Bruce Wagner - Still Holding

• • •

LISANNE LAY THERE and assessed. She thought of calling Robbie — but why? Her boss would be shocked when he learned, though in a way, she was relieved. Her secret was out, or nearly so. Earlier in the day she had taken the deepest, most restful nap of her life, awakening at peace. Her concern for Kit was still there, but the agonized worries over his health and well-being had evaporated. She knew he would be OK. The water had broken and a rainbow now shone.

At 3:30 A.M. the nurse said the tests showed the baby’s lungs to be “mature.” The doctor wanted to deliver right away. The C-section took forever, and at delivery, the bloody boy screamed with elemental force — healthy, at thirty weeks.

They fed him through his nose because the suckle reflex hadn’t yet developed. Lisanne used a breast pump for milk, but it was hard to be productive. She was still able to make small quantities of what the RNs called “liquid gold,” which they added to the feeding tube. The hotel sent a basket of fruit and cookies. No one ever had her water break in the ballroom before.

• • •

THE SOUND WAS off while she watched Larry King.

“Do you know she here?” said a Mexican nurse who came in for the dinner tray.

“Who?”

“Viv Wembley. The girl from the show who go with Kit Lightfoot. The show Together. ”

“What do you mean?”

“She miscarry.”

“She—”

“She miscarry. Ectopic — very dangerous. She right here! Same floor.”

“In the hospital?” The woman was confusing her.

“Right now! But I no tell you — is secret. Is terrible what happened to her fiancé. Handsome! Now no big fat Greek wedding. No baby. Is terrible. Is terrible.”

• • •

THAT EVENING, Lisanne saw her.

She went for a walk and saw Cameron Diaz and a woman with a turban on her head leave one of the rooms. Against their tender protests, Viv shakily emerged to escort them to the elevator. That was when the weakened actress looked at Lisanne and smiled. (She remembered the time Kit made eye contact after yoga.) She thought how pretty Viv was without makeup, how vulnerable looking. Lisanne looped back toward her own room so they wouldn’t have the same trajectory.

The moment they exchanged glances, she knew.

She felt the same peace she’d experienced after her amazing nap. They looked into each other’s eyes and Lisanne knew, was certain.

The Bardo of Becoming

BUT HOW IS HE?

He farts, grunts, giggles, howls.

Words remain in throat, stillborn. Incipient thoughts — autochthonous ideation — aborted.

He is in love with his body, its pain, pleasure, and rapturous stink. Becomes fixated on arbitrary landscapes of skin — hair, follicle, pigment. Flake and fingernail.

A stage actor warming up, he spends hours fogging a hand mirror, watching himself gesticulate, crease, pucker, twitch, startle, suspirate, belch, yawn, coo, whisper. Therapists stretch muscle and rub ointment; he submits like a dog, belly up, with unannounced pleasure. He takes businesslike joy in their grooming and bodywork, as if thespian instinct has informed that the vessel is preeminent and must be maintained at all costs.

Sometimes his head is stabby and migrainous. He presses, imploring the scarified points of incision, feeling the heat beneath sutures, vents to a still-active furnace, mistakenly — catastrophically — soldered shut.

Boosters and cheerleaders are certain he’s more “present” than he appears to be, the gray matter busily rerouting and reknitting “as we speak.” But he has trouble standing, and, once standing, has trouble standing still. Trouble walking too, the gait ticcy and belabored.

Sometimes he awakens bellowing. High-priced nurses, privately hired, burly, stalwart, do their best to soothe without injections. Sometimes he surfaces from REM sleep cackling, knee-slapping, with attendant nefarious dysphonic outbursts. Sometimes he weeps, soft and plaintive like a child — or ragged, seizured, ugly.

Always heartbreaking.

He seems to know Alf but doesn’t recognize his bride to be — or at least won’t let on. Boosters and cheerleaders (led by Kiki) fantasize his indifference to be a shuck, a heroic way of letting the actress off the hook, nobly allowing her to break the engagement. No fault, no contest, nolo contendere, gentleman to the end, even in debilitation. Dad agrees, up to a point. The dad says Kit knows damn well who she is but “just doesn’t want to go there.”

Viv fears his eventual acknowledgment of her, no matter how gradual, will cause great suffering. Stops visiting. Wants her man to focus his energies on recovery. She martyrs herself, shamefully hating her secret involuntary mantra: “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this.”

Alf disappears. He’s doing a film that, mercifully, is on location, out of the country. He was going to stop coming, anyway. In a fit of tiredness that he regretted, he told Burke it was just too depressing. Mr. Lightfoot said, as a lawyer would to a prospective juror whom he was about to dismiss, “Thank you for your candor.” Go recharge, Burke added expansively. Stop guilt-tripping. You’ll reconnect down the line. (You piece of Hollywood shit.)

Kiki still comes. A tough broad, said Burke. He tells the Buddhists she’s one hell of an agent.

• • •

HE WISELY LIMITS access for those who would see his son. But the Buddhists are allowed to come and go as they please — all Kit’s friends and practitioners from the sangha. Burke calls them the sanghanistas and knows they want nothing from Kit. They’re not morbidly curious. Their religion demands they act in the most ethical, dignified, compassionate, “mindful” of ways. They are patient and generous with their time. Burke respects them and is comforted by their inconspicuous, warmly obeisant spirituality.

He feels his son to be comforted too.

• • •

OLD FRIENDS ARE pleased the father kept open this vital aspect of his son’s life. They’re happy not to be banished and glad he didn’t trash Kit’s beliefs because they know it is the foundation that will heal him. They had heard stories of the tyranny of this man — some from Kit himself — but in this terrible time Burke Lightfoot had, for whatever reason, opened the door, and for that, they are profoundly grateful. So they honor him. They see the Buddha in his gesture and honor Burke Lightfoot’s heart.

The sangha visit at all hours, even meditating at bedside while Kit sleeps. They serve him while he is awake. They bring cooked food and read scriptures and sutras out loud. They massage him with emollients and encourage him to stretch. They do baby yoga. They even teach the nurses — child’s pose, downward dog, easy twisting warrior, spinal twist, neck release. They are courteous and helpful to staff, dependable, soon indispensable. Many have worked in hospices, and the nurses let them do funky, menial things. Bedpan and hygiene. Stripping the sheets and making the bed.

Burke watches the Meditators come and go, fingering their beads, reading texts aloud, intoning lengthy prayers, sometimes in English, sometimes in Japanese or Tibetan or Whatever. They wear civilian clothes and close-cropped hair, but now and then smiling monks, bald men or women in saffron robes, come to sit. They do not speak.

Tara Guber even brought Penor Rinpoche, the lama from Mysore.

• • •

NOW IT IS TIME for him to leave.

The hospital is happy to see him go — he is just too big a celebrity, and difficult to accommodate. An unruly tabloidal pall had wrapped the complex in gauze. So much to contend with: the twenty-four-hour media presence, the police and additional security, the concrete barriers and parking disruptions, the predatory paparazzi eyes invading other patients’ and their families’ privacy. Donors and in-house benefactors were becoming restive.