Nan replied that beyond policy issues, Phoenix Hall had a host of professionals,
She wheeled around to look directly at me, and finally asked what I wanted. “Do you want to go to this Phoenix place?”
“No.”
“Do you want to come to my house?”
“Yes.”
Marianne Engel turned her attention back to Dr. Edwards. “There. Discussion finished.”
It might have been prudent to claim that I needed time to think. After all, I had just chosen Marianne Engel over the doctor who’d been expertly guiding my recovery for months. My hasty answer was, to say the least, illogical.
If there was one thing I could be certain about, however, it was that everyone in the room truly had my best interests at heart. I hadn’t known that Marianne Engel and Nan had been arguing about my living arrangements for weeks; since I saw both of them almost daily, this could only have occurred if they were working together to hide it in order to keep my stress level as low as possible.
“There’s still plenty of time to make an informed decision,” Nan said, indicating that this discussion was anything but finished. It was not lost on anyone how heavily she stressed the word
There were practical concerns that I could not ignore in regard to living with Marianne Engel. One was that, although she said she had plenty of money, she probably couldn’t afford me.
Housing a burn patient is incredibly expensive. Beyond my treatment costs-Sayuri’s fees, medical supplies, exercise equipment-there would be regular living expenses. Food. Clothes. Entertainment. Utilities. She would have to pay the costs of my life not only as a patient, but as a man as well. While there might be government programs or charities that would contribute to my care, I doubted Marianne Engel would ask for their assistance; her personality being what it was, I expected pride, paperwork, and privacy issues would prevent her from even looking into it. She claimed to have the resources to support me, but I could hardly accept this as fact-a shoeful of hundred-dollar bills was not enough to convince me of her fortune. Was this money as much a fantasy as most other aspects of her life? Was I to believe that she had been saving her pennies for seven hundred years?
Not only was living with her fiscally questionable, it was also morally suspect. As the basis of the offer was her belief that her “last heart” was for me, I would clearly be taking advantage, under false pretenses, of a confused woman. As the sane one, not only did I know better, I was obligated to act upon the fact that I knew better. And in any case, why should I put myself in the position of depending upon a mentally ill woman whom I hardly knew? Although my circumstances had changed and I was less physically able than previously, I had been on my own since my teens. Before that, even: as guardians, the Graces had been competent only at guarding their drug stashes. For all intents and purposes, I had looked after myself since I was six years old.
So I had been mistaken in accepting Marianne Engel’s offer, and Nan had been correct. I would reverse my rash decision and enter Phoenix Hall after all.
When Gregor came by that afternoon to drop off Sayuri’s present, he congratulated me on my decision to move in with Marianne Engel. When I informed him that I’d changed my mind, he backtracked and said that I had made the only logical decision. “I think your progress has been fantastic under the guidance of Dr. Edwards. I hold her in the highest esteem.”
I knew Gregor well enough to recognize when he was not saying all that he was thinking. This was one of those times. “But…?”
Gregor looked to the left, and then to the right, to ensure that no one was around to overhear him. “But even monkeys fall from trees.”
I had no idea what this meant, so Gregor explained:
HE THINKS YOUR NUTJOB GIRLFRIEND IS SERIOUS ABOUT YOU.
“Go ahead and deny it,” he said, “but it’s obvious.”
THAT’S SO CUTE.
I wasn’t going to bother arguing the point; I didn’t feel up to that. “What would you do?”
“I’d be worried about living with Marianne, too,” he said, “but you’re no prize, either. If you can put up with each other, I think you should do it.”
“Even if she is fond of me-and I’m not saying that she is-I’m not really sure how I feel about her.” I paused. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t accept her invitation, you’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met,” Gregor said. “In addition to being a lousy liar.”
When you lie in a hospital bed long enough, you start a mental catalogue of all human contact. I touched Gregor on the back of his hand, the first time we’d ever touched, and said, “Thank you for bringing Sayuri’s present.”
A TOUCHING MOMENT…
I buzzed the nurse to ask for more morphine.
… BETWEEN LOSERS.
On Christmas morning, Marianne Engel appeared in my room with a sack of presents and a silver briefcase that she immediately slid under my bed. We passed a few hours, speaking as we often did about everything/nothing, while she fed me mandarin oranges and marzipan. As usual, she made her regular trips outside to smoke cigarettes, but I noticed that sometimes when she came back, she didn’t have the telltale smell of fresh smoke upon her. When I asked her if she had something else going on, she shook her head no. Her smile, however, betrayed her.
In the early afternoon, Sayuri and Gregor arrived, followed by Connie, who’d just finished her rounds. Dr. Edwards never worked on Christmas Day, and Maddy and Beth had both booked the day off to spend with their families. With no one left to arrive, Marianne Engel dragged her sack out of the corner and we began to exchange gifts.
The nurses had pitched in to buy me some books on subjects that had recently taken my interest, such as the inner workings of medieval German monasteries and the writings of Heinrich Seuse and Meister Eckhart.
“You aren’t easy to buy for, that’s for sure. I had to go to three different bookshops,” Connie said. As soon as she realized this might sound like a complaint, she hastily added, “Not that I minded, of course!”
Gregor gave me a stationery set, as I’d confided to him that I’d been working on some writing in recent weeks, and Sayuri gave me some lavender ice cream that I happily shared with everyone. Marianne Engel seemed to enjoy it the most, and was tickled by the fact that it turned her tongue purple.
To the nurses I gave compact discs by their favorite artists. While this was not particularly personal, I didn’t know much about their nonhospital lives. To Sayuri, I gave the gift that I’d asked Gregor to pick up on my behalf: two tickets for an upcoming Akira Kurosawa film festival.
“I got the idea when Dr. Hnatiuk was telling me about it. He loves Kurosawa, you know.”
Marianne Engel looked at me, raising an accusatory eyebrow, because subtle I’m not.
Next came my gift to Gregor, as picked up by Sayuri: coupons for a dinner for two at a Russian restaurant with the highly unoriginal name of Rasputin’s. I asked Sayuri whether she’d ever eaten authentic Russian food, and she answered that she had not. It was now I who raised an eyebrow in the direction of Gregor. When they thanked me for their gifts, I grumbled that “Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without any fucking presents.” No one
