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Show 139 Hunt's father was talking to a doctor outside Hunt's mother's room on the fifth floor. "This is my son," Hunt's father introduced. "How's Mom?" Hunt asked. "You can't reverse a 1 iftime of cigarettes," the Armenian doctor said. "I asked my father," Hunt said. "Hunt: Don't fly in from Arizona and be an irritant," his father cautioned. "How is she?" Hunt said again. His voice was low. And hurting. "Sleeping," Hunt's father said. "Can I go in?" "Are you asking me?" the doctor said, voice level, smirking. Hunt stepped to what he knew to be the door. He had sent letters. 502. He.opened it. Can't reverse a lifetime of cigarettes! Can't reverse a lifetime. What kind of euphemistic crap was that?! Christ, his mother was the only person who had ever looked close to gentle, smoking. Was this medical science's finest? Its best shot? Can't reverse a lifetime of being a smug, little asshole either. Nevermind. Nevermind. The Armenian doctor didn't matter. --But if the swarthy snot really wanted to know: His mother had seemed always more like the smoke . . . than the act of smoking: soft . . . aromatic, permeating. At least that was Hunt's memory. He didn't blame her; he didn't blame the damage that had been done. It just hurt. It just hurt Hunt that this was where she was. And that a life of generosity came to this sort of humiliation. She was sleeping. She was drooped and sleeping in the white covers, her face puffy -- not the Rodin bloom and ripeness that had filled her |
