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This Side of Heaven

This Side of Heaven
(Harlequin Everlasting)
Order from Amazon

Spencer

“Spence?”

I had been turning the pages of a six-month-old copy of The New Yorker. My colleague and friend, Dr. Elizabeth Simmons stands before me, her hands fisted in the pockets of her white lab coat. She is smiling but I’m not fooled.

“What is it?” I ask standing and nervously rolling the magazine into a tube that I proceed to tap against the side of one thigh.

“Come on back. Zoe’s getting dressed.” Liz turns and nods to the sole other patient in the waiting room. “I’ll be with you in a few minutes,” she promises then holds the door for me that leads to the inner sanctum of her practice. We walk down a long hall past examining rooms, some open and empty, others with their doors shut, signaling occupancy. Zoe is in one of them and I am tempted to try each door until I find my wife. Instead I follow Liz into her office.

“Have a seat,” she says. “I’ll get Zoe.”

Before I can say anything, she’s gone, closing the office door behind her with a soft click. I hear the murmur of her voice in conversation with a nurse or assistant as she retraces her steps down the hall. I fight the urge to go after her, find Zoe and get the hell out of here before Liz can say whatever she clearly does not want to say.

Like Liz, I am a physician and member of the medical faculty at the University of Wisconsin. Like most doctors I am not good at being on the other side – as either a patient or family member. Liz is a gynecologist. I am a psychiatrist. We have often joked that between us we treat the whole person -- body and mind. Zoe always reminds us that there’s a key third component to any human -- the spirit.

My wife is what many would call a Renaissance woman -- a lawyer by trade, although she hasn’t practice the law in years and that credential only scrapes the surface of all the roles she has taken on in her life. She is endlessly fascinated by the human drama that is inevitable in any gathering of one or more people. She is especially drawn to medical settings. Perhaps it’s all the years of living with me and listening to my ‘shop’ talk about patients.

I have seen her take lost souls under her wing and guide them through the chaos that is any hospital emergency room. And more than once I have arranged to meet her in the hospital coffee shop only to arrive and see her deeply engrossed in conversation with a stranger whose family member has been admitted for treatment. Once I walked in and found her leading everyone in the place in an impromptu toast to the first-time father who had burst through the door to announce the birth of his son. Everyone is drawn to Zoe. People love her. Trust me, I did not miss the averted but sympathetic glances of Liz’s staff as we made that endless walk to her office.

“Old age. It’s nothing I haven’t experienced before,” she told me after I noticed her breathlessness as she climbed the stairs from our boathouse -- a trip she usually made far more easily than I did. “I see Liz for my annual check-up day after tomorrow. If it’ll make you happy, I’ll ask her to schedule a stress test.”

“It’s not about me,” I said peevishly.

She smiled and ruffled my hair. “Oh, Spence, it’s always about you,” she teased and then added quickly, “because I love you and if you’re worried….”

“Concerned,” I corrected.

“Then that’s reason enough.”

“Thank you,” I leaned in to kiss her lips.

“But it’s nothing,” she whispered before accepting the kiss. Over nearly four decades of married life, Zoe has almost always gotten the last word.

 We agreed to meet at Liz’s office at the appointed time. I had arrived twenty minutes early and assured the receptionist that Zoe was on her way. Just as I was beginning to feel a prickle of irritation at Zoe’s habitual tardiness, she burst through the door.

As usual she arrived in a whirlwind of activity, balancing magazines for Liz’s waiting room along with her usual shoulder satchel that was always overflowing with folders, letters, and a variety of smaller purses each with some assigned purpose. She was babbling a litany of excuses – meeting ran late, traffic, couldn’t find her glasses.

“Sorry,” she said once she’d run out of both words and breath. The singular word accompanied by a genuinely apologetic smile swept through the waiting room to include the receptionist, the other patient and me. She sat next to me, arranged the magazines on a side table and unbuttoned her light denim jacket with the word, ‘Joy’ embroidered down one sleeve.

“No problem,” the receptionist replied absolving Zoe of all responsibility. “She’s running a little behind.”

“She’s worth waiting for,” Zoe assured the young woman sitting across from us. The woman responded to this announcement with a blank stare.

“Dr.Simmons -- Liz,” Zoe added. “I’d trust her with my life.” Then she laughed and squeezed my hand. “Actually I already have. I was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly five years ago and look at me now.”

There is no denying that Zoe is the picture of health, glowing with a zest for life that belies her sixty years. Her skin is smooth and the pinkish tint of her cheeks along with the pixie cut of her hair to make her look a decade younger than her actual age of sixty-two. When Zoe’s hair came back as snow white instead of the brown of her youth she was delighted. “Gives me character, don’t you think?”

The young woman’s eyes widened with interest. “It’s my first appointment,” she admitted then laughed nervously. “I like your jacket,” she added after a brief pause.

Zoe grinned. “Tag sale purchase,” she said. “One of my treasures.”

“Oh, I know,” the young woman replied, clearly relieved to have settled on a topic of conversation other than medicine and doctors. “I furnished my entire apartment from stuff I got at garage and estate sales.”

I’ve often thought that Zoe’s personality should be considered for use as a weapon to disarm terrorists. Once she focuses her attention on you, she is impossible to resist. Complete strangers tell her things about themselves in that first half hour that they are loathe to tell their dearest friends.

“I found this -- thing,” the young woman confided in a whisper and a nod toward her own chest. “It’s probably nothing but --” She blushed.

Zoe moved her chair closer to the young woman and took her hand. “And even if it’s something,” she assured her in a low voice, “the cure rate is really in your favor. You did the right thing coming in today.”

She passed the woman a tissue and continued to stroke her hand while I flipped through my magazine.

“Mrs. Andersen?” Liz’s nurse has known Zoe almost as long as Liz has but maintains decorum in the office.

Zoe headed for the door. “There’s a sale Saturday at one of the churches on Johnson Street,” she said to the young woman. “Maybe I’ll see you there?”

The young woman smiled and nodded. I got up to accompany my wife into the exam room, but she stopped me with a quick kiss on my cheek. “Susie will come get you once we get past the physical, won’t you, Susie?”

Liz’s nurse nodded. “This wouldn’t be about your not wanting your husband to be present at the weighing in, would it?” she asked and I heard the music of Zoe's laughter as the two of them disappeared down the hall and the door to the waiting room swung closed behind them. I checked my watch and then settled in to await my summons.

But I realize now as I pace Liz’s office rhythmically tapping the rolled magazine against my palm that from the moment Zoe disappeared behind that closed door I felt a rush of foreboding. It was as if I was the one who had trouble getting my breath. Zoe ate I are certainly no strangers to tough times and something about this whole scenario suddenly feels terribly wrong. The fact that it was Liz herself and not her nurse who came to get me has done nothing to abate that anxiety.

Liz’s office is on the tenth floor of a professional building near the heart of campus and offers a bird’s eye view of some of the landmarks that are unique to Madison, Wisconsin. Looking one way out the corner window I see in the distance the dome of the State Capitol building reflecting the bright afternoon sun. Then I allow my eye to be drawn down the length of State Street -- a pedestrian shopping street that Zoe loves to frequent lined with an assortment of merchants peddling everything from upscale clothing to trendy beverages to t-shirts and other logo-enhanced paraphernalia. Where State Street ends, the campus of the University of Wisconsin begins. Zoe, born and raised in Manhattan, has nevertheless come to consider this small midwestern city with its unique mix of youth and politics home.

Liz’s office affords a magnificent view of several of the oldest buildings on campus set along the shore of Lake Mendota. Today the calm blue water is speckled today with the colorful sails of windsurfers and a few kayaks. Below me is the Memorial Union with its popular terrace -- a tiered outdoor gathering place cluttered with its trademark jumble of colorful metal chairs and café tables.

I’m staring down at the terrace lost in memory when I hear voices outside the door and turn to see Liz and an abnormally subdued Zoe enter the room. My heart goes into overdrive as I step around Liz’s desk and take Zoe’s hands. She’s dry-eyed but her smile wavers as she takes one of the chairs facing Liz’s desk. My knees feel suddenly filled with water and I collapse into the remaining chair.

Liz takes her place at her desk and fumbles with her computer, bringing up Zoe’s medical records. “We need to run a few more tests,” she begins.

“Just tell me,” I demand between gritted teeth.

“The cancer’s back,” Zoe says stroking the back of my hand with her thumb. “It’s spread.”

“Where?”

“We need --,” Liz begins.

“Where?” I ask again.

“A spot on my lung,” Zoe whispers, then clears her throat and smiles. “Guess that shortness of breath thing was a wake-up call. At least it’s not just old age.” Her voice cracks on the last word.

I turn my full attention to Liz, studying every nuance of her expression. “Prognosis?”

Liz blows out a breath she might have been holding in anticipation of a question she really doesn’t want to answer. “Spence, you know that I can’t –“

“Best guess,” I say.

“Treatable,” she replies.

“Curable?” I ask knowing the answer.

“Treatable,” she and Zoe replied in unison.

I have built my entire practice out of counseling patients suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. More than once I have heard them describe the kind of terror that is more than just an emotion, but a physical reality, clawing at your insides until you think you can’t endure it. In that instant in Liz’s office, I finally understand what they mean.

“Spence?”