Have You Found Her (31 page)

“Shhhh,” I said. “Take it easy.”

She tried to sit up, her eyes opening more and more. “What…when did you…”

“Shhhh,” I said again, smiling at her. Here she was, awake. Alive. “You’ve had a rough night and day.”

She shifted again, uncomfortable, and cleared her throat weakly. “I gotta…can you ask the nurse to come?”

She needed a bedpan, her least favorite thing to ask for. I put one on the bed next to her, and she grimaced as she tried to grasp it. “I’ll go get the nurse.”

I got the nurse and left them alone for a few minutes, pacing the hall right outside the room. Heard the sounds of Sam vomiting—sitting up didn’t agree with her—and the nurse washing the basins in the sink. I reentered the room, pretending to knock as I came around the curtain.

“How’s it going?”

Sam lay back against the pillows. She looked like she’d been flattened by a steamroller. “Better,” she panted.

And she was, a little; she recouped somewhat that afternoon. By the time Maria got there that evening, Sam was propped up in bed, listening to me read aloud from
The Curious Incident
.

“How’s our girl?” asked Maria, rushing into the room, hair flying behind her. “There she is. [
Smooch!
] I was so worried about you! They said this morning you were…not so hot.”

“I’m a little better,” said Sam, cracking a tired smile as Maria petted her hair.

Maria shot me a look over Sam’s head.
And how are
you?

I shook my head at her.
Not good
. “Hi there,” I said, outwardly jovial. “How’s it going?”

“All right. I had to call in a bunch of favors to get out of work, but here I am.” She spread her arms like the angel of good cheer and let them drop again. “So she’s been resting today?”

“Nurse just took all her vitals; she said she’s doing a lot better than earlier.”

“Fantastic! Good girl.” Maria pulled up a second chair, and Sam slowly turned her head Maria’s way.

“So listen,” I began.

This was always my exit gambit—
So listen
.
Maria, here’s the baton; I’m passing it to you
. I was done for the day; I was more than done. Next time Sam was going to almost die, I wanted it to be on someone else’s watch. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I promised Sam. “Hang in there, okay?”

Tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. By September 12, Sam was starting to improve. Her fever was down, and she was awake, moving around; she even got out of bed so she wouldn’t have to use the bedpan. September 13, she was sitting up, surfing the Internet, and eating solid foods. September 14, they had to do another spinal tap on her, to see if the infection had spread again.

Why did they put her through this, when her system was already so weak? And why did they always do it when I was there? A new doctor, an older guy, and a young dark-haired nurse whom I recognized from the floor came in with their torture tray, numbed Sam’s back, and plunged in the pick.
“Ow!”

I squeezed her hand and told her more about Disney World, per her request. “And then day two, we’ll go to Epcot, and they’ve got this ride that’s like you’re hang gliding over California—”

“Ow!”

“Ow!” I echoed involuntarily. “It’s okay, it’s okay, Sam.”

The doctor dug around in Sam’s lower back, sweating and cursing under his breath. The dark-haired nurse looked at me with tears in her eyes. “You’re a good friend,” she said.

September 15 was a bad day, but not as bad as the week before. Sam was feverish, achy, anxious, angry; Valentina wanted to give up their apartment share and room with someone else, and the hospital’s social worker, Felicia, told Sam that she wasn’t going to file for benefits to cover home care. “Felicia said she won’t file until they’re sure I’m going to be leaving the hospital.
Of course
I’m leaving the hospital!”

Of course
. It was this kind of thinking that was keeping Sam from signing the health-care proxy, which I’d left on her nightstand with a pen for the past week, with a Post-it note that said “Sign me.” She didn’t need a proxy—she was going to be fine. Look at how much better she’d gotten already! She wasn’t supposed to live through the meningitis, but she did, didn’t she? The doctors didn’t know anything.

“Do you want me to try to talk to the social worker?” I asked. “I know it must be hard for you to deal with everyone, all the doctors and social workers and everything.”

“Mmm, I can handle it. But thanks, Janice.”

“No problem,” I said, smiling through my disappointment. “Just part of my job.”

Friday, September 16, she had another eye injection. The eye was practically dead by then, the retina floating in a sea of murk. It was unnerving, watching her go blinder by the day, watching her face grow a little dimmer from the bulb that couldn’t be replaced. But she’d still smile, she’d still say things with remarkable force—“I’m
so
pissed at Valentina, I can’t believe she’s moving out,” or “I
hate
the night nurse, she’s such a bitch.” She still wanted to play pranks. Maria called, and Sam whispered, “Tell her I’m real bad today. Tell her they moved me back to Intensive Care.”

“I will tell her no such thing,” I replied sternly. “She’s fine,” I reported into the phone. “She’s even feisty today. She’s going downstairs for another eyeball shot soon.”

“Ugh. All right. Wish her my best, tell her I’ll be down there this evening. And if we don’t overlap, have a
great
wedding on Sunday. I wish we could be there!”

Me too
. What I wouldn’t have given to see Sam there, even in her wheelchair with an IV pole rolling beside her, but it was not to be. Instead, I spent the penultimate day before my wedding watching (or not exactly “watching,” more like “cringing in the vicinity of”) Samantha getting another eyeball injection.
“Ow!”

Maria and I did in fact overlap that evening, and she gave me one of her smooches for luck. Sam grinned at me from her bed. “Congratulations, Janice, it’s gonna be so great. Bill’s such an awesome guy. Remember, you said you’d save me a piece of cake!”

I held her hand, reluctant to let it go; her scarred and bony hand, so much bigger than mine. “Okay. But if I get a chance tomorrow, I’ll call, and if anything happens—”

“Go!”
said Maria, laughing. “And don’t call. You have to get married this weekend; that’s your job!”

“All right.” I leaned in for smooches of my own, laughing back through the tears in my eyes. “I love you, and I love you. I wish you could be there on Sunday! I’ll miss you!”

“Love you, too,” said Maria, and Sam echoed it, waving good-bye like she was on the deck of a receding cruise ship.

“I love you, too, Janice. Bye!”

Chapter Thirteen

I Did

         
I
woke up at 7
A.M.
on my wedding day with a head-splitting fever, body aches, nausea, and chills.

I’d known it the day before, running around to get manicured, buying baby’s breath for my hair and foot pads for my shoes:
I’m getting sick again
. I tried to write it off as nerves, as excitement, but I knew what was happening—I’d come down with this same virus twice in the past six months. I washed my hands constantly at the hospital, always made sure to dress in layers so I could go in and out of the air-conditioning comfortably, popped vitamin C and zinc lozenges that tasted like rust on my tongue. And still, it was my wedding day, and I was fucking sick.

I let Bill sleep and drew a hot bath, sat trembling inside the tub until the water cooled. Every swallow was a sharp pain, every sound and beam of light pierced me right through the sinuses. I struggled out of the bath and tried to down some Tylenol, only to heave it up five minutes later.

I redrew the bath and started to cry. This was so unfair; why today? I felt like I could barely move; couldn’t we have this big party we’d been planning for months on Tuesday? I’d be feeling so much better by Tuesday. I just needed some antibiotics. Run me up to the hospital, stick Sam’s tube in my arm for a day or two, and I’d be raring to go.
Fucking shit
. I felt so angry, so cheated, so sorry for myself. I didn’t deserve this, not on the happiest day of my life.

Bill woke up, unhappily assessed the situation, tried to get me hydrated, watched me heave up the water. He called my folks. “Are you sure it’s not just nerves?” they asked. “Maybe there’s a doctor who makes house calls.”

I dragged myself back to bed, my whole body throbbing. Slept for a fitful hour or two, woke up in a sweat. Tossed down the Gatorade Bill had supplied me, managed to keep the Tylenol down this time, and lit a joint. The all-purpose cure. My arms and legs still ached, clenching without my say-so, but I thrust myself into the shower and packed my bag for the hotel.

“I am going to get my hair done,” I announced. “I don’t care how shitty I feel—this is my one excuse in life to wear flowers on my head, and I am taking it. I will see you back here in an hour and a half, and then we’re going to the hotel. Okay?”

Bill kissed me gingerly, his germy bride-to-be. “Sounds great, Shmoo. Call me from the hair place if you need anything.”

My head was hot and pounding, but the lady at the hair place down the block made it look pretty nice anyway. I set off for home again holding it high, enjoying the looks I was getting on the street, in my jeans and sweatshirt and hairdo full of foliage. The spacey feeling of the virus was highlighted by the surreality of the situation—
This is it. I’m getting married today. Holy shit. It’s happening.

It seemed to be sinking in with Bill, too. By the time I got home again, he was looking a little pale and flustered himself, running around the house and double-checking his bag. “Cuff links…socks…collar stays…” My folks checked in by phone again. “Eat a banana,” suggested Sylvia, an ex-nurse. “They’re very hard to throw up.” I ate a banana, waited to make sure it stayed down, then we summoned the cats with a handful of tuna-flavored treats.

“Mommy and Poppy are getting married today,” we told the tops of their heads as they ignored us, crunching and snarfing at our feet. “So be good, and we’ll see you in the morning.”

Then we wheeled our bags across Union Square Park to the hotel.
Sam,
I thought, as we passed the dog run. How much I wished she was going to be there. I pictured Maria at her bedside, finishing off
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
, or maybe they were watching
Law & Order
. The doctors didn’t tend to do too many tests or taps or injections on the weekends; it was probably an uneventful day. If I got dressed early enough, maybe I’d give a call.

We checked in to the bridal suite, toured the banquet room, saw the florist arranging the bouquets Sylvia had helped me choose. I clutched my vows, ink on my palms, muttering them to myself in a last-minute attempt to memorize them.
I never imagined that I would find a partner like you. You are everything I wish for everyone I love
. My folks arrived, as did Bill’s family; they installed themselves in their respective rooms, and we started to dress for the occasion.

Whatever virus I had was now completely overshadowed by excitement and stage fright. Across the room, Bill buttoned his shirt, grinning at me. My hands were shaking almost too much to tie the strap of my dress behind my neck, and my feet wobbled in their high heels. I put in my earrings, and Bill came up behind me in the mirror, turned me around to face him. “You look so beautiful,” he said.

It didn’t strike me as bad luck to be seen by Bill before the wedding. Bad luck would have been being separated from him. I tried to hug him without getting makeup on his suit. “I love you so much.”

He smiled down at me, my tender and true-hearted man. “Well, then, maybe we should do this after all.”

We went downstairs to the banquet room with our families to greet our guests.

The next few hours were a dream. We were surrounded by dear friends and loved ones, all of them smiling—“We’re so happy for you!” My brother looked so handsome and grown-up in his suit. Bill’s best men surrounded him, clapping his back. About two hours into the affair, we took our places at the front of the room and exchanged our unofficiated vows.

Bill, you show me so much patience, caring, understanding, and appreciation; you inspire me and enrich my life. I promise to be the best partner I can be….

Janice, I want to spend the rest of my life showing you, every day, how grateful I am that I found you. You are my home, and I love you….

Jake brought us our rings—I’d been missing mine all day, fingering the empty space on my right hand where I’d grown accustomed to fiddling with it. Now Bill and I took the rings and placed them on each other’s left hands.

“Here we go,” he said.

“Here we go.”

We kissed.

And so it was done. But not the party—the party lasted for hours more—and I danced with everyone without my shoes on, my face a collage of lipstick kisses, grinning until my cheeks ached. I toasted a hundred times with my water glass, still unable to eat or drink anything more than supplemental Tylenol, though I did manage to force down a few bites of wedding cake, for ceremony’s sake. And when the aunts and uncles said good night, and the deejay and bartenders started packing up, we moved the party upstairs to the bridal suite, where it raged (quietly) for hours more. Then I looked over at Bill, and he gave a not-so-subtle yawn and stretch, and all of our remaining guests immediately realized they had pressing business elsewhere. They wished us one more round of congratulations and skedaddled.

We sat on the edge of the hotel bed, strewn with rose petals by my girlfriends, fancy chocolates in boxes on the pillows. This was life—roses and chocolates, and Bill by my side, my hand in his. He lifted my chin, looked into my eyes, and kissed me. The newlywed Mr. and Ms. Shmoo.

There was no question, now—we were going on our honeymoon.

“Five days,” I told Sam, calling from the waiting room at my doctor’s office the next morning. “We’re leaving for Bermuda on Saturday, so you better be feeling better this week.”

“I am,” she swore. “Yesterday was kind of crummy, but I’m a lot better today. When are you coming up? Did you leave the hairdo in? I want to see it. How was it? Do you feel different now? Did you save me a piece of cake, like you said?”

I laughed at the way she jumped all over me like a puppy, even over the phone. “Yeah, I saved you some cake. And yeah, I feel different. But I had to take out the hairdo—sorry. I’ll show you the pictures, though—we took a bunch. And listen, I don’t know if I should come up there today. I’ve got some kind of virus. I’m here at the doctor’s right now. I don’t want to add to your load. But I’ll come up tomorrow, how’s that?”

“All right,” she said, a little dejected. “I’m sorry you’re sick, that sucks.”

“Yeah, I’m all right.” I couldn’t really complain to Sam about feeling sick, not when she’d spent the past seventeen days in the hospital again, getting spinal fluid scraped out of her back and needles stuck into her face, vomiting blood until it was almost banal, even for me—
Ho hum, bloody vomit again, I’ll just stop up my nose from the inside and breathe through my mouth while I hold up this trough for her
. “And I’ll see you tomorrow, I promise.”

“Okay. But wait, one more thing…” And she went off on sixteen more things.

But she didn’t disappoint me—she did start to get better. We’d all grown accustomed to a cycle: a few days of high fever, a new site of infection to treat, a shift or an increase in the medication, and then a few days of recovery. Then she’d crash again. But now she was managing to put together a string of mostly good days in a row. Her appetite was healthy, and the tests showed improvements in her organs.

“Doctors say I’m doing good,” she reported when I saw her that Tuesday, and my visual assessment said the same—she was sharp, her color vivid, and her eyes clear, except for the one with the floating retina. “They say if I keep this up for a week or two, I can go from IV antibiotics to oral, and they’ll start thinking about sending me home.”

“That’s great.” She had ten times the energy she had last week. I missed three days of visiting her in a row, and look what happened—she improved. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“Yeah, except right now I got nowheres to go. Valentina’s moving out of our place this week. Maria’s driving by there tonight to pick up all my stuff, just so it doesn’t wind up on the street.” Sam scowled. “Which is so fucked up, because Valentina never woulda been able to get that place without me, and without my friends helping her. I mean, if you didn’t put down that deposit, we never woulda got that place, and is she going to pay you back now?”

“I’m not worried about that,” I assured her. “And we can always find you a new place.” I smiled, trying to hide my confusion. They were really talking about discharging her? Last time they checked her T cells, she had
twenty
. She shouldn’t have been sitting up and chirping at me like a parakeet; they shouldn’t have been talking about sending her home. To a hospice, maybe, but not home. “Has Dr. F. been by today?”

“No, she’s off for the next few days for the Jewish holidays. But that reminds me.” She reached over into the drawer of her nightstand, pulled out a sheet of paper, and presented it to me. “Here.”

The health-care proxy. She’d finally signed it. My eyes lighted up, and my smile was genuine this time. “Oh, great! Great. I’ll go tell them to put this on file.”

Sam looked proud of herself for doing this thing that meant so much to me. “They already have one. This is my copy. But you can take it and make a copy for you, if you want.”

“That’s great.” I beamed. I wanted to lean over and kiss her forehead, but I didn’t want to get germs on her. “Maybe when Dr. F. gets back, and I’m back from the honeymoon, we can all sit down with Maria and get up-to-date on everything that’s been going on.”

“All right.”

I left the hospital early that evening, still exhausted from the virus and the wedding and the aftermath. Got home with time to spare and food in the fridge and started to make some vegetarian tacos.

Bill came home, and we kissed hello—a
married
kiss. “How was your day?” he asked. “How’s the patient?”

“Recuperating,” I said. “Amazingly. They’re even talking about sending her home, if she keeps this up.”

“Honey, that’s great.”

“Well, it would be great, except for the fact that Valentina moved out, and Sam’s losing the lease on their room. So, aside from the hospital, she has no home.”

“
Oy vey
,” he said. “It never ends.”

“I know.” Bill washed his hands and jumped into the dinner preparations. “She’s really pissed at Valentina, too, which I understand, but I also understand where Valentina’s coming from—I mean, you have to figure she’s seen people go down this road before. She doesn’t want to sit around and wait for Sam to die so she can get a new roommate and move on with her life. Better for her to detach now, you know? She’s got to take care of herself; she’s had it tough enough. She’s just trying to stay in school, and not go back to tricking full-time, I think.”