A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That Read online

“But I feel like I could.”

  “You say that, and it doesn’t make sense. Tipping over? That’s about vertigo or something. Maybe you’ve got vertigo.” I paused. I picked up the pen and began tapping it on the coffee table. “I wish you’d just wait,” I said again.

  “For what?” She sat down on the opposite end of the couch and faced me.

  I was silent.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” my mother said. “You’re a pessimist. You’ve always been one. I don’t know where you get that—all that negative thinking, all that worrying.”

  “You’ve never worried about anything.”

  “I guess not.”

  “That’s why we’re in this—” I began, and then stopped myself.

  “Go ahead,” she responded. “Say it.”

  “I’m not saying anything.”

  “Then I will. That’s why we’re in this mess. That’s why the tumor got so big, because I didn’t worry.” She nodded. She clicked her tongue. “It was my tumor, Rachel. And it’s gone now. You worry enough for both of us, don’t you think?” She scooted closer to me. Our shoulders were touching. “If all that worry added one tiny thing to your life, just one, it would make sense. As it is, I don’t see the point of it,” she said.

  “Worry doesn’t need a point.”

  “Maybe it does.”

  “There’s no point,” I admitted.

  She looked at the papers in my lap. “How’s the story? Is that Daniel’s new story?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You like that boy, don’t you?”

  “He’s my student.”

  “I know that, but if you like him, you like him. I don’t believe in those rules.”

  “I do.”

  “If he’s special, he’s special. He’s been taking your classes for years. He lives here and he likes you,” she said.

  “He’s young.”

  “You’re young. I think you should give him a chance. Get to know him, at least. He’s not flying in and flying off—he lives here,” she said again.

  “I’m not that young.”

  “How’s the writing?”

  “It’s good.” I picked up the pages and looked at Daniel’s words, one bold syllable after another.

  “What’s the story about?”

  “He’s always writing pieces about boys without legs or without use of them—teenagers who can’t move.”

  “I like a more cheerful story myself, but you’re the teacher.”

  “The reconstructive surgery scares me,” I said.

  “It’s good you’re not having it, then.” She patted my knee and stood up.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m glad you’re here, Rachel.”

  “You told me that this morning.”

  “I’m telling you again.”

  I looked down at Daniel’s story and pretended to go back to work. “You got a package yesterday,” I told my mother.

  “From The Beauty Club?”

  “It’s on your bed,” I said.

  “Great,” my mother said. “I’ve been waiting for that. There’s a lipstick in there I think you might like.”

  I didn’t look at her, but stared at the boy’s words. “I opened it up, didn’t see anything interesting.”

  “Did you try on the lipstick?”

  “Wrong shade,” I said.

  6.

  The surgery took six hours and went as expected. Dr. Morgan emerged from the double doors noticeably exhausted. He stood, damp-faced, in front of me and removed his paper hat, using it to mop the perspiration from his forehead. He crinkled the hat in his fist the way another type of man might have smashed a beer can. He stuck the hat in the pocket of his white jacket and looked at me. “She’s fine,” he said.

  “Can I see her?”

  “You can see her, sure, but she’s out of it.”

  And my mother was out of it, so out of it that I sat for three hours watching her sleep. Every so often she’d moan and try to turn, but her torso was wrapped up in gauze, inches and inches of gauze, so that movement was impossible. She was huge, big and round, like a very pregnant woman or globe under the sheet.

  I sat in a chair by the window, writing in my journal. Sometimes I looked out and watched families coming or going—one person in a wheelchair the focus, and the relatives or friends circling the wheelchair—the whole scrum moving toward the parking lot or hospital doors.

  The drugs made her mean. At one point she woke up, called me a bitch, and told me to leave. “I don’t need you,” she said.

  The tone of my mother’s voice startled me, and I dropped the journal and pen to the floor. I got up and went to her bedside, curled my fingers around the metal rail. “You’ll be home in less than a week,” I told her.

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  “You don’t know what you’re saying,” I tried.

  “Go away—I don’t need you,” she repeated. “I want to be alone. Leave,” she said angrily.

  From her bedside I could see the hospital hallway. A young woman dressed like a candy cane pushed a cart of magazines, books, and flowers toward the elevator. Two little girls in matching denim skirts and white blouses played a board game in the middle of the hallway, just outside the room across the way. I wondered why a nurse didn’t ask them to move.

  I returned to the chair by the window, sat there until I heard my mother’s heavy breaths, and then I stood up. I got on my hands and knees to search for the pen. It was a special pen, my favorite, one that my mother had given to me for my twenty-fifth birthday. It was engraved with my name. I crawled under the bed and imagined staying there, sleeping, spending the entire night with the dust and the springs, my mother’s body above me, parallel with my own, the two of us, finally, in perfect agreement. But the tile was cold and hard. I spotted the pen and picked it up. I crawled out.

  “Where did you come from?” my mother said.

  “I dropped my pen.”

  “I hurt,” she said, whimpering.

  I touched her hand, but she sneered and pulled away from me. She tried to lift her head, but couldn’t. Her curls fanned out against the white pillow. “I don’t need you,” she said again, dry lips sticking to her teeth.

  “You’re thirsty. I know you’re thirsty,” I said, putting the pen on her nightstand and reaching for the plastic pitcher and cup. “Let me give you some water, Mom.”

  She tried to lift her head again and when she couldn’t, allowed me to support her. “Here,” I said, slipping my hand behind her neck. “Let me help you.”

  She took a long drink of the water, then pulled her head and neck from my grip. “Go home,” she said again.

  I snatched the pen from the nightstand before turning to my jacket and bag. “You’ll like me again in the morning,” I said, before leaving her there.

  At the elevator I pushed the button and waited. Out of the corner of my eye I watched the little girls who’d been playing the board game, now being scolded. A man stood above them, shaking his finger in one small face and then the other. “She’s sick,” he said, his voice loud enough for me to hear. “She’s very, very sick.” The girls looked up at him, matching faces blank as the hallway itself. The elevator doors opened and I stepped inside. “You need to behave. You need to be good girls,” I heard the man saying as the doors closed.

  I drove down Wilshire Boulevard, through Beverly Hills, where the white, clean streets depressed me further. Those were the stores where people looked at what was on your feet to determine your worth. You needed fine clothes and perfect breasts, two of them, in stores like that. As much as I wanted a cup of coffee, I refused to stop until I was in Hollywood. Once there, I pulled into a Denny’s parking lot, turned off the ignition, and sat for a full ten minutes before getting out of the car.

  Inside the restaurant I sat down at the counter and waited. An older waitress was placing the check in front of the customer to her right. She was picking up the gentleman’s plate,
smiling over at me. The waitress swung around, saying, “I’ll just be a minute,” and I could smell the leftover food, the greasy bacon and eggs, wafting from the woman’s arms. It was unpleasant and I thought about leaving the diner, but decided to stay.

  By the time the waitress made it over to me with the steaming pot of coffee, I was crying. “Can I get a cup to go?” I said.

  The woman had silvery blue hair piled high on top of her head. “Sure, honey,” she said, turning away.

  She returned with a Styrofoam cup and a small white bag. She leaned toward me and winked. “Got you a blueberry muffin on the house,” she whispered.

  “Thank you,” I said, sniffling. It was embarrassing, crying in public, like being caught at Safeway with my eggs and bread and milk, weeping in the checkout line. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I lied.

  “Is it a man that’s got you so upset?” the woman said.

  I shook my head.

  “Not a day goes by without me remembering those who left me. I’m still mad,” she said, “at all of them.”

  I looked at the woman and tried to smile. “It’s not that,” I said. “I’m, I’m—” I stammered, realizing I didn’t know what I was or how I felt.

  “One thing I know: whatever’s got you so upset, you’ll live through it—that’s the amazing thing.” The woman’s lips and cheeks were too pink, a bright, unnatural color. She wore blue eye shadow and huge fake eyelashes, the kind I remembered on my mother’s eyes in the late sixties. Over the woman’s right eye, where the glue had come loose, the lashes were half on and half off. I thought about spiders. I thought about my mother’s rubber breast and the body glue she used as adhesive. I felt guilty for leaving my mother, despite her insistence, in that hospital room alone.

  “Your eyelash,” I said, pointing.

  “Thank you, honey,” she said, reaching up to make it right.

  7.

  My mother told me that the doctor had stood at her bedside late that night, only hours after the surgery, and gave her a limited list of options. She said it was surreal, the Demerol, how the only light coming from the hallway haloed him in yellow.

  I imagined Dr. Morgan was delicate at first, careful with what he was about to suggest. Perhaps he was coaxing, kind and smooth, like a boy in the beginning. I imagined him flipping through my mother’s chart, shaking his head sympathetically. It sounds worse than it is, this therapy, these leeches, he said. Perhaps she was squirming, moving in the white sheets like a worm herself. I don’t know, she said. Bugs? Living things?

  Yes.

  Creatures?

  That’s right.

  I don’t know, she said again.

  Maybe he said her name twice. Elizabeth, Elizabeth.

  Oh God, she said. It’s a nightmare, you coming in here so late, suggesting this …

  We use them on noses, on digits, too.

  Digits?

  Fingers and toes.

  Say what you mean, doctor—or what I can understand this late, my God.

  Okay, he said.

  Digits, what kind of a word is that?

  It’s a word we use.

  We?

  Doctors.

  You’re a good doctor, she said, her voice softening.

  Then it’s a go? he said.

  I didn’t say that.

  Perhaps Dr. Morgan had a limited amount of patience. This was the middle of the night, remember, and I was sure he would have rather been home with his wife and family than standing at my mother’s bedside. Maybe he had people on the floor to attend to that were terribly sick. People with failing limbs, with fingers and toes that could not breathe. Perhaps Dr. Morgan’s jaw set then, the muscles in his neck and back tensed; perhaps his manner changed. And perhaps like a boy with a reluctant girl, a hard boy in the backseat of his father’s car talking about his balls, he said, Blue, the breast is turning blue.

  Blue? she said.

  It won’t last.

  What now?

  The breast needs help.

  My mother thought this was curious, the way he talked about the breast as if it were not, after all, a part of her, and maybe he was right. Perhaps it was more his than hers. The breast, at least at that moment, wasn’t her breast, but something completely separate from the rest of her body, so estranged and alienated, it was dying on its own. She moaned and mumbled something.

  You decide.

  A nightmare, she said again.

  It’s your call. We could always remove it—which is such a waste—all that work, and your courage.

  I don’t want to see them, she said.

  Not them, he said.

  What?

  We use one leech at a time.

  No details, please—remember, I don’t like details.

  I remember, he said. You won’t feel a thing. Good decision, he said.

  8.

  After he went to my mother and suggested leech therapy, Dr. Morgan called me at home to let me know what was happening. It was eleven P.M. and I was sitting in the living room with Angela and Claire. They had convinced me that a late night drink at Ruby’s Room might take my mind off of my mother’s surgery and the subsequent drug-induced hostility she’d aimed at me. I was trying not to think about my mother. I was drinking a beer, painting clear nail polish on a potential run in my black tights, trying to let it all go, when the phone rang.

  The doctor explained that my mother’s body was rejecting the new breast. “The area isn’t responding,” he said. “The transplanted tissue isn’t getting what it needs.”

  “Which is what? What does the tissue need?” I wanted to know. Angela and Claire looked at me. I put my hand over the receiver. “It’s my mom’s doctor,” I whispered.

  “Blood,” he said, matter-of-factly.

  Angela looked at her watch. “What’s going on?”

  “Wait,” I said.

  “You want me to wait?” the doctor said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve got friends here.”

  “It’s good you’ve got friends with you. You’ve been through a lot,” he said.

  “My mother has been through a lot,” I corrected him.

  “Both of you have.”

  “Yes, well.” I lifted the beer to my lips and finished it off, then pointed at the empty bottle, gesturing to my friends that I wanted another one. Angela stood up and headed into the kitchen.

  “You seem like a team to me.”

  “Can you help her?”

  “I’ve suggested leech therapy to your mother.”

  “Jesus.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” he said.

  “They’re alive?”

  “Think of it like this, Rachel—we’ve reattached a part of her body that was damaged, let’s say bitten off by a dog. Let’s say a dog bit off your mother’s nose and someone quick on his feet saved the nose and put it on ice.” Dr. Morgan paused.

  “Go on,” I said, taking the bottle from Angela and twisting off the top. I took a big sip quickly, feeling the cold beer in my mouth and throat. I was imagining my mother without a nose, imagining some quick-thinking man putting the nose, like a bottle of wine, on ice.

  “Let’s say I reattached the nose—did a good job, minimal scarring, all of that—”

  “Please, Dr. Morgan. It’s late. I’m a nervous wreck here.”

  “I understand,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard for you.” He explained the two options: either he could remove the starving tissue, leaving her with a dramatic tummy tuck and nothing else, or he could attach leeches to the area and depend on them to get the blood flowing. He was confident they’d do the trick.

  The leeches themselves were clean, medicinal. They’d been starved for months prior, with just this feast in mind. They’d be determined enough, hungry enough, he hoped, to stimulate the blood, to bring it up through her body and into that makeshift breast—which, by the way, was beautiful, perfect, it would be a shame to waste a breast like that.

&n
bsp; “She agreed to this?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “She’s okay with this?”

  “As okay as can be expected,” he said.

  “God.”

  “I’m on my way in there now to begin the therapy—but wanted to let you know.”

  “You’re going in there with bugs now?” I said, horrified. My friends’ eyes widened, their mouths dropped.

  “It’s one bug, actually. One leech at a time.”

  “Can I see her?”

  “I’d let her sleep through this first treatment. She’s fine,” he said. “They’re medicinal,” he repeated.

  It was midnight, and Ruby’s Room wasn’t crowded. The three of us sat in a booth, drinking our third beers of the night. A group of men sent over shots of tequila. One man, an unlit cigar hanging from his cracked lips, delivered them to our table. His face was red, especially his nose. There were visible cracks, fissures, in the corners of his mouth. I thought that perhaps he worked outside, on a boat. Perhaps he made buildings. Perhaps he fished leaves, dead flowers, and insects from swimming pools.

  The man set the tequila directly in front of Angela, as if all three shots were for her. He looked into her eyes. Angela stared back.

  Claire shot me a look.

  Finally, I interrupted the tension, saying, “Thanks, thank you, thanks.”

  He looked at me, pointed out his buddies with a nod. “Thank them,” he said, the cigar bouncing. I looked over at the men, who were sitting in a booth across the way. I couldn’t make out one face. From where I sat, they were a sea of beards and caps and grins.

  “I heard your big laugh,” the man said to Angela. “And, well, I had to meet you. A girl with a laugh like that is some kind of fun, and I mean that sincerely,” he said.

  “Some kind of fun, huh?” she repeated.

  “I’m buying whatever you want next—for you and your friends here.” He wagged his cigar good-bye before turning back to his buddies.

  Usually, I didn’t drink tequila, but now there I was with an empty shot glass in front of me, a slice of lime sucked dry, and that distinct taste still on my lips. After the cigar guy left, Claire scooted her tequila in Angela’s direction, and now Angela was stacking the two empty shot glasses on top of each other. “I’d forgotten what this stuff tastes like,” she said.