May came toward us, supporting herself on a shiny metal cane. ‘It does me good to see this boy back in Edgerton.’ Both sisters wore the loose print dresses they had always favored, but where Nettie filled out hers with a columnar massivity, Aunt May’s hung like a sack. The cords of her neck stood out beside a deep hollow. When I got close enough for a hug, she lifted the cane, and I took all of her weight.
‘Oof,’ she said. I held her up until she could get the cane back into position. ‘I’m not as bad off as I look, so don’t go feeling sorry for me.’ Her whisper could have been heard across the room. ‘Ever since I got sick last year, I can’t walk like I used to. If I could put on some weight I’d be fine, only it seems like I have to force myself to eat.’
We moved toward cubicle 15.
‘Is the doctor with her?’
‘We were waiting for him to come out when I saw you,’ Nettie said. ‘A mighty weight went off my shoulders.’
I looked at the curtain in front of the cubicle. ‘What happened to her?’
May leaned toward me. ‘It was this morning! Dropped down and hit the floor! Clark jumped up and called 911.’
Nettie said, ‘Young as she is, your mother had a stroke.’
Aunt May brushed the backs of her fingers against my blazer. ‘I bet this coat came from a fine New York store, like that Saks on Fifth Avenue.’ She raised her eyes to mine, and her voice grew thinner and sharper. ‘When did you get back home?’
‘About a minute ago,’ I said. ‘I hitchhiked. I’m still carrying my bags.’ I pointed at the knapsack and the duffel on the floor beside the entrance.
Aunt Nettie was regarding me in frowning consideration. She might as well have been wearing a black robe. ‘Maybe you should have saved up your money for travel, instead of throwing it all over Fifth Avenue. I guess you were lucky, to get here so fast.’
A trim little man in a white jacket bustled out through the curtain. His blond hair receded from a bulging head accentuated by oversized, black-framed glasses. The doctor shot me a noncommittal glance, and my aunts braced themselves for whatever he had to say.
‘You’re …’ He looked at his clipboard. ‘Ned, Valerie Dunstan’s son?’
I said, ‘Yes, I am.’
‘Dr Barnhill,’ he said, and pursed his lips. His head seemed to bulge because it was out of proportion to his body and his vanishing fair hair exposed so much scalp. Short bald men are balder than tall ones. He gave me a brief, dry handshake. ‘Earlier this morning, your mother suffered an extensive stroke. Her condition remains grave. I wish I could give you better news.’ Dr Barnhill held his clipboard to his chest as if he feared we would try to read his secrets. ‘Do you know what is involved in a stroke?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said.
‘A blood clot entered her brain and cut off the flow of oxygen. If oxygen cannot reach a certain area of the brain, that area experiences tissue damage. In your mother’s case, the area involved represents a portion of the left hemisphere.’ He touched the left side of his head. ‘Soon after admission to the ICU, her heart developed arrhythmia, due to the general shock to her system. I’ve given her medication for that condition, but we observe a general weakening of heart functions. Is your mother a heavy smoker?’
‘She doesn’t smoke,’ I said.
‘Star worked in a lot of smoky nightclubs,’ Aunt May said. ‘She has a lovely singing voice.’
‘To your knowledge, has she ever taken drugs of any kind?’
‘She smoked her share of pot,’ May said. ‘Some of those people she hung out with, you could smell it on them.’
‘Secondhand cigarette smoke and a history of marijuana use could be contributing factors,’ the doctor said. ‘Your mother is …’ He looked at the clipboard and did an almost invisible double take. ‘Fifty-three. Ordinarily, that would give us a good prognosis. We are hoping that the Coumadin will break up the clot. If your mother survives the next twelve hours, we are looking at a long recovery involving extensive therapy. That’s the best news I can give you.’
‘Twelve hours,’ I said.
His face smoothed out like a mask. ‘Everything depends upon the state of the individual patient.’
‘Will she recognize me?’
‘You shouldn’t expect much more than that.’ He looked at his clipboard again. ‘Do you in fact have any siblings?’
‘No,’ I said, and Aunt Nettie immediately put in, ‘I told you that. Star only had the one boy, this one here.’
Dr Barnhill nodded and left. May had disappeared somewhere behind me.
‘Siblings?’
‘Zwick went to town on whatever your mother was babbling when we got here, and you know, if someone sets it down on paper, someone else is going to believe it.’
I looked over my shoulder. Aunt May was leaning on her cane and talking to a burly young man with a short blond beard and a lot of hair pulled back into a blunt ponytail. He stepped back and said, ‘Hey, it doesn’t mean anything to me.’
I pushed aside the curtain and went in. The stranger at the focus of all the blinking machines instantly resolved into a frail but still recognizable version of Star Dunstan. Her cheeks looked distended and waxen. Clear fluid in suspended bags ran through lines that entered beneath the bandages low on her forearms. A glowing red light had been taped to her right index finger. I took her hand and kissed her forehead.
Both of her eyes opened wide. ‘Uunnd.’ The right side of her mouth tugged down and stalled like wax softening and rehardening. She fought to raise herself from the pillow, and her hand tightened on mine. ‘Aaah … vvv … ooo.’
‘I love you, too,’ I said. She nodded and sank back onto the pillow.
Little sounds and signals kept on announcing themselves with a discreet stridency that seemed on the verge of falling into a melodic pattern. The light on the blanket, the rises and falls of the moving graph, the descending curves of the tubes were more present to me than my own feelings. It was as though I, too, were in a sort of coma, moving and walking on autopilot.
My hand rose from the guardrail and touched my mother’s cheek. It was yielding and slightly chill. Star opened her eyes and smiled up with the working half of her face.
‘Do you know where you are?’
‘Eee spitl.’
‘Right. I’m going to stay here until you get better.’
Her right eye clamped shut, and the left side of her mouth opened and closed. She tried again. ‘Whaa … mmmdd … kkk … kkmm … rrr?’
‘I thought you were in trouble,’ I said.
A tear spilled from her right eye and trailed down her cheek. ‘Pur Unnd.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ I said, but she was asleep again.
A white-haired Irish politician introduced himself as Dr Muldoon, the heart specialist assigned to my mother’s case, and described Star’s condition as ‘touch and go.’ His confidential whiskey baritone made it sound like an invitation to a cruise. Shortly after Muldoon’s campaign stop, the muscular guy with the ponytail who had been talking to May went into the cubicle, and I followed him.
He was taking notes on the readouts of a machine that would have looked at home in the cockpit of a 747. When he saw me, he stood up, nearly filling the entire space between the equipment and the side of the bed. The tag