Reflections From the Snow

I started by calling the Brigham and Women's Hospital HR department. But they wouldn't give out any information about employees over the phone. That didn't really surprise me, but it meant that I had to go to the place and just start asking.

I began my search with the ER. This was an emergency, after all! But no Beth Viscoli. Then I tried the patient wing. I went to each floor and asked at each nurses station if they recognized the name. There were three stations on each floor and sixteen floors, so this took quite a while. And in the end it was fruitless. I took the elevator back to the main floor, trying to remain positive. As I passed through the main lobby and saw the information desk, I thought that I would give that a try. There were several people in front of me making inquiries and I looked around the lobby as I waited impatiently. There was a tremendous bustle in the lobby: doctors, nurses, patients, visitors. This place was like a small city.

When it finally came my turn, I asked the information clerk, "I'm looking for Beth Viscoli."

"Is that a patient?"

"Um, yes."

The clerk typed the name, which then appeared in green phosphors on the terminal screen.

"Nothing, I'm sorry."

"Are you sure you spelled it right? That's Beth Viscoli, V-I-S-C-O-L-I."

"Yes, I spelled it correctly, sir."

"Oh, did I say 'patient'? I meant 'employee'. I'm looking for an employee named Beth Viscoli."

"Do you know what department she works in? I can't give out employee information, but I can connect you with her department."

"No, I don't which department she's in. If I did, I'd just bloody go there, wouldn't I?" I answered crossly.

The clerk gave me a you're-being-a-jerk look.

"Never mind," I said, and abruptly walked away.

I needed to get outside for some fresh air. I would have liked to sit down, but the best I could find was a raised concrete planter with some flowers and bushes in it. I perched on the edge of the planter, leaned forward, and put my head in my hands. I felt I was so near, but this was so daunting! And the task was clearly fraying my nerves, based on that last little hissy fit. It seemed so doable when I was just imagining it, but this place had countless clinics and offices and nooks and crannies where a nurse could be working. There was no way I would be able to inquire at all of them! They'd probably peg me for a creep before long and either throw me out or throw me in jail.

I sensed someone near me and looked up. A middle-aged nurse with a craggy face had sat down a few feet away and was fishing in the pockets of her scrubs for something. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and lighter, extracted one cigarette from the pack, lit it, took a deep drag and then let out a long plume of smoke.

"Vile habit," she remarked without looking directly at me. "You'd think a medical professional would know better."

She took another drag on her cigarette.

"Care for one?" she asked, finally looking at me as she extended the pack.

"No thanks. I'm not a smoker."

"Wise choice," she responded, burying the pack back in the pocket of her scrubs.

She took another long drag.

"You here visiting someone?" she asked me.

"Sort of," I replied. "More like looking for someone."

"Would that be Beth?" she asked casually.

I sat bolt upright like someone had sent a high-voltage current through me.

"You know Beth?" I demanded. "And how do you know I was looking for her? Can you help me find her? Where is she?" The questions poured out of me.

The craggy face regarded me coolly, then took another puff on her cigarette.

"I overheard you pestering that poor information desk clerk about a Beth Viscoli. There probably aren't too many of them around. And yes, I know her. But the more important question for me is, how do you know her?"

"We were . . . friends once, a long time ago. But we lost track of each other over the years. Our paths almost crossed recently and I'm just trying to renew the connection."

"How did you know to look for her here?" she asked.

"Well, that's kind of a long story," I explained.

"That's too bad," she replied, looking at her watch, "because my break is over in a few minutes."

I slid closer to her.

"Can't you just tell me how to get in touch with her?" I pleaded.

"Not gonna happen 'till I know more about you, sweetie. Those of us that call Beth our friend are very"-she dragged out the word 'very' for emphasis-"protective of her."

"Well, can you at least give her my phone number, let her call me?"

"Nope. I'm not going to let some obsessive jerk from her past get her all upset right now."

I replied heatedly, "I'm not an obsessive jerk! You don't know the first thing about me! How dare you . . ."

"OK, sorry, sorry! Don't get your panties all in a wad! That came out a little harsher than I intended. But you're exactly right about one thing-I don't know the first thing about you. And until I do, you're staying away from Beth."

I fumed silently for a few seconds.

"What is it you want from me then? What do I have to do?"

"Well, I think we need to have a proper chat sometime." She looked at her watch again, then dropped her cigarette on the ground and snubbed it out with her shoe. "But I don't have time for that now. Have to get back to my shift. But call me and we'll set a time to have a coffee. Call the main hospital number, then ask for extension 1467. Ask for nurse Sally. Got that?"

"Yeah, got it."

She stood and started briskly walking back to the hospital entrance. But after just a few steps she paused and said, "Oh, and it would help your cause if you could bring some evidence. Something that shows you and Beth were on good terms. Letters, pictures, something like that."

She turned to go, but hesitated and faced me once again.

"And don't bother trying to find her on your own. She hasn't gone by 'Viscoli' in years. You'd never find her."

Finally she turned and hurried back into the building.

I sat there dumbfounded for several minutes, trying to process what had just occurred. On the one hand, it seemed a miracle that a chance passerby would overhear me mentioning Beth's name, actually know who she was, and then take the trouble to follow me and talk to me. On the other, there she was acting like the gatekeeper to the fucking queen of the universe and I had to pass some test to prove myself worthy.

I shook my head in dismayed amazement. It seemed that every time I got closer to finding Beth, I really got farther away. But there was no alternative now to going through this "nurse Sally." So I turned my attention to satisfying her demands.

When I got home, I took stock of my on-hand Beth memorabilia: zilch. I did still have a lot of things in storage that I hadn't decided what to do with, but I was reasonably sure that there wasn't anything there that would be of any use, either. I needed to turn to an expert, so I called my mom.

An hour and fifteen minutes later I had a sore ear and a lot of unnecessary knowledge about our neighbors' children and dad's athlete's foot, but I had also secured a promise that she would go through my box of high school 'memories' (as she called it) and send me anything related to Beth, whom she still remembered fondly. I made her also promise to mail it to me Fed Ex Overnight. I had a little difficulty explaining the urgency of that request (and I certainly hadn't tried to explain the whole convoluted story of almost-Beth over the last ten months), but in the end I think she just kind of took my word for it.

Sure enough, three days later I came home to find a substantial Fed Ex package waiting for me. It contained my senior yearbook (Beth's remembrance simply said "You'll always have my heart.") and three photos. That was it; that's all she could find.

I looked at the photos. They were all small-3x5s or 4x6s. One I think mom herself had taken of the two of us standing arm in arm in front of my home. It was sweet. The second must have been taken at some party. It was somewhat out of focus and showed the two of us sitting on a couch laughing. I couldn't even place the event in my memory.

But the third one . . . The third one almost stopped my breath. It was taken during our ski trip. The photographer was undoubtedly Maureen. She was a real shutterbug and I remember her going through roll after roll of film on that trip. This particular photo was a close up of the two of us, cheek to cheek, somewhere on the slopes. Maureen snapped this one on the third day, the day after Beth and I first made love. You can see it in our eyes, hers green, mine green mixed with brown, burning with lovers' passion. And the smiles so intense, so profound, that the sorrows of the whole world would not have the power to break them. I remember how I felt that day. Every moment with Beth was a crucible of overwhelming tenderness, burning away every experience but the unshakeable core of our bond. I felt so protective of her that day, I would have, without hesitation, jumped into a lake of fire to protect her. And every shred of feeling we held for each other at that moment shined through our faces.

I set the photo down and fast-forwarded through my emotional life since that time. Had I ever felt that way about another woman since? I had certainly been in love with other women since then. I loved Val, my ex wife, for many years. But I don't think it was ever with the white-hot purity I felt for Beth that day, and truly, for all the days she was with me. But was that because it was Beth, or because Beth was the first, or because I was eighteen and, well, that's how eighteen-year-olds feel? Or could it be all three?

I called nurse Sally the next day and we set a meeting time for the day following. I met her at the coffee shop she had specified near the hospital.

"Let's hear your three riddles," I said, once our coffees had arrived.

"What on earth are you talking about?" the craggy face asked.

"It's an old Chinese legend. Suitors have to vie for the hand of the princess by answering three riddles. If they fail, they are beheaded."

"Sounds grim. But I hope you're fate is a little less dramatic. Nonetheless, you do have to tell me how you met your princess."

I had carefully considered how I would tell this strange, forbidding woman my history with Beth. Truth be told, I had never really shared our story with anyone beyond those who already knew us both at the time. I didn't exactly relish recounting such an intensely personal part of my life with a complete stranger. Yet, this might be my one chance to finally see Beth again. So I started from the beginning and gave her the whole story of that glorious winter and spring. I withheld a few of the more graphic details, but the gist was clear.

After I had finished, nurse Sally said, "Well, that sounds a bit more than the 'friends' you mentioned a few days ago!"

"True," I admitted. "But I didn't know you then, either. I wasn't about to rattle off some long tale about my love life to a stranger. For that matter, I still don't know you, but you've rather forced my hand. So take it or leave it."

"Fair enough," she acknowledged. "Do you have anything from Beth at that time?"

I pulled out the photo and showed it to her. Nurse Sally regarded it for a long time.

"She looks so young," she almost whispered.

"And beautiful," I added.

"Yes, and beautiful," she agreed.

"So how did you come to the conclusion that Beth works at Brigham and Women's?" she asked.

I launched into my second twisted tale, the tale of the hat and the wind, of the bartender and the note, of the disconnected phone and its mysterious owner, and of the tote bag and the shoes.

"You mean to tell me," nurse Sally said after hearing my story, "that you pieced together all those clues over all those months, just on the chance that you could find Beth again?"

I stared back at her thoughtfully for a few seconds.

"When you put it that way, it does seem perhaps exceptionally determined," I said.

"Obsessive is what I'd call it," she retorted. "Still, you've clearly got a history with her. I'll ask her if she wants to see you."

Although I was relieved to hear this news, I was also still feeling resentful of the control this woman was exerting over my life. I needed something in return.

"You can at least tell me her name," I demanded.

Nurse Sally regarded me thoughtfully, then said, "No, I still don't feel comfortable with that. Not until Beth gives me the OK. But I will solve one mystery for you. You see, Viscoli was the name of her first husband. He was quite a bit older than she, about 15 years or so. He had a son from a previous marriage, but Roger and Beth never had children of their own. Roger died in a car accident a number of years ago, and Beth eventually remarried. She goes by that name now."

"The name you won't tell me."

"Yes, the name I won't tell you."

"Well, then who is Bernard Viscoli?"

"That's Beth's step-son, Roger's son."

"Why did Beth leave me Bernard's phone number when she left her note? And why was the phone number out of service when I called it just a couple of months after she left it?"

Nurse Sally made a wry face.

"That's complicated. I'll let Beth explain that to you, if she wants to."

Nurse Sally looked at her watch.

"Time for my shift. I'll take this and show it to Beth, if you don't mind," she said, taking my photo.

"I'll want it back, no matter what!" I exclaimed fiercely.

"Don't worry, you'll get it back. Call me tomorrow, you know the number."

Two days later, I was riding the elevator to the fifth floor of Brigham and Women's. The day before, nurse Sally had said she'd meet me by the fifth floor elevators at 2:00 pm. I had tried to get more information out of her, but all she'd say is that Beth had agreed to meet me and to be there at 2:00. I was about ten minutes early, but nurse Sally was there waiting already. My breathing was shallow and my hands trembled. I felt I couldn't catch my breath.

Nurse Sally took me by the elbow and began to slowly lead me around the corner and past the nurse's station. One of the very nurse's stations I had been at just days before, inquiring for a Beth Viscoli!

Nurse Sally began to speak in a low voice as she led me.

"Now, I don't want you to be dismayed when you see her. She doesn't look her best right now."

I stopped.

"What? What are you saying? She does work here, doesn't she?"

"Yes, she does work here. She works as a nurse in the NICU."

"NICU?"

"Neonatal intensive care unit. But she's not here, on this floor, as a nurse. She's a patient."

I was stunned to silence. Once I had determined that Beth was a nurse, I had no longer considered that she might have been a patient, too.

Nurse Sally took my arm and continued to lead me and speak in quiet tones.

"She's had surgery recently and is still quite weak. So please be careful not to tire her. If I say go, you go. Is that clear?"

I nodded.

Nurse Sally steered me into a room a few steps down the hall, just a few steps from where I had stood mere days ago. The name on the door said "Elizabeth Morris."

Lying in a bed was a figure covered in blankets. Tubing emerged from machines that clicked and whirred and seemed to extend everywhere. The barely eaten remains of a meal rested on a rolling tray next to the bed. Tucked under the plate was the picture of me and Beth on the mountain.

I approached the bed. Beth's head was turned to one side on her pillow, facing away from me. She appeared to be sleeping.

"Beth, Beth," nurse Sally called quietly. "Someone's here to see you."

She stirred and turned her head towards me. Her eyes seemed to take a few seconds to focus, but then a sparkle of recognition ignited in them.

"Robbie!" she said weakly, extending her one hand and arm not encumbered by tubes. "It was you! I wasn't dreaming after all."

I rushed to her side and grasped her hand with both of mine.

"Beth, how are you? What's happened to you?"

"Oh, I must look a fright! Sally, call my makeup artist!" She gave a quiet chuckle and a smile momentarily broke nurse Sally's stern visage.

In fact, Beth's appearance alarmed me. She looked thin and drawn. Her complexion had a yellow tinge to it. She looked very, very sick.

I glanced at nurse Sally with alarm in my eyes. She raised her eyebrows and tilted her head as if to say "it is what it is."

I turned back to Beth.

"Whatever it is, I know you. I know what kind of strength you have. You can beat this."

Beth just squeezed my hand and smiled in response.

"Can you hand me that cup of water?" she asked. "I'm so thirsty. Thank you. Now, I need to hear some good news. Tell me about your life. How long have you been here?"

"I've been in Boston about ten years. I got a job with a financial services company whose headquarters is here."

"See?" she said. "I always knew you'd be successful.!"

"Well, I don't know about that," I replied.

"And to think we've been sharing the same town for all this time and never knew it! Married?"

I hesitated. "I was. Fourteen years. But it didn't work out."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. You deserve to be happy."

"Well, I'm not sure what I deserve, but I do know that being here with you makes me very happy."

Beth smiled but didn't answer.

Nurse Sally stepped up.

"Beth, sweetie, you're looking tired. Let's let you rest for a bit."

Beth nodded very slowly and closed her eyes. Nurse Sally gently took my arm and guided me to the door. Once outside, I quizzed her urgently.

"What's wrong with Beth? What's happened to her? Why is she in here?"

"Cancer," she replied. "She's been dealing with it for over a year. She went through chemo last year. In fact, it was probably around the time she stumbled across you."

"Or I stumbled across her-literally."

"Whatever the case, the original diagnosis was breast cancer, but the lesion was very small and they decided to treat it with radiation and chemo. No surgery. But recently an MRI revealed a small spot on her pancreas."

"Pancreatic cancer?" I exclaimed in dismay. I didn't know too much about cancer, but everything I had heard about pancreatic cancer was that it was pretty much a death sentence.

Nurse Sally placed a sympathetic hand on my arm, the first conciliatory gesture she had made towards me.

"It's not quite as bad as it sounds. They caught it very early. They took off about half her pancreas. It looks like they got it all. She was very lucky."

"Some luck! That poor girl!"

Nurse Sally regarded me almost with tenderness, I thought. Then she slowly shook her head.

"She still is a girl to you, isn't she? That beaming eighteen-year-old you showed me in the photo. You have to understand, she's not that same carefree youth anymore. She's not had any easy time of it. And the cancer isn't all of it. You'll have to take that into account."

"What? What else has happened to her?" I asked anxiously.

"That's not for me to say. You'll have to let Beth tell you in her own time, in her own way. Just tread lightly, that's all I'm asking. I can tell you care for her. But I'm afraid you may be caring for someone who isn't there anymore. I don't want to see you build her hopes up then dash them because she's not the fantasy you've been constructing in your mind for the last twenty years."

"I . . . I wouldn't do that!" I protested.

"I have no way of knowing that. But I can't protect her forever. At some point she has to make her own choices, take her own risks again. There is one thing that speaks in your favor, however. I haven't seen Beth's eyes light up like I saw when you stood before her, or like when she looked at the photo of you two you gave me, in a very long time. Whatever you two had, it has left a mark. Just don't waste it!"