But Mom was right; they’d given Miriam the best room in the house.
That realization jarred loose other memories. Cookies in the shape of music notes in her lunchbox. Pristinely ironed concert dresses laid out on her bed on performance days.
What if she’d been looking at everything all wrong? What if she’d spent all these years chasing a notion of love that didn’t actually exist?
For the first time, she recognized the terrible, long-suffering patience on her mother’s face. “Mom, I …”
Dicey’s phone flashed an image of an apple, followed momentarily by a predictable cascade of sound effects. Slowly, Miriam reached out and laid her hand on it. She needed to find Dicey, but abandoning the conversation now felt like all wrong.
She withdrew her hand.
“That’s hers, huh?” Sallie gestured with the knife. “The girl you were riding with.”
“Uh-huh.”
Her mother sighed. “Well, it’s clear you’re not going to be able to concentrate on anything else until you know. Go on. Find her.”
Miriam searched her mother’s face to make sure she meant it. Then she snatched up the phone. “Be right back,” she said.
* * *
She went out onto the front porch before pushing the unlock button. What was the passcode? Dicey had given it to her a few days ago when she got a text message. Something symmetrical with nines, right? She closed her eyes and summoned her muscle memory. Nines alternating with the left side of the keypad. 9291? A buzz. 9197? That felt right.
The screen unlocked. “Yes!”
Miriam scrolled down until she found the text message Dicey’s mother had sent while they were in Omaha—five days ago? Already? The article outlined pregnancy and gastrointestinal problems in cystic fibrosis. Miriam felt slightly queasy.
She typed the number into her own phone. It rang four times before connecting.
“Hello?”
“Hi. Um … my name is Miriam. I’ve been … Dicey’s been riding with me …?”
Silence.
“Is this … Dicey’s mother?”
The reply came out low and trembling. “Yes.”
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. “Did they find you? The hospital?” Oh, Lordy. Could she possibly handle this any worse? “I’m so sorry, she only has ‘mom’ on here. What’s your name?”
“Dayana. Dayana Porter.”
Miriam gave a shaky laugh. “I would never have found you. I was going to go through every ‘Smith’ in East Palo Alto. I had to take Dicey to the ER, and—did they contact you?”
“Yes. I caught a flight in. I’ve only been here an hour.”
“In Albuquerque?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank God,” Miriam breathed. She rubbed her forehead. “The hospital wouldn’t tell me anything. They didn’t even tell me they were transferring her.” Her voice broke. “I guess I was hoping … you might tell me what’s going on?”
“What do you want to know?”
“She … she has cystic fibrosis?”
“Yes.”
Miriam swallowed. “She didn’t tell me. I kept asking what was wrong, but she got so mad at me.”
Dayana gave a grudging chuckle. Or maybe a snort. “She wouldn’t have told you she was pregnant if it wasn’t too far along to hide. That girl’s got more guts than sense.”
Miriam’s response came out half laugh, half sob. “Your daughter’s amazing, Mrs.… Ms.…”
“Just call me Dayana.”
“Dayana.”
“Thank you,” said Dicey’s mother in a low voice. “I should’ve bought her a plane ticket, but it wasn’t an emergency then. I figured maybe she was a little safer traveling with you. At least, I felt better knowing she had a mother in the car.”
The word broke her. Miriam sat down hard on a scrolled iron porch chair, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. She concentrated on her breathing until she had control of her voice again. “So what happened to her?”
“She’s got pneumonia.” The words were flat with exhaustion. “It happens, you know, with CF. She’s on antibiotics all the time. A month on this one, a month on that one. But sometimes it’s not enough. This is one of those times. It comes on sudden.”
Not your fault, Dayana was trying to say, but it didn’t feel that way to Miriam. She sat in front of the quiet duplex, the weight of her decisions settling around her. “I should have put my foot down,” she whispered. “I wanted to take her to a quick care clinic, but I let her win.”
“CF’s a strange beast. You don’t want to talk to just any doctor. She needed to get home, to where—”
A sudden commotion: a jumble of voices; white noise, then muffled, as if Dayana had suddenly forgotten the phone in her hand and shoved it in her pocket.
“Dayana?”
More noise. Then Dayana spoke again, hurriedly. “Dicey and the baby are in distress. We’re going for an emergency C-section. UNM medical center. Text when you get here.” The connection went dead.
Miriam laid her phone on her leg and clenched her fists to stop the trembling.
How long she sat there, she didn’t know. When the door opened, she looked up to see her mother. “Did you find her?”
She nodded.
“What did you find out?”
“Pneumonia,” Miriam said. Her voice did not sound like her own. “She and the baby are in distress. They’re delivering now.”
“How far along is she?”
“Thirty-three weeks,” Miriam said, and raised a shoulder. “And some change.”
Her mother tsked, then sat down beside her.
Slowly, deliberately, Miriam flipped the phone to “silent” and laid it face down on her knee. Dicey had her mother. Miriam’s place was here, with hers.
For a long moment, both women sat silently. Then Sallie exhaled heavily. “Go on,” she said. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
Miriam met her mother’s eyes, acknowledging something she’d never recognized before: the quiet undercurrent of devotion, imperfectly expressed but always present. Love meant letting go, that look said. Trusting that eventually, however long it took, the beloved would return.
She stood to embrace her mother. “I love you,” she whispered, and ran for her keys.
43
WHEN MIRIAM FOUND HER way to the ICU, she had to wait outside the mag-locked doors for Dayana to let her in. Dicey’s mother was an imposing woman, tall, with skin darker than Dicey’s and long braids wound tight on the crown of her head. She led Miriam to a sink to wash her hands. The sign above it admonished her to scrub for two minutes, and Miriam didn’t dare short it—not with Dayana staring her down. Miriam knew a mama bear when she saw one. When Miriam finished, Dayana handed her a surgical mask. The precautions made it clear just how serious Dicey’s condition was.
She followed Dayana to Dicey’s room but stopped short on the threshold. Dicey lay with her eyes closed, her skin so pale, Miriam barely recognized her. Her face was obscured by a mask attached to a tube, and an obnoxious treble hiss flexed and waned in time with Dicey’s breathing. Something clipped to her forefinger glowed red. Miriam couldn’t identify all the wires and tubes coming off her chest, the back of her forearm, and even out of her neck. The room was a bewildering cacophony of blips, beeps, and hisses.
Dayana beckoned. “Come on in. I know it can be overwhelming.”
Miriam tiptoed forward, her breathing shallow and hasty. “What is all of this?”
Dayana gestured. “Antibiotics here, fluids here. This line”—she pointed at the monitor—“tracks her heart rate. And this one is the blood oxygen saturation. It’s too low.”
Miriam squinted at the number at the end of the curving line. “Ninety-two percent doesn’t seem so bad.”
Dayana’s shoulder twitched. “It’s marginal. And she needs the BiPAP to keep it there. As she gets older, she loses more and more of her lung function.” Dayana’s voice was steady, and Miriam couldn’t see enough of her face to tell
whether she was as calm as she sounded. Surely she wasn’t. “Baby Girl’s heart rate was falling,” she continued. “If Momma doesn’t have enough oxygen, the baby doesn’t, either. They did a C-section.”
“And maybe it’ll be better for Dicey, now that she’s not breathing for two?”
“Maybe.” Dayana rested her hand on her daughter’s, apparently oblivious to the wires. “Nothing to do but wait and see. It’s always a crapshoot.”
Miriam stared at the mound of braids. Always, Dayana said, as if this were only the latest in a long line of ICU stays. Miriam leaned against the counter. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “If I’d known … if I’d known what she was risking. I tried to get her to go to the doctor, but—”
Dayana’s eyes flashed. “Just stop,” she said. “I know you mean well, but after everything she’s been through the last few days, traveling with you …”
Miriam shrank from the justice of the half-spoken accusation, but before Dayana could continue, Dicey began coughing. The pitch of the electronic beep dipped; then an alarm sounded—soft, four chimes, another four chimes. A nurse entered, sanitized her hands, and began monkeying with the buttons on the electronic box connected to the BiPAP.
“What’s happening?” Miriam asked, hating the terror in her voice.
“The coughing causes her to desat.”
Desat. It took a minute to connect the word to oxygen saturation.
Finally, Dicey’s body stopped shaking. The women looked back at the monitor. The oxygen saturation hovered, then slowly began to rise again. Eighty-five percent. Eighty-nine. Ninety. The nurse raised the blanket to examine Dicey’s surgical scar, then turned to them. “The doctor’s making rounds. She’ll be in shortly.”
“Thank you,” said Dayana, and the nurse left.
Dayana stood with her arms folded. She stared at the numbers on the monitor for a long moment, then took a deep breath and raised an arm to swipe at her eyes. “Lord almighty, help me,” she said, and turned to face Miriam. “I’m sorry. I raised that girl. I know very well you can’t make her do what she doesn’t want to do. My daughter always follows her own path, and all we can do is stay out of the way.” She brushed a hand tenderly over Dicey’s forehead, her voice dropping. “And be there to catch you when you fall, baby girl.”
She sat down, covering Dicey’s hand with both of hers, and bowed her head. Praying, Miriam thought. She should do the same.
Slowly, carefully, she lowered herself to a hard plastic seat. She tried to summon the mental presence for a rosary, but her mind just kept repeating: Please let her be okay. Please.
The doctor arrived a few minutes later with a crowd of residents in tow. She greeted Dayana and then focused on the task at hand, asking questions of the nurse, examining Dicey’s sutures and the data on her laptop. Miriam wondered how Dayana could stand it.
At last, the doctor turned her attention to Dayana. “Do you have questions for me?”
Miriam had a few, starting with What the hell is going on? Were they really supposed to have gleaned the situation from all that medicalese?
“The bottom line,” Dayana said. “That’s what I want.”
The doctor hugged her laptop to her chest. “Her pulmonary function isn’t what we’d like. Fluid is building up.” She crouched, putting herself below Dayana’s line of sight, and gripped her hand. “But let’s give those antibiotics some time to work. We’ve got her on the good stuff.” Her eyes crinkled, evidence of a smile.
She patted Dayana’s hand. “The other good news is the baby is stabilized. She’ll be ready for some skin to skin soon, if you want to go down.”
“Thank you, I believe I will.”
Dayana waited until the room cleared. Then she stood up and leaned over to whisper something in her daughter’s ear. She stopped face to face with Miriam. “I’m going down to see my grandbaby. You’re welcome to come, but before you do, let me tell you one thing. I’ve learned you never leave without telling her what you need her to hear.” She shuffled out of the room.
Miriam stood frozen. How could Dayana do it? Where did she find the strength to confront the possibility of death again and again?
Miriam had only just dragged herself away from the edge of the pit. She couldn’t start down this path again. She had to get away.
Only—where could she run? She was too close to the end now; she couldn’t just blithely pick another road trip destination, as if Dicey weren’t in intensive care. If she went anywhere now, it was to the beach her family had been trying to reach when they died. There was no escape from the possibility of mortality.
Her ears roared. She couldn’t breathe. She needed fresh air. Sunshine. Clouds. Escape from the maddening hum of blowers and the smell of antiseptic and the hushed whispers of thousands of people’s pain.
“I’m sorry, Dicey,” she whispered. “So sorry. I can’t. I just can’t.” Turning, she fled.
* * *
Miriam made it as far as the first floor. She could almost smell fresh air when she saw the sign: “Interfaith chapel.”
No. Not this time. She would not get caught; she needed to care for herself now. Protect the fragile healing she’d achieved.
Because of Dicey.
She slowed. Stopped. Pivoted. Went inside.
Despite everything, as always, the rich, buttery silence settled around her. The hum of the hospital remained, but it was low, distant, overwhelmed by the density of the prayers and tears and joys left by every person who had ever paused a moment in this tiny room.
She was worn out. Tired of fighting, tired of running, tired of having to psych herself up for every task. She hadn’t realized it until she stood at the foot of Dicey’s bed and contemplated starting all over again.
How long she sat there, she didn’t know. The door opened and closed. People breathed; chairs creaked as they settled beneath bodies and resettled when weight lifted again. People coming, people going. Upstairs, Dicey and her baby fought for life. But here, there was peace.
She felt a touch on her shoulder. She looked up. “Mom,” she said, startled.
“I thought I might find you here.” Mom settled beside her. “It’s Sunday, and you didn’t go to church today.” Wry humor twisted the corner of her mouth.
Miriam chuffed at her own predictability. “What are you doing here?”
Her mother sat down and set a black case on Miriam’s lap. Talia’s computer, which Miriam had left at the condo. “Well, it’s a funny thing. I was watering my plants and thinking about Talia and Blaise, and how much I missed them. And how much it meant to me to see all those videos. And out of nowhere it occurred to me. Shouldn’t there be more? Weren’t there two choices for every coin flip?”
Miriam cried out. Fingers shaking, she ripped the zipper open and pulled the computer out.
There were so many.
There had been a southern route and a northern one, with stops in the middle latitudes to bridge the two. Flippant, sincere, read off the phone—it was like a feast set before a starving person. Miriam gorged herself on the sight of her children, even though each video left her gasping for air.
She and her mother clutched each other in the tiny chapel, laughing and crying by turns.
The last video froze with the twins grinning at each other after tag-teaming an overview of something called the Corn Palace, in South Dakota. So beautiful. It wasn’t enough—it would never be enough. But it satisfied a deep, visceral hunger.
“I miss them,” Miriam said. “I miss them so much.”
Her mother hugged her.
“If I had one more day, I would … I’d do so many things differently. I wouldn’t clean a dish the whole day, I’d just—I don’t know … hold them so tight. Make sure they knew I loved them.”
“They knew you loved them, honey.” Sallie pulled back but didn’t let her go. “Everybody shows love in different ways. You know JoJo’s all about gifts—” She touched the string of pearls around her neck. “And Brad always wanted t
ouch. He was so clingy. Sometimes it was all I could do not to scream at him to leave me alone. But you? You’re like me. We love by doing. And that’s nothing to be ashamed of, Mira.”
The words vibrated in deep places within Miriam’s body that she’d never even known were there. It broke her heart to realize how many years she’d squandered, thinking herself not good enough. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she said softly. “I wasted so much of my life being angry with you for something that wasn’t even real.”
“Shh.” Sallie stroked her hair. “There’s no untying that knot now. We were in the middle of a crisis ourselves. We should have realized there was more wrong than teenage rebellion. We were too focused on saving ourselves to save you. There’s plenty of blame to go around. I’m just glad you finally told me what’s been haunting you all these years.”
Well, some of it anyway. For the first time, Miriam thought she might actually like her mother’s take on the whole Gus situation.
Gus. Wow. He’d been totally off her radar for the past twenty-four hours. She’d been so angry with him. After the events of the last twenty-four hours, Gus’s offense seemed insignificant. So he’d talked to Blaise. So what? If it had been any other musical luminary, she wouldn’t have batted an eye.
If she’d just talked to him years ago, like Teo wanted her to do …
It was hard to stomach the thought of how much richness she’d closed herself off from all these years out of a fear of confronting the unbeautiful and uncomfortable. How different might her life have been if she’d had the courage to face the difficult conversations ten years ago—or even five, or two? How much less conflicted?
Impossible to know. What was certain was that, somewhere upstairs, Dayana had both a daughter and granddaughter fighting for their lives. A daughter and granddaughter Miriam cared deeply about and to whom she was connected.
We love by doing.
Miriam closed the laptop. “Mom,” she said, “I need to go back upstairs.”
A Song for the Road Page 27