“Hey, you.” I messed her hair. “What’s been going on with you lately?”
She hugged me and said, “Nothing.” Then she stepped back, twisting up her face. “You stink, Moe. You smell like Aunt Gertie’s hall closet. Do you have perfume on or something?”
“Don’t be a wise guy or I’ll give you such a smack.”
She put up her fists like an old-time fighter. “Sure you will. I’ll show you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I put my dukes up too. “Come on, tough girl.” I gave her a light slap on the top of her head.
She kicked me in the shin. “There!”
“Ow! That’s cheating.”
“I have to have some advantage. You’re bigger than me.”
“I’ll give you an advantage right in the jaw, you. Now get outta here and go do your homework, or I’ll kick you in the tush.”
As Miriam said, the call had been from Mindy’s dad. He’d left a phone number with a long distance area code, and detailed directions on how to get from Brooklyn up to the rehab hospital in Westchester County. The note also said Mr. Weinstock needed to speak to me as soon as possible.
“Seventh floor nurses’ station, Nurse Havemayer speaking,” said the woman at the other end of the line.
“Good afternoon.”
“Is it still afternoon?”
“Not for much longer,” I said. “It’s already getting pretty dark outside.”
“Sorry, how may I help you?”
“My name’s Moses Prager and my girlfriend’s father, Herb Weinstock, left me this number to call.”
“You’d be Mindy’s boyfriend then.”
“Yeah, but — ”
“Don’t be surprised, Mr. Prager. We spend a lot of time getting to know our patients and their families. Would you like me to get Mr. Weinstock for you?”
“I’d like that very much. Thanks.”
“I am going to put you on hold. Don’t hang up, okay?”
“Promise.”
A minute later, Herb Weinstock got on the phone. “Moe, how’ve you been?”
“A little worried I haven’t heard from you.”
“I understand, but we had to get Mindy settled in here and see what was what.”
“How’s Mindy doing? Is something wrong?”
“She’s awake, Moe. She’s not talking much yet, but our girl’s awake. She knows who we are and she can make herself understood. She’s a little bit confused about things, but the doctors say that’s normal with injuries like hers.”
“I see you left directions for me. You have any idea of when I’ll be allowed to come up?”
“How about now? Her doctor thinks seeing you would be good medicine for her.”
“I’m on my way.”
• • •
Due north of the Bronx, Westchester County was what most Brooklynites referred to as fancy-shmancy. Certainly, my relatives would have called it that. Westchester had lots of big old houses on big old lots, exclusive country clubs, and not many Jews or “coloreds.” I had little doubt that most of its churchgoing residents gave thanks every Sunday for those three blessings the Lord had bestowed upon them. I think I half expected the road sign welcoming me to the county to be shaped like a bottle of Scotch and to be painted like plaid golf pants.
For all of Westchester’s fancy-shmancy-ness, the first locale a traveler encounters as he or she crosses over the Bronx border is Yonkers, a gritty, working class city, not exactly New York State’s garden of Eden. Yonkers functions as a kind of demilitarized zone between the Bronx and the hoity-toity part of Westchester County, a buffer between the ghetto and the eighteenth green. For that reason alone I liked the place. That, and for its harness racing track. I don’t think I ever realized just how many horse racing venues there were in and around New York City. There was Aqueduct and Belmont, Yonkers, Roosevelt on Long Island, and Freehold in Jersey. But I guess that’s not so many, considering there used to be two racetracks just in my part of Brooklyn. Once upon a time they raced ponies in Gravesend and Sheepshead Bay. Back then, it seems, racetracks were like high schools: every neighborhood had to have one.
Night was in full bloom by the time I drove through the gates and up the long sloping driveway to the hospital parking lot. In spite of the dark, the grounds were sufficiently lit so that I could get a good idea of the rehab center’s bucolic setting. The hospital building itself was a tall, big brick rectangle that looked almost ridiculous perched among the low rolling hills and deep, seemingly endless woods that formed a natural wall around the place. Blankets of white snow still covered the hospital’s vast rolling lawns, even though it hadn’t snowed for days. Toto, we’re not in Yonkers anymore.
During the elevator ride up to the seventh floor, it hit me: what if the progress Mindy had made was all the progress she was ever going to make? I was no expert on head injuries, but even I knew life wasn’t like on TV or in the movies. You didn’t just wake up and have everything go back to normal. At a minimum, you lost some of your memory. At worst … I didn’t want to think about that. I knew it could get bad. There was this girl from high school, Gloria, who’d been hit by a car on Ocean Parkway. She’d banged her head pretty bad when she landed, and was in a coma for weeks. Most of her other injuries had healed pretty well, but when she came out of the coma she was like a different person. She was angry all the time. She didn’t like any of the food or clothes or music she’d liked before the accident. I’d been so obsessed with Mindy’s survival that I hadn’t ever considered what might lay ahead for her. Suddenly, I wanted to run. Elevator cars, however, kind of limit your options for egress, so when the doors opened on the seventh floor, I went in search of Nurse Havemayer.
You know how sometimes you’re sure you’ll recognize a person you’ve never met? Well, I thought it would be that way with Nurse Havemayer. I was wrong. I’d imagined the nurse would be kindly, sweet, and portly. Not all that different from my Angie at the Onion Street Pub, only without the updo and whiskey breath. Instead, another nurse pointed to a lovely, petite woman of some exotic Pacific extraction.
“Nurse Havemayer, I’m Moe Prager.”
She saw the question in my eyes. “Havemayer is my husband’s name,” she said, smiling up at me. “My clan name has too many vowels for most other Americans to pronounce. If I couldn’t still hear it in my head, I think I would have trouble with it too. Come, you’re here to see Mindy, not make small talk with me.” She took me by the arm and walked me down the hall. “Now listen to me, Moe.” Her tone was deadly serious.
“Yes.”
“Mindy is doing very well, and her doctors believe she should make a nice recovery.” Her use of the word nice in lieu of full did not escape me, but I said nothing. “She can speak a little, but no full sentences yet. You also have to keep in mind that she is still a bit confused. She also gets somewhat frustrated at her inability to express things fully. That’s normal. It’s even healthy … to a point. What we don’t want is for her to get agitated. Do you understand?”
“Yep. Don’t get her worked up.”
“Exactly.” She pulled me to a stop and knocked on the door. “Here we are. Her folks are inside. Remember, take it slow.”
I stepped into the room, my heart pounding. Mindy’s folks gave me a big hug both at once, their heartbreaking smiles dissolving into joyful tears. When they released me, I saw Mindy sitting up in bed, a broad smile on her face. And then, just like in the elevator, it hit me. In the few short days since I’d seen her last, my mind had wallpapered over what she looked like after the beating and replaced it with the image of her face as I had known it before: the hazel brown eyes, the full lips, the slightly crooked nose, the perfect jawline, and the curly brown hair that cascaded over her forehead like a storm. But that wasn’t the face I saw smiling at me. Her cheeks were swollen, purple with healing bruises. Her left eye was nearly squeezed shut with swelling. Her nose was no longer just slightly crooked, and a lot of her hair had been cut away. The cuts on her face were scabbed over. As Nurse Havemayer had seen the question in my eyes, Mindy saw the horror. She put her hands to her face and turned away.