Ms. Bixby's Last Day

by John David Anderson

  Some days she was serious. Other days she would tell jokes or stories about former students—names excluded—and crazy things they had done. She explained how sampling one grape or one cherry wasn’t stealing so much as “ensuring customer satisfaction.” She turned coupon time into a math lesson (she apologized right after—it was instinct, couldn’t be helped) and made me stop to admire the carnations at the florist’s. Carnations get a bad rap, she said, because they are cheaper than roses, but she liked them better because they fight harder. Roses are quitters—they give up and die before you can even get used to them being around.

  It’s amazing how fast an hour at the grocery store can go, how fast your cart fills up, how soon you find yourself paying, and marveling at how much it costs just to survive. She would tell me how half the stuff I bought was likely to kill me if I kept eating it, especially the hot dogs. “Too much processed meat is bad for your health,” she said.

  “In that case, I have nothing to worry about,” I told her, holding up the package. “There’s no actual meat in these things.” I sometimes tried too hard to make her laugh.

  When we were finished and had our bags packed in her trunk—hers on the right, mine to the left—she would drive me back to my corner and say see-you-Monday and tell me to find some time for reading over the weekend. She usually said she had had a good time, though I always thought she was just saying it to be nice. She always told me to take care of myself.

  Except for the night we spent in the emergency room. She didn’t say any of those things then.

  St. Mary’s Community Hospital invites us through the automatic revolving doors with a rush of cool air. I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals, more than I think is fair for someone my age. I know what to expect. First the lobby, so unhospital-like, set up like the entrance to a grand hotel, down to the fancy chairs and the grand piano that mostly just sits there unplayed. A vast space complete with carpet and a Starbucks and a Hallmark gift shop and a map that shows that You are here. The sun pours through the glass walls, reaches halfway down the halls, and the only sign that you’re in a building where people often come to die is the empty wheelchair sitting by the elevators.

  We walk in and Topher whispers for us to be cool and act normal, though he’s the one limping and glancing nervously around. There is a security guard standing by the elevators and another behind the information desk. The only spot in the lobby that’s at all crowded is a little window that says Billing and Payment Support, where there’s a line of adults shuffling papers, waiting for their turn. I’ve been in that line before.

  This would be easier if we had an adult to latch onto, I think, just someone to follow behind. We must stick out: three sixth graders walking way too close together, hissing at and jostling each other. Of course, the last time we enlisted an adult’s help, he stole our money and used it to buy a bottle of hooch.

  “Just keep walking,” I tell Topher, “straight for the elevators.” The guy at the desk doesn’t even look up from his computer as we circle around. I look at the giant clock hanging above the desk. It’s 1:22 on a Friday afternoon.

  I used to look forward to Friday afternoons.

  “Can I help you boys find something?”

  We freeze right outside the hall leading to the elevators. The security guard who stopped us puts a thumb through his belt, settling it right by his gun. I’m sure it’s just a habit, but it’s unnerving. I suddenly start to wonder what the protocol is for hospital security. Like, if our packs will be searched. That would be bad. According to his badge, the security guard’s name is Pete.

  “No, sir,” Topher says. “We’re here visiting our grandmother. She had a heart attack and is recovering from surgery.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” the guard says, and you know from his tone that he probably says that a hundred times a day. I don’t add anything to that story. I hope Topher doesn’t either, but his overactive imagination has a pipeline directly to his always open mouth.

  “Oh, it’s all right,” he says brightly. “Maybe now she’ll stop smoking three packs a day.”

  The guard cocks his head to the side, but before he can ask anything else, the closest elevator chimes and the doors slide open. We huddle in, still pressed close together even though we have the whole elevator to ourselves. Steve hits the button for the fourth floor. He has the room number memorized. I do too, actually.

  “Three packs a day?” I say.

  “The details are what make it believable,” Topher retorts.

  The doors close, and for a second, the whole world drops out from under me.

  That’s how it felt. Five weeks ago. Like the earth had split and I had been standing right on the crack. It was the last Friday in March, four days before April Fool’s. It was the last Friday I spent with Ms. Bixby.

  There was nothing remarkable about that afternoon. I think Pepsi was on sale instead of Coke, and there was a promotion to celebrate the start of baseball season—buy one get one free on hot dog buns, which I was told not to fall prey to and did anyway. We spent some time looking over the flowers that were set up outside, and Ms. Bixby taught me the difference between annuals and perennials. Then she quoted something about the flame that burns twice as bright burning half as long, which she insisted was from a Chinese philosopher but I was pretty sure came from a movie.

  I splurged and bought Popsicles that day. They don’t have time to melt when your teacher drives you home and drops you off, and your father never asks how you managed to get them home. He only wants to know if you are making something for dinner and what it is. Ms. Bixby bought five quarts of blueberries that day, I remember. I counted them as she loaded them on the conveyor belt. I said she was going to be berry busy. She said, thank you berry much. As we left, we were stopped by a group of teenagers dressed in pink, collecting money to fight breast cancer. Ms. Bixby dug through her purse and gave them a five. I chipped in a dollar.

  I didn’t know, of course. She hadn’t told us yet.

  We loaded the car and she drove slowly back to my neighborhood, tapping gently on the wheel to some golden oldie on the radio. I said something about summer not being far away and asked her if she had any plans, any vacations or grand adventures. I was building to something. A bigger question. A question that concerned both of us. She might be around, she said, hard to tell at this point. I was about to ask her what she meant by that when she turned the corner onto my street and stopped the car.

  There, in the amber glow of the afternoon sun, I saw him, sprawled out across the front porch. His walker tipped over at the bottom of the steps leading to the walkway, one arm hanging off the step. He wasn’t moving.

  “Is that . . . ?” she asked. I just sat there and nodded dumbly. I couldn’t move or speak.

  Ms. Bixby took out her cell phone and called 911 as the Popsicles in the trunk began to melt.

  The head nurse, who is sitting at the station directly facing the elevators, watches us spill out, her hands poised above her keyboard, head twisted around, like Alexander’s owl. She is dressed in mint-green scrubs. A collection of badges hangs around her neck.

  “The gatekeeper,” Topher whispers. I really can’t imagine what goes on in his head.

  “Maybe you should let me do the talking,” I say. After all, I’m not sure how many fake grandmothers Topher can nearly kill off in a day. To my surprise, he nods.

  The name on the front tag says she is Georgia Bonner, RN. I’m sure she’s friendly. She’s a nurse. You don’t go into nursing if you hate people. But then I think about teachers, and not all of them are what you’d expect. They can’t all be Good Ones.

  “Can I help you boys?” she says curtly as we approach.

  “We are here to see Maggie Bixby,” I respond coolly. When all else fails, tell the truth. Just not the whole truth.

  “I’m sorry, but Ms. Bixby is not seeing visitors right now. Only family.”

  “Oh, we’re family,” Topher chirps up from behind me.

&nbs
p; I turn to glare at him. He shuts his mouth, but it’s too late. I look back at Georgia and smile. “We’re her nephews,” I say, running with it.

  “I’m adopted,” Steve adds helpfully. “From Japan.”

  Nurse Georgia’s eyes are powder blue and narrow, inspecting us with a frown. “Are you here with your parents?” She’s clearly not buying it. Maybe she knows more about Ms. Bixby’s family than we do. After all, I only know that she got divorced before she had kids and that she has an older brother in the army; I’m not even sure he’s married. Maybe she has no nephews.

  “They’re down in the gift shop,” I say. “They couldn’t agree on a card. Dad likes the ones that sing when you open them, but Mom thinks they’re annoying. They said we could go ahead and come up. Aunt Maggie’s in 428, right?” It really is all in the details.

  The nurse consults her computer, then looks back at us. I think she knows I’m BS-ing her.

  “What happened to your lip?” she asks, noticing Steve, who is sort of hiding behind Topher and me.

  “I got punched,” he says, then points at me. “His fault.”

  “You punched him?” she asks.

  “I ducked,” I say.

  Nurse Georgia nods slowly. “Right. And what’s in the bags? Homework?”

  “Homework,” I confirm quickly, before Topher can think of something outlandish to say—in this case, the truth. This isn’t going well either. I glance down the hall, looking at the numbers printed on the doors. There’s no way she’s going to let us pass. I’m about to just let loose, tell her everything like I did back at Michelle’s, when Nurse Georgia sighs and sort of deflates like a popped tire.

  “All right,” she says at last. “You boys have ten minutes. No more. Your aunt,” she adds, with way too much emphasis, “needs her rest.” We all nod, no doubt looking like a pack of eager puppies waiting to go for a walk. “And be quiet, please. There are some very sick patients on this floor and they need their rest too.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” we all chirp in unison.

  Nurse Georgia smiles—finally—and points around the corner. I tell her thanks and give Steve a nudge, hoping that we get out of here before she changes her mind. We are almost to the turn when she calls out to us. “And boys . . . ?”

  We stop and turn. She points to the grease-spotted sack of fries in Topher’s hand.

  “Ms. Bixby’s on a strict diet, just so you know.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say again. “We understand.” No fries.

  Can’t imagine what she’d say about whiskey and cheesecake.

  I didn’t eat that night, the night she drove us to the emergency room, doing sixty miles an hour to keep up with the ambulance. We were there all night, but I wasn’t at all hungry. Ms. Bixby bought me a muffin from the cafeteria—apple cinnamon. Most of it ended up in the trash, the parts she didn’t end up eating herself.

  She stayed with me until the end. While the ER physicians and the neurologist on call ran their tests and performed their procedures, X-rays and blood tests and brain scans and more tests I couldn’t even pronounce. They said my father probably slipped trying to navigate through the door with the walker. That was their word: navigate. Like he was a ship’s captain lost at sea. He knocked himself unconscious when he fell and suffered a concussion—that much was clear, but they wanted to make sure he hadn’t done any more damage to his spine, which meant more tests. And hours of waiting.

  The nurses asked me a lot of questions, and I told them the truth. (Maybe not the whole truth, but pretty close.) I told them that it was just him and me at home. That I wasn’t sure what he did while I was at school all day, but that he mostly stayed in his chair and watched TV when I was home. I told them that we didn’t get much help and mostly made do on our own. One of the nurses asked if Ms. Bixby was Dad’s girlfriend. I felt like hitting the guy for some reason, but Ms. Bixby just laughed it off and said she was a family friend.

  They brought us both coffees from the lobby, and Ms. Bixby doctored mine, loading it with enough milk and sugar to make it sippable. She did everything she could to distract me while we waited for updates. We played tic-tac-toe on the back of a pamphlet for diabetes. We paced laps around the waiting room. Mostly we just sat and talked, or I talked. I told her things I never had before, things that would have ruined our Friday afternoons. Like about how much I wish I had a mother. And the hard time my dad had when I was growing up. And what it had been like for the past year and a half, watching him just fading away, sort of blending in to the background of the living room, taking less and less interest in the world around him. She listened, like she always did, patiently, intently, nodding until I finished.

  And I waited for it: the Bixbyism. The one quote from Lao Tzu or Benjamin Franklin or Mick Jagger that would put it all into perspective and make it all better. But it never came. Maybe she didn’t have one. Maybe she’d run out of inspirational sayings. Instead she just told me she was sorry. That life just sucked sometimes. Then she put her arm around me the way I imagined my mother probably would have.

  That’s how the doctor found me, sitting on one of the waiting room couches with Ms. Bixby holding me. He smiled when he delivered the good news: no further damage to my father’s spine. Only the concussion and a sprained wrist, probably from trying to catch himself. He was also dehydrated, apparently, and his blood report showed that he was taking more of some medications and not enough of others, which they would need to talk about. Then the doctor said Dad was awake and was asking for me.

  Ms. Bixby lifted her arm. We both stood up and I started walking toward the hall, but she didn’t follow. She stood by the couch.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  Ms. Bixby shook her head. “He’s your dad,” she said. “He needs you. Just you.”

  I didn’t move. “No,” I told her. “I’m not going in there by myself. I can’t.” The doctor standing next to me put a hand on my arm, but I sloughed it right back off. Ms. Bixby took a few steps so that she was standing in front of me.

  “I can’t keep doing it all by myself,” I said, my voice catching.

  When she spoke, her voice was almost a whisper, as if she didn’t want the doctor or anyone else to hear. “Do you remember when you said to me that you didn’t know what you were good at? You told me it seemed like everyone else around you had some special gift and you didn’t have anything.”

  I nodded. Took deep, shuddering breaths.

  “Do you know why I would always show up at that corner every Friday afternoon?”

  I shook my head.

  “Because I knew you’d be there waiting for me. Not because you were counting on me, but because your dad was counting on you. Because even if I didn’t show up, you’d still go, don’t you see? You would go whether I was there to help you or not.”

  She bent down so that our foreheads were almost touching. “You don’t give up, Brand Walker. That’s what makes you special. You need to show him that. Show him what it means to be strong. Teach him how to not give up.”

  Then she gave it to me. The Bixbyism. The one she’d been saving. Whispered it in my ear. It was from one of her favorite books, she said. She whispered it to me and then she made me repeat it back to her. And even though I’m not Steve, I memorized it on the first try.

  Then she gave me a quick hug and turned and left without saying another word.

  And even though I tried not to, choking and pushing and biting it back as hard as I could, I cried. Not for Dad, who was waiting for me in yet another hospital bed. Or for Ms. Bixby, who, I later found out, would be right back in this same hospital the next day suffering through her own series of tests. But for me. Hot, selfish tears, smeared across my cheeks. Because this was it, and I knew it.

  I’m not sure how, but I knew that it was the last day I would have her all to myself.

  I know what I’m going to say. The moment we walk into the room. I’ve had it planned for a while now. Ever since I came up with the idea to visit her in th
e first place, the idea of the one perfect day. And even though just about everything has gone wrong and it won’t even be close to perfect, as long as I say what I came to say, it will be all right.

  I recite it over and over again in my head as we shuffle through the automatic doors and down the hall.

  The place is graveyard quiet. The rooms are almost all dark. A few have televisions on, but the volumes are turned way down. In room 408 a nurse or an orderly is staring at an empty bed, slowly unfolding a crisp white sheet, getting things ready for a new patient or cleaning up after an old one. We move slowly down the hall, careful not to touch anything. The door to room 417 is open, but the old lady inside is fast asleep. There is a big bouquet of flowers on the table by her bed. Carnations. Letting Topher and Steve walk ahead, I slip in and out in a matter of seconds, then hurry to catch up. They don’t seem to notice. The woman in 417 won’t either, I’m guessing. She had enough to share.

  The door to room 428 is shut, but the lights shine through the curtained window. Hopefully that means she’s awake. This is already going to be enough of a surprise without waking her up in the process. I stand in front of the door for a minute, at least it feels like a minute, then turn and look at Steve and Topher. “Thanks for coming with,” I say.

  Steve nods. Topher says, “The fries are getting cold,” which I take as you’re welcome and hurry up all in one.

  I take a deep breath and knock three times, reciting the line one more time in my head.

  A voice says we can come in. The voice doesn’t sound familiar. I give the door a little push and it swings in casually.

  From her bed, Ms. Bixby turns and looks at the three of us crowded in her doorway.

  And I’m suddenly speechless.

  Topher

  YOU HAVE TO SLAY THE DRAGON TO BE THE hero. Not easy to do, but at least you know what you’re dealing with. Dragons are easy to spot. They live in caves and have large, leathery wings and smoke seeping out of their nostrils. They cool their hot bellies on rolling waves of hoarded gold. They might as well have a sign that says Slay me dangling from their necks.