It was the first anniversary of Karl’s death, and Maggie woke up with a headache. She knew what it was — Dr. Abraham’s words from the day before. She kept hearing them in her head all night long. He’d said, “Be careful.”
“What do you mean?” she’d asked.
He’d thought for awhile, then said, “Do something to make you feel good about yourself.”
She must have given him a questioning look, for he added, “Have some fun.”
It struck her as odd, but she didn’t confront him. She supposed it was kind of like his usual advice to, “Get out of the house… socialize,” advice which she tended to follow, and so as she got out of bed that morning she said to herself, “Have some fun.”
It sounded good, but for some reason she got hung up on what he meant by “some.” Just a touch? A tad? Nothing too excessive? No ecstasy? No joy? She thought about calling Dr. Abraham to ask for clarification, but she didn’t want to appear totally helpless, for he was not only her doctor but also her colleague.
She thought of fun while she showered. She and Karl often showered together and that was almost always fun. Too bad he wasn’t around. He was an easy guy to have fun with, most of the time.
She was still thinking of fun as she got dressed for work, even though work of late hadn’t been much fun at all. Didn’t matter. She grabbed a protein breakfast bar, got in her car, and drove to the hospital.
Work was stressful, as usual, and when she got home she felt much worse than she had that morning. There was leftover Chinese takeout, so she ate it and washed it down with a glass of Pinot Noir. That made her feel a bit better. But the pleasant feeling was already evaporating as she took the remaining wine and her glass to the living room and sat down in front of the TV. She picked up the remote.
She again thought of fun. If Karl had been there, sitting next to her on the sofa, at some point he would almost certainly have started messing around, which was the most fun a person could imagine of course, with the added benefit of being non-caloric, but he wasn’t around. She clicked the remote and tuned in Netflix.
The first item under “Top picks for Maggie” was a film called Prodigy. She selected it out of laziness, not having the energy to search for anything else. She drank some wine. And then the phone calls began. She muted the TV.
Her older sister called first, then her younger sister, then her father. They all asked basically the same thing: “How are you holding up?”
That stock family phrase, “Holding up,” had always intrigued her. Holding up. Holding oneself up. If you don’t hold yourself up you’ll fall down. And we certainly don’t want that.
Her mother, who called last, once again just had to put her own two cents in.
“I wish you’d stop calling it suicide,” her mother said.
“He knew what he was doing.”
“They ruled it an overdose.”
“He was an anesthesiologist.”
“Doctors make mistakes,” her mother pointed out.
“Not Karl. He was careful. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
Her mother was quiet for a time, then said, “You’re thinking about this the wrong way.”
After her mother had hung up Maggie unmuted Netflix, catching the movie at a point she didn’t understand. But she still didn’t have the energy to look for anything else. In fact, she was quite a bit more depleted than before.
She began to feel drowsy, closed her eyes. Dropped off, woke up, dropped off again. Many times.
Every time she awakened she felt worse. Not well at all. She felt as if she’d like to go to sleep and… well… not wake up, not have to face the next day, for what then was there to look forward to? Three hundred sixty-four days to the second anniversary of Karl’s death.
She finished the remaining wine. The movie had ended. She turned off the TV, stared at the blank screen and the empty wine bottle.
She brought the bottle to the kitchen and thought about opening another. She didn’t. Instead, she went to the bathroom cabinet where Karl kept his propofol, the drug he used for his patients and his insomnia. The same drug that had killed Michael Jackson. The same drug they used in the Netherlands for assisted suicide. None of that barbaric three-drug-cocktail nonsense like they did here.
There was one remaining ampule, which was plenty. As Maggie examined the expiration date she wondered if Karl had left it expressly for her.
Maggie took the ampule, a syringe, a tourniquet, and some alcohol swabs and brought them back to the sofa. She placed them on the side table next to her phone. She sat down, turned on Netflix again.
This time they recommended Arrival. She clicked play.
She watched the first part of the movie, the part where the Amy Adams character interacts with her beautiful young daughter as she dies from a rare genetic disease, and it made Maggie cry. Of course it would. That was a big part of Maggie’s problem — she’d chosen the wrong specialty.
In retrospect she should have gone into anesthesia, like Karl, not pediatric oncology. She hadn’t realized how tough it would be.
She knew that the trick, which she never seemed to have mastered, was to step away emotionally from the kids and the families. Not too much and not too little. Instead, she went to pieces with every death. She always had to consciously remind herself she had done the best she could. It was what Dr. Abraham called her rescuer fantasy, the same dynamic she had with Karl, that she could cure anybody of anything, even bipolar disorder.
Reality, however, has a way of demonstrating its power to those with unruly imaginations, and Maggie’s demonstration had most recently come in the form of an epidemic of influenza.
It was a bad one, a new strain, a mutation that wasn’t supposed to happen, and not enough specific vaccine had been manufactured. Half the doctors were out sick, twice the number of patients who were twice as ill presented themselves for treatment, and the deaths and the sleepless nights were piling up. And the kids, her kids, the kids with cancer, the kids on chemo, the kids with compromised immune systems, as always, got hit hardest. All of this while she stayed healthy, her reward for faithfully getting a flu shot every autumn!
Maggie wiped her tears, picked up the tourniquet, and wrapped it around her arm. It was a Velcro type, not the rubber tubing you had to tie, and so very easy to apply yourself. She pumped her fist to fill her veins. They were good veins, always had been. Technicians who drew her blood marveled at them. And now Maggie marveled at them too.
She ripped open the foil on an alcohol swab and wiped her skin right over a nice fat vein. But then she chuckled at how silly it was to worry about infection, considering the circumstances. It was force of habit, and habits die hard.
She put her finger over the precise spot where she’d plunge the needle. She could smell the alcohol she had applied to her skin as well as the alcohol on her breath and it nauseated her. She wondered how nauseated she’d be from the propofol, for that was a definite side effect. She certainly didn’t want to vomit and aspirate Chinese leftovers, which would be a terrible mess.
The sad part of Arrival was now over, and the story grew more interesting, so Maggie took off the tourniquet. Furthermore, her fingers had been tingling. She’d never applied a tourniquet to her own arm and it was too tight.
She sat back and got comfortable. The musical score was hypnotic. She watched and listened and grew very relaxed, so much so that she dozed off again and fell asleep, and was quite deeply asleep when the phone rang.
She jumped.
Maggie never answered the phone if she didn’t recognize the number but tonight, being in a reckless mood, she wondered how bad it could be. Someone from the I.R.S. calling warning her that she was in deep trouble if she didn’t pay up, or else? Well, if that was to be her last communication with another human being on God’s green earth, so be it. She muted the TV.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hi, Maggie? It’s Jerry, from Sarah’s party? You gave me your number. Is it too late to talk?”
It took her a moment to remember. Jerry with the stubbly hair on his chin. Somewhat neurotic, but manageable. And he laughed at her jokes. Even so, she hadn’t expected to hear from him.
“No, not too late… not at all.”
“I meant to call before, but it’s been crazy here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“You know, I’m glad you answered. I wanted to make sure I called you by today.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You told me it was the anniversary of your husband’s death. Anniversaries are hard.”
It surprised her that he’d paid attention.
“How are you holding up?” he asked.
More surprise. She smiled. And almost immediately felt like weeping again. Before she answered she tried to compose herself, afraid her voice would crack.
“I’m O.K.” she said. “I’m… O.K.”
“I won’t keep you, but I wanted to know if you’d like to have dinner. Italian? We agreed as I remember that we both liked Italian. Simple stuff, meatballs and spaghetti, right? How about Saturday?”
She hesitated, not wanting to appear too eager. She also wondered whether it was wise to make any plans at all, given her state of mind. She looked at the paraphernalia she had assembled, the syringe, tourniquet, propofol, and alcohol. She glanced at the image on the TV where the Amy Adams character was making contact with aliens. Then, still feeling reckless, she said, “Saturday? Sure. Why not?”
[Image Credit : Photo by Siebe Warmoeskerken on Unsplash ]
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