Sleep Toward Heaven Read online

  The priest stopped talking, and the funeral man stood by with a big frown on his face. He shook his head dramatically, as if he cared, as if he didn’t go to ten funerals a day.

  The graveyard was a vibrant green. The Gillisons’ friends were well-dressed, weepy, and shell-shocked. Many of them had visited Anna in the hospital, and Franny recognized their faces: the woman in the cape had brought Anna a puzzle, the heavyset man had brought macadamia nut cookies. (Anna had eaten them all and then puked them up half an hour later, Franny’s fingers stroking Anna’s bare head.) Franny stood away from the crowd, alone. She knew how they felt, and she felt the same way: it was her fault.

  Mrs. Gillison stepped forward to say something, took a breath, but then just stood and stared, twisting something in her hands: a Beanie Baby? It flashed, dull orange, through her fingers. Franny saw it was the lion, Anna’s favorite. Finally, Anna’s mother reached out with a trembling hand to place the doll on the coffin. She let go too early, recoiling from the hole in which her daughter would be buried, and the lion fell, missing the coffin, into the earth.

  “Get it out,” she said, and then she began to scream, “Get it out! Get it out!” The funeral man looked dismayed. Franny could see him weighing his options.

  Finally, someone stepped forward. An uncle, Franny thought. He knelt in the wet grass, and reached underneath the coffin, rooted around. Everyone was frozen. This was not supposed to happen at a funeral. It was too much.

  Franny pressed her thumb down on her engagement ring. The diamond cut into her finger, and she pushed until she felt her skin tear. The muddy lion was back in Mrs. Gillison’s hands, and Mr. Gillison was trying to take it away. Everyone looked on nervously, they really had to be going, there was a football game tonight, and dinner to be prepared and eaten, sex with your lover, life, life. Franny wanted a drink. A cigarette.

  Mrs. Gillison was holding tight to the lion. Mr. Gillison had stopped crying, and watched dumbly as the funeral man and his assistant began to turn the crank that would lower Anna’s body into the ground. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the priest had said.

  Franny had told Nat not to come to the funeral when he had offered. You’re too busy, she told him. Children may come and children may go, but the gigs go on. She had smiled, as if this was a joke, and he had stared at her. She knew she wasn’t being reasonable, but she didn’t care. It was startling not to care, for she was a person who had always cared too much.

  Oh, that little girl’s body. Franny knew it, inside and out. The liver riddled with tumors, the stomach sour and mean, the eyes. Franny would never forget Anna’s eyes: green with orange fire. They would lock with Franny’s when the worst was on. And when Franny had nothing left to give, Anna’s eyes had closed.

  Clyde Duncan, Anna’s official doctor, had given up on Anna months before. He had walked in one afternoon when Franny was standing at Anna’s bedside, watching Anna sleep. “Dr. Wren,” Clyde had said. He put his hand on Franny’s shoulder. “It’s over,” he said. And because of this—because Clyde had given up on Anna—Franny held on. But he had been right.

  The rain pelted the small tent over the gravesite. Someone was making an announcement about refreshments. Refreshments! The Gillisons lived on the Upper East Side, Franny knew. She had been to their apartment when it still smelled of potpourri, and not of vomit. She had convinced Anna’s parents to try the transplant. It was a faint hope, but a hope nonetheless. She remembered their pinched faces, their lost expressions, hands that wandered in their laps. “Just tell us what to do,” Mr. Gillison had said.

  When everyone was gone, Franny came closer to the grave. The funeral man and his assistant had dropped their sad looks and were discussing logistics, but as soon as she approached, their eyes filled with misery again. “Are you a relative?” said the assistant sadly, “a cousin, maybe?”

  “No,” said Franny, “I was her doctor.” The funeral man stood up straight, and pushed his shoulders back.

  “She was very sick,” he said, finally. “I hear,” he added.

  “I made her go through a bone marrow transplant when there was no chance of her making it,” Franny said. The man nodded, furrowed his brow, looked out the corner of his eye at his watch. “She could have died in peace,” said Franny, “at home, with her family. But I wouldn’t let her.”

  “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” said the assistant.

  “I burned the marrow out of her bones. She died in terrible pain. It was my fault.” Franny looked up, and both men were staring at her. “I bet you hear a lot of graveside confessions,” said Franny.

  “Not really,” said the funeral man, at the same time the assistant said, “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” said Franny. She took a last glance at Anna’s grave, and turned to go.

  “Don’t mention it,” called the assistant.

  The Gillisons’ building had an elevator man. He was old, and had white hair. He smelled of cigars. “Seven,” said Franny. He nodded and closed the elevator doors.

  “Going to the Gillisons’?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  The elevator man was silent until they’d reached the seventh floor. “That little tyke drove me nuts,” he said. Franny turned to him and smiled. “She used to roller-skate in the lobby,” he said.

  “I have to go,” said Franny.

  The man opened the door. “Sure, sure,” he said. “I always told her she’d kill herself, roller-skating in the lobby.”

  The door to the Gillisons’ apartment was closed. Franny rang the bell, and a tall woman in a purple pantsuit opened the door. Her hair was braided and affixed to her head. “Come in, come in,” she said, “I’m Carol’s sister, Anna’s aunt. And you are—”

  “Franny Wren.”

  “Hello, hello,” she said, and stretched her arm to point to the bedroom. “You can put your coat…” She stopped. “Dr. Wren?” she said. Franny nodded. The woman pursed her lips, and crossed her arms. “I’d like to have a word with you,” she said.

  “Of course,” said Franny.

  “Would you like some wine?”

  “Yes.”

  A young cousin was called to take Franny’s coat, and Anna’s aunt took Franny by the arm. In the dining room, platters of cheese and meat were laid out in circles, like eyes. There were rolls in a basket and bottles of wine lined up on the sideboard. Anna’s aunt pulled a cork from a bottle of red wine with great effort and poured two glasses. She led the way through the crowd into the kitchen, where they could be alone. The kitchen was cluttered with Tupperware containers. A cat circled warily. Franny sipped her wine.

  “My name is Georgina,” said Anna’s aunt. Franny nodded and smiled weakly. Georgina wore heels with pants, a look that Franny had always admired and been frightened of. “I’m a naturopath in Australia,” said Georgina. Here we go, thought Franny. She took another sip of wine. The cat had begun to lick at a dish of what looked to be cream cheese. “I have some questions,” said Georgina, her eyes flashing, “about my niece’s course of treatment.”

  “The cat is licking the cream cheese,” said Franny.

  “What?” Georgina was almost shrieking.

  “The cat,” Franny repeated. She shook her head. “Forget it. Please, feel free to ask whatever you’d like.”

  “My primary concern,” said Georgina, “is why a naturopath was never consulted in the matter of Anna’s ailment.”

  “That is a very interesting question,” said Franny. She did not say, And where were you?

  “Hm,” said Georgina. It was the sound of a sniff.

  “First of all,” said Franny, taking a cookie from an open box on the counter, “I’m just finishing my residency. I took a special interest in Anna, but her primary doctor is actually Clyde Duncan.” She took a bite of the cookie, a butter cookie lined with chocolate.

  “You advised my sister, did you not?”

  “Yes, I did. As I said, I took a special interest in Anna. I loved her, actually.” Franny took anot
her cookie. “I gave the best advice I could. I’m not well-trained in natural therapy, but of course the Gillisons were free to consult with whomever they wanted.”

  Georgina raised an eyebrow. “I think many alternative therapies can be very effective,” said Franny, “but Anna’s cancer was quite advanced.” She felt tears, a hot ball in her throat. “There was really nothing that could be done.” Franny chewed her cookie slowly. She felt it would be rude to crunch. Georgina nodded, thinking. The cat continued to lick the dish. On the refrigerator, a scrap of legal paper held up with a ladybug magnet: “TUESDAY, 4PM, A. TO DR. WREN.”

  Mrs. Gillison smelled of gin and Chanel No. 5. She held Franny too tightly for too long, and appeared to be shivering. “I know you did all you could,” she said, “I know you did all you could.” When she released Franny, she said, “Would you like a shrimp roll?” Franny shook her head. They stood in the doorway between the living room and the dining room. People hovered nearby, pressing, keeping an eye on Mrs. Gillison. “You’re the only one,” said Mrs. Gillison, the ice in her glass clinking as she rocked it back and forth. “You’re the only one who knows a thing.”

  Franny looked down. Mrs. Gillison drained her drink. A man took the glass for a refill. Keeping Mrs. Gillison good and drunk seemed to be the point. “She should have died here, though,” said Mrs. Gillison. “We should not have let you take her back.”

  The man returned with a full glass of gin. “We should not,” said Mrs. Gillison, “have given her back!” She stumbled, unbalanced by the volume of her voice, perhaps, but then righted herself, and patted her hair. “Thank you, Jimmy,” she said to the man. After a deep sip, she asked, “Who’s next?” and a mousy woman fell into her embrace.

  Why didn’t Franny go home? She had a fiancé, after all, and a cat. She had made her appearance and paid her respects. Why did she keep eating cookies and drinking wine? After a time, she found herself looking at the shiny forehead of a man who spoke to her intently. “And some people think I’m selfish,” the man was saying.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s not my fault that I can’t be satisfied in a monogamous relationship,” said the man. He shrugged, took his toothpick, and speared the olive in his glass. He chewed the olive with relish. “In some cultures,” he said, “I’d fit right in, is the thing.” He sighed, and Franny smelled a flat, sour smell. “You doing anything later?” said the man, “I mean, after this…this…”

  “This wake?” said Franny.

  “Well, yeah. Um, there’s this great jazz club in Alphabet City.”

  Franny blinked. “I have got to leave now,” she said.

  Her coat was hanging in the bedroom. As she slipped it on, a voice came from a dark corner: “Do you know how many nights I sat here?”

  It was Mr. Gillison. He was sitting on a windowsill, looking out at the building across the courtyard. “I sat here,” he said, “and looked into all the other windows.” He breathed in and out. He held a glass of dark liquid in his hand. “I thought of all the other lives, all the people, just on my block. And they have bad times, right? I mean, everyone has problems.”

  “Mr. Gillison,” said Franny.

  “Dr. Wren,” said Mr. Gillison, and he turned and looked at her. His eyes were red and puffy. “I’m ashamed to say that I wished I could trade lives with any one of these people. Even that sad fuck.” He pointed to a window that Franny could not see. She wanted desperately to leave, to be outside this apartment.

  “That guy,” said Mr. Gillison, “he’s got nothing. He watches television and irons his shirts. He doesn’t even have a plant. He’s got nothing.” Mr. Gillison laughed, but it was not a happy sound. It was a mean sound. “I’d give anything in this world,” he said, “to trade my life with that man.”

  Franny sighed. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, too,” said Mr. Gillison.

  “She should have died here, at home. It was my fault. I know that,” said Franny.

  “Yes,” said Anna’s father. “I know that, too.”

  The streets were slick and shining. Franny breathed in deeply, and decided to walk for a while. Though it was June, the air was cool. She bought a pack of cigarettes at a kiosk, and lit one in the shadows of an ATM machine. It was a bad idea to walk through the park at night, but she turned in anyway. The night was silent, but for Franny’s footsteps and the wind in the trees.

  On a bench, a figure was outlined in lamplight, completely still. Franny began to feel sick, and dropped her cigarette.

  A man in a dress lurched by, murmuring. His dress was mauve taffeta. He wore no shoes, and his hair was long and matted. Franny walked faster, feeling heat rise underneath her arms. She broke into a run.

  I don’t think I want to live anymore, Anna had said, and then, Don’t tell my mom. Franny shushed her, ran fingers over her scalp, as soft as a newborn’s. You do want to live, she said, yes, sweetheart, you do. Anna had not answered.

  Her little feet. Her slippers were blue, and lined in lamb’s wool. Anna liked hot chocolate, pizza, and Gobstoppers. She did not like mushrooms. They were slimy, but she liked sushi, which was also slimy, so it didn’t make sense. Wasabi sauce was too hot, but Anna liked the green sauce on tacos, the hottest sauce.

  Anna’s best friend was—had been—a girl named Kim. Kim had stopped visiting after the first chemo treatment, but she called, and Franny would hear Anna giggling on the phone. Kim had a boyfriend, Anna told Franny, so she was really busy. Kissing was slimy, like mushrooms, and Anna didn’t think she would like it, but maybe she would change her mind.

  Franny thought of her lab coat, its chemical smell, her stethoscope. She knew what had happened, knew exactly what Anna’s body had done and had not been able to do. It was not God’s mystery. It was not a mystery at all.

  She stopped running and lit another cigarette. She was halfway across the park. Franny watched the smoke from her mouth circle toward a streetlight, disappearing. She walked steadily until she reached Central Park West.

  In front of her building, a man in a dark coat waited. He nodded at Franny, and raised his arm for a taxi that did not stop. Franny pushed the door open and smelled meat cooking. She unlocked her mailbox: cable bill, laundry bill, postcard. Franny flipped the card. Here I am in New Orleans! Remember Mardi Gras ’90? See you in August, Big Boy. The front of the postcard showed a Mardi Gras parade, a colorful float, a crowd of waving arms. One of Nat’s friends. They lived in a world of parades, stretching one party to the next. Franny stood in her lobby, trying to believe that she could spend her life knowing them, laughing with them, planning vacations. She wanted to be like the rest of the wives and girlfriends, giggling and rolling her eyes and pouring bags of corn chips into bowls.

  The elevator was broken again. Franny climbed the stairs heavily. She unlocked the apartment door and flicked on the light. “Hello?” she called, “Nat?” There was no answer, but her cat, Ophelia, came running. “Hi, sweet,” said Franny, scooping up Ophelia and holding the warm fur to her neck. Franny dropped the mail on the side table and walked into the kitchen. “Honey?” she called. On the kitchen table, there was a note written on the back of a bank statement: Where are you? Got lonely—Went for a drink at Paddy’s—Come join? N.

  Franny put down the note. She did not want to be filled with rage. Ophelia jumped from her arms and ran, leaving a scratch on Franny’s hand, a line that filled with blood. “Fuck!” Franny cried. For a moment, she considered putting her coat back on, but the convivial scene unfolded before her—the dartboard, laughter ringing through smoke—and she shivered. No.

  She opened the liquor cabinet and poured a hefty tumbler of Scotch. In the living room, she sank into the futon and turned on Nat’s enormous television. A face filled the screen. “Oh, Lucy,” said the face. “Do you really mean that?” Franny shut off the television. She gulped the whiskey, and put her head in her hands.

  It came slowly, then, but steadily. The darkness. The anger Nat did not unde
rstand. It started in her gut, gathered force. She took another sip, tried to think of something else: the wedding, a good steak, her Uncle Jack and his Old Spice smell.

  It did not stop. It ran through her and over her, like a river. Anna was dead, she had died in the most horrible manner possible, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that Franny could do.

  celia

  Although my mother disagrees, I have moved forward with my life. For example, I’ve bought a new bikini. I do not know what possessed me to do it, but do it I did, late one night. I was watching TV (I had called the cable company and asked them to install every single channel possible. I figured I deserved the Movie Channel, HBO, Cinemax, and whateverall else. I deserved at least that). The show certainly did not lead to my decision; it was “Law & Order,” and everyone was wearing chic coats as they fought injustice in cold climes. But summer was in the air in Texas, and I must have been thinking about the kids coming into the library for their summer reading books. Why the teachers insist on assigning books like The Hobbit I will never know. Those poor little ones with that thick tome. Nobody asks me for my opinion, but that’s another story entirely. Summer, summer, summer.

  I swiped the J. Crew catalog from the teachers’ lounge when I dropped off some books at the elementary school on the other side of Austin. You’d think, being people who chose to spend their lives serving others at a menial salary, that the teachers would be nice. You’d be wrong. I have never met a group of such catty, unhappy people in my life. And they’re not very bright. They spend all day leafing through catalogs, smoking, and saying how much they dislike their students and how they’ve got to lose weight. Every single one is on a diet. The juice diet, the rice diet, the cigarette and coffee diet. The only ones not on diets are pregnant. I’ve got to wonder, too: do they talk to their lovers the same way they talk to me, as if I were a dog that needed some training? “Oh, Celia, when you put coffee in the filter, please try not to spill it all over the counter. OK, honey?” It makes me want to smack them. And their Crayola-colored clothes!