A Little Help from Above (12 page)

Welcome to Universal Law 101. You can plan, plan, plan, but only
that which is meant to happen, only that which is God’s will, ever does. It doesn’t explain why the people you hate most seem to have all the luck, but trust me, everyone has to pay their bill before checkout time.

As for Larry’s miraculous turnaround? You see how powerful the unconscious mind is? Even in a comatose state, one can make the decision they want to live. God bless free will.

Shelby raced out of Waldbaum’s parking lot, not because she was in a hurry, but because the rapid acceleration of Aunt Roz’s new Lexus had her doing fifty-five before she was back on the street. Hopefully that shopping cart in her path hadn’t made too much of a dent in the trunk. But there was one dent she had to admit was growing deeper. The dent in her heart.

How else to explain she was driving in the direction of North Shore instead of the house? It would have made so much more sense to go home, put the groceries away, then speak to Lauren by phone. So why was she driving in the opposite direction? It was a good question. Unfortunately, the driver behind her did not care to join her in thought, as he viewed the green light as his signal to lay on the horn.

I’ll just run in for a minute, find out what the story is, then go home, she thought as she pulled into the infamous hospital parking lot. I wonder if any of those old essays from Miss Oberlin’s class are still in those boxes in my room?

But the instant Shelby walked through the front doors with the other throng of visitors, she was whisked away by Mrs. Weiner.

“Lauren hoped you were on your way over.” She held Shelby’s hand as they made their way to the elevator. “It’s an absolute miracle what’s happening. No one can quite believe the turnaround. Your father is fully alert, lucid, has all his faculties…”

“Where are you taking me?” Shelby stopped. She was not a collie on a leash.

“I just thought we could go up to the waiting area to speak to the doctors. It’s not anywhere close to the ICU.”

“No.” Shelby shook her head. “No. I don’t do third floors. I’ll wait in the cafeteria.”

“Shelby, it’s okay. I’ll be with you the whole time. Don’t you think it would be incredibly helpful if your father knew you were nearby?”

“No! My father would totally understand why I can’t be up
there. Who do you think drove me twenty miles to another hospital when I fell off a horse and broke my arm? He did. Believe me, it’ll be enough for him just to know I’m back in New York.”

“All right then.” Mrs. Weiner sighed. “But I really think you’d be fine if you just tried. You’re not a child anymore.”

“Thanks for pointing out the obvious.” Shelby led them to the cafeteria. “But maybe you could explain something I don’t understand. Why do you and every other do-gooder think you have to be the next Annie Sullivan before you can live with yourselves? Why is it you can’t rest until you’ve found a social specimen you can write about in some psychobabble journal so the experts on human delineation can ooh and ahh over the findings at the annual convention in Cleveland?

Mrs. Weiner laughed. “You make a very good point, dear. I promise to omit your story at next year’s symposium on head cases. But if I don’t get nominated for best social worker of the year, it’ll be on your conscience, not mine.”

“Fine.” Shelby found her safe-space table in the cafeteria and threw down her pocketbook and keys to reserve the territory. “I’m getting their lousy coffee? You want?”

Minutes later Lauren ran in, her face swollen from tears. “Can you believe it?” She hugged Shelby. “The doctors are calling him Miracle Man. They’ve never seen anyone come through a trauma like his in such a short time. And there’s no sign of any brain damage.”

“Have you seen him?” Shelby bit her lip.

“Seen him? I was right there! I was just rubbing his arm, talking to him about a million things, when I happened to mention the idea of you helping me have a baby, and…”

“You did what?” Shelby jumped up. “Why are you telling people that?”

“He’s not people, Shel. He’s Daddy. I mean, don’t you think it’s a miracle he heard your name and suddenly his fingers moved ever so slightly?”

“The only miracle will be if I don’t kill you in your sleep…”

“Well I’m sorry if you can’t appreciate what an awesome moment it was.” Lauren turned to Mrs. Weiner. “At first I thought I was imagining it, but when I repeated Shelby’s name, and his hand flinched, I screamed so loud, the nurses came running. They were scared to death.”

“Isn’t that something?” Mrs. Weiner clasped her hands in prayer formation.

“How could you say I was having a baby for you?” Shelby remained frozen in her tracks.

“Oh relax.” Mrs. Weiner pulled Shelby back to her seat. “You can just deny it if he asks. “

“Yes, but you said you were going to talk to her,” Lauren whispered to Mrs. Weiner.

“Not now, dear,” she returned the whisper. “Let’s focus on your father’s recovery.”

“Oh my God,” Shelby yelled out to no one in particular. “Call Oliver Stone. We have a little conspiracy thing going on here.”

“Shelby, calm down. There’s no conspiracy. Lauren just happened to mention her idea about your being a surrogate mother, and I told her I’d be happy to share what I know about the process. I didn’t say I would try to talk you into it.”

“Yes, but you said you’d tell her why you thought it was a good idea,” Lauren nudged her.

“We are changing the subject.” Shelby banged on the table. “I will never, ever carry anyone’s baby…other than my own.” Had she really once said she wanted seven children, one for every day of the week? What the hell was that about? “This matter is not open for discussion!”

“Fine. You’ve made your point.” Mrs. Weiner patted her on the back. “Now let’s find out what else Lauren knows about your dad. Has your mother seen him?”

“No, she was down in X-ray, but they said she burst into tears when they told her, which was not a good thing because she has this fractured orbit in her eye…”

“Did you tell Daddy I was here?” Shelby interrupted, not interested in Aunt Roz’s condition.

“Yes.”

“And? What did he say?”

“Nothing really. But that doesn’t mean anything. No one really knows how much he hears or understands. All we know is when Dr. Rosenthal asked him his name, he said, ‘Larry.’”

“Larry,” Mrs. Weiner repeated. “This is so great.”

“Wait. It gets even better. With all the excitement about Daddy, I didn’t get a chance to tell you Mommy’s good news. The orthope
dic team cannot believe how incredible she’s doing, too. They said they’ve never seen anyone practically heal themselves before. It’s as if somebody up above is orchestrating the recovery of the century.”

“Isn’t this wonderful news, Shelby?” Mrs. Weiner clapped.

“You betcha.” Shelby examined her dry cuticles. She desperately needed a manicure.

“But here’s the best news.” Lauren was practically singing. “Even though Mommy’s bandaged from head to toe, the nurses said we could wheel her into the solarium to have lunch.”

“When?” Shelby’s neck hair suddenly felt moist.

“Today. Now.” Lauren smiled eagerly.

“But it’s not visiting hours yet,” Shelby stammered. “And it’s such short notice for her. She probably needs time to get ready.”

“Are you nuts? She’s never been more ready for anything. She’s dying to see you, Shel.”

“Gee, I don’t know. I was planning to run over to Frederico’s to get my nails done.”

“Oh please? You could do that anytime. I want you to be there to have the honors.”

“What honors?” Shelby gulped.

“Feeding her, of course. It’s going to be a while before she can eat on her own.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Well duh, Shel. The poor woman’s got a broken jaw, both arms in casts, and a face that’s all bandaged except for her right eye. They thought maybe we could start by spoon-feeding her some applesauce.”

Spoon-feeding her? Shelby laid her head down and groaned. The last time she saw her aunt they’d had a vicious exchange of words, and Shelby polished off the fight by screaming, “Why don’t you go shove a spoon in that big fat mouth of yours so no one has to listen to you?” Was this some kind of sick, cosmic joke that two years later she would be given the chance to insert said spoon?

Worse still, she shuddered at the prospect of Aunt Roz being helpless, as everyone would expect her to act the part of the dutiful daughter. To wipe her drool, wipe her brow, wipe her ass. Shelby would rather binge on a Big Mac than conjure up that image in her head!

Truly, the only way she would survive a face-to-face meeting
with Aunt Roz was if she had enough time to build up the courage. Yes, that was it. She just needed an adjustment period, an opportunity to go through reentry, like when the astronauts returned to earth after a long mission.

On the other hand, maybe she was blowing this first meeting out of proportion. After all, it was just lunch. Like the dating service. Her only obligation would be to engage in polite conversation and decide if she could stomach the person enough to see them again.

Too bad there wasn’t a special service that brought adult children together with their estranged parents, she thought. They could call it, “Just a Nosh.” Forget the stress of making it from drinks through dessert. All one had to do was maintain civil conversation through coffee and cake. If they survived that, the next stop was early-bird brunch. Separate checks, of course.

“So? What do you think, Shel?” Lauren nudged her arm. “Should we go have lunch?”

“What floor is she on?”

“Fifth floor,” Lauren and Mrs. Weiner said in unison.

“You’ve never been up there, dear,” Mrs. Weiner winked. “It’s a new wing.”

“I don’t know.” Shelby started to sweat. “I’m not ready. I need more time. It’s too soon…”

“Pretty please.” Lauren reached for her hand. “I promise we’ll stick to you like Velcro.”

“Yes, and maybe we could even stop by to say hello to Dr. Weiner. He’s on the same floor, and I’m sure he’d love the company.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Shelby sprang up as if there were coils under her shoes. “He’s the last person I want to see right now!”

“You’re right,” Mrs. Weiner stood up. “Bad idea. Perhaps another time.”

“Only if it’s to pull the plug on his life support,” Shelby groaned, as Lauren and Mrs. Weiner locked arms with her.

“We’re off to see the Wizard,” a giggling Lauren sang, as they skipped to the elevator, their terrified prisoner in tow.

Shelby didn’t care if today was the grand opening of this hospital wing. Between the antiseptic-scented walls, and the floor’s ammonia odor, it still smelled like good old North Shore. But mostly it still sounded like North Shore, what with the medicinal clatter accosting her the moment she stepped off the crowded elevator; the nurses’ squeaky, rubber-soled footsteps, the endlessly disruptive pages blaring over the hospital PA system, and the off-key symphony of endless heart monitors. This was the reunion of sounds she’d hoped never to hear again.

But the one eerily familiar noise that truly brought Shelby back was the clanking of food carts rolling down the halls. How she dreaded hearing the orderlies’ approach, knowing they would fly in to her mother’s room with a tray full of bland, lukewarm mush under metal covers. Mush that would lie untouched until some indifferent attendant had time to take it away.

“See?” Lauren wiggled Shelby’s hand. “It’s not scary up here.”

“And everything’s different.” Mrs. Weiner held on tight. “Right?”

“The only difference I see is all the WMJDs are gone.”

“The who, dear?”

“The white, male, Jewish doctors,” Shelby said, as a turban-headed Pakistani doctor rushed past. “Look around. The place is run by foreigners now. Incidentally, how do you pronounce names with six consecutive consonants?”

“I’m surprised to hear you speak that way.” Mrs. Weiner held on to Shelby’s arm as they power-walked the long corridors. “Shouldn’t you have a reporter’s objectivity?”

“I’m sure she’s very objective when she writes a story,” Lauren said in her defense.

“Let her carry on,” Mrs. Weiner whispered. “As long as we just keep moving.”

“Irma! Is that you?” a hoarse voice cried out from a room on the right.

“Yes, dear.” Mrs. Weiner continued her fast pace. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

“Irma,” the man cried out again. “Get in here. Now!”

Mrs. Weiner stopped abruptly, a knee-jerk reaction to her days as the obedient wife. “Hold on, dear.” She patted Shelby’s hand. “I’ll be just a minute.”

“Uh-oh.” Lauren glanced at Shelby. “And we were doing so good.”

“Relax.” Shelby patted her cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. I think I can do this.”

“Really?” Lauren resumed breathing.

“Sure. We’re just going to say hello to her, feed her, then call the nurses to bring her back to her room. I can still have my hands in a bowl of marbles and suds in less than an hour.”

“Shelby? Lauren?” Mrs. Weiner called from the room. “Could you please come in here?”

They looked at each other and gulped. Now it was time for both of them to panic.

“Come in for a minute, girls.” Mrs. Weiner returned to the hall. “Dr. Weiner won’t bite. He’d just like to say hello.”

“Like hell I’m going in there,” Shelby whispered. “I hate that son of a bitch!”

But before Shelby could choose the best getaway route, she and Lauren were ushered into the dying man’s private room. Her first thought was how embarrassed she’d be if she hurled from the familiar, tainted smell of sickness.

“Hullo.” The pale, thin patient waved shakily. “Thank you for stoppink by.”

“Like we had a choice?” Shelby glared at Mrs. Weiner. This was such an incredibly bad idea. Yet she couldn’t help but be thrown by the man’s thick, German accent. For a person she’d spent a lifetime hating, ironically she knew very little about him.

“Here’s who you were looking for, Shelby.” Mrs. Weiner smiled, ignoring Shelby’s puss.

“Excuse me?”

“Here’s your WMJD. Although he was also foreign-born, so he might not meet your stringent qualifications.”

Shelby’s face reddened. Okay, maybe she had gone a little far mocking the foreigners in the hospital. Lord knows how many Eastern European Jewish doctors entered the country after the war, and what a travesty it would have been had they been denied opportunities in America.

“I don’t have much time left.” Dr. Weiner coughed and sputtered.

“How old are you?” Shelby stood firmly at the door.

“Seventy-three this August,” he wiped his brow. “God willing.”

“Well, that’s a lot longer than our mother ever had.”

“Shelby!” Lauren grabbed her arm. “Don’t be rude.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Dr. Weiner waved. “She’s angry vith me. Belief me. I understand.”

“To be honest, I can’t say angry sums it up.” Shelby’s wrath quickly converted to steam heat. “Not when I’m looking at a man who put his right hand on the Bible and took the Hypocrite’s Oath. Thou shalt enter the practice of medicine with the sole purpose of milking it for the cash cow that it is…”

“Shelby, please.” Mrs. Weiner put her arm around her. “He just thought if you two had the chance to meet…”

“That what? I’d sit here and listen to his crappy apology?” Shelby pushed her arm away. “Sorry. Apologies are for when you’re late for dinner or you forget a friend’s birthday. They don’t count for shit when a doctor is so cavalier and inept, so terribly conceited and unfeeling, he destroys a person’s life, then takes almost thirty years to express his deepest sympathies.”

“Jost like the mother.” Dr. Weiner smiled, shaking his finger in recognition.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Shelby stood, hands on hips.

“Of course.” His chuckle quickly turned into a mucus-filled gag. Still, he held his hand up, signaling he had more to say.

“You say I was conceited? Uch! You’re right. But not unfeeling. Never unfeeling.” He looked into Shelby’s angry eyes. “And not vithout regrets. You don’t think I vished I could do better? But who
knew? We were in the dark ages then. We didn’t have the research, the tests…”

“Oh, please,” Shelby cried. “I’m not a child anymore. I don’t hold you accountable for what you didn’t know. I hold you accountable for your arrogance and your contempt. When my mother came to you in pain, you told her to stop kvetching. You blew her off, Dr. Weiner. And six months later she was dead. Now I’m supposed to forgive you just so you can die with a clear conscience? Give me a break!”

“Shelby, stop!” Mrs. Weiner ran to her ex-husband’s side. “You’re upsetting him.”

“No, no.” He waved. “Let her get it out. It’s good to get things out.”

“I think we should go,” Lauren whispered. “Mommy’s waiting for us.”

Shelby nodded in agreement and turned around.

“Wait. Please,” Dr. Weiner called out. “I vant to finish.”

“Maybe another time, dear.” Irma fluffed his pillow while signaling the girls to leave. “This wasn’t one of my better ideas…”

“Listen to me.” He tried to sit up. “You don’t think I cried at the sight of your mother’s small, ravaged body? At the sight of you beautiful children clinging to her? I was devastated, believe me. But I never turned my back on her. I consulted vith anyone I thought knew something about her cancer. I called the universities, the drug companies, I even flew to Tijuana to get her the Laetrile therapy. Ask Irma.”

Shelby and Lauren stopped.

“It’s true.” Mrs. Weiner stroked his arm. “He was also one of the first physicians to use marijuana to control pain and nausea.”

“I gave her from my best stash.” Dr. Weiner winked.

Lauren looked at Shelby in disbelief. Their mother had smoked joints?

“Toward the end he made sure she was so high she felt nothing,” Mrs. Weiner said. “And believe me, that was very risky. He could have been arrested. He could have lost his license…”

“It’s a lovely story.” Shelby smirked. “Very compelling. But did it ever occur to you, Dr. Weiner, that none of your Superman heroics would have been necessary if you’d just listened to her?”

“Okay, that’s it. I’ve heard enough.” Mrs. Weiner started to show
them out. “You want to spend the rest of your life wallowing in pity and hatred? Be my guest. But you have no right to come in here and be heartless.”

“She’s not heartless, Mrs. Weiner.” Lauren held Shelby’s hand. “She’s in pain. And this was your idea. Not ours.”

“Out, out, out.” Mrs. Weiner began shooing them.

“Irma!” a ferocious-sounding Dr. Weiner growled. Everyone jumped. “Please.” He started to cough up blood. “I want to hear what she has to say.”

“No, dear,” Irma bravely defied him. “You have no idea what she’s really like, and…”

“You don’t know”—he tried catching his breath—“from having your mother torn from your arms when you’re a mere child. We do.” He pointed to the girls and himself. “What I wouldn’t have given to shake my fist at the barbarian who killed mine.”

“Oh my God.” Lauren placed her hand over her heart. “Your mother was killed?”

Dr. Weiner nodded, then pulled up the left sleeve of his hospital gown to reveal his German phone number. The six-digit tattoo brandished in his arm by the Nazis. “Not just my mother. My father. My aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors. Believe me,” he whispered, “I know about loss. About suffering. Bergen-Belsen never leaves you.”

Shelby and Lauren looked at one another, too stunned to speak. Too moved to hear the cheerful cries of a child running down the hall.

“Papa, Papa! Today was Moving Up Day at school and the man said I could have red Jell-O.” An exuberant five-year-old zoomed in and jumped on the bed. “Now I don’t have to eat yours!”

“Justin!” Dr. Weiner tried to hug his beloved grandson but got tangled in his tubes.

“Oooh, Justin, be careful. Move down this way, sweetie.” Mrs. Weiner lifted him. “How’s Grandma’s big graduate?” she kissed his head. “Kindergarten here we come.”

“Hi, Mom.” The boy’s father strode in, holding a bag of toys and a sack of bagels. He walked over to his mother, kissed her cheek, then his father’s. “How you doing, Dad?”

“Fine. Fine.” He managed to smile. “Just doing some reminiscing.”

“You took the day off?” Irma took the bagels from her son.

“Sure. How often does one’s son graduate nursery school?” He patted Justin’s head.

“Not graduate, Daddy. Moved up. When’s the Jell-O coming, Papa? I’m hungry.”

“Soon, dear.” Grandma smiled. “Go find Papa a wheelchair? He’s waiting for his ride.”

“I’m sorry,” Brad said as he watched Justin scramble off the bed and out into the hallway. “I didn’t know you had company. Hi. I’m Bradley Weiner.”

“Hi.” Lauren smiled meekly, and extended her hand. “Lauren Streiffler.”

“Hello.” Shelby smiled, but decided not to introduce herself in case the Lazarus name offended him. And what was with the dirty look from Irma? So I checked out her son. He’s cute, but it’s not like I plan to seduce him.

“Okay, well, I think we can get going now.” Mrs. Weiner clapped. “We were just on our way to visit Mrs. Lazarus, dear. Take Daddy out, and I’ll be back in a little bit.” She patted Brad’s shoulder. “Unless I happen to pass a friendly tavern first.”

I swear on my previous five lifetimes I had nothing to do with what just happened. You think I’d want my daughters to be dragged into that old lion’s den? What was Irma thinking? That the meeting would turn into a lovefest? A “Tuesdays with Bernie”?

Yes, I know all about the best-seller. With the possible exception of Oprah’s Book Club selections, which only God was privy to and then sworn to secrecy, the libraries of the universe get advance copies of the books they know will fly off the shelves in the physical world so we can stay in tune with our loved ones.

But I digress. Listening to Shelby give Bernie Weiner a kick in the ass was one of my proudest moments as a mother. Not that I’m in favor of being rude to a dying man. It’s just for the first time she’s confronted one of her demons, and maybe now she’ll begin to realize that harboring hatred and resentment wastes tremendous energy, our soul’s most precious resource.

That’s my hope anyway. Plus now that she’s on a roll, it would also be a load off my mind if she finally came to terms with the two other people in her life she’s neither been willing to forgive nor forget. My husband and my sister, of course, who as you know are conveniently lying in the same
hospital as Dr. Weiner. Gives new meaning to the expression one-stop shopping!

“You are some piece of work, Shelby.” Mrs. Weiner raced down the hall with what appeared to be a fairly decent tail wind.

Lauren tried to keep up, but Shelby simply stopped. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t see Aunt Roz now. Couldn’t make small talk with her other nemesis. Not after that mortifying, disconcerting encounter with Public Enemy # 1, Dr. Weiner.

“You go,” Shelby grabbed Lauren’s arm. “I can’t. I’ll just say something stupid, and everyone will get mad at me, and…

“It wasn’t your fault, Shel. She never should have brought us in to see him.”

“Yes, but she did, and now I’m spent. Just go. Tell her I’m coming down with a cold.”

“But we’re so close, Shel. Please?” she begged. “We wouldn’t have to stay long.”

“Sorry. I just remembered my horoscope said it was a bad day for relationships. “

“I thought you don’t believe in that stuff.”

“Suddenly I do.”

“But Mommy’s expecting you. What am I going to tell her?”

“How about the truth? Tell her Mrs. Weiner put her own agenda in front of mine, and it spoiled my big debut.”

“Don’t be like this,” Lauren pleaded. “I hated what just happened in there, too. But I understand why she wanted us to meet him. He’s not the big bad wolf you made him out to be.”

“Sure he is, Little Red Riding Hood. You just didn’t recognize him because he’s wearing a hospital gown instead of Grandma’s dress. Same shit, different designer.”

“Well I disagree,” Lauren said angrily. “But you know what? Nothing I say is going to change your mind, so go enjoy your stupid manicure…I hope you bleed.”

Not bad. Not bad, Shelby thought as she watched Lauren venture off into the medicinal sunset. Admittedly her sister was weak in the comeback department, but brave on all other fronts. Still, for herself, she knew she’d made the right decision. She was going to need lots more time to prepare for her first encounter with Aunt Roz. Just as a general needed time to prepare for battle. The big dif
ference, however, was in lieu of hand-to-hand combat and sophisticated weaponry, the only arsenal she’d have at her disposal were pursed lips and under-her-breath commentary.