There When You Need Him

These panic attacks started four days ago right after a routine pelvic exam when my usually breezy family doctor frowned, bit her lip and asked if I’d been having any problems. I shook my head, then remembered some infrequent cramps and occasional, minor bleeding I’d attributed to stress.
“I’m concerned,” she said. “The left ovary is enlarged. That could be due to several things, so I’m referring you for an ultrasound.”
Through my shock I managed to ask, “Is it serious?”
“Let’s see what the ultrasound tells us.”
“Do you think it’s cancer?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s best to wait and see what the test results show.”
The ultrasound, just yesterday, was thirty minutes of cold, grainy whispering against my skin, conducted in silence except for ominous clicking and the technician’s directions to move or turn or breathe. When it was finished, no smiling radiologist entered the room to reassure me that the shadows on the screen were nothing to worry about. Instead, the technician, as she was wiping the gel off my belly in long hard swipes, suggested in a professional tone that I go back to the waiting room to make an appointment with my family doctor to discuss the results. She briefly met my eyes, her face a blank. I nodded, convinced she’d seen something seriously wrong inside me. Could she hear the grinding in my stomach? Could she smell the fear dripping down from my armpits? Knowing better than to beseech her for some forewarning, any clue, I dressed and left.
During the past several days, the panics have become a frequent, unwelcome companion. I sit on the deck in this one’s aftermath trying to roll the tension out of my shoulders when—damn it!—I notice another person sitting nearby. He’s at a table in the shade, so it’s hard to see if he’s looking at me or minding his own business. Embarrassed, I fuss with my hair clip, pick a few threads of long brown hair from my blouse and brush some lint from my grubby jeans. I hope my panic had not been too obvious. But now he’s up and walking toward me. Does he think something’s wrong? Have I made a fool of myself?
The man, a stranger, stops at my table.
“Emily?” Before I can overcome my surprise, he says, “I’m sorry. You are Emily Cole, aren’t you? You’ve done field work for the Red Cross?”
“Well . . . yes, that’s right. I’ve volunteered for disaster work. I’m a public health nurse.”
“Sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Theo Brown, a photojournalist. We were both in Los Angeles, two years ago, at the Big One.”
“The Big One? Oh, of course, you mean the earthquake in ’94.”
“Yeah, there was a lot going on, and you were focused on getting victims sorted out for help, so you probably don’t remember me. I was doing a piece on the search dog handlers.”
I study him. He’s on the short side, maybe five and a half feet tall, and a little soft around the middle—pudgy, even. Yes, I think I’ve met him somewhere. “You do look familiar, but I’m sorry I don’t remember you from L.A.” He places just the fingertips of one hand on the table, which I take as an unspoken request to join me. “Yes, please sit down.”
Now I’m sure I’ve seen him before. I know his face. His eyes are a dark, shiny brown and round like buttons—maybe a little too close together—and his hair is a thick, brown, brush. He hasn’t shaved in a couple of days. His scruffiness appealing, and he has a quality of being present: a quiet attentiveness and an economy of movement.
“Thanks,” he says, and slides onto the chair across from me.
“So you were on site for those quakes?” I asked, choosing our shared experience for conversation. “That was a terrible disaster. I flew in before the aftershocks were done and the earth was still shifting. I remember thinking at the time I was in some premonition of hell—the heat of the fires, and that thick yellow dust in the air? People were bleeding and in shock and came to our tent stumbling over broken-up concrete and splintered glass that used to be buildings.”
“Yes,” he says, “There was all of that, and later on, after the victims were brought out, I remember the quiet. It was eerie. No traffic, no birds, not even rats. Just the shifting rubble and search personnel calling to each other and the panting of the dogs.”
I nod, holding my memories of that disaster in a silent moment, then ask, “What are you doing here, in this little burg? No important stories here.”
He regards me for a brief second, and I’m sure I hear my name whispered (“Em-my. . .”), but it must have been the sound of a crow pushing off into flight from the pines, and I realize he is saying, “Hmm, me . . . Well, I’m just passing through on my way to go up north and shoot some of the Fall colors.”
I realize that while talking with this man, I’ve felt calm, distracted from the churning hole of fear. I want him to stay, to keep me distracted. “So, Mr. Theo Brown, how do you like being a photojournalist?”
“Oh, I like it a lot. I get to travel, meet interesting people. But what about you? The disaster work? It must be hard to face all the destruction, people’s lives overturned.”
“What?” I laugh. “Are you setting up an impromptu interview for your next magazine piece?”
“No.” He smiles. “Sorry if I came off like that. No, just curious.”
“Fine, I’ll answer your questions, but the minute you drag out a camera, all bets are off.” He chuckles, turns his face toward me. I’m taken by how gentle his eyes are and by the laugh lines stitched around his mouth.
He whispers, “I knew you when . . .” I blink, startled, but then realize he’s saying, “What drew you in? . . . To disaster work, I mean.”
I give him the standard, but true, answer. “For me, personally, helping others in such extreme need makes me feel I make an important difference in people’s lives, that what I do matters.”
Theo nods. “But there’s more, isn’t there?”
His question is surprising, insightful. “You want to know what’s under all that fine altruism, right?”
He doesn’t speak or move, but the intensity of his listening creates a charged aura that encloses us both. I tell him more of the truth.
“When I work a disaster, especially when I’m on-site, there are times—maybe just a few moments now and again—when I feel stripped and clean, like I have no past, no weight . . . And I’m so aware, deliberately pushing through each second . . . I feel powerful.”
I raise my chin at him, defensive about revealing so much of a private joy. But this Theo Brown, he has a steadiness. He meets my eyes.
“I know that feeling,” he says, “but aren’t you ever scared?”
“Yeah, I’ve been scared. But you’re not much use for helping people if you can’t keep going even though you’re afraid. Like during the Mississippi flood in ‘93, I was plenty scared. We were working right next to the levees, and they were failing all up and down the river. We were on low ground and could have been swept away.” I pause, remembering the river rumbling through the din of the rain, a huge fog of sound, and the terrifying glimpses of the frothing Mississippi uprooting and carrying off chunks of abandoned lives.
“Theo, right at first, I was so scared I could barely hold a pencil for the paperwork and my voice shook so much I just pointed and pushed to get people triaged and lined up for the trucks to take them to safety.”
“What did you do about being so afraid?”
“Well, I did what I’ve always done. I had a plan—something to do, steps to take. The triage plan is an example. I have to evaluate basic needs, and how emotionally stable people are, and then arrange to get them where they need to go.”
“Figuring out a plan. That works for you?”
“Yeah, it keeps my mind occupied, right? Then I feel like I have some control, and that’s how I keep from being too afraid. Kind of a pathetic bravery, really, but it works.”
Theo appears lost in thought as he traces the grain of the wooden table with his fingertips. “But there’s no one to be with you to help with the fear?”
His question seems odd to me, but then he doesn’t know how much I value self-reliance. I think of a way to explain. “Since you seem to be so interested, let me tell you something that happened to me when I was a kid.”
He glances up.

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