Dr. Barnwell peeks in.
"I noticed your light was on. Do you mind if I come in?"
"No," I say, shaking my head.
He comes in and looks around the room before taking a seat a few feet from me.
"I hear," he says, "you had a good day with Allie." He smiles. He is intrigued by us and the relationship we have. I do not know if his interest is entirely professional.
"I suppose so."
He cocks his head at my answer and looks at me. "You okay, Noah? You look a little down."
"I'm fine. Just a little tired."
"How was Allie today?"
"She was okay. We talked for almost four hours." "Four hours? Noah, that's . . . incredible."
I can only nod. He goes on, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like it, or even heard about it. I guess that's what love is all about. You two were meant for each other. She must love you very much. You know that, don't you?"
"I know," I say, but I can't say anything more. "What's really bothering you, Noah? Did Allie say or do something that hurt your feelings?"
"No. She was wonderful, actually. It's just that right now I feel . . . alone."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
"Nobody's alone."
"I'm alone," I say as I look at my watch and think of his family sleeping in a quiet house, the place he should be, "and so are you."
The next few days passed without significance. Allie was unable to recognize me at any time, and I admit my attention waned now and then, for most of my thoughts were of the day we had just spent. Though the end always comes too soon, there was nothing lost that day, only gained, and I was happy to have received this blessing once again.
By the following week, my life had pretty much returned to normal. Or at least as normal as my life can be. Reading to Allie, reading to others, wandering the halls. Lying awake at night and sitting by my heater in the morning. I find a strange comfort in the predictability of my life.
On a cool, foggy morning eight days after she and I had spent our day together, I woke early, as is my custom, and puttered around my desk, alternately looking at photographs and reading letters written many years before. At least I tried to. I couldn't concentrate too well because I had a headache, so I put them aside and went to sit in my chair by the window to watch the sun come up. Allie would be awake in a couple of hours, I knew, and I wanted to be refreshed, for reading all day would only make my head hurt more.
I closed my eyes for a few minutes while my head alternately pounded and subsided. Then, opening them, I watched my old friend, the creek, roll by my window. Unlike Allie, I had been given a room where I could see it, and it has never failed to inspire me. It is a contradiction--this creek--a hundred thousand years old but renewed with each rainfall. I talked to it that morning, whispered so it could hear, "You are blessed, my friend, and I am blessed, and together we meet the coming days." The ripples and waves circled and twisted in agreement, the pale glow of morning light reflecting the world we share. The creek and I. Flowing, ebbing, receding. It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.
It happened as I sat in the chair, just as the sun first peeked over the horizon. My hand, I noticed, started to tingle, something it had never done before. I started to lift it, but I was forced to stop when my head pounded again, this time hard, almost as if I had been hit in the head with a hammer. I closed my eyes, then squeezed my lids tight. My hand stopped tingling and began to go numb, quickly, as if my nerves were suddenly severed somewhere on my lower arm. My wrist locked as a shooting pain rocked my head and seemed to flow down my neck and into every cell of my body, like a tidal wave, crushing and wasting everything in its path.
I lost my sight, and I heard what sounded like a train roaring inches from my head, and I knew that I was having a stroke. The pain coursed through my body like a lightning bolt, and in my last remaining moments of consciousness, I pictured Allie, lying in her bed, waiting for the story I would never read, lost and confused, completely and totally unable to help herself. Just like me.
And as my eyes closed for the final time, I thought to myself, Oh God, what have I done?
I was unconscious on and off for days, and in those moments when I was awake, I found myself hooked to machines, tubes up my nose and down my throat and two bags of fluid hanging near the bed. I could hear the faint hum of machines, droning on and off, sometimes making sounds I could not recognize. One machine, beeping with my heart rate, was strangely soothing, and I found myself lulled to never-land time and time again.
The doctors were worried. I could see the concern in their faces through squinted eyes as they scanned the charts and adjusted the machines. They whispered their thoughts, thinking I couldn't hear. "Strokes could be serious," they'd say, "especially for someone his age, and the consequences could be severe." Grim faces would prelude their predictions--"loss of speech, loss of movement, paralysis." Another chart notation, another beep of a strange machine, and they'd leave, never knowing I heard every word. I tried not to think of these things afterward but instead concentrated on Allie, bringing a picture of her to my mind whenever I could. I did my best to bring her life into mine, to make us one again. I tried to feel her touch, hear her voice, see her face, and when I did tears would fill my eyes because I didn't know if I would be able to hold her again, to whisper to her, to spend the day with her talking and reading and walking. This was not how I'd imagined, or hoped, it would end. I'd always assumed I would go last. This wasn't how it was supposed to be.
I drifted in and out of consciousness for days until another foggy morning when my promise to Allie spurred my body once again. I opened my eyes and saw a room full of flowers, and their scent motivated me further. I looked for the buzzer, struggled to press it, and a nurse arrived thirty seconds later, followed closely by Dr. Barnwell, who smiled almost immediately.
"I'm thirsty," I said with a raspy voice, and Dr. Barnwell smiled broadly.
"Welcome back," he said, "I knew you'd make it."
Two weeks later I am able to leave the hospital, though I am only half a man now. If I were a Cadillac, I would drive in circles, one wheel turning, for the right side of my body is weaker than the left. This, they tell me, is good news, for the paralysis could have been total. Sometimes, it seems, I am surrounded by optimists.
The bad news is that my hands prevent me from using either cane or wheelchair, so I must now march to my own unique cadence to keep upright. Not left-right-left as was common in my youth, or even the shuffle-shuffle of late, but rather slow-shuffle, slide-the-right, slow-shuffle. I am an epic adventure now when I travel the halls. It is slow going even for me, this coming from a man who could barely outpace a turtle two weeks ago.
It is late when I return, and when I reach my room, I know I will not sleep. I breathe deeply and smell the springtime fragrances that filter through my room. The window has been left open, and there is a slight chill in the air. I find that I am invigorated by the change in temperature. Evelyn, one of the many nurses here who is one-third my age, helps me to the chair that sits by the window and begins to close it. I stop her, and though her eyebrows rise, she accepts my decision. I hear a drawer open, and a moment later a sweater is draped over my shoulders. She adjusts it as if I were a child, and when she is finished, she puts her hand on my shoulder and pats it gently. She says nothing as she does this, and by her silence I know that she is staring out the window. She does not move for a long time, and I wonder what she is thinking, but I do not ask. Eventually I hear her sigh. She turns to leave, and as she does, she stops, leans forward, and then kisses me on the cheek, tenderly, the way my granddaughter does. I am surprised by this, and she says quietly, "It's good to have you back. Allie's missed you and so have the rest of us. We were all praying for you because it's just not the same around here when you're gone." She smiles at me and touches my face before she leaves. I say nothing. Later I hear her walk by again, pushing a cart, talking to anot her nurse, their voices hushed.