by Larry Center
He said nothing, just licked his lips, that long around-the-world circle that he made. I knew he was trying to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. It was as if life itself was punching me in the gut.
“For now, it’ll just be you and Mom and Wade and the new school, okay?”
Wade and Cheryl had married a week ago, tied the knot in a small ceremony at the courthouse, and honeymooned at the Venetian overnight. Second time around for both of them. I guessed you just kept on doing it until you got it right. At least for some people anyway. Tommy had stayed home with a nanny who was trained for dealing with autistic children. I’d had a job and wouldn’t have been able to keep him—even if Cheryl had wanted me to.
“I’m so sorry, Tommy. It’s just the way it has to be. At least for a while.” A lump lodged in my throat.
“No chimpies.” He hung his head, shoulders drooping. “No . . . chimpies.”
“No.”
Then he gave me excellent eye contact, long and lingering. He inched closer to me. Sweat had formed across his upper lip and creases lined his forehead. That ever-worried scowl was planted on his face, but this time the worried edge seemed even more apprehensive. He grabbed my hand, uncurled my fingers, put his hand in mine, and locked it together.
“You, Daddeeee.”
“I know, Tom-Tom. I know.”
“Youuuuu . . .” He creased his face up into a look of longing. Intense desire.
“I’m so sorry.”
My breaking heart creaked and ripped, tore apart against the power of emotionally bitter winds. Tommy whimpered, a rare tear came to his eyes, as an emotional cannonball ripped through me.
“Youuuuu . . . Daddeee . . .” His lower lip trembled.
“I'm so sorry, Tom-Tom. Just so sorry.”
“Dadddeeeee . . . Youuuuu . . .”
I could hardly catch my breath. I’d never felt so helpless.
Chapter 18
Just one day later, after I’d drifted off to sleep, I received the wake-up call of my life.
It started out as an undecipherable sound, a strange, unrecognizable aural sensation that was drifting through my consciousness. Surely it was part of a dream: bells and gongs, a tambourine? But then . . . I realized it was my cell lying next to my bed on an end table and I grabbed my phone and answered in a mumble. The clock’s red numbers said 11:13 p.m.
“Hello?”
“Chris. It’s Wade.” But this didn’t sound like the smooth Wade I knew. This man’s tone of voice was raw and frightened. I quickly shot up in bed.
“What’s wrong?” My heart leaped into my throat.
“It’s Tommy. You need to come to Harborview. Something’s happened.”
“What?”
“Just come to the emergency room as fast as you can. Your son had a seizure. Just come.”
I jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes. Stomach churning, I banged my knee against a chair, but the pain was nothing compared to the walking fear that stepped in and around my spine. We thought we’d beaten the seizure issue. Tommy hadn’t had one since that last episode at the hospital. The meds were supposed to be working. And now this? I woke up Max who was lying on his side next to my bed and put him in the backyard. Then I raced out the door.
Sheets of rain deliquesced along the mostly dark, empty streets as I drove to the hospital as fast as I could. I found Cheryl huddled in the corner of a waiting room in Wing B of the emergency room while Wade stood over her, rubbing her shoulders. They were alone in the white-walled room, which was filled with several wooden chairs, some lamps, and a TV on the wall. Mercifully, the TV was turned off.
“Tommy’s unconscious,” Cheryl said when she saw me, her voice shaking so badly she could hardly get the words out. She tugged at her oversized blue sweater and as she did, I suddenly realized how far along she’d gotten. Her stomach was around volleyball size. This pregnant Cheryl looked older than the pregnant Cheryl I’d known with Tommy, new lines around her chin and her eyes.
“He won’t come to. He . . . He . . .” Her voice quaked.
“What? Was it the seizure? What are you talking about? Talk to me!”
“He’s in intensive care,” Wade said gravely, filling in. He swallowed hard, his voice shaking. Wade’s face formed a grip of pain, tight jaw, dull eyes, pinched lips. Wearing grey slacks and a yellow golf shirt, his ruddy complexion had turned white-cheese pale. He sported at least a two-day growth of beard. “The doctors are working on him. We’ve been waiting here, just waiting for an update, for something. So far, no one’s told us a thing.”
Cheryl kept rubbing the round ball of her stomach, her eyes looked animal-wild. Her auburn hair falling on her shoulders, normally always so well-coiffed, was now uncombed and unkempt. I stared at her stomach. What would her new child be like? Would she have the perfect child she’d always wanted? All I knew was that Cheryl’s unexpected pregnancy left me feeling bitter and even angry. I couldn’t help it. Deep down, I basically felt replaced, though I would never admit that to her face.
“Intensive care? How? What happened?” My voice was barely above a whisper as my limbs grew so shaky I had to plop down in a chair. She and Wade probably would have a perfect child and it didn’t seem fair at all.
“He had another seizure, and he fell backwards and . . .” Cheryl’s voice turned crazily soft.
“Yes?”
“I—I tried to catch him, Chris, but he hit his head against the chest of drawers in my bedroom.” She stared into space. “The fall knocked him out, see, and then . . . then he didn’t come out of it.” She glanced at Wade, took his hand.
Wade continued. “We tried to get him to wake up. We did everything we could. It’s been,” he swallowed, looking up at the clock on the wall, which now read 1:15, A.M., “what, two hours now?”
“Probably closer to three,” Cheryl said.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” I was seething inside, hands clenched.
“We’re sorry. We weren’t thinking,” Wade said. “We were panicked.”
I felt completely left out, not needed in this newly assembled family, and it hurt badly.
“The back of his head was bleeding.” Cheryl whimpered.
“Jesus!” I shot up out of my chair. “What?”
“It just got out of control,” she continued, her two hands twisted together. “He’d come into my room around nine o’clock and before I could stop him, he started having a tantrum, a major fit right there in front of me and Wade. He started throwing things and saying he wanted to see you and the chimps. He was yelling that he didn’t want to go to the new school. ‘No school! No school! Want chimpies.’ That’s all he said, over and over again. I, I couldn’t console him. He broke a lamp. He kicked me in the stomach, Chris. Right in the stomach as I was trying to wrestle him down. It was awful.”
“Jesus!”
“His face got all red. He spun around, then started having a seizure, but when he fell, he hit his head on the dresser. So hard.” Our eyes met. There was a rainbow of pain in her misty eyes, all the various modalities of hurt. “I’m sure he knocked himself out when he hit the dresser. He was lying on the floor. We . . . we couldn’t rouse him.” She sobbed and her shoulders shook. Out came a tissue from her purse. “We did everything we could think of. We pinched him, yelled in his ear, poured cold water on his face. Nothing helped.”
“God.” This was miserable. Unbelievable. I wanted to scream at the universe for allowing this to happen. But who would actually listen? Suddenly, a dam broke in my heart and the next thing I knew, I was flooded with despair.
A door swung open and a large white-coated doctor with a heavy growth of salt-and-pepper beard shuffled in. He was pro-football size with big shoulders and a thick neck. If he couldn’t cure a medical issue, he could at least knock it to its knees. We all turned to him as if his white coat were magnetized.
“Mrs. Dudley?” he said in a deep baritone. Cheryl looked up through her tears. “Mr. Dudley?”
&n
bsp; “I’m the father,” I said quickly, glancing at Wade, Mister Jaguar. “I’m Chris Crutcher.”
“Fine. I’m Dr. Thomlinson. Let’s sit down, all right?” Dr. Thomlinson sat down next to Cheryl and I pulled up a chair next to him. Wade remained standing. A cold blast of air conditioning blew on top of me. I gazed hopefully at the doctor whose massive hands made the pen he was holding appear as small as a toothpick.
“I’m afraid your son’s still unresponsive.” Thomlinson was so large and yet seemed so empathic by the gentle sound of his voice that, for a moment, the coexistence of these two characteristics in one human being made me blink. “At this stage,” he said, “I’d call it simple obtundation, which just means reduced alertness combined with excessive tiredness or hypersomnia.” He rubbed his thick beard. “But we’re monitoring his brain stem along with an EEG, and we’re keeping a close eye on his blood pressure. The good news is there’s just a small amount of intracranial swelling. The seizures he’s had also add a measure of cerebral instability unfortunately. For now, however, I’m going to say that it’s still only temporary loss of consciousness and that, hopefully, arousal’s just around the corner.”
“I want to see him,” I said quickly. “I need to see him.”
“We all need to see him,” Cheryl said. “Can we?”
“Of course.” Thomlinson stood, signaling for us to follow him.
Wade, Cheryl, and I stood and followed Thomlinson down a long, winding corridor, and then through a door marked: “Authorized Personnel Only.” Walking along a tiled corridor, I was moving in a fog, passing nurses writing on charts or on the phone or softly talking to each other. The astringent smell of antiseptic wafted through my nostrils. The lights were bright in the hallway, making me blink. The air felt cold, too much AC. Finally, we stopped at Tommy’s dimly lit private room. The door was open.
Standing next to Cheryl, I sucked in my breath. I couldn’t believe it. My heart plummeted into my gut and I grabbed my chest in despair. My son was lying on a long, raised-up bed under a white sheet and brown blanket, his eyes tightly shut. I blinked rapidly. Surely, this was just a dream. There was a bandage on the back of his head and an intravenous line going into the top of his left hand, the clear-liquid glucose drip-bottle hanging above him. As soon as I saw him like that, this Other Tommy, motionless, nearly devoid of life, I Arctic-froze. He was so still and so far from me, farther than he’d ever been, distant in a brand-new way. For a minute, my mind closed down. I felt faint, my head swirling. My mouth fell open and gaped.
“Jesus,” Cheryl moaned. “Christ.”
Wade gave out a short burst of a cry. Cheryl hugged Wade.
So, this was how Cheryl had taken care of him? The chimps were dangerous? When he’d fallen and hurt himself right inside Cheryl’s own bedroom? It was inconceivable. A wave of nausea rolled through me.
You, Daddy. You.
The machines standing guard next to his bed beeped. Lights flickered. I stepped gingerly forward. But it was as if I wasn’t walking at all, but floating somehow. I found myself elbowing past Cheryl and Wade to the bedside. Soon, Cheryl and Wade stood behind me. I nearly lost my balance.
“Dr. Whitaker’s on his way,” Thomlinson said, standing next to me. I felt his breath on my neck.
Whitaker. The pediatric neurologist, the doctor who had assured us he’d gotten the seizure problem right, that it was medicinally managed. I bent down next to the bed and whispered in Tommy’s left ear; such a beautiful ear, perfectly formed, the tip as translucent as a rose window.
“Tommy? This is Daddy. Can you hear me, son? You’ve got to hang in there, okay? Daddy’s here with you. I’m right here. I’m right beside you and I’ll never ever leave you. I love you. You know that, right? I love you so much.”
Once again, as it had been through so much of his short life, the only response I received was silence. It was almost always silence with him, but this was the deepest and most unfathomable I’d ever heard.
Leaving Wade’s side, Cheryl hesitantly approached and stroked Tommy’s cheek. She felt his forehead. I let her have her space and backed out of the way.
“He feels cold.” She bent down and kissed him on the cheek, a motherly kiss suffused with love. “It’s Mommy, sweetheart,” she said softly. “I’m right beside you too. Are you all right? You’re going to come out of this, Tommy. I love you.”
Suddenly, one of the machines next to Tommy’s bed started beeping loudly, warning lights flashing. Another machine with a long tube attached to a square box kicked in, beeping as well. Dr. Thomlinson observed the readings with a grave look on his face and dark, worried eyes.
Just then Dr. Whitaker rushed into the room. His broad forehead wrinkled, his angular jaw tight. Here was our final defense against our ultimate fear. He stepped toward the machines, turned off the warning indicators, and read the numbers.
“Brain activity’s decreasing,” he said, his expression impassive. “Brainstem-evoked potentials are latent as well.”
“What’s that mean?” I demanded. But gazing at Tommy so still on the bed, I pretty much already knew.
Dr. Whitaker’s voice was gentle. “Basically, it means this isn’t hypersomnia any longer.”
“What is it, then?” Cheryl asked.
It sounded as if he was speaking through water, the words far away.
“I’m sorry to say, but your son has slipped into a coma.”
“Oh, God!” I cried. “No!”
Cheryl put her hands to her face and sobbed, leaning against Wade who moved to comfort her. I turned away and felt the life being squeezed out of me. Life. Such a precious and fragile thing. Jesus! Darkness was everywhere, my mind clouded over, and I nearly fainted right there on the spot.
*
Emotional chronology; time is a circle.
I’m holding a hose and Tommy stares at the running water as it puddles in his hands. We’re in the backyard, he is only three years old, and the averted look in his eyes has washed away that healthy child we’d hoped for. But then, for a moment, it’s as if the longed-for child emerges and he turns his head to me, eyes shining now.
“Water, Daddy. Water.” A clear voice, clear and rich with young life.
And I let the water puddle in my hands too, sparkle in the sun, and then we touch hands and the water splashes together as drops fly everywhere.
Tommy gives me that healthy smile that comes so easily to all the other children. And he laughs spontaneously, just leans back his head and laughs. For a brief moment, standing before me is a child without autism, one small emotional interval of time when the light shines through, when the candle burns bright.
And then it’s gone.
Chapter 19
I was standing in Tommy’s room at two in the morning of the same day, watching over him. I was a nervous wreck, falling into a hole of sadness covered by emotional quicksand. The even more painful news: there was nothing I could do for him, not one damn thing. The hospital staff had put a cot in the room for me to sleep on, but I didn’t touch it. Every so often, after walking around for a while or pacing, I’d step toward his bed, bend down next to him, and whisper in his ear, hoping with all my might that he’d respond to my words. “Tommy? Can you hear me? It’s dad. Can you hear?”
There was not even a flicker of movement.
Exhausted and weak, feeling sick to her stomach, Cheryl decided to check into a nearby hotel with Wade for the rest of the night. She texted me about ten times saying how miserable she felt and that she couldn’t sleep, and that Wade had conked out beside her. I told her I couldn’t sleep either. In the state I was in, I could barely even think.
I stayed at the hospital, hanging out next to Tommy in his darkened room, experiencing a kind of fear that went beyond anything I’d ever known. The remainder of the night was a desert. Alone with a son in a coma. I didn’t feel tired and yet I felt dead tired. Dread circumscribed my heart. Every time I looked over at Tommy, so still on the bed, I shivered within, a fist
of pain pounding inside me. When I went to touch his forehead, I was unable to control the shakiness of my hands.
Finally, from the window in Tommy’s room I watched the night gradually fade as the sunrise appeared, newborn gradations of orange and red surfacing in the distance.
I would have to wait until the morning to give my father the news. I found myself texting Rachel though, and telling her what had happened. She didn’t respond. She was already on her way to Africa, I assumed, possibly in flight.
At around 7 a.m., as Tommy continued lying motionless, it struck me that I’d completely forgotten about Max, and so I called the maintenance man for my condo and explained the situation. Thank God, he answered. He said he’d take care of Max until I was ready to come back home. I was grateful for that. Poor Max. He’d probably spent the night in a state of high anxiety. I always came home for him—but not this time.
As the morning wore on, Tommy’s breathing grew noticeably shallower, which destroyed me. I felt as if I were in a fog as I stayed by his side, my entire world subsumed by parental pain. At ten a.m., I switched off with Cheryl and Wade and went home where I showered, changed clothes, and checked on Max, who was outside in the backyard. Poor Max. When he saw me, he jumped all over me, nearly attacking me with his canine love; such sloppy licks.
“Tommy’s in a coma, Max,” I said. “He’s really sick.” Saying the words out loud, hearing them spoken, felt miserable.
Max barked and mewled, then sniffed me all over, licking my hands.
How could I even begin to explain what was happening? I couldn’t. I said goodbye to him, looked into his sad eyes, and quickly returned to the hospital.
At eleven, the doctors began what they called, “The Endo-Process,” and Cheryl, Wade and I were asked to leave the room. They planned to hook Tommy up to a respirator and insert an endotracheal tube through his mouth. The three of us stood outside his room. We watched as more machines with dials and lights and digital readouts were brought into the room.