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Chapter
28
My mind isracing as I try to figure out who I should call, what I should pack, and when to talk to Willow, but all these urgent thoughts stop when I go see Alex in the ICU. I enter his glassed-in room in front of the nurses’ station and find myself unexpectedly alone. There’s humming, clicking, and hissing from the complicated equipment in here that’s keeping Alex alive.
I go to the side of his bed, pick up his hand, give it a squeeze. “I know you can hear me, Alex, no matter how wired up you are.”
His eyes are closed; there’s a tube in his mouth; his face is swollen, and his skin has an unhealthy pallor. IVs are in both arms, and hanging from the bed’s lower frame is a clear plastic bag holding his urine.
I give his hand another squeeze. “You and I…we’ve been in tough scrapes before. Beat up, cut, wounded, trapped in places where we had to fight hard to make it out. But this time…I failed you, Alex. I should have protected you better. That’s always been my job, right from the start. You had the brains, I had the brawn, and I was supposed to keep you safe.”
My voice breaks, and I have to swallow a few times to continue.
“I could use your brains now, Alex. It seems like a lot of bad stuff is happening. It’s like that Irish poet wrote in that poem you quoted to me a long time back: ‘The center cannot hold.’ Right? We’re scrambling to keep the center together, me and a lot of others. But Alex…we’re missing you. We surely could use you.” I lean in closer. “Whatever happens, I’ll be back to protect you and your family. You can count on that.”
I kiss his dry forehead.
“I love you, Alex.”
A few hours later, everything is packed, everything is arranged, and I’m at Alex’s home with Jannie and Willow. His son Damon has arrived and is at the hospital with Nana Mama and Bree. Jannie is in the kitchen fixing a meal for herself and Willow and preparing additional food to bring back to the rest of the family keeping vigil by Alex’s bed in the trauma ICU.
I sit across the dining-room table from my daughter. Willow’s pretty face is scrunched up in sadness and fear. She looks like she’s been cast forward decades to deal with the problems of an adult woman. “Is Uncle Alex going to be all right?” she asks, her voice quavering just a bit.
I reach across the shiny dining-room table and take her hands in mine. “He’s in the best hospital we’ve got being treated by the best doctors and nurses.” I don’t want to lie to my little girl, and she lets my nonanswer pass.
A solemn nod. “We’re all praying for him.”
“We are.”
“Then he’ll be safe, I know it.”
And the deep, dark cynical part of me thinks,Prayers to God didn’t help your mom in the end, did they,but I shut that down. I say, “I’ve got to go away for a while. I’ll try to call you every day and I want you to listen to Jannie and Bree and Damon and Nana Mama.”
Willow wrinkles her nose. “Do I have to listen to Ali?”
I nearly laugh. “No, you don’t have to listen to Ali.”
“Are you going after the bad men who hurt Uncle Alex?”
Good question. “I’m going after some bad men for sure, honey. But don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”
Another nod. “I know you’ll catch them.”
“Thanks,” I say. “Will you do me one favor while I’m away?”
“Sure, Daddy.”
I say, “I know it’s heavy and uncomfortable, but please wear your new knapsack to school every day. Please?”
“It feels stiff. I don’t like it.”
“But wear it for me. Please. When I get back, I’ll get you a new one that feels better.”
“Okay.”
I stand up, go around the table, and give her a big smothering hug that I want to last forever, knowing that at this moment, at least, she is safe.
But I have to go.
