The Glass Factory by Kenneth Wishnia Read Free Book Online Page B

say our prayers and I’m tucking her in and kissing her on the forehead she tells me:
    “I don’t have any balloons.”
    I look around. “No, you don’t.”
    “Where are the balloons?”
    “What balloons?”
    “The balloons from my birthday!” Like it should have been obvious.
    “Your birthday’s not coming for another three months. Maybe we’ll celebrate it in Ecuador.”
    “With balloons?”
    “I hope so.”
    “I only get one birthday,” she says.
    “What do you mean, only one birthday?”
    “Rosita has two.”
    Of course. Rosita still has favors pinned to her message board from her last two birthday parties. I try to explain to Antonia that we each get one a year, and that she’ll have lots and lots of birthdays, my sincerest hope, but she is not convinced.
    I stroke her forehead until she sleeps. All our problems should be so ephemeral. Where are the balloons of yesterday’s birthday parties? They fade from glory faster than cut flowers, limp, rubbery and lifeless within twenty-four hours. Then I think, hell, most men get that way within twenty-four minutes. But balloons aren’t as much fun. Generally.
    Sweet dreams, my child.

    The hospital sure makes me feel young again. Elderly patients crammed elbow to elbow in the hallway watch me hungrily as I walk past them to check in. I haven’t exactly thought of myself as being enviable, but I can see by the lost looks in their watery eyes that my youth is something desirable to them, and gone forever. But I doubt any of them would be willing to trade with me.
    The clerk punches my name into the terminal, confirms my appointment and tells me to have a seat. Fifteen minutes later a nurse leads me to a spotless examination room with floor-to-ceiling windows flooding the place with light. It’s certainly an improvement over the last place I was examined in. Her tag says Dora. Dora records my weight, blood pressure, temperature, then instructs me to strip into a hospital gown and wait. Vertical blinds make for privacy, so why do I feel so aware of all my scars as I unclothe my imperfect body—my thighs are holding up, but my postpregnancy abdomen will never be completely flat again—and suddenly feel cold, barefoot and barely wrapped in a thin piece of cotton cloth? The forensics microphone hanging from the ceiling doesn’t help any.
    I’ve got a few minutes alone with nothing but my own ugly thoughts that I keep at bay by focusing on the room’s blandness. I think the Zen Buddhists would call it emptying your mind, or something like that. Soon the doctor comes. He’s maybe a couple of years younger than me and a bit taller, with dark curly hair and a long, roundish nose.
    “Ms. Buscarsela?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’m Dr. Wrennch. So what can I do for you today?”
    “I want you to have a look at my lungs.”
    “Oh, I need a parental signature for that—unless you can prove you’re over twenty-one.”
    “Thanks.” He probably says that to all his terminally ill patients.
    “Seriously, what’s the problem?”
    “Don’t you have Dr. Chu’s report?”
    “Sure. I want to hear it from you.”
    I tell him more than I’d tell some friends. Five years as a beat cop for the NYPD. Stress, family tragedies, love life disasters, all greased with the abrasive salve of booze and pot in quantities known to cause abnormalities in lab animals, and no solution. Then control, not cold turkey, but managed, like a slow-burning fire. But too late. Not before a corporate murderer I was tracking tried to sear my insides out with a barrel of cyanide vapor.
    “Is there any history of cancer in your family?” he asks.
    “I don’t know. Records are pretty spotty.”
    “What did your mother die of?”
    “Witchcraft.” That raises an eyebrow. “I was just a kid. All the villagers said she was bewitched by my father’s mistress.”
    “Oh. Uh, and what about your father?”
    “I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.”
    “Oh …”
    “Not your typical patient,