Marc Schumann

Our Good Friend Henry

    He doesn’t remember opening his eyes.
    Henry stares ahead at the gray wall of his hospital room, breathing hard through his nose. Perspiration forms in weak lines across his forehead. He doesn’t remember waking, or returning, whatever has just occurred. There was light and then darkness. Now gray. He tries to place himself but his mind is foggy. It is difficult to think. Across the hall he hears a radio playing quietly. More immediately, he listens to the slow, plodding rhythm of his heart. A group of nurses passes in front of his door, laughing and chatting, pushing trolleys of food. Henry closes his eyes.
    For several minutes he lies—still, empty, inept—and then the memory returns to him. The same experience again. It has occurred many times since his hospitalization six days ago, he has lost count. Each vision is identical: floating through the sphere of light, the brilliant amphitheatre, the final darkness—yet the experience itself is different in that each time he feels closer to the light, which Henry can only describe as God. In that moment near the light, he feels whole, as though he is returning to his other self.
    He feels God leaving him; emptying, draining. This recognition—this joy—leaving him. Hollowed out, grasping for something to hold onto. He blinks several times. It has become his mode of expression since he lost the ability to speak. When he is with his nurse, Mary, he blinks rapidly when he wants a glass of water. His throat and lips are dry often since the stroke. They are dry now, but Mary is not present, and he remains staring blankly at the wall. His face does not move. His face is very still always. He stares at the gray wall. He is an expert on the wall. He knows the wall, can tell you all about it. There is nothing to the wall. The wall is gray. The wall is, foremost, a wall.


    It was during trial that Henry began to feel ill. The case was relatively insignifican, and he was having fun with it. His client, a young man named Emilio Rodriguez, was charged with impersonating a police officer during a traffic dispute. The Province had offered Emilio a $ 1000 fine and a suspended license, but Henry insisted the trial go forward, assuring his client he could get him off clean.
    He was on a roll that day, completely relaxed within his element. The court docket was backed up, and the hall was nearly full. Naturally, Henry played to the crowd; in the courtroom, as in life, he was at heart a performer. At age seventy-two, the graybeard of the downtown Vancouver law fraternity, he was greatly admired for his skill as an orator; his colleagues had affectionately dubbed him “Oscar,” for his dramatic abilities. When he would get onto one of his rolls, as he did that day—voice booming, clipping off syllables like a Shakespearean actor—everyone present would be rapt with attention.
    That day, he was nearing the crescendo of his speech. “What you must remember!” he thundered to the jury, slamming a clenched fist into his palm, “is that Emilio Rodriguez was not impersonating an officer, but rather, merely giving the impression that he was someone he was not.” As the courtroom considered this apparently subtle distinction, Henry suddenly stopped speaking. He mumbled some words and bent over to his knees. He felt faint. When he tried to stand up, the faces of the jury members blurred together. Then dizziness—the courtroom spinning, his head spinning. Henry, are you all right? his co-counsel, Jennifer, asked him. Hell no, he wasn’t all right. Recess was called. He lay down. He drank purified water, two glasses. The world continued to spin. He closed his eyes. An ambulance was called.


    Henry looks down at the tangle of intravenous tubes, like white snakes slithering out of his nose, down across the cotton blankets. While recovering in the hospital he developed a brain aneurysm and surgery was needed to remove the clot. A catheter was placed into his brain. He stares at the liquid meal rising towards him. In a strange way, he has come to identify these tubes as his body; because a person is not only an internal consciousness but also a physical thing, and Henry no longer has any sense of himself as a physical being. Although only the left side of his body is paralyzed, his entire body is numb. His skin is sallow and cold, curiously limp, sponge-like to the touch. Each day he feels himself fading, becoming less tangible.
    There isn’t much time left, he knows this. Days perhaps, he can only hope (so many encounters with the light, so many near-misses). This is not Henry. Skin giving in, inverting itself like a drying grape. Reduced to consciousness and plastic tubing. He was with the living. This is what happens. Somewhere he knows this. Life was a thing to be lived not studied, he would tell his son, Stephen, when he was young and brooding. His son, who was so different than him always, his son who went away and never came back, but Henry didn’t blame him. Henry liked things clear. His life was clear. He made it that way. Sometimes he felt that he wasn’t moving at all, that he wasn’t exerting the tiniest fraction of energy, but only gliding, as though down some easy, mildly graduated slope.
    Yes, Henry was with the living. Ran three miles each morning. Rising at the crack of dawn. A glass of orange juice, two pieces of toast, jam and margarine (fat-free). His body fat on the day of his stroke at—get this—four percent. Better than your average high-school athlete. Jumping out of bed. Leaping. Racing like a 72 year old spitfire down to the park at the bottom of the hill. His best time: 15:12. This is what happens.


    Each day less Henry Clave on the planet. This is sad. Why? He must fight. For whom? (Do not go gently into the night—who wrote such crap? Henry wonders. He should be so lucky.)
    A man is dying. This is sad. Who said that? (The bell tolls for thee).
    “The human race has lost a good bowler, a rugged individualist, a man who could cook chicken cordon bleu and cranberry sauce, translate Latin, etc, etc.”
    Henry watches the thick olive liquid rise toward his eyes. He looks up at the clock that is broken and reads 9:46 pm. He stares at the wall. His mind drifts into the fog that has become its favorite resting place, an area dark and musty, like an old unused attic.
    About an hour later, his nurse, Mary, enters the room holding a bouquet of white irises. She glances at Henry, breaking his gaze as she passes in front of him. “Hi, Henry,” she says, smiling. She checks his monitors: the EEG testing his brain activity and the EKG monitoring his heart rate.
    “Your signs are looking pretty good today,” she says. Henry’s heart sinks. He moans softly. Mary places the irises in a vase beside Henry’s bed, removing wilting pink roses she brought in yesterday. “There you go,” she says. She pulls up the vinyl window shade and sunlight fills the dim room. A thin shaft of light cuts across Henry’s torso and brightens Mary’s crimson hair.     “It’s a beautiful day,” she says. “I was out bicycling in Stanley Park this morning.” She smiles at Henry. “We need some fresh air in here.” She lifts the window several inches and inhales deeply.
    Mary gazes below at downtown Vancouver, where mild traffic moves along Burrard Street; the sound of the cars reaches up to their twelfth floor room. It is the middle of June, and the air outside is warm and smells of moisture from the previous night’s rainfall. The streets are empty of people except for a small group of Japanese businessmen talking casually in front of the Sheraton Hotel. Mary’s eyes pause at the gray stone structure of her old church, St. Andrew’s Lutheran, next to the Sheraton. She hasn’t attended a Sunday morning service in several years at the church, but she plans to go tomorrow morning. There, she will pray for Henry. She is not sure exactly why, or what she will say. She does not usually pray for her patients, at least not as individuals, but Henry is different. From the first day she saw him, lying pale and unconscious, she felt strangely connected to him. It is sympathy, of course, on the one hand, after all he is a dying man without a single visitor. But more than that, there is something in him, his profound stillness, those large eyes like twin placid lakes, that seems almost unearthly to her.
    The first time she entered his room she was struck by the oak table next to his bed. It was covered by a white lace cloth and completely empty. No photographs or personal items, as most patients in the palliative unit had. The next day she brought in a yellow, clay vase from her home and since then has replenished it daily with fresh flowers. Henry appreciates the flowers, the smell of which reminds him of home. Year round, he kept his house permeated with the scent of spring-garden incense. The experience of summer with him in the dreariest days of winter. What more could a man want?
    Sometimes, Mary imagines his life as it might have been, and in these moments he becomes real to her. From her first imagining, Henry was a lawyer. She often sees him standing in the courtroom in a sharp navy suit, never speaking. She pictures him living in a large cream colored home, perhaps in the Point Grey or Kitsilano area, down by the beach. Yes, Kitsilano. She sees him in his middle years playing catch—baseball—on the beach with his son. Out in the open air, and sunshine, always sunshine, pouring down on his pale skin and silver hair. Sometimes she imagines him alone, reading in his study late at night. Spectacles fallen past the bridge of his nose, leaning with exquisite focus over his book.
    Mary holds Henry’s hand. His body is slumped awkwardly to the left, and she puts her hands under his arms and lifts him into an upright position. She cradles his head and fluffs out his pillows before resting his head back against the soft cushion.


    The summer-scented home was Henry’s alone for twenty-three years. First it was his son, Stephen—gone at the age of twenty-one to law school in Michigan. Then his wife, Lauren, six years later, divorced. It was a mutual decision between them. Although, perhaps, Henry gave the nudge that was needed. He was always less attached to the relationship than his wife. This was true for Henry with most relationships. He told people (when talking about himself, as he admittedly liked to do) that it wasn’t that he didn’t like other people, only that he valued his “alone time.” And Henry was a social man. He had to be: he was a lawyer. He attended parties (but never hosted any—and typically left early from those he did attend). He dated after his divorce (although nothing lasted more than a few months). But truthfully, he never believed this tale he told others. Henry didn’t like people; he tolerated people, as one tolerates the dentist and bulk-food stores. Necessities in the game of life. Thankfully for him he was, at heart, a performer, and so he was able to negotiate this inconvenient terrain.
    The things that Henry appreciated were the things that many people derive pleasure from. Walking. Cooking. A glass of red wine with dinner. Sex (before the divorce). Football on Sundays (after the divorce). As for Lauren, the truth was that they had fallen out of love long before the divorce. Surely, they could agree on this (although Lauren never did). Mostly, Henry decided, they had stayed together for Stephen. When their son left, they realized, or at least Henry did, that they hadn’t put enough time into their relationship. Suddenly, it was as though they were strangers to each other. There were two options in dealing with this situation. The first, which Lauren favored, was getting to know each other more intimately, talking, going to the movies, (making love?) etc. The other, which Henry preferred, and ultimately decided on, was divorce. “Sometimes, dear,” he told his wife, quoting Tolstoy, or at least attempting to. “The stars are not in the right place when the hands of time turn young lovers into old frogs.” What did he mean by this statement? It is difficult to say.
    After Stephen left, there was a lot of silence between Henry and his wife. Silence took on the form of communication. There were good silences, when the space between them was light and easy and the house seemed imbued with a kind of holy, meditative quality. Yet, these times were infrequent. More often, the mood between them was tense. In these times, silence seemed an active, physical presence, strangling the air, moving in on them. A librarian since she graduated high school, Lauren had always been quiet. When they were young, it was her intellect that drew Henry to her. She would talk animatedly for hours about a recent book she had read—or astrology. She loved astrology. She loved guessing the sign of a person she had just met, and then, several weeks into knowing them, testing her impression. And she was right more often than not. But she had always been a quiet woman, and when Stephen went off to Michigan he seemed to pull her spirit with him.
    The silence between them was more than Henry could accept. If there was one thing he couldn’t stand in life, it was silence. Between people, that is; alone, he luxuriated in it. But silence shared, he felt, was no peace at all. It spooked him. As he got older, more alone, he needed noise in his life: Mozart’s thirty-third symphony, played to full volume, the soft moan of the television set left running throughout the evening—it didn’t matter. Only that there was something filling the large house.


    Mary by his side, holding his hand, Henry stares at the wall. He notices a black ink spot in the upper left corner. The spot is, in fact, more of a blotch. Henry considers the distinction. It is quite possible, he decides, his mind suddenly stirred to clarity, that a blotch is merely a particularly thick spot. Color perhaps less concentrated, more diffuse. A little messy even.
Apart from the blotch, the wall is gray. Paint does not flake off the wall. The wall is modest, unassuming. It does not contain an oil painting of an azure sky, a calm lake, beautiful sunlight. Father and son in a small wooden canoe, fishing for trout. The wall shows none of that.
    Within the hour, the monotony is broken by the appearance of two heads. The heads, a woman and a man’s, appear on top of each other, peeking around the door of Henry’s room. “Helllllooo?” the woman says. “Oh,” Mary says. “Come in, please.” She smiles warmly at the couple, which stands tentatively inside the doorway. Henry strains his eyes, eventually recognizing his old friends, Warren and Cynthia Murphy. As Henry and Mary look at them, they smile nervously, as if they have showed up late for a party. “Come in,” Mary says again.
    Henry hasn’t seen either of them in nearly a decade and is surprised by their appearance. He struggles to remember the last time he saw the Murphy’s.


    For most of his adult life they had been his closest friends. They’d met as little league parents. Their children, Stephen and Jonas (third base and center-field), were inseparable in those years, and eventually the parents became close also. Warren and Henry bonded over the shared experience of ridiculing the opposition, threatening the lives of the umpires. In time, perhaps during the third year of the children playing together, the couples began spending Saturday night with each other. Soon, they began a long tradition of sharing Thanksgiving, alternating houses each year. For 16 years, they spent nearly every one together. It was a joyous occasion. At Thanksgiving there was:

a) Turkey
b) Stuffing (out of the package)
c) Wine
d) Trivial Pursuit/ Yahtzee (depending on the level of sobriety)
e) Henry’s special cranberry sauce

    After the Claves divorced, the couples saw each other less frequently. Henry always suspected that the Murphy’s held his break-up with Lauren against him. However, this wasn’t exactly right; in truth, Cynthia had always disliked Henry, thought him arrogant and a tacky dresser, and his divorce merely provided a convenient excuse to see him on a more “selective” basis. This is to say, only major holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and only every few years. No birthdays. Memorial Day was out of the question. After all, Henry had to understand, Lauren was half (maybe more) of the reason they invited the Claves over as guests. Without Lauren, who would provide the evening with knowledge of current world affairs, political, cultural, and otherwise? Who would bring lemon meringue pie?
    (Henry could bring cranberry sauce?) Furthermore, it took two people to form a Trivial Pursuit team.
    Henry continued playing tennis with Warren during the summer. They hit the ball with rackets across a black cord net. It was, in general, a joyous occasion. Between sets they drank purified water and talked about wives (not each others, just wives in general, Bill’s, Jacob’s, Mike’s). They burned calories, stayed fit.


    Wearing an elegant black pants and blouse ensemble, Cynthia strides confidently into the middle of the room. Warren toddles behind, moving only several steps inside the doorway. “Come on, Warren,” Cynthia says, attempting to sound affable, her sharp tone betraying her. “What are you doing back there?”
    Warren smiles sheepishly at Henry and moves forward. “Hey, how ya doing, old buddy?”
    “Um,” Mary says, wincing. “Henry can’t speak…at the moment.”
    Cynthia glares at Warren. “That’s right, Warren. The stroke.”
    As his wife’s glare beats on his soft, ruddy face, Warren shrugs and bows his head. “Sorry, old buddy,” he says. “I guess I’m not up on my medical history.”
    “Evidently,” Cynthia whispers through grit teeth. She turns and smiles at Henry.
    Mary coughs. “So nice of you both to come. I’ll leave you all.” She exits the room. Henry looks at Warren, his silver hair as thick and neatly coiffed as ever. He is dressed in jeans and a casual red UBC sweatshirt. For the first time, his eyes meet directly with Henry’s. Warren’s mouth opens slightly and then closes; his eyes narrow to a squint. He drags the toe of his shoe along the floor. His mouth opens again. He seems desperately to want to say something, but is lost for the words. He says nothing, but only inches towards the back of the room, smiling awkwardly. Mary’s position next to the bed now available, Cynthia slides to Henry’s side. She puts her hand on his leg. “We just wanted to show our support, Henry,” she says. She tilts her head to the side, in an apparently sympathetic manner, half-smiling, doe-eyed. (Henry stares at the wall). “We’re here for you.” She gently squeezes Henry’s hand. Warren nods firmly in agreement, a manly, stoic nod, as though responding to his mechanic’s assertion that he will have to buck-up and purchase a new muffler. “Of course,” Cynthia continues, a look of distress washing across her face. “We were devastated to hear about your, um, accident.”
    “Just devastated, Henry,” adds Warren.
    “Warren lay in bed for an entire Sunday afternoon the day he found out. Sunday being…well, he always watches football on Sunday afternoons, you know that, of course.” Cynthia smiles broadly, displaying healthy white teeth. Her smile dissolves and her face becomes grave. “But this was devastating.”
    “Just devastating, Henry,” adds Warren, now slouching against the back wall of the room. He throws his hands into the front pouch of his sweatshirt, and turns his face from the glare of the sunlight. The room is silent for over a minute. Warren looks at Cynthia who looks at Henry who looks at the wall. Suddenly, Warren bolts upright. “Hey, old buddy”’ he exclaims, “you’ll never guess who’s coming to see you.”
    “Oh, Warren!’ Cynthia says, releasing Henry’s hand and turning to her husband. “You can’t hold a surprise for the life of you!”
    “I’m just priming the surprise.”
    Cynthia laughs again, high and hurried this time as though she is wheezing for air. “Oh, okay then, Warren.”
    The room is silent again. Henry squirms within his limited range, embarrassed to be dying. If there were enough blood flowing to his face, he would blush. He looks around Warren, to the wall. Watching his friends, Henry can’t shake the impression that the action in front of him is unreal, as though Cynthia and Warren, their faces dull and straining, are tired performers on a stage.
Cynthia sighs loudly. She begins speaking in a quiet, detached voice, as though to herself. “I have been waking up lately in the middle of the night,” she says, looking away at the gray wall as though she is a movie heroine staring off at some distant expanse. “I experience this amazing sense of loss, but I can’t identify what it is.”
    Henry stares at the wall. Maybe your car keys, he thinks.
    “Then I realize it’s you, Henry.” You don’t say. Her head turns slowly to face Henry. “It’s you. It’s you, Henry.” (There are tears in her eyes, this much is certain. The cause of the tears might be one of three: a) a genuine emotional expression, compelled by the unexpected recognition of her deep love and attachment to Henry; b) the tears are not emotion-based in any sense, but rather a reaction to the glare of the sunlight streaming into her eyes from outside; c) there is no “cause” for the tears. Perhaps the sudden emotion is an automatic reaction of some kind, like when Henry pounds his fist into his palm when making a point during his trials. Which is to say that it is part of the performance.)
    “Anyhow, it’s been a very emotional week for me.” Cynthia’s words float around Henry, taking on a musical, indistinct shape, like bubbles of abstract sound. Whom is she speaking to? What is she talking about? She looks at Henry, her mouth hanging open slightly, as though waiting for the right words to come to her. “I guess that’s why I’m here today,” she says, finally.
Henry stares at the wall.


    Minutes later, there is an aggressive rapping at the door. A handsome, black-haired man, several years younger than either Henry or Warren, steps inside. Without looking at Henry, he heartily embraces Warren. When they separate, Warren appraises him, brows furrowed together. “What happened to Mike?” he asks.
    “He got caught up in some business at work,” the man says. “You know how it is.”
    Warren looks defeated. He shrugs. “I guess.” He pats his friend on the shoulder. Then, as if they had choreographed the move, Warren and the newly arrived man turn simultaneously to Henry with nearly gleeful smiles. Warren (Henry’s old buddy) widens his eyes. “You remember this horse’s behind, don’t ya, Henry!” he exclaims. Cynthia slips away from Henry’s side, moving to the corner of the room.
    The man fixes his eyes on Henry. “Hey,” he says, in a tone of mock concern, “I’m not too late, am I?” He laughs and turns from Henry. “Cynthia, dear,” he says, “how are you? You look lovely as always.” They share a chuckle and the man returns his focus to Henry. He extends his arm fully and wags his finger at Henry (who stares at his finger). “You!” the man exclaims, breaking into ragged laughter, “you had to go do this on us! Bastard!” Henry closes his eyes. The noise is—too loud. The man crinkles his brows together and looks casually around the room. “What is this, some kind of pre-funeral? We need some music in here, liven this place up.” Again, he bursts into deep, staccato laughter (again, he laughs alone). He turns to face Warren, whose pained expression shifts into an agreeable smile upon his friend’s glance.


    The man’s name is Kurt Goodman and Henry loathes him. Throughout Henry’s adult life they have been regular opponents. Professionally, for Kurt was a prominent prosecutor in the city and Henry tried many important cases against him. But, perhaps more significantly, Kurt was his opponent on the tennis court. It was always, in every single match the four of them ever played, bar none, Henry and Warren against Kurt and Mike (who can’t be with them today due to paper work). They didn’t keep official track of the record, but over all time, the score between the teams was agreed to be extremely close. Once, some ten years back, Kurt produced a long, crumpled, hand written list of scores that he claimed to have been keeping since they began playing. The series, as Kurt had it, was three hundred sixty-eight matches for his side, three hundred twelve for Henry and Warren. Everyone knew he was full of shit and Kurt didn’t press the issue. The others laughed it off, but Henry wouldn’t let it go. He called Kurt a “no-good, lying, jowl-bastard, sad, pathetic excuse for a human being.” He was very calm, lawyerly, as he said this. He was “stating the facts.” He presented the evidence with such precise reason and clarity that his argument was almost violent. “Did you, or did you not, falsify the list?” Henry demanded. He and Kurt didn’t speak to each other for several years after the incident.


    A light wind has picked up outside and whistles in under the windowpane. Kurt takes in a deep breath of the cool air. His expression is somber, significant. He raises his heels several times. Pressing his lips together, he looks upwards. “I’ve come to see you off, old friend,” he says, quietly. Cynthia murmurs laughter. A wave of energy surges through Henry’s body. A vision enters into his mind. He sees himself leaping out of his bed and thrusting his bony hands around Kurt’s throat. Twisting hard, like a man struggling to open a pickle jar.
    “Would you look at that?” Warren says, pointing to Henry’s electro-cardiogram. The monitor shows a sudden increase in Henry’s heart rate. “Henry’s darned excited to have us all here.” They all laugh (except for Henry) and look lovingly at each other. “Take it easy there, old buddy,” Warren admonishes.
    Henry closes his eyes. In his space of quiet and darkness the impulse to throttle Kurt fades out. His heart rate slows.
    Kurt turns to Cynthia. His voice low, confidential, he asks: “Is Stephen here with him?” It appears that his intention is for Henry not to hear his question; in this, however, he fails horribly. Cynthia looks at Henry, flashing a hurried smile. Then she turns back to Kurt, raising her voice so as to defeat the impression that they were trying to hide their conversation from Henry. “Um, I’m not sure, Kurt,” she says. “I really don’t know about that. I mean, I’m sure he has.”
    “Why do you say that?” Warren asks. “Mary told me we were his first visitors.”
    The three of them look glumly at each other. Kurt nods. “Well, then,” Cynthia says. “Possibly not.”
    The room is quiet for several minutes. Henry feels himself on the verge of sleep. He hears Cynthia say, “I have to be leaving, now, gang. I have an appointment to make.” She holds Henry’s hand for a moment then lets go. Henry fades out of consciousness. When he wakes, minutes later, the room is quiet. His eyes remain closed. A voice floats above him.
    “What you have meant to me, personally, my friend, has been immeasurable. I honestly don’t know what kind of lawyer I would be without knowing you. Your encyclopedic knowledge of the law is truly beautiful. Your ability to improvise when under extreme pressure… Wow. Just remarkable. Although I’ve often had trouble admitting this, and we have at times been adversaries, there’s no denying it: you are a legend. In time, perhaps, your name will come to be used as shorthand in the law world: Clave-like knowledge, Clave-esque intensity. Congratulations, my friend. You’ve been good.”
    Henry opens his eyes and sees Warren, Kurt and Cynthia standing in a horizontal row directly in front of his bed. Their expressions are lifeless, ashen. As they stare, nausea settles in his stomach. He does not feel tired, yet consciousness is leaving him. A gradual blackness fills into the room. Soon everything is pitch-dark.
    “Henry Clave is…a man who.” He feels himself fading. “Henry Clave is…a man...” Who is speaking? Kurt? Warren? The voice is amplified and yet strangely distant, echo-like, as though it is coming from the opposite end of a cave.
    “Henry Clave is a man who—” Everything goes silent. Henry moans a low, guttural sound, like a man who has been punched in the stomach, left lying on the ground.


    His next conscious feeling is that he is sunken. He senses that a good deal of time has elapsed, perhaps hours. Everything is dark, and then he sees Warren, Kurt and Cynthia standing directly over him. Their faces appear suddenly, as though they are the first image of a slide projection. They are silent, looking thoughtfully at Henry. Then their expressions become animated and they begin loudly chanting in time: one, two, three, four, five… as though they are boxing referees counting out a fallen fighter. Six, seven….
    Henry sees himself walking down a dimly lit corridor. His footsteps echo loudly against the floor. He passes by doors vaguely outlined in the darkness, all the while moving towards a glowing oval shaped door further down the hallway. As he approaches, its light swells until he is forced to look away from the glare.
    Then he is lying in a hospital bed inside a rectangular white room. The space is empty save for a small oak table in the middle of the floor, and a wooden chair next to it. Henry is lying in an upright position identical to his hospital bed. Indeed, it is his hospital bed. The same wooden frame, same light blue blankets, cotton pillows. Mary is standing next to him, but seems unaware of his presence. Her hands are at her sides, as she stares blankly ahead. She wears a long black dress and a veil, which is not covering her face.
    Henry is smiling. He looks different. Ten years younger at least, and yet, he didn’t look like this ten years ago, or ever, for that matter. He has a full head of tousled silver hair. There is a healthy glow to his complexion. His face is free of wrinkles, as smooth as a baby’s skin.
    Two people, a man and a woman, emerge from a door at the back of the hall. Henry surges forward from his reclined position. “Lauren! My God!” he shouts, recognizing his ex-wife. Lauren looks exactly as she did around the age of fifty: thin, sharp-shouldered and beautiful. Her brown hair is long and flowing neatly down the middle of her back. She does not address Henry. She glances briefly at him before focusing her eyes on the man who entered with her. The man, whom Henry does not recognize, seats himself at the table, and begins reading a newspaper.
    Henry looks closely at the man, whose face is obscured somewhat by the paper. He looks to be in his mid-fifties. He is a short man with a slight potbelly. His gray hair is thin on top but long on the sides, combed over his ears in the style of an artist. He is wearing blue jeans and a white t-shirt, which is tucked in at the waist and covered by a brown tweed jacket. Henry looks closely at the man. “Hey,” Henry whispers. “That’s me.” The man looks nothing like Henry did in his mid-fifties: his hair for one—Henry would have died before he let his hair fall over his ears, like some faux beat-poet. (Henry was a lawyer, for gosh sakes.) And that tweed jacket! “Hey, friend,” Henry calls out to the man. “Could I interest you in a haircut? Perhaps a style from the new century? This isn’t the seventies, old chap!” Henry laughs and shakes his head. But somehow he understands, watching the distant, withdrawn expression on the man’s face, that the man is himself. He knows it is true.
    The man snaps his newspaper closed and glares at Henry. He opens his paper again and resumes reading. Henry looks at Mary. “It’s me, Mary,” he says. “The man is me.” Mary looks down coldly at Henry. She seems to be ridiculously tall, towering over him in black stiletto heels. Her lips are pressed tightly together. She looks at Henry for a moment and then away from him. Watching the scene in front of her, she brings the veil over her face.
    Lauren glowers at the man at the table. Her face is flushed red. Veins on her forehead are visible. She begins rambling at the man at the table, beginning as though in mid-thought. “And that wasn’t even the first time, so many times, I’ve come to expect nothing, less than nothing. What I put myself through. You don’t see anything. You never see. You’ve gone blind.”
    The man at the table says nothing, continues reading, his face buried behind the newspaper. Henry laughs. He cups his hands around his mouth and calls out to the man: “Hey, fella, better say something. She doesn’t look too happy.” Henry laughs again. “Don’t just sit there like a banana peel, man!”
    The man does not acknowledge him, only continues reading. Lauren takes a step aggressively towards the table. “You piece of shit. What is the matter with you?” The man turns the page of the newspaper, buries his nose closer to th e print. Lauren stomps her foot on the floor. “I am talking to you!” she screams. “Do you hear me, you asshole?” Henry can see that Lauren’s eyes are tearing up, yet the man does not acknowledge her. His face remains blank.
    “Hey! What is this?” Henry cries. He is about to say more when he feels Mary’s hand resting firmly on his shoulder. He looks up at her and she removes her hand.
    Lauren turns away from the man. “All these years and not a thing to say,” she says. The man continues to read. Suddenly Lauren wheels around to face the man, wildly flailing her right arm. “What is the matter with you!” She turns and covers her hands over her eyes. She cries softly.
    “Would you do something, man?” Henry cries. “Say something!” He feels Mary’s hand pushing down hard on his shoulder, and he looks up. Mary’s face is hidden behind her veil as she stares ahead at the scene. She releases her hand from his shoulder and Henry feels himself falling slowly back into the pillows of his bed.


    Henry wakes up breathing heavily, his body chilled. The room is quiet except for the sound of breathing. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Warren and Kurt sitting in white chairs against the sidewall. No one else is in the room. The men do not seem to notice that Henry has woken. “God, I’m hungry,” Warren says. Resting his head against the wall, he looks up toward the ceiling.
    “I saw a great film the other night,” Kurt says.
    “Yeah?” Warren replies.
    “At least once a month, Margaret and I make point of attending the cinema.”
    “The cinema?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I call it the theatre,” Warren says. “Or the movies.”
    “To each his own. C’est la vie. “
    “What’s that?”
    “It is life.”
    “So? What’s that? What do you mean, ‘It is life?’”
    “The film I saw the other night: C’est la vie. It is Life.”
    “Never heard of it.”
    “You wouldn’t have. It’s an art film. Swedish director by the name of Per-Olov Gronstrand. Margaret and I can’t say enough about his work.”
    “Gronstrand?” Warren says. “Never heard of him.”
    “You wouldn’t have,” Kurt replies. “He’s brilliant. The man is brilliant.”
    Warren lets out a long, slow sigh. He checks his watch. “So what was the movie about?”
    Kurt squishes his face together as though he has just tasted something bitter. “What was it about?”
    “Yeah. The plot, what was it about?”
    Kurt scoffs. “It’s not about anything. It is life. Nothing more.”
    “There’s your title, I guess.”
    “Hence the title. An extremely powerful film.” Kurt raises his hands and dramatically pulls his fingers into fists. “Life, Warren”’ he exclaims. “Right there in your face. Some people want to look away, but not Gronstrand. Gronstrand won’t allow it.”
    “That’s good for him.” Warren yawns. Henry stares at the wall, blinks.
    Kurt asks, “Do you have the time, Warren?”
    Warren rolls up his sweatshirt sleeve. “It’s six.”
    “Want to grab a bite?”
    Warren nods. “Have you tried that new Italian restaurant on Robson?” he asks.
    “Chez Furtoli’s?” Kurt asks. “No.”
    “It got a good write-up in The City.”
    “Let’s try it, then.” A cold breeze enters the room and Henry shivers. He wishes someone would close the window. Kurt shifts uneasily in his seat. Out of the corner of his eye, Henry stares at him. “Um, Warren,” Kurt says. “How long do you plan to stay?”
    “Uh, hm…maybe another half hour?”
    Kurt ponders Warren’s suggestion for a moment then nods firmly. “Sounds good,” he says. Henry turns his head slightly to the side, almost falling off his pillow. He stares at the wall. When he has woken to the wall, when he has “seen the wall again for the first time,” the wall is still gray. Warren and Kurt sit silently for five minutes. Then:
—Kurt stretches his arms out wide against the wall.
—Warren scratches under his arm.
—Warren starts tapping his foot lightly on the floor.
—Kurt begins humming.
—Warren asks, “What are you humming?”
—Kurt responds, “Just humming.” (Kurt stops humming)
—Kurt asks, “What are we at?”
—Warren says, “About 20 more minutes.”
(Henry stares at the wall.)
    Kurt blows his nose loudly. He turns to Warren, pursing his lips inward. “Tell me something, Warren: was Henry religious in any way?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “I don’t know,” Kurt says. “Curiosity, I guess.”
    Warren strokes the hairs along his forearm. “No, I don’t think so. Not really. Well, maybe. He was like, one of those, you know, new Christians.”
    Kurt laughs. “You mean, a liberal Christian?”
    “That’s right, a liberal Christian.”
    Kurt nods. “No Church, no hell. No good or bad, objectively speaking. No judgment. No God even!” They laugh together. Kurt’s smile fades into a little half-smirk and he continues. “I mean, in any tangible sense. Only the idea of God.”
    “Right. The idea of God,” Warren says. “Why can’t people like that just be honest and say they have no idea about any of that stuff and leave it at that.”
    “Trying to cover their bases, I guess.”
    “Trying to cover their asses,” Warren says.
    Kurt laughs. “Yeah, right.”
    Henry stares at the wall. He closes his eyes but is unable to sleep. Warren and Kurt sit silently. Five minutes later, at 6:20 pm, Kurt asks, “Is it time?” and Warren quickly replies, “Uh, yeah, sure.”
    Warren stands and slips his arms into his spring jacket. “Don’t wake him,” he says.
    Kurt stands. “That’s too bad about Stephen, isn’t it?” he says.
    Warren yawns. “I suppose so. Some things…you know.”
    “Yep.” Kurt is still for a moment, looking down at Henry. “The poor guy,” he says, before leaving the room, Warren trailing behind.
    Henry stares at the wall.


    Later that afternoon, memories of Stephen enter Henry’s mind. He does not initiate them, or “think” about his son; he is helpless to stop or control them. One after another, visions appear and then suddenly disappear. There is no linear progression, no story.
    The images are distinct, separate from each other, and yet seem to be occurring at the same time. Henry experiences that there is no time; it is as though everything is happening in one moment.
    He sees Stephen as an adult, tall and strapping, laughing gaily as he dances with a young woman. In one hand he holds a bottle of wine. He is wearing navy slacks and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned at the top of his chest. The woman, whom Henry doesn’t recognize, kisses Stephen’s cheek and runs her hand through his wavy, tousled brown hair. Stephen lifts the woman’s hand into the air and twirls her in a pirouette. As his son turns, Henry sees his face clearly for the first time. It is a long, narrow face, as Henry remembers. His cheekbones are prominent. Smiling broadly, he appears to be healthy and happy. Yet, something about his appearance concerns Henry. At once he is reminded of the experience of raising his son, the flights of irrational consternation, fear even, which would overcome him at times. He stares at his son’s face until he realizes what it is. Stephen’s eyes: they are terribly bloodshot, a pale pinkish color. For what seems like an eternity, Henry feels his son’s eyes bearing on him.
    Then, Stephen is a child. It is Christmas morning and the Claves are opening presents around a tall, full pine tree. Stephen stands in front of the tree in his Batman and Robin pajamas, bouncing up and down excitedly on his heels. “Come on, c’mon,” he says. Henry is smiling, stretched out on the living room carpet in his old, maroon cotton robe. Lauren sits on the couch behind him. “Here,” she says to Henry, handing him a large square package. “Give this one to your son.” Henry accepts the package and hands it to Stephen, who furiously tears off the wrapping paper. “A new radio!” he exclaims. “Awesome!” He puts the gift down and throws his arms around Henry.
    In another vision, Henry sees Stephen as a teenager, wearing his hair in a ponytail, as he did in those yeas. He is sitting at his bedroom worktable, staring dully out at a clear, starry night. His shoulders are slumped downward. His body is limp, devoid of energy. Henry perceives deep sadness in his Stephen’s expression, his blank gaze, and immediately feels his son’s sadness as though it is his own.
    And then Stephen is a child again, like in the vision of Christmas. His boy again. Although now he is not wearing pajamas, but gray slacks, a white dress shirt, and a blue tie. At first, Henry only sees his son’s pale white face overhead, staring down at him, his expression so still that he appears like a painting against a vast black canvas. Henry looks into his young son’s serene blue eyes. Stephen’s eyes, and then his face, become closer, more distinct to Henry, and then he realizes that his son is standing at his bedside. His small mouth is open slightly, his hands clasped together at his waist.
In the vision Henry does not see himself, but feels an immense urge to enter into the scene and speak to his son. He feels himself struggling, and failing to speak, and then he receives his voice.
    “Son?” he asks.
    Stephen looks calmly down at him.
    Henry’s voice is youthful, almost childlike. “Son, I’m sorry. You’re still young and I can tell you this now. I’m sorry for everything that is to come.” Stephen’s expression does not change. Once again, his face is perfectly still, like a painting.
“Stephen,” Henry asks wearily. “Would you get my slippers for me?” His voice is deep now, as though he is a middle-aged man. “Would you do that, son?”
    Stephen presses his lips together. He does not answer.
    “Son, do you hear me?”
    Henry experiences the vision losing its color, slowly fading back into the larger vision of blackness.


    When he comes to, Mary is at his side, holding his hand. Henry is breathing heavily through his nose. His heartbeat is fast and uneven. “That’s it, Henry,” Mary says slowly. “Breathe. Nice and easy.” She pulls the shades down, and dims the room light. Henry’s vision is weak. The wall appears grainy, indistinct. He closes his eyes halfway.
    But he cannot lay in peace. He feels Stephen’s presence, wrestling, churning through his body. He feels something—a body, an impulse, a desire—for the first time in several days. Turning his head slightly to the right, he blinks his eyes rapidly at the yellow notepad on his bedside table.
    “What’s that, Henry?” Mary asks. “The notepad? Do you want to write something?”
    Henry continues staring at the pad, and Mary walks around to the other side of the bed and hands it to him. She peels off the blanket on his right side and places a pen in his hand. Henry raises his hand and manages to write, in faint yet legible print:
My son Stephen
    Mary reads the page. “You want to see your son?” Henry tilts his head slightly downward.


    During her dinner break, Mary asks the secretary of the hospital if there is a contact number for Stephen Clave, but is told there is none. She looks in the phone book and finds that he is living in North Vancouver, only several miles from her home. She dials the number. There are five rings before a man picks up. “Hello,” he says hurriedly.
    Mary pauses for a moment. “Is this Stephen Clave?”
    “Yes. Who is this?”
    “This is Mary Lawrence. I’m your father’s nurse at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver.”
    “Uh-huh?”
    “Stephen, your father suffered a severe stroke last week.” Mary can hear Stephen breathing softly. Water running in the background, a general commotion of children’s voices. A young boy’s voice becomes clear: “Dad, come on. It’s getting dark, let’s play.”
    “Just one moment, Clayton,” Stephen says. “I’ll be off the phone soon.” He brings the phone back to his ear. “Sorry about that. You were saying?”
    “Your father, Stephen.” Mary speaks slowly, searching for the right tone. She feels badly for breaking the news to Stephen in this way, but continues. “He had a stroke. He’s dying.”
    “Um, yeah,” he says. “I know that.”
    “You do?”
    Stephen coughs hoarsely. “Sorry about that… yes, of course. Things get around.”
    “Oh.” Mary pauses. “I think he needs to see you. He wrote your name on a—”
    “Dad.”
    Stephen laughs awkwardly. “Look, I’m sorry. My son is climbing my leg at the moment. I can’t talk.”
    Mary laughs dryly.
    “It’s just a bad time,” Stephen continues. “I’m alone with the kids tonight. My wife is out. I appreciate your calling. After I put the kids to bed I’m available to talk more if you’d like.” There is silence for a moment. “Actually, I’d like to.”
    “Good,” Mary says. “You know, your house, Stephen, is on my way home.”
    “Oh. Right. Why don’t you stop by, then? I mean, if that works for you.”
    “Thanks. I’d like to.”
    “Dad!”
    “Good then, sometime around nine.”


    After a forty-minute drive, Mary locates Stephen’s home in a cul-de-sac. She parks her Corolla across the street and walks into the small villa. The air is warm, the night quiet except for the rhythmic pounding of a basketball. Mary passes a man working under the hood of his car in his garage and when he looks up they exchange hello’s. It is a pleasant area, Mary thinks, so far removed from the clutter of the city.
    Looking up at the cobalt sky, she inhales deeply, trying to release the stress of her workday. She finds Stephen’s address at the middle house in the half-circle. She stops in front of his home. The living room is well lit and from the sidewalk she can see several bare white walls. She approaches the door and knocks firmly. Stephen opens the door dressed in blue jeans and a white golf shirt. “Hi,” he says. “You must be Mary. Please come in.”
    “Thanks.” Mary slips off her pink windbreaker and follows Stephen into the living area. Stephen motions his head to the corner of the room, where a half-dozen duct-taped cardboard boxes are stacked on top of each other. “We haven’t finished unpacking yet. Can you believe it?”
    Mary nods. The space is empty except for the boxes, a burgundy suede armchair, and a small television atop a white shelf. “You just moved in?”
    “A month and a half ago.” Stephen smiles. His brown hair is full and combed neatly. Mary guesses that he is in his early forties. “It’s strange to be back home, you know, in B.C. I thought I was going to spend my professional life in Ann Arbor. That’s where I’ve been for the last twenty years.” Mary’s gaze drifts to the long row of framed photographs on the mantle above the fireplace. “But,” Stephen continues, “I got this amazing break here. A seat in the Beachgrove Juvenile Court. It’s funny how things work out.”
    “You’re a judge?”
    “Yes.”
    Mary smiles. “About your father, Stephen.”
    “Things come full circle. That’s what they say isn’t it?” Stephen smiles and looks down, biting gently on his lower lip. He turns away. “I had to take it,” he says. “The job, that is. Jill is still looking. She’s a teacher. High school. She’s at a meeting tonight for the pre-school Barbara will be going to in the fall. She’s our youngest.”
    “Of? Youngest of?”
    “Four.”
    Mary nods.
    “Can I get you something to drink?” Stephen asks. “Soda? Ice-water?”
    “Ice-water, thanks.” Stephen leaves the room and Mary wanders toward the fireplace. She looks at the pictures along the marble mantle place. The largest, centermost picture shows Stephen on his wedding day with his wife. They are standing outdoors in a wooden Gazebo, sunlight at their backs. His wife’s face is partially obscured as they embrace. Mary can see that she is beautiful, her blonde hair falling down the back of her white sequin dress. Next to the photo are half a dozen family portraits, staggered from the front of the mantle to the back, seemingly in chronological order. Mary looks at Stephen’s oldest son, whose sharp, prominent jaw line strikingly resembles his father’s.
    “Here you go.” Stephen hands Mary a glass of water. Mary takes a sip.
    “You have a beautiful family,” she says.
    “Thank you.” Stephen rests against the wall and takes a long drink of cola.
    “Stephen,” Mary says. “I came here to talk about your father.” Stephen nods. Mary continues. “I know it’s unusual for me to be visiting you like this—”
    “But I invited you.”
    “Still.” Mary puts her glass on the mantle place. “It’s an unusual situation. I just feel very close to your father…I don’t know how to explain it. Something about him touched me. He’s completely alone. Do you understand that?”
    Stephen takes a sip from his glass and squeezes his lips together. “Right. I do.”
    “And he needs to see you. I think he needs to see you.”
    “Right.”
    “So will you come tomorrow?”
    Stephen rubs his palms lightly together. “Well, no,” he says.
    “I don’t understand.”
    Stephen smiles. “But how could you?”
    “It’s just that…you invited me here. I thought—” “I’m glad he has you to care for him.” Stephen looks up at the ceiling. “It’s nice you care so much.”
    Mary thinks of Henry lying in his bed, likely fading away as they speak. “But what about you?” she snaps. It is so unlike her, and for a moment she is stunned by the clarity of her own voice. She wishes only that Stephen would show something, feel something for his father. He lowers his gaze from the ceiling. A dreamy half-smile creeps onto his face.
    “Well, one might say: where was he when we—that is, my mother and me—needed him to care for us? That would be a fair question, I think.” Mary stares at Stephen, then looks down at the shining hardwood. Stephen steps toward the mantle and picks up a picture of his youngest son. “It makes me want more than anything in the world to be a great father to my children,” he says. “Right? So that I don’t repeat his mistakes.”
    Mary feels a catching in her chest, a sharp pain, as though a nerve has been pinched. And then nothing. She feels utterly empty, as though the wind has been sucked out of her.
    “Did you want to sit down, Mary?”
    “No, thanks. I’ll leave now.”


    Mary slams the door to her car. She sits in front of the wheel for several minutes without turning the ignition. When she does, the news comes over the radio. Something about the weather, a ballgame, people returning from the mountains, preparing for another week of work. Pulling slowly out of the cul-de-sac, she reaches down and turns off the radio. She rolls down her window, feels the evening air cool against her skin. A tear falls from her eye; she does not touch it, but leaves it resting midway down her cheek. When she reaches the Burrard Bridge she slows to a near stop. The bridge is jammed with cars, and the minutes go by without moving.