Leaving Blythe River: A Novel (35 page)

“This wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad.”

“What’d you have?”

“Scrambled eggs and bacon.”

“Okay.”

A painfully long and awkward silence. Ethan thought he could feel it grind on both of them.

Then Noah said, “We don’t really have anything to talk about, do we?”

“Not really, I guess.”

“We never really did have anything to talk about.”

Ethan wanted to argue. But he had no facts on his side. So he said nothing.

“I was a great dad for a baby. And a toddler. I was a great hero figure. You know, for somebody who’s too small to look too close or ask too many questions. But then you grew up and started talking. And you were smart. And I never really knew what to say to you after that.”

“I didn’t need sparkling conversation, Dad. Just the truth would have been fine.”

“I never much liked the truth. I always figured I could improve on it.”

A pause, which Ethan didn’t fill. Couldn’t fill. How do you counter a statement like that?

“Speaking of the truth,” Noah said, “what I told you about pulling myself under that rock wasn’t entirely true. I made it sound like I wasn’t afraid of dying. But I was. I wanted to be found. Truth is I went under there for the reason I said I did, but then I couldn’t get back out. I could move about an inch at a time backward—the direction my head was facing—without it hurting so much that I passed out. But then I got stuck. I couldn’t go sideways or in the direction my feet were pointing. It hurt too much. I tried it when I heard the plane overhead. But I passed out from the pain, and when I came to again it was gone.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. “That makes more sense. Can I ask you one other question? If it has nothing to do with legs?”

“I guess.”

“Why did you take five hundred dollars in cash out of the bank the day before the accident?”

“Oh. That. That was for you. I was going to give it to you and tell you to have a different kind of adventure. The kind where you find your own way home to New York. I was going to let you fly back alone and stay on your own there.”

Ethan thought back to the day before his father disappeared. At the time, he realized, that would have seemed like quite the adventure. It would have made his heart pound to think about crossing the United States alone. Now it sounded like nothing. Compared to riding the edge of a cliff over a two-thousand-foot drop-off? Or staring into the bared teeth of a peeved grizzly sow? Just buying a plane ticket and hailing a cab sounded easy.

“Why?” Ethan asked. “Why would you do that? You were so dead set on keeping me here. At least until I had somewhere better to go.”

“I told myself it was to make you happy. And I’m sure that’s what I would’ve told you. And it was true, of course. That was a big part of it. But also I wasn’t too keen on being stuck in that tiny place together all summer.”

“Oh,” Ethan said. “Me neither.”

“I mean, I wanted us to have the time together. I did and I didn’t. I wanted us to work again. To get along. But it wasn’t panning out that way. How did you even find out about that cash withdrawal thing?”

“The rangers were doing some digging, because they weren’t sure you were up there in the wilderness at all. It was a big part of why they called off the search. People take cash out of the bank to make a getaway. Not to go running in the mountains.”

“Just my luck,” Noah said.

Then they ran out of things to say again.

Before they could solve the problem, a male nurse or orderly came in and announced that it was time to prep Noah for surgery.

Ethan took his father’s hand before leaving. Squeezed it tightly.

Ethan searched his memory but couldn’t remember an example of physical contact between them. At least, not since Ethan was old enough to talk. Maybe there had been something. Sometime. But nothing came to mind.

Noah squeezed back.

“I don’t know who I’m going to be when this is over,” Noah said, avoiding Ethan’s eyes.

“You’ll still be you.”

“I don’t really know who that is, though.”

“Right,” Ethan said. “I guess now you get to find out.”

“The surgery went well,” the doctor said. “We did everything. Both legs. That’s why it took so long. We replaced the right knee with a prosthetic joint, and now it’s just a matter of a lot of time to heal. Of course, he’ll be in a wheelchair at first. But in time he should be learning to walk again. He’s a fortunate man.”

Except in his own head,
Ethan thought. He didn’t say so.

“Can I go in and see him?”

“Not yet. He’s in recovery. Then he’ll go back to his room, but I doubt he’ll be conscious. I’m afraid visiting hours will be over by the time he’s awake and ready to see you. It might be late in the evening. Perhaps it would be best to go home and get some rest and come back in the morning.”

Ethan looked up into the doctor’s face, then over at Jone. Then back at the doctor.

“Can’t I stay with him?”

Jone said, “It might be best for everyone just to get some rest, like the doctor said.”

“Couldn’t I stay here tonight? Jone, you could just go home without me and come back tomorrow.”

Jone raised one eyebrow but asked no questions. Well, no questions of Ethan. She asked the doctor, “Is it against policy?”

“No, we sometimes allow it. Usually parents of young children like to stay. Because they’re afraid their child will wake up in the night and be all in a panic.”

“Yes,” Ethan said. “Exactly. That’s exactly why I want to stay.”

The doctor scratched his stubbly cheek for a moment. “All right,” he said. “I’ll have an orderly bring a cot into his room.”

The moon was waning but still bright, and it shone through the window and lit up his father’s face. Ethan noticed this while he was not sleeping. In fact, he found himself staring at his dad. His mind ran over details of his wilderness days, including imaginings of what the ordeal must have been like from his father’s point of view.

Noah’s eyes flickered open.

“Dad,” Ethan said. “You doing okay?”

“Oh, you’re here,” Noah said.

His voice sounded soft and, well . . . there was really only one way to say it. Loaded. Almost like a drunken man, though Ethan knew it was the IV drugs.

“Yeah, I stayed.”

“Is it over?”

“Yeah.”

“They did it?”

“Yeah. They replaced your right knee, too.”

Noah tried to lift his head, and at the same time he raised the stump of his left leg. His body was under a sheet and a light blanket, but Ethan could see the outline of what was left of the leg—and what was gone. He could see clearly where it ended. It was more of a shock than he’d expected, even though earlier he’d gotten used to seeing the blanket sag in the space a leg had so recently occupied. Still, it was different to see it move.

“Dad, don’t do that. You just got out of surgery a few hours ago. You’ll hurt it.”

“Oh.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“Just be still if you can.”

No reply. For a very long time. Ethan looked over to see if his father was asleep again. But Noah seemed to be looking at the moon.

“Why did you stay here?” he asked Ethan.

“I thought you might wake up and be scared. And . . . you know. Upset.”

“I need more of this pain stuff. Get the nurse for me, okay?”

“You have a pump.”

“A what?”

“A pain pump. You just press this button on the IV tube.”

Ethan sat up on his cot and leaned over. He took his father’s hand and placed it on the button.

“Oh,” Noah said. Then, a few seconds later, “Oh. That’s better already. Good. Did I have a button before?”

“I don’t know,” Ethan said.

They both lay still and quiet for a long time. Ten minutes or more. Ethan assumed his father would drift back to the underneath side of consciousness. Even though his eyes were open.

“The moon,” Noah said. His voice sounded even more filmy and insignificant. And even more stoned.

“What about it, Dad?”

“I watched it. Every night. And every night I wondered if it was the last time I’d see it. But there it is.”

“I’m glad you’re here to see it.”

“I didn’t want to die.”

“I know.”

“I was so scared.”

“I know that, too. But you’re okay now.”

“You’re right. I’m pathetic.”

“I . . . shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, you should. Have. It’s true. That’s why I had the . . . you know. What do you call it again?”

“The surgery?”

“Right. Because when little five-foot-two Ethan is looking down on me I know it’s time to stand up taller. You know? And be braver. And . . . what was I saying?”

Ethan felt his own reaction to the dig at his height, felt it as an actual physical sensation, a palpable irritation in his body. He tried to push it down again. Let it go by. But he’d been letting it go by his whole life. This time it didn’t push down. It pushed back.

“You just can’t resist putting me down about my size, can you?”

“No, no, no,” Noah said. “No. I didn’t mean it like that at all. I’m not saying things right. It just made you so much more like your mom. It was like I wasn’t even part of making you at all. Like I wasn’t even in there anywhere. The two of you were like this perfect match, like you rejected my DNA or something. I resented that. It made me feel left out. And you were always so smart. You didn’t really know how smart you were. It seemed like a mean joke from . . . I don’t know, nature or whatever that you ended up looking like a younger kid than you are. Because you’re so smart, you’re like five years ahead of your age. Seven years. Hell, you were smarter than me and that’s a lot of years. That’s why I teased you about it.”

He didn’t go on to say what “it” was, but Ethan got the general drift of the point.

“You were smarter,” Noah continued, “but I was taller.”

Ethan thought his dad was doing an awful lot of talking for a man who should be drifting back out of consciousness. But Noah seemed wound up about something, and unable to let it go. So Ethan just waited and let his father speak.

“And I was better looking, and I thought I was braver. But then you yelled all that stuff at me this morning, and then I knew I wasn’t. Braver. Than you. I mean, than anybody.”

“Dad, maybe just lie still and see if you can get some sleep. This stuff doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” Noah said. “It matters. That’s why I had to have the operation. Because I had to be brave. Otherwise you’d be braver and I’d be losing again.”

“It’s not a competition, Dad.”

“Everything’s a competition,” Noah said.

Ethan sat up in his cot. Pushed the covers off himself.

“I don’t want to do this anymore. I can’t sleep. I’m going to go out and see if there’s a soda machine or something. Try to get back to sleep, Dad.”

He let himself out of the room.

As the door closed with a little whoosh sound behind him, Ethan took a deep breath and shook his head and shoulders slightly, as if he could physically knock away the troubling thoughts that surrounded him.

He eased his sore legs down the hall to the nurses’ station. He expected it to be empty, but there was a night nurse. Of course. Ethan should have known there would be a night nurse.

She had jet-black hair and eyes that were almost black, and a round face. And she smiled at him. And he realized how badly he’d needed that smile. From just about anyone.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked him.

“No, ma’am.”

“Is your father asleep?”

“Not exactly. He was just talking my ear off.”

“Is he okay?”

“No.”

The nurse rose immediately, as if to go to him.

“No, I’m sorry,” Ethan said quickly. “He’s okay. Physically he’s okay. He’s just . . . he’s such a sad man.”

He’d almost been tempted to add the word “little.” Such a sad
little
man. But he kept that part of the thought on the inside of his head, away from others.

She smiled at him again, but more pityingly this time.

“It’s hard, isn’t it? When you find out your parents aren’t what you thought they were?”

“Yeah, that happens all the time with my dad. I still can’t pin down what I think he is. But right now I’d settle for a soda machine. Leave the big questions for morning.”