My mom is a critical care nurse. She takes care of people in the intensive care unit. I sometimes think that’s why she has always been so touchy about my health. She’s seen way too much reality helping to take care of the sickest of the sickest.
I find a nice shady spot next to one of those stone walls for my bike. It’s a hot, crystal-clear blue summer day. I don’t want the cider or the cheese to get too warm. I’m sure my mom will still appreciate the effort even if everything isn’t perfect, but I want it to be special.
I brush my jeans off, tuck in my shirt, and check the time. It’s 12:53 p.m. She tends to go to lunch right around one. My plan is to go in and find her. Tell her I’ve brought her lunch. I thought of doing something more elaborate, but this seems like surprise enough.
I’m getting ready to head towards the main entrance when I see her. Actually, I hear her first, the delicate bell-like sound of her laughter rings out. I look up from my bike and see her. She’s walking with a man that looks familiar and is dressed in blue scrubs and looks happy. Her long brown hair is pulled into a ponytail.
My mouth is open to call to her when they stop. She’s facing away from me, but I get a better look at the man. It’s Doctor Rogers. He’s one of the ICU docs and has been one of my doctors when I’ve been in the ICU. I’ve met him on quite a few occasions. He’s a few years older than Mom, with grey at his temples and a muscular build. I can’t hear what they are saying, but my mother’s tone floats over to me. It’s an unusual tone. She sounds happy, really happy.
I raise my hand, getting ready to wave and yell to her when it happens.
She puts her hand on his chest, leans up, and kisses him on the lips.
Everything slows down. I suddenly feel really hot and can hear my heart beating in my chest. I taste the remnants of scrambled eggs and for some reason chide myself for not brushing my teeth for this. My mom—who is currently kissing someone besides my father—appreciates good oral hygiene.
She’s on her tiptoes kissing him and I half expect one of her feet to kick back like in those old movies of the heroine kissing the taller hero.
Wait a minute. What’s going on? Why is my mom kissing Doctor Rogers? Why does she sound happier than she ever sounds at my house? And look how she is kissing him. She never kisses Dad that way.
I hear a fly buzzing about and the sound of cars going by on the street.
“What?!” I yell. The sound comes out strangled and more like a “Wwwwaaaaaa.” They stop kissing and Doctor Rogers looks my way. Everything is still slowed down. I can’t quite hear him, but I can see him saying her name, “Laura.” The way his lips move, wet from kissing her, makes me want to strangle him.
My mother turns towards me, the smile on her face evaporating, her eyes widening as she takes a step towards me. “No! Aaron!” she yells.
I turn and suddenly things aren’t so slow anymore. I can hear her calling as she walks to me, but I don’t turn back. I get on my bike and pedal away. “Please,” she cries. “Wait, Aaron. You don’t… I…”
But I’m not listening to her, all I can hear is the pounding of my heart as salty tears run down my face. Despite my fatigue, I pedal hard and fast. I don’t know where I’m going, I just know that I have to go.
Part 3
A Boy and a Family
20
Thursday, June 30, 1977
(continued)
I’m lying flat on Uncle Don’s grave again. I’ve got my hands across my chest and my feet straight out. I can’t lie exactly where he is down there in his coffin, he was a lot bigger than me. But I’ve got my head where his head is, close to the slab of granite that sticks up declaring the boundaries of his life.
I’m hiding. In a graveyard. Weird, I know.
My dad has driven by a couple of times, the car going slowly down the narrow road that goes through the cemetery. The first time he called out for me, the second time he just drove slowly. When he called I almost got up, almost let him know I was here. It was the tone in his voice—he sounded so scared. My father never sounds scared.
But I didn’t move, not a bit. If Dad had gotten out of the car and looked around, he would have seen me. But from a car, from the road, I am invisible.
I’ve got my bike stashed behind a huge cottonwood tree, so he didn’t spot that either.
I feel guilty about that fear I heard. But what am I supposed to do? My mother has a freaking boyfriend! What the hell!? Are they going to get a divorce? What will happen to me?
Whenever I close my eyes, I see Mom kissing Doctor Rogers again. I hear that happiness in her voice. I notice the spring in her step. What the hell?
I mean, I know my parents’ marriage isn’t perfect. They fight sometimes, they have their troubles—they’ve had to deal with me and my Cancer. But… What the hell?!
It is hard to describe what I am feeling as I lie here. I’m confused and very afraid. But mostly, I feel alone. I always thought that the three of us were in this together. And if my Mom and Doctor Rogers are… well… Shit!
The sound of tires on pavement brings my thoughts to a clattering stop. Except it’s not a car this time, it’s a bike and I hear the huffing breaths of the rider.
“Jesus, A,” Billy says as he rides up to Uncle Don’s grave. “You know you’re scaring the living shit out of everyone. Right?”
He’s panting hard and I don’t get up. I see his round face and red hair framed against the blue sky and the branches of the trees above. His face is red and he looks concerned.
“Sit down, B,” I say. “Before you fall down.” I sound surprisingly calm. How can I sound calm?
He steps off his bike, letting it fall onto the grass and then flops down next to me.
“Your parents are freaking out,” Billy says. “Your mom won’t stop crying and your father is gonna wear a hole in the carpet with his pacing.” He pauses and then and looks around, his eyes going wide. “Umm… Is he… they… is he here?”
“No,” I lie to him. Lionel isn’t here, but I’ve caught a few flashes when my eyes have been closed. No need to freak Billy out. I don’t want him to have a heart attack or anything.
“Good,” he says, wiping sweat off his brow. I’m still lying down, I find the disorientation of the perspective pleasantly distracting. “So what the hell is going on, Aaron?”
“They didn’t tell you?”
He shakes his head. “Just that you were at the hospital and you ran away.”
I snort and slowly sit up. Billy’s presence is a dead giveaway to anyone passing by, so I might as well sit. “My mom has a freaking boyfriend.” I then proceed to tell him in excessive detail about everything I saw.
“Shit!” he says when I’m done. “Oh my god, Aaron. I mean… Shit! You… I always thought you had the best parents. But… oh… Shit!”
I lie back down, carefully positioning myself above Uncle Don. “Now go, Billy. And don’t you dare tell them that you found me.”
“What?” he asks, his face puzzled.
I sit back up and look him in the eyes. “Don’t tell them where I am. Do you understand me?” I was going to get all fierce with him, scare him into compliance, but then the tears come. They are hot little things sliding down my cheeks, a few of the salty bombs making it into my mouth. I’m not sobbing, thank god. It’s embarrassing enough that Billy is seeing me cry like this.
But what else can I do? Emotionally speaking, I don’t know which way is up anymore and I have no idea what this all means. My mother with another man…
“They are worried sick, man,” he says.
“Good.”
“Come on, Aaron. I’ve got to tell them something.”
I wipe the tears from my eyes and feel my face going hard. “You are going to keep this secret, Billy Chadow. I swear to god that if you don’t…” I trail off, not finishing the sentence, but from the look on Billy’s face he gets the picture. We’ve been friends a long time, we both know a lot about each other we would prefer our parents don’t k
now.
“But…” he begins.
The tears have stopped and I slowly shake my head.
Billy sits there, his jaw moving silently until his mouth opens and his eyes widen like he’s just thought of something. “Okay,” he says quickly. “I won’t tell them.”
He’s back on his bike pedaling away so fast it makes me worried what he’s up to. I shrug it off and lie back on top of Uncle Don’s grave.
Time passes me by at an irregular pace. Sometimes my brain is so on fire trying to figure this out (quite unsuccessfully, I might add) then the moments tick by ever so slowly, the leaves in the breeze above me seeming to wave in slow motion, the grass below me gently tickling my neck and arms.
At other times my brain just plain seems to slip out of gear and time flies by, the sun suddenly having moved noticeably in the sky above me. I even doze off a few times.
I’m dozing when the sound of a car racing down the little cemetery road brings me back to full consciousness. Judging from the sun it must be about 4 p.m. I’ve been here for hours.
The car screeches to a halt right in front of where I am, and I suck in a breath and hold it. Did Billy break down and tell my parents where I am? The car, whatever it is, stinks. It smells of oil and the exhaust is almost thick enough to make me cough. With the car still running, I hear the door open and slam shut, footfalls walking right toward me.
I’m scared to death. I don’t want to see either of my parents. But it’s not them.
“Get up, Aaron,” Helena says, her beautiful face hovering above me like Billy’s was a few hours ago.
I lie there blinking. Helena? What is she doing here? My mind is slow, it takes me a bit to figure out that this was Billy’s bright idea. Not telling my parents but telling her.
“Get up. Now!” she says, her hands on her hips.
She’s wearing the usual jeans but a navy-blue blouse instead of a T-shirt. A bitter thought infects my mind. She was on a date with this new mystery man. That’s why she seems mad, because my little crisis interrupted her fun. Suddenly the image in my mind isn’t of my mother kissing Doctor Rogers in front of the hospital, but of Helena. My heart thumps in my chest and I feel nauseous.
Helena leans down, her face hard and serious, her voice low, almost a growl. “You get up right now, Aaron. Or I will drag you and throw you into the car. I swear to god.”
It’s not lost on me that she’s not calling me Wade, and that disturbs me, she always calls me Wade. I sit up and look over at the car. It’s an old two-door Mercury Comet with faded yellow paint and a few dents in the passenger’s side door.
“I’m not going home,” I say. I try to meet Helena’s eyes, but can’t. They are so intense… what is going on?
She stands up. “Good, I’m not taking you home. Now get in the car.”
I stand up and slowly brush myself off, looking around the graveyard. It feels safe here. Private. Unless someone is getting buried, there is hardly ever anyone here. There aren’t really any problems here either. I mean, everyone is dead. What kind of problems do they have?
And then the thought of Lionel comes up. He’s dead and he’s got problems. What the hell do I know anyway?
Helena has taken a few strides towards the car and turns when she realizes I’m not following. “Now,” she says.
I take a step, but then remember my bike. “My bike,” I say, pointing to the tree it is behind.
She sighs and I watch as she marches over to the tree, rolls the bike back, removes the picnic basket and shoves it in the backseat, and puts my bike in the trunk. It doesn’t fit well so she loops a bungee cord around the bumper and hooks it to the trunk latch.
I’m still standing there like an idiot. In retrospect, I think I’m still in shock from the whole thing.
She moves around to the passenger’s side door and opens it. “Get in, Wade,” she says softly. “Please.” She doesn’t look mad anymore, but worried. I really can’t look at her now. I nod and get into the car.
Southern Utah has some breathtaking landscape. The earth seems to pinch and fold, producing mountains, canyons, and tilted mesas jutting into the sky. The land rises steeply from the valley, where Cedar City is, up towards mountains on both sides.
We’re barreling down the highway south from Cedar City towards St. George. To the west of us are the Pine Mountains and to the east, beyond our sight, Zion National Park. We’ve come down in elevation from Cedar and the air is hot as it rushes in the open windows.
Helena handed me some food from the picnic basket and made me buckle my seatbelt before we headed out of Cedar City. At first the thought of eating that food made me want to puke. The food I had prepared for my mother… The surprise that was supposed to delight her… But soon my very empty stomach wins out and I stuff myself with cheese and crackers and veggies, washing it down with warm apple cider.
It helps. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast and had exercised a lot. After eating, I don’t know that I feel good or anything, but I’m calm.
“Sorry your family isn’t as ‘Leave it to Beaver’ as you thought,” Helena says.
“Thanks.” I look around the car. It smells of oil and the black upholstery is cracked and faded. “Is this your car?”
She snorts. “No. This is my dad’s car. Our only car.”
I blink. That gives me some perspective. This looks like the kind of beater a teenager would have, not the only transportation for a family.
“He lets you use it?” I ask. It’s small talk, but way safer than talking about what’s really going on. I know Billy must have told her the story.
She shrugs and nods. “If it’s important he does.”
I stop looking at her and stare straight ahead at the interstate. Not much traffic, a few cars and some semis. So this, whatever “this” is, must be important.
“Where are we going?” I ask. I barely get the question out, my voice breaking at the end. I’m afraid of the answer. Helena, as I have discovered, is fascinating but also complicated. Where the hell would she be taking me given what has happened and how freaked I’ve been about it?
She pauses, licks her lips, and then glances at me before turning her eyes back to the road. “I… I want you to meet somebody.”
She stammered just then. Why did she stammer? Where is she taking me? I mean, I trust Helena. I know that we are friends and all, but if she’s nervous about where we are going, then how should I feel?
The big old building in St. George has a decidedly institutional look with drab brick walls and small windows. We go through the front entrance, double doors with an awkward roof jutting out over the entryway.
I see a sign on the way in. The Meadowbrook Institute.
And Helena has changed. She’s not full of bluster and anger anymore. Her shoulders are slumped and she’s not looking me in the eye.
I want to turn and run. Whatever this place is, I don’t want to be here. And from the looks of Helena’s posture, she doesn’t want to be here either. Who in the world can it be that she wants me to meet?
She holds the front door open for me and our eyes meet. Behind the nervousness is steely resolve. I get the impression that if I tried to run she would chase me down and drag me back.
The place smells of Pine Sol and seems too quiet. Our feet echo on the tiled floor as Helena walks to a desk situated in the entryway. It’s open and airy, taking up the full two floors of the building with hallways going to the left and the right and a large wooden staircase leading to the second floor.
“Helena?” the middle-aged woman behind the desk says. She’s got dark hair and brown skin. “It’s not Sunday, sweetie, what are you doing here?”
Helena smiles and nods back at me. “I’ve brought someone to meet her.”
The woman looks me up and down, a frown on her face before she turns back to Helena, her eyebrow raising. “She’s doing okay today, it should be fine. But don’t let him excite her or anything.”
Helena nods and says, “I know the dr
ill, Maria. He’ll be fine.”
My stomach is doing backflips as this little conversation goes on. Maria hands Helena a clipboard and asks her to sign us in. Helena then waves to me and heads for the stairs.
I hesitate for a moment, my eyes finding Maria’s. Her lips are a thin line as she stares at me. I follow Helena mostly just to get away from Maria’s gaze.
“What’s going on?” I whisper. I’m not sure why I whisper, but this place seems to need it.
“I told you. I want you to meet somebody.”
I follow her up the stairs and down a long hallway with lots of doors. I hear different noises now. A TV behind one door, the sound of laughter behind another, a groan behind one. Each door as a nameplate or two on it. “Williams, A.” “Pollack, E.” “Reynolds, J.”
We stop in front of a door with a nameplate that says, “Monfort, O.”
Helena pauses, biting on her lip. “I know I haven’t explained this to you… I have my reasons for that. But right now, I need you to be on your best behavior. I need you to be your happy and charming self.”
She pauses and stares at me. I’m looking from her to the door plate. Monfort. This must be a relative of hers. There must be something wrong with them. This is some kind of institution.
“Aaron?” she asks.
“Yeah… Yeah, sure,” I say. “Best behavior.”
She grabs my arm, holding it tight enough to hurt, and pulls me back down the hallway a few doors. “This is serious,” she hisses. “I don’t bring people here. I don’t tell them about this. I need to know I can count on you in there.”
A Boy a Girl and a Ghost Page 13