by Naomi Niles
“You think I ought to go check on her?”
“I think that would be good, yeah,” she said weakly.
I turned to Dickie, who was coming around behind us. “Dickie, I hate to do this to you, but you’re gonna have to race for me.”
Dickie balked at the suggestion. “Darren, you’ve spent weeks prepping for this. You have a much better chance at winning that money than I do.”
I placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “I think you know what you’re doing. Anyway, right now some other things have taken precedence. I’d never forgive myself if I went ahead and raced while she’s over there crying her little heart out.”
“Well, if you’re not going to do it, I guess I don’t have a choice.”
I reached into the car and pulled out my red crash helmet, which I handed to him. “You’ll do fine. Just think of how mad Adam’ll be when you win that two hundred grand.”
“Oh, he’ll be indignant,” said Dickie, already smiling in triumph.
Nic was already heading out across the parking lot. I gave him a final reassuring nod and followed after her. By the time we reached her car, the announcer was already calling the contestants into their positions, while in the stands a crowd of several hundred waved and cheered above the ceaseless roar of the rain.
Chapter Thirty
Penny
He never returned my call.
I really thought after I called him four times on Monday morning he would know something was wrong and call me back. And I’d waited three days, four days, five days with no response. Not even so much as a text message or an email. Sometimes when I heard footsteps in the hospital hallway, I tensed up for a moment, thinking maybe he had come to see us. But I was always disappointed, and eventually, I gave up hope.
As the week wore on and I watched Dad growing frail and seeming to fade away before my eyes, I tried to shove Darren out of my mind. If he didn’t want to be a part of my life, there was no reason to force him. And the constant vigil I was keeping at my dad’s bedside was sapping up all my remaining energy and focus.
On Thursday, I spoke with one of the hospital’s grief counselors, a woman named Delia Sherwin. She sat down across from me in her private office and spoke in a gently reassuring voice like a grade-school teacher, all warmth and empathy. She said the death of a loved one is a hard thing to deal with and everyone reacts in their own way. She said I was likely to experience feelings of grief, guilt, helplessness, and frustration. “You may wonder what your father did to deserve this. You may try to tell yourself there’s still a chance of a breakthrough. These are all normal and understandable reactions.”
“I do, I feel some of those things,” I said. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m feeling; it just feels overwhelming. I want all our friends to be here, but at the same time, I feel this urge to push everyone away. I haven’t even phoned his brothers yet because they live out of state, and I know they would drop everything and rush over here.”
“Well, I’m not here to tell you what to do,” she said, “I’m just here to listen. How is your father handling things?”
I laughed a perverse laugh. “He’s actually holding up quite a bit better than I am. I think he’s lived with the cancer for so long that by now he’s accepting it. He keeps making the most morbid jokes, trying to make me feel better.”
“Quite possibly. He may also be trying to make himself feel better. Facing the end of one’s life is a hard, hard thing and we bring to the challenge all the strategies we’ve learned over a lifetime. It is, in a lot of ways, our final test.”
“I just wish I knew what comes after that,” I said sadly. “It’s the only test where even if you ace the exam, you still die. He always raised me to believe there would be some reward for good souls. And I want to believe that. I really do.”
“Well, what’s important right now is that your father believes it,” said Delia. “He can face death with serenity in part because he has confident hope of a life after this one. Whether or not his confidence is misplaced, it’s not for us to say.”
“I suppose not. I’d like to have that same confidence when my time comes, but I don’t know if I do.”
“Well, we can deal with that later. For now, you’re young, and you don’t have to worry as much about your own death. It’s enough that you’re helping your father prepare for his. I don’t think you realize how calm and steady and brave you’ve been over the past week.”
“I don’t feel very brave,” I said, scoffing. “I feel weak and miserable and exhausted.”
“Yes, and you’ve continued to look after him, and you’ve continued to put his needs before your own, despite your exhaustion. And maybe you don’t know it, but that’s true bravery. Penny, you are a brave and selfless woman. And if you’re not able to see that, it’s because your heart is so devoted to others that you barely have time for yourself.”
She reached across the desk and handed me a box of tissues. I didn’t even know why I was crying.
After we finished talking, I went into the hall and called his brothers—Mike, Trenton, and Kilgore. I explained to the three of them that Dad had only a few days to live and that he would dearly love to see them and say bye to them. Trent was organizing hurricane relief in Louisiana and couldn’t take the weekend off, but he promised to call him. Mike and Kilgore both said they would be flying to Dallas on the next plane out.
Dad slept much during those next two days, and we only spoke during the rare moments when he was awake. On Saturday morning while he was napping, I ran home for a shower and a fresh change of clothes. I hadn’t been home since Wednesday, and I was beginning to smell musty. As I passed my room, I gazed longingly at my bed, wishing I could sink down into the hard mattress and stay there for the rest of the weekend, but both of my uncles were on their way to the hospital—Mike had just texted me to let me know he was catching a cab from the airport—and I wasn’t going to sleep through their visit.
When I returned to Medical City an hour later, I was met with a nasty shock: Dad was being rolled out of his room on a stretcher by a couple nurses.
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Where are you taking him?”
Neither of the nurses answered. But at that moment, the broad form of Uncle Kilgore appeared in the doorway, bearded and hatted and wearing a silk shirt and bandana, holding a black hat in both hands.
“Hey,” he said. “Sorry you had to find out like this.”
My mouth went so dry I could hardly speak. “Find out what?”
Just then, Uncle Mike came running up from the end of the hallway. Shorter and slightly stockier than Kilgore, he was dressed in black jeans and a crisply ironed black button-down. “Oh man, did I already miss him?”
Kilgore nodded sadly. “I stayed with him for about the last half-hour. He opened his eyes just once and squeezed my hand. Then they closed as if he was nodding off—and he never opened them again.”
Anticipating my collapse, Mike threw his arm around me. I buried my head in his shoulder and sobbed and sobbed.
Together, they guided me back into the room and sat me down in the chair in which I had been sleeping for much of the last week. Over the next twenty minutes, words were spoken, but I barely heard them, and reassurances were given that I scarcely noticed. My stomach tightened into knots as though a boa constrictor had grabbed me around the middle, wondering if he had noticed my absence and whether he had felt betrayed as he breathed his last few breaths.
“Well, shoot,” said Mike, removing his hat and scratching his tawny hair. “I really thought we would at least get to talk before he—” His voice drifted off, and he shook his head with a dazed expression as if baffled by death.
“I’m glad I flew out of Pittsburgh when I did,” said Kilgore. “Trent really wanted to be here; he’s pissed that his job wouldn’t let him off.”
Mike rose with a resolute air and turned to face us. “I don’t know about you, but I could really go for a drink right about now. You two wan
na come?”
***
We spent the next couple hours sitting in a booth at The Old Monk reminiscing over Dad’s life. Mike told a story of a time when they were boys, and Trent had placed poppers all along the rim of the toilet, causing him to shoot up in terror the moment he sat down. Kilgore had some fond memories of his relationship with my mom. “They were one of those annoying couples who seem to live in a world of their own. You read about couples who can’t stand to be apart for even a few minutes, and it seemed like a fairy-tale until I met them.”
“Well, wherever he is, I think he must be happy now,” said Mike. “He and Alicia are together again.”
Kilgore stared sadly down at the amber liquid circling the bottom of his glass. “I suppose that’s my one consolation in all this. He was never in his life as happy as he was when he and Allie were together. He really died twice, once when he lost her and once this morning. I got the sense he was happy to go.”
“I guess I can’t feel too bad for him,” said Mike. “It’s always a shame when someone dies so young—he had at least twenty good years left in him—but he had finished raising you, and that was the one great work of his life. He was satisfied.”
“He really loved you,” said Kilgore. “I don’t know if he ever told you how much you reminded him of Allie. Both brilliant but slightly scatterbrained, in love with the written word, high aspirations. He was so proud of what you had become.”
“I feel like I haven’t amounted to much,” I said in a gloomy tone. “I write books that no one is ever going to read, and I sell mufflers for a living.”
“Well, give yourself time.” Kilgore took a sip of his ale and sat back with a distant look. “Your mom never got to be the professor she wanted to be, but she was well on her way when she died. Given enough time, you’ll get there. You have your whole life to become the woman you want to be.”
I invited them both to stay with me until the funeral, but both had already called ahead and booked hotels in the city. I was about to call a cab to take me home when I remembered that I had left my windbreaker and journal in the hospital vault. Kilgore stood with me by the curb in the damp twilight while I waited for the cab that would take me back.
“I’m really glad you both came,” I said loudly, struggling to be heard over the sound of the rain in the gutters. “I don’t think I was ready to face this alone, and I would’ve been miserable without you here.”
Kilgore’s eyes glittered in the half-light. “I hope you’ll think about what we said. I think, especially after he quit teaching, there was a period of a few years where your dad thought he had wasted his life. But he told me, he said, ‘I’ve done one thing right, and that’s how I raised my daughter. Nothing will ever take that away from me.’”
My cab pulled up to the curb. I hugged him and asked if we could go out for lunch tomorrow. He said of course and promised to text Mike and let him know where and when.
When I reached the hospital, I found a second nasty surprise waiting for me: Darren was seated in the lobby, his hands clasped together in front of him as though in prayer. He leaped up when he saw me. He was wearing a tangerine-red racing uniform and looked strikingly out of place amid the drab surroundings.
“How long have you been sitting there?” I asked him in a tone of disgust. All the anger and revulsion I had been shoving down over the last week rose to the surface like filthy sewage water during a rainstorm.
“Only for a couple hours. I tried texting you, but you never responded.”
“I must have had my phone off.” It was a true statement, if not a particularly convincing one. “Weird how you only show up after my father dies.”
“What do you mean?” He looked positively alarmed at the venom in my voice.
“I mean I haven’t heard from you in several days. I could have used your strength and support but you were MIA, and you wouldn’t even return my phone calls. I’m sorry to say this, but right now I don’t even want to look at you.”
“What phone calls?” he asked, looking pale and agitated. “I never heard from you.”
“I have a hard time believing that. I’m sorry you didn’t get what you wanted on Sunday, but some of us had real problems to deal with. You’ll understand someday when you’ve grown up.”
Darren spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. “Look, I’m sorry your dad just died—”
“Yeah, you’re real sorry.”
“But you don’t have to take it out on me. I came here wanting to help you.”
“It’s a bit late for that. I could have really used your help four or five days ago. Now I don’t even think I want it.”
Darren glanced around the lobby, painfully conscious that we were being watched by three or four men in scrubs. He said in a lower voice, “I know you’re in a lot of pain right now and maybe you’re not aware how you’re coming across. Maybe we should wait until your emotions have had time to settle—”
“Forget you,” I snarled, resisting a strong urge to spit in his voice. “Don’t ever lecture me about how I ‘come across.’ I get that from enough boys; I don’t need it from you.” Without waiting for him to respond, I stalked past him out of the lobby while he stood looking on in defeat.
Chapter Thirty-One
Darren
Ignoring the stares of the nurses, I turned and walked out of the lobby into the rainy night. Rain was slapping the gutters with a constant thumping, and the head lights of an ambulance shone brightly through the haze. A couple of paramedics were unloading a man on a stretcher.
I stood there for a moment waiting for the road to clear so I could cross to my car. The urge to run back inside and apologize to Penny was strong, but I wasn’t even sure what I would be apologizing for. I had spent most of the week waiting miserably for her to call or text me, and I would have come to the hospital if Nic hadn’t warned against it. “She needs a lot of space,” she had said. “You don’t want to come across as inescapable. If she starts to feel trapped, she’ll begin looking for a way out of the relationship.”
So I had waited, and that, too, had proven to be a mistake. She had just broken up with me, and there was no telling what I could have done to avoid it. Maybe she would rethink her position after she had had a few days to calm down. I wasn’t about to give up on her, not yet. But at this point, charging back into the hospital and trying to rescue the relationship wasn’t going to help.
By now, the paramedics had fully unloaded the stretcher and were pulling it over the concrete. I had begun crossing the street, but froze in my tracks when I saw who was on it.
It was Dickie.
A new sensation of panic gripped me as I watched him being dragged through the doors. Without a second’s hesitation, I turned and followed the stretcher through the lobby and into the ground-floor elevator.
I waited until the door had closed and the elevator was ascending to the twelfth floor before questioning them.
“What happened to this man?” I asked.
The taller of the two paramedics turned and looked at me in mild surprise, as though having only just noticed I was in the elevator. “Do you know him? He got into a nasty accident while racing illegally. His Mustang hit a wall and went up in flames; he was immediately knocked unconscious, and somebody only just managed to rescue him. Any later, and he would have died.”
“As it is,” said the second paramedic, a Hispanic man with wide, arching eyebrows, “we still don’t know if he’s going to make it. He has a pulse but has been unconscious since impact.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, a note of desperation in my voice. “Is he, like, in a coma?”
The first paramedic exchanged glances with the second, as though they were both surprised by the level of intensity in my voice. “We don’t know anything for sure yet,” said the first paramedic.
“His doctor should be able to tell you more in an hour or two,” added the second. “In fact, I shouldn’t have even told you this much. I could lose my job.”
I started to ask another question, but just then the elevator door slid open, and the two paramedics led the unconscious Dickie toward a small room at the end of the hall. I followed with a dazed feeling, wondering what sins I had committed to invite so many disasters on myself at once. Within the space of about an hour, I had lost my girlfriend and my best friend. And I still hadn’t made it out of the hospital.
I didn’t yet know what I had done to offend Penny, but Dickie’s accident was almost certainly my own fault. Cold waves of guilt burst over me as I recalled our conversation that morning. He hadn’t wanted to race, but I had insisted on it. If I hadn’t talked him into it, we could be sitting in a bar right now knocking back drinks and trying to solve the infinite mysteries of women. Instead, he appeared to be in a coma, and there was no knowing whether or not he would ever come out of it.
I went and sat down in the twelfth-floor waiting room, resisting the urge to light a cigarette. Weak and exhausted but unable to sleep, I paced the floor silently in the haze of the fluorescent lights.
After what felt like an hour, the door opened, and a woman in glasses, carrying a clipboard, entered the room with a grave expression.
“Are you Richard’s friend?” she asked.
I nodded, not liking the way she had phrased the question, as if I was his only friend. Though when I thought about it, I supposed I was. “How’s he doing?”
“The best I can say at this point is that he’s still breathing. He’s in critical condition, and we’ve taken the precaution of placing him in an induced coma, temporarily.”
“Isn’t he already in a coma? Why would you do that?”
“It’s a necessary step in the process of allowing his body time to heal itself. You’re welcome to come sit with him, though, of course, he’s going to be unresponsive. Does he have any relatives that you know of?”
