“Right.” Mary smiled.
Simon smiled, too. “Everybody does whatever Daddy says. All the time. Ha!”
Rachel’s eyelids started to droop. “Horton hatched the egg.”
“I know,” Mary said, more quietly. “Because Mayzie flew away to Palm Beach.”
“Pom Beach.”
“Right.” Mary stroked Rachel’s head, remembering her hair, which used to be so rich and thick. “I think it might be your bedtime.”
“I’m not tired.” Rachel closed her eyes.
“Good night now, sweetie. I love you. I’ll see you again soon.” Mary kissed her on the cheek, backed away from the bed, and got her stuff. She went out into the hallway as Simon gave Rachel a kiss and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.
“Thanks for coming,” Simon said tiredly. “She saw you right away, didn’t she? That made me happy. I like that she wasn’t snowed under. Sometimes these drugs, they just put her out.”
“I bet.”
“She loves you.” Simon’s gaze met hers, and they both knew what they were feeling, so neither of them had to say anything.
“I love her, too. Anyway, I have good news.”
“Tell me. Let’s go sit there, I want to be nearby if she wakes up. My dad needs the rest.” Simon motioned to a line of blue bucket chairs outside a playroom, with a sign on the door: For the safety of our BMT patients, the playroom is open only to patients and parents/caregivers. When leaving, patients must put dirty toys in the dirty toy bin. Thanks!
“Here’s what’s going on.” Mary took a seat and told him everything, including the conflict-of-interest issue, which concerned him.
“I’m sorry if I’m making life difficult for you,” Simon said, after she had finished.
“You’re not. It’s a judgment call, and I’m making a judgment. And in any event, it looks like it’s form over substance.”
“So what’s the next move?”
“We wait and see how they respond to the complaint and our settlement demand. I’m optimistic, I really am.” Mary’s gaze shifted to the room, where Rachel had fallen asleep in an identical posture with Feet, their heads off to the left. “Look at those two. You think they’re related?”
Simon turned around, then burst into a grin. “Oh, I would say so.”
“Your dad must be exhausted.”
“He is. Yours, too.”
“What do you mean?” Mary asked, surprised. “Is my father here?”
“Yes, in the family lounge.”
“The McDonald’s one? I didn’t look in when I passed.”
“He’s in there. I tried to get him to go home, but he wouldn’t listen. He never does.”
“This is typical?” Mary didn’t get it. It wasn’t as if her father had so much else to do, but he wouldn’t ordinarily stay out all day.
“Completely typical. He stays, even after Pigeon Tony and Tony From-Down-The-Block go home. Why don’t you persuade him to go? Maybe he’ll listen to you. I sleep here, but if he goes home, he can take my dad.”
“Oh boy.” Mary rose, hoisting her bags to her shoulder. “You need somebody to wrangle senior citizens.”
“Exactly.” Simon chuckled.
“Let me go see what I can do.” Mary headed down the hallway toward the lounge, then spotted her father shuffling toward her from the opposite end of the hallway. His head was downcast so that his bald head shone in the bright overhead lights. She stood at the lounge door until he had almost reached her, looking up with a startled smile.
“MARE?” he said in a stage whisper, but that was still too loud, so she hustled him into the family lounge and closed the door behind them.
“Pop, what are you still doing here? You must be beat.”
“I’M FINE, I’M GOOD. HOW YOU DOIN’?” Her father eased into a soft chair, and Mary sat down next to him. The lounge was remarkably homey, decorated with cheery print curtains, matching soft couches and chairs, and lined with popular hardbacks and other books. The far side held a cozy kitchen outfitted with new appliances, directly across from a laundry room that held a washer-dryer, thrumming away. A flat-screen TV mounted in the corner played on mute.
“I’m good, but what’s going on? Were you here all day?”
“SURE.”
Mary felt worried about him. At home, he would have napped twice. “Is it because of Feet? I mean, that’s very nice of you to support him, but all day?”
“HE LIKES THE COMPANY. SOMETIMES WE TAKE A WALK. OR WE HAVE A CUPPA COFFEE DOWNSTAIRS.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you went home.”
“I KNOW. IT’S NOT ON ACCOUNT OF HIM. NO, HE TELLS ME TO GO. SO DOES SIMON.”
“Then why?”
“I STAY. I DON’T MIND. I LIKE IT.”
“Are you serious?” Mary couldn’t even wrap her mind around what he was saying. It seemed impossible to like it here. She thought to herself, children died here, a notion that unsettled her so deeply she couldn’t even give it voice.
“I GOT THE TV. I GOT COFFEE. I GOT THE PAPER. I DO THE PUZZLE. I GOT ALL I NEED.” Her father gestured to the newspaper, where he’d completed the Seek & Find. He wasn’t a crossword-puzzle kind of guy.
“But you could be home, relaxing.”
“I RELAX HERE.”
“What about the things you were doing at home? The bathroom floor? You were going to regrout it.” Mary liked that her father stayed active, doing projects around the house. He had been a tile setter his whole life, a fact in which he took great pride, saying his grout was like sugar. The only unfortunate result was that tile covered almost every available surface of the house, of late.
“THAT JOB CAN WAIT. WHAT’S UP WITH SIMON’S CASE?”
“It’s fine. What about Mom? She’s home alone all day.”
“SHE DON’ MIND. SHE AIN’T HOME ANYWAY. SHE GOES TO CHURCH.”
Mary let it go. His attention turned toward the TV, where the local newscaster was reporting on a warehouse fire, and she watched her father squint at the closed captioning from behind his bifocals. “Can you read that, Pop?”
“YEAH. I LIKE DENISE NAKANO.”
“Who?”
“THE CHINESE GIRL ON THE NEWS.” Her father gestured at the TV, then his hand fell to his lap. “SHE’S GOOD. VERY PROFESSIONAL.”
Mary smiled to herself. Denise Nakano was Japanese, but she let it go. Her father wasn’t racist and he didn’t need her to nag him.
“I CAN’T GIVE PLATELETS. I TRIED AGAIN. THEY SAID I’M TOO OLD.”
“I know.” Mary thought it came out of left field, but she felt for him. She knew it bothered him that he hadn’t been able to give blood in any of the directed donations for Rachel. She had been able to give at regular intervals because she was CMV negative, which was a rarity, indicating the absence of a common virus.
“SOMETIMES WHEN I SIT HERE, I PRAY. CHURCH CAN BE ANYWHERE. LIKE, THIS IS CHURCH.”
“Right,” Mary said, softening her tone. They fell silent a moment, then her father looked away from the TV, but didn’t turn his head to her, averting his eyes.
“I MEAN, SHE’S JUST A BABY. AND HERE I AM. AND FEET. WE’RE FINE AND SHE’S SICK. THAT AIN’T RIGHT.”