Chat by Archer Mayor

age. The door to the room opened, and a nurse stepped in, smiling. “So,” she said brightly, “you decided to join us, after all? I would have, too, with a good-looking son like that hanging around.”
    Joe’s mother narrowed her eyes as she scrutinized him. “How long have I been like this?”
    “A few days, Mom,” he told her, bending quickly to kiss her cheek. “We’ve been keeping you company in shifts. You just missed Gail. She had to go back to Montpelier.”
    “Oh, my,” she reacted, her cheeks pinking up, as if she was embarrassed at being caught napping too long.
    The nurse set about checking her vitals and asking her questions. Joe rose and crossed to the window. The surrounding trees had maintained their thick mantle of snow in the windless cold and so now were almost hard to look at in the sun’s glare.
    “Mr. Gunther?”
    He turned at the nurse’s voice.
    “The doctor will be wanting to check your mom out. If you’d like to take a small break and maybe grab a cup of coffee, now would be the perfect time. She’ll be in good hands, I promise.”
    He smiled at the roundabout, practiced verbiage. “You’d make a good bouncer.” He reached out and touched his mother’s foot. “You have fun with the doc. I’ll go torture Leo a little. Tie a knot in some of his tubing.”
    “You’re an awful child,” she told him, but he could see that he’d hit a nerve with the mention of tubing.
    “Never claimed otherwise,” he said, adding, “I’ll be back with a report card.”
    That, as it turned out, was going to be a bit tricky, assuming the news was to be upbeat. Leo was still in intensive care, was in fact still hooked up to multiple tubes and wires, and, if anything, was in slightly worse shape than when Joe had seen him last.
    He remained coherent, however, though only barely.
    “Hey, Joe,” he said weakly as his brother came into view by his side.
    “Hey, yourself. Got good news: Mom just woke up. They’re checking her out, but she seems fine. Just needed to sleep it off.”
    Leo closed his eyes briefly with relief. “Jesus.” He then tried to move his hand to grasp Joe’s, but grimaced and failed. Joe took his fingers in his own and gave him a squeeze. “Relax, Leo. It’s going to be fine. All that’s left is for you to get better.”
    Leo nodded quietly, taking his time. Joe noticed a tear building up in the corner of one of his brother’s eyes. He reached out and wiped it away.
    “I don’t know,” Leo said, so softly his words were almost lost in the whir of the surrounding equipment.
    Joe leaned over to be near his face when he whispered. “Leo, you’ve got to do this. It’s not like I have any spare brothers, and Mom’ll make my life hell if you kick the bucket. Stop thinking of yourself, for Christ’s sake.”
    Leo smiled slowly. “You are a son of a bitch.”
    Joe kissed his bristly cheek. “I love you, too.”
    His brother sighed and gave a halfhearted nod. “Okay. What about the car?”
    “The nut on the tie rod went,” Joe said, hoping that made sense.
    Leo’s eyes widened. “No shit? How the hell would that happen?”
    “You had it serviced lately?”
    “Yeah, but not for that. It’s too new. The tie rod ends should be factory fresh.”
    “You bring it to Steve’s, right?” Joe asked. “Exclusively?”
    His brother nodded, beginning to fade.
    “You ever have problems with them?”
    Leo didn’t respond immediately. Joe bent close again, not wanting to miss his chance. “Leo?”
    “No problems,” Leo mumbled.
    Joe straightened back up. That would have to be it. He placed his palm flat on Leo’s forehead and told him, “Hang in there. Mom’s fine. That part’s over. But we need you back, okay?”
    He thought he could feel his brother nod agreement under his hand, but it was too slight a gesture to trust.
    Their mother was discharged later that day. Joe had remembered to salvage her wheelchair from the trunk of the shattered Subaru, and used it