I pick up her clothes. I lay her jeans out on the bed, the Avia running shoes beneath the bed. The socks and panties go in the laundry basket but that’s in the bathroom and I can hear her splashing around in there. I’m not going in. I carry them into our room and select a fresh pair of each, go back to her room and lay them out beside her jeans.
I realize I’m not thinking quite straight. I’m carrying her used socks and panties around instead of just tossing them on my bed until she gets out of there. So that’s what I do. Go back to our room and drop them on my unmade bed.
Something catches my eye.
The panties.
Sam says she has little time to shop and she’s not like most women anyhow, she doesn’t really like shopping. So the panties arrived via UPS from Victoria’s Secret along with a half dozen other pairs a few weeks ago. They’re ivory. And ivory shows up stains.
There are skid-marks on Sam’s panties. Or should I say Lily’s.
She hasn’t wiped sufficiently.
So now I’ve got a problem. Do I call her on this or no? If I do it’ll likely embarrass her. I don’t want to embarrass her. I figure maybe it’s a one-shot. I figure I’ll spray the damn things with some of our eco-friendly stain remover and leave it at that.
In my red Sierra 4x4 the radio’s tuned to our classic rock station — the Band doing THE WEIGHT — and wonder of wonders, Lily’s singing along.
“You remember that song?”
“’Course I do.”
“You remember any others?”
“I dunno. I guess.”
“Which ones?”
“I dunno.”
“Name me one.”
She shifts uncomfortably in the seat. “Why are we going to the hospital, Patrick?”
“We’re going to test something.”
“Like in a quiz?”
“Nope. There’s a machine that does the testing. All you do is lie down and watch a bunch of pretty lights.”
“You too?”
“No, just you this time. I already had my test, a long time ago.”
Concussion. I slipped on the ice six or seven years back.
“Did you pass?”
“Yep. And so will you.”
I’m trying to sound nonchalant but secretly I’m very worried about how this is all going to go down. For an MRI to work you’ve got to lie perfectly still — not an easy thing to get a kid to do. The machine is noisy as hell and if you’re at all given to claustrophobia this will definitely bring it out in you. An MRI can be a scary creature.
I’m worried about how Lily’s going to take it. All sorts of scenarios flit through my head. Lily screaming, crying, banging on the tubing, refusing to lie down, scrambling off the table, hiding. Lily in tantrum.
I know how bad this can get. My first clear childhood memory is of me doing pretty much all of these things when faced with my first hypodermic needle. The doctor was not pleased. I doubt that a radiographer will be either.
Ignorance being bliss though, she doesn’t seem at all concerned. She’s gazing out the window at the cows and horses out to pasture, the corn stalks, the fields of soy and wheat. We pass a produce store, a used-car lot selling car-ports, the RoundUp Grocery and the River Winds Casino.
Yep, gambling and wheat fields, that’s us. There are any number of Indian-owned casinos out here, with names like Buffalo Run and Stables. They’re wildly outnumbered by the churches, of course.
But attendance-wise the smart money’s always on the Indians.
When we pull in to the parking lot of Baptist Regional Health she’s singing along to the Kinks’ MISSING PERSONS.
She can remember these songs. But she can’t remember me.
We find our way to radiology and the room is packed. Almost entirely older people. I’m wondering if there’s an Early Bird Special on MRIs and CAT-scans these days.
A young woman in Admitting hands me a clipboard and a pen and we find a seat. While I’m filling out the papers Sam’s fidgeting, openly staring at all the people around her like she’s never seen this kind of crowd before. Fascinated, just short of rude. Across from us a skeletal white-haired woman smiles at her, a little flustered by being stared at you can tell, and Sam smiles back like this woman is her very best friend in the world. The woman hides inside her magazine.
“What’s that?”
She’s pointing to a guy about my age seated by the wall to our left, wearing overalls and work boots and cradling his right arm up into his chest. Luckily he’s talking to the woman beside him — presumably his wife — so he doesn’t notice.
“A sling. The man hurt his arm. But it’s not nice to point, Lily.”
“It’s pretty.”
She’s right. The sling’s a deep burgundy, some sort of paisley print.
“You’ve got one a lot like it. Only yours is blue.”
“I have a sling?”
“It’s a scarf. You make a sling out of a scarf. Normally you wear it around your neck. Or over your head.”
“Can you show me when we get home?”
“Sure.”
I finish the paperwork and bring it to the desk. Sam’s sort of baby-stepping along behind me. The woman in admitting smiles. “You can go right in,” she says.
“Excuse me?”
“They’re expecting you. Right through this door.”
I knew that Doc had clout but this is amazing.
I open the door for Sam and we’re greeted by the radiographer, a short slim guy in hospital scrubs who introduces himself as Curtis. First or last name, I don’t know.
“Mr. Burke. Lily. Right this way, please.”
Lily?
Samantha was what I wrote on the chart. Talk about greasing the skids. The Doctor has outdone himself this time. He leads us down a corridor and opens a door to our right.
Sam steps inside ahead of me and her eyes go wide.
“It’s all white!” she says.
Which it is. The whole room looks like it’s made of porcelain. Walls, scanner, scanner bed, chairs, stretcher, linens. Everything except a long wide window directly ahead of us — Curtis’ monitoring station.
“Are you wearing any jewelry, Lily?” he asks.
“No.”
“What about the ring?”
“Oh, that.”
She tugs off her wedding ring and hands it to him.
“Good. Then all you have to do is lie down on your back here and relax.”
“She doesn’t have to change? No scrubs?”
“Nope. She’s good to go as-is.”
She hops up on the scanner bed. Curtis plumps her pillow. She lies down.
“It’s going to be a little noisy,” he says. “Want to listen to some music?”
She nods, smiles. He produces a pair of headphones.
White.
I hear faint muzak coming from them as she puts them on. Sam would have died.
“Would you like to stay, Mr. Burke?”
“I think I’d better, yes.”
I’m still apprehensive as to how she’s going to take this.
“Then I’ll need your watch and your ring. Anything else metal? Any change in your pockets?”
“No.”
I hand him the ring and the watch and he turns to Sam again.
“I’m going into that room now, Lily. I’ll be able to see you and talk to you and you can talk to me if you need to and I’ll hear you — but only if you really, really need to, okay? Otherwise try be real quiet. Like pretend you’re sleeping. Try not to move at all, you know? Make believe you’re asleep.”
She nods again and smiles. This guy is pretty good.
He exits the room. I sit in a chair. A few moments later Sam begins to move. Head first into the belly of the beast.