Timeless
“...Sarka,
can you ... me? Mr. Sarka?” As
he became increasingly conscious, the rest of his senses kicked in.The
soft mattress beneath his fingertips. The smell of recycled and conditioned
air. The constant orange behind his closed eyelids. Something beeped steadily
nearby. It all flooded in, and Adam’s eyes snapped open. He immediately
squinted at the sudden harsh light. “Mr.
Sarka,” the same voice said, and this time Adam noticed the Asian accent.
“Can you hear me? Can you respond?” Adam’s
neck muscles were stiff and painful, and he was barely able to turn his
head an inch to the right, towards the voice. His neck and shoulders used
to get sore sometimes after a hard game of tennis, especially after a competitive
match with Jimmy, but this was ten times worse. And it didn’t explain why
the rest of his body hurt so badly. Adam
stared blankly at a short man he’d never seen before. The man’s black hair
was streaked with gray, but his face didn’t look very old. He wore a white
lab coat and a black tie with purple and blue stripes.
“Who
are you?” Adam rasped. His throat prickled, like he’d swallowed a handful
of burrs, and he coughed. The action triggered the involuntary contraction
of muscles that didn’t want to be contracted. What’s the matter with
me? he thought as he tried to breathe deeply. “My
name is Dr. Yeong.” The doctor walked around the bed to the wall on Adam’s
left, and Adam realized that most of the irritating light came from the
single large window there. Yeong closed the clean white Venetian blinds
to the halfway point. Once he was able to see without squinting, Adam became
aware of his surroundings. They
were alone in a small room. The window was on one wall. A counter on another.
White and chrome fixtures. Florescent lights in the ceiling. Sparkling
tiled floor. Adam glanced down with his limited range of motion and realized
he was lying in a hospital bed, the back tilted up slightly to a forty-five
degree angle. An IV of some sort was stuck into the back of his left hand,
and several nearby monitors softly beeped. The sound he’d heard earlier.
Adam looked quickly at Yeong. “I’m in the hospital,” he stated. His throat
still prickled, but he managed not to cough this time. “Why? What’s happened?
Was I in an accident?” Yeong
calmly moved forward from his position at the foot of the bed. “No, far
from it, Mr. Sarka. Don’t worry, you should be back to normal in a few
days.” Adam thought he saw something flicker briefly across Yeong’s face,
but it was gone before he could identify it. Yeong
plucked a sleek, silver penlight from the pocket of his pressed white lab
coat and shined it in Adam’s eyes. Once he was finished, he picked up a
chart from the end of Adam’s bed and made a notation on the top page. “How
do you feel?” he asked, his eyes scanning the many papers attached to the
clipboard.
“How
do I feel?” Adam repeated absently, blinking away the dancing spots from
his eyes that the penlight had left. Confused, he thought. He glanced
around the room again, and this time he noticed a vase of bright yellow
snapdragons and deep orange carnations on the counter. He wondered who
they were from. Margie. They must be from Margie. “Where’s my wife?”
he asked. What if she had been in the same accident he’d been in? Nausea
suddenly forced its way up his esophagus, and he swallowed hard. Oh
God… Yeong
hesitated, and Adam became even more worried. “Where is she?” he demanded
again. He tried to move, tried to throw aside the blanket and sit up, intent
on getting some answers, but his arms and legs felt like jell-o and wouldn’t
cooperate with his brain. He fell back weakly against the pillow.“What
happened?” He stared desperately at the doctor. Yeong
set the chart aside. “Mr. Sarka, please stay calm.” “What’s
the matter with me?” Adam asked. “Your
muscle weakness is to be expected. It will take a little while for the
muscles in your body to regain their function and flexibility. Tell me,”
Yeong added, “what is the last thing you remember?” Adam
frowned at him. What was with all the questions? He had questions of his
own that needed answering. Yeong raised a prodding eyebrow, and Adam reluctantly
tried to think back. What did he remember? He remembered dinner with Margie
and her sister Anne at that fancy French restaurant. He hated the food
there, but Anne and Margie loved it, and Anne was visiting for the weekend
from Portland. It was called Le something. Le Pierre or Le
Paris. Something like that. He
remembered golf on Sunday with Jimmy and Steve. Adam had earned the best
score, with Jimmy in third place. His brother wasn’t as good at golf as
he was at tennis, but he was a good sport about it. Monday
morning he’d gone to work, like always, and then… He’d collapsed in his
office. He remembered that. Yeong watched him expectantly. “I passed out,”
Adam began. “I…was in the hospital, I think.” He surveyed the room again.
“But not this one.” The other hospital had been different. Pale blue and
green walls, painted landscapes on the wall. This one was bare and white.
And then Adam remembered something else, and he shut his eyes in disappointment.
“The cancer. That’s why I passed out. It came back again.” He opened his
eyes. “Didn’t it?” Yeong
nodded. “That’s
why I’m here?” Adam asked. “Yes,
that’s why.” Adam
clutched the thin blue blanket tightly in one fist, and his hand shook
slightly. His mind centered on only one thought. “How long?” How long
before I die? For
the first time since Adam woke up, Yeong smiled. His teeth were white and
even. “Oh, I’d predict another forty years, at least, “ he said lightly. “What?”
Adam shook his head uncertainly. Forty years? A
knock at the door interrupted the conversation. Adam watched as Yeong opened
the door a crack and spoke softly with someone. After a moment, Yeong turned
back. “Mr. Sarka, I know you have a lot of questions, and I promise you
they will all be answered. Right now, however, there is someone here to
see you. I ought to warn you. This will come as a surprise, but I think
right now this is the best thing for you.” Confused
and a little curious, Adam just nodded. Maybe the visitor was Margie. Margie
always came when he was in the hospital. Yeong
opened the door and motioned for someone to enter. Adam watched expectantly
from his bed, craning his neck to see his wife. But Margie didn’t appear.
It was an elderly woman instead. She came into the room hesitantly and
looked at Dr. Yeong for guidance. He nodded reassuringly and hung back
near the door as she approached Adam. The
look on her face was one Adam didn’t understand. A mixture of many emotions.
He’d never seen her before. She was seventy or so and wore a light tan
pantsuit. Her shoulders were straight, and her movements were slow but
strong. She gripped a purse fiercely in both hands. Judging by the discoloration
of her knuckles, she was hanging onto that purse far tighter than Adam
was his blanket. They
stared at each other for half a minute, the forty year-old man and the
seventy year-old woman. Finally, Adam cleared his throat and asked, “Do
I know you?” She
tried a tentative smile. “Yes,” she said, and her voice was soft. “You
know me, although I know you don’t recognize me.” She paused and took another
step until she was right next to him. “My name is Allison Ford. You knew
me as Allie Sarka.” Adam
stared at her. He glanced at the silent Yeong. The doctor only nodded at
him. Adam felt Allison Ford’s nervous gaze, and he returned his attention
to her. Warily. Just who was this woman? She said he knew her as Allie
Sarka, but that wasn’t possible. “Uh,
look, Ms. Ford, I think you may have the wrong person.” The words came
slowly. Adam wished he had some water. She looked so hopeful, and he didn’t
want to be too hard on her, but it had to be done. “The only Allie Sarka
I know is fifteen years old,” he said. “A sophomore at Shores High…” “…In
San Diego,” she finished. She nodded fervently. Her smile was stronger
now. “That’s me.” She leaned forward and placed a hand over one of his. He
glanced down and wanted to draw his hand away, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.
He tried to flex his fingers. “Uncle
Adam,” she said. “I’m Allie.” Adam’s
fingers jerked spastically beneath Allie’s hand, surprising both of them.
Allie withdrew and Adam curled the fingers into a fist. His head was starting
to hurt. This was all too cryptic, too confusing. “Would somebody please
just tell me what’s going on?” he asked tiredly. He squeezed his eyes closed
for a few seconds. They were straining, giving him a headache. Just
another question to add to the list, he thought. Yeong
took pity on him and stepped to the other side of the bed. He shut off
the sound on the monitors, and after studying the screens for a few seconds
he faced Adam and Allison. “Mr. Sarka, this isn’t a hospital. It’s a wing
of the CryoStar complex.”
“CryoStar,”
Adam repeated softly. He was starting to sound like a parrot, the way he
kept repeating everything Yeong said. As fuzzy as his memory was, that
name rang a bell. It rang a lot of bells. CryoStar. They froze people.
His eyes opened wide in wonderment. “You mean it worked?” He glanced at
Allison’s excited face, then back to Yeong’s pleased one. “It
worked,” Yeong agreed. “Mr. Sarka, it is my pleasure to inform you that
you are the very first human in history to successfully survive the cryogenic
process, and I am even more pleased to inform you that you are one hundred
percent cancer free.” Adam
felt dizzy, and he wasn’t sure if it was caused by this astounding news
or something else. He pressed his head back into his pillow. Cancer free.
“You did it,” he whispered to the ceiling. “You found a cure for cancer?”
He couldn’t wait to tell Margie... “Not
exactly,” Yeong cautioned. “We found a way to cure your ependymal glioblastoma.
Studies are underway to adapt the treatment to other similar brain tumors
and, hopefully, more varied forms of cancer.” Adam
remained silent for a minute, digesting everything. He’d been frozen, cryogenically
frozen. He remembered talking it over with Margie, when the cancer had
started to get bad that first time. They’d discussed the option more seriously
during the second go-round. He
remembered now. Not completely. More like fleeting images. Fragments. Saying
tearful goodbyes to Margie, Jimmy, other family and friends in a white
and chrome waiting room. Allie had been there too. Adam
turned his head stiffly, ignoring the protesting muscles, to look at the
woman claiming to be his niece. There was something familiar about her
after all. The shape of her nose. The color of her eyes. Jimmy had blue
eyes just like hers. Adam too. They’d both gotten the trait from their
mother. Maybe Allison really was his brother’s child. But…if she was Allie…
“You’re older than me,” he said, and he realized something he desperately
didn’t want to realize. Tears brimmed in Allie’s eyes, and a look of sadness
settled across her face.“How long
has it been?” he asked Yeong, a cold numbness spreading throughout his
body.Adam turned hollow eyes towards
the doctor. Margie, he thought. Yeong’s
mouth was pulled into a regretful line, and he placed both hands into the
pockets of his dark blue slacks. He took a few seconds to answer as he
considered the slatted sunbeams streaming through the blinds. “Nobody ever
thought it would take so long,” he began. “When you underwent the freezing
process, the entire scientific community thought just two more years –
five at most. We’ll have a viable cure by then.” He shrugged and looked
Adam in the eye. “They had a prototype by then, but the preliminary trials
proved it to be a failure. It was back to the drawing board. So far there’s
only been major progress with the glioblastoma.” Adam
took a deep breath and held it for thirty seconds. His heart was beating
hard in anticipation, and he was glad the cardiac monitor was muted. “How
long has it been?” he asked again, slowly, painfully. He didn’t look at
Yeong. He didn’t want to hear the answer, but he needed to. “It’s
been fifty-eight years,” Yeong said. Adam’s
breath released in a loud puff, and he closed his eyes against a sudden
wave of dizziness. He felt himself falling away, deeper into his pillow,
deeper into darkness, and didn’t try to stop it. He didn’t hear Yeong calling
his name, nor did he feel Allie once again take hold of his hand. ***
*** *** “Adam,”
Margie whispered in his ear. “Hmm?”
Adam responded, barely awake. He didn’t open his eyes, just adjusted the
position of the pillow beneath his pounding head. “It’s
your turn,” Margie said. “Hmm?
What?” “To
make the coffee.” He
cracked open one eye. She lay on her side facing him, one arm curled underneath
her pillow, supporting it. She was smiling. Her light red curls stood out
against the floral pillow sham. He made a mental note to tell her how beautiful
she was as he yawned and said, “No, I think it’s your turn.” “Please?”
she pouted playfully. Adam
grinned and pulled his own pillow over his head, blocking the early morning
sunshine that filtered through the lace shears on the window. “Nope.” A
clatter in the hallway was followed by the sound of the partially open
bedroom door being bounced against the wall as Ricky, their six year-old
chocolate Labrador, burst into the room. It wasn’t unexpected. The minute
Ricky heard voices in the morning, he came running with hopes of hugs,
food, and the opportunity to go outside. Still, even though it was routine,
Adam couldn’t suppress the yelp of surprise when the sixty-pound dog leapt
onto his stomach. “Okay,
I’m up,” Adam said, sitting up with his eyes still mostly glued shut with
sleep. He yawned again and tossed the blanket aside. He hated getting up
early. I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night, he thought.
But work never stayed at the office where it belonged. In
a few minutes, he had let the dog out into the backyard and set the coffee
to brewing. The water pipes squeaked as the shower was turned on, and he
knew Margie was up.
His
head continued to pound, and he shook two Tylenol from the plastic bottle
into the palm of his hand. Orange juice washed the pills down. The
sea-foam green Kenmore refrigerator offered several breakfast choices,
and Adam pulled out milk for his cereal and eggs for Margie. He couldn’t
eat eggs very often anymore. Too much cholesterol. His doctor had him eating
a healthy bran cereal that tasted like cardboard. A
sudden tremor rippled through his right hand as he withdrew silverware
from the drawer next to the stove. The utensils clattered onto the green
countertop, and Adam cradled the fist of his right hand in the palm of
his left. Shit, he thought. After a few seconds, he released the
hand and flexed his fingers. It’s nothing, he thought. It’s over.
But he decided to call Stan Goodwin, his doctor, from work. He
took a deep breath and cracked three eggs into the frying pan. “Three minutes!”
he called down the short hall to the bedroom when the eggs were almost
done, forcing a light tone to his voice. He waited until he heard a confirmation
shout from the direction of the shower. It
was already a beautiful day out. Breakfast on the deck would be perfect.
It wasn’t a large deck, but it overlooked the expanse of their beautifully
manicured back lawn. Orange and cherry trees clustered along the edges
of the lawn, offering a measure of privacy from the neighbors. In the warm
yellow light of the sun, the plots of geraniums, peonies, and tulips seemed
to burst with color. When
Margie joined him, the patio table was set and the coffee was poured. They
each sipped their drink, a moment of calm and quiet before the hectic Monday
really began. Adam barely touched his cereal. He’d lost his appetite. Margie
tilted her head to one side and closed her eyes. “I love that smell,” she
said, inhaling deeply of the salty air. The Pacific Ocean was only two
miles away. “We
should go sailing next weekend,” Adam offered absently, staring into the
black depths of his cup. “I’ll
ask Anne if she wants to go with. She’s going back to Portland on Sunday.” “Sure.” There
was a slight pause. “Are you all right, Adam?” He
looked up, annoyed at himself for the concern in her voice. He shouldn’t
worry her about nothing. And it was nothing. He was sure of it.
Almost sure. He’d
call Stan before lunch. “I’m
fine.” He made a mental note to tell her how the color of her terrycloth
bathrobe perfectly suited her eyes. She
smiled back quizzically at his intense gaze. In
the yard, Ricky chased a squirrel up a tree. Adam
abruptly set his mug down on the glass tabletop and pushed back his chair
with a smile he didn’t feel. “Time to go to work.” He rounded the table,
pressed a light kiss against Margie’s temple, and headed for the bathroom
to take a quick shower. ***
*** *** Once
the physical therapist left – a large hairy guy whose name Adam didn’t
remember – Adam had his room to himself. Finally. The past twenty-four
hours had been a blur of activity. Every ten minutes, it seemed, somebody
came into his room to draw blood, check the monitors, look at his chart,
or ask him questions. He secretly thought they all just wanted to meet
the first thawed out human popsicle. Adam
flexed his arm absently. His range of motion had improved since yesterday,
mostly due to the two sessions of physical therapy he’d had with the hairy
guy. He could move his arms and turn his head more easily now, though he
still felt weak. The
white was driving him crazy, so he rested his eyes on the only splash of
color in the room: the bouquet of flowers. They were from Allie, he’d found
out, but he thought of Margie. Margie
was dead. He’d found that out, too. “How
does that make you feel?” the psychiatrist had asked earlier that morning,
the perfect amount of professional concern in her voice. She was a tall
woman with silver blonde hair pulled back in a French twist.
It
was the stupidest question Adam had ever heard. “I
feel fucking angry,” he’d said. He wasn’t one for such strong language,
but he felt the situation warranted it. His
wife was gone. His family was gone. His job was gone. Everything that was
his life was now gone. That was the ironic part, though, since he now had
a new lease on life. Fifty-eight
years, for Christ’s sake. That would make it...what? 2060? The
door opened and Yeong entered. He smiled at Adam. “Mr. Sarka, how are you
doing this morning?” Adam
shrugged. Yeong
nodded understandingly. “Well, that’s to be expected.” He walked over to
the counter with the flowers and plucked a wilted carnation from its stem. “How
do you know?” Yeong
turned halfway. “Pardon?” “How
do you know what to expect?” Adam said. He stared hard at Yeong. “If I’m
the first person to survive this thing, how do you know?” Yeong
set the flower head carefully on the counter and moved over to the widow.
The blinds were open all the way, since Adam’s eyes no longer bothered
him. “I’ve been working here at CryoStar for twenty-one years,” the doctor
said. “I started here long after you were frozen, but I knew about you.
Everybody did.” He fiddled with a knob on one of the monitors, then finally
looked at Adam. “You’re right, Mr. Sarka. We don’t know. But we’ve
had sixty years of research and projections. From your test results, there’s
no reason to believe those predictions will prove false.” Both
men were silent for a moment, and Adam looked away. “Why are you here?”
he asked finally.
Accepting
the change in subject, Yeong straightened and moved away from the window.
“I’d like to take another MRI.” This
brought Adam’s head up with a jerk. His heart missed a beat and his mouth
dried up. Oh God, it didn’t work…“But
you said – “ he began. Yeong
held up a hand to calm Adam’s anxiety. “Don’t worry,” he reassured. “You’re
fine. It’s just to double check. Strictly precautionary.” ***
*** *** So
it’s not just my room,
Adam thought as Yeong pushed his wheelchair down a long white hallway.
He spied the top of a leafy tree through a window. A hint of blue sky.
Then it was gone. “Here
we are,” Yeong said. They
ended up in a small windowless room with a bank of computers and equipment
along one wallIn the middle of the
room was a chair that slightly resembled a dentist’s chair. Except for
the contraption at the head. It looked like a helmet or an upside down
bowl attached to a long metal arm. A cluster of wires trailed from the
helmet down the arm and disappeared behind the chair. Adam
stared at it. “What is that?” Yeong
wheeled him closer. “That is the MRI scanner,” he said. I
don’t think so,
Adam thought. He’d had plenty enough MRIs to know. The
door opened behind them, and a young woman came in. “Hi,” she greeted cheerfully.
She wore a lab coat similar to Yeong’s. “Here you are, Dr. Yeong.” She
handed him a clipboard, then turned to Adam with a smile. “Mr. Sarka, it’s
nice to meet you. My name’s Dr. Winters.” “Hi,”
Adam said, eying her a little warily. She looked nice enough. Dr.
Winters proved to be stronger than her small frame suggested when she helped
Adam make the transition from his wheelchair to the larger, stationary
chair. His legs couldn’t yet support his weight, and he grunted as he collapsed
into the strange chair. Dr. Winters helped him get settled while Yeong
moved to one of the computers. She pressed a button, and the long metal
arm started to move, bringing the helmet down slowly over Adam’s head.
He stiffened in alarm. “Don’t
worry,” she said, but he did. “Just keep your head as still as possible.” The
helmet lowered enough to completely cover the upper portion of Adam’s face,
then it stopped.Adam closed his
eyes and tried to ignore the low-pitched thrum that filled his ears as
the metal contraption scanned his brain. ***
*** *** “Are
you sure?” Margie choked out. She clutched Adam’s hand as if her grip alone
would save him. If only it were that easy, Adam thought. “I’m
sorry, guys,” Dr. Stan Goodwin said. He had pulled the privacy curtain
around the small exam area, but it didn’t stop the sounds of the bustling
emergency room just beyond. Now he stepped forward and held a black and
white film up to the fluorescent light for them to see. “The CT shows a
mass.” He pointed it out.
“The
exact same place as before,” Adam said woodenly. He felt dead inside. Margie
looked five years older than her true age. Stan
nodded, still looking at the film. “We should start treatment right away.
I can set up a chemotherapy session for this afternoon.” So
innocuous, Adam
thought, staring blankly at the film in Stan’s hands. That little dark
area. Looks like a smudge. A thumbprint. Somebody’s thumb pressing on the
inside of my brain. “What about surgery?” he asked suddenly. Stan
lowered the film and slid it into a large manila envelope. His actions
took a few seconds longer than necessary. Finally, he said, “The tumor
has integrated itself too far into healthy tissue. There’s no way we could
remove it all without severe permanent brain damage. And if we take out
what we can…well…the rest will just grow back.” Margie
covered her face with one hand, but Adam knew she wasn’t crying. Not yet
anyway. “Thanks,
Stan,” Adam said. “Can we have a few minutes…please?” Stan
nodded in understanding and left the two of them alone. Once the curtain
drifted back into place, Adam squeezed his wife’s hand. He didn’t say anything.
There wasn’t anything he could say that hadn’t already been said
before. ***
*** *** The
garden was peaceful. Quiet. It was just what Adam needed. He sat on a wooden
bench beneath the shade of a tall oak tree, repeatedly squeezing one hand
around a fat stick he’d found on the ground. The grass was a soft and deep
green, and across the narrow cobblestone path tidy arrangements of ferns
and flowers were enclosed by a low brick barrier. His metal walker was
just off to the side. He’d managed to make it out here using the walker
and the additional aid of an orderly. The
soft sound of footsteps on the grass interrupted Adam’s study of an eager
squirrel and his repeated muscle strengthening exercise, and he looked
up as Allie sat down beside him. She
regarded him intently the way she did on every visit in the past five days.
Adam’s eyes flicked back to the squirrel, but the animal had run away. “How
are you doing?” she asked. She set her handbag on the ground next to the
bench. He
shrugged. “Better.” Physically, he added silently. Talking with
her wasn’t so strange anymore. He’d accepted the fact that this woman was
the same little girl who wore pigtails and pinafores and begged her Uncle
Adam to push her on the swing set. The same teenage girl who was on the
high school cheer squad as well as the honor roll. He’d accepted all that
because she was there. She was proof. Everything else was all too abstract. “That’s
good,” she said. She leaned an elbow on the back of the bench and rested
her head in the palm of that hand. Her fingers lightly scratched her scalp
through her short gray hair. “And non-physically?” He
wrinkled his eyebrows at her insightful question. It was bad enough the
stuff the silver-blonde ice queen CryoStar called a psychiatrist tried
to drag out of him. He sighed. “Nothing’s…real. But everything’s too real,”
he admitted, a little hesitantly. Yes, he’d grown accustomed to talking
with Allie, but he was still trying to figure things out for himself. Allie
was silent a minute, then reached down and picked up her purse. She set
it on her lap and began to dig around inside. Adam watched curiously as
she brought out a small, thick leather bound book. A photo album, he realized. Every
page of the album was full. He saw flashes of faces – some familiar, some
not, some black and white, some color – as she thumbed through page after
page. Finally, she found what she was looking for and pulled out a picture.
She looked at it for a few seconds, then held it out for him to see. “I
found it in my father’s collection years ago,” she said. Adam
accepted the picture with a shaking hand, already recognizing it. He didn’t
need to see the date stamp on the back to know when it was taken. August
4, 1989. His and Margie’s wedding day. They were cutting the cake. Margie
looked … breathtaking. Adam swallowed and blinked back the heat threatening
to spill from his eyes. “Ready?
Okay, one…two…three… Everybody say I can’t believe it’s triple Dutch chocolate!”
“I
can’t stand Dutch chocolate,” Adam said. Allie smiled. He continued, “Margie
had her heart set on it, though. Her grandparents were Dutch, and they
were married for sixty-two years. She thought it would bring us good luck.”
He shook his head. “Didn’t work, I guess.”
Allie
held up the album. “There’s more. Do you want to look at them?” The brown
leather was cracked and wrinkled, like the skin around her neck and eyes. He
set the stick down and reached out to take the album, but it fell from
his suddenly nerveless fingers. Pictures cascaded to the ground. “Are
you all right?” Allie asked, concerned. Adam
nodded, but clutched the arm close to his chest. A warm, tingling, pins
and needlessensation crept to his
wrist. It traveled from his wrist up through his forearm. Then, just as
suddenly, the sensation disappeared. He clenched his fist. “Adam?”
She leaned forward, placed a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?
Should I get someone?” He
was about to say no, about to shake his head, but his back muscles suddenly
seized, locking the word in his throat. Before he knew it, he was on the
ground. The grass that he had thought so soft now pricked his face and
hands where they pressed against the earth. “Adam!”
Allie was beside him in an instant. Get
Yeong, his mind
screamed, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate. He
watched her shoes – flat-heeled black slip-ons – as she hurried back down
the pathway towards the CryoStar complex. Then his shoulders and lower
back seized again, and he screamed hoarsely before he passed out. ***
*** *** They
said their goodbyes in the waiting room. It was better that way, Adam told
himself. Jimmy
hugged him. Jimmy never hugged him. “I’ll see you in a few years, little
brother,” he said. “Don’t
get into trouble without me,” Adam said. He offered a smile for his brother’s
sake. Then
Allie hugged him too. “I love you, Uncle Adam.” The next time he saw her,
she’d probably already be in college. Friends,
parents, coworkers, they all hugged him and wished him well. Finally, only
Adam and Margie were left in the waiting room. They sat side by side on
a black leather couch. “This
is it,” Margie said. She wrapped her arms around his waist. “This
is it,” he agreed, terrified. What the hell am I doing? he thought.
I must be crazy… “Are we doing the right thing?” he wondered. She
looked up sharply at that. “Don’t you even think otherwise.” Her voice
wavered. “This is our only chance.” “But
the house…” he began. “We
can buy a new one. A better one. Together,” she said firmly. She buried
her head against his chest and sniffled, struggling to breathe evenly. Adam
laid a gentle hand on her back. “But you had that one decorated just the
way you liked.” She
laughed into his shirtfront but didn’t raise her head. “Don’t you know
decorating is the best part? I get to do it again now.” He
moved his hand from her back to her head and stroked her hair. He made
a mental note to tell her – “Margie,”
he said. She
looked up. Her eyes were bright. “You’re
beautiful. I love you.” ***
*** *** Adam’s
bed had been moved closer to the window so he could look out and at least
see some sky, now that he couldn’t actually go outside. The room was still
very white, but Allie had tried to soften the starkness with more flowers,
a couple of wall paintings, and a colorful quilt. It
helped. Sometimes. When he wasn’t having the muscle seizures. But that
wasn’t very often these days. He
stared at a cloud that looked like a peacock, remembering the conversation
he’d had with Yeong after the attack in the garden three days ago. “I
thought you said I was fine,” Adam had accused. “No more brain tumor.” For
once Yeong looked…not flustered…but not entirely composed either. He sat
in a chair beside Adam’s bed, also a first. “The cancer is gone,” he said.
“That’s not what’s causing this.” “Then
what?” Yeong
shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I don’t know. Your muscle mass and
strength were improving.” That
much Adam knew. He had been improving. Now he was getting worse. Now,
the heart monitor was no longer muted. They needed to hear it if something
went wrong. Electrodes had been attached to his chest. After all, this…whatever
it was…was affecting his muscles, and his heart was just one big disaster
waiting to happen. “How
long?” he had asked Yeong. How long until I die? It was a thought
he’d grown too accustomed to having. The
doctor hadn’t had an answer. The
peacock cloud drifted out of sight. Adam
pulled out the picture of him and Margie on their wedding day. He kept
it under his pillow so he could look at it whenever he wanted to. Whenever
he needed to. He stared at the photo for what seemed like hours. Finally,
he closed his eyes, but he could still see her. Her curls piled on top
of her head. Her Queen Anne gown. Ivory lace and satin. Fingers full of
chocolate cake. Eyes full of love. He
made a mental note to tell her that August 4, 1989, was the happiest day of
his life … the next time he saw her.