Bygones (22 page)
Michael put both arms around Bess and hauled her close.
“Randy, can you hear me?” A doctor was leaning over him.
Randy made a wordless sound.
“Do you know where you are, Randy?”
He opened his eyes, looked around at the ring of faces, and abruptly tried to sit up. He said belligerently, “What the hell - Let me
outa
–“
“Whoa, there.”
Hands pressed him down. “Not much oxygen getting to that brain yet. He’s still light-headed. Randy, did you take anything? Did you take any cocaine?”
Randy wagged his head.
“I’m Dr. Fenton, Randy. We’re not the police here. Nobody is going to get in trouble if you tell us, but we have to know so we can help you. Was it cocaine?”
Randy fixed his eyes on the doctor’s clothing and mumbled, “It was my first time. Honest.”
“Okay, no need to get scared,” the doctor said. “Just relax.”
At that moment the cardiologist swept in, moving directly to the gurney. Dr. Fenton said, “Randy, this is Dr.
Mortenson
.”
While the specialist took over, Dr. Fenton approached Bess and Michael.
“I’m Dr. Fenton,” he said, introducing himself.
Then he said, “Let’s step out into the hall, where we can talk privately.” There was a line of chairs across from the emergency room, and when they were seated, Dr.
Fenton said, “I know you
have ,a
lot of questions, so let me fill you in. Randy took some cocaine, which can do a lot of nasty things to the human body. This time it caused an abnormally high heart rate. And then you saw him arrest. The cardiologist will probably prescribe some medication to prevent fibrillation from recurring. I have to warn you, though, that this can happen again during the next several hours. The problem with cocaine is that we can’t go in there and get it out like we could poison, for example. We can only offer care and wait for the effects of the drug to wear off.”
Michael said, “You’re saying there’s still a chance he could die?”
“I’m afraid so. But his youth is a plus. And if he does go into a fast rate, chances are we can control it with the drugs.”
The cardiologist appeared at that moment.
“Mr. and Mrs. Curran?”
Michael and Bess both stood. “I’m Dr.
Mortenson
. Randy will be in my charge for a while yet. His heartbeat has leveled off now. If we can keep it reasonably steady for—oh, say, twenty-four hours he’ll be totally out of the woods. Right now the lab people are drawing blood. We’ll monitor him here in the ER for a while; then he’ll be transferred to intensive care.”
“May we see him?” Bess asked.
His “Of course.”
The lab nurse had finished drawing blood and was leaving, when Bess approached the gurney, with Michael several steps behind.
Randy looked ghastly-sickly white, his eyes closed, and his nostrils occupied by the oxygen prongs.
“Randy?” she said softly.
He opened his eyes. “Mom,” he managed in
a
eroaky
voice.
She leaned down and put her cheek to his.
“Oh, Randy, darling.
Thank God they got you here in time.” She felt his chest heave as he held sobs inside, felt his warm tears mingling with her own.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“I’m sorry, too. I should have been there for you, talked to you more, found out what was bothering you.”
“No, it’s mot your fault. It’s mine. I’m just rotten.”
She looked into his eyes, so like his father’s.
“No. You’re our son, and we love you very much.”
“How can you love me? All I’ve ever been is trouble.”
“Oh, no.
. . . No.” She smoothed his hair,
then
braved a wobbly smile. “Well, yes, sometimes you were. But when you have babies, you know that sometimes they’ll be less than perfect, and that’s when you find out how much you love them.”
She kissed his forehead and stepped back so Michael could take her place. He moved into Randy’s line of vision and said simply, “Hi, Randy.”
Randy stared at his father, while his eyes filled once again. He swallowed hard and said, “Dad?”
Michael braced a hand on Randy’s far side, bent over, and kissed his cheek. Randy’s arms went around his father’s back. He hauled Michael down as a sob broke forth. For a long time they embraced.
“Dad, I’m so sorry.”
“I know. . . . I know. So am I.”
Ah, sweet, sweet healing. Ah, welcome love. When they had filled both then hearts, Michael drew back. He looked down into his son’s brimming eyes. “But this is the end of all that, huh? You and I have some time to make up for, and we’re going to do it. Everything Mom just said goes double for me. I love you. I hurt you. I’m sorry, and we’re going to work on it - starting today.”
Just don’t die. Not when I’ve just gotten you back again.
“Now listen,” Michael went on, “your mother has something to tell you.” He reached for Bess’s hand, his eyes saying, just in case if he doesn’t make it through the next twenty-four hours. He drew Bess forward and stood behind her. She slipped her palm under Randy’s and said, “Your dad and I are going to get married again.”
His eyes locked on hers for a time. “Well, you’ve really got guts.”
Michael squeezed Bess’s shoulder. “I guess you’d see it that way. We think we’ve grown up a lot in the last six years.”
Bess added, “And besides that, we fell in love again.”
A nurse interrupted. “We’re going to move Randy to intensive care now. Then I think we’d better let him rest for a while.”
“Yes, of course.” Bess kissed Randy.
“We’ll talk about it more when you’re out of here. I love you.”
Michael, too, kissed Randy.
“Rest.
I love you.”
Together they went out to the waiting room to face the long vigil that would either take or give them back their son.
DURING HIS CRITICAL TWENTY-FOUR hours Randy would sleep as if for eons, dreaming, and awaken to find the clock had moved a mere ten minutes. Once when he opened his eyes, Lisa was standing beside his bed holding a baby in her arms.
“Hi,” she said quietly.
“Hi. What are you doing here?”
“Came to show you your new niece.”
“Yeah?”
He managed a weak grin.
Lisa, wearing her smug Ali
MacGraw
smile, showed him the baby’s face. “She’s a beauty huh? Say hi to Uncle Randy, Natalie.”
“Hi, Natalie,” Randy whispered.
Jeez, he was tired . . . . Such effort to get words out . . . . Cute baby. . . . Lisa must have made Mom and Dad so happy . . . . Lisa always did.
His eyelids grew too heavy to keep open.
When they dropped, he felt Lisa kiss his forehead.
The next time he woke up, Grandma Stella was there, the same soulful expression in her eyes as in Lisa’s, and he knew undoubtedly he was dying.
Then his mom and dad again, looking haggard and worried.
And then - too unreal to believe - Maryann, which made no sense at all, unless, of course, he’d already died and this was heaven.
“Maryann?” he said.
“I was here visiting Lisa, and she asked me to come see you.”
He told her, “I’d pretty much given up on you.”
“I’d given up on you, too. Maybe now you’ll get some help.”
She wasn’t an easy woman; rather, an exacting one-a throwback to a time when parents taught their daughters to seek a man who was pure in heart and mind. The crazy thing was
,
he wanted to be that kind of man for her. Lying on his hospital bed, he promised himself that if by some miracle he got out of here, he’d smoked his last joint and snorted his last coke.
“I guess it’s time,” he answered, and closed his eyes because he was so tired not even Maryann Padgett’s presence could keep him awake.
“Hey, listen,” he said from the pleasant darkness behind closed eyelids, “you’ll be hearing from me when I get my act together. Meanwhile, don’t go falling in love or anything.”
Maryann joined the family in the waiting room.
By
that night, everyone was exhausted.
Though he remained in intensive care, Randy’s condition seemed stable, his heartbeat regular.
Michael said, “Why don’t you all go home and get some rest. I’ll stay here and
nap,
and I’ll call you if anything changes.”
Bess said, “But Michael”
“No buts. Get some rest, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
Reluctantly they went.
A nurse brought Michael a pillow and blanket, and he lay down with the
eare
assurance that they’d wake him if Randy showed the slightest change. He awakened after what seemed a very brief time, and lurched up when his watch showed
At the nurses’ station, he asked about Randy.
“He had a very good night-slept straight through, and there was no sign of any more problems with his heart.”
Less than twelve hours to go before he was totally out of the woods. Michael went to find a bathroom, where he splashed cold water on his face. It seemed half a lifetime since he’d come to the hospital, smiling, to visit Lisa and the new baby. He wondered how they were. Poor Lisa had had a shock, learning about Randy, but she’d handled it like a trooper, getting permission to bring the baby down here to show Randy in case he died.
Nobody’d
said as much, but they all knew that was the reason.
He stood in the doorway of Randy’s room watching him sleep.
Ten more hours.
Just ten more.
He walked to the window and stared out. What irony, both of his children in the same hospital-one bringing in a new life, the other with his life in the balance.
As if the thought had penetrated his sleep, Randy opened his eyes and found his father standing at the window.
“Dad?”
Michael whirled and moved to the bed, taking Randy’s hand.
“I made it.”
“Yeah,” Michael said, his voice breaking with emotion. If Randy didn’t know he needed ten more hours to be out of the woods, Michael wasn’t going to tell him.
“You beep here all night?”
“I slept some.”
“You’ve been here all night.” Randy looked up at his tired father, whose rumpled clothes and shadowy growth of whiskers bore witness to his night’s vigil. “You thought I’d die, right? That’s why Lisa brought the baby for me to see, and why Grandma came, and Maryann.”
“That was a possibility.”
“I’m sorry I put you through that.”
“Yeah, well, sometimes that’s what we do to people who love us-we put them through things without really meaning to.”
It struck Randy in that moment how hard it must be to be a parent, and how little he’d considered that fact until now.
l
must be growing up, he thought. It made him feel a little scared.
“Dad?” he said. “You didn’t give me hell for using cocaine.”
“Oh, yes, I did.
A dozen times.
I just didn’t say it out loud.”
“I won’t do it again. I promise. I want to get well.”
“That’s what we all want, son.” Michael put his hand on Randy’s hair. Then he leaned over and kissed Randy’s cheek.
You’ll live with us, Michael vowed silently.
We’re root abandoning you-not this time. “I’ll be back soon. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Randy said.
And with those words another fragment of pain dissolved.
Another window of hope opened. Another beam of sunlight radiated into their future.
RANDY was released from the hospital shortly before suppertime that day. His mother and father walked him out into the sunshine of late afternoon, into a setting crowned by a cobalt-blue sky and a world where people moved about their pursuits with reassuring normality.
“Where to?”
Michael asked, sitting behind the wheel of his Cadillac Seville.
“I’m starved,” Bess replied. “Would anyone like to pick up some sandwiches and eat them down by the river?”
Michael turned to glance at Randy, in the back seat.
“Sounds fine with me,” Randy said.
And so they took the next halting step in their journey back to
familyhood
.
Six weeks later; on an Indian summer’s day in mid-October, Bess and Michael Curran were married in a simple service in the rectory of St. Mary’s Catholic Church. The ceremony was performed by the same priest who’d married
them
twenty-two years before. Father Mire opened his prayer book, smiled at the bride and groom, and said, “
S.
. . here we are again.”
His remark brought smiles to the assembled faces.