“Come on. He’s awake,” Kelsey said.
They walked single file down the hall, his mom in the lead like a mother duckling with her chicks. Anders’s stomach tightened with each step, unsure what they were going to find. Kelsey had briefed them on the possible side effects of stroke: being paralyzed, confused—and what Anders thought would be the worst—unable to speak.
But his worst fear was quickly squelched as they got closer to the room and heard Leonard’s booming voice drift out into the hall. “You’d think at least one of them would have ducked.”
It was his infamous “three men walked into a bar” joke that both Kelsey and Anders had heard so many times growing up, they often said the punch line with him. His mom took off as soon as she heard his voice, with Kelsey and Anders at her heels, and they rushed into the room and found him, head wrapped in bandages, laughing more at his own joke than the nurse taking his blood pressure.
“Well, there they are!” he said, spotting the three of them in the doorway. “Alisha, this is my family. My wife, Carol, my daughter, Kelsey, and my son, Anders.”
Anders’s mom hurried over to Leonard’s side.
“Kelsey’s about to be a world-renowned actress and Anders is a famous podcaster. Have you heard of What the Frick? Everyone’s talking about it. Even The Rock.”
“Really?” Alisha said kindly, as she slipped the blood pressure cuff off his dad’s arm. “I haven’t heard of that.”
“Take a listen. Great stuff.”
“How are you feeling?” Carol asked, her voice filled with concern. She looked him over up and down like she used to with Anders when he was a kid and fell off his bike.
“I’m just fine! ’Course I’m OK! You think a little stroke is gonna take me out?” He paused. “Can’t move the left side of my body, though.”
“Oh my god. Are you serious?” Kelsey said.
“Yeah. I mean, I did have a stroke. Doctor says it’s nothing a little physical therapy can’t sort out.”
“How did it happen? Could it happen again? What are they doing to prevent it?” Anders went straight into reporting mode. Gather as many facts as possible so you know exactly what you’re working with.
Leonard shrugged, though only his right shoulder actually moved. “Just one of those things, doc said. Said they’d run some tests.”
“They better,” Anders said, crossing his arms. One of those things was absolutely not an acceptable diagnosis when somebody’s life lay in the balance.
—
For the next three days, Anders took turns with his mom and sister visiting the hospital until Leonard could regain enough strength to go home. Anders mostly spent the time online researching everything he could about ischemic strokes and then grilling the doctors and nurses whenever it was his turn to be at the hospital.
“Anders,” Leonard said one day, after the doctor had nearly tripped over his feet getting out of the room as quickly as possible when Anders walked in. “Can you do me a favor?”
“What?” Anders asked. He was moving a vase of puffy chrysanthemums from Leonard’s bedside table to across the room, as Leonard kept sneezing and thought it might be the flowers. Anders’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he set the vase down, then tugged it out of his pocket. After glancing at the screen, he tossed it on the bedside table, in the empty space the vase had left.
“You gotta tone it down a little bit.”
Anders stared at his stepdad, and nearly laughed at the irony of someone who was gregarious and over-the-top in every aspect of his life asking him to tone it down. His phone buzzed again, and Anders ignored it.
“Are you kidding? We need answers! This is absurd. Your risk of having a second stroke doubles for up to five years after the first one—and they can’t even tell us why you had the first one. How are you supposed to prevent it?”
Leonard looked Anders squarely in the eyes and said calmly, “Maybe I’m not supposed to prevent it.”
Anders’s head jerked forward on his neck like a chicken. “What? What is that supposed to mean? You’re OK with just dying next time?” His phone came alive again, and Anders wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if it was buzzing more loudly, more insistently, this time. Leonard glanced at it, too, and then back at Anders.
“Well, no, I’m not OK with dying. I’d prefer not to, if I can help it. But some things in life are out of our control. Most things, actually.”
“That’s absolutely ridiculous,” Anders said, as his phone went off for a fourth time.
“Are you going to get that? Sounds important.”
“No,” Anders said.
“Who is it?”
“Nobody.”
Leonard raised an eyebrow at him.
“It’s Good Morning America.”
Leonard laughed, but quickly stopped when Anders’s face didn’t change. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. They want to do a segment on What the Frick?”
“Anders! That’s amazing! Why aren’t you answering the phone?”
Anders sighed. And then he sat down heavily into the chair beside his stepdad’s bed and slowly began to unravel the entire story, starting with his dishonesty from the outset, through to Piper’s confession and her secret meetings with the developer, and ending with Piper never wanting to see him again.
“Well,” Leonard said when he was done. “You sure made a mess of things.”
“I know. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“What’s your gut tell you?”
“That I need to explain everything to Piper—whether I do Good Morning America or not. Though I think I should—and not just for me, but because I really think it could help. The publicity from a platform that big could be a boon to tourism there, bringing sorely needed money into the island, which is exactly what she’s trying to accomplish.”
“True,” Leonard said thoughtfully. “But maybe that’s not the way she’s trying to accomplish it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that, from your podcast
