Head Case
Dr. Frankenstern assessed the patient in the client’s chair. It was a smallish man, dark and plump and balding, who sat bolt upright and regarded him with large, moist, rapidly blinking brown eyes. The brows were uncommonly lush, the nose round and pink, and the full lips coaxed by an overbite into a permanent expression of wonder.
“So, where do we go from here, Vic?” the man asked him.
The doctor drew in a preparatory breath. “It’s not every day, Earl, that I advise a patient against having more tests. But in your case, I can’t really justify—”
“Oh, please, Vic,” said Haggart, wringing his hands. “Don’t leave me in the dark. I can’t stand the not-knowing.”
The doctor suppressed a smile. “Well, to be honest with you, Earl, I’m not quite sure how to pursue this thing. The symptoms you describe are a little…vague. Tell you what. Why don’t we go over it again from the top, and maybe the proper course of action will suggest itself. Now, you say that you have a pain in the lower abdomen—”
“Not a pain, exactly. More of a discomfort.”
“A discomfort.”
“Yes, that’s right. A feeling of disorientation. I was thinking it might be a twisted bowel, because I remember reading once that—”
“No, no,” said the doctor with a shake of his head. “With a twisted bowel you’d have rectal bleeding, and all sorts of—”
“Then maybe kidney colic,” Haggart suggested helpfully. “Or a parasitic infection. There was an article last month in JAMA about—”
“I’m the doctor here, Earl,” Dr. Frankenstern said sternly. “And, I think...” But then he brightened. “I think we’ll start you off with a barium enema.” He picked up his prescription pad, scribbled on it, and tore off a page. “Here. Bring this out to the nurse. She’ll fill you in on the details.”
Haggart’s lower lip quivered. “That’s not like a colonoscopy, is it, Vic? Because frankly, I’m a little nervous about—”
“Oh, no, no, no. Nothing like that. Much less intrusive. A glorified X-ray, really. We don’t do many of them these days, but as far as you’re concerned, if you’ll forgive the pun, I think it’s just what the doctor ordered.”
Haggart fairly sprang from the chair. “Oh, thank you, Vic. Thank you so much. Gee. I think I feel better already.”
* * *
The nurse opened a red plastic box. Inside was a smorgasbord of pills and capsules, each in its own special compartment. “Nothing to eat or drink but clear liquids for sixteen hours prior to the examination. You’re scheduled for eight A.M., so that means no solid food after four this afternoon.”
“Got it,” acknowledged Haggart. “Nothing after four. I’m so glad to be having this test, Jill, I can’t tell you. I’ve been so worried.”
“That’s perfectly understandable. I hope it puts your mind at ease. Now, the regimen of laxatives is very important. The instructions are right here inside the lid. If you have any questions, just give us a call.”
Haggart surveyed the array of medicine. “And which ones are the laxatives?” he asked eagerly.
A grin flickered and died. “They’re all laxatives,” she told him.
* * *
The elevator doors had hardly closed when the receptionist piped up. “That your hypo, Jill?”
“Listen, Patty. Just because someone has a healthy concern for their own well being doesn’t make them a hypochondriac. On the other hand,” she continued, pointing with a thumb, “that guy’s the genuine article. He thinks he’s got everything from beri beri to anthrax, and we’ve drawn enough blood to fill a lily pond. Doc says the only thing wrong with him is a pair of flat feet.”
“And a loose screw,” ventured Patty.
* * *
“Good morning, Flo,” sang Adelaide, holding the door for her neighbor.
The other woman squeezed by with difficulty, impeded less by the webbed laundry basket than her own considerable bulk. “Phew! It must be a hundred degrees in here! Will they ever get that fan fixed?”
“Someday, I imagine.” Addie found her reflection in the washing-machine glass, and adjusted a wayward lock. Not bad, she decided, for sixty-one. The cheeks were still pretty, her chin had yet to sag, and that silver mane did wonders for her striking green eyes.
“Oh, darn,” Florence broadcast. “Two quarters short. You wouldn’t happen to have a couple extra, would you, hon?”
Adelaide dug the usual touch from an apron pocket. Several dollars a month were donated in this fashion, but she didn’t much mind. Things were a little tight for Flo and Bob; he’d retired from the butcher shop, after all, and didn’t have a nice teacher’s pension like her Earl.
“So how’s the mister?” her neighbor asked, feeding in the coins. “I haven’t seen your hubby around in ages.”
“He’s fine,” Adelaide told her, then responded to the raised eyebrows with a clarification. “Well, not exactly fine, I suppose. He’s at the doctor now, as a matter of fact.”
“Oh, my. Is it still that terrible ringing in his ears? I remember that was bothering him for the longest time.”
“No, that went away. I think. Lately it’s been some kind of an intestinal ailment. For about a week now.”
“Oh, my,” said Florence, studying the kaleidoscope of churning clothes. “I know it can’t be easy for you, Addie. With Earl, I mean. I can’t imagine what I’d do if my Bob was…had… I guess what I’m trying to say is—if we can ever be of help with anything, I hope you won’t hesitate to ask.”
Adelaide patted her friend’s arm. “Thank you, Flo, that’s sweet. But I’m O.K., really I am. It may sound funny, but Earl and I have a sort of a routine down at this point. I’m used to it.” She gave a little chuckle. “The truth is, sometimes I wonder what I’d do if he ever stopped—suffering.”
* * *
“Feel eet ray-goo-lar?” the young man inquired. Probably an illegal from Mexico, Haggart surmised, but he was certainly pleasant enough. And he had yet to forget the gas cap, which the previous incarnation (an alumnus of the very high school where he himself had taught history) managed to do on a regular basis. He nodded assent as he pried himself from the car. Ooh, there it was again, that stab in the lower back. Could mean a herniated disc...
As usual, he found himself drifting toward the service garage. There was something about this cavern that he found irresistible: walls hung with arcane equipment, floor filled with mysterious stains, the atmosphere redolent of balms and potions—
“What’s up with the Toyota?” asked the mechanic, of a man with a smoking cigar.
“Loss of power, guy says. Check the compression first and see what we got there. If them rings are blowin’ by, it’ll poison the mix somethin’ awful.” (Haggart drew a fist to his chest; acid reflux, rearing its ugly head...)
“Then pull the fuel filter. Any gunk in the tank, that’ll mean clogged injectors.” (He wondered about the results of his liver tests.) “Bottom line, we got an old dog on our hands, here. What’s she got on her?” The mechanic peered through the window. “Eighty-five, but that’ll be twice around.”
“Well, there you go. A car with that kinda mileage is circlin’ the drain.” (‘Circling the drain,’ Haggart recalled uneasily. That was a phrase that doctors used for their terminal patients...)
“Do what you can, Louie. Change out the plugs, and dump in a can o’ oil treatment for that knock. But we can’t work miracles. This engine’s a cluckin’ time bomb.” (That’s me, thought Haggart; sixty-six and ticking away…)
“Yo, meester,” called his friend at the pump. “Turty-two feefty.”
* * *
“Eat all of your peas, dear, you’ll need your strength.” Addie had hardly touched her own supper; 3:00 P.M. was a bit too close to lunch. Her husband, on the other hand, had dined with relish. At the instant the clock struck four, he dutifully pushed his plate away, scooped up the first two amber capsules, and washed them down with a refreshing swig of mineral water.
“Would you like to go outside for a while?” It was their habit to sit by the walk, and watch the young mothers with their wee ones.
“I don’t think so, love, not today. I’m looking forward to starting my new book. But, please, you go ahead.”
She looked at him questioningly. “You’ll be O.K.?”
“Absolutely. Don’t you worry a minute about me. All I have to do is to take my medicine like a trooper, and while away the hours with a relaxing read till bedtime. Couldn’t be easier.”
Addie’s heart filled to brimming as she took in that face. He could be so cute sometimes, so much like a little boy. “Enjoy your reading, then, dear.”
* * *
When she returned home an hour later, her husband’s favorite haunt—the upholstered wingchair he’d inherited from his mother—was empty. But the tumbler was still there on the lamp-stand, as was that novel he’d bought at the used-book store. A Russian author, he’d mentioned; she wondered if it was another from Count Tolstoy, or his beloved Dostoyevsky. On impulse, she went over to see. Ah, Solzhenitsyn: Cancer Ward. My, that didn’t sound very cheery. Haggart emerged from the bathroom then and tottered down the hallway like a boxer in need of a ten-count. “How are you doing?” she asked him, but he seemed to look right through her.
“Gosh,” he said, wiping his brow with the back of a hand. “Those pills are really something.”
* * *
Adelaide rolled toward her husband, but encountered only empty sheets. She opened her eyes on the clock: 1:36 A.M. Where could he be? Departing the warmth of their bed, she draped a robe around her shoulders, and headed for the sliver of light at the base of the door. There was a whoosh of water, and the sound of retreating footsteps. “Earl?” she tried, but got no reply.
She found him back in the wingchair, already ensconced in his novel; mouth ajar and the text held inches from his nose. “Earl,” she repeated, and he gave a start.
“Oh, hello, love.” Her husband’s eyes were bloodshot, and his face so pale it seemed almost aglow.
“Why are you still up? You neeed your rest for that appointment in the morning.”
“Can’t sleep,” he said. “Those pills. And this book, Addie, it’s horrible. The things they’re doing to these poor sick people. Experimenting on them with radiation, like rats—” A teary-eyed snuffle cut short his review.
Addelaide circled the wingchair, and stroked her husband’s sparsely sown pate. “Early, Early,” she cooed, “that’s all over, now, remember? Ronnie Reagan put paid to those nasty Bolsheviks way back when. Now, close that book and come to bed. You need to get some sleep, even if it’s only a couple of hours’ worth.”
“Yes, alright. I’ll try.” He stood up weakly and shut off the lamp with the brass pull chain—then switched it back on again. There on the coaster were two sky-blue spheres, staring back at them like cartoon eyeballs. Haggart swept up the pills with a trembling hand. “Last set,” he said around gritted teeth. Addie waited while he took some water, then led him down the hallway to their bedroom. In ten minutes flat, they were snug as bugs-in-a-rug and fast asleep. In fifteen, Haggart was up and dashing for the john like a sprinter to the finish line.
* * *
The waiting room in Radiology was hot, cramped, and dominated by Norman-Rockwell-like renderings of sagacious doctors with cringing children. These lacked the naturalistic flair of the master, however, and looked like the chintzy knockoffs they were. Haggart found the effect disquieting; it seemed like something shameful were afoot. He picked up a magazine, which fell open to an ad for floating hotels off the coast of Belize. What drivel! How could anyone enjoy such decadence when good people were suffering—people like himself?
And he was suffering now, boy, if he hadn’t been before, after a night without sleep and a morning with no breakfast. He knew it was silly, but he felt as if he were starving; every movement of his head made the room swim around him. And as if that weren’t enough, he was painfully shy about exposing himself, and couldn’t help thinking that this particular test might involve…
But at least it would be administered by a middle-aged man; he’d verified that with a call to the desk. Frank Loman was the good fellow’s name—
“Mr. Haggart?” A nurse stood in the doorway, a girl really, cheeks the color of cotton candy and hardly more than twenty years old. Must be a new hire; he knew most everyone at the medical group by sight, if not by name. “We’re all set for you now.”
He accompanied her past examining rooms familiar as old friends. Here was the shadowy X-ray suite (‘chin up, shoulders forward, take a deep breath and hold it…’), and directly opposite, the MRI machine, where they stuffed you into a sewer pipe while powerful men with sledge-hammers (or so it sounded) beat frenetically on the outside. But the room at the end of the hall he could never remember visiting. Inside was a stainless steel table of the sort used for autopsies.
“How are you feeling today, Mr. Haggart?” the nurse inquired, closing the door behind them.
“Oh, not too bad,” he lied, his heart rate starting to skyrocket.
“Has anyone explained the procedure to you?”
“Uh, well, no, I don’t think so. That is, not in so many words.”
“That’s alright, it’s pretty straightforward. We don’t actually do too many of these anymore.” He noticed a scent on her then that was unmistakable: bubble gum. The girl was chewing bubble gum. Stepping away, she removed a piece of equipment from brackets on the wall. It was composed of a black rubber bag of about a gallon capacity, attached to a heavy-duty flexible tube, from the end of which protruded—
Oh my god.
“First we insert this self-locking probe,” said the nurse, joggling the abomination back and forth in front of her. “Then we inflate the lower bowel to maximum distension with a slurry of barium salt solution and compressed air, until we get a clear—are you O.K.?”
“I—I’m fine,” Haggart spluttered. “But I think I’d like to see Dr. Lowman now, if that’s alright.”
She smiled at him patiently till her eyes found the clock. “Mr. Lowman is on vacation this week. My name is Dawn, and I will be your technician today. Now, remove all of your clothing for me, climb up onto the table here and lie down flat on your back. There’s a step stool on the other side.”
Haggart swallowed hard. “All of my clothing?”
The nurse mulled it over. “You can leave your socks on if your feet are cold,” she said.
* * *
Haggart entered the living room wearing his third change of ties. Adelaide could tell by his expression that he liked this gold-and-navy best.
“How do I look?” he asked, doing a shuffling pirouette.
“Very handsome. That one definitely compliments your shirt. But honestly, Earl, you act as though we were having dinner with the president. It’s only Clifford Bliss, your ex-student, and he practically worships the ground you walk on. It’s him who should be a nervous Nellie.”
“Well, I like Clifford,” said Haggart, shrugging into his jacket. “And I won’t deny that I consider these reunions to be quite an honor. It isn’t every high school teacher who’s feted by a student fifteen years after graduation.”
Addie went over to straighten the knot he’d inflicted. “That’s true. Particularly one who’s done so well for himself.”
“Yes, he—ooh, not so tight, love; I’ve got a little swelling there in the glands—he sure has made a go of it in the import business.”
“And in the romance business, apparently. He said on the phone that he’s bringing someone special.”
Haggart’s eyes widened. “What? Clifford’s gotten serious? That doesn’t sound a bit like the devoted rake I remember.”
“Love conquers all, dear,” Addie reminded him. “It happens to the best of you.”
“Yes it does,” he conceded with a wink. “Indeed it does.”
* * *
The Pirate’s Cove was the fanciest restaurant in town. Bliss made reservations there whenever he came to visit, and invariably for the table by the window with its sumptuous view of the bay. Tonight was no different, nor did he alter his routine by arriving on time. Planned for seven, dinner was already a half-hour late when, adjusting himself on the chair, Haggart got a stitch in the upper thigh. The opening strains of sciatica, no doubt—a severe and debilitating condition that would only worsen over time. But he wouldn’t let it beat him, no sir. Not that, nor any of the other maladies that chomped and gnawed at his aging carcass like a pack of hungry jackals. Resolve, that was the ticket. Grim resolve in the face of adversity…
“Earl,” said Addie with a nudge, and here was their host, weaving among the tables with that confident, carefree stride. And on his arm…
Oh dear. Oh my goodness.
“Addie, you look grand,” effused Bliss, bending to buss her cheek. “And you, Earl, you look—terrible.” A palisade of sparkling ivory. “Only kidding, Doc, you know that. You haven’t changed a whit in twenty years. You’re like that guy in the painting, what’s his name—” He snapped his fingers until he thought of it: “Delorean Gray.”
Haggart smiled back as he took the man in. Bliss was elegance personified: Italian suit, hand-screened silk tie, Rolex—even a boutonnière. Then his gaze skipped to the woman at his side, this jewel. Chinese, most likely, petite and exquisite, with jet-black hair, dazzling cat-eyes, and skin as white as an eggshell. Her lips were the color of a perfectly ripened plum.
“Addie, Earl—may I present Mei Chang,” said Bliss, and Haggart found himself rising from his chair and bowing ridiculously. “And this,” Bliss told her, putting a hand on his shoulder, “is good old Doc Haggart, the man who taught me all there is to know about the history of the universe.”
Haggart demurred. “Now Clifford, you exaggerate. I hardly think that—”
“No, really,” Bliss insisted, “you changed my life. You did. I remember those lectures like it was only yesterday. Solomon, leading his elephants over the Andes—”
“You mean Hannibal, and the Alps.”
“Yeah, whatever. Let’s get some action here. I need a belt.”
* * *
Haggart did his best during the meal not to ogle Mei Chang. He tried to concentrate on Bliss’s chronicles; the endless jaunts to Paris and Prague, the debut of his company’s fourteenth store, the brand new beach house in Santa Monica—but the eyes strayed of their own volition, and tarried longer than they should have done. More than once, Addie had caught him staring and given him a look, whether of amusement or annoyance he wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t help it, anymore than he could have ignored the Hindenburg wafting overhead; he was a schoolboy again, bewitched and mooning in the presence of a great beauty.
As usual, Bliss went on and on about the importance of history in his life, giving his teacher credit for everything he’d accomplished. This had always been a mystery to Haggart; as he’d explained to Addie, Bliss had not been a good student, and even something of a troublemaker. He recalled afternoons spent with the teenager whom he’d held over for detention, himself correcting papers while the lad had covered his binder with ballpoint sketches and designs. Obviously he had managed, via some mystical channel, to reach through the fog of failing test scores and missing homework to connect with the boy in a very special way. In the end, it was none of the first-row, budding laureates who’d given him credit for a contribution to their lives, but rather Bliss—Clifford Bliss of all people. And Haggart was grateful for it, too, more grateful than he could ever express.
“This was our first international acquisition, and Jeffrey—he’s my sales manager—he says to me, ‘I don’t know, Cliff, do you really think we should venture into France? It’s a whole new ball game over there, what with the language and everything.’ So I say to him, ‘Listen, son. We’re Americans. We take chances. You didn’t hear Admiral Peary whining about his trip to the South Pole, did you?’ Well, that stopped him cold—and no pun intended.”
Bliss let out his infectious laugh, and the others, infected, joined in. Haggart was delighted by Mei’s charming little chitter. “Forgive me for being pedantic, Clifford, but you’re thinking of Amundsen. Peary went to the North Pole, in nineteen nine. Got frostbite in both feet. They sawed off most of his toes, poor devil, but he wouldn’t give up. Made it the last few miles with nothing but a handful of Eskimos and a couple of wild dogs.”
“See?” cried Bliss, thrusting a finger. “He knows everything!”
“Well, I hardly—” Haggart began, but then the girl was regarding him with a kind of reverence in those captivating eyes of hers, and he felt himself sitting up straighter and pushing out his chest.
“That’s what he did in class!” Bliss recalled excitedly. “He’d reel off these wonderful stories about kings and castles and ships on fire—the stuff that dreams are made of. Why, I’d leave that classroom floating on a cloud.” Inspired anew, he raised his cocktail. “Ladies, I give you Dr. Earl Haggart, my personal mentor and inspiration.” He said this last rather loudly, and a fellow at a nearby table began clapping. Soon another had taken it up, and then the whole establishment seemed to burst into applause at once.
Haggart didn’t know whether to be mortified or exhilarated. He looked from Addie to Bliss and lastly at Mei Chang, finding her own delicate hands joining in the tribute. A flush of pride came over him then as he hoisted his Scotch to clink the other glass. “Thank you, Clifford,” he said. “Thank you very much.” He felt as if he were ten feet tall.
“You are...doctor, Mr. Earl?” This from Mei, who had scarcely uttered a word all evening, except to whisper into Bliss’s ear.
“Not a medical doctor, dear,” he explained, aware that his voice carried a lilt of adoration, but unable to suppress it. “I have a doctorate in world history. From Cornell.”
“That’d be a laugh,” opined Bliss, laughing. “You, an M.D. With all of your, you know, peccadilloes. You’d bill yourself into the poorhouse, ha, ha.” Haggart peered at him quizzically, a queasy sensation forming in his stomach.
“I’m afraid I don’t know,” he said. “What are you referring to?”
“Clifford—” Addie began, but Bliss cut her off, growing more tickled by the moment.
“The doc’s a bit of a worrier,” he said to the girl, “about his health.” He seized his cocktail, found it empty and lifted a finger for the waiter. “Always thinks he’s got something, you know, that he’s sick when he really isn’t. What do you call that? Oh, you know what I mean.” But Mei Chang didn’t have a clue, and continued to stare at him with a prettily furrowed brow.
“Clifford,” Addie chided, reaching to touch his hand, but he’d angled away to a nearby diner.
“What’s the word for someone who imagines they’re ill?” he asked, and waited until the other had finished chewing.
“Hypochondriac,” came the answer, and Bliss spun around. “That’s what you are, old boy!” he thundered, slapping the tablecloth for emphasis. “You’re a hypochondriac!”
The restaurant fell silent for a long, eerie moment. Then the man who’d applauded before was applauding again, and soon everyone was laughing and clapping uproariously. Haggart turned to Addie for support, only to see her solicitous mien shatter as she began to giggle in spite of herself. And then he was growing smaller, shrinking away like a lump in a cup of tea, and just when he thought he might disappear entirely, his eyes found Mei Chang—her features contorted and even repulsive—cackling away with the rest of them.
* * *
“Would you like more ginger ale, dear?” Her husband was sitting with the paper in his lap, as he had been for over an hour now, but his gaze was fixed beyond it, on a whorl in the carpet of uncommon interest, or on something else entirely that only he could see. “No thank you, love. I’m fine.”
He was still reeling from the fiasco at dinner, and rightly so. Of all the stupid things for Clifford to blurt out in front of half the town—and after all that his teacher had done for him, by his own admission. Everybody and his brother knew that Earl was…one of those, but it was a handicap, an infirmity, not the kind of thing you made fun of, anymore than you’d rib a man about his stutter, or a club foot. And Clifford didn’t appreciate, couldn’t begin to fathom, that her husband’s disorder had become an integral part of his lifestyle, and by extension, of her own. In a very real sense it was their guiding star, their raison d’être, what set them apart from all of the other shambling, A.A.R.P. relics.
Sure it was tough to endure sometimes; the conga line of complaints, the endless hours spent in waiting rooms, the constant focus on illness and disease—like a bastard child, to be coddled and nourished and toted around with her wherever she went, in lieu of the real one she’d never been blessed with. But it was her cross to bear, and bear it she did, bravely and around the clock, as she had now for decades. And there was a source of pride in that, a certain dignity, like a woman with a son in the war who garnered respect for the sacrifice. Not a concept that everyone would grasp, especially a philistine like Clifford Bliss—
“I’m going for a walk, Addie,” said Haggart, getting to his feet. “I’ll see you in a little while.”
* * *
He’d heard it before, of course. At first they’d taunted him at school for being a ‘momma’s boy,’ and later, once his afflictions began to develop, for being ‘sickly.’ But it wasn’t until the fifth grade when Mrs. Miller had used it herself, that they had learned the accursed word. He’d asked for the hall pass to see the nurse about a headache—or maybe it had been a rash, or a sore throat, or a dizzy feeling. In any case, Mrs. Miller had gotten angry. “You’re not going anywhere, Earl Haggart, because there’s nothing wrong with you. Not now, not yesterday, and not last week; the nurse told me herself that there’s never anything wrong with you, that you’re a hypochondriac. Do you know what that is, Earl? That’s someone who thinks they’re sick when they’re perfectly well. That’s you, Earl, that’s you to a tee. You’re a hy-po-chon-dri-ac.” She’d reached for a piece of chalk to write it on the board, but hesitated as she looked again at the little boy with the moisture welling in his trusting brown eyes. Then she picked up the wooden cut-out of a firetruck instead. “Here, Earl. Take the pass. Go and see the nurse.”
But he hadn’t been well that day, nor any of the other ones, either. Mrs. Miller just didn’t realize that some people were more sensitive than others, that’s all, more prone to illness and injury, and that there was nothing whatsoever they could do about it. It certainly wasn’t his fault. Or Mother’s...
He pictured her now in one of her print dresses—the one with the sunflowers—attentive and doting as she had been in his youth, bringing him a Coke as he sat before the television with his after-school snack of bologna slices and Wise potato chips. “Poor baby,” she murmured, skimming his face with an ever-present Kleenex. “Runny nose again. You’re coming down with something, I just know you are.” Was he? He thought that he felt O.K., but if Mother said—
If Mother said...
Haggart stopped walking and peered up into the vast night sky, suddenly aware of a chill in the air. There was a constellation above him that he should have recognized, but the stars seemed different tonight, cryptic and indecipherable, a crowd of cosmic strangers.
Mother had done plenty of her own suffering, of course. He joined her now for one of her migraines, she in the parlor wingchair amidst a comforting sea of pillows, and he in short pants on the ottoman alongside. The shades would be drawn against the sunlight, the pulse of her headache in synch—or so he imagined—with that clock. (The grandfather clock: ebony sentinel looming in the corner. How he’d despised that thing. The ominous clacking of its wooden works like the gait of a stalking monster; the funereal chime a theme song for every one of his nightmares.) Father would arrive home oozing commiseration. Except that Earl would catch his surreptitious sighs, the half-hidden shakes of the head, and occasionally, when he was speaking on the phone in the library where he didn’t think to be overheard, the characterization of his tormented spouse as…as a…
Then Haggart was sobbing into his palms as he hadn’t done for years.
* * *
“How do you feel this morning, dear?” Addie delivered his whole-wheat toast and the jar of marmalade.
“Splendid, my sweet,” he replied sweetly.
She had returned to the kitchen before it gelled. Had he said, ‘splendid’? Earl was many things in the morning: hanging in there, tolerable, fair to midling—but ‘splendid’ was definitely not in the repertoire. Maybe he wasn’t fully awake yet; yes, that could account for the queer remark. She took up mugs of coffee and joined him at the table. “Would you mind if we stopped by Sears today? I’m dying to find a sweater to go with my new fall slacks.”
“Capital idea,” said Haggart. “I can stock up on Old Spice, and check out those treadmills they have in the flyer.”
Addie began to cough and sputter. Haggart moved with surprising swiftness to pat her on the back. “Sweetheart? Do you need some water?”
“No, no,” she managed at last, waving off his ministrations. “But—what was that you said about a—treadmill?”
Her husband chuckled. “Oh, not to worry. I intend to be very cautious at first with my exercise program. Or I should say, with our exercise program, because I’m counting on you to join me.” He smiled at her strangely then, and she could only gape in response, dumbstruck.
“But—what about your your neck? And your back? And your knees? And your—”
He waved a hand. “The challenges of middle age, my love, nothing else. Oh, I know that I’ve dwelt on those things more than I should have, a practice I inherited from my dear mother, bless her soul. Raised suffering to an art form, that woman, and passed the skill along to her only son. I was a quick study, of course. Always have been—”
“Earl, I—”
“No, please. Let me finish. Last night was a godsend, Addie. It drove me to ponder, long and hard. And I came to the conclusion that—well, that…” (he directed his next words to the ceiling) “…that I’ve suffered quite enough!”
The wall phone rang then, and Haggart strode to answer it, savoring the amazement on his lovely bride’s face. But there was something else there, too—something, perhaps, akin to hope—and as he encouraged that look with one of his own, a spark leapt between them.
The phone pealed again, and he snatched up the receiver. “Hello? Yes? Oh. Good morning, Jill. You’ll be calling to verify my Wednesday appointment. I’d like to cancel, actually. Yes, that’s right. I’m feeling much better now, and—what? The week before last? Sure, I remember. What about it?”
The silence seemed to go on too long.
“Alright,” he said finally. “I understand. Yes. Thank you, Jill, I’ll be sure to follow up.” He hung up the phone softly, but never turned.
“Earl. Earl, what is it? What did the nurse say?”
“That test we did. The biopsy. They got the results back from the lab. And they found… They found…”
Addie stood up from the table and began to approach him, a hand clutching the neck of her bathrobe. “Found what, Earl? What did they find? Tell me.”
Her husband swung around slowly. “Just what I’ve always been afraid of, Adelaide. Nothing. They found absolutely nothing.”
A grin exploded then as he swept her into his arms. “Alright, babe, here’s the plan: we can hit the mall later, but first, we’re gonna drag this blasted wingchair down to the dumpster where it belongs. And after that—we’ve got to start planning our trip! That’s right, Addie! A second honeymoon! I’m taking you to Belize, in Central America! Can you believe it? And wait till you see our hotel…”
This story appeared first in Poydras Review.
