Pascal's Wager (11 page)

I tried to find something to eat in the refrigerator and after throwing away every container of leftovers I opened, I opted for a sandwich in the hospital cafeteria when I got there and took it up to Mother's room. Max, of course, was already there, pacing like a caged bear. When I walked in the door, he pulled me into his arms and broke into sobs.

Come on, Max, please
, I wanted to say to him.
Cant we handle this like adults?

But I could no more pull away from him than I could spit in the poor man's eye. I let him hold
me
until he got hold of
himself
, and then I gently pried myself loose. He went to the corner to blow his nose, and it was then I saw that Mother was in a wheelchair, leg stuck out in front of her like a cannon ready to fire. She was parked by the window, staring out.

She looked so little to me. It always struck me when I hadn't seen her for a while that she was so much smaller than I was. In one of the few references she'd ever made about my father, she'd told me I got my legginess from his side of the family. She was a
petite five foot four with birdlike bones, and now, garbed in hospital attire that swallowed her, sporting a brace that tripled the size of her leg, she seemed tinier than ever. The confidence, the vitality, and the brilliance that had always given her stature were gone.

I stopped, frozen, at the foot of her bed. So what did that mean? If her mind was going, did that mean it would take her persona with it? Would she still technically be a person at all?

Even as I watched her, Mother's eyelids drooped and her head lolled to one side as she dozed off.

“They're still giving her something for the pain, thank God,” Max said. “I keep thinking, ah, the drugs will wear off and she'll look at us and we'll have Liz back. I keep thinking it over and over.”

I nodded toward the door and led him out into the hall.

“What?” he said. “God forbid you should hold something back from me, Jill. I know I'm not family, but I—”

“I'm not holding anything back, Max,” I snapped, “if you'll give me a chance to get it out.”

Lack of sleep and too much coffee were taking their toll. I could see the sting in his eyes, and I sighed.

“I'm sorry. It's just been a horrible day. I don't mean to take it out on you.”

“Jill, no apologies. None.” Max pressed my hands between his. His tenderness hurt, and I pulled them away.

“I talked to the social worker today,” I said.

“Did you get a good caretaker? I've been trying to find a way to say this—if money is a problem, you let me know. Heaven knows we want the best.”

“Insurance is taking care of it. The caretaker's name is Something Rose—I don't know. But Max, the social worker said we might want to consider assisted living. It's like a nursing home except—”

“No!” Max was shaking his head, and he reached out and
grabbed me by both shoulders. “Don't do that, please, Jill. She'd hate that. You know she'd hate it.”

“I don't know what she hates anymore,” I said. “That's the point. Just since the accident, it's like she's lost her entire personality. What if there isn't anybody in there anymore?”

“What are you saying? How can you ask that?”

“Because her mind was everything,” I said. “Without it, she's gone.”

Max wiped at his face. “I've been thinking—that's all I do is think now. But I've been thinking about what that doctor said—that neurologist.”

“McDonald? About what?”

“He said we can find comfort in the fact that her spirit is still in there.”

“What spirit?” I said. “I don't even know what that is. And if it's there, I don't see any evidence of it.”

“I don't need evidence,” Max said stubbornly. “I know there is an essence of a person—there is a soul.”

“Soul.”

“That's what goes when you die. As long as Liz is alive, that soul is still there. We can't put her away in some asylum. God forbid we should do that!”

“It's not an asylum,” I said. “And that whole soul idea is a religious issue, as far as I'm concerned. You're not religious.”

“I don't go to mass. If I went to confession, I would be there for days. But I know, Jill.”

“Show me the evidence.”

“I can't.”

“Then there you have it.”

Max stared at me. The softness left his eyes, and the lines around them hardened.

“‘There you have it'?” he said. “This is your mother you're talking about, and you say ‘there you have it'! This is not some mathematical equation! Not some science experiment!”

I put a palm up, and he lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. “Do you know that through all of this mess—from the first signs, then the accident, then the doctor telling you that your mother has this horrible dementia—you haven't shed a tear. Not a tear, Jill. You don't even look like it bothers you—except that maybe it could, God forbid, interfere with your work!”

“I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree,” I said.

His big head gave a violent shake, spilling hair down to his eyebrows. “No, you're wrong. Your mother has passion. She sees the value of life. She drives herself to save it, and she allows herself to relish it, to savor it. I swear I still see that in her.”

“Max, you've always seen a lot of things in my mother nobody else could see.”

“Then listen to me now. Give her the benefit of the doubt. Believe that she has a soul we have to protect until the day she dies.”

I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, which burned as if they were two lumps of smoldering coal under my eyelids. I felt Max's fingers under my chin. I opened my eyes as he lifted my face closer to his.

“If you don't believe it,” he said, “then at least do your research and prove me wrong. Don't you owe it to your mother? You owe it to your mother. And I think you owe it to yourself, too.”

His eyes misted over. I knew he wanted mine to tear up, too, but they only burned.

“I don't think this is the kind of thing you can research, Max,” I said.

“But you can study it. Do you remember that young professor we met the night of your mother's dinner? The philosophy professor? Nice-looking man—”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sam something. What about him?”

“Go over and talk to him. See what he has to say about the soul. Just talk philosophy.”

“He'll try to give me a sermon, and I don't need that right now,” I said.

“So you talk on your own terms. Just one time, Jill, go over and ask him what the thinkers really know about the soul.”

“I'll find some way to read up on it, I promise, okay?” I said.

“No books—books are no good in this situation. Go see him. He's a good man—I could feel that. He has passion. You need to talk to someone with passion.”

“I'll think about it, all right?” I said.

I turned abruptly to go back into the room.
Will I go talk to Professor Socrates in the philosophy department? No. There. I've thought about it
.

I pushed the door open, but I stopped dead in the doorway.

Mother was frantically wiping tears off her cheeks. She shifted in her wheelchair so her back was to me, and I saw her shoulders go up and down evenly three times. I didn't move. When she turned toward me again, her face was expressionless, her eyes flat. I groped for something to say.

“One more day, Mother,” I said. “And then they're releasing you.”

She nodded and held her chin up in that proud way she had.

“You can go home then,” I said.

Behind me, I heard Max sigh.

I
packed so much into the next day that I could feel the hours bulging at the seams. At least it wasn't a teaching day so I could get caught up on work in the morning—which I did hiding in the computer room so Deb couldn't find me. As it was, the minute I set foot out of there, she was the first person I saw, and she was already blinking furiously.

“About yesterday—” I said.

“All you had to do was tell me your mother's in the hospital, and I would have understood,” she said.

I stared. “How did you know about my mother?”

“I heard it at the tea. And by the way, if anybody tells you I was using your name in vain, it's true, but that was
before
I got the word that she was in an accident—and you, too! Why didn't you tell somebody?”

“It's not a huge deal,” I said. “Look, next quarter I'll do our tea solo. You won't have to do a thing.”

“Sure, but if your house burns down or something, let me know, okay? I felt about an inch tall after I'd been griping about how you ditched the entire thing and then somebody says, ‘Well, you know her mother's in the hospital.' I don't know how you do it, frankly. I'd have to take a leave of absence and check myself into the psychiatric ward. This place is so stressful to begin with—one more thing and I'd lose it.”

“One has nothing to do with the other.”

“Oh.” Deb blinked several hundred more times. “Hey, I almost forgot—Nigel was looking for you.”

“Thanks, Deb,” I said and left her standing there.

All right, Jill
, I told myself as I approached Nigel's office.
You haven't done such a great job of keeping Mother's situation separate from what happens here, but after today everything's going to be in order and it won't happen again. Just explain that to Nigel—promise not to miss another seminar
.

But the tea and the seminar weren't on Nigel's agenda. The minute I poked my head in his door, he handed me a folder. It was the work I'd given him the day before on my research.

“I know you suggested that I not work on it until you'd approved the thesis,” I said. “But I felt that…”

I let my voice fade out as Nigel began shaking his head.

“I had no doubt you would go ahead with it,” he said.
“That
isn't the problem. The problem is that you made an error in your second step of this segment of work.”

“An error? What kind?”

“The simplest kind. I've indicated it there.”

I took the folder and glanced inside. The inevitable Post-It note marked the spot.

“This means everything I've done since then will have to be adjusted,” I said.

“I'm afraid so.” Nigel took off his glasses and stroked his moustache. It was the first time I had ever seen him fidget in any way. It made
me
want to fidget. I willed myself not to rake my hands through my already finger-tousled hair.

“Jill,” he said, “I am still concerned about the amount of work you are attempting to do while dealing with the stress of your mother's situation.”

I watched him closely. Did he already know about Mother's illness? There was nothing on his face to indicate that the grapevine had already wound its way to him, but then, his face rarely showed anything. The fact that he had even wasted a gesture on his moustache, however, made me suspicious.

“It may seem like we care about nothing around here unless it
can be put into an equation,” he said, “but all evidence to the contrary, we are human beings, and we do not expect superhuman efforts from our students.”

“But you do expect us to avoid making simple errors in computation.”

“You would not have made those errors if you were not under a great deal of strain.”

I could feel my jaw tightening. “What are you saying?”

“I'm suggesting that you go a little easier on yourself. Things like accidents and hospitalizations happen, and we can make allowances for those.”

“I appreciate your concern, Dr. Frost,” I said. “But don't forget that I'm older than most of the graduate students here. I don't let things throw me. I assure you, I'll be fine.”

He opened his mouth as if he were going to comment, but then he closed it and nodded. I left, but all the way down the hall, I felt like I'd just left a chord unresolved on the piano.

Fortunately, there was enough crammed into the rest of my day to pretty much shove Nigel aside. I picked up the Power of Attorney papers at the lawyer's office, transferred money from Mother's savings account to checking and paid the American Express bill. I made a mental note to get the card out of her purse and shred it at the first opportunity. Then I tried to get in touch with Nurse Rose—whose first name, on close inspection of the business card, was something unpronounceable—but she wasn't in. I left a message for her to simply be at the house by one the next day, when I would be bringing Mother home. The message on her answering machine said something about “touching peace,” which left me with a little creeping doubt, but my next item on the afternoon's agenda swept that aside for the time being.

I headed for Stanford Hospital armed with several large boxes, since I wasn't quite sure how many personal things Mother had in her office. As it turned out, I should have used them as shields against the barrage of people who came by while I was packing
books and emptying drawers. The hematology lab employed more than a hundred people, and it seemed that most of them stopped in to ask about Mother. At least that was ostensibly their mission. I thought most of them were just plain nosy, or they wanted me to know that they had diagnosed her malady months ago.

Their remarks were largely variations on the same theme: “Jill, I am so sorry. When did you know? I'm sure you were in some major denial—we all were here. I didn't say anything, of course, but I noticed about six months ago that something was up.”

The “something was up” list ranged from Mother standing in the middle of the lab wearing an absentminded expression to laughing at test results that inexplicably struck her as funny.

The conversations with Mother's coworkers generally ended with my not-so-subtle “Thanks for coming by,” followed by their closing condolence: “She was a brilliant doctor. I'm so glad I had the chance to work with her.” By the time the last of them left, I could hardly keep from screaming, “She isn't dead yet!”

Yet as far as they were concerned, she might as well have been. It was as if, since Liz McGavock was no longer of use to Stanford Hospital, she had ceased to exist. The thought stabbed at me, and then I chided myself for being annoyed. After all, hadn't I said the same thing to Max the night before? It brought back our whole conversation about the soul, and about Sam Socrates in the philosophy department. I could still vividly picture my mother trying to hide her tears from me. Last night had been the first time I'd ever seen her cry.

I dropped the last of the books into a cardboard box and stood up, dusting my hands off on the seat of my jeans. It was almost five o'clock, time to wrap up anyway. The phone was within reach. There was a Stanford directory right there next to it.

“I don't even remember his last name,” I said out loud. Man. I was starting to talk to myself.

I flipped open the directory and turned to the philosophy department listing. Without even thinking about what I was going to say, I dialed the number.

“Philosophy. This is Petra,” someone said.

“Uh, hi,” I said. “Uh, I'm trying to locate a professor over there. He's not tenured and his first name is Sam—”

I couldn't have sounded more lame, but Petra was smooth. She said, “That would be Dr. Bakalis. Shall I transfer you?”

“Uh, no!” I said.

“All right,” she said slowly. “Could I take a message, then?”

This was ridiculous. “You know, come to think of it,” I said, “go ahead and transfer me.”

“Certainly. May I tell him who's calling?”

“Jill. Jill McGavock. Tell him it's about K-theory.”

“Certainly,” she said.

At least that might eliminate a lot of awkward, “Now, who are you? Where did I meet you?”

“Jill! This is a surprise!”

It was Sam's voice. I recalled his sort of Midwestern twang.

“Hi,” I said. “I was wondering if we could talk.”

There was an ever-so-slight pause. I guess I couldn't blame him for being taken aback.

He handled it by half laughing through his next sentence. “Okay. You want to meet for coffee? Someplace on campus.”

“Your office is fine,” I said. “And no coffee. I just want to talk.”

“You don't mind if I drink coffee while we talk, do you?”

“No.”

“Maybe have a sandwich, too?”

“No.” I gave the phone a bewildered look. “What time's good for you tomorrow?”

“I'm booked solid. Got any time today?”

I glanced at my watch. “In about an hour?” I knew if I didn't do this soon, I might change my mind.

“Excellent,” he said. “I'll see if I can get a sandwich made by then.”

Okay, so maybe I might change my mind anyway. I was still debating over that as I hung up and lifted the first of the boxes to
haul out to the car. I had only taken about two steps outside the door when two facts struck me at once: I wasn't going to be able to carry the thing all the way to the parking lot without herniating a disk or something, and even if I did, there was no way the four boxes I'd packed were going to fit into my Miata. I was definitely slipping.

I set the box down and turned around to unlock the office door again, when a man called from down the hall, “Dr. McGavock isn't in. Can I help ya?”

He had a voice like sandpaper, and when I looked up I saw he had the face to match it. He wore a rather dour expression, and his once-bushy-now-thinning eyebrows hooded his eyes. His chin, which looked sharp to begin with, jutted even farther in my direction as he approached wearing a plaid flannel shirt, jeans, and a tool belt. Work boots completed the ensemble. The only thing missing was a hard hat.

“No, I don't need any help,” I said as I clicked the door open. Not that it was any of his business.

“You takin this in or out?” he said, nodding toward the box.

I was about to reiterate that I had everything under control when I saw the Stanford Hospital name badge peeking out from beneath one of the suspenders that held up his tool belt. Burl Vokey, it said. Lab Maintenance Supervisor. Okay, so maybe it
was
his business.

“I'm Dr. McGavock's daughter,” I said. “She won't be coming back to work, so I'm clearing out her office.”

The dour look disappeared and was replaced by the first expression of genuine concern I'd seen all afternoon. The cobwebs of tiny lines around his eyes deepened, and the blue in the eyes seemed to intensify.

“She's not comin' back?” he said, his words coming out in a clipped manner.

“No. She's retiring.”

“That bad? I heard she only broke her leg or somethin'.”

Evidently, the grapevine didn't extend to the maintenance crew. Too bad. This was one person who actually looked as if he gave a hang, although why I couldn't imagine. It was hard to picture my mother befriending someone on the janitorial staff.

Even as I was mulling that over, though, he was watching me intently His face was deadpan, but his eyes wouldn't let me pull mine away.

“She's ill,” I heard myself saying. “Something not related to the accident.”

He nodded deliberately. “Thought so. She's been off her form these past couple months. Still, I was hopin' she'd pull out of it.”

“Do you know my mother?” I said.

I thought one of his eyebrows twitched, but I couldn't be sure.

“Not that you wouldn't,” I fumbled. “It's just that she never spoke of you—”

I stopped. I was only cramming my foot deeper down my throat.

“Fine woman, your mother,” Burl said, still in that clipped tone. “She worked a lot of long hours, so she was generally still here when I started my shift. I'm the night supervisor for maintenance.”

He folded his hands in front of his barrel of a body and stood very still. It occurred to me that there was something distinguished about the guy. Could have been the silver-gray hair, combed straight back and obviously held in place with some outmoded hair product. More likely it was the deliberate way he had about him—every move with purpose, none of them with haste. He was like a blue-collar Nigel Frost.

“We'd have a cup of coffee and talk now and then,” he went on. “But the last few months, she'd kinda fade in and out. I figured it was only temporary because she worked s'dang hard.”

I shook my head. “It isn't temporary. She'll just keep getting worse until…well…”

“I see,” he said. He made a clicking sound out of the side of
his mouth. “Doesn't that just jar your preserves? Fine woman. You tell her I'm thinkin' about her, would you?”

“Sure,” I said, more out of surprise than anything else. “I'm not sure how much she actually understands, but I'll tell her.”

“Oh, I'm sure she knows. It can't all go away that fast.” He made the clicking sound again. “Fine woman.”

He passed a hand briefly over his eyebrows, leaving a few of the hairs askew. Then he nodded at me, straightened his suspenders, and turned around to walk off. I was still standing there, staring like an idiot, when he turned back around and said, “I did little repairs for her now and then. If she needs anything like that, tell her I'm still around.”

“Sure,” I said.

We exchanged nods. Once again he turned to leave, and I looked down at the box.

“Uh, Mr.—” Shoot. I couldn't remember the name on the tag. He stopped anyway.