Magnetism Read online

  By way of apology, perhaps, Mom manages to shrug, wink, and grin at the same time. She puts down her magazine. She and Johnny stand up for my designated nurse, Sam, and the recovery nurse (whose name I don’t know) who has escorted me back upstairs from the basement operating room. The two of them slide the bed into place and reposition all the wires and tubes that are attached to me.

  I find that, now that I am living in the after, instead of being angry at all the anxiety she’s put me through, I’m just very pleased to see Mom, to know that she’s alive as well. She’s far from a spring chicken but still looks pretty good in her red pant-suit, all dressed up and wearing heels. Despite her supporting role in this situation, she never fails to appear the important one in any gathering.

  When they’re finished moving stuff about, Sam starts talking to Mom like they’re old friends. Someone has given her a cup of coffee but Johnny, in his T-shirt and jeans, doesn’t have a drink and he looks restless and irritable. I expect he’s very hungry, because he usually likes to start his lunch at eleven. We’ve been here since five a.m., which is when they told me to arrive. I reach out to grasp his hand. This movement is strangely awkward and uncomfortable. I am tightly bandaged, but now I realise that I still have my left breast. Why haven’t I thought of this yet? Nothing exactly hurts, but I do feel the pressure of the bandage.

  It turns out, if there is any concern about cancer, there is nothing as definitive as getting in there and rooting around and chopping bits of flesh out. When I had my pre-op assessment I consented to the removal of whatever was necessary once they had ‘opened me up’. In addition to worrying that Mom was dead and that was why she hadn’t turned up this morning, I had spent the time from then until now wondering what it would be like if ‘necessary’ turned out to be more than a small amount. At the same time as wanting them to get on with it in case it was malignant, I did not realise how attached I felt to my body, how distressed I could feel at the prospect of losing any part of me.

  As I lie here in my hospital bed post-surgery I next find myself concerned about the fact that I have told the doctor who met me in recovery that he looks like a teddy bear. Now that it’s over and I’m still alive and no longer so worried about losing half my breasts, I really wish I hadn’t said that. He probably thinks I’m a moron. I remind myself that, when I told the nurse in recovery about it, she said not to worry, that he won’t think I’m nuts, it was the anaesthetic, and he’ll totally understand.

  ‘But he does really look like one, doesn’t he?’ I asked, and I went on to tell her that Barbie’s boyfriend Ken is the one who did my nose job, which is one of those true-false memories. It’s all perception, after all. A person is vulnerable under the influence of drugs.

  I know, really, that it wasn’t Ken, but I can vouch for him being very gentle, even if a bit plasticky, when he spoke to me and told me I’d be fine. In return I’d told him at the time that Barbie was very lucky, and that I envied her. ‘The thing is, I really love teddy bears, and the teddy bear look,’ I said to the recovery nurse. ‘In fact, I think I’m in love with Dr Frostrick,’ I concluded.

  She smirked a bit, but she was also nice and told me not to sweat it. I don’t mind being one of those patients they can laugh about later. I’ll never see her again.

  Now I try to explain something to Johnny. ‘It’s not unusual for patients to fall in love with their doctors,’ I say. He just looks puzzled. ‘I’m not in love with anyone,’ I add, which doesn’t help anything because we’ve been going out for months and perhaps Johnny thought that I was in love with him. ‘I guess I’m a bit shocked. It’s the drugs,’ I say next, and he seems to accept this explanation. ‘I’m kind of stoned.’

  ‘What’d she say?’ Mom asks, looking up from the Reader’s Digest.

  ‘Nothing,’ Johnny says. ‘She’s talking crap. She’s fine.’

  When I’ve been back in the room for a while, Dr Frostrick comes to talk to me again. I’m impressed when he asks my mother to wait outside. She always wants to butt in on these things and no one, including me, has ever had the resolve to ask her to leave. She doesn’t put up resistance today, even when he suggests that Johnny stays with me. Perhaps he thinks we’re married or something?

  Frostrick still looks like a teddy bear. A very cuddly and attractive bear. He sits down on the bed, pats my hand, speaks for a few minutes, and smiles at me. I smile back. When he finishes speaking and waves goodbye as he leaves I turn to ask Johnny what he said, because I haven’t understood it. It was all gobbledygook.

  ‘You haven’t got cancer. They’re doing tests to be sure, but he thinks it’s fine.’

  ‘Tell Mom,’ I say, ‘she’ll be worried.’

  A minute later she rushes back in. ‘See, I knew it would all be okay, honey. I knew you were worried about nothing.’

  This is the first time she’s said anything like this. Up until this very moment she’s only offered gloom. Instead of reassurance she chose to tell me about her sister Sheila – one of my two aunts (both of whom I never knew) – and how she died of cancer. ‘I’m pretty sure it was breast cancer too,’ Mom said. ‘When it runs in the family, the Big C is just a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. That’s why a person needs good insurance.’ And, with regard to my problem, she said it was just as well they caught it early for me, that treatment nowadays has improved. In fact, the most positive thing she said throughout all the build-up to this surgery was, ‘If you’re lucky, you might have a couple of years.’

  Johnny goes off to get something to eat. He’ll be back in an hour, he says, and Sam brings Mom a tray of food. It’s something the two of them must have arranged before I got back to the room. People always like to take care of Mom. She’s got some woman, a woman her own age (not a girl) from her Mah Jongg group, cleaning the house for nothing, and some guy from the church she belongs to shows up every week to mow her lawn and do odd jobs without pay, or even acknowledgement that this is a kindness. She says she gives him a coffee and a couple of cookies and that, as he’s a Christian, she’s helping him by giving him the opportunity to do good works. ‘He’s the one who should be grateful.’

  I wonder, often, if I’m just jealous because she’s the sun with a powerful gravitational pull that everyone recognises, and in contrast I’m just a very minor planet in her wide orbit. Even Dad always did exactly what she said.

  Now that the crisis with my health is over, she decides to pull her chair close and reads aloud jokes from her magazine. I know they’re jokes because she’s reading from the Reader’s Digest joke page, but, listening to one after the other, I am confused. Again and again, I don’t get them. They’re not funny. They make no sense. Not one of them makes any sense. She picks up another issue and we go through more jokes, but they’re still not funny, still all complete nonsense.

  I ask her to read the last few again slowly and I concentrate but still I can’t understand what they mean, why they’re supposed to be funny. I begin to panic. I feel on the outside of everything. I am again the person who doesn’t speak the language, who doesn’t know what’s happening, and who can’t keep a grip on reality. I am someone who, at some level, still thinks it’s possible that a children’s toy could be an accredited plastic surgeon.

  ‘Stop now. Stop telling me these so-called jokes,’ I say to Mom. I feel breathless. ‘This is setting me back. It’s not helping my recovery. Please don’t read me any more.’

  ‘Recovery? What’s to recover from? You were always just fine.’

  ‘Well, from how I feel right now. I’m still going to have a permanent scar. A scar, Mom. Just stop, please. I’m freaking out. I can’t understand anything.’

  A stabbing pain followed by a sharp ache suddenly comes up at me and I shut my eyes. Whatever chemical block they put in earlier is wearing off. ‘I just hurt, bad. I’m sorry. I’m just hurt,’ I say, and she tells me gently to lie quietly. She says that everything will be fine. Her voice is soothing. It’s irrational; around her things are often not
fine, but still this is the effect she has on me. I relax.

  She tells me, ‘I’m changing the subject now, to take your mind off yourself. You think about yourself too much.’ She asks me, again, where I met Johnny. Of course, she doesn’t say it like that, she asks where the hell I dug this one up.

  I think I’ve told her before that he worked for the city, but maybe I managed to avoid telling her anything or maybe she’s really forgotten. Keep it simple, I think. That’s the trick to lying.

  I say, ‘You know, Mom. I told you. I don’t know anything right now.’

  ‘Well, you should put him back,’ she says. ‘And where’d they get this crappy pudding from?’ It’s the only thing she hasn’t eaten and she pokes at the container with her forefinger. Then she sets it aside on the cabinet next to her chair, probably to save it for later. Finally, she puts her head back to get some shut-eye and tells me to do the same.

  Infuriatingly, Mom is able to doze in waiting rooms, on trains and planes, even at a party if she gets bored, whereas for years I’ve struggled with bouts of insomnia. I try to sleep now. I really try.

  Johnny returns after a while and I whisper to him so as not to wake my mom. I tell him about the pain and how I seem to have lost some of my brains. He goes to tell the nurse and, while we’re waiting for Sam to come back to see me and fix things, Johnny decides that maybe he will be able to explain the jokes.

  ‘Beans can’t run,’ I say, still whispering. ‘They don’t have legs. You need legs to run, and a reason.’

  ‘It’s a joke,’ he says. ‘Just a joke. Like, if beans had legs they could be “runner beans”. It’s not clever, just funny. Don’t think so much. You’re always thinking too much. You should cut that out.’

  ‘But they don’t have legs.’

  Sam interrupts us to see what’s up. As Mom is asleep, he whispers as well and asks about the pain which is getting much worse. ‘I’ll see what I can get you.’ He takes my blood pressure, which is fine, and goes off again.

  After twenty minutes or so, pills have helped the pain, but have made me feel a bit dizzy, like I am drunk. Maybe I sleep for a while but, later, I am looking right at my mother when she opens her eyes. I tell her hi.

  Whenever Mom wakes up, she’s like Woody Allen in Sleeper: it’s as if she’s been asleep for hundreds of years, not minutes or hours, and she doesn’t know where she is, as if she’s been pulled back from some other, more real place. She slept with her mouth open and now she licks her lips. Her voice is dry.

  ‘How are you doing?’

  ‘Less pain, bit dizzy.’

  As if she has been called in for a second opinion, she wobbles to her feet and puts her cheek against my forehead. She has always taken my temperature this way. After a while, she says to me, ‘You’re looking a bit green about the gills,’ then she repeats it to Johnny who also looks like he’s been sleeping, but he often looks a bit dopey so he might not have been. ‘She’s a bit green about the gills.’

  I am horrified as he nods agreement.

  ‘Maybe,’ he says.

  I clasp my neck with both hands, and run them up to my face, to my eyebrows. ‘Where are they? What are you looking at? I haven’t got gills,’ I say.

  ‘They’d be right there.’ She points to the area just below the left side of my jaw.

  ‘What colour are they normally?’

  ‘Pink maybe, beige – flesh, I guess,’ she says.

  Johnny says, ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘I can’t see your gills. Do you have gills?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Don’t be a dumbass.’

  ‘Why is it just me with gills?’

  ‘I don’t know. Forget it,’ he says.

  I look from one to the other, searching for something that will explain my gills.

  ‘What did they give her?’ Mom asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Something. Some drug. She’s just talking crap again.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a reaction,’ she says. ‘You’d better check. Get the name of it. I want to know.’

  My chest really hurts again and the bandage feels even tighter and more confining. I feel increasing panic as I wave my hand in front of my face. If I were a fish it would explain a lot of things. Fish don’t get jokes. Fish have gills. Do I have legs? Do I have breasts? I signal with my eyes to Mom that I am thinking about something serious. I mustn’t say these things aloud because then I’ll look crazy and, even if I have gone crazy, I don’t want anyone else to know.

  As the panic increases, I send my thoughts to her. I don’t think she understands at first, but, then suddenly she does understand. ‘Go get that man, that nurse, now,’ she shouts at Johnny, and I strongly nod my approval by whacking my head up and down against the pillow. I lift up my hands again to look at them and check that they’re still there, that I am not losing all my limbs.

  ‘Calm down,’ Mom says. ‘All that thrashing about won’t help.’

  And I transmit more thoughts to her, staring at her eyes, boring my concerns into her mind. She gets it. I know she gets it. ‘Why have I got gills?’ I whisper. ‘Tell me the truth.’

  ‘Honey, gills are no big deal,’ she says then she sits back on the upright chair and puts her head back again and shuts her eyes.

  If she’s not worried, I don’t need to be worried. My mother is like a talisman. I know that when she’s with me nothing really bad can happen to me. I try not to think about it. I must not think about it. If I am a fish, then I’ll have to get used to it. Life can be like this. Surprises happen. Fish get ill, I guess. She still loves me. She always tells me the truth. There is nothing to be worried about.

  I don’t want her to go off to sleep and leave me like this so, just to keep her talking, I ask her if she’s tired.

  ‘I am,’ she says.

  ‘Very tired?’

  ‘Try to rest now.’

  ‘How long have I been a fish?’

  ‘Not long. It’ll pass.’

  Finally, I shut my eyes too. I float off. I dream about swimming in clear water and I am not a fish, I am a mermaid and I have a very strong tail which works just like flippers to send me this direction and that. I can swim the oceans and right around the world.

  When I wake, Johnny is back and Mom is also awake. She’s got another cup of coffee and he’s got another magazine and is crunching through a bag of potato chips. He reaches over me to offer Mom one from the bag, and then she sees that I am awake.

  ‘You’re back with us,’ Mom says.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I say. ‘The fish thing and everything.’

  ‘It’s no big deal,’ she says. ‘See, everything’s all right.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re here, Mom. I just wish you had come when you were supposed to. I was worried.’

  ‘I think I should go. I need to sleep,’ she says. ‘Do you get CNN here? I can’t miss O.J. It’s better than As the World Turns.’

  ‘We get everything here, you know that.’

  ‘Well, you need your rest too. Jimmy, can you give me a ride?’ Neither of us corrects her about Johnny’s name, and, though she kisses me on the forehead and tells me she loves me, he doesn’t even say goodbye as they walk out.

  A few minutes later, Sam comes to help me to the bathroom. I am very unsteady on my feet. When I return to the bed I am violently ill and vomit bile everywhere. Sam gently puts me in the chair vacated by my mother while he changes the sheets.

  ‘It’s probably a reaction. The anaesthetic, and the morphine. It happens.’

  Now that my stomach is empty I feel a bit clearer. ‘It’s been a big day,’ I tell Sam. ‘I feel very relieved … Hey, you don’t notice anything funny about the way I look, do you?’

  ‘You mean the surgery, or are you a fish?’ He laughs. ‘I heard. Your boyfriend told me. He thought it was hilarious. Said he wondered if we needed to get a shrink in.’

  ‘Did he? Well, I know I’m not a fish,’ I say hoping that I sound convincing. ‘I’ve never been a fish. W
hy would a fish be in here?’

  Sam laughs again. ‘You look fine. Don’t sweat it. Let it go, Louie.’

  The slogan is from an ad but at first I can’t remember what it was for. I guess and ask if it’s Budweiser.

  ‘Budweiser,’ he repeats. ‘Budweiser, for sure.’

  Now he gets another gown and loosens the ties on the one I’m wearing. He changes my nightwear discreetly and politely, without allowing me to feel cold or vulnerable. He holds the flapping back shut as he helps me to stand up again.

  A psychiatrist? I can’t share anything with Johnny. He doesn’t know the first thing about me. He’s so fucking grounded he can’t come with me anywhere interesting. Instead of making me feel special, he makes me feel like I’m weird.

  Sex is not enough to stick us together. But this is not a disaster. I know things are never actually static and that a person can be a variety of things in a lifetime. No one should be tied down to any one incarnation. I’m okay and life is fluid. It’s keeping track and keeping up that’s difficult.

  ‘I guess I’ll have to tell him we’re finished. I can’t be with someone who thinks I’m crazy,’ I say to Sam.

  ‘Unless you are, maybe?’

  ‘I’m not. I’m sure I’m not.’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you, your Mom is one special person,’ Sam says as he delicately cleans my face with one of those wet wipes, before he helps me to sit back on the bed. ‘She seems very sweet.’ As he continues I think how much she’d hate to be described as sweet. Sweet is little and gentle and she’s always been gigantic and fierce. Now he lifts my legs on to the sheets and puts on those special socks that will keep my circulation in action. He plugs these in one at a time as he tells me he’s going to be going off duty soon, but that he’ll see me tomorrow. ‘Tomorrow you’ll feel a whole lot better,’ he says. ‘The first day is the worst. You will be fine. Tomorrow we’ll change this top dressing and you’ll want to watch TV. But now you just need to rest. It’s been a big day.’ He gives me the thing to press to get a nurse if I need one.