“Be happy,” she says, with an effort that looks equivalent to moving mountains.
He bites down on the choked moan of grief that wants to spill out, has to spill out, and nods, smoothing the last thin tangles of her hair away from her burning forehead. She rolls further toward him, as if she wants an embrace, and he gives it to her, holds her as he feels the life flow out through a few gasps and tremors. When he finally lets her go, the shoulder of her nightgown is wet with his tears and her eyes are closed.
Evan awoke to the sound of Shaun moving. He sat up, his arm cocked in a funny angle above him. Pins and needles coursed in jigging lines of fire up and down his leg as he unfolded it from beneath him.
“Wawee.”
Shaun’s voice made Evan start, and when he glanced at him, he saw that Shaun’s eyes were still closed. Dreaming. He waited, the feeling returning to his limbs little by little.
“Wawee.”
Shaun spoke the word quieter now, as if falling back into whatever dream that prompted his speech. Evan smiled and touched his hand, holding it for a moment as the tears from his dream dried on his face. Shaun’s eyes shot open, along with his mouth, and Evan thought he might scream. But his face twisted into a semblance of a sneeze and his body snapped tight, his small muscles rigid as he bucked off the bed’s surface.
Seizure.
“Oh God, no!” Evan said, leaping to his feet. “Shaun, Shaun, can you hear me, son?”
He sat on the bed and slipped a hand beneath Shaun’s arched back while leaning over him. His eyes were wide open and staring at the wall, his breath hitching and a strained wheezing sound coming from his mouth.
A million impulses tried to hold sway over Evan as he stood and turned the light on. The floor shifted, and at once he bit down hard on the insides of his cheeks. Blood filled his mouth, and the room came back into focus. He stood over his son, who held the arch of his back like a strange sculpture of pain.
“Oh God, Shaun, no, no, no!” Evan said, picking him up. It was like trying to cradle a mannequin.
A doll.
Shaun’s normally weak arms lashed out and froze in an unnatural way.
“Okay, okay, okay.”
He ran to the couch and wrapped Shaun’s convulsing body in the heaviest quilt he could find and picked him up again, making sure he still heard his ragged breathing. When Evan opened the door, the wind pulled the knob from his hand and slammed the door into the inside wall. Squalls of rain spit at them, as the trees rocked in the wind, caught in the throes of the storm. Evan spun and opened the closet, grabbing the rain jacket from its hanger. After slamming the door behind them, he ran into the roaring weather, clutching his son’s stiff form through the blanket.
He made a makeshift tent out of the slicker, providing Shaun some cover on the floor of the pontoon. The muscle spasms seemed to be retreating, leaving Shaun to lay flat against the pontoon’s carpet, but his eyes still stared and his chest continued to hitch in a way that made Evan sick to his stomach.
Evan fired up the engine, tossed the ropes free, and gunned the throttle. They launched away from the dock, into the embrace of the chopping waves and the rain that fell without remorse.
23
“He’s perfectly fine,” the young doctor repeated.
Evan steadied himself against the wall of the corridor outside Shaun’s room, and was able to absorb the words this time, having not understood them when the doctor first came through the door.
“Fine?” Evan asked, not sure he could fully trust his ears.
The doctor nodded. He had jouncy blond hair that moved when he talked, and a stylish set of glasses perched on his thin nose. “Yes, we ran an electroencephalogram, and it showed no signs of a seizure or any signs that a seizure occurred.”
Evan let the information sink in, and his eyebrows knitted. “So he’s okay?”
The doctor smiled and nodded. “Yes.”
“But you can’t see that he had a seizure?”
“It didn’t show up on the test, no.”
The doctor closed his eyes for a moment and crossed his arms over the white coat he wore.
“Are you sure he wasn’t having some sort of nightmare or active dream that may have looked like a seizure?”
Evan stared at the man, his eyes feeling like they were bleeding. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“Because,” the doctor continued, “sometimes people mistake the signs and symptoms for something else. A night terror, perhaps.”
Evan held up a hand. “Listen, he was having a seizure. He had one a few months ago, scared the hell out of me, just like it did tonight. I know what a seizure looks like. He had one.”
The doctor relinquished his authoritative posture and nodded. “Okay. What we’ll do now is keep him for the next few hours for observation, and then send you guys home with a mild seizure medication. Only administer it to him if you’re one hundred percent sure he’s having one, okay?”
Evan dipped his chin once and rubbed his eyes. His hair was still damp from the ride across the lake, and his clothes were wet but not dripping anymore.
“You look like you could use some coffee,” the doctor said. “There’s a beverage center down the hall and to the left if you’d like some.”
“Thanks. I want to see him first.”
“Go right in.”
Evan moved past the doctor and pushed the heavy door open to a dimly lit room. Monitors beeped and whirred to the right, and a nurse fiddled with an IV beside Shaun’s bed. Shaun lay on the mattress, covered by a blue blanket. His bare chest looked almost white against the surroundings, and a few electrodes stuck like round leeches to his skin. Evan stopped at the foot of the bed. Shaun’s eyes were closed, and he slept peacefully.
“You guys had a rough night,” the nurse said.