The Perfect Son (7 page)

Dad glanced down at the pile of clothes on the floor, then glanced back up with lips curled back in disgust. Didn’t even bother to fake it. Mind you, Dad often gave him that I-can’t-believe-we-share-the-same-gene-pool scowl. “You’ve got plenty of time to get to school, if you can extricate yourself from this pigsty.”

“But we normally leave at seven forty-five.”

“Why?”

“Traffic.” A white lie, but Dad would never know differently.

Harry pulled his jeans off the back of his desk chair. “Dude.” He nudged Max with his foot. “Wake the fuck up.”

“Harry! Language!”

“Sorry, sorry. Did you talk to Mom last night? Is she okay? How’s she feeling? Did you learn anything else from Katherine? I texted Mom before we went to bed, you know, to say good night, but she didn’t answer.”

“Apparently, your mother has done little but sleep since we saw her.”

“Is that bad?”

“Harry, she’s been heavily sedated.”

“And Mom always says sleep is nature’s cure. So I guess that’s good. Right?”

Dad didn’t answer. “I’m driving straight to the hospital after you boys leave. Do you want me to call the school if there’s any news?”

“Really? You’d do that?”

“Of course I would.”

“You’ll tell me the real truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” Harry paused. “Even if it’s humongously bad?”

“If that’s what you want. Is it?”

Wow. Mom never gave him the option. She saw herself as his personal film editor, passing on truth with bits edited out. “Yeah.” He looked Dad in the eye. “That’s what I want.”

“Fine.” Dad turned to leave. Harry tugged off his pj pants and pulled on his boxers. He hopped into his jeans and followed down the hall. “Uh, Dad, do I get lunch today?”

Dad looked at him like he was an orc. “How the hell should I know?”

“Mom marks it on a calendar in the kitchen. Every other Monday, I get lunch through school. Mexican.”

“Did you have it last Monday?”

Harry shrugged. “Can’t remember.”

“For God’s sake, Harry.” Dad began rifling through the kitchen drawer, the one where Mom kept the really important shit. “The calendar, the calendar,” he was muttering, “where the hell is the calendar? I can’t find it, Harry. Harry, I can’t—”

“Here.” Harry reached past him. “No, I don’t get lunch.”

“Meaning?”

“Can you make me lunch?”

“Lunch, as in—”

“A sandwich?”

“How about a bagel with cream cheese?”

“O
—kay
. Can you fix one for Max, too? And Dad? Maybe you should call school and tell them Max and I will be late. Maybe if you explain about Mom they won’t mark us tardy.”

Dad scowled.
Uh-oh. Oversharing.

“Do you get marked tardy often?”

If he expected Dad to be honest with him, he had to return the favor, even though he was betraying Mom and breaking the let’s-not-tell-Dad code. Mom had been adamant when he’d brought home the warning. It was a total brain blitz, juggling all the things Mom told him to pretend hadn’t happened.
You can tell your dad X, Y, and Z, but not A, B, and C.
Mom had always encouraged him to be himself around everyone except his own father. On what planet did that make sense?

Harry gave a big sigh, nodded. “Don’t be mad at Mom. It’s my fault. That’s why she started waking me up at seven fifteen. I have a hard time getting organized in the mornings. But we’ll get it right tomorrow, Dad. We will.” Mom would be super proud of his positive attitude. She loved the whole glass-half-full thing. And really, finding a positive thought was way easier than the yoga shit she’d tried to force him to master. Who had time to slow down for meditation in a crane pose? Life was way more fun at warp speed.

“Is there anything else you would care to share with me?” Dad reached for the phone.

“I need a permission slip signed for a field trip to Barnes & Noble for AP Lit. And breakfast would be good.” Harry pasted on a smile. “Mom keeps chocolate croissants in the freezer.”

For one whole moment, Harry truly believed Dad’s nostrils flared. “You know what, how about I take care of breakfast?”

“Yes, how about you do just that.”

SIX

Voices hovered beyond her eyelids. A nurse muttered about preventing bedsores and then stuck her with a syringe; Katherine whispered into a cell phone.

Sleep reached out, wrapping her close.

Sit up, Ella. Sit up.

An invisible force—a formless being—pinned her to the hospital bed. Sound shimmered into waves of light; lips moved through soundless words; a ghostly mirage leaned over to kiss her with icy breath.

“Mom?”

“Honey, you okay?” Katherine; it was Katherine’s voice.

“I think I’m hallucinating.”

“Seeing the dead mother again?”

Ella nodded slowly. The only part of her that didn’t ache was her head. She planned to keep it that way.

“Damn, you need to share those drugs,” Katherine said. “How do you feel? Like a gang of Hell’s Angels partied all night in your chest?”

“Pretty much.” Ella stared at the breakfast tray.
When did that arrive?
“Water?”

“On it.” Cradling Ella’s neck, Katherine raised her head and held a plastic cup to her lips.

Ella sipped through the straw, then eased her head back onto the pillow. “Throat like sandpaper. On the positive side, I didn’t croak. If my breath would hold out, we could sing Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive.’”

“That’s my girl.” Katherine packed away her laptop and started winding up the cord.

“Your deadline. God, I’m sorry, Kath.”

“You’re kidding, right? I’ve been on my very own writer’s retreat for the last twelve hours. I should be thanking you.” Katherine smiled. “Felix will be here by nine thirty. Are you still sure you want to meet with the cardiologist alone?”

“Positive. Thanks for covering for me.”

“Hey, what are best friends for, if not to lie to husbands?”

“I owe you.”

“Honey, I owe you a thousand times more.” Katherine picked up her writer’s bag and headed toward the door. “I’m going home to shower and then I’ll be back.”

“Wait. How did Felix sound—when you talked to him last night?”

“Concerned about you, which won’t do him any harm. And Harry’s fine, so no worrying about him. Velcro Max is refusing to leave his side.”

The ringing in Ella’s ears became a thunderous waterfall. She was tumbling into nothingness, falling into rapids. She grabbed the bed rail.

“Should I call the nurse?”

“No.” Ella closed her eyes and visualized the horizon. Nothing was moving; she was not moving.

“I should text Harry. Say good morning.” Ella grappled for her cell phone, and it clattered to the floor.

Katherine dove down to retrieve it. She placed the phone out of reach on the chair. “Harry’s fine. He’s in school with Velcro Max, and you, missy, need to rest and get your strength back. Your mission, should you wish to accept it, and you will, or else”—Katherine raised her eyebrows—“is to focus on no one but yourself. Got it?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ella adjusted the bed so she was sitting up.

“Want me to help you freshen up? I hear the cardiologist is a hottie. Dr. Beau Carlton Beaubridge, what a heroic name.”

“You spent last night eavesdropping by the nurses’ station, didn’t you?”

“I couldn’t help myself. The CCU is fodder for character research. I may have to give my next heroine a heart attack. Okay, I’m outta here. Love ya.” Katherine paused in the doorway to greet the doctor. Not exactly a hottie, but he was good-looking in a bland, predictable way.

“Good morning. May I come in? I’m Dr. Beaubridge, your cardiologist.” He closed the door and moved to her bedside with a confidence that stated,
I own this place.
A young nurse followed in his wake.

“How are you feeling?” He whipped the stethoscope off from around his neck and warmed it on his hand.

“Like I was run over by a freight train,” Ella said. “Possibly a whole battalion of them.”

“Yes, it was a substantial heart attack.”

Dr. Beaubridge began to examine her in efficient silence. When he pulled up her gown to inspect the site of the catheter insertion, she looked toward the nurse.

“Nice work,” he muttered. “Dr. Wilson did this?”

The nurse nodded.

Dr. Beaubridge sat next to the bed and read Ella’s file. Her mind wandered to Harry in his dress-up scrubs, the ones he’d worn to kindergarten every day for a week—until a brute of a five-year-old had ripped them in a playground incident. Calhoun Junior, Cal for short. She’d memorized the names of all of Harry’s bullies.

She would listen and obey; she would do whatever Dr. Beaubridge told her to do so she could get home to Harry. But first, she had to ask the question.

“I have a disjointed memory from the plane. At least, I think it’s a memory, not a nightmare.” Ella stared up at the ceiling tiles, found a focal point, and kept staring, despite the prickling dryness of the air. “My heart stopped and I was shocked back to life. Is that true?”

“Yes.” Dr. Beaubridge rustled papers. “It happened again in the ambulance.”

“My husband won’t be able to handle this. He mustn’t know. Please don’t refer to it if he turns up before you leave.” Dr. Beaubridge had been late; Felix would be early. The chances were high that they would meet.

“There’s no reason why he should know unless you choose to tell him. You’re of sound mind and able to make your own medical decisions. What your husband does or doesn’t know is between the two of you.”

“I need to understand something.” She glanced at the door. Felix could walk in at any time. “Was this incident”—she couldn’t say the words heart attack; they belonged to her mother—“life-threatening?”

“Yes, you dodged a bullet, Ella. The STEMI—or ST segment elevation myocardial infarction—had a proximal location such that the area of the heart muscle provided for by this artery was quite large. Maybe greater than fifty percent of the heart muscle of the left ventricle, which, as you probably know, is the pumping chamber of the heart.”

Ella nodded.

“When the blockage is very proximal—which means before any branches come off that artery—it’s sometimes called a widow-maker lesion. For good reason. A blockage at that site can be high risk.”

Widow-maker, widower-maker.

“But you were also extremely lucky. The plane was close to landing, and you were brought to one of the best heart centers in the country. I’m not sure if anyone has explained this to you, but not every hospital has a cath lab.” He paused. “Now we focus on healing.”

“And I can assure you that I’ll do whatever it takes.” She stopped to catch her breath. “But I also have a high-maintenance family, which means I always need a plan B.”

Her monitor bleeped with a slow, steady rhythm.

“Am I at risk for another one, Doctor?”

“There’s always a possibility, yes, but we’ll teach you how to aggressively manage your risk factors to lower the chance of a recurrence.” He glanced down at the file. “Losing weight isn’t an issue for you. Do you exercise?”

“Every day.”

“Smoke?”

“I quit five years ago.”

“And your cholesterol is fine,” he said with a frown. “I see your mother died of a heart attack at the same age.”

The young nurse coughed.

“Meaning I’m screwed?” Ella said.

“Meaning we can likely blame a genetic condition.”

Ella’s door was the only closed door in the section. Once he opened it, Felix would be a step closer to the truth about her prognosis, to confirming or denying the terrifying statistics he’d gleaned from the Web. He tucked the yellow legal pad under his arm. From now on, he was compiling a written history. He didn’t trust this hospital—inner-city incompetence waiting to happen—and he didn’t trust his own memory to get the details right. Plus he was towing a U-Haul of questions. The cardiologist better be packing answers, because if he didn’t come with a wall of shiny plaques that bragged of his expertise, this man was not going to treat Ella.

Braced for impact with Katherine, Felix opened the door and discovered his wife sitting up in bed. The oxygen mask was gone, replaced by a tube under her nostrils, and she was chatting to a blond, blue-eyed, all-American male doctor. A young nurse stood behind him.

“Felix—” Ella blushed as if he’d caught her red-handed. “This is my cardiologist.”

“Beau Carlton Beaubridge.” The doctor rose, shook his hand, sat back down.

Felix flicked the “Mute” button on his phone. “I’m sorry if I’m late, but I was under the impression that you were due at nine thirty.”

Dr. Beaubridge frowned. “I was explaining to your wife that it was a substantial infarct.”

“A fart?” Felix said. Clearly, this man was not qualified to treat his wife.

“A myocardial infarction, or MI. A heart attack to Joe Blow.”

Did he, an Oxford man, look like a Joe Blow? Felix flexed his fingers.

“I was also explaining that the angioplasty was successful.” Dr. Beaubridge checked his pager. Really, the man could have been discussing a picnic in the Hundred Acre Wood.

“Can she be transferred to Duke or Memorial?” Felix asked.
Can I confiscate your pager?

“Felix, I’m not changing hospitals.”

“Ella, please. Let me handle this. You need the best care available.”

A muscle twitched in the doctor’s neck. “If Ella wants to move, that’s her prerogative, but if you’re concerned about the level of care, I can assure you that Raleigh Regional has the leading heart center in the state. I myself transferred here from Duke. Your wife is in excellent hands, Mr.—”

“Felix,” Ella said.

“Fitzwilliam,” Felix added. “Her prognosis?”

“Your wife is relatively stable at this point, Mr. Fitzwilliam, but she’s still in critical condition. A normally functioning heart ejects about sixty percent of the blood in the pumping chamber with each contraction. Ella’s heart is operating at thirty percent. You see—” Dr. Beaubridge swung his chair round and pulled a small pad and a pen from his pocket. “The heart muscle provided for by the blocked artery lost its blood supply for a period of time.” He began drawing a diagram. Really? Did Felix look like someone who needed visual aids?

“By the time the blockage was opened up with the stent, the damage had already been done. That heart muscle may recover in time; it may not. Obviously, we hope for the former.”

“Yes, I did my Internet research last night.” Felix scowled. “Did your staff not get her to the cath lab quickly enough? Was the door-to-balloon time not up to par?”

Dr. Beaubridge exchanged a glance with the nurse. “We don’t advise Internet research. In our experience, it generates misinformation and unnecessary distress. Door-to-balloon time, for example, is no longer relevant. These days we work directly with the EMS. They faxed us your wife’s EKG from the ambulance, and it revealed ST elevation. Since timing was an issue, we couldn’t treat her with thrombolytics—superstrong blood thinners—so my colleague arranged for her to go straight to the cath lab.”

Dr. Beaubridge resumed his kindergarten sketch, this time angled toward Ella. “Your artery here got blocked, so we unblocked it with a stent, a small tube placed across the blockage. That opened up everything so blood could flow to the heart muscle again.” He drew something that looked like a bridge, then pulled back to admire his artwork. “Dr. Wilson, who treated you yesterday, managed to get a good look at the rest of the coronary arteries, and you do have severe blockages elsewhere. We’ll deal with those later, after the heart has healed some—”

“Why didn’t he deal with the other blockages yesterday?” Felix said.

“We need to do things step by step in an acute setting.” Dr. Beaubridge paused. “Outcomes are worse if we try to fix all the blockages at the time of the initial heart attack.”

“No open-heart surgery?”

“Not at the moment, no. The muscle is too compromised.”

“Compromised?”

“Mushy.”

More Joe Blow definitions?

“But it is likely that Ella could return after a recovery period of one to four weeks for a subsequent cardiac catheterization. Our goal right now is to stabilize Ella’s condition, and start her on medication that will take the load off her heart and enable her to breathe more easily.”

Something attached to Ella bleeped.

The doctor slapped his knees and stood. “We’ll educate you about managing your risk factors, Ella, and when we’re convinced you can handle basic self-care, you can recuperate at home. We’ll treat you with a statin to lower cholesterol—”

“My wife has high cholesterol?”

“No, but we need levels below normal. Less than seventy. And you’ll need a beta blocker, Ella, and Plavix to prevent clots from forming at the site of the stent. Plus aspirin. And we’ll refer you to a cardiac rehab program several weeks after discharge. No driving for a while.” Dr. Beaubridge checked his pager again. “You’ll probably be back to work in three to six weeks. Resume sexual relations in about four.”

“It could be six weeks before she can return to work?” Felix said.

“Is that a problem?”

“Yes,” Ella said quietly.

“What is it that you do?”

“I’m a stay-at-home mom.”

“Well, I’m sure friends and family can help out.”

I’m sure they can’t.

Ella gazed up at the ceiling. She didn’t move; she didn’t make a sound. And Felix knew what she was thinking, because he was thinking it, too.
Life will never be the same again.