When Horses Had Wings

by Diana Estill

  “At school. Dad was supposed to pick me up an hour ago, but he never showed up.” He coughed. “I called his work. But they said he got sick on the job and somebody took him to the hospital.” In the background, I could hear a photocopier running and what sounded like a couple of junior high school girls giggling. Sean was safe indoors, at least. “I called Grandma,” he continued, as if he needed to tell me I hadn’t been his first choice, “but she’s not home.”

  “I’ll be right there. But call your dad’s work back and see if you can find out what hospital they took him to.”

  By the time I tore out of the parking garage and onto Main Street, I’d shifted both my new car and my imagination into high gear. Had a pallet of sandbags fallen and crushed Kenny? Had he stood behind a dump truck and been accidentally, or in his case maybe intentionally, run over? Was he injured or just ill? And if he’d been injured, could he have been left permanently disabled? It would take something drastic like that to get that blockhead to agree to let Sean live with me.

  At thirteen, Sean needed some distance from Kenny’s temper tantrums. And he needed true parenting, something neither Kenny nor Neta Sue knew much about. Today, they’d proven this. No one had bothered to check and see if Sean had made it home from school.

  To prevent alarming Sean, I spoke little when he climbed into the vinyl bucket seat next to me. The drab hues of a misty winter sky painted a bleak enough picture without my help. An ambulance passed, its lights flashing, siren blaring. I reached across the console and patted Sean on the knee. “I’m sure everything’s all right. We’ll take a swing by the hospital. He’s probably checked out already. Baylor General, right?”

  “Yeah.” Sean twisted at his lips with a thumb and forefinger.

  The automatic doors swung wide to greet us at Baylor General. We passed through the entrance, the cold dampness of early nightfall biting at our heels. I clutched Sean’s left hand with my right and gave it a slight squeeze. “We’ll just ask that woman over there,” I said, gesturing toward a lady wearing a reflective nametag and a shrimp-colored pinafore. The woman behind the information desk looked like a geriatric version of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, with the minor exception that it had been Dorothy’s dress and not her hair that was electric blue. Drawing closer to the desk, I about gagged on the unmistakable odors of tomato soup and rose-scented perfume. Campbell’s and Avon weren’t meant to be mixed like that.

  My stomach roiled from thoughts of aging and my own mortality. If I hadn’t been sick when I entered this place, I expected I could become that way soon. “She’ll have the records on her computer,” I said to Sean. “Maybe she can tell us if he’s still here.”

  For once, Sean didn’t seem to mind having a room full of strangers witness his mother holding his hand. He didn’t try to pull free, a maneuver he’d well perfected by age two.

  “Can you tell us the status of Kenneth Murphy?” I asked the information assistant.

  She tapped a couple computer keys. “He’s in ICU. Are you immediate family?”

  ~

  Neta Sue had been first to the hospital, the same way she’d kept one step ahead of me on most anything involving Kenny or Sean. But I’d been the one to retrieve Sean from school. For some reason, I found that hugely gratifying. In Neta Sue’s haste to rescue her own son, she’d temporarily forgotten about mine.

  I sat in one of the waiting area’s dozen or more pea-green chairs and watched that sow’s backside as she waddled with Sean into the Intensive Care Unit. If nothing else, I prayed, let me be spared a conversation with her. Sean would give me the facts when he returned. I didn’t want to hear anything from Neta Sue. It wasn’t that I lacked curiosity or concern. I simply didn’t need any more lip from her. She acted like the universe would spin out of control if she wasn’t around to give directions. If I had to bet, she was probably in there, right now, barking orders at the ICU nurses.

  From somewhere nearby, a man’s voice called out, “Ms. Murphy?”

  “Right here,” I said, wiggling back into the pumps I’d prematurely slipped off. I’d forgotten this was Kenny’s mother’s name, too, most likely because it was too much for me to consider that I’d ever be mistaken for her.

  “Ms. Murphy? Oh, you’re the other Ms. Murphy. Was that your son?” the doctor asked. He motioned with his head toward a pair of swinging metal doors.

  I nodded.

  The physician’s voice faded in and out. “I’m...and I’ll be...husband’s

  doctor....” I caught only every fourth or fifth word he said because my attention was trained on those shiny metal doors—and on Sean.

  “Would you care to join me in my office?” Doctor Somebody asked. He pointed down a sterile hallway. “We could speak more privately in there about your husband’s condition.”

  “Ex-husband,” I corrected. I felt I had to say it to remember sometimes. “We’ve been divorced for years.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have seen that on his chart.”

  This guy must have thought I’d fallen off of the last onion truck passing through town. Even I knew that doctors didn’t read admission records. I probably should have sensed something strange about the man right then, but I saw only his white coat of authority. I paid little attention to the personality behind that jacket, and even less to his physical appearance. If he’d been one of the hospital’s bakery staff, I doubt I would have noticed.

  “That’s okay. It doesn’t matter. Tell me what happened and if he’s going to be okay,” I said.

  The physician directed me to a wingback chair in front of his desk. He took a seat in his executive chair, pushing aside a stack of papers and manila file folders. “Your husband...I mean ex-husband...has sustained heart damage from an aneurysm. He’s currently suffering arrhythmia and kidney failure. The next twenty-four hours will be critical for him. You should pray for the best and prepare for the worst. That’s about all I can tell you right now.”

  I had to adjust my hearing. Heart damage? I’d never known Kenny to have any heart issues. At least, not medical ones. “Is he conscious?” I asked.

  “No. And I doubt he will be tonight. So if I were you, I’d take that boy home when he’s through visiting and try and get some rest.” The physician hesitated, then added, “Mr. Murphy’s mother said she will be staying here overnight.”

  My throat felt as if I’d swallowed a cotton ball that enlarged with every breath. Any second it might seal off my windpipe. My whole body grew clammy. I detected perspiration forming around my lips and along my hairline. Had the room temperature suddenly risen twenty degrees? I strained to listen more closely, but the sounds around me faded farther into the distance. Elevator bells, rolling gurneys, and paging calls gave way to a high-pitched ringing noise.

  My face must have revealed my trauma. The doctor stepped from behind his desk and scrambled to reach me. By one arm, he led me over to a tufted leather sofa that I could barely see. “I think you better lie down here until you’re feeling better.” He pulled a chair close, seated himself, and lifted my wrist to check my pulse. “I know this is a shock to you.” He caressed my hand with the warmth of his own. “How long did you say you’ve been divorced?”

  Probably he was trying to divert my attention to keep me from fainting, sidetrack me into thinking about something other than Kenny’s ruptured brain. Physicians are skilled at distracting their patients that way. But if he was going to ask me personal questions, I felt I should at least know his name. I opened my eyes and tried to read his silvery badge for the first time. The letters were too blurred for me to decipher. “About seven years,” I said, closing my lids to shut out my embarrassment.

  “Mmm. I see. And you kept the name Murphy, I presume, because of your son?” The doctor’s chair creaked. When I next looked, I found his face closely suspended over mine. His penetrating gaze, reminiscent of a man in search of his own reflection, startled me.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said. “I’ve always gone by Renee Murphy.
Nobody knows me as a Goodchild anymore. That was my maiden name.”

  The practitioner gave a forlorn smile. “Oh, you could be wrong. I still know you better as a Goodchild. But I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. Certainly not under these circumstances.”

  I sat upright and strained to focus. His hair appeared a darker shade now that he’d cut it so short, and he’d gained at least thirty pounds since I’d last seen him. But those deep indentations, the ones I used to find so endearing, still framed his thin lips when he smiled. Like always, his eye color remained elusive, alternating between shades of hazel, teal, and at times gray. I glanced at his desk. Sure enough, his nameplate had been in front of me, big as a boxcar, the entire time: DAVID W. LASSITER, M.D.

  Scanning the surroundings, I noted my former admirer’s various college and medical diplomas detailing what he’d accomplished while I’d been growing up too fast, a funny statue, and photographs of family and outdoor scenery. Centered on one wall, flanked by more outdoor photography, was an eight by ten enlargement of a Mayan pyramid.

  “We’ll talk more later, when you’re up for it. I’ve got to make my rounds now.” Doctor Lassiter—David—adjusted his collar and heaved a reflective sigh. He took a few steps toward his office door, then stopped and turned back toward me. Under the florescent lights, his vacant eyes now appeared a dusty blue. For a moment, I recalled how I’d felt when, as a young teen, I’d stared into those eyes. Special. Valued. Genuinely accepted.

  “Do you remember what I used to tell you? Do you remember what I used to say about Kenny?” David asked, studying his cushioned loafers.

  How could I forget anything that had been repeated to me that often? ‘If anything ever happens to Kenny, I want to be the first to know,’ I silently recited. He’d said that like a broken record.

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Hmm.” His gaze met mine, his mouth twisting into a wry grin. “This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  Those earlier nights when I’d lain in bed thinking about David, wondering if we’d one day meet again, imagining our future children together, had long since faded from memory. Over the years, I’d mostly forgotten about him and our juvenile romance. I had to struggle to remember what he looked like when I’d seen him last, with his eyes brimming over with rejection.

  From all appearances, we’d both moved on, each establishing new lives and loves. How ironic that Kenny had been the one to reunite us, though it was much too late.

  For several minutes, I sat in David’s office realizing I hadn’t ever wanted this either. Though I’d wished Kenny dead more times than not and imagined my glee over his demise, my guilt from having such thoughts overwhelmed me. Maybe my words had held more power than I’d realized. And possibly David’s had, too. He’d said he wanted to know if anything ever happened to Kenny. No doubt, he meant he wanted to know if Kenny and I ever broke up. But he’d probably hoped that would occur before he’d married and had that little girl whose photo adorned his desktop.

  I’d always wanted Kenny to simply disappear.

  Perhaps we both should have been more specific.

  THIRTY

  The telephone on my nightstand rang once. I strained to read the alarm clock’s fiery digits. Six-eighty, it looked like. No, that couldn’t be right. More like five-thirty. Only five and a half hours since I’d reassured Sean and tumbled into bed, three hours since I’d actually fallen asleep and dreamed about Kenny.

  A partial second ring. I grabbed the receiver. “Hello,” I whispered, my voice croupy, heart thumping. On the other end, someone’s shallow breathing. Though she’d not yet spoken, I knew the caller was Neta Sue. I could feel it in the pit of my stomach, sense it through the heaviness of the receiver. Between her gasps, I recognized her. In the few seconds we sat suspended in time, propelled toward tragic discourse, words lost their importance. The connection had been made, and already I understood.

  She whimpered, making the kinds of sounds produced only by grievous loss, the high-pitched mournful tones caused by a mother torn from her a child, the desperate cry I knew all too well. “He’s gone. My boy’s gone forever. Please,” she said, suddenly sounding stronger, “tell Sean his daddy loved him very much. Will you?”

  Despite his many shortcomings, Kenny had always loved Sean. I couldn’t deny that and never would. It was me he hadn’t cared for like he should have. I pressed my teeth into my bottom lip. “Yes, of course I will,” I said, confident I should be registering something more than shock. But I had no idea what I should feel.

  Neta Sue had despised me for more than a decade. Did I owe her anything now? Forget my obligations, if ever I’d had any to her. At bare minimum, shouldn’t I be the least bit melancholy? My ex-husband, my son’s father, had died—vanished for good. Yet I felt strangely narcotic. Possibly, I considered, I’d become desensitized to pain.

  Neta Sue sniffed. “I’ll call you later, once I’ve made the funeral arrangements.” She paused. “Do you want me to tell Sean?”

  Neta Sue couldn’t quit vying for my role in Sean’s life. When it came to acting like Sean’s parent, I figured she’d been standing in for me long enough. “No, I’ll do it. But I’m going to wait until he wakes up on his own.” That was the least I could give him, a morning of uninterrupted sleep. Soon enough he’d receive the news that would catapult him into premature adulthood.

  “Do whatever you think’s best,” Neta Sue said. “He’s your son.” She spoke with such detachment that, for a second, I almost forgot who she was.

  Though I tried, I couldn’t go back to sleep. I lay there, searching for the right words to say to Sean when he woke up. Failing to find acceptable language, I mentally replayed my conversation with Neta Sue. If I analyzed her remarks long enough, maybe I could decode her message. “He’s your son,” I whispered. She’d placed the emphasis on “your.” It took a while for me to realize she hadn’t meant that to be sarcastic. She’d actually been raising a battle-worn flag of surrender, though she’d been so badly shell-shocked that she hadn’t identified her true opponent. It hadn’t been me waiting for her submission.

  Neta Sue had been right about one thing; Sean was my child, mine and Kenny’s. Only now it looked like he would be fatherless. Where was the victory in such heartbreak? From this day forward, Sean would have no one to send a card to on Father’s Day, no dad to experience his birthday smiles or holiday joys, no one to share his love for licorice, racecars, and cop shows. How could a mother fill such voids? Who would have the tough talks with Sean, the ones about sexuality—not that Kenny was any expert in that department? Who would endure the emergency room visits, stitch removals, and bone relocations resulting from Sean’s favorite sport, football? And who would be there later, to compare body scars and wound stories? I’d always expected to be Sean’s mother, but I hadn’t counted on being his daddy, too. The prospect of that, the sheer impossibility of such, demanded my recognition.

  ~

  Sean folded in on himself like an imploding skyscraper. First, he appeared stoic and upright, then virtually invisible. He clutched at an opaque plastic bag with both fists and fixed his eyes on his high-top sneakers. Kenny had purchased those shoes, I presumed. I knew I hadn’t. Neta Sue couldn’t have been responsible, because she detested anything that didn’t fasten with Velcro.

  I sat on the mattress next to Sean, one arm looped firmly around his shoulders. If only I, like one of those storybook godmothers, could dispel his misery he might again let me inside his private world. Was there a password somewhere? And if so, had I earned the right to access?

  Sean stared at the sack that contained his father’s belongings, the items Dr. Lassiter had so graciously given to him when Neta Sue wasn’t around. “These rightfully belong to you, son,” he’d said. And then he’d pressed the package’s drawstrings deep into Sean’s open palm.

  I placed my right hand on Sean’s left. “Do you want to open the bag? Would you like to hold your daddy’s things?” I moved to stan
d, but he leaned his weary head on my nearest shoulder and exhaled.

  “If you’ll stay here with me,” Sean moaned.

  I gave him a hug.

  Sean widened the opening gathers. Inserting first a forefinger and then an entire hand into the bag, he eased Kenny’s work shirt from its wrinkled confinement. The garment’s sleeves displayed Kenny’s trademark perspiration stains. Like most of Kenny’s clothing, the uniform smelled musty, a cross between mildew and potting soil. I glimpsed the chest insignia and remembered the last time I’d read the word “Ken” and wondered who he was. Though, when it came right down to it, without our labels, neither of us could have identified our true selves.

  Sean traced the emblem with his fingers. He swallowed hard, allowing his tears to turn Kenny’s shirt polka dot. What could I do to make him feel better? As his mother, wasn’t I supposed to know?

  Why couldn’t it have been me? Why hadn’t God taken Sean’s mother, the person he saw the least, instead of his father, the one he loved most? Clearly, between the two of us, I’d been the expendable one. Almost everyone agreed. ‘As useless as a sixth toe,’ as Neta Sue liked to say. Besides, I had evil thoughts and a freakish lack of conscience. I was the one in need of punishment. Hadn’t I once plotted to blow Kenny’s brains out? And now, potentially because I’d dwelled on such thoughts, his Maker had followed through on something similar.

  I shuffled to Sean’s dresser and grabbed a few tissues. Before I could hand them to him, he buried his face in Kenny’s shirt and wept. From the hollow of his being rose a deep throaty cry that sounded more man-like than anything I’d have expected from a thirteen-year-old. His wails sliced through me.

  “Oh, honey, I know. I know,” I said. “I know it hurts. I know it does.” I felt my own sorrow spiraling up from parts of me I didn’t know existed, causing me to choke. “Let it out. It’s okay. Let it all out.”