“I hate this place,” Paul whispered.
“Yeah. He would, too, if he was up.” I took Jerry’s cold hand in mine, rubbing some warmth onto his knuckles with my thumb. His eyes were only partly closed, revealing his baby blues, so remote in their sightlessness.
Rattled, I gave his hand a squeeze and placed it at his side.
“I don’t really know what to do,” Paul said, staring at his father. “Helplessness is an unfamiliar emotion for me.”
“I’m very familiar with it,” I said, making him smile wanly. “Usually, I’d say, when in doubt, do nothing, but I’m trying to be more proactive lately. Maybe you should just go with whatever feels right?”
Paul thought for a moment. “I want more than anything to shake him until he wakes up.”
“On second thought, maybe doing nothing is the right course of action.”
“I’m not going to actually do it,” Paul said, his tone withering. “But I am going to sit here and think about doing it, and I’m going to practice all the things I’ll say if he does wake up.”
“When he wakes up. And you should talk to him.”
He sighed. “I don’t believe he can hear me.”
“But they say—”
“I know what the nurses think,” he said, waving his large hand dismissively at the administration desk. “And I know what I know. He can’t hear me. Even if he could, he can’t talk back to me, and all that will do is drive him crazy.”
That I could agree with.
So we sat there, the TV flashing but mute, the sounds of Jerry’s forced breathing our only sound track. Paul seemed content to sit in silence, and surprisingly, I was fine with it, too. We both needed time to process what was right in front of us. We both needed time to just be.
After a while a nurse came in and started pressing buttons and adjusting the tubes. “Why don’t you two take a break?” she said, politely trying to get us out of the room. “Cafeteria’s on the sixth floor.”
“This is your chance to leave,” Paul said as we walked to the elevator. “It’s been . . . really nice of you to stay, given the circumstances.”
“Circumstances have nothing to do with it. I love your dad. I know you have your reasons for not trusting my veracity, but I do.”
Paul rubbed at his face. Exhaustion was settling in for the long haul, setting up camp in the bags under his eyes, staking a claim in the deep ridges of his forehead, the reddened whites of his eyes. He punched the UP button. “Ironically, hospital food contains some of the worst additives and preservatives. It’s likely to be full of GMOs and contaminated with pesticides. The milk isn’t rBGH-free, and the fries will be cooked in rancid oil. They’re basically serving poison.” He paused. “Want to give it a try anyway?”
“He’s alive,” I said with more relief than I’d let myself feel in the ICU. “We’re in this cafeteria line ordering dinner and feeling only sort of awkward with each other because he’s alive.”
Paul nodded tightly as he picked up a carton of milk, frowned at the expiration date, and put it back. “Sometimes the line between bad and tragic is so uncomfortably thin.”
Paul paid the bored teenager at the register, barely acknowledging the money I’d tried to thrust at him. We chose a seat by the window, naturally drawn to the diminishing light of an early winter’s evening. It softened the fluorescent harshness of the cafeteria, blurring the edges with a peaceful pinkish gold.
“I’m sure you already picked up on it, but I was jealous of you.” Paul let that hang in the air as he took a big bite of his grayish burger. He made a face, but then took another, inhaling nearly the entire thing, leaving only a piece of crescent-moon-shaped bun.
“You were?” I said through a mouthful. I wasn’t taking ladylike nibbles. The burger looked horrid but tasted like heaven. I could feel the grease at the corner of my mouth.
“Your relationship with my dad . . . bothered me. I didn’t like it, so I fired you. I’m not proud of myself. I don’t usually act like a spoiled child. It occurred to me recently that I put you in economic hardship, and I want you to know I’m sorry.” He ran a napkin over his mouth and took in the room, unable to meet my gaze. “I hope I’m not embarrassing you.”
“I am embarrassed, but not because of that.” The bite I’d just taken lodged in my throat, and I swallowed hard. “It’s my fault he’s here. There were signs, Paul, obvious ones I should have done something about and didn’t.”
“Like what?” He was looking at me expectantly, as if what I was going to say might change something fundamental about Jerry’s situation.
“Classic signs someone is suicidal. Sleeping all the time. Fixing up the house.”
“It was my idea to fix up the house.”
“Okay, then, how about giving things away?”
“Giving what away?”
I held up my arm. Paul took my fingers, turning my wrist. “What? This bracelet?”
“It was your mother’s.”
He dropped my hand, and by the look on his face, I could tell he didn’t recognize it. “He gave it to her when she had you. I shouldn’t have taken it.” I unclasped the bracelet and handed it to him. “It wasn’t my right.”
He studied the charm, so small in his large fingers. They weren’t clumsy as he moved the tiny slot machine around his palm with the tip of his thumb, almost reverently. “My dad’s pretty literal. She took a gamble, huh?”
“That’s what he thought.”
“Well, he was right,” Paul said sadly. “It was one she lost. I don’t ever remember her wearing this.”
He reached for my wrist, and deftly refastened the bracelet.
“I can’t take this.”
“He wanted you to have it for a reason. I think I know what that is.” He moved his plate to the side, leaning in. “I’m not a risk taker, Leona, never have been. But you are.”
“Not really,” I admitted. “I like to think I am, but I’m just stumbling from one thing to the next. I know what I want, but I question it, and fear it, and have no idea how to get it, so I take wild stabs in the dark. Then I get lost in the mess I’ve made in my head.”
“That might be true,” he said, a smile playing at his lips. “Okay, I’ve seen you like that. You get in the way of yourself. It doesn’t change your nature, though. Deep down, I don’t think you’re truly afraid.”
“And you are?”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Yes,” he finally said, his eyes shining. “I am. Being here makes it worse, because it’s one of those fears bubbling up from my pit of anxiety and becoming real. My father is lying in that bed downstairs because I’m a failure. It was up to me to take care of him.”
I wanted to tell him to stop bullying himself, but I knew how he felt, I knew the strength of that pull to care for the person who brought you into the world. Fear of letting go made you overlook reason. “You can’t always be in control, Paul.”
“I know,” he answered quietly, “but one should make the effort. You did. You wanted a baby, right? You went about making that happen.”
“But it might not happen.”
“Have you given up?”
I shrugged. “No. Not really.”
“I knew you wouldn’t give up entirely.”
“You don’t approve. I can see it in your face.”
“I didn’t say that,” he responded irritably. “What you want isn’t all that unusual. Even how you’re going about making it happen isn’t strange today. This is what I’m talking about. You shouldn’t pay the least bit of attention to my concerns. I’ve learned this from my job. The inventors who are most successful are the ones who acknowledge other voices have merit but ultimately trust their own.”
“I feel like I’m finally learning how to do that.”
“Is it working?”
I dug into my purse and pulled out a bunch of folded papers. “I paid two hundred dollars to get a peek at ten biographies of possible donors. From this I selected one, and here is his doss
ier.” I pushed it toward him.
Paul’s eyes swept over the words I’d memorized. Number 12098. Adjunct professor of economics. Brown hair, blue eyes, six foot, 175 pounds. Healthy. Parents still alive. Grandparents, too, fairly healthy well into their eighties. Politically active. Skis and snowboards. Played tennis in college. Still does.
“Why not track him down and marry him? This is the guy who makes other guys look bad.”
“That’s not how it works. He could be married with six kids of his own. He could be gay. He could simply need the money. As an adjunct, that seems the most likely.”
“He could be lying.”
“That’s true,” I said slowly. It wasn’t like that hadn’t occurred to me, but I wanted to think my money was well spent, and my possible future baby daddy upright and honest, brimming with healthy sperm and integrity. “I guess it is a risk.”
“One you’re willing to take. See? Risk taker.”
“I haven’t decided yet.” I snatched the papers back and shoved them into my bag.
“It doesn’t matter. You—”
My ringtone chirped, interrupting us. Carly’s face grinned at me from my phone. I toyed with the idea of ignoring her, but then made a sorry face at Paul and said, “I’ll just be a minute. It’s my sister,” and walked over to the corner of the room by the vending machines.
“Where are you?” Carly hissed right after I said hello. “I need you. Now.”
“I won’t be home for a while,” I said, watching Paul’s expression grow curious. “It’s Jerry. There’s been an emergency. I’m at the hospital.”
An enervating stretch of silence. “Well,” she finally said. “That works out, then. Because I am, too.”
CHAPTER 31
Donal and the younger kids sat huddled on a plastic bench in the ER, their faces hollow and pale in the too-strong overhead light. “Thank heaven you’re here,” he said weakly. “They’ve got her in, and I can’t bring the kids back with me.”
Her. Maura. It’d happened to Maura. That’s all Carly could get out before she hung up. After a quick word with Paul, I’d taken the stairs, running two at a time. I couldn’t stay still, waiting for the elevator. Standing in front of Donal, I wanted to seize up and grab everyone wearing scrubs by the throat, forcing them to fix whatever was wrong with her.
Donal was talking to me, passing Josie into my arms. “Thanks so much, Lee. I don’t know what we’d do without you.” His eyes welled up, and I nodded, unsure of how to comfort him. Donal gave me a dry kiss on the cheek and hurried over to the nurses’ station. An alarm sounded, and two double doors opened up, swallowing Donal whole.
“Dad’s going to check on Maura,” Patrick said, trying to sound confident. “He said she’ll be okay.”
“She will,” I said, hoping I wasn’t making a false promise. Carly had said there’d been an accident. Maura was alive. That should have given me some relief, but although I wasn’t a nurse yet, I knew about a million different ways a body could suffer. The thought sickened me, and I forced myself to keep down the burger I’d just eaten.
“Are you okay, Auntie Lee?” Patrick looked at me with round, worried eyes.
“Of course,” I said, attempting a soothing smile. “There’s a pen in my bag,” I told both boys. “Find some paper and we’ll play tic-tac-toe. You guys against me and Josie.”
“I’ll trade you Patrick for Josie,” Kevin said dryly. “She’s probably smarter.”
“Shut up,” Patrick bellowed. “Shut the—”
I held a hand up. “Enough. Do you want to play or cause a scene? The psych ward is on the other side of that door. You two are going to send me there if you continue to bicker, okay? Not today.”
Twin looks of guilt came over their faces. “We’re sorry,” Patrick said, nudging Kevin.
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “Let’s just play.”
I’d lost three rounds when Paul showed up. He stood about ten feet away, staring at the kids and looking like a terrified freshman at his first high school dance. “They don’t bite,” I said. He came a little closer.
“They’ve got my dad settled in for the night.” Paul sat opposite us on an overstuffed love seat that was far too insufficient to contain him. “I thought you might need help,” he added, the words strained and awkward.
“Can you handle holding her while I see if they’ll give me any information?”
Holding a baby was obviously not a possibility built into Paul’s offer. He hesitated, glancing down at his monstrous paws and up at Josie’s tiny body.
“She won’t break,” I said, passing her over. He held her like a bag of dog poop—something that had to be handled properly but discarded as soon as humanly possible. I kicked the diaper bag at his feet, and he flinched.
“What’s that?”
“Diapers,” I answered, getting a sadistic thrill out of the word. “Wipes. Probably a spare bottle and some Cheerios.”
A look of horror. “They let her eat processed foods?”
“I know. I was tempted to call child services.”
“Who’re you?” Kevin interrupted. “We don’t know you.”
“This is my . . . friend. His name is Paul,” I said. “He’s here to help. I’m going to see if I can find out what’s going on with Maura, okay? I’ll be right back.”
Kevin shrugged. “Can we go to the vending machines?”
I handed over enough dollars to set them up in cavities for years, and they took off down a hallway, their surety telling me Donal had already taken them in search of junk food.
“Will they find their way back?” Paul said, a note of panic in his voice.
“They’ll figure it out.” I rubbed the back of Josie’s neck. She didn’t pay me any attention at all, completely taken by the cleft in Paul’s chin, which she poked at with her index finger. “You can talk to her if you want. She’s a real human being.”
“I’ve held a baby before,” Paul bristled.
“Under duress?”
“Go do what you need to do,” he said through gritted teeth.
I dashed to the nursing station, fully prepared to plead my case as a desperate auntie, but a horn sounded, and the thick double doors to the ER opened, revealing my sister’s tear-streaked face, her hair flat on one side and wild on the other, her mouth rigid with fear. She grabbed my hand and pulled me inside. “I need you to come with me.”
Maura lay very still on the examination table, her head tipped into the hands of a frowning doctor. She wore a gown, but her shoes were splattered with blood. I squeezed Carly’s hand, and reached out to gently touch Maura’s leg. “Hey, Maur.”
“I don’t want to talk to you, Auntie Lee,” she whispered.
The doctor gave me a quick look of disapproval before addressing Carly. “I think it’s time to call a plastic surgeon, Mom,” he said while examining Maura. “We’ve closed the wounds, but one gash split her eyebrow, and the other reaches into the orbital area.”
“What?” Carly croaked.
He glanced up. “The inside corner of her eye. We have someone to stitch up delicate areas. The eye specialist is on her way.”
“Specialist?”
The doctor smiled at her. “She’s not going to lose the eye.”
“Was that a possibility?”
The doctor didn’t reply, but his smile slipped away as his hands returned to their gentle exploration of Maura’s wounds. Carly watched him, dazed. I nudged her toward her daughter, but she pulled away, drawing me past the curtain and into the hallway.
“Need a moment,” she gasped. Her breathing was unsteady.
“Where’s Donal?”
“Paperwork. Our insurance isn’t great.”
“Do you want me to sit with her for a few minutes? Someone needs to, Carly. We can’t leave her in there.”
“I know that,” Carly snapped. She bent at the waist and inhaled audibly. For a moment I thought I should flag down a nurse, but then Carly straightened up and started talking again. �
�She was at the park with her friends. They were drinking. Some genius decided it would be fun to play catch with the empty bottle. Maura got in the way.”
The park? I could feel the blood drain from my face. Had I told her not to go? I couldn’t remember. Why hadn’t I stopped her? Why hadn’t I done something when I found the vodka? “I’m so . . . I’m—”
“They abandoned her,” Carly interrupted, her voice rising. “Took off, leaving her there to bleed on the pavement. She couldn’t see anything because of the blood. One girl stayed and fished Maura’s phone out of her pocket and called us. One kid out of the whole group. If she hadn’t . . .”
“You can’t think that way.”
She shook her head angrily. “No, you can’t. You don’t have to. You aren’t her mother, whereas I am and it’s all I can fucking think about. My baby lying on the ground, bleeding!”
A passing nurse gaped at us, alarmed. I stepped in front of Carly, shielding her from prying eyes. “It’s awful,” I murmured. “I know.”
She looked up at me, eyes swimming. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have bitten your head off, but this is agony, Lee. Maura could have died. She might be disfigured. It’s a mother’s job to keep her kid safe, and I failed mine. Spectacularly.”
“She’s thirteen,” I countered. “You can’t walk next to her every place she goes. You gave her some freedom and she misused it, an act I’m pretty sure is a prerequisite for entering high school.”
“Great. I’ve got that to look forward to,” Carly said, trying to smile. She glanced at the closed curtain behind her. “I thought that when Maura got to the point where she could brush her own teeth and pick her own clothes, the hard part would be over, but it’s not. Not only do the hard parts get harder, new hard parts pop up. What if I’m not equipped to handle them? I can barely think about walking back into that examination room.”
“I don’t think it matters if you’re equipped. You use what you’ve got, and where you’re deficient, Maura will fill in the holes.”
All the Good Parts Page 26