The Rom-Commers(86)

“How fast can we get to the airport?” I asked the driver.

“Hour and fifteen,” he said, “on a good day.”

“This flight’s at six,” Sylvie said.

“That’s not enough time,” I said.

“Just try,” Sylvie said. “There’s not another open seat until the red-eye.”

She did not say, And by then it might be too late.

Then, feeling semi-ridiculous, I said to the driver, “I’m so sorry, but do you happen to know any shortcuts for getting there faster?”

He kept his eyes on the road. “Not really.”

“I’m cutting it very close for my flight,” I said, like we might team up for a Formula One–style race against the clock.

“They know you’re coming,” Sylvie said. “Maybe they’ll hold the plane for you.”

“Airlines don’t hold planes for people, Sylvie,” I said. “They have regulations. And rules. And requirements. And other passengers!”

“But maybe,” Sylvie went on, unfazed by reality, “given the whole situation—”

“What is the whole situation? I have no idea what’s going on.”

Now that we had a minute, Sylvie took a deep breath. “He had a drop attack on the apartment stairs and took a very hard fall.”

“He knows not to take those stairs!” I said in protest.

“The elevator was out of service,” Sylvie said. “He must have thought, It’s only one flight. He must have thought, What are the odds? But it happened. He fell all the way to the landing. His face is all cut up and swollen, and he had to get stitches on his forehead, and he doesn’t even look like himself. I took a picture at the ER, but I can’t even bring myself to send it to you. If I could unsee it, I would.” Sylvie’s breath sounded ragged. “He lost consciousness when he hit the landing, and he hasn’t woken up. Mrs. Otsuka’s seven-year-old grandson called 911 right away, and they stayed with him the whole time.”

“The seven-year-old grandson called 911?”

“He’s very mature.”

I sent a silent thank-you to Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson.

Sylvie went on. “The scan of Dad’s brain showed a subdural hematoma, which is bleeding between the brain and the skull. But the skull doesn’t have any give. So when bleeds happen there, there’s nowhere for the blood to go. If the pressure builds up too much, it can cause brain damage or even death.”

“How bad is Dad’s bleed?”

“It’s…” Sylvie hesitated. “It’s not good. They showed us the CAT scan of his brain, and the blood is pushing his entire brain off-center. I mean, the doctor circled the pool of blood on the image with his pen and said, ‘This is the blood,’ and I was like, ‘Dude, even I can see that.’”

“So what do they do? How do they get it out of there?”

“Surgery,” Sylvie said, giving the short answer. “He’s in right now. Basically, as soon as they saw the scan, they rushed him to the OR. It’s called”—I heard paper flipping like she was checking her notes—“a ‘burr hole.’” Now she sounded like she was reading: “They drill a small hole in the skull to siphon out the blood.”

“He’s in emergency surgery right now?”

“There wasn’t time to wait.”

“Are you in the waiting room?”

“I stepped outside. Salvador says that thing about cell phones messing with hospital equipment is real.”

I had so many questions, I didn’t know where to start. The biggest, loudest question, of course, was Will Dad be okay?

But Sylvie didn’t have the answer to that question.

So I went with the next one that came to mind: “Why was it Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson?”

“What?” Sylvie asked.

“Why was Mrs. Otsuka’s grandson the one who called 911—not you or Salvador?”

A weird pause.

“Sylvie?”

Then a quiet answer. “Because we … weren’t home.”

“What!” I shouted—so loud the driver swerved. Then, quieter: “Where were you?”

“We were at the beach,” Sylvie said. “On a date.”

Worse and worse.

It’s pretty rare for me to be totally speechless. But I was.

When I finally found some words, all I could do was repeat: “You were at the beach? On a date?”

At that, Sylvie burst into tears—her voice thick and trembling. “Dad told us to go! He insisted we go! He practically forced us!”

“So you left his life in the hands of a seven-year-old?”

Sylvie couldn’t deny it.

I went on. “You can’t go to the beach when you’re Dad’s caregiver! You can’t go anywhere! Why do you think I haven’t had any fun in ten years? Do you think I just have a bad personality? That I don’t like fun? What part of all the medicines and the charts and the hemiplegia and the five books I handed you on Ménière’s disease gave you the idea that you could just take off for the beach? Would you like to know how many times I went to the beach in all these years? Zero! Zero times! You’ve been at it six weeks—and you decided to just take a vacation?”