The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: A Novel (17 page)

Christmas brings A.J.’s mother, who looks nothing like him. Paula is a tiny white woman with long gray hair that has not been cut since she retired from her job at a computer company a decade ago. She has made the most of her retirement in Arizona. She makes jewelry out of rocks that she paints. She teaches literacy to inmates. She rescues Siberian huskies. She tries to go to a different restaurant every week. She dates some—women and men. She has slipped into bisexuality without needing to make a big thing about it. She is seventy, and she believes you try new things or you may as well die. She comes bearing three identically wrapped and shaped presents for the family and a promise that it isn’t thoughtlessness that has led her to pick the same gift for the three of them. “It’s something I thought the whole family would appreciate and use,” she says.

Maya knows what it is before she’s even through the paper.

She’s seen them at school. Almost everyone seems to have one these days, but her dad doesn’t approve. She slows down her unwrapping speed to allow herself time to figure out the response that will least offend both her grandmother and her father.

“An e-reader! I’ve wanted one for a really long time.” She shoots a quick look over to her father. He nods, though his eyebrow is twitching slightly. “Thanks, Nana.” Maya kisses her grandmother on the cheek.

“Thank you, Mother Fikry,” says Amelia. She already has an e-reader for work, but she keeps this information to herself.

As soon as he sees what it is, A.J. decides to stop unwrapping the present. If he keeps it in the paper, perhaps it can be given to someone else. “Thank you, Mother,” A.J. says, and then he bites his tongue.

“A.J., you have a moue,” his mother notes.

“I don’t,” he insists.

“You must keep up with the times,” she continues.

“Why must I? What is so great about the times?” A.J. has often reflected that, bit by bit, all the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat. First, it had been the record stores, and then the video stores, and then newspapers and magazines, and now even the big chain bookstores were disappearing everywhere you looked. From his point of view, the only thing worse than a world with big chain bookstores was a world with NO big chain bookstores. At least the big stores sell books and not pharmaceuticals or lumber! At least some of the people who work at those stores have degrees in English literature and know how to read and curate books for people! At least the big stores can sell ten thousand units of publisher’s dreck so that Island gets to sell one hundred units of literary fiction!

“The easiest way to get old is to be technologically behind, A.J.” After twenty-five years in computers, his mother had come away with a respectable pension and this one opinion, A.J. thinks uncharitably.

A.J. takes a deep breath, a long drink of water, another deep breath. His brain feels tight against his skull. His mother visits rarely, and he doesn’t want to spoil their time together.

“Dad, you’re turning a bit red,” Maya says.

“A.J., are you unwell?” his mother asks.

He puts his fist down on the coffee table. “Mother, do you even understand that that infernal device is not only going to single-handedly destroy my business but, worse than that, send centuries of a vibrant literary culture into what will surely be an unceremonious and rapid decline?” A.J. asks.

“You’re being dramatic,” Amelia says. “Calm down.”

“Why should I calm down? I do not like the present. I do not like that thing and certainly not three of that thing in my house. I would rather you have bought my daughter something less destructive like a crack pipe.”

Maya giggles.

A.J.’s mother looks like she might cry. “Well, I certainly didn’t want to make anyone upset.”

“It’s fine,” Amelia says. “It’s a lovely gift. We all love to read, and I’m sure we’ll enjoy using them very much. Besides, A.J. really is being dramatic.”

“I’m sorry, A.J.,” his mother says. “I didn’t know you’d have such strong feelings about the matter.”

“You could have asked!”

“Shut up, A.J. Stop apologizing, Mother Fikry,” Amelia says. “It’s the
perfect
gift for a family of readers. Lots of bookstores are figuring out ways to sell e-books along with conventional paper books. A.J. just doesn’t want to—”

A.J. interrupts. “You know that’s bullshit, Amy!”

“You are being so rude,” Amelia says. “You can’t put your head in the sand and act like e-readers don’t exist. That’s no way to deal with anything.”

“Do you smell smoke?” Maya asks.

A second later, the fire alarm goes off.

“Oh hell!” Amelia says. “The brisket!” She runs into the kitchen, and A.J. follows her. “I had my phone set to go off, but it didn’t.”

“I put your phone on silent so that it wouldn’t
ruin Christmas
!” A.J. says.

“You what? Stop touching my phone.”

“Why not use the timer that came with the oven?”

“Because I DO NOT TRUST IT! That oven is about one hundred years old like everything else in this house if you haven’t noticed.” Amelia yells as she removes the flaming brisket from the oven.

AS THE BRISKET
is ruined, Christmas dinner consists entirely of side dishes.

“I like the sides the best,” A.J.’s mother says.

“Me too,” Maya says.

“No substance,” A.J. mutters. “They leave you hungry.” He has a headache, which he does no favors by drinking several glasses of red wine.

“Would someone ask A.J. to pass the wine?” Amelia says. “And would someone tell A.J. he is hogging the bottle?”

“Very mature,” A.J. says. He pours her another glass.

“I honestly can’t wait to try it out, Nana,” Maya whispers to her stricken grandmother. “I’m going to wait until I go to bed.” She darts her eyes toward A.J. “
You know
.”

“I think that’s a very good idea,” A.J.’s mother whispers back.

THAT NIGHT
IN
BED
, A.J. is still talking about the e-reader. “Do you know the real problem with that contraption?”

“I suppose you are about to tell me,” Amelia says without looking up from her paper book.

“Everyone thinks they have good taste, but most people do not have good taste. In fact, I’d argue that most people have terrible taste. When left to their own devices— literally their own devices—they read crap and they don’t know the difference.”

“Do you know what the good thing about e-readers is?” Amelia asks.

“No, Madame Bright Side,” A.J. says. “And I don’t want to.”

“Well, for those of us with husbands who are growing farsighted, and I’m not going to mention any names here. For those of us with husbands who are rapidly becoming middle-aged and losing their vision. For those of us burdened by pathetic half men for spouses—”

“Get to it, Amy!”

“An e-reader allows these cursed creatures to enlarge the text as much as they’d like.”

A.J. says nothing.

Amelia sets down her book to smile smugly at her husband, but when she looks over the man is frozen. A.J. is having one of his episodes. The episodes trouble Amelia, though she reminds herself not to be worried.

A minute and a half later, A.J. comes to. “I’ve always been a bit farsighted,” he says. “It’s not about being middle-aged.”

She wipes the spittle from the corners of his mouth with a Kleenex.

“Christ, did I just black out?” A.J. asks.

“You did.”

He grabs the tissue from Amelia. He is not the type of man who likes being tended to in this way. “How long?”

“About ninety seconds, I’d guess.” Amelia pauses. “Is that long or average?”

“Maybe a bit long but basically average.”

“Do you think you should go in for a checkup?”

“No,” A.J. says. “You know I’ve had these since I was a chive.”

“A chive?” she asks.

“A child. What did I say?” A.J. gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom, and Amelia follows him. “Please, Amy. A little space.”

“I don’t want to give you space,” she says.

“Fine.”

“I want you to go to the doctor. That’s three of these since Thanksgiving.”

A.J. shakes his head. “My health insurance is crap, Amy darling. And Dr. Rosen will say it’s the same thing I’ve had for years anyway. I’ll go see the doctor in March for my annual like I always do.”

Amelia goes into the bathroom. “Maybe Dr. Rosen can give you a new medication?” She squeezes between him and the bathroom mirror, resting her generous bum on the new double-sink counter that they installed last month. “You are very important, A.J.”

“I’m not exactly the president,” he retorts.

“You are the father of Maya. And the love of my life. And a purveyor of culture to this community.”

A.J. rolls his eyes, then he kisses Amelia the bright-sider on the mouth.

CHRISTMAS AND NEW
Year’s are over; his mother is happily returned to Arizona; Maya is back to school and Amelia to work. The real gift of the holiday season, A.J. thinks, is that it ends. He likes the routine. He likes making breakfast in the morning. He likes running to work.

He puts on his running clothes, does a few halfhearted stretches, throws a headband over his ears, straps on his backpack, and prepares to run to the store. Now that he no longer lives above the store, his route takes him in the opposite direction of the one he used to take when Nic was alive, when Maya was a baby, in the first years of his marriage to Amelia.

He runs past Ismay’s house, which she once shared with Daniel and now shares improbably with Lambiase. He runs past the spot where Daniel died, too. He runs past the old dance studio. What was the dance teacher’s name? He knows she moved to California not too long ago, and the dance studio is empty. He wonders who will teach the little girls of Alice Island to dance? He runs past Maya’s elementary school and past her junior high and past her high school.
High school.
She has a boyfriend. The Furness boy is a writer. He hears them arguing all the time. He takes a shortcut through a field, and is almost through it to Captain Wiggins Street when he blacks out.

It is twenty-two degrees out, and when he wakes his hand is blue where it had rested on the ice.

He stands and warms his hands on his jacket. He has never passed out in the middle of a run before.

“Madame Olenska,” he says.

DR. ROSEN GIVES
him a full examination. A.J. is in good health for his age, but there’s something strange about his eyes that gives the doctor pause.

“Have you had any other problems?” she asks.

“Well . . . Perhaps it’s just growing older, but lately I seem to have a verbal glitch every now and again.”

“Glitch?” she says.

“I catch myself. It’s not that bad. But I occasionally switch a word with another word.
Child
for
chive,
for example. Or last week I called
The Grapes of Wrath
“The Grapefruit Rag.” Obviously, this poses a problem in my line of work. I felt quite convinced that I was saying the right thing. My wife thought there might be an antiseizure medication that could help?”

“Aphasia,” she says. “I don’t like the sound of that.” Given A.J.’s history of seizures, the doctor decides to send him to a brain specialist in Boston.

“How’s Molly doing?” A.J. asks by way of changing the subject. The surly salesgirl hasn’t worked for him for six or seven years now.

“She’s just been accepted to . . .” And the doctor names a writing program, but A.J. isn’t paying attention. He is thinking about his brain. It strikes him that it is odd to have to use the thing that may not be working to consider the thing that isn’t working. “. . . thinks she’s going to write the Great American Novel. I suppose I have you and Nicole to blame,” the doctor says.

“Full responsibility,” A.J. says.

GLIOBLASTOMA MULTIFORME.

“Would you mind spelling that for me?” A.J. asks. He has not brought anyone to this appointment with him. He has not wanted anyone to know until he was certain. “I’d like to Google it later.”

The cancer is so rare that the oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital has never seen a case other than in a scholarly publication and once on the television show
Grey’s Anatomy
.

“What happened to the case in the publication?” A.J. asks.

“Death. Two years,” the oncologist says.

“Two good years?”

“One pretty good year, I’d say.”

A.J. goes for the second opinion. “And on the TV show?”

The oncologist laughs, a noisy chain saw of a laugh designed to be the loudest sound in the room. See, cancer is hilarious. “I don’t think we should be making prognoses based on nighttime soap operas, Mr. Fikry.”

“What happened?”

“I believe the patient had the surgery, lived for an episode or two, thought he was in the clear, proposed to his doctor girlfriend, had a heart attack that was, apparently, unrelated to the brain cancer, and died the next episode.”

“Oh.”

“My sister writes for television, and I believe television writers call this a three-episode arc.”

“So I should expect to live somewhere between three episodes and two years.”

The oncologist chain saw laughs again. “Good. A sense of humor is key. I should say that estimate sounds about right.” The oncologist wants to schedule surgery immediately.

“Immediately?”

“Your symptoms were masked by your seizures, Mr. Fikry. And the scans show that this tumor is quite far advanced. I wouldn’t wait if I were you.”

The surgery will cost nearly as much as the down payment on their house. It is unclear how much A.J.’s meager small-businessperson insurance will cover. “If I have the surgery, how much time does it buy me?” A.J. asks.

“Depends on how much we’re able to get out. Ten years, if we manage clean margins. Two years, maybe, if not. The kind of tumor you have has the annoying tendency to grow back.”

“And if you’re successful removing the thing, am I left a vegetable?”

“We don’t like to use terms like
vegetable,
Mr. Fikry. But it’s in your left frontal lobe. You’ll likely experience the occasional verbal deficit. Increased aphasia, et cetera. But we won’t take out so much that you aren’t left mostly yourself. Of course, if left untreated, the tumor will grow until the language center of your brain is pretty much gone. Whether we treat or not, this will, in all likelihood, happen eventually anyway.”