Читать книгу The Complete Collection - William Wharton, Уильям Уортон - Страница 37

The next morning I’m in the kitchen making breakfast when Dad comes in still wearing his pajamas.

‘Johnny, something’s wrong in here; would you step into the bathroom and have a look?’

I go back to see what it is and the toilet bowl’s full of blood! I turn to him.

‘What happened?’

I’m looking to see if he’s cut himself somewhere. He stares into the bowl.

‘I don’t know. When I peed, it came out like that.’

I’m scared. Big quantities of blood always set off my adrenaline.

‘Geez, Dad, we’d better get you in and have this checked. All this worry and everything maybe has you mixed up inside.’

He looks at me.

‘You don’t think it might be cancer or something like that, do you?’

Dad has an absolutely deadly fear of cancer. His father died painfully from liver cancer; two of his sisters from breast cancer; it seems to run in the family.

‘I’m sure not, Dad. But just to be safe we’ll make an appointment to see a urologist when we go visit Mother this afternoon.’

At the hospital, Mother’s more reconciled to things. She promises she’ll do as the doctors say and she’s really going to take care of herself. She’s glad I talked to her and she hadn’t thought of it that way.

‘Besides, Jacky, I have to live for his sake.’

Afterward, I take Dad down to the urology clinic. We don’t tell Mother. Down there they give us a bottle and point out a bathroom. I show Dad how he’s to pee in the bottle, then attach the paper on the outside with a rubber band. He’s nervous, but says he can do it.

In a few minutes he comes out smiling, the bottle filled with urine to the brim. It’s still reddish but not so bad as the urine in the toilet this morning. The nurse looks and schedules him for an emergency appointment.

The next day, I take Dad in at nine o’clock. I stay with him instead of going over to see Mother. I can’t be everywhere, and this is more important right now. He’s nervous, pale, quiet. After ten minutes, a great, handsome black fellow comes out. He tells us the doctor will see Dad now. I ask if I can go in with him. He looks at Dad and nods.

The doctor’s named Santana. He says he’ll need to do a cystoscopic examination. Well, I know about this trick; it’s a very painful affair. I ask if it’s really necessary.

‘It’s absolutely essential. We can’t tell anything for sure until we look in the bladder.’

Dad’s so nervous he’s physically shaking. We go outside to wait for Sam; that’s the name of the black guy. Dad wants to know what’s going to happen.

‘Well, it’s not really much, Dad. They’re going to stick a thin little tube up the hole in the end of your penis. They use this to look around in there.’

‘You mean, up the hole I pee out of?’

‘That’s right. They have a tiny light on the end and they can look into your bladder and see what’s the matter.’

‘That must hurt, Johnny!’

‘It does hurt. But there’s no way around it, it has to be done.’

When Sam comes out, he tells us we should come tomorrow at eight o’clock. Dad isn’t supposed to eat anything from six o’clock this evening.

I take him straight home. He just can’t visit Mother in this state, and I’m afraid to leave him alone. He’s getting more anxious by the minute.

At home, he asks two or three times an hour when we’re going for the examination. He reads the simple instructions Sam gave him over and over. He’s terribly concerned about doing it right and, at the same time, frightened out of his mind.

Myself, I’m turning into a nervous wreck. I’ve been separated from my own life too long and I’m missing the daily support of Vron.

I call Marty and talk to her but it doesn’t help. I almost ask her to go visit Mother but that would probably be a catastrophe.

Soon as Dad knows he isn’t supposed to eat, he gets ravenously hungry. I don’t feel I should eat in front of him so I get hungry too. We’re like a pair of hungry wolves prowling around the house, peering into the refrigerator every ten minutes or so.

I dig him out early without any breakfast and we dash to the hospital. Sam’s waiting. He takes Dad away to prepare him. I go into Dr Santana’s office. There I explain how my father has a deep worry about cancer. I ask Santana to be careful explaining things if there’s anything seriously wrong. Santana’s reading X-rays but assures me he knows how to handle these things. I go back and sit in the waiting room; Sam and Dad pass through to the examination room. I ask Sam if I should stay with Dad through the examination, but he smiles nicely and says he doesn’t think it’ll be necessary. Dad’s more relaxed; despite his prejudices he’s put himself in Sam’s hands. He has to recognize Sam’s natural authority. He really has it, presence.

Dr Santana comes out after Sam’s taken Dad away. I ask what he thinks might be the trouble. He runs his hand through his hair.

‘Well, Mr Tremont, it could be any number of things but I most suspect small growths in his bladder. It’s a question of whether they’re malignant.’

‘Will you be able to tell after the cystoscopic?’

‘Not really, but I’ll know whether or not they should be taken out. The fact they’re bleeding is not a good sign.’

I say it once more.

‘Honestly, Dr Santana, whatever you do, please break it lightly. This is all a terrible experience for him. He’s a very modest man; just someone manipulating his penis is a big shock.’

‘Don’t you worry, Mr Tremont; we’re very careful, especially with older patients.’

He goes in with Dad. I sit there in the waiting room. I can hear Dad through the door. He’s trying to hold back but there are grunts of pain. A cystoscopic is no fun. After fifteen minutes or so, Sam and Santana come out; Sam motions and says I can go in the examination room.

Dad’s face is white-green. There are edges of tears in his eyes; he’s sitting on the side of a Gurney table.

‘Boy, Johnny, that really hurts.’

‘I know, Dad, I had it once.’

‘In the army?’

‘No, afterwards. I had it done in Germany when we were living there. I thought for sure those Germans were trying to get even with me.’

‘Well, John, I hope they don’t do this again; it’d kill me for sure.’

He’s pulling on his shorts and packing in his penis. It’s wrapped in a piece of gauze and there’s blood. I hand him each article of clothing as he gets dressed.

I’m buttoning his shirt when Dr Santana comes back in. He has a clipboard in his hand.

‘Well, Mr Tremont; we’ll have to look at that.’

Dad stares at Santana, then at me; his voice quavers.

‘What does he mean, Johnny; look? I thought he just looked.’

Dad turns toward the doctor.

‘I mean I’ll have to schedule you for surgery, Mr Tremont.’

I’m standing behind Dad, signaling like crazy; Santana’s ignoring me. Dad looks around for assurance and I try to smile. Christ, it’s hard to smile when you’re scared out of your mind. Santana goes on.

‘Yes, there are some small growths in there and we’ll need to excise them. We’ll go in through the penile canal the way we did today. We won’t do any real surgery. Don’t you worry, Mr Tremont; there’s nothing to it.’

Big deal. Not to worry. Dad’s already halfway worrying himself to death. He’s wilting; slipping into deep shock. This guy Santana must have skipped all his classes in ‘bedside manner’.

Santana smiles and leaves. Dad stands there, silent. He looks so damned vulnerable.

‘Does he mean I have cancer, Johnny? Growths. That sounds like cancer.’

I laugh as if this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.

‘Hell, no, Dad! Lots of people have growths all the time. He’ll just go in and snip these out to make sure.’

I’m thinking fast as I can, trying to calm him, reassure him, fool him, help him back on his feet.

‘These’re nothing but tiny cysts, Dad, the kind Mother’s had out lots of times. That’s why they call this a cystoscopic examination. If it were cancer, they wouldn’t let you out of here today; they’d cut you right open and operate.’

God, it’s pitiful watching him watch me; wanting to believe, afraid. I finish dressing him; his hands are too shaky to tie shoes.

We go into Santana’s office. Dad sits down and I stand in back of his chair. Santana is sitting at his desk, still looking at X-rays. I keep trying to catch his eye but can’t.

At last he looks up and says, ‘OK, Mr Tremont, I’ve scheduled you for the tenth of March; we should get at this soon as possible.’

That’s in about two weeks. Dad sits there, nodding his head. This is the boss talking to him again and whatever the boss says is right. Even though he’s scared to death, he’s shaking his head and smiling, putting his hand over his teeth; doing the whole thing.

I want to confront Santana about his blunt presentation, but even more, I have to get Dad out of there fast. I hate dashing off again without visiting Mom, but she’d see right through Dad. That’s all she needs.

So what do I do now? Mostly, I want to talk with Joan. But first I need to help Dad settle down. I take him home and pour us both a drink of the muscatel wine. I turn on one of those contest shows. Dad sits in his platform rocker, not looking at the TV.

‘Johnny, really; do you think it’s serious?’

‘Dad, if it were serious, do you think they’d wait two weeks? They wouldn’t wait like this. You have an ordinary everyday cyst. You know how many cysts Mother’s had taken off. It’s nothing at all. Stop worrying.’

At least he’s listening to me.

‘Oh, it’s a cyst, just a cyst.’

I pick it up.

‘Sure, just a cyst, nothing to worry about.’

I’m lying like hell. I don’t know; it could be anything, but there’s no sense having him worry for the next two weeks.

We try to watch the TV. There are people sitting on top of each other in something like a giant three-dimensional tic-tac-toe design. Different boxes light up and they’re trying to beat each other answering questions. Dad’s mumbling half to himself.

‘Just a cyst, that’s nothing. Nothing to worry about, only a cyst.’

Sometimes he turns his head and looks out the window at the car and I think he’s seeing something, then he turns to me and smiles.

‘It’s only a cyst. Nothing to worry about there. Nothing at all.’

I wish I could get asshole Santana to sit here and watch this. I tell Dad the lie again about the cystoscopic examination only looking for cysts. I don’t really know why they call it a cystoscopic examination but I’m glad for the coincidence.

Finally, he begins to relax, to smile naturally sometimes. I go all out for dinner and cook a couple big T-bone steaks. We have beer with them and coffee afterward. We really eat. Dad enjoys this. He’s coming around, gaining back some of his confidence, making up lost ground. We try some man-talk, at least as much man-talk as we can manage. It’s hard with him. It’s not just because we’re father and son, but he hasn’t had much experience.

Not long after dinner, Dad goes to bed; he’s completely pooped. I sit up in the living room and turn on the television. I find an old movie I really like called. It Happened One Night, with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. This might just be the most romantic film ever made.

I’m needing a woman’s care, love. I’m lonesome, not just horny, lonesome. There’s something about being with a woman, knowing mutual pleasure, sharing the most natural part of being alive. It’s been more than a month now, sleeping alone, no one to share with, just alone in a bed.

I fall asleep in the platform rocker and wake at first light. I haven’t even kicked off my shoes. That’s not like me. I take a shower. I make sure I get all those walls wiped and the tub is spotless. That’s how it is living around Mom. You spend your time making sure of everything. It’s the story of my childhood, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of recrimination.

I work on Dad not to tell Mom about his operation; to let me break it gently, give her as much time as we can. Then we’ll only tell her Dad’s having a cyst removed, but not until just before he goes.

When Mother comes home, I put her in the middle bedroom again. I’ve rented a special mattress attached to a pump; it’s to keep her from getting bedsores. I’ve rented an oxygen setup too, in case she needs it. This time we’re ready for anything. I have my cuff for her blood pressure and I can take her pulse or temperature. It’s not exactly an intensive care unit but it’s a homemade approximation. I quietly read the riot act to Mom about taking it easy. She seems willing to go along this time.

One thing that’s haunting Mother is the notion of having a joint wedding anniversary celebration. I guess she cooked it up lying there in the hospital. My folks’ golden anniversary was three years ago, but Joan and Mario’s twenty-fifth was in January, while Vron and I will have been married twenty-five years in June. Mother is determined to put on some kind of event while I’m here, even though Vron is still in Paris. Joan thinks it might spark her up; it’s just Mom’s kind of thing. Joan made Mom a wedding dress for the fiftieth celebration. There was a mass, renewing of vows, the whole thing. I didn’t come; spending money that way seems stupid; so I’m feeling guilty and go along with it.

Two days before Dad’s to go in for his operation, we get dressed up. Mario, Dad and I wear suits with white shirts, ties. Joan and Mother are in wedding dresses. Joan’s baked a three-layer cake and she still has the bride and groom dolls from the top of her original wedding cake. She also has the decorations from her wedding, silver collapsible bells and white crepe-paper streamers. We decorate the dining room.

Mario and I take turns snapping pictures with a Polaroid camera. We take pictures stuffing cake into each other’s mouths. We keep faking it as if Vron’s there. Both Joan and Vron were married in the same dress. We were married five months after Joan and Mario, so Vron saved on a dress.

Naturally, Joan still has it and that’s the dress she’s wearing. She stays out of the frame and shoves wedding cake in my mouth. Since it’s Polaroid, we see the pictures right away. It always seems like an accident Vron’s not there. One time, Mario takes a picture with my arm out as if I have it around Vron’s shoulders. He says he’ll frame it so nobody will know, but he doesn’t correct for parallax and it looks as if I have my arm around somebody invisible.

We do this Tuesday night and Dad’s to be operated on Thursday. Looking back, it’s weird; maybe Mother has some kind of premonition. You’d never know we were virtually lifting Mom out of bed, snapping pictures, then lowering her, wedding dress and all, back into bed. I hate to think what Dr Coe would say.

Over my objections, Dad and Mom sleep together that night in their own bed. Dad promises to behave himself; I’m almost ready to rig a bundling board. Of course, in the morning, Mom knows about Dad’s operation; he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. I imagine after more than fifty years’ confiding it’s impossible to hold back.

She wants to know what it’s all about. I tell her he has a cyst, that some blood showed in his urine and I took him to the hospital. I tell her there’s nothing wrong except a cyst on his bladder they found in the cystoscopic examination.

Mom sucks in her breath when I mention the cystoscopic; this is something she knows. She’s had trouble with her bladder since I was born. It’s something she’s never let me forget; ‘I ruined her insides.’ I remember as a kid feeling guilty, wishing I hadn’t done it. I’ve heard a hundred times about my ‘big head’. I’d look at myself in the mirror and was sure I had a head half again bigger than normal people. I do wear a size 7½ hat but I’m not exactly macrocephalic.

As a result, Mother’s bladder dropped and had to be sewn up. It’s always been small and she’s constantly having it stretched, a painful process.

My birth was such a trauma she came home and told my father she wouldn’t have any more children. One’s enough and she’s had it. He’s to leave her strictly alone. They’re rigid Catholics, so contraceptives are out of the question.

At first Dad goes along; she’s scared the daylights out of him; they stay immaculate for six months or so. They’re sharing a single-row house with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Mary. I was born in early November and all through the winter, Mother’s hanging out diapers and having them freeze on the line, fighting diaper rash, and I have colic for the first three months.

But Dad’s a normal guy with more than normal sex drive. This is something I’ve only recently realized. After six months, he comes home from work and hands something wrapped in a piece of paper to Mother. Inside, there’s a beautifully carved wooden clothespin, not the spring-clip type but the old squeeze kind. Dad’s good with a knife and he’s carved a small man from this clothespin. It has arms, hands, fingers, everything. Written on a slip of paper is ‘This is the kind of man you need. I’m not it.’

Mom got the message. She’s carried that clothespin all her life and the note is in her cedar chest of valuable things, along with baby books, birth certificates, baby bonds, war bonds, defense bonds, savings bonds.

But she’s still scared, so she worms a contraceptive remedy out of a Mrs Hunt down the street. Why this is going to be all right with the church and Dad wearing a rubber isn’t, I don’t know. But she’s only eighteen years old. She’s still nursing me, so she’s probably not going to get pregnant anyway.

The remedy is to drink a teaspoonful of bleach every morning. After a few days of this, I start turning green and sickly; I don’t know how Mom feels. She rushes me to the doctor when I go into a convulsion. The doctor can’t figure the trouble. He asks what she’s been feeding me. She says she’s only been nursing and giving me a little baby food. He decides to check her milk. He asks what she’s been eating, if she’s been drinking heavily. She admits she’s been slugging down bleach. I’ll bet that doctor flipped.

As soon as she stopped the bleach, I improved. I don’t know what they did after that. They didn’t get pregnant for three years, so they must have been doing something. If Dad put on a rubber before he went to bed, Mother could just pretend it wasn’t there.

You read this kind of stuff in all the Irish-American novels but it keeps going on, over and over. Nobody seems to learn; humans must want to torture themselves in as many ways possible.

But to go back. Mother does know a lot about cystoscopic examinations and isn’t nearly as panicked as I thought she’d be. But Dad is scared deep inside.

That day I drive Dad to the hospital for tests and pre-op things, Mother gets weepy and Joan comes out to stay with her. At the hospital, I take Dad to his room and help store his clothes in the closet. I show him where the john is and assist him with getting dressed in the hospital gown. I speak to some of the nurses and try telling them how scared he is, but they’re mostly only professional. They listen but have their routines and are too busy to do much in the way of personal care.

Dad’s embarrassed by the hospital gown and wants to wear his pajamas but they won’t let him. The gown is a long shirt with a neck-to-bottom opening in the back and no buttons.

‘Do I walk around in this, Johnny; with the back open and all these nurses here?’

I want to reassure him but can’t; I don’t know why hospital gowns are made that way. It’s basically degrading. There must be another solution. They spend billions of dollars on hospital buildings and doctors. They charge hundreds of dollars a day, but they still use the same gown they used during the Civil War.

I settle Dad in bed and show him how to work the TV. He finds a program he likes, and it all doesn’t seem so strange. I leave and tell him I’ll be back as soon as possible.

The nurse tells me they’ll begin sedation tonight and operate in the morning. At home, I tell Mother everything went fine. She doesn’t want to stay in bed now; says she lies awake thinking; she wants to come out and watch TV.

I could move the TV back there but she wants to sit in the platform rocker.

She’s lonely and is being so good about things, I help her out and stack some pillows behind her head. I prop her feet on another chair. It’s Lawrence Welk night.

He really does bounce up and down saying ‘… and a one and a two and a three …’ I try projecting myself. How will I feel when I’m seventy? What will be the equivalent then that I’ll enjoy? There’ll be something, some gimmick which will interest, comfort me, but will seem ridiculous to my kids and impossible to my grandchildren. I watch and listen. Mother laughs at all the corny jokes and sight gags. She keeps repeating how young Lawrence Welk is for his age and how beautifully he dances; and how he’s the same age as Daddy.

After that, we watch a movie; then I move her to the bedroom. I ease her into bed and give her some Valium.

I go back to the living room. I don’t want to watch TV anymore.

I write a letter to Vron. I try telling her my feelings of lonesomeness, of feeling disconnected. I need my own place, familiar things, I feel like a grown bird crawling back into last year’s crap-encrusted nest. I also feel ineffective, helpless; Vron could do these things ten times better than I can.

I go check Mother. She’s sleeping fine. I put on my sleeping suit and climb in bed. I think about Dad alone in the hospital. I think about how fast things have gone downhill.

Next day Joan comes. We decide to spell each other and go independently to see Dad. I go in first. He’s sitting up in bed and seems OK; says he didn’t feel a thing, didn’t know anything; he’s sore down there but that’s all.

He wants to know how it went; does he have cancer. He’s very anxious.

‘Find out for me, will you, John?’

I tell him I’ll go talk with Dr Santana, but I’m sure everything’s fine. I go to the urology clinic and catch Santana in his office. He’s wary seeing me, but we get right into it.

‘Well, Mr Tremont, I’ve just gotten the lab reports; there were several malignant tumors. I think I got them but we’ll have to do some chemotherapy. We won’t radiate, not with a man your father’s age.’

‘But it’s definitely cancer.’

‘Yes, a very virulent form. It’s a good thing we went in and got them when we did.’

‘Please, whatever you do, Dr Santana, don’t tell my father. He’s terribly anxious and frightened.’

‘Come, Mr Tremont, you’d be surprised what these old people can take. Their children tend to underestimate older people.’

His attitude worries me. He doesn’t seem to understand or want to understand.

‘Doctor, this is not so in this case. My father’s deathly frightened.’

‘There should be no shock, Mr Tremont; this was a relatively simple excision; it hardly qualifies as an operation.’

I repeat, as forcefully as I can, how I’d appreciate it if he would hold off telling Dad he has cancer. I thought he was listening. I go back to Dad and say the doctor feels everything went off fine. He doesn’t ask me again directly if it’s cancer, so I don’t need to lie but I’m ready to.

At home, I tell Mother how bright and chipper Dad is. I go into the living room with Joan and explain what the doctor told me. Joan’s more worried, as I am, about how Dad will take it than about the cancer itself.

After Joan leaves for the hospital, Mother wants to know what Joan and I were talking about; I lie and say I told Joan the same thing I told her.

‘Tell me the truth, now, Jacky. Is there anything really wrong; does he have cancer?’

I’m usually a fair-to-middling liar but Mom has super antennae.

‘Mother, I’d tell you if anything were wrong! The doctor said they got out the cyst; that’s all there is to it!’

It’s close, not too far off; but I know she’s still suspicious.

Joan comes back. Dad asked her what she knew and she told him the same thing I did. He accepted and was glad it’s all over.

Mother’s insisting she has to go see Dad herself. Here she’s only been home less than a week and she wants to visit the hospital. Joan and I succumb; if that’s the way she wants to die, OK. Joan needs to go home and cook for her mob; I say I can manage it myself.

I make dinner, keeping an eye out so Mom doesn’t come out of her bedroom checking to see her idiot son isn’t burning up the kitchen.

Mother doesn’t comment on the food but she doesn’t complain. After dinner we go back to her room and she tells me what she wants to wear. I get clothes from drawers and off hangers. She says she can dress herself while I do the dishes. I’m wiping off the dining table when I hear her shuffle into the bathroom. I phone the hospital, and ask if a wheelchair can be ready in the lobby.

When I put down the phone, she comes out of the bathroom. You wouldn’t believe she could possibly be sick. Mother is a master of disguise. Her hair is fluffed out and she’s wearing high heels. She’s tickled pink with herself; the way things look means a lot to her. I’m almost ready to call back and cancel that wheelchair. It’s going to look ridiculous pushing her through the hospital glowing like this.

But it only lasts a minute. She’s made her show, now she’s getting pale under the color. I help her into the platform rocker.

‘You sit here, Mom, and get your breath. Have you taken a Valium?’

She nods her head. I’ll never know if she did or not.

‘Do you have your digoxin with you?’

She pulls a bottle out of her purse. She doesn’t talk; she’s still too fatigued, or in pain. Mom’s a tough cookie.

I go warm the car and roll it out of the patio. I close the doors and sit there gunning the accelerator, giving Mom a chance to calm down. I go in and she’s up; I help her into the car. She doesn’t want to lie out in back, wants to sit in front. She pulls out the eyeshades she uses for sleeping and puts them on. Damned smart idea. She’s way ahead of me. So long as I don’t do anything sudden, she’ll be fine.

I drive like a one-man funeral cortège through the back-from-work traffic. A couple guys look in to see what’s up with this jerk driving in the right lane at twenty miles an hour. What they see is an old lady with the darkest, opaquest sunglasses, sitting straight up in the front seat ignoring everything. I try talking with her but she’s holding herself in. It finally dawns on me she’s just holding back from crying. Maybe Mom is a witch; it’d explain a lot.

The wheelchair is waiting; I help her in it and wheel her through the parking lot, past the reception desk, to the elevator. Mother turns her head.

‘It scares me just being back in this place, Jacky. When I think of being sick, I think of niggers and Japs.’

We get to Dad’s floor and I’m hoping he’s asleep or under sedation. If only she can visit him, see he’s OK, then we can go.

I roll her into his room and immediately I know something’s wrong. I’m tempted to twist the chair right around and push Mother out of there. I should have, but I’m going into light shock myself.

Dad’s awake. Boy, is he ever awake! His eyes are wide open so you can see the blue isolated in the white. He glances at us when we come in but there’s no sign of recognition. He’s twisting the sheet in his fingers and staring at the door to his room.

I quickly go to Dad and take his hands; they’re ice cold. He looks at me, briefly; nothing; tiny concentrated pupils. He turns away with a jerk as a nurse goes by the door.

When he looks at me again, his lips start trembling. His whole body is shaking; he’s trying to speak. I bend close to listen. His voice comes out, rattling, juicy, deep, scared.

‘What’s that! What’s that out there?’

I’m torn between getting Mom away and comforting him.

‘It’s nothing, Dad. You’re here in the hospital and there’s nothing the matter. You’re fine.’

He looks me in the eyes without belief, neither in what I’m saying nor in me. Mother has pulled herself up beside me. Somehow she’s gotten out of the wheelchair and reaches past me. She leans over and kisses Dad. He kisses back, lips puckered big, like a child kissing, burlesque of a kiss. Mother isn’t crying yet; she whispers in Dad’s ear.

‘Hello, Jack, sweetheart; are you all right?’

She holds his face in her hands. He stares that same round-eyed, childlike stare at her. He smiles but it’s not a real smile; it trembles, a smile of a child smiling on command. Mom holds his head against her breast and runs her hands over his bald head.

‘Baby, what’s the matter?’

She looks at me in despair, tears starting to roll down her cheeks. She mouths the words, ‘What’s the matter with him, Jacky?’

I don’t know what to do. I lean out, signal to the desk frantically. Mother could just up and die right here. How much can a heart take? My own heart feels as if it’s jumping into my mouth. I can’t make myself pull Mother away from Dad.

No nurse comes. I hold Dad’s hands while Mom holds his head. He makes no resistance. We hold him like that, hoping he’ll come back. He’s gone, this is only a shell; whatever he is is gone.

He keeps trying to see past me out the door. The reflection in the glass has him frightened. I go over to show him it’s nothing, only a glass door reflecting light. I run my hand in front of it, explaining all the time. He’s not comprehending. He’s frightened at a level beyond anything rational. Finally a nurse comes. I stop her at the door.

‘What’s happened?’

She looks at me, coldly, disdainfully.

‘Why? Is something the matter?’

‘Is he under heavy sedation?’

She looks at the chart.

‘No, not really. It’s not necessary in a case like his.’

‘Then what’s the matter with him? He doesn’t recognize us and is in terrible shock.’

She comes in past me. Mother’s still holding on to Dad’s head. She glances at the wheelchair.

‘What’s that doing in here?’

I hold myself back. No scenes.

‘My mother’s a heart patient, only five days out of the hospital.’

She looks at Mother, then leans forward to hold Dad’s wrist for his pulse; she slips on her cuff and takes his blood pressure. I’m having that terrible smothering feeling you have when you know you’re not getting through.

But the BP and pulse mean something to her. She looks into Dad’s eyes and feels his head. Mom is starting to sob. I go to her.

‘Whatever can it be, Jacky? He doesn’t even know me. What can be the matter?’

‘Come on, Mom, sit down over here. The nurse can handle this. They probably doped him up so he’s half asleep; after an anesthetic you know how it is.’

God, I wish it were easier lying to her. But she lets me take her back to the wheelchair. I know I need to get her away and home. Or maybe I should leave her here in the hospital. If she doesn’t have another heart attack now, she’s never going to have one. I go close and whisper to the nurse.

‘I’m taking my mother home, then I’m coming back. I want to see Dr Santana immediately.’

She looks at me, low-level authority brimming in her eyes.

‘Dr Santana was already here to see your father this afternoon. He’s not in the hospital right now.’

I begin to smell the rat.

‘Look, you have the hospital call Dr Santana. Tell him there’s been a tremendous change in the condition of Mr Tremont and that his son Dr Tremont wants an immediate consultation.’

I figure now’s the time to get some mileage out of that dumb Ph.D. Her eyes light up at the word ‘doctor’.

Twenty years ago, I helped run a study on nurses. We were trying to find out what made some nurses stick it and others drop out. The ANA was financing the study; they wanted to avoid training nurses who didn’t have it. It was a three-year study in depth and breadth. The two factors we found most highly correlated to long-term professional continuance were a father fixation and sadistic tendencies. The ANA didn’t publish our results.

But I can see I’ve automatically fitted myself into the father role with this girl. I’m now one of the white coats. I’m sure she’ll call Santana.

In the lobby I phone Joan. I give her a quick idea of what’s happened and ask if she can come stay with Mother. She’ll be there in half an hour. Mom cries all the way home and I’m trying to calm her. I have a hard time keeping panic and anger out of my voice, so I’m not much good. It’ll be better with Joan; she hasn’t actually seen Dad.

I get Mother into bed and give her two Valium. She insists I’m making a drug addict out of her but I know somehow I need to get her to sleep. Joan comes just after Mom’s swallowed the pills. She walks into the bedroom and Mother breaks down again. Joan looks across the bed at me while she’s hugging Mom. She begins to look scared too; it must be in my face. I leave them alone and go into the bathroom. I look awful. I comb my hair, wash my hands and face. Joan comes out of the bedroom as I leave the bathroom.

‘What is it, Jack? Mother says Daddy’s crazy. What’s happened?’

‘I don’t know, Joan. I’m going back. If my suspicions are right, Santana told Dad he has cancer and Dad’s gone into shock. I asked them to get Santana there.’

I put my coat back on.

‘Keep an eye on Mom. I don’t know how she survived this. I don’t know how I did.’

‘Now, you take it easy; you’re fifty-two years old, you know. Don’t go around playing macho-hero.’

When I get to the hospital, Santana is in Dad’s room. There are two nurses with him. He turns to me.

‘What is this, Mr Tremont? I don’t see anything drastically wrong with your father.’

I look at Dad; he’s grinning and nodding with his ‘Yessuh, boss man’ smile.

I hope he really is back in contact, but he still seems traumatized.

‘Dad, do you remember seeing Mother today?’

He stares at me, no response. He isn’t even blinking his eyes. He begins nodding his head up and down again. He’s staring and smiling at Santana.

‘That doesn’t look like normal behavior to me, Dr Santana. I consider it serious. He doesn’t recognize me and he didn’t recognize his wife.’

This gets to Santana. He uses his light to look in Dad’s eyes, checks his pulse. He leans forward toward Dad.

‘Mr Tremont, this is Dr Santana. Do you know who I am?’

Damned if Dad doesn’t start it again, nodding, smiling, saying, ‘I’m fine, yes, I’m just fine, Doctor. Thank you.’

Santana leans back, turns to me.

‘Yes, he’s in shock.’

He sends the nurse out to get some medication. He motions me to go outside the room with him. He’s being more reasonable now.

‘This is standard with older people, Mr Tremont. They often go into delayed shock like this even after minor surgery. He has a history of arteriosclerosis, you know.’

I nod. I’m trying to hold back, trying to think it out.

‘Well, this is a form of senility—’

I interrupt.

‘But he wasn’t senile when he came in, Doctor. Why should he suddenly go into senility?’

Santana runs his hands through his hair, sighs.

‘Senility is a strange thing; it can go on and off. You get a stress situation like this and it crops up. We don’t know as much about these problems as we’d like to.’

I figure now’s good a time as any to ask.

‘Dr Santana, today did you tell my father he has cancer?’

He stares at me and steps back. He doesn’t have to say anything.

‘I told you before, Mr Tremont, I have an ethical obligation to be honest with the patient.’

‘Do you mean, even after I warned you of what might happen, you disregarded my advice completely and told him?’

I point to Dad.

‘Just look what your ethical honesty has brought about!’

I stare Santana in the face. I’m talking in a whisper but I’m furious. Santana is a little guy and steps back again; maybe he’s worried about his surgeon’s hands.

‘It could also be physiological, Mr Tremont. Perhaps as a result of the operation, or the anesthetic, there was a reduction of blood circulation to the brain. That could cause this kind of reaction. I’m sure rest and proper medication will correct the situation; don’t you worry.’

My impulse is to attack, but I back off. I’m too emotionally involved to be effective.

I stay with Dad for another half hour, trying to make contact, but he’s unavailable. He’s not my father at all. Whatever Dad is as a person is not there. There’s a monkeylike quality in the way his head is hunched inside his shoulders, something he never did; he’s using his hands to caress and feel everything. He’s rubbing his lips one over the other, grimacing, smiling and muttering in a totally unrelated way. I’ve watched my share of mentally disturbed people but never one I love.

I go home. I tell Joan Dad’s still the same, that I’ve seen the doctor. I want her to visit; maybe he’ll recognize her. She says Mom is being reasonable but is terribly shaken up; she’s convinced Dad’s crazy.

Joan leaves and I go back to see Mom. Joan has pulled all the blinds and Mother has a cloth on her head. This is an all-purpose family remedy for anything; even if you don’t have a fever, put a wet cloth on the head. I think it’s more a signal ‘I’m sick’ than anything else. But Mom looks bad. I sit on the bed beside her. Now she starts with the theme that becomes a common one.

‘There’s craziness in that family, Jacky. Daddy had a cousin who was deaf; Orin, his brother, wasn’t quite right in the head.’

This is one of my uncles, who is very eccentric, I must admit.

‘Joey’s another one, a drummer in a jazz band. They finally had to put him in a crazy house, too.’

Orin’s son, called Joey, had a serious motorcycle accident, causing a skull fracture, so he had to retrain his motor skills.

Mother goes on and on. She’s apparently kept a careful list of all the Tremonts back three generations. She even brings in my grandfather’s first cousin, who, as a young man, climbing through a fence in Wisconsin with a shotgun, blew off his lower jaw so he could never eat properly. He lived his life out as a hermit in the woods.

She doesn’t miss one variant. Everyone in my father’s family who has been in any way abnormal is on her list.

I don’t argue with her, but my father’s family is, at least, normal. There is no suicide, no divorce, no crime. They generally work hard all their lives. There’s no real alcoholism. Uncle Pete might qualify but he worked till he was seventy, so he’s not exactly an alcoholic; he just drank a lot. All my first cousins on my father’s side, and there are almost thirty of them, work for a living. The state has made money in Social Security off this family.

Now Mom starts her story about Dad. How he was always peculiar; how when she was about to marry him, Aunt Trudy, Dad’s oldest sister, warned her.

I can imagine the warning. The Tremonts are a great bunch of kidders, and Mother has never understood teasing or kidding. Vron’s the same way. It isn’t worthwhile because they don’t play along; they get mad. Also, sometimes Mother will pick out something said in fun, treat it as serious, then use it to her advantage. I suspect Aunt Trudy calling her brother Jack ‘peculiar’ is in this category.

And – oh, God! – Mom’s convinced Dad isn’t quite white. My granddad, Dad’s Dad, was half American Indian: Oneida, one of the Iroquois nations. But to my mother he wasn’t Indian, he was nigger. My father does have a darker-than-Irish skin and beautiful full lips, shovel-shaped teeth. He also has a prominent eye-socket ridge, and high cheekbones. As he’s gotten older, he looks more and more like the Indian on an old nickel.

Also, Mother has a friend named Fanny Hogan. This might be one of the most vulgar women in the world. They’ve been friends since they were twelve. Fanny has a loud, deep, fruity voice. She divorced her husband after driving him into a loony bin, then kicked her only daughter out of the house at sixteen. She’s lived alone since. As a child I hated and feared this woman.

For years, Fanny ran Mother’s life, told her what clothes to wear, picked her boyfriends. Mother likes having somebody tell her what to do, so she can complain. That’s probably not too original a pattern. When Mom met Dad, Fanny Hogan was jealous.

Fanny told Mom Dad was most likely a good part nigger and she’d have little black pickaninny kids. Somebody’d snuck into the woodshed was the way she put it. She insisted Mother could make sure by looking down Dad’s backbone; it would be a deep yellow or brown at the bottom. Mother’s dragging Dad to the shore when they’re dating so she can get a look, but they wear one-piece suits, all one piece top and bottom.

The night they’re married, and finally in bed, Mom keeps turning on the light, looking down Dad’s back to see if she’s married a nigger.

Mother’s always nourished the idea she’s married a man with a genetic deficiency. And now, finally, it’s beginning to show.

I don’t want to get angry. I know Mother is only trying to protect herself. She has such a terrible insecurity about her own value, about her own continuity, about everything she is, she strikes out in every direction; and the more frightened she is, the worse she gets.

I wish I’d understood this better when I was a child. So long as everything goes well, Mother is generous and kind. But if she feels threatened, she turns into a holy terror. If she feels jealous, or unloved, or ignored, it’s impossible.

I sit for an hour and listen. I hold back; this is something Mom needs to do. She’s preparing to have Dad die. If she can make him seem unimportant, she’ll be able to bear it. At least that’s my rationale as to what her rationale is. Who knows what’s really going on?

Joan comes back from the hospital. Mom’s finally asleep and I go out to the living room. Joan’s crying.

‘It’s awful, Jack. What can be the matter with him?’

I tell her what the doctor told me.

‘No, Johnny, it’s more than that. There’s something seriously wrong. He’s scared to death; I’ve never seen anybody so scared.’

Joan calls me Johnny on stress occasions; the last time was when she miscarried at five months visiting us in France. I was Johnny when we were kids.

Joan gradually calms down. I go over everything I can think of to reassure her. She needs comforting so badly, she’s willing to believe almost anything.

Finally, we decide it’s best if she go home. I’ll take care of Mom. In the morning I’ll visit Dad and let her know right away how he is.

Later, I call Marty and give her some idea of what’s happening to Dad. She starts crying, so Gary comes to the phone. I tell them to stay out of all this. Their job is having the baby. This is my job now.

‘Mom and I aren’t going to be having any more babies and the best favor you two can do us is having yours.’

They try to argue but I insist. I tell them I’ll yell for help if I need it. I promise on a stack of Bibles. This whole business is between Joan and me.