by Lynne Hugo
“Induce.”
“So can we get a present for the baby?”
Madalaine closes the car door heavily and avoids her daughter’s hands and feet, flitting around her like a little flock of butterflies. So much yellow and pink, her daughter in motion. “We’ll have to see. Daddy didn’t talk to me about this.”
“But I can go, can’t I?” Jennifer is stricken to stillness, in her dramatic way.
“I don’t know, Jen. This is Melody’s baby, you know. I thought you were all upset that Melody was having a baby, and that Daddy left us to be with her.”
“But I’m happy about it now. Daddy wants the baby to have a big sister, and I want a little brother or sister. I hope it’s a sister.”
“Brian’s your brother. You have a brother,” Madalaine lashes, walking toward the front door now. “I don’t want you there. You belong here with me.”
“I don’t want to be here with you,” Jennifer shouts. “All you care about is Brian ’cause he’s dead.”
Madalaine wheels and without a thought, without any conscious decision to it, her open hand flies through the air. A slap resounds across Jennifer’s cheek and Madalaine has just enough time to see the red-and-white print of her palm before Jennifer gets her own hand up across the mark.
“I hate you,” Jennifer half chokes, half shouts, and runs down the walk, across the asphalt driveway and around the side of her house beyond Madalaine’s sight.
CHAPTER 34
“She didn’t used to be like this,” Ellie says into the ragged silence after Lydia follows Maddie out of the doctor’s cramped room.
“I’m sure. It’s quite understandable, but is she getting any help?”
“Well, I’m pretty busy with Claire, but Wayne, well, he’s around….” Ellie trails off in embarrassment, not wanting to say that Lydie’s husband was living with Maddie.
“No, I meant professional help…a psychologist or psychiatrist, maybe.”
“Oh. No.” This is definitely the first time anyone has suggested that someone other than Ellie needs a shrink. Part of her sucks the moment like a cherry Life Saver, while another weighs the doctor’s notion. “Our family isn’t the sort to do that.”
“You might want to suggest it to her,” the doctor says. Her voice is kind enough, but Ellie suspects she feels safe and superior. Probably doesn’t have children.
“Do you have children?” Ellie lobs this to her without having planned it.
“No, not yet.”
“A dog?”
Sarah Douglas smiles in a way Ellie recognizes instantly. “That I do. I always had a dog growing up, so I can’t stand not having one,” the doctor says. “Now I’ve got a sheltie mix that I rescued from the pound. Toby. Why? Do you?”
“Oh my, yes. Presley. He’s a hound.”
Dr. Douglas smiles appreciatively, but doesn’t laugh. “What a great name.”
Ellie leans forward and speaks in a confidential tone. “See, I don’t think Maddie’s lost her mind. When Claire was over there, when we were first doing the dialysis, Maddie was drinking beer. I saw her. She wouldn’t let Claire stay, either.”
Dr. Douglas waits, but Ellie’s told the whole secret. When nothing more comes, the doctor speaks conversationally but seriously.
“Yes, I understand what you mean, but sometimes we find that drinking goes on because someone can’t cope. Not always, of course, so you may be right, but the drinking could be a symptom instead of the cause of how she’s acting. A professional might be able to help her grieve and cope without the alcohol. I can recommend someone, give you names and phone numbers.”
“I don’t know. Maybe Lydie.” Ellie feels her bangs. The curls are safe, sprayed in place. She licks her lips.
“You seem to be doing a fine job with Claire,” the doctor says warmly, and Ellie can’t tell if the suggestion and comment are connected in some way.
“Lydia may have trouble getting through to family members right now. I was wondering if you might be able to help her with that, in fact. This is pretty tough, you know. I don’t have to tell you how she feels about Claire.”
“Claire’s being cared for. It’s my job now.” A vein of silver in the mine of her attachment to her niece. Lately Ellie thinks about having a daughter.
Dr. Douglas looks briefly perplexed. She fiddles with a pencil, shifts in her seat, swipes at a nonexistent hair that may have strayed onto her forehead. “Yes,” she says. Then again, looking up at Ellie. “Yes. Tell me. Have you considered the possibility of being tested yourself—to see if you might be able to give Claire a kidney?”
Ellie can’t fathom what she’s saying.
“There are a lot of tests, of course, but there’s the possibility that you might be compatible, might be a match for her, that is. Is that something you’d consider looking into? Do you have high blood pressure, or any other condition?”
Ellie is still silent, so the doctor plunges on. “Maybe I can explain this. I’d hoped to talk about this in a family meeting, so everyone would understand, but since it seems that won’t be possible, maybe I can…give it to you?” Her voice rises, looking for assent, but Ellie might as well be a little cement statue of a goose, like the one that used to be out in their front yard. Sarah Douglas breathes in and exhales the basics. “The best situation is always an identical twin, their kidney, I mean. Then a fraternal twin or any sibling. Obviously, all those are out, since Claire’s an only child. After that, we look to parents as the best possibilities. Well, we strike out again there.” In response to Ellie’s slightly raised eyebrows, the first indicator that Ellie’s hearing anything, she adds, “Yes, they’ve…both been, um, examined. He was willing, but it’s not an option. Anyway, well, not all doctors will, but I do look for the possibility of a willing blood relative who’s young and healthy and a good tissue match. Barring that, then, of course, we’re left with cadaver donors.”
“The dead people,” Ellie mutters, a small shudder in her upper body.
“Yes. See, we tissue-type. A six is the best possible match. Without a four or a three, then if necessary, in an emergency we can look at a two-point match, but they only give us a forty-percent chance of success.”
“Forty percent? That’s all?” The walls of the room, no farther apart than those of a decent-sized walk-in closet like the ones in Graceland, are painted a sickly white, a dead white. Ellie wants off this hard chair, out of this room. Someone has sucked all the air out of this room.
“That’s all for a two-point match. So what do you think? I don’t mean to push you on this because the peritonitis is under control. I’m concerned though, because we’re seeing higher potassium, higher electrolytes, higher blood pressure, some swelling. A transplant is definitely in her best interest. And she’s a good candidate—even her dental work was already all up to date. You know, maybe she was having some problems before the accident even. We really don’t know if the kidney was stressed before it was damaged.”
“But she’s not going to die. You can save her, right? I thought the dialysis was enough, that it did what she needs.”
“It is. And many patients live for years on dialysis. You mustn’t feel pressure, but it’s my job to inform you.” Dr. Douglas keeps her body unmoving and holds her eyes directly on Ellie’s blue ones that have widened perceptibly, until the irises look like marbles on a white floor.
Ellie tries to fight off the knowledge born of Dr. Douglas’s deliberate, undeviating gaze. She studies her hands, the nails polished pink by Claire three days ago, now a little chipped in a couple of places. Claire says Ellie has pretty hands, and in her heart of hearts, Ellie’s always thought so, too. That’s why rings are a special weakness of hers when they come up on the Home Shopping Network. Today she has on the rose-colored cubic zirconium, which is a perfect match for both her nails and the bow in her hair. Claire rather thinks she should do something different with her hair, and Ellie’s been thinking about it.
“Ellie? Are you with me? Is there some p
art of this you don’t understand?”
“I…don’t know… No, I think I understand.”
“Is this something you might consider? The testing?”
“I’m not a person who can take needles,” Ellie says, shifting her weight uncomfortably from one hip to another in the hard chair. The thought of having a part of her body cut out, and an actual needle and thread stitching her skin together the way Mama used to patch the rends in Daddy’s coveralls is just horrifying. Horrifying.
“Well, I understand about that, and certainly a lot of people feel that way, but remember that before you began all this, you thought you weren’t a person who could even look at the exit site or the catheter, either. But see how you’ve taken it up, and really taken over when you were needed. You have a lot to be proud of. It seems you and Claire have become quite close.”
Ellie flashes the doctor a quick, pleased smile.
Sarah Douglas smiles back. “You’ve really been serving as a second mother,” she muses. “You know, in medical law and ethics class we used to talk about someone who could act in loco parentis—that’s Latin for in the place of a parent. Maybe you want to think about taking what you’ve been doing one step further….”
“In loco parentis?” Ellie tries the pronunciation.
“That’s it,” the doctor says, her neat blond pageboy bobbing with the animation of her nod. “That’s exactly it.”
CHAPTER 35
The door to Claire’s room is closed. I stand in the wide, tiled hallway staring at what I guess is her chart, stuck in a clear plastic holder on the wall to the right. There are copies of test orders, half-size pastel sheets attached, but the melange of letters and numbers is indecipherable.
I am trying to suck courage out of parched air. My throat is stuck, not a drop to lubricate the right words even if I knew them. Still, what more do I have to lose?
The door gives with a cross between a squeak and a moan. Claire opens her eyes. When she sees it’s me, she averts her head.
“Please leave.”
“Claire, sweetheart, please, just talk to me.”
“There’s really nothing to say. You taught me right from wrong.”
My daughter’s hair is spread in plumes on the pillow. The color of her face is somehow unearthly, and I think wildly, I am losing her, she is slipping toward God. “You don’t need to say anything,” I jump in. “Would you listen for a minute? Didn’t I teach you that, too? Did I ever not listen to you?”
Claire sighs. “Go ahead.”
Now I have no idea what to say, although I’ve rehearsed this a thousand times, like some neophyte with a too-large part in a local production of a Eugene O’Neill play.
“I…I want you to know how sorry I am. I hope you’ll be able to understand my side of this. I did the best I could at the time. Your father and I…” I realize that the word father no longer has a clear reference. “Wayne and I decided together, I mean, I didn’t deceive him. I don’t know what he’s told you, but we thought it was the best decision at the time. We’d wanted a child for so long, and—”
Claire snaps off an interruption, the way she used to snap fresh beans in her resolute hands. “That’s not the point. What about me? You deceived me, and you’re the one who taught me that deceit is wrong. And besides, what you did, being with him, is wrong. Do you expect me to just ignore it? Just pretend…just do as I say, not as I do? I’m not like that. I’m sorry, too, it’s just the way I am, the way you taught me to be.”
For a moment, I am lost in admiration of such confidence, such innocent, absolute clarity. Whatever part of me was ever at all like Claire was muddied up long ago, and I am sad for the loss.
“I know it’s easy to judge someone else, and I know I taught you about honesty, but I thought I taught you to be tolerant, too. How can you just turn your back like this? Do you care what this is like for me?” As I talk, anger is overtaking sadness. She’s come first every day of my life. There’s one bouquet of cut summer flowers, daylilies mainly, on her table, and I have to stand here like a stranger who happened into the wrong room and wonder who knew she was in the hospital before her own mother did and brought flowers here.
Not a modicum of softening. She is granite. I go on anyway, taking a breath first and lowering my voice. “I’m going to be retested, there’s not much chance because of those antibodies, but we’re doing…”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she shouts, her voice a hoarse sob. “Don’t you understand? I don’t want anything, I’d rather die.”
Behind me, I hear the door. I’d rather be shot than interrupted now, when we’re at least talking—or shouting, it doesn’t matter, just getting a start. This is my baby here. I gave her life and I’ll give it to her over and over.
“You’re not going to die, honey,” says Ellie. She strides into the room, pink bow flouncing past me to Claire’s head, my place, where I am unwelcome. She takes one of Claire’s hands, and with the other plucks a tissue from the tray table and hands it to her. “Calm down. This isn’t good for you. I’m going to give you my kidney.”
CHAPTER 36
Well, she’s done it now. Ellie just opened her mouth and out the words flew like bats out of hell, as they say, though these idiot bats were more likely flying right into it. And she’d just got done telling Dr. Douglas that she just didn’t know if she could stand up to the needle sticking to find out if her kidney was even a match. As far as she knew, Elvis’s kidneys hadn’t been donated to save anyone’s life, although Dr. Douglas had specifically asked her if she used any drugs, so they’d probably explain away that decision with the lie about Elvis being an addict. Ellie needs to talk to Gert.
What had come over her? What indeed? Before she’d even opened the door, she’d heard Claire crying and shouting at once and realized that Lydia must have taken the opportunity to sneak in, entirely against Claire’s wishes. And then Ellie saw Claire’s face, like a drained canned pear there on the pillow—an awful color, really—and the anguish, and it was just instinct. Ellie had to protect her and, at the moment, it hadn’t mattered how. It was all instinct, and, at the time, worth it, too. Lydia shut up for a good minute, gaping at her with a whole movie’s worth of feeling playing across her face. “May I talk to you privately?” she finally got out.
“Leave her alone,” Claire shouted to Lydie, still crying. “Just leave us both alone.” None of this was in the least like Claire: it was like a whole new person had been born nearly full-grown but helpless and needing Ellie. That was the miracle of this birth. Claire needed her, Ellie, to live. Ellie’s reticent heart—and now her kidney, too—had turned into the womb and breasts capable of sustaining life.
“Claire needs me right now,” Ellie responded, the strength still coursing through her. “I think it would be best if you leave. If you want, I’ll meet you in the coffee shop or the lounge after I’ve taken care of her.” She enjoyed saying it and the enjoyment made her ashamed until the look flashed across Lydia’s face—fierce, angry, barely controlled, and then Ellie was glad.
Lydia is waiting in the coffee shop, even though it’s taken Ellie a good half hour to get there. Claire didn’t want her to leave, afraid, Ellie could tell, that she’d get into it (Claire’s words) with Lydia, and not even mentioning the kidney. Lydia had managed to steal Ellie’s thunder; she always did. Kevin’s mother had already been in with a bouquet of flowers she’d cut from her own garden, Claire said, and Claire tried to get Ellie busy adjusting the arrangement and adding water. Ellie noted the daylilies as a motherly gesture, and filed it with the list of new behaviors she was working on.
“I appreciate your coming,” Lydia says to her, letting Ellie know she’d gotten herself under control. Well, Lydie always was a lady, anyway, Ellie had to give her that much. But that’s all.
Ellie smoothes her skirt under her thighs and slides into the vinyl booth. After she shifts her weight back and forth a little to settle herself and nestles her purse next to her thigh, she look
s at Lydie. Her sister’s face is thinner. Actually, Ellie notices, the whole upper part of her body, the part above the tabletop, is thinner. Her skin isn’t quite right, though certainly not the awful color of Claire’s. Ellie thinks she must be mistaken, but she’d almost swear that more gray strands are scattered into Lydie’s dark curls. Maybe that’s what’s making her face sallow, but her eyes look dull, too, gray-blue instead of that clear, startling color people always remark on. Her hair has grown past where she needed a haircut to keep her curls from getting unruly, and they spill almost to her shoulders. She’s dressed in her usual, overly simple way, in a green print skirt with a green blouse that matches. Maybe she’d gone to work this morning before she came to the hospital for the abortive meeting. Really, anymore, Ellie knows almost nothing about her sister’s life, the way Lydie had known nothing of Ellie’s, not really, when it was Lydie who’d been absorbed in a child.
“How’s Claire? I mean, is she still upset?” A furrow is leaving a permanent track across Lydie’s forehead.
“She’s settled down some. You can’t do this anymore. Her blood pressure goes up. I’d appreciate it if you would—”
Lydia obviously can’t bear to hear it. “I know,” she interrupts. “But you’ve got to remember, she’s my daughter, I have to—”
“Well, it just can’t be. Not now, not anymore.” Ellie can’t quite look Lydie in the eye as she says it, despite the fact that it’s utterly true.
Lydia takes a breath, holds it for several seconds and lets it out in a cross between a sigh and the puffing noise an athlete makes at the beginning of exertion. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your taking care of her. But she is my daughter. I have to be the one who makes decisions about her care. I’ve tried to stay back and let her get her feet on the ground…about Wayne and me…and John, and no matter how I felt, that was okay while she was doing fine and on the dialysis, nothing was immediately pressing. But this is different. Can’t you see, El? She’s my daughter. You can’t just cut me out.”