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“Shanti, did you just flush my sample?”

“What?”

Oliver is up, starting toward the bathroom. “The stool sample we asked to be picked up
more than an hour ago
?”

“I didn’t know it was a sample.” Shanti folds her arms over her breasts. I feel myself warming, want to stay calm, am not doing a very good job. “I can’t believe you did that,” I say. “I called three times for that to be picked up.”

“I didn’t know,” she repeats, stiffening. “Nobody told me.”

“When you walked in the door she told you,” Oliver says. “I heard her.”

I am hotly aware of not wanting to look like a bully, let alone like a racist.

“Oliver, thank you,” I say, “I really don’t—”

Shanti is just standing there, numb, waiting to absorb whatever abuse, and this makes me a bit sick. Seeing I’ve finished, she apologizes once more, but it’s apparent she doesn’t mean a word. In the quick motions of a hurt girl, she turns and leaves.

—

More knocking now: a supervisor enters, followed by Glendora. The supervisor is short and Asian—younger than me, lively with her greeting. She likely makes more money than I did on my best freelancing days. Her front teeth are ragged fence posts beaten down by too much time and bad weather, and they don’t seem to faze her at all. She’s odd and distinctive, and was likely discriminated against in her lifetime—certainly she caught some hell about those chompers, but odds suggest she doesn’t get abuse like Shanti, or Glendora. The class dynamics seem different; the power dynamic between her and me is obviously separate from the dynamic I have with the other nurses. She asks what’s been going on. Something in me opens. “I’m not blaming Shanti,” I say, “because it clearly wasn’t her fault, but something’s obviously wrong. I keep being told I’m supposed to deliver the doctors a stool sample. Meanwhile nobody knows they’re supposed to pick up that same goddamn sample.”

“Oh, she knew,” Glendora volunteers.

“She knew?” I feel a horrible relief.

“Shanti came on shift. I told her I needed your sample.”

“I can’t believe this—”

“You clearly have a lot going on right now,” the nurse-practitioner says. “I hear that you are upset.”

“I appreciate you trying to validate my experience,” I answer. “But it doesn’t change that I’m trying to do what I’m supposed to do, and people are throwing it away.”

“What can I do to make things better?”

“Okay. One thing. How about you tell the guy answering the call bell that his job actually matters? He’s like,
all righty, okay,
sounding all efficient, then doing nothing. Tell Shanti that her job
actually matters
. People around here need to do their jobs. They’re
actually important
. And I’d really like to get some sleep tonight, so I’d appreciate it if my vitals were taken as late as possible.”

“I’ll tell her to do you last.”

Oliver breaks in: “Is there anyone besides Shanti who could do them?”

Immediately I am grateful, look for the answer.

“I’m on it.”

“Thank you, Glendora,” I say.

“I got you, honey. No problem.”

—

It feels very late. The room is basically blackened, light beeps and blips of machines sounding out every so often, intruding on the quiet. I feel wholly alone, stuck in this horrid place, unable to sleep, aware of the cancer and nuclear radiation both teeming through me, my cheating husband asleep next to me on the pullout bed.

Then why am I almost deliriously happy?

I finished a major part of this procedure today. I ate enough protein. I spent an hour knitting. I listened to music that, at moments, made me happy. I felt loved today, even if that love was misguided, coming from an odd half stranger. But when he sang to me, he tried to take me away, or make me feel better, or give me hope. I felt that. It mattered.

Today I let myself rant. I knew I was being
bad,
knew I was doing
wrong.
But I did it anyway, I let my own voice thrill me—its quickness, its agility, my own contrary surges. Since my illness, I’ve felt a kind of lightning through me—stripping something away, peeling off layers.

The Third Noble Truth of Suffering involves the cessation of
dukkha,
meaning the cessation of suffering. Reason extends this to cessation of the causes of suffering. To ease our cravings we must eliminate the causes of craving. Our wants, desires, delusions, appetites. I don’t think it’s possible. I know it is not. Not totally. But since I have been ill there has been a kind of lightening. My body has been husked away, reduced to its essentials. And today, for a little while, maybe I found a path to my essential self
.

Argh argh argh,
I just found out I’m clearly having an allergic reaction to whatever cream they are using at my entry site, and I’m yelling now—somewhat good-naturedly, with love, yes, with love—to my lovely overnight nurse, Tara:

“Clown-shoe motherfuckers!”

—

Breakfast: nuked oatmeal with agave nectar; I can’t manage two bites. On my fifth sip of Ensure, Dr. Blasco enters, adjusting the strings on a paper mask. My eyes gravitate to his protective smock. Made of something that seems like a space-age yellow chiffon, it is semitransparent, clingy, and lined with lead. Tied around the doctor’s neck, it otherwise hangs free and open. He approaches, pleasant as a bird greeting the sunrise: “You are ready for the next marathon?”

The way the smock hangs seems poignant—its spreading breadth, its loose yellowness. I think of a barbecue apron worn by a friendly and preoccupied father, eager to begin his yearly backyard grilling adventure—he has no idea that it can only end with his children crying, his wife disgusted, everyone still hungry and angry at him.

But what is this? What’s happening inside my head? How can I be getting maudlin? How did I become this swinging pendulum, my moods reversing course so quickly, all confidence draining?

“More than ready,” I tell the doctor. “Let’s get this party started.”

—

The steps are familiar by now, though each still sends creepers through my stomach: nurses entering with their horror movie getups, everyone in paper mask and powdered gloves, trying to move their arms in a way human arms aren’t meant to move so they can knot the strings behind their necks; Oliver flushed, sweating like a pig in his garb, grousing that the gloves make it impossible to use his laptop.

“We want a clean slate,” Blasco says, meaning blood cells without cancer. Now he gets to the specific, final steps that must be taken before the transplant. Two drugs will enter my system during this first round of chemo: Cytoxan, which will aggravate the bladder, and Thyatemper, which I’ll receive over four hours. “You take a shower an hour after getting it,” says Blasco. “This will help your lungs with breathing, it can help to prevent clotting and dyspnea. Another shower six hours after that. You should not drink the shower water.”

Here is the part where my hands grasp the pregnant and transparent bottles, moving them back and forth as if weighing them. Here is where I grip their sides (my hands go flat, I press). Here I thank and welcome each concoction, loving it, praying for that poison’s effectiveness, embracing it with all of my warrior spirit energy.
“Let’s do this!”
I say, but I feel myself manufacturing the enthusiasm. I tell myself the medicine is making me better in its way, and I am making myself better in mine. However, my mantras do not feel so sacred anymore. It’s more like I feel some part of myself separating, a distance opening. I can’t stay in the moment but instead hear a voice inside me, ordering:
Stay in the moment.

—

There’s nothing enjoyable about being nuked until you are a glowing and bloated and scabrous kumquat, but at least radiation got me out of the room. Not anymore. I’m trapped inside this vulgar little triangle of space; I have to make my peace with that.

My catheter continues its disco throb, but I’m told I must deal. Any painkillers might inhibit my ability to recognize pain, alert proper authorities to larger problems, which is important for me right now. Bless Blasco for prescribing Ativan. When it hits, the drowsy sensations are like that satisfaction you feel after a second bowl of excellent soup. Still, when I’m awake, I’m lucid, which every nurse says is a good sign. Furthermore, the familiarity is helpful, not a comfort but at least known. I keep my journal updated when nurses add a bladder protectant called Kenzlo to the Christmas tree. My mouth has gotten cotton dry. I try to drink more water, but sometimes I forget. There’s so much to track; some things slip past. I am allowing myself the luxury of more naps, especially when chemo bags are up.

Apparently Tilda has found a niche at
Schlep—
its editors are more than happy to exploit her to the hilt; but here she is, still forcing herself not to crumble at the sight of my face. She spends time looking at the backs of my hands: how orange they are, their burnt hue, their texture hard and rough as mussel shells. Cleaning the clutter from my tray, Tilda calls and tells the desk to bring a new pitcher of ice water. She unwraps steaming edamame and grilled lemon chicken from Tupperware containers, a new tube of moisturizer lifted from the magazine’s makeup room. She wants to know how I am, meaning she wants a medical update. Even this kind of talk sends us back into our old dorm, college roomies—easy and familiar—again commiserating about impossible boys.

I let her know about the return of the musician—keeping it coy, roundabout. She’s suspicious and delighted. Then an actual gasp. Tilda’s gloved hand rises in front of her masked mouth. “I would have paid to see that.”

“To his credit, he didn’t break that keyboard over the guy’s face.”

“Oh, he had to be pissed. Was he pissed?”

“Tilda, I have a real dilemma. If you could see how devastated—”

“Please. That dog doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“Other than finding the insurance, you mean, and paying my premiums, and running around dry cleaning my underwear—”

“Where was he all afternoon?” Her voice is knowing.

“Can’t exactly blame him, can you?”

Before she can correct me, I am correcting myself. “Right, I
do.
But I understand, I think. The pressure he’s under. The man’s been by my side for everything. Part of me wants to say, Go. I have to live in this every second, who else should have to? Get fucked. Some piece of
ass,
who cares?”

“You care, though—don’t you?”

“It
is
a betrayal. I mean, we grow up knowing men cheat. You worry so much about finding someone and getting married. And then you spend your marriage with the hovering possibility; every woman lives in fear of it. All the perfect couples that don’t make it. People get divorced. Life goes on.”

She provides her rubber yellow hand, clasps my dry-bone knuckles.

“Even with this rupture,” I continue, “there’s still our
depth.
I think that’s why it hurts more. I
do
need him. It just burns at me, Til. But, maybe, I mean—”

Tilda blinks, trying to follow.

“I’m confused, too.” I squeeze her fingers. “Yesterday was
horrible.
Sitting there and looking at one another and not trusting
anything
.”

“Ugh.”

“
Ugh.
But, but somehow, when Oliver backed down and let Merv stay, he must have put his faith in, what—the idea of
what was best for me
? What was
larger
?”

My throat feels rough. I motion for the pitcher, pour what remains into a glass, sip at tepid water.

“One consolation,” I continue. “I don’t need to do anything about it. I guess I’ll figure it out after. If I survive.”

“When,” Tilda says.

“When,” I say.

“How’s that keyboardist’s tushie?” Tilda asks.

We make eye contact. I wave her off.

“You’re talking about a man who can only find an audience in the bedridden.”

“So then,
my type
.”

“When I got mad at that nurse, the terror on his face.
So
in over his head. But there’s a charm. An eagerness. It’s sweet. I like him coming, making me feel a little alive.”

“I don’t think it’s the worst thing for O to remember what a catch you are.” She squeezes my hand again.

I thank her, lie back. “Sometimes, I think about what his life will be like without me.”

Tilda’s face goes rigid. I motion,
Let me continue
.

“He might be able to finish his program, if he was able to give it the attention he has to give me. He can hire sitters. He’s young. With the violin and sob story he’ll be able to wheel out, soon enough there’d be another woman. But even when this transplant works, it’s going to take me time to get better, if I ever do.”

“Alice—”

“I’m not having a pity party, just admitting it. He might be better off—”

“You’re strong enough to have these feelings,” Tilda says. “And I’m strong enough to sit with you while you have them.”

I squeeze, thank her with my eyes, take and suck an ice chip.

“The thing that gets me—is my daughter’s life without me. I can’t.”

“I know, honey.”

“I can’t imagine it,” I repeat.

“So don’t.”

I recognize an exhaustion in her voice. She’s been through this dance enough.

She says, again: “So don’t.”

—

He hadn’t been able to sleep, work, eat, think of anything else, anyone else. That he might lose her to cancer was already unthinkable; that he might lose her heart to another man was what: Repulsive? Emasculating? It was impossible. It was his fault.

He managed, at best, two hours of lackluster troubleshooting before saving the file, shutting things down, and heading by her magazine place, where he grabbed anything he hadn’t already seen in Alice’s room:
WWD
(cover: drop-dead pouty blonde with bangs),
Italian Vogue
(pouty blonde; long hair spraying everywhere), and
Cosmo
(famous amazon, pouty mole). With his every step, an instinct said he should check over his shoulder. In the middle of the sidewalk he envisioned seeing that limpy motherfucker, that bouncy mess of hair.