Authors: Emily Gray Tedrowe
“I’m taking care of
Ed,
” Lolo said. “Here.” She pulled a folded sheaf of stapled printouts out of her purse.
Lacey scanned them, caught off guard by the conversation taking shape. What did Lolo know about her fears for the future?
Discharge Plan: Edgardo Diaz. Next Steps in Home Care. Approved Funding: Medication, Equipment, Mobility Retrofit.
Wow. “You got weekly transportation to the base? That’s … incredible.” Lacey had been stymied at every turn for even a monthly ride for Eddie. Full-time transitional care nursing during the week, overnights when needed, pharmacy delivery. “This is … this is incredible, Mom. How did you get all this?” About half the items on here, already approved, were ones Lacey had given up on weeks ago after her every request was denied. And she wasn’t alone! Nobody in Building 18, as far as she knew, had gotten this much from Transition.
“I know how an office works,” Lolo said.
Don’t forget
, her virtuous smile said,
you’re looking at a senior secretary for Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer
.
“Well…” Lacey struggled to contain all her frustrated questions. She knew how these offices worked too, dammit! “This is great. It’s going to make things a lot easier for Eddie. And me,” she went on carefully. “But I don’t know why you didn’t tell me about this.”
Permanent Address,
on one of the forms. Entered neatly in the line next to it:
28 Carroll Street, City Island, New York.
“Ah, Lacey. You know. We know.”
“We know
what,
Mom? Let’s just focus on the surgery today, all right? One thing at a time.” Her heart was pounding.
“He’ll live with me. You can come all you want. But it’s all right now. You can let it go.”
“Let it go?” Lacey cried. “What are you talking about?”
“We did a special prayer meeting about it, me and Father Dorian. He says it’s okay. My baby might never get all better. But God is good, he came home. He came home to me.”
“He’s getting better, Mom! He’s in there right now so they can save his eye!”
“But his brain,” Lolo said. “He’s not gonna be a full man.” She broke down crying, and Lacey did too. “But I—I give thanks for that I can hug him, that I can have my son back. God is good.”
“Mom, Mom. Shh, it’s okay.” They clasped their hands, all four together in a pile, Lolo’s rings pinching Lacey.
Her mother-in-law recovered first, wiping under her sunglasses. “You did all this for him, here. You did everything.”
“Of course I did, Mom. What do you mean?”
“Now you can go on.” In the silence after she said this, Lolo looked straight at Lacey. “Father Dorian agrees.”
“Go … on?”
“I know it wasn’t so good. I’m not making the judgment, but I have eyes. I didn’t think it would last, you know I never did, even before … this. I was wrong. You were a good fighter for him, Lacey.”
The painful sweetness of Lolo’s understanding was too much. Lacey’s head dropped down, almost to her knees.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Father D says we can’t know about a person’s marriage but I think I know. Look at me. Look. Yes?”
Lacey made herself uncover her face, and nod. “But that doesn’t mean I want to—that I ever thought of not—” What was happening? What were they saying?
“So. Good.” Lolo sniffed with finality. She actually opened her magazine again while Lacey reeled. A thousand images and memories came rushing in while she struggled to understand what it meant to take Lolo up on this. The ways she knew Eddie: How he hated not getting the joke and would google references later that he hadn’t understood, even minor ones, that he’d pretended at the time to get. How he yelled at her for buying tissues with lotion because they were a dollar more, but once loaned a guy from work $300 because his wife lost her job. How he loved fireworks, would stare up at them openmouthed, knew all the different kinds: peony, crossette, multibreak shells, cake. How he made her wash before they had sex, how he had to wash after. How he never hit her, not even once, but his suppressed anger was so much worse that she used to wish maybe he would. How he taught Otis card games like spit and slapjack, but once told him Pop Warner was boring as hell and he couldn’t stand the games. How he punched a man on the street who was cursing out some girl, how he couldn’t bear to hear people slag off their parents. How he slept tightly curled up all the way on the side of the bed, flinching in annoyance if Lacey cuddled behind him. How he was incredibly embarrassed about a chipped incisor but refused to go the dentist—he just made sure to smile thinly, smile less.
“But what about … what about Otis?” Lacey blurted.
Lolo snapped her a fierce look. “What about Otis what? You think I won’t have my boy over to see his Lolo? Every weekend, every time I want? Every time
he
want.”
“Okay.” She was trembling.
“You’ll drive him to me. When he want. Or I do.”
“Yes.”
Lacey couldn’t say anything more. There was no ground beneath her feet and her mind was clawing around in empty air, trying to find a place to land. What did Lolo know about her affair with Jim? What kind of person would she be, to accept this, to let her damaged husband live with his mother and not with her? The future was torn open, a wild whistling air now blown in to scatter everything she thought she knew.
Several hours later, they crowded into the recovery room where Eddie was coming up from the anesthesia. The surgeon said he was surprised—the procedure was as much of a success as anyone could possibly have hoped. He gave Lacey credit for pushing them to explore the options and admitted he hadn’t given today’s work much of a chance. But once the remainder of the swelling went down Eddie would have 60 to 70 percent sight in his eye. Even now, they were told, he was seeing clearer shapes and colors.
Lacey and Lolo hovered over him in the bed for at least an hour, while the nurses kept close watch on his vitals. He was pale and twitchy at first but grew increasingly calm once he understood who was there, both women on either side of him. They spoke softly and cheerfully to Eddie as he swung his head back and forth between them. The lid over the socket for his missing eye was neatly sewn down; Lacey wasn’t sure if he’d ever understand what he had lost there.
And what he had gained back. Because early the next morning when the bandages were slowly unrolled she watched as her husband’s remaining eye opened, and blinked, and slowly tracked its way around the room past every smiling face until it rested on Lolo.
“Mom,” Eddie said, in wonder. And then he laughed, slow and sweet.
“The worst risk would be septic shock.” Lacey’s words brought Ellen to a complete stop outside Helen C. White, the phone pressed to her ear. “But that’s nothing like what’s happening now, I mean. It’s a bad infection in his gut, is what they told me, probably started with a urinary tract thing. He’s already on two different antibiotics on IV.”
“All right.” Ellen stayed calm. Michael had had infections before; hardly anyone on Ward 57 escaped them because of all the open wounds and compromised immune systems. “Bacterial, you said?”
“Yes. But not that fucked-up Iraqi kind. What’s it called, acino-something?”
“Acinetobacter, I think. They gave us a flyer about it at one point.”
“Well, all he’s got is our good ol’ American e. coli—so that’s good.”
Wind pressed a newspaper sheet against the bike rack and sent candy wrappers into a knee-high tornado on the bare concrete plaza outside the library. It was Ellen’s third day in a row coming here to work; she’d reserved a faculty carrel in the basement after making sure it had no Internet access and little cell reception.
“When did it start?” she asked.
“He had a fever day before yesterday, I guess, but then it went away … and came back big-time last night.”
“Is he conscious? Is he in pain?”
“Yes, but sleeping a lot. No, I don’t think so.” Lacey hesitated. “That nurse he likes has been on shift … Rob Base or whatever.”
“Rob Beers. Good, I’m glad.” Ellen shifted her briefcase strap to the other shoulder. “You can talk about her, you know. About Jane. It’s not a verboten subject.”
Even if she hasn’t called me about this. Or anything.
“Is she all right?”
“Yeah, totally.” There was relief in Lacey’s voice. “There’s no contagion except for direct contact, so she’s wearing gloves and a mask. I mean, most of the time. And she’s cleaned up their room a little…”
“She’s staying in Mologne, is that right? In my room?”
“Yes. Look, I’ll do whatever you want, Ellen. If you want me to get all up in their business and make sure things are done like you say, I will. You know I can boss the shit out of those kids. Or I can … you know, keep it on the down low. And let you know what’s going on.”
“Be my mole, you mean?” Ellen laughed despite herself. “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m sure Dr. Rodwick will get the infection under control, if it’s not already. Having Rob on duty will be good for him, and as for Jane…” She trailed off. “I’m sure she’ll figure it out.”
“Right.” Lacey sounded as if she wanted to say more.
“How much longer for you? That’s wonderful about Eddie’s vision.” Ellen shook her watch out of her sleeve to check the time.
“Well, we had T.O. orders for week after next but there was a snafu. No surprises there. So it’s looking like three weeks now.”
“Good, good.”
“Yeah, but … will I see you before then? Before we get out of here?”
“Probably not.” Cloud shadows skittered across the plaza, and Ellen stepped out from under the awning to feel the bright sunlight on top of her head. “I’m very busy with work—in fact I’m at school right now.”
“You said your classes were all being taught by someone else.”
“It’s not only about
teaching,
Lacey. I have to write too. That’s part of my job! In fact I have a tentative deadline for an introduction that … Never mind.”
“The thing is I think that Jane might—”
“I’m sure Jane is quite happy there’s half a country between us. She got her wish. Anyway, I can’t simply drop everything and fly back there whenever there’s a bump in the road!” Ellen closed her eyes to the sun, dismayed at how high-pitched her voice had become.
“Okay, I get it.”
“I’m sorry. I’m a little preoccupied. Could I give you a call back later?”
“Don’t worry about it. Good luck on the writing.” Before Ellen could think of how to soften her tone, Lacey hung up. Had there been a faint emphasis on that last word?
Good luck on the
writing. So Lacey was mad at her now too. So what?
Edith Wharton wouldn’t have given two bits about someone’s hurt feelings when there was so much to be done in war-engulfed Paris. Aside from her own prodigious output of letters, editorials, and fiction, Wharton threw herself into war work: raising money, organizing charity efforts, hounding the Red Cross, and badgering friends and acquaintances to do more, give more, be more. During this time the eminent society writer became a single-minded formidable presence on the home front. Ellen had always avoided this time period in Wharton’s life (many scholars did, unhappy with the rich writer’s energetic prowar stance) but now all she wanted to do was to look right at what had happened to her favorite writer on the home front during war. So without allowing herself to dwell on the sadness in Lacey’s questions—or the worry about Michael’s fever, or the frustration of Jane, always frustration and Jane—Ellen briskly submerged herself in the library’s underground cement layers, flashing the guard her ID and a smile.
* * *
Ellen was working again. It had come back to her, slowly at first and then gaining speed, over the course of the last week and a half. She read now, in great swooshing gulps, both new texts and books that were as familiar to her as her own hands. She read in long, steady, intent stretches, pausing only to type a few notes, roll her neck, or pet Maisie. Her desire for words again was as physical as hunger—which made sense, because her appetite had come roaring back too. She ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She cooked for herself at home: steel cut oatmeal with dried cherries and brown sugar; buttery risotto with fresh radishes sprinkled in sea salt; one perfect piece of grilled salmon placed on top of a tangle of bitter greens. She went out to dinner with Serena, and with Debbie Masterson, and even (almost) with Paul, who canceled at the last minute. Ellen ate well, she slept well, and she read through Edith Wharton’s war fiction period—the novels, stories, and surrounding scholarship—as deeply as she knew how.
That copy of
A Son at the Front
was the first domino. After reading the novel and rereading the well-executed academic introduction, Ellen wondered what it would have been like to encounter this novel at Walter Reed in a popular edition. With an introduction that, yes, situated the text in both Wharton’s oeuvre and the political context of the day … but went on to explain what this novel could mean to readers today, at home during a war of the twenty-first century?
Well
, she asked herself,
what did it mean to me? Now, after those months in the hospital at Michael’s side?
Did Edith Wharton’s depiction of the wounded boys of World War I have anything to say to … Martha Whitehead, for example, whose boy three rooms down from Mike had lost both hands and most of his torso skin when a grenade blew up in the flatbed back of his truck? She had another son still stationed in Anbar Province. Or to Rosalie, who had run Ward 57’s nurses’ station since before the first U.S. invasion of Iraq? What could a book like this mean to any of the women who had gathered for spaghetti at Ellen’s invitation, burned-out on army incompetence and whooping it up at one another’s tales of woe?
What could it mean to Lacey?
Ellen started writing and she held on to both in her mind: years of knowledge about this writer, and the women at Walter Reed. She read and wrote, read and wrote. She kept it simple and personal, for the first time. And through the Wharton-studies grapevine she reached out to a half-dozen editors at literary publishing houses.
Maybe,
they said, when she pitched the idea of reissuing
A Son at the Front
and possibly other little-known Wharton books, with a new introduction “highlighting Wharton’s writing about war, now more timely than ever.”
Send us a proposal
.