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“Let me take you to the care center,” he pleaded again.

“All I need is fresh air. Maybe we could take a little walk?”

Just around the block? A walk would give her some exercise. So her legs didn’t atrophy? And it would give her mom a chance to change the sheets and air things out—this room was
so
claustrophobic. Alice’s pulse raced through each spoken phrase: she had the
perfect
floppy straw hat, the
hugest
brim. She’d put on a thick medical mask. Alice knew her blood levels were still low, she promised Oliver she didn’t want to make anything worse. It would be
so
good for her.

The ringing intruded, always at the worst moment. She could tell from Oliver’s shift, his low
Jesus,
this could be a problem.

But no. She would not let it. Jeans that once had formed a second skin now were comically baggy, and Alice played this up, taking a while to belt them a second time. Though her feet had inflated into small rafting devices, a pair of running sneakers could fit as long as she didn’t wear socks. She completed the ensemble with a knee-length coat of distressed denim, its neckline fringed, white cotton shredded to look like feathers. “After all these years”—Alice laughed—“I’ve become Little Edie.
Finally.
”

She felt immediately ashamed, wallowing like that; nonetheless, momentum was flowing, the evening under way. “A respite from my own private Grey Gardens.”

Oliver pressed on her shoulder, and joined in with the fun, kissing her cheek, throwing his own idea into the soup.

Now Doe saw Daddy taking the harness from off the closet door. Recognizing that she, too, was going on an adventure, the baby drooled, spat with glee, little limbs flailing.

Alice reminded: Doe should face inward, toward him.

“Way ahead of you.”

Out of the elevator, into the short hallway, overhead halogen sending crackles of fear through her ears, Alice tightly closed her eyes, said “Oliver.” Her cornstalk legs trembled and her balance was unsteady, those ridiculous clown feet like sponges. Yet again, there he was: his arm a solid brick anchor around her waist, his prompts deliberate, his words soothing, his manner careful. “Small steps, all right, that’s it, doing great.” He propped open the front door, his body providing leverage, his hand guiding her forward. “In three steps, you will have the first stair, we need to go down it to get to the street. Okay, one step and now,
step.
Now, again,
step.
”

The false spring hadn’t fully disappeared, but nights were getting cooler. Tonight’s air was thick, sticky with the promise of rain. Streetlamp light was diffusive, the neon from stores carrying in small, thinning clouds. Alice shielded her eyes, looked away from brighter areas. With each step she measured and placed herself firmly on the uneven sidewalk. She also used each taken step as an exercise; first to acknowledge the fear in her, and then to gather resolve, continue onward. A few times she felt around Oliver’s arm, tightening her grip, signaling he should slow. The residual stench of dry ice remained, even stronger out here. Still, being outside was a pleasure, the gloom of the Meatpacking District a treat. Even her developing sweat felt delicious, almost libidinous. Doe’s neck was craned as well. Staring at Mommy, her eyes sparkled, that consciousness dawning, thinking what?

At the intersection of West Thirteenth, beneath the near edge of the elevated tracks, a pair of transvestite hookers were at their usual spot, one fixing her wig and applying mascara, the other scarfing popcorn. Donette and Michelle’s thing: they dressed up as identical schoolgirl sisters. Alice had long grown accustomed to them coveting her boots, mangling pronunciation of the brand name of the pencil skirt they swore they’d cut her for. Tonight, however, their cattiness gave way to stone silence. What she must have looked like. She mentioned as much to Oliver.

He did not respond. Rather, she felt a different transition taking place inside him, his fingertips tensing, now gripping her hip, his posture going rigid.

She looked to him and saw his eyes squinting, his attention focused.

“Motherfuck,” he said.

Alice tried to follow, to see what he saw; what met her were blurs, black streaks.

“What?” she asked, but knew, a horrible thrill. “Not again.”

The anger consolidating through him was her answer. But he wouldn’t, he c
ouldn’t
abandon his blind cancerous wife on the street, just take off—not with their baby strapped to his chest? He
couldn’t
make chase.

“Oliver?” she said.

“STOP BOTHERING HER.”

From down the alley came the sounds of trash cans being overturned. Now a small dog, letting loose, pointed and angry yips.

Oliver radiated anger, screaming:
“STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM US. I PROMISE. I FUCKING PROMISE—”

—

The child was finally down and asleep, the two of them sitting together on the couch.

“Explain this to me,” he said.

Alice felt his eyes on her face, heard the undertones of his subdued breaths. Now his voice was careful. “I still don’t get how one random conversation in a hallway set this off. You bonded, okay. But…”

“He’s going through something, Oliver.”

Oliver’s hands went wide, gesturing. “As opposed to the game of Parcheesi we’ve got here?”

“I don’t know what you could possibly think happened?”

“On our list of problems, I know. I know.”

Alice promised she had no idea why this man was following her. “We’ve had two conversations. That’s all.”

Oliver stared, as if studying something on her face. “I thought you said only one.”

“The one in the hallway,” Alice responded. “And he stopped by the next day, before he was discharged.”

“So two,” Oliver said.

Alice admitted, two. She admitted, it had been a mistake to give Merv her phone number. This had all gotten out of control, but—her voice went shrill—she’d done nothing wrong. “This is insane. I can’t even remember what he looks like.”

Alice choked up, almost in tears. She caught herself. “Please,” she told Oliver. “We’re getting to a place in this argument where you can be right or we can be married. And I need so badly to be married to you.”

She could sense his rage, but also could feel him working through this. He crossed his arms over his chest. He looked away, into space. He uncrossed his arms and did not move, and yet was not so stiff anymore, but internally seemed to sigh, or somehow deflate, as if some essential part of him were leaking out from a small hole. Again he seemed to sigh without sighing. He repositioned himself, scooting closer to her, reached for her thighs, picked up her legs, and placed them lengthwise across his body, so he could support her while she reclined. He said how proud he was of her for making it all the way to the end of their block. “We should do it every night.”

Alice had small creases on the side of her head, little red indentations where the inside band of her hat had rested on her scalp. Through her tears she asked how she could have possibly done anything. “Why would I
want to
? Don’t you see how absurd this whole thing is? You are my hero. Do you understand that?”

They talked deep into this night, unburdening, plowing forward, headfirst, through barriers, into confidence. Oliver told her he’d wanted to keep the money side from her, but finally had shared his relief when he’d understood the insurance deal
could
be a solution. He still worried that eight hundred things might go wrong. The worst and most negative part of him refused to exhale until Peachford had cashed that first check.

For the first time in how long Alice studied his face and recognized that his eyes had dark circles beneath them. He’d gained weight in his cheeks.

He kept on, sharing with Alice the pressure he felt to get the program finished. Whenever he looked at the Brow’s code, it was sloppy, or rushed, incomplete, or just painstaking, lichen-like in its slowness.

Finding her husband’s ear, she rubbed, enjoying the sensation of follicles just beginning to come in along the space behind his lobe.

“You always come through,” Alice said.

Around his brows there was a tremor; in his eyes something appeared ready to shatter. He looked down, away.

Then Alice was admitting how much she missed Doe burrowing into her breast. She was feeling along her thighs, showing him the bruises from the last time the baby jumped on her. All Alice wanted from life was for Doe to take her for granted the way Alice took her mother for granted. But even that, having her mom here, working and worrying so hard and taking care of her, Alice hated it. She hated feeling helpless. She hadn’t been sick ten days in her life. What, was she supposed to learn to embrace her growing sonar capabilities, like this was some good thing?

She did not know, she did not know, she did not know. But she was going to find out. “Honeysuckle,” she said. “I am on a mission. I swear to you.”

Whitman Memorial, 1220 York Ave., 3d floor, Children’s Oncology, Rm. 323

Sure, it made him feel low to watch other second graders run around the playground. But he’d made it up to three push-ups, was getting decent at fielding a tennis ball against a wall. He wanted to play T-ball that summer, wanted that team jersey, and to be in Cub Scouts, too. When you were eight years old, anything that meant you got to wear a uniform, he wanted to do. He was coming up on three years in remission, so he could still crash from a common cold, side effects from the Coumadin, whatever, but they’d gotten used to it, knew how to handle it.

This time seemed different, although maybe not so much, his mom couldn’t tell for sure. But the boy’s eyes were glassy, and, at dinner, she didn’t like the way he held his fork, his grip limp like that. His forehead felt clammy. But the nodes around his neck didn’t seem swollen. Now her hand along the side of his stomach, the way she’d been instructed. She kissed her son on the cheek as if blessing a rosary.

At the ER they did the boy a favor and let him venture out of his little cordoned area long enough to watch, on an elevated television in the corner, a report about that day’s negotiations between the players’ union and the owners. Handing over the case files to the desk nurse, his mother double-checked to make sure the boy’s oncologist had been contacted. The boy’s father had answered the message from his service and called the hospital: “Still at the office, leaving now.” The boy’s mother felt as if she knew something she did not want to know. The television was at a commercial, the report was over; she wheeled her compliant child back into his exam area, where he promptly zoned out. She watched him sleep for a while and headed over to the vending machine for their shitty coffee, and had an awful sensation, a kind of déjà vu. It wasn’t so much that the boy’s mother remembered all the times during the first go-around when she’d gotten coffee at this shitty vending machine, but
feeling
all of her exhaustion and terror during those months, what it was like to not know what was going to happen. She was already seeing a therapist twice a week. Taking Zoloft to get through the day, Valium to get to sleep. The boy’s father had signed a lease on a small apartment two blocks from their home, a sign of his hopes for reconciliation, but also so he could be near in case of emergencies.

The next morning the oncologist performed a spinal tap. Grimly, he confirmed that the boy had come out of remission. The nurse-practitioner and the boy had become close as well—for his seventh birthday, she’d bought him a customized Yankees cap with a pinstriped brim. She teared up at the news. The large soft hands of the boy’s father acted as a mitt, encompassing the boy’s fingers. Mom rubbed his back. A course of action and treatment was laid out. Survival rates were reiterated. The boy listened with questioning eyes, seemed a bit shocked. He asked if any Yankees were going to visit the ward while he was there, or whether the baseball strike meant they weren’t doing any more visits.

The exam room had no windows and nothing to look at and nowhere to go. The doctor was talking about checking him back in to the ward, new rounds of chemo, looking for a donor. His dad was blinking and nodding, staring straight ahead. There wasn’t really any other direction, was there? You just had to strap up. He agreed to stay with his son. Later today he was going to take up smoking again. After he finished in midtown and got home to his empty, shitty little apartment, he usually had a beer or two. He told his son that whatever the ward offered they were going to milk the hell out of it. The mom gave him a look that conveyed unhappiness about the language he was using. She was about to head home to pack for a longer stay. (When she leaves the hospital, the mother will raise a hand in the air and flip off God, something she has not done since the last time the boy was ill.) Bring his Strat-O-Matic baseball set, the boy reminded her. He stressed the importance of the blue binder he used to keep the game summaries and statistics for his fantasy season. It should be on his desk but if not, under his bed. Sometimes during their afternoons together the boy and his dad played Strat-O-Matic and the boy made reference to one of their recent contests, in which he’d eked out an extra-inning victory. He asked if his mom could bring his lucky Air Jordans, the 3s.