“Dr. Fritz, please. Adele Morrison. No, I can’t wait. No, I can’t hold. I don’t care, I need to talk to him right now. How long? Tell me specifically how long I have to wait. How many minutes? All right, but no longer.”
Mom holds on to the phone, watching Dad. Dad’s at the table in his pajamas, breaking a Pop-Tart into small pieces. I finish my cereal and put my breakfast dishes in the sink before Mom starts to speak again.
“Dr. Fritz, the medication you’ve started us on…No, it’s not a good morning. No, I’m not going to tell you how I am, and I’m not going to ask how you are. The medication you and Dr. Gupta prescribed for my husband is completely unacceptable. He began shouting in his sleep last night and frightened our children. My daughter was completely terrified, and I almost called an ambulance…. Yes, he was shouting. He was having nightmares. Extremely bad ones, apparently, from the sound of it. I had difficulty waking him. All of us are rattled by the experience…. Well, your questions are certainly very impressive-sounding, but to return to my original point without getting bogged down in specifics: This medication is unacceptable…. Oh, this nightmare thing is uncommon? Well, that changes the situation, doesn’t it? What do we care how uncommon it is if it happens to us?
“No, I’m not willing to ‘wait it out.’…I don’t think we can afford to wait another two weeks for him to adjust. If this is what it’s like, we’re not going to wait two days, or even two minutes. Here are your choices: You and Dr. Gupta can switch him to something different today, and it has to be more effective than what you’ve given him so far, or you can try to cure him without medication. Which is it?”
Mom listens to Fritz while watching Dad put an edge of Pop-Tart crust in his mouth. Her cheeks are full of air, like she’s saying a word that starts with B. She puts the receiver back on the wall without saying good-bye to Fritz.
Mom leans against the kitchen counter, her eyes avoiding Dad’s chair. “He says he’ll discuss it with me at the next appointment.”