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“Uh ... Dr. Hicks, is Dr. Petrie your squeeze?”
She grinned at him and nodded.
“Good, I like him. He looks and talks funny.”
“What about Dr. Hidalgo and Dr. Knowlton?”
“Who’s been talking to you, kid?”
“Well, what about them?”
“Yeah, they’re an item. Just don’t tell them I said that, and don’t ask Dr. Petrie what you asked me.”
“I already did.”
“What did he say?”
Sammy grinned back at her.
Judy wanted to kiss his forehead but didn’t; she gave him a thumbs-up instead.
“Next time you see me, Dr. Hicks, I’ll give you a thumbs-up, too!”
“It’s a deal!”
Galen walked over to the calendar on his bedroom wall and crossed off another day. He looked at the date circled in red: May 9, 2025, the day Tonio would graduate from medical school, less than four weeks away.
He shook his head as he looked in the mirror and saw the unruly gray-white hair flowing over his ears. He remembered the sideburns he had grown over 50 years before, all the rage in the late ’70s of the last century. His beloved Cathy liked to run her fingers through them and call him her “mutton-chop.”
His eyes started to mist as he remembered his second wife. No, he couldn’t let the brooding despair overtake him again. He was on the wrong side of 85. He was too old to cry in his beer of memories.
He felt totally drained that night as he changed into his pajamas, washed his face to remove the residue of dried tears, and slowly climbed into bed. It was only 9 p.m.
Edison and Nancy were still watching a History Channel program. They weren’t surprised when he had gotten up and said he was going to bed early. The strain of the impending graduation was beginning to tell on the old man.
He took off his eyeglasses, set them on the bedside table, and turned off the lamp. He lay back on the old foam pillow he and his beloved first wife Leni had slept on and stared at the blur of the darkened ceiling. His eyelids fluttered as he felt the tension of the day leaving...
He was walking on the hard dirt road, the dust of passing chariots raising clouds that obscured the blue Mediterranean sky. The highway marker pointed toward the distant temple and he knew he would soon arrive at his destination: Eleusis.
He turned to the young boy walking beside him and raised his walking stick.
“There, do you see it?”
“Yes, Tio.”
They walked on. The nearer they came to the temple the older the boy became. Once no higher than the old man’s chest, by the time they reached the marble steps he now towered above his guardian in the full bloom of young manhood.
“Tio, is this our destination?”
“Yes, boy, and your destiny. Come; the son of Apollo awaits us.”
They climbed the steps, the boy with vigor, the old man with increasing difficulty. Soon they passed between the high Doric columns to enter the darkened portal.
“Is that you, Galen?”
The voice boomed from the main altar.
“Yes, Aesclepius.”
“Come forward and bring the boy with you.”
“Tio, I am afraid.”
“As was I, Antonio, and as once was my mentor, Corrado Agnelli.”
“Galen, prepare the boy.”
The bearded god raised a golden shaft entwined by a single serpent.
Simultaneously Galen raised his walking staff. The coiled serpent leapt to the old man’s stick and he held it high for a brief second before calling out, “Antonio Hidalgo, do you understand the responsibilities you are about to take on?”
“Yes, Tio Galen.”
“Then accept the Staff of Aesclepius and the burden of carrying on from me.”
The young man’s hand reached out and grasped the radiant rod in Galen’s hand.
The old doctor felt the weight lift from his shoulders...
The buzz of the phone broke the reverie. Galen sat up in bed, his senses on alert. The dream seemed so real that he felt annoyed at the untimely interruption.
“Yes, who is it?” he asked, in his best gruff voice.
“Tio Galen, it’s me, Tonio.”
Galen’s heart skipped.
Was something wrong? Was the dream all a lie?
No, not this close to graduation!
He calmed himself and softened his voice.
“What’s happening, boy?”
“I had to tell you. We did our first cord-trauma salvage today.”
Galen’s mind hesitated then clicked into place.
“The Joshua Protocol?”
“Yeah, Tio, how did you know?”
The old doctor laughed to himself. The young always think that they are the first to have learned how to suck eggs.
“Tonio, I may be as old as Methuselah but that doesn’t mean I’m senile. Remember, I lived through the changes in development and practice of medicine that you now take for granted.”
“Sorry, Tio, it’s just ... well ... it was an awesome thing to be a part of. This fourteen-year-old boy severed his cord at C-5 and now he stands a good chance of full recovery.”
“I’m proud of you, Tonio. Tell you what. The four of us are coming down to Richmond for your graduation. Think you and your friends would like to hear how the Joshua Protocol came about?”
“Of course, Tio!
“By the way, the neurosurgeon said to send you her best.”
“What’s the name?”
“Dr. Castro.”
“Good student.”
He lay back down once more, sighed, and stared at the ceiling.
Four years already!
2. With the Sleep of Dreams Come Nightmares
He rode the nightmare that starlit summer night.
It was not the first time.
Berto, your parents are dead.
Dr. Agnelli, what happened?
They died alone, Berto.
Harold Ruddy, the half-bodied amputee of the Great War, was surrounded by the other Old Guys and Thomas the Barber.
They were his childhood heroes, the men a boy named Berto had worshipped. Now they stared at him with loathing.
Five pairs of arms rose and pointed at him then at a corner of the old shoe shop where he had sought counsel in his youth.
What are those long boxes on the floor, Corrado?
The tall Italian doctor who had mentored Berto slowly wheeled the amputee-shoemaker over to the boxes.
Each man reached for and lifted a rough-hewn, wooden lid.
Galen fell to his knees and touched the faces within.
Mama! Papa!
Two sets of eyes stared up at him.
Avete abbandonato noi non abbiamo nessun figlio .
We faced the Dark Angel alone .
As one, they condemned him, his father’s voice ringing out the last words he had heard before leaving home.
Non ho, figlio!
I have no son .
He turned and saw the two lavender-eyed women who filled his life with the only joy he had known.
Leni, Cathy, you won’t leave me. Promise you won’t leave me!
Two softly accusing voices pierced him.
You could have saved us. We didn’t have to die .
They didn’t have to die, Tio .
Tonio?
Die, old man .
Tonio, no, no, not you!
“Don’t die, Tio!”
“Huh? Wha…?”
“Tio Galen!”
He felt his shoulders being shaken and a young man’s voice echoing in his ears.
Galen had sat up most of the night in the living room, staring out the window at the moonlit mountain vista, his only companions the ghosts of his past.
When did I doze off?
The old man blinked as the image of his ward Antonio Hidalgo came into focus. Ever since his heart attack, Tonio was more solicitous than ever. The young are always shocked by the mortality of the old.<
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“Yes, Tonio, I’m still ticking. What time is it?”
He knelt by Galen’s chair.
“It’s 5 a.m., Tio.”
“I guess you didn’t sleep either, eh, boy?”
“No, Tio. I still can’t believe I’m going to medical school today!”
Galen couldn’t believe it either. He shook his head, still seeing Tonio as the 3-year-old orphan he had found on Bald Head Island almost 20 years before.
“Are you sure this is what you want, boy?”
The young man turned away, pretending to stretch, and turned back.
“Yes, Tio.”
“Okay, have you packed everything you want in the RV?”
He looked at his ward, the energy of youth flashing from his dark-brown Latino eyes. Nothing was impossible. The world was his to conquer.
Tonio gazed at his tio and saw how the world fought back.
“Yes, Tio, just about…”
Galen tried to rise from his armchair but joint stiffness caught him off guard.
Tonio quickly stood up, his 6-feet, 2-inch frame towering over his guardian.
“Let me help you, Tio.”
A grumbled “I don’t need help” was ignored. Tonio saw the hidden gratitude as he easily pulled the old man upright.
They moved down the hall to Tonio’s room. Galen sat on the edge of the bed. The young man’s belongings were storm-tossed by the winds of change.
Galen rose slowly and turned his head halfway to face his ward. It was a gesture he had inherited from his papa, the body language of father to son.
Then he stopped.
No, old man, no deep philosophical words now. This is neither the time nor the place .
Flashes of that hellish dream brought him up short.
Berto, you are not your father .
“Go clean up, Tonio. Your tia has breakfast waiting.”
He returned to his own room where he quickly washed, shaved, and changed into fresh clothes before heading to the dining room.
They sat quietly at the large, handmade oak table Edison had crafted years before, when the children and their friends had made its size a necessity. Now only four sat at the table. Soon it would be three. It had been that way in the beginning, when Safehaven was just a dream.
There was no turning back for the young man who had become Galen’s surrogate son.
“Have we got the itinerary, guys?” Nancy asked.
Edison looked at her. The retired couple—he a former electronics engineer and she a former banker—could see the impending empty-nest syndrome in their friend.
“After we finish here,” Edison answered, “we’ll head on down the road. I think it shouldn’t take more than seven to eight hours to reach Richmond.
“As usual we’ve got two choices once we get to Harrisburg. We either head down Route 15 through Thurmont and Frederick, or we take I-83 through Towson and around Baltimore. Either way, we wind up on that damned Beltway and ultimately connect to I-95 south. Take your pick.”
Galen looked at his old friend. “How about the road less traveled?”
Nancy’s eyes twinkled. “Mr. Frost was a wise man.”
“Thurmont it is,” Edison agreed.
Edison turned to Tonio, his thick glasses and double hearing aids wobbling.
“Once we hit Richmond we’ll get you settled in your dorm room then bed down for the night at a local motel. I’m sure sourpuss here would like to revisit the city of his youthful escapades. I hope the State of Virginia has taken down all the wanted posters.”
Galen couldn’t help it. His face took on its customary scowl.
“No, no mad or sad face today, big brother. Come on, Pagliacci, play the clown.”
He cleared his throat and smiled—quite a rarity twice in one day—and shot a glance at Edison.
“Tonio, I believe what your more feeble-minded tio is trying to say is that I’d like to revisit some of the places that meant something to me. I haven’t been to Richmond in ages and I’m sure most of the school complex is new. Who knows? I might actually meet someone I know.”
“Only if we’re going to visit nursing homes or mental institutions,” Edison quipped.
Nancy unconsciously pressed her hand against the pacemaker in her left upper chest.
“Okay, you two, playtime’s over. Finish your breakfast. We have a long trip ahead.”
Tonio’s face split in a wide grin as his tios sheepishly resumed eating.
After breakfast the young man returned to his room, scanning it for forgotten items. The old man followed quietly, observing him. He saw Tonio’s startled face as the soft notes of “Lara’s Theme” echoed from the upper drawer of his clothes bureau. Tears welled up as he opened the drawer, picked up a little silver music box, and lovingly caressed it.
Galen heard him whisper, “I said we’d go to school together, Betty.”
He remained silent as his ward relived the life and death of his first love. Leukemia had snatched Betty Orth from him just four years ago.
Tonio kissed the little box. It would be his memento mori , just as Galen treasured his first wife Leni’s stuffed toy dog, and his second wife Cathy’s hand-knitted scarf.
He turned as he noticed his tio standing in the open doorway.
“She’ll always be with you, Tonio.”
It was dawn. The early lavender sky portended good weather that mid-August day.
Tonio sat beside Galen as Edison aimed the RV he affectionately called Wilma down the mountain road. He turned his head to look out the back window, watching the letters of the old oak sign receding in the distance. He was leaving Safehaven.
Tonio had fallen asleep; his head resting on Galen’s left shoulder as he had done so many times as a child.
“Tio, I can’t do it. I’m not like you. I can never be as good as you.”
The old doctor whispered in the young man’s ear, as he had done when the child Tonio had experienced his own share of nightmares.
“Easy, son, I’ll always be with you. You will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.”
Tonio’s body relaxed, a smile creasing his sleeping face.
Nancy pulled Wilma up to the entranceway of the main dormitory and stopped. She and Edison remained silent while their friend gazed at the unchanged portico he had first entered over 60 years before.
Galen reached over and gently nudged the sleeping young man.
Tonio stretched, yawned and made the three old timers laugh with the signature phrase of all his childhood car trips.
“Are we there yet?”
Edison and Nancy got out and waited as Galen slowly stepped down onto the sidewalk. He stood there a second before calling out, “Come on, boy, it’s time to leave the nest.”
The four entered the central lounge. A banner over the doorway read, WELCOME CLASS OF 2025. Inside, other parents and students stood in nervously animated clusters.
“My God, is that you, Galen?”
A female voice, tempered by time but strangely familiar, called out to him.
He turned and saw a slightly bent, gray-haired elderly woman standing next to a tall young woman. He stared myopically, trying to recognize the face.
“Bob Galen, don’t you remember me?”
“Sandy? Sandy McDevitt?”
“You do remember! I guess the two of us haven’t gone senile yet, eh, Bob?”
She smiled, the laughter lines crinkling a blue-eyed face with few wrinkles.
Sandy McDevitt, the elfin young junior med student who had dared question two brash guys that first day he and Dave strutted their stuff as fourth-year medical students. She had been friends with their girlfriends, Connie and June, so she was well aware of the two young men’s quirks. Even though she was a year behind, they often included her and her boyfriend, Josh Longan, on triple dates.
Galen turned to his friends and ward.
“Sandy graduated the year after I did. Sandy, these are my friends the Edisons, and my ward Antonio Hidalgo.”
She shook hands and looked appraisingly at Tonio. Sandy was never shy when it came to good-looking young men.
“You did know Josh and I married after graduation, didn’t you, Bob?”
“Yes, Sandy, I read about his passing in the alumni journal a few years back. You and he lived a storybook life as medical missionaries in Kenya.”
“It’s hard to believe he’s gone, Bob. I still feel him near me. I…”
Nancy moved forward and held Sandy’s hand.
The diminutive woman Galen remembered as a freckle-faced, pugnacious blonde shook her head to clear away the past. Then she looked up smiling once more.
“How foolish of me! Sarah, come over here. Folks, this is my granddaughter, Sarah Knowlton. She’s trying to follow in Meemaw’s footsteps.”
The girl towered over her doll-sized grandmother. She blushed.
“Grandma, I haven’t called you that since I was five!”
Tonio stepped forward confidently.
“I’m Tony, Tony Hidalgo. Guess we’re gonna be classmates.”
Four geriatrics, all of them in or nearing their 80s, watched approvingly as two tall, dark-haired 22 year olds looked intently into each other’s brown eyes and melded.
“Grandma, I need to get checked in. Tony, let me show you where the office is.”
Sarah was definitely a take-charge girl, just like her grandmother had been.
Tonio hesitated then agreed.
“Yeah, we best get started. It’ll let us get good dorm rooms.”
He grabbed his bags and Sarah’s as well.
The seniors watched as the two instant friends walked away.
“I’ll phone you, Tonio,” Galen called after him.
They heard Sarah giggle as she asked, “What’s with this ‘Tonio’ stuff? It sounds like the brand name for a spaghetti sauce.”
“Were we ever that young, Bob?”
Sandy looked up at the bear-sized man.
What could he say? He was, even with his New Jersey upbringing, a southern gentleman at heart.
“We still are, Sandy, especially you.”
He smiled at Edison’s look of astonishment and Nancy’s knowing expression.
“Sandy, why don’t you come with us?” Nancy chimed in. “We’re going to take a quick tour of Bob’s and your old stomping grounds. There’s plenty of room in Wilma.”