The Last Word (28 page)

[This is only to explain why there was tear gas in the trunk of the CRS’s vehicle.
Please note it was never used. It is now located in David Spellman’s garage. Next
to a box of disposable diapers.]

CRS continued to contemplate the client’s predicament and eventually came upon an
idea. She recalled a book she’d read some years ago,
War Is Smell
,
³
about the use of stench warfare in combat zones. CRS went to Misdirections, a novelty
gift shop on Fillmore Street, and purchased five stink bombs.

CRS phoned Subject one last time, requested that he vacate premises, and attempted
one final negotiation. Subject hung up on CRS.

CRS entered apartment with leaseholder’s approval and set off five stink bombs throughout.
CRS waited outside front door. Subject lasted fifteen minutes and finally departed
with a small bag of clothing. CRS, an adept locksmith, then changed the locks and
gave a copy of the new key to the client. After the apartment was aerated for three
days, Client returned to her apartment, where she currently resides alone. Smell hasn’t
entirely dissipated.

Status: Resolved.

1
. The zeroes seemed unusually ambitious.

2
. Rae apparently has a stack of his letterhead, which she uses, she claims, only in
extenuating circumstances.

3
. Everyone in the Spellman family has read this book. There was a brief Spellman family
book club that my father initiated about eight years ago. Arguments over book choices
became so heated that they negated any family bonding that might have been accomplished
from reading and discussing same tome.

W
hen I arrived at the office the next morning, my brain felt as foggy as a San Francisco
summer. As I waited for the second pot of coffee to brew in the kitchen, I replayed
the conversation with Agent Bledsoe in my head. I needed to figure out who’d tipped
him off. I had been so sure it was Ethan, but in light of his impending incarceration,
he didn’t have a great deal of motive or time to set in motion the series of events.

And then I let my imagination run loose like a large boulder down a hill and began
to wonder what would happen if I couldn’t beat these charges and the FBI decided to
set an example with me. Innocent people go to prison all the time. How well would
I survive in a federal prison? Martha Stewart set the standard pretty high, and you
know you can’t live up to that. And you wonder what kind of ridiculous hobbies you
might take up. Ceramics? Gardening? Creative writing? That shit is not for me. So,
if I would need to flee the country, I had to get my affairs in order.

My dad got to the coffee first and kindly poured me a cup, and sat down at the table
next to me.

“How are you doing, Isabel?”

“Honestly? I’ve been better. You?” I asked.

“Things can only go up from here.”

“Dad, your nose is bleeding.”

I grabbed a paper towel and squeezed Dad’s nostrils together, but it wasn’t quite
doing the trick. Blood began pooling on top of the kitchen table. Dad picked up a
dishrag and leaned his head back.

“Damn, that’s a lot of blood,” I said.

Rae came out of the office and into the kitchen about then.

“Shit,” she said. “Izzy, call nine-one-one.”

“Rae, it’s just a nosebleed. I think ice helps.”

“Call nine-one-one,” she repeated assertively.

I picked up the phone and dialed, while my sister pulled another towel from the drawer
and clamped my father’s nostrils shut. She must have been pinching really hard, because
he was moaning in pain.

“Where’s Mom?” Rae asked.

“I think she went to the store.”

“Call her,” Rae said. Her hands were busy trying to stanch the bleeding.

Ten minutes and what looked like a crime scene of blood later, the paramedics arrived.
They put my father on a gurney and checked his vitals while my sister provided the
relevant details.

“His name is Albert Spellman, he’s sixty-nine years old. He’s just been diagnosed
with acute myeloid leukemia.”

2:23
A.M.

W
e don’t have any secrets anymore. Everyone knows that Dad’s sick, that Isabel is in
serious trouble, and that the bottom could drop out of the business any day. “The
truth will set you free” is bullshit. I still can’t sleep.

I know I can’t cure Dad. But the other stuff, I know I can do more. I’m not sure I
can sit back and watch it all fall apart. This is mine as much as it’s hers. At least
it used to be. I let a piece of it go and watched her run it into the ground.

I don’t want to take anything away from my sister. I just want to take back what’s
mine.

D
ad was immediately admitted to UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion on Divisadero Street.
While Mom was filling out the paperwork, Rae debriefed me on the trajectory of events.

The unit was fighting because Dad was ill and refused to see a doctor. Dad eventually
relented, had a checkup with his family doctor, and played down his symptoms, and
Dr. Smiley dismissed Dad with a clean bill of health. Mom insisted that Dad get a
second opinion. When he refused, she told him that he couldn’t come home until he
went to a specialist. After two nights without Mom, Dad capitulated and went to another
general practitioner on his HMO plan, who ran some tests and sent him to an oncologist,
Dr. Chang, who ran a few more tests and diagnosed Dad with acute myeloid leukemia
and strongly encouraged my father to check into the hospital and begin treatment immediately.

Dad said he needed a few days to absorb this life-altering information, and that’s
when I found him in the kitchen with the nosebleed.

“And how do you know all this?” I asked Rae.

“I put a listening device in their car.”

“And my car?”

“Yes.”

And I found that bit of information soothing. So goddamn wrong.

“This way I knew what was going on, and if I needed to intervene it wouldn’t be too
late.”

“In the future, I would like us to cut back on interfamily audio surveillance,” I
said.

“I think we can see Dad now,” Rae said.

Once Dad was stabilized and his nose was no longer a fountain of blood, we were allowed
to visit. The three Spellman spawn converged on room 857.

“You have some explaining to do,” David said.

“How could you keep this from us?” I asked my parents.

“Let’s not get into this now,” Mom said.

“When were you planning on telling us?” I asked.

“After I beat this thing,” Dad said.

I studied Mom’s guarded reaction while Dad held court, boasting of the great nursing
staff and bemoaning the limited cable TV options. Dad said he’d give the hospital
an overall three-star rating on Yelp. I suggested David and Rae stay with Dad while
Mom and I got coffee across the street at Peet’s.

“How long has this been going on?” I asked after we found a table.

“I’ve been trying to get him to go to a doctor for over a month.”

“When were you planning on telling us?”

“I’d never seen your father so terrified. The last time anyone went into the hospital,
it was when Uncle Ray got sick.”

“But he can be cured, right?”

“With leukemia you hope for remission,” Mom said. “And he can go into remission for
years. They don’t use the word
cure
.”

•  •  •

Dr. Chloe Chang, Dad’s oncologist, came by his room later that day and debriefed the
family about Dad’s treatment. With AML, the first phase is induction chemotherapy,
in which the patient remains in the hospital for up to four weeks: intensive chemotherapy
for about a week and then palliative therapy, including antibiotics, antifungals,
whatever is required to offset the damage done by the chemo. After the induction phase,
70 to 80 percent of
patients are expected to enter complete remission. If complete remission is achieved,
then the patient is allowed to go home and rest, usually for about a week, before
starting the second phase, which includes consolidated chemotherapy and possibly an
autologous (using the patient’s own bone marrow) or allogeneic (donor) bone marrow
transplant.

When Dr. Chang was done explaining Dad’s treatment plan, Rae said, “If he needs bone
marrow, he should take mine. It’s definitely the best.”

“Why would you have the best bone marrow?” I asked.

“Because I’m the youngest and healthiest.”

“Youngest, maybe. Healthiest, that’s debatable. Your bone marrow might actually be
made of marshmallows,” David said.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

“Any one of us will do it,” David said.

Dr. Chang said, “We need to make sure we have a match first.”

“What if more than one of us is a match?” Rae asked.

Mom cradled her head in her hands. “Kids, that’s enough.”

“That would be good news,” Dr. Chang said. “But, once again, we’ll continue with chemotherapy
and see how that plays out. I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Spellman.”

“Don’t forget your boyfriend’s Social Security number,” Dad said, winking at his doctor.

Chang departed and Rae stayed her course.

“So, Dad. Let’s say all three of us are a donor match, which one would you choose?”

“I’d have a talent competition first. And then I’d decide,” said Dad.

•  •  •

Dad’s the kind of person who makes friends fast, and since Mount Zion was going to
be his home for the next month, he made the best of it. His Jamaican day nurse, Tralina,
and he hit it off like gangbusters. Especially after he had Mom locate the whereabouts
of an ex-boyfriend she’d never quite gotten over. Mom managed to find a current photograph
on a website from a tech company where he was working. And then, just as quickly,
Tralina
was over him. Dad, after discovering
Hayley’s Fortune
, Tralina’s favorite soap opera, would leave it on his television every afternoon,
so she could watch when a patient didn’t require her tending or he could at the very
least debrief her when she was away. Occasionally Tralina would bend the rules and
let more than two Spellmans in the room at a time, until Dad told her that he really
couldn’t handle more than two of us at once.

“You haf a lovely family, Mr. Spellman,” I overheard her say as I was lingering by
the door for a visit. “Da little blond one, is she yours?”

“My youngest,” Dad said.

“I’d keep an eye on dat one,” Tralina said without a hint of humor.

I really liked Tralina.

David created a daytime schedule to make sure that at no time was Dad alone and bored
in his hospital room. Even with Tralina, we knew there would be moments when he might
start thinking about his illness and mortality, and David knew that there were few
people on the planet more distracting than a Spellman. At the end of David’s first
shift, he debriefed me.

“His pillows seem to drive him crazy. He’s going to make you adjust them every ten
to fifteen minutes. And he really likes reminiscing, so sit back and get used to it.”

“Did you leave a flask?”

“No, Isabel, we’re in a hospital.”

“Right. They have drugs.”

“They give him a container of Jell-O with every meal,” David said. “He’s partial to
cherry, but sometimes he likes to mix it up with strawberry, blackberry, and lemon
when he wants a palate cleanser. He hates lime. If they give him lime, he’ll tell
you a very long story about a bad margarita he had.”

“Are
you
going anywhere with this story?”

“If you see lime Jell-O, try to swap it with another patient’s meal. They leave the
trays in the hallway when they’re serving.”

When my shift with Dad began, he asked me if I had made peace with Robbie Gruber,
our computer repairman, who’d been playing a cyber-game of cat-and-mouse with me.
I told him I was working on it and Dad offered this gem of advice: “I think a magazine
subscription would be nice. You
might think he’s a
Penthouse
kind of guy, but Robbie is a romantic, deep down. Go with
Playboy
.”

Dad asked me to fetch a Popsicle. I grabbed a cherry-flavored one from the stash.
When I returned to his room, Tralina was on her cell phone.

“Allo, Mr. Lorre. I been tinking about moving. I would like a quote. How much ta move
one bedroom from San Francisco to New York? Let’s say tree tousand pounds. Okay, okay.
How much t’ move two bedroom from San Antonio, Texas, to Dayton, Ohio? I am not wasting
your time. I am calling for different people who want to move two different places.
Also, can you give me a quote for a move from Seattle t’ Montego Bay, Jamaica, a tree-bedroom
house? You don’ do any moving to Jamaica? That’s crazy. Do you have a problem with
Jamaica? You need an airplane. You should get an airplane.
Is there anything else you can help me with?
I don’ tink you’ve helped me at all. Good day, Mr. Lorre.”

Tralina disconnected the call and smiled at my father. “So I can tell my daughter
that today I was a detective?”

“Today you were a detective,” my dad said.

“She’ll like that,” Tralina said, breezing out of the room.

I gave Dad his Popsicle.

“Is this cherry?” Dad asked when I returned.

“Yes. It’s your favorite Jell-O flavor; I could only assume it was your favorite Popsicle
flavor.”

“I like strawberry Popsicles.”

I kept the cherry Popsicle for myself and fetched Dad a strawberry one.

“Thanks, dear,” Dad said with a sweet smile. “You were always my favorite.”

“I overheard you say that to David just three hours ago.”

“I think my pillow is slipping.”

•  •  •

Edward sent a health basket filled with green drinks and macrobiotic energy bars that
no one in my family would consume, except maybe David out of nostalgia. Still, I called
Edward and thanked him.