He didn’t talk to Claire again before his meeting with Campbell Bradford. By the morning after their last phone call, which he awoke to with a headache that clearly intended to linger for a few hours, he wished that he’d told her more. It would’ve interested her, and she would’ve listened. One thing about Claire, she always listened.
But he didn’t call, and she didn’t either. He checked the caller ID every day, and that ritual became maddening—she was his wife, and here he was, checking to see if she might have called.
His wife.
He stopped by the apartment to pick up his equipment the night of his interview with Campbell Bradford and saw the message light blinking on the answering machine, thought perhaps Claire had called, then hated himself for such hopefulness. He didn’t allow himself to even check the message, ignoring the machine while he picked up his camera and tripod and briefcase. When he opened the case to put his recorder inside—always good to have an audio backup—he saw the pale green bottle and felt a wave of nausea. He started to remove the bottle, then changed his mind. Maybe he’d show it to old Campbell and see what sort of response it triggered.
Alyssa Bradford had told him to go by the hospital around seven. He went through the building as quickly as he could, long, fast strides, the camera bag banging against his leg. He hated hospitals, always had. When he found the right room number—712—he discovered the door was closed. Rapped lightly on it with his knuckles.
“Hello?” he said, pushing it open, poking his head inside. “Mr. Bradford?”
There were two beds in the room, but only one was occupied. The man in it turned to look at Eric, one half of his face lit by a small fluorescent lamp above the bed. Otherwise the room was dark. The sheets were pulled up to the man’s neck, and the face above them was weathered and gaunt, with sunken blue eyes that announced his sickness even more than the hospital room itself. Loose skin hung off a jaw that once would have been hard and square, and though the hands resting on top of the sheets were thin and brittle, they were large. Would have been powerful, once.
“Mr. Bradford?” Eric said again, and the old man seemed to nod.
“Your daughter-in-law said she told you I’d be coming,” Eric said, crossing to the foot of the bed and pulling up a plastic chair. “I hope I’m not here at a bad time.”
No answer. Not a word, or a blink. But the eyes followed Eric.
“I think Alyssa told you what I was going to be doing?” Eric said. He was reaching into his camera bag now, rushing things along because the old man’s unresponsive stare was unsettling.
“I was hoping I could hear some of the stories you’ve got to tell,” he continued as he removed the camera. “Alyssa promised me you’ve got some good ones.”
Campbell Bradford’s breath came and went in soft, barely audible hisses, and when Eric became aware of the sound, he wanted out of the room, cursed himself for forcing this suggestion on Alyssa in the first place. This man was dying. He was not months away, or even weeks away. Death was close. He could hear it in those little puffing hisses from Campbell’s nose.
It hadn’t been so many years ago that Eric could be in the presence of an old, sick person like this and feel sorrow. Now he felt fear. The buffer zone of years was thinning too fast. He’d be here soon.
“I’ll just let you talk as much as you want, and whenever you’re ready for me to go, I’ll get lost,” he said, unfolding the tripod and fastening the camera to it. When he stole a glance at Campbell, he saw the same blank face and thought, Well, this isn’t going to take long. The man was not going to be able to talk to him. Then Eric took the lens cap off and dropped his eye to the viewfinder to check the focus and felt his next words die in his chest, pulled down by a cold fist of fear. In the viewfinder Campbell Bradford was watching him with an entirely different expression, the blue eyes hard and penetrating and astonishingly alert. They were the eyes of a young man, a strong man.
Eric lifted his head slowly, turned from the camera to the man in the bed and felt that cold fist in his chest open and flutter its fingers.
Campbell Bradford’s face had not changed. The eyes looked just as dim, just as unaware. Eric looked at the door, wishing now that he’d left it open.
“You going to talk to me?” Eric asked.
A slow blink, another hissed breath. Nothing else.
Eric looked at him, then thought, Okay, let’s try it again, and lowered his eye to the viewfinder. There was Campbell, still in the bed, still watching him, still with alert blue eyes that looked nothing like the ones Eric had just been staring into.