Saving Alice

by David Lewis

  I sat down with her for a while and once again offered my assistance, but she declined. “I’ve got friends staying with me.”

  Midmorning, I went to work. When I arrived at the office, I realized I hadn’t even told Larry. He responded with exaggerated shock, his demeanor initially apologetic. But within minutes, he was preoccupied again.

  It was one o’clock in the afternoon when Judy, one of Clare’s friends, called me—at the office. The doctors couldn’t agree as to the degree of Paul’s brain activity. Most tests indicated significant and permanent damage, so a follow-up CT scan had been scheduled.

  After work I stopped by the hospital again, and once more waited for several hours in the outer room with Clare. Susan showed mid- evening, and the reason for her earlier avoidance was obvious. Her face was a mask of bruises, and a bandage was over her nose.

  “Oh, Susan,” I whispered, reaching for her. Her eyes scrunched together, and she seemed to fight the tears but finally gave in. She wept in my arms, whispering, “You were right, you were right.”

  I sat her down, and she started from the beginning. At some point, Mr. Right had transformed into Mr. Hyde. What had begun as a silly argument inexplicably transitioned into a fight, and then Mr. Hyde slapped her around, breaking her nose in the process. Frightened for her life, Susan had finally bolted out the front door.

  “Did you call the cops?” I asked—a silly question.

  She nodded, then shrugged. “They picked him up this morning.”

  Together we crept to the edge of Paul’s room. Looking in through the glass, Susan began weeping again. “He looks so peaceful,” she cried, burying her face in my shoulder. I knew what she meant. Under normal circumstances, neither of us would have described Paul as a peaceful person.

  Later I followed her home in my car. She stood at my car window and thanked me. I watched her walk up the steps to her house, insert the key, wave once more, and slip inside.

  I sat there for a moment longer, suddenly struck by the foolishness of our lives, and if it hadn’t been so tragic, it would have been ironically funny. It’s almost as if the three of us, Susan, Paul and myself, had been cursed somehow, bound and determined to play out a record that had been broken in childhood.

  Snap out of it, Larry would have said ironically, unaware of his own chains to the past. Larry simply plodded along, determined to channel another groove.

  I dismissed my pointless conjecture and headed home.

  On Wednesday, I went to the office early and received a phone call. While I didn’t recognize the ID, I picked up anyway. I wasn’t in the mood to be yelled at by a former disgruntled customer, but in the glare of recent events, it didn’t seem so daunting anymore. The man identified himself as my online broker, and the room went blurry the moment he spoke. “Do you want to meet your margin call?”

  Margin call?

  “There must be some mistake,” I said. “What is the value of my account?”

  “We’re at five thousand,” he said.

  Five thousand? “You must have the wrong party.”

  “Are you Stephen Whitaker?”

  The room seemed to spin. “Don’t understand…”

  The voice on the phone began the explanation, but his words barely registered.

  “But … I set a stop … didn’t I?”

  I heard the distant clicking on a keyboard. “We have no record of a stop-loss order.”

  Impossible, I thought. Without a stop, my entire account would have followed the market’s recent decline. A three-percent market drop in itself was nothing, but magnified by the leverage of my account, it was enormous. Not only would I have lost my profit, but I would have lost nearly every cent of my credit-line money. I was worse than broke. I was in debt with nothing to show for it.

  Unable to catch my breath, I stammered into the phone, “Please close my position.”

  When I hung up, the room began to spin. How could I possibly have forgotten?

  Moments later, without thinking, without pausing to consider the consequences, I picked up the phone and called Donna. Sally answered on the third ring.

  “I need to talk to my wife.” I stopped. “I mean, uh…”

  “Donna’s not here,” Sally said coldly.

  “Will you … have her return my call?”

  “Sure—”

  “Never mind,” I replied as evenly as I could. “I’ll contact her later.”

  I hung up. What was I doing? Calling my ex-wife for comfort? I turned off my own cell phone, removing the temptation, and sat there, allowing the reality to wash over me.

  Maybe it’s simply a mistake, I thought. Maybe they lost my stop order.

  Of course they hadn’t. There was no mistake. In the moments of self-reproach that followed, the truth slipped into my consciousness, like a snake slithering through the weeds.

  Had I really forgotten? Why had I been so anxious during the past weeks? The answer was obvious. Traders are as successful as they want to be.

  My defeat had been inevitable long before I’d opened my first position, and now I was finished. There was no recovery. This was the end of the line. There wasn’t enough money to begin again. There wasn’t even enough equity to repay the debt. Only one option: bankruptcy, the selling off of every asset I owned, the final submission to my failure.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SIX

  During the following week, I visited Paul in the hospital twice daily, a few hours in the morning, a few more in the evening. Susan and I alternated “visiting” duty. She was a shadow of her former self, as if she’d finally crossed the point of no return. Her own prognosis was dim, although not life-threatening. Her nose, so badly damaged, probably would never look the same again.

  I tried consoling her, to no avail. Slowly, she closed herself up, devastated not only by the physical abuse and the betrayal of yet another fervent wish, but with the diminishment of what she had seen as her only asset. Her own “trading” account was now down to zero.

  Eventually they moved Paul to another room, upgraded his status to serious, and continued to watch his progress. He hadn’t regained consciousness since the accident, and his brain monitor continued to show erratic signs.

  Waiting there, sitting with Paul’s mother in the sterility of the waiting room, had a disconnecting effect on me. With Paul lying there unaware of his surroundings, I felt nearly jealous of his oblivion.

  At work I muddled through, and as usual Larry never noticed. One foot in front of another, I repeated to myself. Eating and drinking lost their appeal, and I lost five pounds in seven days.

  Monitoring the caller ID, I ignored all but the most pertinent of calls. Donna called several times and left a couple of messages: “Sally told me you called.” Later: “Did you get my message, Stephen?” And finally: “I’m worried about you, Stephen.”

  By Wednesday, the initial panic gave way to something akin to mental anesthesia. By Friday, further removed yet, I felt something akin to relief, as though divorced from the “pressure” of seeking success.

  Friday afternoon, my mother called. Suddenly, we were in the land of stranger-than-fiction.

  “Your father has been admitted,” she said.

  She told me Dad had doubled over with a terrible case of heartburn while tooling around in his garage. The doctors had commenced a series of tests, but the initial consensus was positive. Gallbladder attack was the initial prognosis, and most likely surgery would be scheduled to remove it.

  “Stephen, he wants to see you.”

  “What room?” I asked. She told me—and the number was a mere three hospital doors down from Paul.

  I dashed down the steps to Main Street, jumped in my car, and ten minutes later I was climbing the hospital steps to the second floor. Reaching my father’s room, I knocked softly and heard my mother’s voice. “It’s open.”

  I pushed the door open, slowly crossing the threshold. My mother, wearing a flowery blue dress, was sitting on the heat register at the end of the room,
her back against the windows, her arms braced against the vent. My father’s room was a carbon copy of Paul’s—same speckled linoleum tile, sky blue walls, pastel prints hanging, and warped plastic chairs, issued in bright primary colors.

  Lying in a bed surrounded by chest-high aluminum bars, my father’s eyes were closed, his mouth partially open. He had clear plastic tubes in his nostrils, which crossed his cheeks, looped over his ears, and connected under his chin. From there they extended to a hole in the wall. Another tube snaked from his arm to a bag of fluid hanging from a pole, and I recognized a blood pressure cuff. Little wires were connected to adhesive patches on his chest, which ran to a heart rate monitor. I watched the EKG line flicker—squiggly marks, line, squiggly marks, line. Another number indicated his heart rate. He looked terribly vulnerable.

  Mom rose from her perch, leaned over him, and passed a gentle hand across his forehead, then smoothed his silvery hair. She’d always been so proud of his full mane, and Dad wore it—and preened it— like a peacock.

  You got that from me, he once said, appraising my own hair.

  “Mom’s father is bald, so the verdict is still out,” I’d told him, determined to deny him the right to pass anything of value to me.

  I sat in the flimsy chair. “Is he in pain?”

  Mom bit her lip and nodded. “This came out of nowhere.”

  I leaned forward, reaching for her hand. “How are you holding up?”

  She nodded again, and her eyes blinked as she did so. “He was asking for you,” she said. “On the way here.”

  I requested further medical clarification, and she gave it to me. They’d scheduled him for an abdominal ultrasound. I inquired of the garage episode, and she indicated that he’d been popping antacids like candy. “But you know how your father is…”

  Yes, I thought, wondering how many times I’d heard her defend him with those words.

  She sequenced the details for me, then fell silent. I remained with her for several hours as the nurses traipsed in and out with overly cheerful countenances. Don’t they know where they are? I thought, and yet, at that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me, or anyone, that my father’s hours could be numbered.

  Just after seven o’clock my father finally opened his eyes half mast. His gaze lingered on me, and his words came out in a raspy whisper, “Well, I’ll be the court jester.”

  Mom echoed the sentiment, which seemed to hearken back to an earlier conversation. “I told you he’d come.”

  I didn’t know what to do—rise to my feet, approach the bed, or stay sitting. My father’s gesture solved it for me. “Let me get a look at ya.”

  I rose and went to stand beside the bed.

  “I got heartburn, that’s all. I shouldn’t even be here anymore.”

  “Let ’em finish their tests, Dad.”

  He shook his head. “So I gotta get sick to see my own son?”

  My mother stifled an angry snort. “Lou…”

  I smiled at Mom to assure her and looked down upon this man I’d spent my life trying to avoid. In that moment, I came face-to-face with the truth of my emotions—the fact that for years, I hadn’t cared whether he lived or died.

  My father cleared his throat. “I got a will, you know.”

  “Lou!” my mother exclaimed. “That’s unnecessary. You’re going to be fine.”

  “It’s routine, Dad,” I added.

  My dad was nothing if not stubborn. He stopped, swallowed, then gazed up at me. “I left you something.”

  I shook my head, and Mom jumped to her feet. “Lou, you can give it to him yourself, if it’s so all-fired important.”

  All-fired? That’s the closest my mother had ever come to swearing.

  “Dad, you’re just like Alycia. You’re a drama king.”

  Still looking up at me, he winked, and then his eyes drooped shut again. He didn’t awaken again that evening, and around ten o’clock, I bid my mother farewell, promising to stop by again tomorrow.

  “Morning?”

  I nodded, pursing my lips as I did so.

  “He wanted to talk to you,” she said.

  “And he did.”

  She shook her head adamantly. “No, Stephen. He really wanted to talk.”

  I shrugged okay, wondering if the stress was getting to her.

  “I’m sleeping here tonight,” she continued. “Maybe I’ll stop at Ruth’s for a little while in the morning.”

  Ruth Westerly was my mother’s best friend from church. I reached out for her and hugged her tightly. She hugged me back. “Promise?” she whispered again.

  “I promise, Mom.”

  She patted my back. “It felt so good to have you here.”

  “He’s fine, Mom. Relax.”

  As I drove home, and as I pondered the last few hours, I realized I’d forgotten to look in on Paul. Only a few rooms away. Bizarre, I thought, struck again by the absurdity. First Paul, then my father … what next? Like a page out my childhood Ripley’s.

  In the driveway, I shut off the engine and gripped the steering wheel, impressed with the impulse to pray, to say something—anything—to God.

  I racked my brain, started O God, and came up with nothing else.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - SEVEN

  The next day, Saturday, I awakened at four o’clock, my head pounding again. I stumbled to the bathroom, and the mirror revealed the results of my fitful night. I went back to the couch, hoping for another hour or two, but sleep eluded me.

  At ten, I finally dragged myself up and called Donna. When I gave her the news about Dad, she was concerned.

  “Apparently … it’s just routine. But—”

  “But what?”

  I shrugged as though she could see me. “Nothing.”

  “Are you worried?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

  I had difficulty putting it into words. My father had looked worse than his diagnosis.

  “Oh, Stephen, Alycia will want to see him.”

  I didn’t question Donna’s assessment, regardless of Alycia’s low opinion of her grandfather. I suggested stopping by to pick her up.

  “No,” Donna said. “We’ll meet you there.”

  We agreed to meet at the hospital in thirty minutes. When I arrived, Donna, in light slacks and striped blouse, and Alycia, in jeans and T-shirt, were waiting for me in the main-floor reception area. The moment I walked in through the doors, Alycia rushed to me. We hugged beneath the crucifix. “Is Grandpa gonna die?” she asked.

  I smiled down at her and wiped the tears from her eyes. “No, honey.”

  I hugged her again. Moments later, the three of us rode the elevator to the second floor, where I led them across the linoleum floor to room 252.

  Donna paused before entering. “Where’s Paul?”

  I nodded down the hallway.

  Donna shook her head in disbelief. I shrugged to acknowledge what she must have been thinking. She asked me the prognosis, and I shrugged again. “No one knows yet. But it doesn’t look promising.” Donna put her hand to her mouth.

  “We’re hoping for the best,” I said, the kind of trite remark that comes way too easily in the midst of disaster.

  She reached out and touched my shoulder before realizing what she’d done. When she retracted it, I smiled, and she smiled back. An innocent mistake. We walked in.

  My father’s eyes were still closed, and his expression seemed coffinlike. The moment my mother spotted Donna, she burst into tears. With arms wide open, she practically ran across the room.

  “I’ve missed you,” Donna exclaimed, and my mother echoed the sentiment. They collapsed into each other’s embrace.

  Alycia moseyed over next to me. Before I knew it, she was leaning against me so heavily I had to step back with one leg in order to stay upright.

  “It’s okay, sweetie.”

  “I know, Dad. I’m just … sensitive, okay?”

  I chuckled. “No kidding.”

  She elbowed me in the ribs.

&nbs
p; “Ouch.”

  While my mother laid out the chronology of the entire sorry situation for Donna, Alycia remained buried in my arms. I squeezed her even tighter, kissing the top of her head, and she sniffed.

  Donna and Alycia stayed for another two hours, during which time my father remained asleep, but they were present, at least, for the verdict, and it wasn’t what we expected. Dr. Parmele came in, friendly but professional, holding a folder. “I need to talk to the family.”

  Donna stepped closer to me, giving me a look that said, in no uncertain terms, she still qualified. Speaking softly and compassionately, the doctor, nevertheless, stated the unvarnished truth. “I’m afraid we’ve made another discovery. It was difficult to spot at first but…”

  I could sense Mom bracing herself. Donna frowned in anticipation.

  “I’m afraid we’ve found a large aortic aneurism,” the doctor finished. She looked at my mother. “We need to schedule immediate surgery.”

  At first none of us said a word, reading instead the doctor’s grim demeanor.

  “When?” I asked, and Dr. Parmele looked at her folder again. “No later than tomorrow, but there’s no need for ICU. He’ll be in good care here.”

  When she walked out, my mother nearly collapsed into her seat, and Donna rushed to grab her arm. Alycia leaned against me again and burst into tears.

  Early afternoon, when it was time to take Alycia home, Donna wanted to talk. She paused at the door, nodding for Alycia to go on ahead. “I’ll meet you just outside the downstairs elevator, honey.”

  In the hallway, Donna and I compared impressions, and we both agreed: Something besides my father’s situation was bothering Alycia. Normally, she was a rock of courage during tragic events, determined to be strong for everyone else.

  “I’ll call her later,” I said.

  Donna began to move down the hall again, but I touched her arm. She turned, her eyes inquisitive. I heard my mother’s voice muffled from within the room, then my father’s husky tone. Apparently, he was awake.