thirty-nine

The phone jolted Tom and me off the couch. As I shot straight up and climbed over Tom to answer, the previous evening played at warp speed in my mind, beginning with an achy awareness that we had never talked about whatever Tom had started to bring up the previous afternoon. I had been thinking about so many other things at the time that I had tuned him out until he said something about listing his house for rent.

And what about that conversation I had overheard about quarantines and rabies titers? The two things had to be connected. He must have been talking about Drake, about taking him to another country. Tom had a sabbatical coming up next year or the year after, and he had mentioned the possibility of doing research or teaching abroad, but he hadn’t said anything specific. If he intended to begin something the following summer or fall, his plans must be well underway by now.

I felt wrung out from grappling with my mother’s latest health problems and another murder up close and way too personal, even if I wasn’t fond of the dead guy. Top all that off with what Tom’s plans might mean for our relationship, especially in light of the obvious fact that he had kept me in the dark, and I wanted to run away to a wild place to be alone with Jay and Leo and my tangled thoughts. I should have asked him right then and saved myself a lot of heartache, but by the time I had the right words and thought I could keep my voice under control, Tom had fallen asleep. I had lain awake for what seemed like hours, listening to Tom’s heart beat and feeling more alone than I had in years.

Clearly I had fallen asleep at some point, but I was wide awake now and fighting off the adrenaline rush that comes with being startled out of sleep. Jade’s voice on the phone brought me fully into the moment, and I looked into Tom’s eyes and mouthed “hospital” as I listened. I tapped my wrist where my watch would have been if I could find it, and Tom said, “Quarter to three.” He got up, let the dogs out, and disappeared into the bathroom. By the time he came back, I had put on jeans, socks, and shoes. I took my turn in the bathroom and clamped a jaw clip around my hair while Tom got the dogs in. We were out the door in eleven minutes flat.

The sleet had stopped and the wipers handled the windshield ice easily, so it had softened in the past few hours. “Looks like the warm front has arrived,” said Tom. He reached for my hand, but I left it where it was, tucked into my jacket pocket. He laid his hand where mine might be, but when I didn’t react, he turned the radio on. “Maybe we can catch the forecast,” he said.

The news had just started. Another downtown convenience store had been robbed, and a portion of West State Street would be closed while a culvert was replaced. It was all so much background noise until the voice said, “Fort Wayne police say they may be close to making an arrest in the murder of area entrepreneur and philanthropist Charles Rasmussen, who was found dead early Sunday morning under suspicious circumstances.”

I blurted, “Philanthropist?” and turned the volume up.

“Police spokesperson Suzanna Idris said that the exact cause of death has not yet been determined, but that Rasmussen was struck several times, and foul play is suspected.” They went on to the next story, and I turned the radio off.

“Nothing really new there,” said Tom.

“No, but who are they going to arrest?” My stomach knotted up as I thought about my last conversation with Hutchinson. I should have felt some compassion for Rasmussen, but the man was making me angrier than ever. Irrational as I knew it to be, I couldn’t help thinking, It wasn’t enough to cause my friends trouble when you were alive? You have to keep at it now that you’re dead?

“We’ll get through this,” said Tom. I was glad he hadn’t tried to tell me everything would be okay, because I knew that an inane comment like that would set off the explosion building inside me.

I watched homes and businesses slide by, their darkened windows punctuated by the occasional garish glare from an all-night convenience store or fast-food joint or all-night drug store. We turned onto Jefferson, hit a red light at Clinton, and sat there idling. “Does this light seem long to you?” I asked after a few hours, or maybe just seconds.

“We’re almost there,” said Tom, and a minute later we pulled up in front of the emergency entrance and for the first time since we’d been jolted awake, I really looked at Tom. I wished I had let him take my hand in the car. “Seems like déja vu all over again, doesn’t it?” I whispered, thinking of how Tom had helped me through Mom’s first day at Shadetree Retirement. And I hardly knew him then.

He squeezed my arm and said, “Go on. I’ll be right there.”

I found my mother on the third floor. She was sitting up in bed, pale but perky, eating what appeared to be raspberry sherbet. Norm sat by the bed, and a big woman in a white jacket stood on the other side. She spoke in a low contralto that rolled up and down with the rhythms of South Asia.

“Mom?”

The big woman stopped speaking and turned toward me, smiling and stepping back to make room for me.

My mother tilted her head and waved her spoon at me. “Oh, hello, dear. So glad you could make it.”

I felt my eyes widen and felt both guilty for not getting here sooner and a little ticked off and hurt. Then I realized that her tone was upbeat and almost giggly, and that she meant exactly what she had said. “Mom, how are you feeling?”

She tapped her lips with her spoon and gazed at me, then said, “I know we’ve met somewhere, but I just can’t remember your name.”

I glanced at Norm, but he was watching Mom. “Janet,” I said, leaning lightly into the bed. “I’m Janet.”

Mom turned her focus to her sherbet, which suddenly seemed to be all-consuming. I looked at the woman in the lab coat and said, “I’m Janet MacPhail. Daughter.” I glanced at the name embroidered over her pocket. A capital K followed by a very long last name. Then I looked up into her face.

“Yes, I see,” she said. She was very tall and neither slim nor fat. “I am Doctor,” and the very long last name rolled off her tongue. “Don’t worry, I couldn’t pronounce it myself until I was nearly out of medical school. Call me Krishna.” Her features were coarse, almost mannish, but her smile lit the room, and I knew my mother was in good hands, at least for now. “May we step out to the hall for a moment, Janet?”

Norm smiled and waved me on, and I followed Krishna out of the room, past another room, and into a small lounge.

“So how is she, really? This isn’t what I expected to find.”

“No, she did not look like this when she arrived.” She checked her watch. “Such fast responses always make me marvel.” She rocked her head from side to side, and then said, “We still are waiting for some of the lab results. The short of it is that your mother’s sodium levels plummeted and she became unresponsive.”

“They told me she’d had a respiratory event.”

“Yes, she was also in some respiratory distress. That is why we are checking her blood chemistry.” She smiled. “It is really quite common in the elderly and may be also related to other issues.”

“And what happened, I mean, what did they, you, do …” I couldn’t find a way to ask whether she had actually stopped breathing and been resuscitated. Mom had made out a directive, legally executed, several years ago, long before her competence could be questioned. I knew how the idea of being kept alive by machines horrified her. But how do you ask a doctor you don’t know why your mother wasn’t allowed to die?