The Hummingbird (25 page)

Of course I would make no such request now. We were weeks past anything like that. Merely asking would amplify how my life was healthy and his was waning. I hurried down the winding shore road. The time for pleasures like swimming had long passed.

HE WAS YELLING
the moment I opened the front door.

“Nurse Birch. Nurse
Birch
.”

I came running.

The Professor had raised his bed’s upper half as far as it would go. His face was as white as a fish’s belly. “Did you mail it? Is the letter gone?”

“Are you all right? What’s the matter?”

“I’m fine, if you did as I asked.”

“Yes, of course.” I pressed a hand flat on my chest. “You scared me.”

“Don’t be a weakling. I’m fine.” He coughed, just once, but hard. “You did indeed mail the letter?”

“I just said yes.”

He looked at me sideways, eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I do, Nurse Birch. To a point.”

“Professor.” Collecting my wits, I stepped up beside the bed. “You don’t have to trust me. It’s OK because I know that despite mistakes I’ve made here, I have behaved in a consistent and trustworthy manner. So if you have doubts, they are about you, and I’m not taking them on.”

“Blast it all, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“The letter to your daughter went in the blue collection box outside the Lake Oswego post office. A sign said the box is emptied at 4:30, so I was in time for today’s mail. That is the truth, whether you trust me or not.”

Barclay Reed bowed his head like a child being scolded. After a moment he raised his eyes and read my face. “You have something you wish to add.”

“I do. That letter wasn’t true, was it?”

He took the controller and leaned his bed back a few degrees. He tugged at the white tuft of hair on his brow. He sniffed and sighed.

“Righteousness is my daughter’s power,” he said. “She needed it, growing up with an overbearing father, and a mother so subservient it drove everyone to frustration.”

I could feel a lecture beginning. They’d become rarer, so I was ready to pay attention and have my question answered later. Of all the patients in my experience, Barclay Reed was the one for whom listening mattered most.

He raised his eyes, staring at the blank of the switched-off TV. “Shinju was Japanese. We met during my Fulbright. Her name means ‘pearl.’ She was extremely intelligent, attractive in a modest fashion, and regrettably lacking in confidence. It was winsome, in the quiet way of humility. I reasoned that moving to America would diminish her disposition toward female servitude. I miscalculated—as does anyone who expects marriage to solve a relationship problem rather than exacerbate it. Shinju could not choose which movie to watch, what to eat, where to vacation, anything. She elected not to have a will, not to express personhood at all, despite the increasingly vocal urgings of her husband.”

He picked at the blanket. “When she developed heart disease, it was the same. Concealed for fear of inconveniencing me. Did you know that heart disease affects more women than men?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Yes, you would. At any rate, a heart attack took her. At a supermarket on Boone’s Ferry Road. She was juggling grocery bags, but in adherence to her beliefs, she stepped aside for some man in a hurry, and the weight was too much for her. She was young. Only forty-one.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. “But D told me . . .”

He raised his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“D called you her mother’s murderer.”

“Did she indeed?” Barclay Reed sucked in a huge breath. He rubbed his face with both hands, then kept them over his eyes as though he were a hiding toddler. Finally he let his arms fall. “Perhaps I oversimplified.”

“If there’s something you need to get off your conscience, Professor, now might be an excellent time.”

“Oh, it’s not even approximately as you suppose. I only meant that I implied her life ended there in the parking lot. Dramatic license, et cetera.” With one finger, he began making figure eights on the blanket beside his leg. “In point of fact, an ambulance arrived in minutes, and emergency workers revived her. The police notified me, I collected Deirdre from school, and we rushed ourselves to Providence Portland Medical Center. A nurse led us into Shinju’s ICU room. I feel it no weakness to confess that the array of machinery was intimidating.”

I nodded. “Naturally.”

“Moments after the nurse departed, various devices began beeping, an alert sounded on the intercom, and a team of men and women charged in as we backed out of their way.” His finger stopped doodling and he closed his eyes. “There are few things I would wish to unsee from my life. But those next moments left images that will never heal.”

“The team coded her.”

“Precisely.” He opened his eyes. “They pumped her chest brutally. They shocked her heart with those paddles. They lifted the hospital gown and spread her legs wide, modesty be damned.” He poked the air with an imaginary syringe. “They jabbed needles repeatedly into her thighs.”

I had heard countless stories like this. I had even experienced a few during my training. Coding teams had a sincere desire to save the patient, but I knew how gruesome it could be for the family.

“The needles I can explain,” I said. “They wanted to give her adrenaline. When the heart’s not pumping, there’s no blood pressure, so veins and arteries lie flat. They were trying to hit one that would take the injection.”

The Professor swallowed noisily. “Someone might have informed us. Instead we witnessed this ongoing violence, stupefied, until one of the men in scrubs glanced over his shoulder, realized Deirdre’s presence and mine, and bellowed, ‘What the hell are they doing in here? Get them out.’ ”

“Ouch.”

“Indeed. Though the hallway was little better.”

“You could still hear?”

“Everything. Particularly their tone when they had succeeded. One might expect a note of triumph once Shinju’s heart beat again, whereas I discerned a clear disappointment. Someone asked how long she had been arrested, and when the answer of six minutes came back, someone else told a Dr. Bronsky it was time to have ‘the talk.’ ”

“What in the world is ‘the talk’?”

“You’re the medical professional. I assumed that you would know.”

“I have no idea. It sounds like telling a kid about sex.”

He waved me off. “I learned soon enough as a young man strode up to us, looking as earnest and bright as a new penny. I asked if he was the physician in charge. He allowed that he was a mere resident. Nonetheless, it was his duty to report that Shinju’s heart was failing. Compromised blood flow, diminished electrical self-control, without doubt it would continue to arrest. They could restart her heart as many times as we wished, but each episode incurred brain damage, and brought no greater likelihood of recovery. ‘Plus,’ he felt compelled to add, ‘it is not a gentle intervention.’ ”

I couldn’t help butting in. “At least they didn’t crack her chest and perform manual massage.”

“They might have, given the opportunity. In fact Shinju’s heart arrested again as we were speaking. Alarm alarm, everyone rushes back in, and Deirdre and I listen while the whole process completes another iteration.”

“Why didn’t someone move you away? You shouldn’t have had to endure—”

“Nurse Birch.” Barclay Reed frowned. “Need I remind you that we are discussing intensive care? In such units, the patient’s family does not exist.”

“Someone in there sent Bronsky to talk to you.”

“True. He returned as well, after another six-minute success. He asked whether we wished for them to continue to respond, or would we rather let nature take its course. I must say, I found that expression artfully put. Nature in command, rather than the Grim Reaper.”

“What did you decide?”

“There was no decision. Why continue to torture her body, knowing my pearl would never recover? Deirdre cried that I was giving up, I must not love her, how could I, et cetera. They sat us in an adjacent waiting room that resembled the inside of a mausoleum. Some minutes later, Shinju’s heart stopped once more. Dr. Bronsky entered her room and read the time aloud to a nurse taking notes, 6:46 in the evening. Meanwhile I held Deirdre, who thrashed and flailed, screaming that I had killed her mother.” He turned his face away. “She was only thirteen.”

“That certainly explains why you’ve insisted on hospice. And how you became a murderer in D’s eyes. But what about the kitchen photos? She called them evidence.”

“A touchy subject.” The Professor glanced at me, as if to confirm that I was listening, and then away. He tucked the blanket snugly around himself. “I am at peace with my actions at the hospital. My guilt feelings, though copious, had other causes. Marrying Shinju removed her from a culture in which her notions about gender and power may have been accepted, appreciated, perhaps even admired. Under the weight of that culpability, I could not bear my wife staring down at me during meals. Nor, I might add, eat out of bowls she had made. When I removed the photographs, my daughter saw only additional betrayal. She asked to go away to preparatory school in New England. I granted her wish. Aside from briefly at holidays, she never truly returned.”

“Your intake papers explicitly said you had no surviving family.”

“Not because I was disowning Deirdre. She had disowned me. Regardless, the information I provided your intake nurse was indeed falsehood.”

“It makes a difference,” I said. “Legally.”

“Ah.” For a fraction of a second, his eyes met mine. “I apologize.”

Who was I to sit in judgment? I who would be alive next month? “Accepted, Professor. Of course.”

“What a day. First my daughter, then you. Two apologies in one afternoon. A tragedy.” He shook his head. “I must really be on my way out.”

The Professor’s eyes were glistening, but I saw the slightest hint of a grin. He motioned to the reading chair. I sat, taking the black binder, but not opening it yet. “What about that letter?”

“Yes, well.” He chose one of his remotes, turning on a television but muting the sound. “Blount was ambitious, with legitimate scholarly potential. But compare: He spent two semesters in Japan, whereas I lived in Kyoto for three years. He had read about Japanese culture, while I was married to a Japanese woman. He was twenty-seven years old, but I had been publishing on the Pacific war for thirty-six years. What findings could he possibly possess that I would stoop to stealing?”

“So your last words to your daughter are words of deceit?”

“I told Deirdre a tale to make it easier for her to forgive.” The Professor fixed me with his gaze. “What your husband would call a loving lie.”

He had me, the old coot. Yet even as I stood there, admiring his calculating ways, the man deflated before my eyes. The battle of wits with Deirdre, the letter, the story of Shinju, all of it had required his last drop of stamina. Barclay Reed’s shoulders drooped, and his face went slack.

“Professor,” I said. “Did you just surrender your sword?”

He ran a tongue over dry lips. He needed a swab, but I waited till he finished what he had to say. Finally he lifted his head and gave a wan smile. “
Shouri.
”

WE SAT IN SILENCE FOR HOURS.
From time to time he would tweak his tuft of hair. When he dozed, I stretched my legs. I was exhausted too. Yet the day was not dull. It felt meditative. Respectful. For once, we were enough.

Late in the afternoon I realized that he had been scratching his chin. I came to his side. “Would you like me to shave you today?”

“Nurse Birch.” He swallowed audibly. “I am afraid I do not have the energy to leave this bed.”

“You don’t need to. Just wait there.”

By now I knew the man’s face. His cheekbones were not quite symmetrical. His chin was difficult to get completely smooth. The rest of it—warm water, soft cream, the quiet scratch of the razor—felt so familiar it was intimate.

The Professor was quiet this time, no banter, simply allowing his senses to experience what it is to be shaved by someone, the close attention, the care not to cause hurt. I didn’t clutter the air with words, and I was careful not to spill one drop of water on his sheets. He stretched his jaw forward, making it easier to shave his neck.

Afterward I used a fresh towel to wipe and dry his face. There was no way to do that without its becoming a caress, but neither of us objected.

Barclay Reed lay there blinking at me. It was a companionable silence. I had been sitting on the bed, but now I straightened and collected the shaving things. Everything felt wonderfully tender.

“Wasn’t I a handsome man?” he said at last.

I snapped the towel in his direction. “You devil.”

He ran a palm over his face. “Wasn’t I, though?”

DRIVING DOWN THE ROAD TO OUR HOUSE,
I spied Michael digging in the trash. There’s no other way to describe it, given how he jumped at the sight of me, slammed the lid on the garbage can, and hurried back by the screen door.

“Sweetheart, how are you?” I called, getting out of the car.

Michael shook his head as if to clear it. “Hey, Deb. How was your day?”

“Everything OK?”

“Fine,” he said. “Splendid.”

Splendid? I had never heard him use that word before. Michael crossed his arms and grinned at me. It seemed almost as if he was acting.

I could not help it. I started toward the trash can. “Looking for something?”

“Nope.” Michael hurried to get there before I did. “Just bringing some stuff up from the basement. You know, cleaning around where I work out.”

“Was there trash down there? I didn’t know that.”

“Lots. Look.” He took the lid off. The top third of the can was filled with papers, his pages of drawings, the faces.

I picked up a handful. “Why didn’t you put these in the recycling?”

“Don’t know.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “I guess I didn’t want anyone to see them.”

“Oh.”

“But you’re right. About the recycling, I mean.” He snatched the pages from my hand, and tossed them in the bin behind the trash.

He was behaving so oddly. “Michael, is there anything you want to share with me about those people?”