Every Note Played(13)
For four months, they argued and sulked and danced silently around the real reason the relationship had to end. It took him that long to accumulate the courage he needed to break up with her. She didn’t protest. They hugged for a long time, then she walked out the door. It was the most unselfish act of his life.
“Anyone looking after you?”
“No. I’m doing okay on my own.”
“You’re going to need help. Your parents, a relative, friends. You can hire private nurses, home health aides, but that will get expensive. Can you call on someone?”
“Uh-huh.”
His mother died of cervical cancer when she was forty-five. Richard is forty-five. Apparently, a rough age in his lineage. He hasn’t spoken to his father in years. His two brothers live in New Hampshire. They work full-time, and their wives are raising young kids. They aren’t options. Grace is in school, and that’s where she belongs. He still hasn’t told her. He doesn’t know how. He draws Karina’s name next but immediately returns that card to the deck. There’s no way.
“How’s your living situation? Did you find a new place?”
“No. I’m still good where I am.”
“Richard, you’re on the fourth floor of a walk-up. Really, you have to get into a new place ASAP, before you need a wheelchair. You’re going to need elevators, ramps. Okay?”
He keeps his gaze steady, refusing any sign of agreement. He can still walk. How could he be in a wheelchair ASAP? He knows this is where the disease goes, yet he can’t bring himself to fully imagine it. He looks into Kathy’s big brown eyes. She can. Easy-peasy.
“So tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s starting in my left arm. I can’t raise my hand above my shoulder, and my fingers are a bit weaker. I can’t lift anything heavy. I’m dropping things. Walking is still mostly okay.”
“Mostly.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. What about eating, drinking, talking?”
“Mostly okay.”
“Okay, we’ll check out these mostly’s, see what’s happening. Let’s start with your left hand. Spread your fingers and don’t let me bunch them back together.”
He spreads his fingers like a starfish. She scrunches them together with one second’s minimal effort.
“Hold your hand straight out in front of you and don’t let me push it down. Resist me.”
She applies a bit of pressure, and his arm collapses to his side. The last time he was here, he still had the use of both arms and could raise both hands when asked. But his right arm crumbled with the mere suggestion of force on Kathy’s part, and he remembers the terror that rushed through him like a cold blue current, chilling his heart, realizing that he possessed almost no strength in that arm and that he was about to lose the use of it entirely and forever. He remembers thinking, At least I still have my left arm. He glances now at his left hand, defeated and shamed by his side, and he knows what this profoundly simple exercise will look like in three months’ time.
“Make an A-OK sign with your thumb and index finger and lock them into a ring. Don’t let me pull them apart.”
She pulls them apart.
He wants to punch this nice lady in the face with his feeble hand.
“Show me a big smile, so big it’s fake. Like Hillary.”
He does.
“Now pucker. Like Trump.”
He does.
“Open your mouth and don’t let me shut it.”
He opens his mouth, and with the heel of her hand under his chin, she steadily closes his bottom jaw.
“Stick your tongue out and don’t let me move it.”
She pushes down and right and left on his tongue with a Popsicle stick, shifting it in each direction.
“Lick your lips all the way around.”
Her eyes track his tongue in a circle.
“Fill your cheeks with air and don’t let me pop them.”
She does.
“Are you having any trouble blowing your nose?”
“No.”
“Any trouble with saliva?”
“Like, am I drooling?”
“Yeah.”
“No.”
“How about coughing? Any trouble clearing your throat?”
“Not really.”
“Let me see. Cough from deep down. Give me a big throat clear.”
He tries to take a deep breath but hits a wall sooner than expected, and so his cough comes out shallow and sputtering. He’s embarrassed. He was going for the cough of a lion, but instead he’s a kitten hacking up a hair ball.
“Take a big breath and expel a note for as long as you can. Ready? Go.”
He chooses middle C and runs out of air at about fifteen seconds. Is that normal? Kathy doesn’t say.
She goes to the sink and fills a plastic cup with water.
“Here. Take a few sips and then chug the rest.”
He does while she appears to study something about his Adam’s apple.
“Is taking your meds giving you any trouble?”
“No.”
“Good. Taking pills is the highest level of swallowing. So that’s great. Water’s the fastest liquid and will give you the most trouble. You drink coffee?”
“Yeah.”