Part 16 (2/2)
”I can't do that that many pictures,” Britney complained. many pictures,” Britney complained.
”Even one picture would be nice,” I said.
Twenty minutes later, a bored Morgan wandered in and waited as the girls colored. A moment later, when I saw Dr. Brashears walking past the door, I called out. He came back, smiling quietly, eyes filled with my fate.
”What are you doing here?” Brashears asked.
I gestured toward the room. ”My father.”
”I just went over Jackie's records. She conformed to your list of symptoms even more closely than I thought. By the way, I called Tacoma General. Got some doctor named Philbert. Holly Riggs and Jackie? Their symptoms match perfectly.”
”And neither one is coming out of it?”
”Doctors aren't G.o.d, but I don't think so.”
When the girls finished their drawings, we tacked them up on the bulletin board on the end wall in my father's room next to the newspaper clipping about me. I gave Morgan some cash and sent the three of them over to North Bend Way to Scott's Dairy Freeze. The pictures were directly under a note that said: There is banking and cigarettes at the floor dayroom every Mon & Wed & Fri at 10:00 a.m. There is banking and cigarettes at the floor dayroom every Mon & Wed & Fri at 10:00 a.m.
As if my father was going to be doing any banking. Or smoking.
Alone in the room with him, I pulled up a chair and held his hand. He'd been a poor father some of the time, but then I'd been a poor son some of the time. h.e.l.l, he was human. Just like me. Like most of us, he'd done the best he knew. The princely manner with which he'd treated my daughters was a hint of how badly his own demons had tortured him in the years when he'd been raising me.
After a while, I called the fire station to see whether anybody had left any messages. No one had. I took a calling card out of my wallet and called JCP, Inc., in San Jose, asked for Mr. Gray in their administrative offices. It took a while to reach him.
Once I had him on the line, I went through the whole thing again, the accident, our health problems since the accident. I mentioned Mr. Stuart's denial that their company had been s.h.i.+pping anything in February. ”I've got the s.h.i.+pping company's manifest right here in my hand,” I said. ”You guys s.h.i.+pped three packages, and they were involved in a serious accident.”
”I'm sorry you and Mr. Stuart got off on the wrong foot,” Gray said.
”There was no wrong foot about it. He said you guys don't s.h.i.+p in February. I have a copy of the manifest right here in front of me that says you did.”
”Stuart is very well thought of around here. If he said we weren't s.h.i.+pping in February, then that's what he honestly believed. Now, I'm not even sure that we were were s.h.i.+pping last winter. I'd have to check the records myself.” s.h.i.+pping last winter. I'd have to check the records myself.”
”What we have is, we have a couple of dead firefighters up here.”
”Dead?”
”A couple more who are brain-dead.”
”What do you mean by that?”
”I mean their central nervous systems are shot. They can't walk, talk, or feed themselves. They're incontinent.”
”I can a.s.sure you, Lieutenant . . .”
”Swope.”
”Lieutenant Swope . . . that Jane's does not manufacture or s.h.i.+p anything that would cause symptoms like the ones you're describing.”
”Are you sure?”
”Absolutely. Just out of curiosity, what symptoms were your people showing? I mean early on.”
”Why do you want to know, if you don't s.h.i.+p anything that might cause a problem?”
”Just thinking out loud. Let me get back to you. I've got a meeting I'm late for.”
I gave him the phone number at the station.
I was helping the nurse's aide change my father's diaper, a messy business at best, as well as a benchmark I was determined to get past, when a woman's voice called, ”Jim?”
I turned around and found Stephanie Riggs staring at me from the doorway.
29. ALL THE WOMEN IN MY LIFE.
We'd been pulling his trousers back on, were in the process of sitting him up, feats the diminutive nurse was ill-equipped to accomplish alone. Stephanie rushed in to help situate him in his wheelchair, then watched as the nurse left the room carrying a plastic sack. The odor of human s.h.i.+t lingered long after I found a citrus spray bottle in the bathroom and misted the room.
”I left messages, but you never got back to me.”
”I didn't get them. I drove up, but I couldn't find anybody in the station. Finally a volunteer who was hanging around said somebody saw you over here. He also said somebody died at a fire today? Not another firefighter I hope.”
”A civilian. By the way. Phone tag is something you play with people who have more than four days to live.”
”I was working on your problem. I didn't think you needed the rea.s.surance of knowing that.”
”It looks like I did.”
”I'm here now. I'm here for you. I'm sorry that wasn't clear.”
I was annoyed that Max Caputo's bizarre death had stolen so much time from my own impending finish. I was annoyed also that Stephanie hadn't hooked up with me sooner, as promised. Or maybe I was just annoyed. ”What did my tests show?” Stephanie took a deep breath and looked down at my father. It took me a minute to realize she wasn't going to reply, at least not right away. ”Dad, this is Stephanie Riggs. Stephanie, my father, James Swope, Sr.”
”CVA?”
”Little over two years ago.”
”Same condition as Holly.”
”The thought has occurred to me.”
”You're a good son.”
”That's one thing I'm not.”
”No, you are. I saw you working with the nurse before you knew I was here. And you've kept him close to home. A lot of people would just s.h.i.+p someone in his condition out and never think twice about it.”
That was exactly what I'd done and I felt lower than whale s.h.i.+t because of it, yet I could hardly point out my crimes to Stephanie. She already hated me.
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