All That's True

by Jackie Lee Miles

  “I don’t know, Mother,” Amy laments. “They haven’t told me anything. They’re trying to stop the labor, is all I know. And I’m not calling Jeffrey until I know something.”

  Jeffrey’s at Vanderbilt and Amy’s living in an apartment by herself off North Druid Hills Road, not too far from us.

  My mother makes her way into the room. Her face is no longer soft and serene. Her brow is creased and her lips are pinched. She’s worried. The last time we were at this hospital it was so my father could identify Alex. My mother insisted I wasn’t to go with them, but I cried ’til hiccups wracked my body and my father convinced my mother it was best to stay together. That night is still fresh in my heart. It sits there like an open wound, ready to fester with the slightest encouragement.

  The doctor strides into the room and picks up the clipboard at the end of Amy’s bed. He is young and stout, with greasy hair parted on one side. He’s wearing large, black-rimmed glasses and I want to laugh out loud. He looks like a doctor ready for a sketch on Saturday Night Live. But this is not a laughing matter. The doctor explains to Amy and my mother about the medication in the IV and what they hope to accomplish by administering it, which I find rather strange. Not the IV, but the fact he’s giving us all this information. He doesn’t even know who we are. He hasn’t even introduced himself. I guess this doctor is too busy to bother with formalities and assumes since we are in the room, we are family and takes it from there.

  “The medication is not without side effects,” he cautions. He explains that Amy is being given a steroid drug called a corticosteroid, which will help the baby’s lungs mature, along with antibiotics, to help prevent infection since the baby’s immune system is immature.

  “We’re also using ritodrine,” the doctor explains. “Dr. Charles” is stenciled on the pocket of his white coat in red letters. “As I said, there’s a possibility of side effects, naturally.”

  I’m reading the inscription on the IV bag and there certainly are! It says possible side effects for the mother include rapid heartbeat, fluid in the lungs, poor blood flow, low blood pressure, fast heartbeat, high levels of sugar in the blood, high levels of insulin in the blood, low amounts of potassium in the blood, reduced amounts of urine, changes in function of the thyroid gland, shaking, nervousness, nausea or vomiting, fever and hallucinations. All this from a drug Dr. Charles insists is the proven drug of choice to stop premature labor.

  Possible side effects for the baby are equally disturbing: fast heartbeat, high levels of insulin in the blood, low or high levels of sugar in the blood, enlarged heart, poor blood flow, low levels of calcium in the blood, jaundice, low blood pressure, and bleeding within the brain or heart.

  This poor little baby. We found out last week it’s a boy. They did the sonogram and the doctor said, “No mistake here. It’s a boy!”

  ***

  When my father arrives, I know that I’ll feel better. It is a big disappointment to discover that I don’t. He is very somber after speaking with the doctor, who explains that so far the treatment is not working.

  “It doesn’t look good,” my father says when the doctor leaves. My mother has her arms wrapped around her waist. Her head is moving side to side in slow motion, like she has seen the outcome and no longer believes in possibilities. My father puts his arm around my shoulder and I bury my head in his sleeve, squeezing my eyes shut to hold back the tears. I don’t want Amy to see. I don’t want her to know that our side of the family has given up hope.

  Chapter Twenty

  There’s no getting around it. Beth is beautiful—absolutely, positively beautiful. And I’m not. I’m staring in the bathroom mirror, trying to figure out what makes my face different than hers when it’s so much like hers to begin with. Yet, mine’s not even close to beautiful. We both have long blond hair. We have the same eyes, brown and very round. I decide mine are maybe spaced too close together, but I can’t be sure. I’m feeling extra miserable as it is totally out of my control. Like Amy. We left the hospital after several hours with no change. Amy was still having contractions. But my mother decided I needed to get some dinner and get to bed early so I would for certain make school in the morning. As if I can concentrate on school.

  I call Bridget at Westwood Academy, but she is not in her room. Probably she’s at the library. She’s doing a report on Stalin for her history class. Bridget is getting all As and her father is totally convinced Westwood Academy is the best school in the world for Bridget. Now she’ll never get to come back to Parker Junior High. Why couldn’t she get Cs or maybe even C–s? But no, she gets As. And she’s never gotten As before, which is a real mystery to me. So I’m triple miserable. There’s Amy, and my face in the mirror, and Bridget, and of course, my father is still sleeping with Donna. I mean there’s nothing to indicate he’s not. He still sneaks over to the pool house every Monday and Wednesday and sometimes Friday. Bridget’s no longer with me to witness, so I no longer watch, but I see him walking through the thick hedges making his way to the pool house and sometimes if I’m still awake when he returns, I hear the front door open and his footsteps as he climbs the long winding staircase back to my mother. I picture her waking, still tipsy from her wine.

  “Long day, darling?” she says.

  “Very,” my father replies.

  I close my eyes tight at the thought, willing the image to leave me. My life is mostly a disaster. Especially considering what just transpired with Anthony Morelli. It’s hard to believe it actually happened. I went to altar class on Saturday and found out Rachel Martin has moved. She’s the one Anthony was all ga-ga over. Her father took a job in Dallas, which is really good news. Dallas is fairly far away, so I don’t think she’s going to be a problem anymore.

  After class—Easter’s on its way and we were going over what each of us is to do when it’s our turn to assist the Mass—Anthony said he wanted to talk to me and motioned for me to go up to the balcony. I waited until everyone left and Father Murphy was busy putting everything we were practicing with back in its little cubbyhole, the chalice and the crosses and the cruets. Once Father left I followed Anthony up to the balcony and my heart was pounding and I was thinking he’s probably going to ask me to go with him, so I’m in heaven. When we get up there, he turns around and puts his hands on my chest! There’s really not much there, so I’m wondering why he’s so interested, but I’m going to marry him so I figure it’s probably all right in the long run. And then he starts kissing me and other than when Dennis Luken kissed me right before Alex died I’ve really never kissed a boy before, so I’m not very good at it. Then Anthony sticks his tongue in my mouth and I’m really grossing out, but I want him to like me so I kind of mush my tongue back at him, trying not to gag. Then he starts putting his hands on my chest again and if that’s not bad enough, he reaches down with his other hand and puts it up my skirt. I’m going shopping at the mall this afternoon with Bridget and Madeline so we decided to wear skirts and try to look sophisticated. Even though I’m determined to marry Anthony and am probably destined to, his hand up my skirt is not a good thing and I’m about to push it away, when he pulls me closer and puts his hand right down my pants and that is the last straw, marriage or not! We’re not even engaged yet, so all that stuff has to come later. I’m about to shove him away and in walks Madeline.

  “Gaaaawd, Andi,” she says.

  And I’m like to die. When Anthony kissed me, I forgot all about Donna picking me up to take Bridget and me and Madeline over to the mall. It’s like my brain and my feet and my stomach no longer resided in the same body. Nothing else mattered, so naturally I forgot all about the time.

  I yank my skirt back down and run after Madeline.

  “Wait up,” I yell. “Let me explain!”

  Madeline turns around and smirks.

  “You better be careful,” she says. “I’ve got something on you now.” And she laughs, but it doesn’t sound like a normal laugh. It sounds like a cackle.

  Chapter Twenty-one<
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  Sometimes I swear there are two people living inside of me, an angel and a beast. I can have such nice thoughts about people and then they do something and I want to kill them. Or I picture them getting hit by a bicycle and breaking an ankle. What is that? Good and evil married to each other right inside me. Beth has decided to let me choose the dress I will wear at her wedding—so long as it’s pink—and I want to hug every inch of her neck. Then she says I’m to wear flats, not even short pumps but flats. End of story.

  “Why?”

  Because I’m the junior bridesmaid, that’s why, she says, and reminds me I’m already taller than Joanne, one of her regular bridesmaids. A pigmy is taller than Joanne. I hope Beth gets hit by a motorcycle and breaks both ankles and has to hobble down the aisle in walking casts. I do, I swear.

  At least I found a dress I really like. It’s light pink and has a satin top that makes me look like I have real breasts instead of bumps. There are pleats on the bodice and it has an Empire waist and the rest of the dress is a sheath made from chiffon. It’s very sophisticated, but of course I don’t say that, because I’m still supposed to be a junior bridesmaid and I’m hoping Beth doesn’t notice. She’s busy with the cake and flowers and a gazillion other things, so maybe she won’t, but even if she does, the dress is already paid for—it cost four hundred dollars—so my mother would probably be on my side.

  However, something more important is going on right now, something very strange. It has my full attention. My mother has invited Rodger and Donna to dinner. She is going over the menu with Rosa.

  They will have Caesar salad, followed by beef Wellington and twice-whipped potatoes and creamed corn, and cognac and an assortment of cheeses and fruit for dessert. Don’t ask me how Rosa knows how to prepare all these things, but she does. It’s like she went to culinary school, but I know for a fact that she didn’t.

  “She’s a natural,” my father says.

  “Gifted,” my mother adds.

  The fact that my father finds nothing unusual in my mother’s invitation is perplexing, considering the fact that he spends more time screwing Donna than he does playing golf.

  The dinner party is all set for tomorrow night, Friday, which means my father and Donna will have to give up their rendezvous in the pool house. They can hardly excuse themselves between the main course and dessert and go at it.

  My mother insists that I will attend. Beth doesn’t have to. She’s back at Vassar. I wish Bridget were home from school. Then she’d have to be at the dinner, too.

  “You’ll have a lovely time,” my mother says.

  Well, of course, I’m thinking. What could be lovelier than having dinner with a woman who is trying to steal my father from my mother right under her very nose?

  ***

  Donna needs to receive an academy award for her performance tonight. If I didn’t know what she was up to with my father I’d never suspect what she was up to with my father. So I can hardly blame my mother anymore for not knowing. I’m thinking of writing an anonymous letter to my mother to tip her off. Something simple like: I am screwing your husband. From your neighbor. She’d have to know which neighbor. The only other women on our street are Mrs. Reed, who’s about eighty, Mrs. Anderson, who weighs at least three hundred pounds and Mrs. Decker who has a face that is the spitting image of her Doberman. But if I do write a letter, it’s bound to break my mother’s heart. And what with Amy still in the hospital and the wedding coming up, it would be wrong for me to destroy my mother’s world, so writing the letter right now is pretty much out of the question. I pray during Mass that my mother doesn’t find out about what’s going on all on her own, at least until after things calm down. I light a candle. I light two more. I pay money. It better work. I spent the last five dollars from my allowance.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Today is a special day at Sunny Meadows Nursing Home. It’s Mr. and Mrs. Sterling’s sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. I’m getting attached to them so I’m actually glad to be here. We Angels decorated the activity room with crepe-paper wedding bells and streamers and the kitchen staff made a cake. It’s supposed to be a wedding cake, but it’s a long sheet cake, so it hardly resembles one. It has pink and blue bells and the number sixty-five in the center with pink icing. A minister from the chapel is coming to have them renew their wedding vows. I can just picture that. Mr. Sterling will be saying, “WHAT’D YOU SAY? SPEAK UP!” And Mrs. Sterling will say, “HE SAYS, ‘DO YOU WANT TO MARRY ME AGAIN?’” Which is exactly what happens except no one counted on Mr. Sterling saying, “WHY WOULD I DO THAT?” And everyone starts chuckling, pretending he’s joking, and Mavis, that’s Mrs. Sterling, pats his back and smiles at everyone.

  The minister skips over the “I do” part and says, “Bless this couple in their rededication one to the other,” and Mr. and Mrs. Sterling shuffle over to the cake. All the residents are having a nice time. Andy Williams’s love songs are playing on an old record player one of the nurses brought in. Nana Louise is sitting next to another elderly woman, Ms. Moorefield, who’s actually the oldest person living here. She’s ninety-eight. Neither one of them knows what’s going on, but they eat the cake and look up at the ones dancing now and then and smile. The dancing is not real dancing; it’s more like feet stumbling here and there, but still, it’s nice to see them trying. Nurse Sharp—ole Gabby herself—is twirling Mr. Bailey around and around in his wheel chair. “Are we having fun? Huh? Huh?” she asks and he just sits there looking like he’d like to stand up and belt her one if he could find a way to stand up without falling over.

  One of the other Angels, Allison Whitley, has invited me to come over to her house. She lives on a regular street and her mother drives a regular car, a Chevy, and Allison is like a regular person, but very interesting to be around. She says some unusual things.

  “My Dad was changing the oil on my mother’s car last night and he kicked the oil pan over and you should have seen the mess! He was hysterical trying to clean up the garage floor so my mother wouldn’t have a fit.” And last week she said, “We’re getting a new color TV this weekend.” And the way she said it, you could tell that it was a very big deal. So most of what she says is really entertaining, plus she’s just a very nice person, so I’ll probably go over to her house when she asks me again.

  Right now I’m just hanging out with Bridget and Madeline. They’re still alternating going to each other’s houses on weekends. Trying to stay friends with Madeline is nearly impossible. We went to the mall again last weekend and were just hanging out and looking at this and that and I was watching Madeline to make sure she wasn’t snatching any more perfume bottles, and then out of the blue she says, “Look, there’s Baskin-Robbins. Let’s get ice cream,” and sure enough they’ve added a Baskin-Robbins store. So we go there and as I’m taking out my wallet to pay for my cone, what is sitting in the bottom of my purse but a gold chain! It still has the price tag on it. It’s not pure gold, but it’s a Monet, the kind guaranteed not to tarnish for life. I turn to look at Madeline and she is grinning like a Cheshire cat and I start shaking.

  “What did you do?” I said.

  “I saw you admiring it,” Madeline says, “so I got it for you.”

  “You stole it!”

  “Sssssshhhh,” Bridget says and takes my arm.

  I hand the clerk two dollars for my ice cream and don’t bother to wait for change. I walk off with Bridget, shaking my head. I can hardly believe this.

  “I need to take this back,” I say.

  “You can’t,” Bridget points out. “You’ll get arrested.”

  “Maybe I could just slip it onto the counter real casual-like,” I tell her and bite my lower lip.

  “Someone could see you,” Bridget says, “and you’d still get arrested!”

  Of course, she’s right and then I realize I could have been caught with it in my purse. What if another shopper had seen Madeline place it in my purse and thought I was in on it all along. I start shaking again.
/>   “Don’t ever do that again, Madeline!”

  “Lighten up, Andi,” she says. “It’s just some crappy old chain.”

  She’s licking her cone, running her tongue around the edges in a circle and I want to just push the whole thing right into her face.

  “It’s stealing! And don’t ever do it again!” I say, “or I’ll—I’ll—”

  “What? Tell my parents and then I can tell yours?”

  Madeline finishes her cone and stops to toss her napkin in the trash can next to the escalator.

  “Oh, don’t tell her parents she had anything to do with it,” Bridget says, and stops in her tracks. “If they thought she was shoplifting, they’d ground her for life.”

  But it’s not shoplifting that’s on my mind at the moment, it’s Anthony Morelli and what Madeline saw or what she thinks she saw that has me worried. Being grounded for life is one thing and being sent to a convent is another thing entirely.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Amy is being released from the hospital! The doctors stopped her labor and they think she may be fine if she can stay off her feet until she’s further along.

  “Every week counts,” they say.

  My father is convinced that the stress of her and Jeffrey living apart and her being alone in an apartment is too much for Amy. He’s buying them a house, which Jeffrey outright refused, so my father said, okay he’d buy it but they’d pay him rent, but he’d write a contract that they’re actually buying it from him. It’s called a lease-purchase agreement. Jeffrey agreed, and the deal is he will come back to Atlanta from Vanderbilt and transfer his credits to Emory University. It’s very expensive, but my father says not any more expensive than Vanderbilt, which Jeffrey’s parents have been paying for part of and the rest is from a scholarship. My father explains Emory has scholarships available, too, and with Jeffrey’s grades it won’t be a problem. My father seems to know everything.