Kay edged back into the orange vinyl seat, propped her elbow on the wood veneer armrest, and sank her cheek into her gloved fist. She leaned down and tried to rub the gray city ash off her white sandals through the plastic bag. She looked up to watch her son watch a television bolted into the wall. Long days of chemotherapy, three of radiation, the bone marrow transplant, which wasn’t so bad in itself, and the aftermath, everyone suited up like they were in outer space, and here he was laughing at the Stooges so hard his eyes were tearing. Bo looked at her to see if she was laughing too. She grinned hugely behind her mask, and when he looked away, she watched him settle his round face back into the pillows. She watched to see if he had any trouble doing that.
Hollis came in, pushed back the plastic on the door. Greetings and salutations. She smoothed a hand across Bo’s forehead. Cool. This man is cool as a cube.
As a cube?
Like ice. He’s gonna get out of here.
Think so?
Yes, know so. A couple more days and no fever, no infection, we’ll put him in a normal room. How’s your mouth, Bo?
Bo opened his mouth for Hollis. With a wooden depressor, she touched his tongue as if it were the wing of a butterfly.
Are you sucking the ice chips, Bo? You look a little red in there. A small Styrofoam cup filled with ice sat on his bedside table. She peeled open the lid. Here. Keep at this. Bo tipped back the cup and took a few chips in his mouth.
What about food?
Tomorrow they’ll try again with breakfast. Hollis took a long look at the catheter attached to Bo’s chest. You all right here? But Bo didn’t answer, he stared up at the television. Looks okay. I don’t see anything to worry about. Okay. I’ll see you two on Monday.
Monday! Where are you going?
Can you believe it? I have the whole weekend off. I’m going on a mystery cruise.
You’re kidding. With that Hetzler guy?
No way. I barely know him.
I thought that was the point.
Don’t listen to your mother, Bo, she’ll corrupt your pure heart. Hollis pecked the top of Bo’s head, a kiss so quick, so shielded by the woven paper mask, it barely happened at all. The Three Stooges were in a fine mess. Bo laughed while Curly hit his own head with a frying pan. Hollis slipped out the door, unbuttoning the Peter Pan collar on her nurse’s uniform as she went. See you Monday morning. And we’ll start packing up your duds.
Around midnight, with Bo asleep for hours, Kay took off her scrub coat, her mask, her gloves, and plastic booties, made a small package to come back to on the chair outside Bo’s room, and wandered down to the third floor of the west wing to see if the soda machine had been fixed yet. One machine for so many friends and relatives, it was an odd arrangement. But here it was, lit up and humming. Kay fished in her pocketbook for loose coins, dropped them in the slot. With a crash that echoed all the way down the long empty corridor, her Tab landed in the bin, lukewarm. Kay took it across the hall to the ladies’ room and, without turning on the lights, went to the window, opened the sash, and lit a cigarette. She sat down on the wide sill, looked out over the empty street just below, no ambulances soaring in, so quiet. She could smell the river, the moon was bright, her son was getting better and maybe would be well for a while now. There was a big party tonight for Roy, she should make an appearance, but it was better to stick around here.
Kay liked this window, had found refuge here before on harder nights. She liked the big square tiles and the smoking as if in college. She felt almost happy. I’m in college, I could get kicked out for this. The moon was so high over the river it lit everything, the Dumpsters, the emergency sign, the yellow brick entrance. She hopped off the sill, flushed the cigarette down the toilet. She’d go for a walk around the block, she hadn’t been out of the hospital in two days. A little fresh air wouldn’t kill her.
Back on ten, there was a lot of action. She could hear it the second she stepped off the elevator, the squeaking running shoes, the loud whispers, the machines scraping along the floor. And she knew, before turning the corner, that it was Bo. Whatever happened was over, had happened while she was outside, dreaming of college. And the intern with the ass too small for his green scrubs was backing out of Bo’s room with a machine on wheels. He’s okay, he said, we didn’t need it, and he winked at her and wiped his sweaty face, and Kay would have hit him if she could have raised her arm. Bo’s bed was empty, and that terrified her except for the simultaneous understanding that if he were dead, the intern would be acting differently. Where is he? Where is he? Had she spoken out loud? The night nurse in charge, Clarissa, came back to find her. Your sweater, she said. She was very fat. She held Kay’s cardigan by the top button. Bo had slept with it wrapped around his shoulders because he liked the smell. Where is he?
Intensive care. His fever spiked, happened so fast something beeped on our monitors. A mistake, actually. We read a code for his heart, and that’s why all the hardware. But really it’s just the fever. He’ll be all right. We’ve been watching for this.
Why?
Well, it’s not unexpected. We’ll keep him in ICU for a day or two, let his system stabilize. It will help his throat too.
What’s wrong with his throat?
Cankers from the chemo. So he’s on a light morphine drip. Something for the fever, something for the pain. Didn’t Hollis tell you? Dr. Bronson?
Yes. They told me. They told me it was possible. Show me where he is?
Kay followed Clarissa down the silent corridor, through a double set of doors, another corridor, now they were in a different building built in a different time, a left turn, a right turn, and they were standing in front of a glass partition, inside a small vestibule with a view into the pediatric ICU. All this had happened to Bo in the time it took her to drink a Tab, smoke a cigarette, and walk to the river and back. Clarissa handed Kay her sweater and said good night. Kay waved to the ICU nurse through the glass. She was taking Bo’s pulse, reading numbers in an orange light. His eyes were closed. He looked asleep, exactly the way he had when she tiptoed out forty minutes ago.
The nurse opened the glass door and closed it quietly. He’s doing great, she said.
He’s okay?
You can see him in the morning. We’ll let him sleep. The ICU nurse smiled. She had small teeth and red round lips. She had a mustache, bleached very yellow. You’re welcome to sit in here. Kay took another vinyl chair and moved it around so she could lean her face against the glass. One of them had infected him. Either she’d done it or Hollis had. With some kiss or caress. She knew it.
Roy loved all the balloons. Esther’s idea, of course. Red, white, and blue balloons taking a dive from the ceiling at midnight, just when the senator from Wyoming was making the fortieth toast of the evening. And the little boats, each a Mayflower carved from a baked potato loaded with caviar immigrants. Better a shtetl, said Muddy, or something useful. But Roy got the symbolism and it was good for him, it was right, and he was grateful for all the creativity. The sight of all his friends in red, white, or blue cummerbunds, it made him a little teary, he had to admit, and if his mother wore brown, that was her privilege. But Esther in the red sequins was a dream, and when they danced to “When the Saints Come Marching In,” she laughed so hard and looked so pretty, he almost felt like he would marry her, why not, worse things had happened.
Frank whispered something to Merrill that made her blush. A frosty pink hit her cheeks, she blushed right down to the décolletage on her painted-on white gown. Fly on the wall, fly on her ear, what would he give to hear what Frank could possibly say to Merrill that would warrant a blush from her. Probably something about her taxes. She looked up and smiled like the million-dollar girl she was, and that other one, Million-Dollar Dolly, she was here too, with her friend with the death-defying tits, all in electric blue, to light up, to send electricity to the whole damn city if needed. Drop a bomb here tonight, you’d lose half the government, and a good portion of the other swanky citizens as well. When you win, everyone comes to the party. A fact of life. Lucky, he felt his luck like a snake winding around his feet, and that made him nervous for a second, even as they all lifted their glasses for the hundredth time that night, he was on the lookout for trouble, to find it before it found him. And that was easy to do: Kay. Where was Kay? She should be here. Weren’t things going great? Wasn’t this just where she should be, dressed in something fabulous?
Roy nodded and hugged his way to Frank and Merrill and bent down to whisper in the ear of the man who caused blushes: Kay, what gives. Frank frowned hard as if this thought had just occurred to him. But Merrill dipped two pink fingers into Roy’s cummerbund and drew him to her. She’s on watch.
She joined the army?
Ho, ho, Frank laughed, but not very hard, he was frowning, something big had slipped right past.
She’s watching Bo.
For?
Just to make sure he’s okay, she said she’d stop in later to celebrate.
Later, how later, it’s after midnight.
Well, give her a chance.
Roy nodded and watched the lieutenant governor make a joke with the waiter.
Muddy was fading. Midnight and his princess had had it. So Roy said, I’ll be back, he told Esther, and Frank, and Dan, and anyone who stopped dancing and talking and yelling and drinking long enough to ask. I’ll be back. And he wrapped Muddy up in her long mink coat, in July for godsakes, holding it just the way she liked, and she was tired, didn’t need to say a thing, and for once Peter was actually parked outside where he was supposed to be, it was a miracle, a night of miracles. And maybe it was time he should spread a little of this around.
Park Avenue sparkled with the night. Muddy was pleased and smiled at him and didn’t mention anything about Esther or Merrill or anyone she usually liked to discuss after an event, except to say that blue wasn’t Esther’s color. She wore red, Muddy. Exactly my point, she did the right thing. What choice did she have, white on that skin? And blue? No.
Roy walked his mother in, all the way to the door of her bedroom. You’re all right?
What else would I be?
True. True enough. Good night, dear, he said, and kissed her cheek, then turned to run down the stairs, happy, he was happy like a child. It was a sin to be happy like this.
Peter knew the entrance to the hospital where Roy could get in, and someone would get him up to the tenth floor, even if it was almost one in the morning. Roy had a hunch. And a hundred-dollar bill to the guard in the west wing had him standing in front of the right night-duty nurse. The fat one.
But she was impervious to his tan, his tux, which had cost a lot, now that he thought of it, was it really worth it for one event? How many Fourths of July could he dredge this up at, it was a onetime suit, and it still didn’t move her. Money didn’t matter, so he tried humanity. He told her, I’m a friend. And she said, And I’m the president of the United States, which gave him an idea, but then he rejected it. Too much. Roy reached into his pocket. I have this little flag, I’d like to give it to Mrs. Clemens.
The nurse, for reasons he would never fathom, except as a further sign of his incredible good fortune, which he needed to spread where it was most needed as soon as possible, stepped over to the phallus-shaped microphone on her communication system and called four numbers, Two-three-eight-six, over the loudspeaker. Am I getting the boot? Roy even asked that and smiled, a winning smile, a smile that said, You want presidents, I’ll give you presidents. And a young man came scooting up the hall from wherever he’d been dozing, a pillow crease on his cheek. A cheek, Roy noted, the color of an autumn leaf, golden, lucky, he was so fucking lucky, and the boy took a sleepy seat where the fat nurse had just disembarked, and she said, Follow me, and Roy said, Thank you, thought, That boy’s face is sweet. And it wasn’t Roy’s fault, no indication of his changing luck, when the boy got the ax the next day for pilfering in the fat nurse’s purse while she was showing Roy the way.
Kay was sleeping too, but there was no crease in her beautiful face. Her cheek smashed against the glass, so if by sudden chance the glass lifted, she could go to her son. Sleeping or not, she’d be ready. Thank you, Roy said, thank you very much, and bowed like a courtier to get this fat nurse on the move. Give me the field here. Give me a chance. I’ll be back, she said, and Roy thanked her again, and waved the little flag like a wand.
Roy could see Bo’s face lit orange through the glass. Strangely, he looked not so bad, maybe it was his luck talking, but Roy could definitely determine that there was a kid with possibilities. Bo looked okay, looked positive, Roy didn’t know why. He didn’t necessarily want to wake Kay, who, even asleep, looked tired, looked clobbered by sleep. He sat down slowly in the chair beside her; the brocade of his jacket, maybe it was the embroidered stars, made a scratching noise on the plastic. He held himself suspended for a second, and then, carefully, let his keister hit the seat. She didn’t stir, her face stayed mashed into the safety glass, and he looked at her crunched mouth and felt love, love like religion.
Twenty minutes later she was still asleep, and he was wide awake, with a list formed in his head of who he would call and who he could get. Roy had the time now and he had the energy. A mustachioed nurse wearing neon-red lipstick tiptoed toward him like a nightmare to wave him out of the ICU, but that was okay, his luck was holding. For Bo, this setback would be temporary, a poodle, a miniature poodle right around the bend. Esther was correct.
Back on ten, the golden boy had vanished, and a new nurse, cute with red hair, was counting sheets of paper. Roy handed her five one-hundred-dollar bills and stole a piece of paper from her pile. He wrote down his telephone number, the night line, where he could actually be reached. He knew she would take it. He could tell right away. She blinked, astonished, and he said, like he was teaching her a new prayer, the one that would change her life: Mrs. Clemens, whatever she wants, she gets. And then he made his way down the same back stairs he had ascended earlier, and miracle of miracles, Peter was right where he left him.
Back to the party, Peter, he said, it can’t possibly be over.
When Pasteur first dropped the hint of his release, Will was losing so badly at hearts, he didn’t hear it. He couldn’t concentrate on anything because his hip throbbed as if a miniature jack-hammer drilled the bone. A week and a half after a minor procedure. He thought it might be infected. At the card table, he shifted and rubbed and irritated the other players. For christsakes, Clementine, take a bath or something, said Ray Spofford, always a bad sport. You’re making me itch.
You better get someone to take a look at that, Pasteur said.
I’ll take a look. You want me to look, Clementine?
Pasteur pressed his creased newspaper flat on his thigh. He glanced at the wall clock. Twenty-five to five. Clean it up, he said. We’ll break early. Just add up what you have.
Good work, twitch. You won me a Bundt cake.
Yes, well. Last chance for that kind of help. Soak it up while you can, said Pasteur. Let’s go now. He jammed the newspaper into a back pocket. Come on, I want to get out of here.
Who doesn’t? Sammy Finlandor sneezed into a closed fist.
Let’s go.
Will folded his hand reluctantly. For one bright moment he was doing so badly he thought he might shoot the moon. Recoup his losses. See young Emily again. Win himself a cake.
Just after breakfast the next morning, Will was shaving turnips when Nancy Campanella tiptoed into the kitchen, lavender skirt swinging back and forth over empty cans on the floor. Chef Brodie was muscling some dessert into shape for dinner. Cling peaches and oiled stale bread, stirred together with a bag of sugar. One egg leavened the whole thing. Nancy watched until the orange batch was poured into vast tins and set in the oven, then she handed Chef Brodie a pink slip. He nodded as he read it, wiped his hands, and read it again. All right, I’ll tell him. But after she left, Chef Brodie got distracted by a rust situation around the handles of his two best fry baskets. He placed an angry call to the supply clerk.
By ten o’clock Pasteur was standing beside Chef Brodie. You think I don’t have enough to do?
Take him, go ahead, Brodie said, and picked up the wall phone again and dialed.
You need more help down here?
Brodie gave Pasteur a squint. Needing help and getting it, two different animals. Listen, I have something to do. You take your man. We’ll still eat. Chef Brodie waved Pasteur off and started yelling into the phone about the waste of his time and talent, the danger in shoddy equipment.
Pasteur moved slowly through the kitchen to Will’s sink. You can let that go now. Will just looked at him, not sure what he meant. I said, You can put that scraper down and follow me.
Will spent the next half hour filling out forms on Pasteur’s clipboard. They wanted a full accounting of his next intended decade. Will sat on the edge of his cot and tried to imagine anything at all about what might be ahead. His mind worked like a toy with a spring action, rejecting each obvious idea. He’d see his family. He’d find a job. Just thinking such things made him sick to his stomach.
All right, that’s enough. Pasteur had a short stack of clothes, Will’s suit from the courtroom rolled in a ball, a pair of black loafers, and a new green plastic satchel. Get dressed. There’s a car outside for you. I’ll walk you down to the gate, but I don’t have all morning for this ceremony.
Sammy Finlandor had been trying to get a cold tablet from the infirmary for two days. He’d been stuck working in the laundry because his nose wouldn’t stop running. Will could hear him sniffing all the way down the row. After the head count, Will shook out his suit. It smelled like cat piss. His eyes started to tear for no reason. Sammy walked by the open door.
What’s going on? Sammy sneezed hard, doubled over and stood upright again. What are you doing?
I don’t know.
What do you mean, you don’t know. You’re leaving, obviously. That’s amazing. Just this morning they told you?
Will nodded.
Christ, look at you. What are you, crazy? You cry when you arrive here, not when you go.
Will squinted down into the green plastic valise.
Come on. Sammy started to cough again, deep in his chest. Come on. I’m dying here. That’s something to cry about. Will put his hand flat over his eyes.
Sammy took a look both ways down the catwalk, then stepped inside. What do you need to do here. What are you going to do with all this shit.
Leave it. You take everything.
Like I want a can of letters from your wife. Be real. Sammy pried open the tin flap on the cherry can. Wow. She’s got a lot to say.
Will sat down on the cot again and tried to untie his oxfords, but now he was sobbing, like a seizure.
You are a mess. I’ll help you. Sammy squatted down and tugged off each shoe. Okay, you’re all set. I’m just going to take these as a memento. Sammy slipped his hands into the shoes. He clapped the soles together. A cuc-a-racha! Come on. Come on. Come on. It’s over. Sammy tapped Will’s shoulder with a shoe. Come on. Take a deep breath. Isn’t that what they always say. This is the time for all that crap. Sammy leaned over. You hear me in there? Will opened his eyes and nodded. I hear you. Sammy kissed Will, suddenly, on the lips, Will jerked his head away, then Sammy stood up coughing, lifted a shoe to cover his mouth. Will sat way back, Jesus Christ, then he started to laugh. Stupid faggot.
Good. Now get the fuck out of here. And Sammy left, slipped out the open door and away down the catwalk. The sound of his choking pinged off the glass roof.
In the courtyard, Pasteur did a lot of handshaking with Peter as if it were a transfer-of-custody situation. All right now, time to look on the bright side, he said to Will, but did not shake his hand. Don’t let your mind visit here too often, that’s key. Then the rest of you won’t come back either. When the long blue car pulled out under the first twist of razor wire, Pasteur waved once, then went back inside. Will’s loafers felt cold and stiff and thin on his feet. The leather bit into his toes. He asked Peter to turn off the radio because the speakers jabbed his ears. The soft seat felt like sticky wax, and his face burned with a fever he hadn’t felt before. He rubbed his mouth. His hand smelled old. They passed nothing on the road out to the thruway but scrub pine and dirt and weeds. Will didn’t see a single other car or face. Peter said he would drive Will to the hotel, after that he kept quiet.
Sometime late Monday afternoon, Kay came to believe she could go home. She would find a taxi downstairs at the front entrance, easily, and that taxi would take her to the train, from the train she could find another taxi, and then she’d be in Rumson. She’d be inside her own house, step into the laundry, reach into the dryer and pull out the nightgown that had been there for how many weeks now. She’d let Carmen go over a month ago. She wouldn’t eat, or wash, she’d just crawl into her own bed, her side softer than the other, and she’d be there by nightfall. She began to count on that. She held Bo’s toes through the blanket.
Hollis launched herself into the room, carrying two canned sodas. Her face worn with aggravation. Don’t blame me, she said.
How could I blame you? How could I blame you, Hollis? And he’s better now. He’s back. And you’ll be here tonight. Is that for me?
Yes.
It’s freezing. How do you get a can this cold?
I keep them in the lab fridge.
Smart.
Yes.
You are. Everything. Hollis. He’s okay.
Yes, he looks okay. Hollis read all the gauges, then the clipboard. A quick surge and now he’s okay. He just got a fever. And now it’s gone.
Kay nodded. Now it’s gone.
That Clarissa is a pain in the ass, but she did the right thing.
Think so?
Definitely. A night in the ICU whips everyone into shape. We’ll be watching him like the sun rises and sets on him for a few days now.
Kay cracked open her soda. Bo’s eyelids fluttered, then he turned his cheek away from her and sighed in his sleep.
I might go home now.
Sure, why not. He’ll rest until dinner, anyway.
No, I mean home home.
Oh.
You don’t think that’s such a good idea?
I think it’s okay. Hollis was back to examining the label on the IV. She turned away, opened her own soda.
Dr. Bronson’s coming in about ten minutes, and then I think I’ll go home.
Hollis nodded. Okay.
And I’ll come right back tomorrow.
Fine. Good.
Kay watched Hollis’s hand. Fingers to wrist, taking her own pulse, a funny nervous habit.
Sure, she said again, why not.
Dr. Bronson looked a bit like a piglet to Kay. He wore a pink shirt, had pink skin and black wires of hair on the backs of his hands that pressed like trapped insects against his rubber gloves. He took the plastic drape in the doorway and looped it over a chair as if he needed some fresh air. Seven doctors followed him into the room silently, all dressed as if for surgery. They lined up against the windows. Dr. Bronson stepped to the bed and gently lifted each of Bo’s eyelids, he unbuttoned the pajama top and felt all around Bo’s neck and chest, then he covered him up with a blanket and went back to wrestle again with the drape. Bo never woke up. Dr. Bronson nodded to the assembled doctors, All right. And they all left shaking his hand as they went. Now he leaned in the doorway, patted his round stomach, he was ready for her.
Kay followed Dr. Bronson down the hall. He motioned her into the play-nurse’s cubicle, swept a pair of trolls off the desk to the floor. Drive me batty, those things. I can’t stand to look at them.
Kay took a seat. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the fallen trolls.
So, said Dr. Bronson. We’re making history.
Kay stared at him. He’s barely been conscious for two days now.
I see a very minor setback, completely well handled, by the way. Out of ICU fast. That’s good. We’ve already got some positive test results. His blood looks very good. I think if all continues to go well—the doctor flexed his small articulate hands twice—I think we’re going to see a remission.
Do you really think so?
I do.
Kay bent forward and picked up the trolls. Straightened their hair, dropped them in her lap.
Dr. Bronson frowned at her. You look tired.
I am tired.
Go get some rest. This is a big change for the better. From here on, it’s just cheering him in to home plate.
And what about later?
We’ll keep him feeling well.
Dr. Bronson shifted his weight in the social worker’s bucket chair. Maybe you don’t understand what’s happened here? This is unprecedented. Really unheard of. You know that, don’t you.
Kay nodded, handed him the trolls. Dr. Bronson laid them on the desk. Is there something you wanted to ask?
One of the new nurses stuck her head around the corner. They’re all waiting for you, Doctor.
Be right there. Mrs. Clemens?
She shook her head. No. I believe you.
You’re just tired. Who wouldn’t be? Dr. Bronson stood, led her by the arm out of the cubicle. You know what? I’m going to call you in the morning, okay? We’ll talk more, he said, then signaled to the waiting nurse to show him the way to the conference room.
Kay walked back to Bo’s room, remasking. She held his ankles through the white cotton blanket. She rubbed her hand along his shins. He almost always slept on his back now, to accommodate all the monitors, the Hickman, and the tubes. She gave Hollis a quick smile, then headed out to grab the elevator, untying the lab smock, stuffing her mask and gloves into her pocketbook as she went.
Right away she found a cab, but as soon as she was settled into the back and the cabbie was careening down York Avenue, looking for a cross street not choked with traffic at five o’clock, she changed her mind. She couldn’t make the trip after all, it was too far and too long to go home. The St. Regis, please, she said. The cabbie gunned his engine at the red light, as if now they were in business. It meant another day before she saw Lou-Lou. She’d call Gert as soon as she got into her room.
It was after six by the time they crawled the twenty steaming blocks downtown, and inside the lobby of the St. Regis, it looked like Mardi Gras. A hundred people, at least, in black tie and ball gowns. Wasn’t it early for this? Kay flipped open her purse and plucked out her sunglasses, the ones that covered half her face. She hadn’t touched a lipstick in a day and a half, and she’d slept in her dress all weekend. She wriggled through the crowd.
The elevators were all at the penthouse. She pushed all the buttons, not one would budge from the top. The women in their crinkling gowns and the men with too much cologne and their cigars waving pressed into her, they wanted the elevators too. She took the stairs. By the eighth floor, sixteenth landing, she was sticky with sweat and needed to cry. And so angry she felt she would knock over the next person who got in her way. Kay pushed through the fire door onto her corridor which, empty, smelled of new paint. Maybe they were renovating this floor, maybe that’s how Roy cut the deal. Her doorknob still had the sign on it. Don’t trespass, don’t come near me. It had been a week, at least, since she’d let the maid service clean up her room. She treated almost everyone now as if they were carriers of a deadly virus. When did that happen, when did she start becoming so hateful. All the partygoers looked like ghouls to her. She remembered Gert in a strapless gown once, with so many freckles on her shoulders it looked like a translucent lace shawl. And Kay had loved that, the strangeness of it. What had happened to her.
Kay stuck the key in the lock, turned it, stepped inside the tiny foyer and out of her sling-backs. In the sitting room, her eggs from three days ago still sat a yellow mess just where she’d left them. She felt a sick relief to be here, out of anyone’s sight or hearing, and then immediately a smack of fear. The bedroom door was closed. She never closed it. She thought to call the manager, someone, but it was a free-for-all in the lobby, who knew how long they’d take. She could see her hands were shaking. But inside she went still, still and angry.
She wrapped a cold trembling hand around the crystal doorknob, turned and pushed. It was dark in the bedroom. Almost like the sun had set rapidly from one room to the next. The curtains were drawn closed across the window that overlooked the air shaft. She pulled aside the fabric. Through the window, sooty drafts carried the scent of hors d’oeuvres. In her bed, in her dirty sheets, was her husband, dead asleep. A streak of gray across his shoulder, his head covered in stubble patches and a long red scar. She looked at him, face turned into her pillow, hands tucked around his neck, fingers cradling one cheek.
Kay felt an odd stricken calm, but her hands still shook and she went to shut out the smell, the nasty smell of hors d’oeuvres, and spotted the back of a woman in a gown, ready to go, in the window opposite. She pulled the window shut, dragged the curtains together, drowning out most of the light. She could still see her husband’s face sunk into the pillow, and the rise and fall, very slight, of his breath in his back. I miss you, she thought, looking right at him. That seemed true now. She could not move. She sat at last in one of the low boudoir chairs, wide-bottomed, low-slung, good for putting on difficult shoes. She sucked on the remains of a warm, flat soda in a bottle. She unclasped the stranglehold of her dirty stockings and she unzipped her dress, untangled the straps of her bra and slid it off her chest. Felt the heat of the airless room and felt the weariness of her husband like a radio broadcast to her bones. And her own weariness and her own anger, and she slid off her panties and felt the slick satin of the chair, and how dirty her own body was, sweaty, smelling of the hospital and the cab and all the cigarettes she’d smoked in disinfected toilets, and how her breasts pulled down heavy like a sickness, and she took this body and went across the room to her husband and lay down, she curled into his back and put her mouth to the base of his neck, her breasts touched his skin where the strange gray ash streaked beneath his shoulder blades, she dropped her left hand to the base of his spine. She would lie there just this way, her body against his cool cool skin, until she could breathe and think and feel anything that made sense again.