Charles Bock: Alice & Oliver

On the curb now, reeling from a blast of wind from off the East River, Alice burrowed into her own coat, watched her exhaled breath vanish. Keep doing the simple things, she reminded herself. She made sure to plant her feet, took steady steps toward the back of the cab, where the driver was lifting the stroller out of the trunk. Alice thanked him, saying, “I can use all the help I can get.” His eyes returned a kindness that shocked her; she wasn’t prepared for such dazzling pity. The wind whistled, truly foul, blue tendrils of Alice’s wig swirling into her line of sight. Alice knelt, busying herself with the collapsed metal bars. Two well-placed yanks and the carriage came alive, straightening, its alacrity almost justifying the ridiculous price. Instinct told Alice to grab her daughter back, but Oliver was already setting Doe into the buggy. Watching her husband’s ministrations — at once unskilled and suffused with care — relaxed Alice, a bit. “Settle up with the cabbie,” she said. “I didn’t bring any cash.”

Leaving his answer behind, she commandeered the buggy’s driving position — it was selfish, fine, and she’d need all her energy today. Still, Alice began pushing toward the sliding doors. She was halfway beyond a mulling cluster of doctors on their cigarette breaks. A security guard came out — to offer a wheelchair?

“I just love seeing moms work them baby contraptions,” he said. Hands jerked, kung fu motions. “BAM BAM.”

The foundry stone carved with SANTA MARIA RECTORY 1896; the ornate marble archway with small carved nun; the large letters of modernist font and industrial steel, appearing without any context, spelling out WALT WHITMAN MEMORIAL. Marble walls yellowed by age appeared that much more decrepit thanks to institutional lighting. With them came the warmth ubiquitous to certain types of lobbies, large rooms open and busy as the waiting area of a train station. A man and woman were inside the entranceway, guiding a dowager so old as to be mummified, all three visitors searching for the location of a certain bank of elevators. People in scrubs zipped past, carrying their morning bagels and coffees. Near the escalator row, scattered commuters paused long enough to grab one of the morning tabloids from the nearby blind guy, make change from out of his Knicks cap.

Alice noticed, near one of the saggy ferns, the man in light blue jammies — he was expectant, tracking comings and goings from the front entrance. He had no lower jaw. Instead of staring at his deformity, she forced her attention elsewhere, to the nearby gentleman wearing that season’s nattiest three-piece suit, who was pushing a little boy in a wheelchair. The boy’s hair was piecemeal, patchy, almost like Alice’s had been before Oliver had plugged in those shears.

Her grip around the baby carriage handles tightened. Memories assaulted her now, visceral and consuming: the pungent, liquid-plastic odor of surgical gloves; the sensation of ice chips rattling around inside her mouth — a recollection so strong she could almost feel the ice against her teeth. In her mind’s eye she saw the postcard with the ballerina that Oliver had taped onto the wall across from her bed. She remembered feeling so weak that the act of lying in bed was a chore, so weak that keeping her eyes open was itself exhausting, but also staring for what felt like long stretches, centering her thoughts on that gorgeous ballerina, her poise, her strength. Now Alice remembered the middle of the afternoon when she woke from a nap, and her eyes focused, and inside that hospital room in New Hampshire, she saw Tilda, and her mother, and Doe, each of them peaceful and asleep, slouched in a chair or lying on the foldout bed. Alice remembered thinking that she had to watch them sleep, she had to appreciate the sight of these three astounding women, she had to stay in this moment and soak in this experience, because she had no idea how many more times she might have it, or if it would come her way again.

There were other memories: yanking on the plug of her IV tower battery, pushing the tower toward the bathroom and yanking down her mesh hospital underwear; squatting just in time and releasing yet another diarrhea blast into the little plastic hat they kept over the toilet and feeling relief, she’d made it, she wouldn’t be shitting herself this time, and feeling emptied out, too, because nothing was left inside, and she felt herself bleeding from her vagina, and bleeding from her behind, and then, her body unclenched once more, shitting out another burst.

Inconceivable. It was starting up again. She was back in this.

“It’s just a get-to-know-you visit,” Oliver said.

Alice nodded. “We’re just going to get on the same page.”

“No reason to worry about anything except what’s right in front of us.”

Her hand was clutching his. She welled up, swallowed, and said: “Tu esta mi favorito.”

“Tu esta mi favorito,” he said.

And in this way, they kept going, following the directions Alice had written in her to-do notebook, muddling through the lobby, their hands together on that stroller, the sick woman in the blue wig, and her dapper, stubble-headed husband, and their baby, too, a small, quiet family, shrinking, moving forward.

THE LIGHT HUE commonly associated with Creole heritage. Tiny and pretty, dark hair pulled back and away from her face, further highlighting bone structure that was delicate as a bird skeleton’s, placing attention on eyes that were small and brown and entirely empty. She had the faint makings of a mustache. She took in Alice’s wig and smiled in a manner that was either polite or perfunctory. Introducing herself, she asked, boy or girl, and how old Doe was, and the whole time reminded Alice of a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.

Alice had to make sure her hands did not tremble, but she managed to write a legible Culpepper in her notepad. Small letters followed: “intern?” Without fuss, Miss Culpepper led the family beyond the registration desk, into a short corridor. On the walls were framed, yellowing pictures from bygone eras — wimpled nuns tending to immigrants, beehived nurses aiding the bedridden. An obese woman stood just inside the hallway and was using a rolling chair as her support crutch while she placed manila folders into a filing cabinet.

“Before you can proceed to your appointment,” Miss Culpepper said, her voice high, “I just need to make sure that all your paperwork is in order.” Entering a low-ceilinged cubicle area, she pulled out a chair. The desk surface empty save for a boxy desktop computer (its plastic faded to the color of curdled milk), an opened carton of orange juice, and a series of elaborately framed photos, the same child: smiling in a tutu, smiling with her dollies.

“She has your lovely skin,” Alice said.

Miss Culpepper blinked, a few times, as if figuring out how to respond. Allowing herself another minor grin, she sat, smoothed out the front of her skirt. A few taps at the desktop brought a pair of fresh pages from a printer the size of a minifridge, at rest on the floor behind her. “Review these. If the information on these pages is accurate, the hospital asks you to sign on two individual pages. This first one authorizes us to bill and share the information with your health insurance. Next to the Post-it, please.”

Alice gripped the pen. Keep doing the simple things.

Miss Culpepper kept typing. A new page arrived. “This form, in case your health insurance doesn’t cover the costs, or refuses payment. You acknowledge responsibility for the outstanding charges.”

“I don’t understand,” Alice said. “Our policy covered most of New Hampshire, my chemo induction. There’s no reason to think this should be different?”