Bentley Little: The Walking

Stroke.

It was not something he had expected, not anything he had ever thought about or even considered. Miles' mouth felt dry, and for a second he was afraid that he'd forgotten how to speak, but the words finally came out, weak and fearful. "How... how did it happen?"

"He was at a grocery store when he collapsed. The manager immediately called the paramedics, and they rushed him here. We found your name and this contact number in his wallet."

"Oh, God," Miles breathed. "Oh, Jesus." He leaned back against the wall for support, closing his eyes. He had a sudden picture in his mind of his father reaching for a can of soup and failing on the linoleum floor, taking shelves of groceries down with him, dying among strangers who had come

to the store to buy food and were now dispassionately watching an old man take his last breath on their way to the produce department.

"He's stable right now, but he's not conscious, and we're keeping him monitored in the CCU. He's most likely suffered some brain damage, although we won't know the extent of it until--- ..... "What hospital?"

Miles demanded.

"St. Luke's on--' ....... I'll be right there." Miles slammed down the phone just as Naomi reached her desk. "Have Hal take over that client for me." He hit the elevator's Down button. "I'm not sure when I'll be back."

"Is your father all right?"

"He's had a stroke." Miles slammed his palm against the button again, as if trying to hurry the elevator, but when there was no immediate response, he sprinted toward the stairwell door. "I'll call!" he yelled back to Naomi.

And then he was in the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, leaping the last few to each landing. On the ground floor, he dashed through the building's lobby and out to his car in the 'adjacent lot.

St. Luke's. That was over on Winnetka, close to home. His dad had probably been shopping at Ralph's.

Somehow, knowing where it had happened, knowing the physical layout of the location, brought it home to him, made it more immediate, less abstract, and the panic flared within him. Thankfully, though, it did not seem to impair his judgment or coordination. He did not have to fumble through his key ring to fred the car key, did not have to work with shaking hands to get the car started. If anything, he seemed to be thinking clearer than usual. Everything seemed to be in sharp focus, he had total control over his movements and thought processes, and he sped out of the parking lot, past

a Salvation Army Santa, and onto Wilshire, zooming effortlessly into a convenient hole in the traffic.

His luck did not hold.

All of the streets leading to the Ventura freeway seemed to be under construction, and it was like one of those horrific stress dreams. He'd sit in congestion for two blocks, then finally turn down a side street until he hit another major thoroughfare, only to have the same thing happen all over again. It took him twenty minutes to drive six miles, and by the time he reached the freeway, he was a nervous wreck. His jaw hurt from clenching his muscles, and through his mind ran the dozens of death scenarios he'd imagined while waiting for stoplights to change.

It was clear sailing from then on out, however, and ten minutes later, he was in the hospital elevator, heading up to the Critical Care Unit.

His chest felt tight, and though he knew it was only from stress, he could, not help thinking that if he was having a heart attack, this was the best place for it to happen.

There was a nurses station backed by a wall of monitors just past the elevator, and Miles quickly walked over to the one person who looked up at his entrance, a young Asian man wearing blue scrubs. "I'm lookhg for my father, Bob Huerdeen. He had a stroke and he's supposed to be in the

CCU."

It came out as a single frightened sentence, and he was half expecting to be told the worst, but the man was nodding before he'd even finished speaking, walking quickly around the counter to join Miles. "He's in room twelve. Follow me."

Room twelve was halfway down the hallway and, like seemingly all of the other rooms on this floor, had a big window opening onto the corridor so that the medical personnel passing by could do instant visual checks on the patients inside. Miles saw his father before he even walked

into the room. The old man was hooked up to machines, IV tubes had been inserted into one extended arm, and he lay there, still and unmoving, eyes closed, as though he was dead.

Miles followed the--intern? doctor? nurse? attendant?--through the open doorway into the room. He'd steeled himself for an onslaught of emotion, but none came. There was no sadness, no tears, no anger, only the same fear, dread, and panic that he'd been experiencing since Naomi first told him his father was in the hospital.

Inside, the room was silent, the only sound the persistent beep of heart-monitoring equipment. Miles cleared his throat before speaking, and the noise was deafening in the stillness. When he spoke, his voice was a reverent whisper. "Are you the doctor?"

The other man shook his head, whispering also. "I'm an intern. The doctor is on his rounds. He should be back in fifteen minutes or so, but I could get him if you want."

"So there's nothing.." life-threatening? I mean, my dad doesn't have to have emergency surgery or something?"

"Your father almost died. Could have died. As it is, he may have suffered some serious brain damage. But we have him on a blood thinner, and he's being given medication that will break down any clots."

Miles shook his head. Look I don't understand. Is that what caused the stroke?"

"A stroke usually occurs when blockage in one of the arteries breaks off, travels through the bloodstream, and becomes lodged in one of the blood vessels of the brain. This is what happened to your father.

There's not much we can do about the stroke that already occurred, although the doctor will talk to you more about that when he sees you.

The anticoagulant and blood thinner he's being administered are to prevent additional strokes. They often come in waves, the clots dislgdging sequentially or in pieces, or dislodging other

blockages farther down the line, and this hopefully will prevent that from occurring."

Miles was listening, but he was looking at his father. He turned back toward the intern only when the other man stopped speaking.

"Would you like me to get the doctor?" "Yes," Miles admitted. "Would you?"

The intern smiled. I'll be back in a few minutes." There was a chair against the wall by the foot of the bed, and Miles pulled it to his dad's side, sitting down. Lying there, eyes closed, a tube shoved up his nose, the man on the bed did not even look like his father. Not only did he seem older and thinner, but the features of his face appeared to be altered. His nose looked larger than it did ordinarily, his chin longer and more pointed. The teeth that were exposed between pale, partially open lips were much too big and much too white, out of proportion with the rest of the face. Only the single exposed hand, connected to the arm in which bottled nutrients and medication were being intravenously fed, seemed familiar.

He recognized that hand. The sight of it, for some reason, brought on the tears that previously wouldn't come. Looking at the veined, mottled skin, the bony, excessively lined knuckles, he could conjure up images of the past that were not prompted by the still face, the sheeted body. He saw that hand helping him climb the metal ladder out of the YMCA pool, spanking him when he shot the Werthers' dog in the butt with a BB gun, showing him how to tie knots for his Boy Scouts merit badge, dribbling a basketball.

It was this that made him cry, that triggered the emotional outburst for which he'd been prepared .......... He touched his dad's hand, patted it, held it.