I went back to Matt’s bed and took his hand, ready to utter a soothing good night.
He was asleep.
All I was able to learn in my sixty-second consultation with the very busy Dr. Rosen was that Matt’s hormone treatment and the antinausea medicine he’d been given were incompatible, or that he’d had an allergic reaction to one of them.
Dr. Rosen flipped through Matt’s folder, the way I’d seen Matt manipulate the pages of a felon’s record, dozens of times. “Hmm, it’s pretty big, isn’t it?” she said, clicking her tongue against her teeth.
Not what I wanted to hear, tongue-clicking from a doctor. “What’s pretty big?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, the, uh, tumor. It’s a good size.”
“Isn’t small a good size for a tumor?” Here I was, alienating one of Matt’s doctors with my smart mouth. “I’m nervous,” I told her.
She put her hand on mine, gave me her bedside smile. “I’m sure his doctor has everything under control. Now, you go home and get some rest. I assure you, he’s not going to wake up very soon.” She turned from me and walked away briskly, her ponytail waving like a horse’s tail. So that’s where the name comes from, I thought.
The Galiganis had stood discreetly back while I’d been with Dr. Rosen. My friends seemed very far away, down a long green corridor with side hallways shooting off, and color-coded footprints to take Hansel and Gretel to X-ray, to admissions, to surgery.
Rose came up to me and gave me her best hug. “Is everything okay? What are they saying?”
I told her about the “pretty big, isn’t it” remark. “Why didn’t Matt tell me the tumor was big?” I asked her, as if she’d have an idea that would put my mind at ease.
“Probably it’s just big to her,” Rose said, tilting her head in the direction Dr. Rosen had gone.
“What if something else is going on and it’s worse than we thought?”
Rose shook her head, hooked her arm in mine as we walked to her car. “How old is she? Is she even twenty? This may be her first tumor. Like Frank with his first client. Shall I tell you about that?”
I smiled and squeezed Rose’s arm. She was just what I needed but I shook my head no on the client story. Rose either didn’t notice, or decided I should hear it then and there.
“Well, you know, when a client’s brought into the prep room from the hospital or wherever, it’s usually on a stretcher. You position the stretcher next to the embalming table and slide the body over.” Rose removed her arm from mine to demonstrate a sliding motion. “Many times the body will give out a gasp, like it’s moaning.”
I gave out a gasp myself. “Rose …” I wanted to tell her Frank had told this story many times, but my voice has always been weaker than hers, and she was already into the sound-effects part.
“It sounds like moooooooan. This is only air being expelled out of the lungs because of the movement, but when Frank heard it the first time, it was night and he was alone in the Sasso Brothers prep room where he worked as an intern, and he thought the person was still alive. He nearly dropped the client. Of course now he loves to be with a rookie when it happens, to see the reaction.”
“Thanks, Rose. I feel so much better now.”
At midnight I had Fernwood Avenue all to myself. The street was slick from a brief shower while I’d been in the hospital; the streetlights picked up the fine mist still in the air. I’d declined all of Rose’s offers—to drive me straight home and leave my car in their driveway, to come and stay with me, to have me sleep overnight at their house.
“I need to be near the phone,” I’d said. “Remember that was my condition for agreeing to leave the hospital.” I’d assured her I’d be fine and promised to let her know if I heard anything.
Now as I drove down the deserted street, I wished I’d said yes to one of the Galiganis’ suggestions. The dark brown, shingle house seemed enormous as I approached, too big for one person. Darkness surrounded it, though I could have sworn we’d left the porch light on. In fact, I knew I’d flicked the switch just before leaving for dinner. A burned-out bulb, I thought. One more household chore.
I slowed down in front of the house, preparing to make the turn into the driveway, which was on the left side. A movement caught my eye, a shadowy form that seemed to hurl itself over the porch railing and into the bushes. A rush of fear came over me and I shivered in spite of the warm interior of the Caddie.
I tried to talk myself into a rational state. It was probably Mr. Dorlando’s cat, a frequent visitor to our property. There was no need to feel uneasy, just because I’d be alone all night—I’d lived without a roommate of any kind nearly all my adult life. But I had quickly accustomed myself to cohabitation. I realized I’d never entered the Fernwood Avenue house this late without Matt’s being there. No wonder I’d imagined an eerie visitor at our front door.