The Hour I First Believed

Her back to me, she said it over her shoulder. “I’m your wife, Caelum. Not your whore.”

“Fuck this,” I said. Reached down and started jerking myself off. I mean, I had to get release from somewhere. Sophie was on the side of the bed, watching me. “Get out of here!” I screamed. “Get the fuck—” I whacked her with a pillow and she fled.

After I’d ejaculated the anger out of me, I lay there with my puddle of regret. I’d apologize later, I told myself, but for now…I grabbed a magazine, got through a paragraph or two of some article that held no interest, and let my fatigue rescue me….

MO WOKE ME OUT OF a sound sleep. She was seated beside me on the bed. “I’m so sorry, Caelum,” she said.

“No, I’m sorry,” I said. “I was being a total asshole. You had every right to—” She was shaking her head.

“Ulysses just called. He stopped in to get his paycheck this morning and found Lolly out in the yard near the clothesline. She was talking incoherently. Trying to put her socks on her hands.”

“What…”

“He got her back inside and called nine-one-one. I think she’s had a stroke.”

Chapter Three

FIGURING IT WAS BETTER IF they talked with someone who could speak “medical,” I had Maureen call the hospital. She tried twice but couldn’t get past “Louella’s resting comfortably” and “Someone from the medical team will be calling” and “Can you verify that her insurance provider is Blue Cross/Blue Shield?” And goddamnit, by the time the medical team did call, Mo’d gone out.

“Mr. Quirk? This is Dan, one of the nurses over at Shanley Memorial.” Over at? Three Rivers was two time zones away. “I’ve been caring for your mother today and—”

“She’s my aunt,” I said.

A pause, a shuffling of paperwork. “But you’re her next of kin, right?”

“Yes. Why? Did she…”

“Oh, no, no. She’s hanging in there, Mr. Quirk. Dr. Salazar will be speaking to you in just a few minutes about her test results. But first, I wonder if you could answer some questions for us about Louella’s medical profile.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is, my wife’s a nurse, so she’s more on top of Lolly’s medical stuff. I can have her call you back.”

Dan said he was going off-shift soon. Whatever I could help him with. “Okay,” I said.

No, I wasn’t sure what medications she was taking. No, I didn’t know which medical practice she’d switched to after Dr. Oliver died. (I hadn’t known he’d died.) Surgeries? None that I could recall. Yes, she smoked: one Marlboro a day, after her evening meal; she’d done that for years. No, she wasn’t much of a drinker. A beer every now and then. Brandy on special occasions. Diabetes? No, not that I knew of.

Dan wanted to know if there was anything else I could think of.

“Just hearing loss. The TV’s always shouting when I call her. She claims I mumble.” When I call her: now there was a face-saving lie.

“That’s helpful,” Dan said. “We’ve been assuming Louella’s incomprehension is stroke-related, but maybe she’s having trouble hearing us.”

“She goes by Lolly, actually. Not Louella.”

“I’ll make a note of that. Now, let’s talk about her family history. I’m assuming both her parents are deceased. Can you tell me what they died of?”

“Well, let’s see. Her father—my grandfather—died of Alzheimer’s.”

“At what age?”

“I’m not sure. His late seventies, maybe?”

“What about her mother?”

“She died during childbirth.”

“Of?”

“I don’t know. Childbirth, I guess. Lolly and my father were raised by their grandmother.”

“So she has a brother. Any other siblings?”

“No. My father was Lolly’s twin.”

“Was? He’s deceased?”

“Yeah…. Yup.”

“And what was the cause of his death?”

The question tightened my grip on the phone. “Officially? Officially, it was internal injuries and…loss of blood. His legs were severed.”

“Were these war injuries?”

“No. He was a drunk. He was fishing off a trestle bridge, and they think he must have passed out or something. And a train came along.”

“Whoa. That’s tough. And how old was—”

“Thirty-three. But look, like I said, my wife can fill you guys in a lot better about Lolly’s medical stuff. And as far as her medications, what I can do is get hold of her handyman. Have him go by the house and look around. Make a list, or bring you her prescription bottles, or whatever.”

Dan said that would be super. One more thing. Did I think I was going to be able to make the trip back to be with my aunt?

“Oh, well, it would be tough…. But if it becomes necessary.”

Dan said he understood. Were there friends or other family who might be able to check in on her? Stroke was such an upheaval. So frightening. Familiar faces were reassuring at a time like this.

“Uh, well…I know she gets together, plays cards with some of the gals she used to work with. And they go down to the casino once or twice a month. Eat at the buffet or whatever.”

“Sounds like my mother,” he said. “Is one of her friends Kay? She keeps asking for Kay.”

“I don’t know. There’s a Hilda. And a Marie. A Shirley.”

Dan thanked me. I thanked him. “Dr. Salazar will be coming to the phone shortly,” he said. “Can you hold?”

Maybe the lite-rock station Dan switched me to was penance for my shortcomings as next-of-kin. I bit at some ragged skin on my thumb. Grabbed a beer out of the fridge. The deejay had a theme going: “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” “Colors of the Wind,” “Windy.” When was it that FM radio had started sucking? The eighties, right? The Reagan era?

That morning’s newspaper was on the counter. “NATO Air Strikes in Yugoslavia Intensify”…“Hockey Great Gretzky to Retire”…“Love Bug Computer Virus Delivers ‘Fatally Attractive’ Message” …Before we moved west, I’d promised Lolly I’d get back to see her twice a year—summertime and Christmastime—but I’d reneged. Hadn’t even gone back for Hennie’s funeral…. And what did my father’s shit-canning his life have to do with Lolly’s stroke? Nothing, that’s what. I should have kept my fucking mouth shut…. I saw Lolly, standing at the doorway of my algebra class, freshman year—not Ma, not Grandpa. As soon as I saw her there, I knew Daddy was dead.

I crooked the cordless against my shoulder. Filled the dogs’ water dish. Finished my beer…. Stroke is such an upheaval, so frightening…. This Dr. Salazar was taking his sweet time. They must teach that tactic in medical school: keep the loved ones waiting, so that by the time you pick up the phone, it’ll seem like the voice of God.

“And the lite favorites just keep on rolling,” the radio said. “If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain…” Oh, God, not that stupid song. Guy decides to cheat, so he answers his own wife’s personal ad? Yeah, like that’s going to happen. In real life, some psycho chick would be waiting at that bar, and they’d go to a Motel Six, and he’d have erectile dysfunction. Have to call Bob Dole for some Viagra. Shit, he goes from running for president to being the poster boy for the All-American boner? How much did he get for that gig?…

“If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the Cape…” No, thanks. Too many sand fleas. Now that shitty song was going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. And if that Dan guy thought I was indifferent because I couldn’t make it back to Connecticut, then fuck him. I loved Lolly. She’d been more of a father to me than my father ever had. Taken me fishing, taken me on my first trip to Fenway. I had almost total recall of that trip. Boston versus Milwaukee, an exhibition game. Lolly’d won tickets on the radio, and we’d gone up in her old green Hudson. Nineteen sixty-one, it was. Yastrzemski and Chuck Schilling in their rookie year, Monbouquette on the mound. We’d had a blowout on the way home, and Lolly’d given me a lesson on how to fix a flat…. But shit, this was the busiest stretch of the school year. Curriculum meetings, placement meetings for the special needs kids, term papers to grade, exams to write. I could get back there once school was over, but—

“Hey there,” a woman’s voice said. “You’re the nephew?”

Dr. Salazar was a fast talker, devoid of personality. Lolly’s vitals had stabilized, she said. Her stroke was ischemic, caused by a clot rather than a rupture. She’d come in exhibiting classic symptoms: weakness on her left side, double vision, aphasia.

“What’s aphasia?” I said.

“A disconnect between what the patient’s trying to say and what’s being communicated. For instance, Louella thinks to herself, I’m thirsty. I want more ice chips. But when she verbalizes it, it comes out as gibberish.”

“So you’re saying she’s incoherent?”

“Less so than when she first came in.”

The EMTs had given Lolly magnesium on the ride in, Dr. Salazar said, and that had put the injury in “slo-mo.” And with stroke victims, “time was brain,” she said; the quicker there was treatment, the better the odds of avoiding permanent damage. “When she got here, we gave her a clot-buster called tPA. Great drug if the patient gets it in time—acts like Drano on clogged arteries—but the operative word here is if. Time-wise, there’s only a small window of opportunity. When the blood supply’s cut off, brain cells begin to die. I think you’d better prepare yourself for the fact that your aunt will most likely have an altered life.”

“Altered how?”

“Too soon to tell. We’ll know more in the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours. Are you coming to be with her?”

“I don’t…We’re out in Colorado. The timing’s not great.”

“No, it never is.”

After I hung up, I paced. Let the dogs out. Let them back in. I had to chaperone the post-prom party that night. Two of my classes were handing in their term papers on Monday. I had meetings all week….

When Maureen got back, I showed her what I’d scrawled in the margins of the newspaper: “Salazar, ischemic, magnesium, Drano.” Mo rattled off Lolly’s medications: Lipitor for her cholesterol, Triamterene for her blood pressure, an antidepressant called Trazodone.

“She takes an antidepressant?”

She nodded. “Since Hennie died. You knew that, didn’t you?”

Did I?

“They’re pressuring me to fly back there and be with her,” I said.

“Are you going to?”

“I can’t. Not until the school year’s over.”

For several seconds, she said nothing. Then she volunteered to fly back and be with Lolly herself. I sighed. Drummed my fingers against the counter. “Who’s Kay?” I said. “One of her bridge buddies?”

“Kay?”

“They said she keeps asking for Kay.”

Mo’s eyes met mine. Her smile was sympathetic. “She’s saying ‘Caelum.’ Lolly wants you.”

I SKETCHED OUT A WEEK’S worth of lesson plans for the sub. Mo went online and found me a beggars-can’t-be-choosers flight out of Denver: a 5:45 a.m. takeoff, a three-hour layover at O’Hare. I’d land in Hartford by late afternoon, rent a car, drive to Three Rivers. Maybe I’d go out to the farm first—get her medications, see if anything else needed doing. Barring complications, I’d be with her at the hospital by six or so.

Mo tried to talk me out of chaperoning the post-prom.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “Drink a lot of coffee, drive right from school to the airport. I can crash once I get on the plane.” She frowned. “Okay, let me rephrase that. I can sleep once I get on the plane.”

I opened my closet door and stared. Should I pack my good suit and black loafers? Uh-uh. Travel light. Think positive. Go there, get done whatever there was to do, and get back. I loved Lolly, but I couldn’t let her stroke hijack my life. How many guys would do this much for their aunt?…I saw the two of us out there, stranded on that rural road between Boston and home with that flat tire. It was pitch-black except for her flashlight beam. She was aiming it at the lug nut, at my hands on the wrench.

“Come on, kiddo,” she’d coaxed. “Just a little more elbow grease. You can do it.”

“I can’t!” I’d insisted. I was Caelum Quirk, the kid who sucked at sports and walked around by himself during recess. The kid whose father was a drunk.

“Sure you can. I know you can.” And so I’d strained. Grunted. And the nut had given way.

POST-PROMS ARE BRIBES, REALLY: PARENTS and teachers induce their kids to party the night away at the school gym so that they won’t drink and drive. Kill themselves, their friends, their futures. The enticements that night included raffles, a deejay, a hypnotist, and nonstop food: burgers, pizzas, six-foot subs. I was put to work as a roving patroller in search of alcohol and, later, as an ice cream scooper at the make-your-own-sundae station.

They were together in the sundae line, I remember. I served them both. “One scoop? Two scoops?” Dylan had requested three, but Eric wanted just one, vanilla. I asked him if he thought they’d have a sundae line like this at boot camp. He shook his head. Half-smiled.

“When do you leave?” I said.

“July one.” In another sixty hours, he’d be lying dead in the midst of the chaos, half of his head blown away. And he knew it, too. It was in the videotape they left to be discovered. Their suicides were part of the plan.

There was one other thing that night. It happened during one of the raffles. The winner got free passes to Bandimere Speedway or Rock’n’Bowl or some such, and Dylan’s number got called. I was standing on the periphery. Saw the whole thing. Instead of saying, “That’s me,” or just walking up to get his prize, he showed Eric his ticket and the two of them high-fived. “Sieg Heil!” they shouted. A few of the other kids laughed; most just looked. “Assholes,” someone near me muttered. I considered taking the two of them aside, saying something about the inappropriateness of it. But it was late at night, late in the school year. I was a few hours away from my flight. I let it go.

God, that’s always the thing you have to decide with high school kids: what to make an issue of, what to let go. In the aftermath, in the middle of all those sleepless nights, I did plenty of soul-searching about that. We all did, I guess. Had it been preventable? Could those kids have been spared?…

I left the school a little after four a.m. Got my overnight bag out of the trunk and threw it onto the passenger seat next to me. Drove northeast toward a lightening sky. My eyes burned; my stomach felt like I’d swallowed fishhooks. As usual, Maureen had been right. I should have skipped the chaperoning detail and grabbed some sleep.

So why hadn’t I?

Punishment, maybe? Self-flagellation?

For what?

For having defaulted on her. For having sent Maureen to Hennie’s funeral the year before instead of going myself. They’d been common-law spouses for forty-something years, those two. She was depressed. She called me every Sunday night. It was my guilt that was flying me home…. And once I got there, then what? How bad off was this stroke going to leave her? How much of my summer was going to get gobbled up by Lolly’s “altered life”?

At Denver International, I opted for the garage instead of the Pike’s Peak shuttle lot, even though I’d pay through the nose for the convenience. The machine spat me a ticket. The arm lifted. At this hour, there were plenty of empty spaces.

I passed from the jaundiced lighting of the parking garage to the halogen glare of the walkway. Passed two porters, slumped on plastic chairs. Both glanced at my carry-on luggage, then blinked me away, as disinterested as sunning lizards. And right inside the terminal, who do I see but Velvet Hoon. Hard to miss a girl in a blue crew cut.

She was wearing a gray uniform, part of a cleaning crew. A hippie-looking guy with a gray beard was buffing the floor. A scrawny black woman was running a vacuum. Velvet had a squirt bottle and a cleaning cloth and was wiping down plastic chairs. I thought about the kids I’d just left at the post-prom party—their fun and games, their Gummy Bear sundaes and college plans. But, hey, Velvet was her own worst enemy. I walked a little faster, relieved that she didn’t see me. Better for both of us. I had to talk to Maureen again about not getting sucked into the black hole of Velvet’s needs. She’d just get used and abused. You can’t undo that kind of damage. You can’t.

No line at my airline counter. Just two attendants keeping each other company. They were both good-looking women. The buxom redhead was in her forties, the little blonde maybe two or three years out of high school. A phrase bubbled up from my college days, something Rocco Buzzi and I used to say about pretty girls: I wouldn’t throw her out of bed. Big Red took the lead.

“Good morning, sir.”

“Morning. I have an e-ticket. Last name’s Quirk.” Red nodded. Her fingers whizzed across her keyboard.

“Caelum Quirk?”

“Yes.”

“And your final destination today is Hartford-Springfield?”

“That’s right.”

The blonde squinted at the screen. “I never heard the name Caelum before,” she said. “Is it from the Bible?”

I shook my head. “Old family name.”

“Well, at least you weren’t named after some stupid song on the radio.”

I squinted to read her name tag: Layla. My eyes bounced over to Big Red’s, too: Vivian. That’s the tricky part about women and name tags: to read them is to check out the frontal real estate. Which I was doing when Vivian caught me. “Well,” I told Layla. “You could do worse than being named after a Clapton song.”

“Picture ID, sir?” Viv said.

I nodded. Fumbled for my wallet. Handed her my driver’s license. Layla asked me if I was traveling for business or pleasure.

“Neither,” I said. “Sick relative.” Freshman year, Rocco and I had had four classifications for the girls we scoped out from afar in the BU cafeteria: wouldn’t screw her blindfolded; would screw her blindfolded; wouldn’t throw her out of bed; and, for girls of the highest order, would screw her grandmother to screw her. Rocco and I were both virgins back then, of course—huddled together, eating our turkey à la king and room-temperature Jell-O and rating girls we were too chicken-shit to approach.

“My son’s sick, too,” Layla said. “Four ear infections in one year. Wanna see his picture?”

Viv’s nostrils flared. “I think what Mr. Quirk wants is to get to his gate,” she said. She gave me a professional smile. “This is her first day on the job.”

“That’s fine,” I said. “And actually, I’d like to see her son’s picture.”

Viv’s smile became a grimace. Layla produced her purse. Her son dangled from her key ring, in a little plastic frame. Nappy hair, coffee skin.

“He’s cute,” I said. “How old?”

Three, she said. His name was Shabbaz. Vivian asked if I was checking any bags with them today.

“Uh, no. I just have the one carry-on.”

“And has anyone asked you to hold anything for them since you entered airport property, sir?”

Only the heroin smuggler, Viv. “Uh, no. Nope.”

“And has the bag you’re carrying on board been in your possession at all times since you packed it?”

Pretty much, except when I left it with the Unabomber. “Uh-huh.”

She looked up, concerned. “What?”

Had I just said Unabomber? “Yes. Yes, it has.”

She nodded. “Aisle seat? Window seat?”

“Window, I guess. Better for sleeping.”

“Try sleeping when you’re a single mom,” Layla said. “Last night—”

“Well, then,” Viv interrupted. “You’re all set. Concourse B, gate thirty-six.” She handed me my boarding pass. “Have a nice flight.”

“Have a nice flight,” Layla echoed.

Ten or twelve steps toward the security gate, I looked back. Layla was getting chewed out in spades.

AT GATE 36, I JOINED my fellow sojourners: guys with laptops, guys on cell phones, tanned retirees in jogging suits and gold jewelry. A college-age couple leaned against each other, napping. A Mexican dad passed out churros to his kids. I caught a whiff of the fried dough and started thinking about the Mama Mia Bakery. Maybe I’d stop by, check in with Alphonse while I was home. Or maybe not. Alphonse’s e-mails were depressing: all those politically incorrect jokes, all that silent salivating over some latest counter girl he’d just hired. Pushing fifty, Alphonse was still afraid to approach women. Still searching for his holy grail, too: a 1965 yellow Mustang hardtop with 289-cubic-inch engine, four-barrel carburetor, and solid-lifter valve train. He belonged to something called the Yellow Mustang Registry. Checked eBay five or six times a day. Phoenician Yellow, his dream car had to be, not the paler Springtime Yellow, also available back in ’65. “Eat your breakfast now,” the Mexican dad said.

“Whoever don’t finish theirs don’t get on the plane.” One of the kids began to cry.

I got up, grabbed a seat closer to the TV. CNN Sports. Tim Couch had gone number one in the NFL draft. The Eagles had nabbed McNabb. Darryl Strawberry was in trouble again.

I watched the approach of a freaky-looking couple. Early twenties, maybe. She was fat, her hair a bunch of pigtail stubs. He was rat-faced. Nose ring, tattooed hands and fingers, missing teeth. She was eating a churro, too. They plopped down across from the napping college couple, whose eyes cracked open, then opened wider.

“Hi,” Pigtails said.

“Hey,” College Guy said.

“What are you guys going to Chicago for?”

They answered in unison. “Back to school.”

“Guess why me and him are going?” The college kids both shrugged. “We’re gonna be on Jerry Springer.”

“Really?” College Girl said. College Boy leaned forward.

“They’re picking us up in a limo and paying for our hotel. The chauffeur’s meetin’ us at the baggage pickup. He’s gonna have a sign with my name on it.”

“That’s awesome,” College Boy said. “What are you going to be on for?”

Pigtails smiled at Ratso. Her fingers grazed his chest. “Me and him are lovers. And first cousins. Which is fine, because he got fixed.”

The airline rep announced that boarding would begin, small children and passengers with special needs first.

“Acourse, what’s fixed can get unfixed,” Ratso assured College Guy. “You know what I’m saying?”

“See that fat cow sitting over there?” Pigtails said. “That’s my mom. She’s gonna be on the show, too.” College Boy, College Girl, and I followed her gaze to a sad, puffy-looking woman with dyed black hair, seated by herself in the otherwise empty sea of chairs at gate thirty-seven. She was glaring back. “He done her, too. When we get on Springer, there’s gonna be a showdown!”

“This so rocks,” College Boy said. He raised his fist and punched the air. “Jer-ry! Jer-ry! Jer-ry!”

“She had sex with her own nephew?” College Girl said. “Eww.”

“It’s gross, ain’t it?” Pigtails said. “I don’t blame him, though. She was always strutting around our apartment half-naked. Throwing it at him like Thanksgiving dinner. His mom? Her sister? She disowned her.” She shouted across the walkway. “What are you looking at, slut?” Now she had everyone’s attention, the gate attendants included. Her mother stood, turning her back to her daughter. The boarding of first-class customers began.

“If she flashes titty, they give her a bonus,” Ratso said.

“Not money, though,” Pigtails added. “Restaurant coupons. I may do it, I may not. Depends on how I feel. They blur it, so no one sees nothing.”

“What about the studio audience?” Ratso said. “Ain’t nobody blurring nothin’ out for them.”

“So?” she said. “Shut up.”

Rows thirty through forty were called to board. I was both relieved and disappointed when the Springer guests stood up. There went Mexican Guy and his brood, too. Pigtails’ mom was in the rows-twenty-to-thirty group. I found her strangely sympathetic. Well, pathetic, I guess. What, other than dim-wittedness, would have ever motivated her to go on that show?

My row was among the last called. I grabbed my breakfast tote from the self-serve cart, got through the tunnel, and made it to my window seat, 10A. This morning’s flight was a full one, the intercom voice told us. Would we please be seated, seatbelts secured, as soon as possible?