Read Online The Leisure Seeker: A Novel by Michael Zadoorian - Free Book Online Page B

going, Grandpa? You said you have to leave all this.”
    He just said, “Nowhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
    By the time Lydia got him upstairs, he seemed all right, more like himself, but she took me aside and told me what happened.
    When I asked John about it later, he denied it. He was sure that he hadn’t even been downstairs, but I had seen him come up myself. Nothing happened for a couple of months after that, so I managed to push it out of my mind.
    Then we went to Florida. We were headed to Kissimmee to visit friends who had a condo down there. All along the way, John had indigestion and light-headedness and shortness of breath. He kept saying he was all right, but I didn’t believe him. Midway into our second day of driving (we were trying to make it there in two days, always the big rush), he pulled over to the side of the freeway, panting. Then he opened the door and threw up.

    “John, what’s wrong?” I was really scared by this time.
    “I don’t know, I don’t know!” He was coughing and wheezing by then. “I can’t breathe, Ella!”
    I thought he was having a heart attack, but he wasn’t holding his chest or his arm or anything like that.
    John held his hands over his mouth, breath shallow, eyes welling, voice trembling. “I don’t know if I can drive, Ella. I feel so light-headed. I’m afraid.”
    It was the only time I ever heard him say that to me.
    Around then, another Leisure Seeker pulled up behind us. A man in his fifties came up to the window and asked if everything was okay. (Leisure Seeker owners stick together that way.)
    “I think my husband’s having a heart attack,” was what I said.
    The man looked at John and saw he was truly sick. “Can you drive your van?” he asked me.
    “I haven’t driven a car in thirty years, much less this thing,” I said.
    “Okay.” He ran to his RV, then ran back to ours. “I’ll drive you two to the next town, and my wife will follow us.”
    We ended up in some podunk hospital in the Florida panhandle. (It’s worth saying here that if you can ever avoid being in a hospital in Florida, do so. Instead of “the Sunshine State,” the state motto should be “Land of Unnecessary Surgery.”) Some greasy quack admitted John, got him into a bed, examined him, and proclaimed him a candidate for open-heart surgery within ten minutes.

    “Bullshit,” said John, who was feeling better by then. “No way.”
    After that, they put the pressure on me. “It’s for his own good. He could go at any time.” They basically scared the bejesus out of me. I told them I had to call my children. Cindy said the same thing as John. Kevin volunteered to come down the next day. I told the hospital that there wasn’t going to be any surgery, not for a while at least.
    Kevin arrived the next day. By then, John felt fine. He was ready to resume our trip.
    “I’m driving the van back to Detroit,” said Kevin, with as much conviction as I’d ever heard from him. “You two are flying home.”
    We both pissed and moaned because neither of us liked flying, but eventually we relented. It was the first time that we felt a real shift in power, how our kids now felt like they were in charge of us instead of the other way around. It’s not a good feeling, let me tell you. Watching the Leisure Seeker pull up in our driveway three days later made me feel like a scolded child banished to home. Grounded.
    Our doctor at home, after hearing what happened and a thorough examination, told us that John had what is commonly referred to as an anxiety attack. An anxiety attack . Can you imagine?
    John laughed it off. I personally didn’t really think anyone of our generation could suffer from such a condition. Anxiety was for our children and their children, but not for people who had grown up during the Depression, who had fought inthe war. Who has time for anxiety when you’re trying to fill your belly or keep your head on?
    I see now that the doctor was right. I believe