AllFreeNovel
Share Us
FIVE MINUTES LATER, BRIAN called and told us the EMTs were taking Seamus to the emergency room, so instead of going home, we redirected the cabbie to St. Luke’s Hospital on Amsterdam Avenue.
Another day, another hospital, I thought as we pulled up outside. My stomach churned as I considered the worst. That the inevitable had finally happened to my grandfather. That Seamus was already dead.
Please, God, let me be wrong, I prayed as we came through the revolving doors into the waiting room. We still need him more than you do.
They let us upstairs to six, where Seamus had just been admitted.
But surprisingly, when we entered his room, instead of being laid out on a gurney, he was sitting up in bed with his arms crossed and one of his patented scowls on his face.
“Seamus!” I said, beating Mary Catherine to him by a half step to hug him. “You’re OK! Jeez, you scared the heck out of us! What happened?”
“He had a stroke,” said a short, handsome young doctor as he stepped into the room.
“See, here on the MRI where it’s gray?” Dr. Jacob Freeman said as he held a readout up to the light. “Regions in both the parietal lobe and the gustatory area have damage from blood loss.”
“Oh my goodness, Seamus! You’ve had a stroke?” Mary Catherine said.
“Of course I had a stroke,” Seamus said. “So what? Don’t go measurin’ me for a pine box just yet. I feel fine. Whaddya think? This many years on this old rock, the plumbin’s not goin’ to get the occasional clog? Where’s me clothes? What is it that Eddie always says? Time to blow this clambake!”
“A stroke is very serious, Mr. Bennett,” the doctor said, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but you can’t leave now. You need to stay overnight for observation, and we still have more tests to run.”
“Tests,” Seamus said, rolling his eyes. “You seem like a nice little fella, but I’m in no mood to hear any more of your medical school mumbo jumbo. I made a call and my personal physician is on his way. If he says I’m good to go, I’m good to go, agreed?”
“Is he always this way?” the doctor whispered to me. “Your grandfather seems quite disoriented.”
“Actually,” I said, smiling sheepishly at Dr. Freeman, “this is normal, believe it or not.”
CHAPTER 65
“PARDON ME! COMING THROUGH!” said a bellowing Irish voice from the hall a moment later.
It was time to roll my eyes when I saw the skinny old man who walked in. It was no doctor, but Jimmy “Dowdy” Dowd, one of Seamus’s drinking and poker buddies. Actually, I think he had been a doctor, but, like, in the 1970s. He was well into his eighties now. How the heck was he still practicing medicine?
“If you would all step back and give us a little room. Thank you, thank you,” Dowdy said as he rummaged in the big old-fashioned black leather doctor bag he’d brought and put on a huge ’60s-era black stethoscope.
Dowd started out the examination by getting Seamus to stand. The second Seamus was upright, Dowd started snapping the bony fingers of both hands loudly and rapidly in Seamus’s face.
“What in the world are you doing?” said Dr. Freeman as Seamus jumped back.
“Testing his reflexes. Getting hi
m to look alive,” Dowd said.
“Easier said than done with you for a physician, James Dowd,” Seamus said, clutching his chest. “Where’d ya learn your bedside manner? The enhanced interrogation team at the CIA?”
“Enough of your squawking,” Dowd said, giving Seamus the peace sign. “How many fingers would I be holding up?”
“That’d be two last time I checked,” Seamus said. “Though I’m surprised it isn’t one, considering how badly I took you at the end of our last poker game. All in on pocket threes? What were you thinking?”
“Ah, he’s obviously fine,” Dowd said to me. “Strong as a stubborn donkey and still about as charming, which I don’t have to tell you fine long-suffering people about. I’m sure I don’t see any brain damage. Well, any more than usual, that is.”
“This is highly unusual,” Dr. Freeman said almost to himself.
Dowd turned to him.
“Enough of that now, Doctor, please. His physical coordination is fine, right? He’s thinking fairly straight. His tongue’s as sharp as ever. Therefore, I hereby deem this man fit to go home, and that’s where he’s goin’ to go. Now, be a good lad and fetch a wheelchair, would you? And bring back the paperwork while you’re at it.”
Freeman opened his mouth, then quickly closed it before leaving.
