Mira Jacob - The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing

The rubber duckies were a surprise. The next afternoon, as the Eapens sat in Anyan George’s office, Amina stared at a row of yellow bodies, carefully arranged bill to tail. Everything else in the office — from the neat row of diplomas to the green plaid armchairs to two frames filled with the face of a sweet-looking boy who had aged at least a year between photos — had been expected. But the ducks across the desk were as distracting as live acrobats. Amina picked one up, sniffing its sweet body before carefully replacing it.

“Adorable, no?” Kamala asked.

Amina frowned to discourage her. All morning, her mother had been too cheerful, tucking herself into her best teal sari to accompany Thomas to the scans, trying to slip gold bangles onto Amina’s arms as they were leaving the house. Now, waiting for Anyan George to come back with the preliminary results, she was practically giddy.

“A real sense of humor!” She indicated the duckies with her chin. “Like you!”

Thomas uncrossed his legs and recrossed them, checking his watch.

“I’m sure he’s on the way,” Amina said soothingly. Poor Thomas — the clichéd bad patient, all walnut wrinkles and testiness, imaginings of the worst. She wished she could just squeeze the worry out of him, or better yet, suffuse him with the heady benevolence that swam through her veins like sweet tea, leaving every part of her that Jamie had touched feeling blessed and anointed. She rubbed her fingertips across her lips.

“It’s so nice for men to be in touch with their, you know, feminine side,” Kamala trilled on. “ Good Morning America had one whole show on it! This one bakes cookies, that one sews his daughter’s Halloween costume each and every year.” She smoothed her sari against her lap, fingered the coral earrings she had put on that morning. “Are you sure you don’t want to put your hair down? It looks much nicer when it’s down.”

“It’s fine, Ma.”

“You’re sick?”

“What?”

“Why does your voice sound honk-honky?”

“It doesn’t.”

It did. Too much talking. Amina blushed.

“If Anyan’s not here by one, we’ll simply have to reschedule,” Thomas announced.

“He’s only a few minutes late,” Amina said, ignoring the way her father set his jaw against her. Beyond coordinating the basics of time and place, Thomas had done his best to avoid her over the past few days, walking out of rooms as she entered them, grunting away any attempt at conversation. It was to be expected, of course, but still unsettling, and she found herself looking forward to the end of the appointment, when they could begin to right what had become disjointed between them.

“Here, koche !” A ChapStick appeared in front of Amina’s face, held between Kamala’s fingers like a winning lottery ticket. “Lips are dry.”

Amina swiped it across her lips and handed it back. She looked down at the spiral notebook on her lap, “Dad’s Test Results” written across the top of a clean page, and added the date in the margin for good measure.

He had his sister’s mouth. She had understood this the night before as a child does a textbook optical illusion, eye bending between the revelation of white birds and black birds, the old woman and the young woman. Jamie’s face, Paige’s mouth.

The office door opened and Dr. George stepped in. He was smaller than Amina remembered, or maybe just overwhelmed by his lab coat and pleated pants, by the oversized manila envelope in his hands.

“Hello, hello. Good afternoon, sir. Whole family came, I see.” He smiled a little shyly at them, settling into his seat. “I apologize for the tardiness.”

“Oh, please.” Thomas smiled with no trace of his former irritation. “We should be thanking you for making time on such short notice. I hate to pull you away from your real patients.”

“How is Anjan?” Kamala beamed.

“Well. He’s well, thank you.”

“He’s looking so grown-up, you know. What grade is he in now?”

“Second,” Dr. George said. “He’s just a bit tall for his age.”

“I’ll bet.” Kamala patted Amina’s leg.

“Are those mine?” Thomas asked, pointing to the envelope.

Dr. George nodded. “Yes, and the blood work is being sent over right now.”

“Well, let’s have a look. We don’t want to keep you.”

“I hope you don’t mind, I also had Dr. Curry take a look before I came.”

“Oh, good. How is Luther?” Thomas stood. “Back from Hawaii, then?”

“Yes, sir.” Dr. George walked to the light board, and Thomas stood in front of it, his arms crossed. Amina got up and stood there too, doing her best to look focused as the fluorescent light popped on, bathing them in a cool, white glow.

The scans were beautiful. They always were, whites and grays spreading out between the thin curves of skull like weather patterns from some distant planet. When she was younger, Amina would try to find shapes in them — flowers, dragons, boats.

“I wanted to get a second opinion before I came over, of course,” Dr. George said quietly.

Two seahorses met in a mirror, their snouts just touching. One had wings and the other carried an egg.

“Glioma,” Thomas said.

Dr. George nodded.

Amina looked back at the fanning waves of gray, the dark curls and symmetrical lakes. “What?”

Her father did not answer. She looked at his blank face, which seemed waxen suddenly, as if it had never known motion. A phone was ringing somewhere.

“Curry agreed?” Thomas asked.

“Yes.”

“His approximation?”

“Between two and three.”

“I see.”

“Wait, what?” Amina asked, louder now, panic edging into her voice.

“And the EEG?” Thomas asked, holding a hand up to silence her.

“That’s on the way,” Dr. George said.

“Yes, but was there—”

“A good amount of focal slowing,” Dr. George said. “Yes.”

Thomas nodded. His eyes dropped to the carpet and did not move.

“Who?” Kamala asked, pushing her way between them to look at the scans herself. “Something is the matter?”

No one answered her. Amina felt something cool on her arm. She looked down to find Dr. George’s hand on her elbow.

“Shall we sit?” he asked.

There was something about his tone that made Amina want to be on her best behavior, and she turned at once, almost running into Kamala, who looked just as determined to get back to her own chair. Dr. George sat down across from them. Thomas stayed standing.

“There appears to be a mass in the occipital lobe,” Dr. George said.

“A mass? Is that the same thing as a tumor?” Amina asked.

“Yes.”

“No,” Kamala said.

“Is it bad?” Amina felt stupid asking. Weren’t all tumors bad on some level?

“We need to do a biopsy to know more,” Dr. George said.

Her notebook was on his desk. Amina pulled it off and onto her lap, and slowly wrote “tumor” at the top of the page. She immediately crossed it out. She wrote “biopsy” instead.

“I realize this is a shock,” Dr. George was saying. “For all of us. Though of course this does explain some of the symptoms. Amina, you had mentioned the hallucinations. Audio and visual inconsistencies are common for this type of—”

“Shut up,” Kamala said.

“Ma!”

“It’s okay,” Dr. George said. “It’s understandable.”

Kamala sat very still in her chair, her face tilted upward like a child bent on not receiving punishment. Behind her, Thomas was all back, the light from the board turning the tips of his curls an even whiter white.

“It’s a terrible shock,” Dr. George explained to Amina, as if she needed the explanation. Amina looked out the window at her car. It seemed strange that it should still be out there, waiting, in one piece.