They told me not to move and I didn’t, but I didn’t breathe either, and they aborted the first attempt until I got my shit together.
“Is there someone we could call, Mr. Taggert? Someone you would like to be here?”
I shook my head. No. I didn’t want a soul knowing I was here. They all thought I was okay. I had insisted I was okay. What was it Millie said about her blindness? The image in my head is the only one that matters? I was adopting that attitude. I was okay. And my opinion was the only one that mattered.
“Nah. It’s good. I’m fine. Let’s just do this.” I found myself winking at the pretty nurse, putting on a show the way I always did. Distracting myself. She winked back. I knew she liked me. I could always tell when a girl found me attractive. The way their lips pursed, the way their eyebrows raised, the way their eyes darted. All the little clues and signals that I’d never gotten from Millie. And yet Millie loved me. Millie loved me, and I loved her.
“Whenever you start feeling trapped or helpless, just close your eyes, and you have more space than you’ll ever need.”
That’s what Millie had told me. I tried to take her advice, closing my eyes and allowing the huge darkness to help me breathe. I had to be okay because if I wasn’t, Millie was going to get hurt. And I had tried so hard to take it slow, to not rush her, to not rush us. To be absolutely sure I knew what I was doing. I had been careful for the first time in my life. I had been so careful. So cautious. And I was still going to hurt her. I felt panic rise in my chest and heard a voice telling me to breathe, to calm down.
“You’re doing just fine, Mr. Taggert. You’re almost there. You’re almost done, Mr. Taggert.”
“God? Oh God,” I prayed. “I don’t want to be done. Please don’t let me be done. Please don’t let me be done.” I prayed like this all the time. It was my upbringing. Talking to God felt a little like having a conversation with myself, the inner me. I’d always believed God created that inner me, so talking to him was a bit like having a heart to heart with myself. No, I don’t have a God complex. I just think most people make too big a deal about God, fighting wars to defend him or staging protests to deny him. He just seems like a good guy to me. I like talking to him.
I don’t usually kneel when I pray, though I had when Moses almost died. I’d made all kinds of deals too. And I don’t make deals with God—I know myself too well. I just ask him for stuff and thank him for stuff—no strings, no promises in return—so that I don’t ring up a huge tab that I have to pay off at some point. I figure if He helps me, gives me what I need, it’s because He thought I deserved it or wanted to give it to me. So I don’t owe him anything. But I’d broken my rule for Moses. I guess that’s what you did for the people you loved. You broke your rules. Moses had done it with Georgia. He’d smashed all his stupid laws. And I had broken mine. Not just with Moses, but with Millie. I had finally settled on one woman, and I was breaking my rules again now, begging God to forgive the tab. I’d made a deal for Moses, and I hadn’t fulfilled my end of the bargain. Maybe God was calling it in.
“THERE’S A GIANT mass on your frontal lobe.”
The doc didn’t beat around the bush. He just pointed at pictures of my brain and spoke, very matter-of-factly. I could see the black mass he was outlining as clear as day. He turned to look at me.
“You haven’t had trouble with your handwriting, trouble with speech . . . maybe weakness in your right side. It’s off to the left side of your brain, which will always affect the opposite side of the body. You haven’t had any symptoms?”
I wanted to say no, but the symptoms had been there. I just always rationalized them away. “I’ve been seeing spots when I’m tired, and I have noticed more muscle fatigue on the right side. My left hand has always been my dominant hand, so maybe that’s why it didn’t affect me as much. I’ve been training hard. I thought it was dehydration. Thought it was stress.”
“You took a blow to the head in an altercation?”
“Yeah, to the forehead. It didn’t even hurt, but it stunned me a little. It was a good thing he stopped swinging because I couldn’t see a damn thing for about ten seconds. I just stood there while he laid on the ground, covering his head. My vision cleared once I mopped the blood off my face, and I could see again. I guess it was a good thing the guy was drunk and stupid.”
“Guess so.” His lips quirked, and I was glad he wasn’t going to lecture me on the seriousness of the moment. I got it—the seriousness hadn’t escaped me.
“So what do we need to do?” I asked.
“We have to get in there, see what the mass is, and remove as much of it as we can.” He didn’t call it a tumor. He called it a mass. But I wasn’t stupid.
“Get in there?”
“Craniotomy. We put you out, drill a hole into your head, remove as much of the tumor as we can, take a section for biopsy, and stitch you up. It sounds a bit Frankenstein, but you can actually go home in a day or two. It’s not something that requires a lot of recovery time.”
“So it’s no big deal?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. We are talking about your brain, after all.”
“And what are the risks? What if I don’t want you drilling into my head?”
“The risk of leaving it there, of not determining whether it’s cancer or not, could be fatal. If it is cancer and you don’t treat it, it will be fatal. And then there are the risks that come with any type of surgery that involves the brain. Loss of memory, sight, motor functions . . . We’re talking about the brain,” he repeated.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.
Idon’tknowwhattodoIdon’tknowwhattodo. The words became blurred and blended, and yet I couldn’t shake them from my brain. The doctor urged me to move quickly. He said time was “of the utmost importance.” He said we needed to act . . . And all I could do was shake my head.
“No,” I’d said. “No.”
“David. It’s the only way we can move forward. We have to operate as soon as possible.”
Millie was the only one who called me David.
“Tag. Call me Tag,” I insisted numbly.
“Tag,” he nodded agreeably. “Talk to your loved ones. Tell them what’s happening. You need some support. And then we need to see what we’re dealing with.”
“What are the odds?”
“What do you mean?”
“This kind of mass—it’s a tumor, isn’t it?
“Yes. It is. We don’t know if it’s cancerous, but even benign tumors need to be removed.”
“What are the odds?”
“That it’s cancer?”
“Yes.”
“I would be lying if I told you I believed it was benign.”
“Have you ever seen a tumor in the brain that wasn’t cancer?”
“Not personally. No”
No. No. No. No. There was an odd echoing in my ears and I couldn’t sit still.
I stood and headed for the door.
“Tag?”
“I need to think, Doc.”
“Please. Please don’t think too long, Mr. Taggert. You have my number.”
I jerked my head in a semblance of a nod and pushed out of his office and into the long, sterile hallway beyond.
I don’t remember walking out of the hospital. I don’t remember walking across the grounds or whether the sun was shining or whether rain fell. I remember pulling my seatbelt on and staring at the buckle in my hand and clicking it home carefully, as if it would protect me from the news I’d just received. I stuck the key in the ignition and backed out of the lot as my phone rang. I couldn’t talk. I wouldn’t be able to hide my agitation, but I clicked the speaker anyway almost desperate to avoid myself. I didn’t look at the display, didn’t know who was calling, but it delayed what came next.
“This is Tag,” I barked, and then winced at the volume of my voice. The echoing remained and I rubbed at my temple as if I could adjust the reverb in my head.
“Tag. It’s Moses.” With his voice on speaker it was like he was sitting beside me in my truck. I wished he was and was grateful he wasn’t.
“‘Sup, man?” I shot back and winced once more, this time because I was such a fake.
“You okay?” It was an I-demand-to-know question, not a polite how-are-you, and it shook me. It made me defensive too. How the hell did he know I wasn’t okay?
“Yeah. Yeah. Why you askin’?” I pushed back.
“I saw Molly.” Moses sucked at polite conversation.
My mind tripped over itself again.
“What?”
“I haven’t seen Molly in years . . . not since Montlake. Last night I ended up painting a mural of David and Goliath, like something from a Sunday School story, instead of painting the picture I’d been commissioned to paint. Now I’m behind. And I blame you.”
“Me?” I was only half listening as I backed out of the parking lot and began to drive. I didn’t know where I was going.
“Yeah. You. The David in my mural looks suspiciously like you. So your dead sister is obviously trying to tell me something. That, or she doesn’t like your chosen profession.”
“David kicked Goliath’s ass, remember? Nothing to worry about.” I was conducting the conversation from a very mechanical, detached side of my brain, and I observed myself talking to Moses even as my thoughts were bouncing in a million different directions.
“I don’t think Goliath’s ass was involved,” Moses growled. “If I remember right, it was his head. Goliath took a blow between the eyes.”
“Yeah . . . right. That must be it. I got cracked between the eyes with a bottle of beer last night.” Was it just last night? “Guy laid my head open. I have a few stitches. I’m impressed, Mo. So now you’re a psychic too?”
“You okay?” There it was again. The demand to tell him everything.
“Yeah. All stitched up. Doesn’t even hurt.” I wasn’t lying. It didn’t hurt. But I was skirting the truth. I wasn’t okay. Not at all.
“Well, that’s not surprising. You have the hardest head of anyone I know. What happened?”
“Just someone heckling Millie while she was dancing. I grabbed him to throw him out, and he nailed me in the head.” I didn’t want Mo saying I told you so. He’d never liked Morgan. So I left Morgan’s name out of it.
“Millie?” he asked.
“Millie,” I answered.
He was quiet for a heartbeat, and I waited, wondering what he was stewing over.
“You there yet, Tag?” he asked.
“Where?”
A huge sigh seeped through the phone’s speaker.
“Are you there yet?” he said again, louder, slower, so damn pushy.
“Yeah. I’m there. I love her. Is that what you want me to say?” My hands started to shake, and suddenly I couldn’t see the road. A horn blared behind me, and I realized I had drifted out of my lane.
I swerved and swiped at my eyes, trying not to kill myself, at least not yet.
“I don’t care what you say. I already knew. I’m happy for you, man. She’s kind of a miracle.”
“Yeah. She is.” The tears were streaming down my cheeks, and I gripped the wheel with both hands.
“I wasn’t sure you’d get one . . . or even that you needed one. But you did. We both did. How the hell did that happen?” He had relaxed with my confession, and I could hear the smile in his voice.
“You believe in miracles, Mo?” I wasn’t smiling. I was searching.
“I got no choice. I’ve seen too much.”
“You think I’ll get more than one?” It was all I could do to spit the words out.
“More than one miracle? Why? Millie’s not enough?” He laughed at me, but I heard the surprise too.
Millie was more than enough. I wasn’t greedy. I just wanted to be around to enjoy my miracle.
Moses
TAG HAD ENDED that phone call too quickly. I should have realized something was wrong. But I could tell he was driving and had let him go without protest. I had thought he sounded off, but he’d had me on speaker, and everything sounds a little distorted when you’re hearing someone that way. I thought that was all it was. I told myself that was all it was. I don’t know when I started believing my own lies.
I had grown complacent with the dead. I painted them in pretty pictures, and they no longer hounded me like they once had. They weren’t portends of destruction. They didn’t look like zombies or haunt the halls of my house. They had become manageable. Life had become sweet and soft. Georgia had done that for me. She’d settled me and smoothed out my edges, and with the loss of those edges I guess I wasn’t as sharp as I used to be.
So when I saw Molly Taggert, a soft mirage from the corner of my eye, I refused to be suspicious. Eight years, almost nine? It’d been a long time since she’d demanded my attention. I was in the middle of something, communing with the dead of a wealthy client. His dead were not particularly interested in keeping in touch, and I was pushing, opening myself up wider, trying to find inspiration, something worthy of a paint brush, something I could work with. So far, they were giving me the middle finger, and I didn’t think that would please my client.
I told myself seeing Molly was nothing more than happenstance, that I’d simply opened myself up wide and attracted an old ghost who knew how to slip around my walls. She had flooded my mind with color, streaks of red fear and blue despair shot with purple-hued passion and green regret, all washed in white and dipped in black. Before I knew it, I was painting something completely irrational, completely at odds with the girl we’d laid to rest, years before.
Two hours later, I stepped back from the canvas and stared, dumbfounded, at the picture I’d created. It looked like something from one of my Grandma Kathleen’s books, the ones she’d taken from the church library because they were a tad too erotic and disturbing for the people in the pews. It was David and Goliath in violent detail, and the details were troubling, the details were specific, and I’d let myself miss them.
So I’d called him. And I’d let him tell me what I wanted to hear. What I needed to hear. He said he’d taken a blow to the head. Such a clean, simple truth that left out all the pertinent details. All the violent details. The details were troubling, the details were specific, and I’d let myself miss them.
As Georgia requested, I came straight home from the gym, walked in the house, and without a word, my wife had cued the cassette tape. Then I listened to my conversation with my friend, I listened to all the things he hadn’t told me. Now the fear was twisting in my gut, and I was pacing. Millie was standing when I arrived, as if Tag’s revelation had lifted her out of her seat. Her face was petrified rock—layers of shock imprinted in her expression. By the time we reached the end of the tape and Tag’s voice had broken, Millie broke with him, and she’d bowed her head, fumbled for her chair, and collapsed into it. Henry sat nearby, and for the first time, he seemed to be aware that something was very, very wrong.
“He came looking for you that night, Moses. Remember? You weren’t home, and he didn’t stay very long.” Georgia’s voice shook, and she held Kathleen to her chest, rocking and swaying, something she did even when she wasn’t holding the baby. It had become a habit that I teased her about. Keep moving and the baby won’t cry. Keep moving and the baby won’t wake. I wanted her to hold me too. I wanted her to move with me in her arms so that I wouldn’t wake up, so I wouldn’t cry. If I was asleep then none of this was real. But there was more. And it was all too real.
I KEPT DRIVING. The weather was clear, the sun shining, the sky blue, the air crisp and cool, so I drove and I thought. I pulled into Moses and Georgia’s driveway late in the afternoon, and the sky was so radiant over the crouching hills west of town that I stopped for a minute as I stepped out of my truck and just let the view settle on me. But the beauty just made me ache. What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? The chorus started up in my head again.
No one answere
d the door, and I ended up walking around back to see if anyone was in the pasture beyond. Moses was becoming more and more comfortable around animals, though it was Georgia who was the horsewoman. She was working on her man, and had coaxed Moses into the saddle enough times that he had actually started to enjoy it, though he grumbled and scowled whenever I asked him about it.
Georgia was in the round corral, dead center, running a glossy sorrel around in circles. The sorrel seemed to be cooperating, and Georgia’s attention was glued on the animal, talking, reassuring, applying pressure and then releasing it to draw him to her. She was nothing like Moses. And she was perfect for him. I’d known it the moment she’d opened her mouth, the moment she looked in my eyes and stuck out her hand.
“Hey George.” I called her George because Moses hated it.
“Hey Tag! What’s happenin’ handsome?” Georgia’s face lit up in a smile so big the ache in my chest spread to my gut and made my insides twist. I missed her already. I didn’t want to miss her. What am I gonna do? What the hell am I gonna do? She strode to the fence, stepped up on the bottom rung and reached for me, pulling me into a fierce hug.
I needed that hug. I needed it so badly. But I knew if I gave in to the need to hold onto her longer than I usually did, she would sense my turmoil, and she would know something was up. So I squeezed her tight and let her go, and put a smile on my lips that felt like a lie and called on my God-given ability to bullshit. It was a talent that had served me well in my life.
“Hey baby. Where’s Mo?” Yep. I still had it. My voice was smooth and my hands were steady as I pulled the hat off her head and perched it on my own. Always the flirt, even with my best friend’s wife, even when I was hanging by an emotional thread. It was just my way. And Georgia knew it. She grabbed her hat back and ducked under the fence to join me on the other side. The horse she’d been working with whinnied at the loss of attention, and Georgia looked back and laughed.