The You I Never Knew

by Susan Wiggs

  Somebody jostled him from behind, sloshing his Coke on the tray.

  “Hey, look out,” he muttered, but not loud enough to be heard.

  The bun of the burger was soggy with Coke. If he didn’t find a place to sit in a minute, people were going to notice. But the only seats he could see now were at the geek table. Sweat trickled down his back. Damn, he wished he’d taken his coat off. A feeling of impending doom pressed at him, and he felt as if he was about to lose it. The geek table. The goddamned geek table.

  “Hey, Cody!”

  At the sound of his name, he looked up, and there was Molly Lightning.

  It was like seeing an angel, watching her stand up with one knee propped on a bench, waving her slender arm at him.

  “Hey, come have a seat.” She was at a neutral table where the kids weren’t particularly geeky or particularly cool. Just regular.

  He nodded, nonchalant as you please, but inside he was exulting. She’d saved his butt, no doubt about it.

  * * *

  Feeling like an ex-P.O.W., Cody exited the loud, gym-bag-smelling school bus and stood at the side of the highway. Breathing. A survivor after a disaster. Man, he felt as though he’d been holding his breath all day, expecting an ambush. They’d promised to get him out of class if anything bad happened at the hospital, but there had been no interruption of the slow torture of school. He had to feel grateful for that, at least.

  Swinging his backpack over his shoulder, he trudged up the frozen gravel drive toward Sam’s house. Another bonus, he thought sourly. On top of everything else, he had to stay here all week.

  In spite of his thoughts, his heart lifted when the Border collie came careening down from the field and leaped at him, long pink tongue reaching for his face. For a minute, Cody couldn’t help himself, and he laughed aloud. Then he saw Sam coming out of the house.

  If he asks me how school was, I’m going to hurl, I swear it.

  “Hey, Cody.” Sam swung a canvas bag into the back of his old pickup truck. He put a cooler of drinks and a bag of tortilla chips in the cab. “I guess you want to get on down to the hospital right away.”

  The guy had read his mind.

  They were both quiet as Sam pulled out onto the highway and headed south. The old Dodge truck smelled of timothy hay and motor oil, and the column shift rattled with the bumps. Sam McPhee sure wasn’t like any of the doctors Brad played golf with, Cody reflected. But then again, he pretty much wasn’t like any other doctor, period. Or maybe Cody just thought he was weird because he was his dad.

  “My mom taught me to ride a bike when I was five,” he said suddenly, for no particular reason. His breath fogged the window.

  Sam flexed his hands on the worn, shiny steering wheel and kept his eyes straight ahead on the road. “Yeah?” Another long silence. And then, “We’re a little short on bikes around here. Plenty of horses, though. You could do some riding.”

  Cody felt a spark of interest, but forced himself not to show it. The truth was, he really did want to ride a horse, but he thought he’d feel stupid. Most of the kids at Crystal City High had been born knowing how. They were all goat ropers and cutters and stuff. “Maybe,” he said guardedly.

  “You could fool around on a snowmobile, too.”

  “That’d be cool, I guess.”

  “Can you drive a standard shift?” Sam asked. “A car, not a horse, that is.”

  Cody’s mouth twitched. “Sure. I learned on one.”

  “There’s an old Jeep in the pole barn I could let you use for getting to and from school. That way, you wouldn’t waste time waiting around for the school bus. You’d have more time for chores in the morning.”

  Cody carefully weighed the merits of the offer. It was really no contest. The bus that smelled like a locker room or chores and his own wheels. “That’d be good,” he said. Then, reaching through reluctance, he said, “Thanks.”

  Sam acted like it was no big deal. He opened the chips and passed the bag to Cody. They were silent again until Cody spoke up without even thinking. “This morning really sucked,” he said, feeling stupid but unable to keep quiet.

  “The transplant, or school?”

  “The transplant. School—well, that sucked all day. At the hospital, everybody was like, really nervous.” He made a face in the side mirror. “I kept thinking how totally gross the whole thing was.”

  “Gross, huh?”

  He stared out the window at the scrubby landscape swishing past. “You must think I’m really selfish.” He immediately wished he hadn’t said that. It was none of this guy’s business what was going on in his head. But it was so strange. Cody just kept wanting to talk.

  “Why would I think that?”

  “Because I didn’t make them test me to see if I could be the kidney donor.”

  “I suspect they would have tested you if your mom hadn’t turned out to be a near-perfect match.”

  “Nobody even asked me.”

  “And that’s a problem?”

  Cody scrubbed the side of his hand at the fogged-up window. “They should have checked me out instead of treating me like I didn’t exist.”

  “Did you say you wanted to be tested?”

  “My mom didn’t even tell me what was going on until a few weeks ago. And then it was like, ‘Well, we’re moving to Montana so I can give this guy a kidney.’ ”

  Sam cleared his throat. Cody thought he might be grinning. For some reason, Sam was pretty easy to talk to. He didn’t push, didn’t try too hard. He was just… there. Quiet. Cody’s mom was always nagging him about “opening up.” She didn’t seem to understand that he was not going to open up if she kept talking all the time.

  “So anyway,” he said, “it was like, really intense. They had my mom in this room with one of those paper hair things on her head and a bunch of tubes and wires all hooked up to her, and I had to go in and say good-bye, like she was going to another planet and I wouldn’t ever see her again. And all that was before I had to go to Hicksville High.”

  “I can see how that would suck.”

  Though Sam didn’t take his eyes off the road, Cody could feel the full force of his attention, his fascination. It was a new experience, having an adult be this interested in what he had to say. Why? Because Sam was a doctor? Or his father, or just a guy? Or because he’d been hanging out with Cody’s mom and they put that stupid picture in the Enquirer?

  “Since nobody called from the hospital while I was at school, I guess everything went okay. But I was wicked nervous all day.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Sam in that lazy way of his. “So was I.”

  Chapter 35

  Mom. Hey, Mom.” Cody. More powerful than any drug, her child’s voice drew Michelle out of the fog.

  “Cody…” She could feel her lips move, but only a whisper of sound came out. She had the sense that time had passed; she remembered hearing that her father was all right. The pain-cloud still surrounded her, but this time she wanted to fight her way out of the fog.

  “Where… am…”

  “In your room, Michelle.” A deeper voice. A man’s voice.

  “Brad—” No. Sam. Sam. “Hurts,” she said.

  “She’s miserable.” Sam spoke to someone in a clipped voice. “I want her to have a self-administered morphine pump.”

  Bless you, Sam.

  “Yes, we’ve ordered one—”

  “Now, okay? Not in a minute, but now.”

  Typical doctor. That aggressiveness, that obnoxious, abrasive personality. His staccato order worked. She couldn’t open her eyes or count the minutes, but in a short while she felt the drip, and someone guided her thumb to the button that would deliver the gentle, numbing surge of narcotics to her system. She pushed the button, and almost instantly felt the wavelike swish of morphine curling in, then rolling back out, taking some of pain’s fury with it.

  “ ’S’working,” she said. Dry. Mouth was so dry.

  “That’s good, Michelle,” Sam said. “You rest now.” />
  She couldn’t remember if he’d touched her or not since she awakened. Probably not. Doctors didn’t do that so much, not anymore. She tried to recall what had passed between them the last time they’d been together. Hotel room. Something big, important, interrupted. She couldn’t think.

  “School.” She formed the word carefully with her lips. “Cody. How was school?”

  “I survived,” he said simply.

  She wanted to hear it all, every detail, but she couldn’t stay focused on one subject. “You’ve seen… my father?”

  “I’ll take Cody in a minute,” Sam said. “Gavin’s on this floor, different wing. He has to be quarantined in ICU for a while, but we’ll look in on him.”

  Michelle drifted in and out of pain and consciousness. Heard the TV news, and smiled when she felt Cody come over to the bed and awkwardly, hesitantly, touch her head.

  Floating in the morphine fog, she listened to them getting ready to go back to Crystal City. She mouthed I love you and when they left she turned her face to the wall and wept for no reason she could name.

  When she woke up again, the room was empty except for the drips and equipment. The space between the drapes showed a night sky.

  She pressed the button on the morphine pump. Gentle swish of drugs.

  The sky grew red around the edges as if it had caught fire.

  Later, someone put something around her ankles. Helpless but resentful, she mumbled, “What’s that?”

  “Air cuffs. You’ll hear the electric pump come on about every twenty minutes.”

  “Too loud. Won’t get any sleep at all.”

  “You have to keep these on until you can get out of bed.”

  With that powerful motivation, she was up at sunup, clinging to the arm of a nurse’s aide as she took one step, then lowered herself gingerly to the chair by the bed.

  “Okay,” she said. “Off with the cuffs already.”

  The aide touched a buzzer. “You win. Your husband warned us that you were a fighter.”

  Husband. Sam. No way. He wasn’t her husband. He was… too damned complicated to explain to the nurse’s aide.

  * * *

  Later she forced herself to get up again and wait patiently, staying in the chair, even eating something. Rice pudding. Too sweet, not enough nutmeg. Then it was back to bed, feeling as if she’d run a marathon. At one point Donna checked in on her, face wreathed in smiles.

  “Just wanted to be sure you heard—your kidney is working great.”

  Michelle squeezed her eyes shut and felt a powerful rush of gratitude.

  We did it, Daddy. We did it.

  Tuesday

  Chapter 36

  God, these are incredible. When did you do these?” Natalie’s voice pried into a strange dream Michelle was having. In the dream, she floated through the wisps of steam that curled off the surface of the hot springs where she and Sam had made love. Only she was alone in the fog, searching, calling out, but no one could hear her.

  “Michelle?” Natalie was insistent. “I was asking about these drawings.”

  She gave up on the dream and dragged her eyes open. “What… drawings?”

  “Here.” Cody held a plastic bottle with a flexible straw to her lips.

  Michelle drank gratefully. “Thanks. What drawings?”

  “I found them in your suitcase.” Natalie held up one of the sketches Michelle had done before the surgery. “These are wonderful.”

  “They’re pretty cool, Mom.”

  She took another drink. Didn’t want to think about the drawings and what had happened the morning of the transplant. Truthfully, she had no idea if the experience meant anything at all. “I feel as if I’ve been away forever,” she said. “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday.”

  She studied Cody. He seemed… different. She supposed that working outside a lot added color to his usually pale face. He might be eating better, too. He looked bigger. Filled out. When had that happened? she wondered with a clutch of apprehension. Changes don’t happen overnight. Why hadn’t she noticed?

  “Is school going all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She didn’t believe him. Someone had probably coached him not to say anything to upset her. “Are you and Sam getting along okay?”

  He shrugged. “I guess.”

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on the situation,” Natalie reminded her. “They’re getting along fine.”

  “He doesn’t know me,” Cody pointed out. “He’s just some guy. Ow! Quit kicking me, Aunt Natalie.”

  “Now the big question,” Michelle said. “How’s school going?”

  “Sucks,” he said predictably, then winced as Natalie kicked him again. “I’ll survive, Mom. But I really want to get back to Seattle.”

  “Speaking of getting back, I have to leave, sweetie,” Natalie said. “That is, if you’ll be okay without me.”

  Michelle smiled, feeling her lower lip crack with the effort. “I’ll be okay without you. Just not nearly as entertained.”

  “Call me, all right? Anytime, night or day.”

  “Sure, Nat. You’ve been a peach.”

  “Take care of yourself. I’ll keep the home fires burning.”

  * * *

  After visiting hours were over, the nurses let Michelle walk in the hallway, wheeling her IVs. She made them take out the catheter at the first opportunity. Pain flamed through her, but she kept walking, concentrating on the scuffing sound of her slippers on the linoleum tile floor. She found her way to Gavin’s room.

  Her father was asleep, zippered in a sterile cocoon of clear plastic. He looked terrible, a waxen corpse. No. She wanted to scream it. Daddy. Oh, Daddy. We’re not finished, she thought frantically. We just found each other again. The very air around her suddenly felt unnatural, noxious. Everything was broken.

  But his coloring was remarkable—a healthy flush to his cheeks, hands and fingernails pink. Everyone assured her that the transplant was a success, the kidney was working.

  Please let it be true. Please please please let it be true.

  She lifted her hand, pressed her fingertips lightly to the plastic bubble, and said, “I love you, Daddy.” Her words sounded muffled and small in the machine-snarled room. His chest gently rose and fell, rose and fell.

  As she shuffled slowly back to her bed, she wondered if she’d ever told him that when he was awake.

  She hadn’t.

  But if he didn’t know it after this, he’d never catch on.

  Chapter 37

  Sam cleared away the Styrofoam remnants of Trudy’s takeout. Never much of a cook, he felt lucky Cody had taken a shine to Trudy’s burgers and pizza. Cody picked up his backpack and headed for the stairs. The two of them had been circling each other like a pair of wary dogs, giving a little here, taking a little there. In some moments, Sam felt a connection, but usually they were strangers. He kept telling himself to be patient. Most fathers had years to get to know their kids. He had only days.

  “There’s a Sonics game on tonight,” he said. “You a Sonics fan?”

  Cody paused at the bottom of the stairs. “Sort of.”

  Sam went into the den and flicked on the TV, filling the room with bluish light and the rapid-fire monologue of a basketball commentator. Without looking at Cody, Sam took a seat and gave his attention to the game. Cody sat on the end of the couch, poised to spring up and flee any minute. When a beer commercial came on, his attention wandered, touching on the stack of journals Sam didn’t have time to read, the beige drapes, the photos of horses. Alice had tried to spiff the place up when they were married, but Sam had never put much effort into it. He didn’t know diddly about fixing up a house to resemble a home.

  Then Cody’s gaze fixed on the large painting that hung over the fireplace. “Did my mom do that?” he asked.

  “Uh-huh.” Sam reached up and turned on the mantel light. “Have a look.”

  Cody stood with his hands dug into his back pockets, studying t
he winter scene. Sam kept his face neutral, remembering the day Michelle had given him the painting. They had done everything teenagers are lectured not to do. They had unprotected sex, they believed love would be enough, they dared to cross the invisible-but-rock-solid barrier of class and privilege. The result had been a pair of broken hearts… and this boy.

  “It’s pretty awesome,” Cody said, staring at the signature and date in the bottom corner.

  Sam tried to imagine what was going through the kid’s head just then as he stood looking at something his mother had done before he was born. He wondered if Cody was able to picture the girl she had been, to think of her as someone other than his mother. Probably not. That just wasn’t the way a kid’s mind worked. “Your mom says she doesn’t paint anymore.”

  “She does stuff for work, mostly on the computer.” He sat back down on the sofa. His expression gave no clue to his thoughts.

  The game came on again, and Sam couldn’t think of anything else to say. But he wanted to fill the silence, so he asked, “Did that Jeep run okay?”

  “Yeah, it ran fine.” Cody hesitated. “I gave Molly Lightning a ride home after school today.”

  Sam wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Should he commend the boy for giving a ride to a friend? Admonish him to drive carefully and wear seat belts? Chastise him because he hadn’t asked permission to give rides to passengers?

  He said, “You should have checked with me before offering rides to people.”

  Cody stared him straight in the eye. “Why?”

  “Because I’m responsible for you.”

  Cody snorted. “Right.”

  “This week I am, damn it—” Sam stopped, amazed to find that his pulse had sped up. This kid had a killer instinct when it came to pushing buttons. “Okay, look,” Sam said, pressing the mute button on the remote control. “I should have told you not to take on passengers unless you check with me first.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Because I’m new to this, that’s why. I’m making it up as I go along.”

  “That’s obvious.”