by Lynne Hugo
“I feel what you’re going through. I know you haven’t thought so, but Maddie, this is me, this is Lydie. I’m Brian’s godmother. You know how much I love him. I’m so sorry, so sorry—sorry about the prom, sorry I asked Claire to watch out for him. I know you can’t forgive me, I understand. I can’t forgive myself either.”
No answer came, but Maddie unearthed the arm that was curled beneath her on my lap and extended it around my waist. No breeze cooled the sweat on my face; I wiped my forehead on my free forearm. My legs, which I’d bent around on the ground to make a graduated lap for Maddie’s head and shoulders, were beginning to cramp and ache from her weight on top of their unfamiliar position, but I wasn’t going to risk the smallest disruption. She was reaching for me, she was holding on to me. Something was present but wordless, like the exact moment the tide turns from ebb to flow, the exact fulcrum of balance, of power.
Her voice was ragged with the sobs. I thought I smelled alcohol faintly, but it didn’t seem that she was drunk. “It really wasn’t your fault, or Claire’s. It just felt like, you know, like it didn’t have to happen, and I can’t understand why it did. How all those stupid unnecessary things can coincide—it’s so accidental, so…”
“Random?” I offered.
“Yes, that’s it. Why? Why didn’t something else random happen that would have ended up with them at the prom? Brian was so up for that dance….”
“I don’t know,” I said, softly, truthfully, still stroking her hair, lifting and smoothing the grayest strands, almost wiry between my fingers. Her bra strap, once white, now yellowish-gray in need of a good wash and bleaching, had slipped down her shoulder, and I eased it up and tucked it under her sleeveless blue shirt. “I think about that all the time. Brian was innocent and so were you. There was no reason to it. He was such a great kid, such a wonderful boy. I would give anything if I—if anyone—could have saved him, made it come out right, you know? Made it come out some way that made sense. We ought to be able to do that. I’m so sorry, Maddie.” It’s not that I said anything I didn’t mean. Everything I said then or later was how I really felt, really feel. It’s that I know the impurity of why I said it. I know what I really wanted.
Maddie spoke through renewed tears, went right where I wanted her to go. “How is Claire? I heard—I guess Mama told me—that Ellie was being tested.”
I let myself spill over again. “She was. She’s not a match, well she’s a two-point match, which they’ll only try as a last resort. We have to wait for a cadaver donor. I know it’s not the same as Brian, I’m not comparing it, I know it’s my fault that I don’t have Claire with me anymore…but this dialysis, I can’t make any sense of the world anymore, not with what’s happened to Brian and…this. I feel like I just have to find something I can do, you know? Something…to strike back, to say no, there has to be reason in life, there has to be something we can control.” I thought about Kevin, too, the waste—but I thought better of mentioning him. I was too close.
I could see it on her face. I watched her struggle and remember, and I did nothing to unhook her. Then, I could see that I had won. I had bottomed out and achieved the top at once. “Maybe…I could be tested,” Maddie said, hesitating.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. You’ve been through too much, you can’t take on anyone else’s problems.” I could hardly get the words out, to see this thing through.
“You’re not asking me. Actually, Ellie asked me, but I couldn’t… It’s something I can do. Remember when they were little? I was so crazy about Claire, of course she was the first, and then I got all your maternity clothes, and I was so scared when Brian was born. You gave him his first bath at home. His cord was black and I was afraid to touch it.”
“I remember. I was the one who told you his ears were not too big.”
“Yeah. You liar.” Maddie laughed a little, not bitterly, and blew her nose into a tissue she fished out of her skirt pocket. “So what do we have to do? To get tested, I mean? You’ll keep Jennifer, won’t you?”
“I’ll keep Jennifer anytime. Anytime. You know that. The house is…empty, a lot. I miss Claire so much,” I said. “It would be good to have Jennifer around. I’ll take off work….”
Birds were chirping softly, randomly hopping through the heat-waved air toward full bellies or a pouncing cat or an eventual collision with a plate-glass window. I felt dizzy, as if I could feel the very movement of the earth, and how tilted it is on its axis.
CHAPTER 42
“Maddie’s on the phone for you, honey,” Ellie calls to Claire. She arches her eyebrows to indicate that she has no idea what’s prompted this. Claire dog-ears the page she’s on and pads barefoot across the worn apartment carpeting to the phone.
“Hi, Aunt Maddie.” Claire is a little wary. “How are you?”
“More to the point, how are you?”
“I’m okay.”
“Good. How’d you like to be better?”
Claire shrugs in Ellie’s direction to indicate that the call is still a mystery. Ellie answers with a worried look. It makes her nervous when one of the family calls for Claire. They have their routines settled and she doesn’t like to see Claire upset. Claire’s been cranky lately, like Presley when he’s out in the heat and snaps if a stranger leans over to pat him. Her blood pressure has been high, Ellie knows that much from Dr. Douglas, who increased her dose of Norvasc, and her feet and ankles are swollen. On the other hand, Claire’s horoscope hasn’t contained anything ominous for over a week, and the moon is moving into Capricorn, which is a good thing considering Claire’s birth sign. Claire says horoscopes aren’t a reliable way to plan your life, and Ellie’s come to think that what happens to Claire will pretty much be the ultimate test of that.
“Well, I’m doing okay. I’m getting ready to go to school, you know. Only a few weeks. Aunt Ellie’s all worried, but there’s an infirmary, not that I intend to use it, and I can do my exchanges in my room. I’ve contacted them.”
“Ellie tells me the doctor has said no, about going away right now, I mean.”
“Not really. She’s just worried about my picking up infections, or my blood pressure or whatever, but I just tell her I don’t plan to breathe around any strangers.” Claire maneuvers the phone so that she can pull the plastic dishes out of the drying rack and shelve them. Then she makes herself stop. It’s exactly what her mother does when she’s nervous, some mindless housework task to keep her hands busy.
“Are you busy a week from Wednesday?”
“Not between exchanges. Why?”
“How’d you like to go get a new kidney?”
“What?” Claire can’t make the words connect with an idea. She turns to Ellie for a cue, but of course, Ellie doesn’t know what Claire’s heard.
She’s across the living room in the stuffed chair, patting her head to feel her hair. Claire talked her into getting it cut, and the ends, softly layered and turned under, feel very short to Ellie. Gert said, “I’ve been wanting to do this for twelve years, so let me at it, honey.” No bow anymore, and here she has a whole drawerful and can match any outfit she wears—and practically any she might ever want to buy. Claire says she looks sophisticated, though, and the women at work have raved. She’s even gotten compliments from some of the men.
Claire motions frantically for Ellie to come over. She angles the receiver so that they can both hear.
“How’d I like…to what?” says Claire.
“Get a new kidney.”
“How? From who, I mean? How’d you find out? They found a donor?”
“Let’s see. In order, by surgery, from me, and they found me, a four-point match, for your information. Not only that, but I don’t have any dreaded antibodies. I still have to have an enormous physical, and some other…stuff, but it’ll be okay.”
“You were tested?” When Claire says this, Ellie can finally divine exactly what’s going on.
“Well I didn’t just prick my finger and draw a four in blood by mys
elf.” Madalaine’s voice is impenetrable—teasing, with maybe a dash of sarcasm. Maddie is often hard for Ellie to read.
“But I didn’t know…”
“Your mother didn’t want you to know until I’d had at least the first-off test. So, what do you say?”
“Thank you.” Claire gives the rote answer that years of maternal training have programmed in as the correct response to that prompt, then realizes that wasn’t necessarily what Madalaine was asking for. “Actually, I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe it. Wait…do you mean a week from Wednesday, like less than two weeks away?”
“Yep. You need to go in tomorrow at eleven, just for a couple of hours. I’m going to give blood and they’re going to start transfusing you ahead. Plus we’ll stockpile some of my blood.”
“Aunt Maddie, I don’t know what to say. Thank you. I really can’t believe this. Nobody knows how much I hate dialysis. Are you sure? I mean, I know how you’ve felt about me, and…”
“I’m not sure of my own name anymore. Do you think I should go back to Sams?”
“Um…well, to be honest, I guess I’m the last person you should ask….” Claire lets the implication float like a dust mote on the air. “I’ve actually wondered what my real name should be, I mean I know what it is legally, but…anyway, about the kidney, are you sure?” Anxiety is leaking from her pores into the room, and as hard as Claire tries to keep her voice steady, now, near the goal, she fails on the last phrase.
“I told you, I’m not sure of anything anymore, but it’s the only thing that makes sense, so yes. We have to talk, you know…your mother.”
“Have you talked with her? I thought you…weren’t,” Claire responds cautiously, ducking her part of it. She pulls away from Ellie almost imperceptibly, and puts the receiver completely to her own ear. Ellie puts a question on her face beneath raised shoulders, but Claire smiles—a fake smile if Ellie’s ever seen one, shrugs and gestures so as to say it’s okay. Ellie takes it as go away now, and retreats to the chair. “Has something happened?” Claire continues to Madalaine. Of course, Ellie can’t hear the answer.
“I did know about the baby.” Claire falters, then settles on, “Are you all right?”
Ellie pretends to be buried in her magazine. Maybe Claire senses that she’s hurt because she says, “Hold on a sec, Aunt Maddie,” and covers the receiver. “It’s okay, come back, she’s talking about Bill’s baby.” Right away Ellie is back, her breath mingling with Claire’s, huddling over the receiver.
“Yeah, I think so. They named him Brian William, can you believe that? But…I held him, he looks just like Brian. Exactly.”
“Oh. That must be so hard…” Claire murmurs.
“Different from what I expected, really. Then I saw Lydie at the cemetery….”
“And?”
The moment lengthens. Ellie senses, almost viscerally, that Madalaine has tears in her eyes, perhaps already running down her cheeks. The silence is too filled with feeling to approach it.
“I’ll call you again, or you call me, okay?” Madalaine says a few beats later. “There’s lots to coordinate, but don’t worry. I’m going to do my part. I feel…right about it. I feel better. Actually, I feel a little good. And what I want you to do is talk to your mother.” With that, and without waiting for a reply, Madalaine hangs up.
“We need to be making plans,” Claire tells Ellie later. They’ve eaten—a credible beef-and-pasta casserole that Ellie made from a recipe Claire found while researching dialysis at the library. It helps her feel some control of her life, she says about the researching, and keeps her focused on what she can do. Ellie had expected Claire to be in an elated mood, but instead she was jumpy, not herself at all. “If I’m going to be in the hospital for a while, and then, if I can go to school on time, well, even a little late, we’ve got to think about you. And we’ve got to let…Wayne know about this apartment.”
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself? This is major surgery. There’ll be weeks of recovery.”
“Six weeks,” Claire says impatiently, standing and clearing the kitchen table. “Do you want the rest of this salad?”
“No, I’m fine.” This, at least, is familiar, this shifting of weight between the two of them, like one person who’s impatient at a bus stop bending one knee and then the other. Claire takes Ellie under her wing, then Ellie takes Claire under hers. Ellie hates the idea of Maddie taking her place—either of them.
“Well, I think you should keep this place. Take it over from Da…Wayne, you can afford it if you’re full-time. You’ve got savings, you said.” Claire’s head bobs emphatically.
“Mama and…” Ellie says, but her mind is scanning whether her recent charts have mentioned anything even remotely connected to moving. Of course, her chart hadn’t mentioned moving before she moved in here with Claire, either.
“I know. But look, they’ve done fine, and if you go back, you’ll never leave. Maddie and Mom will help, you know they always have.”
Ellie ducks her head. Two slips from Claire, one of them on purpose: she called Lydia Mom and she let Ellie know that she knew Ellie hadn’t always done everything alone. And another first: Ellie doesn’t take Claire on to press the point like a pansy repeatedly closed into a heavy book. It is ragged, best left alone this time.
“I don’t know,” Ellie says, her body slumped in the straight-back chair that she’s pushed away from the table. Presley noses her hand from his spot beside her.
“Well, I do.” Dishes clatter as Claire dumps them into the sink like so much unbreakable plastic, which is what they are. The window over the sink—which, with its shade half-drawn against the glare of the setting sun, observes the parking lot like a sleepy eye—needs a good cleaning. While she talks, Claire moistens a dish towel and works on it, but it only gets worse. “That helped a lot,” she mutters. “Ellie, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. I really do think that you should stay here, for your sake.”
“I just don’t think you’re being realistic about…”
“About the kidney, I know. I could be in the hospital for up to two weeks, but it could be as short as eight or nine days.” Claire says the last part in a singsong litany manner, the edge she just apologized for right back into her voice. “I’m talking about you, not me. Could we just concentrate on one thing at a time? Once I’m not stuck with a stupid umbilical cord keeping me here, what I need won’t be an issue.” This is rare for Claire; she’s not explosive, nor given to calling something stupid that keeps her alive.
“Everything’s all tangled up,” Ellie says, stung by Claire’s eagerness to leave.
“So it’s like a knot in your hair. You have to brush it out.”
“Gert told me peanut butter will slide a tangle right out of your hair.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Claire says, and turns her back to Ellie, ostensibly to do the dishes. But Ellie is developing a sense about these things. She goes over ostensibly to dry them, but ends up with her arms around her niece.
CHAPTER 43
I am as tangled in this as if my arms and legs were tied together in enormous double knots, no matter what Maddie says. The day after she said she’d give Claire a kidney, I called her to say, Wait, I can’t let you do this, because I knew I’d made her. And what does she answer? It’s not up to you, Lydie. Get a grip. You’re not queen of the universe. You’re not even in charge. Trust me on this one. I’ve found out how few things I’m in charge of, but my body is one of them. See, I thought you were in charge, too, because it looked like you were, and I could blame you, and it all made sense that way.
“What?” I stammered, trying to follow. I stood in the kitchen and paced enough that I wrapped the phone cord around myself twice. Isn’t that ironic?
“Here’s the deal. We either think we’re in charge of something or we think we’re helpless, and half the time we guess wrong. You’re not in charge of this.”
“But Maddie, I—”
S
he interrupted, without waiting for the hesitation that was going to come, because I didn’t know exactly what my objection was. But she made it sound so—I don’t know, haphazard, the way we get through life.
“See, now, I could be guessing wrong, thinking I’m in charge of this. Maybe it’s something else entirely pulling the strings. But I think it’s me and I’m doing it,” Maddie said. And hung up.
I have been trying to sort out that conversation ever since. The balance keeps tipping and I keep trying to add sand in the form of a coherent thought to one side or the other to make it a clear winner, so I can say I know what I’m in charge of. As soon as Maddie said I wasn’t in charge of everything, meaning, I guess, that I didn’t have anything to do with Brian’s death, well, then, I examined the underside of that plate and took on the responsibility I do have, the responsibility I lied about taking when Maddie and I were crying at Brian’s grave.
I tried to explain it to John. He came over that night, with yellow roses and a bottle of champagne to celebrate that Claire had a donor, handsome in an open-necked madras shirt and freshly shaved, for my benefit, I knew. I felt bad that he’d gone to so much effort to make it special and there I was dithering about whether it was all right for Maddie to be doing this.
He put the champagne in the refrigerator and went to the right cabinet for a vase. I noticed how easily he moved through my house now, how unlike a guest he’d become and it made me uneasy. I’ve made no decisions.
“Well,” he said. “Don’t you think it’s up to Maddie, after all?”
“But I got her to do it. What if something happens to her? What about Jennifer?”
“You might think you could make her do this, but I’m not sure you’re right. Anyway, you need her help, whether you want it or not.”