My Oxford Year: A Novel

A sickle for my friend, the weary,

A sickle quick and true,

A sickle, by God’s grace in heav’n,

A sickle waits for you.

Unknown, “Fragment”

It’s the waiting that gets to me. Waiting for William and Antonia to come bursting through the door. Waiting for someone to call 999. Waiting for the medevac helicopter to come. Waiting for Jamie to get strapped to the gurney. Waiting for William to tell me what I already know, that I should go with Jamie and they’ll meet me at the hospital. Waiting while the EMTs force oxygen into my boyfriend and the helicopter finally arrives in Glasgow. Waiting in an uncomfortable chair after seeing him whisked away behind doors that shut with a frightening finality.

A lot of thinking happens while I’m waiting, but it’s not productive thinking. It’s fragmented. It’s heightened, panicked, often without context. How did this happen so fast? Thank God I threw on my robe before his parents came in. I forgot to tell the EMTs about the anemia. In and out and between these thoughts, another one keeps looping in my head, unattached to any other thread, bobbing and weaving and coming in for the occasional jab:

If he comes through this . . .

The phrase just appears and disappears and reappears again. If he comes through this. Like a pledge, a deal in the making. With whom or with what and to what end, I don’t know. If he comes through this . . .

What?

Am I bargaining? Already experiencing one of the five stages of grief?

Finally, Antonia and William arrive. They want to know everything, and I know nothing. All I can say is that he was unconscious but breathing when we arrived. They collapse in relief and I think, This is the gold standard now? Unconscious but breathing? We huddle together, a triad of hope.

Now the waiting really begins.

If he comes through this . . .

An eternity later, a doctor appears, mask hanging down at her tanned-leather throat, paper hat atop her platinum spiked hair. Her voice is Scots steel. “I’m Dr. Corrigan, I’ve been attending to James. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport?” She looks to Antonia and William. They nod. She turns to me. “And you’re . . .” She checks the chart she’s holding. “Eleanor? I’m sorry to say I haven’t much information at the moment. I’m waiting to receive his records from Oxford. The medic said that he’s just finished a drug trial?” I nod. She looks again at the chart, her crow’s-feet crinkling. “And you say he was fine last night?”

I answer. “Yes. I mean, he was warm and his breathing was a little strained, but—”

“Was he exerting himself? Doing anything strenuous?”

I pause. I don’t know if I want to go there right now.

“Doctor,” William interjects. “Any idea what this is?”

She glances up from the chart. “Pneumonia.”

All of us sigh in relief. “Thank God,” Antonia breathes.

The doctor holds up a hand, urging restraint. “It’s acute.”

“It’s not the cancer,” William says. “Pneumonia is curable.”

“Under normal circumstances, yes.”

William steals the words from my mouth. “What does that mean?”

Dr. Corrigan takes a breath. “Firstly, I’ve never seen it come on this quickly, this aggressively. Secondly, your son’s immune system is severely compromised. He’s very few resources to fight this. We’ve put him in a medically induced coma.”

“What?” For the first time since I’ve known her, Antonia looks terrified. Which in turn terrifies me.

“It keeps him from struggling,” the doctor assures her. “It gives him, and us, the best chance of fighting this.” Her tone shifts, turning more sympathetic. She must see our fear. “Please understand, it isn’t uncommon to contract pneumonia after a round of chemotherapy. It’s the severity that’s unsettling.” She looks at me and continues. “Does he drink?”

I look at Antonia and William. “Not much. But he had more alcohol last night than he’s had in months.”

The doctor considers this, then asks, “Has he had any recent exposure to chemicals? A cleaning agent? Paint thinner, glue—”

“Oh God. The floors.” Everyone looks at me. “He stripped and stained an entire floor of his house a few days ago.”

Now the doctor nods. “Did he wear a mask?”

“N-no, but we had every window open, we ventilated . . .” My voice rasps, running out of steam. I feel terrible. But why is this the sort of information you get after the fact?

“That’s quite helpful,” the doctor says, as if she’s found the missing piece to a puzzle. “The next twenty-four hours should tell us more. I’ll run some blood tests, do an MRI, a liver scan, and wait for his files. Feel free to go home and we’ll ring when we know more.”

William and I both say, “We’re not going anywhere.”

Corrigan nods once. “Then sit tight and I’ll come back as soon as I know anything.”

“Anything, Doctor. Please,” Antonia is compelled to say. I hate seeing her this helpless.

The doctor leaves.

We sit and we wait.

The waiting turns into doing. Nothing important or relevant, just doing. Go to the bathroom. Go get some gum. Go stretch your legs. We’re a constantly shifting constellation. William rises and leaves for an hour, comes back with ruddy cheeks, cigarette breath, and a newspaper. Antonia curls into a corner on the floor and pretends to sleep. I pace. Occasionally, when we cluster, we exchange words, though honestly I don’t know what they are.

Sometime in the late evening, after an hour or so of silence, Antonia says softly, “Ella? Just curious, what do your parents do?” My eyes flick to William. He gazes impassively back at me. Clearly he hasn’t told her everything he discovered about me. Probably because he’d have to admit he “discovered” it in the first place.

“My mother’s a receptionist.” I have to clear my tired, unused voice to continue. “At a medical office. My father’s dead.”

Antonia’s eyes go soft. “So sorry. I had no idea.”

“Thank you.” Her sincerity prompts me to continue. “It was quick. Car accident.”

“How awful for you.”

I’m about to say, No, not at all. It’s better that way. That’s my standard response whenever someone finds out about my father’s death. But this time it’s different. Her tone makes it feel different. Why? Before I can formulate a response, Antonia continues.

“I can’t imagine enduring the pain of death without having been able to love someone whilst they were dying.”

I’m not prepared to have this discussion. “Well, there was nothing to do about it. It’s not like you get a choice.” Antonia simply nods. “Anyway, when he was alive, he ran a bar.”

She smiles. “A bar. How fun. William’s father ran a bar.”

I act as if this is new information to me, but William says, “He was also quite community-minded, your father, yes? A politician of sorts. A bit of a cause fighter?”

Antonia looks to her husband, surprised. As do I. “Yes. That’s true.”

Antonia turns back to me, grinning. “So that’s where you get that fire from. Apple and the tree and whatnot. Do you love your job?”

I inhale to answer, but hesitate. My concept of love has so altered these past few months, I’m not sure the answer is the same as it once was. It’s complicated. Loving anything is complicated. I choose my next words carefully, as if I’m being interviewed. “I love believing in something and fighting for it.”

Antonia nods. “And are you happy?”

“Yes,” I reply, and only after it’s said do I realize it’s a rote response.

Antonia just nods again. “Very good. I’m sure your father would be proud. Every parent merely wants their child to be happy. And healthy,” she adds. “Besides, you’re keeping your father alive. In you. That’s lovely.”

Antonia goes back to fiddling with the remote for the suspended television in the corner, oblivious to the impact of what she’s said. Is that why I do what I do? Am I keeping my father alive in the only way I can?

What if he had survived that car crash, even for a day or two? What if we had talked to each other, held each other, loved each other, and then he died? Would that have made any difference? Would I be someone other than who I chose to—

My eyes catch William’s. He’s watching me as if my skull has been cracked open like an egg, my thoughts on full display.

“Excuse me?” We all turn to the voice behind us, coming from the archway at the nurses’ station. A young, petite woman in scrubs looks at me. “A Sebastian Melmoth is asking for you, miss?”

MAGGIE, CHARLIE, AND Tom have stopped by the hospital on their way back to Oxford. We stand in the warm vestibule between the double sliding doors of the entryway. They give me my suitcase, as well as Jamie’s, and I thank them. Maggie, who hasn’t stopped holding Tom’s hand (even when she keeps reaching out to hug me), says, with a tone that suggests this question has been weighing on her, “You’re not going home, are you?”

“No, I’ll stay here.” Her face lights up. She pulls me into a hug yet again and I pat her back. “I don’t need to be at Oxford until term starts.”

She pulls away and looks at me, that perpetually wrinkled brow further creased in confusion. Charlie interjects. “She didn’t mean Oxford, darling. She meant your actual home. America.”

“Oh. Oh!” I clarify, “Well, yeah, of course. In June. I have to.” They exchange a look that I’m too anxious and tired to parse. “I want to. Jamie wants me to.” I pull them all into a hug, promise I’ll update them, and watch them walk back toward Maggie’s car. “Charlie!” I call. He pivots back to me. “Please let Cecelia know what’s going on?”

He takes his phone out of his pocket and crosses back to the vestibule. He takes off his sunglasses, looking at his screen as he says, “Yes, I have her number.” He looks up at me. He doesn’t turn back to the car. His head tilts and the look in his eyes is too much.

“Don’t,” I warn, tears burning.

“About last night. What I said.”

“I know, you were drunk. Apology accepted.”

“Oh, I’m not apologizing. In the words of the immortal Piaf, ‘Je ne regrette rien.’ No.” Charlie considers his words. “It doesn’t make you weak.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Love.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes a little. “From you of all people?”

He shrugs. “You have what everyone wants. What even I want.” He helicopters his sunglasses. “I mean, not right now, but, you know, eventually. When I’m thick around the middle and thinning on top and living in”—he shudders—“the real world.”

I smirk. “And in the meantime: Ridley?”

“Who?”

I level a look at him. He smiles, slips his sunglasses back on, and looks into the middle distance. “Yes. Sure. Why not?”

IT SEEMS THAT only a few hours later Cecelia appears, bursting into the predawn flatness of the waiting room, pink-cheeked and red-eyed, her scarf trailing behind her. I look up from the book of Matthew Arnold’s poetry I found in my bag, which I’ve been reading like a Bible. I stand as she beelines for me, throwing her arms around my neck, her cheek against mine still cold from outside. I cling to her. “I got the first train as soon as Charlie phoned,” she breathes.

“I thought you had to be in Oxford?”

“This is more important.” She pulls back. “Is he all right? How is he?”

“We don’t know.”

She sees Antonia and William napping in the seats across from me, Antonia’s head resting on William’s broad shoulder, his arm around her. He’s been doing that a lot, putting his arm around her, kissing her cheek, holding her hand. I always thought Antonia was William’s keeper. Helping him through emotional moments, reminding him to breathe, taking him to task when he’d gored those around him. But I was only seeing one side of the coin. How foolish. No coin has only one side. Cecelia’s voice cuts through my musings. “How are they?” she asks.

How are they? They’re facing an all-too-familiar firing squad. My eyes fill with tears. Seeing this, Cecelia wordlessly takes my hand and leads me out of the waiting room.

Ten minutes later we’re ensconced in the cafeteria, Styrofoam cups of weak tea clutched in our hands, acting as if it’s warming us when we both know it’s not. We chat. We even chuckle. I let Cecelia’s calmness anchor me. I let her tell me everything will be okay. Even if it’s not, even if everything goes wrong, she—by her very presence—assures me that, in the end, it will be okay. She’s still here, isn’t she?

Antonia wanders into the cafeteria. She lights up at the sight of Cecelia, but her usual enthusiasm is dimmed, a soldier who, though still committed to the cause, is battle-weary. She gives a little wave as she approaches and leans down to kiss Cecelia, saying, “You’re such a dear to have come.”

“There’s no place else I’d be.”

Antonia drops into a chair. “Never thought we’d be here again so soon.” She sighs.

Cecelia presses her lips together. In her low, composed lilt, her pioneer core is on full display. “No. But we loved Oliver. And we love Jamie. And, as you’re wont to say, we carry on with it all.”

Carry on. I look to Antonia. So it’s a more personal, familial motto for Jamie than I’d assumed.

The shared silence feels almost prayerful. Finally, Antonia’s soft, warm voice says, “I can’t help but think of your words at Ollie’s funeral just now. ‘Love well those who are dying, so that they may die in love.’ In all my sadness and grief, that gave me comfort. How fortunate I was to have had that time with Oliver.” Antonia turns her eyes to me. I know she’s thinking about my father.

I never saw my dad’s body. I never even saw what was left of the car. To this day I have no actual proof that he died. Who knows? It could all be an elaborate hoax. Which is exactly what it felt like for a long time. My last memory of him is shrugging into his coat at the front door, the rattle of his keys, his voice (that fades in my memory a little more each year no matter what I do) promising to be back soon. So, I made all the rookie mistakes. I’d read something and think, Dad will love this. I’d call his cell before remembering. Then there were the dreams. He was just gone. In an instant.

Compelled, I speak. “I’ve never had that . . . time. Before. I—I don’t know . . . how—” I’m not sure if the catch in my throat is stopping me from crying or throwing up. I’m about to excuse myself before either happens, when Cecelia takes my hand. Just as Antonia takes my other one.

Sitting around the table holding hands feels tribal, ritualistic. A ceremonial ring of unity. Antonia leans in and repeats Cecelia’s words. “We carry on with it all.”

“We carry on with it all,” I repeat. Only, when I say it, I start to cry. The two women unclasp their hands from mine and place them on my shoulders.

I can’t stop crying. And I don’t want to stop.

For the first time, crying feels good.

BACK IN THE waiting room, we find William pacing. Cecelia goes to him. He hugs her (something I haven’t earned yet) and she kisses his cheek. He turns to me.

He says, “Ella, might we have a word?” and my stomach drops onto the floor.