“Girls, girls.” Paul put his arms around both of us. “I find myself doing this a lot lately,” he muttered into my hair. After a few seconds, he fumbled in his pants pocket and withdrew a couple of paper towels, an emergency supply that he must have yanked out of the dispenser in the men’s room. “Here. You may need this.”
I was blowing my nose noisily into the stiff brown paper when a doctor appeared. “Mrs. Ives?”
My head snapped around. “Yes?”
“I’m Dr. Wainwright.” I shook the hand he extended. It was dry and very cold. “Your father’s taken a good wallop to the head. It took twelve stitches to close the wound. He’s got a concussion. I don’t think it’s particularly serious, but because of his age and the fact that it’s a head injury, we’re going to keep him a couple of days. Run a few tests.”
“What kind of tests?”
“In addition to a head scan, we’ll do a chest X ray and an electrocardiogram. Also a CBC, glucose, liver function, ABG-”
“Complete blood count I know, but what’s an ABG?”
“Arterial blood gas.”
“For a head injury?”
“Not exactly. The head injury may be just one of your father’s problems, Mrs. Ives. I would be irresponsible if I released him from the hospital prematurely, before we’ve had a chance to determine the full extent of his injuries, and…” He looked at each of us in turn as if trying to predict our reactions to what he was about to say. “… And determine how much his recovery may be hampered by an alcohol dependency.”
When none of us said anything, Dr. Wainwright continued. “I can see by the expression on your faces that I’m not telling you anything you don’t already suspect.” He waved his arm toward a bank of chairs and for the second time that morning, we sat down in them. “Look, the problem is this. If your father is an alcoholic, in anywhere from six to forty-eight hours he may begin to experience ethanol withdrawal. This can lead to seizures, hallucinations, delusions, vomiting…”
“D.t.’s?” I interrupted.
“Exactly. These tests I’m ordering will determine that risk, and then we will know how to treat him.”
I studied Dr. Wainwright’s earnest, caring face and remembered walking around for weeks with a lump in my breast and the wave of despair that washed over me when the very diagnosis I had feared turned out to be confirmed. Cancer. For months now, I’d worried about Daddy’s drinking. Wondered if he’d crossed that fine line between drinking when he wanted to and drinking because he had to. Alcoholism. Before long, we’d know.
“Can we see him now?” Ruth asked.
“Of course. Follow me.”
Dr. Wainwright led us to a large room that was separated into cubicles by curtains hung from ceiling tracks. Daddy lay on a gurney in the cube nearest the door. A large white bandage covered his scalp and forehead and an IV tube drained into his arm. Nearby, a cardiac monitor quietly bleeped.
“Daddy?”
I approached the gurney.
“Daddy?”
Daddy’s eyes opened slowly. He shook his head and blinked several times as if trying to clear out the cobwebs and focus on my face. “Hannah?”
“Yes, it’s me. And Ruth and Paul.”
“Where’s your mother?”
“Oh, Daddy!” I began to weep again.
Paul laid his hand on my father’s. “Lois is dead, George, remember? She died last spring.”
Daddy squeezed his eyes closed, as if to shut out this unwelcome news. He turned his head toward the wall.
“Daddy?” Ruth took a cautious step forward.
Daddy heaved a shuddering sigh, then reached up to touch the bandage on his forehead. “What happened?”
“You ran into a truck.”
His eyes flew open. “I don’t remember running into a truck.”
“Take your time.” Paul was reassuring. “It will come to you.”
Daddy’s fingers explored the perimeter of his bandage for a few long seconds, then suddenly he sat up, supporting himself unsteadily on one elbow. “Darlene!”
Paul put one hand on my father’s chest and another on his back and helped him lie back down. “Don’t worry, George. You were alone at the time. You must have been driving home from Chestertown.”
Daddy scraped the back of his hand over the dark stubble that covered his chin. “I remember crossing Kent Narrows, but nothing after that.”
“It’s the concussion, Daddy,” I said. “The doctor says they’re going to keep you for a few days. Make sure you have no internal injuries.”
“Does Darlene know?”
Ruth made a sour face. “I’ll call her. Don’t worry.”
Daddy lowered his head and seemed to notice the disordered state of his clothing for the first time. Several buttons were missing from his blue oxford cloth shirt, which lay open, exposing a torn undershirt. He picked absentmindedly at some dried spots of blood that stained his shirt. “I’m a mess.”
I had to agree. “You sure are, but I’ll bring you some clean clothes later this morning. In the meantime, I’m sure they’ll have some cute little hospital gown you can put on.”
“You betchum.” The comment came from a nurse who suddenly appeared in the doorway with a green-shirted orderly in tow. “Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, you name it. We got ’em all.” She positioned herself at the head of the gurney. “We’re taking him to X ray now. Check back in a few hours for his room number.”
I ran my hand over Daddy’s short, wiry hair, and kissed his cheek. “Rest easy, Daddy.”
The three of us stood there, watching, as the gurney with our father on it was trundled out of the room and down a long hallway. We watched, not speaking, until it disappeared through the door marked “Radiology.”
“It’s morning,” said Ruth, “and I’m hungry.”
But I was hardly paying attention. When I’d bent down to kiss my father, even the odor of the antiseptic they had used to treat his wound couldn’t mask the sickly sweet chemical smell of alcohol metabolizing through his skin.
Daddy was in deep, deep trouble.
6
The light of a gray dawn was spreading over the city of Annapolis when we emerged from the hospital, walking stiffly and sluggishly, like bears crawling from their dens after a long winter.
I stretched.
Paul yawned.
Ruth said, “Isn’t anybody listening? I’m hungry.”
I glanced at Paul and we said “Chick and Ruth’s” almost at the same moment. No one needed to twist my arm. I wasn’t in any mood for cooking.
From the hospital, we walked east on Cathedral until it intersected with Conduit, then we veered left toward town. Paul held my hand the whole way and I felt light-headed, almost giddy, like back in the days when we were dating. I recognized one contributing factor, lack of sleep, and wondered when I’d get a chance for a little shut-eye.
Chick & Ruth’s Delly, an Annapolis institution since 1965, backs on Gorham Street near the municipal parking garage and is just up Main Street from Mother Earth. Paul pulled the back door open and we hustled through it into the upper dining room, then snaked our way through the closely packed tables and down the narrow stairway toward the front of the restaurant. Behind a long counter on our right, waitresses and countermen worked the drink machines, the sandwich lines, and the grill with practiced speed.
“This OK?” Paul indicated a booth near the front. “The Governor’s Office,” the booth that adjoined it, was roped off as usual, although I doubted that Parris N. Glendening would be bopping in for breakfast at seven-thirty on a Sunday morning.
Ruth slid a menu toward me across the black Formica tabletop, but I tucked it back on the elevated metal condiment shelf attached to the booth. “First things first,” I said, squirming a bit to get comfortable on the lumpy vinyl chair. I extracted the cell phone from my bag. “I need to call Emily.” I punched in our telephone number. “Order me a coffee, will you?”