His knee was still swollen, and didn’t feel any better. In the medicine cabinet there was an Ace bandage from a couple summers ago when Emily sprained her ankle playing badminton with the grandchildren. He couldn’t tell if it helped. At night he strapped on her fancy ice pack, wrapping it in a hand towel, his skin numb under the covers. By morning the goop inside was warm and he was stiff. He had to be careful coming down the stairs. It hurt if he stood too long at his workbench, and he took to using a stool, shifting his position every so often. The Aleve did nothing. His yearly checkup was scheduled for next week, and rather than pay for an extra office visit, he decided to wait and ask Dr. Runco about it then, a decision Emily declared silly.
“That’s why we have Medicare.”
“I doubt they could get me in on this short notice.”
“Not now,” she said. “Maybe if you’d called when it happened.”
“I didn’t think it was that serious.”
“You can barely walk.”
There was no need to exaggerate. He wasn’t the macho fool she thought, but the opposite, cautiously optimistic, hoping if he slowed down and watched it closely, the knee might heal on its own. He wasn’t going to be like Hubie Frazier, having his hips and then his knees done one after the other at eighty so he could play tennis. Though in public Henry tried to hide his limp, he liked to think he was free of vanity on that scale.
The weather didn’t help. When it snowed, he let Jim Cole shovel the walk again, but couldn’t stop himself from spreading salt.
His knee was puffed up and spongy with fluid. At church he couldn’t kneel, and balancing his rear on the hard edge of the pew, he braced himself against the bench in front, resting his forehead on his folded hands. “We confess that we have sinned against you,” he recited, eyes closed, “in thought, word and deed.” In the silence he had time to review his week. He’d been greedy about the coupons, and impatient with the line and the other drivers. He would always be guilty of pride. Thinking he was right. Not listening. Holding grudges. He needed to be kinder to Margaret and stop feeling sorry for himself because he was old and useless. “Amen,” he said along with the congregation, though he could think of more now. Resentment. Envy. Deceit. Once you started listing your sins, there was no end to it.
Monday morning he was in the backyard with Rufus, refilling the birdfeeders, when Emily called him from the kitchen door, waving the phone. “It’s Linda from the doctor’s office.”
He stood on the mat in his boots so he wouldn’t get her floor wet. He didn’t see why she couldn’t just take a message.
“Mr. Maxwell,” Linda said. “I’m afraid we have to reschedule your Wednesday appointment. Dr. Runco’s had to take a leave of absence.”
“Is everything all right?”
Emily looked at him as if it were grave news. He shrugged. It might be anything.
“It’s a personal matter, but thank you. Dr. Prasad and Dr. Binstock will be taking care of his patients, but for the time being we’re shorthanded. We hope you’ll bear with us.”
“Of course,” Henry said.
“Thank you. We apologize for the inconvenience.”
“No, please, I understand.”
The first opening they had was in three weeks, with Dr. Prasad. Henry asked her to give Dr. Runco his best.
“What is it?” Emily asked.
“He’s taking some time off.”
“How much time?”
“She didn’t say.”
“That’s not good. I wonder if Patsy knows anything.”
She took the phone into the living room, already on the case, while he went back out to top off the feeders. He and Dr. Runco were both Class of ’49 at Pitt. Henry had been going to him over thirty years. He was a big skier, with a place at Okemo, and three boys, the youngest Kenny’s age, but beyond his vacation plans Henry knew little of his private life. Once they’d bumped into him at a Pirate game with one of his sons, and, unfairly perhaps, Henry was surprised he was drinking beer. Trim himself, he was always trying to get Henry to lose weight, an ongoing failure that bothered Henry, who saw his sweet tooth as a character flaw.
He capped the last feeder and gathered up the bags. Rufus nosed at the spilled sunflower seeds. “Come on, Tubbo. All done.”
Rufus ignored him.
“Come!” Henry called, and Rufus dashed past him for the door. “Why do you have to make me say it twice?”
By dinnertime, through Emily’s web of church, University Club and Friends of the Library friends, they knew Dr. Runco was in St. Margaret’s cancer unit. Henry was surprised they didn’t know his prognosis.
“You’d think he could arrange something on an outpatient basis,” Emily said. “The hospital’s the last place I’d want to be.”
Henry didn’t want to speculate, and chewed his chicken à la king.
“Of course at this point he may not have a choice. The chemo makes you so weak. I remember Millie, she was completely out of it. You’d have to have a nurse. He’s still married, isn’t he?”
“As far as I know.”
“It’s awful. It doesn’t help you with your knee either.”
“My knee will be fine.”
“Who knows how it’ll be in three weeks. I think you’ve let it go for too long as it is. Maybe we should try somewhere else.”
“I’m not going to get in anywhere else in three weeks without a referral.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
“It’s not an emergency. I can walk on it.”
“You probably shouldn’t be.”
“The sky is blue,” Henry said.
“It’s night out, so it’s black, smart-ass. Fine. If you want to hobble around for the next three weeks and make it worse, go right ahead, but don’t expect me to play nurse when they have to operate.”
Forty-eight years, and he would never get used to how quickly she could turn. Sometimes she apologized, but he’d learned not to wait. He wanted to think she didn’t mean what she said, though it was the tone that hurt the most—as if, like a willful child, he’d purposely driven her beyond the limits of her patience.
Were they really talking about his knee, or was it the fact that he and Dr. Runco were the same age? He didn’t blame her for being afraid. He wasn’t sure what he could do, beyond promising he wouldn’t die.
The next morning he called the office to see if they could move up his appointment in case of a cancellation. He was free anytime, and they were three minutes away. His knee was causing him pain, he said, which wasn’t a lie. Linda said she’d make a note in their system. He apologized and asked her, again, to give his best to Dr. Runco, but as he hung up he thought the sentiment rang false. As someone who valued his privacy, he couldn’t think of anything worse than everyone knowing your business, especially when you were helpless, and all morning as he chipped away at their taxes, whenever it crossed his mind he went sullen, clenching his lips as if he were the object of his own misguided pity.
When a few days later Linda called to say there’d been a cancellation, he thought Emily would be pleased.
“It’s only been what, a month? If you’d gone in when you should have, you’d be better by now.”
“I’m just glad they could fit me in,” he said, and let it rest there, a stalemate if not a draw.
He expected Dr. Prasad to be Indian, like so many doctors around town now, older and gnomelike, with glasses, a heavy accent and white lab coat, and was unprepared for the rangy young man in rolled shirtsleeves and a leather tie who shook his hand like a car salesman. He was American, his smile the obvious product of orthodonture, his hair gelled and sleek as a male model’s. He set Henry’s file aside and squatted to palpate his knee while Henry described the fall and his symptoms.
No, he had no history of knee problems. He was in relatively good health besides his cholesterol.
The doctor held Henry’s shin with one hand, instructing him to push against it.
“Hard as you can.”
“That’s it,” Henry said.
The doctor cupped his heel. “Pull. Does it hurt?”
“It feels weak.”
Dr. Prasad stood. “PCL. Probably just a partial tear, but we’ll do an MRI to make sure.”
Posterior cruciate ligament. He could walk on it, but he should try to avoid stairs. The doctor gave him a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and a month of physical therapy. There was a good place in Oakland, and another in Squirrel Hill, if that was easier. It was a matter of doing his exercises and giving the knee the best chance to heal.
“Did Carmen take your height and weight when you came in?”
“Yes,” Henry said, knowing what came next. Strangely, it was then, during the lecture, that he missed Dr. Runco the most.
Emily was right—he should have called them as soon as it happened. But he didn’t tell her that. She seemed satisfied that they didn’t have to operate. She was less interested in the details of his physical therapy. “So, did you hear anything?”
“No.”
“Did you ask Linda?”
“No.”
“You have to ask. How else are you going to find anything out? I knew I should have gone with you. I swear, you drive me crazy.”
As always, he didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. “I’m not trying to.”
“I know you’re not,” she said. “That’s what makes it so frustrating.”