While Bozo finished eating, Dan took his coffee, settled down in his one good chair, and turned on the TV. Punching the clicker, he paused briefly at CNN to pick up the headlines, and then moved over to his DVR to watch ESPN’s coverage of last night’s Padres game.
And that was how Dan Pardee spent a lazy Saturday afternoon, drinking coffee and watching the Great American Pastime with his faithful companion at his side.
Life didn’t get any better than that.
Three
Casa Grande, Arizona
Saturday, June 6, 2009, 1:00 p.m.
96? Fahrenheit
Sue and Geet Farrell had lived in the same three-bedroom ranch-style home in one of Casa Grande’s older sections for as long as Brandon had known them. As he drove down the broad flat avenue that June afternoon, Brandon could tell that the neighborhood had seen better days. The street was lined with dead and dying palm trees. It took water to keep palm trees alive, and these days people were cutting back on water bills.
In front of Geet’s house four wilting palms still clung stubbornly to life, but the yard around them was a weedy, parched wasteland. Not xeriscaped-just dead. As for the house itself? The composition roof appeared to be close to the end of its lifetime, and the whole place could have used a coat of paint except for the peeling trim around the windows, which needed scraping and several coats. A wheelchair-accessible van with handicapped plates sat forlornly in the driveway as silent testimony to the losing battle being waged inside the house. Brandon parked next to it.
At the front door a sign over the doorbell button asked visitors to abstain from ringing it and to come around to the kitchen door so as not to disturb the patient. When Sue answered Brandon ’s light knock, he was shocked by how worn and tired she looked. She was dressed in nothing but an oversize T-shirt and a pair of cutoffs. With her hair lank and loose and with her face devoid of makeup, she looked like hell. Geet may have been the one who was dying, but Sue Farrell was also paying a terrible price.
“How’re you doing?” he asked, giving her a hug.
“Not all that well,” she admitted.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “It’s tough. Everybody leads you to think that hospice is this really great thing, that once you accept it, life just smooths out and everything is peachy keen. What a load of crap! The hospice people are here a couple of times a week, and I’m grateful for that, but when Geet was in the hospital, he had round-the-clock nursing. Here at home, it’s up to me twenty-four/seven. People offer to help out from time to time, but it’s mostly my problem.”
“Is there anything I can do to help today?” Brandon asked.
Sue thought about that for a moment. “He’s asleep right now. I gave him some pain meds a little while ago. If you could sit here with him long enough for me to go to the grocery store and to pick up some prescriptions from Walgreens…”
Brandon ’s heart ached for her. Sue Farrell needed to run away, too. Looking at her haggard face, he caught a glimpse of his own possible future.
“Of course,” he said. “Not a problem. Take your time. Do whatever you need to do. In fact, if you want to kick up your heels and go visit a friend or see a movie, that’ll be fine, too. I’ll be happy to look after Geet for you. It’s the least I can do.”
Sue’s eyes filled with tears. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said. “Where is he?”
“In the living room,” Sue said. “We moved most of the furniture out and set it up as a hospital room. I hope it’s not too warm for you. He’s so cold that we keep the thermostat set at eighty-five.”
“That’s not a problem, either,” Brandon replied. “Now that I’ve given up jackets and neckties in favor of Hawaiian shirts, the heat doesn’t bother me.”
Sue led Brandon into the small living room, where the blinds were down. The only light in the room came from the bright colors of a flat-screen television set over the fireplace where, in sound-muted silence, Speedvision was showing practice runs for Sunday’s NASCAR race.
Most of the room was taken up with sickroom equipment-a hospital bed, a walker, a wheelchair, an oxygen tank, a side table covered with medication, a power lifter to help get Geet in and out of bed, and a rolling portable potty. Everything there was designed to make the patient’s life livable, while at the same time stripping him of the last bit of dignity.
Other than the television set, the only piece of living room furniture that remained was a long cloth-covered sofa. Apologizing for the mess, Sue hastily stripped a sheet and pillow from that and carried them away to another room. No wonder she looked tired. Exhausted. That couch was probably where she was sleeping, or not sleeping, during her unending shift at Geet’s bedside.
After Sue left the room, Brandon took a seat on the newly cleared couch. Geet was snoring quietly. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Sue appeared to be the one who needed some rest.
G. T. Farrell had always been a big man, a hearty man. Now he was a shadow of that former self. The hands that lay on top of his covers looked bony and frail. His hair had gone sparse and stark- white. The gray pallor of his sagging skin told Brandon that the man wouldn’t last long. For Sue’s sake, Brandon found himself hoping the battle wouldn’t last much longer.
Brandon remembered too well his own recovery from bypass surgery several years earlier. He had hated it. He had hated being weak and needy, and he had hated the trouble he had put Diana through. No doubt Geet felt the same way, and Diana would, too, if it came to that.
When it comes to that, Brandon thought.
When Sue emerged from the bedroom, she had changed into a turquoise-colored pair of shorts with a matching shirt. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had dabbed on some makeup. She wasn’t one hundred percent, but she was decidedly better than she had been when she first answered the door. She was also carrying a banker’s box.
“This is the case Geet wants to turn over to you,” she said, setting the box down next to him on the couch. “While you’re just sitting here you might want to go through it.”
“Sure,” Brandon said easily, but he didn’t mean it.
This was Geet Farrell’s case to pass along, not his wife’s. Brandon Walker had no intention of opening the box and looking inside it until Geet himself had given the go-ahead. The poor man might be dying, but Geet deserved that much respect, that much self-determination.
Sue gathered her purse and car keys and then stood uncertainly by her husband’s bed, as if reluctant to leave.
“Give me your cell number,” Brandon said gently. “I’ll call if anything happens, but you need a break.”
Sue nodded gratefully and gave him the number. She also gave him some instructions about Geet’s pain meds. Then she rushed out the back door before she had a chance to change her mind.
In the silence her departure left behind, Brandon sat there watching the silent race cars speed around and around an oval track, but he didn’t really pay attention. He was far too preoccupied with real life-his own real life.
For months now there had been little warning signals that things weren’t quite right. Brandon ’s history with his father should have set the alarm bells ringing, but denial is an interesting thing. He hadn’t discussed his concerns with Diana. By mutual agreement, it was off the table. He also hadn’t mentioned it to the kids, Davy and Lani. But now the jig was up, and Brandon would have to deal with it and discuss it.
Earlier that week, he’d come back to the house from a meeting and found Diana in despair.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I just talked to Pam,” Diana said. “They hate the book.”
