Superpowers Read Online Free PDF Page B

room. He heard voices at the end of the hall—"his room," she had called it, though all Jack's life his mother and father had shared that bedroom. His father's voice was deep but rough, phleghmy. The new nurse's voice was cheerful, grating. Jack forced a smile—tentative and friendly, but not cheerful. It was important not to look cheerful, at least, not right away. He knocked at the open door.
    The new nurse was small and plump and looked to be in her forties. She was taking his father's blood pressure, and only glanced up at Jack. "You must be one of the sons," she said around her stethoscope.
    Jack's father was sitting in his old recliner, the one he wouldn't let them get rid of since it smelled of cigarettes. "If I have to quit smoking 'em, maybe I can still get a buzz off the chair," he'd said when they tried to buy him a new La-Z-Boy for Christmas. Jack wondered if his father could actually smell anything anymore. He'd told Jack a few weeks ago that everything he ate tasted like cardboard.
    He looked better today, relative to how terrible he had looked last week. His hair was all but gone, and what was left looked like gray thread. An IV drip was hooked into his arm, and a breathing tube in his nose. He looked like a deflated version of the man Jack had to look at pictures to remember. He wondered if he had ever really looked at his father before the diagnosis. Not in a long time, he decided.
    "Hi, Dad." He crouched in front of the chair, and put his hand over his father's. He squeezed it gently.
    "Morty." His father's eyes were still alert, most of the time, but they looked at him slantwise from a head that rested at an odd angle against the back of the chair. "Morty, this . . . this is Alice. Alice, this is Morty. The rest of the world . . . calls him Jack, but here he's still. . . Morty."
    "Nice to meet you, Morty."
    "Nice to meet you."
    Alice tore the Velcro of the blood pressure sleeve and unwrapped it. "You're doing well, Zeke. Ready to eat something?"
    "I suppose."
    Alice put away the blood pressure kit. "I'll let you two chat, then, while I get you some lunch."
    "So, Morty . . . ," his father said, pausing to catch his breath, "you get your . . . grades yet?"
    "Not yet, Dad. Probably be a couple of weeks."
    "Ah. Still raining out there?"
    "Yeah."
    "Traffic bad?"
    Jack almost smiled. "Not too bad, no."
    "I was hoping you'd . . . you'd come down today."
    His father's breathing was so slow and labored that Jack felt guilty for the speed he had awoken with on Sunday. He wondered if the cells in his body were living faster, too. If his father had been given this instead of him, would his body be able to outpace the cancer, to kill it and heal? Or would the cancer be killing him even faster?
    "We need to . . . discuss some things. I spoke to your brother." Jack's brother Lloyd was an actuary in Chicago, though he visited a couple of times a month.
    "What about?"
    "The land. Mom told you we hired . . . the Carlson twins for the summer?"
    "Yeah."
    "They'll do good work . . . they'll need help during the harvest, but. . . they'll do good work."
    "I'll be able to help a lot," Jack said. "Weekends, and sometimes during the week, too."
    "That's good," said his father. "What I'm worried about... is after this year. I'm worried about who's . . . who's going to take on the farm. After."
    A chill ran from between Jack's shoulder blades to the base of his spine. "Is that really something we need to talk about now? We don't know what's going to happen."
    "Mortimer." Zeke Robinson's voice was firm. "Don't. . . don't bullshit yourself. Listen. Your mom can't do it alone. Lloyd doesn't want to . . . take it on. He's got a life . . . down there. He's engaged, did Mom tell. . . tell you?"
    "No." Jack didn't even know Lloyd had a girlfriend.
    "Yup. Ask Mom . . . about it. Now Lloyd don't want it. . . and maybe I'm old-fashioned, but... I wanted to ask you . . . before I talk to your sisters. I know you got school. . . and I know it's