Cathleen Schine - They May Not Mean To, But They Do

Shylock, the Elephant Man. Her mother was pulling out all the stops. And why shouldn’t she? Molly felt as if she had just seen a horror film, a monster movie, and her poor father was the monster.

She coaxed her mother to a couch in the waiting room.

“I’ve had it,” Joy kept saying. “I’ve had it, I’ve had it.”

Then, almost in slow motion, she slumped forward.

She said, “Had I, haa … I…” She stopped.

“Mom?”

“Haaa daaa. I haa. I, I.” She stopped again and looked at Molly in alarm.

What was that awful smell? The smell was almost a parody of a fresh smell, a little like chewing gum or floor cleaner, but sickly and decomposed, as if someone had tried to cover up the stink of decaying flesh. Was it decaying flesh? Was it gangrene? Joy thought of wiggling her feet to make sure they were there, but they seemed far away and she was so tired. She heard Molly badgering someone. She heard Daniel’s voice, too: “But I thought you said she’d had a stroke.”

Oh yes, now she remembered. She was in the hospital visiting Aaron. Someone must have had a stroke.

“She did, a mild one. But we also think she has a highly contagious antibiotic-resistant infection called Clostridium difficile. C. diff for short,” said a male voice Joy did not recognize.

But who had had a stroke? Who were they talking about?

“C. diff is common in older patients being treated with antibiotics in the hospital or in a nursing home,” the male voice continued. “Has your mother been in a nursing home recently?”

“No,” Molly said. “But she practically runs one.”

“That’s why she’s in an isolation room. The C. diff.”

“Excuse me, Doctor,” Daniel said. “It’s just that there’s another patient here. In this isolation room.”

Daniel was always so polite, using someone’s title, his voice soft, though Joy could hear the frustration and anger. She worried about him hanging around a hospital after what he’d been through. He should go home to his family. She would look after Aaron.

“Well,” the doctor was saying, “we believe the other patient probably has C. diff, too.”

“You believe ?” Molly said. “They both probably have C. diff? What if one has it and the other doesn’t? The one who has it will give it to the one who doesn’t.”

“Then they’ll both have it,” the doctor said, his voice a little impatient with Molly’s absence of scientific method. “That’s why they’re in isolation.”

C. diff. Joy knew she had heard about C. diff somewhere. On the radio, perhaps. Did C. diff cause a terrible odor? The smell, that was what was worrying her.

Molly and Daniel stood together in the blue paper gowns and caps and booties, the white masks and the almost transparent gloves they had to wear in their mother’s room. It was hot in her curtained-off portion and rivulets of sweat ran down Molly’s back. The woman in the next bed, who may or may not have had C. diff, was small, even smaller than Joy. Her face was caved in around her missing dentures. Her skin was dry and yellow and mottled and tight as a cadaver’s. She looked very much like a cadaver. She nearly was a cadaver. A man, Molly presumed it was her son, sat beside her, rocking forward and back, saying, “Mommy, Mommy,” and for the first time in her life Molly wondered if it was bizarre that she still sometimes called her mother Mommy, because this man was as old as she was and he was saying Mommy and he was surely bizarre. “Nurse! Doctor! Help! Help!” he would occasionally cry out, running into the hall. He had a disturbing voice, flat and desperate and loud. “My mommy’s not answering me,” he would say, wringing his hands, when a nurse appeared. “My mommy’s not talking!”

The nurses did not like this odd middle-aged man who behaved like a child. And they did not like coming into the room, because of the smell.

“What is it?” they asked each time they entered.

“What is it?” Molly and Daniel asked each other.

Molly was glad of her paper mask. She got up to check the trash can one more time, but it was still empty.

“What is it?”

A strange raspy sound came from the woman in the other bed.

“It’s a death rattle!” her son cried. “Mommy, don’t die.”

He ran out of the room and returned with a nurse, who threw on a gown, snapped on gloves, and examined the emaciated woman.

“It’s a cough,” the nurse said gently. “Don’t worry. It’s just a cough.” She patted him on the shoulder.

Then she said, “What is that nasty, nasty smell?” She pulled away from him. “No wonder this poor woman is coughing.” She sniffed at him, like an unfriendly dog. “Is that your gum ?”

“Gangrene,” Joy said.

“Mom’s awake!” Daniel said. “Mom said gangrene! Did you hear her, Molly? Nurse? Hooray! She said gangrene!”

The other woman’s son was sniffing at his own arm. “Bengay?” he said.

“Bengay?” Joy said, actually sitting up. “Good god.”

“I put it on every morning,” the son said, eyeing the nurse warily. “After my shower,” he added with sudden defiance.

“You mean like moisturizer?” said the nurse.

“Good god,” said Joy.

“Bengay. That’s a new one,” the nurse said as she left the room.

“Mom, I’m so happy to see you back to yourself,” Daniel said.

“Welcome back to the world,” said Molly.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Joy asked.

“Isolation,” said Molly.

“You can be alone even in a crowd,” Joy murmured, and fell back to sleep.

Soon another nurse came in.

“Sir,” she said to the man in Bengay. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry, but the smell of your, um, ointment is disturbing patients and staff and visitors up and down the floor.”

“Yes, but do you have the C. diff test results yet?” Molly asked the nurse. “I think both patients deserve to know why they’re in isolation with each other .”

“Sir?” The nurse ignored Molly. “Sir, please go home, wash it off, and then you can come back. You don’t need to use so much, you know. Just a little bit. Why don’t you try it at night, before bed? But for now…”

“Excuse me, Nurse, but if his mother catches something from my mother,” Molly said, “you will have more to worry about than Bengay.”

“I use it every day,” the man said. “I can’t leave Mommy. I can’t. Mommy is very sick.” He began to cry a little. He covered his face with his hands. “I can’t.”

Molly patted his back. The smell was less upsetting now that she knew what it was, but it was just as strong. It burned her nostrils. It stung her eyes. She said, as mildly as she could, “You don’t want your mother to catch something from my mother, do you?”

He shook his head.

“And if my mother catches something from his mother,” Molly said to the nurse, “you should know that my brother is a lawyer.”

But it was as if Molly were not there. The nurse, a small, even dainty woman, emanated authority, and she wanted this man, the source of disturbance on her floor, to go away. “Sir?” she said, her hands on her hips. “I really don’t want to have to call security.”

“I don’t think you understand,” Molly said. “This man will not be bullied and neither will we. We are in this together.” She stood in solidarity beside the unhappy, redolent man. “Aren’t we?”

He stopped crying and took his hands away from his face. He seemed afraid to look at the wee, mighty nurse, but he made eye contact with Molly, brief, furtive eye contact. Then he looked down at his mother. She didn’t move. The only sound in the room was her rasping breath. He gazed at her for what seemed a long time, then he squared his shoulders.