Always the Last to Know Read online

  There is a big man here, too. John doesn’t know him, but the big man helps him and talks to him. John has been hurt somehow. He thinks it was a car accident. His legs must be broken, because walking is so hard, and his knees hurt.

  John knows he’s been . . . changed. He’s not sure how.

  Trying to figure these things out is too hard. If he thinks or listens too much, his head hurts, and he falls asleep. He just wants to be outside, working in the garden, but when he looks out the window, summer is gone. John doesn’t know what month it is or what he’s supposed to do today. The people who make him do things—the women, the big man, his wife—come and go. Maybe they tell him what to do, but he’s not sure.

  Other people come and go. A man with strange words that John can’t understand, but who hugs him and smiles. Another person he should know. A woman with long hair twisted into ropes. She is not here for him, he knows, but she comes anyway because she is . . . she is that way of being when a person is kind for no reason. Her voice makes him happy and sleepy. Like warm rain.

  There is the man who was a boy but isn’t a boy anymore who comes, first to the place for sick people, then to the other place where his warm-rain friend was, and now to his grandfather’s house. Sometimes, he brings a baby. He is a father, this boy who is grown up now. They have dark hair, father and son, and the young man lets John hold the baby, who laughs.

  Images flash through his head too fast to make sense—a girl with blond hair and freckles with that dark-haired boy, and colors, and John once held her hand as they crossed a street in a place with many lights. Once she cried because of that dark-haired boy who’s now a man.

  Then, there’s nothing. Nothing but emptiness and gray and the horrible feeling of loss. Time passes, swirling past him, knocking him down, pulling him out into the sea of puzzling memories, and there’s nothing he can hold on to, so he falls asleep, and sleep is what he likes best.

  * * *

  — —

  His wife comes in. Her name is sure in his mind. Barbara. His Barb. He’s not sure why they’re not in the little red house anymore. She says words, and he looks at her, smelling her good smell, loving her, wishing she wasn’t always leaving. But she is. She does.

  * * *

  — —

  Then it’s later, or another day, and John can’t remember where he is. But the boy is here again with his little one, and a toolbox—toolbox jumps right into his head, and he knows it’s the right word. John reaches out and the man puts the baby into his arms and sits there a minute, his hand on the baby’s head, making sure John knows how to hold him.

  He does.

  The baby looks up at him with dark eyes, then smiles. John feels his mouth move, and he looks at . . .

  . . . the name is coming . . .

  . . . Ned. Neil. Nick . . .

  Noah!

  And Noah smiles, then opens the toolbox and starts doing things. John is not sure what or why.

  The baby makes noises, but John knows they are not words, and it’s such a relief, letting the sounds just be sounds, and nice sounds at that. Happy sounds. Then the baby puts his head against John’s shoulder, and John’s eyes get wet, because he remembers this feeling. He had a baby once, too. Maybe more than one. He knows how to hold this baby, yes he does. One arm under the baby’s bottom, one hand resting on his back, feeling the breath going up and down, up and down.

  Then those thoughts are gone, and there’s just the baby, and the smell of his head, and the feeling of his dark silky hair, and the soft, sweet warmth of his weight as the baby breathes. Up and down. Up and down.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Sadie

  Moving back to Stoningham was not something I’d ever wanted to do.

  But move back I did. Who else would take care of my father? Jules was too important and busy and had Brianna and Sloane and Oliver. Mom was first selectman, and the truth was, I think she stopped loving my father decades before. Maybe before I was born, aside from one obvious coupling.

  I couldn’t leave him alone. He stayed in the critical care unit at UConn for ten days, then was transferred to Gaylord, a specialized rehab center, where his healing would really begin.

  It became apparent that Dad wasn’t going to die, despite being seventy-five years old and all that had gone wrong. In addition to the stroke, he’d had a bad concussion. It was complicated, the handsome neurosurgeon told us. Only time would tell, which, you know, I’m glad Stanford and Johns Hopkins had taught him. Only time would tell, huh? Great. Try not to overwhelm us with complicated medical terms, Doc.

  I mean, I understood. Of course I did. Words like apraxia, aphasia, neuroplasticity, executive functioning and hemiparesis became part of my daily vocabulary. Dad had all kinds of therapy at Gaylord—physical, speech, aqua, occupational, community reentry, where they’d take patients to the grocery store or a restaurant. There was a robotic suit of some kind that helped him relearn to walk. He was given an iPad, which he didn’t understand, even when the therapists guided his fingers.

  What I wouldn’t give for an e-mail or message from him saying, “Don’t worry, sugarplum. I’m in here. Just give me a little time. Love, Dad.” Instead, he stared blankly, then turned his head to the window.

  I came every day, driving back and forth from the city every night, practically living in my rental car, which was full of fast-food wrappers and half-drunk coffees from Dunkin’. Sometimes Alexander came with me, but it was generally easier if he didn’t. He was one of those guys who didn’t know what to do around a sick person. He was a peach, though, always ready to take me out to dinner or sending me flowers, checking in during his travels.

  Dad started walking again, first with one of those belts and a walker, then with crutches, then on his own, though he tended to list to one side. He could almost dress himself. He could hold a fork, but not always on command—apraxia, the PA told me, where the messages between his brain and muscles got scrambled. He tried to talk a few times, but only managed strangled, labored noises, which broke my heart.

  It was wrenching. There was no other word for it. My father had always been so smart, so playful in his dry way, open for anything. All the times he’d come down to the city to see me over the years, doing anything I suggested, from going to a performance where the woman drenched herself in what she said was menstrual blood and Dad and I had to sneak out the back because we were laughing so hard, to taking the Staten Island Ferry back and forth for the view. We’d ridden bikes along the Hudson River Greenway, eaten street meat with gusto and gone to a scotch tasting that left us both tipsy and giggly. He’d even taken me for a carriage ride in Central Park. “You’re my princess, after all,” he’d said, and we snuggled under the blanket to the sounds of the horse’s hooves.

  He was my hero.

  “He would hate this,” Juliet said on a day when we happened to be visiting Gaylord at the same time. We were waiting for Dad to come back from the pool with one of his therapists, both of us itchy and tired. “Sometimes I think it would’ve been better if he—”

  “Jules! That’s our father! No, it wouldn’t have been better if he’d died! He’s getting better every day.”

  She sighed, sounding exactly like Mom. Speaking of Mom, she was down the hall making a phone call. Whenever she was here, she spent as little time near Dad as possible.

  “Here he is, and he did great!” said Sheryl, wheeling Dad back into the room.

  “How was the pool, Dad?” I asked. “The pool? Did you like it?” Keep it simple was one of the things we’d learned.

  He didn’t answer.

  “Hey there,” said a woman. Janet, the sister of another patient. “How’s it going, John? Did you eat that chicken for lunch? It was pretty good, wasn’t it? I liked the spinach. Nice touch. How you girls doing? You doing okay?”

  I liked Janet. Her brother had had a traumatic brain injury and was
a patient down the hall. She was devoted to him, visiting every day. But she also wandered up and down the hall when he was sleeping or in therapy. Janet dressed in overalls most of the time, granny glasses and big, clunky clogs. She chatted to my father like he was an old friend.

  It was strange, the unwilling little community of family members, all of us here for shitty reasons. My mother spent most of her time talking with them, and Jules was fairly helpless. But I didn’t mind the nitty-gritty of helping my father. While it broke my heart that he was struggling, I knew he’d get better. It would take time and work, but he was on his way. I had to believe that. A life without my dad—the old dad—was not something I was prepared to imagine.

  * * *

  — —

  “He seems to have plateaued.”

  “Well, shit,” Jules said.

  We were at a meeting with the team, the therapists and doctors and nurses, Mom, Jules and Oliver, me.

  “So at this point,” Dr. McIntyre continued, “because he’s doing well with the tasks of daily living, we usually send the patient home. Often, that improves their mental capacity, being around familiar things and people.”

  “He can’t come home,” Mom said.

  “Of course he can,” I said. “Where else would he go?”

  “Rose Hill has an adult wing now.”

  “No. He’s not going into a home, Mom. You have to give him a chance.”

  “Rose Hill is an excellent facility,” the team leader murmured.

  “But he should be home! He deserves to be home. His odds of recovering are better there, just like you said.”

  “We can’t predict anything, sadly,” said the doctor. “I’m sorry, I realize it’s incredibly frustrating, but it’s best to focus on the amazing progress he’s already made and set small goals for the future.”

  “Like what?” Jules asked.

  “Maybe some intelligible words. Of course you want him to be the man you knew before, but right now, just saying ‘hungry’ or ‘tired’ would be a breakthrough. We have to manage expectations.”

  “Won’t he need a caregiver?” Mom asked.

  “Yes. He won’t be able to be left alone until his cognition is significantly better.”

  Mom, Jules and I exchanged looks. “None of us has medical training,” Mom said, and I felt a guilty flash of relief.

  “No, of course not. We’ll arrange for therapists and some nursing help. You’re not alone in this.”

  “Thank God,” Mom said.

  “But there should be a point person, someone who lives with him or very close by. Mrs. Frost, since you—”

  “No. It won’t be me. I have a more-than-full-time job, and I’m seventy years old.”

  Wow. I mean, yes, her age was a factor, but boy, she couldn’t get those words out fast enough.

  “I also have a full-time job, plus two kids,” Juliet said. She glanced at Oliver, who nodded and smiled, the asshole.

  “I live in New York City,” I said. They looked at me. “But yeah, I’ll do it.” I closed my eyes. “Of course I will. I’ll . . . move home. It’ll take me a week or two, but yeah.” Shit. But of course I would.

  “Good girl, Sadie,” my mother said.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t like I wanted to, but who else would take care of Dad?

  * * *

  — —

  In the week that followed, I listed my apartment with Airbnb so it would earn me some money while Dad was recovering. Carter helped me touch it up with a new comforter and throw pillows and the like. I put my personal stuff in crates and brought them with me. Jules let me put some things in her basement.

  Sister Mary gave me a leave from St. Catherine’s, and all my friends there took me out the night before I left. I tried not to cry as Alexander drove me east to my hometown.

  The first couple of weeks, I barely left the house, too busy learning things from the nurses, therapists and equipment people and trying not to kill my mother.

  Old Barb seemed devoid of any midwestern capability where Dad was concerned. Instead, she did everything she could to distance herself from my father, becoming conveniently invisible when my dad needed a bath, or physical therapy, or just some damn company. Jules came by and sat next to his bed, but she checked her phone constantly.

  “Do you have to do that?” I snapped.

  “I’m working, okay? Insurance doesn’t cover all of this, and I don’t want Mom and Dad to drain their retirement. So I’m making up the difference, if it’s all right with you.”

  I sat back, chastened. “Sorry,” I muttered, ever the little sister.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “We all do our part.” Gaylord had provided the names of a few occupational and physical therapists, and (I guess with Juliet’s help) we hired a physical therapist named LeVon Murphy to stay with Dad from eight until four five days a week to keep working on his improvement. LeVon was amazing, calm and funny, and all three of us Frost women loved him. He was also big and strong, so he could do things like lift Dad if necessary.

  My part was the nitty-gritty, apparently. The sponge baths. The occasional change of linens when he wet the bed. “Look,” I told him the first time, LeVon looking on to supervise. “We’re both uncomfortable with this. But I love you, Dad, and you washed me when I was little, so now I’ll take care of you. And when you’re better, we can both get hypnotism to forget this.” I thought he might have smiled. Well. His mouth moved, either in horror or humor or reflex. It was hard to say.

  When he looked at me, I sensed he was striving to say something. “It’s me, Dad. Sadie. Can you say my name?” He didn’t. If he grew restless, I’d hold his hand and stay positive. “You’re getting better every day. The brain is incredible. You just have to relearn things.”

  It was like a bad dream. Dad, unable to talk; me in my old room, which had been redone about half an hour after I left for college; Mom and me trying not to bicker over dinner. At least Caro would pop in, alleviating the tension. My nieces would come over, Brianna a little freaked out by seeing Grampy this way, Sloane oblivious and happy.

  New York seemed far, far away.

  After three weeks of living at home, I told my mother I needed to get out of the house.

  “Well, I can’t stay here alone with him, Sadie!” she said. “That’s your job.”

  “LeVon isn’t here today, and Dad is still your husband!” I snapped. “He just needs company. Is that so hard? Can you just sit with him for half a damn hour so I can get some fresh air?”

  “Fine. Go,” she said. “Be back before lunch, please.” She hated watching him eat, which I admit wasn’t the prettiest sight.

  Shit. I so wished it had been her. In her case, a nursing home would’ve been more than enough.

  I left the house. It was March now—eight weeks since Dad’s stroke, and mud season for New England, but the air had the promise of spring. The sky was pale blue, the breeze brisk, blowing the fug off me and bathing me in the smell of salt air.

  I walked away from town, toward the tidal river. When I came to the wooden footbridge that spanned it, I took a seat the way I had when I was a kid, my legs dangling, the river gurgling past below me, the long reeds along the bank golden in the sunlight. My dad and I used to play Poohsticks, dropping twigs in on one side, then looking over the other to see whose came out from under the bridge first.

  In the distance, the Sound was empty; all the boats were still in dry dock.

  I lay down, the boards warm and strong under my back, soothing the ache I didn’t realize I had till now. I’d been doing a lot of heavy work, packing up my apartment, helping Dad get in and out of bed, moving furniture around their house to make it more accessible. Right now he was using a walker, and they had a lot of furniture that got in the way. My mother loved antiques, and it seemed like they all weighed three times what modern stuff did.
/>   I hadn’t been back in Stoningham for more than two days in a row in eons. The sound of the river, the distant slapping of the waves against the shore, the shrill cries of the gulls were comforting—sounds I hadn’t realized I’d missed till now—and the sun was warm, even if the air was cool.

  A few tears slipped out of my eyes and into my hair. I thought I’d cried myself out over my father’s stroke, but apparently, I hadn’t.

  He’d get better. I had to believe that.

  “Sadie?”

  I jolted into a sitting position, my heart jackrabbiting.

  Of course I’d known I’d run into him. Somehow, I just hadn’t prepared myself for it.

  “Noah.” I blinked, then shielded my eyes from the sun. It took a minute to see him clearly.

  He had a baby in one of those front-pack carriers.

  A baby.

  The fabric of the carrier blocked all but the baby’s black hair on top, and tiny feet clad in little blue socks on the bottom.

  A baby. A baby who, I imagined, looked a lot like the man carrying him. My speeding heart dropped to my stomach.

  “I was really sorry to hear about your dad,” Noah said.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I tried to smile. “Thank you. Thanks for the card.” He’d sent one when Dad was still at UConn.

  “How’s he doing?”

  “Um . . . he’s doing okay. Slow going.” The little blue feet kicked, and I remembered to blink.

  “Heard you’re back to help out.”

  “Yeah.” I paused. “Is that . . . your baby?”

  I wanted him to laugh and say, “God, no, it’s my sister’s,” but of course he didn’t have a sister. He could’ve been babysitting for a friend, and—