Fireflies: A Father's Classic Tale of Love and Loss

by Morrell, David

  They reached the large mirrored room that contained the chairs and the grand piano. Sarie guided him toward elevator E.

  “No.” David recalled the terrible pressure he’d felt descending the elevator toward the Emergency Ward. “I can’t take elevators anymore. We have to use the stairs.”

  Sarie opened a door beside the elevator.

  David’s footsteps echoed as he staggered into a stairwell. He peered up toward seemingly neverending stairs that made him think of a mountain.

  “Keep holding my arm. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll manage this.” He gripped the railing. They started up.

  At each landing, David wanted to sit and rest, but breathless, he fought harder upward.

  “Dad, you’ll make yourself sicker.”

  “I don’t matter.”

  “You’re not making sense.”

  “Keep holding me.”

  The higher David climbed, the weaker his legs felt. He had a sudden recollection of his nightmare about his death forty years from now and a thought he’d had of life being like a steep flight of stairs that got harder and harder to climb as he got older.

  That memory from his nightmare made him stop in distress. Everything he’d done since waking on his kitchen floor had been motivated by his frantic conviction that the nightmare was more than just a fainting spell. The scenes from his nightmare depicting how his life would be for the next forty years had been so vivid, so real that he’d believed in them.

  But now he realized that in none of those nightmarish memories had he suffered a panic attack the day before Matt contracted septic shock. In none of those memories had he been rushed to the Emergency Ward. In none of them had he and Sarie struggled up these stairs.

  Was his nightmare really only that? Just a nightmare, the consequence of nothing more than a fainting spell? Were his premonitions about Matthew only the consequence of a vivid dream and too much tension for too damned long?

  “What is it, Dad? You stopped. What’s wrong? Do you need to sit down?”

  “I just thought of something.”

  Maybe the neurologist was right. Maybe I should go home. Maybe I’m being hysterical.

  Fireflies.

  Power chords.

  Wavering on the stairwell, he seemed to float above his deathbed and drift through a brilliant doorway.

  No! It’s too real!

  With tingling certainty, he understood now why the panic attack and the Emergency Ward hadn’t been in his nightmarish memory, why he couldn’t recall Sarie helping him stagger up these stairs.

  Because they’d never happened. Forty years from now, how could he remember what had never occurred?

  What he did remember was that after he regained consciousness on the kitchen floor, he’d been so shaky, so disoriented he’d been forced to stay in bed till tomorrow afternoon; and when he’d finally felt steady enough to return to the hospital, Matthew had contracted septic shock.

  That day in bed was what had happened in his memory. Not any of the events of this afternoon and this evening. But now the neurologist wanted David to spend the next two days away from Matt.

  No! I’ve been given a second chance!

  An alternative to the past. Somehow, for God knows what reason, I’ve been allowed the chance to come back and change the past.

  The more he thought about it, the more irrational the notion became, and yet he’d never felt saner in his life. Faith. He had to believe. Because if he did go home and spend the next two days in bed, if Matthew did die from septic shock, in that case David would certainly go insane.

  “Dad, are you sure you’re okay?” Sarie looked pale. “You’re shaking.”

  “I just needed to rest for a second. Come on. We’ve got a job to do.”

  David struggled higher. They reached the third level.

  Sarie started to guide him upward toward the fourth.

  “No,” David said. “We’re here. Open this door.”

  “But the Bone Marrow Ward’s on the seventh floor.”

  “We’re not going to the Bone Marrow Ward.”

  “Then where are we going? There’s only one place I remember going to on the third floor.”

  6

  The Pediatrics Ward, where Matthew had received his conventional and then investigational chemotherapy, where David had mistakenly gone instead of to the Bone Marrow Ward at the start of the afternoon.

  The blond nurse was still on duty, evidently working a double shift. “You’re back again.” She looked surprised. “Has something happened? Have you got good news about Matt?”

  “Doctor …” David gave a name, the physician they’d first met when Matt was diagnosed. “Is he on the ward?” The effort to ask the question increased his dizziness. “I know he makes his rounds this time of the evening. Is he”—David’s heart raced, the start of another panic attack—“is he here?”

  The nurse frowned at Sarie supporting her father. “He was. I’m not sure if he went home.”

  “Please,” David breathed, “find out.”

  “Sit down over here,” the nurse said.

  “No, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to stand again. Just find him. Get him.” David leaned against a wall.

  The nurse left quickly.

  “Dad, you ought to be at home.”

  “Matt’s all that matters. We have to save him.”

  “But he’s not in any danger.”

  “Danger? You don’t have the faintest notion. It’s a second chance. We can … !”

  “Yes?” The physician David had been hoping to find was suddenly before him. “What do you mean, Mr. Morrell? Save Matt? Second chance?”

  “Thank God, you’re still here.”

  “One of my patients had a complication. Otherwise I’d have been home for dinner now. What’s wrong? You’re out of breath.”

  “Three questions.”

  The physician looked tired. But because he’d diagnosed Matthew and seen him more than any other doctor, he had a special interest, indeed a special relationship with Matthew. This physician, more than any other David had encountered, had sacrificed his medical objectivity, had allowed his compassion to surface and to threaten his peace of mind.

  “Three questions.” The physician leaned next to David against the wall. “Okay, why not?”

  “Suppose you knew that Matt, tomorrow afternoon, at four-thirty-six—”

  “What are you saying? How can you be so specific?”

  “Let me finish. Suppose you knew that precisely at that time Matt would contract septic shock?”

  “That’s the first question? I hate to hear the next one.”

  “And the septic shock would be caused by streptococcus mitis and staphylococcus epidermidis?”

  “Where did you learn those terms?” The physician studied David’s anxious gaze and sighed. “Okay, strep in his body and staph on his skin. Normal bacteria we always have in and on our bodies, and our bodies normally keep them in check.”

  “Except Matt’s got a zero white-blood count, so he can’t combat them.”

  “You’ve asked your second question. What’s the third?”

  “How would you stop the septic shock from happening?”

  The physician stared at David. “You’re serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding?”

  “The obvious answer is antibiotics.”

  “Then do it. Go upstairs and give Matt antibiotics.”

  “This is all hypothetical.”

  “Please!”

  “Even if it wasn’t hypothetical, the Bone Marrow Ward isn’t my department. I don’t have authority there.”

  “Then go up and ask someone who does have the authority to do it.”

  “You really are serious?”

  David trembled.

  “Have you got some reason to be worried? Has Matt got a fever?”

  “Not the last time I heard.” The pressure behind David’s ears increased. “But he will have. At three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.
And they’ll give him antibiotics then. But it won’t be soon enough. Ninety minutes later he’ll go into shock.”

  The physician pushed himself from the wall. “I don’t understand why you’re so sure he’ll go into shock. The way you look, this entire conversation, I’m quite concerned about you.”

  Sarie couldn’t stop herself. “Dad, tell him you just got out of the Emergency Ward.”

  “What?”

  “My Dad had a panic attack. He’s supposed to go home, stay in bed, take Valium, and …”

  “Sarie, keep out of this.”

  “Is your daughter telling the truth?”

  David nodded.

  “Then go home and do what you’ve been told.”

  “I’m begging you to humor me. Why can’t Matt have the antibiotics now?”

  “Because we don’t give antibiotics unless a patient has symptoms. At the very least, a fever.”

  “But suppose you knew Matt would get a fever, and after he got the antibiotics, they wouldn’t have time to work before the shock set in and killed him?”

  “We don’t know anything of the sort. You’re upset—that’s obvious. So I’m trying to set your mind at ease, but—”

  “What’s wrong with giving the antibiotics ahead of time, just in case?”

  “What’s wrong with that?” the physician asked, an edge of impatience in his voice. “Because antibiotics are toxic to the body and could make your son sicker than he already is. That’s one. And two, if antibiotics are given before an infection starts, the bacteria get used to them, so if an infection does start, the antibiotics are less effective. Now, please, Mr. Morrell, it’s late. I’ve tried to be cooperative, but I’ve been here since six o’clock this morning.”

  “My son’s going to die! Why won’t anybody listen to me?”

  The nurses in the ward stared in David’s direction. Sarie looked distraught.

  The physician cleared his throat. His tone became more authoritative. At the same time, it was strained with a greater effort toward tolerance. “For what this is worth, if it helps any, I’ve been monitoring your son’s progress in the Bone Marrow Ward. Everything’s proceeding on schedule. And if an infection does develop, the antibiotics have already been ordered from the hospital’s pharmacy. They’re in his room, ready to be administered. Of course, we can never be sure what infection might develop, but the types of broad-spectrum antibiotics they’ve got ready for Matt are especially effective against strep and staph. In that respect at least, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  David struggled to keep from sinking. Breathing deeply between bursts of words, he forced himself to say, “Unless the strep and staph have already started multiplying, and by the time his fever starts, his infection will already be out of control.” He straightened, trying to prove he was functional, ignoring the pounding in his chest. “If Matthew did die from septic shock, by hindsight would you think the only way to prevent his death would have been to give the antibiotics ahead of time—before his fever started?”

  “It’s all hypothetical!”

  “But what I just described to you … giving the antibiotics ahead of time … that’s the only other way he could have been saved?”

  “Could have? We can’t predict the future. We deal with facts.”

  David had learned what he wanted. “My daughter’s right. I ought to be at home. To take my pills and go to bed.”

  Sarie relaxed.

  “I apologize for getting upset,” David said, suddenly anxious to leave.

  “No need. What pills were prescribed?” the physician asked.

  “Valium.”

  “In a few days, you’ll feel better, more at ease.”

  “I certainly hope so. In fact, I’m convinced of it.”

  “Come on, Dad.” Sarie tugged his arm.

  “I confess I feel worn out,” David said.

  “Well, after six months of what your son and you and your family have been through, of course you feel worn out,” the physician said.

  “But Matthew more than all of us. Come on, Sarie. I guess I’ve been a pain in the ass. It’s just that I feel so helpless.”

  “Cancer’s a roller coaster,” the doctor said. “Up and down, then up and down. Exhausting. Nerve-wracking. At the moment, your son’s doing fine. Now it’s your job to take care of yourself.”

  “I intend to. Thanks again.”

  David wavered, escorted by Sarie.

  “Wait a minute,” the doctor said. “I’m finished for the evening. I’ll walk down to the parking ramp with you.”

  No! David thought. Don’t come down with us! If you do, I’ll have to—! He glanced at the blurred hands of his watch. Almost 9:00 P.M. Time. He was—Matt was—running out of time.

  7

  In the parking ramp, the doctor walked with Sarie and David toward the Fiesta. The doctor waited till they got inside before he moved toward his own car, almost as if he’d been making sure that David would indeed go home.

  David glanced back toward the hospital. No, I have to get up to the Bone Marrow Ward! As Sarie drove from the ramp, he felt trapped, but he knew he’d never be able to convince her to stop and let him out of the car.

  The sun was setting; shadows thickened.

  Sarie parked in the gravel driveway of David’s house. She helped him inside, took him upstairs, made him lie in bed, then brought him a glass of water and one of the Valium. David put the pill in his mouth and raised the glass of water to his lips.

  “I feel a little hungry,” David said.

  “What would you like?” Sarie responded eagerly.

  “Maybe a sandwich.”

  “Tuna?”

  “Fine.”

  Sarie hurried toward the kitchen.

  David ate the sandwich, drank a glass of milk, and went to sleep.

  Or pretended to, because he’d never swallowed the pill. Instead he’d tucked it along a cheek, and when Sarie went to the kitchen, he’d removed the pill and hidden it.

  He lay in the murky bedroom, kept his eyes closed when Sarie came in to check on him, and struggled to control the swirling in his mind.

  Can’t go to sleep.

  Mustn’t let myself.

  Don’t dare to.

  He heard dim voices, indistinct music, the television set downstairs. He glanced at the glowing numbers of the digital clock on the bedroom bureau. Ten-fifty-five.

  Sarie, get tired! Go to bed!

  Waiting was agony. Groggy, he felt himself drifting.

  Hovering?

  No! He concentrated on Matthew, on his son’s scarred shrinking body, on the septic shock that would start at four-thirty-six tomorrow afternoon.

  At midnight, he said a prayer of relief, hearing Sarie turn off the television. She came upstairs, tiptoed into his bedroom to check on him again, then went to her own room.

  He heard her door snick shut.

  At 1:00 A.M., he took his chance. Off-balance, he staggered from bed, managed to dress, and peered from his room down the hallway toward Sarie’s door. No light gleamed beneath it. He crept in the opposite direction down the shadowy hallway. Carpeted stairs muffled his footsteps. He slowly unbolted the front door, inched it open, stepped into the dark, and eased the door shut.

  8

  The night was unusually warm for June, heavy with humidity. Streetlights glistened off dew in the grass. Except for a distant car, the only sound David heard was the screech of crickets.

  Sarie’s Fiesta was parked beneath her window in the driveway. He couldn’t risk using his spare key to start it, for fear of waking her. He had no choice. He had to walk. Under normal circumstances, the ten blocks to the hospital would have been effortless, an easy jog for a man with a twenty-year habit of running four miles each day. But at the moment, those ten blocks might as well have been ten miles through knee-deep snow.

  Nonetheless he had to do it.

  Get started, he told himself. You lazy bastard.

  He stumbled across the lawn, across
the street, and past the grade school his son had attended. Despite the swirling in his brain, his thoughts were lucid. At least, he hoped so.

  Staggering the way I am, a police car might stop me, he thought. I look like I’m drunk or on drugs. I have to use sidestreets, the darker the better.

  So what should have been ten blocks turned out to be farther as he took a zigzag route from one murky street to the next. He felt lonely, helpless, and desperate, but terribly determined. His chest heaved from the pounding of his heart.

  At last, he saw a glow in the sky. Not the morning sun. Even with his plodding gait, it was far too early for sunrise. No, what he saw was the gleam, reflected off clouds, of the sprawling complex of the hospital. Here, streetlights were unavoidable. He paused beneath a lamppost to study the blur of his watch.

  Twenty minutes to three. Normally, he could run a mile in nine minutes, and now it had taken him an hour and forty minutes just to walk it. On the verge of collapse, he leaned against the chain-link fence of a university tennis court and studied the hospital, narrowing his vision toward the seventh floor of a brightly lit section to his right. The Bone Marrow Ward. Matthew. And if his nightmare was correct, a second chance.

  For salvation.

  To reverse the greatest loss of his life.

  Suddenly bolstered, he released his grip on the fence and walked stolidly forward.

  Matthew.

  Fireflies.

  Power chords. He marched to their rhythm.

  9

  He studied the parking ramp. Few cars. Insects swarmed around arc lights surrounding the hospital. No one was in the area.

  David’s six months of coming and going here had taught him how deserted the hospital could be at night, with the patients asleep, their visitors gone home, and the staff reduced. It was possible to walk down corridor after corridor and never see anyone.

  That happened now. Inside the complex, the grand-piano room was deserted. Smothered by silence, David considered taking elevator E, but the pressure behind his eyes warned him not to. He opened the stairwell door beside the elevator. Continuing to respond to the rhythm of the power chords, he proceeded step after relentless step up the stairwell, no longer needing his daughter’s support. Driven by his nightmare, he climbed higher. Third floor. Fourth floor. The numbers were fuzzy, but he kept climbing. Sixth floor.