Don't Fail Me Now

by Una LaMarche

  Cabin, hospital, cabin. Wash, rinse, repeat. We do this for forty-eight hours while the doctors watch Cass to monitor her blood sugar and make sure she’s not a danger to herself anymore. I stay with her most of the time and let Tim take Leah and Denny out to do normal kid things that ideally don’t involve police or paramedics. The doctors tell me she’s cooperating but not talking much, which sounds like typical Cass, only I don’t know if typical is okay anymore. The doctors don’t think so. They’re thinking of putting her on an antidepressant but are waiting for Mom to approve the prescription from behind bars. Mostly when I visit we just sit and watch TV and avoid addressing the Grand Canyon–sized elephant in the room.

  “How’s it going?” I’ll ask, and then she’ll say, “Okay.” She calls her therapist Dr. Zhivago, even though his name is Dr. Zinsser. Snark seems like a good sign, but I know it’ll be cold comfort when she’s doing her own shots again. She’s asked me for her phone a few times, but I keep pretending I can’t find it. I don’t want anyone to be able to get to her. I’m even thinking she shouldn’t come with us to see Buck. Maybe Tim’s newfound cash can buy her and Denny some hot dogs and a ride on the carousel at the Santa Monica Pier. Ironically, she might be safer dangling over a boardwalk than in a room with her biological father—from a psychological standpoint, anyway.

  Both nights, Tim and I share a bed. It’s not premeditated, but there’s only a queen and a set of bunk beds. Denny is all about the bunk beds, and Leah does not want to share a mattress with anyone, if she can avoid it. We both act like it’s no big deal, even though we know it is. We’ve hardly touched since our frigid bench détente—turns out the combo of a hospital setting and a cabin room with two younger siblings isn’t exactly a recipe for torrid romance—and so we ease under the covers like we’re playing a game of old-school Operation, trying not to touch any of the wrong parts. But the first morning we wake up hardcore spooning, and on the second morning he wakes me with a sleepy kiss.

  “Oh my God, gross,” Leah groans from her bed, pulling the blanket over her face.

  Just like in the movies.

  • • •

  Cass is discharged Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a fax from the Baltimore City Detention Center signed in my mom’s jagged scrawl that looks like two Ms having a fistfight. I bring Cass a freshly laundered hoodie, socks, underwear, and jeans, but she takes hours to emerge, and when she does I see that one of the nurses has braided her hair into thick cornrows. They look good, even if they turn my stomach a little thanks to Erica, and Cass seems to be in an okay mood. She actually high-fives Dr. Zinsser, and when they snip off her hospital bracelet, she gives it to Denny as a present. He loses it in the elevator down to the parking lot, but still, it’s the thought that counts.

  Dr. Chowdhury leaves me with an awkward demi-hug and a Xerox listing the warning signs for suicidal ideation. “She already knows this,” he tells me, “but for the foreseeable future Cassidy should not have access to her insulin. She can continue to give herself the shots, but someone else needs to measure them out and make sure they don’t exceed the prescribed dosage. And she needs to be supervised for every injection until you trust her again.”

  “Got it,” I say, but my insides feel like they’re eroding. I’ve been Cass’s sister my whole life, so it’s a job I’ve always felt sort of prequalified for. I never thought I could fail at it. Now I’m vibrating at this weird, high frequency, hyperaware of everything I do and say, not to mention everything she does and says. Plus, she doesn’t know about Tim and me yet, and I feel like that might not go over well. The prospect of going back out on the road again like everything is normal, and like this was just a pit stop, fills me with dread.

  But we’ve made it this far—barely—and so we have to keep going, even though I don’t think any of us wants to. There’s a vibe of grim determination as we trudge over to Goldie’s boxy silhouette in the hospital parking lot. We might be cleaner and better fed, but we’ve lost any illusions that this is some kind of adventure. It’s a mission now, one that almost had a casualty. The cops may not be after us anymore, but I’ve never felt less safe.

  I insist on driving so that I can have something to focus on besides the subtly shifting planes of my sister’s face. I’m shamefully relieved when she chooses to sit in the backseat even after I offer her shotgun.

  “Nothing’s changed,” Cass says, which nearly stops my heart until she adds, “Tim’s legs are still longer.”

  For about an hour, no one really says anything. But then Denny comes through with a classic “Are we there yet?” and since they can use their iPhones again without worrying their locations are being tracked, Tim and Leah tag-team mapping a route that will get us to Buck’s hospice—the Golden Palms—in six hours and nine minutes, or about eight P.M. Which is, of course, after visiting hours. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.

  “That’ll make it exactly a week since we left,” I say. “Almost to the hour.”

  “It would have been faster to walk,” Denny says. I can’t tell if he’s making a joke.

  “Where are we staying tonight?” Leah asks. “Can it have an indoor shower, please?”

  “Picky, picky,” Tim says, surreptitiously squeezing my leg.

  “And no IVs,” Cass says. It’s her first attempt at levity, and the rest of us don’t know how to react. I freeze up, and Leah makes a weird grimace-smile, and Tim chuckles a really fake-sounding chuckle that someone could bottle and use on the laugh track for a bad TV show. Goldie shudders in agreement.

  “Done and done,” Tim says. “We all could use some decent sleep.”

  I take the opening. “I was thinking,” I say, trying to sound nonchalant, “maybe you and Denny should sleep in tomorrow or do something fun while we deal with Buck.”

  “Why Denny and me?” Cass asks. “Why not Denny and Tim? They’re the ones who aren’t related to him.” Her voice is calm, but I can tell she’s acting, just like me, trying to keep things light while much darker feelings roil just below the surface.

  “I know, I just thought . . .” I take a breath and take a leap, deciding to be honest. “You’ve just been through a lot already this week. I would totally understand if you didn’t want to see him on top of it.”

  In the rearview mirror, I can see Cass purse her lips. “It sounds like you don’t want me to go,” she says.

  “That’s not what I said.”

  She flares her nostrils. “Right.”

  “Hey,” Tim says. “We should play license-plate bingo.”

  “What’s the one with the purple cactus?” Denny asks.

  “Arizona,” Leah says.

  “Arizona!” Denny cries, craning his neck to look out the window. “Arizona . . . Arizona . . . This is boring.”

  “You can go,” I say to Cass. “I want you to go.”

  “Good,” she says. “I’m gonna go. But not because you want me to.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  “I see a California!” says Tim.

  “Stop,” Leah groans.

  “Stop trying to control everything,” says Cass.

  “I don’t try to control everything!” I say.

  “Yes you do!” she shouts.

  And then there’s a kind of metallic wheeze and then another shudder and then nothing. Goldie goes silent, and when I step on the gas, the pedal goes all the way down to the floor with a dull thud.

  “No,” I say. I watch the needle on the odometer float down to zero as we coast, slowly losing speed. I jam the gearshift back and forth in its base. “No, no, no, no, no!”

  A tractor-trailer leans on its horn as it screams past on the right; I’m in the middle lane.

  “Get over,” Tim says, looking out his window. “Get over now.” I steer the corpse of the car into the right lane and then onto the shoulder as it slows to a crawl.

  “Well, this sucks,”
Leah says.

  “That’s the theme of the trip,” Cass mumbles.

  “Can we just go home?” Denny whines.

  I look over at the odometer. It’s at 99,998. But then, like the slow rise of a cruel, discreet middle finger meant only for me, it clicks over to 99,999. And stops.

  That’s when I start to scream.

  NINETEEN

  Tuesday Afternoon

  Kingman, AZ

  It tears out of me like it’s been waiting in the wings for years, perfectly formed, this long, loud, ragged yell that goes and goes until my vocal chords give out and the muscles in my neck start to shake. I slam my palms against the steering wheel, the thin, hard band digging into my skin, making it sting. Good. I want it to hurt. I hit it again, closefisted this time, and a flare of sharp pain shoots through my knuckles.

  “Michelle,” Tim says, and I feel his fingers encircle my right wrist, holding it back. But he can’t reach the left. I slam it into the steering wheel a few more times, hitting the horn, producing a series of staccato honks. “Michelle, stop. You’ll just break something.”

  “What’s left to break?” I yell, jerking my hand out of his grasp. I feel a weird, dead calm settling in as the adrenaline drains from my limbs. I’m used to panic. I’m used to the swells of anxiety that turn my breath quick and shallow, that turn my pulse into a surround sound marching band, that dry my throat and dilate my pupils. I’ve lived with it as long as I can remember—fight or flight, every second of every day. This is different. I just feel . . . done.

  “You need to relax,” Cass says, looking at me like I’m insane.

  “That’s easy for you to say.” I drop my throbbing hands into my lap. “You don’t even know how easy you have it. You don’t have to take care of anything or anyone but yourself.” The next sentence comes out before I can stop it, a series of bullets at pointblank range: “And you can’t even do that.” I turn to face her, my voice rising to a shout. “How could you do that to yourself? I’m doing this, all of this, for you.”

  Cass’s mouth screws up, and she looks away, out the window. There’s nothing but mesas and dying brown grass as far as the eye can see. We’re in the middle of nowhere, a metaphorical destiny we’ve finally managed to make literal.

  “Stop it,” Leah says, putting an arm around a terrified-looking Denny. “It’s not about you.”

  “Oh, what, did she tell you?” I ask angrily. “In the bathroom, when she was stabbing herself with all those needles, did you guys have a bonding moment?” Leah looks like she just got slapped, and Cass starts to cry.

  “Michelle,” Tim snaps, and I feel a wave of guilt, but I’m too worked up to let it go.

  “She was there,” I say, slamming the steering wheel again. “She was right there.”

  “Don’t blame Leah,” he says. “That’s totally out of line, and you know it.”

  “I can’t take this,” I say to no one in particular.

  “Why don’t you ask her what happened instead of yelling at her?” Leah says, leaning forward in her seat, her cheeks getting red.

  “Stop fighting!” Denny cries. “Max wants you to stop fighting!”

  “Max can shut the hell up,” I snap. “And it’s none of your business,” I say to Leah.

  “It is my business!” She shouts. “She’s my sister, too!”

  Another semi wails by just inches away, making me flinch. In the back, both Denny and Cass are sniffling. I remember when Mom and Buck would fight right here, in these same seats, trading bitter accusations and hurling threats back and forth, screaming at each other to shut up and at me to stop crying. The arguments always died down as quickly as they escalated, but that was almost scarier; it made the whole world seem frighteningly off-kilter, something that could shift under your feet and topple you at any second.

  Now I’m passing on that feeling, sowing the seeds my parents gave me, and my anger is immediately replaced by a crushing shame.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, first to Cass and then to Leah, to Tim, to Denny. “I’m so sorry.” I check to make sure I’m not about to get sideswiped by a Mack truck, and then I get out of the car and start to walk along the shoulder. I give up, I tell the universe, kicking the guardrail for emphasis. I’m taking the hint. Hopefully there’s enough cell reception on this stretch of highway for Tim to call his dad and get him to change plans and pick us up here—if any of the Harpers are even willing to associate with me anymore.

  “Hey!” I look over my shoulder to see Cass slamming her door shut and starting after me. “Where are you going?”

  “Get on the other side of the rail!” I yell as a line of cars shoot past.

  “You get on the other side.”

  She has a point. I jump over the low metal fence and into a circle of grass. We’re at a bend in the road now, which creates a shallow little meadow for a few yards before the ground swells into a hill. We meet in the center.

  “Where are you going?” Cass asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. Wind from a passing truck whips my curls across my face, and I bat them out of the way.

  “Well, wait.”

  “For what?” I cross my arms. “A cartoon anvil to drop out of the sky?”

  Cass shoves her hands in the pockets of her hoodie. “For me.”

  “You think I would leave you? Now?” I cry. “I would never leave you behind. You’re all I’ve got, Cass. That’s why when you—” I have to close my eyes for a few seconds and will the tears away. When I open them again, Cass is wet-eyed, too. “I’ve never been that scared,” I say.

  “Me neither.” She always looks small in her oversize clothes, but right now I can see back a decade, to the little girl clinging to her mother’s legs, squeezing her brown eyes tight, trying not to be seen. “And I’m sorry,” she says. “I did think about you. And Denny. It just . . . wasn’t enough.” I know she doesn’t mean that to sting, and I try not to show that it does. I sit down in the grass and lean back on my elbows. If I tilt my chin up I can’t see the road, and with the sun beating down on my face it almost feels like I’m back in our yard. When it gets really brutal in the summer, we all set up back there on towels, even Mom sometimes. The crabapple is somehow still alive, so we have to clear away the rotten fruit first, but all we really need is some lemonade and a radio to make a day of it.

  “Can you tell me why?” I ask. Cass drops down next to me, and a little black zippered case I didn’t notice she was holding falls to the ground between her knees. It’s the new insulin kit from the hospital. I made Tim hide it in the glove compartment. She catches me looking at it and blanches.

  “I was bringing it so you could . . .” She picks up the case and lobs it at me like a live grenade. “I wasn’t going to . . .”

  “Do you want to, though?” I ask. “Still?”

  “I mean, not right this minute,” Cass says. “I feel a little better.”

  “Good.” I turn the case over in my hands. She’ll still have to do shots for the rest of her life. I wonder if she’ll think about it every single time. I know I will.

  “It wasn’t one specific thing,” she says after a minute. “It was a lot of stuff.”

  “Mom,” I say.

  “That didn’t help.”

  “No, I was going to say I talked to her. A few days ago.”

  Cass frowns and chews on her lower lip. “Was she mad?”

  “No,” I say. “She was just scared and sad. Kind of all over the place, like normal.” When Cass won’t meet my eyes, I put my hand on her knee and shake it gently. “She’s mad at me, and Buck. But not you. Nobody’s mad at you.”

  She gets quiet for a minute and drops her elbows to her knees, then her chin to her elbows, folding in like one of those Jacob’s ladder toys. We have one at home that Mom got from church as a kid. Apparently they were allowed to play with them at Sunday school because of
the biblical reference, but there’s not much you can do with a staircase to heaven that doesn’t actually go anywhere.

  “It’s one thing to not have Buck. Or even Mom sometimes. But if we got split up . . .” She shakes her head, picking at the grass.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I say. “If Mom slips up again, I’ll file for custody myself.”

  Cass looks up at me, surprised and a little bit suspicious. “But then you’d be stuck with us. Like, for life.”

  I’ll admit, I haven’t thought the legal guardian thing through yet—and I hope I never have to. But after this week, staying in Baltimore for a few more years doesn’t sound so bad anymore. Seeing some of the rest of the country has been cool, but no place has felt quite like home. Just call me Dorothy Gale, I guess.

  “I’m already stuck with you for life,” I say to Cass. “You’ll never get rid of me.”

  “What about school, though?”

  “I can take night classes or put it off for a year or two.” If I take that assistant manager gig—if Yvonne will still give it to me—I could probably pay my way through the University of Maryland without too much aid. They have a great law school, actually. I could up and do a one-eighty on the family business. Who knows? “And I’m serious about getting you into a new school, too,” I say. “If you want.”