The Complete Collection. William Wharton

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СКАЧАТЬ give him the details, but I don’t exactly know what happened. This is a young doctor, probably doing his residence and he’s taking notes of what I’m saying. He has Dad’s charts there. I imagine Saturday-evening emergency is not ‘top gig’ for a doctor.

      As I review what’s happened, I find myself getting mad again. I begin ranting about how my father can’t live outside a hospital and inform him I’ve already told Dr Ethridge this but was ignored. I lay it on about the ambulance driver getting lost. This doctor writes away, then looks up at me.

      ‘Don’t get upset, Mr Tremont, you’re overwrought.’

      I’m having a hard time holding on; I don’t have the energy. Just then I remember the Mocks. I look at my watch and I’m already over an hour late. I ask the doctor for a phone; there’s a booth in the waiting room.

      I call Pat and Sandy and tell them what’s happened. They’re most sympathetic and I’m needing sympathy. It’s beginning to register what’s been happening. I’ve been so busy fighting I haven’t had time to think.

      I call Joan. I tell her as gently as I can. There’s a long pause on her end of the line. When she starts talking, she’s crying.

      ‘Mario and I will come to the hospital; you stay there. Don’t call Mother yet.’

      I hang up but I don’t want to come out of the phone booth. The space of a phone booth is about all I can handle right then.

      Finally, I go out and sit in the waiting room. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, except Joan. Before Joan arrives, the young doctor comes out again. He looks tired but not so grim. I swear he’s grown half a day’s beard while I was phoning. I wouldn’t be a doctor for anything. He doesn’t sit down, so I stand up.

      ‘Well, Mr Tremont, he’s out of danger for the moment. We’ll need to do more tests to find out what’s wrong. His BUN is up again and he’s dehydrated; that’s all I can tell you now. I’m putting him in intensive care. You might as well go home; there’s nothing more you can do.’

      He looks at me carefully. I must look like hell; at least that’s the way his eyes register.

      ‘You came in the ambulance, didn’t you? Do you want us to call a taxi?’

      I shake my head.

      ‘I’ve called my sister; she should be here any minute; she’ll take care of me.’

      He stares a few more seconds.

      ‘All right, you rest here and if you feel faint, let one of the nurses know. Don’t worry about your father, he’s comfortable now. Dr Chad will call you in the morning.’

      He turns away. That’s the first time I know for sure Chad’s taken the case.

      About fifteen minutes later, Joan and Mario come in. She sits beside me; her eyes are red from crying. Mario is playing impassive male, but he’s breathing shallowly and has a bluish color under his half-day beard. I go over everything.

      Joan wants to see Dad. I know why; she’s afraid he’ll die without her seeing him a last time. It’s amazing the way the living mind works about the dead. Joan persists with the nurse, who finally summons the doctor. He calls intensive care and explains the situation.

      ‘The two direct relatives may go up for a few mintues; but he’s unconscious, so he won’t know you’re there.’

      Christ, I think; you don’t know where it is, Doc; he wouldn’t know we were there if he were conscious.

      We go up. For some reason, the Muzak isn’t playing. Maybe they give the machines a rest on weekends. Maybe they only play music during visiting hours. It’s the same, though, small rooms opening onto a large monitoring center.

      There’s the smell, the repressed silence, the instrumentation. They’ve pulled the curtains on Dad’s room and we can just make him out in the dark. He does look peaceful; he almost looks dead, but he’s breathing naturally. The IV is still on, the catheter in place, the oxygen tube fitted into his nostrils. He looks like one of the men in a capsule in that 2001 film. He doesn’t look as if he’s in this world anymore. He’s lost so much weight his cheeks have sunken in. He’s like a mummy, yellowish, Nile-embalmed.

      Joan goes over and kisses him on the forehead, runs her hand over his head. When I kiss him, caress him, he’s dry, silky smooth, almost parchmentlike with a feeling of graphite powder over his skin. Joan’s crying beside me, then she turns and comes into my arms. I hold her and she’s sobbing deeply. Her sobs trigger me and I can’t stop. I’m looking over her head and crying.

      The nurse comes in. She shoos us out and we go slowly past all the overhead lights and bottles surrounded by black faces in white uniforms. Joan’s still holding on to my hand.

      When we get to the lobby, she says she wants to use the ladies’ room. Instead of standing, waiting, I go into the men’s room. In the mirror, I look cut out, as if there’s a slight space all around the outside of my head and I vaguely don’t fit somehow, like a poorly done photo-montage. I stare and let warm water run over my hands. I’m still soaked with sweat.

      Mario drives us home. By this time, we have ourselves fairly well in control. Joan says she’ll tell Mom. I keep wanting to be with Dad, even though I know there’s nothing to do.

      At home, I sneak past, back to Mom’s room, snitch one of her ten-milligram Valium, go into the bathroom and swallow it. I’m a wreck all right. I hope Joan’s OK.

      I strip and fill the tub, hot as possible, until I’m practically floating. I dread getting out and going into the living room with Mom. I’m not ready.

      But by the time I’m out, the Valium’s hit, the hot water’s hit and a sedating shock has settled in. I’m calm when I join them in the living room. Mario’s in the platform rocker with his hands locked across his stomach, staying neutral, out of it. Joan’s biting her lips to keep from crying. Mom’s crying. I tell Joan and Mario they’d better get back home; I can take over now. Joan’s more than ready to go. She’ll be crying all the way over the San Diego and Ventura freeways. I’m glad Mario’s with her.

      Believe it or not, Mother’s convinced Dad’s dying because we canned Ethridge. I wonder if she brought this up with Joan or she’s saved it for me. The temptation is strong to walk out to the back bedroom in the garden, lock the door and just forget it all.

      Instead, I go over everything once more. I explain all the things they didn’t do, the fact that it was Ethridge who insisted Dad leave the hospital. I’m talking to a wall. She has something to blame it on and I’m a logical victim; she’s not going to let go.

      I tell her the neurological tests Max in Cincinnati told me should have been done and weren’t. I try to convince her concerning Max’s credentials as chief neurologist at a university hospital, but he’s only one of my hippy quack friends. There’s nothing to be done. I look at her there crying and striking out.

      Then I remember. When I was a child, my Aunt Helen died of peritonitis after an appendix operation. It was my mother – over the objections of Aunt Helen’s husband, Charley, and her father, my grandfather – who insisted Aunt Helen have the operation. At the funeral, my grandfather turned on Mom.

      ‘It’s your fault, Bess. If you hadn’t talked СКАЧАТЬ