The Book of Joe

up to find my father staring at me. I sit up with a start, my elbow upsetting the Styrofoam cup resting on the windowsill, which falls to the floor, splattering my Rockports and the cuffs of my khakis with tepid coffee. “Dad,” I say, my voice still thick with sleep. “It’s me, Joe. Can you hear me?”
    There is no response, but his stare, while somewhat dull, appears to contain some fragile semblance of clarity. I grab his hand, so much bigger and rougher than my own, and give it a soft squeeze. The hand remains limp, but I now see that his eyes are opened wider, his thick eyebrows raised inquisitively in two congruous arcs. I reach over him, rising slowly on my feet, afraid of breaking the spell, and thumb the nurses’ call switch repeatedly. His eyes never leave mine, even as I move, and when I return to the edge of my seat, there is a large, bulbous tear, trembling and bulging as it forms on the red membrane of the inside corner of his left eye. The tear achieves critical mass and descends in a lazy diagonal across his cheek, being absorbed into his pasty skin as it goes, until it finally fades just shy of his sideburn. “It’s okay, Dad,” I say dumbly. “It’s going to be okay.” I reach for the call switch again and press it frantically. “Just stay with me. Someone will be here in a minute.” But even as I say it, I can see his eyelids starting to close again, his eyeballs rolling upward in his skull. “Dad!” I shout at him, but his eyes remain closed, which is how the nurses find him when they come scurrying in a few moments later.
    Dr. Krantzler, the young, tired-looking resident who shows up soon thereafter, reviews the folded rolls of print-outs from the EKG machine and seems utterly unimpressed.
    He quizzes me for a moment, his eyebrows never once falling from their skeptical perch. “I’m not necessarily saying you didn’t see what you saw,” he says, although that’s clearly his implication. “But there have been no fluctuations on any of his vitals. And you did say you’d been sleeping.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    He smiles condescendingly and rubs his eyes. “It’s not un-reasonable to think that given the monotony of waiting and the emotional stress you’re under, you dreamed you saw him open his eyes, or experienced a brief optical illusion. It’s quite common, actually.”
    “I know what I saw,” I say hotly.
    “Well then,” he says huffily, backing out of the room, “let me know if you see it again.”
    I call Brad’s cell phone and he arrives twenty minutes later, slightly out of breath, despite my repeated disclaimers that medical science has not embraced my version of events.
    He looks at me intently as I retell my story, frowning and shaking his head in frustration. “Why didn’t you call the doctor immediately?” he says.
    “I rang for a nurse,” I repeat defensively for what seems like the twentieth time. “I was scared to leave him.”
    “Did you talk to him?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did he give any sign that he knew what was going on?”
    “He seemed to be somewhat aware.” I don’t mention the lone teardrop that I witnessed. A section of my brain is still replaying that in a continuous loop, and it feels to me like something personal between my father and me. Besides, I’m starting to get pissed. Brad seems thoroughly convinced that things would have happened differently if he’d been here, as if it’s a direct result of my general failings as a son that our father has slipped away for a second time. “Listen,” I say. “He opened his eyes and he closed them. That was it. There was no time for me to do anything else.”
    “I should have been here,” Brad says, shaking his head and turning away in disgust. My newfound ambivalence toward him is fast dissolving into the old, familiar resentment as I come face-to-face with the older brother I remember, arrogantly superior and egocentric.
    “I’m sure the sight of your face would have made all the difference,” I say sarcastically.
    “At least it would have been a familiar face,” Brad says bitterly.
    And there it is. A day late, but perfectly timed just the same.
    “Nice,” I say, heading for the door, my voice uncharacteristically thick and bending under the weight of some as yet un-defined emotion. Brad snorts, but makes no effort to stop me.
    I walk quickly down the hal l, struggling to regain my equi librium even as I feel the improbable tears coming. I find my