face, and deeply pigmented bow lips. Only Poppy had those lips; probably a recessive gene. Every now and then Anna caught a glimpse of her father's family arranging themselves in Flynn's expressions. A certain intensity in her look, a pursed half-smile that Anna was sure belonged to her great-grandfather, a tailor in Poland, though she had never seen more than a blurry photo of the man. One of these days she'd go through her things-a.s.suming she still had all those old boxes-and kick up the dust on the family relics, talk to Flynn about her Jewish heritage, her Ashken.a.z.i bloodlines. Though what did she know of it? Her father, the Jewish Buddhist, had responded to Anna's adolescent questioning: "We are of the Ashken.a.z.i strain, the tribe of rabbis and scholars. The Sephardic Jews are rug sellers and general nose-pickers. That's all I know, that's all you need to know." Maybe she would enroll Flynn in Hebrew cla.s.ses at a synagogue. The dear doomed child, Anna thought, then alarmed herself by wondering why that phrase popped in her head.

Flynn's costume had dirt all along the hem. Her shoes were caked with mud, as were her fingernails, Anna saw now. She'd wake her when Marvin got back, fix dinner and run her a hot bath. She bent down to look at the old creche. Flynn had put one of her CDs under the kneeling figures of Mary and Joseph, the wise men behind them. Anna stared at the scene. There was a calf in the manger where the baby Jesus was supposed to be. The light hit the wise men in a peculiar way, making their faces look black, their teeth too white. Then Anna saw that the wise men were black and they were grinning from ear to ear. She picked one of them up. Flynn had cut out the faces of the Pips from the liner notes on the Gladys Knight CD and taped them onto the faces of the magi. Gladys Knight's face, also grinning, shone down on the holy family, recast as the Angel of the Lord.

Anna touched Flynn's back. She stirred and turned over but didn't wake. Anna would let her sleep until dinner, though it was already nearing eight o'clock. She should have asked Marvin to pick up a pizza on his way back.

Anna poured herself a brandy, walked into her bedroom and flipped on the Bose radio she and Flynn had bought together last week, along with two dozen or more CDs from the '70s. Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky" played quietly now. Anna didn't much care for Greenbaum, didn't like his heavily synthesized sound, but it was one of Flynn's favorites, and because Flynn slept with Anna most nights, this was the song that awoke them in the morning. Anna hit the skip b.u.t.ton, loaded up the compilation CD, the one with Frankie Vallee's "You're Just Too Good to be True," her own favorite, the one she sang to Flynn sometimes to lull her to sleep. She turned back the bedcovers, saw something centered on her pillow. A clod of dirt and a tiny shoe, the silver shoe from the Monopoly game-where in the world did Flynn find that? Anna hadn't played the game in twenty years or more. The last time was in Maine, where she and Hugh used to play occasionally with the radiologist and his wife who came up for weekends. Hugh had always chosen the shoe as his piece. But it wasn't the Monopoly shoe at all, she saw now, peering closer. It was a wadded-up gum wrapper. And the clods of dirt were twigs arranged as stick figures. Anna's scalp began to crawl. She picked up one of the little sticks, knotty, peeled, cold as a kneecap, and before she knew why or what drove her to it, she was downstairs and in the backyard, moving across the lawn with a flashlight. The same shallow holes Flynn had been digging for nearly two months. But there was something eerily unnatural out here. Feverish chills moved through her, a heat pouring in from the top, a cold pressing in from the sides. She shone the light on the bistro table. The beam caught Flynn's optometrist's goggles and glinted off the lenses. Underneath the table was a blue tarp, covered by branches. Anna moved everything aside and nearly fell in what was surely a hole deep enough for a coffin. She sat at the edge of it, pointed her light at the depths. There was a CD case all the way at the bottom. This was one of those moments when she needed her husband, needed him to tell her what to do, to help her figure all this out. What was wrong with this girl? What was Anna supposed to do with a child like this?

Anna went back in the house and shook Flynn gently until she opened her eyes.