She was sitting beside me; I couldn’t see her face, for it was resting in her hands. “Are you?” she asked drily.
I leaned up on one elbow. “I’ll go,” I volunteered, and then my body just gave out, and I was flat on my back. “I can’t seem to do it, Martha. I feel rotten. I can’t move.”
I listened to the snow hitting the window, and then someone knocked again on our door. “Cynthia—” Martha hissed; following a traditional impulse, I dove for the covers.
But it wasn’t Cynthia at all. Annie LaSmith was in the doorway again. She came directly into the room and set a second cup of coffee down on the table beside Martha’s. “Here,” she said. “For him.”
Martha chose not to reply; I was feigning sleep, and Annie slipped out, closing the door behind her.
“I think—” Martha began, as I crawled up from the sheet “—I really think—” but she couldn’t speak for laughing.
Nor could I; tears were running down my face as I said, “I — better — go—”
“No,” she said; she held my head between her hands and we looked one another right in the eye. “You’re burning up—”
“I better—”
“We have to please shhhh! We have to stop making — please, make me stop—laughing—”
“I — didn’t even thank her—” I said, and Martha pushed her face into my chest and kept it there until, at last, she seemed able to control herself.
“You can’t go,” she whispered. “You’re practically on fire.”
“Martha—”
“Please”—she began to giggle again—“go to sleep.”
“What time is it?”
“Seven — quarter to seven. Do you think Annie put something in your coffee? Oh, God, I can’t stop—just go to sleep—”
I wanted to ask some questions about Annie LaSmith — What the hell was she doing here in the middle of the night? — but I never had the chance. Martha was holding me and sporadically giggling, and then she was holding me and I was asleep.
Martha was gone when I awoke again, and so was her pillow. The clock said eight thirty-five — I had a class to teach in less than an hour. I made a move, but the bedroom door slowly opened, and I closed my eyes.
“He’s sleeping,” Markie said.
“Shhhh.”
“Is he going to stay all the time?” Mark asked.
“Just till he’s better.”
The next voice was that of Cynthia, the skeptic. “What’s the matter with him?”
“He’s sick. He was visiting, and he got very sick, so I let him stay here and sleep.”
“What’s he sick with?” the little girl asked.
“He’s sick,” Markie explained.
“I don’t know,” Martha said. “We’ll have to call the doctor.”
“He doesn’t look sick,” Cynthia said.
“But he is, sweetheart.”
“He doesn’t look it.”
“Does he have a temperature?” Mark asked.
“I don’t know, love-dove. We’ll have to call the doctor and find out.”
“I’ll bet he doesn’t,” Cynthia said.
“I’ll bet he does,” said Martha. “You have to go to school, Cyn. Let’s go.”
“I’ll bet he doesn’t have a temperature though.”
“Cynthia, what’s eating you? Go put your galoshes on.”
“It’s a waste of money to have the doctor if you don’t even have a temperature,” Cynthia said.
“He’ll pay for his own doctor. You don’t have to worry about money.”
“Well,” said Cynthia, “he doesn’t look like he has a temperature.”
“Don’t you believe he’s sick, Cynthia? Do you think I’m telling you a lie?”
No answer.
“Is he, Mommie?” Mark asked.
A moment followed in which I could not tell what was happening. To open my eyes, I felt, would have made Martha look like a liar. “Shhhh,” I heard Martha whisper; then I heard feet moving across the floor.
A small hand was on my forehead.
Then another, even smaller.
The footsteps retreated, and once again I slept.
The rest of that day is bits and pieces.
Dr. Slimmer hovers over me. Temperature of 103. He leers. He gives me a shot. Martha pays. “Here’s for your wife’s mink, here’s for your kids’ summer camp, here’s for gas for your Thunderbird—” “If you had a bad experience with doctors as a child, Martha, don’t take it out on me.” “—living off widows and children, you’re a living argument for socialized medicine, Dr. Slimmer.” “I have to run, I’m double-parked—”
Beyond my door, sometime during the afternoon: “You’re a woman of the world, Annie — you understand. Okay?” “What you and Mr. Reganhart do is your business, darlin’.” “That a girl, Annie.”
Later. “Sissy — lower that damn thing! Somebody’s sick!” Later. “No, honey, you can’t see him sleep. He has a communicable disease. You can see him tomorrow.” “What disease?” asks Markie. “A bad bad cold.” “Oh,” moans Cynthia, “is that all? A cold?” “It’s serious, Cynthia—” “Did Daddy call this morning?” “Cynthia, it was the plumber, the man to fix the washing machine. I swear to you it was the plumber! Daddy’s back in New Mexico, sweetheart, Arizona.” “He’s in New York.” “Oh Cynthia, why are you so obstinate! We haven’t seen your Daddy for years — what’s this Daddy business? Oh baby, don’t cry, oh sweet baby, I’m so sorry—” “And keep your dirty hands off my doll!” the child wails, running off.
Later. A small hand on my forehead.
“You better not get caught in here, Markie,” I say, opening my eyes. “I’ve got a communicable disease.”
“Who?”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Mark.”
“Okay.”
Later still.
“How do you feel?”
“What time is it?”
“It’s four-thirty. I’m going to work. Are you hungry?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Look, take these pills. Try to take them every four hours.”
“Martha, is everything all right? Is everything, you know, okay?”
“You’ve slept through one hell of a day.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been—”
“Shhhh. Be sorry when you get better.” She smoothed back my hair. “I just told my roomer to clear out. So I’m feeling a hundred percent better.”
“Martha …”
“It’s all right. It’s not just you. I’ve got claims on a private life. I’m twenty-six years old. I don’t like other people’s moldy old sausages stinking up my refrigerator. I don’t need anyone peeking over my shoulder, that’s all. Good night, sick baby.”
“Good night. Thank you.”
“Here’s a radio. Cynthia can make bouillon. I told her you might want some.”
“Good night.”
And then, when it was dark outside, Cynthia. One of the frilly shoulder straps on her yellow nightgown had slipped down, but she seemed unaware of it. She was staring at me, which led me to believe she had been in the doorway some time.
“Good evening,” I said. “It’s snowing again, isn’t it?”
“Do you need any bouillon? I’m going to sleep.”
“As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind some.”
She turned and left; in only a few seconds she was back. “I don’t know how I’m going to get it over there. I’m not supposed to come near you.”
“Tie a handkerchief around your mouth and hold your breath, and sort of slip it onto the night table, all right?”
Cynthia went off to the kitchen, and I sat up in bed. There was a murky cup of coffee on the night table; after testing it with a finger and finding it cold, I remembered how it had gotten there. I took one of my pills, and then stuck the thermometer in my mouth and settled back onto the pillows. From the bed I could look directly at the huge circus picture that Cynthia had drawn in school, and which Martha, only a week before, had had framed. It was a gay picture — although a little painstakingly crayoned — of clowns and cages and balloons and pink-faced children holding their fathers’ hands; every child was connected to every other child by a parent. It made me feel that I had just lived through a very happy day. All that had happened seemed to have followed inevitably from the night before. Our lovemaking and my illness, Martha’s passion and her calling the doctor — it all seemed like one event.