Families and Other Nonreturnable Gifts

by Claire Lazebnik

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what they are.”

  “You want me to look through them while I’ve got you on the phone?”

  “No, don’t.” I was a counselor in training for a couple of the years Tom and I were dating, and I didn’t have e-mail or phone privileges, so he wrote me long letters. I don’t know if those letters are in there, and I don’t even remember if there was anything that racy in them—I think he mostly talked about his job working for his dad that summer and what movies he’d seen—but they’re private, and I don’t want my mother reading them. “I’ll go through them next time I’m home.”

  “I can’t just leave everything lying around for you all to go through at some unspecified later date,” she says irritably. “I’m trying to get this house in showing condition and I can’t sit around waiting for you and Hopkins to take time out of your busy lives to help out for once.”

  Normally I’d snap back, but given her current fragility, I keep my temper. “I’m sorry you’re overwhelmed, Mom, and I know Hopkins hasn’t made it home yet, but I really have been doing my best to help.” It’s frustrating because I know her. She’s not actually working that hard. She’s seeing a big job in front of her and panicking about it rather than just working through it. That’s the reason our house is and always has been a mess: instead of attacking the problem slowly and steadily, she looks around, flips out at how much there is to do, flings her hands up, and complains to anyone who’ll listen that it’s an impossible task. That panic may even have triggered this last depressive episode. “I’ll come pick up the box, if that’s what you want.”

  “That would be— Oh, wait, I just remembered. I’m going out to dinner near your place tomorrow night. I could drop it off. And maybe a few other things, too.”

  “Why do I have a feeling I’m about to have something dumped on me that no one else wants?” I say. “Like the dining room table? Or Grandma’s old dresser? Or Milton?”

  “Now that you mention it…” At the sound of her laugh, I release the breath I’ve been holding through this whole conversation—if she can laugh, she’s okay. “He’s very easy to take care of, just feed and water him once a week.”

  “Nice try.”

  “So did you have a good time on Sunday?”

  I’m confused by the abrupt change of topic. “On Sunday?”

  “Your birthday dinner.”

  Shit. Who told her about that? “It wasn’t really my birthday dinner. It was just dinner.”

  “Your father said it was a birthday celebration. I think it’s great that you invited him. He needs to get out more. I just wanted to know how it was, that’s all.”

  And to let me know that you know you were excluded, that I invited Dad and not you. “It was totally last minute,” I say hastily. “And my real birthday celebration was with Tom, on my actual birthday.”

  “Did he get you anything exciting?”

  He carved my name into his flesh. Does that count? “A necklace,” I say.

  * * *

  When she drops off the box at our house, she’s not alone. I answer our door and she’s standing next to some guy I’ve never seen before, a guy with thick gray hair and a handsomely craggy face. They’re both holding boxes. “Hi,” Mom says brightly. “Keats, meet Michael Goodman. Michael, meet Keats.”

  Michael raises his box slightly. “I’d shake hands, but…”

  “Come in,” I say, “and you can put it down.”

  He does—they both do—and then we shake.

  Tom enters from the bedroom, where he was watching TV. “Oh, look who’s here,” he says with a questioning glance at me. I had forgotten to tell him Mom was dropping by, and he’s wearing sagging sweats and a stained, worn-out T-shirt.

  Michael introduces himself, and it’s their turn to shake hands.

  “So where are you two kids off to this evening?” I ask.

  “Kurosawa retrospective in Coolidge Corner,” Michael says.

  “A little Throne of Blood action?”

  “Rashomon actually, but I’m impressed. Most kids your age don’t know Kurosawa.”

  “I learn just enough about stuff like this to make it sound like I’m more sophisticated than I actually am.”

  “Have you ever seen a Kurosawa movie?”

  “A couple, but only because she made me.” I nod in Mom’s direction.

  “You?” Michael asks Tom, who shakes his head. “What kind of movies do you like?”

  “I’m an action junkie,” Tom says. “James Bond, Jason Bourne—that kind of thing.”

  “Kurosawa’s a great action director,” Michael says seriously. “Seven Samurai was the inspiration for a lot of Westerns that came after it.”

  “Yeah?” Tom says. “Cool. I didn’t know that.”

  I can’t stand the expression on my mother’s face—the politely bland mask that suggests she can’t let her actual feelings show when Tom’s talking—so I say abruptly, “You guys should probably get going if you’re having dinner before the movie.”

  “Right,” Michael says, glancing at his watch.

  I wave my finger at him. “Just make sure you get her home by ten.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “That might be difficult. The movie starts at nine.”

  “I don’t know why I bother to set a curfew,” I say with a sigh.

  He grins. “Moms always push back when you try to set rules, don’t they?”

  Okay, I’m kind of liking this guy. He’s a lot more engaging than Paul. Better looking, too. I try to telegraph my approval to Mom, but she’s tugging him toward the door. “Let’s go,” she says. “Uh, Tom? There’s one more box in the car.…”

  “No problem.” Tom goes down with them, and when he returns with the box, I say, “What did you think?”

  “About what?”

  “Mom’s date.”

  “That was a date?”

  “Of course. What else?”

  “I don’t know.” He heads toward the bedroom. “I hadn’t really thought about it much. I guess I just assumed he was a friend or something.” He disappears into the bedroom.

  Sometimes I wish I lived with another girl.

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, I’m reading the New Yorker on our bed, trying to block out the loud noise of the ESPN highlights show that Tom’s watching, when the phone rings. Tom picks up the handset, glances at it, says, “Your dad,” and tosses it to me.

  Only it’s not Dad. “Keats? It’s Jacob. I wanted you to know there’s an ambulance on its way in case you wanted to meet us at the hospital. I can’t reach your mother and—”

  “Wait,” I say. “What’s going on? Is Dad okay?”

  Tom looks up, concerned. “What?” he whispers. “What’s happening?”

  I put my hand up to keep him quiet so I can hear Jacob.

  “I think it’s his heart,” he says. “I have to go. Can you meet us at St. Christopher’s?”

  I’m already on my feet.

  * * *

  Tom insists on going with me. He drops me off in front of the hospital and goes to park. I race into the emergency room and tell the nurse who I’m looking for. She lets me through, into a web of hallways and examining rooms in the back, where I immediately spot Jacob pacing in front of a closed door. I run over and we hug briefly.

  “They’re examining him,” he says. “I don’t know anything yet except that it’s his heart. The EMTs gave him oxygen and some kind of blood thinner, I think.”

  “What happened? Did he pass out? Was he in a lot of pain?”

  “I don’t know all that much. I wasn’t around. I’d been teaching all afternoon and called him just to check in, and he sounded awful, so I asked him if he’d eaten anything all day and he said no, so I picked up some food, and when I got there, he was on the floor, but conscious. He couldn’t get up, said it felt like something huge was pressing down on his chest, and he wasn’t strong enough to get to the phone.”

  “If you hadn’t gone over�
�”

  “I wish I hadn’t stopped to get food.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “If he dies, it’ll be all your fault.”

  He manages a bleak smile. “Thanks, Keats. You really know how to cheer a guy up.”

  I touch his arm. “You’re the only one who’s been checking up on him. I feel awful. Grateful to you, but awful. Did they say how serious it was?”

  “The EMTs seemed pretty calm, for what that’s worth.”

  “So you came in the ambulance with him?”

  “I didn’t want him to be alone. I left a voice mail for your mom by the way.”

  “She’s at a movie—her phone’s probably turned off.” I’ll have to track her down somehow. I need her here with me. “Can I go in and see him?”

  “I don’t know. They shoved me out. But I’m not a relative.”

  “I’ll go ask a nurse. If you see Tom before I do, tell him to wait here with you.”

  He nods and sags against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his head bowed.

  * * *

  The nurse is useless, just says I should sit tight and wait for the doctor.

  I feel pretty stupid for having left to go talk to her when I come back to find the doctor already deep in conversation with Jacob and Tom. I rush over in time to catch the word stable.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I ask.

  “This is his daughter,” Tom tells the doctor.

  The doctor shakes my hand. “Aman Malik.”

  I mutter something about how it’s nice to meet him even though it’s an absurd thing to say under the circumstances. “How is he?”

  “We need to insert a stent as soon as possible. The meds we’ve given him aren’t doing the trick.”

  Everyone’s looking at me. I realize I’m supposed to say something. “Yeah?” is my brilliant response. God, I wish my mother were here.

  Dr. Malik tries to explain. I hear, “The heart, as you know, is a muscle” and then after that, he sounds pretty much like the adults in a Charlie Brown cartoon. He’s waaa-waaa-waaaing, but the words don’t coalesce into anything meaningful. Jacob and Tom are nodding like they understand what he’s saying, so the problem’s clearly in my head, not with the doctor.

  I feel more and more desperate. When he pauses and looks at me, I can think of only one thing to say, which is I want my mommy, only I try to make it sound more grown-up than that. “I’d like to have my mother in on the decision making.”

  “Will she be here soon?”

  “I think so.”

  “We’ll get started with the paperwork. It always takes longer than you think. Tell the nurses to page me once your mother gets here.” He starts to move away.

  “Wait,” I say. “Can I see him?”

  “Of course.” He seems vaguely surprised I’m asking. “He’s right in there.” He nods toward the door.

  I start to go, stop, look at Jacob. “Come with me.” I can’t go in alone. I’m scared of what Dad might look like. Jacob nods, and we move toward the door together. “Tom, will you try to get hold of my mother? Call the theater if you have to.”

  “Which theater?”

  “Coolidge Corner.” He was standing right there when Michael told us that’s where they were going. “Don’t you remember? The Kurosawa movie?”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” He pulls out his phone and Jacob and I go into the exam room.

  My dad’s lying on the bed with his eyes closed, covered by a thin blanket, his hair rumpled, his face pale and sunken. There’s an oxygen line in his nose and an IV in his arm. “Hey,” I say.

  At the sound of my voice, his eyes flicker open. He manages a smile. “How can it not be indigestion?” he says in a voice that’s not much louder than a whisper. He has to take a breath between every couple of words. “It’s always indigestion. You think you’re having a heart attack, and you go to the emergency room, and they tell you it’s just indigestion and to go home and relax. I’ve been waiting for them to say that.”

  “Sounds like you’re going to be waiting awhile longer.” He seems too fragile to kiss, so I just pat his arm. He nods briefly, but his eyes close again like he doesn’t have the energy to keep them open.

  “It’s a good thing Jacob came by the apartment,” he murmurs.

  “I just wish they’d made that sandwich faster,” Jacob says. “The guy at the counter was taking forever. If I’d known—”

  “You’d have skipped the mayo?” I say.

  “Yeah. Stupid mayo.”

  “I told you I wasn’t hungry,” Dad whispers. “Why does no one ever listen to me?”

  “You might have mentioned that you were having a heart attack,” I say. “He would have listened to that.”

  “It must have slipped my mind,” my father gasps out.

  * * *

  Tom appears at the door a few minutes later and beckons to me. When I join him in the hallway, he tells me proudly that it was hard work, but he finally got a message to my mother and now she’s on the phone. He hands me his cell so I can talk to her.

  “I’m on my way,” she says. “Sorry you had trouble reaching me. How’s he doing?”

  “You mean aside from the near-fatal heart attack?”

  She ignores that. “Have you called Hopkins yet?”

  “No.”

  “That should have been the first call you made. She’s the only one of us who knows anything.”

  “She’s not a cardiologist.”

  “She probably remembers more from her cardiology rotation than most cardiologists ever know. I’d like her to talk directly to the doctors there. Actually, what I’d really like is for her to come right away, but I don’t know how likely that is.”

  How ironic. All this time I’ve been wanting my mommy, and she just wants my big sister.

  Mom is going on. “I’m also going to call our internist and see if he can meet me at the hospital.” Maybe she notices I’m being quiet. “Don’t worry, Keats. People have heart attacks and recover all the time. Your father will be fine. Maybe he’ll even start taking better care of himself—sometimes a scare like this is the best wake-up call.”

  Her calm tone irritates me. “We’re lucky Jacob stopped by when he did,” I say. “Otherwise, we’d never have even known Dad was lying there unconscious.”

  “Yes, we owe Jacob a lot,” she says evenly. “And I promise you that I’ll still be able to sleep at night despite any attempt on your part to make me feel guilty.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Really?”

  She sighs. “Just call Hopkins for me, will you?”

  I hang up, hand Tom his phone, then pull out mine and start dialing.

  “Who you calling now?” Tom asks.

  “My sister. Mom wants her to talk to the doctor because apparently she’s the only person in our family who knows anything about anything.”

  The call goes directly to Hopkins’s voice mail.

  I leave a terse message explaining the situation and telling her to call either me or Mom. I don’t have to worry about scaring her. Hopkins doesn’t get scared by stuff like this.

  My mother arrives twenty minutes later. I’m relieved to see her but slightly weirded out that Michael Goodman is accompanying her.

  “This is a fun date,” I say to her when he excuses himself to go to the men’s room.

  “Don’t start,” she says. “He had to drive me here, and he was nice enough to say he’d come in and see if there was anything he could do to help.”

  “He doesn’t find the whole thing a little awkward? You don’t?”

  “We’re grown-ups, Keats. He understands the situation.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “That I needed to come to the hospital immediately because my ex-husband was having a heart attack. Oh, thank god, you’re here.” That last isn’t addressed to me, it’s to a middle-aged man who, despite his off-hours slacks and patterned sweater, still channels doctor with his distinguished white hair and little black bag. They greet each other warmly,
and then she introduces him to me as Dad’s internist Dr. Hanson.

  He informs us that he’s already spoken to Dr. Malik and feels confident that he’s making all the right decisions. He and Mom go to see Dad together, and Tom asks me if we can leave now that my mother’s here.

  “I feel better staying. But you go ahead.”

  He hugs me tightly, kisses me, says, “He’ll be okay. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “I know,” I say, and he heads toward the exit.

  I’m getting a little paper cone cup of water at the bubbler when Michael reappears.

  “She went in to see my dad,” I tell him. “I’m sure she’ll be out soon.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “No rush.”

  I wonder how long he plans to hang around. “Did you get to see much of the movie?” I ask as we sit on a bench in the hall outside Dad’s room. I feel like I’m at a cocktail party and have to make polite conversation with a stranger. A really bad, stressful cocktail party.

  “Enough,” he says. “Especially since I’ve seen it several times before.” He downshifts suddenly. “I’m really sorry about your father, Keats.”

  “Thanks. No one seems too worried.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine. But it’s never fun to spend time in a hospital—as a patient or a visitor.”

  Before I can respond, Jacob emerges from Dad’s room and joins us. “You going to go back in there, Keats? They’re discussing the operation.”

  “What’s the point? I’m no Hopkins.”

  “They’re not checking degrees at the door.”

  I shrug and don’t move.

  Mom comes out of the room a moment later, her cell phone to her ear. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but she’s listening intently, and I’m guessing it’s Hopkins on the other end. Eventually she ends the call and comes over to us. “She’s going to talk to Malik now, thank goodness. Michael, you don’t have to wait around.”

  “Are you sure?” Michael stands up. “If I can help in any way…”

  “You’ve been a huge help already,” she says. “Come on, I’ll walk you out.”