Jessica Chiarella - And Again

I knock softly on Dr. Grath’s door, four short raps, the way I always do, so he knows it’s me.

“It’s open,” he calls from inside, and I enter. His apartment is dim. The amber glow of evening sunlight cuts through the shut blinds on his window; it’s the only other light in the little room besides the flicker of the TV. He sits in his armchair with a mug of tea next to him on the side table and a joint balanced in his thick-knuckled hand. He’s surrounded by bookshelves stuffed with books he can’t read anymore. His plants are dying, their leaves curling on yellow stems. I tried to overwater them a bit before I left, but apparently it wasn’t enough. I wonder if he remembers they’re even there. “Your vacation is over just in time. I Confess is on.” He motions toward the TV. I smile because Dr. Grath knows Montgomery Clift has always been a favorite of mine.

“Perfect,” I reply and then stop short when Dr. Grath stands up so quickly he drops the joint. It trails hot sparks down the front of his dark green cardigan and lands on the carpet, still glowing. I’m about to rush to stomp it out when Dr. Grath’s voice stops me.

“Who are you?” he says, his face trained on me, as if he could conjure some saved-up stores of sight, if only he concentrates hard enough. He’s a small man when he stands, probably about my height, with a thin nose and wisps of white hair on his head. He paints a sweet, feeble picture, standing there in his rumpled clothes. Like a baby chick before it opens its eyes, all damp, downy feathers and shriveled legs. Only his mind remains sharp, in a body that has failed him a hundred times over by now.

“It’s me,” I say, laughing a little, as if this is a game I don’t quite understand. “I haven’t been gone for that long, have I?”

“Your voice,” Dr. Grath says, his own voice wavering with fear. Then he recovers himself a bit, because his next words are stronger, more resolved. “I don’t believe you.”

“Dr. Grath, it’s me,” I say, taking another step toward him. He shrinks back a bit. “Jesus, what do I have to say to prove it to you?”

He seems to consider the question for a minute. “Did you happen to get new vocal chords on your vacation? Because the Connie I knew smoked a pack a day since she was a teenager, and you could hear every single one of those cigarettes when she talked.”

I’m unprepared for this. I hadn’t considered that he’d be able to tell I’ve changed. I hadn’t even decided if I should tell him anything at all. I want one place in the world to be just how I remembered it. I want there to be one place where it doesn’t matter if I had been changed or not. “And what if I did?” I say.

“Impossible, my dear,” Dr. Grath replies. I shrug, though he can’t see me, not with the apartment this dark. He can barely see me in full sunlight, as it is. Just variations of shadow, he said to me once. Just figures moving around in a dark room.

“Your wife’s name was Maureen. Like my mother’s.” I leave it at that. The one thing we have in common. Dr. Grath frowns, and I can tell I’ve won him over, because he drops back into his chair. “You sound like a different person.” His tone is gruff, as if I’ve done it intentionally to inconvenience him.

“It’s a long story.” I step forward and pat him on the arm, reaching down to pick the joint up from the carpet at his feet. It’s too late; there’s a charred little hole where the fibers of the rug have been singed away. He’ll never know, though, so I don’t mention it. I hand the unfinished joint back to him. “Be more careful, old man. You don’t want to be the one to burn the building down.”

Dr. Grath chuckles, turning back to the TV. “Yes, because if someone is going to burn down the Chelsea Hotel, it had better be its resident Edie Sedgwick.” He pats my hand, accepting the joint and bringing it to his lips. The light flickers off his cloudy eyes; nothing is absorbed. “Was it a good vacation?”

“Not bad,” I say, settling into my usual spot on his tiny couch, watching Montgomery Clift cross the screen dressed in black priest’s robes. “I’m glad I’m back in time for this. Monty dressed as a priest is even better than watching him in Red River . There’s something much more alluring in the forbidden, don’t you think?”

“You are lucky you live when you do, my dear,” he says, and I can almost feel the lapsed Catholic in him stepping up to his lectern. “It wasn’t so many decades ago that a woman like you would be branded a Jezebel.”

“Oh please,” I reply. “It wasn’t so many decades ago when women like me were burned at the stake.”

He laughs then, but his eyes hover in middle space, so I can’t tell if he’s trying to look at me or the television.

“Tell me what’s different,” he says.

“Everything,” I reply. “Everything is different.”

“Is it a man?”

I’m the one to laugh now, and it’s a clear sound. It’s the first time I notice what he means, that the husky scrape is gone from my throat. I sound younger, less world-weary. I hadn’t even noticed before. “You give your gender a lot of credit, as if all it took was a few months with a new beau to fix me right up, huh?”

“I’ve seen whole worlds turn upside down in less time than that,” Dr. Grath replies.

“Yes, but not lately.”

“Careful now. You can’t tease me anymore if it turns out you’re cured and I’m not.”

I don’t say anything for a long time. He waits, remaining silent, letting me figure out what to say next. Old bastard, I think.

“How did you know?” I ask, finally, blinking hard to keep the sting in my eyes at bay.

“Val’s caller ID. He said the call came from Northwestern Memorial. And here I thought you weren’t coming back at all, after he gave me that message. I thought that was your good-bye. I had a good cry over it, actually. But then you show up smelling like fresh milk, with that voice of yours. It’s like you’ve been scrubbed clean.”

“What did I smell like before?” I ask, a little taken aback.

“Vinegar. And damp hair. Like you were dying.”

“I was dying.”

“And now?” he asks. I look at the TV. Montgomery Clift and Anne Baxter are having a tense, passion-filled exchange. It occurs to me that he looks a bit like David.

“I guess I’m not anymore.”

“And how does that happen, exactly? I mean, I’ve heard of remissions, but never cures. Not with your strain. Believe me, I’ve asked around.”

“Trying to fix me, doctor?” I ask, flirting a little, because it’s the only way I know how to repay men who are kind to me. But he’s having none of it, as usual.

“I’m not keen on the idea of outliving anyone I know,” he says.

I let a long stream of air out through my nose, as if I’ve just taken a long drag on his joint. “Well your plants are going to die.”

“Maybe not,” he replies, “now that you’re back.”

Dr. Grath falls asleep in his armchair, and I leave him there. He spends most nights there now, with the TV flickering over his well-lined face, his vacant eyes moving beneath his eyelids. I wonder what he sees when he dreams, if he ever wakes up forgetting that he’s blind until he opens his eyes. That was how it was for me for a long time. I’d wake up and for one dizzying moment I’d forget that I was sick, as if I were suspended mid-fall. Then the world would rush up to meet me.

I wash out his teacup in the sink. Killing time, mostly, before I have to go back to my apartment. I turn down the volume on the TV, though not all the way, not to the point where he won’t realize it’s still on when he wakes up in the morning. And then I venture back across the hall, with its thin felt carpeting and musty smell, into the apartment I didn’t bother locking while I was gone.