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  Edison helped Galen to his feet and the four seniors withdrew from the living room, leaving the couple alone.

  Galen moved as quickly as he could to his room. He groped inside the old black bag that had been his companion for sixty years. He found the little bottle, quickly put another tablet under his tongue, and lay down on his bed. He could feel the sting as the blood vessels absorbed the nitroglycerin, lifting the weight from his chest.

  He knew then that he would be making two phone calls.

  He opened his eyes to see the diminutive Irish elf standing at his bedside.

  “I’m not going to lose you like I lost Josh.”

  She whipped out her phone, called out a number, and handed it to him.

  After four rings he could hear the answering click and tenor voice.

  “Crescenzi. Is that you, Galen?”

  “Yes, Sal, it’s me. The angina’s back.”

  The cardiologist’s response was immediate.

  “Can you come down now?”

  “Can’t. I’ve got a family situation here. Unless things flare up, can I see you tomorrow?”

  Sandy snatched the phone from Galen’s hand.

  “This is Dr. Sandra McDevitt. Galen needs to be seen now, even if I have to drag him in. We’re also bringing a young woman to the hospital. Can you see him when we get there?”

  “Any time. I’ll be waiting.”

  “Sandy, did anyone ever call you a b...?”

  “You wouldn’t be the first, you senile old fool.”

  Galen called up a second number and smiled as it the voice answered on the first ring.

  “Jeff, it’s Galen. Got a young lady I’d like you to see. She’s the fiancée of my ward, Freddie—yeah, that Freddie. He’s actually settled down with one girl.

  “I think she had a spontaneous AB. She couldn’t have been more than a month, maybe six weeks. Can you see her?”

  When he heard Jeff’s reassurances he hung up the phone. He felt Sandy’s hand on his shoulder.

  “Come on, old man, you got a date with the cardiac cath lab.”

  * * *

  Mid-November weather isn’t kind in Massachusetts. True to form, chilly winds pounded the tiny, old, off-campus row house in Cambridge where the two doctoral candidates shared living quarters.

  Lilly hugged Freddie then pulled back. She put her index finger on his nose and pressed it like a door bell. The winds responded by rattling the pane windows.

  “Lilly, why have you stayed with me?”

  “Because you don’t deserve me.”

  He easily hefted her up in his arms, carried her to the sofa, and encircled her in a complete embrace.

  “Should we tell them we’re coming back for Thanksgiving?”

  Freddie’s eyes said yes.

  “Okay, but let’s make it a surprise.”

  “Right, not like our last visit.”

  She kissed him silly.

  “Any word from the kids or Sandy?”

  Nancy shook her head. Edison turned away to hide his disappointment. Galen also lowered his eyes and moved the newspaper he was reading up higher.

  Why did she have to take that damned Kenya trip now?

  THE UNCOWARDLY LIONESS

  “I am very sorry, Dr. McDevitt, but there are no flights leaving Nairobi for three days. It is at the direct order of our president.”

  The tall Kenyan airport official gazed down at the tiny elderly woman fuming and pacing back and forth. He kept a straight face. What could this wisp of a person do to him?

  “Captain Mbutu, this is intolerable.”

  “I am sorry, but orders are orders.”

  “We shall see.”

  She pulled the phone from her purse and entered the numbers she knew by heart. She turned away from the man who would block her from returning home to her Sarah … and Galen.

  The voice on the other end was friendly.

  “Let me speak to the captain, Doctor.”

  She held the phone out to him and barely suppressed her laughter at the expressions crossing his face. The phone conveyed a message loud and clear.

  “Do you not recognize the wife of Sigilai, Captain? Get her a plane immediately!”

  The young military man was visibly trembling as he made the arrangements. One does not question the order of one’s president, especially in Kenya.

  “My humble apologies, Doctor. My country will forever honor the memory of you and your husband.”

  You bet your boots, youngster! It was your president who gave my Josh that name—Sigilai—to honor our service here .

  She just smiled as she accepted the honor guard escort to the waiting plane.

  THE WIZARD

  It was a James Whitcomb Riley late November day on the mountain. Frosty breezes rose from the valley and coated the remaining, unfallen leaves with a crystalline sheen as the three sat around the fireplace.

  “What are you snickering at, you old codger? You haven’t heard from Sandy in, what, two weeks?”

  Galen was peeling the skin from an apple, carefully using a corer to remove the seed center. A humorous thought crossed his mind and he let out an inadvertent laugh.

  “Sandy’s in Kenya. She’ll be here, as she put it, ‘come hell or high water.’”

  “So what’s so damned funny, quack?”

  “Isn’t important, little brother.”

  “That’s it! I knew he was going crazy, Nancy. Told you, didn’t I?”

  “That’s enough, you two. Don’t you remember how much fun we used to have in the cold weather?”

  “That was when I enjoyed ice and snow. But now I have to admit I don’t like late fall and winter much anymore.”

  Galen stared at the flickering fireplace as he continued.

  “It’s nice to see the change of seasons, but I’d much rather it were spring instead of fall.”

  Edison squinted nearsightedly at Galen. He licked his dry lips and issued a challenge to his old friend.

  “Whan that Aprille with his shoores soote.”

  Galen grinned and took up Edison’s cue, reciting Chaucer’s poem about spring.

  Nancy stared at them, nodded, and joined in.

  In unison the three continued the singsong Middle English then hesitated as they spoke the last lines.

  “Thanne longen folk to goon pilgrimages, and specially from every shires ende.”

  “Think the kids will come from every shire’s end to visit this Thanksgiving?” Nancy asked.

  It was Tuesday, two days before the holiday. Wind gusts nipped at the house, tossing scattered snow flurries along the window trim. The carved-out letters of Edison’s sign cupped the stray flakes in its routed wood design.

  SAFEHAVEN was garnished with snow.

  “Have you talked to Diane and Lachlan Douglas about coming over for dinner?” Galen asked Nancy, as they lounged in the living room.

  “Not yet. But I did see Lem and Sophie earlier, and they’ll be over with Miriam.”

  Galen was hoping for a full house. He stared out the window.

  “Strange, when I was a young man I yearned for solitude—time away from the madding crowd. Now I fear the loneliness.”

  Why haven’t they called? Why isn’t Sandy here?

  He sighed.

  “Guess I’ll turn in. Edison still in the bathroom?”

  “Mm-hmm. He’s been taking longer and longer.”

  Nancy looked up from her detective novel as Galen ambled out of the room. Then she stared at the fireplace.

  Why haven’t they called?

  A few minutes later, Galen heard a soft knock on his bedroom door.

  “Come in.”

  “You know I hate to bother you,” Edison said, as he entered.

  Galen was about to utter a reflexive retort but when he saw his friend’s face he just smiled and beckoned him to sit on the edge of the bed. He spied a distinctive flush, raw hamburger, from the prominent pulsations of the old engineer’s carotid arteries. He rose wordlessly, gra
bbed his black bag, and wrapped the blood-pressure cuff around Edison’s left arm.

  “Holy shit, little brother, how long’s this been going on? Aren’t you taking Crescenzi’s prescriptions?”

  “They ran out. ’Sides, I felt fine after we got out of the hospital.”

  His blood pressure read 200 over 120—dangerously high. It was even higher than when he and Galen had been hospitalized after their injuries from the tornado four years earlier.

  Galen went back to his bag. It always held what he needed and now was no exception. He selected a little bottle and shook a tiny, tangerine-colored pill into his hand. He motioned for Edison to open his mouth and he placed the pill on his tongue.

  “Let that dissolve slowly. Let’s see if that damn pressure comes down. If not, we’ve got an unscheduled trip to the hospital tonight.”

  Edison lay back on Galen’s bed and stared up at the bear-sized old man he had known for seven decades. Despite the countless jokes and insults exchanged over the years, he still held full confidence in his friend’s skills.

  Galen pulled his desk chair up to the bed then pumped the cuff up again.

  Blood pressure was dropping. Now it was 140 over 90, still not good but a helluva lot better than before. Edison’s face no longer looked like the Great Pumpkin’s.

  “Don’t tell Nancy.”

  “Don’t tell me what?”

  They saw her standing in the doorway.

  “He’s had a spike in his blood pressure. I just gave him something to lower it quickly. He needs to restart his meds. He also needs to have some tests done but I’d be afraid to risk driving tonight.”

  She shook her head. He hadn’t told her about stopping the pills.

  “I’ll call Lachlan. We can ride in his police cruiser.”

  “You don’t need to make a fuss over me, girl.”

  “You keep quiet, Robert Cornelius Edison. You may be the greatest electronics wizard who ever lived, but sometimes…”

  “But Nancy, it’s the middle of the night.”

  “I don’t care. You’re going—now!”

  She turned and headed for the phone, hiding her tears.

  He was back in the emergency room after his head scan, lying on a gurney cart in an examination room, the wireless EKG pasties dotting his chest.

  The two doctors studied the digital image displayed on the large wall monitor.

  “Sal, am I right? Hypertensive cardiomyopathy?”

  Galen’s eyes bored in on the cardiologist who had been his former student.

  “Sure looks like it. Dr. Edison, I’m kicking myself for letting you go so long without a checkup.”

  “Me too, Sal, me too. I let his disdain for quacks keep me from pressing him to see you or examining him myself.”

  Galen endured Nancy’s stare as she patted her husband’s hand.

  “His blood pressure’s under control right now. Good thing you gave him that stuff. What was it you popped in his mouth?”

  Galen leaned over and whispered in Crescenzi’s ear. He shook his head and laughed.

  “Really? Wow! Didn’t think they made that any more. It sure worked, though.”

  Edison stared at them.

  “Speaking of quacks, what did he poison me with?”

  “It’s far from that, Dr. Edison. He saved your life.”

  “Again,” Galen muttered.

  “Dr. Edison, I’d like to schedule you for some more tests. Your preliminary lab looks okay but I think you need an echo stress test and maybe an MRI/Pet of your heart. I don’t think we need to keep you here today but I’m going to have my secretary set up a time next week for you.

  “In the meantime we’ll all do our best to make sure you’re taking your medication.”

  Edison shot a look at Galen, and Galen understood.

  Thanks, big brother .

  “Come on, you two. Lachlan’s waiting at the Loading Doc to take us home.”

  “Uh ... Dr. Galen, could I discuss another patient with you? Mrs. Edison, this won’t take long.”

  “I’ll meet you at the car, guys,” Galen added.

  He turned to Crescenzi as they headed down the hall, an orderly pushing Edison in the mandatory wheelchair to the exit.

  “What’s up, Sal?”

  He was thinking that Crescenzi might want to talk about his partner Jim Galkis. Or maybe it was something about himself. But his younger friend’s expression immediately dispelled those possibilities.

  “Have you told them about the stents?”

  Galen immediately flushed and shook his head. Only Sandy knew that the hand of God had clenched his chest the day of Lilly’s miscarriage.

  His mind flashed back to the night he lay on the cart in the cardiac cath lab, wearing a gown suitable only for someone half his size, as Sandy snickered behind her face mask.

  He would never forget the local injection of anesthesia into his right groin to numb up the site where the large-bore needle would be stuck into his femoral artery. And even with the special, “twilight” sedation, he could recall the flexible catheter threading up and into his left anterior descending coronary artery—the “widow maker”—and the placing of the special tubes called stents to clear the blockage and maintain open blood flow to his heart.

  “I’m doing fine, Sal. Like I told you, you’re an artist when you work. I knew you would be.”

  Crescenzi smiled and sighed.

  “Very well, old friend. And what about Edison? Are you going to tell him about the head scan?”

  Galen found a nearby chair and sat down. How could he tell Edison that the blood vessels inside his skull were acting like a time bomb waiting to explode?

  He and Crescenzi had stared at the monitor, each sub-vocalizing a “holy shit” as he recognized the multiple, lethal mulberries stuck out from all of the major arteries in the old engineer’s brain. Not just one aneurysm, one that could easily be repaired, but a horde of small balloons projecting outward, each unreachable, each a potential weakness that could burst at any time, especially if Edison’s blood pressure stayed elevated.

  “I can’t do it, Sal. What good would it do? I want him and Nancy to have as full and active a life as we three have left.”

  “Don’t you mean four, Galen?”

  “You noticed?”

  “Hard not to.”

  “Yeah, it’s been kinda nice to have her around.”

  “Well…?”

  “We’re all in our eighties now, Sal. We were all given a second chance at raising a family. How many people get that?”

  He paused.

  “Sal, don’t take this the wrong way, but I almost wish you hadn’t put those stents in me. You understand?”

  The cardiologist, who was himself well into middle age, nodded.

  “It’s funny, Sal, the four of us—Nancy with her pacemaker, me with the heart stents, and now Edison with his brain aneurysms—it’s almost like something’s telling us to get everything in order.”

  “And Sandy?”

  “You didn’t notice her hand and foot movements?”

  “Parkinsonism?”

  “I’ll give you another A, Sal.

  “Actually we’ve already made preparations. It was Nancy’s idea, as always. I’d just like to see us make it to Tonio’s graduation from medical school and maybe see the kids married. But at this stage it’s a toss of the dice.”

  Galen leaned forward to stand.

  “I’d better not keep everybody waiting.”

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Geez! We’ve been here all night!”

  Crescenzi took Galen’s hands and helped him to his feet. They stood facing each other for a moment, former mentor and protégé, exchanging knowing looks. Then Galen turned and headed down the hall.

  The cardiologist stared at the departing old man.

  Go with God, old friend .

  AUNTIE EM! AUNTIE EM!

  Nancy kept staring at Edison and shaking her head as they sat in the back of La
chlan Douglas’s state police cruiser. Edison remained silent and sheepish.

  Galen ambled out the ER entrance and climbed into the front passenger seat. With some difficulty he turned to look back at his friends.

  “Sorry it took so long.”

  “Maybe we should cancel holiday dinner,” Nancy huffed.

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. It’s probably better for Edison to eat turkey instead of being one.”

  Lachlan chuckled.

  “Mrs. Edison, I wouldn’t miss one of your dinners even if Gabriel decided to blow his golden trumpet.”

  Nancy sighed.

  “All right, you’ve talked me into it. Besides, I’ve got just about everything ready.”

  The police cruiser’s powerful engine purred as Lachlan turned off the main road and headed up the long driveway. His keen eyes spotted the commotion soonest.

  “Hey, you didn’t tell me you were having a used car sale today,” he laughed.

  His trio of passengers stared in amazement. Parked in front of their mountain home were three vehicles, and standing outside in the chilly November air were eight young men and women in fully animated conversation.

  “They came!” Nancy exclaimed. “They came!”

  She burst into a flood of cathartic tears and even Edison and Galen felt the blurring in their vision.

  “Looks like you got your wish, Mrs. Edison,” Lachlan said. “I’ll be back tomorrow with everyone, say about 3 o’clock?”

  “Yes, Lachlan,” she replied, wiping her eyes. “That will be fine.”

  As soon as the car stopped the crowd of young folk swarmed around it, helping the oldsters out.

  The same sentence repeated itself in different voices.

  “Where were you? Is everything okay?”

  Edison moved slowly up the front steps.

  “Come on, everyone. Get inside before you freeze your…”

  Nancy cupped his mouth.

  “Robert, I’ve had enough of that kind of talk.”

  Eleven souls crowded into the living room after the fire had been stoked and replenished with wood, and the teacart brought out. Nancy had warmed up some butterscotch swirl pastries she had stored in the freezer and along with the chatter the sound of spoons stirring teacups filled the room.