wanted to kick the pain away. Greg Springer stood very close to me. I think he was trying to hear what I was hearing. So I let him listen to my stethoscope. He nodded his head after he listened for a while, and then the two of us just stared at the horse. We watched how she shifted her weight from hoof to hoof and how she didn’t seem to care whether we were standing there, her pain all that mattered. I gave the horse Banamine and Greg Springer and I just waited awhile, keeping an eye on the horse. I looked up at the sky through the open barn door and told Greg Springer it was probably going to be a cold night because of all the stars that were already showing. I told him it was too bad it wasn’t still hunting season, as the nonexistent wind would make for good conditions. He shook his head and said, With my horse the way she is I would not be able to go out and hunt anyway. Yes, that would be distracting, I said. Going out to hunt with something on your mind was a dangerous thing. You never know what you could shoot instead, I said. Once, I said, I was hunting and my mind was not on it and then I heard a deer walking toward me, but I couldn’t see it yet. Then all of me was listening for it and waiting for it to show its face. My finger was ready to pull the trigger the moment I saw it because I knew I would not have many chances to shoot it, there being so many trees in the way. Suddenly I saw a dark shape through the trees, and I almost shot, but I hesitated, and it was a good thing, because what came out into the clearing wasn’t a deer at all, but a man, another hunter, walking carefully through our woods, but it was scary to think how close I was to shooting him. Greg Springer nodded his head. The horse made a low whinny and then Greg Springer shook his head and reached out and touched the side of the horse’s neck. It’ll be all right, girl, he said. I told Greg Springer to call me in the morning if the horse didn’t show signs of improvement. I told Greg Springer it was going to be a cold night, and that he might want to sleep inside. He shook his head. I’ve a warm sleeping bag. I’ll just bring it out here and sleep beside her and pray, he said, and then I thought how maybe Greg Springer could go to the hospital. Floor 9, I could tell him, get off there, the fourth patient door on the left, that’s my son. Would he lie next to him and pray?
THOUGHTS ON DRIVE HOME: I have Gisela’s phone number. I wonder, if I called it, who would pick up the phone? Would it be Gisela? Would she tell me the weather in Germany? How do you say, in German, my levels are lower than they were before? Would I hear in the background the sounds of the beer from the taps being poured into steins when I called? Would I hear the German? The strong glottal stops harsh-sounding, or would those sounds just be the interfering signs of static common to an overseas connection?
WHAT THE WIFE ASKS ME AT HOME: Well, was Greg Springer your man?
WHAT I SAY: There is no way for me to know. How could I know a thing like that from kneeling next to him in some straw?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Is it going to stop now? Every time you go on a call, you come back thinking you know the man who did it. I’m getting worried about you.
WHAT I DO FOR THE FLIES AT NIGHT: I turn the light off and open the window. I am sick of them buzzing by my head while I read the paper in bed. I am tired of them buzzing inside my lampshade making a tock-tock-tock sound as they slam into one side of the taut linen shade and then the next. There is a bright full moon out. Shoo, I say to the flies. Can’t you see the bright moon? I say. I cup my hand and move it behind them, trying to direct them to the cool air outside.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Can I read? Haven’t we sat in the dark long enough? It’s getting cold in here, she says. Shut the window. I close the window and turn the light back on, but the flies haven’t vacated our home. In a second I can hear them buzzing inside the lamp again. The tock-tock-tock sounding louder than ever.
WHAT THE WIFE IS READING: A book about coma. There’s a syndrome, she says, that occurs in children, who, after waking from it, display delayed recovery of consciousness. Apparently the psychological stresses of being in the hospital keep them sleeping, she says.
WHAT I SAY: That won’t happen to Sam. When he wakes he will wake right away. He will want to know which sister played with his games. He will want to eat chocolate right away. He will want to know if it’s still deer season.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: I can’t remember, did his MRI show swelling? Midline shift? Mass lesions? I shake my head. She has asked me these questions before.
WHAT I SAY: Remember his Glasgow score. Remember how high it was?
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Look at that, ladybugs. I look to see where she’s pointing. There are ladybugs crawling on the sills of all the windows surrounding our bed. At least they don’t buzz, I tell her, but then I see how she sits up quickly and starts shaking out her hair. Bastard, she says, and with its small wings spread out a ladybug hops onto the blanket. And that is how our night is spent. One of us, every once in a while, waking up and shaking our head to get a fly or a ladybug out from crawling in our hair, then there is the sound of us wiping the sheet to knock the insect off and onto the floor, where no doubt we will step on it on our way to the bathroom.
WHAT SARAH SAYS IN THE MORNING: I bet you don’t know what ambrosia is.
WHAT I SAY: It’s a fruit salad mixed with whipped cream.
WHAT SARAH SAYS: No, it’s whale vomit and it’s used as a preservative to keep perfumes smelling good.
WHAT I SAY: You mean ambergris.
WHAT SARAH SAYS: Whatever.
WHAT MIA SAYS: Poppy, make ambrosia.
WHAT THE RADIO SAYS: Beep-di-dah-beep-di-dah-beep-beep-beep.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: STOP. I AM GETTING A TRANSMISSION. IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT WE GET A HEAD POTTY CLEANER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. OUR MISSION CANNOT CONTINUE WITHOUT THIS VITAL POSITION BEING FILLED.
WHAT THE CHILDREN SAY: Too bad about the mission. Guess you’ll have to leave without us, Mom.
WHAT THE WIFE SAYS: Who will wash your dishes and cook your food and serve you and pour your milks and collect your dishes and wipe the countertops and do the laundry and do the food shopping and pick up your dirty socks and hang up your coats and take your wet towels off your beds and put away your toys and turn off the lights you left on in your rooms? Who will do all of this if I’m gone? the wife said. I’m going on the next flight, the wife says. The socks will be easier to pick up in space, I won’t have to bend down and throw out my back. I’d like to see how wood burns in space, I wouldn’t mind stacking wood in space, I could lift a whole cord in space.
NEWSPAPER ARTICLE I READ TO SAM WHILE I SIT BESIDE HIM EATING OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES WHOSE CRUMBS FALL INTO HIS HAIR: The bats are sick. The bats are flying in daylight. The white fungus disease is evident on their mouths, as if they’ve been trying to eat snow. The paper says they’ve been roused from their winter sleep because they’re weak and starving. They’ve been seen drinking water, and flying low over rivers and ponds where the ice has melted.
WHAT THE BATS SAY IN THE DAYTIME: I am sick, I am thirsty, I am hungry, I am dying.
WHAT THE DAY NURSE DOES: She comes in and flicks off the oatmeal cookie crumbs from Sam’s head onto a paper napkin, then she takes out a small black comb from her pocket on her uniform and starts combing his hair, forming a part where he has never had a part, making him look like some kid I didn’t know, making me think maybe this is not really my son who is here lifeless in a hospital bed but some other man’s son, and I should go home now. I should drive up the driveway and find my son throwing snowballs wildly at his sisters from a snow fort he has built into the side of the hill. I should see his face red from the cold. I should see snow in his hair, and his eyes glistening and bright from his onslaught against his screaming sisters.
CALL: The hospital. Sam is sitting up. Sam is talking. Sam’s foot is a live wire.
ACTION: Run to the car. Start driving off with wife, Sarah, and Mia barely having time to sit down in their seats, the car doors still open as I start to drive. Drive with wife incessantly asking if I want her to drive because she thinks I am driving too slowly. Don’t expect a miracle, I tell her. Don’t expect him to be completely recovered, I say, driving past the Bunny Hutch preschool, watching other children swinging high into the sky while sitting in yellow and red plastic swings.
RESULT: Sam wants to know what the dis-dis-gusting thing was by his ear. He wants to know which one of his sis-sis-sisters thought he should be sleeping with a cooked chicken heart next to him all this time. He wants to know who has been made Head Potty Cleaner while he was gone because he wants to know if he
