The Summer Proposal by Vi Keeland

Then I decided to go for a run.

I had no idea how far I’d gone, but I was a mile or two from home when it started to rain. Not just drizzle either, it goddamn poured. But it felt kinda right. On my way back, I passed the Garden. Glenn, one of the security guards I’d been friendly with, happened to be outside under the overhang, smoking a cigarette. He’d been on duty the night I met Georgia. He waved, so I stopped.

“Yearwood, you traitor.” He smiled. “Figured you’d be out on the West Coast, hamming it up at parties with movie stars and starlets by now.”

“Soon.” I put my hands on my knees and bent to catch my breath. “What are you doing here? I thought you only worked nights.”

“A day-shift spot finally opened up. You remember Bernie, the guy with the weird, red goatee but has white hair?”

“Yeah, I know Bernie.”

“He got a job in operations. Took over Otto’s gig.” He shook his head. “Such a shame about that guy, huh?”

“Shame about who?”

“Otto. I figured you knew. They sent out an email to the team.”

“I’m not on the team anymore. What happened to Otto?”

“Had a cough that started last week. A few days later, he was in the hospital with pneumonia. Yesterday they had to put him on a ventilator. Antibiotics aren’t working, and his immune system is shot from the cancer treatments.”

Shit. “You know what hospital he’s in?”

“St. Luke’s.”

“Thanks. I gotta go. It was good seeing you, Glenn. Take care.”



• • •



“Hi. I’m looking for Otto Wolfman.”

The nurse pointed to one of the glass rooms on her left. “He’s in bed four.”

The intensive care unit was one big space with a nurses’ station in the middle and small, individual, fishbowl glass rooms located around the perimeter. The sliding door to Otto’s was open, and a woman sat at his bedside. When she saw me, she stood and walked out.

“Hi. Are you Mrs. Wolfman?” I asked.

“I am.”

“I’m Max Yearwood, a friend of your husband’s from the Garden.”

She smiled. “I know who you are. Otto talks about you all the time, and he never misses watching your games. He adores you.”

I smiled back. “You sure you got the right guy? He calls me jackass.”

Mrs. Wolfman chuckled. “That’s how you know he likes you—if he calls you names.”

I looked over her shoulder at Otto. He was hooked up to all kinds of monitors and drip bags. “I just heard what happened. How’s he doing?”

She shook her head. “Not too well, I’m afraid. He’s got sepsis now, likely from the pneumonia.”

“I saw him pretty recently. He seemed like he was doing so well.”

“He was. The pneumonia took us by surprise. He’s got lung cancer, so having a cough isn’t unusual. That’s what we thought it was until he came down with a high fever. It spread fast because his immune system is compromised from the chemo.”

“Would it be alright if I visited him for a few minutes?”

Mrs. Wolfman smiled. “I think he’d love that. I was going to take a walk downstairs to grab some coffee. There’s a Starbucks in the lobby. So I’ll leave you two alone for a few minutes.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“Would you like me to grab you a cup?”

“No thanks.” I smiled. “Otto is so anti-Starbucks.”

“Oh, don’t I know it. But I really enjoy it. I’ll tell you a little secret.” She motioned for me to come closer. “I keep a sleeve of plain, white Styrofoam cups in my cupboard. Sometimes I pick up a Starbucks and dump it into one of those so I don’t have to listen to him rant for a half hour about how the place is overpriced.”

I laughed. “That’s classic.”

She patted my shoulder. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

After Mrs. Wolfman left, I stood at the doorway, not sure what to say or do. A nurse came by to add another bag of fluids to Otto’s IV pole. As she worked, she spoke aloud, telling him what she was doing. I stopped her on her way out.

“Can he hear you?”

She had a kind smile. “Maybe. Many people do wake up remembering conversations visitors had, but it’s different on a case-by-case basis. I like to assume they can and just let them know what I’m up to. There have been studies that show patients benefit from the familiar sound of the voices of loved ones. They believe it can help awaken the brain and improve recovery time.” She nodded toward Otto. “Go ahead in. It may feel weird at first, but just try telling him about your day.”

I nodded. “Okay, thank you.”

I took a seat beside Otto’s bed and looked up at all the wires and monitors.

“Hey, old man.” I smiled sadly. “I was going to come visit and say goodbye before I left. You didn’t have to go and do all this just to get my ass in gear. The nurse says you might recognize voices. I figure if I’m too nice, you might get confused, so I’ll just be my regular charming self.”

I paused and thought back to the first time Otto and I met, seven years ago. “I’m going to tell you something, but if you remember it when you wake up, I’ll deny I ever said it. Anyway…I looked forward to seeing you every day after practice. You always reminded me of my dad. He was my biggest supporter, but never afraid to dish out a dose of reality. My rookie year, I walked in with a chip on my shoulder. I thought the team would be excited to land me, that I’d proven my worth by my stats in college and the price tag of the big contract I’d signed. I didn’t understand that some of the guys had put in ten or fifteen years and watched more than one big-name rookie turn out to be a disappointment. There was a guy named Sikorski who rode me hard that first year, and we started to go at it on the ice. One day after practice, I was sitting around in the penalty box, stewing over us getting into it yet again. You were pushing a broom and asked me if I planned on marrying Sikorski. I looked at you like you were crazy and said he wasn’t my type. And then you said something that’s stuck with me to this day: ‘Not every battle is worth the fight.’ You told me to stop wasting my time on shit that comes between my destiny and me.” I shook my head. “Something just clicked. I was funneling all of my energy into a fight I didn’t have to win. And that just took focus away from the things that really mattered, like improving my game.”