“Hang on.” Julian took off after them. “Doctors?” he called, squinting in the hallway light and quickly saddling his aggression. “I’m trying to—” The woman opened her mouth. “Not you,” Julian snapped. “Good death? I don’t know what you’re doing in a white coat. You,” he addressed the young doctor, “seem at least semihuman. My mom has cancer. She stopped chemo. Fancy doctors at MD Anderson gave her six months. We show up here and random stranger doctors say she’s dead on arrival, so I’m just trying to get some answers.”
“Her oncologist—” The doctor pressed his hand to his clipboard. “He discussed with your mom—she’s been in kidney failure for some time, or close to it. They knew there was a chance this could happen. How it ended. I don’t know if she told you?”
“You’re not listening,” Julian pushed. “You’re the ones who keep people alive, not me. So do it. Dialysis, whatever you do, just do it.”
“It’s hours,” the specialist said. “Maybe days more you get, but once the liver goes, that’s it. Nothing to do. I see this every day. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe hours matter,” Julian said and stormed back to the room.
Inside Bonnie hummed and massaged his mom’s hand. “I talked to the doctors,” Julian began. “We can start dialysis to keep your kidneys going.” His mom turned and smiled weakly, but something was gone, the usual flicker of self-consciousness or thought behind her eyes. “For more time,” he said.
“No, Jules,” she replied softly.
“Mom,” he pressed, “don’t you want to—” Before he could finish, Bonnie’s other hand grasped his below the bed where his mom couldn’t see. She squeezed it. And in one touch the situation revealed itself to him. They were having breakfast that morning when everything went sideways into nightmare. Yet however strange it felt, so impossibly unreal, he was the one who’d missed the rehearsals. Didn’t even know about them until it was too late, and here they stood on a grand morbid stage. His elder knew her lines and told him kindly to stop.
His mom wiggled her free hand at him, to come closer. Julian took it in a daze, the three of them forming an impromptu circle. “I have the people I love most here,” she said.
The doctors were right. His mom seemed good as she drifted into evening. When her eyes were open they talked and sang. She responded here and there with phrases or their names, those eventually breaking up into sounds without place or time. A smile settled over her, or her face upturned in a way that looked peaceful. Night fell. Inside Julian wrestled with all he didn’t know and needed urgently to ask her—What are you thinking? Where are you? Are you scared? Each time he nearly gave in and opened his mouth to speak, he thought of Bonnie squeezing his hand. And reminded himself that the things his mom didn’t say weren’t his to demand. That he had to let it be.
* * *
Close to midnight, Philip texted that he was descending into Houston. His mom wasn’t waking up anymore by then, just breathing rhythmically with her arms tucked under the covers like a child. Bonnie stepped out to get coffee. Julian went into the bathroom to cry and wash his face. When he turned off the faucet he heard a voice. He opened the door and found a nurse at the foot of the bed. Not someone assigned to them, a woman he saw in the hallway that morning pushing a cart and wearing a pair of 2002 New Year’s sunglasses. She was reading: “‘Don’t be alarmed! You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the—’”
“Get out!” Julian cried. The woman looked up, stricken like she’d seen a demon. “Get the hell away from her!” He charged at her. “Now!”
She hurried out of the room. Julian approached his mom, ran a finger down her cheek, and whispered he was sorry. “Quite a commotion out there,” Bonnie said when she returned a few minutes later. “A nurse crying about something. Here’s your coffee.” She shot him a look as she passed the cup. Her eyes were red. Julian could smell the smoke on her.
“Me, probably,” he mumbled. “She was reading the Bible to Mom. I went off.” He glared at Bonnie, angrier as he put it into words. “An atheist her whole life, and they come try that shit when she’s lying here helpless?”
“Listen to me.” Bonnie sat down and stroked his mom’s leg. “My mama drank herself to death. By the end she was swollen and tender as a buster. I went home to be with her, and—” She looked up at Julian and sighed. “You are still here, OK? When it’s done? Alive like the rest of us, getting up, making breakfast in the morning, even if it’s just for one.” Softly Bonnie petted his mom’s hand. “This one here made me a better person. Yes, you did, Lacy. Her way with students. All of them. Mexican, or from wherever. She could see what they wanted. She liked seeing different people getting things. Being proud. She made me think. Me and everybody at school.” Bonnie fluffed her blouse and wrinkled her nose. “I made it sixteen years and Mr. Boudreaux leaving without a cigarette, but this?” She wiped her eyes. “I’m gonna wash my hands again.” She hustled into the bathroom.
The young doctor knocked at the door. “Mr. Warner? How’s she doing?” Julian stared. “I think there was a misunderstanding with one of our staff.”
“The nurse,” Julian rifled back, “reading my mom the Bible without her consent?”
“Yes. I apologize. I asked one of our orderlies to stop by and suggest you read to your mom, and when she didn’t see anyone in here—she keeps the Good Book in her pocket. She was trying to help. You should try it,” he said. “Reading to her. She can still hear, even if she can’t respond. So she knows you’re here.”
“I didn’t bring anything,” Julian mumbled, “to…” He nodded at the doctor to go. He waited a moment, alone with his mom and the tick and burble of the machines. He picked up a stack of used magazines by the bed, Texas Monthly and Car and Driver. He opened his backpack in a futile gesture. And he saw it. The Annie Lennox journal he was holding when he found his mom in pain, that he had no recollection of tossing in with his wallet in the commotion to get to the hospital.
“He’s probably right,” Bonnie said, emerging from the bathroom. “About reading to her. What you got there?”
“An old journal. I was cleaning out the garage when she…”
“Scintillating stuff.” She blew on her coffee. Julian opened the cover and paused, scanning his words, editing, trying to control who knew what. “Go on,” she said softly.
So in the middle of the night Julian sat beside his mother, like he had countless mornings as a boy, and read to her:
September 23, 1993
Mom was supposed to take me to Amy’s house for a sleepover with the Woodwind Girls. She knew it was Crucial (a French horn hanging out with flutes and clarinets?) even if I couldn’t stay overnight. But she got a migraine and made Dad take me. He asked her why I was the only boy going. They took forever fighting about it (like I can’t hear in the living room?!?!) so I got three sticks of gum out of Mom’s purse. I found a business card in the pocket next to the gum. *I wasn’t snooping.* Deborah Epstein, Esq.—Matrimonial + Divorce. Everyone’s parents are divorced these days. Might as well join the club.
I was the last one there, thanks to Dad. I ditched him at the lame “Parents Party” downstairs. I did our secret knock on Amy’s door, but when she opened it, it wasn’t just the Woodwind Girls. Faith Felton crashed the sleepover. Lame Faith with her Keds and stupid scrunchies. Amy rolled her eyes and we all ignored her. I told the Girls about Mrs. Cooper’s nipples doing a jailbreak in Earth Science, poking through her bra and shirt and everything. They laughed so hard. Mandy and Tina played Uno. Amy passed me a note that Faith was only there because Amy and Faith’s moms are BFFs and Faith and her mom are staying at Amy’s house because Faith’s dad TOUCHED HER and her parents are splitting up. Then Faith flipped out and yelled at me Why Are You Here? Are You G_____? Amy told her to shut up, but she grabbed my journal and asked if that’s where I wrote down my G_____boyfriends. I pulled it back, but she yelled Do You Even Have a Dick? and grabbed my belt and tried to undo my pan
ts. I screamed at her to stop and ran. I hid on the stairs. She’s going to spread rumors that I’m G_____ on Monday. I can’t go back to school. I’ll tell Mom I’m sick. But the algebra test. And I can’t be sick forever …
I heard Dad from all the way on the second floor. He was laughing and talking too loud. When I came downstairs he had his arm around another man. He said Come meet Gorey. They did a shot of liquor and we left. Dad couldn’t walk straight on the path, and he went the wrong way in the car until I told him. Dad said Mr. Gorey is Amy’s uncle, visiting on his way to Gulfport. He’s the only other guy in Dad’s company who didn’t get killed in Vietnam. Dad was a minesweeper in the war. He tried to show me with his hands, but the car swerved. He was driving fast. He said what kept him alive in Vietnam was his mind and Mom’s letters. He said I’m smart as hell and I got that from him and Mom, and everything I am is from them, so fuck (he swore) anybody who says I’m going to hell or can’t hang out with girls. Then he missed the turn onto Rustling Elms Drive and hit the brakes, but we hit a mailbox. It swung around. Dad put his head on the steering wheel and just sat there. He asked if I wanted to drive the rest of the way. I asked if I should, and he drove home. What’s wrong with him?
Julian had never reread this journal, had long ago buried the incident. He looked up at his mom, certain she’d have opinions, that she heard every word and couldn’t resist waking up to comment on the mysteries of their family and time. But she didn’t. His mom lay still, her chest rising and falling, undisturbed.
* * *
On the afternoon of Lacy Warner’s memorial, Julian stood at the mirror of his high school boys’ room. He barely recognized the face staring back. He knew he had to get away from everything for a moment before the service started—from Bonnie, the hundreds of people who came, even Philip—so he ran to the bathroom. To be alone and let something out, get out a good pre-cry before the ceremony if he could. He opened his mouth, silent and fishy at first, but right as a wheeze began to trickle from his lips, he heard a shuffle. He turned and saw feet in the far stall. A toilet flushed. Julian swiveled to leave when out walked his dad, Aaron Warner.
“Julian.” Aaron said his name to the reflection in the mirror, casually, as though they had seen each other now and then, or even once, in the eight years since he left. His gut pushed out, and he looked shorter. His face was hardened with age. “I ate something funny last night.”
“I have to get in there,” Julian mumbled and slipped out the door.
He hurried down the hall toward the auditorium. Every moment since he stepped inside the school was like a dream watched from above. Since his mom died. Time had warped. She was supposed to have six months after she stopped chemo at Christmas. He was supposed to be in Cambridge finishing school. Now his vanishing act of a dad appears? A worthless man who did nothing to raise him was here, alive, but his mom was gone? At the door of the auditorium he stopped and turned, thinking he saw a glimpse of her down the hall like he used to in between classes. He remembered how he ducked to avoid her in those days, and suddenly he wanted it all back—all the time, every hour he pined to get away from her and home.
Julian went in and stood in the shadows. The smell of chilled dust wafted from the navy velour curtains. The stage was done up exactly as his mom had written. After Christmas Julian noticed her scribbling on a yellow pad she carried around, but it wasn’t until he was back from the hospital that he looked at it on her nightstand and saw notes she had made for her memorial service. Not in a church, she wrote, At the high school, where people know me. Pots of daisies and bluebonnets. The stage lit like a rainbow. No readings, just songs. No mention of a picture or people to talk about her, which didn’t surprise Julian. He had to take care of those himself.
In the front row Philip and Bonnie craned their necks toward him. The principal gave a nod, and the memorial began. Julian stepped onstage, past a blown-up photo of Lacy teaching at a blackboard, and crossed to the podium. He squinted at the outlines of people and thanked them for coming. He told them a story of Lacy Warner that he knew to be true but didn’t understand, of a strong woman who didn’t mention her cancer was terminal until her son finished exams and came home the other week. Because education was the most important thing. He didn’t share what he witnessed a few nights before—the person he knew best in the world rendered silent, unreachable, by the ruthless efficiency of death. A young teacher spoke after him, of how she wouldn’t have survived her first year without Lacy stopping by with Kit Kats and the way she listened, like your problems were hers. Bonnie spoke last. Even in the darkest times, she said, she knew there was a God because she lived half her life, past forty, when one day at the pool He put her there, Lacy, in a pretty sarong in the next lounge chair. Another smart weirdo living undercover in the suburbs, who taught her the meaning of friendship. The girls’ choir came onstage in red satin gowns and sang “Coat of Many Colors.”
There was a reception in the cafeteria. Bonnie must have hugged every guest. Philip stood beside Julian as he shook hands and nodded at condolences. All of his old teachers came. The skylights in the cafeteria let in a brilliant winter sun that made Julian squint as they talked. Occasionally, through the numbness he felt the weight of disbelief. This is it? the question turned inside him. This is how we remember?
“Eat something,” Philip insisted when the first wave of people subsided. “What do you want? A cookie? Cold cuts?”
“Just coffee,” Julian mumbled. “I’ll stay here.” He watched Philip zigzag through bodies and remembered the sight of him coming through the door at the hospital. The love mingled with fear as he took in Julian, and his mom’s face stretched out in the death rattle.
Aaron appeared out of the crowd. “Real nice day, Jules,” he said.
“You made it.” At Philip’s urging, Julian had sent an email to an AOL account he found under “Aaron Warner” in his mom’s address book, with details about the memorial. And got no response.
“Did you do all this yourself?” Aaron asked. “The service and whatnot?”
“It’s what she wanted.”
Aaron nodded. “She didn’t tell you she was sick till last month?”
“I didn’t know she was dying. We talked every week in the fall, about her chemo. I thought it was going well. Did you?” Julian stood up straight, taller than his dad. “Know she was sick?”
“We didn’t keep in touch.” He fiddled with the program in his hands. “Quite a woman. Lacy. The good ones die young.” He shut his eyes and leaned his head back, like she might be up past the skylights, sending down a little winter color. “How long you in town for?” he asked.
“Philip and I fly back to Boston tomorrow.”
“Philip?”
“My fiancé. Here he is.” Philip handed him a paper coffee cup and smiled widely. “Philip, this is my dad, Aaron.”
“Nice to meet you.” Philip held out his hand. “I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”
“OK.” Aaron let his hand be shaken. “What’re y’all doing later?”
“Today?” Julian said. “Miss Bonnie’s hosting a thing.”
“Oh.”
“But I don’t know if that’s a good…”
“OK.” Aaron nodded at his feet. “We could get a coffee after that, if you want.”
“Um.” Julian felt Philip’s laser eyes burning into his head. “I could step away. Briefly.”
So later that afternoon, as Bonnie’s house warmed up with wine and stories of Lacy, Julian left alone and took Royalwood Drive to the Starbucks across the pond from Kroger. Anger stirred as the occasion of the memorial wore off and Julian’s nerves receded. He didn’t want to see his dad. He was only going because Philip pulled rank as the therapist’s son and insisted it was the right thing to do. Who was Aaron to suggest coffee? A guy who leaves while Julian was at a swim meet—he had somewhere else to be, was all his mom said—never to be heard from again? Not one call on a birthday or graduation, and he and his mom had don
e just fine, thank you. And now at the worst moment of his life, his dad wanted to lean on the manners of people he used to know and have a catch-up?
Julian straightened his collar and entered Starbucks. He swept the place with his eyes, but the only customer was a young mother nursing at a corner table. Then he saw the blazer his dad was wearing earlier, heaped over a chair next to a table cluttered with things—junk mail, an OTB receipt, two empty cups, the denuded bottom of a muffin slumped on its wrapper, a yellow Post-it with his dad’s handwriting. Julian hovered over the table, twisting his head to read the list on it:
Zoloft (90 refill) Xanax soon
Beer, Swanson salisbury steak
Car wash—Thurs ½ price Platinum pckg
“Jules?” Aaron called.
Julian jerked up, one hand knocking the muffin off the table. “Shit, sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ll get you another.”
“That’s all right.” Aaron approached with his hands on his stomach. “Bread’s my friend today. How’s life in the Ivy League?”
“Oh. Yeah, I’m at Harvard. How did you…”
“It was in the local paper.”
“Yeah. Phil and I are both done this spring.”
“You graduate this year?” Aaron said. “I could’ve sworn you got one more to go.”
“I’m doing it in three. When you’re paying for it yourself, you go as fast as you can.”
“You want a drink?” Aaron asked.
“I’m good.”
Lone Stars Page 20