Chapter 3
Greer
“The thing is, you can’t be afraid toask for help.”
From my spot beside Dennise, I shift uncomfortably in my orthotic-supported flats, move my tablet from one hand to the other, subtly tilt my head from side to side in hopes of flushing out some of the tightness that’s gathered there. It’s been about forty-five minutes of me standing here on the pale yellow linoleum of the hospital room floor, taking notes while my boss talks to Mr. Morgan, who’s been admitted to Holy Cross for the third time in the last two months, another minor fall that’s nevertheless resulted in ten stitches across his forehead and three broken fingers. Mr. Morgan is eighty-seven years old and suffers from occasional vasovagal syncope, and he absolutely needs to hire the in-home care his insurance will pay for.
So far, he’s resisted, stubborn about strangers in his house and even more stubborn about the fact that he’s never going to get any steadier on his feet, no matter how careful he is. Dennise has already spent an hour this morning back in our basement offices on the phone with his daughter in Seattle, who keeps promising to fly in for a visit as soon as things slow down at her job, but I don’t think Dennise or Mr. Morgan iscounting on it.
“The little button,” Mr. Morgan says, gesturing toward the spot on his chest where his Life Alert would normally rest, and I feel my heart clench in empathy. Never mind that I’m not eighty-seven years old, never mind that I don’t have vasovagal syncope. I know how it feels, not being in control of your body, and I know how it feels not to want to give up the control you do have. “It worked. I pressed it and the squad came.”
In the five and a half months I’ve been working as an intern in the Care Coordination Office of the hospital, I’ve come to learn Dennise’s tells. They’re subtle, because she’s an absolute pro, hardly ever betraying a whiff of impatience, but they’re there—a little movement whereby she brings her thumb and her ring finger together, making two taps, a slight shift in the way she saysmmm-hmm, a bit more emphasis on themmmpart. She does both now, then slides her brown eyes toward me before looking back to Mr. Morgan. “We don’t want you to have to press that button, though,” she says, and for the next five minutes it’s more of the same.
By the time we say our goodbyes, Dennise has sheen of sweat on her hairline and I’m frantically tapping out the last of my notes one-handed. When I finish, I crane my neck from side to side a bit, feel a familiar dull throb that tells me a headache is coming on. Out in the fluorescent-lit corridor, Dennise shakes her head and clucks her tongue at the nurse that’s headed into Mr. Morgan’s room, promising she’ll be back down later to try again.
“You’re still pretty quiet in there,” says Dennise as we head to the elevators, and I feel my ears heat as I close the cover of the tablet.You’re still pretty quietwould be a decent inscription for my tombstone, actually. “Starting in a couple of months, you’ll be on your own with consults like this.”
“I know.” But the thing is, I don’t know, not anymore, and I’ve been distracted all morning here thinking about it. Getting hired for a full-time position under Dennise was already a major coup, since most of her staff already have a master’s in social work. I’ve benefited from being older, more mature, and unfortunately way, way more familiar with this hospital than most of the interns who get sent her way, but if she finds out that even my undergraduate degree is in jeopardy, I can forget all about being employed while I try and go for that master’s degree myself in a couple of years. I swallow, thinking back to Saturday night, to the afternoon I have ahead of me.
To Alex and the promise he’s made me.
“I’m a little tired from this weekend,” I add.
“Oh, your friend’s wedding, right? How was it?”
For a split second I picture myself blurting it all out, everything I haven’t managed to say to anyone since Alex and I returned to the tent the night of the reception—me first, this time—a tentative agreement between us that we’re set to carry out as soon as my shift here is done. I’d sit in the stiffly upholstered chair in this elevator bay and look up at Dennise’s kind, open face and tell her the whole thing.
It was amazing except for the part where I asked a tired, vulnerable man to help me graduate and keep this job. I wore a gorgeous dress with silver heels that two days later are still making my back ache, but it was worth it for the way he looked at me. He promised me he’d stay, at least for a few days, but I’m already afraid he’ll go.
“It was nice,” I say instead. “She left for her honeymoon yesterday afternoon.” A little reluctantly, actually, once Alex had asked her at Sunday morning brunch if she’d mind him staying in her place for a vague “couple of days.” Never much one for the unexpected, Kit had reacted with a mixture of shock and concern, and she’d cornered Zoe and me in the lobby of the Crestwood once the party had broken up. “Do you think he’s all right?” she’d asked, a quaver in her voice, and at that moment I’d understood everything Alex had been worried about when I’d suggested he stay in town.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I’d said, and then I’d thought about where I could buy a hair shirt. A church gift shop? A fetishstore? TJ Maxx?
“Well, you deserve a break,” Dennise says, and even as I’m smoothing the front of my dress—my lucky dress, actually, worn especially for today—my imaginary hair shirt scratches uncomfortably. “You did so much to prepare forthat wedding.”
“Just the usual bridesmaid stuff.” Mental health triage followed by some light manipulation to save my own sorry ass. I need two hair shirts. Or a shirt-skirt combination.
The bell for the elevator dings, and Dennise and I wait for a couple with furrowed brows and tense mouths to hustle out before we go in. I look after them sympathetically, tuck a hand in the pocket of my dress to run my thumb over the fake, synthetic fur rabbit’s foot I’ve had on my keychain for years, sending the couple a silent wishfor good news.
“Are you headed out now?” Dennise is already looking down at her phone to see where her next appointment is. In what’s supposed to be my last semester, I work half days here four days a week as part of my practicum experience for the social work program. On a regular Monday, though, I’d have the rest of the afternoon free, and I might even stay on with Dennise for that appointment. To help out, to get more experience. To make myselfindispensable.
But of course, today’s not aregular Monday.
“Yes. I’ve got some—uh. Some work to take careof on campus.”
Dennise looks up from her phone and over at me. “Everything all right there? I sent a good progress report over to your advisor on Friday.”
God, this hair shirt is hot. “Everything’s perfect. Just tyingup loose ends.”
“Well,” she says, smiling at me as the elevator doors open. She steps out onto the critical care floor, a few stops up from where I’ll be getting off, and looks back at me. “It’s like I said to Mr. Morgan. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.”
“Absolutely,” I say cheerfully, even as the doors close. I know she’s right; I know I can’t be afraid to ask for help.
But is it okay to be afraid of what’ll happen now that I have?
* * * *
I’ve asked Alex to meet me outside of the main library, my favorite spot on campus, standing tall and big windowed at the end of a long, wide sidewalk that’s lined with Bradford pear trees, snowballed with white blooms in the springtime and cheerfully bright green at this time of year. About twenty yards from the front doors, there’s a bronze statue of Socrates that I’m pretty sure cannot be accurate unless Socrates didn’t know how to drape his toga over his top half and also looked like Triton fromThe Little Mermaid.Since I’ve been going here—spending quite a lot of time inside the library between my classes, before my classes, after my classes—I’ve been asked to take no fewer than five photos of students with Triton-Socrates, who looks stern and forbidding with his hand on his chin and his mouth turned down, a moue of frustration that generally makes the photos of laughing, dramatically posed undergraduates even funnier.
