Twelve Patients: Life and Death at Bellevue Hospital by Eric Manheimer Page A

until she turned ashen and her skin was ice cold.
    “Dr. Eric, we know each other. I met you years ago at Bellevue, first in the coffee shop and then after my mother’s operation.” I thought back and tried to fix Lila and her mother in my mind, but nothing came up.
“Lo siento, Lila, mi memoria me falla.
My memory fails me.”
    “I heard you were very sick yourself,” she said quietly and knowingly. I had not expected that the neural networks transporting news of my life traveled to the amygdala of central Brooklyn.
    “First we met in the coffee shop. Danny was serving both of us across from each other. He told me you were
el jefe
, the chief, and I apologized and interrupted your lunch to ask a favor.” Lila smiledeasily and widely. I started to remember a little about the long-ago lunch. Her mother needed surgery for a major problem. It was elective yet it was not elective—meaning that you would die without the surgery, and you had a high percentage of dying with the surgery. I had brought up the case with Greg, the head of cardiovascular surgery. He had personally sewn in the double valves and bypassed the diseased coronary arteries. She’d had a rocky post-operative course but then one day turned the corner. A few days later I saw her walking down the hall with her son on one arm and on the other a daughter. This was Lila, that Lila from many years ago. “You helped my mother. What can I do for you?”
    She made me a thick espresso from a silver stovetop aluminum coffeemaker and loaded a tiny cup halfway with sugar. She set a plateful of cookies and cakes on the table. We both took our seats, and she listened intently as I began to talk.
    “So Tanisha or Tani has one chance left as best we can determine.” I pulled out the drawing she had given me a few months earlier. It covered most of the table; we moved the plates and cups to the sink. “This is one of her dreams of Mochi in La Republica. Your mother’s hometown and where you grew up before coming to New York City. Tani has adopted the stories and the town and the animals as her own. She has dozens and dozens of stories, names, people, events, miracles, births, funerals, crazy people. She knows more about
el cabrón Trujillo
and his henchmen than anyone I know, myself included. It is as if your mom were an oracle and Tani, her amanuensis. She took copious notes in her head and never forgot so much as a flavor. She is now writing it down and putting it into pictures, into art.” I stopped, exhausted from the emotional drain of communicating everything I needed to—not forgetting anything and yet not overwhelming Lila. I had to be fair about all that Tani had been through. Lila was an adult who had lived in the real world and had no pretense.
    “You cannot live without love, Eric. It is not possible. Animals need to be loved, and especially people. People don’t need money to be successful. There is a lot of confusion today about this. My family all lives within three blocks of this apartment. My mother and father livedacross the street. We saw each other all the time and stayed in touch constantly.” Her phone had gone off at least fifteen times during the visit. She would check the number and hit Hold. Only when her husband called did she say, “
Mi amor
, I will call you back after
el doctor
leaves.” Her philosophy was very simple and direct: You loved other people and were loved back. Both were necessary. She was explaining to me how her world worked.
    I had my brown leather briefcase with me; I had left it with my jacket in the living room. I got up now and brought it to the kitchen table. I took out a black journal and put it on the table. “
Lila, Tani ha estado escribiendo un diario de su vida. Ya van cinco tomos.
” Tani wrote a diary of her life; she has completed five of them. “
Por favor
, this journal is about her time with
Abuela
Lola. Her memories of the life your mom lived in DR, the tales she told to the children living with