The hallways of Memorial Sloan-Kettering brought it all back.
How many times had she walked the polished floors of the mammoth hospital complex, unable to distinguish if she was nauseous because of the early stages of pregnancy or because her young husband lay in fevered pain in his hospital room dying?
But Eliza had never been to pediatrics.
The hospital staff tried to make the surroundings as happy as they could. But it was what it was. The afflicted children, many in wheelchairs, soldiered through their treatments. Their hairless heads made them look older than their years. Little, old, bald boys and girls, fighting for their young lives.
The camera recorded Dr. Lieber as he escorted Eliza through the hallways.
“The problem, as you know, is that children grow so quickly. So do their cancer cells.”
“When you finally know that nothing is going to help a child, how do you help the parents?” Eliza asked.
“We have counselors on staff. But despite the best efforts, I really don’t know how much counseling helps. How can you make something like this better? The only thing is, sometimes the child has been through so much, that the parents just want it to be over for them. Over for the child, I mean. The parents almost never want to give up.”
Eliza thought of Samuel. “I have a friend who just lost his daughter to cancer. In fact, she came here for treatment.”
“What was her name?”
“Sarah Morton.”
Dr. Lieber shook his head. “I can’t place the name. But I’m not surprised. There are so many kids. How is your friend doing now?”
“Not well,” Eliza answered, thinking of Samuel’s face as he left her house Saturday night.
“It takes a long time.”
The crew took pictures in the pediatric lounge, careful to shoot from the back of the bald heads or from an angle so that the youthful identities would not be recognizable. No faces could be shown in the piece unless the parents signed release forms.
There was one little girl whose face could be taped. Her parents had agreed to be interviewed for the story. The mother was stoic as she told the story of what they had been going through over the past two years. The father asked that the camera be turned off when he started to break down.
Dr. Lieber met up with them again when they were finished shooting. He handed Eliza his card.
“Call me if I can be of any other help. I was thinking about your friend, Ms. Blake. If you’d like, have him call me and I will be happy to arrange counseling for him if he wants.”
After the broadcast that evening, Eliza called Samuel. When she heard the initial hope in his voice she wondered if she had done the right thing.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Oh,” he said dully. “I’m fine. Please, don’t worry about me, Eliza. That would make it worse.”
“I am worried, Samuel. You’ve been through too much. I wanted to tell you that I interviewed a doctor at Sloan-Kettering today and he said that he would set up some grief counseling for you if you wanted it.”
“No, thanks. This is something I have to work through on my own.”
“A little professional help wouldn’t hurt.”
“What is a therapist going to tell me that I don’t know already? Sarah’s dead.” His voice was morose. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
The phone clicked in her ear.
She thought about Samuel as the car crawled up the West Side Highway. At the George Washington Bridge, Eliza pulled Dr. Lieber’s card from her wallet and tapped in the number on her cellular phone pad. She got his answering machine and left a message.
“Dr. Lieber, this is Eliza Blake. I am very worried about that friend of mine I was telling you about today. Would you please give me a call when you can?”
She left both her office and home phone numbers.