Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

Ten past seven. She was late — very late. She'd never been this late before, not without calling or a plan. Maybe the skin had started to slough away at the office and she'd had to get her colleagues to help with the unwrapping. Or maybe something had gone wrong and she was lying on the floor of her cubicle, strangled to death by the crackling wisps of her old arms.

No, he thought: she was gone. She had shed her old self and life and taken off. Maybe later she would call him from some roadside hacienda in dustiest Mexico, all fresh-skinned and new. A person reborn, free of him and their life together. He imagined her riding her bike along the side of the highway, the skin peeling away from her body, flapping at her heels, as she made her way to somewhere better.

11

SINCE LEE WENT in nearly three weeks ago, I spend my weekends watching movies with her in the ICU. She's got a list of classics she's always wanted to see, so on Friday evening after work I stop by the video shop between the airport and hospital and pick up the next three: The Lady Vanishes, The Seven Year Itch, and Cleo from 5 to 7. We'll watch one a day and then I'll return them all on Monday.

Waiting for me in the hallway outside Lee's room is Dr. Cheung. "Hi, Pasha!" she says, producing a hand to shake, which I shake. Her hand is cold. Her hands are always cold, and her voice is always alarmingly loud — especially for a hospital.

"How are things going?"

"She's doing well!" enthuses Dr. Cheung, beaming. Then she lowers her voice. "We've got the last of the scans back and think we can go ahead with the surgery either tomorrow or the next day."

"That's the Gamma Knife thing?"

"Yes, we'll use it to remove the two remaining metastases from her brain. As I'm sure Dr. Persaud told you, melanoma responds so poorly to traditional radiation that we really think this is the best option."

"And it's safe?"

Dr. Cheung nods. "Absolutely. This in fact has less potential of complication than the surgeries we did to remove the original tumors on her back. Lee has some literature. Why don't you go in and see her?"

"Isn't she sleeping now?" I step away from Lee's room. "Maybe I should wait?"

"No!" Dr. Cheung yells, her hand on my shoulder, urging me forward, voice cranked back up. "She's waiting to see you!"

I pause at the door. Dr. Cheung nods and gives me a shove into the room.

"Hey," Lee whispers. She's propped up in bed with a version of lunch on the tray in front of her: gravy-soaked brown mush, veggies, a lump of potato.

"Hey," I say. I put the newspaper, DV DS, and coffee on the tray, kiss her on the top of her bald head, and sit down.

LEE'S NIGHT NURSE is Olivier, the quiet Congolese guy Lee really likes. If Dr. Cheung is a foghorn, Olivier is a thought. You barely know he is there; he whispers and nods and treats Lee with gentle reverence. Sometimes he mutters softly to her in French, "Ma petite puce," while he is changing her iv.

I sit watching for a bit and then Olivier turns to me and says, "Sir," which is his polite way of asking me to leave. At first I'd been offended by the nurses asking this — after so long together I've seen Lee in every state of compromise you could possibly imagine — but I've realized it's not about me.

"Ten minutes," Olivier whispers, and pulls the curtain around the bed, closing them off. I leave the room, then head down the hall, into the elevator, down four levels, and out of the hospital, where I stand with the smokers, not smoking because I don't smoke.

WE'VE JUST STARTED The Seven Year Itch, headphones clamped over our ears, when Mauricio appears at the curtain, his sideburns two slick daggers on either side of his face.

"Knock, knock," he says.

Lee hits Stop on the remote and swings the screen out of the way. "Bienvenido," she says.

Mauricio and Lee went to school together. I guess he tutored her in Spanish before she went to Mexico for a foreign exchange. They met up down there and travelled around, and then he'd moved home to Buenos Aires. He came back up here a few months ago, maybe because Lee got sick — I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they ever slept together either. There's definitely something. I've always dealt with it by trying to seem okay with the guy, not asking too many questions.

"Hey, man, take my seat," I tell him, standing and offering the chair. "Please."

Mauricio's brought flowers, which he passes to me as we swap places. Shuffling the chair closer to the bed, he takes Lee's hand and runs his thumb over her knuckles.

"How you feeling?" he asks, staring into her eyes.

"Okay," she tells him. "Tired. The pain's not been too bad today."

"Yeah."

Watching Mauricio so close to her, I try to summon up some feeling of jealousy or resentment. But it's hard. My physical contact with Lee has become so perfunctory. Since the diagnosis we've had sex once — and that was six months ago and at Lee's urging, not mine. I capitulated but went about it as though she were something made of glass, the words skin cancer rattling around in my brain the entire time. Afterwards she went to get a drink of water and didn't come back to bed. Eventually, I went into the kitchen and found her sitting at the table in the dark.

Mauricio's stroking her arm now, up and down — an arm bruised and scarred from all the lines and ivs constantly being threaded into it. The bruises are purple and yellow blotches. The newest scars are red and wet; the oldest, black scabs. She looks like a junkie. Lee's arms make something sickly rise in my throat and a prickly feeling fizz from my feet to my head. They are nothing I'd want to touch.

But Mauricio doesn't seem to mind. He runs his fingers up and down her arms like the marks aren't even there. They gaze into each other's eyes. Her hair's been gone for ages, but since they stopped the chemo there's a downy sort of fuzz growing in. Mauricio cradles the nape of her neck with his hand, then leans in to scoop her into his arms. He holds her, softly but firmly. She hugs him back. They're this way for a long time, while I stand in the corner of the room, cradling the bouquet of flowers like some sort of caddie or valet.

WHEN VISITING HOURS are over Mauricio and I leave together.

"I'm going to meet some friends to go dancing," he says. "Do you want to come?"

"Dancing? No, man, I'm probably good."

He sambas off into the night and I make my way to the subway station.

Riding home, slumped in my seat as the train roars and squeals its way between stops, I watch a couple at the end of the car making out. They are seventeen, maybe eighteen. Their jaws are really working. At one point the girl climbs up and mounts the guy's thigh and starts grinding into him with her hips. He licks her sloppily from neck to eyebrow, then pulls away, panting. They stare at each other for a bit, then he kisses her on the cheek and tells her, "God, I'm so fucking in love with you. It's fucking crazy."

"Holy fuck," she says, kissing him on the forehead, the cheek, the other cheek, the mouth. "Me fucking too."

AT HOME I POUR myself a glass of cold, sour wine from the refrigerator and take it with me as I move around the apartment. I take an inventory of the things that are technically Lee's — stuff she owned before we moved in together. I try to figure out what I would want to keep if she dies. This is what I settle on: the microwave, the coffee maker, the DVD player, the big soft towel we fought over every time it came out of the laundry. But then I realize that there's no "would"; there's no "if." The doctors have given Lee three months, tops. All these things are already mine.

At ten thirty, I go out to eat. Most nights I do. Lee was the cook. I'm decent with a barbecue, can fry up a burger if need be. But we live in a neighbourhood with plenty of cheap food: Indian, Vietnamese, Mexican. It's late so I head to the burrito joint down the street. I order a beer and sit with it while the guy behind the counter shuffles around getting my food together. I drain the bottle when my order comes up, so I get another one and take it and my tray to sit down.