We leave the animal hospital as soon as I agree to the surgery. They almost insist on it. Since it’s New Year’s Eve, they are running with a limited staff and don’t want to assign any of their already sparse resources to oversee a hysterical person in the waiting room. If the surgery goes well, they don’t need me insisting on seeing her or overseeing her recovery. And I would. I would be like Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment: “It’s past ten. My daughter is in pain. I don’t understand why she has to have this pain. All she has to do is hold out until ten, and IT’S PAST TEN! My daughter is in pain, can’t you understand that! GIVE MY DAUGHTER THE SHOT!” If the surgery does not go well, I guess they don’t want that scene to play out in their waiting room, either.
So we go home. Jeffrey stops to pick up Chinese for dinner and I stay in the car and call Trent. He is already at some New Year’s party and I can’t communicate the enormity of what is happening and I get frustrated and just hang up. Alone in the car, and without really thinking, I call my mother. While the phone rings, I think about how every conversation with her feels incomplete. About how we talk around the perimeter of things, but never about the things themselves. What will this call accomplish? Why do I still need my mother? As soon as I hear her voice I start crying, and I hate myself for it because if she’s not going to give me what I need, then why bother to call her, being needy.
“Well, of course you’re upset, she’s your baby.”
Huh? I’m not surprised that she offers sympathy, I am just surprised at the “of course.” Growing up, we had four dogs. Not all at once, but over the course of eighteen years. None of them were my mother’s babies; she had two human children and that was quite enough. The “of course” is all I need, and I no longer feel ashamed. Of course I’m upset. Of course I’m feeling lost. Of course I have emotions. She’s my baby. Even my mother can see that.
When we finish speaking, I call Meredith. It’s hard when talking to my mother not to spill the secret, not to share the added stress of having to attend a wedding, but I keep Meredith’s confidence intact.
Meredith is wholly supportive. “We’ll change your flights, have you on standby, get you a return flight home right after the ceremony—whatever you need us to do. And, of course, we’ll cover any costs.” Hearing Meredith’s voice makes it easier. “But if you think you can, please come.”
I pick at some General Tso’s chicken and poke at a steamed dumpling, but I don’t have much of an appetite for anything other than vodka. We are supposed to be at a party thrown by our neighbors in the unit of our duplex above us; I send Jeffrey upstairs to give our regrets. The dull roar of the party is constant, and at times laughter bubbles over, reminding us that life is continuing outside of our anxiety, that seconds are ticking off the clock, marking the end of an old year and the start of a new one.
But in our apartment, time has stopped. There’s maybe something playing on HBO. Even it seems to unspool in slow motion.
Until the phone rings.
I’m not even aware I’ve answered it until the doctor’s voice is in my ear. “Lily came through surgery fine.” I dry heave my relief. “The myelogram revealed compression of the spinal cord over the tenth through twelfth thoracic vertebrae. We took her directly into surgery and performed a hemilaminectomy over this area.”
I’m nodding as if I understand exactly what this means. I’m nodding for someone who can’t see me, trying to listen but also play back in my head the confirmation that all this went fine. I try to repeat hemilaminectomy in my head and it sounds like a child trying to pronounce aluminum: alumi-numi-numi-num.
“Basically, we make an incision that creates a window into the vertebral bodies and exposes the spinal cord so we can retrieve the herniated disc material.” Retrieve it and do what with it? “Lily’s procedure went without complication and she recovered from the anesthesia uneventfully.”
Uneventfully. Like being put under and myelograms and spine windows and alumi-numi-numi-num surgeries are everyday phenomena in life.
“Is she able to . . . Was the surgery a success?”
I am suddenly aware that I’m standing, as if the doctor has walked into our living room. I have no memory of getting up, and now that I am up, I’m unsure of where to look or what to do with my hand that is not holding the phone. The news is what I want to hear, but somehow I’m ice-cold, the warmth of the vodka having drained out of my limbs.
“Animals that suffer this type of injury make most of their neurologic improvement over the first three months postoperatively. You’ll notice some immediate improvement, but don’t be discouraged if Lily’s progress is initially slow. But I’m cautiously optimistic.”
“Cautiously optimistic that . . .” There’s a hiccup of laughter from upstairs and I give a death-stare at the ceiling.
“Cautiously optimistic. That she will recover.”
“Fully?”
“Cautiously optimistic.”
Stop saying that. Will she walk?
“We need to board her here for the next seventy-two hours to monitor her initial recovery and watch for any signs of complications. Our offices are closed tomorrow for New Year’s Day, which means you can visit her the day after if you want to. But only briefly. It’s not good for her to get too excited. Otherwise, you can take her home the day after that.”
“Thank you, Doctor.”
“It was our pleasure working with Lily.”
She’s not getting what I’m trying to say.