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The Return of Spring [MultiFormat]
eBook by Shane Tourtellotte
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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Fantasy Hugo Award Nominee, Nebula Award(R) Preliminary Ballot Nominee
eBook Description: Joe Dipano returns home to a house and family he scarcely knows. Modern medicine has cured him of Alzheimer's Disease, but its scars remain, in more than his mind.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2002
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [148 KB], eReader (PDB) [53 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [42 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [38 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [83 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [109 KB], hiebook (KML) [123 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [72 KB], iSilo (PDB) [34 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [44 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [71 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [59 KB]
Words: 12012
Reading time: 34-48 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Joe Dipano rode in the back of the ambulance, frowning. He didn't need this coddling. His daughter could drive him back home. Well, at least they weren't using the siren.
His nurse, Lucy Katz, sat next to him, taking his pulse. She was a sturdy, gray-haired woman, and not bad-looking. He saw her eyes fall on the patches on either side of his neck. She always worried that he would pick at them. Stefanie was up front with the driver. She looked back now and again, always smiling. He smiled back this time, then frowned at something odd he saw. "What happened to your ear, Stef?" Stefanie turned around, nonplused. "What do you mean?" "It looks swollen, and there's a red groove behind it." Stef's hand reached, before she stopped it. "It's nothing, Dad. I've just been wearing something there too much." "Oh. All right." Soon they stopped in a familiar-looking place. Lucy helped guide him down the fold-out steps, steadying him when he tottered once. He walked toward the curb, shooting a last glance at the red-on-white Essex County Geriatric Research Center on the ambulance's side. Stef came around the other side to join her father. "Welcome home, Daddy," she said. Joe looked at his house. It was different somehow. He tried to place the changes--the paint, maybe, or the shrubbery along the walls--but it kept slipping away. Halfway to the front door, someone burst outside to break his concentration. "Grandpa!" A big hug nearly knocked the wind out of Joe. Lucy remonstrated, and Mike released him. Yes, it was Mike. He had visited the hospital a few times in recent days. Joe recognized him: hair black like Stef and curly like Harry--but he had grown up so. Joe couldn't help smiling, though. "Good to see you again, sport." Mike led everyone inside. Stef and Lucy turned right, toward the living room. "I want to go over the visitation and checkup schedule," he heard Lucy say. He started to follow them. "This way, Grandpa." Mike had a hold on his shoulder. "I've got fresh coffee." "They're talking about me," Joe said. "I ought to be there." "I think they need to be alone. Please." Joe snorted. "I wish people wouldn't treat me like a child. They say I'm cured--or would if they'd stop talking like doctors, trying to cover themselves every way they can." They went to the kitchen the long way, through the dining room. The table had been pushed close to one corner, the chairs arrayed behind it in a protective huddle. "Where's the china cabinet?" Joe said. "It should be in that corner." "Mom moved it," Mike said. "I forget where." "I'll--" He turned, but Mike's firm grasp on his arm prevented anything more. "Fine. Coffee." The kitchen was another surprise. Almost every appliance looked new, and most had black boxes smaller than his hand attached to them, near doors or control panels. Smaller versions clung to many drawers and cabinets. Joe had an unsettling idea what they were. He nearly asked Mike, but he could imagine the pity the boy would have to cover up. He accepted the coffee mug Mike offered, taking a long swallow, noting Mike's watchful gaze. Joe didn't care for that, either. "So, Mike, what have you been doing with yourself?" Mike's smile faded to half-strength. "Well, I graduated college in thirty-one--" "I know that! I mean since I saw you two days ago." Mike flushed, but grinned. "Sorry. I've been visiting some old friends...." Joe listened as he sipped. Did Mike think he didn't remember things he'd heard two days before? Well, Mike was probably used to that state of affairs. He'd learn. * * * * Lucy Katz walked with Joe to his bedroom. It was a weird sensation. Part of him knew his bedroom was on the second floor, that they were going to the den. Back at the hospital, though, they had told him Stef had moved his room to the first floor, and he had nebulous recollections of sleeping down here, too. It was like two pasts, two lives, overlapped in his mind.Lucy wanted him to report any instances of disorientation. He might keep this one to himself. The bedroom was his, all right. He recognized the dresser, though it was worse for wear, the drawers chipped and dented. The top of the dresser was covered with framed photographs, most of them decades old. Some of them looked banged up, too. He didn't see a mirror, but considering how decrepit he looked, that was a blessing. There were more of those black boxes, too, but he ignored them. Lucy saw him looking at the photos. "Do you recognize them?" she asked. She picked up the closest one. "Who's in this one?" Joe rolled his eyes. He knew when someone was giving him a mental exercise. "This is from college," he said. "I'm on the far left. That's Jerry Hafstedter, Javier Vega, Doug Payton, the one turned around is Tim L-L-Lassiter, and that's Nick Wechsel." "And this?" She kept it up for a while, making notes on her clipboard screen in a way she thought was unobtrusive. Joe did best with the old pictures. He nearly asked once why there was nothing with his wife, before remembering how long ago the divorce was. Newer photos were troublesome, but the hospital staff had filled in enough details of his life so he could get through them. "That's Stef and her husband Harry in the middle. That's Mike, of course, and that's ... I suppose it's Allie ... but wait, Mike's married now, so maybe--" "It's Alice," Lucy said, putting it back. "You did great, Joe. Let's move on to some physical exercises." That was harder. He felt awfully weak, not surprising for how thin he was these days. He used the weights she carried in her bag, lifting and stretching until he ached. Then she tested his strength against the resistance of her own hands and arms. She was no youngster, but she was plenty strong. "I keep feeling like we should leave the door open," Joe said with a grunt. "Or have a chaperone." "Just keep pushing," Lucy said, not without good humor. Joe managed to satisfy whatever criteria she had, and not too soon. "Bathroom," he said tightly. "Okay." She got her arm around his back. "This way. Through the door." They walked where she led. "Must've knocked through a new door," Joe said. "This would be ... the pantry through here. Stef really did change things around." He opened the door, and again the duality of memories hit him. Strange, and fleetingly familiar. A closer look brought other, disturbing impressions. All the support bars and guard rails--and those boxes again. This was a bathroom for a cripple. Nobody would tell him so, but it was. He caught a look at himself in the mirror over the sink, and nearly recoiled. He was close to skin and bones, his face pallid where it wasn't splotched red. What little hair had clung to the top of his head had faded to wispy white. He screwed his eyes shut and stepped back, his heel catching on the traction mat near the toilet. "Maybe Stef can take all this hardware out," he said, "now that I'm better." "The word is 'recovering,' Joe, not 'recovered.' You'll use these supports." "Do I have to do it with you here?" He didn't expect her to leave, and she didn't. She did turn away a bit, thank goodness, while he dropped his drawers, grabbed the long bars straddling the toilet, and settled himself down. He crossed his arms over his lap quickly. "So," he said to divert attention, "how long will you be coming here?" "Several weeks at least. A few hours a day, but that'll taper off as we go." She rolled out some toilet paper, to give her eyes somewhere else to go. "Of course, we'll have to bring you back to the center for weekly tests." "In the ambulance, right?" "Hey, it's perfect advertising for us, running that thing through town." He chuckled at her joke. "You won't need advertising for long. Once word of this treatment gets out, you'll be beating away patients with sticks." Lucy smiled a little. "No, let them all come. It's fine with us." "Yeah." He stared ahead. "Me, too."
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