Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
“He knows he’s in the hospital, and he knows who we are,” Sheryl tells Leo, holding his hand. “But he doesn’t remember what happened. I know he’ll be happy to see you.”
The doctor takes his mom back into the hallway to give her an update, so Leo is alone with his dad now.
The morning sun is pouring into the stark hospital room through the half-closed blinds, leaving stripes of light across his dad’s face.
Leo doesn’t quite know what to say, especially when he notices that there’s a slight droop to his dad’s mouth, so he just asks, “You’re not doing this to get out of practice, are you?
” The same question Johnny would always ask whenever Leo told him he wasn’t feeling well as a kid.
His dad lets out a belly laugh, and Leo almost expects this to cure him. But he’ll settle for his dad at least knowing they should be at practice together right now.
“How are you feeling, Dad?”
“I’m okay,” he says, his speech slightly slurred. “Tired. Sorry we can’t be at BP today.”
They wouldn’t be at Break Point today. They don’t practice there anymore. But Leo doesn’t correct him. “Oh my God, Dad, don’t apologize. Don’t even worry about tennis right now. I’m just so glad you’re awake.”
“Ah, barely,” he says, his eyes looking heavy. He tries to say something else, something about Christmas presents, but the words mostly get lost on the way out.
“You should get some rest, Mr. Chambers,” the doctor says from behind Leo.
He turns to look at her—a tall, slender woman with thick brown eyebrows and olive skin—and she gives him such a comforting, encouraging look that it practically sends Leo crying into her arms. But he’s too skilled at compartmentalizing his emotions to collapse that easily.
“I can give you the update I just gave your mom, if you want to follow me into the hall?” she says gently. “He really needs his rest.”
When Leo glances back at his dad, he’s sleeping again, so he nods to the doctor and heads into the hallway with her.
“I’m Dr. Mennies,” she says. “Your mom just went to get some tea.”
“I’m Leo,” he says, shaking her hand.
“We’ll need to continue monitoring your dad, testing his memory and speech and motor skills.
It’s a good sign that he’s able to communicate a little.
But it could take a few more days to really understand how much of an effect the stroke has had on him.
Do you have any questions for me? I know how difficult this can be. ”
He wants to sob in her arms again. Instead, he asks, “Was it because of the MS?”
“No, that isn’t what caused the stroke. It was likely high blood pressure. But I want to be transparent. I do expect that because of the MS, the physical part of the recovery process may be more challenging.”
He can’t think of anything else to ask, so he just thanks her and shakes her hand again.
When he and his mom finally get back to the house hours later—after Dr. Mennies tells them that they need to let themselves and Johnny rest, that she’ll call if anything changes—they sit at the kitchen island, and Johnny’s plate of half-eaten scrambled eggs from breakfast is still there.
His mug of coffee is now cold. It feels like a movie set, a scene from another life, before things were irrevocably altered.
Leo knows Sheryl feels this, too, because she begins to cry, putting a hand over her eyes.
“I don’t think I’ve let myself really feel it until now,” she says when she’s finally caught her breath enough to speak.
Leo wraps his arms around her, getting some of her hair, which is barely held together in a ponytail by this point, in his mouth.
He spits it out, and it makes her laugh a little.
“I’ll go get some sushi,” he says. His body on autopilot, he drives to pick up dinner, the palm trees waving to him obliviously with their branches in the breeze along the way.
When he arrives back home, he turns off the car and just sits, wondering if staying still for a moment will allow it to sink in that when he enters the house, his dad won’t be there, because he’s in the hospital, after having a stroke.
But no, nothing. Leo still feels numb. The windows of the car are down, and he can hear the faint sound of his mom’s laughter coming from the kitchen.
He assumes she’s watching some funny cat video on her phone to distract herself.
But inside, like some kind of mirage, Leo sees Tess sitting at the island with Sheryl.
She’s telling a story about how, during her quarterfinals match at the Open, her opponent was using some kind of smiling technique to remain positive, and the size of her grin was downright deranged.
“She looked like she was in that horror movie Smile,” she says to Sheryl.
Ollie is at the sink, cleaning off the plate and mug Johnny left behind that morning.
It’s this image laid before Leo that does it.
He walks into the kitchen and sets the takeout bag down and his tears follow, splattering onto the marble one by one.
Tess jumps up and envelops him in a hug, and Ollie can’t wait his turn.
He comes over and joins the hug, hands still sudsy from the dishes, getting bubbles all over their backs.
Their bodies on his, Leo feels like they’re physically keeping his own from falling apart into a million pieces on the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” Ollie says, pulling out of the cluster of limbs to face Leo.
“We both are,” Tess says, putting a hand on his cheek to wipe away a tear.
“I can’t believe this happened.” Ollie had joined Leo and his team at the Delray Beach Tennis Center earlier this week, which is why he adds, “He seemed fine the other day.”
“I know,” Leo says, shaking his head and shrugging. “And I can’t believe you’re both here right now. I didn’t even know you were in Miami, Tess.”
“I just got here yesterday,” she says. “I stayed in New York for a few days after the Open, but I wanted to come practice down here before fall, get some sunshine before rainy Europe. Now I’m really glad I came.”
“So are we,” Sheryl says, getting up and putting a hand on Tess’s shoulder. “I’ll let you all talk. I could really use a shower after today.” Her mascara is smudged and the hair tie at the end of her ponytail is now holding on for dear life.
“Mom, you should eat.”
“I’m not very hungry,” she says. “I’ll just put it in the fridge. I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep later, so I’ll need a snack.”
Leo gives her a hug before she makes her way upstairs, and he leads Ollie and Tess over to the couch, the same one on which he used to curl up with his grandmother to watch The Golden Girls.
They all sink into the cushy cream-colored fabric and Leo feels like a balloon emptying its air.
They sit there for a minute in silence before Leo speaks.
“He barely knew what was going on,” he tells them. “He thought we were supposed to be at BP. We haven’t practiced there in years.”
Ollie and Tess look at him with large, compassionate eyes.
“I just keep thinking,” Leo says, staring at nothing in particular, “I’ve spent my whole life with him. He’s been everywhere with me. Practices, matches, dinners, flights. And after all that, he might not remember any of it. You spend every day with someone just for it to be wiped clean.”
There’s a heavy silence.
“Shit. Sorry,” Leo says, the weight of his words landing on him. “I know that sounds so dark, but I can’t stop thinking about it. What if I walk into the hospital tomorrow and he still doesn’t know what’s going on?”
Ollie and Tess continue looking at him, clearly at a loss for how to respond.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Leo assures them. “I just had to get that out.”
Finally, Ollie comes up with what is really the only appropriate response in this situation: “This fucking sucks.”
“Yeah,” Leo says. “It really fucking sucks.”
Then, Tess, sitting up, poses what is really the only appropriate question in this situation: “You could walk into the hospital tomorrow and he will remember—but until you find out, does your mom have any wine?”
There are only a couple bottles of every mom’s choice, white zinfandel, in the fridge, but it’s wine, and they pour it.
Tess turns on the TV, and an episode of The Golden Girls is on—the one where Dorothy and Rose believe they’ve witnessed a UFO fly over their house.
Leo laughs. “I love this one.”
“You know this show?” Ollie asks.
“I fucking love this show. I watch it all the time,” Leo says. Right now, he doesn’t care about how embarrassing it might sound. “I started watching it with my grandma when I was a kid. It’s still so good.”
“Okay,” Tess says. “It’s official. We need to have a Golden Girls night in Leo’s hotel room whenever we’re all in the same city.”
“Sure,” Ollie says, puckering. “But can we please have a different wine next time? Tabarnak. I feel like I’m sneaking wine coolers at a high school party.”
“We never even did that,” Leo says, smiling harder than he has in days. “The most we ever did was sneak, like, one beer at that juniors tournament in San Diego. And, if I remember correctly, you threw up during your match the next day.”
“It was because of the humidity!”
“Awww, sweetie,” Tess says, putting a hand on Ollie’s knee.
“He had to call a medical timeout,” Leo says through laughter. “It was so hard to clean off the court that play was suspended for the afternoon.”
The three of them continue telling stories, laughing on the couch, Tess banging her fist on the cushion. On the TV across the room, Dorothy, Rose, and Blanche are having a laugh, too, as they tell stories around the kitchen table.