Mark’s oxygen tank hissed.
“These are my parents, Sheila and Dirk. Mom, Dad — this is Mark Fisher. He’s—,” Casper hesitated. He realized he hadn’t spoken her name in months. “Mark is Reagan’s father.” Casper was proud that his parents didn’t miss a beat. They both stood and warmly greeted Mark, who tolerated it tacitly, briefly pulling down his mask to reveal a polite grimace.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get here till now. Did the surgery begin on time?” Casper nodded, dazed. Mark replaced his mask over his face. “Have they given you any updates?”
“No, but they said every hour.” Mark checked his watch, then looked again at Casper.
“Would you mind if I sat down?” Mom picked up her things and moved to sit next to Dad. Mark thanked her and hobbled to take her seat. They all sat in silence, occasionally acknowledging one another with a courteous nod whenever they happened to make eye contact.
“You like Tolkien?” Mark asked, gesturing to the book on Casper’s knee.
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Never read him,” Mark shrugged. “The movies were good, though.”
“Our boys loved those movies!” Mom chirped, leaning over Dad. “They used to run around the yard with sticks and pretend to be — oh, what was the elf named? That really handsome one?”
“I don’t recall,” Mark answered.
“Sheila, I need to go make a call and check in with Nick.” Mom told Dad that would be fine, and to go ahead. “Would you like to come with me?” Dad stood and waited until Mom understood.
“You know? I think I will come with you after all, honey. We’ll bring back some coffee. I’ve got my phone, Casper. Call me if you hear anything.”
Casper smiled gratefully, but as soon as they had gone, he suddenly wished they had stayed. He fiddled with the corner of the book, then traced the embossed letters of the title. Mark was staring straight ahead at the screen display.
“So,” Casper cleared his throat, “Did Reagan tell you about the surgery?” Mark shook his head. Casper’s heart sank. He didn’t know why. Given how she had refused to acknowledge his or their son’s existence, he had no reason to expect that she would care enough to be sharing any updates with Mark. If she even read any of them. He cleared his throat again. “Then how did you know?”
“She forgot her phone on the couch when she went to bed last night. I heard it go off and happened to glance at the screen. That’s how I knew. I’m sorry. I know I’m not the person you wanted to see.”
“No, I appreciate it,” Casper replied. Mark’s oxygen tank popped. “Really. I’m just surprised.”
“Surprised I’m here? Or that she isn’t?”
“No, I mean—that is, I—I didn’t really think she would come,” Casper stammered, suddenly embarrassed. Mark said nothing. Casper’s face was becoming hot. He thumbed the pages of the book and cleared his throat again. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to her, but—,” Casper clenched his jaw, “I guess I assumed she would want to know that her son is undergoing open heart surgery down the street. But I guess I was wrong, wasn’t I?” He peered at Mark, but he made no answer. “If it’s not convenient for her, it’s not convenient.” Several people turned to look at him, but Mark remained silent. Casper forced out a breath and stared at his shoes. The muddy green carpet was speckled with coffee splatter. He lowered his voice. “But it was nice of you to come.”
Mark scoffed gently. Casper checked his watch and glanced up at the status screen. SURGERY IN PROGRESS. Why haven’t they called yet?
“I’m not known for being nice.” Casper didn’t deny it. Mark fiddled with the zipper of his hoodie. His face was prickly and gaunt, and his fingers were thin and pale. “I’m only here because it’s the right thing.”
“Why? You’re under no obligation to me or to Joule.”
“But Reagan is. I think she owes you the truth, and if she won’t tell it to you, I will.” Casper shrugged.
“She doesn’t owe me anything. I’m the one who ruined her life, remember? Again. You know better than anybody. I’m only here — Joule’s only here — because of what I did.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mark snapped, lacing the phrase with an expletive. Casper was startled. Mark jabbed his finger across the room at a somber couple huddled together by the window and lowered his voice. “Are you going to tell those people that they’re here because of what they did?” he hissed. “Or them? What about those two? Are you willing to march up to them and tell them it’s their fault that their child is sick?”
“Mark, come on.” Casper cautioned as he glanced around the room. “Keep your voice down. Of course it’s not their fault.”
“But you’re special, aren’t you?” Mark spat, cursing again. “Your suffering has some cosmic justice attached to it, or something else equally absurd.” He leaned back against the seat and cracked his knuckles.
“Look, you don’t understand. That’s not what I meant. I meant that Joule wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for me.” Mark nodded ironically. Casper’s face got red. “Don’t you think I recognize that he doesn’t deserve it? I’m the one who deserves it.”
“Everything is about you, isn’t it? Spare me the self-flagellation. You are —,” Mark searched the ceiling briefly before enunciating his next thought, “pitifully naive if you think that people actually get what they deserve in this life. You know, I’ve got a lot of issues with organized religion, but the concept of hell isn’t one of them. If there were any justice in this world—,” he paused. “Did Reagan ever tell you about her mother?” Casper shook his head. Mark adjusted his mask. “It doesn’t matter. But try to understand: you’re not special. Things just happen. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Casper couldn’t think of anything to say back. “Life is a lot more bearable if you stop expecting it to make sense. There is nothing behind any of this,” Mark said, sweeping his hand across the room.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Right, of course,” Mark scoffed. “Does everything happen for a reason, Peter Pan?”
“Yes, all right?” Casper snapped. “Yes, I believe that.”
“So, your little boy has a hole in his heart because you knocked up my daughter out of wedlock.” Casper swallowed. “That’s what you think, isn’t it?”
“Of course not.”
“Tell me something. How long until your god decides you’ve been sufficiently punished? Does Joule need to die?” Casper flinched as if he’d been struck. He was on his feet, storming toward the door, fuming with shame. Mark was insane. Cruel. Barbaric. The thought had never entered his mind. Never. He stopped in his tracks and looked at the status board. CASE # 17450 – JORGENSON – SURGERY IN PROGRESS. He clenched his arms across his chest and bounced on his feet, refusing to turn around.
He had hoped she would come. He had wondered if she would hold his hand, if they would talk or only scroll on their phones. Anything would have been better than this. He clenched his jaw. For months, he had given her the benefit of the doubt because he had still hoped she was worthy of it. It was becoming impossible to do that anymore.
“It’s been an hour. Why must these places be run by such utter incompetents?” Behind him, Casper heard Mark’s oxygen tank rattling along the carpet as he stormed toward the reception desk. “Excuse me,” Mark addressed the secretary with insulting slowness. He indicated Casper with his hand. “He was promised an update every hour. It’s now been seventy-two minutes since his son’s surgery began and there has been no update.” The secretary murmured a response. Mark dismissed it with an expletive. Casper sighed and strode over to the desk.
“It’s fine, Mark. I’m sorry,” he said to the secretary. “We’re okay. Come on, Mark.”
“No, it’s not fine. It’s a racket. This whole system is a joke. People are sick and dying while you people skim the cream off the top.” The secretary sighed and pasted a smile on her face. Casper put a hand on Mark’s thin arm and pulled him away, but Mark resisted with surprising strength, clamping his wiry fingers to the desk. “We’re not idiots. You’re all in bed with the pharmaceutical companies, lining your pockets, all the while we’re out here—,”
“We’re okay, ma’am,” Casper said stiffly. “Come on, Mark.” Mark yanked his arm away.
“Do you have any idea how many days I’ve wasted in this place while you people sit here doing nothing, getting richer and fatter as we speak?”
“I’m so sorry,” Casper offered again.
“Sir,” the secretary began, undaunted, “you can tell your father that we are doing our best, and that—,”
“That’s a load of bull and you know it,” Mark grumbled. He coughed and stopped to take a breath. “If we don’t hear anything in —,” he coughed again, “in fifteen minutes, I’m calling the hospital admin and reporting you.” The secretary gave him a patronizing nod and turned back to her computer.
When they were seated again, Casper waited while Mark muttered diatribes about Big Pharma under his breath. He looked at the status screen, which was unchanged, and avoided residual stares from the attention they had garnered during the scene at the reception desk. He checked his watch, frowned, then opened his book and stared at the first paragraph.
Mark was wrong. He didn’t understand. Casper pulled out his phone and opened the text from Abby.
>> hey, jorgenson – praying for you and joule today
>> Thanks, Rice. It means a lot.
He hadn’t responded yet to any of the other messages he’d received over the past twelve hours. But they all said the same thing. Praying for you and Joule. What do they think?
They had given him so much, and he had endured it only as far as he could believe that it was meant for Joule, and not for him. He thought of the white business envelope back home, labeled “Cash 4 Casper,” stuffed with leathery bills and checks emblazoned with American flags, basset hounds, and Mickey Mouse. Each one made out to him.
Did they merely pity him? Did they pity his son? That was tolerable, even welcome. But maybe that wasn’t it. He thought of what Abby had told him in the nursery. We know. It doesn’t change anything. It’s for both of you.
Fifty-four hundred dollars given without hesitation, without any thought of reciprocation. It’s for both of you. For you.
A voice gently hissed through the intercom.
“Would the family of Joule Jorgenson please come to the desk?” Casper sprang to his feet and was at the desk in moments, panting. The secretary held a phone up to him. “It’s an update from the surgical floor.”
“Thank you, thanks.” He clutched the phone to his ear. “Dr. Shakir?”
“Hello, Mr. Jorgenson. This is Kimberly.” Her voice was pleasant and strongly Midwestern. “I’m one of the nurses assisting on the surgery. Dr. Shakir wanted me to let you know that everything is going great and we’re right on time. Joule took to the the bypass machine perfectly and his vitals are excellent. We’ll keep you updated.”
“Thank you. Thanks so much.” He handed the phone back with shaking hands. He placed his hands on his stomach and struggled to regain his breath. Thank you. Thank you. He pulled out his phone and texted his parents.
“Everything’s okay,” he said to no one in particular as he sat back down. He sighed with relief, sinking his head back against the wall. Four more hours, that was it. “I think he’s going to be okay.” He closed his eyes. Thank You. Thank You. “Thanks,” Casper heard himself say, still panting with elation. “Not for insulting the staff, but, you know. Thanks for asking.” Mark said nothing, but Casper, high and blissful, kept talking. “I was trying not freak out that they hadn’t updated me yet, but…well, I’m sure you’ve observed by now that assertiveness is not my strong suit.” He laughed, suddenly pleased with everything in the world.
“Nor is it mine, clearly. I’m openly aggressive.” Casper glanced at Mark and laughed again. Over the medical mask, Casper could see a glimmer of humor in the wizened, careworn eyes. “You may not believe it, but I wasn’t always like this. Reagan says either I’ve entirely lost my filter or it’s just got massive holes and everything gets through anyway.” Casper smiled again, but his heart darkened immediately after. His smile faded. He took a few deep breaths, recovering from his relief, and settled back in the seat.
It had been so long since he’d heard her voice, fresh and alive, alighting on his ears. For months he’d been subsisting on replayed conversations and memories. Her words spilling out too quickly when she was nervous, the mischievous low tone she took when she was trying to be funny, and the way she kept speaking even while she was yawning, stretching the words till they were unintelligible.
But she hadn’t come.
“How is she?” he heard himself say. “How’s Charlotte?”
“Lottie’s good, I suppose. She asks about you from time to time. And the baby.”
“What do you tell her?”
“We change the subject, Casper.”
“I see.” Mark sighed grimly.
“Whatever you might feel about it, in situations like these it’s better to make as clean a break possible. It’s not a good idea to linger on it or wallow in it.”
“A clean break,” Casper repeated, nodding ironically. “Joule won’t have the option to erase his own mother. Even if she tried to erase him.”
“That’s not fair, Casper. You don’t know what you’re saying. You’re assuming that it was simple for her,” Mark said quietly. “But it broke her heart.” He didn’t need her to be heartbroken, though admittedly, it was nice to hear it. “She hasn’t been the same. She hardly talks. Barely laughs. Never even cooks anymore. She almost floats off the ground, as if she were existing on a different plane.” Fine. Good. “She has never talked to me about it, but I can assure you she never meant to,” Mark hesitated and lowered his voice, “erase anybody. She doesn’t think like that.”
“Then, she acts like that.” Casper straightened up. “But she can’t ignore Joule forever. I’m moving back, you know.”
“What do you mean? Why?”
“I’ve got an interview at Carver this week. I’m going to get the job, and I’m bringing Joule back. And once she sees him, and sees that she can’t erase us, she’ll change her mind.”
“Look, Casper—,” Mark began, but stopped as Mom and Dad entered the room.
“Honey, I got your text,” Mom appeared, beaming, and holding two cups of coffee toward them. “Mark, I hope you take cream and sugar?”
“Thank you,” he said, taking the cup and appearing to busy himself with his oxygen tubing.
“Are you all right?” she asked, studying Casper’s face.
“For sure, yeah. Is Dad coming back?”
“Oh, he’s on the phone with Bernie. They are still trying to figure out if they want to experiment with that new storage method for the silage this year. Nicklas has been pushing it for so long, but you know how it goes with your dad and Bernie.”
He and Mark listened to Mom attentively, and it seemed to him they were both relieved to not be talking anymore.
—
Silage. He had been raised on silage. He had grown up hearing about it, talking about it, smelling it, cutting it, packing it into those fat, white bales, and stacking it like so many giant marshmallows. Or rolls of toilet paper. He owed every Christmas gift to silage. It was the fermentation process that first piqued his interest in biology. He had been fascinated as Dad explained the precise process of cultivating the ideal environment for the fresh corn and grass to transform into that fragrant, rich fodder. Frankly, he owed more to the cows who consumed the silage.
But it occurred to him that he had never been properly grateful for silage until that day. Dad and Mom regaled Mark with decades’ worth of stories, and to Casper’s astonishment, not only did he politely listen, but he actually appeared to be sincerely engaged, continuing to marvel at the intricacies of a process that had hitherto been completely unknown to him. It seemed to Casper that the three of them were actually forgetting about him, which pleased him immensely. Anything but having to speak to Mark anymore.
As he watched Mark accept a blueberry muffin from Mom’s purse, he was smitten by a sudden pang of grief.
“You want one, Bud?” Dad asked, holding out two muffins to him. “Looks like banana walnut or — what is this, Sheila? Bran or chocolate?”
“I’m okay, Dad. I’m not hungry.” He checked his watch again. 11:35. “They’re probably finishing up pretty soon, don’t you think?”
“Probably,” Dad answered. “Do you think they’ll let us go back there with you to see him?”
“I doubt it,” Mom sighed. “I’m sure they have some silly rule.”
“You said it,” grumbled Mark, wadding up the cling film from his muffin. He leaned past Casper toward Mom and Dad and conspiratorially lowered his voice. “Ever since Covid these people are up on their high horse, just seeing what they can get away with. Trust me, I have been kicked around this system for years. It’s nothing but a power trip on a colossal scale. But it’s all in the name of public health, mind you.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Dad muttered. “It’s completely ridiculous the way they’ve taken over.” Mark and Mom nodded their hearty agreement. Casper sighed and made a valiant effort not to roll his eyes.
“Or maybe they want to prevent infection. It is a hospital, after all. You of all people should appreciate that, Mark.”
“Of course, honey.” Mom patted his shoulder, and then the three of them ignored him again to discuss sundry anecdotal evidence of medical ineptitude and government overreach.
“Would the family of Joule Jorgenson please come to the desk?”
Casper was there before the secretary had finished speaking.
—
He apologized for pushing past the PACU nurse who was taking vitals. He tore one of the latex gloves he was required to wear and had to be given a new one. He pulled the mask over his ears and stopped, surveying the room of machines and incubators. The nurse he had hip-checked helped him find the one that belonged to him.
He placed his hand on the plexiglass barrier. The white bandage was plastered over his son’s chest like a breastplate, the gossamer oxygen tube was like a string of glass under the tiny nose. The monitors chirped and flickered. His son’s tiny toes twitched in his sleep, heedless of the needle in his foot, attached to yards of tubing. His arms were up near his head, his face content and dreaming, more deeply restful than Casper had ever seen it.
Casper’s breath caught in his throat.
“God,” he whispered, tears blinding him. “God.”
—
Mom and Dad offered to drive Mark home on their way out. They went to retrieve the truck from the parking garage while Casper accompanied Mark to the front entrance.
“How long are you going to be in town?” Mark asked, huffing from the effort.
“I’m not sure. Dr. Shakir thinks we could be going home in about a week.”
“Are you going to spend the night here then?”
“Yeah. They’ll give me one of those reclining chairs.” Mark grimaced. “It’ll be all right. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I were anywhere else but here.”
“Fair enough.” They stood at the glass doors, watching people passing by in wheelchairs and walkers. Casper saw the maroon Chevy pulling into the traffic loop.
“Mark, what did you mean earlier, when you said Reagan wouldn’t tell me the truth?”
“Oh.” Mark zipped up his hoodie and huddled into it, despite the bright summer sun streaming through the glass. “Forget about that.” He craned his neck and peered out the window. “I see an Iowa license plate. That must be your parents.”
Casper held the oxygen tank as Mark struggled into the truck. Mark took the tank from him and didn’t say another word. Mom stuffed two oranges and the banana walnut muffin into Casper’s backpack.
“I really hate leaving you like this, honey,” she sighed. “You’d better eat while you’re here. And you have a phone charger, don’t you? So you’ll call us and keep us updated? Don’t give me that look. You promise this time?” Casper hugged her tightly.
“Yes, Mama.”
“I can be here in under three hours,” Dad reminded him. “We’ll be back Friday night, and you let me know the exact minute if the doc discharges you early.”
“I promise.” Dad hugged him firmly, and Casper felt his dad’s massive hand briefly clasp his head, as if he were a little boy.
After they drove away, he raced back upstairs to the PACU.
© 2024-2025 Katie Bertola. All rights reserved.
Katie Bertola 