Chapter 23 Taylor
Taylor
Taylor messes up at work again—this time, for something really stupid: She gives a patient Advil from her own stash, because it takes too long for the resident to write the order. She knows the doctor is going to eventually get around to it, so she figures, no harm no foul.
But then the patient asks the nurse manager, who happens to be walking by, for another Advil “from the personal bottle of that nice nurse.”
On the day Taylor receives the formal disciplinary write-up, she also receives something else: an old photo of her mom, in the mail.
“I totally forgot about it,” her dad says. “I was going through some old documents and came across it. It’s the only picture she ever sent from Boston.”
In the photo, her mom is at a bar, wearing a smart cream jacket over a short silver dress.
She’s holding a drink in her hand and smiling at someone to the side, off camera.
She’s flanked by two men, both of whom have their faces tilted adoringly at her.
Taylor looks closer at the background, for clues to where it was taken, but it could be anywhere with those nondescript backlit liquor shelves.
She notes, with a pang, how her beautiful mom is holding the attention of at least four people in the room: the two men on either side, the person off camera, and the photographer.
The chasm between Taylor’s sophisticated mother and her own shitty existence in Boston is simply too much. It’s always too much, but on this particular day, it’s everything.
It’s hard to put this into words to Aunt Gigi, who insists on meeting in person after being cc’d on the resignation email Taylor sends to Jan.
“It’s not anything specific…I think it’s just me,” Taylor offers.
The Saturday morning sun shines like a prism through the blossoms on the nearby cherry tree, creating light fragments across the city park bench upon which they are sitting. The burgeoning spring should, in theory, make Taylor feel hopeful. Yet she feels anything but.
“Sounds like the ER wasn’t the right environment,” Aunt Gigi replies. “Too much of a pressure cooker. How about we switch you to a nice orthopedic floor, like the patients you took care of back home?”
Taylor decides not to remind her about her Bumblefuck comment. “No, thanks.”
Her aunt takes a sip of coffee. “This doesn’t have anything to do with that patient you were asking me about for a while, does it? Vivian? You seemed very invested in her.”
Taylor shifts in the bench. “No.”
“You did good with her, you know that, T.J., right? You acted quickly. She’s alive because of you.”
But is she alive? Taylor wants to ask. And she would, if she thought her aunt knew the answer.
Aunt Gigi nods to the green park sign: Sally Baker Playground. “Do you know who Sally was?”
“No.”
“Sally Baker was a little girl who was abducted in the eighties. Uncle Phil once met her; their fathers were physicians together at Mass General. Sally’s mom worked there, too—she was a nurse.
Got into a bit of trouble. Anyway, the Bakers ended up moving to New Jersey, and that’s where Sally went missing. ”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Did they find her?”
Aunt Gigi nods. “It wasn’t a happy ending.
My father-in-law still talks about it, about poor Sally and the Baker family.
This is my point, though. There are some patients that will stay with you your entire career.
That’s normal. That’s a good thing. That means we are still feeling.
” Aunt Gigi clutches her heart. “If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t be good nurses.
And I’m telling you, Taylor, you’re a good nurse. ”
“I thought you said Sally went missing in New Jersey. And it’s not like she was a patient, right? I’m so confused.”
“T.J., you’re not getting the point. People stay with you your entire life. They’ll come and go, but they will always be with you.”
Taylor grimaces. “No, offense, Aunt Gigi, but you have to work on your analogies.”
“Maybe.” She laughs. “But you’re still a good nurse.”
“I’m sorry, Aunt Gigi, I don’t mean to disappoint you, but I just don’t think I want to be a nurse anymore.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Taylor exhales slowly. Her aunt can be just as stubborn as her dad.
She looks around the park, which has a private feel owing to the fact that it’s tucked between two Beacon Hill streets and bordered by adjacent brick buildings.
A blue-and-yellow playground structure occupies one park corner, a swing set the other.
A few feet away, in the open area, a little girl wearing a puffer jacket with rainbow-colored butterflies crouches on the ground, riffling through her backpack.
She pulls out fistfuls of LEGO bricks, and finally dumps the backpack upside down to shake out the rest.
Aunt Gigi clears her throat. “Look, I know I haven’t been the best aunt…. I wasn’t there for you enough growing up. I was busy with my own life—not that that’s an excuse. I’m sorry. I really am. I was hoping…I was hoping I could make it up to you, now that you’re living here in Boston.”
Taylor is surprised. She didn’t necessarily feel like her aunt wasn’t there for her growing up; her aunt was just always doing her own thing—first in central Massachusetts, then in Boston.
Her dad has insinuated that this is how his sister has always been.
But now, something occurs to Taylor. “You weren’t here in Boston when my mom was, right?
Not yet? You and Uncle Phil were still in Worcester? ”
“No, I was.”
“You were?”
“Yes.”
“Did you two…ever cross paths? Or make plans to meet up?” Taylor frowns; how did she not know this?
“I ran into her on the street once.”
Taylor sits up straighter. “Oh? And?”
“It was brief. I was coming; she was going. I can’t say I remember much, honey. I’m sorry.”
“Was she…?” Taylor doesn’t know what to ask or where to start. Was her mom happy? Was she wearing another sophisticated outfit, like in the photo? Like something Vivian would have worn? Was she missing Taylor and her father?
“Your mom was beautiful. Just beautiful,” Aunt Gigi replies, wistfully, and then adds, “She wasn’t with anyone, if that’s what you’re asking.”
It wasn’t, in fact. Taylor is aware that there was a man who died alongside her mom in the basement fire, but she hasn’t let herself really accept what that means on a practical level. And so she avoids thinking about it entirely.
The little girl is now laying a large flat LEGO brick, like a roof, across the four sides she built. Is it a house? A school? Or a spaceship, an escape pod, a portal? When Taylor was young, the possibilities were endless.
Aunt Gigi’s phone beeps, and she looks almost relieved as she pulls it out of her fleece pocket.
“That’s Phil,” she says, squinting at her phone.
“He can’t find the coffee beans, which are in the same spot they’ve always been.
Third shelf in the pantry. I don’t know how he can be a successful medical examiner and yet not be able to find anything around the house.
Last week it was the sugar canister he couldn’t find. Not that he needed it. Sorry, hang on.”
“It’s fine,” Taylor says. But it’s not. Nothing’s fine.
Aunt Gigi sighs and types her response into the phone.
Then her phone rings, but she puts it through to voicemail.
“Jesus, Phil, figure it out,” she cries.
She stuffs her phone back into her pocket.
“Look, I gotta go, but I just wanted to say that I love you. I’ll check back in with you in a week or so, see if you change your mind about the nursing. I…” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
Taylor nods wordlessly.
She stays for a long time on that bench after Aunt Gigi leaves.
She watches a boy steal one of the LEGO bricks, pocketing it in his sweatpants.
Another boy riding in a red car. Two girls playing with rocks and dolls in equal parts.
Life hums all around her, but the only time Taylor herself can sense it, the only time her own body pulses with a vibrational whir, is when she closes her eyes and thinks of Vivian.
She remembers hearing a story once about a young woman who traveled the world in search of the most beautiful artwork.
The woman visited more than thirty countries.
She went to France to see the Mona Lisa, Vienna for The Kiss, Germany to see the Sistine Madonna, Egypt for King Tut’s golden death mask.
She stopped in South Africa to stand in person in front of the Butcher Boys sculpture and passed through Hungary to view the Lonely Cedar painting.
She traveled and traveled, taking in artistic genius through her eyes.
And when she returned, back home to her parents’ farm in Pennsylvania, money all dried up, she promptly hanged herself.
Taylor didn’t understand why anyone would do such a thing; wouldn’t so much artistic brilliance, not to mention international travel, fill you up like a reserve, or at the very least, provide a buffer?
But now Taylor knows: You can’t unsee the beautiful.