I Thought You Were Dead (4 page)

He was being given aspirin and Heparin to thin his blood, Beverly told Paul, to prevent new clots from forming in his legs and to protect against pulmonary embolisms. He was also being given Prozac for his emotional state, since stroke damage in the
right hemisphere often caused depression. Harrold could not produce speech, and it was too early to tell to what extent he could understand it. He was clearly confused and likely to have difficulty concentrating.

The best news was that he wasn't going to get worse and was unlikely to have another stroke, Beverly said. Paul was impressed by how much his mother had taken in. He wondered if the doctors had told her everything, or rather if she'd heard everything they'd said. It was human nature to selectively edit the picture to make it as rosy as possible. He remembered what Bits had said about Beverly's blaming herself for not watching over Harrold more closely.

“It sounds like the sort of thing that could have happened at any minute,” Paul said. “Nobody knew. He was in good shape before any of this.”

“The doctors said he's in very good physical shape for a man his age,” Beverly said. “He may be moved to a stroke unit in a day or two.”

“I just want you to be in good shape too,” Paul said. “You still have to take care of yourself.”

“Oh, don't worry about me,” Beverly said. “You know, there's a very nice little chapel downstairs, across from the coffee shop, where you can go pray if you need to. I've been asking God to check in and keep an eye on your father.”

While researching animal behaviors, Paul had come across a study by scientists who'd concluded, supported by all the most recent data and statistics, that contrary to popular belief, prayer and optimism and/or a sense of humor had no measurable effect on the prognosis or survival rates of critical hospital patients, but that didn't mean it wasn't a good idea for the families waiting in hospital lounges.

“Good to know,” he said.

“Your brother has been so helpful,” Beverly told him. “He insisted
on having a neurologist be your father's primary physician. I think our regular doctor's feelings were a little hurt. They were talking about moving Harrold to a nursing home instead of rehabilitation because of his age, but Carl put his foot down. I don't think I would have known what to say.”

“Has he been by today?” Paul asked. It wasn't hard to imagine his brother throwing his lawyerly weight around a bit. Make all the lawyer jokes you wanted, but it was nice to have one in the family when you needed one.

“He should be here any minute,” Beverly said. “He's coming after his meeting. Didn't Bits tell you?”

“I don't think so,” Paul said. “She might have.”

Carl was an attorney for IBM, pulling down big money and supplementing it with his various investments. It was a path he frequently urged Paul to follow, even though Paul didn't have much financial savvy, as Carl liked to remind him. Carl had a strange way of complimenting him first before insulting him, saying, “Gosh, Paul, you know — you always had all the creative talent in the family, which means you must have brains, so why is it you don't know diddly-squat about money?” Paul had mixed feelings about seeing Carl. He loved his brother, but Carl drove him nuts.

“He's been really so helpful,” his mother said. “It's good to have you home. I wish you lived closer so we could see you more often.”

“So do I,” he said, though the East Coast suited him fine.

There were three other people in the lounge with them, an old woman watching CNN on the television in the corner and a young mother with a toddler up long past his bedtime. When Bits arrived with the food, Beverly asked the others if they were hungry. The old woman smiled politely and shook her head. The young mother said thanks but that they'd be leaving as soon as she could have a word with the doctor. Bits set the food on a
round table in the corner, lifting five white cardboard cartons with wire handles from a brown paper bag and spreading an array of individually wrapped plasticware on the table. She'd bought paper plates as well. She said she'd run into Carl in the parking garage and that he was getting everybody pop from the soda machine and would be along shortly.

A moment later, Paul heard Carl's footsteps approaching, distinct from those of the hospital workers in their soft-soled shoes. He was genuinely glad to see his big brother. Carl embodied the word
classy,
with his wide-wale black corduroy pants and black cashmere crewneck sweater over a blue pinstripe no-iron oxford shirt, his brown Cole Haan loafers with tassels on them, his red hair (their parents had considered naming him Eric), the only kid in the family who had red hair, cut in a Robert Redford shag, with a meticulously trimmed red beard to match.

“I stopped by the room,” Carl said, setting the sodas on the table and hugging his mother. “Dad's asleep.” He turned to Paul. “You made it okay? Airline give you a medical discount?”

“They did,” Paul said.

“Anything new?” Carl asked Beverly.

Beverly filled him in. Little had changed since Carl's last visit. Harrold had had a slight fever, but his temperature had returned to normal after antibiotics were added to his IV drip. Carl announced that he was starving, and Paul remembered he was hungry too. They opened the cartons and distributed the contents, speaking in hushed hospital tones.

“Everything's going to be okay,” Carl told Beverly. Paul marveled at his brother's confidence, but Carl had always been confident, whether there was any basis for it or not. “How goes the struggle?” he asked Paul, wielding his chopsticks expertly while Paul used a fork. “Still working into the wee small ones? What's the new project? One of those Idiot books, right?”

“Morons,” Paul corrected him. “The Idiot books are a bit more technical than ours.”

“Those Idiot books are a great gimmick. What's this one about?”

“Nature.”

“
Nature for Morons
?” Carl said. “God, are you perfect for that.”

The reference was to Paul's Boy Scout adventures. Carl, who'd joined Mount Olivet Troop 110 four years earlier than Paul, had progressed all the way to Eagle Scout, whereas Paul had been kicked out for smoking before he made First Class. It wasn't tobacco that Paul and his patrol mates had been smoking. It wasn't marijuana either. It was everything else in the forest — sarsaparilla leaves, skunk cabbage, spleenwort, lamb's-quarter, and various other flora indigenous to the coniferous biome of northern Minnesota — each experimental doobie rolled in Zig-Zag papers with a club moss filter. Nothing they smoked got them high, but it seemed an investigation worth pursuing. Carl was the one who caught them. Paul had argued that by the letter of the law, troop rules forbade smoking only tobacco or pot, but Carl knew a scout's higher duty was to the truth, even if it meant ratting out your own brother. Paul later considered getting booted from the Boy Scouts a blessing in disguise, soon discovering it was a lot more fun to hang out at the beach with the in crowd (or even the out crowd) than to go to scout camp, but he was pretty upset about it at the time.

He let the insult pass. It was not the time or the place, but he felt his guard go up.

“Was that your idea?” Carl asked.

“It was the editor's, actually,” Paul said. “I think he's trying to atone.”

“Atone for what?”

“He was with the Greenpeace group that went up to Labrador to spray-paint the baby seals,” Paul said.

“Well, he should feel bad,” their mother said. “That's terrible.”

“They weren't vandalizing them, Mom,” Paul said. “They were trying to stop the seal hunters who were clubbing the seals for their fur. They decided they'd spray-paint them fluorescent orange to make the fur useless.”

“Well, that's better,” Beverly said.

“Not really,” Paul said. “All baby seals have to protect themselves from polar bears is their camouflage coloration. The bears ate them all. Probably still talk about it. ‘Night of the Smorgasbord.' ”

As they ate, they discussed the practical matters before them. Carl had had a long conversation with the person who would be coordinating Harrold's rehabilitation. As soon as possible, he wanted to get Harrold to the point where he could dress and feed himself, the risk of depression being greatest in patients who gave up hope of ever living independently again. When Harrold came home, he'd be unable to climb the stairs, at first and probably for quite some time, but a bed could be set up in the sunroom. Carl had arranged for a physical therapist to work with Harrold, once he came home, for nine hours a week, and for a speech and language therapist to work with him an additional nine hours a week. He and Bits and Erica and Eugene would drop by as often as they could to help with Harrold and to take some of the burden off their mother. If that proved untenable, they'd probably need to consider nursing homes, but all in good time. Insurance would cover most of the expenses. Paul said he wanted to pay an equal share of whatever it cost, but the fact was that Carl's annual income was easily ten times Paul's, so that an equal share and a fair share were two different numbers, and both of them knew it.

Carl had also made plans to buy their parents a computer
after the woman he'd spoken to advised him that there were rehabilitation programs available where patients with only the partial use of one hand could click a mouse to solve simple puzzles to sharpen their minds and could even communicate with others by clicking to answer yes-or-no questions on their computer screens. If greater motor control returned, patients could eventually click on icons or letters to spell out words. Any stimulation of the speech centers of Harrold's brain would be therapeutic, promoting neurogenesis and simply helping Harrold relearn how to pay attention.

“Maybe you and Dad could instant-message each other,” Carl suggested to Paul. He turned to Beverly. “It's time you guys got online anyway.”

Paul agreed that he could do that. Beverly seemed hesitant. Carl asked her why.

“I just don't think I want to be on the Internet,” she said.

“Because?” Carl asked.

“Well,” she said, “I don't know much about it, but I don't want those hacker people using my credit cards. I know they can get into things and steal your information.”

She agreed only after Carl assured her that there was nothing to worry about and that if it made her more comfortable, he'd be happy to put the AOL account in his name and use his own credit card to pay for it.

Paul ate. He thought of all the family meals they'd eaten together, sitting at the kitchen table, Harrold reading the paper but lowering it occasionally to participate, Carl cleaning his plate clockwise and chewing loudly, albeit with his mouth closed, Bits kicking Paul in the shin under the table, Beverly rising every few minutes to fetch refills and seconds from the stove (and always finishing her own meal last), saying, “Don't be afraid of the potatoes,” or “Help yourself — don't be afraid of the asparagus,” until her children mocked her, pretending to be frightened by the
potatoes or terrified by the asparagus, and then everyone would laugh. He remembered the fights too. In the hospital lounge, someone was conspicuously absent. It was all wrong.

Beverly said Pastor Rolander had called to say there was going to be a special prayer offered in church tomorrow for Harrold's recovery. Carl said they'd decided they were still going to go ahead with the birthday party for his son, Howard, which they'd planned long before Harrold's stroke, after church at Carl's house, just family and cousins. Bits agreed that the children would be too disappointed if they canceled.

“Life goes on, right?” Carl said. “I was going to stop in to see Dad before church, and then maybe after the party we can bring the kids back here to see Grandpa. Unless you think that would be too much.”

“He'd love that,” Beverly agreed.

When it came time for everyone to grab a fortune cookie from the carton in the middle of the table, Paul declined. He'd decided, somewhere in the course of the day, pondering his father's current situation, that he needed to start thinking about his own health and how to improve it. Turning down desserts occasionally might be a good first step. He'd never cared that much for fortune cookies anyway. Half the time, they were stale or soggy. His brother looked up.

“Aren't you going to eat your cookie?”

“I don't think so,” Paul said.

“You at least have to read your fortune.” Maybe it was Carl's imperious tone, but suddenly Paul remembered all the old wars. They kept their voices down, but the tension escalated.

“No, thanks,” Paul said.

“Why not? It's fun.”

“Why should I?” Paul said. “I'd be very surprised if what it says in the cookie bears the slightest relationship to my actual
future, considering it was written fifty years ago by a man in China who never met me and who's probably dead by now.”

“That's not the point,” Carl said. “It's fate.”

“What is?”

“What cookie you get.”

“There's only one left,” Paul said. “What choice do I have?”

“Then that's the one that was meant for you.”

“If I don't want one,” Paul said, “that's fate too.”

“No,” Carl said, “that's free will. Fate is why you have to open your cookie.”

“I don't
have
to open my cookie if I don't
want
to. I don't
have
to do anything.”

“Then I'll open it for you,” Carl said, reaching for the plate. Paul managed to grab the last cookie before Carl could.

“It's my cookie, right?” he said. He picked it up, crossed the lounge, and asked the young mother if her little boy would like a treat. She thanked Paul, took the cellophane bag from him, tore it open, and handed the cookie to her three-year-old, who turned it over and over before taking a bite, the fortune falling to the floor with the other half of the cookie. The young mother picked up the crumbs from the floor, glanced at the fortune briefly, and then threw it in the wastebasket, her child too young to appreciate it.