Amy Bloom: Love Invents Us

Max saw the grey elevator walls, the distorted reflections in the dented steel ceiling, the green sheet, Horace’s hand, his fingernails smooth honey-colored ovals, longer than Max’s, and Max wondered if all black men wore their nails long; he’d never looked at any man’s nails before. He put his hand on Huddie’s wrist and squeezed it. The orderlies took this in too, looking at each other sideways and then straight ahead.

The nurse hung a long grey rectangle around Max’s neck on a cheap cloth band and stuck two new wires into the tabs on his chest. She smiled at the doctor walking in, and he gave back a small smile beneath his big moustache, showing that it was a serious business — don’t even hope otherwise — but they were in good, even excellent, hands. He was visibly intelligent, arrogant, not unkind, taller than average. Max and Huddie thought only one thing: black. Max thought, Good. It will make Horace Lester feel good, and furthermore, he’s not a young man, he probably had to be smarter than everyone else to go to medical school and become a cardiologist back then.

Huddie knew it was stupid to be pleased, but he was, and inside he’s six and the Alabama kitchenware Aunt Les brought with her flies past him as she calls out, after each pot, lid, and saucepan hits the back door, “Lift up the race, child! Lift up the race.” She lived with them for only three years, his Great-aunt Lessie, and moved back home, saying Gus was doing fine, Huddie was doing fine, and the cold was killing her. She prayed conversationally and constantly: instructing, cajoling, informing, and flirting with the Lord. She prayed for Huddie to learn to wipe his feet, she prayed for justice for her people, she prayed for Gus’s loan to come through, she prayed for Gus to find a wife to mother the boy, she prayed that God would see fit to change Gus’s ways so that the woman’s life would not be Hell on earth. She smoked a corncob pipe at night and made Huddie hold up her big silver-backed mirror on Sundays so she could pluck two grey hairs from her chin, dress her long hair, and take him to church. On the occasional Sunday, he’s found himself sitting behind an old woman smelling of woodsmoke and Dixie Peach and felt time collapse like a paper tunnel.

The doctor finished examining Max and making notes. He nodded to Huddie, patted Max on the shoulder. He walked out with a small, stiff-wristed wave, like the Queen of England.

The nurse stayed behind for cleanup. “Any pain, any complaints, call. Otherwise, sweet dreams, Mr. Stone. And—”

“Jack Robinson. Son-in-law.”

Max smiled. “We’re just waiting for my daughter to get here. Are two visitors okay?”

“Until eight o’clock, two is fine. Take it easy.”

* * *

“The lights on the mirror,” Max said, “it’s like one of Liberace’s capes.”

“I never saw him.”

“He’s on TV all the time. Campy crap. You never saw him? The rhinestones? The candelabra?” Why was he talking about this? “Like Little Richard without the falsetto. And Polish.”

“What’s the goddamned point of that?”

“All right. You don’t have to stay. Is Elizabeth here?”

“Max, if she were here, you’d be seeing her. She’ll be here soon.”

“All right.”

Huddie took Max’s hand and Max let him, then pushed his hand further into Huddie’s. If he’s dying, he will die holding a hand that loves.

When Elizabeth came, Max was asleep, still holding Huddie’s hand.

“My Christ, Huddie. I’m so sorry. You had to bring him here? Oh my fucking Christ, that must have been something. Go back to the store, go home.” She was practically pushing him out the door, knowing what this could cost him. If he’s late at the store, his assistant, a well-meaning girl who thinks Huddie walks on water, will begin calling around. Eventually, someone will call June and Huddie will have to say something credible that in no way contradicts anything that anyone might have already said. He kissed her. “Take care of him, baby.”

“Don’t worry. Get out of here.”

Huddie waved to her and was gone. Elizabeth didn’t want Huddie showing concern and affection for Max. They weren’t even supposed to exist in the same universe. She looked at Max, drawing slow, bubbling breaths through his various tubes. He didn’t look that much worse than usual. All right, God, whatever you want. I don’t give a shit if Max lives, actually. You want him, take him. I am not trying to keep him here. It’s enough. He’s not getting better, he’s a self-absorbed pain in the ass. That smell, old socks, and lesions. He takes his meds whenever, he lies to me about it. Whatever this is, it’s enough. He was a good father, God, he taught me to drive a stick-shift, he taught me whole chunks of Auden, he made me listen to every kind of music. If you could give us a little more time, we could get all this straightened out. What’s it to you? You didn’t take him then, when it might have seemed like a good idea, for my sake, you certainly don’t need to take him now. Ignore us.

Max coughed in his sleep and Elizabeth leaned over him, holding the plastic cup and the bending straw.

“You’re here,” Max said.

“Don’t worry, I’m here.”

“I met the guy you’re fucking. Very nice guy.”

“Yeah.”

“Too bad he’s married.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you could break up his marriage, too.”

“Get some rest, Max.” She smoothed the sheet around his shoulders.

“Okay, Elizabeth.” It is funny, the way he says it. They rarely call each other by name. Sweetheart, honey, darling, baby girl, milacku is what he calls her. She calls him Pops or Grumpy or Buster.

She sat by his bed, flipping through a magazine left behind by the previous occupant.

“Baby girl. Go home.”

“I’ll stay, it’s okay.”

“Go home. I’d rather be alone. Go, go.”

“If I go now, I’ll come back in the morning. We can have breakfast together.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll bring you the Times . Love you, Mr. Stone.”

“I know you do. Love you, Miss Taube.”

It was terrible to be sent home by Max, although Elizabeth had no wish to spend more time in the hospital. Max looked sick but not frighteningly so. But he’d rather be alone than be with her, and although she didn’t like to think about it, she’d rather be with Max than be alone, and that was why she was back in Great Neck in the first place.

The charge nurse called at four a.m., and Elizabeth went back to the hospital. A young nurse stopped her in the hall before she got to Max. They wanted her to sign a dozen forms, including permission to perform an autopsy and to make use of his organs. She began to sign, and another nurse, the one who called the apartment — her Queens accent identified her — said, “You’re the daughter, right?”

“Not legally, no.”

“Awright. Is there a legal daughter? A legal anybody?”

“He has a wife, I mean, I don’t know if they’re divorced. And he has three — two sons. They’re grown. One of them lives here. One of them’s in France.”

“So then, really, Miss Taube”—the nurse had been skimming the notes while Elizabeth stumbled over who she was not—“really, we need to call the wife. If they’re divorced, we can call the son, or whoever. It’s nothing against you, it’s a next-of-kin thing.”

And so it was. Greta came down with Danny, and in the early morning, in the tiny green waiting room, where they’d been sent like squabbling children to sort out their differences, Greta hugged her silently. Danny, for whose weekly father-son dinner Elizabeth vacated the apartment every Wednesday night, said, “Call me Dan,” and stared at the floor. Elizabeth assumed he was thinking, He ruined his life for you? She smoothed down her bangs.