Last Dance, Last Chance

had always liked it, especially on hot days, but now it had a weird kind of metallic taste that stayed on her tongue as if she had licked a tarnished silver spoon.
    Ralph and Lauren ate the sherbet, too, but they didn’t find anything wrong with it. Debbie complained to Anthony that hers tasted like tin or iron or something like that, and she pushed it away half-eaten.
    He stared at her oddly as if she might be losing her mind, but he didn’t comment.
    Some time in June, Debbie realized that she was having trouble remembering things. It was difficult for her to tell one day from another; they all blended into one endless blur of feeling sick. When she was able to get out of bed, she would walk into a room in her house and then forget what it was she wanted to do there.
    One day, something happened that really frightened her. She left the house, walked half a block away, and entered the home of a neighbor she barely knew. The woman was in her kitchen and looked up to see Debbie standing there. She was startled, and Debbie was completely baffled. She had no idea at all why she was there, and she was embarrassed.
    She didn’t know what was the matter with her. She tried to figure out why she was forgetting so much and why she felt so sick all the time. Maybe that was what pancreatitis did to you. But if she really had an inflamed pancreas, surely Anthony would know. After all, he was still a doctor—at least in her eyes. If she had something really wrong with her, Anthony should be able to figure it out. But he didn’t seem to have any answers either.
     
    Anthony had moved the last of his belongings back to the Pignataro home in West Seneca as Buffalo baked in early summer. Debbie had marked the date—June 30—on her calendar. Then, she had expected everything to get better. But her condition had only deteriorated. She had worked just three or four days during the first week of July and then become far too sick to go in.
    Although she was having trouble walking, Debbie sometimes managed to fix a light breakfast for Lauren and Ralph, but only dry cereal and orange juice. The thought of anything heavier made her nauseated. Most of the time, Debbie ate nothing for breakfast, but sometimes she tried to drink orange juice. It tasted like metal, too, and she spat it out.
    She looked at the carton, and it wasn’t outdated. It was the same orange juice she always bought at Tops or Wegmans. But it tasted so odd. Once again, Debbie complained to Anthony that everything tasted funny to her.
    And once again, he stared back at her, saying nothing, as if she wasn’t making sense. Maybe she wasn’t.
    When doctors or attorneys asked her later about what happened in July and August 1999, Debbie looked at them blankly. She simply could not access many of those memories. She didn’t remember what happened. Again and again, her answer was “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember.”
    Fortunately, other records existed. Her physicians’ files showed that on July 21, Debbie was back in the hospital. This time, the diagnosis of pancreatitis was firm. She had all the symptoms: nausea, severe stomach pain, and noticeable bloating of her abdomen. She was very, very ill.
    But Debbie shook her head when doctors asked her what she had eaten. She couldn’t remember. The month of July was one long gray mystery to her. She didn’t know what she had eaten, or what Anthony, Lauren, and Ralph had eaten. Her mother came on weekends and cooked, and Anthony cooked every night.
    When asked if she cooked supper, Debbie said no. She didn’t know if the family had pasta or fish or meat, or if Anthony made the children sandwiches for lunch. She had no idea what she herself had eaten. “I was not at the dinner table…I was upstairs in bed.”
    Pressed, Debbie thought she might have eaten soup or perhaps crackers. She thought it might have been Lipton’s chicken noodle soup, the dehydrated kind that came in a package to be added to boiling water. She liked that brand, and it was easy to fix. How many times had she eaten it? “I don’t know,” she said wanly. “I don’t remember.”
    Debbie did recall one day in July because Anthony was nicer to her than he had been in months. “I came downstairs to make myself some soup, and he said, ‘No, no—I’ll do it,’ and I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘No, you go lie down. I’ll do that for you.’ I asked him, ‘What’s the change? Why are you doing this?’ And he said, ‘I can’t