High-ceilinged and thick with servants, the dining room at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel looked out over the Public Garden, and the lights of cars on Arlington Street. Gary was a good talker and the boys liked him. Ace was able to regroup, as he thought of it, as the meal progressed. He always ate and drank with pleasure and attention, but tonight he was unaware of much that he ate. He thought of something that Winston Churchill had said, ‘Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result!’ The phrase stayed in his mind. It lingered in the background of his thoughts and feelings, like background music. He and Gary split a bottle of wine. David wore a pale green leisure suit. Dan had on a double-breasted blazer, light blue with brass buttons. That suit’s getting small for Dave. Shot at without result. Goddamn.
“Where’d you eat in London?” Gary was asking.
“We ate at Simpson’s,” Dave answered.
“And lunch at the London Zoo.” Dan said. “Yuk.”
There was a bottle of Rhine wine in the bucket by the table and one of the waiters poured a bit more in his glass. When she’s out, I’ll bring her here. Just the two of us. And we’ll have anything we want and a bottle of wine and maybe two. And we can walk in the Public Garden in the early evening. Before the muggers get active. He smiled inside at his own sense of disproportion, as if he’d shared it with her. He realized suddenly that it was the first time he’d thought about doing something in the future since she’d gotten sick. ‘It better be a big mugger,’ he said to her inside, and laughed out loud inside. That’s one aspect of the excitement. I can start thinking ahead, again. I can plan. I don’t have to focus entirely on this day and repel anticipation. He felt orderly again, but very inward. ‘After great pain, a formal feeling comes.’ It’s not what Emily Dickinson meant, but the phrase is good. The voices of his sons and his friend seemed to come from outside; there was an echo to them. The check came and he paid it and they drove Gary home to Belmont through the new-darkened April night. The car emphasized the containment and new structure of his resurrected life. He looked at Daniels profile beside him as they drove, lit by the city and the dashboard lights. Dan looked just like him. Even he could see it. It was like looking back at himself sometimes. There I am starting over.
They got home too late for the hospital and the boys went to bed. He sat alone for a while at the kitchen counter and drank two cans of beer and thought barely at all. He looked very carefully at the workmanship in the kitchen. At the beams he’d installed in the ceiling, at the stained-glass window in the brick wall. His eye traced the miter line on the molding that framed the window, and he traced along the squared corners of the cabinets that he’d built. He could still feel the contour of the saw handle and the balance of the hammer in his hand. Things fitted smoothly. There were flaws, but they were hidden and the construct was a balanced and serviceable one. The lines were straight. The room was clean. And well-lighted, he thought. And it heals stronger at the break, and all that stuff. Me and you, Ern. He could let himself drink a little now. He could get drunk now. He didn’t need to be sure of his control. So necessary had it been that it occurred to him now that he hadn’t even wanted to drink. So compelling was the need for holding the center intact that he had instinctively avoided anything that would relax his will. Well, we’ve established that. When it gets bad I won’t turn to drink, as they say. He looked at the dog. The dog looked back with that slightly apprehensive alertness he always showed if you stared at him. “I’m okay, kid,” he said aloud to the dog. “We’re all okay. You too.” His voice seemed normal and pleasant to him. It was at home in the room. He felt comfortable talking aloud to the dog. It was as close as he would come to praying.
Chapter 21
Friday morning, April 25
The IV came out. Eunie removed it. Another bond loosened. Now she could walk about. Go downstairs, visit Gerry Wilkinson. The IV had never hurt; it was simply like being on a leash. When Dr. Eliopoulos had it removed two days after surgery it was another step, as she put it, “on the old comeback trail, Doctor.” He smiled, and opened her johnny to check the incision.
“Have you seen the incision yet?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“You ought to look. It is one of the best things I’ve every done.”
“Gee, that’s good to know, Doctor. I’d really hate it if you kept looking at it and shaking your head, and saying, ‘How could I have been so clumsy?’ That would make me very nervous.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t blame you.”
Three young girls in uniform stood a little uneasily by the door. Eliopoulos said to Joan, “I’ve got some student nurses here I’d like to show this to. Okay?”
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” she said and laid her head back on the pillow and put the back of her hand to her forehead.
The students hesitated. Eunie said, “Go ahead girls, don’t pay any attention to her. It’s a terrific incision.”
The girls crowded around and murmured approvingly.
Joan said, “How about a small round of applause. Let’s hear it for the incision.”
The girls laughed.
“Lucky they didn’t start shouting encore in the operating room. I might have ended up with a bilateral.”
Eliopoulos laughed without noise.
“Come on, ladies,” he said to the student nurses. “That’s enough entertainment. We’ll have to look at some other patients.”
They left and Eunie began to wheel the IV stand out.
“I think we better look, Eunie,” Joan said.
“It’s really nothing, Joan,” Eunie said. “It’s really just a simple little scar, goes across not up and down, and it’ll be fine.”
“Okay. You look first and tell me if it’s okay. If it’s fiery red and angry-looking, or puckered or too yukky-looking for me to look at, you say so, and I’ll wait.”
It was a lot of weight to place on Eunie, but she trusted Eunie entirely, and she knew that Eunie would tell her what was best. Eunie flipped the bandage back and took a long look at the incision.
“Joan, it’s really a very good piece of surgery. It’s not yukky. Go ahead take a look.”
She looked.
Stitches show, that’s a little funny. To see thread sticking out of you. But other than that, it’s like when I was little. Like the chest was before I reached puberty. Or like a young boy’s chest, except that there’s no nipple.
“Well,” Joan said, “that’s not so bad.” It was a transverse scar, perhaps seven inches long, running from the sternum to her armpit. The skin was still slightly puckered, and the black thread showed a little. But there was no crater, no gouged and ugly hollow where once her breast had been. Just a small line across her chest and a slight sense of imbalance, because on the right side was nipple and areola, round and central, while on the left was line, straight and extended.