Don't Fail Me Now

by Una LaMarche

  “I don’t—” Tim frowns, wounded and confused. “You’re the one who brought us.”

  “I didn’t know what I was doing,” I say. “I didn’t know it would make everything worse.” That’s my fault, I know it is. I should have seen the second Cass ran out of the car at the Family Dollar that taking Leah was a bad idea. We should have left her where she was, on Facebook, smiling and abusing exclamation points in her white picket life. But it’s Tim’s fault I got curious. He was the one who barged in on us, who made me care in the first place. He was the one who knocked me off my feet when I should have been standing guard. “If I hadn’t had to babysit you and her all week,” I seethe, gesturing to Leah, who’s now full-on eavesdropping, “I could have paid attention to my real sister.”

  “Wow, okay,” he says, his cornflower eyes turning steely. “Because it seemed like you were pretty happy with the distraction.” He’s talking about the kiss. I can’t believe he’s bringing that up now.

  “That didn’t mean anything,” I whisper.

  “Got it,” he says, his jaw hardening. “Then I’ll get out of your way.”

  “Great,” I say. “I could use some peace.”

  “Good luck with that,” he says. “Leah, let’s go take a walk.”

  “Why did you make them leave?” Denny asks, scowling, once they disappear around the corner.

  “Don’t worry, they’ll be back later. They’ve got nowhere to go.” I sink down into one of the loveseats, the thick imitation leather squeaking under my weight, and close my eyes. I want to tell him the truth, that it’s for our own good and that I’m just preparing him for the inevitable, but I don’t think he’d understand.

  He’ll have to learn for himself, like I did: Whether you push them or not, everyone leaves, eventually.

  SIXTEEN

  Early Sunday Morning, Part 1

  Flagstaff, AZ

  I can’t sleep—big surprise. But the thing about hospitals is that the lights never go out, and while the cast of doctors might rotate, they never stop moving, even when the big round clock above the nurse’s station reads three fifteen A.M., like it does now. The bitter irony is that after four days, we’ve finally found a free, twenty-four-hour shelter. Denny is stretched out on one of the loveseats with Mom’s purple sweatpants covering his face. Leah’s on the other one, wrapped in one of the Walmart blankets. Tim is slumped in a chair across the room, head bobbing against his chest. He’s frowning while he sleeps, making me feel guilty even while he’s unconscious. That didn’t mean anything. Of course it did. Of course he does. But I can’t think about that right now. Until I see Cass’s eyes open, I won’t be able to think about anything else.

  The latest news from Dr. Chowdhury is that she’s breathing on her own (good) but still on seizure watch (bad). They’ve been slowly easing up on the barbiturates and expect her to wake up fully in the morning, which everyone acts like is great, jump-on-Oprah’s-couch news. But a part of me is dreading the moment when she realizes she’s still alive. Will she be relieved, or will it feel like one more failure? All I know is that I have to be there.

  I feel a vibration against my leg and dig my phone out of my pocket. But it’s off, and when I turn it on there’s nothing new, no texts or voicemail. Who would be texting me anyway? Yvonne’s given up since I ignored her last text on Thursday—Thought any more about that asst mgr gig?—Mom can only make calls from eight A.M. to ten P.M., and I don’t think anyone else even has my number, except for Cass. But then something vibrates again, and I realize it’s coming from Cass’s bag. It’s her phone, not mine. I didn’t even think she’d turned it on since we left Maryland. I open the backpack and dig through her laundry until I find it, a slim black rectangle housed in an unmatched sock. I smile down at my sister’s DIY phone case and then, feeling more than a little bit guilty, take it out and look.

  The voicemail is from a restricted number, which instantly raises my blood pressure. On the same day my sister decides to end her own life, she gets a shady, anonymous call in the middle of the night? I try to access the message but get prompted for a password, and after various combinations of the numbers of Cass’s birthday fail, I give up and scroll through her texts instead.

  Other than one-word missives to Mom and me, her only texts are to Erica. There’s an endless string of short, boring back-and-forth, mostly “Where u?” “My house today?” “There soon,” that kind of thing. But then the pattern breaks abruptly. On April 2nd—three and a half weeks ago—Cass writes:

  Hey

  ?

  U around?

  Need 2 talk

  On April 3rd:

  I’m sorry

  Don’t ignore me

  Fine

  On April 10th:

  Who did u tell??????

  Fucking bitch

  April 13th:

  I hate you

  April 14th:

  No I don’t

  You hate me tho

  Right

  ??

  Thought so

  And then Wednesday, the day we left:

  Leaving 4 a few days

  Can u talk now?

  Please???

  Thursday:

  Might not be back

  Last chance

  And then Friday, finally, a response from Erica, two words long:

  Good riddence

  While I’m somewhat gratified that the bitch can’t spell, my heart breaks. I don’t know exactly what happened, but clearly Cass said or did something that made Erica turn on her. And while Erica barely spoke, and Cass rarely talked about her, I know what their friendship meant. That was her safety net. Lord knows we don’t have one—we Devereaux stumble across high wires like the down-market Flying Wallendas (of course, we’re falling, not flying, but the wind’s moving fast enough we can’t tell the difference). I try to imagine what my sister must have felt getting that text on Friday, on the heels of seeing Mom dragged off, finding out about Buck, and Leah, all of her life’s rejection getting thrown back in her face at once. And not having anyone she could talk to about it. Not even me.

  I turn off the phone and shove it back in her bag. It’s three twenty-five now, and the hall is quiet, except for the distant beeps of monitors. The nurse at the desk—not the Munch painting, a new one who looks like Mrs. Mastino’s good-witch twin—is on the phone, turned away from me. I can see the double doors that Dr. Chowdhury comes in and out of just fifty feet down the corridor. There’s a button on the wall he pushes to make them open. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t have to swipe an ID.

  I stand and start walking to the water fountain; Nurse Mastino doesn’t flinch. So I don’t waste any time. I walk quickly and keep my head down, punching the red button and slipping through the doors to the ICU just as she hangs up.

  • • •

  I first see her through a thick wall of glass, like she’s a diorama in a museum, lined up with a bunch of other, equally static and depressing scenes. And it’s easier to think of her as a wax figure, lying there motionless, hooked up to so many machines. Her normally coffee-colored complexion has an ashen pallor, and her closed eyelids are dark, like she’s wearing shadow for the first time. There’s a thin tube emerging from her nose, and the tape used to secure it gives her the look of a boxer after a bad KO. Not my sister but a stand-in, an actress—one of our childhood fantasy scenes come to life. The deathly ill “orphan” princess waiting for a kiss from her long-lost father to bring her back. (That was a real one; sometimes they got weird.)

  There’s a nurse attending to one of the patients at the end of the hall, so I tiptoe around the glass partition and sit in the empty chair next to Cass’s bed. The room feels like the set of a play: Everything’s on wheels; nothing seems permanent. Someone else must have been in here yesterday, with different equipment, different injuries. Either they moved on to another floor
, or . . . my shoulders sag as the tears start up again. My sister isn’t going to die this time, but if she tried once, what’s stopping her from doing it again? No. I can’t think like that. I have to keep it together.

  “Hi,” I whisper, needing to talk but not sure what to say. Cass’s heart rate monitor climbs and falls, a range of tiny mountains. The electrodes taped to her forehead and scalp feed data into a computer. The IV bag drips steadily and silently. “It’s me,” I say. I lay my left hand on her right, the one not attached to a needle. I splay my fingers out and cover hers. Mine are half an inch longer and a shade lighter but otherwise nearly identical, thin and tapered, with nails chewed down to ragged nubs, spots of dried blood at the cuticles—nails that defy manicures but wouldn’t cut your fist if you had to throw a punch.

  We’ve been fighting for so long, though. We’ve done it because we’ve had to, but if where we are is any indication, it’s time to stop. I thought we’d hit rock bottom back at Aunt Sam’s, but I was wrong. I thought leaving town would buy us time, but instead it’s just made things crumble faster. Nothing I can do—no amount of work, or vigilance, or prayer, or clever roadside tricks—can fix what’s been broken inside my sister. Inside me. It’s time to give up, go home, and face our demons. At the very least, our mother.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, weaving my fingers in hers. “I’m sorry I kept putting you off. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.” I wipe my nose with the sleeve of my free arm. Cass’s face remains motionless, serene. Even with the cracked lips and gray tint to her skin, she’s stupidly beautiful. I lean over and kiss her on the forehead.

  “Excuse me!” A sharp voice behind me: the nurse. “You can’t be in here until nine A.M. And don’t touch her wires!” I turn to see good old Munch glaring at me from the door, her eyes little slits in her long, tired face. “Do you need me to show you back to the waiting area?”

  I shake my head. Reluctantly, I let go of my sister’s cool, limp hand.

  “See you tomorrow,” I say to Cass. Her monitor beeps noncommittally.

  Back in the waiting room, the sweatpants have fallen off of Denny and onto the floor. I replace them and kiss his cheek, burying my nose in the soft, warm skin that doesn’t smell half-bad, actually, for the time he’s gone without a proper cleaning.

  “Mmmmmph,” Denny sleep-groans, rolling over, his elbow smacking me in the chin. “You’re squishing Max.”

  Fantastic. The return of Max. I hope Denny doesn’t talk about him around the doctors too much, or we’ll be looking at two psych evaluations. Three, if I can manage to wake up paralyzed. I wonder if they offer family packs.

  I slink back to my preferred crying bathroom and gargle with plain water, wiping the surface of my teeth with a paper towel, washing my face with abrasive, Pepto-Bismol-colored soap. It’s only as I’m making a move to leave that I see the OUT OF ORDER sign dangling from the shower rack. I briefly weigh my options—the waiting room with my little brother, his imaginary adult cowboy, the estranged sister I recently insulted to her face, and the good-hearted crush I brutally rejected; the backseat of a smelly old car parked in a dark hospital garage; the sidewalk—before hanging the sign on the doorknob, locking it from the inside, shutting off the lights, and lying down on the hard tile. I settle in with my arms behind my head, stretching my aching legs out across the floor, the bleach-scented air stinging my nostrils, when I feel my phone start to buzz against my hip.

  The light of the screen reflects off the glossy walls, casting the whole room in an eerie blue glow. A restricted caller. At four in the morning. That can’t be good news. I’m about to let it go to voicemail when curiosity gets the better of me. Could it be the same person who was trying to reach Cass? I click the talk button, biting hard on my tongue.

  “Hello?”

  “An inmate at the Baltimore City Detention Center is attempting to contact you,” a cheerful robotic voice says. “Please press one to accept the charges.”

  Mom. But how could she be getting phone privileges in the middle of the night? Don’t they have wardens who lock down that kind of thing? I hold my breath and look up at the industrial showerhead bolted into the ceiling. If I’m sleeping at eye level with a toilet, I don’t have much left to lose. And every instinct I’ve had so far has led us further and further astray, so maybe it’s time to stop running.

  I press one and wait for the telltale click of connection.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say into the darkness.

  SEVENTEEN

  Early Sunday Morning, Part 2

  Flagstaff, AZ

  “What in the hell is going on?”

  I’m back in the hallway now, making a beeline for the exit to the stairs. Mom has been asking some variation on this question since I picked up, and her voice is steady and strong, not a trace of the junk-sick shakes of a few days ago. Cass and Denny call it her pastor voice, because it goes up and down like a preacher delivering a fiery sermon. She only uses it when she’s angry, so I know there’s going to be yelling. That’s why I had to get out of the bathroom, to someplace with less reverb and fewer witnesses. I might have some yelling of my own to do.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, lowering my voice as I push through the heavy metal door. The stairwell is empty and gray, yellow moonlight filtering in through a gated window. Buck’s rhyme whips through my head: Look real quick, it will soon be gone.

  “You tell me,” Mom says, indignation seeping through the receiver. “I got dragged out of bed because some hospital in Arizona called the warden about my daughter.” My stomach drops. I remember the intake nurse asking for Mom’s contact info, but I was so upset I didn’t even think to lie. I didn’t have a number, though. I never thought they’d call. “Is it true? Is she in the hospital?” Mom asks, less mad and more scared this time.

  I swallow hard. “Yes.”

  “Oh my God.” The receiver drops, and a sharp, metallic clang rings in my ear. Fumbling, then whimpers. “Oh my God, is she okay? What happened?”

  “She was hypoglycemic,” I say. “She had a seizure.”

  “Are you skipping meals?” The hyperventilating gives way to irritation again. Mom’s temperature rises faster than mercury. “Tell me you’re not letting my baby skip meals!”

  “No!” I cry, more defensive than I have to be, probably because I know I’m guilty. “No. She . . . gave herself too much insulin.” I don’t want to have to say what that means out loud, but I don’t have to—Mom knows as well as I do that Cass would never slip up by accident. There’s a long pause, and when she speaks again, her voice is husky and raw with anger and pain.

  “How could you let this happen?”

  It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for the past nine hours, raking myself across the coals over and over until it burns, but for some reason now that Mom is asking it I’m filled with rage. How could I let this happen? None of it ever would have happened if she hadn’t let us all down. I’m not supposed to be in charge, I’m not supposed to have to make these kinds of decisions.

  “Excuse me?” I say stonily.

  “She’s your little sister,” Mom says, her voice breaking. “You’re supposed to take care of her.”

  “No, you’re supposed to take care of her,” I spit. “They’re your kids. I’m your kid. You’re supposed to be here for us.”

  “You’re almost eighteen years old, don’t act like a child,” she says, and I bristle.

  “You’re almost thirty-four,” I shoot back. “Act like a mother.”

  “You’re lucky we’re on the phone so I can’t smack you. I didn’t raise you to talk to me that way.”

  You hardly raised me at all, I think. Out loud I say, “Right.”

  “And another thing,” she snaps. “We haven’t even talked about the fact that you’re in Arizona. Why the hell are you way out there? What about school?”

  “It’s Saturda
y,” I say.

  “Don’t be a smartass, you know what I mean.”

  “What does it matter?” I lean my forehead on the bars of the window just as the moon emerges from behind a cluster of clouds. It’s waning now. Like everything else.

  “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I graduate, I’m not going anywhere. Oh, they’re kicking Denny out of his school, too, by the way.”

  “What?”

  “And Cass,” I say, a lump forming in my throat. “Cass is getting called all kinds of ugly names. She hates it. She cried when I tried to take her to school last week.”

  “This is all news to me,” Mom says.

  “Well, it shouldn’t be.”

  “No.” She softens a little. “I guess it shouldn’t. But what about your aunt? Didn’t you go with her like I told you?”

  “Yeah, that didn’t work out so well.”

  Mom sighs heavily. “Michelle, I know she can be hard to take, but she’s family.”

  “She doesn’t act like it,” I say. “She basically extorted me and threatened to ship us off to CPS!” Mom mumbles some choice curses under her breath. “And guess what?” I cry, gathering steam. “We’ve been gone since Wednesday, and she hasn’t even called me once to see what happened. She doesn’t care. When are you gonna learn she doesn’t care about us?”

  A pause. “Why didn’t you come to me then?”

  “What could you do? From in there? Seriously, Mom.” I kick the wall, and paint chips off, scattering on the floor.

  “You could’ve got me out,” she says. “We could have gone home, picked up where we left off.”

  “With you still using?” I ask bitterly. “No thanks.”

  “That’s over,” she says. “I’m off it now, Michy. For good this time.”

  Yeah, right. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but I clench my teeth to keep it from slipping out. I might not believe it, but she does. It’s all she’s got. And I can’t take that away, no matter how much I want to hurt her right now.