“What can you do?” I asked.
Dr. Laurence shrugged. “Watch and wait.”
“Will he get better?” my mother asked, her voice a whisper.
Dr. Laurence furrowed his brow. He had intense blue eyes, but now they seemed to soften. “It’s too early to make predictions,” he said, though I could tell he already had. “Your husband will be in the hospital about a week. I would recommend we get him to an acute rehab unit as quickly as he is able. We’ve had some success treating stroke patients by beginning a regimen of intense physical therapy. I’ll have the rehab specialist come by in a day or two.” Before leaving Dr. Laurence turned to me. “May I talk to you?”
Dr. Laurence and I stepped outside the room. I noticed the slight pause when we made direct eye contact. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of your mother.”
“I know,” I said. “How bad is it?”
“The acute rehab unit will give you and your mother some time to consider a long-term care facility.”
“What do you mean, long-term? Are you saying he’s never going to come home?”
I could tell from Dr. Laurence’s expression he was trying to be honest without being an alarmist. “It will depend on how he progresses,” he said. “That doesn’t need to be determined tonight.”
I decided not to press him further. “When can we see him?”
“You can go in now. He’s in the recovery room. We’ve given him some drugs to sedate him. He’ll be in and out, but you can be with him.”
“Can he talk?” I asked.
“Not at the moment. But he’ll recognize you, and he’ll know you’re there. I think it would be a great comfort to him. Your father did manage to ask for you.”
“For me? Are you sure?”
“What’s your mother’s name?”
“It’s Madeline, but he calls her Maddy.”
“Then I’m certain he said ‘Sam.’” With that Dr. Laurence turned and walked away.
I watched Dr. Laurence depart, staring at his back as he went. I turned but did not immediately go back to the waiting room. The realization of what had happened hit me hard at that moment, as manhood often does. I imagined it was not unlike all those young men who join the military, go to boot camp, and then get deployed in a military zone, with no one there to wipe their noses or console them. My father had called my name for a reason. He needed me, and not the other way around. He needed me to be the man of the house. I was just eighteen, but then, so were some of those men taken from the jungles of Vietnam on a stretcher.
When I got back to the waiting room, Mickie said she’d go down the hall to call Ernie and the Cantwells, and I sensed she wanted to give my mother and me a moment of privacy with my father.
When we entered my father’s room, I almost did not recognize the man in the bed. Though he had just a single tube snaking from his right arm, my father looked so much older than he had that morning, his hair seemingly grayer and his face thin, his skin a sickly yellow. The nurse removed the mask covering his mouth and nose, and the side of his face had sagged like wax melted in a hot sun. I hung back as my mother bent and kissed his lips, whispering to him words I could not hear while gently smoothing his hair. After a minute or two, she motioned me forward, but I could not get my legs to move. My father was my hero, the strongest-willed man I had ever known. Nothing had ever defeated him—not the chain-store pharmacies, and not the monthly struggle to make his business succeed. I wondered if that was why he lay here now in this unforgiving hospital bed, if his unwillingness to ever give in, the incredibly long hours he worked at the store, had led to the stress and anxiety that caused his stroke.
My mother took my hand and brought me forward so my father could see me.