Between Friends (15 page)

MacKinnon thought a visit to the dialysis center would be just the thing. I told him he had an interesting sense of humor, but on Wednesday I found myself changing clothes three times, as if I were going on a first date, and driving to the dialysis center across from the hospital.

I sat in the parking lot for more than half an hour looking at the center and fantasizing about going to the coffee shop across the street for a contraband espresso instead. I’d quit caffeine as abruptly as I’d quit potato chips, and I wasn’t sure which I missed more on most days. But when considering basic quality of life—and staring at that facility from the parking lot made me consider hard—coffee won, hands down.

The center was painted a dusky pink, an odd sunset of a building that held me mesmerized, envisioning the shadowy goings-on within it.

Nobody entered and nobody exited for the thirty minutes I sat there. I’d hoped to get a glimpse of a human, some living breathing thing I could use as a barometer of what to expect, but nothing moved until I finally did.

Research,
I told myself.
Go do your research. It’s all black and white. Knowledge is the only thing in our control.

And so I went.

The social worker gave me the tour. She was lovely, and informative, and encouraged me to come back the next week to sit in on a patient meeting. And she was careful to not overwhelm me.

And I wanted to shake her.

Because I wanted,
needed
, to be overwhelmed, because I knew how to be obsessive, and I knew how to use information as a way to hide, and if ever there was a time I wanted to hide, it was right then.

The scale across from the front desk was like something you’d see in a veterinarian’s office, and I stepped on its shiny metal surface briefly, felt the change under my shoes, felt the chill of it radiating up my ankles, then stepped off it to follow the social worker into the main room of the center. The room with the chairs, the machines.

The people.

The chairs were arranged in groups of four, a
pod
, the social worker said, like the patients were happy peas. There was one empty pod toward the back, and I followed her to it, trying to not stare at the people in the chairs, all of them covered to the neck in blankets, as we passed. It was quiet, individual televisions attached to the chairs turned low, technicians tapping keyboards.

One woman knitted, and a young man in a baseball cap read, iPod buds firmly planted in his ears. Everyone else appeared to be either watching TV or sleeping, and I wondered how I would fill my time, unable to even get up to use the bathroom or walk around. I didn’t see myself taking up knitting.

As the social worker pointed out the features of the chair to me (heated, massage), I felt eyes on me and turned to find the young man in the hat gazing at me frankly, sweeping up and down my frame. Had I been younger, or even simply looked better, I might have thought he was checking me out, but no, this was just the standard fellow patient assessment.

We were the youngest two patients in the room, aside from a woman in the first pod who had fallen asleep, two framed photos on the tray in front of her. He, of course, wondered what was wrong with me, and I couldn’t help but wonder what was wrong with him.

“Cora?” the social worker prodded me, and I realized that I hadn’t heard anything she’d said for several minutes. She was gesturing at the chair.

“Sorry,” I said, trying to concentrate.

“You’ll have the same team every time, you’ll have the same chair, the same dialyzer. Everything is computerized, and your information will be automatically sent to Dr. MacKinnon as well as to your insurance.”

She smiled and nodded at me as if expecting something in return.

“That’s . . . efficient,” I said.

She tilted her head at me, and I struggled to recall her name.

“Dee,” I finally said, “he’s so young . . .”

Her eyes never left my face. “Yes.”

I didn’t continue. I didn’t want to know, and it was obvious that she wouldn’t tell me anyway. I supposed I should have been grateful for that; at least they took patient confidentiality seriously.

“Would you like to meet the dietitian today?” Dee asked gently.

I realized, abruptly, and with gratitude, that Dee was very, very good at her job. I was—had been—good at my job, and I knew the signs. And Dee had them. She’d paid attention; she’d adjusted her tone of voice and amount of information; she’d let me feel in control.

I needed that.

“No,” I said. “Thank you, though.”

“Okay. We’re here for anything you need, any questions you have; any time you want to stop back in, we’re here.”

It should have been reassuring, and yet it filled me with dread. “I have a lot of information for you, cookbooks, and information packets, and, oh, just about anything you might have questions about. Why don’t you grab a seat, and I’ll get it all together for you?”

“Okay,” I said, smiling at a tired-looking woman in the reception area and taking a chair next to the door.

“Picking up?’ the woman asked as Dee left.

“Oh, no,” I said, leaving it at that. She wasn’t deterred.

“Getting information? For you?”

I cleared my throat and looked toward the hallway Dee had disappeared down.

“Yes. For me.”

“When will you start?”

“Don’t really know,” I said, shaking my head.

The woman tilted her head to the side and studied me, then smiled, leaned forward, and stuck her hand out. “I’m Susan. Brandon, my son, likes me to be here toward the end. When he was younger, we had a few problems when they disconnected. Now, well, now it’s just a tradition, you know?”

I didn’t, no, but I nodded and shook her hand, and said, “I’m Cora.”

“Is this your first visit?”

“Yes, it is.” And then, because she seemed to be waiting for me to make polite conversation, I asked, “Has Brandon been coming for long?”

“Oh, yes, since he was about seven. He’s nineteen now; we just moved him over from the pediatric center last year. They’re good here; we’ve only had a couple of problems, cramping, you know. And sometimes that just can’t be helped. So, you haven’t started yet? Got your access?”

“Uh, next week, a graft.”

She appraised me again, as if she could see beneath my skin. “Anyone step up for a transplant yet?”

I laughed, shocked at her boldness, but I supposed when you’d been doing this for three days a week for twelve years, this might be a perfectly normal conversation to have.

“No. How about for Brandon?”

“Oh, yeah, we’ve gotten the call four times. None ever came through, though. I gave him one of mine when he was eleven, but he rejected at fifteen, so it’s been back on hemo ever since.”

I didn’t laugh at that. Susan hooked her thumb toward the woman with the frames on her tray and lowered her voice.

“Flora, she’s been called eight times. But no luck. Her girls—you’ll see them when you leave, they wait outside with their grandmother—they’re the most beautiful little things you’ve ever seen. Do you have children?”

“I—no, I don’t,” I replied.

She nodded. “It’s tough on kids, watching parents go through this.” She laughed a little. “’ Course it’s hard on parents watching their kids go through it, too.”

Dee returned with a stack of pamphlets, and I thanked her and stood to leave. Susan looked at her watch and stood, too.

“Hey,” she said, “why don’t you come back and meet him before you go?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I don’t want to disturb anyone.”

“He’d really love it,” she said. “It can get pretty boring for him here.”

“Well, okay,” I said, shrinking from it but unable to resist her hopeful expression. Dee patted my arm as I followed Susan back to the third pod. The technician looked up from her computer at us and smiled.

“We’ll be about fifteen more minutes,” she said softly, and Susan nodded.

“Thanks, Shelly. I want to introduce him to a new friend real quick.”

“Okay,” she said.

Brandon looked up expectantly as we approached, yanking his earbuds out by the cord.

“Brandon, this is Cora,” Susan said. “She’s going to start hemo soon. I thought she’d like to meet you.”

He gave me that steady once-over again.

“I’m doing my orientation,” I said, feeling the need to explain my presence.

He leaned his head back against the chair.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured. You got that look.”

I didn’t ask what look, and he didn’t elaborate.

“When do you start?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “They’re doing my access next week.”

“Well, when you start, try to get a chair next to me. I’ll tell you everything you need to know.”

I smiled at him, the ambassador of dialysis. His sullenness seemed more like simple fatigue to me now, something I could readily identify with.

“We’re about ready,” Shelly said pointedly.

“Okay, well, it was nice to meet you, Brandon.”

“See you later,” he said.

Susan walked me back to the corridor.

“Thanks,” she said. “He’s such a good kid, and he likes meeting new people.”

“Well, good luck. I hope you get a good call soon and it works out.”

“Oh, we will,” she said. “I have to go, but listen, good luck to you, too, okay? This isn’t the end, you know? You can have a whole happy life on dialysis; it’s all in what you bring to it.”

“Thanks,” I said, trying for a smile, fearing that it appeared as little more than a grimace, and dropped it, raising a hand instead.

As I left I passed an older woman sitting on the bench outside, watching two little girls playing in the grass beside the center, their dark hair lifting in the breeze. She gave me a wave, and I waved back but hustled to the car, avoiding more conversation and thinking about Flora, the girls’ mother who wouldn’t allow them inside.

I slumped in the driver’s seat, letting the heat that had built up envelop me, unable to start the car for a few minutes, thinking of Brandon, and Flora, and the community I was about to join against my will.

When I finally had the strength to start the car, I drove across the street to the coffee shop and had a double espresso.

Benny and I continued our fight on the phone for the first week, and I hovered close by when he had brief conversations with a subdued Letty, watching for any signs that he was taking his anger out on her. But eventually his tone gentled, and we started having short bursts of affectionate, playful banter that wove in and out of our more serious talks.

He started to drive past the store a couple of times a day in his cruiser. He never stopped, and I’d found myself watching for him, looking forward to it, raising my hand in a wave that he returned with a hesitant half salute of his own.

After almost two weeks had passed, he called me on my cell after work. I smiled involuntarily when I saw his name pop up on the phone display and answered before it had a chance to ring twice.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey, Al. How are you? Are you okay? How’s Letty?” he asked in a rush, as if afraid I’d hang up.

“I’m fine, Letty’s fine. How are you?”

“I’m doing okay. I just wanted to call to tell you that I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.”

“Okay,” I said cautiously.

“Well, I thought you should know,” he said, pausing and taking a deep breath before continuing quickly, “I’ve set up an appointment with the department psychologist.”

“Really? When?”

“He wants me to come in Tuesday and Thursday next week. It was the first time he could get me in.”

“Twice?” I asked. “You told him what was happening?”

“Yeah, I told him, you know, as much as I could without going in for a full visit,” he said.

“That’s good, Benny. Are you still having the nightmares?”

He was silent for a moment, and then said, “Yeah. I’m not sleeping much, though. I miss you. I miss Letty.”

“We miss you, too,” I whispered.

“Is she there? Could I talk to her?”

“She and Cora walked down to the beach,” I said, “but I’ll have her call you later.”

“Is she being good for you?” he asked. “Where she’s supposed to be, and when?”

“She’s doing fine. Don’t worry, she’s being punished appropriately.”

Of course she wasn’t, not really. I dropped her at school and Cora picked her up, and she didn’t go anywhere without one or both of us, but she’d been flying again, and we’d been out to dinner a couple of times. She wasn’t exactly suffering. I knew I was probably being too light on her.

“Of course. You—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “You were right to leave, Ali. You’re a good example for Letty. You’re a good mother to our daughter, the best I could have hoped for.”