Every Little Thing Read online

  “Roger that.”

  “I really do appreciate this. He’s been a second father to me, you know that.”

  “Lee would do this for me, right?”

  “What, if you went crazy?”

  “If they’re sending him home, everything must be okay. No one’s crazy yet.”

  She said nothing for a few seconds. Then, “Is this why we met all those years ago? So I’d have someone to call the day Lee turned up in a snowbank?”

  ALL THE TESTS the hospital had run, and their presentation of Lee’s case, was akin to a pack of scientists having identified an impending natural disaster. Clipboards, charts, machines, bad news, something ready to blow.

  A middle-aged blonde doctor in a white lab coat sat him down. She kept adjusting the collar of her lab coat, like it chafed her neck or something. She spoke kindly, softening her truth so it’d sting a little less as she pelted it out.

  She and her intern or resident—Cohen assumed resident by the guy’s keen confidence—explained the whole story. The resident, in blue scrubs, couldn’t have been more than thirty, but plain looked smart. His eyes held intensely wide-opened, like a guy who reads textbooks on the beach instead of novels. The doctor and the resident, sat on the same bench, turned to face Cohen. The resident leaning awkwardly forward, to peer around the female doctor: his chest almost touching his knees.

  “Mr. Davies. I’m Doctor Ross and this is Doctor Langor. Are you…a grandchild of Lee’s maybe?”

  “I—Lee never had children. I’m here on behalf of the closest thing he has to a daughter.” He stopped there, at that gauche response, and didn’t fill in the blanks of his and Allie’s failed relationship. “She’s in Montreal,” he added, as if that gave his presence more purpose.

  “Well, he has you down as one of two next of kin. That counts.” A big bright smile: red lipstick parting to expose her snow-white teeth. A mouth like a bitten apple. Cohen was touched by the news.

  “Firstly, Lee is stable right now, physically and mentally. But I don’t want to mislead you, nor do I want to alarm you. So stop me at any point as I explain Lee’s condition, and I’ll try to clarify. We also have some pamphlets for you. But I like to give a summary in person.” She smiled then, like she was proud of her generosity of time. Like she was repulsed by how curt and uncaring some doctors could be.

  “I like to use a plumbing analogy when I explain this disease. Picture pipes instead of arteries and water instead of blood. Now, picture things like cholesterol as tissue paper, clogging up those pipes. There’s tissues, or cholesterol, blocking the flow of Lee’s blood, so it can’t get to certain parts of his brain. These blockages are interrupting the flow of blood—and therefore oxygen—to parts of his brain. When tissues are deprived of blood, they die. These areas of dead tissue are called infarctions. Do you understand so far?”

  “Actually, yes. I’m a biologist, so...” He shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t mean to sound la de da, but didn’t want her talking in analogies.

  “Oh. Perfect. Lee’s strokes have caused what we call multi-infarction dementia. But Doctor Langor noticed abnormalities in Lee’s workup that indicated a rare type of multi-infarction dementia. A distinct disease known as Binswanger Disease or BD. We ran a CAT scan and there were definitive signs of BD.” She smiled over at her resident, proudly, and Langor beamed pride.

  “Everything you need to know about Binswanger Disease is in this pamphlet.” She handed it to him. “I’m afraid it’s irreversible. And I’m afraid it’s incurable and progressive. You’ll need to look into palliative care for Lee as soon as possible,” she said, standing up and smoothing her lab coat. “Things will deteriorate and I would advise you to avail of the care services detailed in this pamphlet—”

  “But, for now. Should I take him back to my place or his?”

  “His, certainly. He’ll do much better in familiar surroundings. As we all would. Also, is there a washroom and bedroom on the main floor?”

  He had to think about it. A washroom yes, but Lee slept upstairs. “There…could be.”

  She nodded, smiled again with her bitten-apple mouth. “It’ll be best to move his bedroom to the main floor. Staircases might become a challenge. Impaired muscle movement and subsequent clumsiness are common. I’ve already noted odd posturing. But in any case, unrelated as it is, his vision is very poor. We see far too many senior-related slip-and-falls as it is. Particularly down stairs. But mainly, you need to be thinking about a long-term facility care that can accommodate your loved one. I can vouch for the ones in the pamphlet you have.”

  She took her prescription pad out. Scribbled furiously. “Abixa might help offset dementia, and this other pill will lower his blood pressure to reduce risks of further strokes.” She tucked the prescription into the BD pamphlet then nodded her head to Cohen as if to say, Okay, we’re all done here. Langor the sidekick followed her, walking in her shadow.

  Cohen sat there for a few minutes, absorbing the details in the BD pamphlet. There were diagrams of the brain, with explanations of strokes and quick-fact textboxes in the margins, like What does“Executive Cognitive Functioning” mean?

  It was too much text to take in, knowing Lee was waiting in that room alone. But a quick scan of bolded words and headlines was enough for now: irritability, inappropriate behaviours, difficulty concentrating, forgetfulness, depression, changes in personality, impaired thought processes, mental capacities will diminish. Memory could deteriorate as well as a sense of time. A likelihood of additional and more frequent strokes. Possible incontinence.

  It was a small font and the list went on and on. The symptoms were so numerous and free-standing they were to be treated separately with a new personal pharmacy of pills: anti-depressants should they become depressed and so on. He closed the pamphlet and heard an echo reverberating through the hall before realizing it was the sound of his own shoe tapping off the floor. Should’ve been a drummer, Allie had always said to him. You’re always tapping. Always.

  HE WALKED INTO Lee’s room not knowing what to expect. Because of Allie’s warnings and the doctor’s bleak news, Cohen approached him like Lee was a delicate vase he didn’t want to knock over. He’d have felt bad about it if Lee had noticed Cohen’s softened gait, but Lee’s vision was as bad as they’d all implied it was. He heard Cohen before he saw him. Heard the claps of feet on the floor, craned his head towards the sound, and then he titled his head back and up; staring at Cohen through the bottom slit of his bi-focals. It was a weird, slow, bat-like echolocation. The left arm of his thick, black, plastic glasses was taped back on: a cocoon-shaped bundle of grey where arm met lens.

  Lee was sitting on the edge of a bed with only the tips of his sneakers touching the floor. He looked older, terribly old. His eyes sunk so deeply into their sockets that it had to have cost him peripheral vision. There were too many bones visible under his skin. His jaw was shaky, like he was muttering to himself, but he wasn’t. His eyes were all crunched up like he was angry about something, and Cohen was worried about Allie’s impossible warning that Lee might not take to him.

  “Cohen? Cohen is that you, Cohen?”

  Cohen nodded. But he wasn’t sure if Lee had noticed. “It is. How are you—”

  “Allie’s not with you?”

  “No, she’s—”

  “Why not?”

  He waited a second before answering. “She’s…still in Montreal.” He didn’t know if he should say still because he didn’t know if Lee would remember that she was in Montreal.

  “Right. Allie’s out of town. Right. Montreal.”

  There was something almost childish about the way he spoke and put his thoughts together. And something disconcerting about that wobbly jaw. It looked like Lee was trying to say something else, and Cohen waited to be sure he wasn’t. “Yeah. She sent me to get you. I’m happy to be your pick-up service. It’s been a while.”

  Still adjusting to this new Lee Allie had spoken of, he grabbed Lee’s jacket off the back of
a chair and stepped in really close to Lee so he’d see him. He held Lee’s jacket open for him, and said, “I told her I’d get you home, and then she stationed me at your place until she gets back. Looks like we’re roommates for the next five days, buddy ol’ pal.”He patted Lee on the shoulder, but with a little malaise because of the way Lee had put his arms into his coat. His arms wouldn’t bend any more than they had to at the elbow. It was like putting a coat on a scarecrow.

  Three minutes and not a single wisecrack. His feet were gliding along the floor, never leaving it, as they walked out of the room. He was skating instead of walking.

  In the hallway, on the way to the elevator, Lee said, “Not surprised she sent you. Her shithead fiancé and I have never gotten along.”

  “Fiancé now, is it?”

  “I’m afraid so. And he used that ring Matt gave you. Hopefully he’ll get hit by lightning or choke on a chicken bone before they tie the knot.” Cohen laughed, but Lee glared at him, lips in a snarl, I’m serious. “I wish Allie had of come for me herself. No offense.”

  It hurt like a thrown rock; caught him off guard. There was nothing old friends about him and Lee anymore. And shaking it off wasn’t as easy as blaming the disease. “So Keith hasn’t won you over in all these years, hey, a charming man like him?”

  “It’s not even funny. So don’t make jokes about it.” Lee stopped walking when he talked, like he couldn’t do both at once.

  “I’ve seen the guy with his mask off and it’s ugly stuff.”He shook his head, but started walking again. “Allie, she’s too, I dunno. It’s sad, really.” He stopped walking again and said, “She’s got this warmth. But that guy. Too many years with a guy like that. Taking and taking and taking, never stoking her fire. I wonder how long until he’s taken all the sticks out of her fire, you know?”

  “Sort of.” And he meant sort of. Lee’s fire analogy either showed a deep cognitive ability or it hinted at the kind of screwy thought processing the BD pamphlet warned him about. “If she’s happy, she’s happy—”

  “If I had enough life left in me, I’d run the son of a bitch over or I’d knock him in front of a bus.”

  Cohen went to laugh then because there it was: the extremist Lee he was waiting to hear a trace of. But when he looked at Lee, Lee was all anger. His face a mouthful of lemon.

  “It’s almost like I owe it to her to get that son of a bitch.”

  “Get him?”

  Lee had nothing more to say, and Cohen needed time to recalibrate how he’d expected the next five days to unfold. What made Lee seem so foreign now couldn’t have been as simple as a lack of wisecracks and humour, and yet it was.

  They got to the elevator, and Cohen stepped in. He pressed the main floor button, but Lee was still standing in the hall, looking into the elevator. Cohen had to stick an arm out to keep the doors opened. That much time had passed. Delayed psychomotor response. It was in the BD pamphlet. A delay between a patient thinking and his muscles acting.

  HE PULLED INTO Lee’s driveway, and Lee thanked him for the ride as if they were saying their goodbyes. Cohen had told Lee at least twice he’d be staying with him until Allie got home. And driving home, there’d been a stretch of five minutes where Lee looked totally lost in a daydream. And then he balled up a fist and slammed it down on the dashboard. And then he did it again. Cohen almost sideswiped the car next to him.

  “Lee,my God, man!What’s the matter!”

  And Lee only shook his head. Cohen had been expecting small talk on the way home. Some catching up.

  It felt like the doctors at the hospital had misled him about how stable Lee really was. What stable even meant. How many degrees of stable there were. He pulled into Lee’s driveway, and Lee said, “Well, kid, thanks for the taxi ride,”and he grabbed the door handle to open the door. Lee had a new gesture that spoke to his agedness. He tilted his head back, excessively, when he looked at anyone. It was so he could look through the lower half of his bifocals, Cohen figured, but still. It was an exaggerated gesture.

  “No, no. Allie has me stationed here until she gets back from Montreal.”He wanted to say, Remember? but he didn’t. “I’ve got a suitcase in the trunk.”

  Lee said, “Oh,” and he looked away from Cohen, staring straight through the windshield at his house. He nodded once and opened the car door.

  Oh, he’d said, and less jovially than Cohen would have liked.

  Long seconds ticked by between Lee opening his car door and him stepping out. Following Lee up the steps and into the house at that snail-crawl of a pace, he saw what a challenge a few stairs were to Lee now.

  They made it into the kitchen and Cohen caught himself shout-talking to Lee, slowly, like Lee was dumb now, like he might not understand, and Lee looked a little embarrassed about it. “All right. I’ve got a suitcase and some boxes out in my trunk. Make yourself useful and get some coffee going for us?”

  He turned to walk out to his car, and Lee finally spoke. “So you’re here to prevent me from diving into another snowbank, so to speak? I don’t care if everyone’s talking about me. Not in this town.”

  “No one’s talking about you. Get the coffee on. I’ll be right back.”

  Cohen left the room without a response and fetched his suitcase and a few boxes of work stuff. A microscope and some pond samples. He laid it all down in the living room where he’d sleep and work until Allie got back in town, sizing up the couch like it might be too short to make a decent makeshift bed.

  When he went back into the kitchen, Lee had his head titled up like he was looking where the walls met the ceiling. His chin pointed out. Even with those googly glasses, Lee had to move his head the way an owl does to see anything. It was like there was something wrong with the bones in his neck.

  There was a wet disc radiating out from Lee’s crotch. He was pissing himself, and Cohen didn’t know what to do about it.

  ALLIE PHONED AT six. In place of a hello, she said, “Go into another room.”

  “What?”

  “Go into another room where he can’t hear you. Or go outside or something and tell me when you’re there.”

  So he did. He went outside without putting any shoes on and stepped on a small, sharp rock and screamed about it.

  “What?” she said, concerned.

  “Nothing, I,”hopping on one foot, “I stepped on a pebble or something.”

  She laughed. “A pebble? Man up, Cohen. Toughen up a little bit.”

  “It was a sharp one. Like a tack!” He got into his car and slammed the door shut. “Okay, I’m out in my car, out of earshot.”

  “What’d the doctors say? How is he? How are you two getting along?”

  “We’re fine, but you’re right. He’s not Lee anymore. It’s sad as hell. He’s a fucking prick now, actually.” Cohen laughed so she’d know he meant it in a sad way, not a harsh way. “He’s a bore. I don’t think he even likes me anymore.”He reclined his chair, leaned back, and put his feet up on the dash.

  “Don’t take it personally, Cohen. My God, you’re smarter than that. We’re all just a sack of blood and organs waiting to fail.”

  “Jesus! That’s a little depressingly pragmatic of you. Don’t tell me you’re a bore now too? I just want the guy to laugh a little, that’s all. Lighten up. He’s like hanging out with Frankenstein.”

  “I know. Trust me. The doctors, what did they say?”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know how different he is now compared to last week, before the latest stroke. He’s irritable. Bitter. Flat. Nothing’s funny anymore. Movement seems like such an effort. When he walks he doesn’t even lift his feet. I don’t know how he does it. It’s like he’s moonwalking forward. Is that what it’s called, moonwalking? That thing Michael Jackson did, where he slid around without lifting his feet?”

  She laughed, “Shut up about Michael Jackson, but yes. Keep going. This is nothing new.”

  “Well, he started punching my dashboard out of the blue on the drive home. Scar
ed the shit out of me. I almost hit another car. His eyes are gone, you’re right. He, ah, pissed himself, but dealt with it himself, after I got him up the stairs. Is that new?”

  “Well. No. But. That’s a rare one, don’t worry.”

  “The doctor suggested I set him up on the main floor before he can’t do the stairs anymore or before he falls down over them. So I’m going to move all his junk out of the den and move his bed and bedroom furniture down into the den.”

  “Wait. Until I get home. I’ll…help you. Or you help me or whatever. Can you? Help me? Move the stuff?”

  “I…just told you I’d do it, didn’t I?”

  “Thanks so much.”

  “So I’ll wait for you to get home and help me?”

  “Yeah. I’d get Keith to help, but since you’re already there, you know? Lee doesn’t stand for it when I take Keith along.”

  “Finally: me and Lee still got something in common. I’d rather Keith not come along too.”

  “About that. It’s a little awkward I called you to help me out here. Keith’s not very happy about that.”

  “Keith needs to worry a little more about Lee and a little less about who is looking after him?”

  “Truthfully, Lee’s been the unreasonable one there. He threw a potted plant at Keith last time he came over. And then he threw it at Keith’s car—”

  Cohen laughed, cutting her off.

  “Don’t laugh! There was damage, scratches anyway. So, like, just trust me. The situation isn’t funny. There’s nothing funny anymore when it comes to Lee. You’ve seen that, right?”

  “More or less. I’m still waiting for him to yell gotcha and start cracking jokes.”

  “Not gonna happen. Now what else did the doctors say happened?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve got pamphlets here and places they suggested he be...checked into for proper care. Long-term care or whatever. The way I understand it, all the strokes are causing or maybe are caused by—I dunno. It’s like a vicious cycle between the strokes and the damage they are causing because the damage causes more strokes. It’s called Binswanger Disease. BD. It’s Alzheimer’s-like, but without the severity of memory loss—”