Daron's Guitar Chronicles Volume 12

1090 Achy Breaky Heart

Achy Breaky Heart

Claire came out of surgery some time that evening. The words I remember the doctor using were that she was "out of immediate danger" and wondering how that was different from him saying "we've staved off the inevitable." Maybe it wasn't.

I didn't ask. Maybe Remo did. I wasn't absorbing a lot.

She stayed in ICU that night, and through the next day, and then the next night, if I'm remembering it right. She wasn't very communicative when she was awake, once putting her hand over her eyes and waving at us to go away, once holding my hand and sighing with her eyes closed, that sort of thing.

But when they eventually moved her back to her room, she started to talk again. A little. She was too weak to sit up and had no interest in food of any kind. She sucked on a chip of ice now and then.

We didn't have any big momentous emotional conversations. I didn't have anything to get off my chest and I worried that a big emotional outburst would kill her.

Courtney cried on her shoulder and Claire said "There, there," and patted her, the tubes in her arm moving when she did. That was about as much as she would say. She didn't have the energy for much else.

I almost wished for her to be well enough to pretend she was eating again. It struck me then that maybe when she did that, it wasn't because she was keeping up her appearance for vanity or something, but for us, to keep us from worrying and make us feel like everything was "normal."

What am I saying? Both things were undoubtedly true. There is no "or." I reminded myself that "normal" was a soul-killing concept anyway.

At any rate, it was clear to us she had slipped to a lower gear. Court called Janine and one great aunt of ours in upstate New York that she knew of.

We went back to rotating who was at the hospital. Ziggy and I went back to the hotel to get a couple more hours of sleep one morning and found a voice mail for us there from Barrett:

"Didn't want to page if you're tied up at the hospital, but figured if you're hearing this you must be back at the hotel. How'd the meeting with Patty go? Give me a call when you get a chance."

Ziggy grimaced. "He sounds nervous as... as..."

"A cat in a room full of rocking chairs?" It was a Remo-ism we'd been hearing a lot.

"...As a really nervous thing. I guess we really should've called him a couple of days ago." He sat down by the bed and dialed the phone. "When we go into the hospital it's like time just stops."

"Yeah." I sat down next to him and lay back, my feet still on the floor but my arms stretched above my head on the bed. "Priorities shift, anyway."

Barrett picked up and Ziggy switched us to speakerphone. "Sorry we didn't call sooner. We've been in the hospital. I kinda think we won't be here that much longer."

"What's that mean, exactly?" Barrett asked.

Ziggy shrugged and looked at me. I said, "It means... if she had years to live before, it's only months now. If she had months to live, it's more like weeks now. If she had weeks to live, we're down to days. But nobody really seems to know how much time she actually has left, only that it's less."

I mean, it wasn't a very helpful answer, but it was an answer.

Ziggy didn't wait for Barrett to react to it and launched right in: "Patty seems like she's very driven."

"Doesn't she? I never had that impression from her before, but I guess she was waiting to make her move." I could hear Barrett shuffling some papers on his desk. "She floated some trial balloons with me, but how about you go first. What did she talk to you about?"