by Gregory Ashe
Chapter 30, Wednesday 28 September
Dad was asleep when I got to the hospital room. Slouched in his chair, head tilted so that his neck rested on the back on the chair, his mouth slightly ajar. He let out a wheezy breath and shifted slightly, but his green eyes did not open. After another moment, his breathing evened out, his rumpled, blood-stained shirt rising and falling smoothly. It made me feel slightly guilty, as though I were ruining some special moment. There was something innocent, peaceful about my dad when he was asleep—maybe the way all people look when they’re asleep. A vulnerability that made me grateful he was my dad.
And then I saw my mom, sitting up in her bed, the glossy pages of a magazine shining between the bandages on her wrists. Her hair was still in disarray, but her dark eyes were clear, skimming over the pages. Aside from the circles under her eyes, the slight tension to her shoulders, the gleaming bandages, she looked the same. I wondered how true that was; could she be the same? Were things between us the same? Who was this person inside my mother who could make her try to kill herself?
She looked up when I stopped in the door. A beautiful brilliant smile reached her face, and then she started to cry. I crashed through the room to reach her, dropping the bag of clothes on a chair, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, grateful for the warmth through the thin gown, and I held her tight. As tight as I could, as though I would never let her go.
“Oh Alex,” she said, still crying. “I’m such an idiot.”
She said it over and over again, like a mantra to ward off some evil spirit. I just held her, my cheek pressed against that smooth dark hair, breathed in her scent. There were still traces of the garden—the smell of flowers, the mustiness of turned soil—but it was mixed with chemical smells, like ammonia and bleach. It was like sowing a fresh plot of land with shards of glass.
When Mom had calmed down, I pulled back and said, “You’re not an idiot, Mom.”
“I am,” she said, wiping her cheeks with two fingers. “I’m an idiot; I didn’t—I didn’t want to do it, Alex. I didn’t, I swear. But, everything was wrong. I couldn’t, I just couldn’t—” She stopped here, starting to cry again, and I just pressed her head against my chest, as though I were trying hold inside me the swollen lump of pain that was lodged between my lungs.
“Things are going to get better,” I whispered. “Things can get better.” Mom just nodded against me, still crying.
Dad let out a groan, and Mom and I parted. She wiped her cheeks again, as though trying to regain her composure. With a second groan, Dad rolled his neck back and forth, fingers working out invisible knots, and cracked his back. He blinked blearily, eyes moving between me and Mom, then rubbed his eyes before sliding back into his seat.
“I’d forgotten how uncomfortable these chairs are.”
“Worse than the ones in New York?” Mom said with a smile. It was like the invitation to a smile, really, as though she were testing the waters.
“No,” Dad said with a grimace. “Those were a real nightmare. The metal frame along the back—God, after a couple of nights of that, I would have rather cut my head off.”
I’d never realized that they’d spent all those nights by my side, sleeping there in the hospital, in case I woke. So they could be there when I woke. No matter what time. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought about it before; it suddenly seemed normal, obvious. As though I should have realized it long ago.
“Alex, please tell me you brought some clothes for me to change,” Dad said.
I motioned to the bag. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly last night, so I hope that’s everything you need.”
Dad rummaged through the bag. “Looks perfect. I’m going to wash my face and change. Be right back.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and I took a seat in the chair he had vacated, next to Mom’s bed.
“I am sorry, Alex,” Mom said. “I want you to know that. I talked to your dad about this a little, last night.”
“You woke up?”
“Just for a little bit, and I wasn’t thinking very clearly. But we talked. And I’m sorry.”
“No more apologies, Mom,” I said. It was strange how easily we were talking, as though everything were normal, as though we were the people we had been all those months ago, before Isaac had died. As though the threat of a second death had torn down the walls that the first had raised between us.
“It’s my fault too,” I said. “I’ve been so wrapped up in myself, in my own pain, that I didn’t realize you and dad were hurting too. I just couldn’t think about anyone else. No, that’s not true. I just didn’t want to think about anyone else. It hurt too much. To think about you and dad, about what had happened with Isaac.” I didn’t mention my own sense of guilt; Mike had made some good points the night before, and I was going to do my best to put his advice into practice.
It seemed Mom and Dad had talked about that, as well. “It wasn’t your fault,” Mom said. “What happened with Isaac wasn’t your fault.”
I just nodded; maybe it wasn’t, but I was still going to try my best to be the kind of son they had lost. It would be my way of honoring Isaac’s sacrifice.
Dad came out right then, looking tired, but remarkably better after a chance to change clothes and wash up. We just sat there talking, for a long time. Occasionally the conversation would drift towards Mom, or Isaac, and to what had brought us all here. When it did, we didn’t avoid it, although those moments were tense. Not awkward, really, as much as uncertain ground. All three of us were still wary of each other. My poor dad—between having to deal with me, and having to deal with my mom, he probably felt like a dog dancing on thin ice. But we made it through the morning. When the doctor came in to talk to my parents, Dad told me I should get to school, and with what felt like the first real smile in a long time, I said goodbye to my parents.
I stopped at a payphone and called Olivia’s house, but I didn’t get an answer. It took me a minute to realize that it was a school day, after all. She would be at school. I wanted to hear her voice, though. I wanted her to see me like this—not quite what I was before the accident, not the same person, but close. A part of him had survived, it seemed. I wanted her to see me on the threshold of happiness, and I wanted to share that with her. Show her that we could find happiness together.
At the edge of Arcadia, I stopped at a gas station to fill up the bike and to get a snack. I hadn’t eaten in a long time. A day maybe. After having seen Mom, talked to her, I suddenly came back to reality, and I realized I was hungry. All they had were those leathery, over-cooked gas station hot dogs, but that, along with a cold cola, was enough to make me feel like a new man. I sat on the curb of the gas station, watching traffic go back and forth. Grateful for the slight breeze of the passing cars that stirred up patchy clouds of dust and forced the humid morning air to move.
It was strange that talking to my mom like that had helped so much. That it had taken her almost dying to bring us all together, to make us talk. I think in some ways, though, if this had happened any earlier, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it. Time with Olivia, time spent healing, had helped me get to the point where I could talk to them again. But it had taken something else, the threat of a new loss, to make us all move. And suddenly things had seemed right again. The potential for happiness, like seeds sown after a fire.
If I hadn’t been watching the street right then, I would have missed it completely. A blue sedan blitzing down the highway, way faster than the speed limit. It was just a glimpse, but I was sure it was Olivia’s dad. His face white, wasted, hardly recognizable. But it was him.
Suddenly I couldn’t taste the hot dog or the cola; all I could taste was the dust on the air, motor exhaust, the tang of oil. I tossed the food in a trash can, jumped on my motorcycle, and flipped around, to follow Olivia’s dad. He had already disappeared down the road, but I had a pretty good idea of where he was going.
The hospital.
Sure enough, I saw the blue sedan idling outside the emerg
ency room. I parked—which is much easier with a motorcycle, thank goodness—and ran inside. The waiting room was surprisingly empty. Perhaps not so surprising for a small town like Arcadia, but surprising for what I had imagined. A grizzled, sun-burned farmer cradled a bloody hand against his chest, the blood invisible against a red flannel shirt. A mousy, brown-haired nurse stood behind the counter. And me. That was it.
I ran to the counter. “I’m looking for Shane Weir,” I said. “His car’s outside.”
The nurse glanced up at me from her computer. She had nice eyes, but her mouth was firm. “Are you family?”
“No, I’m dating his daughter.”
“Have a seat. The doctor’s with them right now, so you’ll have to wait.”
“Them?” I said. “With whom?”
“Please have a seat,” she said.
I walked to one hallway that led off from the emergency room, glance down it, ignoring the stare I felt from the nurse. No one I recognized, so I went to the other hall, stared down it. Nothing. With heavy steps, I returned to the vinyl-covered chairs and threw myself down. I felt like I was sitting on a pin; every few minutes I shifted, trying to find a more comfortable spot, unable to hold still.
“Alex?”
I looked over. Cheryl Weir stood at the door to the emergency room, keys dangling from her hands. She wore a surprisingly revealing tank top with a sports bra and a pair of very short shorts. Cheryl looked kind of good, I’m ashamed to say. I surged out of my seat.
“Mrs. Weir? What’s going on?”
“Where’s Olivia?” was all she said. “Have you seen her?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t know what’s happening.”
Cheryl hurried to the counter and spoke with the nurse in low tones, while I continued fidgeting, standing by my chair. With every second, Cheryl’s voice was getting more and more agitated, until at that moment, Shane walked into the room.
“Shane, thank God,” Cheryl said. “What’s going on?”
“The doctors are with her right now,” was all he said. “They told me I had to leave.”
“She’s going to be alright,” he said, grabbing Cheryl’s arm and pulling her into a hug. “She’s going to be alright.” The dark circles under his eyes, though, the pallor to his skin—hell, even his hair was thinning. A part of me prayed it was something else, some foreign sickness with an unpronounceable name. Something the doctors would identify, like on a TV show, and, in the span of about forty minutes, plus commercials, figure out the correct treatment for.
But I knew it wasn’t that. It had to be from the grower’s tree in the cemetery. Even Cheryl was starting to show the effects of it, now that I saw her up close. A slight slump to her shoulders, as though she were too tired for words. Maybe she was just worried about her daughter. That would make sense. But I didn’t think so; I could practically feel the magic clinging to them, alien to everything I knew from quickening. They were dying so that Melanie could come back to life. It made my blood boil; I’d killed two quickeners—a man and a woman—on separate occasions for trying to bring back the dead. That was forbidden for quickeners. It never worked, but it was like the story of Frankenstein—there was something about restoring life to the dead that made it irresistible to some people. This, however, was different: it was killing another to keep yourself alive. There was no love in it, only selfishness. That was the difference between quickeners and growers, I suppose.
“What happened?” I said again, breaking the silence. “To Olivia, I mean. I just saw her yesterday.”
“She wasn’t feeling well,” Shane said, still holding Cheryl close. “So we let her stay home from school again. I went up to check on her, and she was asleep. I tried to wake her up, but—nothing. She didn’t move, didn’t respond. I got her out of bed and into the car and dragged her here.”
There didn’t seem to be much to say after that. I fell back into one of the vinyl-covered chairs, the material sticking to my skin with every movement. An eternity passed in silence; Shane and Cheryl eventually sat down as well, still holding hands, not speaking. I watched them, wondering if my parents had looked the same when I was in the hospital. If they had shared the same unspoken fears, transmitted through touch and breath and blood, but never through words, lest they come true. A part of me thought that perhaps, they had.
Such thoughts were a weak distraction from Olivia, though. Over and over again, my mind returned to her. How lucky I was to have met her. How I was even luckier that she had been patient with me. Our first kiss, on that hill in the cemetery. The memory was bittersweet now; how could I have known she would keep going back there? How could I have known that she would get caught up by the grower’s magic, have her life drained away while I stood by? It had been a perfect moment, where the vastness of the universe had not been threatening, but empowering, as though set as a backdrop for the infinitesimal distance that closed between the two of us. Now, though, all that memory held was a glimpse of the grower’s tree.
At that moment, I made my decision. I was going to destroy the tree. No matter what it took. If I could, I’d go with Mike, hope that he could keep the sprawls off me. If he wouldn’t go, though, I’d go during the day, when the sprawls were in hiding, and burn it down myself. Getting arrested for arson was a small price to pay to save three lives. Especially the life of someone I loved.
Caught up in my own thoughts, I barely heard the doctor call Shane and Olivia over. I shifted in my seat, leaning forward to get up and join them, but the doctor gave me a stern look and motioned Olivia and Shane to follow him down the hall. Another long stretch of time passed before Shane came back to the waiting room, alone. He had been crying—his eyes red and slightly puffy. He walked straight over to me.
“Alex, Olivia’s in a coma,” he said. “The doctors are going to run some tests, they don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. It didn’t seem enough.
“Thank you for coming,” Shane said. “Olivia would have wanted you to be here.”
“Can I see her?” I said. Shane’s face fell, and I added, “Later? Can I come see her later?”
“Yeah, Alex. That would be wonderful. Maybe in a day or two, when Cheryl and I have had some time to figure out what’s going on. Thank you again for coming.”
The moment ended as awkwardly as it had begun; he walked back into the hall, stopping for a moment to sway and lean against the frame of the metal door. And then he was gone, and I was just sitting there, alone, in the emergency room. The farmer with the cut hand had been attended to long ago. The mousy nurse worked away on her computer. It was just me, and vinyl chairs, and linoleum flooring. Just me, and the smell of antiseptic, and the shine of fluorescent lights off steel and white paint. Just me, and the fear of losing Olivia.