Love on the Road 2015 Read Online Free PDF Page A

bunker,’ said Monroe. ‘Our Alamo. We need reinforcements.’
    Finkel found them local counsel. There were legal papers, perhaps more videos, a consultation with aprescribing physician. In two months, tops, they would be ready. Monroe’s will would be finalised and Wardell would be rich. Rich enough to buy his mother a house, rich enough to get a college degree. In two months’ time they would be ready. They had a plan.
    And then the nosebleeds started. One morning, Wardell had an infected hangnail. That night, there was a red line up his arm.
    ‘I think I need to go to the hospital.’ He rolled up his shirtsleeves. ‘My blood problem. I think it’s kicked into high gear.’
    The old man stared at the arm. Wardell’s hand was so swollen it looked like the skin would burst. Monroe reached over to touch it. All five fingers were hot.
    A week later, Monroe had set up a new bunker at the Hutchinson Cancer Center. He appropriated a corner of the visitor’s lounge, where he parked his wheelchair, a grocery bag of snacks, a pile of sweaters. They had stabilised Wardell and were searching the blood-marrow registries for a match. Monroe was frantic. All his life he had wanted a son and now he was slipping away. The doctors saw the old man in the halls and ran the other way. Each time he confronted them, the same conversation played out.
    ‘My marrow’s not good enough? Take all you want. Carve me open with Ginsu knives! Blast me with a bazooka!’
    Whether it was a nurse or a doctor, the same response would follow. Loudly, because they thought the elderly were deaf. Slowly, because they thought the elderly were stupid.
    ‘First of all, you’re too old. Second, you’re not a relative. Third, you’d have to match. The blood. It has to be a match.’
    Monroe would yank his wispy hair in disbelief. Tufts stood straight out. Wasn’t it obvious to everyone that he was the boy’s father? The old man looked at the orderly and saw Goldie’s smile, his father’s hands, his mother’s hopes. They had embarked – where was that writing pad? – on a journey and now life had sent them another detour.
    First Wardell had to survive the transplant. The old man had seen plenty of pain in his life but nothing prepared him for the torture the boy endured. Each hour, then each day, then each week slowly passed. Six months later, they had reached their first milestone. Wardell’s immune system was like a newborn’s, the doctors told them. Gradually he would get stronger.
    Monroe brought fresh food and laundered his clothes. Together, they went to the doctor’s appointments and savoured each dollop of good news. The old man still had the visions. He saw them while he watched TV. He saw them on the sides of tall concrete buildings. He saw them spinning on the stop of the Space Needle. He saw them in the clouds.
    But they were different now. Of course Carter was still whacking his breast. And Goldie’s friends were busy making a great show of their grief. But now, in the front pew, sat the orderly. With a black ribbon pinned to his suit and a skullcap on his head, he whispered Monroe’s name and chanted the ancient prayers. Tears ran down his cheeks. And Monroe knew that, in some small way, he would go on living forever.

3.
Not a Finger More
    Shirley Fergenson
    Richard dares me to do ‘that banshee yodel’ again. So I do. After I say no when he expects the opposite, after I call him a tyrant, after he pushes me just enough that I fall to the bottom of the basement steps, after I crash-land against the washing machine, I wail like a wounded animal. When he walks away, first making sure I am more frightened than injured – he is a doctor, after all – I stand, pick up the phone and call the police. While I wait, I pull the ring off my swelling finger before it is too late to remove it at all.
    *
    I had thought about leaving it in the safety deposit box before we moved to Costa Rica: my perfect blue sapphire surrounded by