Delirious (12 page)

The reality of her stroke was just beginning to set in. He wanted to ask a doctor standing beside him how a woman in such excellent health could have suffered a stroke, but he refrained. He didn’t know exactly what caused a stroke. What he did know was that his mother was the least likely candidate for one. Her refrigerator was a
Prevention
magazine poster child for wholesomeness. If food at the grocery store was stocked on a shelf even near a trans fat, she’d think twice before buying it. She walked five miles a day, in part because walking was less stressful on the joints than running. She, like Charlie, shared a constitution that most Americans would buy on eBay for a good part of their 401(k) if they could.

The years hadn’t been easy for his mother. As the elevator ascended, he took some comfort in that fact. If anything, she was stronger than most women half her age. She would pull through this just fine, he assured himself. After all, she had survived a philandering, mentally ill husband who’d snuck out of the house with only a note good-bye, then single-handedly raised both her sons to be independent and self-reliant. That was, at least, until Joe got sick. If anything, the years spent caring for Joe had made her stronger, not weaker.

The doors opened on seven, and Charlie exited alone. Two large glass doors secured access to the ICU. Through the glass Charlie could see inside. The floor was bright blue linoleum. Nurses and doctors raced about, but none took notice of him. Charlie buzzed the intercom outside and waited.

A few seconds later a nurse answered. “Can I help you?”

“Alison Giles?” he asked.

“She’s here,” the nurse said. “Are you family?”

“I’m her son,” he said.

There was a brief pause and then a buzz. Charlie opened the door and stepped inside. The lights in the ICU were less diffused than in any other part of the hospital. In the center of the floor was the nurses’ station. It was a large open space cluttered with monitors and an array of computers, separated from the main floor by a wide
hexagonal counter. Charlie couldn’t help but take notice of the ICU’s technical sophistication. From that observation alone, he was certain his mother was in the best possible hands.

Along the perimeter wall were the patient rooms. They were spacious cubicles with sliding glass doors for privacy, a dozen or so. He was prepared to check them all when a nurse approached him.

“Who are you looking for?” she asked.

“Alison Giles,” Charlie said. “Someone buzzed me in and—”

She held up her hand to stop him. She pointed to a corner room. “She’s in seven-oh-six A.” She turned and left without another word.

Charlie quickened his pace as he drew closer. Through the glass doors of 706A he could see that his brother, Joe, was inside. Joe was seated by his mother’s bedside.

It wasn’t until he stepped into the room and saw his mother for the first time that the gravity of the situation became real. A large mask covered her mouth. He assumed it was delivering oxygen. His mother’s normally porcelain skin was ashen and sagging. There was a red mark on her cheek. Had she fallen when she had her stroke?

Her eyes were closed and surrounded by dark, haunting circles. It was difficult to reconcile the woman lying on the bed with the vivacious and spirited woman he knew. But it was her. She was still his mother.

The mark on her cheek was the only indication that she was gravely ill. Her gray hair, which she refused to dye, was tousled. Charlie’s first instinct was to straighten it out. The appearance of control and put-togetherness would be something she would want for herself, no matter her condition. She always kept the house immaculate, her clothes perfectly wrinkle free. She never let anyone know how hard life had become for her. Not in words or in appearance. It was her way, Charlie assumed, of confronting and controlling circumstances that were beyond her control.

He walked around the bed and stood on the other side, facing his brother. He used his hand to straighten his mother’s hair. There was no television set in her room. Only monitors, IV drips, and several machines that dispensed medicine.

“Joe, what’s going on?” Charlie asked.

Joe didn’t bother to look up. He hadn’t acknowledged that Charlie had even entered the room. Joe kept his gaze fixed to the floor while he held his mother’s hand. He kept muttering, “I’m holding Mom’s hand. I’m stroking her hand. I’m holding her hand. Now I’m stroking it.”

“Joe, what is going on?” Charlie asked again. He could hear the patience in his voice fast fading.

At last Joe looked up at Charlie. Joe’s eyes were red from crying, his plump cheeks streaked and splotched. He was dressed in a short-sleeved white button-down shirt that was sprinkled with food stains. He barely fit into the small green vinyl armchair by the side of the bed. With his free hand he ran his fingers through his bushy, curly hair, brushing it away from his reddened eyes. Then he wiped at his running nose with the back of his hand.

“Joe!” Charlie shouted. “What’s going on with Mom? What have the doctors told you?”

His brother stopped muttering and let go of their mother’s hand. He gave Charlie a doleful, bewildered stare.

“What is going on with Mom?” Charlie asked again. He made no effort to hide his irritation. “Where is the doctor?”

“Hi to you, too,” Joe said. “And no, I’m not having a good day. Thanks for asking.” Joe went back to holding his mother’s hand and talking to himself.

Charlie took a deep breath. This was familiar.
You know how to handle this. It’s the stress, that’s all.
There were plenty of nurses around for Charlie to speak with. He could easily leave to find somebody capable of giving him the answers, but he felt obligated to hear the news from family first.

“Joe, I’m sorry,” Charlie said, softening his tone. “I know this is difficult for you. It’s hard for me, too. But I’m in the dark here. Please. Tell me what’s going on with Mom.”

Joe looked up at his brother. His expression changed, as though Charlie’s arrival was a blessing and source of strength.

“Mom’s not lost to us, Charlie,” Joe said. “She suffered a massive stroke. She can’t talk. She can’t move. The doctors don’t know when or if she’ll come to. I’ve just been sitting here holding her hand. It was awful. I came downstairs for breakfast, and she was passed out
on the kitchen floor.” Joe breathed in deeply, trying his best to hold his composure. He took a few shorter breaths, but there was no way he could stifle his tears. “I didn’t know what to do,” Joe blurted out between sobs. “I called nine-one-one, and then I called you.”

“It’s going to be all right, Joe,” Charlie said. “Mom’s going to pull through this fine.”

“And what if she’s not fine?” Joe shouted as he stood up. His fierceness made Charlie extremely uncomfortable. At six foot four, 245 pounds, Joe could destroy the room in seconds if he went into a rage.

“I know you need her, Joe. I know that this is very hard for you,” Charlie said.

“You don’t know that!” Joe cried. “You don’t know anything! I can’t make it without her, Charlie. I’ll die without her! I don’t know what I’ll do. She’s all I have.”

Charlie stepped around behind Joe. He rested both hands on his brother’s massive shoulders. Everything Charlie did next was pure instinct. First was getting Joe to sit down; then it was having him focus on a sound—a machine beeping in the room. After a few minutes Joe started to calm down.

It was all ingrained in Charlie from years of living with him. He never forgot the lessons his mother had reinforced.
Help him to find a reality he can relate to. Remind him of his routines. Help him get grounded again.

“Listen, Joe. Mom’s going to pull through, and you’re going to help her. And when she comes through, everything will return to the way it was. What was she doing for you before all this happened? You said she was making you breakfast? What were you going to have?”

“Eggs and bacon,” Joe said, taking deep breaths.

It was working, Charlie thought.

Joe began to regain his composure. “Mom always makes me eggs and bacon on Tuesday.”

Charlie shook his head as if he’d been slapped.
Tuesday? It can’t be.
He braced himself against the back of the armchair. Given everything that had already happened today, Charlie wasn’t certain he’d be able to remain calm. He had to remember that this wasn’t entirely Joe’s fault. His brother had a disease.

“Joe,” Charlie said, doing his best to disguise his rising anger, “you said Mom had a stroke after breakfast. That you came down, saw her on the floor, and then you called nine-one-one.”

“Yeah.”

“And then you said that Mom makes you eggs and bacon on Tuesday. Right? Tuesday. But it’s not Tuesday today, Joe. Today is Thursday.”

“Yeah. That’s right. It’s Thursday. I was supposed to meet with Rachel this morning. I knew that. But I was here with Mom instead.”

“But I talked to you on Tuesday, Joe. You didn’t say anything about Mom.”

Charlie felt a chill rip through him as his chest began tightening. He recalled with clarity his last phone conversation with Joe, hours before he met Rachel Evans at Walderman. At the end of their conversation Joe had asked, “Are you going to come visit Mom?” At the time Charlie had assumed Joe meant a visit to the Waltham house. Now he feared he understood the real significance of Joe’s question. Charlie could only pray his suspicions weren’t true.

“Joe, listen to me carefully,” Charlie continued. “I need to understand something.”

“Okay.”

“Did Mom make you eggs and bacon today, Joe? Please, please tell me that she did.”

“No,” Joe said.

Charlie’s knuckles whitened as he clenched the back of the armchair. “Joe, please tell me, how long has Mom been in the hospital?”

“Two days now,” Joe said without emotion. Then Joe took his mother’s hand back in his.

“Why didn’t you call me!” Charlie said.

“I did call, Charlie. I’m not sure exactly when, but I think I called you right away. We talked a while about it. But when you didn’t show up for a few days, I called you again and left you a message. I’m glad you’re here, Charlie. Mom is, too. I can tell.”

Had Joe called him? Charlie asked himself. Given that he had no memory of writing those notes to himself, was it possible he had forgot Joe’s call as well? Possible, but unlikely, he decided.

Charlie closed his eyes to block out all distraction. He kept pushing
deeper into the recesses of his mind, searching for any memory of that call. None came. Losing focus, defeated, Charlie listened to his brother as he comforted their mother, softly muttering, “I’m holding Mom’s hand. I’m stroking her hand. I’m holding her hand. Now I’m stroking it.”

T
here was constant foot traffic in and out of Alison Giles’s hospital cubicle. Until now Charlie had seen only one shift change, but that was enough proof for him—his brother, Joe, was on a first-name basis with every nurse on the floor. Without fail, every time a nurse came in to check on Alison’s condition, they would first go over to Joe. With sympathy in their eyes, they would ask how he was holding up and if he needed anything. He’d always say fine and no, but Charlie could see the delight in Joe’s face when they asked.

Charlie wished that a nurse were in the room with them now. It was also clear to him that the doctor in with them now wasn’t going to be able to talk any sense into Joe.

“You’ve been here two days already and home only once,” Charlie said. “You need some rest, too, you know.” He took off his glasses and rubbed at his eyes.

“I’m not going anywhere if she might wake up,” Joe said. “Is she going to wake up?”

Charlie sighed. He looked to the doctor, who offered only a slight shrug. It was as if he were saying, “He’s your brother. You deal with it.”

“Joe, nobody knows for sure. You’ve been told that a hundred times,” Charlie said. “You can’t go on living in the waiting room until she does. You need to get some real rest.”

“And someone needs to be here for Mom when she wakes up,” Joe said.

Charlie turned back to the doctor. “Tell him again,” he said. “Is she going to wake up tonight?”

Dr. Stan Abrahams looked down at his pager while he spoke. His long, slender fingers worked his keypad as he typed his message. This was Joe’s third go-around with the same exact questions. By the impatient look on Abrahams’s face, Charlie suspected the doctor wouldn’t be sticking around for a fourth.

“It’s unlikely that she will wake,” Abrahams said. “As I’ve said, your mother experienced something called hypertensive encephalopathy with brain swelling and, as a consequence, suffered multiple is-chemic strokes. I’m sorry to say that she is in a near-vegetative state.”

The rhythmic drone of Alison Giles’s ventilator seemed suddenly louder to Charlie. Maybe it did to Joe as well, because he looked over at her ventilator, too. Several bags of IV fluids circled her bed, and tubes seemed to flow from her in every direction. Charlie touched his mother’s arm. Then he reached across her lap and took her thin, frail hand in his. Her skin felt cold, clammy to the touch—perhaps without the constant rhythm of the ventilator he might even think lifeless. How many times had she bandaged his skinned knee or cheered for him from the sidelines of his soccer games? All the gratitude, love, and admiration he felt for her at that moment was soured by the specter of regret that she might never hear him say “I love you” again.

“Is there anything we can do to help her?” Charlie asked.

“Just being with her. Talk to her, though research on that is inconclusive. The good news is we didn’t see any other life-threatening processes, such as a hematoma or abscess,” said Abrahams. “Though she had extensive hemorrhaging, which isn’t common in patients with kidney failure, and which we believe contributed to her hypertensive encephalopathy. We’re treating that with platelets and vitamin K IV drips. It seems to be helping to stop the bleeding and protect other organs from failing. We are looking into what’s causing the hemorrhaging, but I do have to remind you, we believe chances for her recovery are very slim. She may partially come out of the coma, but she will be severely injured. Do you understand?”