THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: I have Gisela’s phone number. I wonder, if I called it, who would pick up the phone? Would it be Gisela? Would she tell me the weather in Germany? How do you say, in German, my levels are lower than they were before? Would I hear in the background the sounds of the beer from the taps being poured into steins when I called? Would I hear the German? The strong glottal stops harsh-sounding, or would those sounds just be the interfering signs of static common to an overseas connection?
WHAT THE WIFE ASKS ME AT HOME: Well, was Greg Springer your man?
WHAT I SAY: There is no way for me to know. How could I know a thing like that from kneeling next to him in some straw?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Is it going to stop now? Every time you go on a call, you come back thinking you know the man who did it. I’m getting worried about you.
WHAT I DO FOR THE FLIES AT NIGHT: I turn the light off and open the window. I am sick of them buzzing by my head while I read the paper in bed. I am tired of them buzzing inside my lampshade making a tock-tock-tock sound as they slam into one side of the taut linen shade and then the next. There is a bright full moon out. Shoo, I say to the flies. Can’t you see the bright moon? I say. I cup my hand and move it behind them, trying to direct them to the cool air outside.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Can I read? Haven’t we sat in the dark long enough? It’s getting cold in here, she says. Shut the window. I close the window and turn the light back on, but the flies haven’t vacated our home. In a second I can hear them buzzing inside the lamp again. The tock-tock-tock sounding louder than ever.
WHAT THE WIFE IS READING: A book about coma. There’s a syndrome, she says, that occurs in children, who, after waking from it, display delayed recovery of consciousness. Apparently the psychological stresses of being in the hospital keep them sleeping, she says.
WHAT I SAY: That won’t happen to Sam. When he wakes he will wake right away. He will want to know which sister played with his games. He will want to eat chocolate right away. He will want to know if it’s still deer season.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I can’t remember, did his MRI show swelling? Midline shift? Mass lesions? I shake my head. She has asked me these questions before.
WHAT I SAY: Remember his Glasgow score. Remember how high it was?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Look at that, ladybugs. I look to see where she’s pointing. There are ladybugs crawling on the sills of all the windows surrounding our bed. At least they don’t buzz, I tell her, but then I see how she sits up quickly and starts shaking out her hair. Bastard, she says, and with its small wings spread out a ladybug hops onto the blanket. And that is how our night is spent. One of us, every once in a while, waking up and shaking our head to get a fly or a ladybug out from crawling in our hair, then there is the sound of us wiping the sheet to knock the insect off and onto the floor, where no doubt we will step on it on our way to the bathroom.
WHAT SARAH SAYS IN THE MORNING: I bet you don’t know what ambrosia is.
WHAT I SAY: It’s a fruit salad mixed with whipped cream.
WHAT SARAH SAYS: No, it’s whale vomit and it’s used as a preservative to keep perfumes smelling good.
WHAT I SAY: You mean ambergris.
WHAT SARAH SAYS: Whatever.
WHAT MIA SAYS: Poppy, make ambrosia.
WHAT THE RADIO SAYS: Beep-di-dah-beep-di-dah-beep-beep-beep.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: STOP. I AM GETTING A TRANSMISSION. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE GET A HEAD POTTY CLEANER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. OUR MISSION CANNOT CONTINUE WITHOUT THIS VITAL POSITION BEING FILLED.
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: Too bad about the mission. Guess you’ll have to leave without us, Mom.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Who will wash your dishes and cook your food and serve you and pour your milks and collect your dishes and wipe the countertops and do the laundry and do the food shopping and pick up your dirty socks and hang up your coats and take your wet towels off your beds and put away your toys and turn off the lights you left on in your rooms? Who will do all of this if I’m gone? the wife said. I’m going on the next flight, the wife says. The socks will be easier to pick up in space, I won’t have to bend down and throw out my back. I’d like to see how wood burns in space, I wouldn’t mind stacking wood in space, I could lift a whole cord in space.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE I READ TO SAM WHILE I SIT BESIDE HIM EATING OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES WHOSE CRUMBS FALL INTO HIS HAIR: The bats are sick. The bats are flying in daylight. The white fungus disease is evident on their mouths, as if they’ve been trying to eat snow. The paper says they’ve been roused from their winter sleep because they’re weak and starving. They’ve been seen drinking water, and flying low over rivers and ponds where the ice has melted.
WHAT THE BATS SAY IN THE DAYTIME: I am sick, I am thirsty, I am hungry, I am dying.
WHAT THE DAY NURSE DOES: She comes in and flicks off the oatmeal cookie crumbs from Sam’s head onto a paper napkin, then she takes out a small black comb from her pocket on her uniform and starts combing his hair, forming a part where he has never had a part, making him look like some kid I didn’t know, making me think maybe this is not really my son who is here lifeless in a hospital bed but some other man’s son, and I should go home now. I should drive up the driveway and find my son throwing snowballs wildly at his sisters from a snow fort he has built into the side of the hill. I should see his face red from the cold. I should see snow in his hair, and his eyes glistening and bright from his onslaught against his screaming sisters.
CALL: The hospital. Sam is sitting up. Sam is talking. Sam’s foot is a live wire.
ACTION: Run to the car. Start driving off with wife, Sarah, and Mia barely having time to sit down in their seats, the car doors still open as I start to drive. Drive with wife incessantly asking if I want her to drive because she thinks I am driving too slowly. Don’t expect a miracle, I tell her. Don’t expect him to be completely recovered, I say, driving past the Bunny Hutch preschool, watching other children swinging high into the sky while sitting in yellow and red plastic swings.
RESULT: Sam wants to know what the dis-dis-gusting thing was by his ear. He wants to know which one of his sis-sis-sisters thought he should be sleeping with a cooked chicken heart next to him all this time. He wants to know who has been made Head Potty Cleaner while he was gone because he wants to know if he is off the hook and doesn’t have to take the j-j-job.
WHAT THE TESTS SAY: Sam’s speech, although slurred, will slowly get better.
WHAT THE DOCTOR SAYS: Children recover much better from being in a coma than adults. By the way, the doctor says, did you ever find the hunter who did this? I tell him no, I never did, and that I didn’t think I would ever find out, either. You’d be surprised. He might turn up at your door one day, the doctor says.