Winter Moon

"Oh, you like Heineken, huh? Well, we have to control medical costs,

you know.

Can't use that imported stuff." She poured a third of a glass of water

from the carafe. "From us you get Budweiser intravenously, take it or

leave it."

"Take it."

Opening a nightstand drawer and plucking out a flexible plastic straw,

Maria said to Heather, "Dr. Procnow's back in the hospital, making his

evening rounds, and Dr. Delaney just got here too. As soon as I saw

the change on Jack's E.E.G, I had them paged."

Walter Delaney was their family doctor. Though Procnow was nice and

obviously competent, Heather felt better just knowing there was about

to be a familiar face on the medical team dealing with Jack.

"Jack," Maria said, "I can't put the bed up because you have to keep

lying flat. And I don't want you to try to raise your head by

yourself, all right?

Let me lift your head for you."

Maria put one hand behind his neck and raised his head a few inches off

the thin pillow. With her other hand, she held the glass. Heather

reached across the railing and put the straw to Jack's lips.

"Small sips," Maria warned him. "You don't want to choke."

After six or seven sips, with a pause to breathe between each, he'd had

enough.

Heather was delighted out of all proportion to her husband's modest

accomplishment. However, his ability to swallow a thin liquid without

choking probably meant there was no paralysis of his throat muscles,

not even minimal.

She realized how profoundly their lives had changed when such a mundane

act as drinking water without choking was a triumph, but that grim

awareness did not diminish her delight.

As long as Jack was alive, there was a road back to the life they had

known. A long road. One step at a time. Small, small steps. But

there was a road, and nothing else mattered right now.

While Emil Procnow and Walter Delaney examined Jack, Heather used the

phone at the nurse's station to call home. She talked to Mae Hong

first, then Toby, and told them that Jack was going to be all right.

She knew she was putting a rose tint on reality, but a little positive

thinking was good for all of them.

"Can I see him?" Toby asked.

"In a few days, honey."

"I'm much better. Got better all day. I'm not sick any more."

"I'll be the judge of that. Anyway, your dad needs a few days to get

his strength back." bring peanut-butter-and-chocolate ice cream.

That's his favorite.

They won't have that in a hospital, will they?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Tell Dad I'm gonna bring him some."

"All right," she said.

"I want to buy it myself. I have money, from my allowance."

"You're a good boy, Toby. You know that?"

His voice became soft and shy. "When you coming home?"

"I don't know, honey. I'll be here awhile. Probably after you're in

bed."

"Will you bring me something from Dad's room?"

"What do you mean?"

"Something from his room. Anything. Just something was in his room,

so I can have it and know there's a room where he is."

The chasm of insecurity and fear revealed by the boy's request was

almost more than Heather could bear without losing the emotional

control she had thus far maintained with such iron-willed success. Her

chest tightened, and she had to swallow hard before she dared to

speak.

"Sure, okay, I'll bring you something."

"If I'm asleep, wake me."

"Okay."

"Promise?"

"I promise, peanut. Now I gotta go. You be good for Mae."

"We're playing five hundred rummy."

"You're not betting, are you?"

"Just pretzel sticks."

"Good. I wouldn't want to see you bankrupt a good friend like Mae,"

Heather said, and the boy's giggle was sweet music.

To be sure she didn't interfere with the nurses, Heather leaned against

the wall beside the door that led out of the I.C.U. She could see

Jack's cubicle from there. His door was closed, privacy curtains drawn

at the big observation windows.

The air in the I.C.U smelled of various antiseptics. She ought to have

been used to those astringent and metallic odors by now. Instead, they

became increasingly noxious and left a bitter taste as well.

When at last the doctors stepped out of Jack's cubicle and walked

toward her, they were smiling, but she had the disquieting feeling they

had bad news. Their smiles ended at the corners of their mouths, in

their eyes was something worse than sorrow--perhaps pity.

Dr. Walter Delaney was in his fifties and would have been perfect as

the wise father in a television sitcom in the early sixties. Brown

hair going to gray at the temples. A handsome if soft-featured face.

He radiated quiet authority, vet was as relaxed and mellow as Ozzie

Nelson or Robert Young.

"You okay, Heather?" Delaney asked.

She nodded. "I'm holding up."

"I don't know if you've heard the latest news," Emil Procnow said, "but

the man who shot up the service station this morning was carrying

cocaine and PCP in his pockets. If he was using both drugs

simultaneously ... well, that's psycho soup for sure."

"Like nuking your own brain, for God's sake," Delaney said

disgustedly.

Heather knew they were genuinely frustrated and angry, but she also