Richard Russo - Triage: On Reading, Writing, and the Interior Life

For most Americans, the coronavirus became real in March 2020, but I will always think of it as beginning earlier, in January, because thats when paralyzing fear unexpectedly entered my life and took up what feels like permanent residence in my psyche. I was in New York City visiting friends and meeting with my publisher when my cell rang at three in the morning, never a good sign. It was my older daughter, Emily. Dad? she said, her voice shaking. Can you come home?

She was calling from the emergency room at Maine Medical Center in Portland, where her little boy, Henry (then seven), my grandson, was in critical condition. Forty-five minutes earlier, he had appeared at his parents beside demanding his inhaler. Hed taken a blast before going to bed, so it was too soon for another. Groggy with sleep, Emily and her husband, Steve, mightve told him to go back to bed, that he could have another hit first thing in the morning. There are times when every parent has to make critical decisions without understanding in the moment that they are, in fact, critical. Probably they were still on high alert because Henry was getting over a case of the flu, no small thing for a kid with asthma. What they didnt know was that while they were asleep, hed had a violent coughing fit and collapsed a lung. Had they just sent him back to bed, he might have died.

I wasnt the only one who was away at the time. Barbara, my wife, was in Arizona visiting family. My younger daughter, Kate, and her husband, Tom, both of whom also live in Portland, happened to be in New York as well, though they had an early flight home that morning. I was supposed to be in town for a couple of more days, but after hanging up with Emily, I called the airline and booked the last seat on the same flight Kate and Tom were on, then called Barbara so she could start making arrangements to return home as well. The last thing I tossed into my suitcase before checking out of my hotel was the small plastic bottle of nasal spray Id set on the nightstand when I checked in. Theres another on my bedside table at home and a spare in the medicine cabinet. Wherever I am, theres always one nearby in case I wake up with clogged nasal passages. Otherwise, Id have to get dressed and search out an all-night pharmacy. Whoa, youre thinking. Seriously? Seriously. Perhaps because I watched my grandfather die of emphysema, the idea of death by asphyxiation is enough to send me into a blind, flop-sweat panic. Thats why I wouldnt dream of going anywhere without nasal spray in my travel kit and why no matter where I am, theres always one on the nightstand where I can find it in the dark. The thought of Henry, a child, not being able to breathe and unable to understand why left me weak in the knees with terror.

At four thirty in the morning, there isnt much traffic in Manhattan, and in a matter of minutes, my taxi was speeding through the Midtown tunnel. We made it to JFK in record time, but time, as we would all later learn during the pandemic, elongates when mixed with dread. I remember clutching my cell phone the whole way, checking it every few blocks to reassure myself that I hadnt somehow switched the thing off and missed a call from my daughter. Once I boarded my short flight to Portland, the thing would be useless. I tried desperately to banish the thought that by the time I landed in Portland, my grandson might be dead, but since the beginning of time, has any human being ever succeeded in not thinking something that demands to be thought for the simple reason that we cant bear to think it? Time, plenty of it on that taxi ride. Even time to enter into negotiations: take me, not him. Who was I negotiating with? I had no idea. Whoever could deliver.

By the time we arrived in Portland and took another taxi to the hospital, Henry was mostly out of danger, his collapsed lung reinflated. Heres a fun fact, though, for those who have never experienced something like this or have blessedly forgotten what it feels like. When the worst doesnt happen, when you are for some unknown reason spared what happens to the less fortunate, dread is not vanquished by relief, at least not completely. Because our lizard brains are programmed to prepare us for the worst, fear lingers, metastasizes, issues coded warnings. Okay, mine said, this time you were lucky, but guess what? Now I know right where to find you.

Fear. Is it also part of the inner life thats so important to artists? On the face of it, youd think so, but Im not sure. I suspect that fear, like other powerful feelings, even when its rendered physical (a plastic bottle of nasal spray?), is a gateway drug to the inner life, the thing that starts the conversation. The one that many people, for good reason, try their best to avoid.