Trust Me (18 page)

Strays and strays together, Carly had thought at the time, troubled by the idea of animals being adopted by people who could
not even assure food and safety for themselves. It hadn’t taken her long to change her mind. For a person living on the street,
a dog or cat was warmth, protection, love—all things that were otherwise in short supply, and the homeless were often more
devoted to their animals than the average pet owner. When Carly discovered that it was not unusual for a street person to
go without food in order to feed his pet, she had started collecting and distributing the sample packs that pet food companies
regularly sent to the clinics in her area. Part of her foundation discussions with Henry Tremayne had involved the idea of
creating a clinic, like UC Davis’s Mercer Clinic, that would provide free medical care for the pets of people who could not
otherwise afford it.

“Where is the dog?” Carly asked Edie. The black-and-white form on the sidewalk was the girl’s own pup, now almost grown.

“In a safe place,” Edie said. Carly looked curiously at her. It was hard to be sure in the lurid neon light, but there seemed
to be a bruise on her jaw. She was thin, with the kind of jutting cheek- and hipbones that fashion models her age starved
themselves to obtain. “You’ll take him, right? He’s in bad shape. Nobody wants him.”

“He’s too small,” said a boy with stubby dreadlocks and a battered black leather jacket. “And ugly.”

“Shut up, T. J.,” Edie snapped. “
You’re
too small, and you know what I’m talking about.” Ignoring the snorts of laughter, she faced Carly. “Well?”

“Sure,” Carly said. “Do you want to drop him off at my place? I’ll be back there in an hour.”

“No, I can’t get him now. Maybe after the weekend.”

Carly nodded. “Okay.” She wanted to invite the girl to join her for dinner, but she knew by now that such a motherly suggestion
would embarrass Edie in front of her group. She had learned that it was better to say nothing, but to make sure that she “just
happened” to be preparing a meal whenever the girl dropped by. It was a transparent ruse, but Edie always accepted the invitation
to come inside and eat, maintaining an aloof dignity that suggested that she was simply accommodating Carly’s bizarre notion
of having dinner at 11
P.M.

* * *

The call came on Thursday afternoon, while Max was sitting alone in a Chinese restaurant near Syscom headquarters, having
a late lunch.

“Mr. Giordano?” It was Dr. Cooper, one of the neurologists on Henry’s team of specialists. “I have good news. Your grandfather
is showing some improvement.”

“He’s awake?”

“His eyes are open, and he’s begun to show localized responses to stimuli.”

“And in English, that means…”

“He’s turning his head toward sounds. He is focusing his eyes and tracking objects. It’s a good sign.”

Max felt a jolt of anticipation. This was the call he had been waiting for. “Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Wait, I’m afraid I wasn’t clear. You’re welcome to come in, but I don’t want you to expect too much. I understand that it
sounds strange, but this is still a stage of reflex response.”

“Reflex? What do you mean?”

“He’s not conscious. It’s what we call a vegetative state.”

Max swore softly, under his breath, then was silent for so long that the neurologist finally said, “Mr. Giordano? Are you
still there?”

“I’m here. That is a hell of a word to use, Doctor.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you. That really is the standard term. But this is good news, despite how it sounds. The
open eyes and the improved reflexes mean that his brain is healing.”

“But he’s not conscious at all? He wouldn’t hear me if I spoke to him?”

“No. In this state, it’s very unlikely that he has any awareness of present events.”

“Unlikely. But not impossible?”

“Uh… no, not impossible, but I’d hesitate to suggest that your grandfather could—”

Max heard only the acknowledgment of possibility. “So he could be able to hear or see, just not to respond.”

“There have been very few cases of people coming out of coma with memories of what was happening around them,” the neurologist
said disapprovingly. “And the odds of your grandfather’s being aware are so small that I wouldn’t—”

Max put down a twenty-dollar bill to pay for the food he had just ordered, and stood up, waving away the waiter’s suggestion
that they could pack the lunch for takeout if Max would just wait a few minutes.

“Doctor,” he said into the cell phone as he walked out the door, “I consider my own life to be proof that predictions of the
odds are not always accurate. I’ll be there in an hour.”

Henry had been moved out of the ICU the previous week, and into a private room on the neurological care floor. It was a slightly
less stress-inducing environment, Max thought, or perhaps he was just getting used to the hospital. The smells and sounds
didn’t upset him as much as they had two weeks earlier, and he found that his daily visits were becoming an oddly comforting
ritual. If there was nothing else he could do but show up and attempt to rack up points with Fate for his dogged dedication,
he would do it. He wasn’t a superstitious man, and he knew that his daily visits made no difference to anyone but him, but
every time Max saw his grandfather’s inert body and felt the sharp sting of guilt for having waited too long to come to him,
he hoped that in some small way this could be the beginning of atonement.

Max was not emotionally prepared for the shock of seeing Henry’s eyes open and gazing at him when he walked into the hospital
room. A chill ran through him, even as he processed the less-encouraging signs: a slackness in the old man’s face and an unearthly
stillness that would not have settled around a sentient person. Or would it? Who was he to know whether there was awareness
behind Henry’s flat stare? He could only respond to the possibility, however small, that there was.

“Grandfather?” he said hoarsely, and approached the bed.

Henry’s head turned slightly toward him, and his eyes seemed to follow. Reflex, the neurologist had said, but even so, Max
found the response thrilling. He swallowed hard and sat down, reaching for the old man’s bony hand.

“My name is Max Giordano,” he said, not knowing how else to begin. They were alone in the room, although the presence of the
many monitors made Max feel as if they were surrounded by a host of quietly humming robots. “I don’t know if you can hear
me, but if you can, I want you to know that I was wrong not to come to you earlier. I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

His grandfather’s eyes made him want to believe. Reflex or not, Max did indeed feel as if he were being watched, and it was
a small step from there to thinking that maybe, just maybe, Henry was somehow present behind that pale gray gaze. The Tremayne
eyes, Pauline had called them, and Max recognized them in his grandfather with the uncanny feeling of looking into a mirror.
It didn’t take the Tremayne eyes to tell him that this man was of his blood, but he was glad that the link was so physically
obvious. In the many times that he had visualized his first meeting with Henry, Max had imagined himself telling the old man
that he had every right to be suspicious of a stranger who claimed to be Alan’s son. He had planned to offer to take a DNA
test to set everyone’s mind at ease. But now, after seeing the portraits at the mansion and looking down at the man in the
bed, Max knew that it would not have been necessary.

“I never knew your son,” he said aloud to Henry. “He was on his way to meet my mother when he crashed his car. He never showed
up that night, but she thought that he’d just gotten tired of her and disappeared. She’d had a lot of men disappear on her,
so I think that she was expecting it sooner or later.”

He paused. “They had only been involved for a few weeks. She didn’t know anything about him other than his name and that he
was enrolled at Columbia. They usually met at the bar where she worked, or at her apartment, and I don’t think that they ever
had many personal conversations. When she found out that she was pregnant, she called the university looking for him, and
that’s how she learned that he was dead. They wouldn’t give her any information about his family, though. She left a message
with them, but she never heard anything. I wonder if you ever got it.”

It was just one more unanswered question. Max had always preferred to think that the message had been lost rather than ignored.
His mother had believed otherwise, assuming that Alan’s rich family had wanted nothing to do with her or her child. It no
longer made any difference, but Max thought that his mother had been mistaken. Henry did not seem to be the kind of man who
would have rejected his own grandchild for the fault of being born out of wedlock to a woman of a different social class.

When Max had finally looked into the red album, he had found nothing to suggest that his grandfather had known about him earlier
than fourteen months ago. And if the old man’s own investigator had uncovered anything about Max’s turbulent past, there was
no evidence of it in the album. Aside from the fact that all the photos had been taken either with a long lens or from media
sources, the album was the kind of collection of mementos that any parent or grandparent might treasure. The pages had spoken
eloquently of Henry’s pride and affection, and Max had found the experience so overwhelming that he had quickly closed the
book and hidden it in a drawer of the desk in his hotel room. He had not looked at it since and could not even think about
it without feeling a strange swelling ache inside himself. He did not know whether it was joy or pain.

His grandfather’s hand was light and bony, and Max held it tentatively, as if he were carrying a bird. The silence was broken
only by the sound of the monitors and the faint rasp of Henry’s breath. He looked so small, Max thought. It was as if the
threat was not that he might die, but that he might just disappear.

“I waited too long,” Max said suddenly, his voice tight in his throat. “Too damn long. I hope that you never thought that
I didn’t want to know you, because I did. I waited my whole life for this, but then I waited too long. I don’t know why.”

He heard the sound of his own words in the air, and exhaled sharply, in a kind of harsh laugh. “No, that’s not true. I do
know. I wanted to be sure that you’d like what you saw. I don’t know what it would have taken to make me decide that I was
ready, but you took that problem right out of my hands, didn’t you? So here I am. I’m not perfect yet, but I am here, and
I’m not going away. I hope that’s good enough for now.”

It was getting dark outside by the time Max left Henry’s room. He was drained and weary, and he was in no mood to deal with
the woman who was waiting for him in the hall.

“Mr. Giordano. Hello.” She stuck out her hand. She was trim and efficient-looking, with boyishly short gray hair. “I’m Joanna
Melhorn. We met last week.”

“Did we?” Max didn’t remember. There were so many specialists working with Henry that he had stopped trying to know them all.
She was wearing the ubiquitous white lab coat, so he had to assume that she was one of them.

His tone didn’t seem to offend her. She smiled at him. “It is a bit overwhelming, isn’t it? I’m a neuropsychologist. I work
with several of Dr. Sheaffer’s patients.”

“Neuropsychologist?” The title wasn’t one he had heard before, and it sounded ridiculous to him. “Does this floor require
you to tack the prefix ‘neuro’ onto your job description before they’ll let you off the elevator?” He was too tired to curb
his tongue, and too tired to care that he was being rude.

Her eyebrows curved up, and she looked amused. “What an interesting question,” she said lightly. “Actually, it is a real title.
I have specialized training in disorders of the nervous system, and I do rehabilitation work with head trauma patients.”

He made a point of looking at his watch. “What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. And I don’t want to keep you. I’ll be working with your grandfather, but I wanted to make sure that you know that
I’m here for you, as well.”

“Me?” Max frowned. “Why me?”

“Because a brain injury affects the lives of everyone in a family, not just the patient. An important part of my work is helping
the whole family adjust to an event like this.”

“I’m doing all right,” Max said.

“I’m glad to hear that. But I hope that you’ll call me if you have any questions or concerns.”

“I have one now,” Max said. “Is my grandfather ever going to be normal again? Or don’t you know, either?
No Guarantees
seems to be the motto of this hospital.”

Her bright face showed sympathy. “It’s true. So many people seem to believe that it’s better not to hope than to risk having
hopes dashed. I don’t agree. Understand the reality of the situation but don’t give up hope, Mr. Giordano. We’re doing everything
we can for your grandfather. He’s a good man, I hear. And clearly well loved.”

Max nodded wordlessly, his throat suddenly tight.

“I hope they’ve caught whoever did this to him,” she added soberly. “I do believe that there’s a special place in hell for
the kind of person who would attack a defenseless old man.”

“It wasn’t an attack,” Max said. “Just an accident.”

This seemed to surprise her. “What kind of accident?”

“He fell down the stairs.”

“Really.” There was a sudden edge to her voice. “What kind of stairs?”

“The main stairs at his house. Why?”

“Were you there? Did you see it happen?”

“No. No one saw it. He was alone. The housekeeper found him when she came home, and she called the paramedics.”

“If no one witnessed it, then how do you know that he fell down the stairs?”

Max stared at her. “Because… it was obvious. He was found lying at the foot of the stairs. He fell.”

She looked incredulous. “That’s the official explanation?”

“What do you mean by official?”

“The police investigation,” she said impatiently. “That was what they concluded? That he fell down the stairs?”