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Fathers and Sons Chapter 7 “You,” he said. “Yeah, me. I wanna know how the Rev is.” “Are you family?” Dammit. “I’m getting pretty tired of hearing that question. Do you see anybody else asking? I’m the one who’s here. I’m the one asking the question. Who else you gonna tell?” It took him a long time to decide. I was just getting ready to try and convince him, when he said, ”He’s 78. He had a stroke.” I nodded. “He had a smaller incident here in the hospital shortly after he arrived, and we think he may have had another minor one at some point after that. But beyond that, there are some other……” He kept talking, said something about blood pressure and vascular weakness; renal function, and pulmonary something-or-other, but the important thing I got was that the Rev could have another stroke any time, there wasn’t much they could do to stop it. “Seldom just one incident, in a case like this. He may have been having very small strokes for some time.” “This has never happened before.” “You might not notice it,” he said. “Sometimes only a small part of the brain is affected. In some cases it resembles dementia to a degree, except that it’s not consistent. There would be some memory loss, some temporary degradation of reasoning ability.” So those times he forgot stuff, or said screwy things, he was having little strokes and we didn’t have any idea. I had to think about that for a while. When I didn’t say anything more, he moved to walk around me. “Wait.” It was hard to ask what I really wanted to know, without saying something I didn’t wanna hear. “Is he gonna……when will he be able to go home?” He frowned. “Let’s just wait and see what happens.” I figured that meant ‘never’. “Oh, and if any of the real family want to know how you know all this, I didn’t tell you.” “Sure you did. I beat it outta ya.” He smiled. “OK.” He walked down the hall. “Hey! When can we see him?” He threw the answer back over his shoulder. “Now.” Arbutus went right up to his bedside and took his hand. I stood back against the wall, stuck my hands in my pockets. He opened his eyes. He looked exhausted. “You scared the liver out of us, you know that?” Arbutus said. “Me, too.” Wasn’t much more than a whisper, but at least he could talk. I’d been worried about that ever since I heard the word stroke. “Well. That young fella’ll take care a’ you now. You’ll be outta here in no time.” He whispered something to her I didn’t catch, and brought his hand, still clasping hers, up to her cheek. Stroked with his knuckles. Her face fell. “You old fool. We’ll have to get you some new specs when you get outta here.” He smiled, then his gaze wandered. Till it lit on me. I couldn’t hear him, but I saw his lips say my name. “Yeah,” I said. Arbutus looked back at me, then leaned over and whispered something in the Rev’s ear. He looked at her, then back at me, and nodded. She kissed him on the cheek, and said, “I’ll be back in a bit. I’m gonna go get something to drink. Here, Bud, you can sit here while I’m gone.” I didn’t sit down. For some reason it was a lot different being in the Rev’s hospital room than it was being with Lynn when she was here in the hospital. Made me nervous. “Lynn was here for a while, but she had to take the kids home,” I said. He looked too tired even to nod. “She’s gonna call your sister.” Silence. I couldn’t help it. “What the hell were you doing at the station? Why can’t you ever keep outta things?” Probably not what you’re supposed to say to somebody laying in a hospital bed, but that was all I could think about. “You oughta be more careful what you stick your nose into. Look what happens." He closed his eyes. “Dammit.” “Bud.” “Yeah?” His eyes were still closed. “Don’t worry.” Don’t worry. Yeah, right. Don’t worry. I think I’ve heard that before. “Bud.” “What?” “I need you to do some things for me.” Several things, as it turned out. I wasn’t too happy about ‘em, but I finally said I’d take care of ‘em, just so he wouldn’t worry. The last thing he said was, “Don’t let Lucius push young Pierce out.” I wasn’t expecting that. Nobody could seem to find Lucius, but I’d figured when we did, he’d take over. He was the Rev’s doctor. “When Lynn was in the hospital that first time, you brought him in, you helped him push Pierce out..” “That was different.” “No, it wasn’t.” “Yes, it was.” “What was different about it?” “Lynn got well.” His whisper was fainter, weaker. I wanted to say, you’re gonna get well, too, but couldn’t get it out. He opened his eyes and looked at me. “It won’t matter,” he said, and held up his hand. “Except to young Pierce.” After a minute, I pulled my hand outta my pocket and took his. “It’ll matter to Lucius, too,” I said, “but OK.” I was right about that. The nurses shooed me out so they could do something to the Rev, and so I was standing in the hall when the Doc arrived. He said hello to me, but walked right by me to the desk, looked for the chart and started studying it. He gave the nurse some orders, I figured he was gonna start changing everything Pierce was doing. I strolled up while he was flipping pages. “You’re not his doctor,” I said. “What? Of course I’m his doctor.” “Nope. Not for this. He wants Pierce.” “That’s ridiculous.” “Go ask him yourself.” He sat and fumed till the nurses were done doing whatever they were doing; and I followed him back in the Rev’s room. I suppose I shoulda let ‘em have a private conversation……but I didn’t wanna sit out in the hall anymore. And if the Rev might have another stroke any time, then there was no way to know which time might be the last time I saw him……. “So I’m a good enough doctor to take care of your bunions, but not good enough for this?” “Don’t get in a snit.” The Rev closed his eyes. “You want to tell me why you’d rather have young Pierce? I’m listening.” “I don’t think it makes much difference what doctor I have. But I’m pretty sure I’m going to need a good friend.” “I can’t do both?” “I’d just as soon you weren’t running around trying to save my life when what I really need is someone to see me off.” It was really quiet for a long time. Then the Doc cleared his throat and said, “You could live another ten years, you know that. If we get your blood pressure under control—“ “I’ve been seeing young Pierce on the side.” He smiled. “I suppose you’ll want a divorce now.” Lucius snorted. “There are other problems, as you well know. We’ve done everything that can be done,” the Rev said. “I asked him to tell me the truth. He seems to think I might want to get ready.” “And you believe him?” “I’ve already lived longer than my father or his father.” The Doc was stubborn. “There’s every possibility that you’ll recover and go home. You might be just fine.” “Well, if I wait until it’s certain I’m going to go, I might not be able to tell you what I want.” “Why’d you tell me not to worry?” I said. “If you think you’re gonna die, why would you say something like that to me?” “I don’t want you to worry.” Bullshit. I didn’t say that; I was mad, though. Madder than I already was about the whole damn thing. “It’s not a bad thing. I may be fooling myself, but I’m expecting to go to heaven. So it’ll be fine. You shouldn’t worry.” “Oh yeah? Everything’s gonna be fine, huh? Then what the hell am I wasting my time hanging around here for?” I walked toward the door. “You call me if you need me to do anything for you. I’ll be home, not worrying.” I yanked the door open and pushed somebody in the hall outta my way. Arbutus was walking back toward the Rev’s room. I didn’t feel much like talking to her, so when she grabbed my arm, and said, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing. Everything’s just peachy,” and shook her off. Kept walking. She wasn’t that easy to get rid of. “Here!” she said. “Who do you think you’re pushing aside? You stop right where you are; I’m talking to you.” I stopped and turned around. “I’m going home. He doesn’t need me here, or want me, either, so I’m going home.” “No, you’re not. You’re gonna go have a cup of coffee with me and keep me company.” “Arbutus---“ “I’m not taking no for an answer, so you might as well just come with me and quit fussing.” I didn’t wanna go home anyway. “I can’t imagine James telling you he didn’t want you here,“ she said. We were sitting outside on the bench in back of the building that looked out over the gravel. The flower beds were out front, but there wasn’t any bench out front. “Stop frowning so,” she said. “I’m not saying you’re a liar, I’m just saying I can’t imagine it.” She took a sip and made a face. “Someone needs to teach that girl how to make a pot of coffee.” “I’ve had worse.” “You ever had to do this before?” she asked. “With Lynn. You know about that.” “No, that’s not what I mean.” She didn’t tell me what she meant. She stood up, walked across the little patch of grass, and dumped the rest of her coffee in the gravel next to her car. She sat down and cuddled herself under my arm. “You remember the first time you saw the Reverend?” Yeah. “He had that goddam little black poodle.” Arbutus smiled. “That was Esther’s dog. After she died, he had to be nice to it.” Watched the sun get closer to the horizon. Arbutus took a big breath and let it out. “I’ve known that old man for better’n fifty years. James was my first crush when I was a girl. I was seven. He musta been about 25. Outta the seminary a year or two, and so full a’ himself, it was awful. He had a good heart, but more pompous than you can imagine.” She laughed. I didn’t say anything, just waited for her to go on. “We lived right where I live now. Came to town once or twice a week. Didn’t even go to his church, so I didn’t take any notice of him at first, at least not any more than I did any other man. “One day, we came to town, and I ran off from my parents, ran right into a bunch a’ little toughs. One a’ the little punks tried to tell me I wasn’t a girl cause I wore overalls. We all wore overalls, you know? We all worked, and dresses just got in the way. But this little snot tried to tell me I wasn’t a proper girl cause I wasn’t dressed right, and my hair wasn’t right, and I talked coarse, and I wasn’t even pretty. Come to think of it, he’s pretty much the same now as he was then. “Lordy, I was mad. I picked up a good-sized rock and threw it at him. Hit him, too. You shoulda heard him scream. His parents come running, and wiped the blood off his head, and shouted at me, and I figured I was done for. And then a very tall, very blonde, good-looking man picked me up. “He musta been somewhere close by, and heard the whole thing, ‘cause he brushed the tears off my face, and said, ‘You’re a beautiful little girl.’ I shook my head, and he said it again. ‘You’re a beautiful little girl.’ He kissed me on the cheek, put me down, and made me and Lucius apologize to each other. Lucius’s parents didn’t like that, they were talking about having me put in jail, but they shut up pretty quick when he started lecturing ‘em on child-rearing.” She chuckled. “He didn’t know a lick about little kids, but nobody knew that. I wish you coulda heard him.” “Me, too.” She patted the arm that was around her shoulders. “He loves you.” Oh, here we go. I sighed. “Yeah.” “No matter how much experience the Rev’s had sitting by the side of beds with dying people in ‘em, this is the first time he’s the one in the bed. You might have to give him a break.” A cold wind blew through my shirt. I was trying real hard not to think about that part. “The Doc says he might be fine.” “Does he?” I nodded. “Well, then I guess he might be. That’s certainly what we’re all praying for. I don’t mean to be putting him in his grave before his time.” She turned around and kissed my cheek. “In any case, it’s in God’s hands. We just have to be handy in case he needs us.” When we went in, the Doc was out in the hall, talking to young Pierce, and looking over the chart. Pierce kept shaking his head, and the Doc kept talking, but by the time we got to the nurses’ desk, they were both quiet. “He doesn’t want that, Lucius,” Pierce said. He put his hand on the Doc’s shoulder for a second, and then walked away, down the other hall. Lucius didn’t say anything. When he looked up at us, his eyes were real red. He got his handkerchief outta his pocket and used it. “Arbutus,” he said. “Lucius.” And right then is when Richard rushed in. Fucking Richard.
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