Ike Hamill - Migrators

Finally, after seventy minutes, a woman wearing a purple top came through the door and tapped on her tablet. She smiled at Joe and waved. Liz and Alan collected their son and followed her down a corridor. The doors on either side had lights next to the handles—green or yellow. She led them through the fourth door on the left. The outer room had games and books and toys for little kids. The doorway at the back led to a smaller room with a table.

The doctor—an older woman with glasses on a chain—came in a few minutes later. She had a laptop tucked under her arm. Her name tag said “Dr. Chandrell.”

Thank god for name tags, Alan thought. I can barely remember my own name.

“Joe, would you like to stay here for a minute while I talk to your folks? There are some good books on the middle shelf you might like.”

“Here,” Liz said. She handed Joe her phone. “Don’t kill my battery, and don’t install anything.”

Alan kissed Joe on the forehead before he followed the women into the back room. Once the door was closed, the doctor got right to business.

The doctor opened her laptop and clicked on a file. The screen was filled with a black and white cross section of a brain. The doctor moved a control and the patterns of tissue spun and swirled as she moved through the layers.

“We’ve got nothing but great news,” Dr. Chandrell said.

“Pardon?” Liz asked.

“I see just a tiny amount of swelling here,” Dr. Chandrell said, spinning her cursor over a gray location, “but really nothing to be worried about.”

“Doctor,” Alan said, “I know you’re all very careful here and I’m not trying to impugn anyone’s professionalism, but are you sure you have the correct scan there?”

“Joseph Harper, son of Alan and Elizabeth?” the doctor asked.

Liz took Alan’s hand.

Alan nodded. “Yes, that’s us. It’s just that Doctor… what’s-his-name said he was pretty sure we’d find a tumor.”

“Prewalski,” Liz said. “His pediatrician’s name is Prewalski.”

“Yes, that’s what we were looking for. I’m happy to tell you that we found no evidence of a tumor. You’ll want to consult again with your pediatrician to discuss other possibilities and look for other potential causes. How’s he feeling today?”

“No complaints this morning,” Alan said. In fact, Joe had gotten up before Liz or Alan and woke them up with a big smile on his face. He didn’t even seem troubled by the scary events of the night before. His mood had been so good that Alan didn’t want probe. Once the migrators were freed, the family had fled quickly in Liz’s car. Alan hadn’t even stopped to change his pants before they headed back for the hotel.

“So what do we do?” Liz asked.

“Keep an eye on him for any symptoms. Especially watch his temperature. An infection could explain some of the symptoms, and if it flares you’ll see it in his body temp. Your pediatrician will have the results of Joe’s blood tests—that will be another good indicator of other potential causes.”

“So we make another appointment with Prewalski?” Alan asked.

The doctor nodded. “Yes. Any other questions?”

“Is it really this easy?” Liz asked. “We were so tensed for bad news.”

The doctor smiled. “Then that makes today a particularly good day.”

NOVEMBER 2

“I’M ALL set,” Joe said.

“Do me a favor,” Liz said. “Go back in there and check every drawer, look under the bed, look through the bathroom, and behind the dresser. I want you to leave no stone unturned. When you’re done, leave this on the nightstand.”

She handed Joe a folded twenty-dollar bill.

“And lock this door behind yourself.”

Liz shut the door that joined the two rooms and turned to Alan.

“Are we doing the right thing?”

“Yeah,” Alan said. “I think so. We can’t live out of a hotel forever, and since Joe’s going back to school on Monday, it makes sense. If something goes wrong tonight or tomorrow, we’ll just get in the car and drive. We won’t stop until we hit San Diego.”

Liz smiled. “We really dodged a bullet with him.”

“No,” Alan said, “we didn’t. That bullet hit us right in the chest. We found a miracle cure. Let’s not revise the past or deny what happened.”

“Something happened. We’ll never know for sure if Joe had cancer or…”

Alan cut her off. “Let’s not argue that again. Please?”

“Fine,” Liz said. “Do we have everything?”

She bent down and lifted the bedspread.

“We have the important stuff,” Alan said. “Who cares about the rest?”

Liz stood and turned to Alan. They embraced.

APRIL 27

“DYLAN SAYS there are only two seasons up here—winter and mud season,” Joe said.

It was a warm spring day. Alan was sweating a little beneath his flannel shirt and it felt wonderful. He’d felt woefully unprepared for the deep snow, short days, and bitter cold of winter, but a beautiful day like this made him feel like he’d accomplished something in the act of surviving the snow. They’d planned this hike for a week. Joe and Alan wanted to go check up on the beavers out back. The beaver dam had been washed out last fall, but Alan thought they might still find a souvenir of the builders.

“That’s because he goes back to New York every summer. He doesn’t get to enjoy the full Maine summer like we do. You know, there’s a reason why so many people choose to vacation up here,” Alan said.

“Because it’s cheap?” Joe asked.

Alan laughed.

“Exactly.”

Alan stopped and unbuttoned his cuffs so he could roll up his sleeves. Joe picked a long piece of yellow grass and chewed on the end. They were almost to the bottom of the hill. They already had cold mud up to their shins and they weren’t even halfway to their destination.

“Do you mostly hang out with boarders at your school?” Alan asked. Joe had switched in January to a private school. His new school was about seventy percent boarders—kids who lived at the school from September to June—and thirty percent locals. Joe mostly talked about his friend Dylan, who spent the summer months at his real home down in New York City.

“No,” Joe said. “Not really. Most of them complain too much. They’re always talking about how much better it is where they’re from. But most of the day students do that too.”

“Really? What do the day students have to complain about?”

“Most of them are like us. Their families just moved here in the past few years. So a lot of them just talk about where they used to live.”

“Oh,” Alan said. He had hoped that private school would bring more of Joe’s focus to learning, and less to the politics of classmates. It seemed to have the opposite effect.

“But I like Dylan,” Joe said. “He talks about New York, but he doesn’t always say bad stuff about Maine.”

“That’s good,” Alan said.

The marsh trail was actually easier than slogging through the woods. The grass gave a solid platform to walk on, and they didn’t sink down with each step. The beavers had restored order to their little pond. Alan stopped at the edge and looked down at the cold water. Joe hunted around and then found a rock to skip across the surface. His first throw cleared the pond in three hops.

“Good one,” Alan said.

“Isn’t that Mr. Franz?”

“Where?” Alan asked. He shielded his eyes with his hand.

“Hey there,” Bob called from across the pond.

Alan watched as his friend picked his way across the new beaver dam and came around to their position.