Page 87 of Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

“Oh, my God!” There were seventy-three text messages and forty-one voice mails. Several of them were from Delilah, a dozen from his father and his brother, but many were from news outlets. With a muttered curse, without reading or listening to any of them, he mass deleted the whole bunch.

“Aren’t you worried that some of those might be important?” the nurse inquired, watching him.

“Obviously not.”

When he got to the intensive care floor, there was a beehive of activity. Nurses, aides, doctors, technicians. Monitors beeping. The usual antiseptic smell of a hospital ward that he hated. Through some of the doors, he saw patients in seriously bad shape, while others were sitting up in bed chatting with visitors, though attached to a gazillion wires. In one unit, the attendants wore what looked like space suits right down to the booties; must be a case of sepsis.

Vanessa and Ben were standing outside the last room. Vanessa gave him her usual snooty look, accompanied by a muttered, “About time, asshole!” Then she gasped at his appearance. “You . . . you . . .” She pointed at his wet clothes plastered to his body, giving up steam by now. Whereas the AC had been running full blast on the lower floor, it was tropical heat up here.

“Hey, Van, it’s raining outside, in case you didn’t notice.” He thought about adding, “With your nose perpetually up in the air like that, you better stick inside or you might drown.” But then, he decided she wasn’t worth the trouble.

Ben looked embarrassed at his wife’s remarks, but not enough to rebuke her. Merrill held out a hand for Ben to shake. He took it. In other families, where two brothers who’d once been so close reunited again for the first time, there would have been at least a bro-hug.

Ah, well!

“How is she?” Merrill asked.

“Stable. Wanting to go home. They’ll probably move her to another floor later today.”

He nodded. “Does that mean you guys will be sticking around for a while yet?”

“Another week, at least. Van needs to get back to work . . . a project she’s heading is at a critical stage, but I’ll stay with Father until she’s released.”

What a stilted conversation! I could be a stranger he’s just met for all the warmth. “Still at Johns Hopkins?”

His brother nodded and would have said more, but his father noticed him from inside the room, and Merrill stepped inside.

“You got here,” his father said with a sigh of relief, as if Merrill’s presence mattered.

“Father,” he acknowledged because he knew that’s what the old man preferred, but instead of going over to shake his hand, he walked directly to the bed. His mother was awake and propped up on several pillows. She might be stable, according to Ben, but she looked like hell. She had always been thin, but she appeared frail as well now.

A thin line of gray showed at the roots of her frosted brown hair, which she would hate. Instead of the silk bed jacket she wore at home on those rare occasions when she’d been sick, she had the usual white johnny coat on, the kind that opened in the back, which would be a huge indignity to her refined self. An oxygen cannula was attached to her nose, and a dozen or more wires ran from her chest and arms to heart and blood pressure monitors.

Under it all, her skin was pale, without the subtly applied makeup she’d used through the years, some stuff she’d take the train into Bloomingdale’s twice a year to buy. The crap cost as much as a car payment but was guaranteed to make you look like you weren’t wearing makeup.

Women! Even his mother! Go figure!

“Hey, Mom!” he blurted out, without thinking not to offend, and leaned down carefully to give her a hug.

The “Mom” and the hug were both out of the norm, but instead of the stiffness he might have expected, a stiffness indicating that once again he’d done something inappropriate, she raised her thin arms to his shoulders and hugged him back. Against his ear, she whispered, “Oh, Merrill!” and patted his shoulders, followed by another “Oh, Merrill!”

Raising his head and seeing the tears welling in her eyes, he wondered what that was all about. She’s patting my back? Like I’m the one needing comfort! Shiiit! Have I entered an alien universe?

The moment passed and he pulled a chair close to the bed, next to his father. Ben and Vanessa came in, too, and sat on chairs on the other side of the bed. They chatted softly, mostly over her as she dozed off, mostly relating to Merrill what had happened.

“Is this the first sign of heart trouble?” Merrill asked.

“No,” his father said, “she had a few minor episodes a year ago, but she was following a heart diet and getting regular exercise. Seemed to be doing fine.”

“It was probably the stress that brought this on,” Vanessa opined.

“That’ll be enough, Van!” Ben warned his wife.

Which surprised Merrill. Usually Vanessa was the one who wore the pants in their family.

Instead of being upset with Ben, Vanessa cast a glower Merrill’s way. Man, the woman had never been fond of him, but this was taking her venom a step further.

But wait . . . is she implying . . . ? “Are you saying that I’m responsible for my mother’s heart attack?”