Matthew Thomas - We Are Not Ourselves

The last name, Arash Zahedani, also happened to be attached to the highest grade, ninety-seven, a happy coincidence that might send Ed to bed in a better mood. It was getting on four o’clock; she had to be up in a few hours. She knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep; she was far too awake now to drift off again. Still, she could lie there and rest her muscles. Tomorrow was an important day at work. The Joint Commission was examining North Central Bronx Hospital, bringing with it the usual headaches. Her people were well prepared, but she would have to dig deep to perform well on little sleep. She was already exhausted from the previous week of late nights getting ready for their arrival. She’d had ten nurses call in sick Friday, and she was going to have to fire some of them, because they’d known better than to do that at the start of the weekend. Since she’d been understaffed, she’d had to struggle to handle a room full of gang members who’d burst in after visiting hours, demanding access to the ICU to see one of their own who’d been shot in the stomach. They pushed past the security guard and through the double doors in front and were advancing on the room. It could have been two dozen of them. She ran to block their way. “You’re not allowed in there,” she said. “You can come back tomorrow.” One of them asked, “Aren’t you afraid of us, white lady?” She didn’t have the energy to be. Security backup arrived, two more guards, all three of them black. If the gang members didn’t stand down soon, the guards might draw their guns, and who knew what would happen then? She was the only white person in the room. The guards told the gang members to leave. There was a young girl among their number; she must have been the injured man’s girlfriend. She held a baby in her arms. She gave Eileen a pleading look. “I will let a few of you in, one at a time,” Eileen said, “and we will all be civil to each other. And then you can come back tomorrow. And I promise you he will be in good hands, and we’ll let it rest at that.” The guards relented. They had the gang members line up against the wall. She could see the leader of the gang calming everyone down. He gave her a look that said, Lady, you are all right . It had stuck with her, that look. It had meant something to be recognized, even by this thug. She wanted that young man to give her that look in front of her husband the next time Ed was half-crazed about some absurd infraction. There was more to life than Ed’s petty grievances.

She wanted to end on a high note, but a spirit of excess caution had crept into her own thinking. “Let’s go through the numbers again,” she said, and from his look she got the feeling he hadn’t planned for it to be any other way.

“We’ll switch,” she said. “I’ll read down the column. You call out the grades.”

They proceeded through the tests, Ed dispatching his task with a new alacrity. Four tests from the bottom, La Shonda Washington, she asked Ed to repeat the grade he’d just read out.

“Eighty-six,” he said.

But the number he’d entered for Ms. Washington was sixty-seven, which also happened to be the score received by Melvin Torres, the student above her in the grade book.

“One second.” She rose to look at the test in his hands. The glow of the sun was filtering into the air outside. It felt more like the remnant light at dusk than the herald of dawn.

“What? What is it?”

“I just wanted to check something.”

“I told you,” he said. “I told you. Eighty-six.”

“That’s what I thought you said, honey.” Her throat constricted. “I wanted to double-check.”

“Is there a problem? A mistake?”

“I just need to change one thing,” she said. “Give me a second.”

She reached for the pencil and he slammed his hand down on it. “What is it?” He was seething. “What is it?”

“The number for the student directly above La Shonda Washington has been repeated,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s all. I’m going to erase it and write in the correct number.”

“Ah, Jesus!” He threw his hands up. “Jesus Christ! It’s all wrong! It’s all wrong!”

“Just hold on while I make this one change.”

“Forget it,” he said. “What’s the use?”

“It was an honest mistake,” she said. “You wrote the number above it. It’s late.”

“Yes, yes,” he said dismissively. “That’s it. Now let me finish this. I’ll be in when I’m done.”

He took the book away and closed it, then held his head and rubbed his eyes.

“We have three more to go,” she said.

“It’s fine ,” he said firmly. “We’re finished.”

She should have made the switch without saying anything. She should have come out and done it after he’d fallen asleep. Now she had to convince him to leave off his vigil.

“If we’re done,” she said, “then come to bed.”

“I’ll be in in a while.”

“Come now.”

“I said I’ll be in. I’ll be in.”

“You need some sleep.”

He slammed his fist on the table. “I’ll be in when I’m in! What the hell else do I need to say to you? Will you leave me alone, God damn it?”

She snatched the book out of his hands. “Don’t say a word to me,” she said slowly, giving him an icy stare. “Not one word.”

She opened to the page with the grades and looked at the last three numbers. Whitaker, seventy-three. Williams, fifty-eight. Zahedani, ninety-seven. She checked the tests and slammed the book shut.

“That’s it,” she said. “They’re all correct. I’m going to bed. You can come, or you can stay here. I don’t care either way.”

She felt her hands making fists as she walked down the hall to the bedroom. She’d already wasted too much time on him. She imagined he’d spend the whole night out there, going over the numbers endlessly.

She lay in bed, counting sheep for the first time since she was a child. She bit the pillow in frustration. Then she heard him walking down the hall. She rolled over and he climbed in bed alongside her. She moved as close to the edge as she could. Even an accidental touch might enflame her so much that she’d have to go to the couch. There was no point in trying to sleep; she would lie there until it was time to get up and shower.

She felt the slight shaking of the bed but didn’t register the sound as what it was until the shaking grew more forceful. Ed was doing a good job of keeping it in, but the springs of the bed gave him away. The sound of gasps followed. She had trouble identifying it at first because she had formed an image in her mind of Ed as a man who didn’t cry. It wasn’t macho posturing; he simply didn’t shed tears, not even at his father’s funeral.

She turned slowly in the bed. She was tentative with her body; there was no telling how he’d react if she touched him. It wasn’t impossible that he’d get violent, like an animal in a cage. They were in a new territory, with new rules.

She shifted closer to him. When he didn’t stir, she reached out to touch his shoulder, expecting him to slap her hand away; he let it rest there. She gave the shoulder a consoling rub; he sobbed a little harder. She pressed her whole body against his and he folded into its curve. She brought her other arm up against him so that she was hugging him fully. She found herself holding him to her as though he were a child. She’d always resisted cradling him in such a manner, fearing it would diminish her attraction to him, but attraction was the last thing on her mind at the moment. He sobbed as she held him, and she soothed him by making shushing sounds, long and slow and quiet, until he turned and sobbed into her nightgown.

She knew what it was about, even if he didn’t. It was about getting old. She felt it too, but somehow she knew it was different for men. They got spooked when they lost their hair, when their backs gave out. Women were better prepared to deal with death and old age, especially mothers, who, having delivered children, saw how tenuous the line was between life and death. And as a nurse she had seen so many people die, people to whom she’d grown attached. Ed had taught anatomy and physiology. He’d been in the museum of death, not on its front lines. It was irrational for him to react this much to a bit of misentered data, but what was rational about a midlife crisis? Weren’t they always a little absurd?