Love Love (20 page)

“Dress too tight,” her father said.

“No,” she said. “It's just hot in here.”

“Too tight,” he said again, but the way he'd said it again was different from before. There was a sadness there, perhaps a father's sorrow at seeing his girl looking like a woman. At least that's what it seemed like to Judy now, though who knows what twenty years would've done to the state of her memories.

The next day, as she lay on the couch with her foot in a cast, she watched him yank off the run of the carpet and put down a new one, the same color and width as before. He'd rented some kind of a hammering staple gun, and he was slamming and banging at the staircase steps as if they were sets of drums. He'd always been a physical man, enjoying the pleasures of simple, repetitive tasks. Back then, taking on a home improvement project like that was nothing to him, but now—now he was waiting to die.

Her curtain whipped open. Two doctors approached her; one checked the chart while the other fiddled with the drip.

“Good to talk to you, finally, Judy,” the chart doctor said. She was an Indian woman who was all eyes and cheekbones, her long black hair flowing down to her shoulders. “I'm Dr. Desai. How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Judy said, “but all right, I suppose.”

“One more,” the other doctor demanded, a little Asian man who didn't even bother to introduce himself. He not only resembled her father physically, he walked like him, too, a penguin-like gait as he took a vial from Dr. Desai and prepared whatever it was he was now doing, hunched over the counter with his back to her.

The Asian doctor removed the IV bag and replaced it with a new one.

“Dr. Chang's giving you a final dose of the antivenin,” Dr. Desai said.

“Hello, Dr. Chang,” Judy said.

He nodded curtly, then hung the bag and left without another word.

“A regular chatterbox, isn't he?”

Dr. Desai smiled and scribbled on the chart. “He's one of only seventeen doctors in the entire country who's able to do what he just did for you.”

“And what did he do for me?”

She slid Judy's chart back in its holder. “That's the eleventh antivenin you've received since your arrival, all but the first delivered by
Dr. Chang, who helicoptered over from Long Island. Usually we can deliver antivenin by injection, but you had an unusual allergic reaction to it, so it had to be administered through a drip. The doses had to be scaled precisely, and Dr. Chang knows how to do that better than anyone I know. If not for him, we might have lost you.”

Almost dead. There was life and there was death, and even though the division seemed stark, there really wasn't much of a barrier.

“So I've gotten just about a dose an hour. That seems like a lot.”

“It would be,” Dr. Desai said. “Except it was every three hours. You've been in bed for a day and a half.”

With that, she was gone, leaving Judy to consider that it was now Sunday, not Saturday. This bothered her, but exactly why she couldn't remember, not yet. But before she could get her head straight, Dr. Chang barged back into her room.

“Excuse me,” he said. He stared at the cardiac monitor screen and compared the numbers against a printout he held in his hand.

“You're excused,” Judy said.

It was as if she weren't in the room. His attention to the monitor was fanatical, his eyes magnified by his thick glasses, watery dark pupils staring unblinkingly at the ever-changing digits on the screen. Closer up, he looked like her father's twin. Her father, whose kidneys were shot.

Her own kidneys weren't exactly virgins, but at least they worked. So yes, it was within the realm of possibility to give one of hers to him. But to save the life of the man who, when it mattered most, chose money over her mother's life—it was wrong. This equation would only balance with his demise. She could forget about all his past transgressions against her, but to do what he did to his own wife—he did murder her. He may not have fired a gun or stabbed a knife, but there were other ways to kill someone.

It had been the day after her mother's birthday, and if Judy had been a stronger, more confident, more successful person, maybe then her mother would still be here. But she'd been none of those things when her mother grabbed at her belly halfway through her dish of spaghetti and meatballs, one of the few American meals she enjoyed, which Judy had cooked for her. The night before, Kevin had taken their parents out for a proper celebration at a restaurant, but Judy made up an excuse to not go because she couldn't afford the meal and didn't want Kevin to pay for her, too.

“I'm fine,” her mother had said, but sweat beaded on her forehead. She popped a Rolaids into her mouth and chewed it with her front teeth like a rabbit, the crunchy-crumbling sound of the tablet making them both laugh.

“At least your teeth are strong,” Judy said.

She took a long drink of water. Like most Asian women, her mother was blessed with good skin, her eyes just starting to show crow's feet, the lines around her mouth faint underneath her makeup. She'd always been a tough little woman. She'd get a cold once a year, but that was about it.

“Don't worry. I went to the doctor last week,” her mother said.

“And what did he say?” Judy asked.

“Some test they want to run, but I don't need it.”

“Big money,” her father said. “Nine hundred dollars.”

That was the cost of the CT scan that her doctor wanted to do, their health insurance with its sky-high deductibles making it unaffordable. Maybe the test wouldn't have mattered at that point, the cancer already firmly rooted into her colon, but the fact was, he'd just slapped a price tag on his wife's life. Nine hundred dollars. What Judy should have stated was obvious, that they should do the scan regardless of the cost, but she stayed silent because she was afraid of what he'd say.

Oh, you want test? Good. You pay test.

His unspoken words rang in her ear. She could hear their bitter cadence, every ugly syllable spitting out of his mouth. He'd made her complicit in her mother's death by saying nothing. This was why Judy was now stuck in this hospital bed: simple karma. Whatever other acts of misfortune awaited her, she deserved them.

“Okay,” Dr. Chang said, and he nodded to himself in approval. “That's the last antivenin delivery.”

“Thank you,” Judy said. “I heard you had to fly here in a helicopter.”

“Yes,” he said. “I don't like them; they're very loud. But they're fast.” Now that he was done with his job, he seemed relaxed, almost jovial. But then Judy heard a faint buzz, and Dr. Chang reached for the cell phone hanging off his belt. He scanned the readout, and his business demeanor returned.

“Another helicopter ride?”

“No, this one's drivable, over in Connecticut.”

“You're like a superhero, hurrying from crisis to crisis.”

“Antivenin Man,” he said, posing his arms like Superman before takeoff. “Be well. Let's hope we never meet again.”

She watched him leave and realized she was wrong. He was actually nothing like her father. This man was a successful doctor, he possessed a sense of humor, and most of all, he wasn't nearing the end of his life.

According to Kevin, the average wait for a kidney to become available off the national waiting list was between three and five years, and her father's nephrologist predicted that within six months, his liver would fail without a kidney transplant.

“Ms. Lee?”

Standing at the door was a woman in a black business suit, about her age. As she approached, Judy saw her high heels underneath the cuffs of her pants, stabbing the floor with every step. Her hand thrust forward, her lips stretched into a forced smile, and she introduced herself as Connie from AR.

“That's accounts receivable. I don't know if you remember this, but you gave this to us when we admitted you.”

In her hand was Judy's insurance card, the one provided by her temp agency.

“I don't even remember riding in the ambulance,” Judy said. “But since you have it, I guess I must've given it to you.”

“Are you still employed by the company?”

It wasn't so much a question but an accusation. With each passing second, Connie was transforming into her true self, a bill collector.

“Why wouldn't I be?” Judy said, defiant.

“Because according to the insurance carrier, your policy was terminated last Friday.”

Which was when she'd walked out of her last assignment. Judy had dodged a flurry of phone calls that day from Beverly at the temp agency, but three days ago, there had been more calls from her. Judy had been certain Beverly was still trying to berate her, but maybe she'd wanted to tell her about something else. Like continuing the coverage of her health insurance. Even with insurance, hospital stays were expensive, but without it? How much did it cost to be in this bed? Probably thousands. Judy felt panic prickling her skin.

“Could you get my purse for me?” Judy asked, pointing at the chair.

Connie brought it over for her. When she saw Judy taking out her cell phone, she said, “You're not supposed to use your cell phone here.”

“Oh,” Judy said, snapping the clamshell shut.

“But since this is important, just keep it short. I'll be back in an hour for a status update.”

There were eleven messages on her voice mail; the first one was from two Fridays ago, from Beverly, as Judy had suspected, her high-strung voice coming through as clearly as if she were standing right here, barking into her ear.

“Judy, goddamnit, call me back. Right now!”

Judy deleted it and moved to the next one, recorded fifteen minutes after the first.

“I can't believe this. I can't believe you fucking walked out. It's incomprehensibly irresponsible. I mean, you are an adult. It's one thing if you're being mistreated or something, but you just walked out, without telling anybody there. Do you have any idea what you did? You—”

Judy pressed 3-3-7, and poof, the abuse disappeared forever. It gave Judy a modicum of pleasure to cut her off. Beverly wasn't saying anything Judy hadn't heard before.

The next four messages were also from her ex-boss, the last one telling her that because she'd left the last assignment, Judy had failed to make thirty-two hours for the sixth consecutive week, which meant her medical policy would be canceled unless she took the proper course of action. Judy could opt to get on COBRA and pay for her own insurance, but she had to get back to HR before the end of the week. It had been her final warning.

That was Friday. Judy remembered the notice that came in the mail, a certified letter she'd tossed onto the pile of to-dos that became don't-cares. Before she could sort out the terrifying implications of what she'd just learned, the next message played on, from her brother.

“Hey, it's me. I've run into some complications here—the guy I was supposed to meet, Vincent, he passed away. Great timing, right? I know that sounds crass, but there it is. So it sounds like I'll be here probably until the end of next week—Vincent's daughter is flying in from Minnesota, but I can't get her on the horn. The funeral will be held on Tuesday, the day I'm supposed to fly back, so I hope I can count on you to keep taking care of Snaps. Thanks, sis. I'll be in touch.”

Holy shit, the dog. By now it must've peed and crapped all over the house, upturned the garbage can in search of food, howling night and day to broadcast its injustice to the world. Snaps wasn't in great
physical shape to begin with, and this was just the sort of thing to push the beast over the edge.

“Hi, Judy, it's Roger. I'm right here at your brother's house. I guess you stepped out or something? I'll be here waiting for you.”

She should've never checked her messages, because this was turning out to be a running log of her recent failures. Poor Roger—she hadn't even thought of him until now. She'd had such high hopes for their night together.

The last three messages were all from Roger. The first was from yesterday morning, where he expressed his concern for her continued absence. The second one was from that night, where he told her he called the police and discovered her whereabouts. Emotional highs and lows, and yet Roger spoke with his usual brand of quotidian calmness no matter the situation. It was nice listening to him talk, especially the final recording from this morning, made from this very room.

“They say you'll wake up soon,” he said. “I have to go to work now, but I'll be back for lunch. It's strange talking to you like this, because you're right here and you can't hear me. It's feels like we're in a play or something. Anyway, Snaps is all taken care of, so don't worry about anything. Just be well.”

“No cell phones, miss.”

Judy thought the nurse was coming to take the phone away from her, but instead he snatched up the empty vial of antivenin from the stainless steel tray to the right of Judy.

“Connie said it was okay,” she said.