Then a recording announced: "You have reached Sacramento County Health Services regular weekday phone number. If this is a routine call for an appointment then please call back on Monday. If it is some kind of emergency, please dial 255-8735."
Henry hung up and pushed in the emergency number.
The phone rang twice, then a male voice answered: "County Health, weekend emergencies. This is James Ishikawa speaking—"
Henry slammed down the phone.
Jesus
.
Maybe it was more than just a strange epidemic, maybe it was some kind of conspiracy or something. He recalled the ethnic lunch and the babbling on the TV station. Had it been Japanese? He wasn't sure. Shaking his head with frustration, Henry wished his wife were here. Emily would know what to do.
When he thought of his wife, it relaxed Henry, made him smile. Emily: Good times. That's how he always thought of her—upbeat. Over thirty years with her before the sudden heart attack and never a dull moment. Man, did that woman like music or what? Henry asked himself, almost laughing aloud. Any kind of music. And travel? And meeting people? Emily had just enjoyed life. But she had been pretty levelheaded, too.
That made him think of the trip to Yosemite they'd taken a few years back…Henry had been driving through the mountains, not gearing down the Bonneville like he should have been, riding the brakes too much. Anyhow, the brakes had gone out coming down the last steep, winding grade into the Park—a sheer drop of several hundred feet into the canyon on their right.
Jesus, Em, we have no brakes
, he'd announced, then he'd tried to gear down unsuccessfully, the car beginning to pick up speed at a frightening rate. Thinking quickly he squared up, hit the horn, and rammed into the car ahead, hoping the guy would assess the situation, brake, and slow them both down. But the car veered right, almost going over the cliff. They had swung by, continuing to pick up speed. Frightened, he'd considered veering across the curving road into the uphill lane and scraping along the cut, despite the fact he was chancing a head-on because he couldn't see fifty feet ahead—
Just before Henry began to actually swing left, the back tires locked-up for a moment, and it was all he could do to keep the big car on the road as it fish-tailed to an unexpected stop.
They were safe!
Emily had sized up the situation, while he was going through all his ineffective maneuvers, and grabbed the parking brake, yanking back with such force that they later found both rear tires had bald spots worn into the steel radials. Her quick thinking had probably saved their lives. He shook his head with admiration at his wife's good judgment.
Coming back to the present problem, Henry whispered, "I sure wish you were here, now, Em."
He blinked, seeing her face, the wide smile with the sparkling white teeth and those always-young brown eyes. She was shaking her finger at him, like she used to do, and he could hear her saying
: Now, Henry, you listen to Martha. That girl's got a good head on her shoulders
.
She says you're acting strange, she might be right
.
Henry blinked.
Emily's image was gone. He was alone again. But, like always, she had probably given him good advice. This time he'd pay attention. After all, this Ishikawa business was probably easily explained, maybe something brought on by the arthritis in his foot. Yeah, pain could do strange things to a person. He got up, poured a glass of water, and took one of the Indomethecin pills—despite the headache he knew they would bring on later. Even before the pill started to take effect, Henry felt much better,
relieved
. Man, he admitted to himself, maybe I
am
getting kind of strange.
The phone interrupted his self-analysis.
It was Susie at the desk. "Mr. Robinson, your visitors are here. And I've got to tell you, your granddaughter is a real doll."
Forgetting about his concern with the young woman's transformation, he smiled proudly and said, "Thank you, Susie."
"Oh, Mr. Robinson, most ambulatory residents meet their guests in the lounge on the second floor. And because we are one big family, we ask you to wear your nameplate, so everyone knows everyone else. Okay?"
"No problem," Henry responded. "I'll be right down." He felt buoyed-up, excited. It would be good to see Hilary and Martha. He missed them both a lot.
After digging around in his chest drawer he finally found the nameplate. But he paused, something Susie had said lingering like an echo:
One big family
—?
A cold chill paralyzed his body as if a shaft of ice had pierced his chest, all of Emily's advice wiped out by the onset of the overwhelming sense of apprehension.
He knew, he just
knew
without looking what his nameplate would read. Oh, God, no, please.
Slowly, Henry released the tight fist he'd made around the little rectangle of plastic. Then, sucking in a deep breath, he prepared for the worst, squinted, and examined the nameplate.
It read:
Mr. Henry Robinson
At first he didn't believe his own eyes. But there it was. It was his
own
name; he hadn't been infected!
After washing his face in the bathroom and pulling himself together, Henry pinned the nameplate on and went downstairs, feeling sheepish, actually embarrassed by his paranoid behavior. Once again he'd ignored Emily's advice.
***
At the door into the lounge, Henry searched the crowd—
There they were!
Hilary spotted him at the same time, and bounded across the crowded room, jumping up into his arms. She was indeed wearing her pink dress with the little, frilly, white apron. Henry hugged her tightly, inhaling her fresh smell. It was so good to hold her again. A week had been a long time.
And here was Martha, leaning in close, giving him a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Hello, Dad," his daughter said. "The oriental lady at the desk, the one who helped us make our nametags, says you seem to be adjusting fairly well, with only occasional rough lapses. What does she mean by that—?"
Oriental lady? Nametags? Oh, no! Henry thought, both phrases raising goosebumps along the back of his neck.
With a sense of dread, Henry slowly pushed his granddaughter away far enough to read her paper nametag:
Hi
My name is
Hilary Lewis
Oh, thank, God.
Still holding his breath, Henry turned slightly and checked out his daughter's paper heart:
Ms. Martha Lewis
They were both okay!
What a relief, he thought, letting out his breath.
Maybe Emily and Martha were both right. He was getting strange in his old age. He was going to have to do something about his overactive imagination. Henry laughed aloud—
"Grandpops, come quick!" Hilary said, her voice keen with excitement, as Henry set her down. "It's big balloon. C'mon, 'for it's too dark." She took his hand, trying to drag him toward the door that opened out onto the second floor balcony, out into the dusky twilight of evening.
"What is it, Martha?" Henry asked, looking at his daughter for an explanation. "One of those hot air balloons?"
Martha smiled, shaking her head. "No, she wants to show you a blimp. It's in for the football game this evening, I think. Probably going to be on TV."
"Blimp?" Henry repeated, as if it were a word he had never heard.
He let Hilary drag him onto the balcony off the lounge.
Outside, the little girl pointed up into the sky, "Look at it, Grandpops. See the big balloon?"
Hovering over the football stadium, was the famous blimp, seen often on national TV…And as it circled slowly, Henry read the pale blue letters on its side:
Ishikawa
"Jesus," he murmured. "Look at that
damn
name, Martha."
"Yes, I see it," she said, her voice puzzled. "Is that a product or what…?"
The question trailed off unanswered.
After a moment, Henry shook his head with a full sense of awareness and resignation, realizing that
this
time Emily had been wrong. This wasn't his imagination.
He looked back up at the blimp and shuddered, realizing that the proliferation, which had probably been localized, was now a national epidemic, spreading everywhere in the country that TV reached…and with satellite transmission, perhaps even
worldwide
.
My God! Where would it end?
After a moment or two, Henry reached out and took Hilary's hand, at the same time putting his arm around Martha's shoulder and pulling her closer; and he thought, Thank God, whatever it was had bypassed him and his family.
Then, he looked down from the balcony in the failing light, the scene like a surreal vision in a dream, disturbing his momentary feeling of gratitude, and reaffirming his sense of apprehensive paranoia, for here and there he saw pagoda-like structures rising up over the tiled rooftops of the clustered little houses, and lights coming on in the houses through the paper-thin, sliding panels, making some of the nearer stone and rock gardens just visible in the increasing darkness.
He blinked and squinted hard, gazing out into the night, trying to find just
one
of the complexes of rising apartment buildings he
knew
surrounded the Towers. Just one.
Suddenly, a breeze swirled-up…and it carried the fresh smell of cherry blossoms and the plinking sound of a stringed instrument to where he stood on the balcony; and Henry Robinson relaxed and nodded, for it reminded him of his wife on that last night before she died. She'd come out into the rock garden at day's end and sat on the back porch, dressed formally in her favorite indigo kimono with the embossed black dragon, her hair done in the old way—combed and lacquered, held in a black bun by a comb. As he cut her an arrangement of blossoms from the cherry tree, she played her samisen, her fingers dancing skillfully over the three-stringed instrument…
It was that memory—the lilting music, the smell of fresh cherry blossoms, and the image of his wife—that overcame his sense of disquiet; and Henry sighed softly, whispering to himself, "Ah…Emily-san, I miss you.
As fate would have it, a friend of my daughter was in medical school when I wrote this story, so I used his name. After the story appeared, he took up residency in anesthesiology. Prophetically, the title of the story comes from an anesthesiology lecture in the story, the UCSF Chief Anesthesiologist bearing the name of my daughter's friend. To add to this oddness, he is now a member of the Anesthesiology Department at UCSF
.
Counting Backwards
Sydney Sandoval frowned, lingering over a cup of breakfast tea, an uncharacteristic activity for the tall, athletic-looking, young woman. She was a morning person, usually a hyperkinetic blur of action by this time of day, picking up after her family, doing the dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house. Her husband, Tony, laughed when he watched, calling her
my red-headed Tasmanian Devil
after the cartoon character. All this flurry of housekeeping activity was usually completed before beginning her freelance graphic design work on the computer by no later than 10:30 a.m.
But today she was deep in thought, worrying about the mental well-being of her son—a concern that had gradually diminished after the accident four months ago, but returned
big time
this morning. She didn't think she was being obsessive. It just was not normal for an apparently healthy nine-year-old boy to stay in his room the first day of summer vacation, especially when his favorite activity was playing soccer with his friends. She had debated with herself before finally deciding this was the time to intervene, have a talk with him right now. Find out what was wrong before the problem got worse.
With the proper course of action laid out, her slight frown disappeared, and Syd called out from the kitchen, "Rob?"
No answer from his bedroom.
"Robert?" she said a little louder, moving down the hallway to the bedrooms. Reaching her son's closed door, she paused and listened, hearing his voice clearly through the door.
"…let the wild rumpus start…"
He was reading aloud from
Where The Wild Things Are
. A book he'd loved dearly when he was five or six, but an odd choice now, she thought, knocking on the door—he was more into the
Narnia
series or Susan Cooper. Perhaps he was regressing, some kind of delayed response to the automobile accident, Syd speculated, her frown back.
"Rob, may I come in?" she asked, respecting his privacy, not barging right in as was her usual custom.
"Sure, Mom," the boy answered through the door, "I'm just reading to Richie. His favorite story—"
"Oh,
God
, no," Syd murmured to herself, clasping a hand to her mouth, freezing in place for a moment. She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath, centered for a few seconds, then cracked the door open, and said in a trembling voice, "Rob, we need to have a little talk, but back in the kitchen, okay?"
"Okay, Mom," the boy said agreeably, following his mother down the hall. "What's up?"
In the kitchen, Syd impulsively turned and hugged her son tightly to her bosom, nuzzling his dark crewcut with her nose and lips.
"Ah, Mom," the surprised nine-year-old boy said, pulling back from her grasp. "Is that
all
you wanted?"
"No…no it's not," Syd replied, still struggling for some semblance of self control. "It's such a beautiful day outside, and I thought you'd want to go out and play until lunch. Maybe check out what Gavin and Shane are up to. I bet they're kicking goals with their new soccer ball down at the school—"
"But,
Mom
," Rob said in a slightly exasperated voice, "I promised Richie I would read all three of his favorite books to him this morning. And I'm only into the first one."