'That remains to be seen,' smiled Mrs. Oliver Barrett, Radcliffe '64, 'but I know he can talk. And I wanted to talk.'
'Okay, then, for the Yalie doctor,' I said.
'Okay,' she said.
19
Now at least I wasn't afraid to go home, I wasn't scared about 'acting normal.' We were once again sharing everything, even if it was the awful knowledge that our days together were every one of them numbered.
There were things we had to discuss, things not usually broached by twenty-four-year-old couples.
'I'm counting on you to be strong, you hockey jock,' she said.
'I will, I will,' I answered, wondering if the always knowing Jennifer could tell that the great hockey jock was frightened.
'I mean, for Phil,' she continued. 'It's gonna be hardest for him. You, after all, you'll be the merry- widower.'
'I won't be merry,' I interrupted.
'You'll be merry, goddammit. I want you to be merry. Okay?'
'Okay.'
'Okay.'
It was about a month later, right after dinner. She was still doing the cooking; she insisted on it. I had finally persuaded her to allow me to clean up (though she gave me heat about it not being 'man's work'), and was putting away the dishes while she played Chopin on the piano. I heard her stop in mid — Prelude, and walked immediately into the living room. She was just sitting there.
'Are you okay, Jen?' I asked, meaning it in a relative sense. She answered with another question.
'Are you rich enough to pay for a taxi?' she asked.
'Sure,' I replied. 'Where do you want to go?'
'Like — the hospital,' she said.
I was aware, in the swift flurry of motions that followed, that this was it. Jenny was going to walk out of our apartment and never come back. As she just sat there while I threw a few things together for her, I wondered what was crossing her mind. About the apartment, I mean. What would she want to look at to remember?
Nothing. She just sat still, focusing on nothing at all.
'Hey,' I said, 'anything special you want to take along?'
'Uh uh.' She nodded no, then added as an afterthought, 'You.'
Downstairs it was tough to get a cab, it being theater hour and all. The doorman was blowing his whistle and waving his arms like a wild-eyed hockey referee. Jenny just leaned against me, and I secretly wished there would be no taxi, that she would just keep leaning on me. But we finally got one. And the cabbie was — just our luck — a jolly type. When he heard Mount Sinai Hospital on the double, he launched into a whole routine.
'Don't worry, children, you're in experienced hands. The stork and I have been doing business for years.'
In the back seat, Jenny was cuddled up against me. I was kissing her hair.
'Is this your first?' asked our jolly driver.
I guess Jenny could feel I was about to snap at the guy, and she whispered to me:
'Be nice, Oliver. He's trying to be nice to us.'
'Yes, sir,' I told him. 'It's the first, and my wife isn't feeling so great, so could we jump a few lights, please?'
He got us to Mount Sinai in nothing flat. He was very nice, getting out to open the door for us and everything. Before taking off again, he wished us all sorts of good fortune and happiness. Jenny thanked him.
She seemed unsteady on her feet and I wanted to carry her in, but she insisted, 'Not this threshold, Preppie.' So we walked in and suffered through that painfully nit-picking process of checking in.
'Do you have Blue Shield or other medical plan?'
'No.'
(Who could have thought of such trivia? We were too busy buying dishes.) Of course, Jenny's arrival was not unexpected. It had earlier been foreseen and was now being supervised by Bernard Ackerman, M.D., who was, as Jenny predicted, a good guy, albeit a total Yalie.
'She's getting white cells and platelets,' Dr. Ackerman told me. 'That's what she needs most at the moment. She doesn't want antimetabolites at all.'
'What does that mean?' I asked.
'It's a treatment that slows cell destruction,' he explained, 'but — as Jenny knows — there can be unpleasant side effects.'
'Listen, doctor' — I know I was lecturing him needlessly — 'Jenny's the boss. Whatever she says goes. Just you guys do everything you possibly can to make it not hurt.'
'You can be sure of that,' he said.
'I don't care what it costs, doctor.' I think I was raising my voice.
'It could be weeks or months,' he said.
'Screw the cost,' I said. He was very patient with me. I mean, I was bullying him, really.
'I was simply saying,' Ackerman explained, 'that there's really no way of knowing how long — or how short — she'll linger.'
'Just remember, doctor,' I commanded him, 'just remember I want her to have the very best.
Private room. Special nurses. Everything. Please. I've got the money.'
20
It is impossible to drive from East Sixty-third Street, Manhattan, to Boston, Massachusetts, in less than three hours and twenty minutes. Believe me, I have tested the outer limits on this track, and I am certain that no automobile, foreign or domestic, even with some Graham Hill type at the wheel, can make it faster. I had the MG at a hundred and five on the Mass Turnpike.
I have this cordless electric razor and you can be sure I shaved carefully, and changed my shirt in the car, before entering those hallowed offices on State Street. Even at 8 A.M. there were several distinguished — looking Boston types waiting to see Oliver Barrett III. His secretary — who knew me — didn't blink twice when she spoke my name into the intercom.
My father did not say, 'Show him in.'
Instead, his door opened and he appeared in person. He said, 'Oliver.'
Preoccupied as I was with physical appearances, I noticed that he seemed a bit pale, that his hair had grown grayish (and perhaps thinner) in these three years.
'Come in, son,' he said. I couldn't read the tone. I just walked toward his office.
I sat in the 'client's chair.'
We looked at one another, then let our gazes drift onto other objects in the room. I let mine fall among the items on his desk: scissors in a leather case, letter opener with a leather handle, a photo of Mother taken years ago. A photo of me (Exeter graduation).
'How've you been, son?' he asked.
'Well, sir,' I answered.
'And how's Jennifer?' he asked.
