We
settled into the SUV and buckled up. Sam appeared calm and in control, but I
saw that his breathing was fast. When he turned his head to back out of the
driveway, he glanced at Conner. I turned, too. Conner stared out his window.
His fingers were pressed against his mouth, and I saw his lips move silently
behind them.
Sam
relaxed his grip on the steering wheel. He flexed his fingers a few times. I
looked straight ahead, but I sensed his eyes on me, his mind working. Other
than a soft cough into my hand a couple of times, no one uttered a sound.
He
placed his hand on mine. I moved my hand away from his and onto my lap. I saw
him shrug out of the corner of my eye.
Conner
announced that he would count all of the blue cars that we passed. “That’s a
good idea. Can I help?” I twisted around in my seat and reached for his hand.
“No,
Mom.” He snatched his hand away. After a few moments, he said, “I’m going to
count crows now.” He had counted fifty-eight of the birds perched on telephone
wires and utility poles by the time we arrived at the medical office building.
“I thought if I counted a hundred crows before we got here, Daddy would turn
around and drive me home.”
“Oh?”
I said. We had stopped the car. Sam opened Conner’s door and waited for him to
get out.
Conner
screwed his face into a scowl. “Oh, man,”
he groaned. Sam bent over and released his seat belt. Conner slowly swung his
legs over the edge of the seat. I saw his widened eyes bore into his father’s.
“Come
on, son.”
Conner
shuffled away from the vehicle. At first, he tried to drag behind Sam and me.
Then we each took one of his hands and approached the main entrance.
People
were coming and going through the big brass and glass doors. Some of them were
even kids. I looked down at Conner. The way his eyes followed kids who were
exiting, I could imagine how he wanted to be one of them.
“I
have to go to the bathroom,” Conner announced when we got inside.
“Okay.
Me too. Let’s go.” Sam, still holding Conner’s hand, led the way. I scanned the
directory and made a note of Dr. O’Rourke’s suite number. Then I leaned against
the cool granite wall. There was an odor—not unpleasant, like mothballs that I
remembered from my childhood. Whatever happened to mothballs? Were they still
around?
As
I watched people pass, an occasional gaze fixed onto mine. But, one of us
looked away before any dutiful acknowledgment was prompted.
A few individuals with casts on
their limbs were pushed in squeaky wheelchairs. Others swung casted legs and
thumped rubber-tipped crutches as they hobbled by. Several elderly people
pushed walkers that scratched and scraped along the hard floor as they shuffled
down the corridor. One or two had shaking hands and heads. Many walked with
stooped postures and leaned heavily on companions or on canes that ticked
rhythmically on the dark marble.
My
eyes fell on a youngish man pushing a child in a stroller. A woman, probably
his wife, walked beside him. The girl looked too old to be in a stroller. Then
I noticed twisted arms up on her chest and that she drooled and stared straight
ahead. I looked back at the adults’ somber faces. I shut my eyes. The broken
conversations and the other sounds that echoed in the corridor hammered my
ears.
“You
okay?” Sam asked.
I
opened my eyes. “Of course.” I flashed a weak smile and pushed my arm under
Sam’s as we entered the elevator. Conner turned his head all around at the
unfamiliar clanging and humming sounds as its old doors closed.
The
car ascended, and I regarded his distorted reflection in the shiny brass door.
Conner looked taller and skinnier. His arms were slightly extended; each of us
was holding one of his hands.
“If
my arms were wings and you let me go, Mom, I would fly home now.” His chin
quivered.
“I
know, honey. I know.” I smiled and gave his hand a squeeze.
The
elevator stopped and its doors squeaked open. Conner tugged back but we just
gripped his hands more firmly. The gold painted words on a shiny, dark wooden
door—Hal O’Rourke, M.D., Neurology, EEG, EMG/NCV—loomed before us.
“This is it,” Sam said and opened the door.
The
waiting room was quiet. It smelled sweet, not like the sour odor of Dr.
Jackson’s noisy pediatric office. Dark-green cushioned chairs lined the pale
walls. A tan tweed carpet with brown-flecks fit the quiet mood. Floor lamps in
each corner created a soft glow, and a tall vase filled with purple silk irises
sat prominently on a low corner table. Several rows of news and entertainment
magazines lay neatly on another low table in the middle of the room.
I
turned Conner away from the wall display of brochures titled EEG and Epilepsy. I would pick them up when we left.
A
slim, elderly man sat hunched in a wheelchair. Short white stubble covered his
face. His head was mostly bald, but long strands of limp, white hair hung over
his ears. He drooled slightly, and both hands shook more than his head.
“Gee,
why’s that old guy shivering so much? It’s not that cold in here,” Conner whispered loudly.
I
whispered in his ear, “Shh, Conner. He’s sick. That’s why.”
There
were several bright-yellow stains on the front of the old man’s wrinkled,
open-necked white shirt. I saw the top of his white undershirt at the opening.
An oversized black belt was pulled so far around his thin waist that the end of
it hung down out of the loops of his dark-blue trousers. He wasn’t wearing
socks, and his ankles were fat and white against his scuffed black shoes.
A
younger man sat just behind the tremulous man’s wheelchair. He was reading Time magazine. Both turned to look at
us. The younger man smiled and quickly retreated into his magazine. The elderly
man looked at Conner as we walked by.
“Hi
there, sonny,” he croaked in a low, hoarse voice. His cracked lips broke into a
smile that revealed a row of crooked yellow teeth. His breath smelled stale.
“Hi.”
Conner mumbled. Conner looked away and moved closer to me. Sam and I nodded and
smiled at him.
“Let’s
sit over here, son.” Sam put a hand on Conner’s shoulder and guided him to a
chair across the room.
I
walked over to the receptionist’s desk. I detected the sweet, citrus scent of
her perfume.
The
slightly built middle-aged woman looked up from her computer. Her short silver
hair waved behind one ear to expose a lapis lazuli earring. Deep-blue eyes
peered out from her long, pale thin face that embellished her cheery smile.
Glasses on a sparkly neck chain lay on the tan sweater that covered the woman’s
flat chest. Her unusually narrow nose, placed too far above her similarly thin
lips, fascinated me. I would not say she was pretty, but her demeanor, posture
and confident air fashioned a striking woman.
“Hello.
May I help you?”
“Yes.
Our son, Conner Golden, has an appointment this afternoon.” I looked down at
the nameplate on her desk. “One of my grandmothers was named Hannah. I’ve
always liked that name.”
“Thank
you.” She smiled broadly. “So do I.” Hannah turned back to her computer screen.
“Ah, yes, here you are: Conner Golden. The doctor is right on time. Let me give
you these registration forms to fill out for our records. And these are for the
insurance company.” She handed me a packet of papers attached to a clipboard.
“Do you need a pen?”
I
shook my head. “No thank you.” I sat down next to Conner and began to fill out
the forms. After a moment, I sensed that I was being watched. I looked up.
Hannah’s kind eyes were on me. We exchanged a perfunctory smile and looked
away.
Meanwhile,
Conner kept stealing glances at the old man. “I have to tell Michael about that
funny old guy shivering,” he whispered.
Sam
tapped Conner’s thigh and frowned. “Shh.”
Conner
slouched in his chair and watched his legs swing in unison. The tips of his
soft shoes repeatedly scraped the carpet.
“Stop
that, Conner,” Sam quietly admonished.
He
turned toward his father. “Daddy, what’s the doctor going to do?” Conner sat up
straighter and gripped the armrests.
“I
really don’t know. I guess he is going to talk to us; check your ears and eyes
and all that stuff. You know.” Sam looked down at his son and smiled.
“No
shots, though! I’ll run out of here if he wants to give me a shot.”
There
he goes again with those shot worries, I thought.
Sam
wrapped his arm around Conner’s shoulder.
Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “DINGS” is his first novel. It is a mother’s dramatic story that teaches epilepsy, now available in eBook, audiobook and soft cover editions.
