Leaving Blythe River: A Novel

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Right,” Ethan said. “I guess now you get to find out.”

  “The surgery went well,” the doctor said. “We did everything. Both legs. That’s why it took so long. We replaced the right knee with a prosthetic joint, and now it’s just a matter of a lot of time to heal. Of course, he’ll be in a wheelchair at first. But in time he should be learning to walk again. He’s a fortunate man.”

  Except in his own head, Ethan thought. He didn’t say so.

  “Can I go in and see him?”

  “Not yet. He’s in recovery. Then he’ll go back to his room, but I doubt he’ll be conscious. I’m afraid visiting hours will be over by the time he’s awake and ready to see you. It might be late in the evening. Perhaps it would be best to go home and get some rest and come back in the morning.”

  Ethan looked up into the doctor’s face, then over at Jone. Then back at the doctor.

  “Can’t I stay with him?”

  Jone said, “It might be best for everyone just to get some rest, like the doctor said.”

  “Couldn’t I stay here tonight? Jone, you could just go home without me and come back tomorrow.”

  Jone raised one eyebrow but asked no questions. Well, no questions of Ethan. She asked the doctor, “Is it against policy?”

  “No, we sometimes allow it. Usually parents of young children like to stay. Because they’re afraid their child will wake up in the night and be all in a panic.”

  “Yes,” Ethan said. “Exactly. That’s exactly why I want to stay.”

  The doctor scratched his stubbly cheek for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll have an orderly bring a cot into his room.”

  The moon was waning but still bright, and it shone through the window and lit up his father’s face. Ethan noticed this while he was not sleeping. In fact, he found himself staring at his dad. His mind ran over details of his wilderness days, including imaginings of what the ordeal must have been like from his father’s point of view.

  Noah’s eyes flickered open.

  “Dad,” Ethan said. “You doing okay?”

  “Oh, you’re here,” Noah said.

  His voice sounded soft and, well . . . there was really only one way to say it. Loaded. Almost like a drunken man, though Ethan knew it was the IV drugs.

  “Yeah, I stayed.”

  “Is it over?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They did it?”

  “Yeah. They replaced your right knee, too.”

  Noah tried to lift his head, and at the same time he raised the stump of his left leg. His body was under a sheet and a light blanket, but Ethan could see the outline of what was left of the leg—and what was gone. He could see clearly where it ended. It was more of a shock than he’d expected, even though earlier he’d gotten used to seeing the blanket sag in the space a leg had so recently occupied. Still, it was different to see it move.

  “Dad, don’t do that. You just got out of surgery a few hours ago. You’ll hurt it.”

  “Oh.”

  “Doesn’t that hurt?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Just be still if you can.”

  No reply. For a very long time. Ethan looked over to see if his father was asleep again. But Noah seemed to be looking at the moon.

  “Why did you stay here?” he asked Ethan.

  “I thought you might wake up and be scared. And . . . you know. Upset.”

  “I need more of this pain stuff. Get the nurse for me, okay?”

  “You have a pump.”

  “A what?”

  “A pain pump. You just press this button on the IV tube.”

  Ethan sat up on his cot and leaned over. He took his father’s hand and placed it on the button.

  “Oh,” Noah said. Then, a few seconds later, “Oh. That’s better already. Good. Did I have a button before?”

  “I don’t know,” Ethan said.

  They both lay still and quiet for a long time. Ten minutes or more. Ethan assumed his father would drift back to the underneath side of consciousness. Even though his eyes were open.

  “The moon,” Noah said. His voice sounded even more filmy and insignificant. And even more stoned.

  “What about it, Dad?”

  “I watched it. Every night. And every night I wondered if it was the last time I’d see it. But there it is.”

  “I’m glad you’re here to see it.”

  “I didn’t want to die.”

  “I know.”

  “I was so scared.”

  “I know that, too. But you’re okay now.”

  “You’re right. I’m pathetic.”

  “I . . . shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you should. Have. It’s true. That’s why I had the . . . you know. What do you call it again?”

  “The surgery?”

  “Right. Because when little five-foot-two Ethan is looking down on me I know it’s time to stand up taller. You know? And be braver. And . . . what was I saying?”

  Ethan felt his own reaction to the dig at his height, felt it as an actual physical sensation, a palpable irritation in his body. He tried to push it down again. Let it go by. But he’d been letting it go by his whole life. This time it didn’t push down. It pushed back.

  “You just can’t resist putting me down about my size, can you?”

  “No, no, no,” Noah said. “No. I didn’t mean it like that at all. I’m not saying things right. It just made you so much more like your mom. It was like I wasn’t even part of making you at all. Like I wasn’t even in there anywhere. The two of you were like this perfect match, like you rejected my DNA or something. I resented that. It made me feel left out. And you were always so smart. You didn’t really know how smart you were. It seemed like a mean joke from . . . I don’t know, nature or whatever that you ended up looking like a younger kid than you are. Because you’re so smart, you’re like five years ahead of your age. Seven years. Hell, you were smarter than me and that’s a lot of years. That’s why I teased you about it.”

  He didn’t go on to say what “it” was, but Ethan got the general drift of the point.

  “You were smarter,” Noah continued, “but I was taller.”

  Ethan thought his dad was doing an awful lot of talking for a man who should be drifting back out of consciousness. But Noah seemed wound up about something, and unable to let it go. So Ethan just waited and let his father speak.

  “And I was better looking, and I thought I was braver. But then you yelled all that stuff at me this morning, and then I knew I wasn’t. Braver. Than you. I mean, than anybody.”

  “Dad, maybe just lie still and see if you can get some sleep. This stuff doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” Noah said. “It matters. That’s why I had to have the operation. Because I had to be brave. Otherwise you’d be braver and I’d be losing again.”

  “It’s not a competition, Dad.”

  “Everything’s a competition,” Noah said.

  Ethan sat up in his cot. Pushed the covers off himself.

  “I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t sleep. I’m going to go out and see if there’s a soda machine or something. Try to get back to sleep, Dad.”

  He let himself out of the room.

  As the door closed with a little whoosh sound behind him, Ethan took a deep breath and shook his head and shoulders slightly, as if he could physically knock away the troubling thoughts that surrounded him.

  He eased his sore legs down the hall to the nurses’ station. He expected it to be empty, but there was a night nurse. Of course. Ethan should have known there would be a night nurse.

  She had jet-black hair and eyes that were almost black, and a round face. And she smiled at him. And he realized how badly he’d needed that smile. From just about anyone.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asked him.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Is your father asleep?”

  “Not exactly. He was just talking my ear off.”

  “Is he okay?”
>
  “No.”

  The nurse rose immediately, as if to go to him.

  “No, I’m sorry,” Ethan said quickly. “He’s okay. Physically he’s okay. He’s just . . . he’s such a sad man.”

  He’d almost been tempted to add the word “little.” Such a sad little man. But he kept that part of the thought on the inside of his head, away from others.

  She smiled at him again, but more pityingly this time.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it? When you find out your parents aren’t what you thought they were?”

  “Yeah, that happens all the time with my dad. I still can’t pin down what I think he is. But right now I’d settle for a soda machine. Leave the big questions for morning.”

  She laughed. A light, lilting thing. Like something the wind could toss around. Then she pointed Ethan down the hall.

  He bought a soda, then carried it past the nurse on the way back to his father’s room.

  “Going back in,” she said, clearly understanding all the subtext of such an act.

  “I am,” he said. “It’s a hard time in his life. And . . . you know. He’s still my dad.”

  Chapter Seventeen: Smart

  Three days after his father was found

  Morning light blasted through the hospital room window, and Ethan opened his eyes. He squinted and winced, took a moment to adjust, then looked over to see how his father was doing.

  Noah was sitting more or less upright, his eyes wide open. He’d apparently used the bed controls to adjust into more of a sitting position. He was staring at the spot on the bed where his left leg should have been.

  He seemed absorbed in what he was thinking, so Ethan was surprised when his father spoke to him—surprised that Noah had even noticed Ethan was awake.

  “You slept in,” Noah said.

  “I was awake a long time in the night.”

  “Oh.” Still his father never took his eyes off the empty spot on his hospital bed. “I slept like the dead.”

  “Actually . . . ,” Ethan said. Then he wasn’t sure whether he should finish.

  “What?”

  “We had a long conversation. Well. Longish. For us, anyway.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You really don’t remember?”

  “No. I thought I was asleep all night. What did I say?”

  “Oh. Nothing much.”

  “You said it was a longish conversation.”

  “You talked about the moon. You were staring at the moon, and you said you’d been staring at it every night out there in the wilderness and wondering if it would be the last time you’d ever see it.”

  No reply.

  “And you said I was really smart.”

  “Well, you are.”

  “Thanks,” Ethan said.

  Then he decided there was no point in pushing the issue any further.

  “Think I’ll get used to this?” Noah asked, still staring at the missing leg.

  “Yes. I’m sure you will.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because people get used to things. We just do. What other choice do we have? We always say we’ll never get used to change, but then the change happens and we do.”

  “See?” Noah said. “Smart.”

  Sam was waiting for Ethan down by the nurses’ station, smiling. More or less at nobody and nothing. Just smiling.

  “How’s the yearling?” Ethan asked him.

  “Oh, she’s okay now.”

  “Where’s Jone?”

  “She hadn’t been to see her family since before our pack trip. I told her I could take care of things here at home. So she’s over on the reservation on the other side of the foothills today. Seeing her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids.”

  Because Sam couldn’t seem to wipe the goofy grin off his face, Ethan asked, “She been seeing anybody else lately?”

  Sam grinned more widely, and they turned and walked down the hall together, toward the elevator.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

  But just at that moment he broke into the funniest little dance. Only two or three steps, but it made Ethan laugh out loud. Then Sam stopped dancing and placed a finger to his lips in a shushing signal.

  “I didn’t say a word,” Ethan said.

  “So, on a more serious note,” Sam said, “how do you feel about reporters?”

  “What about them?”

  “You okay with them?”

  “What kind of reporters?”

  “Like newspaper reporters. Although this might be a good time to figure out how you feel about other kinds of reporters, too.”

  “I must be missing something, Sam. I pretty much just woke up.”

  “There’s a newspaper reporter down in the lobby. He’s hoping to get a word with you.”

  Ethan stopped walking. It took Sam a step or two to notice.

  “Why?” he asked Sam, when Sam had noticed.

  “Because it’s news. It’s not such a small thing, what just happened. It’s a human interest story. Man goes out into the wilderness and almost dies and everybody gives up on finding him except his teenage son, who actually does. You didn’t think people would want to hear about that?”

  “I don’t know,” Ethan said. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it. I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  They began walking toward the elevator again. Slowly.

  “I didn’t promise him you’d have anything to say to him,” Sam said. “Only that I’d ask.”

  “Oh, you talked to him?”

  “A little bit. Yeah. I hope you don’t mind. I thought a story like that’d be good for Friendly Sam’s Pack Service.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. “Right. Well, that’s fine. You have a right to get a little publicity off this. I hope it helps.”

  They stopped at the elevator, and Sam pushed the “Down” button.

  “I’m glad you’re not mad,” Sam said.

  Silence. They stared at the readout of floors. Floor number four was lighted up. But nothing seemed to move.

  “So, are you going to talk to that reporter?” Sam asked.

  “I can’t decide. I don’t really like the idea. I don’t want this being all about me. And I don’t think it’s something I meant for everybody to know about. I feel like it’s more of a situation you talk about with your own family. And another thing. I have this idea that the great human interest story about the son who won’t give up on his dad revolves around the idea that dad and son adore each other. I think the whole thing sort of falls down without that.”

  The elevator’s lighted floor display began to move. Toward them. Ethan felt more relieved than he could consciously justify.

  “Well, it’s up to you,” Sam said.

  Ding. The elevator doors slid open and his father’s doctor stepped out. Smiling, as always.

  “How is the patient this morning?” he asked Ethan.

  “Seems okay,” Ethan said.

  Then Ethan and Sam stepped onto the elevator together.

  The doctor reached out and held one of the doors to keep them both from closing.

  “One question, Ethan, if you don’t mind. Does your father take a lot of prescription pain medication as a matter of course?”

  Ethan blinked under the fluorescent lights and considered the question. And felt as though he didn’t have enough time to consider it. What with the elevator doors being held pending his answer.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean . . . not that I know of. Why?”

  “It’s just that we’re giving him quite a lot of pain medication. As much as I dare prescribe. It should be enough for a much larger man. But he never seems to feel it’s enough. I just thought maybe it was a tolerance issue. That maybe he takes medication regularly and has built up a high tolerance.”

  “Or maybe just a low pain threshold,” Ethan said.

  “Yes, yes. Maybe so.”

  The doctor let go of the doors and walked off down t
he hall with a wave and a nod.

  “One other thing about the reporter,” Sam said as the elevator headed down. “He asked a lot about whether we think the park service was at fault.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Just that your dad was pretty well hidden.”

  “Yeah. Hmm. Maybe I should talk to him a little bit. You know. Just to let Ranger Dave off the hook.”

  “You’re Ethan?” the reporter asked.

  The man jumped to his feet. As though to be Ethan was to hold a position of respect. As if Ethan were royalty, or a judge, and the world had to jump to its feet every time he entered a room.

  The reporter had a sharply receding hairline, but he looked too young to have lost so much hair. Early thirties, maybe. What hair he had was bushy and wild. He wore nice dress pants and a white shirt with a tie, but no jacket. The clothes and the hair seemed mismatched.

  “I’m Ethan, yeah. But I’m not sure how thrilled I am with a news story about Ethan. I mean, I know it’s a story, what happened. I was thinking it was more like a story for the next family Thanksgiving. Not for the front page of anything.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but the story’s going to be in the newspaper one way or the other. It’s a newsworthy thing that happened around here. It’s really more a question of whether you want any of your own words in the article.”

  “Oh,” Ethan said. “Hmm. I’m not sure.”

  “Maybe I could ask you a few questions. You don’t have to answer any you don’t want.”

  “Okay.”

  “What made you go out into the wilderness to look for your dad? No, wait . . . let me rephrase that. I know why you wanted to find him. I guess what I’m trying to ask is . . . what made you think you could find him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t . . . what?”

  “Think I could find him. None of us did.”

  “Then why go out there?”

  “So I would always know I tried,” he said. And to be brave for a change, he didn’t say.

  The reporter scribbled notes on his pad. For longer than Ethan would have liked. While the man wrote, Ethan glanced around at Sam, who was standing over by the gift shop. Sam smiled reassuringly.

  “Do you blame the park service and search and rescue for not finding him?”