“Mrs. Dibb, are you feeling all right?”
The voice came through the earphones, but I did not reply. I felt sort of woozy, like I was about to fall asleep.
“This first test will last about thirty seconds, and you’ll hear some funny noises. Okay?”
It sounded like a lawnmower, swooshing toward me and back, not quite touching my toes.
“Good, Mrs. Dibb. Thank you. This next test is longer. It’s the longest one. It will take nine minutes and thirty seconds.”
He gave such oddly specific times. As if I had a watch or could see a clock. All I saw was white. A white metal frame twelve inches above my head, and, beyond that, a white metal tube, like being inside a fluorescent bulb.
The nine-minute test was a spring being sprung—twang thump—at regular intervals, and I imagined a circus tent lifting slowly into the air, each twang thump the sound of another tether breaking loose. Twang thump, and a red-striped corner lifts. Twang thump, I can see sky beneath the flapping section. Twang thump, the fabric dances in the wind. Twang thump, round and round the tent, until finally, nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds later, the tent lifts: a soaring, spinning candy cane sphere, bright against the blue sky. And just before Ahmad asks how I am doing, I see a little girl, dark-haired as I was, looking up and pointing at the sight.
The other tests are less relaxing. For four minutes, there is a high-pitched series of whirs and clicks that remind me of my grandson playing video games at the beach house, and then there are three or four more tests, all identified for me by their duration: this one three minutes and thirty seconds, that one forty-five seconds, the next one five minutes. I have lived long enough to hear the sound of magnets taking photos of my brain, and I am pleased about this, and I wish I could live longer, to see all of the other things we will discover.
Afterward, I am very tired. Helen takes me home, and I go to the sunroom, where I like to take a nap in the afternoons. I don’t know how long I’m there, a few minutes, a few hours, but I wake to the sound of the doorbell ringing, and then of Helen telling someone—someone she doesn’t recognize, I can tell—that I am not available, that I do not take callers without an appointment, that the woman can call my son, Marshall, if she wishes to see me.
“Please. My name’s Coral. I just want to say hello. I think she’ll want to see me.”
“No. I’ve asked you to leave, and if I have to, I’ll call the police.”
“Of course. I understand. You’re doing your job, and I know Ms. Dibb is not well, I know I’m asking a lot. It’s just, I really want to see her. And I think she’ll want to see me.”
By this time, I have gotten up and headed for the door. Whatever Helen gave me this morning makes me loopy, but it also seems to help me do what I want. I crack sharply into a hutch. Well, at least it sort of helps me. I am headed to the door, if not in a very direct way.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!”I call.
“Miss June, it’s okay. You’re all right. There’s nothing you need to worry about out here.”
Helen is annoyed. At me, at whoever is at the door.
“Oh!” I call louder.
“Ma’am, you’ll have to go. I’m busy.”
I can’t see what is happening, but I don’t hear the door close. I can’t hear what the woman who is there says.
“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow,” I sing, bizarrely.
“Everything’s all right, Miss June. I’m coming.”
“Rockin’ robin. Tweet, tweet, tweet! Rockin’ robin.” I am coming full speed now. I’ve taken a route through the dining room, instead of straight to the front door, but the singing is helping me get there.
“Hopping and a-bopping and a-singing his song.”
I come around the corner and catch sight of my visitor. She’s a black woman, maybe fifty, wearing a well-cut suit and good shoes and holding a leather bag. I don’t know her, which is disappointing, because I thought she said I would want to see her.
“There was no reason to get up,” Helen says to me.
“Hello, Mrs. Dibb,” says the woman in a strangely strained way.
“Tweet, tweet, tweet!” I sing.
The woman looks toward Helen, who isn’t about to explain anything to her. Helen tells me to go back to the sunroom—I really don’t like Helen very much—and then she tells the woman that I have had a very long morning and cannot be disturbed.
“I’m sorry to bother you. I’d like to come back. Maybe another day this week? I’d just like to talk with Mrs. Dibb for a little bit.”
“I told you to contact Mrs. Dibb’s son. If he says it’s okay, then that will be fine.”
I flail my right arm wildly, and it knocks against the entryway table, which hurts, and which also causes a picture frame that is standing there to fall over. Helen comes over to steady me, and the woman looks at me intently. I think about Matt, I think about him singing “S’wonderful,” and the way the sun helps me stretch when we do our therapy sessions outside. I concentrate on Matt as hard as I can, and sure enough, I say what I want to say.
“Please stay. Please stay now.”
“Miss June, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Helen, go in the kitchen.”
“I’ll stay with you, Miss June.”
“No!”
My voice is sharp, and the woman listens to the two of us quietly, without saying anything, and then she says, “What about if Mrs. Dibb and I just sit down, right over there? Mrs. Dibb?”
And she reaches out her hand, and I take it, and, miraculously, we just walk over to the two chairs arranged by the fireplace, and I sit down, without a jolt or a jerk or a pull in the wrong direction. The woman holds my hand lightly, but she does not let it go when I sit down. She looks at it; she looks at my hand as if it means something to her, so I look at it, and I look at hers, darker than mine, but similarly long and slender. We both have shell-shaped nails. I never liked my nails, but they look sort of nice on her.
Helen rustles over, impatience brimming.
“Tea,” I say.
I’m feeling really proud of myself, which is a mistake, because it will almost certainly put an end to this little moment where my body seems to be listening to me. The woman sits down in the chair next to mine.
“My name’s Coral Jackson. I teach choir at Foothill High School.”
Oh darn. I hope she’s not here to ask for money.
“But that lucky old sun got nothin’ to do but roll around heaven all day.” I’d rather sing than talk about money. If I wanted to do something with my money, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Marshall handles all that, and I can’t even tell him that I want a bite of dinner.
I’ve already stopped thinking about Coral Jackson, but she surprises me by picking up my song.
“Fuss with my woman, toil for my kids, sweat ’til I’m wrinkled and gray.”
She has a beautiful voice. Beautiful. I stomp my feet and shake my head a bit. And she keeps singing.
“While that lucky old sun has nothin’ to do, but roll around heaven all day.”
“Roll around heaven all day,” I sing back.
She smiles.