“Give her my congratulations. And the boss? And Judah?”
“They were both really happy to see me. The boss said I looked a little pale.”
“Really? You could have told him you didn’t have time to get a tan after we came back.” I tried to joke.
“Stop it. You know I haven’t gone to the beach in ages. I’m onmy way to the College of Art and Design.” Lily refused to play along and ended the call.
A week later, the phone rang at home.
“Michael, this is Shira. Is Lily home?”
“Hey, congratulations! No, Lily’s at the studio. Do you have the results?” I asked very directly.
“Yes, and thank you. Do you have Lily’s consent to receive them?” she laughed.
“Come on, start talking and stop fooling around. That’s not like you…”
“There are just two abnormal results. One is that the hemoglobin is relatively low – 10 – and the blood kidney function indices are borderline. All the other results are within the normal range.”
“Did you look at the previous tests, from two years ago?” The comparison was important here, to get a perspective.
“No,” Shira replied.
“Shira called with the test results,” I said dramatically when Lily came home that evening.
“Are you still bleeding? Your hemoglobin dropped to 10!”
“That’s not far from my norm.” Lily received the result with indifference.
“Are you still bleeding?” I asked again.
“No,” she answered.
“And under no circumstances will I get tested at Desert Springs Hospital,” she said in the same breath.
The next morning, I drove her to the airport. She looked pale, but her mood was excellent. She promised me she would stop at New-Hope Medical Center.
“If you don’t keep your promise, I’ll drag you by force to Desert Springs Hospital,” I threatened, uncharacteristically. I knew the doctor responsible for her leg scar was still there, and for her, that would be a trauma she would never get over.
From the airport, I went straight to base. I felt something wasn’t right, but I tried to suppress it. At the end of the sick line-up in the unit, Lily phoned.
“They want to hospitalize me.” Her voice was heavy with sadness. I felt her world, like mine, was collapsing around us. It was the last thing I had expected.
When I began working at Desert Springs Hospital, the medical director had asked me to do my best not to miss on-call shifts. I had promised him that only military duties would prevent me from coming. I never imagined that Lily’s hospitalization would be the thing to make me ask to change that arrangement. Without hesitation, I jumped into the jeep and drove as fast as possible to the airport, knowing a military flight was leaving soon. When I reached the field, I phoned him. The director was surprised, like so many others – he didn’t know about Lily’s condition, and therefore couldn’t understand why, in the middle of the day, I was suddenly telling him from the airport that I was heading north, for a non-military reason.
At top speed, I reached the hospital where Lily had been admitted. She was waiting for me by the elevator, dressed in a pajama shirt. She hadn’t changed her faded jeans, which she loved so much.
“You really are pale,” I said after we hugged in the corridor – the same corridor we had once left together for the first time. Then, we had gone in the opposite direction.
“What’s your hemoglobin?”
“Eight.” I was stunned – not only by the result, but by the fact that she was still on her feet and not already in bed, hooked up to a transfusion. It turned out the ward was overflowing, and there was no bed for her. We walked into the ward arm in arm. Lily insisted. Shira, who saw us, got up from her desk and came over.
She looked at me. Her eyes radiated deep sorrow. She knew exactly what was about to happen. She had seen this moviedozens of times. I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to know. More accurately, I denied it.
“Mazal tov!” I said, and shook her hand.
Shira hugged me and whispered in my ear, “You’re something special.” Lily heard and smiled.
