him to Cedars-Sinai. The place we’d both been born. For the first few days, he was in intensive care, and when his vital signs stabilized, they moved him to the seventh floor, where he would recover. My father’s feet froze at the electric glass entry doors, so he called up all the specialists he knew, former clients, friends of friends, tennis partners, and sent everyone over to find out just what was wrong with his son. On the day I went over, I saw Dad’s car parked on one of the side streets just outside the general front area of the hospital. It was empty, and at the entryway he was standing a few yards from the electric doors, absorbed in reading a book. That day, I had my own specific reason for being there. I did not stop and say hello.
The weekend had seemed too busy for a good visit, so I had taken the day off school and walked over, on a weekday, on my own. Just thinking, the whole walk, as I passed the building that had housed the old cookie shop, and Eliza’s house, and even the ER where I’d gone years ago when I’d wanted to remove my mouth. Inside the electric lobby doors, I asked the nurse with the giant round glasses Joseph’s room number: 714, he said. It was late morning, and the hospital had a low-key feeling, as if it was not a hospital but instead just a place where people do health business. Not a lot of urgency. Slow beeps and clickings. I rode the elevator to the seventh floor with a woman wearing a bright-magenta suit. Her nails, equally magenta, were too long and curved to press the elevator buttons, so she asked me to press hers for her.
Sure, I said.
Six and seven lit up under my fingertips.
On the seventh floor, at the nurse’s desk, I explained that I was there to see my brother. The nurse, a black woman with a perfectly shaped nose and red-tinted hair, said he was getting tested at the moment by a specialist but that I was welcome to wait. She pointed me in the general direction, and I found a seat in the hall outside his door where I waited quietly, watching the nurses busy on their computers, the bulletin board announcing policy changes in red printer ink alongside colorful drawings of families drawn by bored patients. I slept a little, in my seat. Doctors entered and exited Joseph’s room. I walked to a nearby window, and sure enough, my father’s car was in the choice spot, almost directly below Joseph’s room.
My mother came in, kissed me hello, did not scold me for missing school, and went to stand in Joseph’s room, listening. Then she bustled out, blew a kiss goodbye. She visited several times a day.
Another hour passed. Morning turned to afternoon. At one, I brought up lunch from the cafeteria, a negligible hamburger grilled by a pothead who wanted to be famous. I ate it in my hallway spot.
When I’d finished, the nurse with the sculptural nose came over.
You know you can always go in when the doctors are there, she offered. Since you’re family.
I shook my head. Soda buzzed in my mouth. Buzz, buzz.
No, thank you, I said. I want my own time with him.
She went back to her desk, to check the schedule. Returned. She had a pretty set of earrings on, lines of twisted gold that moved when she moved, like wind chimes hanging from her ears. She told me that when this current doctor left, no one else was on the schedule for at least a half an hour.
Thank you, I said. I told her I liked her earrings. She handed me a magazine. You’re very patient, she said.
I read the fashion magazine cover to cover, and learned about the best way to frame my face, with bangs. How to score high at the workplace by being assertive. The air was warm in the ward-it was a hot May afternoon, dry and grainy with a Santa Ana whisper from the east, and inside, only one rickety fan spun in the corner, recirculating a halfhearted stream of air-conditioning from the vents. I closed my eyes, and practiced hearing all the pinpoints in the room behind me: the nurses, the other patients, tucked into their rooms, the experts, measuring my brother’s information. The cool air, circulating; the fan.
Finally, the latest doctor raised her voice in the tones of goodbye, and her nurse helper left, and when all the various professionals went off to attend to their next patients and the entryway had cleared, I stood and entered Joseph’s hospital room. His bed faced west, and through the window at his back, sunlight poured in and glazed the floor. Joseph was facing the other way, but as I pulled a chair near the edge of the bed, he turned his head to see who was next and when he saw it was me, his eyes softened. Nothing I ever expected, in my life. For a while, we sat in silence, together. A plane skirted through the sky outside. Lawn blowers blew leaves around, into the gutters. Cars hummed, at 3rd and San Vicente. At some point I started to fill the space and tell him about all the police write-ups, and about everyone’s reactions, and about the group theory of him and the duffel bag and the bushes, and as I was talking, he reached over and took my hand.
His arm was plugged up with tubes. It was the first time I could ever remember him holding my hand, and he held on to it with real focus, with fingers gripping. Those piano fingers, warm, and strong. I edged my seat closer, right to the very end of the bed. He held on tight, and as we spoke, his voice dropped low, to a whisper. It was the kind of conversation you could only hold in whispers.
You’re the only one who knows, he said.
In a voice so quiet I had to put my ear right up close to his mouth, so quiet I could hardly hold on to the words, he whispered to me that the chair was his favorite, was the easiest to sustain. That at other times, he had been the bed, the dresser, the table, the nightstand. It took time, it had taken almost constant practice. It was good while he was away, but terribly hard when he returned. I’ve tried many options, he said. I’ve tried different choices. But the chair, he said, is the best.
I closed my eyes as he spoke, to hear better. The words, almost ungraspable. Sun on our hands. The sheets, pulled so tight on the hospital bed, sent up a faint smell of brisk laundry detergent bleach.
Does it hurt? I whispered.
No, he said.
His fingers were thin and brittle under mine.
Do you know, while you’re away?
No, he said. I don’t know anything, while I’m away.
Do you feel the passage of time?
He shook his head. No.
The blanket on his bed grew warm, heated by the slanted ray crossing through the window. Late afternoon Los Angeles hazy sunny sun. I opened my eyes. His skin was still heavy, like it had been before, like more hours had pressed into his face than made sense, like he was a living version of the relativity split between the clock on earth and the one in space. There wasn’t much time; soon, a whole new stream of experts sent by our father would be coming in, standing in the doorway with clipboards, and metallic clicking pens, and stethoscopes.
So, I said. Joseph. I have a favor to ask.
Machines whirred beside us. Outside the door, a nurse walked by, soft-footed, on rubber soles.
Joseph squeezed my hand lightly, in response.
You could not usually ask him things, my brother. I had never asked him for anything real. He had sent over George at school that one time, but for so many years I’d begged him to play with me and he’d only do it if my mother offered him a new science book as a bribe. The only time he’d hugged me on impulse was the day, years ago, when I’d come home from the ER after having the fit about my mouth. We did not hang out, or have meals together by choice, or talk on the phone. At times I was sure he forgot my name. But I pressed his hand back, and with my eyes low, pinned to the corner of the pillow, tracing the hemline around the edge, I told him about the line I’d drawn, on the chair. I asked him to only pick that chair, in the future. Not another chair. Not another item. That one. So then, no matter what happened, I would know.
It’s just a ballpoint pen line, I said. But it’s easy to see. I leaned closer. His heart, on a green circuit, rose and fell on the screen nearby.
Please, I said.
His eyes were still soft, looking to mine.
Do you hear me, Joe? I asked.
Yes.
Does it make sense?
It does.
Will you do it?
He pressed his hand, against mine. Yes, he said.
On the walk home, I passed by my father’s car. He was in the driver’s seat by then, asleep, his head leaning on his chest, heavy. I picked a camellia flower from a nearby bush, and left it on his windshield.
Headed home, alone.
