Three Special Weeks

My wife, Helena, bought me a new shirt. It was pink, and frilled, like some guy in a Shakespeare, and it looked expensive. “Only wear it on special occasions,” she said. I hid it I the back of my closet, and mostly forgot about it, except when I saw a Shakespeare.

One day, a fine Tuesday with sunlight streaming in through the cracks in my face, I went to the doctor. Routine Checkup. I hadn’t had one in years, and I decided to give it a shot. I think it was all that sunlight, I worried I might get skin cancer, or that I might shrivel up into a little ball of dust. Routine Checkup.

When I get to the office, rich with the smell of ammonia and the sounds of keyboards clicking, I told the nurse my name. “Well, we haven’t seen you here in a while,” she said. “Ya, I normally don’t do things like this, but I thought it was overdue, and today seemed like that day.” “We get a lot of that. Balls of dust and all that. Take a seat, Mr. Klein, the doctor will see you shortly.” She returned to her typing, leaving me vexed over how she knew so much about me.

A little later, the doctor saw me. He wore glasses without frames. He said, in a voice like corrugated gravel, that I had only weeks to live. They weren’t sure what it was, but I was definitely done for.

The drive back home was, obviously, long. I pondered things, but then they got away from me, and I decided I really should be focused on driving, anyway, and I got home, dazed. I went to lie down.

If you go to my former mantle now, next to a picture of her father and mother at a Bat Mitzvah, is a picture of me, fly-fishing, in that pink shirt.