Chapter 4 The Appointment
My father pauses for a moment and then I hear him continue to the kitchen. A short while after, I hear the door open and close, and silence blankets our apartment. Well, now I can add lying to my list of recent sins.
I dress quickly, then go back and lie back down on my bed pulling my quilt up to my ears.
My mother gets up and shuffles into the kitchen with her walker to get the breakfast plate with the bagels and cream cheese my father left carefully draped with a tea towel.
The smell of the strong coffee reaches my room as my mother pours out two cups from the percolator.
There is a soft clink as my mother sets the tray onto her walker’s shelf, designed so she can sit down on it if she needs to, and she wheels down the hallway to bring the tray to Babcia.
Stuffing down the pang of guilt I force myself to stay in my room and not help despite knowing she is struggling again with numbness in her feet and hands.
Once I hear her open the door to Babcia’s room, I silently ease out of bed and am out the apartment door in an instant.
An unexpected bubble of happiness flares in my chest as I realize I have an hour to kill before my nine-thirty appointment in Midtown.
This means I can birdwatch this morning and John Foster says mornings are the best time to birdwatch.
I’m thankful for this small gift on this day of potential ruin.
Walking through the park, I spot a northern flicker with his long, pointed bill making its way around a dead tree, and a cedar waxwing with his crested top, happy to hear its high-pitched call.
Ambling along the path, I spot more ordinary birds—a noisy blue jay and a tufted titmouse—filling my lungs with the fresh and wild air I can breathe.
Making my way past the Pond, which I rarely get to walk by, as it is far off my trek to and from the bakery, I spot one of my most sought-after birds.
A wood duck! They are quite common in Central Park, but I’ve never seen one before.
Staring with my mouth open, a bit of warmth unfurls in my chest. It is so lovely, its coloring is unbelievable, it looks fake.
John Foster describes the duck as looking like a little Chinese man wearing the most wonderfully crafted kimono, and now I see his description is spot on.
The duck has white stripes in the most unexpected places, his red beak adds even more color behind the iridescent-emerald coloring of his hood with its special little backward point, that makes it look like he has put a baseball cap on backward like one of those wild American boys.
How can Mother Nature create such a striking creature?
I don’t ask for much, really. All I need is a duck occasionally. A smile quirks at my lips.
The minutes tick by, and slowly a wave of queasiness replaces my excitement as it dawns on me that the only explanation for finally spotting this special bird is that God or fate or whoever is trying to balance out the pending bad news.
Rooted to the ground, I screw my eyes shut, trying to block out the awful thought.
I feel a steadying arm wrap around my shoulder and know it is young Ernest once again mysteriously appearing just when I need him most. I turn away from the duck and the bad news it portends.
We walk together towards the future I now know unequivocally awaits me.
I stare miserably towards Hallett Sanctuary, no longer in the mood to explore.
Sitting in the nicely appointed waiting room, Rebecca, the doctor’s assistant, calls my name and greets me with a friendly, “Hi.”
She doesn’t seem surprised to see me without my mother, which makes me wonder if they too had a mental timeline of when I would show up for an appointment of my own. I can’t muster a smile in return.
Rebecca takes my pulse and temperature, weighs me, and I take a seat on the bed. The noise of the paper rustling beneath me sounds like a scream to my ears. I try to sit perfectly still as I wait for Dr. Liam.
She arrives a few minutes later with a big smile, and I wonder why everyone is acting like this is a perfectly normal visit.
Haltingly, I tell Dr. Liam my suspicions and my symptoms. Her smile slowly disappears as I describe my swollen and painful joints, my clumsiness, and my weakness in my legs and arms. She talks about genetics and the advancements in the medications used to treat MS.
She doesn’t add that all they can do is treat the symptoms because they can’t cure the disease. After all, she knows she doesn’t have to.
She completes her exam, checking my reflexes and eye movements.
It feels like a Freaky Friday situation where, somehow, I’ve switched bodies with my mother.
My mind wanders to the movie and how funny it was having young Lindsay Lohan stuck in a grown-up mom’s body.
Now it doesn’t seem funny at all. I’m just a kid, but I’m going to be stuck in my mother’s failing body.
Dr. Liam is speaking, and I try to listen, but I keep seeing Jamie Lee Curtis getting her hair cut short and spiky.
Dr. Liam is listing other things my symptoms might be, and then she writes out a prescription and hands it to me.
I quickly hand it back and state emphatically, “I don’t want to start any MS medicine for a while. I just need a bit more time before I do that.”
Dr. Liam pushes the slip of paper back into my hand and explains, “Emma, this isn’t for MS, take these for twenty-one days and then come back to be re-evaluated. Then we can discuss MS medicine. But take these.”
“This isn’t MS medication?”
She shakes her head no. There is no actual test for MS, which I already knew, but Rebecca takes blood work, and I take the script but don’t stop at reception to make the follow-up appointment.
A plan starts to form in my head as I walk back toward Central Park, and it is based on the wish I made last week after my sleepless night.
Since I don’t have six years anymore, it only seems fair to squeeze out six months to live before I face my diagnosis.
I want to live a life, any life, for just a bit before I disappear into the beige walls of our quiet, lonely apartment and step into my mother’s shoes.
Raising my eyes to the sky, I state solemnly, “After six months, I promise I will accept my fate and be the dutiful daughter who will never complain again.”
A thought develops in my consciousness. My parents may be happy about my diagnosis, as it will finally ensure my grandmother won’t throw us out.
How could she? She can’t throw us out on the street, leaving her son with two struggling women and no roof over their heads.
That would be too cruel to even threaten.
I shake my head to clear such an awful thought as I walk along the main path of the park.
My parents would never be happy about my MS. They may determine if it must be, then the one good thing is we are a little more secure in our precarious living situation, but they wouldn’t ever want this for me.
I glance at the pond; the wood duck has disappeared.
I stare at the empty pond, I think, Maybe it is not true, maybe my symptoms are from some other ailment.
Just then, the stunning little beauty paddles out from behind the reeds, and my little bubble of hope bursts.
God is giving me this duck to make up for my fate.
I want to shake a fist at the sky and scream, “This is not a fair trade, God!” but I don’t.
I turn away. The wood duck is all the things my world is not and now never will be.
Sitting on my bench, I don’t birdwatch; instead, I sit and wallow in the universe’s unfairness.
After a few minutes, I get up, step behind the bench, and ease into the dark woods behind it.
Needing more solace than my bench offers, I walk the short distance to the immense oak tree directly behind my special bench.
I press both of my palms against the bark and my stress eases.
The weight of my ancestral ghosts lifts off my shoulders, the noise of the fear-inducing sermons of the church fades, and the painful memories of my past ease.
I inhale and my chest fills with a peace I struggle to capture anywhere else.
The diagnosis has altered how I see the world.
I can be part of things, there is a way.
Touching the old tree, I ask, “Please Lord, just six months. Please, I want to try to live.”
I continue pressing into the tree and try to conjure up a picture of what living could be. What am I asking for? Something fun and daring, but what is that?
After sneaking back into the apartment, I don’t even have to feign illness. I’m sick and tired of everything. Sitting at dinner that evening, I watch my parents.
“How did you two meet?”
I want to know their love story, as maybe it will show me the path. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have someone for these next six months to see what it is like—holding hands in the park, kissing and cuddling on the bench, sharing dreams?
“What?” my mother asks in surprise.
I blush when a steamy picture pops into my head. My eyes widen as it dawns on me that I don’t want to be a virgin after these six months.
“Are you still feeling sick, Emma?” she asks pointedly.
I shake my head and stubbornly repeat my question, “How did you two meet?”
This time my father responds, “At church, of course. Why?”
Then my grandmother barks from her room, “Emma, I need my tray cleared and turn on the TV, Wheel of Fortune is starting.”
“Freakin’ church.” I mutter. I’ve been going to church with my parents every Sunday at noon since forever, but I’ve never seen, never mind met, a male under the age of fifty. I’m certain church isn’t the answer to find love anymore, but what is?
That evening, my prayer is one that I repeat over and over like a mantra as I kneel: I want a life.