Hutch had worked through that to the point of realizing how entirely, with a son dying four miles away, he’d spent half a night confronting himself in one more looking glass, clearer than most he’d faced till tonight. But there’s nothing else I can do for Wade; Wade’s gone past me into some new world I’ve never known—total silence or punishment or unthinkable reward. The thought gave Hutch no pain or ease; he was exhausted and ready to sleep.
The phone rang; it was three in the morning.
Wade had grown so strong in Hutch’s mind as he read through the box that, at first, he didn’t think of Hannah Bertram’s promise to call with any trouble. When he answered though, it was her unruffled voice.
“Mr. Mayfield, Wade is asking for you.”
By reflex Hutch said “I’ll be right there.” Then he needed to know. “Is he any worse off?”
“His signs have been pretty steady right along, but frankly he’s been very troubled since midnight and calling for you.”
Hutch said “You could have called me sooner,” then regretted his haste. Before Hannah could defend her choice, Hutch said “I’m sorry. You’re the person in charge.”
Hannah said “All right.” Then she paused. “Mr. Mayfield, Hannah is not in charge of this, nobody else either—not on this Earth. You come on soon or send somebody to ease Wade down.” Young as she was, her voice had the weight of a qualified judge’s bleak instructions.
Her gravity let Hutch ask a last question. “Will he make it till morning?”
Hannah said “I wish I could promise you Yes; but like I told you, I’m not the Lord.” For that last moment, she sounded no older than ten or twelve—very nearly the Lord but a year or too short.
When he’d hung up, Hutch thought next of Ann. Should he call and tell Ann to meet him there? Maybe she’d left some request of her own with a nurse or doctor. What Hannah said was, ‘Wade’s asking for you.’ Go on by yourself. If he’s asked for his mother too, she’ll come on her own.
Hutch left the box of papers on his desk and went to his bedroom to find the keys. Beside them on the bureau was a framed photograph of Wade and Grainger in the woods back of Straw’s, a small bright clearing. Wade was maybe five years old, though going on fifty with his bright-eyed somber look at the lens—eyes that were all but blazingly wide and penetrating. Grainger was already seated on a stump but in full daylight and not yet eighty; he faced whatever stood outside the frame—away from Wade and Hutch himself, who’d snap the shutter.
For an instant the picture felt like a thing Hutch should burn on the spot; its chance of giving future pain seemed too great a threat. Hutch opened the back of the frame, slid the picture out, almost ripped it longways before he stopped and—still not studying it again—brought its blank side up to his lips and touched it. Then he went toward his car, not pausing to lock the house behind him.
18
SINCE his own father’s death in a small county clinic, Hutch had dreaded every visit to any hospital. In fact he’d often shirked the visits he owed colleagues or family friends—the dingy carbolic air that signals untreatable germs in every breath, the raking white glare of inhuman light from overhead tubes, the glimpses through open doors of bald distress or the unextinguished hope in eyes that are plainly hopeless. But late as it was, Hutch got through the lobby, up the room-sized elevator and down Wade’s hallway without the sight of another live soul. Wade’s door was shut; Hutch pushed inward.
The air was pitch-dark, and the only sound was a high hiss of oxygen flowing into Wade.
Hutch paused on the doorsill, looking behind him for Hannah Bertram or anyone sane. But no one appeared; he stepped in and shut the door behind him.
No sign of life from Wade.
Hutch stood in the dark till his own eyes opened as far as they could. Gradually through the single window there came enough starlight to show the bed and a humped covered body. Hutch all but whispered “Son?”
And at once Wade’s clogged voice said “I’m dreaming.”
Hutch said “Don’t stop.” He could just see his way to the bedside straight chair. When he’d sat there silent for two long minutes. Hutch had to say “You’re sounding better.”
Again Wade answered promptly. “Better than what?”
“Than when I left you earlier tonight.”
Wade said “You never left me once.” He seemed to chuckle. “That’s been half the problem.”
Hutch knew not to probe for clarity; the drugs seemed to cast a dense mental haze and then short flicks of keen understanding. “Hannah Bertram said you were calling for me.”
“Oh Hannah—Christ, no.”
“Was she wrong?”
Wade waited a long time. “I said I was dreaming.”
“Remember what?”
“Too crazy to tell.”
Hutch said “Was I in it?”
“In it?—Lord, you wrote, produced, directed, starred, sold tickets and taffy and seated the crowd.” Even to Wade, it seemed a phenomenal burst of words to come from struggling lungs; at the end he was seized in a barking cough.
Hutch tried to keep the dream intact. “Glad I drew a crowd—hope I didn’t fail to entertain.”
Again Wade seemed to have glided away.
So Hutch stayed on in the one easy chair, trying with some success not to think or dwell on what he couldn’t change. By four in the morning, he was nearly asleep when Hannah walked in and switched on the light. It brought Hutch awake and onto his feet.
Wade seemed to sleep on.
Hannah’s small dark body in its starched white uniform brought with it an excess charge of hope—she looked that capable of healing. First she acknowledged Hutch’s presence with a duck of her chin, then went about her tasks in silence—a thermometer into Wade’s left ear, his pulse, a blood-pressure sleeve on his broomstick arm, a careful look at the oxygen gauge and the intravenous bags.
Wade still never gave a sign of awareness.
And only when she was ready to leave did Hannah face Hutch and speak in a normal voice. “His fever’s down again. You managed to ease him.”
“You’re kind to say so. He saw me come in, but since then we’ve hardly spoken.”
Hannah said “It doesn’t take words, not with most of them. They just want you here.”
“You’ve seen a lot of patients with this?”
“Ten years’ worth,” Hannah said. She barely looked twenty years old, even here. Then she glanced to see if Wade was sleeping. “Every day I feel like I need to quit. I’d rather crawl naked across an acre of rusty nails.” Her eyes plainly meant it.
Hutch said “Oh don’t”—he meant Don’t quit us here tonight.
Hannah said “It’s all I know how to do—this and one other thing: nursing burned children and that nearly killed me, eight years on the burn ward. I’m here with you both; no fear about that. You go on and sleep.” She gave a slight smile and reached for the door.
Hutch made a sign of wanting to speak with her in the hall.
But as Hannah stepped out and Hutch tried to follow, Wade said “Don’t ask that lady my secrets.” The oxygen tubes in his nostrils hissed, but they also deepened the pitch of his voice.
Hutch stopped, took Wade’s hand and gave a quick laugh. “They’re safe from me.”
Hannah was gone and the door shut behind her.
Wade said “I dreamed you were pardoning me.”
Hutch pressed his fingers lightly on Wade’s mouth. “Nothing on Earth to pardon you for.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am, absolutely.”
Wade shut his eyes. “We tried to harm you.”
“I volunteered—your family volunteers.”
“Not everybody’s family, not for this.” Wade’s two hands indicated the length of his body; it hardly raised the covers.
Hutch had heard stories of sons rejected on their parents’ doorsill and infants abandoned with this frightening scourge. He said “That’s the least of your worries, So
n. I’m a lifelong volunteer; count on that.”
Wade’s eyes stayed shut but he shook his head No. “I’m trying to get out of this thing clean.”
“What thing?”
“My life. You notice I’m dying. I’m meaning to do it on my own.” Wade faced Hutch then and started to laugh, but his breath gave out, and in ten seconds he was silent and gaping. Only when he’d drawn in a long gasp of oxygen was he able to laugh again. “I’m making a piss-poor job of bravery, aren’t I? I’m about as alone as a bitch in heat.”
Hutch had never released the boy’s hand. “You’re a man strong as any I’ve known. Fight through this skirmish and come on home. We need some time yet.”
For the first time in weeks, Wade’s eyes seemed to see his father and know him. He strained his head up off the pillow as if to reach him; then he fell back blind. “I doubt I could stand it.”
“Son, you don’t have to stand a thing. Get through this crisis, I’ll take you home, we’ll tell some stories and heal some wounds.”
Wade’s head came up again, well off the pillow; and he clamped down hard on his father’s hand. “Pardon me, sir. I need to go on.” His face said plainly that by go he meant leave.
Hutch could only say “Make your own choice.”
Wade lay back, shut his eyes, slipped his hand from Hutch’s and turned away. It was a long time before he said “Anything left of my lemonade?”
Hutch shook a paper cup on the bed stand—some liquid, no ice. “I’ll get you some ice.”
“Don’t go; help me drink it.”
Hutch moved the curved straw to the burned blue lips.
Wade took a long draw of the lemonade and strained to down it. When he turned away again, he said “Nothing wrong with that, nothing a shot of good gin wouldn’t cure—gin and bitters.”
“You want some gin?” Hutch had seldom known Wade to drink spirits stronger than wine; but if gin would ease him, he’d smuggle some in.
Wade thought through the offer like the final puzzle he’d ever confront. He whispered clearly through a withering smile. “I’ve wanted six or eight things through the years that history has somehow denied me till now.” Then his grin relaxed over half a minute into the strongest afterglow that Hutch had seen since his own father died. Wade fell asleep there.
Or fainted or died. It took a hard minute, but only when Hutch saw Wade’s throat draw the first shallow breath could he make himself leave.
19
IT was well past four o’clock in the morning when Hutch reached his car in the hospital parking deck, the scene of sporadic assaults on staff and visitors in recent years. As he opened his car door, Hutch paused to look round him in the expectation—even the chill hope—that some marauder lurked in wait, a creature starved through its whole short life and eager to spring. Quick death by knife or a merciless beating. Since Hutch had less than the average masochist’s need for damage, the thought was as new as the duties pressed from him by a son who was literally dying of love for a man who’d loathed Hutch and Ann Gatlin with a permanent fury.
There was no one in sight, no sound but occasional cars on the street; and though Hutch knew dawn would break in an hour, he was suddenly swamped by a scary loneliness, an unaccustomed fear of being on his own in the dark. Who’s awake that’ll take me in and talk? The two or three colleagues to whom he’d confided would be deep asleep. He didn’t think of trying Ann, and Strawson was more than an hour away; so he cranked the engine, paid his parking fee to a near-albino man who must have weighed four hundred pounds and drove three blocks to Maitland Moses’ small apartment in a concrete wilderness of student lodgings. Mait had told Hutch only last week that he woke most mornings at five o’clock to read and write before heading off to the printing shop where he worked a full shift three days a week as a trainee typesetter and general factotum.
Stopped at the curb. Hutch could see Mait’s two windows, curtained and black. He’s already left. Or is still asleep. Or somebody’s with him. Though Hutch had never felt drawn to Mait’s body, in the next long minute, that third possibility felt intolerable—that Mait was bedded in with a guest, either spent from sex or ready for more. In any case, in the past thirty-odd years. Hutch had never yet tracked a student to his lair for any purpose, much less a home visit in the predawn dark with no business pending. Again he tried to think of a friend who might take him in—no, none of his colleagues, all regular souls, and still not Ann. So he left the car, climbed the outside iron steps to Mait’s door and gave two firm knocks—three or four would have felt like begging. Let him come.
After an endless twenty seconds, the door cracked open three inches on an eye that might be anyone. It stayed in place, silent.
“Maitland?”
No answer.
“I’ve got the wrong door. I beg your pardon—”
“Mr. Mayfield?” Slowly the door opened farther. “Are you all right?” Mait was there in boxer shorts, his face still dazed, the skin of his chest and arms white as sheeting.
Against his better judgment, the rags of his pride, it came out of Hutch in a powerful stream. “Excuse me, friend. I need to see someone—” He broke up there; two dry sobs wrenched through his teeth, then a moan.
Mait reached for Hutch’s arm, stepped aside and pulled him in.
The small front room was all but totally dark; the air had a mordant smell of rut laid over the usual fug of young-male lodgings—a slightly sour icebox, a mildewed shower, discarded sweatpants and the clean strong chlorine smell of cum. Again Hutch knew he’d bumbled into some first overnight encounter of Mait’s (he knew the boy had been on the hunt since graduation); so when Mait bent to switch on a lamp, Hutch whispered “I’m sorry. Go back to your guest. I’m not really sick; I’ll be all right.” Even then the thought of leaving two postadolescents to root each other on a stale narrow cot felt like a grim expulsion from life, but Hutch moved toward the door.
With unaccustomed force, Mait said “Hey, you woke me up, sir. You owe me two words.” The light came on and showed the boy’s face again, still fogged with sleep but intent on facing this novelty—an uninvited senior professor, a poet of note, on his doorstep at dawn.
Mait hadn’t whispered so Hutch raised his own voice. “Two words? Help - me. Please - sir. Four words, sorry.”
Mait said “Wade’s passed away.” Despite the euphemism, his eyes were as certain as if he’d dreamt the whole rest of the day and could foretell its heavy news, this early. Except for his baggy shorts Mait was naked; he suddenly shuddered in the damp air and held himself. “I’ll go make some coffee. You sit here and rest.” He swept a clutter of books and magazines onto the bilious green shag carpet.
Hutch said “Wade’s alive. He may even have passed the crisis one more time. I just came from him; his fever’s broken. The nurse called me at three o’clock, said Wade was calling steadily for me, I rushed in and found him fairly clearheaded and breathing better. He and I managed a few sane words before he slept. Then he dropped off, I waited awhile, the nurse told me to go home and rest. But by the time I cranked my car, I felt like a drowned dog and stopped off here to see a human face. I’m all right now; you go back to bed.”
But Mait held his ground and shook his head No.
The boy’s short body—maybe five foot eight, bare chest, arms, legs—showed a lean compacted promise of competence that ambushed Hutch. In his clothes, Mait had always seemed underpowered; the teenaged doofus. But none of it’s one bit of use to me. Hutch tasted the acrid stench of that but couldn’t unthink it.
Mait pointed again to the empty chair, stepped to the dwarf kitchen behind them and started drawing water for coffee. When Hutch had followed him and sat on a stool, the boy smiled crookedly. “I do have company—can you believe it? First time in my life; let’s celebrate.”
Hutch’s first thought was Some brand of killer, some guy off the street who’d already pumped the virus into Mait. But he told himself Steady and only smiled back.
“I met
him last weekend at the new AIDS hospice. I was trying to volunteer a few hours; he’s a full-time staffer.”
“But he’s here this minute?”
“He gets a few nights off, three nights a week and one afternoon.” Mait pointed down the hall, the one bedroom. “He’s out, like a coma.”
Again Hutch felt not exactly robbed but thoroughly sidelined by young men living his old life near him. “I was hoping you could help me with Wade from here on, Mait. He needs young company to break the monotony of me and his mother.” It hadn’t been a hope till the instant Hutch said it. Though Mait had visited once or twice in the past month, Hutch hadn’t called on him for serious help.
Mait said “Absolutely” with the ready surrender and eager loyalty that nobody much past twenty-one can muster.
“Just a couple of hours every two or three days. I’ve run out of subjects that Wade hasn’t heard me preach sermons on since before he was born.”
Mait was facing the coffee machine when he said “Mr. Mayfield, how much longer has Wade got?” When he turned, his eyes belied the hardness of the question. Mait had promised to help any way Hutch needed from here to Wade’s death; how long would that be?
So Hutch tried to answer soberly. “My guess, from what I’ve read and heard, is somewhere between the next five minutes and another few months. Wade’s only got so many cells of flesh to lose; they melt off him daily. His eyes are finished, as you well know; his mind’s affected off and on; his lungs and kidneys are worn out from fighting.”
The Promise of Rest Page 19
