They May Not Mean To, but They Do: A Novel by Cathleen Schine Page B

would look after Aaron.
    “Well,” the doctor was saying, “we believe the other patient probably has C. diff, too.”
    “You believe ?” Molly said. “They both probably have C. diff? What if one has it and the other doesn’t? The one who has it will give it to the one who doesn’t.”
    “Then they’ll both have it,” the doctor said, his voice a little impatient with Molly’s absence of scientific method. “That’s why they’re in isolation.”
    C. diff. Joy knew she had heard about C. diff somewhere. On the radio, perhaps. Did C. diff cause a terrible odor? The smell, that was what was worrying her.
    Molly and Daniel stood together in the blue paper gowns and caps and booties, the white masks and the almost transparent gloves they had to wear in their mother’s room. It was hot in her curtained-off portion and rivulets of sweat ran down Molly’s back. The woman in the next bed, who may or may not have had C. diff, was small, even smaller than Joy. Her face was caved in around her missing dentures. Her skin was dry and yellow and mottled and tight as a cadaver’s. She looked very much like a cadaver. She nearly was a cadaver. A man, Molly presumed it was her son, sat beside her, rocking forward and back, saying, “Mommy, Mommy,” and for the first time in her life Molly wondered if it was bizarre that she still sometimes called her mother Mommy, because this man was as old as she was and he was saying Mommy and he was surely bizarre. “Nurse! Doctor! Help! Help!” he would occasionally cry out, running into the hall. He had a disturbing voice, flat and desperate and loud. “My mommy’s not answering me,” he would say, wringing his hands, when a nurse appeared. “My mommy’s not talking!”
    The nurses did not like this odd middle-aged man who behaved like a child. And they did not like coming into the room, because of the smell.
    “What is it?” they asked each time they entered.
    “What is it?” Molly and Daniel asked each other.
    Molly was glad of her paper mask. She got up to check the trash can one more time, but it was still empty.
    “What is it?”
    A strange raspy sound came from the woman in the other bed.
    “It’s a death rattle!” her son cried. “Mommy, don’t die.”
    He ran out of the room and returned with a nurse, who threw on a gown, snapped on gloves, and examined the emaciated woman.
    “It’s a cough,” the nurse said gently. “Don’t worry. It’s just a cough.” She patted him on the shoulder.
    Then she said, “What is that nasty, nasty smell?” She pulled away from him. “No wonder this poor woman is coughing.” She sniffed at him, like an unfriendly dog. “Is that your gum ?”
    “Gangrene,” Joy said.
    “Mom’s awake!” Daniel said. “Mom said gangrene! Did you hear her, Molly? Nurse? Hooray! She said gangrene!”
    The other woman’s son was sniffing at his own arm. “Bengay?” he said.
    “Bengay?” Joy said, actually sitting up. “Good god.”
    “I put it on every morning,” the son said, eyeing the nurse warily. “After my shower,” he added with sudden defiance.
    “You mean like moisturizer?” said the nurse.
    “Good god,” said Joy.
    “Bengay. That’s a new one,” the nurse said as she left the room.
    “Mom, I’m so happy to see you back to yourself,” Daniel said.
    “Welcome back to the world,” said Molly.
    “Why are you dressed like that?” Joy asked.
    “Isolation,” said Molly.
    “You can be alone even in a crowd,” Joy murmured, and fell back to sleep.
    Soon another nurse came in.
    “Sir,” she said to the man in Bengay. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m sorry, but the smell of your, um, ointment is disturbing patients and staff and visitors up and down the floor.”
    “Yes, but do you have the C. diff test results yet?” Molly asked the nurse. “I think both patients deserve to know why they’re in isolation with each other .”
    “Sir?” The nurse ignored Molly. “Sir, please go home,