Wednesdays At One: A Novel, page 23
“What things?”
Gregory, whose work had trained him to be meticulous about boundaries, paused. “I’m sorry sweetie, but it’s not for me to share that.”
When he reached to hug Carrie, she spun away and headed out the door. “I’ll ask Jas. She’ll tell me.”
With the compressor on the air conditioner clunking every twenty minutes, waking him from whatever shallow sleep he’d fallen into, Gregory staggered into the bathroom at two in the morning in search of drugs. In the narrow medicine cabinet, he found several prescriptions for Jaslene Rodriguez, mostly fertility hormones, but nothing that would help him sleep. Under the counter, next to a bottle of Drano and a box of tampons, he found an almost-empty bottle of Children’s Benadryl. He put it to his lips and downed the last of the cloying, cherry-flavored liquid like a shot. Several hours later he woke to the sounds of cats prowling around outside his door. Gray morning light flooded the small room, and as he lay there on the sofa bed, he thought how strange it was that his father, whom Gregory had spent his life trying to separate from, would soon be gone.
28
They arrived at the hospital just before seven. Margaret was stretched out in the recliner, a white blanket bunched in her arms like a baby. She blinked her eyes open at the sound of them entering and looked around drowsily. “What’s happening?”
“Just us, mi amor,” Jas said. She crossed the room and handed Margaret an iced coffee from Dunkin’.
“Thanks, vida,” Margaret said and pulled Jas to her for a kiss.
“How is he?” Gregory asked.
“Still with us.” Margaret struggled to sit up in the chair while holding her drink. She looked at Carrie, who was yawning conspicuously, and asked, “Did you get some sleep, hon?”
“A little,” Carrie said. “What about you, Aunt Maggie?”
“Not much, but I’m fine.”
Margaret set the coffee on the windowsill and got up to hug her niece. The affectionate gesture read differently to Gregory, knowing now how badly she wanted to be a mother. “Here, you sit down. I need to stretch,” Margaret told Carrie.
Carrie plopped down into the blanket nest with her iced mocha. After a minute, she pulled out a small journal and pen from her backpack.
“What have you got there?” Margaret asked.
Carrie held up a book with a polka-dot cover. “Jas gave it to me.”
Margaret smiled at Jas, who had taken a seat in a chair against the far wall.
“She likes writing,” Jas said. “And I remembered I got that from one of my students.”
Gregory tried not to look at his phone, his watch, or the clock on the wall that told him just how fast the minutes were ticking away. He sat waiting for Dr. Lee.
Erin, the red-haired nurse from the other morning, entered quietly and asked if anyone needed anything. Gregory wanted to say just the doctor, but he knew that Margaret was policing his words. Jas finally spoke up. “Any sign of Dr. Lee?”
“He’s still in surgery. But he should be here super soon.” Erin went through the same checks as Robin had the night before but with none of her older colleague’s professional calm. Her movements were halting and uncertain, and after she adjusted the ventilator a bit, she waited and adjusted it again, then a third time, at which point she left it, even though she didn’t look fully confident with the final result.
As Erin checked the monitor, the urine bag, and the IV, Margaret and Jas locked eyes, but only Gregory spoke. “When you say super soon, what does that likely mean? Ten minutes? An hour?”
Erin turned to face them, striving for cheerfulness. “There were some complications in his surgery, but he’ll be here as soon as he can. So probably somewhere between ten minutes and an hour, but closer to an hour. I think.” She smiled uncomfortably and asked again if she could get anyone anything. Or would they like her to try and call a chaplain in?
“I think we’re good,” Jas told her.
When Erin left, Carrie looked up from her journal. “What’s going on?”
“It could be a while,” Jas said. She pulled her chair to the foot of the bed and rested a hand on the blanket covering Bob’s feet.
“Sorry, Dad,” Margaret said, looking down at him. “We’re doing our best.”
Trying not to sound frustrated, Gregory said, “I’m a little confused. Isn’t it just a matter of shutting off the ventilator? Why can’t another doctor do that?”
“Why do you ask?” Margaret said. “You in a rush or something?”
Gregory cast her a look, then shifted his gaze to Carrie, who peered up again from her journal.
“I mean how many times have you checked your watch this morning?” Margaret said.
“Can we please talk outside?” Gregory asked.
As Margaret followed him into the hallway, Gregory could feel Carrie’s stare like a knife in his back. They walked in silence past the nurse’s station and into a small, empty room marked Family Waiting Area.
He sat down hard on one of the two brown leather love seats while Margaret perched carefully on the other. “Please stop making me feel worse than I do right now,” he said, “especially in front of my daughter.”
“Well, please stop acting like Dad’s dying is an inconvenience and we’re keeping you from your whatever-she-is?”
“What I do with my life is my business.” He rocked forward, setting his elbows on his knees. “You get to behave however you want, and I don’t say anything about that.”
“Well, these are exceptional circumstances,” Margaret bit back. “I’m trying to create a serene environment for Dad. That’s my goal here. And if there’s nothing else you have to say, I’m going back in there to be with him.” She stood and started to leave.
“Maggie! Please!” he called before she could get out the door. She turned around and he saw the pain in her face. The pale skin. The sunken eyes. All this time he had thought she was so happy with her life, unburdened by kids and able to devote endless energy to her save-the-world projects. He had no idea she was longing for a baby that she couldn’t carry or that she wasn’t as fulfilled as he’d always believed.
“What do you want?” Margaret said. “For me to tell you it’s okay to hate Dad? Hate away! There’s my blessing on that. Now, excuse me, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about than your fucked-up priorities.”
They looked at each other for a few seconds. Gregory said, “I’m sorry about everything you’re going through. I really am.”
Margaret’s mouth stiffened. She shook her head as if clearing her thoughts, and turned sharply down the hallway.
He took out his phone and started to call Liv. He just wanted to hear her voice. But then she would start to ask questions, or want to drive down, and that couldn’t happen. He returned the phone to his pocket and thought about Mira. Would he be late, and would she find his note? And would it scare her off, or break the spell? He couldn’t imagine not seeing her again.
On the way back to his father’s room, Gregory lingered around the nurse’s station, where he waited for Erin. When she finally came toward him with her bouncing red ponytail and swaying walk, he signaled her over. “Since Dr. Lee is taking so long, I’m wondering if there’s another doctor who could step in and help us out? This waiting is so stressful. And I really want my father out of his misery as soon as possible.”
Erin looked toward the room, her eyes uncertain. “I totally understand! But the thing is, your father’s not in misery because he can’t feel anything. He’s not conscious.”
“I see,” Gregory said in a low voice, fearing Margaret would come out in the hallway and catch him in this act of subterfuge. “But if there’s another doctor available, I just thought, maybe.” He sighed heavily. “We’re just anxious to, well, move forward.”
Erin’s eyes shifted to the nurse’s station, empty except for a man that made Gregory think of Fitz from Pleasant Springs. Boy, did he wish Fitz were the one helping with this. “I think it’s better to wait for Dr. Lee, since he’s been in charge of your father’s care. I’ll try and get him here ASAP.”
When she bolted away, Gregory remembered being a young postdoc at McGrath Psychiatric Hospital and often having no idea how to respond to a needy client, always worrying that he could ruin someone’s life with one wrong therapeutic suggestion.
At 10:26 a.m., Dr. Lee arrived with Erin behind him talking nervously. He was thin with a stooped back that Gregory recognized as the surgeon’s hump; his father-in-law had one from long hours bent over the operating table. He strode into the room with a nod and a brisk hello and went straight to Bob’s bedside. Margaret jumped up and stood beside him. Gregory did, too. Jas and Carrie popped out of the recliner, where they had been curled up together.
“It’s time,” Dr. Lee said after a glance at the monitor. “I assume you’ve all said your goodbyes?”
“We have,” Margaret said and rushed to the other side of the bed to be with Carrie and Jas.
“Would anyone prefer to wait outside while I turn off the machines?” Dr. Lee asked. “I don’t expect any unpleasant reactions. It’s just a personal choice.”
“I’m staying,” Margaret said.
“I’m good, too,” Jas said.
Gregory looked at Carrie. “Should we wait outside, honey? What do you think?”
Carrie looked at him, then at her aunts. She drew a breath and shook her head. “I’m okay.”
Gregory stood alone next to Dr. Lee, watching as he reached above the bed to shut off the IV. He then withdrew the needle from his father’s neck and waited a few seconds before shutting off another switch.
Without the incessant siss thump of the ventilator, the room was blessedly more peaceful. Gregory could hear the slow beeping of the EKG that, as he understood it, would now stop. But it didn’t. The green line slowed, but it didn’t flatten.
Margaret held one of her father’s hands, while Jas and Carrie rested their hands on the blanket covering him. As soon as Dr. Lee excused himself and stepped out of the room, Gregory took his place next to the bed, his eyes flickering back and forth between the monitor and his father’s placid face. He could hear Erin and Dr. Lee talking in the hallway.
“What’s happening?” Carrie whispered.
“No clue,” Jas said. Her voice was weak and choked with tears.
Dr. Lee came back in and studied the monitor for several seconds. He put a stethoscope to his father’s chest. “He’s starting to breathe on his own,” he said. “This happens sometimes with the fighters. It just means it’s going to take a little longer than anticipated.”
The clock on the wall showed 10:40, and Gregory knew he had five more minutes. The EKG screen slowed a bit but mostly held steady. He could see the slight rise and fall of his father’s chest with each shallow breath.
“It’s okay, Dad,” Margaret said. “You can let go. It’s time now.”
For the next several minutes, Gregory silently offered similar words of encouragement, while trying not to think about the distance to Boston. His mind drifted to the note on his door. What if Phil removed the envelope in some misguided effort to protect him from ambiguous doctor-client territory? Or worse, replaced it with some other meddlesome note to protect Gregory and Liv’s marriage?
At 10:45, when Gregory knew he couldn’t wait another minute, he mustered his courage and crossed to the other side of the room. As Margaret glanced over, her eyes red from wiping tears, Gregory reached for Jas’s elbow and pulled her aside. In a whisper, he asked if Carrie could stay with them until he could get back later that evening to pick her up.
Jas squinted with confusion. “You’re leaving? Now?”
Gregory blinked, saying nothing. Jas finally consented with a slight nod of her head.
He signaled Carrie over. He leaned down and said he’d be back to pick her up in about five hours.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to see a client in Boston. It’s an emergency.”
“But Grandpa’s about to die.”
Gregory headed toward the door with Carrie trailing him. “What is going on?” she called.
“Go back in there and be with Grandpa. For me. Please?”
When they stopped in front of the elevator, Carrie glared at him. “What the fuck, Dad? He’s your father.”
Gregory tried to hug her, but she pulled away and started running back down the hallway. When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, Gregory lunged in.
29
Stuck at one of Hartford’s ridiculously sedate intersections, Gregory snapped his ticket from the hospital garage against the dash. He couldn’t risk the radio. He needed to focus all of his attention on getting to 22 Blesdow Street by one o’clock. In the hospital elevator, the Waze app had given him an ETA of 12:51. Now it said 12:54. That meant no traffic jams, no getting stopped for speeding, and no damn delays on the Mass Pike. When he passed the exit for UConn on I-84, he thought about his college days, his desperation to do something good with his life after Joey was gone. Although straight As and making the Dean’s List every semester never brought him real relief, excelling in school gave him a distraction, a reason to stay alive. He’d never seen his mother happier than the day he graduated summa cum laude.
And wasn’t that his excuse for surviving the last thirty years? To stay alive and make other people feel better?
Waze now predicted an arrival of 1:00, and Gregory hoped no one but Mira would be there waiting. It was a perfect day for golf, and he prayed Phil would think so, too.
At noon, with only an hour left to drive, Gregory fixated on the impending session. He hated not knowing anything about where Mira was physically when she wasn’t with him. Would he be lucky enough to glimpse her going from the street into the lobby, or might she arrive early, read his note, and vanish? Had she ever been there at all?
Gregory tried to calm the spin of thoughts as he merged onto the Mass Pike, but he couldn’t stop wondering if he had really just fled his father’s deathbed for an appointment with a ghost. Was he running to his own rescue, or would this be an overdue reckoning for his crime? Or was he simply blowing up his family?
Boston traffic was thick. Out-of-state cars jammed the streets, and clusters of camp groups and tourists crowded the crosswalks. When the arrival time jumped to 1:01, Gregory darted around a Prius stopped at a yellow light and gained the minute back.
At exactly one o’clock, Gregory parked his car illegally in front of his office building. Inside the lobby, he considered the elevator, but it was lingering on the eighth floor, so he threw open the heavy stairwell door and took two steps at a time until he was standing on the fourth-floor landing. He tore down the hallway and around the corner and arrived panting at the door of his suite. The envelope was gone. When he tried the handle, it was locked. His watch said it was 1:01. He struggled with the key but finally heaved open the door and staggered into the waiting room.
Empty. Exactly as he had left it the day before.
His arms dropped to his sides, and he threw back his head. Maybe he was going off the rails. How would he ever face Carrie’s questions and Margaret’s judgment? How would he explain his decision to Liv?
He stared at the plaque on his door. Dr. Gregory Weber. Maybe this was the message he was supposed to get from the elusive Mira: You’re a doctor now. You have responsibilities. Drive to Hartford and beg forgiveness from your family for leaving your dying father. Then go back to being the Gregory who was a good psychologist; a decent, loyal husband; a loving, if often clueless, father; an imperfect, but caring, brother; and a semi-shitty son. Because there is nothing else.
Gregory unlocked his office and stumbled inside.
She was sitting in his chair—one foot tucked under her thigh, hands folded in her lap.
He drew a breath of relief that seemed to come up from his knees. He braced a hand against the doorframe. “You’re here,” he whispered, closing his eyes. “You’re here.”
After a moment, he opened his eyes. Mira remained still and silent. Her dark hair fell loosely over her shoulders. Her ivory linen dress almost covered her legs. She was barefoot.
“Mira,” he said, her name came out like a plea. He took a step toward her. He had never wanted to embrace her more or felt more prohibited from doing so. “My father is dying, but I had to see you today.”
Mira nodded and pressed her lips together knowingly, her soft, amorphous gaze trained on him.
Gregory staggered forward a few more steps and dropped into the closest wing chair. “Tell me. Please. Tell me everything.”
Mira laughed lightly. “But you were right there, Greg. There is nothing to tell you that you don’t already know.”
“So then?” He stared at her folded hands for strength. He raised his eyes to Mira’s unbelievably lovely—and deeply scarred—face. He had to hear her say it. “You’re the person—”
“Yes.”
As Gregory sank in his chair, the sweat of nausea erupted from his neck and forehead. He reached for the wastebasket and put it between his knees. He retched over it, but nothing came out.
“I’m sorry,” he said. He made himself look up at her. “I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” Mira answered softly. “I’ve never doubted that.”
“Really?” He studied her, the slightness of her body compared to her strong voice, her dress, luminous against the black chair. She was beaming at him like the shaft of light that poured into his dark garage. “But how did you know?”
“We know things, at least the things we need to know or have the patience to find out.”
He hesitated, unsure of the correct terminology, fearful of offending. “So, are you a ghost?”
She recoiled the way his clients did when he named their disorders, and for a horrific moment he sensed her desire to flee his clumsiness. But she straightened her torso, and without flinching from his full gaze, Mira said, “What do you think?”
Gregory slumped back. He gripped the chair arms so tightly he felt the upholstery shifting under his fingers.
When Mira put her hand on his arm to calm him, her skin felt cool. Had it been that way before, too? Had he only imagined her warmth when she touched him?
