Come Alive Ch. 25

His phone chirped once and he ignored it, but when it started chirping again he found it in a coat pocket and looked at the screen. It was from Dina, but not in CAPS this time.

"Just got the divorce papers from lawyers. I've signed them, not contesting anything. Thanks for your generosity; I do not deserve it."

"You're welcome. If possible, I'd like Rolf to come for Christmas."

"I'll see what the options are."

"Thanks, Dina."

"Would you mind if I came along with him?"

"No, not at all."

"I'll see what the airlines are offering now and let you know."

"Okay. Later."

He put the phone away and shook his head. "Well, it seems I'm a free man once again. Or at least I will be as soon as the ink is dry."

She looked at him for a moment, almost like she was waiting for him to say something, but he had stopped and he was looking at Clyde...

Who was hunched over trying to make poop...

Only a steady stream of blood was dribbling out onto the grass...

Chapter 25.2

Henry carried the pup below and laid him out on the berth in his cabin, then he covered the old boy with a blanket. "Stay with him, would you?" he asked Tracy. "I've got to get his medicine, and his pants."

"He's sick too?"

"Yup."

"Cancer?"

"Yes. Found it in July," he said as he worked the pants around Clyde's legs, fastening the velcro while he talked, "but he probably was sick long before that. He'd been abandoned and I've always had a sneaking suspicion someone dumped him in the park rather than deal with the expense of a sick dog."

"That's awful, Henry."

He shook his head. "It's economics 101, Tracy. A lot of families have pets even though they can barely afford to keep food on the table. It's a choice, one that usually leads to bad outcomes, but that's why animal shelters are so overwhelmed."

"He was lucky to find you, I guess."

"Here, would you load the syringe for me, please? Ten units."

"Got it. Where?"

"In the thigh. Here's a swab," he added, handing over an alcohol pad. "I need to get him to the vet on Monday."

"Do you have one in Paris?"

He nodded. "I got a recommendation from the vet's office in Kiel. They're on standby for next week sometime."

"I can take him while you get ready for chemo."

"Okay. I'll call their office tomorrow and set it up."

"I'm just asking, but what if they think it's time to put him down?"

"Nope. He stays with me."

"Henry, is that fair to Clyde?"

"He'll tell me when he's ready, Tracy."

"You really think that's true?"

"As a matter of fact, yes, I do. Some dogs can, some can't. Clyde can."

"What about that whale?"

"Hmm? The orca? What about him?"

"Yeah. Do you and he...?"

"We...communicate, but I'm afraid I don't really know another word to describe what it is we do."

"I was kind of wigged-out by all that, Hank. Bad enough the whale follows you around like that, but he really seemed happy to see you."

"Maybe because I was happy to see him, too. Clyde took off for a few days with him last week; scared the shit out of me."

"What do you mean, took off...?"

"He jumped off the stern and swam over to the big guy, then they swam off somewhere. I like to think he went ashore to take a dump, but really, I have no idea where they went."

"So...your dog is all wrapped up in this clusterfuck, too? Weird, Hank, really, really weird."

"Yeah? Well, when I bumped into you at the restaurant in Honfleur he had been gone for several days, but then he just ran up to me and sat on my feet like nothing had happened. So go ahead, you tell me all about weird."

"I think he's sleeping now, Hank."

Henry checked Clyde's breathing, then rubbed the pup's head for a long time. "Funny how close they let us get."

"It's called trust, Henry."

"Maybe."

"Can you imagine what the world would be like if we trusted one another like dogs trust us?"

He smiled at that one. "Then I think about the prick that abandoned Clyde in the park -- and my faith in the order of the universe is restored."

"How about some tea?" she asked, shaking her head at his cynicism.

He kept rubbing Clyde's head, but he shook his head. "We really need to get some sleep. Very long day ahead of us tomorrow."

"Could I stay here tonight?"

Henry looked up and smiled. "I thought you'd never ask."

+++++

After transiting the locks at Saint-Pierre-la-Garenne, Henry tied off near an old stone and timbered building -- a very nice hotel and restaurant according to his river pilot -- and the group went off in search of a big breakfast before the final push. About an hour later they cast off their lines and began the trip, then Henry cut up some very fresh salmon for Clyde -- and they both smiled now.

The pup seemed a little tired, his eyes a little too glassy and red-rimmed this morning, and Henry assumed he'd had a rough night -- despite the medicine. Still, after a few minutes on deck and with some sunlight and fresh air streaming through his golden ears, he picked up a bit and even wagged his tail a little.

As their little convoy approached CDG, the big airport northeast of the city, they began to see a few commercial aircraft taking off and lining up to land -- and that was a good sign, or at least Henry thought so. With air travel restored things would start to feel a little like normal once again, and Henry was almost desperate for normal that morning. He was, he knew, so close to the objective now...yet Christmas had never seemed so far away.

They passed the Eiffel Tower later that afternoon on their way to the Isle St Louis, and he called the marina and confirmed their slips were ready and got the procedure to enter the marina proper under the railway bridge. Once they had an ETA, the attendant told him, call again and someone would help them into their slips. He then called the animal hospital, as requested, and the vet there said she'd meet him at the boat later that evening. He thanked her more than once.

And once Notre Dame came into view that was it. Journey over. What had started as a daydream two years ago had just come to an end, but as these things so often tend to, every little detail became lost in a blur as events rushed by with nauseating speed...and it felt like one minute he was out on the river and the next he was tied off a few hundred meters from the where the old Bastille had once stood. He was shaken by the way this last day had unfolded, by the sheer speed of events, if only because time had felt so unexpectedly elastic...so easily compressed and twisted into unforeseen shapes...

Then there was nothing else to do. Clyde saw a wide expanse of green grass and howled -- twice -- and Henry almost managed to hook up his leash, too. But Clyde soared off the stern and landed at a gallop, making a beeline for a huge clump of bushes. Henry grabbed a pile of poop-bags and took off running, but after a few steps he was sharply reminded of his own limitations. Yet Tracy was there to save the day...and she trotted over to Clyde and hooked him up, then bent to pick up his salmon laced turds.

"Still a little blood," she said as Henry walked up. "But not as much as last night."

He nodded as he bent to look, but he stood up quickly when crushing pressure hit him square in the chest -- then simply passed out.

He came to for a moment and heard more than saw he was in the back of an ambulance rushing through traffic, then a blinding light came for him -- pushing aside everything left of his life -- until not even memory could hold back the night.

Chapter 25.3

'This isn't so bad...'

He flexed his fingers, then his toes -- before he took in a deep breath.

'Kind of cold here, though. Wherever the Hell here is.'

"Henry? Can you hear me?"

'That's a familiar voice.'

"Henry, can you open your eyes?"

He opened his eyes and for a moment thought he was looking at Doris Day again, but no, not this time. Yet the voice was familiar, way too familiar, and the woman's eyes were, as well.

"Do I know you?" he asked, and the old woman smiled at the question.

"I'm not sure that you do," she replied.

"You look so familiar..."

"Do I? How peculiar..." the woman said, her voice dripping with ironic sarcasm.

He looked around the room now...at ancient stone walls and flickering torchlight, then his senses picked up the blue tint enveloping everything and he knew he was back in the village. And if this was the village then this woman had to be either Britt or Eva, but whoever it was had to now be almost a hundred years old. "Who are you?" he finally asked.

"Your daughter. Sara. It seems you've managed to forget. Again."

"What? So, your mother is...?"

"Yes. Years ago."

"And Britt? Has she passed, too?"

The woman nodded, yet when he saw Eva's gentle expression in the woman's eyes his own filled with tears. "Sorry. I wasn't expecting this," he said sullenly, looking past the present into memory.

"Expecting what, exactly?"

"For them...for Britt and your mother to be gone."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"I thought with the other residents being, well, pretty much immortal -- that they would be too."

"Well, Henry, this is your dream so dream it any way you like..."

"What?"

His head bounced -- hard -- and he was in the back of the ambulance again, a paramedic adjusting the flow rate on an IV running into his port.

"Tracy?" he asked the medic. "La femme qui était avec moi? Où est-elle?"

"Avec le chien. Elle a dit qu'elle allait appeler votre oncologue."

He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting away again, and soon the siren and rushing traffic left him too.

And he was afraid to even open his eyes.

He was on his back now, eyes open and looking at the vast ringed planet overhead.

Only Pinky was with him now; he could see concern in her eyes and on her face, and he felt disoriented.

"Is this the dream again?" he asked her.

"No, not this time."

"Am I dying?"

And when she smiled he relaxed. "No, not at all."

"My daughter. Sara. She told me that Eva and Britt are gone."

"Gone? Do you mean -- death?"

He nodded.

"No, that is most certainly not the case."

"Pinky, tell me something, would you? And the truth this time, okay?"

"Of course."

"Has all this been a dream?"

"What?"

"The trip on the Bandits, Eva and Dina, and everything else. Was all this just a dream?"

"Of course not."

"It really happened? I mean, it wasn't some kind of psychotic delusion?"

"No, Henry. Everything happened -- just as you remember it happening."

He heard a door opening and then he was jerked out into cold daylight, only now he was very cold, too. Nurses surrounded him as his gurney was pushed inside an unseen hospital, then he was in a room with a huge domed light overhead. Someone spread his legs and began shaving the insides of his thighs, then an unseen hand had his penis and he felt an electric razor cutting away decades of hair. More leads were attached to his chest and a mask was placed over his nose and mouth.

"Henry?" a kindly voice said, "try to stay with me. We are going to go up through a vessel to your heart and try to open up an artery. You're going to feel a little pressure now..."

But no, it wasn't just pressure. First he felt a cold splash of Betadine then the hot pinch of a lidocaine injection. Next, sharp pain, hideously hot and never-ending in his thigh, then in his groin.

"Jesus, what are you shoving up there? A hot poker?"

"I'm sorry, Henry, I don't want to use so much pain medication now. Just hang in there."

He tried to drift off but the pain was simply too insistent, and he was all too aware that there were at least five or six people moving all around his gurney. Then he lifted his head and saw a little video screen -- just a brief glimpse, really -- and he could see the little wire probe winding its way through his heart to what the physician said was a really nasty-looking blockage.

He put his head down after that, feeling more light-headed than he thought possible. Then at some point he simply closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep. No dream, no Pinky, just the black nothingness of pure, uninterrupted night.

+++++

He opened his eyes again and saw Tracy standing by a window in a spare little room. A hospital room all decked out in beige and brown, as they all seem to be. And his leg hurt now, though he couldn't quite remember why...

"Hi there," he said -- and Tracy wheeled around then dashed to the side of his bed. She kissed his forehead, then again, only this time on the lips, and he felt good all over.

"Welcome back," she said, more than a little tearfully.

"What happened?"

"You had a vapor lock."

"Ah, so an oil change and a tire rotation too, I suppose?"

"Naw, they just put a new set of Michelins on. It was past time, ya know...?"

"So?"

"You had a heart attack. Basically, the paramedics saved your ass this time."

"I see. And Clyde? I remember something about blood in his stool?"

"The vet came by and she took him to her clinic. He should be home Tuesday afternoon."

"What about chemo? Can they...?"

"They want to wait a few days before..."

"Did you hear anything about the trial?"

"No opening. In fact, the trial is just about over -- which is good news. The results go to the FDA after that."

"No word yet on how the results skew?"

She shook her head. "No way they'd talk about that yet."

"So, when can I get out of this lovely place?"

"It's not the Crillon, is it?"

He tried to change position and grimaced as another wave of pain crossed his face. "Well, I do love the decor. I had no idea the French could do 1960s Howard Johnson's so well."

She laughed. "I think you'll head home on Tuesday, if that's any comfort."

"But no chemo, right?"

"Not 'til the end of the week."

He sighed and looked across the room and out a little sliver of window, and he could see the city out there. "I don't want to waste any more time in here than I have to."

"I understand."

"Okay."

"Can I bring you anything?"

"Escargot and a roast duck would be nice."

"I'll see what I can do," Tracy said, grinning. "Anything else?"

"Let me know what Anton is up to, okay?"

"Yeah, will do. And, oh! -- I brought your phone and laptop, and I found a charger, too. Want me to set it up while I'm here?"

"Sure. Have at it."

"Henry? It's going to get better...okay? Getting in a funk after a heart attack is pretty much the norm."

He nodded. "Got it."

"I'll shut up now."

"Don't you dare. Just...don't talk about me. There's got to be a million more interesting things out there to talk about."

"Not to me."

"What about your mom. Still coming on Tuesday?"

Tracy nodded, but she looked away this time. "Gonna be a rough day, Hank. You coming home, and Clyde too. Then her -- on top of all that. I'm not sure I'll be up for all the drama."

"Well, she always was a decent drama queen. Glad some things haven't changed."

"Think you can handle her?"

"Edith? No problem."

Tracy grinned. "You got kind of a shit-eatin' grin thing going there, Hank. What are you going to do to her?"

"Do -- to -- her? Why...nothing, Tracy dearest."

"Oh...God. What have I done?"

+++++

Tracy left a half-hour later; Henry opened his laptop and waded through his email.

"Oh, crap-a-doodle-doo," he moaned as he read through Dina's missive concerning heart attacks and chemo outcomes. When he finished he replied with a curt 'Thanks' and then read through Rolf's latest -- asking yet again when he was going to be able to come down to Paris.

He left that one unanswered -- for the time being -- then read through letters from his lawyer and a short note from Hallberg-Rassy explaining what they wanted to do regarding possible hull damage after Rotterdam. He replied to that one, then saved a copy of the exchange in Rolf's file.

A vampire came in and drew blood, then a nurse flitted about, checking his vitals -- looking intensely cute as she pranced around his bed batting her brown eyes.

'I guess when I stop looking at legs I'll know I'm finally gone,' he sighed when she jiggled and wiggled out the door.

Then his oncologist walked in -- a dour frown etched in steel across her pale face.

"My, don't we look happy today?" he said to her, smiling at the dread that now filled the room.

"Well, I am not, Mr. Taggart...but first, how are you feeling?"

"I've felt better." She nodded -- though he could tell something was distracting the woman. "So, is it good news or bad news?"

"Bad, I'm afraid. The final report from the MRI is in and it shows metastases in the pancreas and liver."

"That can't be good."

"No, it isn't. We may be able to slow further spread but once in the pancreas our options narrow considerably."

"So, we can stop all the miracle cure nonsense now?"

"Such an outcome looks most unlikely now."

And there is was, Henry thought. The point of no return. Beyond here there be dragons.

And he smiled. "Well, I've grown used to the idea of kicking the bucket soon, so the idea of changing all my plans knocked me for a loop. Guess I can go back to Plan One, eh?"

"You know, I was expecting tears, not a smile and a joke."

"What good does crying do, Doc? I mean, really -- I'm sixty-something years old!"

"Sometimes," she sighed, "crying makes people feel better?"

Henry shook his head. "Nope. Not me. Any idea how long I've got?"

"I wouldn't be making plans past New Years'."

"So, a month. Or thereabouts?"

She nodded. "About that. Give or take a few weeks."

"And if a miracle mRNA cure comes along?"

"We start immediately and hope for the best."

"What about chemo? Any need to try again?"

She shook her head. "No. Such a course of action is not really justified now. I would say, given your past history with such agents, you would fill your remaining time with serious discomfort and with little chance of any gain."

"Well then. That is, as they say, that."

"I am so sorry, Mr. Taggart. I was hopeful..."

He nodded and smiled again. "C'est la vie, no?"

"I suppose so. May I pass this information along to Dina?"

"Please."

"Very well. I will see you before discharge if that's alright with you."

"Certainly."

"I want to meet this dog of yours. His story seems most amazing."

"Well then, you'll have to drop by the marina. For dinner, perhaps?"

"Yes, perhaps. Well, I will talk with you tomorrow."

After she was gone Henry called the nurse and asked if they could perhaps move his bed closer to the window. He wanted, he said, to look at the City of Lights.

© 2020 adrian leverkühn | abw | this is a work of fiction, pure and simple; the next element will drop as soon as the muse cooperates.