Ordinary family
C goes with D to meet an orthopedic surgeon, who outlines D’s intended procedure. It’s absolutely worth it, he assures them. C and M and D have it all worked out, how C and M will wait while the surgery is performed, the times they will visit. But after they arrive at the hospital they’re told, “Due to Covid there is no visiting at all.” D follows the nurse through the doors. They will not see him for days. His shoulders are bowed, and he is towing a tiny suitcase.
C faces the dermatologist. She suspects he won’t remember this, but when she first met him years ago he asked the worst and funniest question a doctor has ever put to her: “Have you done any recent nursing in the Third World?”
She considered answering, “I’ve just got back from Uganda. It’s Ebola, isn’t it?” But this wasn’t true; her problem was nothing so exotic, and eventually he let her go.
Now they’re meeting a second time. A stereo begins emitting eerie music from his cupboard as he says, “I’m afraid you’re not going to like this.”
He describes the biopsy he wants to perform on her face. C says, with a prim cough, “Can we put it off? I have some public things to do this month.”
He jumps up. “That music’s got a bit loud.”
Is this a new thing, C wonders, piping music into doctors’ rooms? He twiddles with a knob. “No,” he says, “we can’t put it off.” He needs to decide what sort of biopsy. Not the punch, perhaps the graze or the slice. The problem area is diffuse, meaning he’ll have to angle around the existing facial scar. The music rises. He frowns and jumps up again. “Strange. It seems to control itself.” Sudden swoop of violins. He looks so sane, as he’s plotting the unthinkable. He’s going to take a knife to C’s face.
C receives a series of emails from R, who rebukes her for writing about her family. He accuses her of “lying” in order to “assert victimhood.” He attaches an article about whining First World feminists. When C replies, he writes that her response is a “sign of weakness.” Then his tone alters, and he tells her he’s spent his life battling addiction and mental illness.
D’s surgery has been a success and he is a new man. But then, another twist: M visits a specialist and now she needs treatment.
In the café, M wears a casually elegant jacket, stylish trousers. They’ve taken a table for four, and M is obliged to squeeze in next to C. She won’t do it. She won’t go near C, but stays at the corner of the table, awkwardly perched, turning away. This makes C think about art. Bad art would gloss over this, would tell a story of togetherness and warmth. Bad art is what the rebuking R wants: ersatz stories of wonderfulness.
Real art portrays it like it is. M stays at the corner of the table, keeping the space wide. Recalling this later is like opening a door a tiny crack to the furnace of grief that lies behind it. M maintains the space. M and C don’t lie about this to each other, no matter how much bad art denies and pontificates and makes edicts about how they should be described. Perhaps R is right: it’s a feminist issue. Real women deserve to be authentically portrayed. M and C are authentic; she maintains the space and C registers it. It used to be C’s loss but now perhaps it is – maybe it always was – M’s loss too.
