T. Parker - Summer Of Fear

There was a pause in the conversation then, during which I noted in Paul Nesson's eyes the dullness of exhaustion.

Corrine wiped her nose with a tissue, then cleared her throat. "How long does she have?"

"It would only be a guess, so I'd rather not make it. It's an unpredictable neoplasm-we see them accelerate, then stabilize, then accelerate again."

"Do you ever see them go away?" asked Joe.

"No. Look, Isabella will be in Recovery for an hour, then I'd like to move her to ICU for the night. She'll be ready for a quick hello in a couple of hours. After that, maybe you all should get some rest, too."

"Thank you," I said.

"You're welcome," said Nesson, then he padded back through the double doors and out of sight.

Her head was wrapped in bulky white gauze that formed a turban. Both eyes were swollen; the left was already turning purple underneath. She was still on oxygen, fed to her by a plastic tube in her nose.

She became aware of me as I stood beside the bed. Her vitals issued across the monitor elevated in the corner. I put my cheek against hers and listened to her breathe.

"You're not going to believe this," she said. Her voice was slow and remote. "But… I'm going to get better. I dreamed it when I was under… that they were taking all the bad… things… away. I'm going to be… okay."

No stutter, no mistakes.

"I love you," I said.

"I'm so glad… you're here."

"Are you still my baby?"

"I'll be your baby as… long… as… you… want me."

"How about forever?"

"Forever… sounds just right."

I was surprised, even through my exhaustion, to see Karen Schultz walking across the hospital lobby's floor late that afternoon. Her heels clicked officiously on the tile, and she had picked me out of the intensely quiet crowd before I realized who she was.

She smiled briefly at the others, shook hands as I introduced them, then directed her tired eyes at me. "Russell, car we talk?"

I followed her outside. The temperature was ninety degrees, according to a mall sign across the street. I watched a tiny woman pushing a wheelchair containing a large man up the ramp, zigzagging up toward the medical tower.

"How is she?"

"Fine. They got most of the tumor."

"Oh, Russell, I'm so happy to hear that." At this point, she wiped a tear from her cheek and stared off toward the freeway. "I just never know what to do about… in situation; like this."

"It's good of you to come. You could leave some flowers maybe, or a note."

"No. That isn't why I'm here." Karen hugged herself and walked to the far edge of the outer patio, where a dysfunctional wheelchair lift waited, neglected and unrepaired.

I waited and lighted a cigarette.

"Look," she said, returning to face me. In the harsh afternoon light, Karen Schultz looked a hundred years old. "I've been… life is… full of compromises sometimes. I'm a single girl who needs her job and likes her job, and if I've given Winters occasional shit about his decisions, well, that's what he pays me for. What I'm saying is, I don't act out of spite against anyone in our department-I like our department and I think we do a good job. But…" Karen's voice vanished as she looked out toward the mall. "Couldn't they find an uglier place for a hospital?"

"I guess not."

Karen's eyes looked pained but inscrutable. "Look, you talked to Chet, right, about the… irregularities?"

"That's right."

"Do you appreciate what they mean, or have come to mean?"

"They mean Martin's building a case against me and my daughter for a crime we didn't commit."

"Yes. But you're a step behind, Russ. In practical terms, do you know what this means?"

I couldn't help but wonder whether Karen had seen Martin's videotape of me and Alice Fultz. What earthly good could it have done Parish to reveal it now? "I'm not sure how to handle Martin," I said.

"Russell, I'll tell you. Do you know a good criminal attorney?"

"Yes."

"Hire him."

This bad and somehow inevitable news seemed to come at me from some blind spot in my mind. "Do you think Parish is going to take his case to the DA?"

"Russell, he already has."

I sat with Isabella three hours that evening while she slept.

As I gazed at her swollen, sleeping face, at her once-Iovely head now bound by gauze, at the clear plastic oxygen mask banded across her nose and mouth, I could only wonder at how far this woman had come, how compromised and torture was the flesh of her body, how betrayed she had been by life.

I heard one of the nurses steal in behind me, but when I turned to see her, I found myself looking into the doleful dark eyes of Tina Sharp, from Equitable.

"May we speak?"

"Outside," I said.

We stood in the hallway. Tina Sharp wore an unpleasant perfume. She carried a briefcase. Her eyes were on the verge of bulging, and they looked watery and weak.

"I'm sorry to have to track you down like this," she said "You answered neither my calls nor my letter." 22

"I couldn't face you."

"I understand. I only wanted to inform you that the resection just performed on your wife is not covered under the plan."

"Yes, it is covered under the plan."

"No. Mr. Monroe, as you know, we could not cover the radiation-implant operation because it is not one of our approved procedures. Nor, according to our contract, can we cover any expenses incurred as a result of an elective, cosmetic, or non-plan-approved surgery. Today's operation, unfortunately, was just that."

"So now, I'm another eighty grand in the hole."

"I believe it will run closer to one hundred, Mr. Monroe. I didn't think you should bear that cost without knowing in advance that you would have to. If you had simply contacted me earlier, this would not have to come as the shock I know it is. I tried."

I looked at Tina Sharp. She could have been, and probably was, somebody's mother. And daughter.

"Well," I said. "There have been plenty of shocks lately. Thanks for coming down here."

She offered her hand, which I shook. It was cold and dry.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Monroe. I know the facility will work with you on a repayment plan that will suit both parties."

"Thank you, Ms. Sharp. You've been a wonderful balm in an hour of need."

"I wish Equitable could have been there for you," she said. "I'm sorry we had to let you down."

She turned and walked down the hallway toward the elevators.

Back in Izzy's room, I sat and stared at the framed picture of her that she always brought for hospital stays-she considered it good luck. It stood on the bedside stand, leaning against flowers brought by Theodore. The picture is just a snapshot by an amateur, but the color is good and Izzy is caught just as she sees the camera-half surprise and half composure-regarding the photographer from beneath the black curls of her hair and the scalloped brim of a wide black hat. Her neck and shoulders are visible, bared by a strapless dress. Her smile is demure, confident, restrained. She shows no teeth, but her lips are beginning a happy rise and her eyes-to anyone who knows Isabella-are, I swear, reflections of a contentment so deep, it could come only from the center of her heart. For most people, it a picture of a woman in her prime. But for me, it is the image of one life we did not get to finish; it is a reminder of one future that will not take place as we had imagined; it is an ambassador from dreams that have passed. Thus, it is a thing of great beauty and great pain. We were newlyweds ourselves then, and the friend who took that picture understood the core of Isabella happiness, because on the back is written the simple caption

Mrs. Monroe!!

At that moment, sitting beside Izzy in the hospital room, would I have liked to go back to the time that picture was taken? 0h, truly. But I couldn't stay, because although perfection is a nice place to visit, no one lives there for long. I would rather have the chance to live that moment through, forward up to now with all the standard disappointments and struggles, all the commonplace raptures that lovers can expect, with all the simplicity of hope that picture holds. But I chose the woman, not the dream, and her path I will try to make my own. This is the promise I made, and that I intend to keep.