The nearest hospital was a half-hour away, back in the direction from which we’d come. I rode with Stella in the ambulance, answering the ER medic’s questions about what medications Stella was taking, what treatments she’d undergone, how advanced her cancer was. After we pulled into the ER entrance, I was directed to a hospital waiting room. The walls were pale blue and there were a lot of scratchy couches, old magazines, broken kids’ toys, and a television was stuck on a channel that played Home Improvement episodes non-stop. When no one was around, which was almost all the time, I threw balled-up Kleenexes at the screen.
Stella was in and out of consciousness for most of Sunday. Late that afternoon, the doctor gave me the report of her scans and blood work. Afterwards, I went down to the ground floor. A rainstorm blew through, cracking and grumbling overhead, sending sheets of water on the parking lot, the tops of the ambulances, the nearby farmland. I stood in the lobby, watching, and called Samantha, wondering if she was still at her conference or had driven back by now. The call went straight to her voicemail. Her message was perky yet efficient. Samantha said she could be reached at two other numbers besides her cell phone-her office and her home. ‘Call me anytime, really,’ she assured. ‘I’m available day or night.’
I watched as the rain turned from deluge to drizzle to nothing. The hospital was on a hill and overlooked a cornfieldstrewn valley; everything smelled fresh and wet. I looked at my phone again, not satisfied. I felt a pull to call someone else. In my pocket was Philip’s number.
I dialed it quickly, without thinking. It went to voicemail, too, and there was Philip’s voice, gravelly and deep and not quite what I remembered. I waited for the beep and blurted out, ‘It’s Summer Davis. I met you once years ago, and I’m in Cobalt because my great-aunt Stella has cancer, and Samantha Chisholm came into town, which is how I got your number. And anyway, I started this message without knowing what I was going to say, except that it’s funny to look down Stella’s street and see your house and think that it’s not your house anymore. And I guess you’re in New York, and I hope it’s nice there right now. It probably is…it’s always nice in the fall, except for the smell. And—’
I was cut off, abruptly, by a loud beep in my ear. I held the phone back. I hadn’t even given him my phone number or any other way to contact me. Did all phones have Caller ID? Would he even want to call me back, after my message? I couldn’t even remember what I’d just said. There was no way to edit the message or record it over again.
Taking a deep breath, I redialed. It rang; Philip explained yet again that he wasn’t available. ‘This is my number,’ I blurted out quickly. I gave it to him, then hung up fast.
I cupped my phone in my hand, suddenly feeling brave. My fingers wanted to dial the old number in Brooklyn. I typed it in and stared at it for a while. If I hit SEND, would he answer? Would we talk about the weather, about New York? Or would we talk about something serious, real? Maybe I could ask him something easy first, perhaps a memory from his big leather box. I could ask if he remembered the time I’d stayed home from my classes at college and he’d (obviously) stayed home from any remaining work that he was doing and we’d watched a videotape of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the old Disney movie with Angela Lansbury. Maybe I could ask him if he remembered the first time we watched that movie together, when I was about six. After the movie was over, I ran to my parents’ bedroom and climbed onto the bed, touched my hands to the post at the end of the bed, and asked it to fly. It had worked for the kids in the movie.
My father had noticed what I was doing, and climbed in bed too. ‘Where do you want it to go?’ he said. ‘Spain,’ I answered, just picking anywhere. And then he called for Steven to get on the bed. And then my mother stood in the doorway, asking what we were doing. ‘We’re going to Spain!’ my father announced. I thought she might say it was just silly and demand that my father get up and do something useful. But, to my surprise, she lowered her shoulders and smiled and climbed on the bed, too.
I slowly closed the phone and put it in my pocket. It felt heavy against my hip, like it was full of secrets, waterlogged with things I hadn’t said but probably should. We would never be like that again, my father and me, so we’d have to be something else. No matter how much I had done for him, I wasn’t what he needed right now. And I was angry with him for that. Really, I’d probably been angry for years, for other things too. But as the wind shifted, I just felt tired. All I wanted was for him to put me into bed and tuck me in. Maybe even Rosemary could be there.
After a while, I went back upstairs and down the hall to Stella’s room. I could see her face through the little window in the door. She was in the far bed, connected to various machines. Her head was bent off to the side, her eyes fluttering fast. At my request, the doctor and nurses had left her gloves on, rolling them down so they bunched up around her hands. There was a small smile on her face, like she was having a good dream.