Chapter Twenty-Seven

 

"The bleed worries us for a lot of reasons. It's possible that there are complications with the pregnancy that we didn't foresee. Marianne missed her last two prenatal appointments and I'm concerned about her blood pressure and level of physical exertion ..."

The doctor held a chart in his hands – Marianne's, Eleanor knew, with apprehension for the various test results she could see in the folder beneath it.

"Right now, we're trying to bring down her fever and find the underlying cause. It could be an infection, complications with an autoimmune condition ..."

"She asked for her mother," said Eleanor. "Who's been dead for several years." Her voice trembled with fear. Marianne had said other, equally senseless things in the past hour.

"Again, that's the fever interfering with Marianne's state of consciousness. Until we bring it under control, we'll be battling Marianne's symptoms while pinpointing what's responsible."

Eleanor's lips were not working properly; nor were her legs, which swayed slightly as if unable to balance any longer on such high heels. "What about the baby?" she asked.

The doctor's expression changed subtly. "There is a chance that your sister could experience a miscarriage as a result of all this," he answered. "Stress is not ideal for her pregnancy. And bleeding is sometimes indicative of a problem with the body's ability to carry a child to term."

She wanted to sit down, but there was no place to sit at the nurse's station.

"We're doing everything we can," he said. Sympathetically, as he touched Eleanor's arm.

She had a cup of coffee from the cafeteria. She bought a muffin which she did not touch. Pacing in the waiting room, she glanced from the corners of its walls to the same potted palms stationed on either side of its doorway, to the same pink pencil holder on the nurse's station desk.

When the elevator doors opened, Brandon emerged. In his hand was a bag, Eleanor's overnight one from her flights, which he carried in the same manner as a briefcase.

"I didn't know what all you needed," he said. "I put some things in it. Enough for a day or two. A sweater and some jeans and a book that was on your table. I didn't know if you had read it or not..."

"Thank you, Brandon. I can't tell you how grateful I am," she said. She took hold of it, surprised at its weight, now that it was in her own grip. "I don't know how long – they're a little afraid for the baby –" she wanted to bite her lip and refrained from doing it. She looked away, avoiding his eyes as the tears built up in her own.

Brandon's hands were on her arms, a firm grasp as if holding her up. "Are you all right?"

She made herself nod. "I am," she answered, unsteadily. "I'm afraid, of course."

"I know," he answered. His thumbs rubbed against the sleeves of her dress, a soft rhythm of motion. "Have you eaten anything? Had coffee or something?"

"I have," she nodded. She met his eyes, now that the threat of crying was momentarily past. She could see his concern there, beneath the rather stony expression he wore when listening.

"All right," he said. He released her and sat down on one of the chairs.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Sitting down. It's uncomfortable to wait, standing up."

"I was going to change later," said Eleanor, meekly. "I didn't intend – I didn't need you to wait and take the things back for me."

"I'm not waiting for that," he answered, as if surprised that she mentioned it. "I thought I would stay. Keep you company for awhile. Hear the doctor's prognosis, whenever they turn up."

She smiled, faintly. "You don't have to do that," she answered. "I can call you."

"I know." He lifted one of the magazines and began flipping through it. An issue of Reader's Digest with a smiling woman in a lab coat on its cover.

Brandon stayed for three hours, long after Eleanor had changed her clothes, pretended to eat lunch, and heard the latest diagnosis from Marianne's physician. It was not good; Marianne's fever was still too high. Her blood tests were inconclusive. The doctor had recommended a course of antibiotics, which he hoped would clear the undiagnosed infection from Marianne's system.

"Lowering Marianne's temperature is the current goal," the physician explained. "We need to stabilize her as much as possible until we find a treatment she responds to. I've ordered another round of stronger antibiotics–"

"What about the blood tests?" Eleanor asked. She raked her fingers nervously through her hair, ruining the coif in the back, if she knew or cared. "What did those reveal?"

From the physician's face, she knew the answer already. "The results were inconclusive," he answered. "It's possible that your sister's condition is caused by something else. Fungal, viral, any number of causes with variable methods of diagnosis ...sometimes we never find a conclusive cause," he admitted. "In those cases, we often cure the infection before we ever confirm its existence."

She had stopped listening. She had smiled pathetically, nodded numbly at the conclusion of their conversation, and then returned to the waiting room, where Brandon was still thumbing through issues of People and US Weekly. He grunted. "Magazines in waiting rooms are always two years old," he said. "Half these people are probably divorced from each other by now. Obsolete names in the celebrity pool."

She shoved aside her book as she sat down. He noticed her face. "The doctor," he said. "You saw him. What did he tell you?"

Eleanor shrugged. "That they still have no idea what's happening to her. They did some tests and the results weren't helpful. Now all they can do is wait and see if any treatments work."

"I see." Brandon tossed his magazine into the pile.

"They don't say the rest of it, of course," said Eleanor. "Which is that time is going to run out, eventually. She'll either lose the baby, or she'll grow too weak from her condition and die." Without realizing it was happening, she was on the verge of tears again, pools of stinging salt forming beneath her eyes.

"There's nothing I can do. That's really the worst part. I feel so helpless. If I could just ... do something. Donate blood, a kidney– if I had an active role, at least I would feel I gave her a chance and didn't just sit here, passively waiting."

It was true that the illness defined was vague, but somehow, it made her more afraid. Was not knowing worse than knowing? The dreadful condition which was making Marianne delirious was a nameless substance, an undefined monster, a shadowy threat.

She looked at Brandon. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to say those things aloud, really. Not that you mind...but there's nothing you can do, either, so I'm just burdening you in a way. Making you feel helpless and useless, too, most likely."

Brandon's hands were interlaced, his body bent forwards as if he studied the carpet below. He cleared his throat with a slight cough. "Marianne will be all right," he said.

"You don't need to say that to make me feel better." Eleanor gently touched his arm. "It's all right."

"I'm serious. She has a chance because she's resilient. Much like her sister in many ways–not on the surface, but in terms of character." He studied the pattern woven by his finger's spacing. "You're both the same underneath. Like you, she'll fight it. She won't give up easily."

"I never thought of myself as strong," Eleanor said. "Steadfast, perhaps. Stuck, maybe..." Her lips twisted in a wry smile.

"Stubborn's the word," Brandon volunteered. "But you are strong. And capable. You are capable of more than you realize. That's your greatest problem, not believing it's true." He glanced at her, then looked away again. "I've always had the highest respect for you. Admiration for you. If Marianne has even a fraction of you in her, then she will be all right."

A red flush had crept up Eleanor's neck as she listened, now filling her face with a burning heat. "Thank you." Her voice was soft.

"Well, I meant it." His voice was slipping into gruffness again. He sat upright, hands on his knees, his glance moving from the pile of magazines to Eleanor's face again, briefly.

"Cup of foul coffee?" he asked. "It's the only thing here worse than the magazines, but it's better than nothing. I'm having one; I'll bring you one, too." He rose from his seat and made his way towards the corridors of movement, leaving Eleanor temporarily alone with her book and her worries.

When Brandon was gone, she spent the remainder of the day beside Marianne. Her sister tossed and turned in her hospital bed. Restless and fearful, murmuring things which were incomprehensible to Eleanor and to the nurses. Not words, Eleanor realized. Sounds, followed by silence in which Marianne was neither asleep nor conscious.

When her eyes opened, there was no recognition in them.

Eleanor sat in a chair, a stiff, wooly one which was grey and drab compared to the waiting room's furniture. Countless unhappy family members had sat here the same as herself. Siblings and extended relatives in watchful vigils. Grown children waiting for elderly parents to breathe their last. Husbands or wives waiting for the best or worst outcome of surgery or treatment.

She waited in the same manner. Marianne's hand in hers, the fingers twitching or moving occasionally, without recognition of the hand holding them. She stared across the sheets and blankets drawn around her sister, imagining the child beneath them, sheltered inside Marianne's prostrate body. A half-formed being whose existence was so very frail and fragile at this moment, beneath the tide of Marianne's illness.

If she lost the baby – what would she do? Eleanor pondered the possibilities. It might drive her further into despair and grief, a strong possibility after Will's loss. Or would severing the tie with him, even in this painful fashion, be a strange sort of relief to her sister? She shuddered. It did not do to think about these things. The terrible aspects of human pain, the worst-case scenarios of their existence.

None of these things would help Marianne. She needed to feel stronger, to wake up and be herself. She needed to be stronger for the sake of the child and for whatever future lay in store for both of them. Eleanor's grasp on Marianne's fingers tightened.

There was no change by evening. By nightfall, it was worse.

Changing the antibiotics. A new course of medication. Words like this had no meaning for Eleanor, a nonsensical parade of babble as she listened with arms crossed and hollow eyes fixed upon the clock. It was eleven p.m. More than twenty-four hours since her wonderful evening with Edward, the bliss of seeing him on the rooftop of the Sun Building.

Brandon was gone, long gone since this afternoon for the sake of an appointment with his publicist which could not be canceled. She had not called Edward. Until now, it hadn't occurred to her that she should keep him informed of what happened.

The thought of hearing his voice was comforting. She tried to picture him answering the phone. Where would he be? A crowded restaurant with friends, his office at the law firm, perhaps in the living room of his apartment. She had never seen the places where he spent his time and had no power to picture them effectively as a result. For some reason, this notion caused her pain, as if Edward's existence was nonexistent to herself.

She didn't know his number, she remembered. And there was no one she could ask for it – except for possibly her ex-assistant. Whose absence was the reason Eleanor herself phoned the paper about her column and had Brandon check her mail when he entered her apartment to pack her bag.

At two in the morning, Marianne was worse. They were administering something to counter the bleeding. Eleanor vaguely recognized the medication's name, and recognized nothing at all about the second drug administered.

She knew what it was for, in so many words. An attempt to keep Marianne from losing the baby.

In her hand, Marianne's fingers had grown sweaty and heated. The beep of the monitors had become an unbearable rhythm to Eleanor's mind. She thought of nothing as she gazed at the rise and fall of Marianne's breath. It was harsh, rasping to her ears, coming in too-quick motions.

If she pushed the button, someone would come, but what would they do? There was nothing else they could do at this point. They were trying everything, and all to no avail.

What if Marianne died? The thought too dreadful to come to her before came now, with a clarity which never could have manifested itself in the rainy car ride to the hospital. What would she do? All alone in the world, with no one left who knew her past. Who understood her, even in the pointless, heedless fashion in which Marianne comprehended her life.

A pain ripped through Eleanor's heart. A deep cavern opening wide with this picture of the world. No Marianne, no paintings, no future children, no breezy and unconcerned voice over the phone when Eleanor answered it. No link to Ellen Darbish's gentle and practical existence, to the childhood streets of her Montpelier home, with the maple leaves thick upon the sidewalk and lawn each fall.

"Do you remember, Marianne?" Her voice was thick, soft in tone. "Remember the house in autumn? Sometimes I forget –" her words faltered, "–forget how bright the leaves were from the tree. The big maple near the street."

She swallowed hard. "They were orange ... not red. But they had these streaks through them. It wasn't yellow, but more like a – a wine color. I can't picture them. You can, I imagine. You used to build a big pile and bury your hands in it. There wasn't enough to do more, not after the storm winds blew them away ..."

She didn't go on. Her voice was disappearing on its own, as if the words were too thick to emerge from her throat. The taste in her mouth was not fear, but sorrow. The taste of tears, which were now emerging in swift, rolling paths down her cheeks, as if there were too many to travel the same course of descent.

"Oh, Marianne," she whispered. "Don't do this. Don't go. Please, don't go. What will I do? I'll be all alone, Marianne. It's not fair, it's not fair, so please. Please don't."

Her face rested against the sheets, almost against Marianne's shoulder. "Please," she whispered. Begging, even as the rest of her whispers died beneath sobs. Her chest was shuddering with them as she buried her face against the mattress and cried into its softness, muffling the sound from the hearing of anyone but herself and her sister.

No one awakened her. No one told her to leave, or gently requested she move aside for a procedure to be performed or some change of medication. Eleanor didn't realize this until morning, when she opened her eyes. A hazy vision of the white hospital sheets, of the clock on the wall ticking past five-thirty in the morning.

"Have you been there all night?" A croaky voice uttered these words. Not Brandon's or the nurse's, but Marianne's.

It was her imagination. That was Eleanor's first, fleeting thought before her sister moved. Eleanor sat up on her elbows, looking into the face of the girl propped against the pillows.

A white face. A sweaty one with red-rimmed, hollow eyes and bloodless lips – but a comprehending face. Marianne, conscious, awake, and alive.

"All night," Eleanor answered. Her voice was very faint, whether with fatigue or wonder, she neither knew or cared.

"Oh, El." Marianne groaned a little. At this familiar sound, Eleanor felt tears form in her eyes.

"Well, I couldn't leave you," she answered. "You've been here for two days now."

Marianne's eyes closed. "I remember...asking the Colonel..." she began. "But I don't remember what happened afterwards."

Eleanor's hand took hold of Marianne's. "You're going to be fine," she said. "You and the baby are fine." She squeezed her sister's fingers tightly.

 

 

******

 

 

Eleanor did not go home until that afternoon. Marianne was spending another day for observation – a word Eleanor now dreaded, against her better sense – and there was nothing at her apartment which she either wanted or needed, apparently. So Eleanor took a cab to her own apartment as the day drew to a close.

Inside, she kicked off her shoes, a pair of loafers, and dropped her coat on the chair without bothering to hang it up as she would usually do. Her bag, she dropped on the sofa, without caring that it needed unpacked.

Her column needed writing. Her mail needed answering. A message from a friend who hadn't heard about Marianne and wanted Eleanor to go out for a cocktail tomorrow night needed a reply. Brandon ought to be called at some point and assured that she did not need a ride home from the hospital. But none of that mattered, since Marianne was going to be fine.

"You should be more careful," Eleanor scolded her. "It could have been anything, Marianne. A paper cut – bacteria from work, even." It could have been your terrible apartment. Something in all that rusty trash in your sculptures or in those toxic art supplies or even in the unsavory apartment of one of your questionable friends...

"The doctor said I'm fine, Elly," Marianne answered. "They don't even know whether it was bacterial or viral. What does it matter, since there were no complications for the baby? So long as I finish the medication, it should be clear from my system."

"Still," Eleanor argued.

Such arguments would continue for weeks. Months. Years. For once, Eleanor was grateful for such a future. It would be a pleasure to argue Marianne's sleeping and eating habits, her choice of friends and apartment. To listen to snarky little comments about her own social life, for instance.

She didn't feel like eating in her apartment. Instead, she went to a coffee shop down the street, where she sat with a sandwich and a cup of coffee, watching the final light of day disappear through the glass of the restaurant's windows.

The first sunset she had seen since the one on the rooftop. The world had changed for her in some subtle manner since those hours. She looked at it with a since of sorrow and gratitude; of satisfaction for her release from the darkest possible future.

There had been no message on her machine from Edward, much to her disappointment. She had hoped that perhaps he had phoned her – and that he wasn't waiting for her to call him, unaware that his number was a mystery to her. They were still at the stage of undefined connection, she supposed, in which the rush to love is followed by the realization of how much is still lacking in a relationship.

As if stirred to life psychically by her mind, her phone rang. Not with Edward's number, but one unfamiliar to her.

"Hello?" she asked

On the other end, she heard a man's voice. A dry tone, laced with something rich and electrical, as if the voice was capable of shifting emotions quickly and subtly. "Eleanor. I hope you're not hanging up on me."

She recognized Will Allen's voice. She had no idea he knew her cell number.

"No," she answered, cautiously. "I won't."

"Good." There was relief in his answer. "Is she all right?"

"She's fine," Eleanor answered, indifferently.

"Don't pretend, Eleanor." Will sounded sarcastic. "I know everything except the outcome. I begged, but information is not given to anyone who isn't on the family list."

"Did she tell you?" Eleanor asked.

"No," Will's voice trembled. "No. I wish she had. But I heard it from a mutual friend. Someone who thought I – I might need to know it. And I did, of course. They were right to tell me, not that it did any good."

"You phoned the hospital?" Eleanor asked. She was beginning to feel a touch of sympathy for him again, although she ignored it.

"I went to the hospital." A bitter laugh on the other end. "I brought flowers. Lilies. Which I didn't leave. Better judgment took me at the last, that they might not be welcome. And since I didn't know how sick she and – and the baby – were, I wasn't thinking clearly when I left."

She pictured him at the nurse's station, those intense green eyes fixed on the woman in desperation. Will could be charming, persuasive, but all to no avail in the face of strict, disciplined policy. For some reason, this gave Eleanor a feeling of satisfaction.

"Tell me, Eleanor." He was pleading with her now. "Please. I can't bear not to know." Something in his voice made her think he had been crying. Or was crying at this moment.

"It was an infection," Eleanor answered, melting slightly. "But she's fine now. They have it under control. In a matter of weeks, they think she'll be perfectly healthy again."

There was a long silence on the other end. "Thank God." She heard relief in his voice, like a long breath released. "And – the baby?"

"Fine also," Eleanor answered, shortly. "Now, you should go, I suppose. And thank you for not leaving the flowers." She hated to imagine Marianne's feelings torn open again at the sight of a bouquet, possibly even a card, which would suggest Will's presence.

"No problem." More sarcasm in his voice. "Happy to oblige. That's my only purpose in life now. Obliging other people, I mean."

The misery she had seen in his face the last time she encountered Will came to Eleanor's mind. The same misery in his voice when he begged to see her and explain himself. It was like an animal in pain – a prisoner suffering a torturer's first cruelties.

He was still in love with Marianne, she knew. It was the reason why it was killing him not to know her condition. All the happiness he had lost by losing her and the child was becoming an unbearable weight.

"Will," she said. Her voice was gentle.

"I know, I know. I'm going now."

"Will, you love her," Eleanor said. "Come back to her. She would forgive you. She would forgive everything that you've done. And you would be happier than you are now."

She couldn't believe she was saying this, as if an impulse carried these words to freedom. Perhaps it was an impulse born out of thoughts of Edward, a sudden sympathy for lovesick souls. Such sympathy held out to Will, who had made his reasons for leaving Marianne painfully clear beforehand.

"Do you think I would deserve her?" he asked, mockingly. "Or that she deserves me – penniless, unemployed, a sneaking coward who placates my father's whims for an allowance? I know that's what you're really thinking, Eleanor. I know it even better than you do."

"I didn't think she deserved you before, when all of that was first true," she answered, quietly. "But I didn't tell her to leave you, then."

"You wanted to," he answered. "You were just afraid of her answer. 'Him or me' – who wants to know the answer to that choice? And what if –" his voice hesitated, "– what if there was another reason to be faithless later on? How would you forgive yourself if I failed a second time?"

There was still mockery in his tone, but it was less assured than before, Eleanor noticed.

"I'm sorry," said Eleanor. "You're right. I shouldn't have suggested it." There was another pause on Will's end in response to this answer.

"She'll end up with someone else," he continued. "Someone better. The patient, responsible, self-sacrificing type who thinks of me as a weasel – whom I'll have to watch rescue her from a distance. My only consolation is that he won't be a poet or an art lover." He laughed again, but with the same bitterness as before.

Eleanor didn't reply. She couldn't imagine Marianne loving anyone else. Or even liking anyone else well enough to try another relationship of any sort. Not at this point, with Will's love still a fresh wound, a barb embedded deep in her sister's heart.

After a moment, Will's voice was audible again. "Don't you think that's what will happen?" he asked. She did not hear the same mockery in it. But there was something both pleading and dreading in his words, as if both feelings held his words tightly in their grasp.

It surprised her what she imagined. He wants me to say no. Even against his better judgment, this is what he hopes.

"I do," she answered, calmly.

Silence.

"It would be better if you didn't call again," she said, softly. "For everyone I mean."

"Of course." He attempted to sound indifferent, but there were cracks in his tone which betrayed it as false. "I won't be a bother again. I'll lose your number to be certain."

"Goodbye, Will."

"Goodbye." There was no hesitation before he hung up.

For good measure, she pressed the menu button on her phone and scrolled through the list of calls. When she saw the most recent number listed, she deleted it from her phone. Just to be certain that she would not feel the urge to plead on behalf of his cause.