The Substitution Order, page 9
“No big deal.”
“You sound funny,” she says. “Different.”
“Probable just Melvin’s 1980s phone. Probably, I mean.”
“I hope the divorce and everything didn’t have a role. I swear I tried—”
“A tear in my carotid artery. In my neck. Stress and the divorce didn’t cause that.” It’s becoming slightly easier to speak. “A fluke, basically.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I’d never wish hardship on you. How terrible.” She hesitates. “Can I do anything to help? Not, you know, as your wife, but I’d be happy to do what I can. I feel awful for you.”
“I promise I’m okay. But thanks. Thank you. Dan’s here for a couple days, so I’m covered.”
“He’s such a sweetheart. Tell him I said hello. I miss seeing him.”
“Will do.”
“Kevin,” she says.
“What?”
“You’re clean, aren’t you? This isn’t from drugs?”
“No. God, no, Ava.”
“Good,” she says, but there’s a grain of skepticism in her tone. “I can tell you that it seems something’s rotten in Denmark with the insurance company. The claims jerk kept trying to trick me into confirming I dropped you from the policy on the first of the month. Tried to sneak it in very casually, then became snippy when I told him it was the sixteenth. They took the money from my check for that pay period. I have a copy of my letter to prove the date, if that’s ever an issue.”
“I’m grateful.” I squeeze my eyes shut. Breathe through my mouth and fill my lungs. Open my eyes. Let the air go. “Thanks. Appreciate the call. See you around, I guess.”
Not long afterward, Dan and I are watching a Red Sox game, and we have another surprise visitor, like the goofy Mystery Date board game, where you open the cardboard door and cross your fingers, and this go-round we’ve drawn a preacher from a church down the road, and we don’t realize he’s on the porch until he pokes his head into the house and shouts, “Anybody home?” His name is Floyd Grimes, and he’s come by, he cheerfully informs us, as part of his pastoral duty to visit the sick.
“Thanks,” I tell him. He’s slipped over the threshold and into the den but hasn’t taken a seat, and I intend to keep him standing and have him swiftly gone. “We’re pretty much okay here,” I assure him. “My friend Dan and I.”
Dan’s not familiar with the remote’s volume control, and he stabs a couple of ineffective buttons and shakes the device at the screen before finally just killing the power. He tosses the remote on the recliner and cuts Preacher Grimes off near the kitchen counter. “Dan Duggan,” he says, and they shake hands.
“I heard from Melvin you was ailin’,” Grimes says to me. “You’re Mr. Moore, I reckon?” He’s wearing a dark suit and white shirt open at the collar. A gold cross is pinned to the suit coat’s lapel. “Sorry to be meetin’ you under these conditions.” He’s carrying a Bible, and he switches it to his right hand and waves at me with his left.
“I appreciate your making the effort,” I assure him, “but I’m tired and not really ready for a long visit. Maybe another day.”
“I understand,” Grimes says. “Don’t mean to be no bother to you.” He’s pushing sixty but has a full head of side-parted silver hair that funnels into woolly sideburns. “Melvin’s always been kind to take care of us at the church if we was ever in need, so I wanted to do everything I could when he called me and told me about you. Y’all are cousins, I understand?”
“Yeah, distant cousins.”
“Which church are you from?” Dan asks, and I want to slap him.
“New Temple of the True Gospel and Harvest,” Grimes replies. “We split from Vesta First Baptist about a year ago.”
“Jewish?” Dan quizzes him.
“What do you mean?”
“With temple in the title, I assume you’re Jewish,” Dan says. Every single fucking syllable reeks of Yankee.
“Dan.” I sharpen my voice. “Not now. I’m exhausted. I’m certain Reverend Grimes has other business to attend to. We’ll see him later, and I’ll let Melvin know that he stopped by.”
“Uh, no,” Grimes answers. His tone remains agreeable, but he bucks up across his chest and shoulders. “We’re Christian. We believe in the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.” He raises the Bible slightly and holds it with both hands. “Are you churched, Mr. Duggan?”
“Churched?”
“I mean a member of a church or congregation.”
“Biggest, baddest, high-rollingest, richest church on the planet—Saint Peter’s. I was raised Catholic. As you know, it’s not only a church, it’s also a country.”
“Thanks again, Preacher,” I say, the instant Dan shuts up. “Appreciate the visit.”
“You mind if I pray over you before I leave?” Grimes asks. “Ask the Lord for healin’?”
“Sure,” I say. “Okay, if you want to. Whatever.”
“It seems God Almighty has already revealed a generous blessin’ of protection on you. It’s a miracle the Shelor boy was drivin’ by when you was struck down. A miracle he seen you through the window. A miracle he’s in the rescue squad and knowed what to do.”
Dan folds his arms across his chest. “Me, I’d argue that this charitable God Almighty revealed a generous blessing of dynamite to blow up my best friend’s irreplaceable, one-and-only brain. According to Matthew, chapter ten, verse twenty-nine, which you’ll discover in the book you’ve been brandishing at us for the last few minutes: ‘Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father.’ ” He’s looking at the ceiling the entire time he’s speaking, not at me or the preacher. “My reading of that, as a well-trained altar boy,” he adds, finally locking onto Grimes, “would be that some god authored this and then, I suppose, made Kevin Moore into a parlor game and rescued him at the last second for sport or to prove a point.”
I keep quiet. I’ve certainly wondered about my stroke, and an hour-long ambulance ride over crooked rural roads—after a clot tried to maul my brain—damn sure focused me on the alpha-and-omega riddles, set me to thinking about the nuts and bolts of perishing, but no matter how thoroughly I pick apart my circumstances, none of it makes a lick of sense. I’m not religious, but even if I were, there’s no discoverable relief in steeples and stained glass or the notion of a beneficent Lord chessboarding me and millions of other pawns from square to square. Still, I’m anxious to hear Floyd Grimes’s response. Hopeful. I believe in backwoods wise men, and maybe this guy, this hillbilly preacher, is the genuine article. Maybe he has my answer. I turn toward him.
“My faith tells me that sometimes our lovin’ Father has to discipline us, jerk a knot in your tail, just like any other parent would do. Return us to the righteous path. Grab our attention so we’ll follow His word.”
Dan drops his hands from his chest and settles them on his hips. “My loving Irish daddy would’ve given me a warning first. Maybe no TV for a weekend. Or grounded me. A lecture. Cut my allowance. He didn’t go capital right from the start.”
“Not for us to always understand His will,” the preacher says quietly. He’s calm and civil. “Maybe them lesser warnings wasn’t heard.”
Dan leans against the kitchen counter, and we don’t bow our heads or close our eyes as Grimes kneels beside me, rests his flat hand on my shoulder and prays for grace and healing mercies.
“Nice to meet you both,” he says amiably as he’s leaving. “I drive a truck as well as pastorin’ our congregation, and I’ll be on the road tomorrow, but I’ll stay in touch.”
He invites us to his church, and despite our resistance and obvious heathen bent, and despite my soon making it apparent I’d never be attending his—or any other—religious service, he goes on to visit me regularly until the fall, bringing cakes, pies, church-lady casseroles and a quart of Brunswick stew, and he has the good sense to never wear out his welcome, often remaining on the porch, his Sunday duds replaced by jeans and brogans, and I grow to tolerate his arrivals and can’t help but appreciate his steady kindness. On his last July day at the homeplace, Dan grudgingly relents too, and tells the preacher to call if he ever has a tractor-trailer emergency in Atlanta. “Not his fault he can’t solve shit that Pharaoh and Sophocles and Julius Caesar and even L. Ron Hubbard got completely wrong,” Dan noted as Grimes drove away that afternoon.
* * *
When Lilly returns for her second visit on Friday, July 8, I’m mired on the couch enduring the same bleak Non-24-Sleep-Disorder TV commercial for the third time in an hour. She’s driving a white Range Rover, and Minivan and I spy on her through the den window. She’s carrying her doctor’s bag and is dressed in nurse’s garb, a smock and loose drawstring pants. She’s also wearing sunglasses, and she removes them right below the steps and rakes her hair behind her ear on one side. She’s alone; Bess doesn’t come until later.
“Maybe I’ll see about having an angiogram myself,” Dan cracks.
She’s as polite and agreeable as she was when we first met. She inspects my groin incision, checks my vitals, goes through the stroke protocol of pushes and pulls and touches and questions, and tells me I’m doing much better already. She draws a vial of blood for Dr. Wallace. Since my insurer is still stonewalling me, I do the rough math, try to figure the cost of the test.
“Thanks for the gift,” I say. “That’s very kind. The flowers and the elephant.”
“The carnations,” Dan interjects, smirking at me.
“My pleasure,” she answers. “I hope they cheered you up.”
“Do you, I mean…pick them on an individual basis or sort of give everybody the same?” I try to sound natural, but the question is so awkward and ham-fisted that Dan laughs.
She glances at him before she answers but doesn’t seem perturbed or put off, probably chalks up the inelegance to my stroke.
“I always try to give a gift that’s appropriate,” she says. “For instance, I have lions for boy children and stuffed Disney Elsas for the girls.”
“Kevin’s a huge dinosaur fan,” Minivan offers.
“And you buy these yourself?” I ask, ignoring him.
“I do,” she replies. “No chance they’re in the budget at Advocate Nursing. I’m lucky to wrangle mileage reimbursement from them.”
“Well, thanks again. It did lift my spirits.”
The next morning she presents me with a purple T. rex. The following day, she brings me a stuffed Elsa. Day five, she warns me about my haphazard diet, suggests I completely avoid sugar and stocks the fridge with Tupperware tubs full of fresh apple and pear slices. She scolds me for not drinking enough water. I learn that she has a nursing degree, a BSN from the University of Michigan, and that she’s actually a licensed physician’s assistant. She explains more about the tear in my neck and the pseudoaneurysm and seems concerned when I tell her that my next MRI exam is scheduled for January. “We ought to revisit your appointments,” she declares. “You need to be scanned and checked at two months max.”
“Dr. Wallace and the docs at Forsyth told me it would heal on its own. Take the Plavix and go easy with my activities, and I’ll be good as new.”
“You have a nearly seventy percent blockage,” she reminds me. “Most dissections do heal by themselves. Some don’t. You want to sit on your hands and wait and see, possibly let that blockage grow larger or throw another clot?”
I take her measure sitting there on the sofa, her expression earnest and worried. “Makes sense to check,” I agree.
She slides to the edge of the cushion. She rocks toward me and gestures at me with a pen. “I’m serious,” she says emphatically. “I’ll call your doctor today myself. You can’t wait six months with a time bomb in your neck, for goodness’ sake. Sometimes you just have to wonder how these neurologists made it through freshman biology, much less med school.” She shakes her head.
I tell Dan as she’s driving away that I’m pretty positive she’s not in cahoots with Caleb and his gang of fraudsters, and hell, if she is a plant or a spy, by now I don’t care one whit. “No surprise that I’m already infatuated with her. I’m forty-three years old, and I’ve been separated from my wife for nearly a year. I’ve had zero sex and zero dates during that forlorn exile. The nurse visits are about all I have going for me.”
“The skilled operatives, the pros, they befriend you in order to blind you.” He grins. “I’m sure, my man, that your adversaries feel the need to devote their best agent and high-level resources to your situation, given how well you’ve been fending them off and keeping the advantage.”
“She’s a delight and a godsend. Anyhow, I don’t think they’d repeatedly send in a real person with a real name and a real history and allow us to trace her to them.”
“Pleased to hear you’re still marginally analytical, not simply bamboozled by her looks and obvious charms.”
“And like you said, what do they have to gain? Why would they go to the trouble? I was scrambled and not myself when I met her. It’s still not easy to process things correctly. I can’t always trust my own mind—it’s weird.”
“I’ve yet to see a ring, but a lot of doctors and nurses don’t wear jewelry because it interferes with the job. Of course, she seems too classy and ethical to hop into a romance with a patient, especially a cipher like you who has such thin possibilities and a hitch in his stride.”
Before Lilly’s last couple of visits, I shave and shower early, and I begin dressing in chinos and leather flip-flops instead of pajama bottoms and hospital socks with the nonslip soles. I empty the dishwasher, sweep the floors, replace a dead lightbulb, organize my pile of mail and hospital papers, and tidy the den so I’ll seem less like a sad sack.
On her final scheduled day, I ask Lilly if she might consider treating me for another week.
“I’m not sure that’s medically indicated,” she explains. She’s seated on the sofa, filling in a form. I’m across from her in a large, comfortable leather chair. I make it a point not to slump. I’m clean-shaven and my hair’s still damp from the shower. “Your incision has healed perfectly.” She sounds pleased telling me this and looks up from the paper and smiles at me. “You’re stable. Your ankle’s improving and your gait is better. You have no speech or mental deficits. You’ve been a very determined patient. No one could’ve been more positive and committed. I’m proud of you. But there’s not much more I have to offer. I’d be wasting your time.”
I look at her, but she’s focused again on the form in her lap. “Well, the truth is I’d just like to have a daily check. It’s psychological as well as medical. I’ll be here by myself. Dan’s leaving in the morning. It’s a little scary once you’ve been walloped with no warning—I don’t mind admitting that I’m uneasy about being left alone for days at a time.”
“I don’t blame you, and it’s perfectly normal to be concerned that it might happen again. But there’s no chance your insurance company would pay us.”
“Hell, it’s not as if they’re paying now anyway. I’d pay you out of my pocket.”
“I’d hate to see you get stuck with my full price for what would be essentially aide or CNA duties. Why don’t I see about lining up an aide to visit with you and help with light housekeeping and your personal care?”
“I suppose,” I answer. “I suppose. Yeah.” I cross my legs. I roll my wristwatch in a circle. “I’d kind of hoped to continue with you if I could. I’m progressing well, and your care has been a real boost for me, and I wanted to keep on that track. No reason to change horses in midstream.” I start to clarify the horse reference, but she speaks before I can round up the words and ship them to my tongue.
“How, Kevin, are you doing with your addiction?”
“My addiction?”
“Drug use will compromise your recovery.” Her tone is gentle. There’s no condescension.
“August is a year clean,” I say. My voice isn’t strong and fizzles on the last syllables.
“Well, your hospital records indicate you asked about a drug test.”
“To prove I was drug-free. I wouldn’t be pleading for a test if I knew I’d fail it.”
“Yeah,” she answers. “The record entry’s kind of unclear as to what that was all about.”
“No surprise there,” I tell her. “My request was handed off through three people and finally landed with a doc who prides himself on being opaque.”
She nods. “I’ll see about another week. I’m sorry, but it’s one hundred and thirty-five a visit. Paid to the company, not me.”
“Best money I’ll spend this year,” I declare. “I’ll write you a check.”
“Well, wait,” she says. “I feel awful about accepting the pay and not doing the work. Let me see if I can schedule you at a lower tier. I’d have the company charge you for personal-aide care, and I’d simply do it myself and take those wages.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m happy to pay full freight.”
For the first time since I’ve met her, she allows me a tiny personal glimpse: “No need. As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m not in this gig for the paycheck.”
* * *
In terms of my romantic prospects, if anything, I lose ground with Lilly during her extra week. She’s unfailingly pleasant, and always upbeat, but she’s also very formal, almost cool. She continues to bring me sliced fruit, she walks with me to the double oak and she introduces me to rudimentary yoga, teaches me the tree pose, a modified Warrior One and basic restorative stretches that don’t involve my neck. She diffuses essential oils while we go through the routines and does her best to school me in breathing properly, reminds me when I skimp on deep chest inhalations.
She always checks my pulse, temperature and blood pressure, but my groin incision is healed enough that she doesn’t need to monitor it. Usually her visits last around forty-five minutes. She persistently ignores my conversational prods to talk about herself and her backstory, though she does lower her guard once, on the morning I receive a notice in the mailbox that Ava’s lawyer is submitting my divorce decree to the court for the judge to sign.
