[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.” He smiles bleakly.“Like I said, really bad luck.”“God, Jacob, that’s awful.Who took care of you after your father died?”“I moved in with my mother’s brother’s family.It wasn’t a happy experience.I was”—he gestures at himself—“like this.Unathletic, small, nerdy…a little intellectual kid from New Jersey, and suddenly I’m living with these huge, sports-crazy Texans.Football was a religion to them.They’re not mean or anything—they meant well, and my aunt would have done anything to make me feel at home—but I wasn’t like them and we all knew it.And the school situation was really tough.”“I’m sorry.” I push away my sundae.I feel weighed down by the sadness of the world, by an old man with a tube in his nose and a teenage boy, smart and sensitive, but stranded all alone in the world.“I can’t believe you can even bear to walk into a hospital, given your history.”“I don’t love it.This is my first time in years.”“Trust my family to drag you back down into something unpleasant.”Jacob looks up at me.There’s a tiny smear of hot fudge at the corner of his mouth.“Your family? Your family is what saved me.Your family is—”“Crazy?”“Yeah,” he says.“In the best ways.Seriously, Keats, screw the hospital—I’d crawl to hell and back for your parents.” He wipes at his mouth with a napkin, which is a big relief.I was ready to spring at him and get that fudge sauce off myself.He balls it up and drops it in the sundae dish.“Come on.Let’s bring your mother her coffee.And Keats—”I’m already standing up and slinging my bag over my shoulder.I stop and say, “What?”“Go easy on her, okay? She’s in a tough position right now.”It’s annoying and I’m on the verge of snapping at him that he has no right to tell me how to deal with my own mother, but because I was just picturing the lonely teenage boy he once was, I stop myself and just say, “I know,” and leave it at that.* * *An eternity later, the doctor comes and tells us the operation went smoothly.We don’t exactly pop a champagne cork or anything, but Mom and I hug and Jacob looks relieved.I immediately call Tom and tell him.I’ve clearly woken him up but he’s happy to hear the good news and says he’ll come pick us up whenever we want to go home.A little while later, they let us see Dad, who’s been transferred to a real hospital room now, but he’s out cold and we don’t wake him up.When Tom comes to pick up me and Mom, Jacob says he’s going to stay at the hospital.“No one’s waiting for me at home, so I might as well make myself useful,” he says.“I’m good at sleeping in a chair—I do it at the library all the time.”Once again he’s a better child to my father than I am.I wish I could just be grateful and not feel like he’s showing me up.9.Dad stays in the hospital for a few more days.He gets stronger by the hour and pretty soon he’s demanding his laptop, which Jacob fetches from the apartment along with some journals and mail and Jacob’s own car, which he left there when he rode in the ambulance.He pretty much camps out in the hospital room, working on his laptop when Dad’s asleep, leaving only when Mom and I ask him to run an errand or when someone wants time alone with the patient.I spend most of the weekend at the hospital, and when I go back to work on Monday, Rochelle lets me leave early.Her own parents have had a lot of health problems recently, so she’s pretty sympathetic.Tom goes with me that night to see my dad.He tries to be jovial and hearty—“Sounds like you’re going to be just fine, Larry!” But my father responds with his usual dryness—“Such a meaningful word, fine, especially in this context”—and I think they’re both relieved when the visit’s up.Hopkins checks in regularly by phone and says she’ll fly out in a few days.“I don’t need to see him while he’s still in the hospital,” she says to me during a quick phone conversation.“There are enough doctors there already.I assume that he’ll move back in with Mom when he leaves?”I assume so, too.“He’ll go home when he leaves the hospital, right?” I say to my mother when we meet with the cardiologist on Tuesday during my lunch break.“Yes, of course,” Mom says brightly.“Back to his apartment.”“I meant home, home.”She just turns to the doctor.“So when do you think he’ll be released?”“I think he’ll be ready tomorrow, barring some unforeseen blip.”Then he bids us a cheerful good-bye, clearly pleased with the whole situation: Look, Ma, I saved another life!Once he’s gone, I start to say, “Dad needs to be—” but Mom cuts me off before I can finish the sentence.“Forget it, Keats.He’s not moving back to the house.For one thing, it’s not his home anymore, and for another, I’m in the middle of trying to sell it.The last thing I need is an old man in pajamas wandering around, looking like death warmed over.People will run screaming out of there.”“Gee,” I say.“Some people might call that attitude heartless.”“Thanks for being so understanding.” She shakes her head slowly.“I’m not trying to win an ex-wife of the year award, Keats, but I don’t think I’m being cruel, either.I’m willing to help take care of your father, but I don’t want him back in my house.It took me ten years to get him out the first time.If I let him slip back in, I’ll never get him out again.Especially now that he’s ill.Of course, if you want to take him in, be my guest.Don’t you and Tom have an extra room?”“You mean Tom’s office?”“Your father needs care, and you’re saving space for file cabinets? Some might call that heartless.”I hate the way she always twists things around on me.“Come on, Mom—the guy was your husband for, like, thirty years.And you’re not willing to give him a place to recover?”“He’s your blood relative, not mine.” She prowls restlessly around the small conference room
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
