by C. T. Wente
They followed the trail upward past the groves of quaking aspen trees and towering engelmann spruce into a long, open meadow of wildflowers and waving golden grasses. Jeri heard her father whistle and looked back to see him standing on a rock with a hand cupped over his eyes, staring admiringly out at the view.
“You see that,” he said loudly, pointing at a mountain on the opposite end of the valley. It looked to Jeri like its top had been carved out with a giant ice cream scoop. “That’s Sunset Crater.”
“Yeah dad, I know.” Jeri said flatly, staring at her hiking boots. “You’ve pointed it out before.”
“Sure I have. But…well, look how beautiful it is in the morning light.”
“It’s great. Can we eat now?”
Her father stared at the distant peak for another moment before looking over at her with a dazed grin that Jeri knew all too well.
“I know you didn’t hear what I said, Dad,” she said, exasperated. “Can we please eat now?”
“Oh course we can, buttercup.”
“Daaad!”
They laid a blanket across a large flat rock and sat down next to each other. Jeri pulled two canteens of water from her backpack as her father unwrapped a large sandwich and laid it out on a bright red bandana in front of them. They sat in silence for several minutes, eating hungrily and watching the colors of the panoramic landscape change under the rising sun. Both of them burped in fullness and laughed out loud at each other. Jeri’s father pointed out a few more things of interest in the distance, then moaned in mock exhaustion and sprawled his long frame against the sun-drenched rock. Jeri studied the view for a few minutes longer, quietly remembering everything her father had pointed out before laying down next to him and resting her head on his chest. She stared up at his tanned, youthful face, relaxed and friendly with its ever-present grin. Even now as he pretended to sleep she felt the nagging ping of dread in her stomach as she remembered he’d soon be gone again. His strong heartbeat thumped loudly in her ear.
“Dad?” she said softly.
“Yes, sweetheart,” her father replied with closed eyes, his tone eager as if he’d been waiting for her question.
“Why did things have to change? I mean, why do you always have to leave now? I know you’re making more money and stuff, but… but don’t you miss the way things were before?”
His chest rose and fell slowly as he lay quietly against the rock. Jeri knew this meant her father was thinking very seriously about the question. After a few seconds, his low voice spoke softly back to her.
“I do miss it sweetheart, much more than you can tell. I know these past few years have brought more than their fair share of changes. Change can be such a difficult thing sometimes… even for me. You’re too young to remember, but when your mother died, I was convinced that nothing ahead of us could ever be as good as what was already gone. But I still had you, my little drooling, diaper-wearing bundle of joy and terror. And as time passed, I came to realize something.”
“What’s that?”
“That all things have no choice but to continually change. And that nothing can escape this fact. Just look at how much you’ve changed in just the past few months – you’re turning into a young woman faster than I can believe! Even this rock we’re laying on is changing… fracturing, eroding, sinking back into the soil.” His hand found her forehead and slowly stroked her hair. “The key to accepting change is realizing the great things you have now, at this very moment in time, because one day I guarantee you’ll look back on today and wish things were just as they are right now.”
“I doubt that,” Jeri replied dejectedly.
Her father lifted his head and gave her a feigning look of surprise. “What? You’re not having fun out here with me?” he asked sarcastically, tousling her hair.
“Well yeah, I’m having fun I guess. But I keep thinking about the fact that you’ll be leaving soon, and when I think about it I get sad all over again.”
Her father laid his head back and said nothing for a few minutes. Jeri was beginning to think he’d fallen asleep when his head nodded slowly and his lips pursed like they always did when he was about to say something important. “It’s okay to be sad sometimes, sweetheart. It helps us appreciate the good times even more. Just try your best not to let it get in the way of making new good times, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Promise?” Her father pressed, tickling her neck.
“I promise!” Jeri replied, shrieking with laughter as she swatted his hand away.
“Good. And I’ll make a promise to you too. I promise to be home soon, and when I am, I promise to give you as much of my attention as you could possibly want... which I’m guessing will be less and less as the next few years go by.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just a hunch, Jer-bear… just a hunch.”
Jeri pressed against her father, feeling a warmth inside her that was even better than the sun against her back. She closed her eyes and listened to the steady beating of her father’s heart, her thoughts drifting and fading towards a deep, effortless sleep.
The dream began to change.
Jeri dimly noticed the sound that followed her father’s heartbeat; a sharp, high-pitched chirp that seemed to chase every faint beat. The warmth of the morning sun faded from her back, replaced by the chill of artificially conditioned air. As she stirred, she noticed the light that filtered through her closed eyelids had mutated to a cold, dull white. A familiar voice whispered her name as a warm hand lightly stroked her arm.
She opened her eyes and looked up at her father.
The hospital room was small and cramped. The air held the lingering smell of strong antiseptic. An army of stark metal machines crowded around her father’s bed, beeping and humming as they monitored his vital signs through a swarm of thin plastic lines that ran to his chest and head. Lying in the center of the chaos, wearing a green gown and covered with a thin blanket, her father looked up at her and smiled.
“Hey kiddo,” he said weakly. “Did you get some rest?”
Jeri nodded in a state of shock, blinking back tears as the full weight of reality came rushing back to her. In an instant she remembered everything.
Her father’s illness had come on quickly and without warning. He had called her late one night while she was writing her thesis for her Master’s in Economics in her apartment, her head buried deep in notes and thick volumes on global economics when the phone suddenly rang. He’d tried to make small talk with her at first, but Jeri knew her father too well to know he wouldn’t have called without a reason, and quickly asked him what was wrong. His voice trembled with emotion as he reluctantly told her about the strange headaches and dizziness he had been having for the last few weeks, and how he’d finally relented and gone to the doctor that morning. After a few tests and an MRI, the horrible truth was pointed out to him on a computer screen – her father had a massive brain tumor. Ten minutes after hearing the news, Jeri had packed a bag and was already breaking the speed limit in her old Toyota Corolla as she wiped away a torrent of warm tears and drove towards the hospital.
Now, two sleepless days later, she was sitting beside her father’s hospital bed in the middle of the night and staring into his exhausted, deep-brown eyes.
“How are you feeling, dad?” she asked as she grabbed his hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Her father shrugged with an indignant look.
“Physically, I feel fine…no pain at all,” he said slowly, his eyes wet with frustration. “It’s the symptoms that are killing me.”
Jeri nodded and looked away for a moment to fight back the tears in her own eyes. Less than a day after the diagnosis, the effects of her father’s tumor had continued to manifest themselves in terrifying new ways. Growing deep in the center of his brain at the critical juncture of tissues that control cognition, the tumor had created a condition her father’s neurosurgeon called transcortical sensory aphasia; a condition which, to her father’s horror, had now le
ft him completely unable to comprehend written language. The irony that a man who’d spent his life as an economist and analyst was now incapable of understanding a single line of text was nearly beyond bearable. Realizing that her time with this brilliant, humorous and loving man was short, Jeri had stayed glued by his bed, vowing much to the irritation of the nurses on staff to stay by him until the end.
She blinked away the last of her tears and turned back to her father with a smile. “Would you like me to read to you?” she asked.
Her father closed his eyes and timidly shook his head.
“No, just talk to me, buttercup.”
“Oh god, Dad, you haven’t called me buttercup in ten years.”
He opened his eyes and smiled mischievously at her. “Has it been ten years? Wow… time flies, huh? Of course, from what little of my mind I have left, I seem to remember you weren’t a big fan of that name. What do you say we just blame that little slip-up on the tumor?”
“Deal,” Jeri replied, laughing with her father at his morbid joke. She stared down at his still handsome unshaven face and forced herself to remember every last detail of the moment, struck once again with the heavy weight of knowing these could be her last memories of their time together. As if reading her thoughts, her father’s warm laughter eased into a long, punctuating sigh. He squeezed her hand gently.
“It’s okay sweetheart, I’m not ready for this either. God knows I wasn’t expecting something like this… but I certainly don’t have any regrets about my life and how I’ve lived it. It’s been a wonderful ride. And how could I be any more proud of you?” He paused and wiped a tear away from her cheek. “My beautiful, brilliant daughter. Graduating summa cum laude with a Masters in Economics practically under your belt... just like your old man. You’ll be kicking some serious ass in this world before you know it.”
Jeri smiled and shrugged dismissively. Her father gave her a solemn stare.
“Just promise me something, Jeri. Promise me that you’ll always trust your own instincts and pursue everything you do with passion. No matter what you choose to do, just remember that if you follow your heart, it will always lead you to happiness. Okay?”
Jeri nodded her head in response to her father’s request, ignoring the fresh flow of tears on her face.
“Promise?” he asked, his voice deep and uncharacteristically serious.
“I promise,” she replied.
“Good.”
Her father smiled peacefully as he glanced over at the machines besides the bed. The bright green line of his heartbeat monitor raced frantically across the small screen next to him, rising and dipping in a life-affirming rhythm. He watched it keenly for a few moments before looking over at Jeri with a worried expression.
“Sweetheart, there’s something else I need to tell you… something about my work. It’s probably nothing, but… I’m… I’m being cautious.”
Jeri leaned in closer towards her father as he fidgeted uncomfortably under the thin blanket. “What is it, Dad?”
“Like I said, it’s probably nothing. I… I’ve made a lot of friends in my career, but, well… unfortunately a fair number of enemies too. Not that this should be surprising. I suppose you can’t analyze matters involving the world’s largest economies and corporations without occasionally gaining the attention of the men who run them, huh?” He looked up at Jeri and gave her a tired smile.
“The truth is sweetheart, I’ve collected a fair amount of information over the years from my work. Information which some would consider sensitive at the very least.”
“Like what?” Jeri asked.
Her father looked towards the door nervously. A moment later he looked up at her and began speaking in a low whisper. “All sorts of things. Top-level operational memos… unrecorded executive orders… buried procedural doctrines… even personnel files. You have to understand, after people began to know who I was, they started coming to me. Disgruntled employees with information, rich executives who suddenly grew a conscience, even corporate spies who wanted to seed negative information about their competitors. I became something of a priest of the corporate confessional. Of course, most of it is relatively benign if not completely outdated at this point,” her father shrugged dismissively, then stared at her with a grave expression. “But some of it… well, some of it is simply too dangerous to expose.”
Jeri stared at her father, hoping for a punch line that his expression told her was not going to come. “Dad, why are you telling me this?”
Her father squeezed her hand gently. “Because when I die, you’ll be the only person who knows that this information exists. More importantly, you’ll be only person who knows where to find it.”
“But I don’t… I have no idea where to find it.”
Her father’s mouth turned into a shrewd grin. “Do you remember the last time I called you buttercup?”
“You mean other than two minutes ago?”
“Yes.”
Jeri thought for a moment and then nodded. “You mean the time we–”
Her father quickly placed his index finger over his mouth and smiled conspiratorially. “If you remember the time, sweetheart, then you know the place. But be careful,” he reached up and gently stroked her hair with his hand. “I’ve learned from all my years chasing stories that there are some stones you simply shouldn’t look under.”
Jeri stared at her father suspiciously. “Dad, are you okay? I mean, are you sure this isn’t a… a hallucination? You haven’t had any sleep since early this morning. You’ve got to be exhausted.”
“I am,” her father said as he nodded his head wearily, “And while we’re on the subject, you haven’t slept much yourself lately. I want you to go home and get some sleep.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Go home, sweetheart.”
“No chance.”
Her father grunted his annoyance. “God, you’re as stubborn as I am.”
“Even more so,” Jeri replied as she smiled back at him.
“Well, I expected as much,” her father said. “That’s why I asked the nurse with the pretty green eyes if you could stay in the nearest available room. She said you could. By the way, I think she likes me.” He laughed and waved his hand towards the door. “Go ask her to set you up.”
Jeri hesitated for a moment, terrified to leave his side, before finally relenting to his logic. “Okay, fine,” she replied as she leaned forward and kissed her father on the forehead before standing. “But I’ll be back to say goodnight.”
“That sounds good,” he replied, staring up at her with warm, affectionate eyes. “I love you Jeri… more than anything in this world.”
Jeri grabbed her father’s hand and squeezed it tightly. “I love you too, dad.” She walked to the door, then turned back to him and smiled. “How about we take that hike again when you’re feeling better. Is that a deal?”
Her father flashed her a broad smile. “That’s a deal.”
The nurses’ station for the third-floor patient ward was a short walk down the hallway. As she approached the large elliptical desk, Jeri could see one of the nurses on the night shift eyeing her suspiciously.
“I’m sorry miss, but visiting hours are over,” the small, gray-haired nurse said with practiced triteness as Jeri stopped at the counter.
“I know… I’m here with my father, James Halston. His nurse said I could stay in an open room for the night if one is still available.”
The nurse glared up at Jeri over her bifocals and frowned, deepening the framework of wrinkles around her small features. “Oh she did, did she?”
“Yes, she did,” Jeri replied, glaring back at the nurse.
The older woman huffed and dropped her eyes to the computer screen in front of her.
“Room 307 is empty – for now,” she said tersely, pointing in the opposite direction from her father’s room. “Down the hall and to the right.”
“There’s nothing closer to room 324?” Jeri asked.
&
nbsp; The nurse gave her an exasperated glare. “No, there isn’t.”
Jeri nodded and thanked the crusty nurse as she turned and headed down the hallway. She walked slowly, feeling the full weight of exhaustion sinking deep into her body. A few moments later she was standing outside of room 307. She was just beginning to open the door when the loud buzzing of an alarm suddenly echoed from the nurses’ station. Jeri turned and stared in confusion. Almost immediately, two of the nurses stood up and began running down the hallway. A third nurse appeared from a patient’s room and fell in step behind them. As she watched, a sudden jolt of alarm shot through her as she realized where they were heading. Her exhaustion instantly vaporized as she ran after them in terror, crying out a single word.
“Dad!”
She flew into her father’s room, nearly crashing into the nurses as they hovered over his body. Between their bent figures and quickly working arms, Jeri caught a glimpse of her father’s writhing body and cried out in horror. Caught in a massive seizure, her father’s limbs were flailing wildly against the restraining hands of the three women. The nurse closest to Jeri turned and shouted at her to leave, but she could only stand and stare in frozen fear. Suddenly the nurse turned and grabbed her, pulling her towards the bed, shouting for her to help. Jeri quickly grabbed her father’s hand and held it tightly to her chest. As she did, she looked down at his tortured face. Her father’s head was thrown