Paris Was the Place (44 page)

Sara walks in then and moves the plate of fruit and sits down on the shelf by the window. It’s nine o’clock at night. What is she still doing here? She needs to go home. But she’s calm and patient, and walks Dad through the whole HIV diagnosis. I just watch. He never questions one word she says, which is so unlike him.

“The T cell count stands at eight tonight,” she says. “A whopping
eight T cells per microliter. So no coughing in here. No sniffles or you’re out.” She smiles.

“Thank you,” Dad says when she’s finished. He scribbles down a few last notes in his pad. “It’s the information I was waiting for, and it’s in accordance with the data I’ve been able to compile.”

She stands up. “I leave you in good hands, Willie. Your father’s got this. Why don’t you all try to get some sleep.”

Then she leaves me with my father. It’s Gaird and me in the chairs and Dad in a second bed that one of the nice nurses rolls in. I don’t know how much either of them sleeps. The chairs recline halfway. I close my eyes and see Luke and me hiking far ahead of Dad in a canyon on the day we found an oasis. It was a patch of green, with leafy trees growing on it. Luke was so excited. He had a little notebook and a pencil that he kept in a plastic baggie in his backpack, and he pulled them out and wrote down our exact location.

“Dad,” he said, when our father caught up, “this fits the description of an oasis exactly! Doesn’t it?”

My father was lost in thought. He often still makes people repeat themselves. Luke asked again, in a different way. Then Dad said, “Yes. There’s water underneath these trees, fed by an underground stream.” Luke was smiling. He’d made a discovery. Dad loved discoveries. Dad bent down and touched the ground with his hand, so Luke did that too, and they stayed like that for a minute, on the ground.

I
N THE MORNING
, I get a nurse to find us a tape deck, and I play Donna Summer’s whole
Live
album for Luke. He loves it. When it’s over, Dad reads several psalms. So there’s music and preaching for hours. Macon meets Dad out in the hall by accident, and they come into the room together. “I bumped into your father getting off the elevator,” Macon says.

“I was headed down the wrong hallway.” This coming from a man who’s always had the best sense of direction. He really is getting older.

“Are we going to get some food?” Gaird asks at noon. “It’s lunchtime.”

“You go,” I say. “I’ll stay. I’m good.”

So Dad and Macon and Gaird walk down to the cafeteria, and I get to sit alone with my brother. “I’ll get you home.” Can he hear me? I think he squeezes my fingers, but I’m not sure.

“You promised. My head hurts. God, my head hurts.”

He’s talking. I lean forward. “Believe me,” I say. “I’ve been working on it, and we’re taking you home tomorrow. We just had to get the kidney thing under control.”

“It’s about time, Willie. I thought you were going to leave me in here.”

“Never.” I squeeze his hand again. I can’t let myself cry. The kidney thing isn’t under control at all, but Luke’s liver is the problem. Sara has already told me that his liver function is the telltale sign, and that organ is shutting down a little more every day. And the yeast. That’s why things are happening so quickly: his lungs are under siege. There’s a shift happening—I can’t name it yet. But we’ve gone from trying to save his life to trying to make the end of his life bearable, which is the saddest thing of all so far. It feels like we’ve been in this hospital room since before time. How are we going to manage him at the apartment? How can we get him back there?

“I thought you were going to leave me here to die.” Luke closes his eyes.

“Never,” I whisper. He sleeps and I whisper, “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”

Dad rides in the ambulance with Luke. Macon and Gaird and I follow behind in Gaird’s car. We’re taking him home. Does he know he’s failing? Does he grasp it? He was so happy to get onto the stretcher in the hospital room. He smiled the whole time they lifted him up and put it in the back of the van. Gaird drives. Macon sits in the passenger seat, and I’m the woman in the back feeling a weird sense of euphoria. We’re out of the hospital! We did it. Anything’s possible now. He gets to go home! He gets to go home! I wipe away tears.

The shrubs outside the hospital gates have been pruned. They’re a brighter green than the trees, and they look like old women with beehive hairdos. I love Paris all over again. Gaird drives so well, weaving calmly through the traffic. I love Gaird today. I love Macon! I love my father! I’m flooded with forgiveness, spilling over with gratitude for all four of these men. The sun is shining and Luke gets to live in his apartment and we can make this work. We can figure the disease out. What we need to do is buy some time.

There are two paramedics in the ambulance, and they get my brother down from the van and wheel the stretcher to the front door of the building on Avenue Victor Hugo. Then Gaird and Macon help carry him up the two flights of stairs and into the living room, where
they slide him onto an electric bed I’ve rented from the hospital. There is a nurse with us, named Betty, and she straightens out Luke’s sheets and sets up his catheter bag properly and makes sure the IV line is clear. Then Dad takes out a glass thermometer and places it under Luke’s right armpit. He reads the number out loud to all of us in the room: “One hundred and one. Our challenge here, people, is to sustain a reading of ninety-nine and nothing higher. Can we all commit to that goal? Are we all on the same page?”

I’m over by the kitchen door, and I blush when he yells. But I’m so relieved again that my father’s here. Who else is going to scream like a lunatic and get everyone’s attention? Luke’s fever spikes to 104 degrees an hour after that. He talks in his dreams. Something about Gaird in an airplane. His legs keep twitching.

“I’m falling. Falling. Watch out. Watch me. Help me.” Then he says, “I am so damn thirsty.” He sounds lucid. “I’m craving lemonade. Cold lemonade. Can someone get some for me, please?”

I’m sitting next to him on one of the big chairs we’ve pulled close to the bed. I say, “Of course.” I almost don’t even have to look at Macon, because he’s already at the door, on his way to go find Luke some lemonade.

That night Macon falls asleep on the couch. Gaird lies down on his bed with all his clothes on. Dad stays up late to watch Luke’s temperature and quarrels with Betty about the medication. He thinks Luke’s getting too much morphine. Then he walks over to the cardiograph. “I don’t like it. He shouldn’t be presenting us with a fever.” Luke’s heartbeat is irregular, and Betty watches the spiking line on the machine closely. “Why are we seeing these numbers?” Dad asks. “Where is the infection that we don’t know about yet?”

It’s eleven. I go into the kitchen to slice more oranges. Luke shouldn’t have a fever with all the drugs he’s on. I’m a little bit crazed because I haven’t slept. I try to be systematic about making the juice. I finish slicing the oranges and squeeze them by putting all my weight on the handle of the juicer. I’ve believed in the drugs. All this time, I’ve thought the drugs Picard gave us would buy more time, until the vaccine was available. So why this raging fever now?

Sara told me this morning that it looks like his HIV became resistant to the AZT. It’s so toxic that they’ve taken Luke off it. I throw the used oranges into the garbage can by the sink. One misses and hits the floor. Then I throw more, aiming at the white wall under the clock. I hurl them. Some stick to the wall, and some slide down. I clench my teeth. I do that so much of the time now, this teeth clenching. Then I leave the mess and check on Luke one more time. He’s asleep, so I lie down with Macon on the couch, shaking. He opens his arms and makes room for me, like a small AGA oven giving off heat.

We get up before it’s light out because Dad is singing. He gets really loud on the last line: “We shall come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!” It’s zooey. I go into the kitchen and deal with last night’s orange disaster. I’m calmer. Almost removed. But the oranges remind me of this pit of sadness I’m skirting.

I bring some juice to Luke in his bed. Dad says, “It’s high time I took a shower, don’t you think, Luke?” There’s a guest bathroom off the study, and I want my father to disappear in there for a long time so I can sit with Luke.

“I’ve got something for you to drink,” I say after Dad leaves.

“The juice lady,” he whispers and takes two sips from the straw. I put the glass on the side table and read to him from yesterday’s
Herald Tribune
. Pieces on the anti-Communist protests in Poland, several articles analyzing the Tiananmen Square protests, and one criticizing President Bush for his handling of China relations. Every five minutes or so, I pause and try to feed Luke a cube of strawberry Jell-O. He says, “It’s my favorite flavor, you know.” I take his talking as a good sign.

Macon leaves for work. Dad announces that Luke’s temperature is down to 103. Gaird goes out and gets us baguettes and salami and cheese for lunch.

Betty washes Luke’s face and replaces the IV bag. Then she sits down again on the chair next to the monitor and reads her book. In the afternoon, Andreas arrives with a quiche. He leans down and hugs Luke’s neck and says, “Hello, my dear friend.” Luke doesn’t wake up. Andreas sits and takes Luke’s hand and doesn’t say anything else. It’s
the perfect way to be around Luke right now. Because Luke doesn’t want to talk. Doesn’t want much TV. But he seems content. Almost childlike.

I close my eyes on the couch. I can hear Luke say “I’m so thirsty” to Andreas. He whispers it again: “Thirsty.”

“I can do something about that.” Andreas stands and goes into the kitchen and fills a Ziploc bag with ice from the freezer. I hear him smashing the bag against the counter to break the ice into smaller pieces. Then he sits down in the chair and slowly feeds the chips to Luke.

Macon comes back from work with more groceries. I sit up. I think I’ve been sleeping, and I help him unpack in the kitchen—bananas and yogurt and apples and bread for toast. It’s dark outside. I think September is the most beautiful and haunting month in Paris. It’s still hot out. It feels like summer, but there’s a sense of so many endings.

Andreas lets go of Luke’s hand and stands. We make a plan for him to come back tomorrow with Tommy. He’ll call me, he says, hugging me in the living room. Then Gaird walks him to the door and they embrace, and Gaird’s body shakes with sobs.

Macon warms up the quiche in the kitchen. I turn on the television in the living room, and our odd constellation of family eats and watches in the dark—Gaird and Macon and Betty and my father and me. Luke looks like he’s sleeping. But when I get up for a glass of water he says, “Willie, come back and sit with me. Don’t leave me alone in here. Don’t leave me.”

I
N THE MORNING
, Dad starts in on a hymn that goes, “When the roll is called up yonder.” I can’t take it. Gaird’s out, and I go into their bedroom and lie down on the bed and cover my face with a pillow. Is it Dad’s voice that’s getting to me? He never used to be so loud when he and Mom sang. My mom carried the melody and Dad took the quiet harmony underneath. I can’t begrudge him his faith. I still don’t really understand it, but we all find strength where we can. And we
need strength in this apartment. We need anything we can get but maybe not the singing.

In the desert my dad was the rule maker: “No playing in waterfalls because that’s how people die in flash floods. They don’t hear the rumble coming. No hiking after dark because of snakes.” Once we walked four miles back to the truck to get more water, trying to outrun the darkness. We made it just as the sun set. Then Luke and I sat on the cooler and ate granola bars. Dad studied the map with his headlamp for where we’d go in the morning.

“The thing I like about maps is that they show us where we live.” Luke talked while he chewed.

“Live?” I almost yelled. “We live here?”

“Of course, dingbat,” Luke said. “What do you think we’ve been doing? We’re always living. Wherever we are is where we live.”

I chewed the food and tried not to cry. “I thought we lived at 46 Paso Robles, Sausalito, California. I thought we lived with Mom.”

Macon finds me crying on Luke’s bed. “Let me see your face.”

“It started as laughing.”

“What are you doing in here?” He pulls me toward him.

“Well, my brother is dying in the other room.” I’ve said it now. This is the first time, really, to myself or to Macon. “I think it takes most of his concentration. I think he’s in pain, and it’s hard to lie down all the time. Also, my father is singing gospel songs. So there’s a lot going on this morning.” I smile at him. He pulls me onto his lap and wraps his arms around me. I haven’t really seen him in days—haven’t taken him in with my eyes—and he’s even more handsome now because of this. But I’ve roped off this part of my heart a little. It’s so good of Macon to be here, and I want him here. I’m sure of it. “I’m trying to keep Luke alive. But I’m planning for what’s going to happen when he’s dead, and it’s crazy-making. Do you think I’m crazy?”

“Just go back to today,” Macon says slowly. “Just worry about this hour.”

My father yells from the living room, “Luke is awake! He wants to know if Macon will go to the grocery store!”

I walk into the bathroom and splash water on my face. I look older
than when I got to the apartment on Saturday. There’s such focus to the hours here—a sharpening. Sometimes it feels like we’re centering in on something. Fixing something. It can’t all be about helping Luke die, can it? Other times it’s dreamlike and hot and confusing. Maybe we’ll always live together like this: Dad and Macon and Gaird and me feeding Luke on the bed in the living room. I dry my hands on a towel, but my face is wet again with tears.

“I think I might be mixing things up in my mind,” I tell Macon in the doorway.

“What do you mean, ‘mixing things up’?”

“Sometimes I pretend Luke’s better. I decide he’s eaten something when I know he hasn’t. I pretend for him, but I’m pretending for me. I’m having trouble with it.”