The Day After Tomorrow

37

Friday, October 7.

New Mexico.

AT 1:55 in the afternoon, 8:55 in the evening, Paris time, Elton Lybarger sat in a lounge chair with a deck robe over him, watching the shadows cast by New Mexico’s towering Sangre de Cristo mountains begin to inch across the valley floor a thousand feet below him. He was wearing Bass Weejuns, tan slacks and a royal blue sweater. small yellow headset was connected to a Sony Walkman in his lap. He was fifty-six years old and listening to the collected speeches of Ronald Reagan.

Elton Lybarger had come to the exclusive Rancho de Piñon nursing home from San Francisco on May 3, seven months after suffering a massive stroke while on a business trip to the United States from his native Switzerland. The stroke had left him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Now, nearly a year later, he could walk with aid of a cane and speak, if slowly, without slurring.

Six miles away, a silver Volvo turned out of the bright high desert sunlight and into the deep shadows of the conifer-lined Paseo del Norte Road leading up from the valley to Rancho de Piñon. Behind the wheel was Joanna Marsh, a plain, somewhat overweight, thirty-two-year-old physical therapist who, for the last five months, had made the two-hour round trip from her Taos home five times a week. This would be her last visit to Elton Lybarger at Rancho de Piñon. Today they would drive to Santa Fe, where a chartered helicopter was waiting to take them to Albuquerque. Then, flying to Chicago, they would board American Airlines flight 38 for Zurich. Tonight, accompanied by Joanna Marsh, R.P.T., Elton Lybarger was going home.

Goodbyes were said, the car door closed and with a wave to the security guard at the entrance, Joanna maneuvered the Volvo through the gates of Rancho de Piñon and out onto Paseo del Norte Road.

Looking over, Joanna saw Lybarger staring out at the passing countryside smiling. For as long as she’d known him, she’d never seen him smile.

“Do you know where we’re going, Mr. Lybarger?” she asked. Lybarger nodded.

“Where?” she teased him.

Lybarger didn’t reply, just continued to stare out at the land as they descended the steep and twisting road that cut, knifelike, through the rich conifer forest.

“Come on, Mr. Lybarger. Where are we going?” Joanna wasn’t sure if he’d heard her the first time, or if he’d heard and it hadn’t sunk in. As well as he’d recovered from the stroke, there were still times when it seemed he didn’t connect with what was being said to him.

Shifting his weight just a little, Lybarger sat forward and put out his hand against the dashboard to balance himself as the Volvo leaned through a series of turns. Still he didn’t reply.

At the bottom of the canyon, Joanna turned onto New Mexico Highway 3 toward Taos. Adjusting the cruise control to sixty-five, she waved to a group of brightly clad bicycle racers.

“Friends of mine from Taos,” she said with a smile, then glanced over to Lybarger, thinking maybe his silence was due to the emotion of his sudden freedom.

He was sitting forward, his weight against his seat belt, staring at her in a way that made it seem as if he’d suddenly come out of a long sleep and was totally bewildered.

“Are you all right?” she asked, suddenly flashing with the horror that maybe he was having another stroke and that she should turn around immediately and go back to the nursing home.

“Yes,” he answered quietly.

Joanna judged him for a moment, then relaxed and smiled. “Why don’t you sit back and rest, Mr. Lybarger. We have a long afternoon and night ahead of us.”

Lybarger responded by sitting back, but then he turned and looked at her again. His puzzled expression remained.

“Is there something the matter, Mr. Lybarger?”

“Where is my family?” he asked.

“Where is my family?” Lybarger asked again.

“I’m sure they’ll be there to meet you.” Joanna lay back against her pillow in the first-class section and closed her eyes. They had been in the air less than three hours, and Lybarger had asked the same question, by her calculation, eleven times. She wasn’t sure if it was a lingering effect of the stroke that kept him asking it over and over, or if he suddenly felt displaced at being away from Rancho de Piñon, and the family he was referring to were the staff he’d spent so much time with there, or if it was genuine concern that someone might not be waiting in Zurich to meet him when he arrived. The truth was, in the entire time she had been treating him, not once, as far as she knew, had anyone besides his personal physician, an elderly Austrian doctor named Salettl who had made the trip from Salzburg to New Mexico six times, come to see him. So she had no idea whether or not he would have family waiting for him at Zurich airport when they got there. She could only assume he would. But other than Salettl, the only personal contact she’d had with anyone representing Lybarger’s interests was when his attorney had called her at home to request she accompany Lybarger to Switzerland.

That, in itself, had been a complete surprise and had caught her totally off-guard. Joanna had rarely been outside New Mexico, let alone the United States, and the offer, first-class round-trip air fare and five thousand dollars, had been too generous to pass up. It would pay off the loan on the Volvo and, even though it was only for a short time, it would be an experience she would probably never otherwise have. But more than that, she’d been happy to do it. Joanna prided herself in taking special interest in all her patients, and Mr. Lybarger was no exception. When she started, he’d barely been able to stand, and all he’d wanted to do was listen to tapes on his Walkman or watch television. Now, though he still listened to his tapes and watched TV voraciously, he could easily walk a half mile with his cane, alone and unaided.

Coming out of her reverie, Joanna realized the cabin was dark and that most people were sleeping, even though a movie was playing on the screen in front of them. For the first time in a long time, Elton Lybarger was silent and she thought he might be sleeping as well. Then she realized he wasn’t. The airline headset covered his ears and he was fully engrossed in the movie. Movies, television, audio tapes, trash to classics, sports to politics, opera to rock ‘n’ roll, Lybarger seemed to have an insatiable appetite either to learn or to be entertained, or both. What so intrigued him was beyond her. All she could imagine was that it was some kind of escape. From what, or to what, she had no idea.

Pulling the airline blanket up around him, Joanna settled back. Her one regret was that she’d had to put Henry, her ten-month-old Saint Bernard, in a kennel while she was away. Living alone, she had no one to take care of him, and asking friends to take in a hundred-pound bundle of ceaseless enthusiasm was beyond the name of decency. But, she would only be away for five days, and for five days, Henry could manage.