So you go with the doctor to the room Julie’s in and the doctor says, right outside it — door closed, no little window in it, legs so weak while you walked that the doctor had to hold your arm, you said “I think I’m going to fall, grab me,” and he did, while you walked you thought “It’s like an execution I’m going to, mine, hanging, shooting, injection, gas; fear, weakness, feeling you want to heave,” sign on the door saying “Do Not Enter, Medical Staff Only, Permission Required”—“She’s in there on the bed. It’s not really a bed, we call it something else, but for our purposes we’ll call it that.” “What do you call it normally, meaning the technical calling — the word, you know?” and he says “‘Bed’ will do.” “But I’d like to know, if you don’t mind. I’m not sure why, peculiar reasons probably, but just, could you?” “An examination table, that’s all it is, but now it’s made up to look like a bed — sheets, a pillow.” “For under her head.” “Under her head, yes.” “You’re giving me a lot of your time, I’m sorry.” “It’s okay, what I do.” “I’ve been thinking of her head, only before, I think, on a pillow when she was alive. Everybody’s sure she’s dead?” He nods. “Then I’ll see her in there. I mean, I would, of course, if she were alive, but I’m saying for now.” You put your hand on the door. It has no knob or bar, only needs a push. Which side of the room will the bed be? The left, you guess. But it’s a table, so may be in the middle. “Yell for me, ‘Dr. Wilkie,’ if all of a sudden you need assistance. Or if you want, I’ll come in with you.” “You’ve seen her?” “Uh-huh.” “No, I want to see her alone.” “I can go in and leave when you want. Or with a flick of your finger, if you can’t speak, or point to the door.” “Nah, I want it to be now just me and her. ‘Me and she’ sounds better but it’s ‘me and her, me and her.’ Meaning, they go together, correctly, though in that case it could be ‘she and I’ for all I know. Why do I bring these things up? Delaying.” “No matter what, I won’t budge from here unless there’s an emergency I’m absolutely needed for. Chances of that are minimal, and I’ve asked another doctor to fill in for me. But you never know.” “You never know,” you say. “And I suppose I should go in now, get it over with. Somehow I imagine her in the middle of the room on that table-bed, head on the left side of it, so, perpendicular to us,” and you show with your hands in a T what you mean. “I believe that’s the way it is.” “So there. And all my life, you know, I’ve been getting things over with — no window in the room, probably.” “None.” “Lots of lights, some side tables with instruments and things on them, and so on. In fact, there’s a standard joke, a running one, rather, around my household — no, it’s no time for lines or jokes. This isn’t one, what I was about to say, but might sound like it. I haven’t told you it yet?” “If you mean now or before, not that I know of.” “I think I’ve told everyone else in the world. I have so few things to say. Of interest. Though it always had a serious degree to it.
Side. It borders. Straddles