Authors: Renee Manfredi
It was one of those days. She thought of her granddaughter and Greta, wondered what they were doing now. Greta and Mike had been approved as adoptive parents and their new daughter would be living with them as soon as the social worker’s assessment was complete—just about the time Greta’s baby was due. It was feast or famine, and Greta’s plate was loaded. Anna was thrilled for her friend, had already bought Greta a crib and a youth bed for the two children coming into her life. Handmade blankets from Greece, two entire wardrobes from Lilly Pulitzer, and a crib that was fit for royalty. Anna tried to remember the name of Greta’s new daughter. She was one of the children in the stack of folders that day, a four-year-old. Rashida? No, that was the girl of mixed race. This one was the pale, ash-blond child. Anyway, except for Flynn, all little girls were pretty much the same in Anna’s eyes.
Anna made herself listen. The partner of the man who had stared at her so hatefully was speaking now. “I’m Stuart, partner of Jack, who has the virus. I’m negative.”
“Just to clarify,” Anna said. “It’s not necessary to disclose HIV status unless you want to. It’s a state law, and hospital policy, that one’s status is
to remain private unless an individual chooses to reveal it.”
Michael, partner of the man with the blue sock obsession, “That’s stupid. Why can’t we ask questions that would help us understand someone? Can’t we just assume that everyone here is positive or with someone who is positive?”
“No,” Anna said, “you can’t.” She turned back to Mr. Bitter, partner of Stuart.
“I’m Jack. I’m sick. I’m here because Stuart made it a condition of taking me back in. I don’t believe in this sort of thing. I don’t think it’s anybody’s goddamn business how I feel or how I got sick.”
“Jack,” Christine said, “do you want to explore your feelings of anger?”
“Fuck no.”
Christine colored and nodded. “Okay.”
Anna tried to keep her eyes off the man—Jack—who had spoken. She felt pure nastiness coming from him, aimed at her more than Christine.
A man Anna didn’t recognize spoke now. His advanced sickness made his age impossible to guess, but she knew he wasn’t as old as the disease made him look. The ties from his hospital gown stuck out from the neck of his sweater, and beneath the lap blanket his legs were purple with sores. She averted her eyes, took deep breaths, compassion a flimsy rotten board that gave way the instant she ventured out to him. Anna wondered why he was at this meeting. The chairs on either side of him were empty. He must be a bed patient here, someone brought in from the hospice wing. Maybe Christine herself had brought him over. The man was clearly suffering from dementia, muttering something incomprehensible.
By the time the introductions circled around to Anna—was she supposed to introduce herself again, even after being identified as the group’s co-leader?—her head pounded, every scent and sound heightened and excruciating. The smell of old clothes, of Betadine and bleach, the roar of traffic outside and the raspy breath of the man next to her. She was one impulse away from going to find him a bronchiodilator.
Christine looked at her expectantly so she said, “I’m Anna, as noted earlier. I’ve been the co-leader of the Mood Team for the past couple of months.” She nodded and smiled to show she was finished.
“And?” Jack said.
“And?” Anna repeated.
“That’s it? What is your personal relationship to this illness? What do you know of it from the inside-out?”
“I’m a medical professional,” Anna said.
“Oh, I see,” Jack said. “And your son?” His eyes flickered toward Marvin, whose own eyes were settled on the tender face of Christine. “Is there a reason he’s here? Or is this Take Your Son to Support Group Day?”
Anna snapped her head in Christine’s direction, but Christine seemed to be having a moment with Marvin, Anna saw to her astonishment and fury. “Now, look,” Anna said. “I want to change the tenor of this meeting.” Christine’s eyes slid from Marvin’s face to hers, a sleepy sated look. “Let’s redefine our objectives.”
“Yee-ha!” Jack said, twirling an imaginary lasso.
Anna ignored him. She directed her attention to Christine, who was blatantly flirting with her daughter’s husband instead of doing her job. “Christine, maybe you want to explain for the benefit of our new members, how this meeting aims to foster the skills and support necessary to live with this disease, and to help others in the way they manage it?”
Christine looked at her and blinked slowly. “Could you repeat that?”
There was laughter all around, loudest from Jack.
“Anna, do you want to explore your feelings of anger?” Jack said.
She looked at him levelly and smiled as sweetly as she could. “Fuck no.”
More laughter.
“Yes, amen sister,” Jack said.
“So then.” Anna raised an eyebrow at Christine, who looked back at her as if she’d lost her mind. “So, let’s redefine the goals of this gathering.”
A woman in the corner spoke. Anna turned. Elizabeth, who had gotten the disease from her female lover’s ex-partner, a bi-sexual male, whom the women had asked to father their child. Elizabeth ended up losing her baby, losing her partner, and getting AIDS. She was angry, as was to be expected, but had a way of contradicting or challenging everything Anna said. Not at every meeting, but enough so that Anna had come to expect it. Elizabeth changed her look a lot. One week she wore flowered Sunday-go-to-meeting dresses, the next, tank tops that displayed her tattoos of Chinese characters. Her hair was so short you could scrub pots with it. Today, she wore ordinary Levi’s, a white T-shirt, and a lavender velvet hat. “Anna, with all due respect, I’m feeling some hostility from you that I never have before,”
Elizabeth said. “I respectfully request that you excuse yourself from the meeting.”
“Anna is the co-leader,” Jack said.
“Oh, like I don’t know that,” Elizabeth said. “Excuse me, but I’ve been here from the beginning, and I think you’re causing the problems, mister.”
“Hold it!” Anna said. “No accusations, Elizabeth. But, yes, you’re right, I lost my temper and I shouldn’t have. Let’s try to move on.” Anna glanced over at Jack.
“Perhaps this should be worked out in a different setting,” Elizabeth said, both to Anna and Jack. “Negativity, even in small doses, is injurious to everyone.”
Anna felt her temper flare, as though she might lost control, something that hadn’t happened in years. What was wrong with Elizabeth today? And what had happened to Christine? The girl was usually as solid as a brick.
“Let’s move on,” Anna said. “Unless you want to add something else, Elizabeth.” Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw Marvin’s hands moving like caged birds. He was spreading his fingers out, then together, out, then together in the way her grandmother used to open a hairnet.
“This is a support group. We are here to share,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes,” Anna said, “you’re right. Except we don’t do that by letting accusations fly.”
“Yes. Amen, again, sister,” Jack said. He was beginning to like this broad.
“But if one member of the group makes us uncomfortable, shouldn’t we be able to ask him to leave?”
“No,” Anna said, “That’s not for you to decide.”
Michael, partner of Alan, who had had the blue sock fight with his partner at the very first meeting said, “And is it your decision?” He looked at Anna.
“Yes, it is. Mine and Christine’s.”
At the mention of her name, Christine said, “Yes. Anna and I are here to keep the lines of communication open and flowing.”
Jack snorted. “It looks like your communication is flowing, all right. Right to Anna’s son.”
“You’re hateful!” Elizabeth said. “I’m sick to death of your sarcasm.”
“Sweetheart, you’re sick to death anyway.”
“Why don’t you and Anna go and have a drink next door? The two of you can trade vitriol to your heart’s content.”
“My heart’s content,” Jack repeated, laughing. “My heart is not content. The contents of my heart are incontinent. The
invalid
was found to be in
valid
.”
“All right,” Christine said. “Can we at least get back to introductions? After that, we can take the meeting in whatever direction you all want, but I’d at least like to know everyone’s name.”
“Fuck it,” Jack said. “Fuck it all to hell.”
“Jack, stop!” Stuart said. “Be quiet.”
Jack threw up his hands. “Fine. I’m done sharing.”
The group fell silent. Christine turned to Marvin, who was seated next to Anna. He spoke now. “I’m Marvin Blender, Anna’s son-in-law. I’m a sculptor in three mediums. I have a daughter, Flynn. We’re visiting Anna from Alaska, hoping to mend all broken fences and share quality time. I love to tango.”
“It takes two,” Jack said, and smiled. “How did you get the goods?”
“What?” Marvin said.
“How did you contract the virus?”
“Oh, I don’t have—”
Stuart spoke up. “No fair, Jack. You don’t want to share anything about how you got it, so you can’t in good conscience ask someone else this.”
“Nothing’s good about my conscience, darling, which is why we’re here, isn’t it?” He patted Stuart’s knee.
“Uh, well, anyway I don’t—”
“Don’t answer,” Anna said. She turned to Jack. “I thought I made it clear that asking about someone’s health history was unacceptable.”
Jack leveled his look at Anna and fell silent. He shrugged.
Anna resolved to keep quiet for the rest of the meeting. This was terrible. All of it. The illusion that this meeting supported or helped anything. The indignity of the deaths most of them faced. Nick told her early on to emphasize living with AIDS, not dying from it, but that was absurd. The war was over the second the virus entered the body. There was no exhausted surrender after a valiant fight; this was immediate occupation after an unfair siege. Anna thought back to the last days of Hugh’s death,
the extended trips to the house in Maine because he wanted to die there, soothed by the crash of the surf against rocks, the sea breeze wafting in at night. He’d died well, she supposed, which was to say quickly and without undue suffering. This, she thought, looking around now and smelling something sharply intestinal, was not how it was supposed to be. She turned to glance at the man in the wheelchair who was hiding his face in his hands. Others had smelled it, too. The nasty man, Jack, caught her eye and looked away.
Stuart caught Jack’s eye then bent toward Robert, rested his elbow on the arm of the wheelchair. “Do you want me to take you to the bathroom?” Stuart asked. Robert’s breath was a panicked staccato. Stuart knew who he was—anyone who followed gay rights in Boston had at least heard of him. Robert was in his fifties, a political activist who lobbied for antidiscrimination policies. He was tenured at Yale at thirty, a brilliant astrophysicist whose book,
An Amateur’s
Guide to the Stars, had been on the
New York Times
best sellers list for a few months. When he and Jack first walked in, Stuart was sure he recognized Robert from somewhere, but it hadn’t clicked until he excused himself to go to the restroom, and glanced at the bookshelves in the back. The noisy chaos in the room had intensified by the time Stuart returned, so he took Robert’s book back to his seat.
“Look,” Stuart had said quietly, putting the book in Robert’s hand. There were at least three conversations happening at once, including a heated discussion between Anna and the woman in the lavender hat. “Look at what I found in the back.”
Robert had turned the dog-eared copy over. The photograph was taken about ten years ago. He was beautiful then, a young Cary Grant. It was unmistakably the same man, but Robert looked thirty years older than he did in the photograph.
“Oh, yes. I’ve heard of this guy. I think I built a house for him once.” Robert went on to tell Stuart about a life he remembered as a carpenter. He rambled on about dovetail joints and masonry anchors, how to recognize a fine body of wood grain at such length, that Stuart would have assumed he’d been mistaken had he not checked Robert’s last name and date of birth on Robert’s hospital bracelet against the information on the book’s Library of Congress page. The same.
All eyes were now on Stuart and Robert.
“I’m sorry,” Robert said. “My dreams nudge everything out of the way. If I pay attention to what’s in my head, I lose track of what’s happening with my bowels. What a rotten cage.”
“It’s all right, Robert. Don’t worry. Everything is okay,” Christine said.
Stuart stood and got behind Robert’s chair. Christine mouthed, “Room 219.”
Stuart nodded.
“It’s fine,” someone said. “Accidents happen. It’s okay.”
Before Anna could censor herself, she stood, angled her chair out of the circle to get out. “No,” she said. “It is not fine.
Nothing
about this is okay.” She walked out of the dayroom, paced the hallways. Her outburst was inexcusable. She’d have to go back in there and apologize. Or show up for fifteen minutes next week to do it. If she thought the group would accept a simple apology without insisting that they
explore her anger
, Anna would do it now. Anger was anger. Did one need to look at the roots of a tree to identify it? Outrage, like a maple, shed its leaves in season.
At the break, Jack went in search of the Chanel grandma. He followed the scent of her perfume—his sense of smell was razor sharp these days—to the waiting room at the end of the hall, where she was sitting in the corner and shredding the leaves on a potted palm. She looked up as he walked in, then back to the television. “Now what,” she said, so softly that he wasn’t sure he heard correctly.
“I’m Jack,” he said, and sat beside her.
“I know.”
“I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For assuming things I shouldn’t have.”
She tipped her chin up, though he couldn’t tell if the gesture was dismissive or accepting.
“I’m a bitter man,” he said. “I’m good-looking enough to get away with things the less endowed couldn’t.”
She laughed then in a way that gave her whole face a girlish radiance. The silly pink suit now seemed touching instead of aggressive. He felt something in him give way, the sharp geometry of anger and pain blunted a little in her presence.