As if we are kids on a Brooklyn block in summertime (when the chances of spontaneous water fights are most prevalent), my husband, Scott fills a red balloon of pus on his shoulder, pinching it over his armpit's nozzle until he decides it's big enough to call a doctor.
The night before his appointment, I awake to mattress jostling as he sits straight up. In his dream, he had turned into a boxer on a self-destructive rampage, swinging and accidentally slugging his swollen back-sack. "I punched it!" He says, groaning like Frankenstein. I stumble downstairs to the freezer for an ice pack.
"It's an infection." The doctor tells him. One he needs to get removed tonight. "Shit. I just thought they were gonna pop that sucker and send you home." I say over the phone while he drives from one doctor to the next.
Yesterday is our one-year wedding anniversary. When I get home from work, Scott points to the dining room table where wild flowers stand in a vase. He has picked them along the highway for me. Delicate weeds of yellow, pink and green. I giggle, imagining his flashers blinking as he runs around the hood of his car to pull handfuls of blurry colors from beside Rt. 5’s sidewalk. "I thought it would be nicer than spending the money on flowers." He says and I wonder if he’ll call the card I bought him at the grocery store a poor financial decision. "Ready?" He asks. "Ready." I say and we leave his picked free flowers for a fancy dinner out.
At a small square table of dark brown wood, a candle sits by lightly, floral silver lies by my fingers heftily and our water glasses sweat. He smiles as he reads the card. I glance from his mouth to over his shoulder where a young girlfriend and boyfriend are dumping a bottle of red wine into their glasses and drenching their livers and tongues. While they hold the dessert menus, the boyfriend whispers through his small purple teeth about masturbation and his preferred sexual position. "Boys cannot whisper," I say to myself, whispering with my lips barely moving so that no one else can hear. I include Scott in this gender generalization. He thinks when he uses this soft, particularly monotone voice it is inaudible to everyone on the quiet crowded train or hotel lobby line but me. I have to shove him to shut up because I know that these people can hear his top-secret sentences and are just being politely nosy by pretending not to hear, just as I am now.
We sit in the back of the warm orange restaurant, while in the front a fire alarm holds a high operatic note. We deserve a fire alarm discount, I decide, looking at the full price on our handwritten bill. There is, of course, no fire in the restaurant, just a defected alarm, we are assured. I suppose this must be quite the peculiar sight. Eight adults sitting, smiling and slicing through various plated appetizers, dinners and deserts while a fire alarm screams for all to please exit the building. No one is leaving a passing pedestrian would see, cupping her hands on the thick glass windows that reflect a glow from street lamps. She’d see small dramatically dim rooms where two waitresses pour glasses of water and wine and lean on the bar tallying tips while funky music plays out the speakers. She would see the owner, a slight middle aged gentlemen of European grace, sitting at the reservation desk by the door, wearing his eye glasses low on his nose, reading the newspaper and sipping his yellow tea. The passerby wonders for a moment if everyone inside is deaf. Then she remembers the loud music that is playing and walks away.
As we leave the restaurant, full of fancy food, I smile to the owner. "Good night." He says. "Good night." I say, flicking my eyes to his empty fingers for a gift card or written note of thanks for staying through dinner despite the piercing alarm.
In the morning, the dog and I run in the fog and mist and my imagination plays sad scenes for me to donate my tears to, but when I crunch my face to let them out, there are none. Just a sheet of sweat and rain covering my cheeks. In the afternoon, while chopping broccoli and sweet potatoes for soup, I wait for Scott to call me from the doctor's office, crying, "The foreign lump thing on my shoulder is a deathly tumor threatening to strangle my strong neck and end my life at any moment." But he doesn't and these ugly thoughts stay inside me, wandering my conscious mind until he does call and says that he is driving to a local surgeon to get the infected bump removed. He doesn't need me to come. He says. And I apologize for the inconvenience of this abscess because I have already forgotten the fear I had been carrying around with me all day. "I’ll be home soon." He says before hanging up.
After a few hours, he drops his briefcase and keys by the front door and walks into the kitchen. I ladle him soup, sprinkle it with cheese and hand him bread and a spoon. Hunched over his bowl at the table, he gives me the gross details of his minor surgery. I squint my nose and eyes appropriately, making the sounds that best infuse sympathy.
Later on, while I lay on my bed reading, my leg crossed over like a fence, the thought of false alarms crosses my mind. I fold the corner of my page and grab my notebook and pen.
The fire alarm is loud and irritating, but it isn’t setting my hair on fire, melting my rubber boots or giving me smoke inhalation. Just as Scott’s surgery and daily wound cleanings are not much more than painful nuisances. He doesn’t need to undergo a blood transfusion, microscopic surgery or chemotherapy. Next year, he may not even have a scar.
We need to appreciate health, I think, before it turns into illness just to spite us.
