Chapter 16: Gavin
The hospital seems quieter than last night. Maybe it’s because we’re walking to ICU rather than a normal patient hall.
Everyone inside this waiting room is somber. Makes sense, I guess. Cases here are more serious. People probably die on this ward every day. Maybe several times a day.
I shouldn’t think like that.
Mom is in the back corner, talking quietly with Uncle Ben. She looks like a widow already, in a black sweater and skirt. Ben listens carefully, nodding at the right moments. He’s grizzly, with a big beard that obscures much of his face. That’s new.
“Where’s Grandma K?” June whispers.
“Heck if I know,” I say. “You want me to go find her so you can give her a big ol’ hug?”
June stabs my side with her elbow. “Hush.”
Only six or seven other people are scattered through the room. In the opposite back corner, two women weep softly in a huddle. My stomach flips. I wonder what they’re going through.
I snuck into an ICU in California once to see Corabelle. The actual ward, not the waiting room. The beds had all been lined up along the wall, monitors beeping at random intervals.
I got caught, but the nurse had mercy and let me stay. Corabelle had pneumonia, a bad case. I was beside myself, thinking I had found her after four years only to lose her again.
This time is nothing like that. I try to find any concern for my father at all, and come up with nothing. If he’s dead, he can’t insult Corabelle. Blaming her for the way he treated me was ridiculous. Anger burns in my heart a second time, just thinking about it.
“June,” Mom says, holding out her arms.
June walks over reluctantly and allows Mom to wrap her up in a hug.
“Uncle Ben is here!” Mom says.
Ben must not have been around much in the last six years, because June gets shy when she turns to him. He holds out a hand and she shakes it awkwardly.
I guess I better get over there too.
“Gavin,” Uncle Ben says, standing to clap my back as we shake. “You’re not the teenage pipsqueak I saw last.”
“You look like you’ve filled out a bit yourself,” I say.
Ben spreads his hands across his belly. “Looking to apply for some Santa positions soon,” he jokes. “Just waiting on this hair to go gray.”
“Oh, you’ve got years on that,” Mom says. “Dad didn’t go gray until he was sixty.”
And died not long after, I recall. His favorite expression was “die young and leave a good-lookin’ corpse.” He hadn’t died all that young, but certainly before any of us was ready.
Grandpa Jack hadn’t cared one whit for my father and told Mom so. I heard them argue a time or two that she should leave him. But Mom always stuck by her husband. That’s what she always did best.
Sometimes I imagine Grandpa Jack and Finn are in some otherworldly play land, whooping it up together. Life sure was all right when he was around, giving me geodes and making sure I was learning stuff. He did hard labor on road construction sites, and it broke him down over time. His son Ben followed in his footsteps. He wanted something different for me.
Maybe I needed to get that degree done after all.
I sit by Ben, and June settles in next to Mom.
“Any news?” I ask.
“They update us every couple hours,” Mom says. “Everything looks good, so they’re going to let him wake up on his own. He’s ornery enough that he’ll make us wait all night.”
“You want to get some dinner or some sleep?” I ask. “I can hang out up here.”
“Ben and I had dinner,” Mom says. “We’re going to give it until midnight then break until morning.”
That’s about four hours away. “They let you stay here all night?”
“Sure,” Mom says. “New people come in fairly regular. I think they bring them up here from the ER if they aren’t stable enough for a regular room.”
“Some sad cases in here,” Uncle Ben says. His eyes dart to the weeping women. “Car accident. Teen daughter killed. Husband here after emergency surgery.”
My gaze skitters over them again.
I wonder what we look like to the others. Indifferent son. Unaffected daughter.
It was different with baby Finn. We were in the NICU and everyone’s situations were obvious. Each row was a different level of care. Finn was in the most fragile row.
Many of the babies on his row didn’t go home.
Here, you don’t see the same people day in and day out. Everyone moves all over.
A nurse comes in, nondescript in blue scrubs and black hair tied up tight. The room looks up expectantly, wondering who is getting news.
She heads toward us. “You all are for Robert Mays, right?”
“We are,” Mom says.
“He’s awake. Only two can come back at a time, for five minutes only,” she says. She looks at June. “How old is she?”
“How old does she need to be?” Uncle Ben asks.
Mom elbows him. “She’s fourteen. His daughter.”
“That will be all right,” the nurse says. “Who is first?”
Mom stands. “June? Gavin?”
My sister and I look at each other. Neither of us makes a move.
“I’ll go,” June says with a sigh.
They follow the nurse out of the room.
Uncle Ben leans his head against the wall. “Been a long day in these chairs,” he says.
“I bet.”
“I heard you drove up last night.”
“Yeah. Corabelle made me come.” I lean over and brace my elbows on my knees. My boots are covered in dust from the hike.
“I didn’t figure you’d do it. You’ve been scarce a while.”
I shrug. “She’s got my number.”
This gets a laugh. “I hear ya on that. Not much Phoebe asks for that I don’t do.”
Aunt Phoebe. I hadn’t thought about her in a long time. She didn’t always come up with Uncle Ben. They have an autistic son and travel is difficult.
“How is she? And James?”
“Percolating along. James ages out of public school next year, so we’ll have to figure out what’s next.”
“Is he doing okay?”
“He’s starting to say a few words.” Uncle Ben rubs his eyes. “He understands everything we say. Sometimes he’ll do what we ask, sometimes not. He just can’t say anything back. Not sure he ever will.”
My eyes drop back to my feet. So many ways parenting can be hard.
“You and Corabelle going to try and have another kid?” he asks.
Great. What to say to that?
“We are,” I say. That’s true either way you look at it.
Another nurse comes in and heads to the corner with the weeping women. Their faces lift, fear layered over the grief.
The woman says something in hushed tones and the two of them gather their things. Has the husband been moved to a regular room and will recover? Or are they being taken to one of those awful grieving rooms to be told he has not made it?
I’ll never know. They will walk out and their story will remain unfinished to me.
“Tough place to be,” Uncle Ben says. “I’m going to go down for some coffee. Want any?”
I shake my head. “I’m good.”
He stands up and heads for the door.
For a crazy moment I consider following the women, see where they go. I want to know someone else’s ending.
But Uncle Ben is only gone a moment when Mom and June return.
“You’re next,” June says. “He’s really out of it. He barely knew who I was.” She plunks back down on a chair.
“We’ll wait for you to come back, then you can take June home with you,” Mom says. “Just go past that desk and around to the first door on the right. He’s in the fourth bed.”
“All right.” I head through the chairs. Figures I would be heading back there alone. But if he’s like June says, it won’t matter. I can say “good-bye and get better,” and my duty here is done.
The woman at the desk nods to me as I pass. Then there’s a narrow hall and a couple doors. I take the first one.
The ward is semi-dark, lights flashing from machines set at intervals. I count the beds, one, two, three, four, and I see him. He’s still flat on his back, arms stretched out on the bed. A nurse sits beside him.
She nods at me. “He’s still going in and out a bit. It will probably be tomorrow before he really comes around.”
I stand next to the bed. Dad has a million wires coming from him and an oxygen tube in his nose. Next to him, a machine lights up with his pulse. Quadruple bypass. And yet, the heart keeps on beating, like nothing’s happened at all.
I wonder if this is my future, or if his way of living got him here. Something to ask a doctor about sometime, I guess.
The nurse touches his arm. “Robert, your son is here.”
His eyes flutter at that, then open. He’s groggy, looking around like he’s trying to place himself. Then his gaze falls on me.
I can’t be too clear, not without his glasses.
“Hey,” I say. “Just stopping by. I’m about to take June back.”
He nods at me, and I think maybe he’s glad I came, at least to be there for my mother and sister. And he’s right. Putting up with him is worth it if I can have more time like the hike I had with June.
He tries to lift an arm, realizes it’s tethered, and drops it down again. Then his mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
“It’s all right, Robert,” the nurse says. “Your throat will be a little dry for a while from the anesthesia tube.” She lifts a cup with a straw. “Take a little sip.”
He does so, and gives a weak cough. His heart monitor jumps, and I’m startled, picturing the new veins breaking away, spewing blood through his chest.
The nurse pats his shoulder. “That’s good,” she says. “Settle back.” She sets the cup down. “He seems fragile, but we’ll have him up and walking by morning, most likely.”
That seems wild. They cracked open his chest and stopped his heart. But tomorrow he’ll be out of bed.
He’s more awake now, and the eyes that fix on me are harder again. “Boy,” he says.
I know that tone. One more insult for the road.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“Stop staring at me like I’m gonna die,” he rasps. “You look like a scared rabbit.”
And with that, I’ve officially had enough.
“See ya later,” I say. “Be nice to Mom and June or I’ll rip those new veins out myself.”
The nurse drops her jaw in shock as I turn on my heel and walk straight out.