The Waiting

by Hunter Shea

  At her touch, Cassandra’s fingers relaxed. Her eyelids fluttered and for a moment, it looked like she was about to wake up. These were the moments she and Brian both looked forward to and dreaded. To see Cassie’s warm brown eyes, to connect with her, was a blessing.

  But those precious moments never lasted long. The pain would bully its way through and Cassie’s mind would retreat into the numbness of sleep. Sometimes, when the pain was so bad that tears streamed down her face, her mouth still unable to work, they would put a morphine patch on her arm. It didn’t take long for that to work and Cassie would fade away.

  Alice waited until Cassandra settled, and her breathing was more regular and calm.

  Needing to straighten things up, to feel useful, she tripped on Brian’s mattress and almost fell into the pole holding the life support machine.

  She straightened herself an inch before colliding with it. “Thank you Jesus for holding up a clumsy woman,” she said, her eyes heavenward.

  Her nerves jangled, she said, “You should have seen that one, Cassie. I know how much you like to laugh when I stumble around. Think I’ll get the paper and see how much better we have it than the rest of the world.”

  The Daily News was wrapped in a plastic bag and sat on the lawn, a good twenty feet short of the porch. It was a nice day, the sky a pale blue with the occasional pulled sugar puff of clouds. The air was crisp, cleaner now that the smog of summer had passed and the sunlight seemed sharper. Fall in New York was her favorite time of year.

  As she bent to pick up the paper, she noticed an older woman on her small porch next door. She sat on a white resin chair, holding a needlepoint within a small, wood circle.

  “Good morning,” Alice said.

  The woman worked the needle in one side, pulling it back out the other. She took no notice of her.

  Must be hard of hearing, Alice thought.

  She looked at Cassie and Brian’s house. It was pretty, with new light brown shingles, decent size front and back yards, a covered porch—a rarity in the Bronx—and plenty of room for a growing family inside. How she prayed they would one day provide her with lots of grandkids.

  A movement in the upstairs window caught her attention.

  The white lace curtains that she had hung up earlier parted, then wafted against one another as if someone had been peeking out and ducked away from the window.

  That was odd.

  That was the empty spare bedroom. It couldn’t have been the wind because all of the upstairs windows were closed. It had been chilly last night and she shut them all sometime around midnight.

  Alice couldn’t tear her gaze from the window. What was she waiting for? To see if Cassie had miraculously gotten out of bed, climbed the stairs and was spying on her?

  “Maybe it’s a ghost,” she said, laughing to drown out the sudden sense of unease that washed over her.

  A garbage truck rumbled by and broke the spell.

  It was just a draft. The house, though renovated, was old. Bound to be gaps in the windows where a breeze could filter through.

  She looked down at the paper in her hand, forgetting that it was the reason she was outside in the first place. Tucking it under her arm, she went back into the house. The old lady next door never once looked her way.

  Chapter Seven

  “You want to stay up and watch a movie?” Brian asked Alice. He’d been back to work for a full week now and was in desperate need of something to take his mind off his negative feelings toward the school.

  Alice pushed the dishwasher door shut and turned it on. It started with a deep rumble and a hiss of spraying water.

  “I think I’ll take a rain check. Louisa had me do the hyperal hook-up today and my nerves have been shot ever since. I don’t know how you stay so calm.”

  He wasn’t sure either. There were theories that men could compartmentalize things easier. Emotions went in one box while action was pulled from another. It was either that or he had missed his calling as a home nurse.

  “It’s all about practice,” he answered. “You’ll see. A week from now you’ll be just as good as me or even Louisa.”

  “I don’t know about that.” She pulled a dishtowel from her shoulder and plopped it on the draining board. “But I do know that a bath is calling. See you tomorrow, kiddo.”

  She came over to the couch where he was resting with his feet up on the recliner and kissed the top of his head.

  “I’m going to look for carpets tomorrow,” he said.

  “Good. These floors are so slippery, you’ll be taking care of me and my broken hip in the bed next to Cassie.”

  He heard every step as she walked to her room, then the bathroom. The faucets squealed as they turned and water splashed into the tub.

  Brian plucked the remote from between the couch cushions and looked for something funny to watch On-Demand. None of the new stuff looked the least bit appealing. He searched for older movies and smiled when the highlighted cursor found The Big Lebowski.

  “The Dude abides,” he said, and clicked OK to watch his favorite movie.

  Alice had gone to bed and the Dude was having Donnie’s ashes blown back into his face when Brian heard a slow creak. The sound bounced around the walls of the hallway leading to his and Cassandra’s bedroom.

  He paused the movie and looked down the hall.

  Creeeaaak.

  A sliver of light slashed across the floor and lower part of the wall.

  The light grew brighter as their bedroom door swung open. The handle bumped into the wall with a dull thud.

  Cassandra!

  If she was up, her legs wouldn’t be able to hold her weight for long. Brian stumbled off the couch and ran to get her. His socks skated across the floor and he slid into the bedroom.

  Cassandra lay still, the pump humming away, pulsing with the milky fluid that fed her.

  She hadn’t so much as moved a muscle since the last time he’d checked on her.

  Brian looked at the wide-open door. A disconcerting tickle danced across his lower back.

  Old uneven doors.

  He shivered, and decided to call it a night.

  Chapter Eight

  Marybeth and Brian’s friend Tony came to visit one night. He asked them to stay for dinner and Alice whipped up a fettuccine carbonara that was out of this world. Tony dove in for his third helping.

  “Mrs. Torre, you mind coming to live with me?” he said.

  “If I did, you wouldn’t be long for this planet,” she replied, laughing. “Brian said you had a big appetite. God bless. Eat up.”

  Marybeth had excused herself to go to the restroom. When she returned to the kitchen, she said, “I couldn’t help myself. I had to check on Cass again. Her color looks better.”

  “Has she been able to talk at all?” Tony asked.

  “Not a word—yet,” Brian said. He finished his glass of wine. “The doctor said she will. All of the moving parts are fine. It’s a form of mutism brought on by trauma. When she can be awake for longer periods of time without the pain, she’ll talk.”

  What he didn’t say was how a small piece of him died every time he looked into her eyes and saw the hurt. He did everything he could to keep her comfortable. If only she could tell him what she was experiencing, maybe he’d find a better way to make it disappear. It was a fantasy, thinking that he could banish her pain through the magic of her voice. But fantasies and hopes were all he had to go on.

  Marybeth and Tony stayed for a while longer, until she checked the clock on the kitchen wall and said, “Oh jeez, I better get home. I have a report that needs to be done before I get in the office tomorrow. I just love spreadsheets.”

  Tony rose from his chair and stretched his arms. “I better hit the dusty, too. Mickey’s off so I have to open the shop. A morning person, I’m not. Though I will sleep good tonight, thanks to Momma Torre.” He rubbed his belly.

  Brian shook his head. Tony was a master of lighting up the mood of a room. A dose of Tony was
just what he needed. His anger had been simmering for weeks now. He was angry at the doctors for not getting Cassandra well. Angry at the insurance companies that expected him to decipher the mounds of paperwork they sent daily. Angry at work for taking him away from Cassandra.

  He’d told Alice about his growing rage one night. She’d assured him it was natural. Anyone would be mad in his position. Life demanded to go on, but the most significant part of his life was being held back. He was relieved when she told him she often felt helpless and downright pissed at times.

  Marybeth went into the living room, then came back to the kitchen. “Okay, where did I put my keys?” she said.

  “I thought you left them on the coffee table, sweetie,” Alice said.

  “Yeah, me too,” Marybeth replied, still searching.

  “Well, there aren’t a lot of places where they can be,” Tony said. “Brian’s still got a lot of furniture to buy and stuff to unpack.” He clapped him on the shoulder.

  Brian said, “Maybe you brought them with you when you sat with Cassandra. I’ll check.”

  It didn’t take long to see the keys were not in the bedroom. Marybeth, Tony and Alice were in the living room looking around the boxes and containers.

  “Any luck?” Brian asked.

  “Nope,” Marybeth said, frustrated. “And this is my spare set. I lost my other set a month ago at the mall.”

  Tony shouted, “Bingo.” He twirled her key ring on his finger and tossed it to her.

  “Where did you find them?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “In the last place you’d look. They were up here, on the windowsill.”

  Tony stood beneath the high-set window above the couch. It was made from colored glass and was a decorative addition to the house. The colors were too deep to see through, but it made nice patterns in the room when the sun shined through it.

  “How the hell did they get up there?” Alice asked.

  “I know I didn’t put them there,” Marybeth said. “I couldn’t even reach if I wanted to. Tony, are you messing with me?”

  She slapped his arm with the back of her hand. He winced.

  “It wasn’t me,” he protested.

  “Right.” She hugged Alice and Brian. “Thank you so much for dinner. Cass really looks better. I can feel that it’ll be any day now.”

  “Thanks. I hope so,” Brian said.

  She sneered at Tony with mock contempt. “And you, I’ll see you around.”

  He held up his hands in surrender. “I swear, I didn’t put them there.”

  Brian heard them quibble as they walked to their cars.

  He looked over and saw the old lady next door, ensconced in her chair. He and Alice had made several attempts to talk to her but were always met with blank stares. Several times a week, a younger person came to check on her; must have been one of those companion services. The Meals on Wheels people brought her dinner every night.

  For the first time since he’d moved in, she looked at him with something close to open, yet silent, communication. Her lips parted as if to say something, but she sneezed instead. Her head gave a slow nod, and she trained her gaze back on the street-lit block. Marybeth and Tony pulled their cars away. The old lady continued nodding.

  Chapter Nine

  “MIL, have you seen my iPod?” Brian called up the stairs.

  Alice’s head appeared over the banister. “I wouldn’t even know what an iPod looks like. Is it big, small…”

  Brian rechecked the pockets of his jogging jacket. Empty. He always kept his iPod in his pocket. Running was the only time he had to listen to music.

  “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll look for it later.”

  He went to the bedroom to make sure Cassandra’s life support machine was working. Earlier, he had been woken up by the chiming of an alarm. The fluid had stopped moving within the tubing as it should and he had to open the pump’s door and rethread the IV tube. That had been two hours ago and he kept waiting for the alarm to sound again.

  “I’m going out for a run,” he said. Cassandra lay fast asleep, but he kept hoping she could hear every word he said. He kissed her dry lips and headed out the back door.

  The missing iPod bothered him the entire time as he wound his way down the neighborhood side streets, coming to Indian Field. He liked to run within the trees of the park. It was his version of bipedal off-roading. The air was thick with the sweet smell of pine needles.

  He had over a thousand songs on his iPod. And like a moron, he’d never bothered to back up the audio files.

  Gotta find it.

  He pushed himself, doubling his pace so he could get back home and renew the search.

  Rain lashed against the window panes and Alice caught brief glimpses of the dark clouds bustling through the night sky between lightning bursts. She hated storms; had since she was a little girl. Her father used to tell her it was just God letting off some steam. That scared her even more.

  There was a soft knock on the door.

  “Come in.”

  Brian walked in wearing his Reds jersey and baggy sweatpants. She called it his staying home uniform.

  “Can we talk for just a sec?” he asked.

  “Yeah, sure.” Alice shifted in the chair and he motioned for her to stay.

  “Look, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your coming here and helping take care of Cassandra. If it wasn’t for you, I’d never have been able to bring her home.”

  “I told you, you don’t have to thank me.”

  He held up a hand. “And, I’m especially thankful that you’ve put the house together with the little bit I’ve brought over. If it was just me here, this place would be a disaster. That being said, I think we need to set up some rules about moving my things.”

  “Is it the iPod thingy again?”

  He’d made such a fuss searching for it the other day. Even furniture was turned upside down in his hunt. She was the one who found it, sitting in the flatware drawer, when she was making dinner.

  Brian had a lot on his plate, and she tried to explain that he was bound to forget things, to do stuff out of his normal routine. It was a miracle he remembered to put on pants every morning.

  “No, that’s where it should be, or at least it was last time I checked,” he said. “I’d just appreciate it if when you see my stuff around the house, you leave it there.”

  “Honey, you have to help me out here. What stuff are you talking about?”

  He sighed and leaned against the door. Thunder rumbled.

  “I had a clipped pile of insurance forms that have to be in the mail tomorrow. I know they looked like a mess, but I was planning on going through all of them tonight. Please don’t tell me you threw them away.”

  Alice knew she had to choose her words carefully. He was being polite, but she could see and even feel the anger stirring just below the surface. Brian was always happy, outgoing, the loudest in any group. Lately, she’d noticed a big change. Sure, since the wedding, he’d been somber, distraught, stressed to the max, but his kindness and humor were always present.

  Since going back to work, he’d been quiet, moody. He hadn’t blown up yet, but she could see it would happen soon.

  “I know what you’re talking about. They were on your dresser and I knew to leave them alone. In fact, I saw them there about an hour ago when I went to give Cassie a sponge bath.”

  Brian rolled his neck until it cracked and he flexed his fingers, balling them into tight fists. “Shit. If I don’t get them done, I could be hit with a ten-thousand-dollar bill that’ll take months for the reimbursement. And I don’t have ten grand in my account.”

  Alice rose from her seat, dropping her Bible on the bed. “Come on, I’ll help you look.”

  “I’ll find them. Sorry I bothered you.” He turned away before she could respond and ran down the stairs.

  She stood in her doorway, listening to him grumble and curse as he stormed throughout the house. Multiple shards of lightning lit up th
e room. Strange, unfamiliar shadows leapt onto the walls and in that brief moment, she thought she saw a small, dark shape dart across the hall. It had happened so fast, she couldn’t be sure what it exactly was that sprang to life in the flicker of a lightning bolt.

  Alice closed the door. She didn’t want to be able to see into the hallway.

  It was irrational, downright silly.

  But something about that imagined shadow startled her, and no amount of rationalization would make her open that door.

  Chapter Ten

  Alice woke up the next day to a quiet house. The storm had passed and Brian had left for work. She put on her slippers and padded down to Cassie’s room. To her surprise, she was awake. Cassie’s eyes moved from the ceiling to her.

  “Good morning, baby. Mom’s here.” She stroked her cheeks in light brushes with the back of her fingers.

  Her heart melted when she saw the recognition in her daughter’s eyes. They looked around the room, settling on the infusion pump.

  “That’s your breakfast, lunch and dinner,” Alice said, smiling. “You can’t believe how great Brian is handling it. I’m still a nervous mess. I worry so much about hurting you.”

  Cassandra tried to move her hand. It shook at first, and she was able to raise it an inch off the bed. Alice scooped it into her own.

  Thank you God! Alice reveled. This was the first time Cassie had been so aware, had even tried to move without it being something she did in her sleep. She tried to fight back tears but it was a losing battle.

  Like her daughter, words escaped her. They dove into one another’s eyes, saying a million words between each blink of their lashes.

  Then Cassie’s gaze drifted to someplace just over her shoulder. Her eyes widened and her lips pulled into a tight line.

  “Honey, what’s wrong? There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  Alice turned her head but only saw the dresser beside the window.

  Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!

  Every alarm went off on the life support machine at once.

  Brian ran into the house, breathless. Since Alice’s frantic call to his cell, he’d sprinted from the school, leaving third period gym class without supervision. He broke every traffic law on the books driving home and twice almost rear-ended the car in front of him. His heart fluttered like the blades of a weather vane in a hurricane.