12. Byron Graham
12
BYRON GRAHAM
I arrived at the Holy Mother treatment facility at ten a.m. on Saturday, exactly when I wanted to. It was just after breakfast and late enough for Ronnie’s morning meds to have kicked in properly. After snagging the box of cookies from the front passenger seat of my car, I strolled into the building that resembled pretty much every hospital I’d ever visited in my life—off-white walls, fake plants, pastel landscapes, and durable neutral-colored tile.
With practiced ease, I strolled up to the reception desk and signed in. Jenny smiled and greeted me by name, not even bothering to look at the driver’s license I’d pulled out for her. The older volunteer was a regular and knew me from my many visits over the years. She wrapped the bright-green paper visitor band around my wrist while I broke the seal on the cookies. They were just a box of iced sugar cookies made by a local bakery that I’d picked up at the grocery this morning. Each time I came, I tried to bring something for the nursing staff on Ronnie’s floor to show my appreciation for all their hard work.
“It’s like you know exactly when I need a little treat for my day,” Jenny giggled as she selected a cookie with bright-yellow icing and a smiley face.
“I think we can all use a treat every day,” I murmured as I closed the box.
From the reception area, it was a short walk to the elevators and then a quick ride up to the third floor. As the doors closed, my heart rate picked up and my stomach knotted. I’d been coming to visit Ronnie for as long as he’d lived here, for roughly four years, and the same old anxieties continued to creep in. Most of the time, I was here alone. Mom accompanied me a few times a year, even though I called her the day before each trip to give her a heads-up that I’d be leaving for my next visit. She rarely returned my calls.
It was horrible of me to think about it, but it hurt them both each time she came here. Her worst benders were always after a visit to see Ronnie, and my brother always had bad days following her visits. Maybe too many reminders of what should have been.
At the third floor, I stepped out and turned to the right, following the long hallway to another small reception area that sat outside a pair of locked double doors. I grinned easily at the familiar face behind the desk.
“Byron! I should have known I’d see you today,” the nurse greeted.
“Hi, Elaine. What are you doing here today? I thought you were off Saturdays.”
The thirtysomething with bright-red hair sighed heavily. “Kevin had his first orthodontist appointment last week. Poor kid needs to have two teeth pulled and braces. So, I’m here trying to work some overtime for braces.”
I winced. “And you thought you were done with braces after Kristin got hers off.”
“I should have known better,” she muttered as she picked up the phone. “Let me call back to see if Ronnie’s ready for guests. Just have a seat for a sec, hon.”
I placed the box of cookies on the reception desk. “For you and the rest of the team, if you don’t mind passing them along.”
She clicked her tongue at me. “I know you’ve been told you don’t need to do that,” she said, even as she pulled the box off to the side.
“I do it because I want to.”
While she chatted with a nurse in Ronnie’s ward, I sat in one of the plastic chairs with a thin cushion, trying to refrain from pulling out my phone to check for work emails. This was the one time I needed to be fully present, no thoughts about work or anything else.
Except maybe Sebastian.
For the first time in my life, I wished I’d brought someone else. I wished Sebastian were sitting next to me in one of these uncomfortable chairs, holding my hand as we waited to be shown back. He would have filled my ear with silly talk about a bunch of nonsense or even work talk. Anything to keep my mind from worrying about things I had no control over.
Sebastian would like Ronnie. He’d know how to talk to Ronnie. The man could talk to anyone and everyone with complete ease. Without a doubt, he and Ronnie would be fast friends inside of five minutes.
And maybe that was the problem. What if Ronnie saw Sebastian as a friend, and we didn’t work out? Ronnie wouldn’t be able to understand why Sebastian wasn’t coming to visit him any longer. He would be crushed, feeling utterly abandoned by Sebastian, through no fault of his own.
As much as I now wanted to introduce Sebastian to Ronnie, it was better to wait. If we actually made a relationship work, if we were truly boyfriends and we had a future together, I would bring Sebastian here. But not yet. It was far too soon.
Still, it would have been nice to have him here, holding my hand.
“Byron?” Elaine said, breaking into my wandering thoughts. I instantly leaped to my feet, my heart freezing until I saw her smile. “You can go on in. He’s in the dayroom. He’s having a good day.”
The tension that had seized my chest released, and I felt like I could breathe again. With a nod, I walked to the doors that buzzed as I approached them, signaling that she’d unlocked them for my entry.
Stepping inside Ronnie’s ward was like stepping into a magical world. The walls were painted more colors, even though the palette remained soft and comforting. There were more pictures of animated characters, and the furniture was more comfortable. A round nurses’ station sat in the center of the main hallway while large open rooms sat on the left and right. The dayrooms where the residents could mingle with each other, watch TV, or take part in various planned activities. Past the dayrooms were two long hallways that contained some other therapy rooms, along with the residents’ private quarters.
A couple of the nurses waved to me in greeting and pointed me toward the right, where I located Ronnie sitting at a table with the jumbled pieces of a puzzle.
“Hey, Ronnie!” I said, infusing a boatload of excitement and joy into my voice while part of me ached to see him like this, even after all this time.
Ronnie was now thirty-three, but there were already gray hairs showing in his short, dark-brown hair. He was pudgy and so damn tall. Probably even taller than Sebastian. My brain kept screaming that he was supposed to be married with kids by now. I’d have seen him on weekends between his fishing trips, and he’d have complained about his job or his wife wanting a new car.
Instead, he stared at me for a second with a vacant look, and I worried he didn’t recognize me. It wouldn’t be the first time. If he didn’t, I was preparing to play it off that I was an old friend. Trying to explain that I was his little brother was too stressful for him.
But a heartbeat later, his face split into a wide grin and he threw out his arms. “Byron!”
When I hugged him, he pulled me in tight, nearly cracking two of my ribs and lifting me off my feet, but I didn’t fucking care. He remembered me and loved me. That was enough. He could break all the ribs he wanted so long as he remembered me.
“Byron! I have a puzzle! Help me do the puzzle!”
With a smile spreading from ear to ear, I grabbed an empty chair and pulled it over so that I was right beside him. It was the same puzzle I’d helped him put together a few dozen times, of a boy sitting in a boat fishing while some ducks swam by. It was only a hundred pieces, and I’d tried to get him some other ones, but this was his favorite. If he was happy, what did it matter?
My job was to find the next piece that he wanted, and he would fit it into place, then lock it with a slam of his fist. It was the same process we always used, and I loved it. As we worked, he told me about his breakfast and what he watched on TV yesterday, and a bunch of other rambling stories. I couldn’t follow it completely. Since his accident, Ronnie had developed a way of speaking where everything sort of ran together. It was like reading a book with no punctuation or paragraph breaks. He would slam two different stories together, and it was on me to realize that he’d changed subjects.
Thankfully, he just needed me to make occasional noises of agreement or sometimes ask a question to prod him along.
The moment the puzzle was done at last, we threw our hands up in the air and cheered. For a time, I forgot about my pain and frustration on Ronnie’s behalf and just enjoyed our time together. Even if his life hadn’t worked out how we’d all thought it would, Ronnie was still happy. He was still alive and enjoying the things around him. He had friends in the hospital. Nurses and doctors he cared about. I needed to stop being so brokenhearted for him and embrace his life the way it was.
“Byron, when is Dad gonna come take me fishing again?” Ronnie suddenly inquired, demolishing the positive thoughts I’d cobbled together.
A knot formed in my throat, and my brain scrambled for something to say. Our father had died of a heart attack more than five years ago. He’d been living at home with my parents at the time. He knew Dad was dead, but for some reason, it seemed to slip away from him constantly. Not that I could blame him. Dad had been a lot of the glue that held our family together. He was the one who’d kept my mother’s drinking under control and had corralled Ronnie while I was attending undergraduate and then graduate school. Dad had kept us feeling like a family.
Oddly enough, he almost never asked about our mother. As if he’d swapped in his mind which of them had passed away.
“I don’t know,” I forced out while desperately holding on to my smile. “I’ll have to talk to him about it.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t think he noticed. “Have you drawn anything new in art class?”
“Yes! Come see!” Ronnie jumped to his feet and pulled me along with him.
“Wait, we need to clean up the puzzle first.”
“Did you take a picture of it? You have to take a picture on your phone.”
It was our tradition. I always took a picture of the finished puzzle with my phone, which was why I now had over a hundred pictures of this same puzzle on my phone. I’d tried to take some with Ronnie in the frame, but he always demanded that I erase those. The picture could be only the puzzle.
Once it was taken, Ronnie pulled my phone close so he could double-check it. From there, I showed him some new filters that changed his face or put bunny ears on our heads. We passed a solid hour that way, laughing and staring at the little screen on my phone.
When the nurses called lunchtime, I said my good-byes. It was always easier to leave then because he had the distraction of food. A planned activity always followed lunch, helped him forget that I’d left for the day. We hugged, and he tried to crack another rib.
I stood alone, watching as Ronnie walked with a nurse, excitedly chatting her up about how he’d had floppy dog ears in a picture on my phone. The world had a bittersweet sharpness to it now, as I desperately clung to the reminder that he was happy. That was all that mattered. Ronnie was happy.
Except I needed to move him from Holy Mother, because Ronnie wasn’t always happy and he was a strain on their system. Ronnie was comfortable here, and the staff loved him. They took great care of him, but the extra time and care needed to handle him meant time they were spending away from other patients who needed their attention.
Giving Hope Long-Term Care Facility was fifty miles down the road, and they could more than manage Ronnie’s needs without the strain. Dr. Willard had suggested it more than once, and I trusted his opinion. The best part was that he could still be part of Ronnie’s care team, since he worked at both locations.
After sucking in a deep breath, I steeled myself for the long walk to my car. The tears that I’d held back were kind enough to wait until I was sitting in the driver’s seat. Seeing Ronnie still hurt. I wanted the best for him. I wanted him to have the life he’d dreamed about. The football star with the hot girlfriend. He’d had plans to attend a technical school after he graduated high school. He’d still been deciding between being an auto mechanic and an electrician when he was in that accident. Maybe he wouldn’t have been a billionaire, but he would have had a damn good life.
If not for that stupid accident…
With a shuddering breath, I roughly wiped away my ridiculous tears. Ronnie didn’t need my tears or someone feeling bad for him. He needed someone to look out for his best interests, someone to make sure he could live the best life possible. That was my fucking job.
And thanks to my bargain with Sebastian, I had three years banked for Ronnie at Giving Hope. Maybe I could talk to Sebastian about getting an advance on that first year. There was a lot of planning to be done, but if we started now, we could get Ronnie moved to his new home and improved care within the next month.
Yes, this was a good first step.