“Dad, you can’t,” I tell him, getting to my feet.
My mother touches my lower back, and I feel as though she materialized out of the ether. “You’re in the ICU, Duncan,” she says. “You have to stay here and rest.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” he says with a spark of his old gruffness. “Get me out of here. That’s what I want. That’s all I want. Get Jack Kirby in here! He’ll understand.”
Mom turns to me, imploring me to think of a way to calm him down, but we both sense that nothing short of a sedative will bring that result.
“Dad, Jack’s going to tell you the same thing we are. You can’t just walk out of the ICU.”
“Jack will tell you to go jump in a lake,” Mom says, trying to lighten the moment. “How about some ice cream? Marshall can run and get you some Blue Bell.”
“I don’t want any damned ice cream,” he growls. “I’d give a thousand dollars to jump in a lake. Get Jack on the damned phone.”
“Where is it you want to go, Dad? Home?”
“No.” The immobile mask of his face seems somehow filled with emotion. “I want to go to the cemetery.”
I feel Mom’s gaze on my face. “The Bienville City Cemetery?” I ask.
“That’s right. I want to see Adam’s statue. And you’re coming with me.”
Mom clenches my hand below the line of the bed. She’s worried that this fit of agitation might be the last burst of life before a final heart attack.
“How long has it been since you were out there?” I ask.
“Too long.” He looks at Mom. “Isn’t that right, Blythe?”
“Too long,” she agrees, and I realize that she’s crying.
“I know you have Jack’s cell number,” Dad says. “Call him.”
Mom’s iPhone appears in her hand. Holding it close to her face to see the numbers, she presses a few buttons on the screen, then passes it to me.
After three rings, Jack Kirby says, “Blythe? Is everything all right?”
I turn from the bed and walk into the corner, wanting to get some distance from Dad, but not wanting the nurses beyond the glass to see me using the phone. “It’s Marshall, Jack.”
“Has Duncan taken a turn for the worse?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve got an unusual question for you. He wants to leave the hospital.”
“Oh. Hell. I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a common request at this stage.”
“I’m not sure it’s a request.”
The old doctor chuckles. “Where does he want to go? Home?”
“He wants me to drive him out to the cemetery, to sit with Adam’s statue.”
There’s a long silence. Then Dr. Kirby says, “I see.”
“What would that do to him, Jack?”
“Marshall, he’s in failure now.”
“Heart failure?”
“Yes. And his liver’s close to failing, as I’ve told Blythe. I’ve just seen some new cardiac numbers. There’s a lot of muscle damage from yesterday’s infarction.”
“Speak up!” Dad says from the bed. “Or let me talk to him.”
I lower my voice still further. “Are you telling me that no matter what we do . . . ?”
“I think you know I am. I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes, grimly absorbing his funereal tone. “So you don’t have any problem with me taking him for a drive downtown?”
“Well, I can’t recommend it. And I don’t know if he’ll survive it. But if you’re asking me whether I think my old friend would rather look his last over the Mississippi River or at a blank wall in the ICU—I think you know the answer.”
My last resistance gives way. “Okay. How do I get him out of here?”
“To take him anywhere but home, you’ll have to check him out against medical advice. He’ll have to sign something.”
“No problem there. I’ll talk it over with Mom, but I have a feeling she’ll agree.”
“I do, too. Let me call admissions and try to smooth the way for you.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
“By the way—I really enjoyed my newspaper this morning. That’s the way to stick it to the bastards.”
“It felt pretty good.”
“You still carrying that pistol like I told you?”
“I am,” I tell him, even though I left it in the Flex.
“Good. Head on a swivel, boy. Remember.”
“Yes, sir.”
After staring through the thin curtain at the nurses sitting before their monitors, I turn back to the bed.
“What did he say?” Dad asks.
“We’re going to the cemetery.”
My father’s eyes shine with pleasure. “I told you. Jack’s a good egg.”
Mom looks from Dad to me, then back again.
“Are you coming, Blythe?” he asks. “Are you up for it?”
She gives him a smile that must have taken immeasurable strength to summon. “No, darling. I need to run back to the house and check on some things. To be ready for your homecoming. You two go ahead. You need this trip. It’s been a long time since Marshall went out there.”
Dad looks at her for a few seconds, then nods. “Just the men, then. Let’s pull out these tubes and hit the road.”
Chapter 48
In the end, it’s Jack Kirby himself who helps me lift Dad out of the hospital wheelchair and fold his rigid body into my passenger seat. Thankfully, the Flex sits lower to the ground than any other SUV, but still my mother stands to one side, waiting to grab him if he starts to fall. After I close Dad into the vehicle, Jack takes Mom’s arm and walks us to the rear bumper.
“Anything could happen at this point,” he says, his eyes on my mother’s. “We all know that, right?”
She nods silently.
He turns to me. “I’ll be here a little longer, then over at my office. If something happens, just head back this way and give me a call. I’ll meet you here.”
Mom squeezes his hand. “We appreciate this, Jack.”
The old doctor smiles and give her a hug, then walks back into the hospital.
“I think this is the right thing, Mom,” I tell her.
“I do, too. Call me if you need me.”
“Are you really going home?”
She shakes her head slightly, and I see the truth in her eyes. “I’ll just wait here. I’ve got a book to read.”
And with that we part.
There are basically two ways to get from the hospital to the Bienville Cemetery, and they take roughly the same amount of time. Most people would take the bypass to the river, then drive along the bluff, through the Garden District, and up to the cemetery. But you can also skirt the town until you hit Cemetery Road, then drive in east to west, the way farmers and soldiers and slave traders came in during the heyday of the town. I choose that route, because it will take us past many of the landmarks of our lives, both nostalgic and sorrowful.
Dad doesn’t speak as I take Highway 61 around the eastern edge of town. He shifts in his seat as I turn onto Cemetery Road, which grumbles under the tires, a dozen layers of too-thin asphalt and pothole patches, eroding under the weight of log trucks rumbling between the Matheson sawmill on the river and the north-south artery of Highway 61. In a few minutes we’ll pass the turns for the barn and my parents’ neighborhood. Then we’ll enter the city proper, transect the northern quarter of town, and arrive at the rear of the cemetery, where the road sweeps in a great circle around the lush green hills of the graveyard. An unbroken wall of gray cloud stands to the west, towering over the river. I hope the rain will hold off until our pilgrimage is concluded.