The Book of Joe

droplets of spilled water seep into my ear canal like slugs.
    “Hello?” It’s a woman’s voice. “Joe?”
    “Who’s this,” I say, lifting my head slightly so as to move the mouthpiece somewhere in the general vicinity of my mouth. It’s not Nat, which means some speaking on my part might be required.
    “It’s Cindy.”
    “Cindy,” I repeat carefully.
    “Your sister-in-law.”
    “Oh.” That Cindy.
    “Your father’s had a stroke.” My brother’s wife blurts this
    out like a premature punch line. In most families, such monumental news would merit a thoughtfully orchestrated presentation carefully constructed to minimize shock while facilitating gradual acceptance. Such grave news would probably warrant a personal delivery from the blood relative, in this case my older brother, Brad. But I am family to Brad and my father only in a strictly legal sense. On those rare occasions when they do acknowledge my existence, it’s out of some vague sense of civic responsibility, like paying taxes or jury duty.
    “Where’s Brad?” I say, keeping my voice just above a whisper as people who live alone do needlessly at night.
    “He’s over at the hospital,” Cindy says. She’s never liked me, but that isn’t entirely her fault. I’ve never actually given her any reason to.
    “What happened?”
    “Your dad’s in a coma,” she says matter-of-factly, as if I’ve asked her the time. “It’s quite serious. They don’t know if he’s going to make it.”
    “Don’t sugarcoat it, now,” I mutter, sitting up in my bed, which causes pockets of violence to erupt among the trillions of neurons rallying like soccer fans in my left temple.
    There follows a pause. “What?” Cindy says. I remind myself that my particular style of irony is usually lost on her. I take a quick emotional inventory, searching for any reaction to the news that my father might be dying: grief, shock, anger, denial. Something.
    “Nothing,” I say.
    Another uncomfortable pause. “Well, Brad said you shouldn’t come tonight but that you should meet him at the hospital tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow,” I repeat dumbly, looking at the clock again.
    It already is tomorrow.
    “You can stay with us, or you can stay at your father’s place. Actually, his house is closer to the hospital.”
    “Okay.” Somewhere in my diminishing stupor, it registers that my presence is being requested or, rather, presumed. Either way, it’s highly unusual.
    “Well, which is it? Do you want to stay with us or at your dad’s?”
    A more compassionate person might wait for the shock to wear off before pressing ahead with the petty logistics of the whole thing, but Cindy has little in the way of compassion where I’m concerned.
    “Whatever,” I say. “Whatever’s better for you guys.”
    “Well, it’s usually a madhouse here, with the kids and all,”
    she says. “I think you’ll be happier in your old house.”
    “Okay.”
    “Your father’s in Mercy Hospital. Do you need directions?” Her question is quite possibly a deliberate dig at the fact that I haven’t been back to the Falls in almost seventeen years.
    “Have they moved it?”
    “No.”
    “Then I should be fine.”
    I can hear her shallow breathing as another uncomfortable silence grows like a tumor over the phone line. Cindy, three years older than me, was the archetypal popular girl in Bush Falls High School. With lustrous dark hair and an exquisite body sculpted to perfection in her cheerleading drills, she was unquestionably the most universally employed muse of the wet dream among the teenaged boys in Bush Falls at that time. I myself made often and effective use of her in my fantasies, fueled in no small part by what I saw in the garage that day. But now she’s thirty-seven and a mother of three, and even over the phone, you can hear the varicose veins in her voice.
    “Okay, then,” Cindy finally says. “So, we’ll see you tomorrow?”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    As if it happens all the time.

Two
    I left Bush Falls when I graduated high school and haven’t been back since.
    There’s never been any compelling reason to visit my hometown, and about a million reasons to stay away. My father still lives there, for one, in the four-bedroom colonial where I spent the first eighteen years of my life, and it’s been many years since we had any use for each other. Every year, usually around Thanksgiving, Brad calls, inviting me to come stay with him and Cindy, have turkey with