All the Good Parts

by Loretta Nyhan

  “How can I ask that of her?”

  “You have to, or she’ll never grow up. Look, I don’t know what it means to be a mother, but I’ve had thirteen years of watching what it means to you, and you love those kids with every part of yourself.”

  She nodded. “I do. With everything I have.”

  “Then get your ass back in that room.”

  Before returning to Maura, Carly reached up and briefly held her palm to my cheek. “You’re different,” she said. “And I like it.”

  “I knew what went on at the picnic benches,” I said to Paul. He leaned against the kitchen counter after quickly assessing the rickety chairs in Carly’s kitchen and finding them wanting. “I didn’t take it seriously enough. I thought she needed to belong, to be a part of things.”

  Paul took the coffee I handed him. “Doesn’t everyone want that?”

  “God, I hope not. The more you feel like belonging eludes you, the more that need can turn feral. It can eat up your insides until there’s nothing left and everything’s gone, even the things keeping you a decent human being. You’ll do anything to get what you want.”

  “Sounds like a typical teenager.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Leona, this isn’t your fault.”

  I shook my head. “You’re wrong, it is. I should have made more of an effort to talk to Maura. I should have told Carly what was going on. Now Carly thinks she failed Maura, when it was me.”

  Paul looked thoughtful. “Don’t take what I’m going to say the wrong way.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I think you like to take the blame for things. You’re trying to make up for something.”

  “For what? I haven’t done enough with my life to have a pool of sins to feel bad about. Shoots that theory out of the water.”

  “Maybe that’s what you’re making up for,” he said, warming to the topic of my possible psychological issues. “Maybe by taking the blame you make your life into something more than it is.”

  I scowled at him. “Watch it. Your asshole is showing.”

  He barked a laugh.

  “That didn’t come out the way I meant it,” I said. “You know what I meant!”

  “Vulgarity aside, you bring it out in me. Maybe you remind me of my dad.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe you should. Maybe you shouldn’t.”

  At the mention of Jerry, I felt ashamed at our bickering. Rise above, Leona. “When are you going back to the hospital?”

  “First thing in the morning.” He finished his coffee and rinsed the mug, dried it, and found the cabinet where it belonged in one guess. “I should get home.” Paul tugged his phone from his back pocket to call for a car. It arrived quickly, and he glanced around the room, searching for his jacket.

  “Could you have left it at the hospital?”

  “I guess I wasn’t thinking about it.”

  “Maybe the hospital lost and found will have it. Was it expensive?”

  “It was,” he replied, disconcerted. “Not like me to forget something like that.”

  “Hard to remember anything when you’re herding three kids into a car.”

  “They’re good kids,” Paul said emphatically. “Not that I have many to compare them to, but they seem likeable enough.”

  “They are,” I agreed, walking him to the door. “Thanks for coming back with me. You were really helpful.”

  He shrugged. “It gave me something to do.”

  I didn’t know how to respond to that. My family’s trauma was a diversion? Did I expect more from Paul? Did I have a right to? “Maura is coming home in the morning, so can I come visit Jerry in the afternoon?”

  Paul stopped in his tracks, and I nearly crashed into the brick wall of his back. “Do you think you could help pull him out of this?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I can help.”

  Paul turned around. He scrutinized me, and I suddenly felt self-conscious at my weariness, my dulled skin and swollen eyes. “You’re good at that.”

  “At what?”

  “Optimism.”

  “See,” I said, smiling wearily up at him. “I have talents.”

  “One,” he said, smirking back. “I only said you have the one.”

  I pushed at him, forgetting how I’d have better luck moving a granite slab. “Go. Get some sleep.”

  It was advice I didn’t take myself. After he left, I sat in the kitchen until the watery dawn broke. I needed to see the sun slowly bathe Brophy House in light, and then, when everything turned golden, I went into my basement and conked out.

  CHAPTER 32

  A text from Carly startled me awake: Take down all the mirrors. Be home in an hour.

  I checked on the sleeping kids, then quickly showered and dressed in a leggings and sweatshirt combo that should have shamed me, downed some coffee, and tackled the mirror problem.

  The floor-length mirror in the mudroom was an antique Carly and I found at a flea market. Maura couldn’t help getting an eyeful whenever she walked in the door. I stared in the mirror, at my off-center widow’s peak and the pitted scar on my chin, courtesy of the chicken pox when I was five; at the fine lines feathering the corners of my eyes and mouth; at the deep furrow between my brows. Difficult as it was, I tried to imagine wounds like Maura’s, her Frankenstein patchwork of stitches. Even with half the house packed, there were still half a dozen mirrors in the house, and even more compacts and other ways Maura could see her reflection. It was unavoidable.

  Carly wanted to save her from that pain, at least temporarily, but damage was not normally something you had the luxury of easing into. I wondered if there was a good reason for that. Did Maura need to be shielded? Would she want to be? I thought of my headstrong niece, and for one of the first times in my life, I knew exactly what needed to be done.

  They came home in the late morning. I’d laid Josie down for her first nap and sent the boys over to a friend’s. I watched the van pull up. Carly got out first, and she and Donal scurried over to the passenger seat to open the door for Maura, Donal lifting her out as he did when she was a child. She wiggled out of his grasp, and her shoulders slumped forward, curling in on herself like a wilting flower.

  “What the hell, Leona?” Carly said when she walked in. “You couldn’t do the one thing I asked?”

  I shook my head. Maura stood in the mudroom, frozen in place, eyes trained on the mirror. She stared at the stitches grabbing at her skin, pinching it into jagged lines. One bisected her eyebrow, and the other a crescent moon, the tip of which reached into the delicate corner of her right eye. The doctor had covered them in a clear, goopy ointment that looked unfortunately like mucus. I willed myself not to flinch. I wouldn’t hug her either. She looked ready to crumble into dust.

  “Keep walking,” Carly commanded.

  “I can’t,” Maura said.

  Donal looked ready to cry. “Mom’s right. You need a lie down.”

  Maura moved closer to her reflection. Her mouth twitched, her eyes burned.

  “Baby,” Carly said, her voice growing soft. “Don’t.”

  “Did you do this, Auntie Lee?” Maura rasped, ignoring her.

  Ever so slowly, I placed my hand lightly on her shoulder. “I did, and I mean every word.”

  Maura touched the surface of the mirror, tracing her finger over the words I’d painted on the glass.

  You are beautiful.

  All scars tell a story.

  Mistakes are made by those who are learning to really live life.

  And . . . learn to not be an ass by being a badass, written across the top.

  “Cliché much, Auntie Lee?”

  “Don’t be a cynic. Not yet, anyway.” I brought my head to hers, our auburn hair mingling, and gently touched the side of her face. “You are beautiful. I’m your aunt and I’m biased, but I’m allowed that bias because I know who you are inside and out.”

  Maura choked down a so
b. “I do look kind of badass, don’t I?”

  I drew her into a hug. She felt substantial in my arms, a solid presence. “The baddest. You’ve got a story now, which means you’re a more interesting person. Part of being a better person is acknowledging your role in what happened.”

  “I know,” she said into the side of my neck. “I should have left when they started drinking.”

  “That’s part of it.”

  She started to tremble. “I just wanted them to like me. It sounds so lame now.”

  “Because it is lame. But that was a decision you made before what happened yesterday, and now the you after is the one calling the shots. You’re different because you should be different if you’re paying attention to things.” I pulled back and looked into her eyes. “Are you super concerned with them liking you right now?”

  “I guess not,” she said, smiling tremulously. “Not as much, anyway.”

  “You don’t have to worry so much about what they think of you, because you’re too busy figuring out what you think of you.”

  She hugged me tightly. “I hope I am, Auntie Lee.”

  Donal gave me a thumbs-up. “Come on, Maur,” he said. “Let’s get you upstairs. Do you want to lie down, or do you want me to fix you something to eat?”

  “I’m starving,” Maura said. “Can you make a grilled cheese?”

  Donal led her into the house. “I think I can manage that.”

  Carly remained silent after they’d left. She hadn’t reacted much after her burst of anger, and I wondered how she would retaliate. Had I overstepped my bounds?

  She made a face in the mirror, sticking out her tongue and crossing her eyes. “I hate it when you know better than me,” she said, smiling faintly. “I really do.”

  I left them alone, talking quietly in the kitchen, for an hour. Nursing 320 was rapidly coming to a close, and I needed a stellar grade on my final work in order to boost my respectable B+ into an incredible A. Darryl and I finished with our women’s health project, so I spent the next hour brainstorming for my reflective essay, the last graded assignment for the term. Distracted by the day’s events, it was tough going, and by the time I needed to leave to see Jerry, I was exhausted, starving, and, if I was honest, lonely. I fought the urge to join the family, sensing Carly and Maura needed some mother-daughter time. Maura was going to be okay, and the thought that I might have had something to do with that gave me a lift. I brushed my teeth and hair and made myself look presentable. I’d just grabbed my coat and keys when Carly and Donal poked their heads into the basement and asked if I had a minute to talk.

  They came down the stairs slowly. I hadn’t seen them look like this, so drained and pale and anxious, since they’d come to tell my dad Carly was pregnant and they were moving in together.

  “Everything okay with Maura?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

  “Yes, thanks to you,” Donal said.

  “It was a risk. I didn’t know how she’d react. I’m sorry if I went too far.” I took a breath, unable to stop my rambling. “She’d taken some vodka. I knew her friends were drinking. I’m so sorry. I should have told—”

  “We know the whole story,” Carly said, voice tight.

  “We aren’t here to eat your head off, Lee,” Donal added.

  They stood there. Not saying a thing. Carly had a death grip on Donal’s hand.

  “Now you guys are freaking me out. What is it?”

  “Can we sit down?”

  I realized I didn’t have anywhere for them to sit but the bed. My clothes hung over the single chair in the corner of my room. I was living like a college student.

  In tandem, they lowered themselves gingerly onto the edge of the bed. After another excruciating moment, Carly spoke first. “You know we love you, Lee.”

  “Oh, God.”

  Donal cleared his throat. “We’re leaving soon. We still hope you come with. That’s a worry for us.”

  “But what we’re going to say has nothing to do with that,” Carly continued. “Whether you decide to go with us or not, our offer stands.”

  “Offer?”

  Carly and Donal gave each other that look couples share when they’re trying to figure out how to make sure they’re both going to say the same thing, at the same time.

  “Oh, just spit it out,” I groaned.

  “Donal and I want to father your baby.”

  “That was smooth,” Donal murmured.

  “You would have done better?”

  I threw a pillow at both of them. “Stop bickering so I can freak out on you.”

  “I know this might come as a surprise . . .” Carly started.

  “A surprise? You’ve been against this from the start! Is it because I made Maura feel better? Do you feel you need to pay me back somehow?”

  “That’s not it.” Carly awkwardly moved closer to me on the bed. I wouldn’t move toward her. “Okay, that changed my mind a little about things. Why can’t I do that? Donal doesn’t have as many problems with it as he thought. Maybe because we’re going away, or maybe because our perspectives have changed. Maybe we had a reminder today that life is short and we love you and want you to have what you want. Is that so wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m having a hard time with discerning between right and wrong.”

  “It’s possible something like this shouldn’t be judged that way,” Donal said quietly. “Your heart is in the right place. And I think ours are as well. Perhaps that’s all we need to think about?”

  I smiled at my sweet, well-meaning brother-in-law. “This is so . . . nice. And I love both of you so much, but I’m worried you’ll resent me, or the baby. I’m worried you’ll regret this.”

  “It’s a risk,” Carly said. “We’re okay with taking the risk if you are.”

  “I want to say yes, but don’t know,” I said on a sigh. “Will it be weird and embarrassing?”

  “Now you’re just being difficult.” She swatted Donal. “Send him into the bathroom with a Wonder Woman comic book and a jar of coconut oil. You’ll have what you need in three minutes.”

  “That is an image I’ll have to scrub from my brain.”

  Donal whistled. “If you can find Wonder Woman versus Supergirl, it’ll take me thirty seconds.”

  “Ew. This is already weird.”

  “It’s us,” Carly said. “It doesn’t have to be a Jerry Springer episode.”

  I thought for a moment. “If this happens, I’d want Dr. Bridge here. Do you think she’d come?”

  Carly laughed. “I don’t think she’d miss it.”

  “Let me think about this, okay? I have to go see Jerry. We’ll talk when I get back.”

  Carly nodded. She crawled off the bed and pulled Donal to his feet. “You know,” she said before they left, “I still don’t think it’s the greatest idea, but I realized you shouldn’t have to listen to me. No matter how much I insist on it.” She winked at me. “I can’t always be right. There’s no fun in that.”

  CHAPTER 33

  They’d removed Jerry’s ventilator, and the near stillness of his body gently breathing was somehow more frightening than when he was hooked up to the machines. His skin was ashen, his lips bloodless.

  “He woke up for a few minutes,” Paul said when I arrived. “I don’t know if he recognized me or not.”

  “I’m sure he did,” I assured him. Paul sat next to Jerry, hovering but not touching, his large body curved protectively. I slipped my hand into Jerry’s cold one and squeezed. “Hey, you. Wake up and join the party.”

  Part of me expected him to blink his eyes open and say something witty. That didn’t happen. His lids fluttered, but they often twitched, the nerves firing blanks.

  “I feel like if I sit here and keep willing him to get up, it’ll happen,” Paul said. “Jedi mind tricks.”

  “Well, then I’ll join you,” I said, sitting down on the edge of Jerry’s bed. “If anything, maybe we can levitate him if we work together.”

  As i
t was, we didn’t have to wait long for something to happen. A nurse came in, face set with calm efficiency, an expression I’d always tried to master and failed; poked Jerry with a syringe; and tapped his face with her palm.

  Paul intervened. “Is that necessary?”

  She ignored him, slapping lightly at Jerry’s face until his eyes fluttered and he made a deep, rumbling noise that brought up everything that had been settling the past few days. “Mr. Pietrowski,” the nurse said loudly. “Can you speak?”

  “Arghuwagu,” Jerry said.

  “Good. I’m going to sit you up.”

  As she lifted the bed, two doctors came in, and a team of nurses, edging Paul and me toward the door.

  “Can I talk to my father?”

  “He’s not ready yet,” the nurse told Paul, an edge to her voice. “Why don’t you take a walk, and when you come back, maybe he’ll be able to communicate.”

  In other words, get the fuck out, we’ve got work to do.

  Paul’s face turned crimson, an expression I recognized now as one step before the volcano erupted. “I’d rather stay,” he said tightly.

  “He’ll be disoriented if you don’t allow him to acclimate,” she said, appealing to me. “Thirty minutes.”

  I tugged on Paul’s sleeve. He followed me silently into the elevator, and said nothing as I stopped at the coffee dispenser in the cafeteria and bought us some sludge, but the redness had drained from his face, and his shoulders no longer bunched around his ears. He smiled wryly at the cup I placed in his hand. “The coffee beans are probably older than us. The creamer is made using hydrochloric acid. You sure you want to drink this?”

  I took a sip, being sure to leave a coffee-stain mustache on my upper lip. “I love hydrochloric acid. So tasty.”

  “You have serious problems.”

  “We both do,” I said. “Do you want to talk about mine or yours?”

  “Yours,” he answered. “To my surprise, I’m actually interested. Or I need a distraction.”