Season of Waiting

by Jim Christopher

  “I’m not hungry either,” Irene replied. “So let’s go find something to eat.”

  They moved into the atrium, where tall windows created a greenhouse in which a lush slurry of vines grew around an artificial indoor stream. The air was thick with moisture, and it was a welcome respite from the skin-splitting dryness of the New Mexico desert outside.

  “Are you going to wait for Wes to finish rehab before scheduling the Final Release?” Irene asked. Her brother still had two weeks left in his program. Not a long time under normal circumstances. Fourteen days of increasing and unmanageable pain was not something she wanted her father to experience.

  Dad nodded. “I’d like to,” he said. “I’d like to try to explain it to him.” After a few paces toward the door, he continued, “I definitely want him there. You too.”

  Irene cringed. She had tried to come to terms with the fact that she would see Wes again as the Final Release came together. This was the first time she had to acknowledge that it would happen.

  Dad heard her thoughts. “I know, Starlight. He might not agree with everything we’ve put together.”

  Irene sighed. “I doubt he’ll take to it, Dad. You know he could derail the entire plan if he wanted to, right?” After they crossed the walkway over the stream, she continued, “Maybe you should explain to him how you’re setting him up financially. That might make him more amenable to it.”

  Dad stopped moving and faced Irene, his eyes wide with hurt.

  A fire burned in her cheeks. “What?” she demanded. “Do you think he’s more concerned about ending your suffering? Or losing his financial support network?”

  “Irene!” Her father’s voice tightened. “He hasn’t had it easy. And this will scare the shit out of him.”

  She watched his eyes in silence, having nothing to add.

  “Wes isn’t motivated the way you are, Starlight. And that isn’t all his fault. I’m sure I have some blame there.”

  Irene scoffed, folding an arm across her chest. Her hand went to her jaw. It wasn’t true. Wes was a damned wrecking ball off its chain, creating rubble from everything he touched. Dad kept sweeping up behind him, making it okay for him to shirk any responsibility for his choices. She wanted to argue, to show her father how wrong he was, but by the time the words came together, he wasn’t looking at her anymore.

  Instead, he stared past her, through the wide glass windows into the baking parking lot outside. His eyes glazed over in thought, and in a near whisper, he said, “Wes.”

  Irene blew out her breath. The conversation was consuming her patience. “What about him?”

  Dad shook his head, his brow knotted in confusion. He pointed over her shoulder and said, louder this time, “No, I mean, there’s Wes!”

  Irene turned around. Outside the revolving door, stubbing a cigarette against one of the potted succulents, was her asshole brother. Through her teeth, Irene hissed, “What the hell is that fatass doing out of rehab?”

  Chapter 5

  Wes

  “Once you told me Irene was in town, I started talking to the doctors about letting me out. To check on you, Pop,” Wes explained. He downed the rest of his coffee and looked behind him for the waiter to signal for more. He’d picked this spot because it was close and the plates were huge, but he had forgotten about the shit service. Failing to catch anyone’s attention, Wes turned back to his sister and father. “I figured something bad happened if Irene left school to come back here.”

  Dad nodded. He looked wrung out. Irene sat still, her eyes on a hole in the plastic checkered tablecloth between them. She folded her arms across her chest as she said, “I left school because you were in rehab. I came here so you would finish the damned program this time.”

  Wes leaned his elbows on the table. “No, see, I will finish the program, Sis. This is just a … what’s the word they used? ‘Furlough’?”

  Irene smirked. Her hand dropped to the table, and she picked at the small hole in the tablecloth with her fingernail.

  “Look, I can return to the program as long as I test clean when I go back. They wouldn’t have let me out if I wasn’t kicking ass in there, all right?”

  Irene snarked, “They probably want to give your bed to someone with health insurance. Or maybe to someone who wants to be a better person.”

  “Oh fuck off, Irene,” Wes blurted out.

  Irene jabbered over him, “Do you have any idea how expensive that place is? How much money each of your little vacations costs?” Her voice exploded in volume and pitch. “The least you could do, the literal least amount of effort you could have exerted, would have been to just stay there, Wes!”

  Dad raised a gentle hand, trying to quiet her. Wes felt customers and staff behind him staring their way. Irene heeded her father, her eyes falling back to the tablecloth.

  She glowered at Wes. “What the hell do you offer here, anyway?”

  “Please, that’s enough,” Pop said. “We have things to discuss.”

  Irene shifted her gaze to their father. Her expression immediately softened into … what was that? Concern? Panic filled Wes’s chest when Irene reached out and took their dad’s hand.

  “Oh shit,” Wes sighed. He sat back in his seat, hands on the table for support. “It’s real bad, isn’t it?”

  Dad nodded. “Irene and I … we’ve been preparing. We’ve known my illness is terminal for a while now, and there are a lot of things I wanted to make happen.”

  Wes swallowed the lump in his throat as Pop continued. “I’m taking care of you both as best I can. My accounting business, the house, the car, the boat, all of it will be sold off. My retirement will be cashed out. After taxes, the money will go toward your rehabilitation, and provide a small nest egg for both of you to start your own lives.”

  Dad stopped to take a sip of water. His hand was unsteady on the glass, and he ended up moving his head down to the straw. Sitting back up, Dad shook his head and added, “I wish there was more.”

  Wes waved him off. “It’s more than enough, Pop.” His panic thickened into guilt.

  Irene snorted, but held her tongue. Dad released her hand and sighed. He placed both hands flat on the table, propping himself up. His eyes rose to Wes’s. They were wet. There was something else. Something worse. What could be worse than him dying? Wes looked from Irene to his father and back, unsure of what to ask.

  It was Dad who broke the silence. “Son, I’ve decided not to fight this disease. I don’t want to put you two through that, when the diagnosis is so …” His voice faded as he shook his head. His lips tightened into a line. “Fighting it would be pointless.”

  Wes tried to process what that meant.

  After a moment, Pop took in a rattling breath and continued, “I’m ending my life, Wes.”

  The guilt melted back into panic. Sitting up in his chair, Wes shook his head. “You’re … what?”

  “I will not throw our lives into chaos when we all know how this ends up. I don’t want to rot away in hospice while you and your sister watch. I want to avoid becoming any more of a burden than I already am.”

  “This can’t be legal?” Wes heard himself ask.

  Irene replied, “It is legal. At least in New Mexico. Has been for about two years now.”

  “So you’re … what? … gonna blow your brains out? How can this be legal?” The spreading alarm in his chest warmed up as he looked from one of their calm faces to the other.

  “No, son, of course not,” Dad appeased. His tone was the one he used when he talked about ways Wes could be a better person. “It’s a medical device. The end is quick and painless.”

  Wes grabbed the sides of his head with his hands and tried to shake off the confusion. This wasn’t making sense. “How … You’re just giving up?”

  Dad kept talking. “There’s no road from here that doesn’t lead to my death, son. I have …” He leaned on the table as he gestured to the three of them. “None of us have any
illusions here. Fighting this would be painful. For all of us. And it would be pointless. And expensive.”

  Wes’s mouth hung open, words failing him. How could this be happening? What perverted logic had Irene used to get Pop to this decision?

  His father’s face fell. “I want to save what little I have for you and your sister. Not waste it on false hopes.”

  The heat in his chest exploded. Wes’s fist hit the table, rattling the dirty plates and silverware. Dad and Irene flinched away from him. Their startled reaction egged Wes forward. “‘False’ hope?” he yelled, staring down his father. “There is no such thing as ‘false’ hope, Pop! It’s just hope!” Wes’s throat burned from the words. He took a breath to calm himself. “That’s literally the first skill they drill into you at Del Rio! Life trips you up, but you can’t do anything lying down. So you stand up, dust yourself off, and take another step. Even when that means starting over!”

  Dad swallowed hard. He had one hand raised, palm toward his son, in a placating gesture while the other massaged his ear. When he spoke, his voice was soft and calm. “I’m not giving up, Wes. I’m making the best of a terrible situation. My body is already dead.” He shrugged his shoulders in a slow surrender. “We’re just waiting on the biological paperwork.”

  Wes’s face hardened. Slamming his hands flat on the table, he darted his stare between his father and sister and said, “There’s no way I’m letting you do this. No. Fucking. Way.”

  “Do you even remember Mom?” Irene’s voice was gentle, but direct. She was picking at the hole in the tablecloth again. “I’ll bet you don’t. You were young. Hell, I barely remember her,” she said, raising her eyes to Wes’s and folding her arms back over her chest.

  Wes went to shake his head, but Irene continued.

  “I remember. Parts of her, at least,” she sighed. As her tears welled, her eyes and fingers fell to the hole she picked wider in the tablecloth. “I try to remember cheerful things, but I mostly remember her dying. Wes, it took so long. So many days. I don’t know how many.” Irene stared into the red underlayer visible through the tear. “There was my birthday, then yours. The end of school. Summer, then starting the next grade. Halloween. Thanksgiving. And a Christmas. I think she made it to Valentine’s Day? I can’t remember that part anymore.”

  Wes swallowed, the fiery rush running out of his face. Irene exhaled a slow breath before speaking, “She fought. Hard. Tooth and nail for every moment she could get. That’s what she wanted, because we were …” She stopped to wipe a tear that found its way down her cheek. “Hell, Wes, we were just babies. She used to say something, what was it? ‘Babies need a mother’? Something like that. I guess I don’t remember that anymore either.”

  Her eyes snapped back to Wes, her face hard. “She smelled, Wes. She smelled awful, all the time. Like metal and chemicals and mold. That’s how I remember her.” Another tear fell, and Irene let it fall. “I remember Mom wanting a hug, and I didn’t want to hug her because I thought she smelled like a monster.”

  Irene wiped both sides of her face with her hands, leaving a thin streak of wetness across her cheeks. “That’s how I remember Mom.”

  Pop took his hand. “That’s not what I want, for any of us. What money I have I want for you and your sister, not dumped into pointless efforts to prolong the pain. What time I have I want to spend in peace. And I want to leave this life knowing you’ll not have to cope with memories like …” Instead of finishing the thought, Pop reached out and took Irene’s hand too.

  The three of them sat for a pregnant minute, letting the clinks and tings and murmurs of the other customers fill the space. It was their father who broke the stillness when he let go of their hands to scratch his ear. He turned to his fanny pack and rummaged for something. Wes blanched as Pop placed a thick orange prescription bottle on the table.

  Wes felt it. A chilling tickle. Eating a hollow in him he wanted to fill. He recognized it. Acknowledged the anxious craving. He’d known this would happen. The therapists warned him. Made him come up with a plan. Simple options.

  Before the craving became an ugly thirst, Wes stood and kicked in his seat. “I’m going outside to smoke,” he croaked. He turned, walked through the maze of tables and customers to the door outside. The restaurant sat in a strip of small shops, flanked by an out-of-business appliance place and an antique store. He crossed the sidewalk toward the line of cars parked along the street. In the falling sun of the New Mexico afternoon, he lit a cigarette. The first drag smothered the longing tickle like a heavy blanket on a fire. As he exhaled the smoke, the diner door popped open.

  Irene arrived in a wind of hair and fury, yelling at him before the door closed behind her.

  “Just who the fuck do you think you are?” she demanded. Her fist jabbed his chest, the recoil knocking the cigarette from his lips. “You! You shouldn’t even be here! You should be in the goddamned rehab Dad is paying so much money for!”

  She shoved him, hard enough that he stumbled against one of the parked cars. “How dare you, how dare you say those things to him! You selfish prick!”

  Wes straightened and grabbed her flailing hand before she struck him again. “Selfish?” he barked. “What’s selfish about wanting him to live? To at least try?”

  Irene wrested her hands away from him. “You? Try? When the fuck have you ever tried, Wes? When have you ever made any effort? Who the fuck are you to make that demand of him!”

  The whack of the diner door bursting open halted his sister’s rant. Wes looked past Irene. Dad leaned out of the restaurant, his hands clutching the door. He cupped his right ear, his eyes boring into them, his face twisted in … in what? Was he in pain? Or did he eat a lemon?

  “Be quiet!” Pop shouted. His head nodded forward, pulling his body away from the door. His feet followed in a clumsy dance. “Just be quiet!”

  He teetered through the line of parked cars. Toward the road. Before Wes could move, Pop disappeared under a passing car with a sickening thunk.

  Chapter 6

  Caleb

  Caleb found the ATC in his fanny pack and set it on the table. It rattled in thick clunks, containing more pills than he would ever need at this point.

  Wes shot up from his seat, his movements abrupt and decisive. “I’m gonna go smoke.”

  Caleb nodded as his son left, then unscrewed the bottle and fished out one of the stout capsules. He placed it in his mouth, said a small prayer that it wouldn’t get stuck in his throat, and reached for his water. It took three swallows, but the pill made it down.

  As he took another drink, the fluttering itch in his ear grew into a series of languid pops. Caleb pulled hard on his earlobe, trying to calm the sensation. Instead, it wormed deeper into his head. Christ, what if a damned bug had crawled into his ear on top of everything else?

  He looked up to find Irene stomping toward the glass door, beyond which his son lit a cigarette. He recognized her posture. The tensed shoulders. The stiff gait. A fight brewed in her. The popping in his ear canal grew into thumps inside of his head.

  Irene blasted open the door. Her momentum moved her forward as she punched at Wes’s sternum. His daughter’s yelling carried back to the rear of the diner as she shoved Wes against a car parked on the street.

  A percussive snap shook the room. Caleb felt the sound before he heard it. On reflex, he bent toward the table and clenched his eyes shut.

  The sound passed, replaced by a heavy and steady reverberation. It came through the floor, up his legs, through his body, and into his jaw. He peeled open his eyes. Other patrons sat laughing and talking as the intense vibration pressed around them.

  The hum grew as it moved into his head. The single tone split into a chord that rose in pitch and volume until his teeth rattled. Raising his hands over his ears, he searched for the source and saw nothing obvious.

  “What the hell is that?” Caleb screamed over the noise. His voice was stuffy and muddled. Patrons stared at
him now. A rotund man at the next table was asking him something. The man’s lips vibrated, his eyes searching, but Caleb heard nothing except the infernal hum.

  The pitch rose past his ability to sense it, but the rattle moved through his body. His head. His ear. The sound searched for a place to land.

  Caleb?

  Someone was bellowing at him. He turned to the right, toward the monstrous sound, and saw only the diner wall.

  Caleb, can you hear me?

  The volume of the voice rocked Caleb up as he tightened his hands on his ears. His leg knocked the table, toppling glassware and plates to the floor. Those things—the glasses breaking, the plates scattering, the silverware dancing on the tiles—they should have made noise. Caleb heard nothing.

  “What the hell is this?” he screamed. He needed Irene. He looked up. She was outside, with Wes. Everyone had stopped eating and stared at him now.

  Hey.

  A young waitress stood close by, reaching for his left arm. Her face wrinkled with concern, and her mouth moved. There was no sound. Her grip tightened on his arm as he stumbled into another patron, unable to find his balance.

  Hey! Can you hear me?

  The voice wasn’t from the waitress. It didn’t sound like she would sound. She was on his left, supporting his arm, and the voice was …

  The voice was in his right ear.

  His deaf ear.

  You can finally hear me, can’t you?

  Caleb took a step toward the door. Toward Irene. The restaurant lurched under his feet. The right side of his body seized as the voice pushed against his skull.

  I need to know that you can hear me.

  The pressure abated. Caleb was on the floor now. He didn’t remember falling. He rose up to one knee, whispering, “Please, please be quiet.” He needed Irene. He looked up. She was outside. Arguing with Wes.