David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

I walked Simone out to the car. She opened the driver’s door, then turned back and came into my arms, taking deep breaths. “He’s been lucky to have you,” I said.

“And now he’s lucky to have you,” she said. “There’s just no end to his luck.”

In bed that night, I said to Janna, “Can we really do this?”

“What’s our choice at this point?” We were lying on our backs, and she rolled over, her breasts against my arm. “Did you two talk at all?”

“I don’t want to, you know, press him.” I worked my arm over her shoulder and pulled her closer. Her belly into my hip. She sighed and moved her palm up my thigh.

“Why didn’t he ever, you know, find somebody?” she said. I felt myself beginning to get hard—could we really do this ? “That woman loves him.”

“He never had any trouble finding them,” I said.

“Do you ever wish you were like him?”

“What, you mean dying?”

She jerked away and rolled onto her back again. “I hate when you pretend to be stupid.”

“No,” I said. “Who would ever want a life that lonely?”

“It’s even more obnoxious when you try to figure out the right thing to say.”

I shoved a pillow against the headboard and sat up. “Are we fighting?” I said. “Because this is a hell of a time for it.”

“For the record, I don’t blame you for getting us into this. I just hope it gets over with quickly. Is that horrible to say?”

“No, it’s actually the kindest thing you could say.”

“But would you say it about me? If I were in the situation?”

“Come on,” I said. “Nobody can ever—”

“Okay, I need to go to sleep,” she said. “Obviously I’m not going to get laid tonight. Why don’t you go down and check on your friend and see if he’s still breathing. Then you can get yourself a drink and forget all about it.”

I put my legs over the side and got to my feet. “I bring you one?”

“I’ll be asleep,” she said. “You don’t even listen anymore.”

—

The rooster woke me at six. I heard Janna breathing away and couldn’t get back to sleep. But when I came downstairs Paul had already dressed himself—except for shoes and socks; he’d told us it hurt to bend down—and had managed to get from the den, where Janna had made up the fold-out, to the living-room sofa, and was stretched out listening to something through earbuds. He flicked them out when he saw me.

“How are you?” I said. “You hurting? I can get you another Vicodin.”

“Just took a couple. They’re coming with the real shit this morning, right?”

“They should be here by ten,” I said.

“What we like to hear. Listen, did I even thank you for this?”

“You’d do it for me.”

“ There’s a hypothetical we won’t be putting to the test. Man, I have been such a shit. To everybody in my life.”

“You were never a shit to me,” I said.

“You weren’t in my life. Well, who the fuck was. Not to be grim. How did I get onto this? That Vicodin must work better than I thought. Your lady still asleep?”

“She was.”

He nodded. “She’s going to need it.”

I was in the kitchen cutting up a pineapple when I heard Janna come downstairs. She must have smelled the coffee brewing. “You boys are up bright and early,” she said.

“Only way to live a long and healthy life,” Paul said. “Get up, do the chores, plow the north forty—I don’t mean anything sexual by that.”

“No, I’m sure that’s the last thing you’d think of.” She came into the kitchen and put a hand on my arm. “Did you get enough sleep? I’m sorry I was being…whatever I was.”

I set the knife down and put an arm around her. “I think you get a free pass, considering.”

“I hope I was just getting it out of my system early.” She poured a cup of coffee and put in milk for me. “Will you be okay with him if I go in for a while? I should get some stuff done while I can.”

“Hey,” Paul yelled out. “Why’s everybody talking behind the patient’s back?”

“Shut up, we’re having sex,” she called back. She poured a cup for herself. “He seems pretty chipper this morning.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what to hope for,” I said. “Quality, I guess. And then not too much quantity.”

A little after nine they came with the hospital bed, and the guy helped me move the sofa into the corner so we could set the bed up in the living room, by the window looking out at the hills. Janna and I would take the fold-out in the den when it became clear that we had to be nearby. Paul watched us from the armchair, his bare feet on a footstool, his earbuds back in, his eyes on us. When the guy left, he turned the iPod off, plucked out the earbuds and said, “Why am I reminded of ‘In the Penal Colony’?”

The FedEx truck delivered a cardboard box with the drugs, then the nurse from the hospice showed up. She had thick black hair, going gray, down her back in a single braid, and hoop earrings—not what you’d expect with the white uniform. Her name was Heather. I brought her a mug of herbal tea—she wasn’t a coffee drinker, she said—and she showed me the spreadsheet-looking printed forms on which we were to record dosage and time, then opened the FedEx box, picked up her clipboard and took inventory. She wrote down Paul’s temperature and blood pressure, listened to his heart. “So, Paul,” she said, “how would you say your pain is right now?”

“One to ten? Let’s give it a seven. Good beat and you can dance to it.”

“We can improve on that,” she said.

“Can you do less than zero?”

“That’s going to be up to you. And your caregivers. I’m a believer that you keep on top of the pain. This shouldn’t be about you being in any discomfort.” She got up and put on her jacket—wool, with a Navajo design. “I’ll be by tomorrow, but if you have any concerns or questions, any emergency, someone’s always there.”

I took my jacket off the coatrack. “Here, I’ll walk you out. I’ve got to feed the hens.”

“Smooth,” Paul said. “Jesus Christ, why don’t you just ask her how long?”

“I knew I was going to like you,” she said to him. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow—that much I think we can count on.”

I followed her to her car. “I’m not asking you to make a prediction,” I said. “But just from your experience.”

“Okay, based on nothing? I think he’ll move fast.”

When I came back in he was sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, bare feet dangling, pushing the button and making it go up and down. “So, we gonna break out the good stuff?”

“Should you wait till what she gave you kicks in?”

“Don’t start that ,” he said. “You heard the lady.” He lay back, stuck out his tongue and pointed at it.

He dozed—call it that—until the middle of the afternoon while I sat in the armchair, checking from time to time to make sure his chest was rising and falling and making notes in my new paperback copy of Middlemarch; the covers had finally come off the old one. If Janna could hold the fort tomorrow while I went in to campus, that’s what I’d be teaching.

“Let’s go for a ride.” I looked up: Paul’s eyes were open. “I want to see some trees, man. And can we bring some music? I got weed.”

“If you’re up to it,” I said. “Stanley Brothers? You remember driving back from Roxbury that time?”

“Not really,” he said. “Did I have that fucked-up Triumph?”

“Yeah. Whatever became of that?”

“Whatever became of anything? I should’ve kept a journal. Fucking years of fucking lost days.”