Robinson Crusoe because he has to read it for a book report at school. Most of the times she falls asleep about ten minutes after he starts reading. Or stares up at the ceiling and when he calls her name and asks if she’s listening, she doesn’t answer or look at him. It’s the drugs, his mother says. Maybe in a few months she won’t have to take them anymore. His reading is making it much easier for her to rest and fall asleep naturally though, which she also needs to do, so look at it that way. His brothers and he always know about her next operation a week or so beforehand. His mother usually announces it to them at the dinner table about an hour after she’s told Vera. “I’m very sad to have to say this, though it is, what I’m about to say, going to take place for a very good purpose…” “I know what you’re going to say,” Vera said once, “and I don’t want to. The doctors hurt me. They come at me with sharp blades and big clubs and cut and beat me to ribbons and I feel most of it when it’s going on but I’m too doped-up to keep them away or say anything. And then it hurts for such a long time after and none of the painkillers do anything to make it stop and I get uglier and smaller and worse each time. I know I’m going to die because of the operation this time, either when they’re doing it or soon after.” “No you’re not. It’s a simple operation, the simplest of any of them. More for correcting a little thing from the last one than doing anything new this time. Probably not even an IV after it or any intensive care. You’ll be up and around maybe an hour or two after you come out of the anesthesia, if they even have to put you out for it.” “That’s what you said before the last one and it was the worst and most painful one I had. This one will be even worse. And the one after it, if I don’t die this time, even worser.” “What are you saying? This one should be the last.” “That’s what you said before the last one. I remember and you do too and everyone else here does also but you’ll all pretend you don’t. You think I’m dumb and have lost my memory because that’s what my sickness is supposed to do to me too. And why does it always have to be me? Why doesn’t someone else here get sick like me and have to go in for one and I can have a rest from them for once?” “I’m sure if one of us could—” “I won’t go to the hospital for it. I’ll run away first. I’ll kill myself first, even. It’s better than having a lot of doctors with half faces cut me up and hit me with hammers to help me die.” “Believe me, darling, this one should be the very last. I was mistaken the last time. I understood wrong what the doctor told me. This one you’ll be on the operating table a short time and home in a day or two. And you’ll have dinner at the table with us that night if your stomach can take it and you’ll go to sleep in your own bed when you get home. If I’m wrong again — If there are sudden complications while they’re operating, and they don’t expect that to happen. Or something they just discovered because they have you opened up — then it won’t be because I was mistaken or didn’t understand what the doctor told me. These things sometimes happen. But I truly believe and hope and pray and everything like that, my sweet darling — we all do — that it won’t happen this time around with you.” She’s always dressed as if for a party and has her little valise packed with bedclothes and bathroom things and a few of her smaller bubbled-glass and alabaster animals when she goes to the hospital. She’s always at the door with the valise and with her coat and hat on and once holding a child’s umbrella, waiting for her mother to finish her coffee and maybe have another cup and brush her hair and put lipstick on and get her coat and handbag out of the foyer closet and make sure she has all the documents the hospital needs and enough cash in her wallet and her checkbook and a paperback to read and her keys. His father always goes to work about a half-hour before. Vera’s already waiting at the door. Kisses her and says if he’s not too tied up with last-minute patients he’ll see her at the hospital tonight. His mother and she always go alone together. Vera won’t let anyone carry her valise outside or put it in the cab. A couple of times he ran up the block with one of his brothers to get a cab for them, then had to run down the block while his brother rode in the cab to their building. He should have been in school by then but his mother wanted Vera’s brothers there to say good-bye. He kisses her and his mother and waves to them and the cab drives off. His mother always looks through the rear window and then waves back at them till the cab slows down for a red light or is about to turn the corner. Maybe she was holding on to Vera when the cab came to a stop or turned, afraid she might fall forward or hard to the side. Vera never says a word these mornings. Head always faced down and she never looks straight at anyone or responds to any question or remark, even his mother’s. When his father crouched down and hugged her and said something in her ear, she stared at the door. His own last words to her on the sidewalk are always “Good luck,” and then he wishes he hadn’t said them. She might think the operation’s going to be much worse than she’s been told. That she might need luck after all. For why have her brothers stayed home for her, why’s everyone being extra nice to her? Two of these mornings he tells himself, when Vera’s about to get into the cab, not to say good luck as he’s done the last times, but it always comes out. Say “See ya,” he tells himself one of those times, “See ya, Vera” or “I’ll see ya,” which is what he almost always says when he leaves one of his friends or brothers, but something stops it — he forgets while he’s telling himself to say it and instead says “Good luck.” His mother always later says Vera was the same way in the hospitaclass="underline" silent and resigned and acting like a phantom when she was checked in. “I had to do all the answering for her — how old, date of birth and so forth, any cold or sore throat the last few days?” And then when she went upstairs to her room, had lunch and dinner—“I had to check off what I thought she wanted to eat and drink; she wouldn’t give me a clue.” And when she went for some tests or aides and doctors came in to prepare her for the operation if it was to be the next day. His father never gets to the hospital those nights but always leaves the house early the next day to be there in time for her breakfast. If the operation is for the next morning, he skips going there that early and comes after work much later that day. Once he went away for a couple of days when she was being operated on. A patient of his had invited him to a Catskill resort he had a big interest in or owned. His father said he took the man up on it only because the operation would be too much for him — it was to be the most serious she’d had — and he’d be more problem than help if he hung around the city during the operation and went to the hospital right after. But his mother used to say he just didn’t want to pass up a free vacation. Years later Vera told him, when she got into an argument with him about something else, that she still held it against him, but other times she said she’d never given it much thought. “You did right. You wouldn’t have been any help. You only would’ve cried when you saw me with those stupid tubes up my nose and pester the hospital workers with all sorts of questions anybody could answer or nobody could, making it embarrassing and even more painful for me. Because the staff sometimes takes it out on the patient if the visitor makes scenes or insults them or even asks questions that can seem as if he’s criticizing them a little. Only Mommy knew how to handle things there and could help me and only Mommy did.” “Glad she was there then,” his father said, “for I’m too much of a softie when it comes to the sicknesses of my kids. But just remember who insisted on the best doctors and hospital rooms and postoperative care for you and who paid all the bills.” He visits her in the hospital the day before an operation. She’s in her room waiting for him in a wheelchair. He says “What would you like to do?” and she says “I don’t care — anything,” and he says “Mind if I wheel you around and explore the place a little?” and she hunches her shoulders or gives him a face and he wheels her around the halls into the waiting rooms and the solarium and to the little closet that’s a library and then toward the children’s playroom. “Did you have lunch yet?” he says while they wheel and she says “Look at your watch; use your brains.” “Is the food good here — better than at the last hospital?” and she says “That’s one of the dumbest questions I’ve ever heard, even from you.” “Is the girl you share the room with nice?” and she says “Your questions are getting so dumb I’m not even going to let you know I’ve heard them anymore.” “What do you want me to ask or say then?” and she stares straight ahead, and he says “Come on, you’re not being fair, I came here to see you, so answer what I asked,” and she says “Don’t ask, don’t say, use the time to think what you’ve been saying for a change — and you’re supposed to be one of the smarter ones in the family?” “Listen, I know what you’re going through and I feel lousy about it, the whole world does, so what am I asking or doing or anything that’s so wrong?” and she says “Now I’m serious about ignoring you, you dumb dope, so you’ll only be talking to yourself from now on.” Lots of things in the room to play with, a volunteer lady who gives out juice and cookies and pieces of fruit to the children who can drink and eat them, another volunteer walking around holding up cups and cookies to several childrens’ lips. Some are completely bald. He’s never seen that except during the ringworm epidemic at school this year when lots of boys and girls came with their heads shaved, but they kept hats and scarves on all day except when someone knocked or pulled them off. He tries not to look at them, doesn’t want to make them feel bad. Same with the ones who sit and groan or who drag the upside down bottles and tubes attached to them on what look like wheeled coat stands. Some are sleeping and a few are so skinny and sick looking they seem dead or close to it, while others you wouldn’t know were sick except for their hospital gowns. His mother told him to be cheerful. “You have a tendency to get depressed over things like this, but for Vera’s sake make believe everything’s hunky-dory. Otherwise, do me the favor and don’t go.” “So this is the playroom,” he says. “Mom told me about it. It’s beautiful, very nice. Like a snack? Any of the games interest you? I’ll gladly play.” “It’s ugly here. The games and toys are for morons, which most of us here are going to become if we’re not already are.” “You said you weren’t going to answer me anymore, but I’m glad you did. It’s nice talking. Better than just staring or standing or sitting still. But tell me, why do you say it’s ugly? Look at the walls. My favorite shade of blue. Bright but not blinding. Peaceful, cheerful, and it seems recently painted. And the pictures hanging up seem interesting and nice. Not just your regular kids’ stuff. What do you think that one’s of? Maybe just a design.” “It’s of nothing. And the blue’s awful on the walls. If vomit was blue that’s what shade it’d be. The whole room’s awful. It stinks from medicine and disinfectant and diaper rash and shit and pee. That’s because most of them can’t control themselves anymore. You must have a nose cold.” “I don’t and I don’t smell anything funny. Maybe only soap.” “Then get the holes in your nose unclogged. But yesterday a boy younger than me, even, died right in this room.” “Oh come on, nobody dies in a playroom. Unless he falls off something and breaks his skull. But they don’t have anything that high here — I’m sure just to prevent that. And probably because we’re in a hospital, and the part of it just for children, the dying from the fall couldn’t happen anyway even if someone climbed to the top of the curtain there and dived off and landed flat on his head. Too many nurses and doctors to help right away.” “He died in his wheelchair fast asleep. I was here but not near him. He was dying anyway. Anyone could see it when they wheeled him in. Mouth open, stuff running out, and more tubes than the usual. But his mother thought his being around not-as-bad-off kids would help him. All of a sudden they shooed us out or wheeled the ones in chairs like me and later we found he died, though the nurses and aides won’t say so. But is he around? Because he was way too sick to be sent home. I know what room he was in and that bed was empty today and the card with his name’s off the door. Sometimes, I heard, they put kids in the very last room down the hall when they’re dying or only have a few days left to live. But that one’s taken by someone else we’ve never seen, since the door’s always closed and the window on it’s got paper over it.” “I don’t believe it. If this boy who you say died was that bad off, then as you said he wouldn’t have been in a regular room like yours for everyone to see.” “You’re wrong. Sometimes they die here all of a sudden. That’s happened in almost all my hospital stays. A nurse even got in big trouble this time because of it. She’s not supposed to listen to what mothers want on things like that. If you’re dying you’re supposed to do it in that last room or your own room if that’s all they have, with the door closed and the curtains around you and no other patients or your family in it. You do some asking around here about it and you’ll find out. But that’s why I don’t like it when the nurses pull the curtains around me.” “No, I didn’t know you didn’t.” “You’ve seen my face when they do. I’m afraid I won’t come out. That they can do something, decide my time is up and the bed’s needed for someone else — I’ve heard that too — and put their hands over my nose and mouth or use a pillow or something or just stick a death dose in my veins and good-bye. But they curtain me all the time when I have to go kaka and pee and can’t get to the bathroom myself, which now is always.” “Let’s try talking about something else, Vera. This has to be disturbing you.” “Like what? There’s nothing else. My operation tomorrow? That I’m feeling ‘oh great I’m going to get sliced up again’? Can you get me out of this thing into a normal chair? I’ve got cramps shooting up my back that are starting to make me scream.” He gets a nurse and aide who lift her into a soft chair. He should try changing the subject again. He’s not doing a good job here. His mother will come and Vera will say he made her feel even worse. He should be taking her mind off things, cheering her up. “By the way, your friend Kitty sends her regards.” “So what?” “She’s your old friend. I’m just saying I bumped into her on the street.” “She’s lost.” “Maybe you’d like her to call you. She could still do it today.” “I don’t want to speak to anyone.” “Almost all our relatives have called and want to see you, but we say you’d rather not till you’re feeling better.” “Till they learn I’m not dead.” “No, till a couple of days after the operation, or whenever you want. We’re doing the right thing by saying that for you and keeping them away, right?” “What are you talking about? When could they come? Today? Yesterday when I’m in tests all day? Tomorrow when I’m operated on? Make sense.” “I meant the day after you came in, for instance.” “What do I care? Have them sleep under my bed here, for all it means to me.” He says maybe she’d like him to read to her. He could get something from that library closet. He thinks he knows what she’d like, unless she wants to be wheeled there to choose one. Or maybe she just wants to read something herself. If she did, he’d sit beside her, read a book he brought with him. It’s OK by him. “What you can do is turn my chair around and pull it up to the window so I can look out. That way I won’t have to see anyb