Everything, Everything

by Nicola Yoon

  And that’s it.

  I dig through the cabinet again for more files. It doesn’t make sense that this would be all there is. Where are the test results? There must’ve been a fourth immunologist, right? Where’s the diagnosis? Where are the consultations and second opinions? There should be another thick red folder. I scour the files for a third time. And a fourth. I spill other folders to the ground and rifle through them. I hunt through the papers on her desk. I thumb through the pages of her medical journals looking for highlighted passages.

  I’m breathing too quickly as I run over to her bookshelves. I pull down books, shake them by their spines willing something to fall out—a forgotten lab result, an official diagnosis. I find nothing.

  But nothing is not evidence.

  Maybe the proof is elsewhere. It takes me only one try to guess her password—Madeline. I spend two hours looking through every document on her computer. I search her Internet browser history. I look in the trash folder.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  Where’s the proof of the life I have lived?

  I turn a slow pirouette in the middle of the room. I don’t believe the evidence of my own eyes. I don’t believe what I’m not seeing. How can there be nothing? It’s like my sickness was invented out of the much-too-thin air that I’m breathing.

  It’s not true. It can’t be.

  Is it possible that I’m not sick? My mind flinches away from this line of thought.

  Maybe she keeps other records in her bedroom? Why didn’t I think of that before? 5:23 A.M. Can I wait for her to wake up? No.

  The door opens just as I’m walking over to it.

  “There you are,” she says, relief evident in her voice. “I got worried. You weren’t in your room.” She comes in farther and her eyes widen as she takes in the chaos surrounding us. “Did we have an earthquake?” she asks. Eventually she realizes the mess is man-made. She turns on me, confused. “Sweetheart, what’s going on?”

  “Am I sick?” I ask. My blood beats too loudly in my ears.

  “What did you say?”

  “Am I sick?” I say it louder this time.

  Her burgeoning anger dissipates, replaced by concern. “Do you feel sick?”

  She reaches out a hand to touch me, but I push it away.

  The hurt on her face makes me slightly ill, but I press. “No, that’s not what I mean. Do I have SCID?”

  Her concern morphs into exasperation and a little pity. “Is this still about that letter?”

  “Yes,” I say. “And Carla, too. She said that maybe you weren’t OK.”

  “Meaning what?”

  What am I accusing her of exactly? “Where are all the papers?” I demand.

  She takes a deep breath to steady herself. “Madeline Whittier, what are you talking about?”

  “You have records for everything, but there’s nothing about SCID in here. Why can’t I find anything?” I grab the red folder from the ground and shove it at her. “You have everything else.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asks. “Of course it’s in here.”

  I’m not sure what I was expecting her to say, but that was not it. Does she really believe it’s all here?

  She clutches the folder to her chest like she’s trying to make it a part of herself. “Did you look carefully? I keep everything.”

  She walks over to her desk and clears a space. I watch her as she examines the files, rearranging them, smoothing her hands over pages that don’t need smoothing.

  After a while she looks up at me. “Did you take them? I know they were in here.” Her voice is thick with confusion and, also, fear.

  And that’s when I know for sure.

  I am not sick and I never have been.

  OUTSIDE

  I RUN FROM the office. The hallway stretches out before me and it is endless. I’m in the air lock and it is windless. I’m outside and my breath is soundless.

  My heart is beatless.

  I vomit all the nothing in my stomach. Bile burns the back of my throat.

  I’m crying and the cool morning air chills the tears on my face.

  I’m laughing and the cold invades my lungs.

  I’m not sick. I’ve never been sick.

  All the emotions I’ve held in check over the past twenty-four hours crash over me. Hope and despair, anticipation and regret, joy and anger. How is it possible to have an emotion and its opposite at the same time? I’m struggling in a black ocean, a life jacket across my chest, an anchor on my leg.

  My mom catches up to me. Her face is a ruin of fear. “What are you doing? What are you doing? You have to get inside.”

  My vision tunnels and I hold her in my sights. “Why, Mom? Why do I have to go inside?”

  “Because you’re sick. Bad things could happen to you out here.”

  She reaches out to me to pull me toward her, but I jerk away from her.

  “No. I’m not going back in.”

  “Please,” she begs. “I can’t lose you, too. Not after everything.”

  Her eyes are on me, but I know without a doubt that she’s not seeing me at all.

  “I lost them. I lost your dad and I lost your brother. I couldn’t lose you, too. I just couldn’t.”

  Her face crumbles, falls completely apart. Whatever structures were holding it up give way in a sudden and catastrophic failure.

  She’s broken. She’s been broken for a long time. Carla was right. She never recovered from their deaths.

  I say something. I don’t know what, but she keeps talking.

  “Right after they died you got so, so sick. You wouldn’t breathe right and I drove you to the emergency room and we had to stay there for three days. And they didn’t know what was wrong. They said it was probably an allergy. They gave me a list of things to stay away from, but I knew it was more than that.”

  She nods her head. “I knew it was more than that. I had to protect you. Anything can happen to you out here.”

  She looks around. “Anything can happen to you out here. In the world.”

  I should feel compassion. But that’s not what I feel. Anger rises in me and crowds everything else out.

  “I’m not sick,” I scream. “I’ve never been sick. You’re the one.” I stab the air in front of her face. I watch as she shrinks into herself and disappears.

  “Come inside,” she whispers. “I’ll protect you. Stay with me. You’re all I have.”

  Her pain is endless. It falls off the ends of the world.

  Her pain is a dead sea.

  Her pain is for me, but I cannot bear it anymore.

  FAIRY TALES

  ONCE UPON A time there was a girl whose entire life was a lie.

  THE VOID

  A UNIVERSE THAT can wink into existence can wink out again.

  BEGINNINGS AND ENDS

  FOUR DAYS PASS. I eat. I do homework. I don’t read. My mom walks around in a fugue state. I don’t think she understands what’s happened. She seems to realize that she has something to atone for, but she’s not sure exactly what it is. Sometimes she tries to talk to me, but I ignore her. I barely even look at her.

  The morning after I realized the truth, Carla took samples of my blood to the SCID specialist, Dr. Chase. We’re in his office now, waiting to be called. And even though I know what he’ll say, I’m dreading the actual medical confirmation.

  Who will I be if I’m not sick?

  A nurse calls my name and I ask Carla to stay in the waiting room. For whatever reason, I want to hear this news alone.

  Dr. Chase stands when I walk in. He looks just like the photos of him on the Web—older white man with graying hair and bright black eyes.

  He looks at me with a mixture of sympathy and curiosity.

  He gestures for me to sit, and waits until I do to sit himself.

  “Your case,” he begins, and then stops.

  He’s nervous.

  “It’s OK,” I say. “I already know.”

  He opens a
file on his desk, shakes his head like he’s still puzzled at the results. “I’ve gone over these results time and again. I had my colleagues check to be absolutely certain. You’re not sick, Ms. Whittier.”

  He stops and waits for me to react.

  I shake my head at him. “I already know,” I say again.

  “Carla—Nurse Flores—filled me in on your background.” He studiously flips through a few more pages, trying to avoid saying what he says next. “As a doctor, your mother would’ve known this. Granted, SCID is a very rare disease and it comes in many forms, but you have none, absolutely none, of the telltale signs of the disease. If she did any research, any tests at all, she would’ve known that.”

  The room falls away and I’m in a featureless white landscape dotted with open doors that lead nowhere.

  He’s looking at me expectantly when I finally come back to my body. “I’m sorry, did you say something?” I ask.

  “Yes. You must have some questions for me.”

  “Why did I get sick in Hawaii?”

  “People get sick, Madeline. Normal, healthy people get sick all the time.”

  “But my heart stopped.”

  “Yes. I suspect myocarditis. I spoke with the attending in Hawaii as well. She suspected the same thing. Basically at some point in your past you probably had a viral infection that weakened your heart. Had you been experiencing any chest pain or shortness of breath when you were in Hawaii?”

  “Yes,” I say slowly, remembering the squeezing of my heart that I’d willfully ignored.

  “Well, myocarditis seems like a likely candidate.”

  I don’t have any other questions, not for him anyway. I stand. “Well, thank you very much, Dr. Chase.”

  He stands, too, agitated and seeming even more nervous than before. “Before you go there’s one more thing.”

  I sit back down. “Because of the circumstance of your upbringing, we’re not sure about the state of your immune system.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “We think it’s possible that it’s underdeveloped, like an infant’s.”

  “An infant?”

  “Your immune system hasn’t been exposed to a lifetime of common viruses and bacterial infections. It hasn’t had time to get experience with fighting these infections. It hasn’t had time to get strong.”

  “So I’m still sick?”

  He leans back in his chair. “I don’t have a good answer for you. We’re in uncharted territory here. I’ve never heard of a case like this. It may mean that you’ll get sick more often than people with healthy immune systems. Or it may mean that when you do get sick, you’ll get very severely sick.”

  “How will I know?”

  “I don’t think there’s any way to know. I recommend caution.”

  We schedule weekly follow-up visits. He tells me that I should take it slow as I start to see the world—no big crowds, no unfamiliar foods, no exhaustive physical activity.

  “The world isn’t going anywhere,” he says as I leave.

  AFTER THE DEATH OF

  I SPEND THE next few days searching for more information, for anything that will explain what happened to me and what happened to my mother. I want a diary with her thoughts laid out in legible ink. I want her madness clearly delineated so that I can trace its history and my own. I want details and explanations. I want to know why and why and why. I need to know what happened, but she can’t tell me. She’s too damaged. And if she could? Would it make a difference? Would I understand? Would I understand the depth of grief and fear that could’ve led her to take my entire life away from me?

  Dr. Chase tells me that he thinks she needs a therapist. He thinks it might be a long time before she’s able to tell me exactly what happened, if ever. He guesses that she suffered some sort of a breakdown after my dad and brother died.

  Carla uses all her persuasive powers trying to convince me not to leave home. Not just for my mom’s sake, but for my own. My health is still an unknown.

  I consider e-mailing Olly, but so much time has passed. I lied to him. He’s probably moved on. He’s probably found someone else. I’m not sure I can endure any more heartbreak. And what would I say? I’m almost not sick?

  In the end Carla convinces me to stay with my mom. She says I am a better person than that. I’m not so sure. Whoever I was before I found out the truth has died.

  ONE WEEK A.D.

  I HAVE MY first weekly visit with Dr. Chase. He urges caution.

  I install a lock on my bedroom door.

  TWO WEEKS A.D.

  THREE WEEKS A.D.

  MY MOM TRIES to enter my room, but the door is locked with me in it.

  She goes away.

  I draft more e-mails to Olly that I don’t send.

  Dr. Chase continues to urge caution.

  FOUR WEEKS A.D.

  I PAINT EACH wall in my room a different color. The one by the window is a pale butter yellow. The shelves are sunset orange against a peacock-blue wall. The wall by my headboard is lavender, and the final one is black with chalkboard paint.

  My mom knocks on my door, but I pretend not to hear her.

  She goes away.

  FIVE WEEKS A.D.

  I ORDER REAL plants for the sunroom. I deprogram the air filters and open the windows. I buy five goldfish and name them all Olly and let them loose in the fountain.

  SIX WEEKS A.D.

  DR. CHASE INSISTS that it’s too soon for me to attempt enrolling in high school. Too many kids with too many illnesses. Carla and I persuade him to let some of my tutors visit in person as long as they’re well. He is reluctant, but he agrees.

  MADELINE’S MOM

  FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON

  A WEEK LATER Carla and I watch as Mr. Waterman makes his way across the lawn and to his car to leave. I hugged him before he left. He was surprised, but didn’t question it, just hugged me back like it was perfectly natural.

  I stay outside for a few minutes after he’s left and Carla waits with me. She’s trying to find a way to gently break my already broken heart.

  “So—” she begins.

  I know what she’s going to say. She’s been gearing up to say it all day. “Please don’t leave me, Carla. I still need you.”

  Her eyes are on me but I can’t bear to look at her.

  She doesn’t deny what I’ve said, just takes my hand in hers.

  “If you really, truly need me to stay, I’ll stay.” She squeezes my fingers. “But you don’t need me.”

  “I’ll always need you.” I don’t try to stop the tears from coming.

  “But not like before,” she says gently.

  Of course she’s right. I don’t need her to be here with me for eight hours a day. I don’t need constant care. But what will I do without her?

  My tears turn into enormous sobs and she holds me in her arms and lets me cry until I reach the end of them.

  “What will you do?”

  She wipes at my face with the sides of her hands. “I might go back to working in a hospital.”

  “Did you already tell my mom?”

  “This morning.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She thanked me for taking care of you.”

  I don’t try to hide my scowl.

  She holds my chin. “When are you going to find it in your heart to forgive her?”

  “What she did is not forgivable.”

  “She was sick, honey. She’s still sick.”

  I shake my head. “She took my whole life away from me.” Even now, thinking about all the years I’ve lost makes me feel like I’m on the lip of an enormous chasm, like I could fall in and never come back out.

  Carla nudges me back to the present. “Not your whole life,” she says. “You still have a lot left.”

  We go back inside. I follow her around, watching her pack her things for the last time.

  “Did you ever read Flowers for Algernon?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you l
ike it?”

  “No. Not my kind of book. Not enough hope in it.”

  “It made you cry, didn’t it?”

  She shakes her head no, but then confesses, “OK, yes, like a baby.”

  We both laugh.

  THE GIFT

  A WEEK LATER my mom knocks on my door. I remain where I am on my couch. She knocks again more insistently, and my resentment rises. I’m not sure that our relationship will ever recover. It’s hard for me to forgive her when she doesn’t fully understand her crime.

  I fling open the door as she’s about to knock again.

  “Now’s not a good time,” I say.

  She flinches, but I don’t care. I want to hurt her again and again. My anger is never very far away. I expected it to fade with the passage of time, but it’s still right there under the surface of things.

  She takes a breath. “I got you something.” Her voice is small and confused.

  I roll my eyes. “You think presents will help?”

  I know I’ve hurt her again. The present shakes in her hand. I take it because I just want the conversation to be over. I want to lock myself away from her and not have to feel pity or empathy or compassion or anything.

  She turns to go but then stops. “I still love you, Madeline. And you still love me. You have your whole life ahead of you. Don’t waste it. Forgive me.”

  THE END IS THE BEGINNING IS THE END

  I OPEN THE present from my mom. It’s a phone. It’s open to a weather app with the forecast for the week—bright and sunny, every day.

  I have to get out of the house. I go outside, not knowing where I’m going until I get there. Fortunately, the ladder is right where Olly left it. I climb up to his roof.

  The orrery’s still there and still beautiful. The tinfoil suns and moons and stars dangle and twist and reflect the sun’s rays back out into the bigger universe. I nudge one of the planets and the entire system rotates slowly. I understand why Olly made it. It’s soothing to see an entire world at once—to see the pieces and know how it all fits together.