When Will We Get There?

En Route to Natick, Massachusetts

July 2000

Mike will never be able to forget what he saw when he came careening up the basement stairs, mind still reeling, senses still saturated with the sights, sounds, smells, and feelings from … somewhere else. Caleb lying on the floor of the living room. His body looked small, and it was shaking and spasming. Amy kneeling beside Caleb, but Mike can’t picture what she was doing. All he can remember is Caleb’s face. The clenched jaw. The unfocused eyes.

The seizure passed, and Amy called her father, who recommended a colleague of his, a specialist named Taupin. His practice, which is based in the Boston suburb of Natick, must be a busy one, if hold time is any indication. When they finally got him on the line, his reassurances seemed sincere, though none of it seemed to apply to them. Mike wasn’t ready to hear medical terms or to have their son referred to as a patient. Amy, on the other hand, machine-gunned him with questions, scribbling answers down on envelopes, Post-its, and anything she could get her hands on. The doctor’s insistence that this kind of thing isn’t all that uncommon, and that it often comes and goes without requiring treatment or even further explanation, didn’t do much to reassure Mike or satisfy Amy.

They insisted on an appointment as soon as possible, and now, four days after Caleb’s seizure, they are on the road. Traffic is bad. Mike, usually a reliably calm driver, is having to apologize repeatedly for jolting the brakes.

“Is it your eyes?” Amy says. “You’re blinking a lot. Winking a lot.”

“No, I’m fine,” Mike says. “I had a headache, but it’s better. Just a little distracted.”

He expects a barrage of questions; instead, he gets a kiss. He glances over to see Amy smiling at him, one arm over the backseat, helping Carrie locate her pacifier.

“We’re going to get answers,” she says.

“Hope we like them,” Mike says quietly.

“Don’t think the worst.”

“What’s the worst?” says Caleb from the backseat.

“What do you mean, honey?”

“What’s the worst thing that could happen?” he says.

Amy turns around. “Isn’t it more fun to think about the BEST thing that could happen?”

“Like what?”

“Like … what if we had a big bridge all to ourselves—a bridge from our house all the way to Boston! Wouldn’t that be the best thing that could happen?”

“No!”

Amy feigns shock. “NO?!”

“No, the best, BEST thing would be if a pterodactyl came down and picked us up!”

“The whole car?”

“Yes! They can do that! And it carries us all the way to Boston!”

“I don’t know. I think that’s one for the Book of Mysteries.”

“What would be even better than a pterodactyl taxi service,” Mike says, “would be a pterodactyl taxi service that serves coffee.”

“Ew! No!” Caleb says.

“Dunkin’ Dactyl Taxi Service. I’ll be the CEO. You can be the CDT.”

While Caleb is puzzling it out, Amy is waiting to roll her eyes and groan.

“Chief Donut Taster!” Mike says, exiting the freeway and pulling into a Dunkin’ Donuts. “Speaking of which …”

Caleb wants to come in, but Mike promises to be superfast, and says he’ll bring him some Munchkins. He hurries through the parking lot and pushes on the pull door, which gives a loud bang. He can hear them laughing from the car.

Amy has been amazingly upbeat since the appointment was scheduled. This morning, Mike was clouded, achy, and dazed—which has become his new baseline. He’d been on his way to the car, dragging luggage, when she’d stopped him in the hallway. She massaged the space between his eyebrows with her thumb, something she used to do when he was freelancing and feeling stressed about where the next job was going to come from. He hadn’t realized that his brow had even been clenched. It was always like that. Then she kissed that same spot and said, “Bright days are ahead.”

But it’s the days behind that have been crowding Mike’s thoughts and keeping him up at night. He hasn’t returned to the basement since the day of the seizure. In the aftermath, he promised Amy that he would stay upstairs, physically, and be more present in all other ways. On more than one occasion, he caught himself with his hand on the knob of the basement door, unsure of how he’d gotten there. He’s been feeling like a mote of dust, wafting on a breeze with a current that flowed downward: through the strange, three-quarters-sized door, down the creaky steps, between the boxes, packaging, and other detritus that had washed up down there, and to the softly glowing corner he’d stuffed with instruments, sound board, and computer.

The one thing that has managed to hold his attention and keep him anchored to the upstairs world has been the campaign coverage. The TV has remained on day and night, talking heads and Bush-Gore infographics sowing enough confusion, outrage, and intrigue to keep him rapt for long stretches between diaper changes, burpings, and laundry. It wasn’t so much that he cared about the outcome; he gravitated toward the immediacy of it all.

Amy has deduced that Mike’s mental unrest is all about sleep. They’ve been bleary-eyed and headachy, grumpy and distracted, yes, but so are all parents of a newborn. Maybe she’s right; she usually is. But that doesn’t explain why things have begun to look like a 3-D comic book when you don’t have the 3-D glasses. Or why every sound has an echo, but only one, and it doesn’t always match the original.

He tried to describe it to her the night before, even made a joke about consulting the Book of Mysteries. She turned off the TV and said that what he needs is sleep, not more Chris fucking Matthews.

Now—standing in a Dunkin’ Donuts somewhere in Connecticut, waiting on two black coffees, a bag of glazed Munchkins, and a box of milk—all of that seems far away. The headache that has plagued him for days has dissipated. He feels alert and surprisingly carefree. Even the freaky double vision has begun to fade. On his way out, he notices that Amy is dealing with something in the backseat. He can’t tell what, but he pockets a wad of napkins, just in case.

Back at the car, Mike finds that things have deteriorated. Carrie has thrown up on herself and is crying. Caleb is holding his nose, and Amy’s buoyancy is waning.

“Your songs are getting better.”

Mike turns to look at her. “What?”

“Your head getting better?” she says.

“Yeah, it is,” he says, and hands her the napkins. He gives her a quizzical look, but she’s busy.

The stress mounts. The traffic worsens. Amy is holding it together, but barely. Mike considers announcing the surprise he’s been planning: He has extended their hotel booking by two days, so that they can spend the Fourth in Boston and watch the fireworks show over the Charles River. Caleb will be thrilled, but Mike is not sure how Amy will react. He’s supposed to be finding a job, one with benefits.

Mike keeps thinking he hears music, but Amy turned the radio off an hour ago. The music sounds like—

“Sirens!” Caleb says.

Mike sees red and blue ahead.

“It’s an accident,” he says.

“What does that mean?” Caleb says.

“Accident means it wasn’t supposed to happen,” Amy says.

An ambulance blows by them on the shoulder in a blast of wind and wailing sirens. Mike peers ahead.

“Is it bad?” Amy says.

“Caleb, look at me,” Mike says. Caleb sits up far enough to make eye contact in the rearview. “Don’t … I want you to look, look down at the floor, please.”

“Why?” he says. Mike hasn’t done a good job keeping his voice even.

“I think my phone slipped down there,” Mike says. “Can you find it?”

“Okay!” There’s a click. Amy spins around.

“Cay! Put your seat belt on, honey,” she says.

Mike glances over as they pass. There’s a face in one of the crumpled cars. His vision begins to double, wavering; then it snaps into focus for an instant. The face is Sergio’s. In another instant, it’s all gone.

“Caleb! Now!” Amy says.

“It’s okay, we’re past it,” Mike says quietly.

“Oh!” Caleb says from the floor behind Mike’s seat. “Oscar is here.”

“You and Oscar, seat belt, please,” Amy says.

There’s a click.

“I left him at home,” Caleb says. “But he’s here now.”