Short Story: A Silent Christmas, Part III

Short Story: A Silent Christmas, Part III

Hospitals can be very busy places, Mike decided that day after his surgery. Life goes on regardless of the condition of one individual, because, in truth, the living must be cared for. The absent require a different kind of attention he knew.

Beginning early with his pain medication, the night-duty nurse brought juice for him, to hold off breakfast a bit. Steadily the place filled with doctors, nurses, volunteers, aides, housekeepers and administrators who turned the morning hours into a beehive of activity: getting him up to sit for breakfast, waiting for them to make up his bed, showering, and housekeeping — all very orderly and choreographed, he thought. They were bustling all over the place, as his window clocked the sun as it moved overhead to the noon hour. After a day of this Mike thought he might be glad to get home to some peaceful rest.

They brought a tasty lunch. It was the soft diet; his wife, Ellen, came with a tray of her own from the cafeteria and sat at the bedside table.

She gave no indication that she was perturbed by Strider’s grumbling and cursing at having to be fed. She scribbled her conversation with Mike, and forgot to scribble, and they laughed because they could always talk to each other with their eyes. He was so attuned to her body language that he began to feel that he was hearing her when it was not really possible. Nothing was changed between them at all, and he was delighted.

Reluctantly, but firmly, he soon sent her home to their children. Wasn’t it Christmas, after all? "Merry Christmas, My Darling. Go home — open presents . . . I will be coming home soon, and we will celebrate together then."

It was two-fifteen p.m. on Christmas day, Mike was exhausted, and they wanted him to walk a few steps – on the arms of a male nurse, of course. So, he walked, slowly and painfully, because, if they went too fast, the IV rack allowed everything to sway and, in turn, the needle in his vein to be disturbed. Down the hall they ambled, avoiding the high, multi shelved wagons bearing lunch detritus on precariously stacked trays, and being pushed by dedicated teenage volunteers. It was a relief to turn around and return at a stepped-up tortoise-pace to his bed. It looked like he had come a mile.

He didn’t quite make it, for as Mike neared his room, the last wagon-master, seeing the elevator doors about to close, made a mad dash for it, striking a blow on Mike’s unencumbered side with a vehicle exactly his height (nearly 6 feet). His nurse had stepped aside to facilitate the Intravenous tubing rack’s entry through the door to his room. The young driver stood helplessly watching Mike drop to the floor as the nurse leaped for Mike, struggled to keep him from falling into the hurtling wagon. Mercifully, Mike was rendered unconscious by the blow.

"The lights have been out for hours," was the first thing Mike said, when he opened his eyes to find a contingent of serious faces surrounding him in his bed, which included Dr. Brad.

The doctor sighed, nodded, and with a smile poised the little writing pad, and wrote: ‘Only a few minutes, actually. You were simply knocked out, but you will have to be careful with that head for a while. It nearly blew that volunteer’s mind, Mike. He’ll be okay now that he knows you’ll be all right. He was certain he had killed you --- So for now, Mike, just continue to follow my advice, regain your strength and you’ll go home before New Year’s Day, I promise.’

At the foot of Mike’s bed stood a pale dark-haired boy in white canvas, his pants so tight they made him look like a pair of pliers, Mike thought. He’d be a tough looking scrap of a boy, if he had some color in his face. Goodness, this was the wagon-master who could have done him in with a tall serving wagon loaded with garbage. The guy was scared stiff. So tightly was he gripping the foot of the bed that his knuckles gleamed white.

Mike’s mind and voice spoke: "We’ll have to give him some driver training, Doc." To the boy, Mike said, " I’m okay, see. You just bumped me a little. So, what’s your name?"

The boy would have answered; instead, he slapped a hand over his gulping mouth and bolted for the door. Something came alive in Mike, instantly. His own needs forgotten he wanted to go after the child and hold him, assure him . . . Mike was not going anywhere.

Doctor Brad shoved the clipboard into Mike’s hand. He had written, ‘Easy, Mike. Must not move so fast yet. Give it time . . .Scrappy is his name. We don’t know any other one for him. He lives here – apparently orphaned and left with the Sisters who have reared him and given him work and schooling.’

The board was quickly passed back and forth between them. ‘Okay, I’ll send him back to you, Mike,’ the doctor wrote. ‘Yes he is a fine boy. Quite shaken up, very compassionate – is that right! I did not know your two children were adopted — Ah, Mike, what do you have going on in that mind of yours? I see! Well youmight be able to work something out with Scrappy later, make friends with the boy.’

And finally the doctor had the last word, ‘Mike. I’ve got to go. I’ll be back in later.’

About four p.m. Mike walked again, thus he was absent from his room when friends came to visit. They piled their gaily wrapped packages on the bed and went in search of him. They walked back slowly to his room with him, a bit ill at ease until he could make them understand about his new channels of communication. He did so with such lightheartedness that they were all soon relaxed and able to converse animatedly on the clipboard, about the football games being televised that afternoon. It was a delight to them to hear him speak so well, because word had spread that he had lost his hearing. They heard for themselves that he had not lost his speech, too.

And they left, amazed that nothing had happened to change old friend Mike.

Δ

The shadows came down on the day while Mike napped again. When he woke up, it was to bright lights, the aroma of the Christmas dinner before him, and the scent of pine from the little tree now standing in the corner. Had his family brought it? Maybe the Sisters . . .

Strider had pushed the screen between them completely out of the way, was sitting up in his bed eating with gusto. He was surprisingly cheerful for all the effort it must be costing him. By his gestures, he conveyed to Mike his pleasure in the meal. And when he could not hold another mouthful of food, he offered to Mike his remaining portion of fruitcake. He laughed when Mike suggested they save it for a later snack since he, too, was now stuffed. Mike watched him fold his napkin with one hand. He managed to place it in the bedside table drawer. Mike declined the offer of a cigar, suspecting someone soon would put a stop to that.

Later, an Orderly wheeled a television into the room, which Mike studied with some trepidation. To his amazement he could enjoy it. Strider’s unbridled glee over Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge (in black and white) was a thing to see. Mike could only observe, amused, because he knew the story almost by heart, having read it to his children every Christmas. He sighed when it was over, and Strider began summoning a passing nurse to change channels for them. ( Remote controllers and close captioned viewing were unknown at that time.)

Mike’s heartache filled him when she switched to a Christmas Choir in a huge cathedral; He couldn’t hear the music. There was no way to determine what the mouths were forming, from so far away. He felt himself tremble slightly. He closed his eyes, closed light and sound away, and with it the pain of loss.

There was nothing to tell him when Scrappy came, but he knew it somehow, the instant the boy stopped near the foot of Mike’s bed. He looked at the boy – Scrappy it was – and liked what he saw. Any person who had fortitude enough to find a place working for the good of others would someday amount to something, given the proper direction and chances. And suddenly he knew he wanted a chance with Scrappy, this fresh clean youth with no family.

Mike gestured to the chair beside his bed. Cautiously Scrappy settled his bottom on the edge. It wasn’t entirely the tight pants, either, because the lad wrote that way too, the first little while — tightly and laboriously.

Mike tried to learn as much about Scrappy as he could, in a way that was polite and, he thought, not so obvious; he was quick – and wary. Truth was the only course open. Now convinced with this shift on Mike’s part, the youth relaxed. Writing laboriously, he admitted that the only thing he had to hide was his dream to someday be a doctor. ‘The guys,’ he wrote, ‘at the home would have killed me for having such a notion. So I figured that working in a hospital would give me a start. Anyway, later I’d be too old for them to carry out any of their threats.’

Satisfied with this beginning, Mike said nothing more. Instead he sent Scrappy to look for drinks for the three of them. Returning to them, he brought apple cider which they shared with Strider’s cake while watching football on television. Afterward, Sister came, shooed Scrappy away and settled both men for the night. Strider slept immediately.

Δ

All around him was the smell of antiseptic, intermingled with the foul odor of scorched wool – the hot-pack machine. It was nearly midnight by his watch, now restored to his wrist, as he stood before the window. He fingered the watch, thinking how it had a little electric hum rather than a classic tick. Because he had heard it before, it would always be there inside him; he could also feel the rattling of the radiator against which he leaned. A warm draft touched his ankles. He looked down at the snow-covered lawn outside and recalled the crunch of it underfoot.

Across the way, the lights in the rambling house were all out, except for that tree in the bow-window, which had become his talisman. Overhead, the sky was star-studded black, with a silly looking piece of frosty moon cuddled among the stars, and at that moment he had his last attack of fear and anxiety about his future. There would be night and day, life and death, love and laughter, and he would know it all. He would hear again someday in the normal way, but for now . . . he was content, and amazingly happy.

As Mike Bailey considered his silent Christmas, he thought of the Sister who could not hear but who had written, ‘I hear things, still. Soon you will understand, too, I think.’

He already knew what she meant. He had heard many sounds in his lifetime, memory had preserved them for his use now. He knew that’s what it was because, while watching television with Scrappy and Strider, hadn’t he, after all, heard the Christmas Choir sing "Silent Night" before Scrappy wrote to tell him they were singing that. Yes he heard it.

As he turned to go back to bed, his eye caught Strider’s laborious efforts to shift to a more comfortable position, and he waited, ready to help, for after all the man did have a very battered body, and perhaps a battered soul to go with the grumbling and misery which he exuded.

He smiled when Strider grew quiet again. Mike got into his own bed. He reached to scratch under the bandages on his own naked head, then wiped a tear from his cheek. There was no need for him to be so happy about his own circumstances when he realized that Strider had not had one visitor in all the time he had been there. Mike had a wonderful family. But poor Strider.

Tomorrow, Mike thought as he raised his head and peered over at the other bed, I’ll see if Sister can scare up a chess set for us. Strider said he likes to play chess. Maybe he could teach me a few things. We could have him over to the house when he gets well . . .

He closed his eyes. "Goodnight, Mike," he heard someone say. He opened his eyes to see a nurse placing extra blankets on their beds, smiling and talking animatedly to the aroused Strider, "and you too, Mr Strider."

"Good night to you both!" he heard himself shout joyfully

His silent Christmas was silent no longer. He didn’t even mind the last night of the tubing. It no longer gurgled. He closed his eyes and heard, "Good night, Mr. Bailey."

He had the last word. "Good night to You, too," he whispered, looking up at the star-studded sky.