Chang-Rae Lee - A Gesture Life

Veronica has mentioned the putty-faced boy upstairs with the lavender-tipped fingers, how reserved and quiet he is; he’s like a little old man, she says sadly, who knows his time is near. She’s visited him the last few days, but he was too weak to use the puzzles or coloring books, and all she could do for him one afternoon was read a children’s story for a few minutes until he dozed off. I tell Veronica she ought to visit him every day if the nurses will allow it, that she should talk to him and play with him and let him listen to her strong reading voice. In a funny way, she sounds like Liv Crawford when she reads from her books, a bit strident, overdramatic, with tones of succor. It’s easy to listen to her. Veronica now suggests that I go up there with her tomorrow afternoon, that the sick boy would probably like me, but I can’t answer, not only for my poor reasons concerning Mrs. Hickey but because I don’t want to tell Veronica that I’m to leave in the morning. I haven’t thought out fully or exactly when I am going to tell her, even as her mother is to pick her up any second, for what I really want and wish is that time could suspend for a moment or two, halt right here in my room, but such that I might still enjoy the company of Veronica and the intermittent visitors and the prodding charm of the nurses. And I wish it would stop especially for Patrick Hickey, stop bounding on for his unfit heart, which keeps counting toward its last.

A woman in uniform appears in the doorway. It’s Officer Como, Veronica’s mother, in midnight police blue. She’s a striking figure, tall and sturdy, with a prominent brow, and with her two-way radio and holster and heavy black shoes she appears almost bristling; she doesn’t look like Veronica at all. But there’s a softness to her around the cheeks and jaw, a fullness that she didn’t have years ago, when she and I conversed regularly on the sidewalk in front of the store.

“Nice to see you again, Doc,” Officer Como says, extending her hand. She sits down at the bedside chair, while Veronica moves around to the one on the other side. “I hope you’re feeling okay.”

“I am, very much so.”

“When Veronica began describing you last night, I realized who it was she was so smitten with.”

“Mother!”

“Well, it’s true. Hmm, let’s see, an older, distinguished Asian gentleman from Bedley Run. That’s not many people. I thought I should come up and say hello and see how you were doing. You’re much missed in the village, you know.”

“And I miss it,” I say, my ready answer. “I know Church Street isn’t on your regular beat anymore.”

“Not for a couple years, since after you retired. I’m actually working back in Ebbington now. Private security.”

“There’s more crime in our town,” Veronica says almost proudly. “Especially around the mall. That’s where Mom works. She’s known as the Terminatrix. She’s head of security.”

“Now who’s talking out of school?” Officer Como says. “Actually, I spend most of my time supervising and doing paperwork. But it’s better hours, if not better money. I can spend more time with the kid here.”

“You’re right to value that,” I say.

“I’m trying. But you know it’s amazing, Doc, what kids will do these days. It’s not like it was in the alley behind your old shop. They’re not just drinking and smoking pot by the back door. They’re breaking in now, stealing computers and stereos, VCRs. Not to sell, but to have for themselves. Now these are truly bad kids for you. Most of them are middle-class. They feel entitled, and they’re lazy to boot. It’s a lifestyle. They bum change outside the mall, for candy and cigarettes. Can you believe that, kids with weekly allowances begging money? I’m sorry Veronica isn’t older, so she’d already be away at college. You’re going away someday, aren’t you, darling, to a good school? Tell your mother you will.”

“Not far away, Mother,” Veronica happily answers. “Not far away at all.”

Officer Como winks at her, and I say, “You must be very proud, Officer.”

“We’ll see how proud I can be,” she answers. “Anything can happen. She could fall for some handsome jerk and get pregnant.”

“Jesus, Mom.”

“I’m only being realistic, darling. I have to be because you’re too wide-eyed. You’d think she’d be harder, with those gory novels she reads, and with her mother a cop, but it’s exactly the other way. She doesn’t believe the world is the way it is.”

“I don’t want to believe,” Veronica tells her, now glancing at me. “And neither does my good friend, Franklin. We share the same outlook. Don’t we?”

“We certainly do,” I answer her, though in truth the sound of the words is deeper than the feeling. I’m not sure anymore what I see when I “look out,” if it’s real or of my own making or something in between, a widely-shared fantasy of what we wish life to be and, therefore, have contrived to create. Or perhaps more to the point, what ought we see, for best sustenance and contentment and sense of purpose to our days? Veronica already seems rich in these regards, and seems, as much as a girl of fourteen can, quite unshakeable. So let her believe. I, Franklin Hata, retired supplier of home medical goods, expatriate and war veteran and now suburban lap swimmer nonpareil, can operate only provisionally at present, even in the wane of my life. I would gladly look to Veronica for a lead, and for the past two days, I probably have.

“Well, we ought to be going,” Officer Como says, motioning to Veronica. “I can’t leave the car out front forever. I’m not a public servant anymore. We’ve got to get dinner together, Ronny. And I want to thank you, Doc, for my daughter.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been very good for her. Most of the time she comes home plain tired, and I think this job is mostly a waste of her time. She should go right to studying after school. But she’s been working hard at home the last couple days, full of energy. You two must have something special going.”

“She’s the one who has been providing the energy,” I say.

“Well, I’m happy you’re being discharged tomorrow, but I’m sorry for Ronny.”

“You’re going home?” Veronica says softly, knowing well that all discharges happen in the morning.

“Yes,” I reply, though I’m looking at her mother. “Dr. Weil thinks I’m recovered.”

Officer Como answers, “I talked to him as he was leaving the hospital. He helped a partner of mine once. He says you’re coming back like a thirty-year-old.”

“Do thirty-year-olds always feel like this?”

Officer Como smiles, touching my arm as she rises from the chair. “Don’t get up, Doc. Ronny, it’s time to go.”

Veronica comes around the bed and stands next to her mother. They’re opposite in shape, a white radish and a pear, the daughter seemingly half her mother’s height, though of course she isn’t. For a moment I wonder if she is an adopted child, but the thought chills me somehow, as if the possible fact should mean a certain set of complications and unhappiness is imminent for them, no matter how loving they are now. But I’m forlorn because Veronica seems forlorn, and all because of my stupid cowardice.

“Well, goodbye, then,” Veronica says. Her face looks pale. She doesn’t seem to know what to do. Then she reaches out and squeezes my hand for a second, and before I can say anything she’s already out in the hall.

Her mother stares after her and, not wanting to leave abruptly, calls and tells her to wait in the car.

“I’m sorry, Doc,” she says to me, her expression soured, “I don’t know what’s wrong with her. It’s not like her to run off like that.”