“Dad?”
He opens his eyes to see Casey standing over his bed, holding a bottle of Diet Coke with a chewed straw sticking out of it.
You called me Dad.
“Can you talk?”
I’m fine, Casey.
She turns to Denise, alarmed. “Why can’t he talk?”
Denise leans over him and says, loudly, “Silver, can you talk?” like he is a three-year-old. She used to talk to the Mexican gardeners like that too.
Of course I can talk. This is me, talking.
Denise stands up and positions her face right in front of his. “Blink if you can understand me.”
What the fuck, Denise?
“I’m going to get Rich,” Casey says, running out of the room.
“You’re OK,” Denise tells him, but she’s looking at him with that old familiar gaze, the one that says that, to no one’s great surprise, you’ve gone and shit the bed again.
* * *
They met at his cousin Bruce’s wedding. She wasn’t the most beautiful bridesmaid, that was Andrea Lumane, whose plum-colored gown clung to her like shrink wrap, and whom the photographers followed around the reception as much as they did the bride herself. Neither was Denise the runner-up. That honor went to Hannah Reece, who could have sailed through on her unassailable cleavage alone. But Denise was a strong third place, maybe a bit plain-looking, but her soft features had a certain understated elegance, and her smile was full and honest. She seemed like someone who could laugh at herself, which was a trait he looked for in the women he attempted to date. It made it less likely that they would laugh at him.
So he downed a few shots to tranquilize his innate introversion, fixed his wild mane of hair as best he could, popped a breath mint, and then boldly sat down in the empty seat beside her.
“You look like you could be having a better time,” he said.
She had been a bridesmaid one too many times, and was drinking more than she generally did, more than he would ever see her drink again. She was tipsy, funny, and he knew, within the first ten minutes of talking to her, the way a man knows only when a woman lets him, that if he listened and nodded sympathetically, and danced all the slow dances with her, that she’d let him be the one to peel off that ridiculous dress when the wedding was over. The reception was at the Hilton, and for the sake of convenience, she had booked herself a room for the night, which meant no car ride during which she might sober up and reconsider.
So they danced, and he made her laugh with his moves, and refreshed her drink just the right amount to maintain her buzz without crossing over to staggering drunkenness, and a few hours later, after only some minor awkwardness, they were in her hotel room, where she fucked him with a drunken energy that bordered on anger before passing out facedown on his belly. And seeing her like that, vulnerable and spent, awoke something in him, and he studied the graceful slope of her spine down to the roundness of her ass, the smoothness of her skin, the way her small breasts held their own in pretty much any position, and he decided that hers was a beauty that revealed itself in stages, and congratulated himself on discovering it and getting laid at the same time.
He had planned to leave in the morning before she woke up, but by the time he opened his eyes she was already in the shower, and it seemed inexcusably rude to leave while she was there, somehow not at all the same as her waking up to find him gone, although he couldn’t have said why. So he stayed for breakfast, and she told him she was getting her real estate license, and he told her about his band, and he was inordinately touched by the fact that she wasn’t bemoaning their night together and saying things like “I never do this” or “I was so wasted,” which he would have taken personally. So sex led to a relationship, and the relationship led to a marriage, and the marriage to a baby, and only after it was too late did he realize the die had been cast all because she woke up before him, and that he’d fallen for her largely because she didn’t regret sleeping with him. Which, in time, she most definitely would.
CHAPTER 14
The doctor who tells him he is going to die is the same man who will be marrying his ex-wife in two and a half weeks, which is either poetically just, or at least the sort of karmic fart that is emblematic of his life these days.
Rich Hastings is a tall, thin man, with a narrow face and bushy eyebrows that offset his receding hairline and make him look like a thoughtful owl. He is the one who bought Casey her car and will be paying her college tuition. He has not only replaced Silver as husband and father to his own family, but clearly fills that role better than Silver ever could. And yet Silver finds it impossible to dislike him, and not for lack of trying. He has expended no small amount of energy trying to cultivate a healthy disdain for Rich. But there is just something too innocent about him, something that defies cynicism. Also, he just seems to like Silver so damn much, and that is a rare trait indeed. And even now, as Rich tells him he is going to die, Silver can’t find it in himself to resent him.
“You have an aortic dissection,” Rich says, his voice low and grave.
“I don’t know what that means.” Silver’s ability to speak has returned, although the words still sound a bit funny to him, alien, hanging in the air until they lose their meaning.
Rich holds up his scans, not so much to show him the colorful nonsense as to hide behind it.
“There’s a tear in the inner wall of your aorta.”
“Well, that can’t be good.”
“It’s not.” Rich puts down the papers. “Your blood rushes into the tear, filling the wall, causing the layers of your aorta to separate and expand. This is also called a dissecting aneurysm.”
“Don’t people die of aneurysms?”
“Yes, they do. But you caught a break here. The TIA tipped off the ER doctors, who did an MRI and found the dissection.”
“Rich.”
“Yes?”
“You have to stop speaking doctor.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, Silver.” And he is. The remorse cuts deep furrows in his wide forehead, making his eyebrows flex like caterpillars. When Casey was little, Silver would read a book to her about a caterpillar. The caterpillar would eat its way through fruits and vegetables and, ultimately, through the hard pages of the book. Casey found it hysterical. Silver never really got it, but he loved the unfettered way she laughed.
“A TIA is a transient ischemic attack. A ministroke. It’s why you briefly lost the ability to speak.”
“Oh.”
“The blood running into the tear has distended your aorta, which can sometimes cause small clots to form. When those clots break off and get up into your brain, they can impair various functions.”
Silver takes a minute to absorb this news. He imagines his aorta, like an unspooled garden hose, bent and torn. It feels right to him.
“So, am I going to die?”
“No!” Rich says emphatically. He gets to his feet. “We caught this in time. You need emergency surgery, but when we’re done you’ll be good as new.”
“Just like that.”
“Well, I don’t mean to minimize the risks of surgery, but you’re young and healthy—”
“I have an aneurysm. I just had a ministroke. I don’t feel healthy.”
“Well, yes, obviously. What I meant was, you’re a perfect candidate for the surgery. I’d like to operate first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You’d be the one operating?”
“Yes.” He considers Silver for a moment. “Would that be an issue for you? If it is, I could refer—”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“I wouldn’t want anyone else.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“If I was having the surgery. Which I’m not.”
That shocks Rich, almost as much as it shocks him. Rich’s eyes gr
ow wide with concern. Rich is a good person. Silver would like to punch him.
“Silver, without this surgery, you will die.”
“When?”
“That’s impossible to predict. But your aorta will ultimately rupture, I guarantee it.”
“I understand. Thank you.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“I’m smarter than I look.”
Rich looks around the room, at a loss. Without realizing it, he turns in a complete circle, looking for an answer. He wasn’t on call today. He has come in for this.
“You have a daughter, Silver.”
“And she has you.”
Only when he sees Rich shake his head sadly does Silver realize he said it out loud. There is something about being around nice guys that brings out the asshole in him.
“I’m sorry, Rich. I didn’t mean it like that.”
Rich nods, accepting the apology. “Listen,” he says. But Silver can’t. He knows Rich is still talking, but his words are congealing into gibberish and fading to background noise. All he can hear is the ringing in his ears, scrambling his brain, and he closes his eyes and disappears into the soft angry noise.
* * *
He loved a girl named Emily. A lifeguard. She had wavy dark hair that always looked like she’d just stepped out of a light wind, and the first time they kissed it happened like this. They were in his car, hugging good-night. They had already established a manifesto of reasons why they could not get involved, reasons based largely on geography and chronology that they’d already talked to death. So she kissed his temple, and he kissed her cheek, and then they hugged some more. He could feel her shaking, could feel her smooth face moving against his rougher one, her fingers moving in his hair, their lips sliding along skin until their searching mouths could feign surprise at stumbling upon each other. And then, with gasps and groans, they surrendered to the hot wetness of their bad idea. There were reasons they could never be together, insurmountable obstacles he can’t recall anymore, but all they could have were those sweet, urgent, endless kisses, night after night, tormenting him with a perfect, unsullied love he would never be allowed to keep.
CHAPTER 15
He is vaguely aware, over the next few hours, of the quiet bustle of a small crowd swelling and dispersing in the hospital room. His parents are there, perched against the windowsill, quietly watching, as if from the balcony seats. His perfect brother, Chuck, three years younger, moves in and out of the room, distributing snacks and refreshing his parents’ coffee. Denise stands out in the hall talking on her cell phone, maybe dealing with final wedding arrangements. And Casey sits alone in the corner, curled up into the only available chair, one leg slung haphazardly over the armrest. She is staring sullenly at him with red eyes and a poker face. He feels the need to apologize to her for something, but then, isn’t that how he always feels when he sees her? Still, the general sense he gets is that he has pissed everyone off. Again.
“He’s up,” Casey says.
Ruben and Elaine perk up. Chuck puts down the packaged sandwich he was about to eat. “Hey,” he says. “We were worried about you.”
“Why are you here?” Silver says.
Chuck looks concerned. “You’re in the hospital,” he says, slow and loud, like Silver is an elderly man.
“I know that,” Silver says. “I’m just wondering why you’re here.”
“You’re my brother,” Chuck says.
Silver shrugs. “We’re not really that close.”
Chuck looks instantly offended, and Silver wonders to himself why he just said that. But before he can think it through, Denise comes back into the room with Rich in tow. She looks good, Denise, in her simple black sweater and jeans. Even in his benumbed state, he feels a pang, a dull blade scraping him somewhere soft.
“So,” she says sternly. “Are you with us, Silver?”
Something is different. He can’t isolate it, but everything feels fresher, more immediate. The sound of Denise’s voice, the hospital smells, the hum emanating from the fluorescent lights in the fixture above his bed.
“I could use some water,” he says.
“You could use some surgery,” Denise says. “Tomorrow morning, at eight. I’ve canceled our dinner plans so that Rich can get a good night’s sleep.”
“I’ll be in top form,” Rich says with a smile.
“That was nice of you.” Denise is tan, and her skin seems to be glowing in the stark whiteness of the room. Her teeth look whiter than before, and he can’t tell if it’s the contrast to her tanned skin, or if she maybe had them whitened in anticipation of new wedding photos.
“So, you’ll have the surgery?” his mother says.
“No.”
Denise snorts and shakes her head, on behalf of the room. “You’re being an asshole, Silver.” To the untrained ear, she might sound pissed, but he can hear the concern in her voice, the residual love that still pisses her off and pathetically warms him.
Casey brings him a plastic cup of ice water. He drinks it down in two greedy gulps and then savors the feeling of a few smaller ice cubes melting against his tongue. He has never really appreciated the way things can melt in your mouth, effortlessly altering states with the heat of your tongue.
He looks at Denise. “Did you have your teeth whitened?”
“What?” she says, blushing through her tan.
Her teeth are white, her skin is tan, and her eyes are bluer than they are in his memories. She’s beautiful in a way that hurts.
He notices that everyone in the room is staring at him, their expressions a mix of chagrin and concern, as if they can hear what he was thinking, and that’s when he understands that he has said these things out loud.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Silver?’
“I have an aortic dissection.”
“No, I mean, why are you saying these things?”
Rich clears his throat. Then he steps over and shines a penlight into Silver’s eyes. “He may be having a TIA.”
“That’s a ministroke,” Silver explains to Casey, who is standing beside the bed, looking worried. “Don’t worry, honey. I’m fine.”
“You’re so not fine.” Casey.
“Talk some sense into him.” Elaine.
“You need this surgery, Silver.” Rich.
Silver looks at Denise, who has fallen strangely silent. “I miss having sex with you. The way you would kiss me after you came.”
“Holy shit!” Casey.
“Jesus Christ, Silver!” Denise.
“He can’t help it.” Rich.
“I always figured we’d end up back together.” Silver.
“Dad, stop!” Casey says, her eyes filling with tears.
He doesn’t know why he’s saying these terrible things. Or why it is they’re so terrible. Something is different. On some level, he knows he’ll regret the things he’s said; he may already be regretting them somewhere, but something has changed, he doesn’t know what it is, and he’s powerless against it.
“I’m sorry, Case. I’m sorry for everything. I was a shitty father—”
“Just stop talking!”
“Can’t you give him a shot?” Denise.
“His vitals are stable. There’s no reason to sedate him.” Rich.
“Are you hearing him?!” Denise.
Silver looks at Casey, and now he can feel his own hot tears, running down his face. “I wasn’t there for you, and you needed me to be. I wanted to be, but seeing you just hurt so much. I would look at you, and I would just want to be back there, and I couldn’t be back there, so it just got easier to stay away.”
“Silver, please . . .”
“And now you’re all grown up, and my little girl is gone.”
“I’m still here.”
Casey closes her eyes, mortified. “Fuck, Dad.”
She called me Dad, he thinks.
“What?” Denise.
There is a moment of stunned, blessed silence, and then the room explodes.
* * *
For a while there is a good deal of crying and yelling, worthless questions and regrettable responses that lead to more yelling. Then, during an accidental lull, Ruben clears his throat in a way that immediately commands attention; you spend enough time up on the pulpit, you develop these tricks. Within moments, he has ushered everyone out of the room and into the hall. He closes the door and pulls the chair over to Silver’s bed, then fixes his son with a grave smile, rubbing his small black yarmulke back and forth across his head in a motion so familiar it instantly brings a lump to Silver’s dry throat. Then he nods a few times, to Silver, to God himself, maybe.
“So,” he says, offering up a strained smile. “At least there’s no drama.”
“It’s all my fault.”
“You share some measure of responsibility, yes. But I’d hardly say it’s all your fault.”
“Everything I’ve ever had, everything I touch . . .” Silver can’t finish the thought. Something about talking to his father is making him emotional.
“They have shrinks upstairs, you know.”
“Shit, Dad.”
“I’m just saying. You’re struggling with a major decision to make here, it might help to talk it out with someone.”
“I’m not struggling. I’ve already made the decision.”
“OK then. I’m struggling with your decision.”
“Then maybe you should talk to someone.”
He smiles. Then he looks at his son, really looks at him, the way people almost never look at each other, with naked love and concern, the way a real father looks at his child. Silver sees the burst capillaries tracking across his father’s eyes, the folds of tired skin hanging off his jaw, and he can sense the deep weariness in him. Fifty years in the God business. He has seen some shit. And now this.
One Last Thing Before I Go Page 6
