Raising the Dad Page 4

  It was a small town; everyone knew that Rose Husted had been keeping a sad, seemingly endless vigil at her husband’s bedside. Left alone, their oldest son Mike was running wild.

  As the months stretched on, talk around town was that Larry could not survive, but Rose was resolute. Even if Larry finally died never regaining consciousness, she knew that some believed that coma victims were capable of hearing those around them despite their impairment. She knew this, because Larry had told her, reading as he often did from a medical journal he had brought with him on a flight to Phoenix a few years earlier. He believed it was possible.

  If there were even a chance that her husband was hearing life going on around him, Rose would not allow the darkness he was trapped in to go silent.

  A second bed was rolled into Larry’s room, testament to the power he wielded at the hospital, and Rose moved in.

  Her sons fared the best they could. Friends and neighbors made sure John, who turned fourteen during the crisis, got to school and ate regularly. Otherwise, he was on his own to keep his grades up and ride his bike on wintry streets to see his father and—more and more—to care for his mother.

  Her friends all worried about her, and one by one they took John aside and spoke to him soberly. If he could, they said, he should try to get her to go home and sleep in her own bed. No one wanted to see any more harm done to her. Despite his youth, John was charged with luring her home.

  “Mom, let me stay over with Dad again,” he would plead. “The Andersons want to have you over for dinner, then you can go home and get some sleep. Dad’ll be okay till tomorrow.”

  “You never talk to him,” she protested wearily.

  “I will,” John insisted, producing his backpack. “I have a speech due in speech class, so I’ll practice it on him. I promise.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “The three branches of government.”

  She scoffed and settled in. “He’ll never sit still for that.”

  “Then I’ll turn on the basketball game. We’ll watch the game together, he’ll like that. Me, too.”

  “Well…”

  “Mom,” John reasoned, “if you were sick and couldn’t move, would you want Dad talking to you all the time?”

  She scrunched her face.

  “So give him a chance to miss having you around. You’ll walk in tomorrow, and he’ll be really happy you’re back.”

  She smiled wearily. She walked to her husband’s bedside, and pulled the covers up to his chest.

  “You boys don’t stay up too late,” Rose whispered to her husband. “Lights off as soon as the game is over.”

  She kissed Larry on the forehead.

  “I’ll call Jeff,” John said as his mother grabbed her purse and turned to him. “His mom can swing by and get me to school.”

  “Make sure you shower.”

  “They let me use the doctor’s locker room whenever I want. The security guards let me into the cafeteria if I get hungry. Don’t worry about me, just get some sleep.”

  He hugged her and she kissed him on the cheek.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “Me, too.”

  After she was gone, John sank into the chair at his father’s bedside and turned on the TV. He didn’t like basketball, but it wouldn’t distract him while he did homework. If something crucial happened during the game, he’d make sure his father got a clear description of what he was missing. Just to be on the safe side.

  * * *

  Mike, meanwhile, made the most of the ten months that his father lingered. Already a dismal student, he barely went to class once his mother lost track of him. He still put in his time at Pizza Hut to help keep up with band expenses, but otherwise he was living a rock-and-roll bachelor’s life for days at a time. From February to May, when he couldn’t convince the others to skip school and rehearse with him, he would give his voice a rigorous work out, singing along at stage volume to records. And a couple days a month, he would drive down to Chicago, developing relationships with the club owners who would be essential to Gravel Rash’s rise.

  Every few weeks, Mike went to the hospital for sullen, obligatory visits. Taggert noted that there might be a heavy metal ballad in his situation, one of those treacly mood pieces that record labels were looking for with the recent success of the Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home.” So sometimes, Mike made up sad lyrics in his head while he stared down at his father.

  Hard rockers couldn’t be caught giving a shit about their mothers, but even Mike had to recognize Rose’s pain. His mom had tried to be cool about the band. She let them practice in the house and insisted that some of what erupted from her basement was “catchy,” making Mike shake his head with a reluctant smile for her sweet, well-meaning bullshit.

  At his father’s bedside, he would drape an arm around his mother and sincerely encourage the unlikely fantasies she was clinging to about her husband’s recovery. When she would unexpectedly show up at home, he would quickly kick the band out and keep the house quiet so that she could sleep.

  He cringed to see the pained look on her face when she saw what he and his friends were doing to her home, but any resolve to keep the party confined to the basement wilted with the arrival of the next case of beer.

  Nine

  Finally, in early December, Walt told Rose that there was no hope in keeping Larry alive. Despite relentless efforts, he and his colleagues—Larry’s friends—had determined that he had passed into a vegetative state. His brain had been deprived of too much oxygen, and the damage was irreversible.

  His body was healthy and strong. Under the expert care of his colleagues, he could continue to breathe on his own for who knew how long while they kept a feeding tube in place. But is that what Larry would want?

  For the sake of his best friend’s family, Walt was determined to convince her that it wasn’t.

  Over those long months that Rose had clung to her husband’s side, she had completely lost control of her life. Bills weren’t paid, the bank was calling about missing mortgage payments, and her oldest son was running wild. An ambulance was called to her house earlier in the week, and medical records that Walt Bolger was able to make disappear showed that Mike had nearly OD’d.

  Walt knew that Rose had become too emotionally frail to assert herself as the sole parent of two teenage boys, but he also knew that Larry would expect her to try.

  “Rose, it’s time we let God take Larry from us,” he began, holding her hand as they stood next to Larry’s bed. “He’s been fighting so hard, trying to come back, and if we let him, he’ll keep right on fighting.”

  She smiled sadly.

  “But there is nothing more we can do to help him,” Walt continued. “His brain can’t ever work again the way we need it to.”

  He saw her resist as she looked down at her husband. He put his arm around her shoulder and held her firmly.

  “If you tell me we need to let him stay on, that’s good enough for me. He will continue to live here until he’s ready to go, and we’ll keep him as comfortable as possible.

  “But I need you to listen to me.”

  He stood before her and took both her hands. He positioned himself so that her focus was on him, not on her husband. “Rose, your boys need you. All this time, you have stayed at Larry’s side. And I know, with all my heart, that there will come a day when Larry will hold you close and tell you how much your devotion has meant to him.

  “But I also know that, right now, Larry needs you to be the parent he can’t be anymore,” he said softly. “Mike is in trouble. He could have died the other day, when he should have been in school. He needs his mother to help him get through this. It’s not going to be easy.”

  Her heart sank at the truth of this.

  “And John,” Walt continued softly, “is a sensitive boy. He’s still trying to understand all this. He needs you there, to make sure he’s okay.”

  He put his hands on her shoulders and spoke plainly.

 
“It’s time to go home, Rose. It’s time to see to your boys. That’s how you can help Larry now.”

  Rose understood the truth of what he was saying; she had known for months it was coming. But that didn’t blunt the sudden rush of tears that came upon her as she fell into Walt’s arms.

  “I’m so scared,” she cried as she accepted what lay ahead for her. “I can’t do this alone.”

  “You won’t be alone, honey. You have so many friends who love you. We’ll get you through this.”

  They held each other and wept. As she grew to accept what she needed to do, she could no longer look at Larry. There were arrangements to see to, decisions to make. It was all on her.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered. “I don’t know where to start.”

  “Sssh,” he said softly. “Marie is right outside. She’s going to take you back to our house. I’ll stay here with Larry. I won’t leave his side until it’s over. When I get home, we’ll figure out how we’ll get through the next few days.”

  Walt broke the embrace and held her at the shoulders.

  “You take as much time as you need,” he said, then stepped away. As he reached for the door, it broke his heart to see her standing alone.

  “He loved you, Rose,” Walt said quietly. “So much.”

  He left the room; she felt the sands that now shifted beneath her feet slowly drawing her to her husband’s side one final time.

  She snugged him up beneath his bed covers, as if preparing him for a long journey. As she lifted his arm to tuck it beneath the blankets, she saw his wedding ring. Her heart collapsed, but with an inner strength that would often fail her in the weeks and months to come, she sturdily met the duty of being the one to slip it from his finger. It let go easily; her sobs came in turbulent surges.

  Wiping her eyes and studying his face, she drew her finger along the scar from when he fell in his office. It had healed well; it looked like no more than a wrinkle. The only wrinkle he’d ever earn.

  She kissed him and held his hand. She would keep no memory of how and when she let it go.

  * * *

  New footprints disturbed the dust as John and Walt paced the corridors of the old hospital, the old man’s tale nowhere near its end.

  John stood at the slats of one of the shuttered windows. Looking out, he could see Rocky’s diner across the street. And his car. Out there, just a little over an hour before, none of this was true.

  “It was a closed casket,” John remembered darkly as he turned back to Dr. Bolger.

  “Your mother let us make the arrangements,” the old man said, girding himself for the fury he was not fool enough to think he was going to evade for long.

  “Who did you bury?” John asked through grit teeth.

  “We didn’t bury anyone, John,” Walt said patiently. “We ran this hospital, we could control things.

  “Dave Stanton was a good friend of your father’s and a member of my church. I trusted that he would help paper things over at his funeral home.”

  John became very still, forcing his breath to come in even waves. He was close to hyperventilating.

  Above all else, the question assaulted his mind:

  “You controlled things,” he glared. “For thirty years?!”

  His voice echoed down the hall of the dead building, followed by the skittering of creatures unaccustomed to the presence of humans.

  Walt Bolger had been anticipating this moment since that December day in 1985. He had long resolved that if the day ever came that he had to reveal all to Larry’s family, he would do it in a way that would cause them the least amount of trauma. For decades, he obsessed over this moment while praying it would never come.

  He decided long ago that the family would need a gradual descent into their new reality; they would have to be allowed time for their ricocheting stabs of disbelief to settle, if only by degrees, before he could take them deeper into what he had done. And how it had been possible.

  “Son, what I’ve brought you to is enough. For today,” Walt said compassionately but firmly to John.

  “We need to take the time for you to just accept that your dad is alive. I swear to you that you will have a full account of how this came to be, but when I tell it to you I need your mind to be snapped back from what I just put it through. Does that make sense?”

  John just stared, his complete inability to comprehend seeming to have frozen him in place.

  “You could have the police here in fifteen minutes,” Walt said matter-of-factly but not without fear. The statement brought John to attention as the old man met his eyes. “They’d get the story from me and you’d have what you want to know, including that I will pay a great price for this.

  “But I’m hoping that while we can, while it’s just me and you and Larry, that you’ll let me try to explain in a way that will do you—and your family—the least amount of harm,” he said, pointing back to room 116. “That’s the best friend I ever had in there. I don’t want to hurt you all any more than I already have.”

  * * *

  They stood together at Larry’s bedside.

  “When you’re ready, I will tell you how we got here. You’ll take all the time you’ll need with him. We’ll figure out what to tell your family. And then, if you choose to, you’ll finally put this to rest. Larry’s got places to be.”

  John flinched at what Walt was getting at. Walt pressed on.

  “I’m leaving town, John. Hank Burch, who used to be an oncologist here, wants me in Phoenix to see what he can do for me.”

  John’s mind roiled. “I’ll let him die? That’s why I’m here?”

  Despite the gravity of Walt’s situation, John began to protest.

  “You can’t leave me to—”

  “John, I could have ended Larry’s life myself, years ago, and you never would’ve known,” Walt said sternly. “Did I make the wrong choice?”

  John looked down at his father, withered and still. And yet: breathing in, breathing out. The same air filled their lungs.

  Even in his frenzy to accept this, he could not deny that there was something massively profound here at his father’s bedside.

  The weight fully, squarely, settled upon John’s shoulders as he began to take on the responsibility of believing his father’s existence. But whatever fortitude it gave him failed when suddenly he thought of his mother.

  “Jesus, my mother…” he moaned. “She’ll never understand this.” He ran the scene through his head and despaired. “This could kill her.”

  “One step at a time, John. We’ll figure a way through this, one step at a time,” Walt said sturdily.

  “But it’s time for you to start. Go home to your wife. Tell her about your day,” the old man smiled gently.

  Yes, John thought dumbly. Robin was good at things like this.

  Walt stepped back to escort them from Larry’s room, but John remained rooted in place. He slowly leaned closer to the bed, self-conscious but grateful for the opportunity to speak to his father.

  “I’ll be back, Dad,” he whispered. “Okay?”

  Ten

  There was a private place where John and Robin could talk, but they hadn’t been there in a long time. Back when they first found themselves arguing a lot about their marriage, Katie was old enough to listen in and perhaps extract traumas that she would internalize and let fester. They had an aging mutt named Wobble and a small park nearby, so they resolved to take their unhappiness there. Even in the dead of winter, all of a sudden Mom and Dad were really into taking the dog for a walk, sometimes for hours.

  But the fights kept coming and maybe they walked poor Wobble to death, because before long the dog was dead and the walks faded away. John proposed getting a new dog in order to maintain their cover, at which point Robin wondered with exasperation if maybe the problem was not how to keep the fights going but why they were happening in the first place.

  John couldn’t fault her logic, but he had really come to like the walks. Whe
n they got through this bad patch, he hoped the family would go forward with a new dog. He’d walk it alone if Robin didn’t want to join him.

  * * *

  John’s mind had been agitating spastically when he returned home after leaving Walt and his father at the hospital. Katie was there, but Robin wasn’t. John knew he couldn’t unravel the way he needed to with his daughter in the house so until Robin got home, he had to act like nothing was wrong.

  “Hey,” he said with forced cheer to Katie as she sulked over homework at the kitchen table. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Work?” Katie muttered, her black-lipsticked mouth pinched by a chin propped up by a balled, black-fingernailed fist. Every day, the goth thing spread—the dark, mopey soul of a teenager, splashed across her body like an existential billboard. As much as John despaired at seeing his once-sunny child painted up like a sad, trendy corpse, he often wished he had had this fashion option when he was a sulky fifteen-year-old.

  Kids these days, they could just buy their attitudes down at the mall. Their parents would pay for it.

  “Dunno,” John said in response to his daughter as he paced edgily. “Too late for Mom to be at work.”

  “Store?” Katie sighed.

  “Hey,” John said, way too brightly. “Let’s list all the places she could be! My turn. Dentist!”

  The front door jangled open; John whirled on Robin. “Hey, hi, there you are! Let’s walk the dog!” he announced tersely as he headed out of the house.

  Robin stopped. They hadn’t had a dog for over two years.

  * * *

  “Jesus,” Robin whispered after John told her.

  Larry Husted died years before they got together; she knew John’s father only through reverent family stories that she silently suspected were a bit too reverent—the guy was a small-town doctor, he wasn’t God. But her husband stood before her now, swinging wildly at an unimaginably raw trauma that had coldcocked him just hours earlier.

  Her mind churned. “How?”

  “I don’t know,” John said through his dazed struggle. “He said he’d only been in the old building for a couple years, but other than that he didn’t tell me.”