The Harris Family: A Novel - Hardcover

Chapter 1

Julius Harris was exhausted as he sat in his car at eight in the morning. He hadn't gotten a full night's rest, and he felt awful. He reached forward, pulled the visor down to take a look at himself in the mirror, to see if he looked as bad as he felt.

What he saw was an unshaven, sixty-year-old man, who looked more like a one-hundred-year-old man. His hair was short and uncombed, dark circles hung under his tired, bloodshot eyes, and as he dropped his face in his hands, rubbing the graying stubble on it, he asked himself, Was he losing weight? Was he shedding pounds without even trying? He sank a thumb into the waist of the wrinkled trousers he'd pulled off the back of his bedroom chair that morning, and gave them a tug. He could've sworn he'd lost weight, but every time he asked his wife about it, she simply smiled and said that he was being ridiculous.

Julius left his pants alone, flipped the visor back into place, then looked toward the window. He smeared a circle in that foggy driver's-side window to reveal a fuzzy image of the small medical center across the street. He had a view of the parking lot, and as he focused his attention there, cars started to roll in.

He wished that he weren't alone at that moment, wished that he could reach across the car and feel his wife, take her hand, and gain strength from her, as he was used to doing. Cathy had wanted to come with him, begged him to let her come, but he wouldn't do that to her again.

He remembered five years ago when they'd last come to see this doctor, she was destroyed sitting there beside him in the doctor's office. He could practically feel the life leave her, her body falling limp in his arms after they had received the news. Julius had decided he couldn't subject her to something like that again, and he knew that would be the kind of news the doctor would have for him.

"The cancer is back, and it is more aggressive than ever before," the doctor would tell Julius. He wouldn't even have to run any tests, because he'd be able to see it seeping out of Julius's pores, his posture weakened by the damage the disease had already done to his bones.

Julius brought his face nearer to the window, his attention caught by a silver Jaguar slowly pulling into the parking lot. He watched it as it took the closest space to the building. The driver's-side door opened, a foot was placed on the pavement, and a man stepped out, a thin, graying man with glasses.

Julius, his eyes narrowing, recognized him immediately. It was the doctor, his doctor. His doctor popped open an umbrella over his head and took casual steps toward the building, as if it weren't raining at all.

With that, Julius reached across the passenger seat, picked up his umbrella, and made his way out into the rain himself. The clouds drenched everything under them, sending down a perpetual sheet of rain on the city. Julius dodged through the cars that skimmed across the rain-slick street, stopping once to avoid getting splashed by a wave of water thrust toward him by a passing car.

Julius saw the doctor disappear behind the tinted, double doors of the building, which made him pick up his pace. He took the stairs as fast as he could, pulled the door to the building open, and ducked inside, his umbrella still open, dripping rain onto the dark carpet. The waiting room was filled with patients, most of them older, their bodies naturally deformed by age, silver sprouting from their heads, sad expressions on their faces. A TV droned on, mounted high in a corner of the room, no doubt there to take the patients' minds away from their illnesses and how long it would be before they could see the doctor, just so he could go about putting their illnesses back on their minds.

Julius looked left, then quickly right, and saw his doctor disappear behind the door of his office. He walked briskly after him, almost running, but was halted by a young, thin receptionist. She got up and leaned over her desk just a bit, as if to reach out and snag Julius by his collar and yank him back if he continued to move in the direction of the doctor's office.

"Sir, can I help you?" she said in a tone that actually said, "You can't go back there."

"Yes, I'm here to see Dr. Phillips," Julius said, not looking at the receptionist, but at the closed office door, as if he was afraid the doctor was slipping out the office window as they spoke.

"Okay, yes, fine," the woman said, pulling a scheduling book in front of her, keeping an eye on Julius.

"And your name, sir?" she said, her finger resting at the top of the page.

"Mr. Harris," Julius said.

It only took her a moment, to say, "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't see your name on the list. Are you sure it wasn't for another day?"

"I don't have an appointment," Julius said, now giving his attention to her, "but I still have to see Dr. Phillips."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Harris, but all these people have to see him, too, and they do have appointments."

Julius looked over his shoulder at the half dozen people sitting in the chairs behind him. Their eyes were on him, as if they had been listening to his conversation with this woman since he'd started it. He sympathized with them, but his case was more important than theirs. At least it was to him, and that was all that mattered.

Julius turned, placed both palms on the woman's desk, and leaned into her, speaking softly.

"I understand what you're saying, but I really must see Dr. Phillips today," and Julius even gave her a little smile after his request, thinking it might make some bit of difference.

The dark-haired woman looked up at him from behind her glasses and said, "I'm sorry, Mr...."

"Your sorrow does nothing for me!" Julius said, pounding the desk angrily, sending a tremor through her Garfield and Odie trinkets, making them do a little dance, then fall to their sides, playing dead. "I have to see him now. Please!" Julius said, softening his tone, trying to appeal to this woman.

The receptionist stared at Julius sympathetically for a moment, then said, "Hold on. Let me see what I can do." She picked up the phone, dialed the doctor's office.

"Dr. Phillips, there is a Mr. Harris out here to see you. No, he doesn't have an appointment, but I believe you might want to see him...Okay...yes...all right," she said, all the while looking at Julius. Then she hung up the phone.

"He'll be right out to see you, Mr. Harris," the receptionist said, smiling.

"Thank you," Julius said, softly.

A moment later, the doctor's office door opened, and Julius turned to face that direction, watched his doctor walk down the short hall toward him, a phony little smile pasted across his face, which Julius knew was meant to appease him long enough to get him out of there.

His hand was outstretched, and his demeanor seemed more that of a car salesman than a man of medicine. "Good morning." He grinned. "Mr...." and he looked down briefly to his receptionist, who said softly, "Harris."

"Good morning, Mr. Harris," the doctor said again, keeping his hand out for Julius to shake. Julius stared down at the man's hand as if he had just yanked it out of his ass. The doctor lowered his hand, his smile shrinking a bit with the movement.

"What seems to be the problem?"

Julius stood in front of the man, expecting to see something in his eyes, a glint of recognition, something. But there was nothing. Julius was a total stranger to him. But Julius didn't care that it had been five years since he had last seen this man. He should know me, he thought.

"I need to speak to you," Julius said, then turned to see that he still had the attention of every patient in the waiting room. "In private."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Harris, but as Susie told you, you'll have to make an appointment."

"I don't need an appointment for what I have to say," Julius said, and now he was speaking loud enough for the oldest and deafest man in the room to hear him.

"I am a patient of yours, and you misdiagnosed me, filling me with a lot of pain, anger, and fear, telling me I was going to die a long time ago, when anyone can see that I'm still living." Julius turned to the waiting room, as if it held a jury, and he was an attorney making a case. "And considering that, I'm wondering how many other people you've given false information to, causing them to..."

Before he could finish, Julius was led quickly by the arm into Dr. Phillips's office. The door was shut behind them.

"Who are you, and what the hell do you think you are doing?" the doctor said angrily.

"You know my name. Susie told it to you, remember," Julius said, sarcastically.

"And?" the doctor said, bewildered.

"You don't know who I am?"

"No."

"I was a patient of yours."

"I have hundreds of patients," the doctor said, on the verge of erupting.

"Look at me, Dr. Phillips. Take a long look," Julius said, and the doctor did that, but Julius saw that the doctor was still clueless.

"Maybe this will help you." Julius took a seat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, the same chair he'd sat in when he was diagnosed with cancer five years ago.

"Now look at me."

"That still doesn't..."

"Five years ago, I sat here with a woman. You came in here, pulled open a file, and from that file, you casually told me that..." but Julius stopped talking, because he could see the doctor's eyes grow round with recollection.

"I told you that you had terminal cancer, and only one year to live," the doctor said slowly, softly, as if he had made this realization all by himself. "I expected that you would be..."

"Dead," Julius said, finishing for him.

After an exhausting battery of all-day testing, including a thorough physical, blood work, and CAT scan, Julius returned the following morning. He was sitting in the exact chair he'd sat in the day before, the exact chair he'd sat in the day he was diagnosed five years before. This thought all of a sudden crept into his head, and he was overcome by a need to get out of that seat. He quickly leapt out of it and sat in the one next to it. Not that he was superstitious, but something told him, had been telling him, that he would need all the help he could get on this one.

Dr. Phillips was not in the office. He had gone out to gather all the test results, so they could find out exactly what was going on. He was a lot more caring than he had been early yesterday morning, Julius noticed. He was a lot more willing to listen, and willing to do whatever it took to get to the bottom of this huge mystery.

The change had happened the day before, just after the doctor realized that he was staring at what he thought should have been a dead man.

"Why didn't you come in here sooner?" he asked, astonishment on his face. "And what makes you finally come in now?"

"The chemotherapy I had didn't work. It just made me sick, just made my hair fall out, and made me think that what was supposed to be the cure would kill me before the disease did. And then the radiation therapy was embarrassing and demeaning, but I told myself I'd be willing to endure almost anything, just to have a shot at my life."

"But if you remember," the doctor said, taking his glasses from his face, "I told you your cancer was terminal. I told you that there was a very slim chance that you would respond to any treatment, but you insisted, so I allowed you to follow that route."

"Well, you were right," Julius said, swallowing some pride. "It didn't seem to work, and I decided I wouldn't make any more efforts to cure myself, nor would I continue to think about it killing me. I just gave up all together. But then, for some reason, when I went to bed at night, I just kept on waking up in the morning. After a while, I didn't have any pain. As a matter of fact, I felt like I was in perfect health. Sure, every now and then I'd get a muscle ache or a runny nose, but it was gone the following day."

"But now?" Dr. Phillips asked, sensing there was more.

"But now I have this cold, this fever, and I've just been feeling like hell for the past two weeks, and I can't seem to shake it. I'm worried it's the cancer again," Julius said, sadly looking down at his folded hands.

"Well, we'll find out what's going on, one way or the other," the doctor said, walking over to him, laying a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "We'll get to the bottom of this."

Now here was Dr. Phillips standing just inside the door with a manila folder in his hands. There seemed to be no emotions on his face, and if there was one, it was of a man making an effort to hide the true expressions he was actually feeling.

He took soft, cautious steps across the thinly carpeted floor, holding the file in his hands very gently, as if he were carrying Julius's life, and if it slipped out, the man before him would perish that very moment.

Dr. Phillips sat on the edge of his desk in front of Julius, setting the file down gently beside him. "We have the results now. They're right here in this file, Julius."

He had started calling him Julius. He had never done that before, and Julius suspected it was because he feared Julius would tell his patients about the major fuck-up the doctor had made in his diagnosis. Or could it be that he was just a nice guy after all, and he truly wanted to make Julius feel more comfortable, considering all he was going through? He didn't know, and really, it didn't make much difference what the motivation was, because it did make him feel better, as if he weren't in this all by himself.

"I went over them quite a few times to make sure, that's what took me so long. I even called over to the lab, to make sure these were the right results, and not anybody else's."

And now Julius was on the verge of a breakdown. He could feel himself becoming anxious, could feel a cold chill shoot through his spine and a flame ignite at his brow. The results in that file were probably so bad the doctor couldn't believe it. The doctor couldn't believe that a man who was so filled with cancer could actually walk into his office, not aided by a wheelchair or a stretcher, let alone raise enough hell to cause a scene in the waiting room.

"I called and verified everything. Twice. Even went to look at your CAT scan myself," Dr. Phillips said, picking up the folder and letting it fall open, the flaps of either side draping across his open palm.

This was it, Julius thought. He was staring at the doctor as if he were death, as if he had the ability to take his life right there, and even though that was not the case, even though he was just the deliverer of the news, Julius still feared for his existence. So much so that his heart stopped right there, or at least it felt as though it did, because there seemed to be nothing happening within him. His legs, arms, were numb, not his own, and all he could do was close his eyes and listen as the doctor spoke.

"The tests show that your cancer seems to be in remission."

Julius felt as if all of a sudden his heart started beating again, and th...