SALT: A HEIGHTS NOVEL

by Mara White

  “Salana?”

  It was Eric. She tossed her phone across the room and pulled the pillow over her head. She wanted to go back again. She wanted to help train midwives. She also wanted to work in refugee camps with women and children. There was a refugee crisis and people were suffering and dying. She didn’t want to eat steak with Eric or wear any of his conspicuous diamonds. She had no plans of stopping. She’d go where she was needed and try to make a difference. Relationship or not, Salana would always be leaving.

  Tiago was the only person in her life who loved her enough to let her go.

  TIAGO

  His grandmother was dying.

  “What are you going to do with a body? Not to be crass, but you don’t want to be stuck with a body in the Heights, and you got a record to start with.”

  Jose was being practical and realistic, Tiago knew that, but it still didn’t dampen his conviction in his idea of letting his grandmother die in church. It was the next best thing he could come up with. He knew her dream had been returning to Puerto Rico, but Tiago hadn’t made enough money and she was too sick—the plan wasn’t anywhere near feasible. There was no way he could even get the time off from work.

  They were just outside her door in the state-run assisted living facility. It wasn’t where she wanted to die and Tiago didn’t blame her. He’d made friends with Jose and a number of the other attendants, but their kindness didn’t exactly block out the smell of urine or the desolation of forgotten seniors who nobody visited. The bed sores, the dementia, the screaming, the alarms. The place was a horror show and he just wanted to get her out of there.

  “What if you gave me the number for the coroner or the medical examiner and I called him directly as soon as it was over?”

  “Dude, you gonna take her in a taxi? You want me to help you hail a cab and then we drag her off of a gurney?”

  He had a point. Tiago knew his plan was ambitious but he refused to give in. The alternative wasn’t an option, especially after his grandmother had done all she could to raise him instead of letting him get taken away, which at times—okay, most of the time—would have been the easier option for her. He’d be the first to admit he hadn’t been the easiest kid.

  “What if it takes longer than you think? What if you get here there and she doesn’t die tonight, for Christ’s sake? Bring her back here? Man, you trippin’,” Jose told him bluntly.

  “What if I called the cops? Would they help me?”

  “Help throw you in jail. Help call the NY Post for a headline tomorrow.”

  “The hospice said it would be today. They know, it’s their job to know when.”

  He could try calling Salt. She would come, he knew she would. But he didn’t want to burden her or drag her into an emotional exchange when she was still trying to get her head straight.

  “Shit. Maybe you’re on to something. Not the cops, Tiago, but the fire department. Those guys are dedicated and they’re stand up dudes. Engine 49. They’re in here all the time. Why don’t you walk over to the fire house and see if they could help you out? Worth a try.”

  “Ma, stay with me. We’re almost there,” he cooed to his frail grandmother. Her skin was mottled with purple. The hospice had said it was a sign, a symptom that death was upon them.

  They were crowded into the back of the ambulance with two of the fire fighters, who’d transported her with so much gentleness and care that it was hard for him to keep from breaking down.

  “You said the Church of the Intercession on Broadway, right? They know you’re coming?”

  “Yeah, I called the priest. He said we could come in the side entrance to avoid all the stairs.”

  “Ten-four,” the driver said.

  “I hope we make it,” Tiago told him. His grandmother’s hand felt cold and it seemed like her breathing was too slow and labored.

  The firefighter turned on the siren and stepped on the gas. Tiago smiled and laid his head on his grandmother’s chest.

  They were alone in the nave and the priest had already administered last rights as soon as they arrived. The firemen gave him a number to call and said they could come pick them up no matter what happened. Tiago wanted to hug them but had settled for heartfelt handshakes.

  “’Member when you used to slick my hair back? Bring me here in that polyester suit with the high-waters? Trying to show me off to all your friends? You’d brag about how hard I could hit a baseball?”

  He wasn’t entirely sure if she could hear him. It felt like she applied some pressure to his hand every once in a while, but Tiago couldn’t be sure if he was just imagining it.

  The air was thick with frankincense and candle wax. He’d lit a candle for both his mother and his father, just like his grandmother always did. Although he’d left out the swear words Ma usually muttered under her breath while lighting his father’s candle. He laughed and the sound echoed strangely through the vaulted ceilings.

  “Ma, you sure are full of fire for such a tiny lady,” he told her. He smiled at the memories of her attitude and how hard she would bring it to defend him or make sure he was included when she’d drag his ass to any and every event the city offered for kids in the neighborhood. In the end, she couldn’t keep him off the streets, but she tried her damnedest.

  “It ain’t the island, but it’s peaceful and God is right here waiting for you. Take your time, Ma. Whenever you’re ready.” He swore up and down that she squeezed his hand a little. The tiny movement made chills run up his spine. He was glad they weren’t doing this in a place she’d hated.

  Two weeks ago, when she’d first contracted pneumonia, she’d spoken so frankly about death that Tiago was scared it was about to happen and conned Jose into letting him spend the night in the awful boxy chair.

  “M’ijo, you did it. You have your job, your diploma. God has answered my prayers.”

  “I couldn’t have done it without you.” He caressed her white hair.

  “My sweet boy,” she whispered to him, cupped the side of his face with her crooked fingers. “Sé la sal de la tierra, y serás la luz que alumbra.”

  He wasn’t sure if she was speaking directly to him or just reciting scripture, but her words spoke to him nonetheless.

  He held her hand as she took her last breath.

  Be kind, Tiago. Do the good work. And you will light up the world.

  Chapter 24

  Salana

  Salana was working an overnight shift. She thrived in the ER, pure action, no room to think or mull over solutions. She had to be one hundred percent present and it comforted her to be able to work like she wanted to. The supplies were literally endless, something she no longer took for granted. The ability to speak her mind, disagree, advocate for women and children all took on more meaning now that she’d experienced working without those basic necessities.

  She wore a mask—flu season—and her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She’d finally rented an apartment close to the hospital, and taken up running again, mostly along the Hudson River whenever it was warm enough. She’d successfully avoided Eric to the result of him backing off. There were rumors he was dating a new young intern. Someone perhaps more malleable, who could accommodate his desire to be in charge and to call all the shots.

  Tiago had given up on her too. He hadn’t reached out in months. Maybe he’d moved on and had someone new in his life. The idea of him with another woman was distressing and she forced it from her mind. Tiago was free to do what he wanted; she didn’t own his heart.

  Part of the reason she’d pushed him so thoroughly out of her life, or so she tried to convince herself, was due to her experience abroad. She’d realized how incredibly lucky she was not to have trauma as a part of her everyday life, and why would anyone in their right mind knowingly invite it in? Overdoses, gunshots, hold-ups, and drug deals gone wrong weren’t all that hard to avoid if you hung out with the right crowd. But the funny thing was, nowadays at work, she sympathized with those kinds of patients she saw on a daily basis.
Suspected gang-related violence could also be a case of wrong place and wrong time. How was she to know that they weren’t just getting ice cream to soothe a break-up when shots rang out, instead of engaging in crime? You couldn’t be sure either that an overdose was an addict. What if they were like Santiago and just tasting their product? And what if they only dealt drugs because they had no other viable choice? Things didn’t seem so cut and dry to her anymore. Her perspective had changed. Gravity had flipped and she saw each case with new eyes.

  “Dr. Livingston, Frequent Flier on four. All yours.” A nurse slapped a chart on top of the already hefty pile in her arms. She scanned the triage report.

  “Overdose?” These days there were multiple overdoses coming in every night.

  “Junkie,” the nurse mouthed to her. Then, “Chronic user. Upper respiratory, edema on the lungs, infected abscess, Hep C positive, liver cirrhosis. Came in with heart failure. Barely hanging on.”

  “Jesus.” There were definitely crises at home, too—the opioid epidemic being one that she unfortunately saw every single day. Salana took a deep breath and pulled back the curtain. The woman’s eyes were closed. She was emaciated and her skin looked zombie grey.

  Salana checked her vitals and guessed the woman had maybe a few hours. It was admission’s job to track down any family, a job that often couldn’t be done in adequate time and the result usually broke her heart.

  She opened the woman’s chart.

  Alcázar, Julia. Female. DOB 5/14/74

  She looked at the woman’s face. It was difficult to see her features with her eyes closed and the atrophied state she was in. She lifted the woman’s hand in her own, stared at the scarring from decades of injecting. She started to cry and then quickly wiped at her tears for fear of a co-worker noticing. The chances were slim, but she’d never forgive herself if she didn’t check to make sure. She grabbed her phone from the pocket of her lab coat.

  “Santiago, you busy?”

  The typing bubbles moved for what seemed like forever before any text appeared. Maybe he was hashing out all of the insults she deserved or finally giving her a piece of his mind.

  “Yeah, what’s up?” was all that finally came through. She knew he was biting his tongue and she didn’t blame him.

  “What was your mother’s name?” She imagined the shocked look on his face at the strange question coming out of nowhere.

  “Julia, they called her Jewels. Why?” Salana looked down at the cursive script on her shoulder that read “Jewels” with a cluster of gems underneath, the ink long turned bluish-green, the skin underneath nearly colorless.

  She pressed the call button and put the phone to her ear.

  “What’s up, Salt?” he said. His voice still turned her stomach into a tilt-o-whirl.

  “Come up to the emergency room as fast as you can. She’s here. But I’m afraid for not much longer. I’m holding her hand.”

  “You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me!” He didn’t sound happy.

  “Just hurry, you might not make it in time.”

  “Well, it won’t be the first time one of us doesn’t show up for something,” he said. His voice sounded full of rancor and he ended the call without saying goodbye. Salana understood he might not come. The damage was done. It had been inflicted over a lifetime. She took Julia Alcázar’s hand between both of hers. She raised it to her mouth and kissed the back of her fingers.

  “He’s beautiful,” she told her. “He’s so beautiful, and he made it without you.”

  The woman died an hour later with Salana by her side whispering all the wonderful things she knew about her son into her ear. She wished her peace and a swift passage and relief in the afterlife. She thanked her for carrying Tiago for nine months, for creating a great man even though she wasn’t there to raise him. Maybe she didn’t deserve Salana’s compassion, but she did it in hopes of giving Santiago some closure.

  Tiago arrived two hours after she’d called him. He’d been drinking and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked guiltily at Salana and shrugged his shoulders.

  “I thought she was already dead. This whole time—” His voice cracked.

  Salana understood just from looking at him that this scenario was more painful than accepting his mother’s death. She’d been alive all these years and never once reached out or come looking for him. The most brutal and extreme kind of abuse—she’d acted as if her son didn’t exist. Heroin had become her child, the only purpose in her life. It had eaten up her love and Santiago had become invisible to his mother.

  “You can have ten minutes and then they have to clear the room,” Salana told him. Her hand was on his shoulder. She wanted to hold him and this was clinical, distant. But he was beyond repair and she didn’t know how to reach him. She couldn’t just tell him that his mother loved him and make it come true. She still loved him, but what good would that do?

  TIAGO

  She looked so small in the bed. Hard to believe she was the same woman who used to come home fucked up on drugs, wake him up, and insist on playing with him. Their quality time always came at his expense. It was often his grandmother who saved him, hitting his mother over the head with a dishtowel or her bible.

  “The child needs sleep, not your delirious love at three o’clock in the morning!”

  “He’s my son!” his mother would defend herself. She always yelled it, as if she were trying to convince herself.

  “Then stay here and sleep, play with him when he wakes up!” But nine times out of ten she’d disappear again after the fight. He could never go back to sleep. He’d cry and long for the feeling of her arms wrapped tightly around him. How she’d kiss him and call him “chubby cheeks.” On the off chance that she did stay, she’d wake up in a foul mood. Sometimes “sick” as his grandmother would call it. She’d lose all interest in him and stare at the television until she got the phone call she’d been waiting for. Then she’d jet out in a rush, sprinkling kisses on the top of his head and telling him she loved him, the promise of drugs making her human again. She had a foul mouth and attitude when she was clean. The years she spent in jail were okay; at least she’d been sober. The treks to visit her were miserable and she never seemed exactly happy to see him.

  “She’s unhappy because she can’t be with you,” his grandmother would assure him on the bus back to the city.

  “Maybe she’s just unhappy,” Tiago had told her. His astute six-year-old self picking up on her misery.

  He fell into the chair by her bed where Salana had sat holding her hand over the last few hours. It was still warm. It comforted him to know that she hadn’t been alone. But he’d felt alone so many times as a kid, and somehow it still gutted him to know that she’d been alive all this time and still just rejecting him, choosing the drugs over having a relationship with her kid.

  “I remember that day, Mom, when I had a little league game. You were supposed to be clean. Grandma had paid for that program and you went the first two days. You let me sleep in your bed. I got my hopes up and believed that we were all gonna be a family again. Fat chance, huh? I was so nervous waiting to go up to bat, kept craning my neck over my shoulder to see if you were coming. Didn’t want you to miss my big debut. I’d had this plan to hit the ball out of the park and you were gonna jump up and down and hug me—realize what you’d missed and how much you loved me. I thought we’d get ice cream afterwards and then maybe you’d cook.

  “But up to bat I go with no sign of you. I was so distraught, Mom, I couldn’t even see straight. I hit three strikes because my eyes were full of tears and my stomach was doing flips worrying about you.

  “Sure enough, we get ice cream afterwards, but I end up throwing it all up on the sidewalk because I’m so nervous you just upped and walked out of my life again.

  “We get home and there’s blood in the bathroom, burnt tinfoil on top of the toilet seat. A guy we don’t know passed out in the hallway and all Grandma’s coffee can money is gone.

  “And so were yo
u. That’s the last time I remember seeing you.”

  He could no longer contain the grief. It poured out of him, long overdue and cathartic in its release.

  “You were never there, and now you’re gone and I’m supposed to feel bad? If I ever have kids, Mom, I swear I’m gonna do my damnedest to be a better parent than you.” Tiago steepled his hands in front of his face. He crossed himself and said a prayer over her like his grandmother would have wanted him to do. When he stood, he felt strangely sober, but saturated with anger and loss through and through. He braced himself and then lashed out, punching the hospital wall, which was surprisingly junky. It dented impressively and some of the painted drywall fell away from the hole he’d left. The curtain flew back and before Tiago had a second to compose himself, an attendee was holding him away from his mother’s body.

  “That’s it! I’m done,” Tiago shouted. But someone had already made the call because he could see the hospital security officers now running down the hall. “Fuck this shit.” He jerked his shoulders away from the attendant in blue scrubs. “I’ll pay for the fucking wall,” he told them. It probably wasn’t good that he smelled like alcohol.

  “It’s okay! Hey, lay off. He’s with me,” Salana said as she came to his rescue. She touched the security guard’s arm and nodded at the man who’d apprehended him. She was flanked by a group of doctors all carrying clipboards. They must have been making rounds and now they were all staring, trying to figure out the possible connection. She looked at him with compassion, then glanced down at the floor.

  “Hey Salt!” he yelled as she turned back around to join the other doctors. “You want to get a drink after work? I could wait for you.” He shrugged. Was it weird to ask someone out for a beer right after your mom died? What about if you’d spent the last twenty years thinking she was already gone?