Remembering Christmas

by Dan Walsh

  “Hi, Mr. Denton. Surprised to see you here.”

  “Hello.” He’d forgotten her name. “Had one last appointment this morning. Just came in a minute to take care of a few odds and ends. How come you’re here?”

  “Still under thirty days, so I only got yesterday off. But I don’t mind. Getting a lot done with no one around.”

  He opened his office door and stepped inside.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said. “Hope you don’t mind, but I left a note on your desk. The phone kept ringing every few minutes, so I figured it must be something important. Guess you forgot to turn your answering machine on.”

  “Thanks.” He walked to his desk and set his briefcase down. He lifted a pink phone message from a brass spike, saw it was written at 10:30 a.m. About thirty minutes ago.

  Your mother called. Said it was extremely urgent. Something about your father having a stroke and being in the hospital. She left this number, the hospital waiting room.

  “Great.” Rick had spoken with his mother yesterday on Thanksgiving. It was like pulling teeth. She went on and on about the latest things happening down at their little store, how cute it was with the new Christmas decorations they added. Then she asked him all about the things going on in his life. He never knew what to say or how much. He loved her; she was his mom, but they had nothing in common. And he knew she wouldn’t approve of half the things he did if he told her the truth. He didn’t go to church. He drank too much and too often, had too many girlfriends, not the right kind.

  He sighed, dialed the number.

  “Hello?” A woman’s voice.

  “Hi, my name is Rick Denton. Is this a hospital waiting room?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m looking for my mother, Leanne Bell. Is she there?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t work here, but let me check.”

  He heard her voice, away from the mouthpiece, asking if anyone named Leanne Bell was there. Then some muffled reply.

  “Someone said she’s here, but she’s in the room by her husband’s bed. They don’t allow phones back there. I’ll go ask the nurse to get her.”

  “Uh, ma’am. If you don’t mind—” He heard a bump. Clearly, she had set the phone down. He waited for what felt like fifteen minutes.

  “Hello?”

  “Mom?”

  “Rick? Is that you?” She started to cry.

  “It’s me, Mom. I got your message.”

  “I’m so scared, Rick. I’ve never seen him like this.”

  “Mom, just tell me what happened.”

  She paused. He could hear her trying to catch her breath. “It’s your father. They think he had a stroke. I guess it happened sometime this morning, just after he got to the store.”

  My father . . . “How bad is it?”

  “They don’t know yet. He isn’t responding at all. He’s alive. They’re saying his vital signs look good. But . . . I can’t talk to him, Rick. His eyes won’t open. He doesn’t even look at me when I talk to him.” She started crying again.

  Rick knew that his plans to hit the slopes that afternoon had just collapsed. “Okay, Mom, listen.” He sighed. “Is anyone with you?”

  “I’ve called some friends from church, but so far I haven’t been able to reach anyone.”

  “Do you want me to come down there?” Of course she would, why even ask?

  “I hate to bother you, Rick, but I’ve never been so scared. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost him. And then there’s the store—who will run it? The doctor said it could be days before we know anything for sure, maybe longer. That’s if he survives.” Now she was sobbing.

  “Well, I guess I could get down there for the weekend.”

  “You’ll come?”

  “Yes. I’m not sure I can get a plane because of the holiday. Probably take me the rest of the day to drive there.”

  “I’m so sorry to put you through this,” she said. “But I’m glad you’re willing to come. And I know your father would be—”

  “Mom, please. I’m gonna come, but you need to stop calling Art my father. He’s your husband. He’s not my father.”

  “I’m sorry, Rick. I wasn’t thinking. I understand.”

  Now he felt awful. But it had to be said. “Well, don’t worry about it. How can I reach you when I get into town?”

  “I’m sure I’ll still be here. You can just park and go to the information desk. They’ll tell you how to find me. We’re in intensive care.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  4

  Come back to me, Art. Please come back.

  She gently took his hand, stroked it with her finger. He felt warm, but he didn’t squeeze back. He always squeezed back. Could he even feel her touch?

  “How ya doing, Mrs. Bell?”

  “Am I in your way?”

  “No, stay put. You’re fine.”

  The nurse had the sweetest Southern accent. Her fine came out like fahn. Leanne looked at her name tag. Holly. She wanted to remember. Holly had been so kind. She picked up Art’s chart hanging by the edge of the bed. Leanne watched her eyes. No alarm as she read it, no reaction at all. That was good, wasn’t it? She looked back at Art.

  His face, the same expression.

  At least he still looked like Art. Just had this tiny oxygen line across his nose. Walking past the other rooms, she’d seen so many in intensive care wearing such pained expressions, tubes sticking out in every direction. But he was still Art. That wonderful face. Those soft, tender eyes, closed now. How many times had she gazed at those same closed eyes across from her in bed? She always woke up before Art. Had to, it was her job to fix the first pot of coffee.

  Oh, Art, please wake up.

  “Everything looks stable,” Holly said.

  “Do you see any progress?”

  Holly smiled, eyed the various machines surrounding Art’s bed. “Not yet, but believe me, at this point stable is wonderful.” She patted Leanne on the shoulder as she walked out.

  Leanne watched her disappear through the doorway, which they always left open. Beside it, through a floor-to-ceiling pane of glass, she could see the main nurses’ station. At the counter’s end, a little Christmas tree, just like the one she and Art had put on the counter at the store on Wednesday. Wednesdays were always a little slow. But this one especially so. Everyone was out shopping the grocery stores, buying food for Thanksgiving dinner. But she and Art had gotten the store all ready before they’d left for the day, so it would look festive for . . . Black Friday.

  That was today. The biggest shopping day of the year.

  All their regular customers would certainly have stopped by today. In the past few years, dozens more had come in. Last year, they had made enough by the end of the holiday weekend to come all the way out of the red into the black. She wondered what everyone would think as they came by the store throughout the day. No one was there, not even a sign to explain why. She wouldn’t let herself begin to calculate how much money they’d lost.

  She looked back at Art’s face. Only he mattered now.

  Her eyes spent a few moments on each machine, trying to understand the numbers and graphs and blinking lights, wondering what improvement looked like. One of them kept going up and down every few moments. Every time it went down, she tensed. But for all she knew, down was good. She’d have to ask Holly to explain all this.

  The last machine stood next to the window. Just outside, beyond this dark room, a beautiful blue sky. Soft clouds, whiter than snow, billowed up toward the sun. On the left, a cluster of palm trees swayed, moved by a gentle west wind. Art loved the palm trees most of all.

  That and the ocean.

  And the sunsets.

  Then there were the birds, so many different kinds. The gulls gathered like a flock, but bring out the popcorn and it was every man for himself. The sandpipers running along the water’s edge, like Leanne, trying not to get their feet wet. And the pelicans: on the fishing pier they were mis
chievous thieves. But a sheer delight to watch as they glided like surfers along the wall of the waves.

  Art loved it all. And so did she.

  She loved being with him the most. Walking with him along the beach, talking, dreaming, praying, even singing (if no one was around). “All it has to be to qualify is a joyful noise,” he’d say after they finished destroying a melody. Choir rejects, both of them. But there was no one she’d rather sing praises with than Art. He was a godly man, through and through.

  Lord, don’t take him yet. I’m not ready. I’m not.

  Suddenly she heard footsteps behind her, walking quickly. Before she could turn around, a man in white swept by, behind the bed toward the wall. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bell, but I need to close these.” It was Dr. Halper. He pulled a cord. The drapes rolled shut, plunging the room in almost total darkness.

  “What’s the matter?” It took a few moments for her eyes to see his face.

  He came around to her side of the bed. “I’m sorry if I startled you,” he said. “It’s just the tests we ran earlier are pointing toward a different diagnosis.”

  “I don’t understand.” She looked at his eyes. He didn’t seem upset.

  “We don’t think your husband suffered a stroke.” He was talking quietly.

  “Then what—”

  “We still have a few more tests to run, but we believe he suffered an aneurysm. That’s why I closed the blinds. There’s a few more things I need to go over with you, some critical things we’ll need to do over the next few days.”

  “Is that worse than a stroke?”

  “Both are very serious.”

  “Life threatening serious?”

  He paused. “I’m afraid so. But Art is holding steady.” He looked up, glanced at each machine. “For now we’re doing fine. The nurse will come in a few moments to change some of his meds.”

  “What can we do?”

  “We’re doing everything we can do. But with an aneurysm—until we have more to go on—we’ve got to keep him very calm. No loud noises, no lights. And absolutely no visitors.”

  “No visitors?”

  “You can stay, but only you. And you need to do your best to stay calm.”

  “But he can’t even hear anything, can he?”

  “Probably not. But we’ll be working to reduce the swelling in his brain over the next few days. He could wake up at some point. When he does, it would be great if you were here to keep him calm.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “I’ll have an orderly bring in one of these nice recliner chairs we have. When you stretch them out, they’re not half bad to sleep in. I’ve done it myself many times.”

  “How long before we know if he’s getting better?”

  She didn’t like how the doctor’s expression changed. He walked over to the chair she had been sitting in. “You better sit down.”

  She felt faint.

  “This thing is going to take time,” he said. “Art is in critical condition. What we’ll be trying to do over the next several days is to get him ready for surgery.”

  “What kind of . . . ?”

  “Brain surgery. The aneurysm is in his head.”

  “Oh, Lord.” Tears filled her eyes. She looked over at Art lying there so peacefully. “Is this surgery usually successful?”

  Another long pause. “In my experience, with this kind of trauma, we really can’t predict very much. Wish I could give you more to go on.” He reached over and patted her hands. “Right now . . . all we can do is take things one step at a time.”

  5

  Aided by the soothing sounds of Christopher Cross, Carole King, and James Taylor, Rick’s sanity arrived mostly intact after the long drive down to Florida. He was glad he was alone; he’d have made terrible company. All he wanted to do was complain.

  For starters, this had to be the most boring stretch of highway in the country. It felt like he’d watched the same fifty pine trees roll past the side windows, over and over again, as if on some looping film reel, like those old movies from the forties. Every ten minutes, a meaningless billboard inserted itself into the scene, offering pecans, Indian River fruit, or a cheap roadside motel. (Did anyone even know what Indian River fruit was?) The road never curved. Not a single hill.

  Darkness had crept in by inches over the last two hours, creating a new looping film reel. This one played out straight ahead. Two lanes of dimly lit highway, fading toward a black tunnel. Except for the moving yellow lines, it remained a static scene.

  Finally, Rick had reached the end of the nothingness. An exit ramp, just off I-95.

  He was in familiar territory now: Seabreeze, Florida. A quiet beachside community nestled along the Atlantic, somewhere between Jacksonville and Cape Kennedy. Only a few tourists visited Seabreeze each year, the ones who preferred doing absolutely nothing with their vacation dollars except sitting on the beach.

  Rick looked across the street at a 7-Eleven. Must be new. He looked at his dashboard clock and shook his head. Should have been at this spot over an hour ago. It was ridiculous driving fifty-five mph on an interstate highway. When were they going to repeal this stupid law?

  He drove through the light and pulled up to the store. The hospital was only ten minutes away, but he was hungry. He’d skipped dinner, hoping to make better time. 7-Eleven hot dogs really weren’t half bad. He drove past the pumps and pulled into a slot near the store. He was down half a tank, but he wasn’t about to pay $1.15 a gallon, not when he could still get it for 99 cents across the Georgia border. He was only going to be here a few days. A half tank should be plenty.

  That was another thing that bugged him: paying over a dollar for a gallon of gas.

  In a country that produced as much oil as the United States did, it was an outrage. Four years ago, he’d voted for Carter. The first election he’d paid any attention to. Now gas was up. Inflation was up. Interest rates—this was downright obscene—were at 13 percent. He’d paid 13 percent on his condo in downtown Charlotte. Besides the lousy economy, every morning he had to sip his coffee hearing about the Iran Hostage Crisis . . . Day 387. Iran Hostage Crisis. Day 388 . . . Today, as soon as he turned on his car . . . Iran Hostage Crisis. Day 389.

  He opened the door and walked inside the 7-Eleven. Maybe the new guy, Reagan, could do something about all this. But he didn’t see how a bad actor would fare any better than a peanut farmer. In any case, this time he hadn’t voted for either one.

  “Evening, sir.” A teenager at the end of the counter smiled then returned to his broom.

  Rick nodded, stepped up to the glass container. A dozen hot dogs spun on little rollers; he tried not to think about for how long. He knew the real reason for his lousy mood. It wasn’t the president, the gas prices, or the Iran Hostage Crisis. It was being here. Not at the 7-Eleven. Back here in Seabreeze. Facing all this.

  His mom, her crisis.

  He should have been on the slopes all afternoon.

  “Want a hot dog?”

  “Yeah. I’ll take two.” About now, his friends were all sitting around a stone fireplace wearing sweaters, drinking White Russians, holding wooden bowls of steaming hot chili, cooling it down with fresh sourdough bread.

  “Here you go.”

  Rick looked down at his hot dogs wrapped in foil. “Thank you.” He walked over to the condiment area. Squirted a thick line of yellow mustard down each one. “Got any relish packs?”

  “All out.”

  Figures, Rick thought. “How ’bout a Slurpee?”

  Barely home ten minutes, and look at him.

  6

  The Seabreeze Medical Center. All three stories of it. He pulled into the oval driveway that wrapped around a three-angel fountain. Rick didn’t notice any new wings protruding from either end of the building. It looked exactly as he remembered. When was that? That’s right, the eighth grade, a broken collarbone.

  He pulled into the visitors’ parking lot. Only a smattering of cars. Probably past visiting hour
s. He walked up the stone stairway on the left side, gliding his hands along the iron rail, admiring the building’s architecture. Funny, he’d never given it a thought at fourteen, but it really was amazing, could easily pass for a Spanish mansion or small castle.

  He pushed through the glass doors, saw a dark wooden counter across the lobby. An information sign hung from the ceiling tiles. He walked through a thick dome of flowery perfume and found an elderly woman in a striped smock, her face buried in a book. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

  “Hmmm?” She turned and smiled, set the book down. “How can I help you, young man?”

  Rick looked down a long hallway running on the left. He remembered the elevators were down there. “I need to see my mother. She’s in intensive care. Well, she’s not, her husband is.”

  “I’m afraid you’re forty-five minutes past visiting hours.”

  “She’s not a patient. I just need to speak with her. Her husband had a bad stroke this morning. She’s probably in a waiting room close to intensive care.”

  “I can call there and see.”

  “Would you please try? I’ve driven all the way from Charlotte.”

  She slid her chair across a plastic mat and dialed a number, then began flipping through some papers stapled together. He could hear it faintly ringing, over and over, but no one picked up. “Let me try the nurses’ station.” After a few rings, a click. “This is Doreen down at the information desk. I’ve got a young man here who’d like to see his mother, if at all possible.” She listened a few moments. “No, she’s not a patient. His father’s the patient.” She looked up at Rick. “What’d you say your mother’s name was?”

  “It’s Bell, Leanne Bell. Her husband’s name is Art Bell.”

  Doreen relayed the information. “That’s okay,” she said in reply. “I’ll wait right here.” She covered the mouthpiece and said, “They’re going to go get her. The nurse confirmed your mom is in the room with your father.”

  “I’m sure she’s going to want to see me. She was pretty frantic when she called.”

  “Tell you what, just go on up the elevator, down the hall there on the left. Intensive care is on the third floor. They’ll have to buzz you in, but I’ll tell her you’re on your way.”