by Gail Cleare
The cool breeze had picked up quite nicely over the past few minutes, and the little flags fluttered gaily in the sunlight. I squinted up at the sky, and noticed some distant clouds to the north. They looked bluish gray. As I watched, they came closer, obviously moving along at a considerable clip.
“We’d better do this soon,” I said to Sarah, pointing at the sky. She looked at it and frowned.
“It’s the cold front they predicted,” said the cameraman, turning around to shoot the rapidly approaching weather.
“Get back here!” yelled Steve Mason, “We’re ready to go live!”
The camera swung back around, focusing on him. He spoke into the microphone, smiling broadly and introducing Sarah and me. The band played in the background, just wrapping up a tune. A bunch of people had gathered to watch the interview, including Rocco and Laurie. We did our interview as rehearsed, and I felt relatively relaxed about it. I didn’t say anything stupid, at least. Then they cut back to the station and my part was over. The reporter thanked me, and said the station had asked him to do a live wrap-up at the end of the news show in a few minutes. Sarah and I stepped aside so they could get a good shot of the clowns and jugglers on the sidewalk in front of Sorrentino’s.
In the quiet between songs on stage, I heard a deep rumble to the north. Sarah heard it too, and we both turned to look.
Dark, billowing charcoal gray clouds were rolling towards us out of the northern sky. They stretched wide across the entire horizon. A flicker of jagged light shot across them, and in a minute we heard the thunder again. It was definitely heading this way. The wind started whipping along, and up and down the street tablecloths and signs were fluttering and flapping. A handful of paper napkins flew off Rocco’s pizza table and soared down the sidewalk.
Everyone started to scramble, pulling things inside and trying to secure lightweight objects under heavier ones. I saw Siri and Bella make a dash up the steps of the shop, their arms laden with sale items. Tony was spreading a plastic tablecloth over the used books, strapping it down with duct tape. I noticed Lexi and her boyfriend standing inside the door to the shop, watching the activity. She waved at me and they ran down the steps to help, while Amy quickly packed things into empty cartons. The sound of the wind was almost as loud as the band playing under the tent, as the news crew went live again to wrap up their broadcast.
The juggler behind Steve Mason was having a hard time, as the wind snatched the balls out of his hands and flung them away. Luckily the spot was short, and the reporter was able to sign off without mishap. Then a big flash of lightning tore across the bruised sky and the thunder growled again, nearly on top of us now. We could see the rain approaching as it moved towards us, coming down in streaming sheets of water, hissing when it hit the hot pavement and sending up clouds of wet steam. Then the air turned greenish gray and the storm swept right over us, soaking me to the skin within seconds.
Lightning split the sky again, right overhead, and thunder cracked with a deafening boom. Behind me, people shouted and I turned around to see someone pointing up at the peaked tent roof, where the big electrical cable emerged and looped to connect to a utility pole on the far corner by the medical offices. I looked up just in time to see a bright ball of bluish light shoot out of the dark sky and run along the cable, sparks arcing into the air. Thunder boomed again, very loud, and someone yelled, “Watch out!” Lighting struck the tent pole again and the big cable was suddenly loose, flapping in the gusty wind and sending showers of sparks cascading down the canvas roof. People screamed, and the cable whipped around like a snake. Parents grabbed their children and ran for their lives.
“Are you getting this?” the news reporter yelled at the cameraman, who was pointing his lens at the tent to capture the chaos. A siren sounded in the distance, then another, and another, as the fire department and police raced to the scene.
Sarah and I stood shivering on the sidewalk in front of Sorrentino’s. Josie came outside wearing a plastic shopping bag tied over her curly white hair. She pulled us back under the awning and the three of us watched as the fire department pulled up and took control of the situation. The storm had started to move past, but the street was filled with puddles of water, a potential danger with downed electrical wires on the ground. They finally got the power disconnected and the loose cable stopped spitting sparks. The people who were sheltering in doorways nearby cheered and applauded.
Nobody appeared to have been injured, but we were definitely shut down for the day. The band started to pack up their instruments to go home. The sun came out again, lower and redder in the sky now as it moved toward twilight. Awnings and trees dripped, while birds soared down from the rooftops to splash in the puddles.
Sarah and I looked at each other in dumb amazement.
“It could have been worse,” she said reassuringly, starting to regain her composure.
“Yeah, somebody could have been electrocuted, right?”
“Or, we could have been live on TV when it happened,” she pointed out.
I looked around for the cameraman, who was shooting the men who were working on the utility pole. Steve Mason walked back over to where we were standing.
“That was great!” he crowed, very excited. “We just did a breaking news segment, and we’ll have really good footage for the eleven o’clock news!”
“We’re so happy for you,” I said glumly. “But that pretty much does it for us today, wouldn’t you say?”
He looked startled, then a bit abashed.
“Yeah, well, sorry about that,” he said. “But you’ll be up and running again by tomorrow, right? For the last day of the sales?”
Sarah nodded confidently. Hooking her arm through his, she led him over to watch the men working behind the tent, talking in his ear nonstop all the way. An ambulance had appeared along with the other emergency services vehicles, and now it let out a little hoot from its siren and pulled slowly out of the intersection, swinging back into the alley behind our building to turn around. I said goodbye to Josie and dragged myself back across the street, in dire need of a towel and some dry clothes.
Our sale tables were standing unattended, dripping onto the sidewalk. I climbed the stairs and went inside. The shop was empty, and I wondered where everyone was. Then I heard voices from the back hallway, and went through the showroom to see what was going on. Tony was standing on the back porch, and Siri, Bella and Amy were outside, watching the ambulance pull out of the alley. They all looked upset.
“What’s up?” I asked, coming up behind Tony.
He turned and put his arms around me.
“It’s Henry,” he said, very tense. “He collapsed. Lexi’s friend said it looked like a heart attack. They just took him to the emergency room! I’m going now. Will you come?”
I nodded, shocked and a little dazed, and I looked at Siri.
“You go, Emily, we’ll take care of things here,” she said quietly, and Bella nodded.
“Just a second,” I said, and ran inside to grab my purse and a couple of kitchen towels. When I got back outside, Tony had pulled his car out of the parking space and was waiting for me to get in, the engine running. I spread out one towel and sat on it, using the other one to dry my arms and legs, and rubbing my wet hair. I shivered and looked over at Tony’s face, tense and concerned. I had a feeling it was going to be a long, hard night.
I quite simply could not picture my world without Henry Paradis in it. I couldn’t, and I didn’t want to, so I wouldn’t. I deliberately turned my thoughts to a world with Henry looming large within it, calling up his vivid presence in my mind. I held the image there like the seed of a dream as we drove to the hospital in silence, afraid to discover what would happen next.
The Star
HOPE, OPTIMISM
Description: A woman kneels next to a pool, with one foot in the water and the other on shore. She is perfectly balanced between the conscious and the subconscious worlds.
Meaning: Hope, optimism. Firm b
elief in the inherently positive nature of life, the glass half-full.
When we walked into the emergency room entrance, Lexi was waiting for us at the door. Her doctor boyfriend, Michael Sheehan, was nowhere in sight. I hoped that the neurosurgeon from Boston had been able to cut through the hospital protocol and would help us find out what was going on.
“I’m so glad you and Michael were there when it happened!” I said, accepting a warm hug from Lexi. Now the tables had turned, and she was actually comforting me! It was strange.
Tony went straight over to the window where a nurse sat behind a desk, and spoke to her. I asked Lexi what she knew. She said Michael had been allowed to go inside when they wheeled Henry into the triage area, but she hadn’t seen him since. She’d been sitting in the waiting room, where about half of the chairs were occupied by people with glazed eyes, who had apparently been there for quite some time.
“They’re asking for insurance information,” Tony called to me, with an irritated, impatient tone. “Do you know anything about that?”
“It must be Health New England, the same kind as mine. We work together,” I told the nurse. “I don’t know what his number is though. I can get any information you need from the files at the office, tomorrow.” She thanked me, saying she would give the insurance company a call. Tony went inside the little office to help her fill out the papers.
We sat down and we waited. And waited. A hell of a long time. It was the worst kind of soul deadening, physically excruciating, completely maddening emotional torture I had ever experienced. The waiting room was surrounded on three sides by big plate glass windows that held back the matte black night, and the fishbowl space inside was lit by greenish yellow fluorescent lights. One of the bulbs flickered slightly in a subtle, nauseating staccato rhythm. We sat in hard orange molded plastic chairs on a gray linoleum floor, slippery and unyielding. A TV chattered on and on and on from the corner of the ceiling, where it was mounted on a metal bracket. Presumably this was to put it out of the reach of any crazed detainees like me who might want to turn it off, or smash it with something, or rip it down from the wall and throw it out the window.
I fantasized killing the TV as I slid around in my uncomfortable seat, my damp skirt squeaking a little. I reached up and touched my hair, surprised to find that it was still wet too. I looked down at my bare legs and sandaled feet. There was black grit from the puddles on Market Street between my toes. It seemed poetic. I felt a tiny bit better. But then the air conditioning came on again with a huge gust of frigid antiseptic-scented air, and I started to shiver uncontrollably.
Lexi looked at me with concern.
“You’re soaking wet! You must be freezing in here!”
I nodded, my teeth chattering. Tony put his warm arm around my shoulders and hugged me, rubbing my upper arms briskly. “I’ve got a jacket in the trunk of my car, I’ll go and get it,” he said, glad to have a mission. He stepped out of the fishbowl door and disappeared into the opaque blackness. Lexi went over and spoke to the nurse, pointing at me. The irritating flutter of that bad fluorescent bulb was giving me a migraine. A needle of pain suddenly shot from the back of my left eye through my left temple and down my neck into my left shoulder. My vision blurred on the edges for a moment. Lexi came back with a clean white hospital towel, which she put around my shoulders, and I clutched it with both hands.
Reaching up to unfasten my hair clip, Lexi looked at my unfocussed expression with alarm, and said sharply, “Emily! Are you going to pass out on me? What’s going on, Emily?” She waved her hand in front of my eyes and grabbed my shoulder.
“It’s just a migraine. I’m OK.”
“You sure? No passing out?”
“Thank you, Lexi,” I said, as she sat closer to me and used the towel to dry my hair. I could have done it myself, but I let her do it. I think she needed to help.
Tony came back with his workout jacket and I put it on, gratefully. Lexi loaned me a comb and I got it through my hair with some difficulty, making a quick trip to the ladies’ room to clean up the rest of me, as well as I could. Meanwhile, my left eye pulsed painfully with every step I took, every motion I made. I felt disconnected, like I was floating. When I walked back to the waiting room, my feet stepped very carefully across the cold, slick floor, somehow doing this all by themselves. I sat down again between Tony and Lexi, my two pillars of support. They held me sitting upright with their warm adjacent shoulders, between which I drooped, listening now only to the drum-throb-hurt-burn-dizzy-nausea sound of my heart and head, beating together in unison.
Henry, I was so worried about Henry. Henry, Henry. His image flashed before me. His face pulsed along with my blood, on-off, on-off. I saw him the way he looked the first time we met, when he opened the door to my knock. I saw him sitting under the umbrella at the sidewalk sale, in his wild outfit and sunglasses. A deep well of pain swelled up from my tense anxious belly and burned its way up the left side of my back, into my left shoulder, and on up to my temple where it met the answering throb of my left eye socket. I swayed a little in my seat when it blossomed into burning sparkles and took my breath away, closing my eyes and leaning against Tony. He reached over and took my hand, holding it loosely. I zoned out again, riding the next wave of pain down a dark tunnel into a very, very deep place in my mind, a still and quiet place. This was my mental air raid shelter, a place where I could ride out nearly anything. I was surprised to see Henry standing there. He looked confused.
“Not feeling well?” he asked by thinking it at me. “You look terrible!”
I nodded my head in confirmation. The pain seemed duller and more distant now.
“How about you?” I asked mentally, unable to move or speak. We floated in a sort of gray misty place, where we both flickered in and out.
“I’m not sure,” he thought back at me. “Did something happen?”
“Yes,” I nodded mentally. “You need to come back, Henry. You need to stay with us.”
He looked confused again. “Really?” he thought doubtfully, frowning and stroking his mustache.
I nodded very earnestly, thinking it at him hard, but the imaginary motion set off another big wave of pain and nausea, and I swayed again and felt Tony squeezing my hand. I opened my eyes and he kissed me on the cheek.
The swinging doors that led into the hospital opened, and Lexi’s boyfriend Michael strode through them energetically. He spotted us and headed our way. We all stood up to meet him.
“They’re taking him up to Intensive Care right now,” Michael said, professional and sharp. “He definitely had a heart attack. He’s going to be fine. We got him here in very good time, and he’s being medicated. They’re doing several tests. This will mean some changes in his lifestyle from now on.”
He looked at Tony and me appraisingly.
“Does he have any family?” he asked us.
We looked at each other and I shrugged, not really knowing the answer.
“I think he may still have a brother alive somewhere,” Tony said, “But aside from that, we’re his family.”
“Does he live alone?”
“He lives over the store,” I said. “We’re there nearly every day, but not at night.”
“He may have to spend some time in rehab then. He won’t be able to handle stairs for a while. And he’s going to need follow-up health care. Someone will have to be there with him. He’s in pretty good shape for his age, but he may not bounce right back.” He spoke frankly, seriously.
“We’ll take care of him,” Tony said, determined. “He’ll bounce back faster in his own home. We can work it out.” He looked at me confidently and I smiled in agreement, still feeling woozy and sick, but extremely relieved.
Lexi told Michael I was having a migraine and he spoke to the nurse behind the window for a moment, scribbling something on a pad of paper. She came out in a few minutes with a pink tablet in a foil wrapper, and I swallowed it with some water from the drinking fountain. Michael said that Tony and I had
permission to see Henry for just a second, but cautioned us that he was extremely groggy and might be asleep. Lexi stayed in the waiting room while Michael led us inside the swinging doors.
We passed through a series of long, shiny, brightly-lit hallways, catching little glimpses of the dramas going on inside the rooms along the way, like the cells on a strip of film. There was a rhythm to the placement of the doorways to my left and my right, and it matched the pounding inside my head as I walked along. I slipped my arm through Tony’s and held on for dear life. As we moved deeper into the huge breathing, buzzing, hive of a building, it got darker and quieter. The scenes in the rooms we passed became sadder and more dramatic. The walls turned from green, to blue, to pink. The hallway seemed to close in as though we were entering a smaller space through a funnel, approaching the sanctum sanctorum, the very heart of the hive.
The Intensive Care unit was a solemn place. Against a backdrop of high tech equipment, which was everywhere, people wearing scrubs moved silently about their work. A doctor wearing a white jacket and stethoscope over his weekend golfing clothes was talking quietly to someone’s family members outside one of the five curtained patient areas. Nurses with sweet, soft faces looked at us with kindness in their eyes. Michael looked inquiringly at the nurse standing behind the station counter, who seemed to be expecting us. She nodded at him and smiled. He led us to the last cubicle and pulled back the curtain, motioning for us to enter and closing the curtain behind us.
The space inside the tiny room was packed with stainless steel equipment, miles of wires and cables, and various monitors with glowing LED lights and dials. It looked like the place where Dr. Frankenstein gave life to his monster. And lying on the bed, if you could call that grasshopper-shaped machine a bed, was my poor Henry. There were wires and tubes attached to him in several places, and his skin looked gray. He was wearing a hospital gown with his limbs exposed, long and skinny. He looked a million years old and extremely frail, like I could easily have picked him up. His eyes were closed and he did not move, but then I saw his chest rise and fall very slightly.
