NONCOMPLIANCE

The man had acquired a one-room cabin in upstate New York. Around the same time, he also purchased an unprofitable strawberry farm, but it didn’t matter. He was always looking forward, whereas she ran into walls and then wondered why her head hurt. The cabin bordered a vineyard and was partially surrounded by trees. It overlooked a large, distant lake. They stayed there together several times the summer before the girl got sick. At first, it was his cabin, but after two months, it became the cabin–a shared space. 

The man and the woman made love in the afternoon and lay on sweaty sheets while they envisioned a future together. Late at night, the man tended a fire in front of the cabin, and the woman sat on the porch drinking a canned margarita. They then stood side by side to watch the moon rise steadily into the sky. She tentatively placed her hand on his hard shoulder. 

“I see a face…on the moon. Do you see it?” He asked hopefully.

She did. Neither one of them said anything for some time. 

“We’re so lucky,” he murmured as he pulled her closer. She pressed her cheek against his until her mouth found his lips. Lucky.

Every night, the moon ascended into the night sky over the trees to join many stars. Was it the same moon in the city, obscured by ambient light? It couldn’t be. Here in the woods, it loomed, demanding unwavering attention.  At home, she never noticed the sky, because her eyes were always following the sidewalk. The woman remembered pushing her baby girl in a stroller on a warmer spring night, when her daughter suddenly looked up and exclaimed, “The moon!”

At the edge of a treeline, in a one-room cabin without air conditioning, overlooking a wide river in upstate New York, the man and the woman chose each other.

Although they had not yet met, the man and the girl became the most important people, because they each gave her permission to love without limits. 

It couldn’t be the same moon.

***

When she was five months pregnant, the mother received distressing news. We found a hole in her heart. It’s very small. It probably will close within one year, but we will monitor it. To demonstrate how potentially insignificant it was, the radiologist took out a pen from his shirt pocket and marked a tiny line on the black and white drawing between the right and left ventricles. The baby was immediately marked as high risk. 

She walked out of the hospital in a daze. The mother called the baby’s father. They said it’s fine, he said. There’s no sense in worrying. The mother continued to dream about standing at a crosswalk in the simmering heat of late August, completely content to meet her baby girl on the opposite side. Heavily pregnant, she watched the passing cars slowly come to a stop but remained hesitant to step down from the curb.

When the baby was born, the mother cried, as mothers do. Not from happiness, but because they suddenly realize that they could, at any moment, lose everything.

***

“Don’t look at me,” the girl turned her naked body toward the wall but allowed the mother to gently wipe down her skin with a damp cloth.

“I can feel my ribs.” 

“Yes,” the mother confirmed. She could see.

“You need to add more soap,” she dictated. “Or I won’t be clean. I’ll still smell bad.” She had not seen the girl unclothed or touched her naked skin since she was a baby. The girl unsuccessfully tried to untangle her matted hair, which she had not washed in over a week.

“I think conditioner will help.” The mother suggested, knowing it wouldn’t.

“I’ve heard olive oil works,” the girl said.

Although she had lost several pounds, her daughter’s body still had a delectably wholesome presence. The mother suddenly considered that the girl’s delicate limbs, small but perfectly shaped breasts, and slightly curved waist would drive many men to possess her, before chiding herself for thinking of her teenaged daughter as an object of desire. Pride and revulsion coursed through the mother. She tried to move the IV tubing out of the girl’s way.

“Stop looking at me!” The girl demanded. “You can leave now,” she added. "I'll do the rest myself.”

As the mother closed the bathroom door behind her, the girl playfully called out, “Perv!”

***

Every three weeks she met with Dr. Singh, her psychiatrist.

“How is your boyfriend? Everything going well?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she affirmed.

“Good. You deserve it. You’ve kissed a lot of frogs to get here.” He chuckled.

“I had coffee with a lot of frogs; I didn’t kiss them,” she clarified.

“True, true.” He smiled and opened his small laptop.

“He put me in his future,” she noted.

“Good! What does that look like?”

“Maybe one day, we’ll live together. Or we’ll get married first. We’re not sure. I don’t want to play house.”

“They’re not the same?”

“Of course not. Marriage signifies… official commitment.”

Dr. Singh considered her comment. “The promise of permanence. Also, it’s okay not to be sure yet.”

She looked down at her folded hands.

“We all need to learn how to live with uncertainty. Otherwise, we risk losing what we have.” Dr. Singh leaned slightly forward. When he said we, he clearly meant you. 

“I didn’t say I was focused on it,” she countered. “But it’s a future possibility.”

Dr. Singh smiled and returned her volley. “Permanence carries more weight with you. Or the idea of it, anyway. For you, it equals safety.”

She nodded in agreement.

“A husband is obligated,” he continued. “He’s contracted to his wife and children. An honorable man should not abandon that responsibility without extreme cause. A lover, on the other hand, represents the lone wolf. Theoretically, he can come and go as he pleases, and his unpredictability makes him precariously attractive. Yet, even wolves need a warm place to lay their head at night. He has free will. He’s not obligated to stay, but he chooses to.” He was pleased with his metaphor.

Does a wolf choose to become a dog? Maybe, if he’s hungry enough. She pictured him trotting through darkened woods, following and falling behind the pack as they disappeared between tall trees. The mother did not wish to domesticate the man; she longed for a wolf.

“We chose each other,” she corrected.

“What I’m trying to say, based on what you’ve shared, this man is as vulnerable as you are. He said he loves you, and he’s certainly acting like it. He’s invested too. Don’t doubt it.”

“But you never know what’s in someone’s heart.”

“You will never know someone else’s heart. That is the mystery we embrace...mystery is not uncertainty. I think you can appreciate the unknowable. Have you considered the possibility he has the same questions about you?”

She focused on a framed photograph of Mt. Kilimanjaro hanging on the wall behind Dr. Singh’s head.

“Emotional investment! High risk, high reward.” Dr. Singh threw up his hands in mock frustration. “Sure, it’s safer to avoid risk. You can be happy alone, but it will be a different life. I believe…there is beauty in connecting on a deeper level with another person. What else besides having children gives life as much meaning?”

Neither one spoke for 15 seconds. She had a think.

“I’m not sure I have the resilience.”

“You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for. Turn to your partner. Be gentle with him, be easier on yourself, and for God’s sake, do not hold back. Let him in.” 

The mother stopped sharing. She tugged at the hem of her skirt and uncrossed her stockinged legs.

“I want him. Very much.”

“Then enjoy him!” He cleared his throat to break the ensuing silence. “How are you managing these anxious thoughts?”

“I need more medication.” 

He leaned back in his armchair and sighed. “Anxiety is a symptom, not a condition.”

“Will you give me something?” She remained insistent. “Just to get me through.”

Dr. Singh firmly shook his head. “No. I told you before: I don’t prescribe Xanax, Valium—none of these.”

The mother looked down at her crossed wrists.

“Do you know what we called them in medical school?” She shook her head.

“Memory stealers.”

What was worth remembering? 

“You need to accept temporary emotional discomfort. Have you tried the breathing exercises I showed you last month?” He put his right hand on his diaphragm, inhaled deeply through his nose, and exhaled evenly through his mouth.

Here we go again, she thought. Breathing exercises were the answer. “Yes,” she lied.

“They really help modulate the sympathetic nervous system. Keep practicing them.”

She lacked the patience to breathe.

“And her father has really stepped up. He’s been with her every night?”

“Not every night. We take turns. The baby in the other bed went home.”

Dr. Singh suddenly looked up from his laptop. “What baby?”

“The baby who wasn’t breathing well. I told you about her.”

“Aah, yes, I remember.” He didn’t.

“She was so quiet. Now a new girl moved in. She’s asthmatic. Her mother is horrible. A real degenerate, reeking of pot.”

“I’m sorry. That must be hard on your daughter.”

“No. It’s her father who complains. Rightly so. She keeps them up all night yelling at the girl. Her daughter,” she added hastily, in case he thought she meant her girl.

Dr. Singh shrugged. “It’s a hospital, not a hotel. All the more reason she needs to get out of there as soon as possible.”

On the first night, the mother acknowledged the baby’s father with a brisk nod as she entered the room: I am not a stranger. Baby in Bed One. Don’t look at the baby. The newborn lay quiet, except for an occasional soft grunt. Every hour or so, alarms alerted the night nurses she had stopped breathing again. They entered the room with hushed urgency to check monitors, adjust oxygen levels, and speak in low, reassuring tones. The baby’s mother was in the room the entire time, holding her close while minding not to get tangled in the tubing. The father came only at night: someone had to keep working.

Dr. Singh moved on to the mundane.

“How are you sleeping?”

“Not well.”

“Of course, I’m sorry, how could you be? You are not drinking, I hope? Remember what I told you about alcohol and medication.”

“It’s a solvent,” she recited from memory. “It washes away the medicine.”

“Mind you, it doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the occasional glass of wine, but don’t drink after taking your medication, OK? Which you are taking, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Appetite good?”

“Not really, When I do eat, it’s crap.”

“Eat more protein. Small meals. Make sure you’re drinking plenty of water. And don’t lose any more weight. You haven’t started smoking again, have you?”

“No, of course not.” 

Dr. Singh eyed her doubtfully. He sighed and closed his laptop.

“I know you are stressed, but it’s important to take care of yourself at this moment. Your daughter needs someone strong in her corner.”

She braced herself for another metaphor. The ancient Egyptian myth of Osiris and his avenging son, Horus? The legend of the Phoenix, rising from the ashes to live again? The Norse hero and his lover, reborn to reunite after death?

“You’ll recall I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, to celebrate my 40th birthday.”

She did. 

“Do you know what challenged me? It wasn’t reaching the summit. Most people assume so. I uncovered the worst and best parts of myself during the physical and mental training before the ascent. I felt strongest during the climb, with two other men and three sherpas, when I challenged myself to continue in spite of the thinning air and blistered feet. Every step I took to accomplish my goal redefined who I was in a completely novel way. I felt like a man. I felt…human.”

She returned his purposeful gaze, unmoved. He sighed and looked at her sympathetically.

“I’m sorry, but we have to end early today. I promise to make it up to you. Of course, call me if anything changes. Is there anything you wish to add?”

There was. She chose her words carefully. 

“I do not matter. My girl matters. So it doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dr. Singh waited patiently to see how the woman would dig herself out of the hole she had just climbed into.

***

“I want to die.” The girl repeated the same thing every day.

“Don’t say that,” the mother whispered sharply. “Doctors take those words very seriously. I know you don’t mean it. You’ll get better,” she added.

“I don’t want to kill myself–it’s not like that. I’m just tired of feeling like this. I’ll never get better.” The girl was stubborn. “You’ll see.”

“We are doing everything we can for you,” she hissed, grabbing the girl’s hand. “But you have to try too.”

“I can’t. I’m so nauseous. All the time. You don’t know what it’s like.”

“No, I don’t. But you must try to help yourself. Look at all we’re doing for you.”

The girl looked away. The mother pressed on.

“Do you know why you’re nauseous? Your stomach shrank. You’re hungry. All you need to do is eat.”

“I can’t. I’ll throw up.”

“Or you won’t. Don’t you want to come home?”

“They need to do more tests to find out what’s wrong with me.”

There were no more tests to be done. Two days ago, the girl underwent anesthesia. Both the mother and the girl were anxious about the 45-minute procedure. They removed a small sample of her stomach lining to biopsy. As expected, it was normal. The girl awoke in recovery floating. She recounted the experience in detail with longing nostalgia.

“I fell asleep, mama, and when I woke up, I didn’t remember anything. And I wasn’t nauseous at all.”

What is worth remembering?

“I want to do it again,” she confirmed.

The mother kept her voice even, steady, and low. “Do you know where they send girls like you?”

The girl was silent.

“To the psych ward. You don’t belong here, with sick children. You’re not sick, you’re stubborn. If you can’t help yourself, even a little, they will lock you up. It’s a prison. You can’t come and go. The girls there are mean and angry. They aren’t from nice families.”

“I want to go to the psych ward,” the girl said. The mother closed her eyes.

“They’ll take care of me.” The girl blinked and began to cry.

There would be no more late night emergency room visits. The hospital is no place for her, the mother thought. I can care for her at home. She will get better there. The attending had other plans. 

“She needs to start eating and drinking before we discharge her,” he said. 

The following morning, the girl reported seeing spots. 

“I can’t see. I see light, but no shapes.”

The attending physician removed a pen light from his shirt pocket. He shined it into the girl’s pupils. “Totally normal.” He started walking toward the door when the mother tugged at his sleeve. They stepped outside. 

“Why is she seeing spots?”

He removed his glasses to wipe them on his shirt. “There is nothing wrong with her eyes. I can’t account for the visual anomalies.” 

“What about the burning in her lower abdomen?” The mother thought it best to ask more questions while she had the chance. The doctors only came around once a day.

“What burning? Nobody told me about that.” He seemed genuinely disarmed.

“I’m telling you about it now.” 

“It could be acid.”

“Like reflux, but lower?”

“Maybe. Has she tried famotidine yet? It might help.” Another medication.

“Is all of this in her head? Is any of it real?”

“It could be psychosomatic and also real. It could be both. It’s complicated.”

It was the answer to every question: It’s complicated. The doctors never said: We don’t know. If they did, there would be no more tests, no more questions, and no point to hospitalization. If they would only admit defeat,

the girl could come home, 

***

Usually, their conversations went very badly, but sometimes they each showed each other what they wanted to be seen. Driving to school one November morning, the girl tore into the woman. You’re a bad mother, everything is your fault, and what did I ever do to deserve such terrible parents? The venom stung deeply, and the woman lost all patience. It was the mother’s custom to object, deny, and declaim. But one morning, she listened to the girl without interruption. She apologized.

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t there for you when you were small, I couldn’t be. It’s not an excuse, but it’s what it was. And I know you needed me, so I am so sorry. I didn’t pay attention to you when you needed me the most.”

She knew the girl was listening, because she silently fixed her gaze out the window.

“I don’t remember anything,” she said softly. “I was too little.”

“Sometimes our bodies remember.” 

The girl could not respond. When the car stopped in front of the school, she opened the door, hoisted her backpack onto her shoulders, and turned away from her expectant mother to join a sea of children without coats.

***

The mother awoke early as she always did, at 4:30 AM. She slowly got out of bed, fed the dog, and opened the back door to the patio to let it out and cold air in. The dog then followed her back in, waiting patiently as she prepared her coffee. At 5:00 AM, she walked back to her bedroom to climb back into bed with the dog settled at her feet. They lay like this together until 5:30 AM when the woman returned to the kitchen. She removed three eggs from a carton in the refrigerator and sliced one-half tablespoon of salted butter into a hot frying pan.

The nutritional content of her breakfast was as follows: 111 calories, 13.5 grams of protein, and 10.5 grams of fat. The mother flipped the eggs as their edges crisped and slid them onto a plate. She ate standing up at the kitchen island, watching the sky outside fade from dark blue to pink and then gold. The dog waited expectantly at her feet. She wiped her greasy hands off on the dish towel hanging next to the stove before padding off once more to the bedroom to get dressed.

She pulled on a pair of old jeans and removed a black cashmere v-neck tee shirt from the top dresser drawer. It’s cold in the hospital, she reminded herself as she pulled a red cotton cardigan from the middle drawer of her dresser. I can always take it off if I get too warm, she reasoned. The mother chose a pair of particularly comfortable sneakers from the back of her closet, because the walk from the underground parking lot to the adolescent wing took at least 15 minutes when accounting for the five minutes she would invariably lose her way walking from the car to the elevators. 

The mother selected a smart navy blue pea coat from the hallway closet. She fastened the large brass buttons and turned around several times in front of the full-length mirror to admire her figure. The coat was an indulgence purchased for $300 over 20 years ago, when she and the girl’s father were dating. It still fits, she marveled. She removed a favorite lipstick from the coat pocket, a complementary shade of blood orange red, and slightly parted her lips as she applied the vibrant color. By the time she walked to the driveway, the wind had picked up. My ears will be cold, and I’ll get a headache, so she marched right back through the front door and pulled a pink beanie over her dark hair.

In the university cafe, the mother bought a cup of coffee with room for a splash of cream but at the last minute decided to drink it black and sweet. It was still hot by the time the elevator doors opened on the adolescent wing. The nurses were enjoying a good time as usual, swapping stories of misadventures from the night before. They didn’t notice the woman who confidently strode past them holding a styrofoam cup of coffee. 

In the girl’s room, the father and three masked doctors huddled around Bed Two. Her daughter’s body was shrouded in a clean white sheet. Her eyes were closed and her face was gray, but her narrow chest rhythmically rose and fell. The mother walked by Bed Two without regard and paused at the large windows. She took off her smart navy blue pea coat and draped it over the back of a chair but did not remove the pink hat. Glass panels, sunlight, and sky intersected the gleaming transparent bridge joining the wing to the main hospital. Physicians, nurses, and social workers hurried across to start their morning shifts. She smiled at the familiar sight. “I can’t tell where the bridge ends and the street begins.” The men in the room stopped talking and turned away from the girl who couldn’t eat to see what the woman saw.