No Second Chance

“He had salmonella,” Honey stated in a conspiratorial whisper that was only slightly louder than a bullhorn. “You never smelled diarrhea like that. It was just pouring out of him. His stench practically seeped into the wallpaper.”

“He ain’t all roses now either,” the nurse replied.

The two women shared a laugh.

On Day Two of my recovery, Mom was standing over my bed when I awoke.

“Remember this?” she said.

She was holding a stuffed Oscar the Grouch someone had given me during that salmonella stay. The green had faded to a light mint. She looked at the nurse. “This is Marc’s Oscar,” she explained.

“Mom,” I said.

She turned her attention back to me. The mascara was a little too heavy today, crinkling into the wrinkle lines. “Oscar kept you company back then, remember? He helped you get better.”

I rolled and then closed my eyes. A memory came to me. I had gotten the salmonella from raw eggs. My father used to add them into milk-shakes for the protein. I remember the way pure terror had gripped me when I’d first learned that I would have to stay in the hospital overnight. My father, who had recently ruptured his Achilles tendon playing tennis, was in a cast and constant pain. But he saw my fear and as always, he made the sacrifice. He worked all that day at the plant and spent all night in a chair by my hospital bed. I stayed at St. Elizabeth’s for ten days. My father slept in that chair every night of them.

Mom suddenly turned away, and I could see she was remembering the same thing. The nurse quickly excused herself. I put a hand on my mother’s back. She didn’t move, but I could feel her shudder. She stared down at the faded Oscar in her hands. I slowly took it from her.

“Thank you,” I said.

Mom wiped her eyes. Dad, I knew, would not come to the hospital this time, and while I am sure my mother had told him what had happened, there was no way to know if he even understood. My father had had his first stroke when he was forty-one years old—one year after staying those nights with me at the hospital. I was eight at the time.

I also have a younger sister, Stacy, who is either a “substance abuser” (for the more politically correct) or “crack-head” (for the more accurate). I sometimes look at old pictures from before my dad’s stroke, the ones with the young, confident family of four and the shaggy dog and the well-groomed lawn and the basketball hoop and the coal-overloaded, lighter fluid–saturated barbecue. I look for hints of the future in my sister’s front-teeth-missing smile, her shadow self perhaps, a sense of foreboding. But I see none. We still have the house, but it’s like a sagging movie prop. Dad is still alive, but when he fell, everything shattered Humpty-Dumpty style. Especially Stacy.

Stacy had not visited or even called, but nothing she does surprises me anymore.

My mother finally turned to face me. I gripped the faded Oscar a little tighter as a thought struck me anew: It was just us again. Dad was pretty much a vegetable. Stacy was hollowed out, gone. I reached out and took Mom’s hand, feeling both the warmth and the more recent thickening of her skin. We stayed like that until the door opened. The same nurse leaned into the room.

Mom straightened up and said, “Marc also played with dolls,”

“Action figures,” I said, quick on the correction. “They were action figures, not dolls.”

My best friend, Lenny, and his wife, Cheryl, also stopped by the hospital every day. Lenny Marcus is a big-time trial lawyer, though he also handles my small-time stuff like the time I fought a speeding ticket and the closing on our house. When he graduated and began working for the county prosecutor, friends and opponents quickly dubbed Lenny “the Bulldog” because of his aggressive courtroom behavior. Somewhere along the line, it was decided that the name was too mild for Lenny, so now they called him “Cujo.” I’ve known Lenny since elementary school. I’m the godfather of his son Kevin. And Lenny is Tara’s godfather.

I haven’t slept much. I lie at night and stare at the ceiling and count the beeps and listen to the hospital night sounds and try very much not to let my mind wander to my little daughter and the endless array of possibilities. I am not always successful. The mind, I have learned, is indeed a dark, snake-infested pit.

Detective Regan visited later with a possible lead.

“Tell me about your sister,” he began.

“Why?” I said too quickly. Before he could elaborate, I held up my hand to stop him. I understood. My sister was an addict. Where drugs roamed, so too did a certain criminal element. “Were we robbed?” I asked.

“We don’t think so. Nothing seems to be missing, but the place was tossed.”

“Tossed?”

“Someone made a mess. Any thoughts on why?”

“No.”

“So tell me about your sister.”

“You have Stacy’s record?” I asked.

“We do.”

“I’m not sure what I can add.”

“You two are estranged, correct?”

Estranged. Did that apply to Stacy and me? “I love her,” I said slowly.

“And when was the last time you saw her?”

“Six months ago.”

“When Tara was born?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Where did I see her?”

“Yes.”

“Stacy came to the hospital,” I said.

“To see her niece?”

“Yes.”

“What happened during that visit?”

“Stacy was high. She wanted to hold the baby.”

“You refused?”

“That’s right.”

“Did she get angry?”

“She barely reacted. My sister is pretty flat when she’s stoned.”

“But you threw her out?”

“I told her she couldn’t be a part of Tara’s life until she was clean.”

“I see,” he said. “You were hoping that would force her back into rehab?”

I might have chuckled. “No, not really.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

I wondered how to put this. I thought of the smile in the family photo, the one without the front teeth. “We’ve threatened Stacy with worse,” I said. “The truth is that my sister won’t quit. The drugs are part of her.”

“So you hold out no hope for recovery?”

There was no way I was about to voice that. “I didn’t trust her with my daughter,” I said. “Let’s leave it at that.”