The Resurrectionist

17

Sweeney ran into room 103 to find the Pecks, father and daughter, on either side of Danny’s bed. Eyes burning, shirt stained with puke and chili, he stopped short in the doorway and looked from his son to the two doctors and back again. Alice seemed confused by his appearance and her father was about one step from appalled, but it was Sweeney who asked, “Is everything all right?”

The father let the daughter answer.

“Danny has a slight fever,” she said. “That’s not unusual. We’ve put him on an antibiotic.”

“Are you all right, Mr. Sweeney?” the father asked. He was wearing a banker’s suit and a red tie. There were figures on the tie but Sweeney couldn’t make them out. A nurse entered the room, glanced at the scene, and moved on to tend to Irene Moore.

Sweeney shook his head, put his hands on his hips. “Danny’s okay then?” he said.

“His condition is stable,” Peck said, then he shifted his eyes and asked, “What happened to your hands?”

Sweeney looked down to his palms. Alice stepped toward him, took a hand, and inspected it.

“It’s nothing,” Sweeney said. “I fell down in the parking lot.”

“In the Clinic lot?” Peck said.

“It’s just a scrape,” Sweeney said. “It’s nothing.”

“Did you put anything on this?” Alice asked.

Sweeney took his hand away. “I’m fine,” he said. “Can I ask what antibiotic you prescribed?”

In Sweeney’s experience, physicians tended to bristle when questioned by a pharmacist. Peck wouldn’t even acknowledge the question. But he forgot about the scraped palms and that was the point.

“Azithromycin,” Alice said. “It’s a low-grade fever. He’s running a hundred one. I’m not overly concerned.”

Sweeney stepped past her, leaned over the bed, and put his lips on Danny’s forehead. The boy was warm but he’d spiked much worse in the past. Sweeney pinched the elastic neck of the pajama top and found it dry.

He straightened and said, “Well, thank you both for looking in on him.”

“He’ll be fine,” Alice said.

Sweeney nodded. “I’m just going to grab a quick shower and change up. I should be back in twenty minutes.”

Alice smiled but her father said, “Didn’t you work last night?”

And here it was, the capper to the morning. Ernesto had reported him, had gone to Peck about the fight.

He made eye contact with the doctor and said, “I did.”

“Then shouldn’t you be getting some sleep?” Peck said.

“I sleep in the evening,” Sweeney said. “So I’m fresh for my shift.”

But he understood that Peck knew it was a lie.

DOWN IN THE CELLAR, he stripped, threw his clothes on the closet floor, and stood under a cold shower. His hands stung as he washed them and his balls were still tender from the knee he’d taken. He stayed in the shower until he shivered. Then he toweled dry and threw on a T-shirt and a pair of jeans.

He thought about brewing some coffee but settled for a glass of tap water. He thought about calling Dr. Lawton back at St. Joe’s, seeing if Danny could get his old bed back. The CVS probably wouldn’t rehire him but there were still a few mom and pops that could use a weekend druggist. He’d sell the Honda here. And if he couldn’t, he’d leave it in the parking lot. Let the Clinic deal with it. He and Danny would fly back together this time. He could call Mrs. Heller, see if she’d do some private duty again. The house was gone but he could lease one of those condos down on Mercury Drive.

He rinsed the glass, turned it upside down on the counter to dry.

People made mistakes. People used bad judgment. And it wasn’t like he’d dreamed up this whole move himself. Lawton and the rest had recommended the Peck, said it was top-notch. Just the place for Danny. Things happened in everybody’s life. You tried to make the most of it. You coped to the best of your ability. You repaired what you could and you moved on.

Better that he found out now. It was a mistake coming to this city. It was a mistake moving Danny. There was no way to have known that until after the fact. The thing to do now was to get Danny set up back in the St. Joseph and start inquiring about a job and a place to live.

He wondered now why he had ever believed in this place, why he had ever allowed himself to imagine something better. Dr. Peck was an arrogant prick at best. And maybe nothing more than a sham. This city was a circus and the Clinic was starting to seem like a freak show. Cleveland may have been hopeless but at least it was a known despair.

Once he had a bed for Danny, he’d tell the Pecks it had all been a mistake. He’d given it a try but things weren’t going to work out. Thanks for the chance and all, but we’re going home now. It would take at least a week. He’d have to find a nurse to fly with them. He’d have to book the reservations and make all the special arrangements with the airline. Goddammit, why hadn’t he turned on the phone yet?

They’d get back to Cleveland and he’d call the woman, the therapist in Shaker Heights, first thing. He’d agree to new sessions. He’d agree to a script. He’d do group again, if he had to. He’d get back to the way it had been, focus on Danny and the job. He’d work on acceptance. He’d stop telescoping, projecting. He’d stop searching for radical procedures and miracle treatments. He’d admit to his fear and his rage. He’d take responsibility for his actions, acknowledge what a grand disaster this move had been.

He’d tell everyone, I’m the bad father but I’m trying now. I’m flawed but I’m doing my best. He’d go to Shaker Heights and talk about his pain. He’d go to Shaker Heights and say, Give me a script. I’m ready for the script. Then he’d take the pills faithfully. He’d visit with Danny and he’d work the job and he’d take the pills.

The first thing to do was to make some phone calls. He’d drive back down into town. He’d call from a pay phone, use a credit card. He’d call Dr. Lawton and Mrs. Heller. He’d beg, if need be. He’d say, We’ve made a mistake and we just want to come home. Then he’d call the Realtor that had sold his house and ask her to find him a new place. An apartment. Someplace small and near the St. Joseph. He could erase the last week. The last month. He could get back into the routine. He could get his old job back or find a new one. He could get Danny his old bed at the St. Joseph.

His heart was racing and his palms were stinging again and he felt a sudden need to look in on his boy.

Sweeney ran upstairs, climbed onto the bed next to Danny, positioned his mouth near the boy’s ear, and began to explain that Dad had made a mistake. That pretty soon they’d be going back home to Ohio, back to the St. Joe and Dr. Lawton and Mrs. Heller. Things would be better, Sweeney promised, once they got back to Cleveland. As soon as they made it back home, he swore, things would go back to normal. He fell asleep muttering promises and stroking the child’s head.

A NURSE WOKE him just after six, an older woman with a tight, sparse perm. He blinked up at her and when she came into focus, he started.

“He’s holding steady,” she said, “at one-o-one.”

He ran a hand over his face, a tongue around his mouth, and sat up in the bed on an elbow.

“I went out like a light,” he said and fingered some sleep out of his eyes.

The nurse uncoiled a pressure cuff from its basket mount on the wall.

“I know,” she said. “I’ve been in and out and you were snoring like a bear.”

“Sorry about that,” Sweeney said. “Feel free to wake me if it happens again.”

“You weren’t bothering anyone.”

She wrapped Danny’s arm and pumped the ball.

“I wish we could get his temp down,” Sweeney said, putting a hand to Danny’s forehead. “He usually responds pretty quickly to the meds.”

The nurse studied the meter, then released the pressure, unwrapped the cuff, and placed Danny’s arm back on the bed. “I’m sure he’ll be fine by morning,” she said.

“I’m his father, by the way,” Sweeney said.

He expected her to introduce herself but she only smiled at him and asked, “Is Daniel your only one?”

Sweeney nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “He’s unique.”

The word sounded ridiculous but the nurse didn’t react.

“I’ve got five,” she said, shaking her head as if still unable to believe the fact, “and they’re all individuals. All characters. Every one of them.”

“Do they live around here?”

She gave him a look that said he was joking and that it was a cruel joke.

“They get home for the holidays,” she said. “And sometimes I go out there.”

She straightened Danny’s sheet, then wrote something on the chart that hung above the sphygmomanometer. When she was finished writing, she asked, “Is there anything I can get you?”

“No thank you,” Sweeney said.

The nurse started to leave the room and he asked, “Aren’t you going to check on Ms. Moore?” Irene was, as usual, curtained from his sight.

The nurse acted surprised. “I already did,” she said, a little testy, and then exited the room.

Sweeney went to Danny’s closet, found a facecloth, and soaked it with cold water. He wrung it close to dry, came back to the bed, and gently washed the boy’s face and neck and arms. He threw the cloth in the hamper next to the closet, kissed his son, and went to the cafeteria.

Once again, the room was empty, but there was evidence of recent activity. A radio next to the utensil rack was playing “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You,” and the music in the empty room was just one more in a train of the day’s unsettling sensations. Sweeney bought some machine coffee and a machine bagel, but gave up on the bagel halfway through. He picked up the local paper from an uncleared table and began to read about people and situations that were entirely unknown to him. The stories were close to unintelligible. He threw the paper in the trash with the bagel and, unsure of what else to do, started to clean up the cafeteria.

He was wiping down a table with a handful of napkins when he heard Alice Peck say, “Here you are.”

He turned. She was dressed in a black skirt and a white blouse that shimmered a little under the fluorescents. Her hair was pulled back and up, and she wore dangling earrings. She had a black throw over her arm and was holding a glossy black clutch.

“Well,” was what Sweeney managed, and then, “You look terrific.”

Alice raised her eyebrows as if she’d been waiting for something else, but she said, “Thanks.”

Sweeney threw the ball of napkins at the trash. It missed and dropped to the floor.

“Did you get called in unexpectedly?” he said, then flinched and added, “It’s not Danny, right? I was just up there.”

Alice shook her head.

“I guess we missed signals here. I thought we were going to dinner.”

Sweeney took a step closer and said, “Excuse me?”

“Didn’t you get my message? I left a message on your machine. I said I’d pick you up at seven.”

“I don’t have a machine,” Sweeney said. “I don’t have a phone.”

“No,” Alice said. “Human resources gave me the number.”

“I’m not following this,” Sweeney said. “I mean, I know we had talked about getting together outside at some point. But we didn’t say tonight.”

She began to shake her head and strands of hair came free and floated down by her ears.

“But we did,” Alice said. “We specifically said tonight. Remember? Then I told you I’d call and confirm it? And I did. I called and left the message. I said I’d come by the apartment at seven.”

“Jesus,” Sweeney said. “I don’t think so. I don’t—”

She cut him off with a wave of the hand.

“You know what,” she said, “it’s not a problem. We’ll do it another time. Or actually, we can just meet in my office.”

“No, please. You’re getting the wrong idea. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I honestly don’t remember specifying tonight. Jesus Christ. What the hell’s the matter with me?”

She stepped in and touched his arm. She eased him into a chair, pulled up its mate, and sat down opposite him.

“It’s all right,” she said. “Stress can do some real damage to short-term memory. This isn’t a big deal. You’ve had an overwhelming week.”

“We decided on tonight?” he said. “Really, it was tonight?”

She nodded.

“I’ve got nothing,” he said. “I have no recollection of that. I remember we said we’d talk, but that’s it.”

“You should really try to get some sleep,” she said. “Sleep is the great healer.”

They sat quietly for a while and he tried to think.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “This is pathetic. I feel awful.”

He put a hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut. He heard her say, “This is my fault. I was being presumptuous.” Then he felt her pulling his wrist away from his face. He opened his eyes and saw her nails were painted a deep rose.

“Can you give me five minutes?” he said and she started to protest.

“Oh, no. That’s not necessary.”

“I think,” he said, “maybe it is. I should get out of this place for a while and eat some real food and talk to someone who can talk back.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?” she asked.

“Give me five minutes,” he said and stood up. “I’ll meet you out in front.”

He held up his hand and splayed his fingers. “Five minutes,” he repeated. “And I promise I won’t forget.”

She looked at the gashed palms and smiled and said, “I’ve got a better idea.”