Lunch

My husband had something important to teU me. He phoned me at 11:30 and asked could I meet him for lunch in an hour. He had never before, not in eight years of marriage, asked me to meet him for lunch. Not only that, but his voice was flat, businesslike. It had no emotion in it, no spin, no clue ofany kind. But I didn't hesitate. I didn't balk. I didn't say the babysitter hadn't come, the plumber was coming to fix the drip in the outside faucet, I had a dental appointment later, I had no gas. I didn't even ask what was up. I simply said,Yes. He was surprised, I could teU, because he asked me again, as if I hadn't heard him right:Was I sure? 12:30? I could make it? I simply said,Yes, again. I noted but did not to stop to dweU on the coincidence that I was ready to go. I was already wearing my best jeans, my good white T-shirt, and had even, for some reason, put on a scarf that morning, as if I were going out. My shoes were black loafers I knew he didn't like, but I didn't change them. I just hung up the phone, turned offmy computer, stood in the middle my basement office for a moment to consider the appropriateness of my attire, drove to the hospital, parked in the paying parking garage, walked down one flight, remembered my way to the doctors' lounge, as I trusted but was not sure I would, since I had not waited for my husband in the doctors' lounge since before we were married. It hadn't changed. Once there, I sat down so as not to be conspicuous, waited exactly five minutes, and then walked silently through a back corridor ofthe hospital with my husband, who took my hand and held it like he used to, Uke he did when we first met, when he would hold my hand as if he would never let go, as if harm might come to it ifhe did, as ifit might fly away if he let it. He stopped in the haU and talked to a doctor, a woman, about a patient, and didn't introduce me. When we started going again, he didn't say anything about her, or the patient, and I didn't ask. He just took my hand again 2 Fourth Genre and then, instead ofthe basement cafeteria lunch I was expecting, he led me to a smaU delicatessen on a balcony overlooking an atrium, in what must have been a new wing, and in the center ofwhich was an up and down escalator . He found an empty table. I sat down. He asked what I wanted. I said to get me anything. He left and came back empty-handed. He said he didn't see anything he knew I would like and maybe I should go myself. I usually eat white things: chicken or fish. Or salad. I almost never eat meat. He almost always does. But I simply asked, "Did they have pastrami?" and he nodded, raising an eyebrow as he did, and I said, "Then FU have a pastrami sandwich and a Diet Coke," and he left and came back with two pastrami sandwiches and two Cokes, one regular, one diet. As soon as I sat down, I looked over the balcony at the up and down escalators . I watched flowers going up, flowers going down. They could be for anything: to celebrate a birth, sympathize with a broken leg, console an almost certain death.There was probably even a florist right in the hospital. This was a world complete in itself, a world you wouldn't need to go outside of, for anything. Even when he came back, and we began to eat, I couldn't stop watching the escalators. People going up, people going down.Young women in white coats like my husband's.Young men with their shirts tucked in waving to each other. People alone. Everyone was nicely dressed and I wished I were part ofit. I thought how...