Dreamcatcher(136)

1:04 A.M., the blue numbers said. Roberta turned on the bedside lamp  -  might as well use it while she could  -  and drank some water from her glass. Was it the wind that had awakened her? The bad dream? It had been bad, all right, something about aliens with deathrays and everyone running, but she didn't think that was it, either.

Then the wind dropped, and she heard what had waked her: Duddits's voice from downstairs. Duddits . . . singing? Was that possible? She didn't see how, considering the terrible afternoon and evening the two of them had put in.

'Eeeyer - eh!'' for most of the hours between two and five  -  Beaver's dead! Duddits seemingly inconsolable, finally bringing on a nosebleed. She feared these. When Duddits started bleeding, it was sometimes impossible to get him stopped without taking him to the hospital. This time she had been able to stop it by pushing cotton - wads into his nostrils and then pinching his nose high up, between the eyes. She had called Dr Briscoe to ask if she could give Duddits one of his yellow Valium tablets, but Dr Briscoe was off in Nassau, if you please. Some other doctor was on call, some whitecoat johnny who had never seen Duddits in his life, and Roberta didn't even bother to call him. She just gave Duddits the Valium, painted his poor dry lips and the inside of his mouth with one of the lemon - flavored glycerine swabs that he liked  -  the inside of his mouth was always developing cankers and ulcers. Even when the chemo was over, these persisted. And the chemo was over. None of the doctors  -  not Briscoe, not any of them  -  would admit it, and so the plastic catheter stayed in, but it was over. Roberta would not let them put her boy through that hell again.

Once he'd taken his pill, she got in bed with him, held him (being careful of his left side, where the indwelling catheter hid under a bandage), and sang to him. Not Beaver's lullaby, though. Not today.

At last he had begun to quiet, and when she thought he was asleep, she had gently pulled the cotton wads from his nostrils. The second one stuck a little, and Duddits's eyes had opened  -  that beautiful flash of green. His eyes were his true gift, she sometimes thought, and not that other business . . . seeing the line and all that went with it.

'Urnma?'

'Yes, Duddie.'

'Eeeyer in hen?'

She felt such sorrow at that, and at the thought of Beaver's absurd leather jacket, which he had loved so much and finally worn to tatters. If it had been someone else, anyone else but one of his four childhood friends, she would have doubted Duddie's premonition. But if Duddits said Beaver was dead, then Beaver almost certainly was.

'Yes, honey, I'm sure he's in heaven. Now go to sleep.'

For another long moment those green eyes had looked into hers, and she had thought he would start crying again  -  indeed, one tear, large and perfect, did roll down his stubbly cheek. It was so hard for him to shave now, sometimes even the Norelco started little cuts that dribbled for hours. Then his eyes had closed again and she had tiptoed out.

After dark, while she was making him oatmeal (all but the blandest foods were now apt to set off vomiting, another sign that the end was nearing), the whole nightmare started again. Terrified already by the increasingly strange news coming out of the Jefferson Tract, she had raced back to his room with her heart hammering. Duddits was sitting upright again, whipping his head from side to side in a child's gesture of negation. The nosebleed had re-started, and at each jerk of his head, scarlet drops flew. They spattered his pillowcase, his signed photograph of Austin Powers ('Groovy,baby!' was written across the bottom), and the bottles on the table: mouthwash, Compazine, Percocet, the multi-vitamins that seemed to do absolutely no good, the tall jar of lemon swabs.

This time it was Pete he claimed was dead, sweet (and not terribly bright) Peter Moore. Dear God, could it be true? Any of it? All of it?

The second bout of hysterical grief hadn't gone on as long, probably because Duddits was already exhausted from the first. She had gotten the nosebleed stanched again  -  lucky her  -  and had changed his bed, first helping him to his chair by the window. There he'd sat, looking out into the renewing storm, occasionally sobbing, sometimes heaving great, watery sighs that hurt her inside. Just looking at him hurt her: how thin he was, how pale he was, how bald he was. She gave him his Red Sox hat, signed across the visor by the great Pedro Martinez (you get so many nice things when you're dying, she sometimes mused), thinking his head would be cold there, so close to the glass, but for once Duddits wouldn't put it on. He only held it on his lap and looked out into the dark, his eyes big and unhappy.

At last she had gotten him back into bed, where once again her son's green eyes looked up at her with all their terrible dying brilliance.

'Eeet in hen, ooo?'

'I'm sure he is.' She hadn't wanted to cry, desperately hadn't wanted to  -  it might set him off again  -  but she could feel the tears brimming. Her head was pregnant with them, and the inside of her nose tasted of the sea each time she pulled in breath.

'In hen wif Eeeyer?'

'Yes, honey.'

'I eee Eeeyer n Eeet in hen?'

'Yes, you will. Of course you will. But not for a long while.'

His eyes had closed. Roberta had sat beside him on the bed, looking down at her hands, feeling sadder than sad, more alone than lonely.

Now she hurried downstairs and yes, it was singing, all right. Because she spoke such fluent Duddits (and why not? it had been her second language for over thirty years), she translated the rolling syllables without even thinking much about them: Scooby-Dooby-Doo,where are you? We got some work to do now. I've been telling you, Scooby-Doo, we need a helping hand, now.