The Flu 1/2 (44 page)

Mick turned around and leaned his back against the tree, his voice growling his pain. “Oh my God, Lars. Pain. You said pain. I have been shot, stabbed, beat up…but I have never in my life felt a pain like this.” Mick’s arms crossed tight, squeezing against his own midsection. “I can’t take it. I cannot take what I am feeling right now.”

“I won’t pretend to know what you are going through, you or Dylan. I can only imagine. I am so sorry that you are feeling such pain.” Lars moved to him.

“The mother in Cleveland.”

“Excuse me?”

Mick swallowed and took a deep breath; he let it out slowly as he stared at the sky. “You said a while ago, the mother in Cleveland who knew she was losing her child. You wanted to stop a mother in Lodi from feeling that.”

Lars remembered that speech well. “Yes, I recall saying that. Mick, I tried.”

“You did it,” Mick said. “You did.” He sniffed hard. “Dylan just so happened to end up being the mother you saved and the mother in Cleveland.” He growled out softly, “God.” Closing his eyes Mick stepped away from the tree. “I keep wanting to ask ‘why’.” He looked at Lars. “Is that stupid? I know there is no answer to that question. But I keep wanting to ask.”

“Everyone does. Those who survived, those still ill, and all of you who are losing someone. Why.” Lars dropped his voice. “You’re right. There is no answer to why some were spared. The injection perhaps, gambling with the timing, poor genetics...good genetics.” He shrugged. “No reason.”

“And it’s not over. Not for us. We were confident after Chris beat this. We’re hanging on to futile hope with Dustin. Lars....” Mick breathed out his words, “I had to change his bed. He thought....” Mick squinted his eyes in pain as he spoke. “Dustin thought, you know, that he had an accident.” Another shudder of emotions escaped him. “Blood. Lars, all there was, was blood on that bed. Blood. I’m not handling this well.”

“Yes, you are.”

Mick shook his head. “No...no, I’m not. I’m trying to look like I am, for Dylan, for Dustin. But I’m not. I’m dying. I’m physically dying inside. And we still have Tigger to worry about.”

“No, you don’t.” Lars reached into his back pocket. “That’s why I’m here. To ease your mind, even if just a little.” He held up a folded sheet of paper. “Lou Smith, you know him, he’s immune. His son Craig, nine, immune, too. Brian Watts, immune. His six year old son Lenny is immune. Genetics, Mick. You’re immune. Only goes to figure...” Lars handed him a sheet of paper. “So is
your
son.”

Mick didn’t open the paper, he took it, and closed his eyes.

“Tigger is your son, Mick. Did you know that, or did I just drop the bombshell of the century here?”

Mick’s words dragged as he spoke. “No. I knew. We...we knew. How did you....?”

“When he came down for his daily flu testing, I had to run an immunity test. I had to. There was no reason whatsoever for that boy to be well. He, of all people, with his medical history should have fallen first.” Lars watched Mick nod. “But, I have to say, I’m shocked. I’ve known you your entire life, Mick. I would have never thought you to be one to….”

“Deny my child?” Mick asked. “Let me tell you something, Lars,” his voice deepened as he answered, “never.” Mick raised his eyebrow. “It was not what I wanted to do. Come on, you know mine and Dylan’s history. I’ve loved her forever. We always hooked up, innocently though, when her and Sam would split. But that one time....that one break up, I thought that was it. I did. She made love to me, and that told me so much. She wouldn’t have gone that far, that deep, if it wasn’t really over with Sam.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“No. After about a month, they got back together. Dylan...was pregnant.” He tossed up his hands. “We found out shortly after their reunion, and there wasn’t a doubt it was my child because their reunion hadn’t become physical yet.”

“What did you do?” Lars asked.

“I wanted the baby. I wanted the chance. It was my chance to have Dylan. To have a family. To finally have it all. Chris was just starting Little League then. And I remember thinking how great it was gonna be that I would be more than just ‘Mick’ at those games. I went to every one of those games, you know. Dustin’s, too.” Mick winked softly as he nodded his head. “I never missed a moment in these boys’ lives. Dylan was my best friend, and they were the closest thing I had to my own kids.”

“Then came Tigger.”

“Then came Tigger,” Mick said. “Sam knew. And it kicked my ass that he was so understanding about it. Sam’s attitude was he just wanted to get past it, move on, put the incident behind us. We were all friends. But it wasn’t Sam’s attitude that dictated this situation. Not at all. He called another one of his little meetings.” Mick chuckled. “I was determined, I wanted my kid. But what changed me was Dustin and Chris. I looked at them that night. They had their mom, their dad...their family. And all the good I have ever done, all the looking up to me that they did, would be...” Mick snapped his fingers, “gone, the second I stepped into the picture in a different role. So we decided that no one would know Tigger was my kid. Sam would raise him, treat him as his own, Tigger would call him...Dad. I was allowed to see him as much as I wanted, spend time with him alone. But it never happened, that alone time I mean. It felt unfair to do that. So I ended taking all the boys for overnights and trips.”

“You didn’t lose, Mick,” Lars stated. “Listening now, hearing it, you made the right unselfish decision. These boys love you. They really love you. Your relationship with them is exceptional, so exceptional that any biological father would be envious. You didn’t give up one son. You gained three.”

“I know.” Mick nodded. “And now I’m losing one.” Mick finally opened the paper and looked down. He gave a soft emotional chuckle. “I better get inside. Mind if I show this to Dylan?”

“No. That’s why I brought it.” Lars reached out and laid his hand on Mick’s arm. “You’re in my prayers, Mick.”

Mick was unable to speak his thanks, giving only a grateful nod of his head. Then after a soft, painful “See ya tomorrow”, Mick slipped back into the house.

Mick cleared a spot on what he called Dylan’s “mess table” that sat in the upstairs hallway, a little round stand that she always put papers and cups on with intentions to take them downstairs, but they never made it. On that table he put two cups of coffee. Something told him they might be sleeping, so he tried quietly to make his entrance into Dustin’s room. He would have done so had he not almost fallen over Chris who was lying on the floor.

“Sorry.” Chris looked up.

“Chris,” Mick said, crouching down, “you still aren’t better yet. How about sleeping in a bed one more night?”

“No.” Chris shook his head. “I don’t want to leave my brother.”

Understanding that, Mick kissed him and stood up. He looked at Dustin who had fallen asleep. He made sure he touched him as he walked to Dylan. “Hey,” he whispered in her ear. “Can I steal you for a minute?”

After nodding, Dylan quietly followed Mick into the hall. She pulled the door closed. “What’s up?”

“I just needed a minute with you. I got us coffee....” He pointed. “Can we sit out here in the hall? If you don’t want to….”

“No. That’s fine.” She reached up and laid her hand on his face. “Dustin’s asleep. Mick? Are you okay?”

Mick grabbed her hand and kissed it, then led her away from the door a few feet. He handed her the coffee and at the same time they both sank to the floor. “No.”

Dylan looked at him.

“No, I’m not okay. And I want to apologize to you for that.”

“I don’t understand. Why are you apologizing?”

“For not being as strong as I should be.”

“You’re my strength, Mick,” she blurted out. “I don’t know what I would do without you right now. You’re keeping me together.”

A single chuckle came from Mick. “I say the same thing about you.”

“I kind of think....” Dylan played with the cup in her hand, “that right now, we’re overwhelmed with shock and sadness. But I think we both have more strength than we realize. I look at you, I’m screaming inside, and you’re so calm.”

“You think?” Mick smiled. “I’m not calm. You...Dylan, I admire you so much for how brave you’re being right now.”

Scooting closer to him, Dylan leaned her head against Mick’s arm. “I wish God gave us, as parents, one chance. Just one chance, on a tiny slip of paper. A chance to switch places with your child. For anything. And when that moment is needed, we as parents could turn that slip of paper in and trade places.”

“One slip?” Mick asked. “One chance.”

“Yes, why?”

“Dylan, sweetheart. If God did that, you of all people wouldn’t have a chance to turn in right now. Not you. You would have turned that chance in years ago. When Dustin used to get picked on in school, you wanted to trade places. How about when Chris got that case of chicken pox and was in the hospital? A few days ago when Chris had the flu? The time Dustin got the lead in the school play and he opened his mouth to sing and nothing came out?”

Dylan smiled slightly. “Poor Dustin.”

“You would have done it many times. That’s why God doesn’t give us those chances, he knows how we can’t, with the love of parents, ever choose which moment is deserving enough. They all are deserving.” Mick exhaled heavily. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Dylan sat up and looked at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Dustin asked to see Tigger. He needs to see him, and I think Tigger should spend some time with his brother before...well, I just think he should.”

“I do, too, Mick, but I can’t take a chance on....” Dylan was silent when Mick handed her a sheet of paper. “What’s this?”

“Let Tigger in the room. Lars did some testing. Like father like son, Tigger is immune.”

Dylan hadn’t cried in hours, but at that second her entire face spasmed emotionally and a single tear ran down her face. She set down her coffee, and with the results still in her hand, Dylan embraced Mick. The moment in the hall ended up being just what she needed, a break from the heartache, and a little shining light of good.

October 5
^th

Dustin didn’t awaken often. When a brief bout of consciousness allowed him to open his eyes, he’d shift them around the room to linger on Dylan, Chris, and Tigger. Even though they were tired and glazed, Dylan could look into his eyes and see Dustin’s life force, his soul. She painfully saw that he understood everything that was going on. He may have been ill, his body ravaged and swollen, but Dustin tried to smile because he enjoyed the happy stories they told. Over the course of the next twelve hours, he was aware of them for brief periods of time, then he’d fade into sleep brought on by the illness and the increasingly larger doses of pain medication.

However, even when he was unconscious, Dylan, Tigger, Chris, and Mick, whoever was in the room, kept talking. Dustin loved to talk, he loved to be a part of every conversation, adult or not, and they gave him that.

Although the event taking place was somber and solemn, Dylan didn’t want the mood to be somber; she strived to keep the atmosphere as normal as possible. She watched Chris and admired her middle son’s stamina and good sense. Although suffering through what he was witnessing with his older brother, Chris kept up a good front, upbeat, high spirited and energetic. The wrestling videos played constantly, and Chris, even when Dustin was asleep, rewound the parts that they always rewound, shouted out as always when matches were “awesome” and Chris would ask Dustin if he saw this or that.

Dustin was dying and the room was redolent of life, loud, noisy, and active. Dylan allowed that even at times when she wanted so badly to rest her eyes, wallow in sadness, or say a prayer in peace. She couldn’t. Dylan took in all that transpired in that room between her sons because she had come to the painful realization that moments of enthusiasm over wrestling, Chris’ chattering and spoken dreams were moments between her boys that soon would be no more.

* * *

The tissue, damp with Rose’s tears, shredded with the nervous rolling of her fingers. She could honestly say that she hadn’t cried since her husband had passed on years and years before. An avalanche of pain crushed the inner strength she’d always had.

She stared at her son, a monster of a man in size, yet she saw how small he felt. He was broken. The hours leading up to Dustin’s death became the sledgehammer that shattered him as if he were a pane of glass.

Mick hadn’t called upon her to be a mother in quite some time. Rose couldn’t recall how many evenings in the past she knew Mick had problems and she’d pick up the phone only to be told by him he was fine. So many times she wanted him to come to her and say, “Mom, what do I do?” Mick never did. Until that very moment. And all the years of motherly advice, at that second, seemed to vanish.

What to say? There was so much that could be said. Rose went through her mind as she listened to each word Mick spoke. What would be the best response? What would help?

Nothing.

There wasn’t a single word of comfort or advice that she could give that would even attempt to take the pain away.