The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell(80)

I drove Ernie home at just after one in the morning. When I pulled up to his driveway, he gave me his customary handshake, grabbing my thumb. He pulled me close and put his other hand around the back of my head. “You’ve been like a brother to me, Sam. I never would have made it this far without you.”

“You’re not going to kiss me, are you?” I said.

“I’m serious, man. I’ve ridden your coattail for twelve years. I hope you don’t mind if I ride it for four more.”

“You keep getting me sideline passes, and we’ll work out some arrangement,” I said. Ernie stepped from the Falcon. “Ernie?” I said. He turned back, but when I couldn’t find the words, Ernie said them for me.

“I know,” he said.





17

My mother had left the light on in the kitchen. I shut it off and started up the stairs, but I didn’t make it halfway before I heard someone call my name.

“Sam?” Mickie stepped from the shadows of the living room, startling me.

After catching my breath, I went down the steps to where she stood, her arms wrapped around her body, though it wasn’t particularly cold. All kinds of thoughts were flashing through my mind—her mother or father had died, or something had happened to Joanna—but then I realized that Mickie had not been to her home. She’d been with my mother.

“What are you doing here so late?” I could see that she’d been crying, and my concern became fear. “Mickie? What happened?”

She shook her head, sobbing. “It’s your father, Sam.”

“What?”

She couldn’t speak.

I looked to the staircase and raced up two stairs at a time. “Dad? Dad!” The rumpled blankets and sheets hung catawampus off the side of my parents’ empty bed, and my fear multiplied and nearly overcame me.





18

As Mickie and I entered the waiting room of Our Lady of Mercy Hospital, my mother looked up from a chair. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy. Tears streaked her cheek. She held her rosary beads, as she always did. I was certain my father had died.

“Where is he, Mom?” I asked. I recall this moment as the moment I became a man. It had not been my first beer or hangover, or the first time I’d gotten laid, as I had thought. It had not even been earlier that day, when I’d tossed my blue graduation cap into the air. It was the moment my mother needed me, and I was there for her.

My mother pointed to a door at the end of the hall that read INTENSIVE CARE. Then her fingers moved to the next bead, and she continued to pray silently.

I asked Mickie to stay at her side and went to the nurses’ station. A young woman had her head down but looked up as I approached. “I’m Max Hill’s son,” I said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

The nurse did the all too familiar double take when she saw my eyes. “The doctor is with him now. They’re running a series of tests.”

“He’s alive?”

“Yes, he’s alive.”

“What kind of tests? What for?”

“That’s what the tests will determine. The doctor will explain everything once we have the test results back.”

“A heart attack? Was it a heart attack?”

“The doctor will talk to you,” she said. “I’ll let him know you’re here.”

When I returned to the waiting room, Mickie was seated with her arm draped around my mother’s shoulders. “They’re running tests,” I said. “The nurse said it shouldn’t be too much longer.”

I sat on the other side of my mother and watched her fingers manipulate her rosary beads as never before. An hour after we’d arrived, the doctor entered the waiting room wearing blue hospital scrubs and introduced himself as Dr. Thomas Laurence.

“How is he?” I asked.

Dr. Laurence looked too young to be a doctor. His curly, sandy-brown hair showed no signs of gray, but I suspected from his practiced demeanor that he was older than he looked. “Your husband is alive,” he said to my mother. “He’s suffered a cerebrovascular accident—a stroke.”

Dr. Laurence took great care to explain that a blood clot no bigger than a pebble had dislodged itself from inside my father’s heart. Riding the pulsing wave of blood, it had traveled swiftly through the arteries in his neck to the right side of his brain before becoming lodged in a branch too narrow for it to pass. “The brain tissue beyond the occlusion becomes starved for oxygen,” he said. “It will begin to die in less than ten minutes.”

“Meaning what?” I asked.

Dr. Laurence grimaced. “Practically, it means the right side of your father’s face is flaccid, and he is incapable of moving his left extremities.”

“Can’t you take the clot out?” I asked.

Dr. Laurence shook his head. “The MRI shows some blood has already accumulated around the affected area. If we give him thrombolytics—the clot-busters—we could cause a massive hemorrhage in the brain and make things worse.”

“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?”