Winning is Everything (44 page)

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Gary had entered the New York Hospital at Fifth Avenue and 105th Street so many times, he had finally grown inured to the constant sights of immeasurable suffering and pain all around him.

Children in wheelchairs, people on stretchers, their lives connected to tubes, cancer patients withering away in bathrobes grown too large for shrinking frames.

He rode the elevator to the eighth floor and walked down the hall to Nora’s room.

She was sitting up in bed reading a copy of
A Season at the Fair.

“Haven’t you got anything better to do?” Gary asked as he walked over, kissed her hello.

“Gets better every time,” said Nora, laying the book on her lap. “In fact, I’m wondering when the author is going to sit down and come up with something else.”

“The author”—Gary pointed to himself—”has been a little preoccupied with story-department work.”

“The author”—Nora pointed to Gary—”should make time for his own creative efforts, or he’s never going to get away from the story department that’s keeping him away from his writing in the first place!”

“Nag, nag, nag.” Gary sat down next to her on the bed. “How was dinner?”

“Poison, of course,” said Nora. “And to think I used to make fun of your bland fettuccine.”

Gary smiled and looked at the arrangement of anemones on the window. “Nice flowers,” he said. “Just arrive?”

“This afternoon.” Nora nodded. “They’re from relatives of my ex-husband. They just found out about my condition and probably figured they’d send something before the funeral rather than after.”

“Hey!” Gary said calmly. “Don’t talk like that!”

“And why not?”

“I don’t know.” Gary shrugged. “It’s morbid.”

“Very perceptive!” said Nora. “Well, I think it’s about time we got a little morbid around here. You’ve been spending the past seven weeks trying to remain in high spirits just to keep me feeling good, and up to now I’ve been playing along. I guess I suddenly realized that our time together is scarce, and that, indeed, I am going to leave you, and so I guess I’m getting a little depressed about it.”

“Fine!” Gary raised an open hand of surrender. “You want to get depressed, you got every right in the world. You want to know the truth, I’ve wanted to break down in your arms half a dozen times in the past weeks … and didn’t, just because you were putting up such a good front.”

“So you think maybe we should each fall apart and cry on my behalf?” asked Nora.

“It’s something to think about,” said Gary.

“What I want to know is …” Nora fingered the sheets nervously and looked out the window. “How come I wasn’t able to come down with something glamorous and uncomplicated like Mimi’s consumption in
La Bohème
or Garbo’s T.B. in
Camille?
Those ladies knew how to exit. Wan and frail, yet still lovely—now, that’s my kind of coffin.”

Gary wrapped his hand around Nora’s small fist. “I’d like you to know that if it’s your plan to cheer me up with this kind of talk, it’s not working!”

“You know what’s really amazing?” asked Nora, still staring out the window. “We’re constantly being prepared for life. You know, for school, for marriage, career, but we never do anything to get ourselves ready for death.”

“You’re right,” said Gary, not knowing what else to say.

“I want you to promise me you’re going to get back to your writing seriously after I’m gone.”

“Stop it,” said Gary. “You’re not going anywhere!”

“Now, listen to me,” said Nora. “We’ve been through all this before. I know what’s going on. I feel the deterioration. I listen to the doctors. If we both know the reality, why shouldn’t we be able to face it?”

Gary held Nora’s hands. “I guess because it’s a little more than I can handle right now, that’s all. Who wants to think about what it’s going to be like without you?”

“But you must!” Nora insisted. “Listen. I’ve been holding on as long as I can. We both know I’m weak. Still, I’m not planning to check out until I know you’re going to be okay.”

“You could go on the dialysis machine, you know.”

“Please …” Nora closed her eyes for a moment. “Let’s not go through that again, okay? You promised. I don’t want to live that way,
won’t
live that way. I don’t mind dying. Honest. I just don’t want to leave you, and I don’t want to make some ungraceful exit, plugged into a gigantic piece of equipment that’ll make me feel repulsive and helpless and eventually do me in anyway.”

“But, Nora—”

“Come on. You’re not talking to a child. I understand the alternatives; I’ve considered the options. This is what I want. And I’d appreciate it if you would support my decision.”

Gary heaved his shoulders in the air and then leaned down and kissed Nora. Despite her frailty and the loss of that outdoorsy glow of health, her blue eyes were as large, as expressive as ever. Deathly ill, Nora was still the class act.

By eight o’clock Nora was so exhausted from his visit, Gary said he would leave. He kissed her lips. “See you tomorrow night.”

“Honey …” Nora opened her sleepy eyes. “Don’t you have that screening tomorrow night?”

“I’ve decided to miss it,” said Gary.

“No, no.” Nora shook her head from one side of the pillow to the other. “Didn’t want you to miss it. I want you to go for both of us.”

“Perhaps I can drop in before the movie,” said Gary.

“No!” Nora insisted. “Uptown, downtown, it’s crazy. You can’t keep taking taxis up here every night. You’re spending your entire salary on hospital visits.”

“I don’t mind—”

“Stop!” Nora held Gary’s hand. “Tomorrow night you see
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
You take extra-careful notes, observe everything, because I’m going to ask you loads of questions. I’ll see you the night after next, and by then I’ll have still more expert observations on your book.”

Gary smiled down at Nora. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Adore me.” Nora smiled.

Gary leaned over, kissed Nora, held her tight, and suddenly started to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said with a sniff. “I just don’t want you to go!”

Nora rubbed Gary’s back, soothing him. “Don’t worry,” she said softly. “I won’t be going far. I promise. Remember when we were in Italy, skiing into town? Remember how I was directly behind you all the way down the mountain, following you to safety?”

“Of course I remember,” said Gary.

“Well, that’s how it’s going to be again. Just know that wherever you are, through all the years to come, whenever you need me, just look back over your shoulder. I promise … I won’t be far behind.”

Gary sat up, blew his nose. “I’m mad for the way we’re playing this scene,” he said. “
You’re
comforting
me!”

“I love you!” said Nora.

The following evening, Gary did attend the screening of
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
He brought along a pad and pen and wrote down witty comments as he watched the witless film. The next day at work, he typed his notes up into a movie review. He placed his criticism inside a manila envelope and brought it to the hospital. He rode the elevator to the eighth floor, and when he got out and walked down the hall to Nora’s room, he found she wasn’t there.

“Excuse me,” Gary asked a nurse at the nursing station. “Room nine-oh-eight. Nora Greene. Do you know where she is?”

“Are you a relative?” asked the nurse.

“I … Yes, I am,” said Gary, wondering why he’d never seen this particular nurse before.

“I’ll call Dr. Millstein,” said the nurse. “He’ll talk to you.”

The nurse picked up a telephone and Gary asked, “She
is
all right, isn’t she?” knowing that no matter what else, no way was Nora all right.

“Dr. Millstein will be right with you. …”

“She’s in a coma,” Dr. Millstein told Gary.

Gary looked down at the floor. “Will she come out of it?”

The doctor flicked an ash off his cigarette and then placed the Marlboro in his mouth and inhaled deeply. “Who can tell?” he said. “You know she hasn’t been well …”

“I know.”

“We all thought she’d been making incredible progress, too. Really a strong patient.”

“Doctor, is there a chance she …?”

“Why don’t we wait and see what happens?” asked the doctor. “Right now, her life-support systems seem strong. If we can build her back up, who knows?—we may be able to bring her out of it. You should stick around, though. Things can happen very quickly in kidney cases like this.”

“Can I see her?” asked Gary.

The doctor crushed his cigarette into a nearby standing ashtray. “Sure,” he said. “You can look in. But just for a minute. There’s a lot of medical people running around Intensive Care. Best to stay out of their way.”

“Right.”

“I am sorry about this,” said Dr. Millstein. “Nora’s a … she’s a beautiful woman.”

Gary looked at the doctor appreciatively > softly saying, “You noticed that too, did you?”

Gary hung around the hospital for the next three days, in sort of a daze. He took his meals downstairs in the cafeteria. He sat around the waiting room, thumbing through magazines he’d already read weeks earlier. Once, when he spotted Dr. Millstein, he was led inside the intensive-care unit, given a face mask, and was allowed to spend a few moments looking at Nora, now so emaciated and gray. It was hard to believe that only several years earlier she had led an expedition to the base camp of Mount Everest, at eighteen thousand feet.

Feeling helpless, Gary returned to the dismal waiting room.

“There’s been no change,” said Dr. Millstein. “It’s nine o’clock Saturday night. No sense waiting around here. Nothing’s going to happen. Why don’t you go home?”

Good advice, Gary decided. He left the waiting room and walked to the elevator.

A young man who was always visiting his dying mother in the room next to Nora’s was waiting. Gary and the attractive fellow had ridden up and down in the elevator so often in the past weeks, they had begun a casual acquaintance.

On this particular evening the man said, “We’ve never really introduced ourselves. I’m Jack Wellsley.”

“Gary Sergeant.”

“Funny,” said Wellsley. “You see someone for weeks, you ride up and down before and after visiting hours together, you discuss fairly intimate things like who’s quite sick, or you chat about dumb things like the weather. But you never get to know someone’s name.”

“True,” Gary acknowledged.

“I hate the hospital at night,” said Jack. “So gloomy, don’t you think?”

“That depends,” said Gary. “If you’re leaving the maternity ward as a new father, it’s probably not too bad.”

“Yeah …” Jack agreed. “How’s your lady?”

“The same,” said Gary. “And your mom?”

“I don’t know.” Jack raised tired eyes to the ceiling. “She’s real low. Doctors said it could be anytime now.”

“I’m sorry,” said Gary.

“Thank you,” said Jack.

They rode the elevator to the main floor in silence. When they walked through the swinging doors that led to Fifth Avenue, something in Gary reached out, suggesting, “Hey. Why don’t we grab a few beers?”

Jack looked at Gary as though he’d just saved his life. “Oh, yes,” he said. “I’d really like to unwind.”

Two hours and two Irish whiskeys with beer chasers later, Gary and Jack decided getting drunk together had turned out to be the most satisfying way to relax in some time. They also decided that if they were going to talk more, they ought to go back to one of their apartments. Besides getting drunk together, both young men had been given an opportunity at last to talk openly with someone about all the feelings they were going through at this difficult time.