The Weight of Heaven (26 page)

hon,” he had answered brightly, pleasantly surprised that Ellie was

calling him this early in the evening, forgetting for a second that it

was not even dawn in Michigan. And then, listening to her quiet,

worried voice, the gin that he’d been sipping suddenly burned in

his stomach. And he felt that sharp, helpless anger toward Ellie, as

if he wanted to cup her mouth with his open hand and shove the

words back into her throat—The doctors say he’s very sick, Frank.

They’re pretty sure its meningococcus. You better come home.

Shipla had been wonderful. Worked the phones like a madman,

trying to get him a flight out of Bangkok that same evening. I

need to get out of here, he’d said as he paced the hotel room frantically, throwing whatever clothes he found into his large duffel bag.

They’d finally put him on a flight to Paris, with Shipla promising to

get him a connection to Detroit before Frank landed at Charles de

Gaulle. “Call Pete,” he’d said to his Thai colleague as he got out of

the car at Don Muang International Airport. “He’ll know what to

do.” He had a seven-hour layover at de Gaulle, and Frank had never

hated the airport as much as he did that day. He was offended by

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the martini bars, the bright, glitzy stores selling duty-free perfumes

and chocolates, all these people rushing around, looking bright and

cheerful and active, while his son lay in a hospital bed chained by

plastic tubes. He glanced at the digital clock on the wall every few

minutes and caught himself swearing out loud. Get a grip, Frank,

he chided himself, but there was nothing to get a grip on. His very

core seemed to have collapsed, and in its place he felt a fear that was

vaporous, a gas filling the cavity of his body. His hold on the world

itself seemed to have loosened. He couldn’t believe it. While he sat at

the airport in Paris, surrounded by all the riches and material things

the world had to offer, his son was in an existential fight with— He

shook his head. He wouldn’t let his brain conjure up the dreadful

word.

He fished for his cell phone, to call Ellie again. He’d already tried

her six times since landing in Paris, but she wasn’t picking up, and

after leaving her an irritable message the first time, he’d realized

that she probably couldn’t use the phone in the hospital. He’d left

her a second message, gentler this time, repeating his flight arrival

information, telling her to hang in there, that he’d be home soon and

they’d all be together again. This time, he dialed her number with

no hope of her answering and felt a dip in his stomach when she said,

“Hello?”

“Babe? It’s me. How are you? How is he?”

“I just stepped out to call you back,” Ellie said, and even at this

distance he could hear how raw and weary she sounded.

“So . . . how’s it looking?”

“Not good.” He heard the sob in her voice. “Not good. I’m

scared, Frank. I think he’s not—he may not—make it.”

His jaw locked, but his voice was gentle as he spoke. “Hush,

baby,” he said. “Don’t say that. This is not the time to give up. It’s

up to us to save him. Those doctors don’t know everything.”

“He asked for you just before they moved him to the ICU,” she

said, and he felt the world collapse around him. He looked up with

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bloodshot eyes, and everything seemed transformed—the spotless,

shiny stores melted into rivulets of gold and molten glass; the busy,

rosy-cheeked people rushing around seemed absurd and foolish.

His son had asked for him, and he was not there. His son was sick—

even dying—and he wasn’t at his side, holding his hand, talking to

him, pulling him back to the land of the living.

“Frank?” Ellie asked. “You there?”

He blinked a few times before he trusted himself to speak again.

“Tell him I’m coming,” he whispered. “Tell him to—hold on until

I get there.”

There was some background noise at Ellie’s end, and then he

heard her say, “They’re paging me. I gotta go.”

“Call me,” he yelled. “If anything . . . happens, leave a message

on my phone.”

When they finally took off, Paris looked green and tranquil from

his plane window. He didn’t trust it. The world suddenly felt sinister, evil, a place where a young boy with the sweetest smile in the

world could be fighting for his life. He felt as if he was staring into

the bleached bones of the universe, into the ugly pit at the center of

all existence. A pit that was usually covered up by grass and trees

and butterflies and sunflowers. He felt foolish to have ever believed

that the world was a benign place, ruled by a kind, benevolent God.

He saw it clearly now—the beauty of the world was a distraction, a

sleight of hand, meant to make bearable the irrefutability of death.

I need a drink, he thought. Until now he had refused the free

alcohol that the smiling stewardesses had tried to ply him with. But

now, he pushed the call button and ordered a Bloody Mary, to still

the tremors that kept attacking his body in icy waves and to dull the

jagged edges of his thoughts.

After his second drink, something loosened in him. He picked up

the phone on the back of the seat in front of him and dialed Scott’s

cell number. “Scotty?” he said as soon as he heard his brother’s

voice. “It’s me.”

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 9 1

“Hey.” Scott sounded breathless, as if he’d just run a mile. “We’re

walking into the hospital right this minute.”

“You’re in Ann Arbor?”

“Yup. Just got in. Didn’t Ellie tell you?”

“No. I’ve barely managed to reach her. Keep missing each other.

How’d you—is Mom with you?”

“Yup, sure is. Wanna say hi to her?” And before he could react,

Frank heard his mother’s voice say, “Sweetheart? How are you?”

He was trying not to choke up, uncomfortably aware of the fact

that the Italian man across the aisle was listening to every word he

said. “I’m fine, Mom,” he said. “Trying my damnedest to get home

quickly.” He gulped hard. “Kiss him for me, will you, Mom?”

His mother’s tone was calm. “I sure will, honey. And I want you

to stop worrying. Benny’s gonna be just fine, now that his grandma

is here. You just wait and see.”

His heart sank as he realized that he didn’t believe his mother’s

words. Still, he smiled faintly into the phone. “Thanks, Mom. Can

I, can I talk to Scott for a second?”

There was a rustle, and then he heard Scott’s deep tone again.

“Does Ellie have your flight schedule, Frank?”

“Believe so. I left it on her cell phone.” He hesitated. “Scotty, I

want you to do me a favor. You go see Benny, and you tell him that

his daddy is on his way and that he should—he should hold on.”

He heard the crack in his brother’s voice. “You just get here,

kid,” Scott said gruffly.

“I’m trying. If I thought hijacking a plane would make it go

faster, I would.” Too late, he realized that he’d chosen an inopportune place to say those inflammatory words. But when he glanced

at the woman sitting to his left, he noticed the ear buds sticking into

her ears. She hadn’t heard. Nor had anyone else, thank God.

“Be safe, Frankie,” Scott said. And then, “He’s in God’s hands,

Frank. Pray.”

And Frank did. Prayed to God, fought with God, argued with

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God, on the long flight from Paris to Detroit. He reclined in his seat

with his eyes wide open, staring into the dark cabin. Listen, he said,

I haven’t asked you for anything in a long, long time. Not since Dad

left, to be precise. So I have a few chits coming due, don’t you think?

Though to be fair, you haven’t given me much reason to ask for

things over the years. All in all, you’ve been pretty generous. I have

everything that I want, really—a great wife, a good job, a gorgeous

son. And that’s all I’m asking for, to keep what I have. I don’t want

anything extra. Because if you take away what you’ve granted us,

well, that’s a dirty, cheap trick, don’t you think? You’re better than

that, right, God?

He heard the anger, the defiance in his voice and checked himself. Scott had asked him to pray, to beg, and what he was doing

was snarling at God. And so he tried. Sweet Jesus, he started again.

Don’t take my son from me. I won’t be able to survive that, please

God. You punish me in any way you want to, dear God, and I’ll

take it. But not this. Not Benny. He made a few more attempts to

continue in this vein, to promise things to God, to strike bargains,

but soon gave up. Because it reminded him too much of those awful

months after his dad had left. He thought back to that young boy

pacing the front porch or lying in bed at night listening for the slamming of car doors, and his stomach turned at the indifference of a

God who had stood by and watched silently. What kind of a father

treated his children so shabbily? How could someone all-powerful,

someone with the ability to perform miracles with the flick of his

wrist, perform so few of them? How could an omnipresent being

not know the whimpering frailties of the human heart, and if he

did, how could he not be moved with pity? How could he bear to

witness all this suffering if he had the power to end it? In a human

being, these qualities would be contemptible, would be seen as the

epitome of evil, the stuff tyrants and war criminals and psychopaths

were made up of.

Th e We i g h t o f H e av e n 1 9 3

Well, if he could not plead with God or bargain with him, he

would fight him for Benny’s life, would wrestle with him for the

right to keep what was his. Because Benny belonged here, on mortal

earth, with him and Ellie. He would walk into that hospital in a few

more hours and keep vigil by his son, not leave his bedside for as

long as it took. He and Benny would leave that hospital together.

He called Scott again as soon as the plane landed in Detroit, willing his brother to answer the phone. “How is he?” he asked as soon

as he heard Scott’s hello.

“He’s alive,” Scott replied, and Frank’s body went slack with

relief. Benny was alive. And now he was in the same city as his son,

instead of hovering in the heavens, keeping company with a deity he

didn’t like very much at the moment. “Where are you?” he asked.

“At the airport, outside of baggage claims. I’ll see you in a few

minutes.”

Pete Timberlake had accompanied Scott to the airport. Frank

saw the two men startle as they took in his appearance—the crumpled clothes, the unshaven jaw, the bloodshot eyes—and felt a moment’s embarrassment. “Hey,” he said to his brother, who took his

bag from him and popped open the trunk. “Thanks for coming,

Pete,” he added.

Pete grabbed him in a bear hug. “Are you kidding me?” he said.

He took a step back. “You holdin’ up, bud?”

He shrugged and got in the car just as Scott came around and

slipped his bulk into the driver’s seat. He was off before Frank could

even buckle his seat belt. Frank glanced at his older brother. “How’s

Ellie?” he said quietly.

Scott threw him a quick look. “She’s hanging in,” he said. “Anxious for you to get there.”

He nodded. “Did you . . . did you give Ben my message?”

“I did.” Scott chewed on his lower lip. “But Frankie, I gotta tell

you. He’s pretty out of it. The doctors say he’s not technically in

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a coma. But I can’t tell if he can hear anything we’re saying. And

I just want to prepare you for this—he’s . . . they’ve put him on a

ventilator.”

Frank looked out of the window, afraid that he was going to lose

control of his body. He willed his brain to forget what his brother

had just said, cleared his mind to get rid of the horrifying images that

were rooting themselves in there. He felt Scott’s hand on his thigh

but ignored it. His task was to sweep out of his mind the debris of

Scott’s words. He was so involved in this benign task that he heard

the awful sounds coming from his mouth at the same time the other

two did and was therefore as startled as they were. He sounded like

an animal with a bullet in its leg, which is how he felt, wounded,

crippled, helpless.

The car swerved. Scott was half turning in his seat, one hand on

the steering, the other on his brother. “Frankie,” he said. “It’s okay,

boy. It’s okay. He’ll be all right. He has a lot of people praying for

him.”

But the animal noise didn’t stop. Frank bent from his waist and

leaned forward, his hands clenching his stomach. The sounds that

came out of him were as old as the world itself. He had never known

that the human voice was capable of this range. He knew he was worrying Scott, felt he should reassure him, but human speech seemed

beyond his ability at the moment. He was gripped by a fear so large,

it was swallowing him alive. It felt almost prehistoric, existential.

It no longer seemed as if Benny had only been in his life for seven

years. He felt as if Benny had lived within him forever, had been

part of his flesh, carved his initials on every cell of Frank’s body

for all of eternity. It was as though Benny had begun to exist from