FIFTEEN
THE
WATCH
“I understand that maybe he might not have been the greatest husband, but that Dena. She was a real cold thing if you ask me,” Felice was saying.
“I mean, I know you can’t talk about her because you’re her therapist—”
“Not anymore,” Patti said. “She stopped seeing me.”
“That’s cold. That’s kind of… Are you pissed?”
“No, because apparently I’m signed up to be paid automatically from her bank account and I’ve been getting a check every week.”
Felice snorted, and Patti said, “But I still can’t talk about the bitch, because THAT would be unprofessional.”
The phone rang and Patti murmured, “Oh, shit.”
“I guess you better get it.”
Patti Lewis and Felice Wynn were on their second cups of coffee, and Felice was looking through the circulars for deals on Easter food. Patti picked up the phone and murmured, “Hey, Jackie.”
“Hey, Girl!” Felice shouted. “Tell her she should have never left town, and tell her Sharon wants us to go to Detroit.”
But the look on Patti’s face had changed, so Felice put down her paper, and frowned.
“Okay,” Patti said. “Okay. You wanna tell him? Honey, let me go get his number. He should be at work in about fifteen.”
Felice had the sense to not interrupt. Something had happened, and she would know soon enough. Patti had gone to the living room and she returned with her date book and flipped it to the middle, turned a few pages, then said, “Jaclyn, are you there? Alright? Okay,” and she read off a number. “There you go.”
She added, “I love you, Jackie. I’ll call back to check in.”
Patti hung up the phone, and for a moment it looked like she had forgotten Felice was there, and then she said to her best friend.
“It’s her Dad. Her and Thom’s dad. RL He collapsed this morning. He’s at the hospital in Port Gregory.”
Lynn Messing stuck her head in Bill’s office and he could tell that this was business.
“You got a call coming, and it sounds important. I’m about to transfer you.”
Bill nodded, and a moment later, when he answered the phone it as Thom Lewis.
“I need to get back home. I need to get to Port Gregory. My dad’s in the hospital.”
Bill Dwyer already had his keys and blazer in hand.
“Hold on. I’ll get Dave and it’ll take us about fifteen minutes. OK?”
He didn’t say ‘bye”. That just took time. He called David and said, “You gotta call off work cause we gotta go. Thom needs us.”
David Armstrong was used to not questioning Bill. In less than five minutes, Bill had discreetly kissed Lynn on the cheek as he was leaving, and in ten minutes he was at his brother-in-law’s office and then, in the promised fifteen, with only a small squeak, the car stopped right beside Thom who slid into the passenger seat and, lowering his shades and running a yellow light, Bill said, “Where are we going, Buddy?”
“Uh… Saint Anne’s.”
“That’s where Niall was born,” David, sitting like a grasshopper said, pushing up his glasses.
“Yeah. Well, they won’t tell me anything. I called and they said I wasn’t next of kin, which is crazy. I am. But I guess Jackie is listed, and I haven’t heard from her since this morning, and I don’t know shit. And it took me a while to realize that they could have just asked him if he wanted to speak to me, and if they didn’t ask, they couldn’t, so he must be in some bad shape.”
Thom had rattled all of this off and as the three men sped onto the express way, only David’s face had an expression.
“I need to get one of those cell phones,” Thom said. “That does it. I’m getting one.”
Bill nodded, and clapped Thom on the knee. He had one job, which was to get them to the hospital as fast as possible as safe as possible.
“Should we even be here?” David whispered.
“Of course we should be here,” Bill said. “Thom’s our friend. We’ll be here until he says he doesn’t want us.”
“I dunno. I feel like we’re interfering.”
“That’s because our family’s so incestuous we married each other’s sisters and we don’t have any friends outside of us. Frankly,” Bill said, “that doesn’t seem to have worked so well.”
“Well…” David began.
“It’s no time to assign blame for that. In fact, we don’t even need to. I was a good husband to a wife who resented me, but I took that out on my son, and I was a shit dad to him. I’ve been a shit head of my family. I don’t know if I can get that back. But I have always been a loyal friend. You know that.”
“Of course I know that, Bill.”
“And,” Bill continued, “I’ve also been bossy as fuck. So, do me a favor. Call Jeff Cordino and all the guys—except Chayne, I’m sure he already knows—and let them know what’s going on.”
David, used to obeying Bill, nodded, and Bill clapped him on the back, sitting several seats away from the Lewis family.
Felice sat between Jackie and Patti, and when the doctor came out he said to Kathleen, “Are you his wife?”
“No,” Kathleen said, touching her short, pale hair, and then she said, “But… Yes. I guess I still am.”
“I’m trying to find a way to tell you all this.”
“Tell it to us straight,” Kathleen said. “We are a family that takes things straight.”
“He’s dying.”
Jackie didn’t take it straight. She sobbed out loud and collapsed into Felice’s chest. Patti looked to her husband, and saw his jaw harden.
“What is happening?” Kathleen said, “Exactly.”
“Organ failure. Massive organ failure. His lungs, his heart. His kidneys.”
“How long do we have?”
“Maybe a day.”
Kathleen closed her eyes while Jackie sobbed.
“He had a DNR.”
“He actually got around to that?” Thom said.
Kathleen said, not to Thom, but to the doctor, “Yes. Of course.”
“We can make him as comfortable as possible. We can do that.”
“No,” Kathleen said. “We can do that.”
“Excuse me, Mrs. Lewis?”
She opened her eyes and looked at the doctor.
“We can do that. If you could save him he would stay here, but if he’s going to die he might as well die at home. Whoever needs to sign the papers can do that, and then I guess the ambulance would bring him to us?”
“That’s the way, but… Mrs. Lewis, this is highly unusual.”
“We,” Kathleen said, motioning to her small family as Jackie began wiping her red face with the back of her hand, “have always been an unusual family.”
The doctor cleared his throat. He looked amazed. He said, “I’ll need an address.”
“1735 Breckinridge,” Thom said. “Geschichte Falls.”
Kathleen looked at him.
“Did you think I was going to have you bring him to your apartment?”
“I would have done it,” Kathleen said. “Thom, you don’t owe him anything.”
“Maybe it’s not about me, Mom.”
Thom’s jaw was set.
The doctor cleared his throat, and he said, “Come with me. Both of you. We can get the paperwork underway. It shouldn’t take long.”
Thom touched his mother on the shoulder and went to Bill, who was sitting, knees wide apart, fingertips touching, his head bent.
“Bill, thank you.”
“Sure.”
“No, I mean it. And thank you for waiting here.”
“Is everything okay?”
‘No,” Thom said. “Dad’s not gonna make it.”
“Fuck.”
“We’re bringing him to the house.”
“Well,” Bill stood up. “Dave’s making calls. To everyone I hope that wasn’t high handed.”
“No, it’s just the thing. You’re… Bill, you’re a good friend, and I don’t have a lot of friends. Thank you for everything.”
“You probably don’t need us right now,” Bill said.
“Actually, we’re all getting ready to head out,” Thom said.
“You need anything… You just…”
“Why don’t you come on by later. You can. Cam and…. Everyone.”
“Are you guys having a wake?”
“It’ll be like a wake,” Thom said. “I think Mom’s determined to do this the old fashioned way, and I’d be,” Thom cleared his throat. “I’d really love it if you guys were there.”
Bill hugged Thom quick, and then clapping him on the back, turned and headed out the waiting room to find David and drive back home.
