Nerve Damage (3 page)

Chest sewn back up—only four stitches needed—and
still a little groggy, but feeling no pain, Roy waited for the biopsy results, no one else in the outer room. Dr. Honey had lots of old
National Geographics
. Roy found himself staring at a beautiful photograph of a forest cabin with bright red wildflowers growing by the front door and a fast-running brook in the background. For a while, he could hear the water and almost smell those flowers. The loveliness of nature and how sweet just being alive could be overwhelmed him. Then the grogginess began to dissipate, and the weaknesses of the photograph became apparent: it was like an all-dessert meal, too rich, too superficial, too eager to please. But just before Roy closed the magazine, the picture made a connection with something deep in his mind, hooking onto a bit of residue not yet swept away with the ebbing drugs inside him.

Roy took out his cell phone, called information for North Grafton, Maine, asked for Bobby Greelish's number. No listing for a Bobby or Robert Greelish. The only Greelish in the directory was Alma: Bobby's mother. Roy called her.

“Mrs. Greelish?” he said. “Roy Valois.”

“Roy?” An old woman; he didn't recognize her voice at all. “This is a surprise. How's your mom these days?”

“Fine,” said Roy. His mother had left North Grafton long ago for an
apartment he'd bought her in Sarasota. “I'm looking for Bobby, actually.”

“My Bobby?” said Mrs. Greelish.

“Yes,” said Roy. “Bobby.”

“You mean you never heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Bobby…” Her voice thickened. There was a muffled pause, as though Mrs. Greelish had covered the mouthpiece with her hand. Then, her voice under control, she came back on the line and said: “Bobby passed away, two years this Christmas.”

“Bobby's dead?” Roy thought:
motorcycle accident
. That was his hopeful side piping up.

“Passed,” said Mrs. Greelish. “He caught this horrible rare disease.”

“Called?”

“Excuse me?”

“The name,” said Roy. “The name of the disease.”

“Oh, sorry, Roy,” said Mrs. Greelish. “It's a big long word—I never did learn to say it properly. Bobby'd get a little impatient about that.”

So Roy wasn't totally unprepared for the biopsy results, could even be said to have taken it well: he could read that on the faces of Dr. Honey and his staff.

 

“You've got someone
to do the driving?” said one of the nurses on Roy's way out.

“Waiting in the car,” Roy said.

He drove himself back up north, alone. Clear blue sky with silver overtones, small golden sun, glaring but somehow cold, snow that grew whiter and whiter the farther north he got: a lovely winter day, and winter was Roy's favorite season. He especially liked when ice sheets coated the granite outcrops where the road builders had blasted through, and there was lots of that today, those hard rocks shining bright. It brought tears to his eyes, and Roy, no crier but here in complete private he couldn't come up with a good reason not to, let them flow. Not for long,
though—one exit, maybe two. By the time he'd crossed the Connecticut River and entered Vermont, he'd pulled himself together.

Diagnosis: sarcomatous unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma, stage three in the Brigham staging system.

How many stages?

Four.

So it could be worse.

True.

Good. So where do we go from here?

From here?

In terms of treatment.

Ah.

Sarcomatous unresectable malignant pleural mesothelioma: there turned out to be a lot of meaning crammed into that little phrase. The word
unresectable
alone packed a tremendous punch.

Treatment: palliative care.

Palliative?

It means—

I know what it means. Is that all you've got?

There are clinical trials, but you don't qualify.

Why not?

The diagnosis.

Isn't that a little circular?

Dr. Honey had seen some justice in that remark. Then he mentioned that his wife knew all about Roy's work, was amazed at her husband's ignorance. After that he brought up an experimental program a friend of his was about to start at Hopkins.

Can you get me into it?

I'll try.

Try hard?

Prognosis: four months to a year.

Roy went cold all over when he heard that. And Dr. Honey seemed to shrink in size, as though Roy was suddenly seeing him from a distance, already going or gone.

How certain are you?

Nothing is certain in this profession, not certain in the absolute sense.

So it could be thirteen months?

It could.

Fourteen?

Possibly.

Eighteen?

Nothing is certain.

That means there's hope.

Always.

I had a hat trick the other night.

Hat trick?

An unfamiliar term to Dr. Honey. Roy, wishing he hadn't said it, didn't explain.
Hat trick
sounded pretty frivolous next to a word like
unresectable
.

 

Roy drove up
to the barn. A kid in a sweatshirt and unlaced boots was shoveling the path. Roy did his own shoveling. He got out of the car and said, “Hey.”

The kid swung around. “Hi, Mr. Valois. Figured you must be, you know, delayed, so I thought I'd just, um…”

Skippy. Was this his tryout day? Roy had forgotten all about it. What had he told him? Show up at two? Roy checked his watch—three-thirty—then noticed a new path shoveled all the way across the yard to the shed, and another, completely unnecessary, that seemed to be following the entire perimeter of the barn.

“I really don't need…” Roy began. Skippy waited, a full load of snow poised on the blade. “Come on inside,” Roy said.

Skippy flung the snow up and over the high bank and they went inside.

“So cool,” said Skippy, his gaze right away on
Delia.

“In what way?” Roy said.

“In what way?” said Skippy. “It's awesome, Mr. Valois, all those rads. Got something in mind for the next one?”

Next one. That coldness came over Roy, but not as intense this time. “How about coffee?” he said.

“I'm good,” said Skippy.

“I'm having some,” Roy said. He went into the kitchen, reheated coffee, poured two cups. Back in the big room, Skippy was near the computer.

“Frozen, huh?” he said.

“Happens all the time,” said Roy. “I just unplug and replug.”

“Um,” said Skippy. “Mind if I see if maybe I can…”

“All yours,” said Roy.

Roy pulled up a chair near
Delia
. Skippy tapped away at the keyboard. The room darkened. It was peaceful, just the three of them, a family by no one's definition, but that kind of peaceful just the same.

“All set, Mr. Valois.”

Roy got up, his chest a little sore now, and went to the computer.

“Shouldn't happen again,” Skippy said. “And I've cleaned up your desktop.”

“Thanks.”

“Want free phone service?”

“Free phone service?”

“I could write a little program, hook you up.”

“Would it be legal?” Roy said.

Skippy turned to him, greasy hair in his eyes. “Like how do you mean, Mr. Valois?”

“You can call me Roy,” Roy said.

“Okay, Mr…. um,” said Skippy.

 

Turk McKenny
was the goalie for the Thongs, and also Roy's lawyer. He had an office on the top floor of a white house overlooking the green. Roy could see part of
Neanderthal Number Nineteen
through the window.

“Hell of a game, Roy,” Turk said.

“Thanks.”

“Shoulda seen the look on Normie's face when you stole the puck.”

“A fluke.”

“I don't know,” Turk said. “Raised your game a notch or two lately. What's up with that?”

“That will you've been bugging me about,” Roy said.

“Huh?”

“I'd like to get it drawn up.”

Turk took his feet—he wore Shetland-lined suede slippers—off the desk.

“Now,” said Roy, “if possible.”

Turk slid a notepad closer, put on half-glasses. “We can certainly get started,” he said. His head tilted, eyes peering over the rims. “Anything special get you motivated?”

“The usual,” Roy said. Which was pretty funny—so funny, in fact, that Roy started laughing. For a moment or two he wondered if he'd be able to stop. Then out of nowhere the cough erupted, swallowing the laughter, taking over completely. Roy lurched from the room, hand over his mouth, and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. He coughed over the sink. No blood this time, only a little yellowish liquid, the consistency of raw egg white. Egg white instead of blood: Good sign or bad? How could it be bad? Was there hope?
Always
.

Roy went back to Turk's office. Turk was hovering by the door.

“What is it, Roy? What's going on?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on.”

Roy shook his head.

“It's me,” Turk said.

Roy was silent.

“And if that's not enough,” Turk said, “at least let me do my job.”

“What does that mean?” Roy said; the sound of his voice was rough and ragged.

“I'm your lawyer,” Turk said. “Don't keep me in the dark.”

They were friends, went back a long way: had played against each other in college—Turk a four-year starter in net for Dartmouth—and even before that in a high school tournament final in the old Boston Garden. Delia had liked him, too: Turk had been a pallbearer at her funeral. And Turk
was
his lawyer, the only lawyer he'd ever had, looking over everything—taxes, investments, contracts, including the one with Krishna. Roy took a deep breath, aware at the same time that it wasn't as deep as his normal deep breaths, not nearly.

“Totally confidential?” he said.

“Goes without saying,” Turk said. “But I'll say it anyway.”

Someone had to know. Otherwise: potential chaos. So, standing right there by the door—both of them on their feet—Roy told Turk everything. That turned out to be hard, speaking it aloud, somehow making it more real. Roy couldn't imagine doing it again.

Turk didn't interrupt, didn't make a sound, just went a little pale around his lips. When Roy was done, he said, “God help us.” Turk put his hand on Roy's shoulder. Roy didn't really want that, certainly didn't want hugging or anything of the kind, and none happened.

“What's this Hopkins thing?” Turk said.

“Waiting to hear,” said Roy.

“Meaning there's some hope.”

Always
.

They sat down. Out on the green, a little kid was throwing snowballs at
Neanderthal Number Nineteen
.

“Anything in the bottom drawer?” Roy said.

“Read my mind,” said Turk. He opened the bottom drawer, took out a bottle of single malt and two glasses, poured an inch or so in each one. That was gone right away. He poured more. An expensive single malt, but for some reason it had no taste, not to Roy.

“What I want is pretty simple,” he said. “Jen gets one half, the rest goes to my mom.”

Turk wrote on the pad; he had neat, small writing, kind of strange given those fingers, twisted and thick. “The house?” he said, not looking up.

“Sell it.”

“And your inventory?”

“Sell that, too.”

“What about the effect on prices?”

Roy didn't care. But why not maximize what Jen and his mother ended up with? “Krishna will know what to do.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“No.”

“Jen?”

“No.”

Turk opened his mouth to say something, closed it. Roy slid his glass across the desk. Turk poured more, paused, and poured more for himself. He put down his pen, drank, leaned back in his chair. Silence fell over the room, thick, as though it had a physical dimension, seeming to block the passage of time.

“Remember that goal you scored against Harvard?” Turk said. “I was thinking of it the other night at Waldo's.”

Roy hadn't scored enough in college to forget any of them, but that had been the biggest, maybe the only big one, an overtime gamewinner in the national semifinal; they'd lost to Minnesota in the championship game. He had a crazy thought:
I wonder if it'll be in my obituary?
Not so crazy—he understood at once where it must have come from: Krishna's remark about
Delia. This one will be in the first paragraph of your obituary, my friend
. The cold feeling came again.

“What was that thought?” Turk said.

“Nothing.”

“Totally confidential.”

Roy laughed, a normal laugh this time. “It's stupid,” he said. But with all the blurting he'd been doing in this office, why stop now? “I was just wondering whether that goal would make it into my obituary.”

“They'll probably just stick to the art, don't you think?” Turk said.

That struck Roy as funny, too. He drank more, made himself really taste it this time and found he could; it tasted great. His head buzzed a little. Why the hell not?

“Maybe we could find out,” Turk said.

“Find out what?” Roy said.

“What's in your obituary. Aren't they written way ahead of time, all set to go except for the last little…?” Turk abandoned the rest of the sentence.