by Susan Conley
“It’s me, Dad. Willie.” I lower my voice. “I found you.”
“I’ve been right here all along. Except for a few trips back and forth to the canyons. Yes, right here all year long.”
“He’s very sick,” I say. I’m too tired, and I’m not making sense. “Luke is sick. Did you have any idea?”
“I was not aware.”
“We want you to come. If you can. That is, if you want to. Luke would really like it if you could come.”
“But of course I’ll come. I am his father.”
“Luke told me you’ve been calling him. But I didn’t know if you realized he was sick. He’s in the hospital.”
My father doesn’t respond. Then he says, “I just need the address of the hospital and a phone number there. That’s all. I don’t want you to worry. I’ll be there very soon. We’ll sort this out.”
In the morning, Andreas tiptoes into the room with a huge bunch of long-stemmed apricot roses and a box of caramels. He stands by Luke’s bed without saying a word. Luke opens his eyes and smiles. The oxygen mask is gone. “That’s what we like.” Andreas reaches for Luke’s hand and says, “We like that smile.”
“You’re here,” Luke says. “I haven’t done my hair. It’s still tangled. Can someone figure out how the bed works so I can sit up and make proper conversation?”
Gaird puts the flowers in the bathroom sink and pushes the buttons on the bed until Luke is half-sitting. “Perfect,” Luke says. “Thank you. When did you get back, Andreas?” He’s working hard to make the conversation go well. I want him to let it go.
“A week,” Andreas says. “Which is just the right amount for Hong Kong in August.” Andreas is playing along. We all are. It allows the beeping EKG machine and the IV drip and the gray linoleum floor to fade. But then Luke falls back asleep. It stuns me that he can work so hard to follow what we’re saying and then be gone. The terror of how quickly he might leave us hits me, and I can’t look at Gaird or Andreas, who squeezes me on the arm and leaves as quietly as he’s come.
The next morning, Gaird goes downstairs to the cafeteria to eat breakfast and make calls to the studio on one of the pay phones. Luke asks for Jell-O.
“No Jell-O yet,” Sara says while she reads his chart. “Let’s give the intestine time.” I’m so happy he wants to eat. I can’t believe she won’t let him. The three lesions on his chest have turned purplish now. A new one has started next to his nose.
Sara motions me to follow her out to the hall. “He’s not losing his vision, Will, and that is good. We are seeing many of these cases go completely blind.”
“It’s Luke, Sara. He’s not a case.”
“He’s my case. That’s how I think of it. My case to solve. You need sleep. Why don’t you go home?”
“You know I wouldn’t ever. My father is on his way.”
“Since when?”
“Since I broke down and called him yesterday.”
She presses my arm. “Your father is all the more reason to rest. It’s too soon to say exactly how this is going to play out. Each case is different. The candidiasis is a real problem.”
“The thrush?”
“It’s virulent, and it’s spread to his esophagus in large colonies.”
“It’s bad, right?”
“It’s not good. We don’t know how to effectively treat it.”
“But he’s doing better now? Yes?”
“What seems supportable is that Luke is not going to gain back functions he’s lost.”
“He can talk now. And he wants to eat.”
“He can take in liquids, but his liver isn’t processing. His one working kidney is greatly compromised. These we see as a result of the hepatitis C.” She looks at me and smiles. “I’ve got to go now. I’ve got a baby waiting to be fed at home. You rest.”
I walk back into Luke’s room. He sees me and says, “Today I want you to use the peacock duster when you clean.” I pour him a cup of water from the plastic pitcher. “Promise me. Peacock.” I pretend I haven’t heard him—the drugs are making him hallucinate. “Promise me.”
“Okay. Peacock.” I hate any sign that he’s losing his mind.
“Because peacock is much better than goose feather. Peacock is best. Right?”
“Right.”
“Peacock is best?” He’s looking at me but not seeing me.
“Right, peacock is best.” Tears start down my face. I feel like I cry all day now. It’s sort of like breathing.
“Top to bottom.” He raises his voice. “I want you to clean top to bottom. That way your dust settles and you can sweep it up.”
“Are you thirsty? Sara says to keep drinking. How about just one sip?” I lean over the bed and put the straw between his lips. But he falls into another deep sleep. The machines beep and send out their electrical currents, which show up as moving lines on the monitors. The nurses come and go, reading the screens. One has spiky hair, and the shorter, rounder woman hums while she checks Luke’s vitals. Neither of them has told me their name. I keep getting up and closing the door to the hall whenever anybody leaves it open.
Gaird returns from breakfast and resumes his position in his chair. We sit with Luke all day, and he sleeps. But the sleep doesn’t feel like a respite. It feels like he’s building toward something and that things are shutting down. My brain is dry and working slowly. Macon comes back at four. He’s wearing his suit because he’s been in court all day. Somehow he’s got more fruit with him—a plate of sliced bananas and apples wrapped in plastic from a market. What will we do with all this food? I put the plate on the shelf under the window. He stands at the foot of Luke’s bed.
“How is the pain today?” he whispers.
“It’s steady I think,” I whisper back. “Morphine is our friend.” Luke doesn’t move.
Macon and I go down to the cafeteria and get trays. There’s a tough-looking flank steak and some old French fries and a sad green salad. I buy all of it and hardly eat anything. “We’re not eating here again,” Macon stands up. “It’s disgusting.” We put the trays on a shelf next to a garbage pail at the end of the room. Then we hold hands and walk out to the lobby. “I have something for Luke from Pablo.” He pulls a rolled-up piece of paper out of his bag. It’s a red rocket ship in a blue sky blanketed with yellow stars. GET WELL LUKE is written in capitals across the side of the rocket.
“He will love it. It’s so great. I’m going to ask the nurses for tape when I get back up there, to put it on the wall.” Do I really believe that Luke will be able to read the card?
“Pablo wanted to come so badly. I told him Luke’s sleeping. I told him hospitals are for grown-ups.” Macon puts his arms around me and pulls me in.
“My dad may come any day now.”
“It’s good. You need reinforcements. He’s your father.” Then he kisses me. “Are you holding it together? Are you able to do this?”
I nod. “This is not a choice.” We kiss gently again in the bright lobby, and he leaves.
I go back upstairs and lean my head into Luke’s room. Gaird is standing next to the bed, talking to him. He says, “I am waiting here for you in this godforsaken chair they’ve given me. I am not going to move. You must come back to me.” Then he bends and whispers something in Luke’s ear and cries and turns his face away. I cry, too, standing in the doorway.
Thirty minutes later, Luke wakes up screaming. “Make it stop! Make it stop! For God’s fucking sake, help me!” It sounds like he’s being burned. I run into the hall. Everyone on the floor can hear him. “You’re killing me! You’re all killing me! Where are you? Where the fuck are you?” I find two nurses, and we race back. They increase the morphine drip while Luke rolls back and forth on the bed.
Gaird holds his hand. “We are fixing it. We are working on it. Just hold on. Please hold on.”
I put a hand on Luke’s other arm to steady him. “You left me,” he says. “Don’t ever leave me like that.”
“I’m here,” I say. “I’m
always here. I had to get help. You’ll be better soon. The pain is going to go away.” Please, dear God, let it go away. How much can he stand? How much more? Because he can’t do this kind of pain. He can’t be in pain like this.
“Make it stop. Please. Make it stop.” After twenty minutes or so he falls into a surface sleep—as if he’s barely on top of the pain. When he wakes up, he says, “Mom? Where is Mom?” He stares at me for a second. Then he drifts away again.
DAD WALKS INTO Luke’s room at seven that night. He’s so familiar to me, it’s as if he’s brought my childhood with him. Time compresses, so it’s like the last year and a half has gone by in a week. I have such regret for not calling him earlier. He looks older. I stand up. “You made it, Dad. You found us.” I’m so relieved to see him, I start crying.
He wears blue jeans belted up high and a brown plaid button-down. I smile at the three pens he’s clipped to his chest pocket protector. The pens and notepad have been there as far back as I remember. “Of course I made it!” he yells to us all. “My boy is in trouble, and I’m here. Simple as that.” He rubs the top of his bald head with his hand. He’s got blue running sneakers on and stands an inch taller than me in them. He puts his hands on my shoulders and hugs me.
“Dad’s here, Luke.” I can’t stop the tears from slipping down my face. Luke opens his eyes. Then Dad reaches for his arm and hugs him awkwardly on the bed. Luke smiles hugely, like he’s been waiting for this the whole time. They’d been closer growing up. Luke would deny this. It had to do with their obsession with compass readings and maps. Luke loved maps. Loved everything about the desert trips. I just tried to keep up out there.
Gaird stands and shakes Dad’s hand. “It is very good to meet you, Mr. Pears.”
“Dad. This is Gaird. Luke and Gaird live together in an apartment here in Paris.”
Dad nods and holds on to Gaird’s hand longer than he needs to. “Movie business, right?”
“Movies.” Gaird smiles.
“Things aren’t looking so good here, Dad,” Luke says then.
“We’ll just see about that.” Dad pulls the white stool next to the bed. “Let’s get a handle on your vitals.” He reaches for Luke’s chart, which hangs on a clipboard off the foot of the bed, and begins reading numbers out loud: “Temperature steady at ninety-nine. I’m going to watch that closely. I think that number is key. Your heart rate looks good. Blood pressure is really not too high at all.”
This is how my father takes over the room. It’s his way. He’s done it my whole life. The two nurses stop changing Luke’s saline bag and listen to him. I’m used to their masks and gloves now. “What are you people thinking?” he says to them. “Don’t stand there. You have a life to save. He is my son!” He points to the bed. “It’s now your job to keep him alive! I will help you all I can. There’s a regimen to follow here, I’m sure. There is protocol for this kind of infection.”
How can he talk to them like that? Has he lost his mind? Then he whispers to Luke in his kinder voice: “I think, all things considered, the numbers tell a pretty darn good story here.”
“I’ve had to shave my head,” Luke says. It happened yesterday. It kept getting in the way of the nurses’ work. And it was falling out from the medicines or the stress, I don’t know which. Tangling with the different lines and the cords, so the nurses persuaded him to shave it. It had grown down to his shoulders, and I had to leave the room while they did it. I couldn’t watch. It was too sad to see him lose his hair.
“I did notice that, son.” Dad finishes reading the chart to himself. Then he begins to bounce his right leg up and down. “I don’t think I’ve seen your hair that short since the day you were born. But you look good, son. We’ll get you back on the right track here. No fever today. That is tip-top. That is A-OK. That means no infection. And no pain?”
“Morphine’s a good drug,” Luke says. “But you have to get me out of here, Dad. Sara and Willie are holding me hostage.”
“You let me worry about that.” Dad looks over at me. “I will take care of everything.” Then he holds Luke’s hand. “Let me tell you about my latest desert trip. I’m trying out something new. I’m using ideas of an old Christian cartographer named Cosmas, who tried to make a map of Paradise.” Luke closes his eyes to listen. “I’m fooling with coordinates. Trying to see if there’s anything there. You wouldn’t imagine the years Cosmas spent on this. Taking measurements. Looking for clues from Scripture. I’m just poking around. But I think he might have been onto something. Not Paradise, exactly. But I’d like to write an article about the search, because the desert is always changing.”
“Well.” I try to be kind. Why does he spend time on this? He’s a smart man. He needs to be around more people. He’s too old to be alone in the desert. “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“I am serious,” he says. “I am always serious about maps.”
Maps are his friends. He talks to them. Questions them. He’s always on this relentless search for information. Mom was the one who got him to think before he spoke and to listen. She was always reminding him to listen. “I am thinking,” he says, “of making a stone maze behind the house. I want to fill in Mother’s flower beds, because it would be much easier to keep up.” He talks about the kind of fieldstone he’ll use for the pathway. I’m afraid I’m going to scream, I miss Mom so much.
Sara walks in then and moves the plate of fruit and sits down on the shelf by the window. It’s nine o’clock at night. What is she still doing here? She needs to go home. But she’s calm and patient, and walks Dad through the whole HIV diagnosis. I just watch. He never questions one word she says, which is so unlike him.
“The T cell count stands at eight tonight,” she says. “A whopping eight T cells per microliter. So no coughing in here. No sniffles or you’re out.” She smiles.
“Thank you,” Dad says when she’s finished. He scribbles down a few last notes in his pad. “It’s the information I was waiting for, and it’s in accordance with the data I’ve been able to compile.”
She stands up. “I leave you in good hands, Willie. Your father’s got this. Why don’t you all try to get some sleep.”
Then she leaves me with my father. It’s Gaird and me in the chairs and Dad in a second bed that one of the nice nurses rolls in. I don’t know how much either of them sleeps. The chairs recline halfway. I close my eyes and see Luke and me hiking far ahead of Dad in a canyon on the day we found an oasis. It was a patch of green, with leafy trees growing on it. Luke was so excited. He had a little notebook and a pencil that he kept in a plastic baggie in his backpack, and he pulled them out and wrote down our exact location.
“Dad,” he said, when our father caught up, “this fits the description of an oasis exactly! Doesn’t it?”
My father was lost in thought. He often still makes people repeat themselves. Luke asked again, in a different way. Then Dad said, “Yes. There’s water underneath these trees, fed by an underground stream.” Luke was smiling. He’d made a discovery. Dad loved discoveries. Dad bent down and touched the ground with his hand, so Luke did that too, and they stayed like that for a minute, on the ground.
IN THE MORNING, I get a nurse to find us a tape deck, and I play Donna Summer’s whole Live album for Luke. He loves it. When it’s over, Dad reads several psalms. So there’s music and preaching for hours. Macon meets Dad out in the hall by accident, and they come into the room together. “I bumped into your father getting off the elevator,” Macon says.
“I was headed down the wrong hallway.” This coming from a man who’s always had the best sense of direction. He really is getting older.
“Are we going to get some food?” Gaird asks at noon. “It’s lunchtime.”
“You go,” I say. “I’ll stay. I’m good.”
So Dad and Macon and Gaird walk down to the cafeteria, and I get to sit alone with my brother. “I’ll get you home.” Can he hear me? I think he squeezes my fingers, but I’m not sure.
&
nbsp; “You promised. My head hurts. God, my head hurts.”
He’s talking. I lean forward. “Believe me,” I say. “I’ve been working on it, and we’re taking you home tomorrow. We just had to get the kidney thing under control.”
“It’s about time, Willie. I thought you were going to leave me in here.”
“Never.” I squeeze his hand again. I can’t let myself cry. The kidney thing isn’t under control at all, but Luke’s liver is the problem. Sara has already told me that his liver function is the telltale sign, and that organ is shutting down a little more every day. And the yeast. That’s why things are happening so quickly: his lungs are under siege. There’s a shift happening—I can’t name it yet. But we’ve gone from trying to save his life to trying to make the end of his life bearable, which is the saddest thing of all so far. It feels like we’ve been in this hospital room since before time. How are we going to manage him at the apartment? How can we get him back there?
“I thought you were going to leave me here to die.” Luke closes his eyes.
“Never,” I whisper. He sleeps and I whisper, “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
33
Standard Body Temperature: the degree of heat that is natural to the body of a human being
Dad rides in the ambulance with Luke. Macon and Gaird and I follow behind in Gaird’s car. We’re taking him home. Does he know he’s failing? Does he grasp it? He was so happy to get onto the stretcher in the hospital room. He smiled the whole time they lifted him up and put it in the back of the van. Gaird drives. Macon sits in the passenger seat, and I’m the woman in the back feeling a weird sense of euphoria. We’re out of the hospital! We did it. Anything’s possible now. He gets to go home! He gets to go home! I wipe away tears.
The shrubs outside the hospital gates have been pruned. They’re a brighter green than the trees, and they look like old women with beehive hairdos. I love Paris all over again. Gaird drives so well, weaving calmly through the traffic. I love Gaird today. I love Macon! I love my father! I’m flooded with forgiveness, spilling over with gratitude for all four of these men. The sun is shining and Luke gets to live in his apartment and we can make this work. We can figure the disease out. What we need to do is buy some time.
