The Doctor and Mr. Dylan (33 page)

Martinovich approached me, and exhaled a mighty breath. “I asked for a recess because we need to regroup, Doc. That was ugly. I never second-guess myself, but it would have been better if we’d never put you on the stand. Hamilton made you look guilty. We need a weekend off to help the jury forget those last answers. I need to rethink my strategy.”

“I didn’t mean to get rattled up there. I couldn’t help it.”

“Forget it, Doctor. It’s over. Next week we’ll make it all better. We have to.”

CHAPTER 25

MY BLUE-EYED SON

That weekend the worlds of the Antone and Johnson families scraped bottom once more, while I sat rotting in jail oblivious to the events outside. At dawn I was scratching the stubble on my chin and replaying every sentence of the prosecution’s case against me. After another sleepless night, I understood why people got hooked on downer drugs. I could not relax. I heard an iron gate creak outside, and my guard announced, “You have a visitor.”

“This early? Who is it?”

“He says he’s your son.”

A visit from Johnny? I sat bolt upright.

“The young man is waiting in the visitation room.”

What had changed? Johnny had spurned me for months, and now he showed up uninvited? Whatever the reason, this was the best news to come my way since I’d been locked up.

Johnny’s hair was tousled in wild disarray and his lips were cemented into a troubled frown. He denied me a smile or any sense of fond reunion. It had been four months since our last conversation, and everything was different. How could he be comfortable, divided from his father by bulletproof glass?

“Thanks for coming, son. It’s good to see you.”

The dam broke, and Johnny burst into tears. “It’s not good, Dad. It’s so terrible. Echo’s in the hospital. They won’t let me in to see her. I’ve got no one now.”

My mouth hung open. “What happened, son? What happened to Echo?”

“She crashed in her dad’s fucking snowmobile. She’s all messed up, maybe dying. The doctors said she bled into her abdomen. I don’t know any more than that. The surgeon—your buddy Perpich—took Echo into the operating room. I had to wait outside in that same stupid waiting room where I waited during Mom’s surgery. They won’t let me see her. I’m so scared. Mom is dead. You’re in here, and I’m all alone in the world. Lena can’t help me. She said I should come and see you.”

Johnny wiped his wet cheeks with his shirtsleeve. He raked his fingers through his hair as the words poured out. My heart was breaking. At a time when my son needed me more than ever, the Great Wall of Glass divided us. There could be no hugs, no touch, and no shoulder to cry on. All I could do is listen, and his news sucked the breath out of me.

“I’m sorry, son,” was all I could say.

“Oh, Dad, what if I lose her forever?” He dropped his face onto the tabletop and covered his head with his arms. “My life is shit. Just shit.”

I closed my eyes. After all the horrors I’d lived through in the past few months, I never dreamed it could get worse. Watching my son melt in front of me was unbearable. “Johnny, I love you.”

“I don’t care, Dad. That doesn’t help right now.” He buried his face in his hands and rolled his head back and forth. “What am I going to do?” He sneered at me. “I want to be with Echo. Only Echo. Don’t you get it?”

“I do, but…”

“It’s not fair. I’m only 17 years old. I have no mother. I have no father. All I have is Echo and Lena.”

“You still have a father.”

“What, like this?” He waved his hand at the barren visitation room. “For a twenty minute visit in a jail room? You’re no good to me in here.”

“I will get out of jail.”

“When? In fifty years?”

“No. Soon. After the trial.”

“Don’t think so, Dad. I’ve been following the newsfeeds on the Internet. You’re cooked. You were in the operating room alone with Mom. You hated her. You wanted Mom’s money. You killed your first wife. It’s all there. You’re cooked.”

“Son, I need you to know two things about me and forget all the other static. One, I love you. And two, I did not kill your mother.”

Johnny rubbed his shirtsleeve across his face, and dried his eyes. “I believe number one. I wish I could believe number two.”

“You need to believe me, and you need to hang in there. I’m sure Lena will continue to take care of you. She needs to be there for Echo right now. Can you go back to Lena’s house? That’s still the best place for you. She’ll look out for you until I get out of here.”

“You’re never getting out of here, Dad.”

“Have a little faith, Johnny.”

“Whatever faith I had is gone. I don’t know what I’m doing here. You can’t help me. I’ve gotta get out of here.” Johnny spun around and stomped out of the room. I watched the door slam behind him, and I felt more empty than ever. Johnny had returned, tantalized me with his presence, and left me without a promise.

I returned to my windowless room, and feared that nothing would ever be the same. I couldn’t shake the sorrow in Johnny’s voice. My son was an eighty-year-old in a teenager’s body. He’d dealt with a lifetime of loss in one lousy winter.

Poor Echo. The prospect of motherhood at age 17 was a stark predicament, but motherhood was a trifling inconvenience compared to a critical snowmobile crash. What if she died?

What about Lena? She’d kept both Johnny and Echo above water since Alexandra’s death. She’d taken in Johnny as if he was her own son, and attended to his every need. What if Echo died? Would Lena still accept Johnny as a surrogate son?

Lena visited that afternoon, and my concerns were validated. She looked sallow and moribund. She wore a white sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. Furrows I’d never seen creased her forehead and circled her mouth. She leaned back in the chair and distanced herself from me. Her gaze flickered about the room and her eyes refused to focus on me.

“Johnny was here this morning,” I said. “He told me about Echo. How is she?”

Lena shook her head and said, “She’s in the ICU. She’s alive, but it was awful.”

“What happened?”

“It was Bobby, that shithead. He and Echo had a blowout argument about Johnny, and she ran out of his house. Echo didn’t have the car keys, so she jumped on his snowmobile and headed west out of town. She lost control on a trail east of Hibbing and rammed into a tree. The paramedics brought her to the hospital, and Dr. Perpich operated on her. Her asshole father gave her the anesthetic. Can you believe that?”

“Jesus. Couldn’t somebody else take care of her?”

“Bobby was on call, and no one else was available. It was lunacy. Echo runs away from him, and yet Bobby winds up sticking a tube down her throat at one o’clock in the morning.”

“What were her injuries?”

“A ruptured spleen and a torn uterine artery. Dr. Perpich said if he hadn’t clamped off the blood supply to the uterus, she would have bled to death. She needed a ton of transfusions, but she’ll survive.”

“What about the pregnancy?”

“Gone. All gone. And all future pregnancies are gone. They had to take her uterus out. She was bleeding that much.”

“What? They did a hysterectomy?”

“Yep. Can you believe that?”

I was blown away. Beautiful young Echo, sterile at age 17? Unthinkable. Anything I said would only trivialize the damage. I stayed silent and waited for Lena’s next move. The seconds passed, and I grew more worried. Lena would take this loss hard.

“It’s like God is punishing us,” she said at last. “For everything.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Lena Johnson said nothing more. She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief, turned her back on me and left me there alone.

CHAPTER 26

ASK NICO …

A third unexpected visitor arrived the following morning. On the freedom side of the Plexiglas barrier sat none other than Mr. Bobby Dylan. On this Sunday morning he wore a black bolero, a long black suit coat, a white shirt and a razor-thin scarlet necktie. His eyes were swollen and red.

There was no one I was less interested in seeing. “Why are you here?” I said.

“I won’t take up much of your time,” he said.

His words were absurd to me. Who had more time than a man in prison? I had nothing but time. “Why are you here?” I repeated.

“To set things straight. My daughter almost died yesterday. Because of you, she’s still alive.”

I frowned. The man was as bizarre as ever. “What are you talking about?”

“Echo was in an accident. She blew out her spleen and her uterus.”

“I know.”
“She lost the pregnancy.”

“I heard.”

“She lost 80% of her blood volume before she got to the operating room. Her blood pressure was unobtainable on arrival. My own child was my surgical patient, and she was dying. I had to keep her alive, and I couldn’t think straight. In my mind’s eye I saw the newspaper headline: ‘Anesthetist loses his daughter in operating room disaster.’ It was gonna be like what you went through, giving your family member an anesthetic and watching them die in front of you.”

“It sucks.”

“I ordered up that Massive Transfusion Pack you developed for the Blood Bank. I gave her the MTP, and it worked. I pumped in the 6 units of blood, the fresh frozen plasma, and the platelets as fast as I could, and we saved her. Echo lost the pregnancy, she lost her womb, but she didn’t lose her life. I didn’t lose my daughter. And I’m here to thank you.”

“I did nothing.”

“My daughter is alive. She’s alive because of what you taught me. From this point forward, everything has changed for me. I feel different about you. I cannot hate you. I’m sorry I said all those things about you in the courtroom. It says in the Bible, ‘Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.’ Luke 6:37.”

I didn’t buy any of it. I didn’t trust the guy. “What you’re saying doesn’t change anything. I still think you killed Alexandra. I still think you hate my guts because I slept with your wife.” It felt good to say it to Dylan’s face.

“I couldn’t care less about you and Lena at this point. Me and Lena were done. I was doing ladies all over this town. I was a hound, and you moved in on my ex. So what, man? So what?”

“So you trashed our friendship, scared the hell out of me in the woods, killed my wife and framed me. Then you had a fight with your daughter, and she ran off and crashed your damn snowmobile into a tree. You feel guilty as hell about everything, and I don’t care. Will you get out of here? I can’t stand looking at you. Your apology can’t bust me out of jail. You’re the one who should be inside here, not me. I should be out there in the real world, lying in bed with your wife.”

Dylan’s face darkened. “That’s mean, Nico.”

“I don’t care. Fuck you, Bobby.” I spat at the Plexiglas, and the gob hung there between us. He shook his head at me and said no more. He pushed back his chair and left the room. I pulled my shirtfront out of my pants and wiped the spit off the window. I felt stupid. I’d acted the part of a low-life prisoner to the max, but I was pissed off, and I deserved to be.

One hour later, Johnny surprised me by visiting a second time. He looked calmer and steadier. This time he wore a button-down blue Oxford shirt and khaki pants—full prep school regalia—an abrupt change from his customary tee-shirt and gym clothes. I liked the wardrobe upgrade. I didn’t even know he owned clothes like that.

“How’s Echo doing?” I said.

“She survived, but she can’t stop crying. No one wanted to have a baby right now, but now that Echo can’t ever have one, she’s devastated. It’s awful.”

“There’s nothing you can do but be kind and supportive. She’s going to have to grieve.”

“It’s all my fault,” Johnny said.

“No, it’s not. You didn’t wear a condom, and Echo got pregnant. That’s the extent of your involvement. You didn’t make her argue with her dad, and you didn’t make her jump on that snowmobile.”

Johnny pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and said, “I came here today to show you something. It came in the mail last month, but I wasn’t talking to you then. Take a look. It’s what you wanted.” He unfolded the paper and pressed it up against the Plexiglas between us.

I squinted to read it in the dim light. It was a letter addressed to John Antone, dated December 10th. The first sentence of the letter read,

The Admissions Committee of Harvard College is pleased to inform you that you have been accepted in the Early Action Program for admission next fall.

I read no further. “Wow, Johnny, this is incredible. I didn’t even know you’d applied to Harvard.”

“How could you know? You’re stuck in here. I just took care of business myself. My counselor convinced me to apply to Harvard. My grades were at the top in my Hibbing class, and my SAT scores were great. The curling helped. How many top applicants are curling champions from Minnesota? But none of that was enough. Remember you told me once, that it takes a gimmick to get into a top college?”

“Right.”