Asymmetry - Lisa Halliday Page 0,40
imperatives: TAKE ONE TABLET DAILY OR EVERY SIX TO EIGHT HOURS AS NEEDED. TAKE 1 TABLET BY MOUTH AT BEDTIME FOR ONE MONTH THEN INCREASE BY 1 TABLET EACH MONTH UNTIL TAKING 4 TABLETS. TAKE 2 CA P S ULES NOW THEN 1 CAPSULE EVERY 8 HOURS TILL GONE. ONE TABLET WITH A GLASS OF WATER ONCE A DAY. TAKE WITH FOOD. AVOID EATING GRAPEFRUIT OR DRINKING GRAPEFRUIT JUICE WITH THIS MEDICINE. DO NOT TAKE ASPIRIN OR PRODUCTS CONTAINING ASPIRIN WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE AND CONSENT OF YOUR PHYSICIAN. KEEP IN THE REFRIGERATOR AND SHAKE WELL BEFORE USING. USE CAUTION WHEN OPERATING A CAR. AVOID THE USE OF A SUNLAMP. DO NOT FREEZE. PROTECT FROM LIGHT. PROTECT FROM LIGHT AND MOISTURE. DISPENSE IN A TIGHT, LIGHT-RESISTANT CONTAINER. DRINK PLENTY OF WATER. SWALLOW WHOLE. DO NOT SHARE WITH ANYONE FOR WHOM THIS MEDICINE IS NOT PRESCRIBED. DO NOT CHEW OR CRUSH . . . and so on, ad nauseam, especially if you contemplated the mounting sum of so many laboratory-spun chemicals commingling in your gut—words reducing a not insignificant portion of life’s remainder to standing in pharmacy lines and looking at your watch and pouring glasses of water and waiting and counting and eating pills.
An old woman lay where she’d left him, muttering Spanglish. A receptionist directed Alice up to the inpatient unit, where she found Ezra reclining in a softly lit room with a twinkling river view, his clothes folded into a pile on the radiator and the strings of a crisp baby-blue hospital gown tied in a bow behind his neck. His hands were clasped on the turned-down edge of the bedsheet and his eyebrows were raised delightedly at a woman with a white lab coat and a platinum ponytail running down the length of her back. His chest pain, she was reassuring him, was probably just a bit of gas. But his blood pressure was up and she was glad he was staying the night anyway, so that they could keep an eye on him. Ezra beamed.
“Mary-Alice! Genevieve here is going to order me some chicken. Would you like something to eat?”
When Genevieve had gone, Alice put his pill bag on the bed and sat in a chair by the window while he inventoried its contents. The light of a plane entered the lower left-hand corner of the window’s frame and climbed its flight path slowly, steadily, like a rollercoaster ascending. Alice watched until it had exited the top-right corner of the window; as soon as it did another winking beacon appeared bottom left and began its identical climb along the same invisible track.
Ezra swallowed a pill. “Go, little Uroxatral, far and near, to all my friends I hold so dear . . .”
When a third plane appeared, Alice turned away from the window. “Your eye is bleeding.”
“That’s okay. The ophthalmologist said this would happen. Don’t worry darling. It’s getting better, not worse.”
A small Chinese woman entered holding a clipboard. “I have some questions for you.”
“Shoot.”
“When did you last urinate?”
“About half an hour ago.”
“Last bowel movement?”
Ezra nodded. “This morning.”
“Defibrillator?”
“Medtronic.”
“Allergies?”
“Yes.”
“To what?”
“Morphine.”
“What happens?”
“I have paranoid hallucinations.”
“Diseases?”
“Heart disease. Degenerative joint disease of the spine. Glaucoma. Osteoporosis.”
“Is that it?”
Ezra smiled. “For now.”
“Your eye is bleeding.”
“I know; don’t worry about that.”
“Emergency contact?”
“Dick Hillier.”
“Health-care proxy?”
“Also Dick Hillier.”
“Who’s this?”
“Mary-Alice. My goddaughter.”
“Will she be staying with you tonight?”
“That’s right.”
“Religion?”
“None.”
The nurse looked up. “Religion?” she repeated.
“No religion,” said Ezra. “Atheist.”
The nurse studied him for a moment before turning to Alice. “Is he serious?”
Alice nodded. “I think so.”
Turning back to Ezra: “Are you sure?”
Ezra flexed his toes under the covers. “Yep.”
“Okaaaaay,” said the nurse, cocking her head and writing it down, this terrible mistake. When she’d left, Alice asked, “Why do they ask that?”
“Well, if you say you’re Catholic and it looks like you’re getting close to the end, they send a priest around. If you’re Jewish, they send a rabbi around.”
“And if you’re atheist?”
“They send Christopher Hitchens around.”
Alice covered her face with her hands.
“Easiest white girl—”
“Ezra!”
“What!”
“I can’t . . .”
“You can’t what?”
She took her hands away. “This!”
“I don’t follow you, darling.”
“It’s just . . . so . . . hard.”
“And you’re telling me this now?”
“No! I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t leave you here. I love you.” That much was true. “You’ve taught me so much, and you’re the best friend I have. I just can’t . . . It’s so not . . . normal.”
“Who wants to be normal? Not you.”
“No, I don’t mean normal. I mean . . . good for me. Right now.” She took