by Larry Center
“Chimpies!” Tommy said.
“I saw it on TV,” Mark said. “I made a copy of the interview. The thing is, your best bet is to just let her rave. All you care about is the judge’s opinion. It’s Beaman who loves this kind of thing, getting in the news. She lives for the camera. She’s no doubt eating this case up, loving every minute of it.”
“So, it’s no big deal?” I leaned forward.
“From a legal standpoint, no.”
Relief rippled through my bones. “Got it.” I noticed a picture of Mark hanging on the wall with some buddies, dressed in camouflage with rifles at their sides. They were holding up a buck. This was good: A lawyer who liked to kill things. I was impressed.
Still. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of Beaman and Cheryl on TV. Gloria Beaman was a superstar. She’d trounced my attorney in our divorce proceedings. She was known throughout California. It was said that Hollywood executives shook in their expensive Italian leather shoes when they heard her name.
“Our best bet is to prove these scientists of yours at Weller can truly offer something special for Tommy,” Mark said. “From what I’ve seen, you have some real experts on the team. This Dr. Rekulak appears to be a rather famous primatologist. I’ve seen some of the videos of Tommy interacting with the chimps and they’re incredible. So, they’re still gathering data?” Mark leaned back in his chair, his eyes wandering over Tommy who was now quiet, looking at his picture book.
“Yes. Dr. Simmons said they should be finished in about two weeks.”
“Good. Having Carly Yates involved won’t hurt either.” Mark sighed. “Look. I know this is going to be hard for you. I’m a dad myself. I love my daughter like crazy. I know at least a little bit about how you must feel. The good news is that I really think we’re going to be able to give the judge some excellent factual evidence that will swing the decision your way.”
I smiled. This was exactly what I wanted to hear. Happiness, warm and joyful, surged through my chest.
“Well, keep in touch,” I said. I just noticed it: on the shelf behind him was a family picture. Mark smiling with a gorgeous wife beside him and their daughter. She looked to be about Tommy’s age. This was good; a family man who could understand where I was coming from.
“Will do.”
Tommy and I made our way to my car, which was located a block away from the office in a parking garage. Tommy walked beside me, head down, latching onto Radar. My mind flashed back to Tommy’s seizure at the hospital. His body twisting and contorting. He was just so vulnerable. And yet, so far, no further seizures had occurred. It had been six weeks since that first miserable attack and he hadn’t had any others since then. I was thinking that maybe we had truly gotten this issue under control when, suddenly, my cell buzzed.
“Mr. Crutcher?” The woman sounded troubled and already I could tell the news would not be good. My throat constricted.
“Yes?”
She spoke with a hesitation in her voice. “This is Belinda Samuels and I’m, I’m a, uh, a nurse at Sharp Memorial Hospital.”
“Yes?”
“I’m calling because your father was involved in an accident about two hours ago. Can you come to the hospital as soon as possible, please?”
“An accident? What happened?” I gripped the phone.
“He fell on his kitchen floor and he’s bruised his hip pretty badly. It could even be broken. We’re not sure yet. He called 911. An ambulance brought him to the emergency room.”
My mouth grew dry. “I’m on my way.”
* * *
Tommy and I, with Mister Backpack on my shoulder, arrived at the emergency room entrance fifteen minutes later. Tommy didn’t seem to take in the surroundings and didn’t associate it with the kind of place where he’d had his seizure. But this didn’t surprise me. He seemed to be indifferent to most environments he found himself in.
I spoke with a tall, black-haired nurse who said she’d have more information as soon as possible. Then we were ushered into a waiting room with a TV on the wall broadcasting CNN news, something about Afghanistan, Anderson Cooper looking end-of-the-world grim as usual.
Finally, the nurse called us back and we stood at the door to my father’s private room, Tommy next to me carrying Monk now, quiet and withdrawn. I was always amazed at how he was able to draw an invisible bubble around himself and dive inside.
My father was sitting up in bed, a white bandage across his forehead. His right leg was wedged into a sling. I stood there, staring at this father of mine, who suddenly seemed so small, a fragile autumn leaf of a human being, and I surged with love for this man who knew me better than anyone else alive. He watched me make sock-puppets as a child, inventing different voices for each of them. He was the one who actually encouraged me to go into the voice-over business. And he was there the day I burned my finger on a grill. I was six years old and raced crying into his arms. Why did I run into his arms and not my mother’s? I never thought about that until now.
A nurse was checking his blood pressure and my father’s eyes were closed as she worked.
“Okay, Mister Crutcher,” the nurse said when she was finished, laying her stethoscope down on the table next to his bed. “It continues to be a bit high, I’m afraid—180 over 90. I need to notify the doctor.”
“Oh, Christ. There’s nothing wrong with me,” my father grumbled.
“Dad,” I said as I stepped into the room. Tommy followed behind me like a shadow, a mini-me.
My father and the nurse both turned our way.
“Pop,” Tommy said, pointing at my father once he’d taken his hand out of his mouth. “Pop hurt.” He spoke in his robotic style, detached as ever, like a scientist identifying a leaf.
“Dad,” I said, furrowing my brow. “What in God’s name?”
He growled: “I don’t want to hear a goddamn thing.”
The nurse gave me a knowing smile, as if to say she too knew about relating to aging parents.
“I’ll leave you alone for a while,” she said, lowering her eyes. “We’ll have Dr. Anderson do a consult for the BP.” She turned to look at Tommy. “What a cute son!”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Goodness, he’s a doll.” But I could see that she recognized his far-away stare and knew enough not to try to engage him. She gave me a compassionate look and a sad smile.
“Who cares about my goddamn blood pressure?” my father said when the nurse had left the room.
“Dad, it’s high,” I said. “You need to take care of that.”
“It’s not that high,” he said. He adjusted his aid on his right ear, it squawked, and he re-adjusted. “These doctors don’t know what they’re doing.”
“Right.”
I took off Mister Backpack and set him down in a chair in the corner.
A knock on the door, and then: “Hey, everybody.” A short man with a mustache entered. Fiftyish. He was wearing brown slacks and a white shirt with a tie, a smile on his face, bushy eyebrows that needed clipping. “I’m Doctor Brady.”
We shook hands. “Chris Crutcher,” I said.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Meet, meeeeeet, meet,” Tommy mimicked. Dr. Brady turned and stared at Tommy for a moment, clicking his pen.
“And who is this gentleman?” he asked.
“That’s Tommy, my son,” I said, smiling back at him.
“Hello, Tommy,” Dr. Brady said.
“Meet, meeeet, meet . .” Tommy continued repeating.
“Very cute,” he said. Then, without missing a beat, Dr. Brady stepped over to my father. “How you doing, Mr. Crutcher?” he asked.
I already felt embarrassed and my father hadn’t even started speaking yet.
“I’ll be doing a lot better once I get out of this so-called hospital,” my father said. His angry tone made Dr. Brady cock his head and he smoothed back his grey hair.
“Dad,” I said. “Settle down.”
Dr. Brady rubbed the side of his smoo
th-shaven face. “Anyway, from the X-ray it looks like you’ve got a badly bruised right hip and sprained right ankle, Mr. Crutcher. Nothing broken, actually, which is a kind of miracle.” He turned to me. “He was pretty loose when he fell.”
“Loose?” I asked.
“I’d downed a few beers,” my father said. “So what?”
I rolled my eyes. How could I ever move to Houston with a father like this?
“What am I going to do with you, Dad?” I turned to the doctor. “A few weeks ago, he was out cleaning leaves from the gutter, standing high on a ladder. He’d had a few then, too.” I turned back to my father who eyed me with a scowl. “What were you doing this time, Dad?”
“I was fixing the plumbing under the sink. Pipe broke and water went everywhere. Totally surprised me and I slipped and fell. Should’ve known. Pipes in that house are as old as Moses. Look. Just take me home and let me be,” my father said. “It’s a goddamn free country, isn’t it?”
“Let you be, huh?” I stepped closer to the bed, sizing him up. I looked at Dr. Brady, then stared at my father. “You mean let you kill yourself on your next home improvement project?”
“Pop hurt,” Tommy said. We all looked at him.
“Okay, no more home improvement. I promise,” my father said.
“No more cleaning gutters?”
“Promise.”
“No more being your own in-house plumber?” I asked.
“Fine, goddammit. Do you realize how expensive a goddamn plumber is these days? How was I to know that pipe was about to blow? I’ve been fixing leaks under sinks…”
“Yeah, I know. Before I was born. Maybe we should talk about selling the house and—”
He spoke threateningly, “Don’t you dare!”
Dr. Brady cleared his throat. “Is there anything else you need from me?” Dr. Brady asked. “We’ll need to stabilize his BP and do some blood work, too. I can release him tomorrow.” He faced my father and spoke louder. “I need to prolong your stay, Mr. Crutcher, for observation for one night. It’s medically indicated.”
“Tomorrow?” my father gasped. “Are you kidding me?”
“No sir,” Dr. Brady said. “Trust me, it’s for your own good.”
“A whole night in this hell hole?”
“Yes, sir. Just consider it a night off, a vacation. You need it.”
“I don’t need crap,” my father said.
Dr. Brady gave me a quick nod, scrawled some notes into the chart he was carrying, then hurriedly left the room, closing the door behind him. He seemed a tiny bit afraid of my father and I couldn’t blame him.
“Okay, Dad,” I said, folding my arms across my chest, “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
“Sure could use a beer right now,” my father said. “Call the nurse’s station and see if they can scrounge one up.”
“I’m sure you—”
“Beer, beer, beer,” Tommy mimicked. “Beeeeer . . .”
We both laughed. “Look at you, Dad, you’re already giving my son ideas.”
“A chip off the old block, that one,” my father said with a smile.
Minutes later, someone else knocked on the door. Three quick raps. I was thinking it was another nurse. Man, I was so wrong.
“Can I come in?” The voice outside the door was unmistakable. It was Cheryl who stepped into the room, a look of concern on her face, carrying a fruit basket wrapped in yellow plastic, her purse slung over her shoulder. I just stood there, my jaw dropping as my stomach flipped over.
“Mommy,” Tommy said. But he didn’t rush up to her the way a normal child would. He merely stated the fact of the situation, then returned to playing with Monkey, spinning him around on the floor.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. But she moved right past me as if I hadn’t said a word, and came up to my father’s bed. She smelled like citrus and soap. She set the fruit basket on a table near the window.
“For you, Ralph.” Her voice was sweet and endearing. “How are you doing? Are you all right? I was so worried about you.”
“Oh, for an old grouch, I’m doing lousy as hell. For a dead body, pretty good.” My father shifted in bed and snorted.
I was dumbfounded. How did she even know?
Cheryl laid her purse on a chair, bent down, and kissed my father on the cheek, then smudged away her lipstick mark with a laugh. “You’re tough as nails, Ralph. A little fall on the floor won’t hurt an old steel man like you. Maybe a few dings on your rear bumper. You’ll be fine.”
She looked beautiful, dammit, her auburn hair tied back and worn off to the side. Blue dress, pearls, earrings to match the pearls, and black heels. Her complexion was flushed with color. But not just beautiful. She looked goddamn happy too, a fact that made me cringe.
“Mommy. Chimpies, Daddy? Chimpies fun!” Tommy said.
“Are you being a good boy for grandpa?” Cheryl asked, taking in Tommy, her motherly eyes inspecting him. She put her hands on her hips.
“Fine,” Tommy said. “Fiiiine.”
“How’d you know, Cher?” I asked.
“The hospital called me,” she said, eyeing me at last, running a hand through her hair. Her tone of voice was now a little less sweet. “I’m still on the emergency call list for your father.”
“That makes sense,” I said. I made a mental note to have her taken off the list.
I told her the story and Cheryl listened with a sympathetic look on her face. As I spoke, my father scratched his head and stared straight ahead, looking like a schoolboy who’d been found cheating on an exam and was now sitting in the principal’s office.
I had to admit it: My father and Cheryl had always gotten along well. They were both die-hard Padres fans and had even gone to several games together through the years. Cheryl was one of the few people who could actually light my father up, make him smile. The divorce had crushed my parents, but I think it hurt my father most of all. I still hadn’t told him about the upcoming hearing. I had to do it at the right time. Luckily, he hadn’t seen the story on the local news.
“Chimpies,” Tommy intoned, that one word, spoken in his monotonic way, dropping from his mouth, carried emotional dynamite.
“No, son. Not now, okay?” I took a gulp of air and looked at Cheryl. Her eyes darkened for a moment and she let out a thin sigh.
“No chimpies,” she said sternly. She shot me an angry look, pursing her lips.
My stomach hardened. We’ll see about that.
“Chris, can you step out into the hall with me and Tommy?” Cheryl asked a few minutes later after we’d talked to my father some more.
“Sure,” I said, wondering what she had in mind.
We left my father grumbling at a no-nonsense technician who had come in to take some blood and entered the hallway. The scent of rubbing alcohol and something like paint or fingernail polish wafted through my nostrils. A doctor in a white coat quickly passed us, moving as if he were on roller skates, his face pale and grim. He was followed by an old man with a walker and an oxygen tank, accompanied by what could have been his granddaughter; yellow dress, twenty-something, a caring look on her face.
Tommy shambled next to me, pulling on Monk’s ears. Dribble ran from his mouth and I wiped his mouth clean with a tissue I kept in my pocket for just such purposes. I’d left Mister Backpack in my father’s room.
“Talked to Dr. Whitaker by the way,” Cheryl said, fingering her pearls as we moved as a unit down the hall.
“And?”
“He thinks we have a good handle on the seizure issue,” she said. “He changed the medication slightly again, but so far, everything seems okay on that front. The last EEG looked good.”
“Yes, I know. I spoke with him as well. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
Her voice turned grave when she spoke again. “Chris, there’s something I need to tell you.”
We continued walking, passing the nurse’s station and then heading toward the end of the hallway, which was proba
bly fifty feet off. Two female workers dressed in blue scrubs hurried past us. Someone dropped a metal tray in the distance and I jumped.
“Go ahead. I’m all ears,” I said. I didn’t like the wary sound of her voice, but surely, things couldn’t get any worse—or, could they? Did she know something else about Tommy that I was about to learn?
“Anyway, the truth is,” she paused, gathering herself. She stopped walking and I faced her, Tommy at my side still playing with Monk. She spoke the words softly so that Tommy couldn’t hear. “I just wanted to tell you that, well, I’m . . . I’m pregnant.”
My head jerked back as if I’d just been rear-ended in my car. So. It could get worse. I grew disoriented, dizzy, this Merry-Go-Round life of mine kept circling faster and faster. “What? Are you fucking kidding me? You’re telling me this now?”
“See, Wade’s landed this great job in Houston with Creative Media and . . .”
“Wait . . . What? Houston? Did you say Houston? You mean where the Acorn School is?” I was dumbfounded.
“Yes.” She nodded. “So, it looks like we’ll be moving there together, once the courts reach their decision. I thought you should know.”
Once the courts reach their decision?
I was stunned and felt as if I’d been hit in the chest. How could she be so blind?
“I mean we want to keep you in the loop, of course,” Cheryl went on. “We’ll have no problem with you coming for visits, any time you want. Really. No problem at all.”
I gasped; sputtered. A sudden internal coldness made me stiff with anger. “So, that’s what this Acorn School’s all about.” I was fuming now. “I should have known. It’s all coming to light, isn’t it, Cher?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You just went and found yourself a private school in Houston so you could come up with an excuse to move there. The truth is it all boils down to nothing more than your love life.”
Cheryl’s lips turned downward as I spoke and a bead of sweat broke out on her forehead. “That’s not it at all,” she said, waving a hand in the air.