Woman on the Edge of Time

Dr. Morgan had married a nurse who stayed home with their children in Rye. Nurse Roditis liked her and they had long conversations on the phone, about Dr. Morgan and his temper and his vanities and whether he was or was not having an affair with a ward secretary named Pauline. Connie found it hard to imagine Dr. Morgan having an affair with anyone, but it sounded like he was meaninglessly but frequently unfaithful, like a nervous twitch.

But patients and staff had no gossip about Dr. Redding, who had four children and had always been married to the same wife nobody had ever seen. More was known about his kids, because he talked about them. Chaz Junior was doing his residency in urology. Betsey was married, expecting. John was studying physics. Karen, the youngest, he was bitter about He said she was spoiled and he made her go to a psychiatrist. She had run away from home, from school, from him.

Patients and staff talked over the doctors constantly. What could she make of this coffee grounds of gossip? That Redding’s family had a ski and summer house in Vermont and everybody commuted back and forth except him usually. That Dr. Argent was an Episcopalian and was always hurrying to a banquet or a fund‑raising dinner for a senator or a wedding that would be in the Times.Elinor cared for neither New York summers nor New York winters, and Dr. Redding thought Dr. Argent took too many vacations.

Dr. Redding wanted Dr. Argent to invite him to some annual get‑together, some bunch of men who went up to his family’s old hunting lodge in the Adirondacks to shoot at birds or deer or whatever they shot at. Dr. Redding didn’t want to go because he liked to shoot things. He didn’t seem to like anything except his work. He wanted to go because of the men who would be there drinking and shooting. Dr. Morgan admired and envied Dr. Redding, as Dr. Redding envied but did not admire Dr. Argent. Dr. Morgan was a nervous sneak who clung to the rules on the job, who loved procedures and methodology and other such words. Dr. Redding loved power and the feeling of success. He said Dr. Argent liked too much to be a man about town. She had no idea what Dr. Argent might have loved, but he was nervous now at the brink of retirement to carry off some final prize. Redding had an ulcer, Argent had a heart condition, and Morgan lied to his wife about where he spent his evenings.

Tuesday as she was being taken to the bathroom, suddenly she felt Luciente in her like a scream. Luciente came through her like a great wound ripping open that knocked her to the floor of the ward. Then Luciente was gone. Yet she felt an after‑aura of Luciente’s presence. She knew her friend had been with her, there like lightning and gone. The attendant picked her up.

After supper she lay down while the patients were still moving around and talking, while the lights were still on all over the ward, while the laughter of the television set sounded like the pins going down in a bowling alley. She and Eddie had lived at first next door to a bowling alley in the Bronx; oh, maybe twenty blocks from Carmel’s apartment and beauty shop. She had been pregnant in that apartment: she remembered lying in the bed with the hollow rattling thunder of the bowling alley coming through the wall … . She felt Luciente approaching again. Again it was a wild careening approach, full of pain, and almost she resisted in fear; but what should she fear from Luciente? Something must be wrong. She had to find out. She went with the wave of pain, pushing over, and found herself hugging Luciente.

Luciente’s face was set with tears, twisted with agony.

“What’s wrong? What is it?”

“Person is dead!”

“Who? Who’s dead?”

“Jackrabbit,” Bee said behind her, laying his big hand on her shoulder.

“You heard today? When I felt you in my mind for a moment?”

“I didn’t know I’d touched your mind,” Luciente mumbled in a low, weary voice. “I did so now because Bee suggested you might want to attend the wake.” Gently Luciente disengaged herself and stood apart, her shoulders bent.

She touched Luciente’s cheek. “I’m glad you sent for me. Yes. I want to be with you.”

“We feel you’re family,” Bee said. “We thought you should share, if you wished.”

“I heard today,” Luciente said, and began to weep again. “It happened yesterday.” She turned away shaking. Her hands clawed the air. Her back arched on itself and seemed to collapse. Bee caught her. She struck at him, writhed, twisted back and clutched him, pressing her face into his chest.

Bee held Luciente until she had stopped shaking and then started her walking, his arm supporting her. “Come. To the meetinghouse. The wake will start.”

“Is he … Do you have the body?”

“Yes, Jackrabbit was brought by dipper this afternoon and we laid the body out. The mems, we wept over Jackrabbit this afternoon. Now it’s time for everyone.”