“You stay with him. I’ll take a cab home.”
“You’re going to leave without seeing him?”
“I’ll see him when he gets home.”
“Mimi,” I said. “He needs to see you.”
“I understand that you’re trying to help, Alice,” she said. “But I don’t need to see Frank as a patient in an emergency room setting if I don’t have to. I don’t want that image stuck in my head. Not right now. I’m very near the end.”
I touched her forearm. “Of course,” I said. “I get that. Go. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”
“How gratifying for you,” she said. “Now take your hands off me.”
I did. She left.
I PUSHED THROUGH the swinging doors again in time to hear Frank saying to a nurse, “Tinkerbell gave my mother a gown when she had to come to the emergency room, so I wondered if you might loan me a waistcoat. Or, failing that, a doctor’s white lab coat. Size small.”
The nurse exchanged a look with the intern examining Frank. “Are you cold, sweetheart?” she asked. “I can get you a blanket.”
“I’m not cold,” he said. “I’m embarrassed.”
“There you are, Mom,” the intern said when he saw me. “Our friend Frank is in good shape now, so if you’ll follow me and sign some papers, we’ll be done here.”
He showed me to a chair in an empty room and sat down next to me in the narrow space alongside the examination table, underneath a staggering array of monitoring equipment. Without a patient on the slab, the machines were quiet and the lines of colored light stretched flat across the screens. The intern fitted his palms together and stared at them, like some guy who had some very serious praying to do and didn’t know quite how to start. Even to me he looked young. I had to figure he might not have come across a whole lot of kids like Frank in his training yet.
After he got through studying his hands he looked up at me from under his brows. He had such a kind face. I felt for him.
“About Tinkerbell,” I said. “I can explain.”
“I think Tinkerbell is the least of your problems,” he said. “I’m worried about your son.”
“So am I,” I said.
BY THE TIME we got done with the talking and the paperwork it was almost dark outside. I tried to hold Frank’s hand on the way to the car but he snatched it away. I decided he’d been through too much already for me to bust him for that this time. Frank got in the backseat and strapped himself in. I got in on the other side, next to him. “You can’t drive the car from back here,” he said.
“I know. What’s going on with you, Frank? Is there anything you want to talk about?”
“As a matter of fact, there is. Where is my mother? I can’t help noticing that she keeps missing pivotal moments in my day-to-day life.”
“She had to go back to work.”
“On her book?”
“Yes. She’s very near the end.”
“How do you know? Have you seen it?”
“I haven’t. She said.”
“I don’t understand the delay,” Frank said. “I wrote my book in an afternoon. I certainly hope this project of hers ends up being worth all the Sturm und Drang.”
“I hope so, too,” I said. “I know your mother wants to finish as soon as she can so she can get back to spending more time with you.”
“I have had about enough of this for one day,” Frank said. “It’s time for you to stop talking.”
NEITHER OF US wanted to go home yet. There was a marathon Keaton festival at the silent movie house, so we went there instead. We came in partway through the one on a steamboat where Buster, a poor boy in love with a rich girl who’s the daughter of his father’s steamship archrival, sneaks off his father’s broken-down paddle wheeler in the night to be with his love. To throw his dad off the scent, Buster mounds pillows under the covers of his bunk so his father would think he was asleep there. When his dad ripped the blankets back and uncovered Buster’s ruse, I started laughing and couldn’t stop.
“Shhhhhhhhh!” Frank hissed when it became clear I wasn’t going to be able to put a sock in it. “I understand that it’s a humorous situation, Alice, but we’ll be ejected for disruptive behavior. The management does that. You will not like it. I know.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Stay here. Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
Out in the lobby, I drank from the water fountain and took some deep breaths to calm myself. Then I called Frank’s psychiatrist and left a message. I hoped Mimi had done that already, but I had my doubts. After that I called Mr. Vargas. He sounded so glad to hear my voice I almost wept.
“Alice!” he said. “What’s the good news?”
When I didn’t answer for several beats, he said, “Alice?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “What? You’re breaking up.”
“I said, how are things there?”
“It’s Mimi,” I said. “She’s very near the end.”