was a face-saving lie.
“That’s helpful,” Dan said. “We’ve been assuming Louella’s incomprehension is stroke-related, but maybe she’s having trouble hearing us.”
“She goes by Lolly, actually. Not Louella.”
“I’ll make a note of that. Now, let’s talk about her family history. I’m assuming both her parents are deceased. Can you tell me what they died of?”
“Well, let’s see. Her father—my grandfather—died of Alzheimer’s.”
“At what age?”
“I’m not sure. His late seventies, maybe?”
“What about her mother?”
“She died during childbirth.”
“Of?”
“I don’t know. Childbirth, I guess. Lolly and my father were raised by their grandmother.”
“So she has a brother. Any other siblings?”
“No. My father was Lolly’s twin.”
“Was? He’s deceased?”
“Yeah…. Yup.”
“And what was the cause of his death?”
The question tightened my grip on the phone. “Officially? Officially, it was internal injuries and…loss of blood. His legs were severed.”
“Were these war injuries?”
“No. He was a drunk. He was fishing off a trestle bridge, and they think he must have passed out or something. And a train came along.”
“Whoa. That’s tough. And how old was—”
“Thirty-three. But look, like I said, my wife can fill you guys in a lot better about Lolly’s medical stuff. And as far as her medications, what I can do is get hold of her handyman. Have him go by the house and look around. Make a list, or bring you her prescription bottles, or whatever.”
Dan said that would be super. One more thing. Did I think I was going to be able to make the trip back to be with my aunt?
“Oh, well, it would be tough…. But if it becomes necessary.”
Dan said he understood. Were there friends or other family who might be able to check in on her? Stroke was such an upheaval. So frightening. Familiar faces were reassuring at a time like this.
“Uh, well…I know she gets together, plays cards with some of the gals she used to work with. And they go down to the casino once or twice a month. Eat at the buffet or whatever.”
“Sounds like my mother,” he said. “Is one of her friends Kay? She keeps asking for Kay.”
“I don’t know. There’s a Hilda. And a Marie. A Shirley.”
Dan thanked me. I thanked him. “Dr. Salazar will be coming to the phone shortly,” he said. “Can you hold?”
Maybe the lite-rock station Dan switched me to was penance for my shortcomings as next-of-kin. I bit at some ragged skin on my thumb. Grabbed a beer out of the fridge. The deejay had a theme going: “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” “Colors of the Wind,” “Windy.” When was it that FM radio had started sucking? The eighties, right? The Reagan era?
That morning’s newspaper was on the counter. “NATO Air Strikes in Yugoslavia Intensify”…“Hockey Great Gretzky to Retire”…“Love Bug Computer Virus Delivers ‘Fatally Attractive’ Message” …Before we moved west, I’d promised Lolly I’d get back to see her twice a year—summertime and Christmastime—but I’d reneged. Hadn’t even gone back for Hennie’s funeral…. And what did my father’s shit-canning his life have to do with Lolly’s stroke? Nothing, that’s what. I should have kept my fucking mouth shut…. I saw Lolly, standing at the doorway of my algebra class, freshman year—not Ma, not Grandpa. As soon as I saw her there, I knew Daddy was dead.
I crooked the cordless against my shoulder. Filled the dogs’ water dish. Finished my beer…. Stroke is such an upheaval, so frightening…. This Dr. Salazar was taking his sweet time. They must teach that tactic in medical school: keep the loved ones waiting, so that by the time you pick up the phone, it’ll seem like the voice of God.
“And the lite favorites just keep on rolling,” the radio said. “If you like pina coladas, getting caught in the rain…” Oh, God, not that stupid song. Guy decides to cheat, so he answers his own wife’s personal ad? Yeah, like that’s going to happen. In real life, some psycho chick would be waiting at that bar, and they’d go to a Motel Six, and he’d have erectile dysfunction. Have to call Bob Dole for some Viagra. Shit, he goes from running for president to being the poster boy for the All-American boner? How much did he get for that gig?…
“If you like making love at midnight, in the dunes of the Cape…” No, thanks. Too many sand fleas. Now that shitty song was going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. And if that Dan guy thought I was indifferent because I couldn’t make it back to Connecticut, then fuck him. I loved Lolly. She’d been more of a father to me than my father ever had. Taken me fishing, taken me on my first trip to Fenway. I had almost total recall of that trip. Boston versus Milwaukee, an exhibition game. Lolly’d won tickets on the radio, and we’d gone up in her old green Hudson. Nineteen sixty-one, it was. Yastrzemski and Chuck Schilling in their rookie year, Monbouquette on the mound. We’d had a blowout on the way home, and Lolly’d given me a lesson on how to fix a flat…. But shit, this was the busiest stretch of the school year. Curriculum meetings, placement meetings for the special needs kids, term papers to grade, exams to write. I could get back there once school was over, but—
“Hey there,” a woman’s voice said. “You’re the nephew?”
Dr. Salazar was a fast talker, devoid of personality. Lolly’s vitals had stabilized, she said. Her stroke was ischemic, caused by a clot rather than a rupture. She’d come in exhibiting classic symptoms: weakness on her left side, double vision, aphasia.
“What’s aphasia?” I said.
“A disconnect between what the patient’s trying to say and what’s being communicated. For instance, Louella thinks to herself, I’m thirsty. I want more ice chips. But when she verbalizes it, it comes out as gibberish.”
“So you’re saying she’s incoherent?”
“Less so than when she first came in.”
The EMTs had given Lolly magnesium on the ride in, Dr. Salazar said, and that had put the injury in “slo-mo.” And with stroke victims, “time was brain,” she said; the quicker there was treatment, the better the odds of avoiding permanent damage. “When she got here, we gave her a clot-buster called tPA. Great drug if the patient gets it in time—acts like Drano on clogged arteries—but the operative word here is if. Time-wise, there’s only a small window of opportunity. When the blood supply’s cut off, brain cells begin to die. I think you’d better prepare yourself for the fact that your aunt will most likely have an altered life.”
“Altered how?”
“Too soon to tell. We’ll know
