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Facing Doom

George Semko

    During our four years in South Bend, my wife-to-be, Janice, worried her way through a bachelor’s degree and a nonexistent brain tumor. For three more in Columbus it was graduate school and unreal episodes of carbon monoxide poisoning in our apartment, our Dodge Caravan, several overheated lecture halls, and whatever room, hallway, nook or cranny our young son, Louis, managed to find his way into. In the five married years since, as an assistant professor of psychology here in East Lansing, she has worried herself more energetically and imaginatively than ever, hoping, no doubt, to bring her emotions to a fever pitch on the day she receives tenure.
    Two weeks ago on a Saturday morning, Janice was adding last-minute touches to a paper she would present at an important academic conference. I was down the street, picking up bagels and coffee for breakfast. Louis was still in bed. Troubled by the deafening silence, Janice checked to see if our son had stopped breathing. He hadn’t, of course, but across his pillow, his sheets, his hands and face ran a trail of blood—or what looked like blood. Certain that he was suffering from some rare form of hemophilia, Janice mobilized, and within seconds, she and Louis were racing along the familiar route to the university clinic. Unfortunately, a block short of the entrance she sideswiped a parked pickup truck with our hybrid, the impact of this minor accident giving our son a minor nosebleed, the nosebleed confirming Janice’s worst fears: Louis would die in her arms only moments before help could be reached.
    What came out in the wash is that Louis had been eating french fries in his bed the night before—french fries and enough ketchup to drown a rat. For punishment, I grounded him that afternoon to the spare bedroom. This is where I keep my collection of golden-age science fiction. Like many materials engineers, I am crazy about science fiction. Like most nine-year-old boys with IQs well north of one-forty, Louis is crazy about it as well.
    Two days later Janice flew to the nation’s capitol for her weeklong conference on developmental psychology. While she was away, Louis came down with a bad cold that quickly turned into bronchitis. I decided not to tell her until she got back.
    Louis developed his first symptoms—sniffles and a scratchy throat—on Monday morning, only minutes after we waved goodbye to Janice at the airport. He wasn’t complaining, so I dropped him off at school. That evening, though, his temperature shot up to one hundred and two, and on Tuesday morning his cough turned nasty, so I made an appointment with Millbury, our pediatrician. Louis spoke not a word on the drive to Millbury’s office, nor a word while we were inside. He is normally a quiet, solemn child, so it wasn’t until we completed the twenty-minute drive home in unbroken silence that I became suspicious.
    “Well, Spock, I’d like to know what you think,” I said as our garage door inched upwards.
    Brows furrowed, Louis collected his thoughts. Once satisfied that he had them in proper order, he answered. “I think when Mom called last night, you should have told her I was sick—and not in the bathroom.”
    “But, at the time, you were in the bathroom,” I responded, accurately if not innocently.
    I didn’t know whether Louis accepted my answer. He opened his door and walked into the house. Reaching over to shut his door, I wondered how many minutes would pass until Janice’s next text and whether I could manage to put her off the scent when she called tonight. I wondered also if I might be imagining things: three days after the accident and our car still smelled like ketchup.
    Janice’s call came late. Her day had been hectic. I suspected from the tone of her voice that it had also been triumphant. Before she could ask, I told her Louis was in bed. He was, in fact, sitting up in bed, dressed in a suit and tie and staring at his blank computer screen. But Janice didn’t need to know this.
    “I can even see him breathing from here on the sofa,” I said, anticipating my wife’s next question.
    “Aww, the poor sweetie. He must think his mother doesn’t love him.”
    “He knows you love him, Janice. He also knows you’re very busy,” I said, changing the subject. “How was your presentation?”
    “I’m worried,” she said excitedly. “I don’t think they understood it.”
    “I’ll bet they did,” I said with supreme confidence. When it comes to the higher psychobabble, Janice is as clear and levelheaded as a Vulcan in a three-piece suit.
    After we said our goodbyes, I dropped the phone to the floor, right on top of my tablet, the phone’s darkened screen eclipsing the words of an early steampunk anthology. I was now capable of nothing but sleep.

    By Wednesday morning Louis’s temperature had dropped to one hundred and his cough sounded much less menacing, so I felt safe returning to work. That evening the fever was gone. Zelda, his nanny, sipping tea at the kitchen table where I joined her after checking on my dozing son, said she was still concerned. “I think he really misses his mother,” she added with a hand on my wrist so as not to offend. “The poor child hasn’t spoken a syllable all day.”
    The moment Zelda was out the door I cracked open a beer and ordered pepperoni pizza—my son’s favorite. I would surprise him with it when he woke. Halfway through a Bruce Sterling story the doorbell rang. Wanting to celebrate, I gave the delivery boy a generous tip. The pizza smelled like heaven.
    “Hey, Bones, look what the Borg brought,” I said, mixing my Star Trek and setting the steaming box on the foot of Louis’s bed. He had been awake and typing in his notebook. Atop the current screen I read, “My Will, Part IV, by Louis W. Kennedy.” After glancing at the pizza, he gazed up at me morosely.
    Trying not to lose my momentum, I flipped up the lid and began sawing away slices. “You want something to drink with this?” I asked with great cheer. “Pepsi? vodka? battery acid?”
    Louis shook his head slowly, like an adult disappointed too many times by a much-loved child. “Dad, I really don’t think now is the time for either of us to joke,” he said, “—or worry about beverages.”
    “Maybe not,” I conceded, pressing a palm against my son’s cooling forehead. I sat down beside him and noticed he was wearing the same suit as yesterday but with a different tie. “What is it time for us to worry about, Louis?”
    I waited patiently through a full minute of silence while he prepared his reply.
    “Mom won’t get to see me before I die, will she?” he finally asked, voice cracking, but still dry-eyed.
    “What makes you think you’re going to die?”
    “Doctor Millbury never gave me those painful shots in the abdomen, so I figured it was already too late.”
    “Son, that’s only for rabies,” I said, not mentioning that I thought this treatment was now obsolete. Since our trip to the doctor, my boy had been bravely facing doom, not wanting to let down the man who—as stated in his will—would inherit his manga, video game and insect collections.
    “Isn’t bronchitis the same as rabies?” Louis asked.
    “No,” I said, watching him struggle against hope. “Hydrophobia is the same as rabies. Bronchitis is the same as going back to school on Monday.”
    “Oh.” Louis looked noncommittally at the pizza, then at his computer screen, then up at me. He loosened his tie and I felt my throat constrict. “I guess I’ll have the battery acid,” he said without cracking a smile.
    

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