Deep waters, p.3
Deep Waters, page 3
Boat secured, we embraced in a brisk ocean breeze, savoring our wilderness solitude.
The rain began as pinpricks.
“Jim D. sent us off with two moose steaks,” he said. “I’ll get those started.”
In the warmth below, we shed fleece pants and jackets. The boat yanked against her anchor. He stopped chopping garlic to listen. After another thud-clank! he decided to add a snubber to the chain. While he attached the shock-absorbing line, I made rice and a salad.
“We’re holding,” he said, climbing down the companionway, “but the wind’s already up to twenty-five. These steep hills funnel it through the gaps between islands. Plus there’s a back eddy from the current.”
“I’ll get the radar going.” I felt more nervous than my voice let on.
“Good idea.”
We ate beneath a patter of rain. As the boat swayed and shuddered, we took turns checking our radar position and scanning the shore.
Two hours later, I was brushing my teeth when he called down to me, “Get suited up!”
“What’s happening?” Toothpaste foam spattered the sink.
“Wind’s shifted one-eighty! We’re dragging toward shore.”
I shoved bare legs into thermal pants, pulled on rubber boots.
The diesel’s low, start-up rumble was a reassuring addition to the storm’s loud tantrum.
Up top, rain sliced through my fleece.
“We gotta get out of here,” he said. “Keep her nose into the wind, while I take off the snubber and crank in the chain. As soon as the anchor’s off the bottom, you gotta power up so she doesn’t go aground. It shallows up fast.”
I flashed an Oh, Jesus look.
The look he bounced back said, We can do this.
When we moved to Alaska, we explored building a house in Gustavus, a community of three hundred embedded in Glacier Bay National Park. I’d lobbied for a wooded five-acre lot next to a burbling river.
Instead of buying land, we drained our savings for a down payment and cosigned on a $100,000 loan to buy IJsselmeer. “Ice-uhl-meer,” we’d practiced to get her Dutch name right. His rationale was we could either own five acres of land—or have Glacier Bay and Icy Strait as a million-acre ocean backyard.
He won me over.
The rigging wailed as I scanned the dark cove.
I wanted to be his all-in sailing partner, but my Midwestern core taunted, You’re an imposter. My confidence in running our boat ebbed and flowed like Icy Strait’s currents.
How could those boulders be so close? Another gust sent the depth sounder from fifteen to thirteen feet, then ten. My heart raced as I pictured our sailboat’s keel scraping the seafloor. At the bow, Jim knelt to remove the snubber. With every plunge, seawater shot up around him.
What am I doing here? I should have held out for buying land.
He yelled something but the words hurtled past my ears.
“What?” I shouted.
“Drive into the wind. Up the chain!” He sliced his straight arm forward.
I pressed her into gear. What if the shift repair doesn’t hold?
The bow blew off course. A shadowy image of IJsselmeer aground darted into my mind, hull at an ungainly tilt, like a beached whale.
Again, Jim hollered, “Into the wind!”
“I am!” I shouted. But I had to do more. Focus. I eased the helm to port, then sharp to starboard, fending off blows of wind like punches from one side, then the other. More throttle. Cut back. Ease the chain’s tension.
Jim flashed an anchor’s-off-bottom signal and leaned out to dislodge wads of kelp. Another blast shoved the untethered boat toward rocks. I revved to full throttle, helm hard to port. IJsselmeer’s bow rose and, like a Clydesdale, she plowed ahead, consuming ground we’d lost. The depth sounder flashed nine, then ten.
Hold this heading. Eleven. Twelve.
Keep her in the middle. Jim’s gear repair held. My body shook, but I was no longer cold. I was in the zone. We—the three of us—were in the zone. IJsselmeer was an extension of the two of us.
Hand over hand, Jim made his way to the cockpit, storm slapping his back. He nodded and took the helm. Gripping the rail, I scanned the horizon through shrouded night vision. The steep, forested shoreline ghosted closer, then receded. No, I thought. This is where I want to be—shoulder to shoulder with this man.
Beneath the howling sky, we powered out of the cove into the safety of deep water.
Jolted back to the present, I turned into our driveway. The memory sharpened my resolve. We had to get Jim to Seattle.
“Hurry!” Glen said, unbuckling his seat belt. “Let’s pack.”
4
EVACUATION
“What did they say about me coming?” Glen asked Dianne in the room where Jim dozed.
Elbows on thighs, she met his gaze. “The Airlift nurse said she’d pass my request to the captain. I told her I’ve known you since you were a baby. And that you’re the most mature kid I’ve ever met. They won’t have an answer, though, until right before they go.”
He nodded but looked dejected.
“Are you packed?” she asked.
“We are,” he said before I could.
Jim’s hand shot to his left eye. I went to his side. “What’s wrong with that eye?”
“I get these sharp pains.” His face tensed. “Like it’s being jabbed with a needle.”
I took his free hand in mine.
A nurse wheeled in an IV bag. “Doctor’s called for heparin to keep clots from forming.”
Later, Dianne’s partner, Sudie, a specialist with the Coast Guard, walked in. “Oh, Beth. This is so hard.” Her dark eyes reassuring, she said, “But Jim will move beyond this. He’s a fighter. We have to get him on that medevac to Seattle. He’s got to go to Virginia Mason. They’re the stroke experts.”
I told Jim we’d been home to pack our things. His gravelly question, “Di-did you get the fur-furniture?” troubled me.
What was he talking about? He’d always had a slight start-up stutter, so that was not the issue. Was speaking gibberish a new stroke symptom?
A decade earlier, Jim and I had visited his uncle Glen, our son’s namesake, after he’d suffered a stroke. At seventy-seven, Glen L. Taggart had led an active and productive life as president of Utah State University, beating graduate students decades younger at racquetball. In the assisted-care home, he appeared professional and fit, wire-thin, but far from frail. Jim’s uncle Glen maneuvered a walker toward me. Exuding an affirmative glow, he shook my hand and smiled.
He spoke, gesturing toward a watercolor of a mountain brook flowing over smooth stones. Although his expression fit the situation, the words that rose and burbled out had nothing to do with the circumstances or the painting. It was as if hard wires linking Uncle Glen’s mental dictionary to his mouth and tongue had been disconnected, then plugged back in with circuitry pins misaligned, causing him to say something like, “That box reminds me of stones with his father,” instead of, “That painting reminds me of fly fishing with Jim’s father.”
If someone viewed a video of my conversation with Uncle Glen in the convalescent visitation room back then with the audio off, they would never have known his sentences made no sense. No sense at all.
Had my husband developed expressive aphasia like his Uncle Glen?
“The-the furniture,” Jim repeated.
I shook my head, confused.
“D-did you bring it in?”
“Oh-h.” Exhaling in relief, I understood Jim was referring to the furniture he’d moved onto our deck in preparation for the carpet cleaners. “No. I completely forgot.”
Sudie pulled out a notebook. “I’ll take care of it.”
Around seven o’clock, the Airlift Northwest coordinator returned while Jim slept. Dianne sat with us. “Your husband’s on for the flight to Seattle tonight,” the woman said. “How much do you weigh?”
“A hundred and twenty-eight pounds.”
She told us the jet would leave within the hour. “Your carry-on can’t be more than twenty pounds, total.” She turned to leave.
Glen pressed his foot against mine.
“What about our son?”
“Oh, yeah.” She turned to him. “The captain wants to meet you. He’ll stop by in a few minutes.”
Eyes wide, Glen tipped his head.
I gave Dianne the numbers of two friends, colleagues at the university, to notify: Brendan Kelly and Sherry Tamone.
Moments later, someone tapped on the door. A tall man in a white shirt with gold epaulets and a navy-blue tie walked in.
Together, Glen and I stood.
“You must be Beth,” he said, voice deep. “I’m very sorry about your husband. We’re going to get him to Seattle shortly here. I understand you have your son with you.”
“Yes. This is Glen.”
“Hello, young man.”
Glen extended his hand.
The pilot reached down to shake it. “How much do you weigh?”
“Seventy-three pounds,” Glen said as if he’d been waiting for the question.
The captain explained there would not be much room in the plane, that we would be in small seats at the back, and there would be no stewardess—and no snacks. “How do you feel about that?”
“I’m fine with all of it. I want to go.”
My son’s clarity caught me off guard. I blinked back proud tears.
“Well, Glen,” the pilot said, “you can come with us, then.”
His face lit up. “Thanks!”
“Let’s go get your stuff,” Dianne said. “Sudie, I’ll walk them to the airlift van. Can you stay until they come for Jim?”
“You bet.”
At Jim’s gurney, I jiggled his arm. “Hon, we’ll both be on the jet with you.”
He pressed a hand against his temple. “Glen, too?”
“Yeah,” Glen answered. “I get to come with you.”
“Good.” Jim set his hand on our son’s arm.
“We’ll meet you at the airport.” I squeezed his shoulder and turned to leave.
“Wait,” Jim said. “Don’t-don’t forget to make a r-reservation at a hotel near the hospital.” Hiccups punctuated the sentence.
I cradled his head in my hands and kissed him. This is my man—even in the midst of a stroke, he’s on top of our logistics. I held his unsteady gaze. “I love you.”
Glen, Dianne, and I hustled down the back stairs. Our pounding feet generated a thundering echo up the metal stairwell. We emerged into the cold evening. It seemed so long ago since Glen and I had driven home, packed, and returned to the hospital.
The trunk of our Honda Civic popped up. “You packed too much,” Glen said. “You can’t take all that.” My carry-on bag with laptop and course materials sat on top of a small duffel. Glen had snugged his belongings into his orange school pack.
“He’s right,” Dianne said. “Can you fit what’s essential into your backpack?”
As I sorted items into two piles, Glen grew impatient. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve gotta get going. They’ll leave without us!”
My spine pressed the jump seat as the Learjet streaked up past snow-capped mountains. The canvas seat was low-slung, like a beach chair. A harness crossed my torso like a giant H. Knees bent, I wanted to wrap my arms around them, lower my forehead, and cry. Instead, I reached for our son’s hand.
Ahead, the instrument panel glowed, silhouetting the pilot and copilot. In place of passenger seating between us, the left fuselage supported two inward-facing seats occupied by medics. The two women wore khaki jumpsuits and lace-up, thick-soled black boots. Across from them, inches from their knees, was a bench along the other fuselage. Buckled to it was my husband’s stretcher. Fourteen hours had passed since he’d staggered up the stairs. During the gravity-defying climb into the night sky, he lifted his head and squinted at us. They’d said he would be sedated, but the medication hadn’t yet pulled him to that internal twilight. I raised an open hand, eyes riveted on his. Did he know it was me?
At forty thousand feet, above the clouds—close to heaven if there was one—iridescent, emerald curtains shimmered, like in a dream. Momentarily swept out of the nightmare, I tapped the glass. “Look, hon! Northern lights,” I said to Glen, as if we were camping—as if all my assumptions about the future were not shattering.
5
RARE EVENT
From the starlit troposphere, the Learjet descended toward Seattle. Colored dots and streaks of yellow light surrounded the ocean inlet below. Puget Sound snaked and branched across land like polished onyx. Glen slept, head propped on my arm.
Beneath a drizzle, we taxied across the glistening tarmac. A silent ambulance approached, lights pulsing red, yellow, red. The flight nurse leaned toward me. “Please stay in your seats until we move your husband. Someone else will take you and your son to the hospital.”
“Can I talk to him?”
She shook her head. “He’s sedated.”
“I need a moment.” I did not release her gaze.
“Once we’ve stopped you can check on him, but you’ll have to be out of the way before they open the door.”
The captain flipped levers and twisted dials. The roar of the first and then the second engine wound down, trailing off like loud turbo sighs. The Airlift medic flashed a thumbs up.
I slid Glen’s head aside, unbuckled, and crouch-stepped beneath the ceiling to the bench. Oxygen tubes curled over Jim’s ears and into his nostrils. His eyes were closed. I knelt, laid my head on his chest and wrapped my arms around his torso. A prayer formed, drawn from a faded childhood chapter. Oh, Lord, dear Lord. Please be here for us. Please help Jim through this.
The medic touched my arm. I wasn’t done.
I pressed my ear onto his heart. A blanket muffled the sound, but I heard it. So many times I’d rested my head on his naked chest, taking his steady lub-dub, lub-dub rhythm for granted. I squeezed his hand. What was that? Yes. Again. His grip tightened to meet mine.
The curved cabin doors lurched open, a pair of gaping jaws.
I backed into the low seat next to Glen.
Three men in orange helmets climbed aboard. Steam rose from their yellow slickers.
“Hey, honey.” I smoothed Glen’s hair back from his forehead. “We’re in Seattle.”
After the ambulance strobed away, a silver sedan arrived for us. In two and a half hours, the sleek jet had whisked us nine hundred miles south at 82 percent of the speed of sound. The fifteen-mile, stop-and-go drive into the city center consumed an agonizing half hour.
It was after midnight when Glen and I thanked the driver, snatched our packs, and ran toward the emergency entry. We burst in like we’d finished a hundred-yard dash. A woman wearing what looked like a policeman’s cap slouched on a stool behind a tall counter.
“Where did they take my husband?” I asked. “He came ahead of us—in the ambulance.”
“Ma’am, slow down. I need some information. This is a secure area. We got lots of ambulances bringing folks in. Y’all have to get a pass to go inside.”
For many minutes I answered questions, filled out forms. Glen elbowed me as if to say, Let’s go. Do we have to do this?
The attendant peered at her monitor, tapping more keys than my brief answers seemed to warrant.
“Your husband’s in intensive care. Please wait over there.” She pointed down the hall.
Seated side by side in the empty room, I shuffled through a stack of magazines and chose a National Geographic. My attention refused to be diverted, even by an article about two border collies with hundred-word vocabularies. I set the magazine down, leaned back, and rubbed my eyes. Wake up. Make this not real.
“Mrs. Taggart?” A technician in scrubs had arrived.
“Yes.” I sat forward.
“The doctor asked for your help getting some history.”
I stood.
“Can I come?” Glen asked her.
“No,” the woman said. “He’ll have to stay here.”
I saw my son grimace, tears imminent.
I set my hand on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay, hon.” I didn’t care for how she’d addressed me and not Glen. I followed her through swinging doors along a tiled hall that smelled of Lysol and iodine.
Three doctors in white coats clustered around a metal bed. Jim was awake but groggy. “Hello, sweetheart.” I leaned down to hug him.
He jolted through a hiccup, but his firm embrace reassured me.
One of the physicians reached across him to shake my hand. “I’m Dr. Laura Neilsen.” Everything about the woman exuded confidence: firm grip, dancer’s posture, eye contact. “The first thing we need is a usable MRA—images of his cranial blood vessels. Neither of the two from Juneau is usable because he couldn’t lie still with those hiccups. We’ll give him a sedative to control those. Plus, our scanner is more sophisticated.”
“What’s the diagnosis?”
“We’re working that out. It’ll depend on what specific part of his brainstem is damaged. Does he have a history of high blood pressure?”
“A year ago, he started having issues with cholesterol and blood pressure after his job got more stressful. His doctor put him on Simvastatin.”
Her pen scrawling against paper put me at ease.
“Yes, we got that. And his general fitness?”
Jim’s hiccups continued, but he seemed engaged.
“It’s excellent. He rides his bike a lot, even in snow, and runs—less recently since we’ve been preparing our house to sell. Sometimes he lifts weights.”
“What happened leading up to the stroke?”
I took Jim’s hand and described the morning: the coughing fit on the ladder, loss of balance, the expulsion when he drank water. I left out his request to make love.
Dr. Cortez, one of the neurologists, asked me if Jim had done anything unusual or had symptoms before the stroke. The young doctor had black hair and a crew cut like my father’s when I was a child, but longer on the top. Everything before seemed long ago. “Two days ago, on Sunday, we painted the living room and stairwell walls. We worked all day. Yesterday he scraped, repaired, and painted a skylight.”
