“You’re ambitious,” the nurse said.
“I like to get things done,” Eddie said.
“Me, too,” the nurse said, and then she was gone.
“She’s off for the poison,” he whispered to me. He was careful to keep his voice down as the pod had no door.
I looked out the window at the light fall of February snow.“They could rent these out at night, market it like one of those tiny Japanese hotel rooms.” The pod had a small sink. There was a toilet down the hall and surely, somewhere, a shower.
Eddie agreed. “They’d make a killing. This is a very comfortable chair.”
“There isn’t room for the hygienist and the manicurist if the nurse and I are both in here with you.”
“Take shifts. I’m here for hours.”
Eddie’s was the last pod on the left, and while I hadn’t meant to notice, every patient in every other pod had someone with them. Everyone had found another person to sit with them through chemo. Not having any doors was the thing that made the design possible for the nurses who went in and out with their hands full, keeping an eye on all the sparrows. It also meant the people on the right-hand side of the hall could still enjoy the view. It was masterful. “The place where Buddy had chemo was nothing like this,” I said.
Eddie smiled. “Of course you took Buddy to chemo. Of course you did. What was that like?”
“It was one big room, all the chairs in a circle, all the nurses going around checking on everybody. Don’t get me wrong, it was great, or great for chemo. Everyone was incredibly kind, but some of the patients were so sick, and when I see a place like this, I think how nice it would have been for them to have had a little privacy.”
The nurse returned and asked Eddie to state his full name and date of birth, which he did, cheerfully, even though it was the fifth time he’d been asked the question since we arrived. “Edward James Triplett, May 2, 1949.” He held out his arm and she scanned his wristband.
“How are you feeling today, Mr. Triplett?”
“I have a smile on my face and a song in my heart.”
The nurse smiled at him. “I noticed that. No fever, no pain?”
He shook his head.
“In that case, I’m going to hook you up.”
Eddie didn’t have a port, and so the nurse started a line on the front side of his elbow. “A stick and a sting,” she said. I turned my head.
“What’s that called, that vein?” Eddie asked, admiring her work.
“The median cubital vein.”
“Well, now you’ve taught me something new. Median cubital. We come to chemo to grow.”
She got the chemo running, and when she was sure the line was good and Eddie had everything he needed, she left. That’s when Eddie returned to his question. “I was vague,” he said. “I didn’t mean, what was the treatment center like, though don’t get me wrong, I find it all interesting. I meant, what was it like for you to take your father to chemo?”
“Oh, that,” I said, suddenly flush with memory. “I loved it. Is that a terrible thing to say? I bet if Buddy were here, he’d tell you the same thing. We had such a good time. We’d never spent much time together before. When he first called to tell me he was sick, I don’t think I’d seen him in a year or more. I was in Newton then, and he only lived over in Gloucester.”
“He stayed in Gloucester?” Eddie asked.
“Born and raised and died. Aside from college and those few miserable years he and my mother were married, he was always in Gloucester. You remember the apartment he had when we were kids?”
“Don’t tell me,” Eddie said.
“Same place. He couldn’t care less where he was sleeping as long as he had a good bed and a washer and dryer. Laundry mattered to him. Other than sleeping and laundry, he might as well have lived on the boat. The boat was a lot of the reason I didn’t go see him more. He always wanted to go out on the boat, but the smell of the fish and the smell of the diesel exhaust and then whatever chop there was in the water always did a number on me.”
“I can see how chemo would be preferable to that.”
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Me? I’m fine.”
