all.”
Marilyn hung up without bothering to reply. For a long time, she stood in the kitchen by the phone, staring through the window. Outside, it no longer felt like spring. The wind had turned biting and dry; the daffodils, tricked by the warm weather, bent their faces to the ground. All across the garden, they lay prostrate, stems broken, yellow trumpets withered. Marilyn wiped the table and pulled the crossword puzzle toward her, trying to forget the amusement in Tom Lawson’s voice. The newsprint clung to the damp wood, and as she wrote in her first answer, the pen tore through the paper, leaving a blue “A” on the tabletop.
She took her car keys down from their hook and lifted her handbag from the entry table. At first she told herself she was just going out to clear her head. Despite the chill, she rolled the window down, and as she circled the lake once, twice, the breeze snaked its way beneath her hair to the nape of her neck. With your children and husband and all. She drove without thinking, all the way through Middlewood, past the campus and the grocery store and the roller rink, and only when she found herself turning into the hospital parking lot did she realize this was where she’d intended to come all along.
Inside, Marilyn settled in the corner of the waiting room. Someone had painted the room—walls, ceiling, doors—a pale, calming blue. White-hatted, white-skirted nurses glided in and out like clouds, bearing syringes of insulin, bottles of pills, rolls of gauze. Candy stripers buzzed by with carts of lunch trays. And the doctors: they strode unhurried through the bustle like jets cutting their steady way through the sky. Whenever they appeared, heads turned toward them; anxious husbands and hysterical mothers and tentative daughters stood up at their approach. They were all men, Marilyn noticed: Dr. Kenger, Dr. Gordon, Dr. McLenahan, Dr. Stone. What had made her think she could be one of them? It seemed as impossible as turning into a tiger.
Then, through the double doors from the emergency room: a slender dark-haired figure, hair pulled back in a neat bun. For a moment, Marilyn could not place her. “Dr. Wolff,” one of the nurses called, lifting a clipboard from the counter, and Dr. Wolff crossed the room to take it, her heels clack-clacking on the linoleum. Marilyn had seen Janet Wolff only once or twice since she’d moved in a month before, but she would not have recognized her anyway. She had heard that Janet Wolff worked at the hospital—Vivian Allen, leaning over the garden fence, had whispered about late shifts, the Wolff boy left to run wild—but she had pictured a secretary, a nurse. Not this graceful woman, no older than she, tall in black slacks, a white doctor’s coat loose around her slim frame. This Dr. Wolff, a stethoscope looped around her neck like a shining silver necklace, who with expert hands touched and turned the bruised wrist of a workman, who called clear and confident across the room, “Dr. Gordon, may I have a word with you about your patient, please?” And Dr. Gordon put down his clipboard, and came.
It was not her imagination. Everyone repeated it, like a mantra. Dr. Wolff. Dr. Wolff. Dr. Wolff. The nurses, bottles of penicillin in hand: “Dr. Wolff, a quick question.” The candy stripers, as they passed by: “Good morning, Dr. Wolff.” Most miraculous of all, the other doctors: “Dr. Wolff, could I ask your opinion, please?” “Dr. Wolff, you’re needed in patient room two.” Only then did Marilyn finally believe.
How was it possible? How had she managed it? She thought of her mother’s cookbook: Make somebody happy today—bake a cake! Bake a cake—have a party. Bake a cake to take to a party. Bake a cake just because you feel good today. She pictured her mother creaming shortening and sugar, sifting flour, greasing a pan. Is there anything that gives you a deeper sense of satisfaction? There was Janet Wolff striding across the hospital
Marilyn hung up without bothering to reply. For a long time, she stood in the kitchen by the phone, staring through the window. Outside, it no longer felt like spring. The wind had turned biting and dry; the daffodils, tricked by the warm weather, bent their faces to the ground. All across the garden, they lay prostrate, stems broken, yellow trumpets withered. Marilyn wiped the table and pulled the crossword puzzle toward her, trying to forget the amusement in Tom Lawson’s voice. The newsprint clung to the damp wood, and as she wrote in her first answer, the pen tore through the paper, leaving a blue “A” on the tabletop.
She took her car keys down from their hook and lifted her handbag from the entry table. At first she told herself she was just going out to clear her head. Despite the chill, she rolled the window down, and as she circled the lake once, twice, the breeze snaked its way beneath her hair to the nape of her neck. With your children and husband and all. She drove without thinking, all the way through Middlewood, past the campus and the grocery store and the roller rink, and only when she found herself turning into the hospital parking lot did she realize this was where she’d intended to come all along.
Inside, Marilyn settled in the corner of the waiting room. Someone had painted the room—walls, ceiling, doors—a pale, calming blue. White-hatted, white-skirted nurses glided in and out like clouds, bearing syringes of insulin, bottles of pills, rolls of gauze. Candy stripers buzzed by with carts of lunch trays. And the doctors: they strode unhurried through the bustle like jets cutting their steady way through the sky. Whenever they appeared, heads turned toward them; anxious husbands and hysterical mothers and tentative daughters stood up at their approach. They were all men, Marilyn noticed: Dr. Kenger, Dr. Gordon, Dr. McLenahan, Dr. Stone. What had made her think she could be one of them? It seemed as impossible as turning into a tiger.
Then, through the double doors from the emergency room: a slender dark-haired figure, hair pulled back in a neat bun. For a moment, Marilyn could not place her. “Dr. Wolff,” one of the nurses called, lifting a clipboard from the counter, and Dr. Wolff crossed the room to take it, her heels clack-clacking on the linoleum. Marilyn had seen Janet Wolff only once or twice since she’d moved in a month before, but she would not have recognized her anyway. She had heard that Janet Wolff worked at the hospital—Vivian Allen, leaning over the garden fence, had whispered about late shifts, the Wolff boy left to run wild—but she had pictured a secretary, a nurse. Not this graceful woman, no older than she, tall in black slacks, a white doctor’s coat loose around her slim frame. This Dr. Wolff, a stethoscope looped around her neck like a shining silver necklace, who with expert hands touched and turned the bruised wrist of a workman, who called clear and confident across the room, “Dr. Gordon, may I have a word with you about your patient, please?” And Dr. Gordon put down his clipboard, and came.
It was not her imagination. Everyone repeated it, like a mantra. Dr. Wolff. Dr. Wolff. Dr. Wolff. The nurses, bottles of penicillin in hand: “Dr. Wolff, a quick question.” The candy stripers, as they passed by: “Good morning, Dr. Wolff.” Most miraculous of all, the other doctors: “Dr. Wolff, could I ask your opinion, please?” “Dr. Wolff, you’re needed in patient room two.” Only then did Marilyn finally believe.
How was it possible? How had she managed it? She thought of her mother’s cookbook: Make somebody happy today—bake a cake! Bake a cake—have a party. Bake a cake to take to a party. Bake a cake just because you feel good today. She pictured her mother creaming shortening and sugar, sifting flour, greasing a pan. Is there anything that gives you a deeper sense of satisfaction? There was Janet Wolff striding across the hospital
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