by D. J. Palmer
“Don’t worry, I’m actually at the hospital now,” Dr. Walker said. “I’ll be down in a minute to check on Meghan.”
“Thank you so, so much, Gary,” Becky said, her voice drenched with gratitude. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
* * *
THE CURTAIN to bay 12 parted, and in stepped a slight man in his late fifties with sandy hair, a trim beard, and, yes, a tan. Becky turned her body as she went to Dr. Walker so that Carl would not see her touch his arm. Gestures like this were like deposits into an investment account that over time would pay hefty dividends. Dr. Walker had given Meghan a thorough examination, and returned to give an update on the test results. Judging by the warmth of his smile, Becky relaxed.
“Is Meghan okay?” Becky asked nervously.
“My initial answer is yes; she’s fine. But is this the first time Meghan’s fainted?” Dr. Walker’s penetrating gray eyes hinted at some concern.
“Well, you know she’s had spells of feeling very weak and dizzy,” Becky said, reliving in her head the many times she’d brought Meghan to see Dr. Walker. “And episodes where she seemed out of it for a moment or two, but she’s never fainted.”
“That’s right.” Carl nodded in agreement beside her.
“Well, Meghan’s EKG shows a mildly prolonged PR interval. It’s probably nothing to worry about, but I think we may want to do some more tests.”
“A what?”
Over the years, Becky had acquired an enormous amount of medical knowledge in her quest to help Meghan, but there were always new terms to go along with her daughter’s new and puzzling symptoms. Each time Becky heard a new word, it came with a fresh pulse of anxiety.
“The PR interval is the time between the first and second wave on an EKG,” Dr. Walker explained. He showed Becky a printout latched to his clipboard illustrating the peaks and valleys of Meghan’s heartbeat. “See, here’s the P wave, and then this sawtooth pattern is the QRS complex, followed by this hump called the T wave.” Dr. Walker stood close to Becky, their shoulders touching, as he traced the line with his finger. Under any other circumstances, the proximity would have made her feel uneasy. This time she welcomed the contact and hoped Carl did not notice.
“The distance between the P wave and the QRS is the PR interval,” Dr. Walker continued. “It should be less than point-two seconds. Meghan’s is about point-two-four seconds. Not too long, but still, something we should keep an eye on.”
“What does that mean?”
Becky asked the question knowing the answer he would give. It was the same answer she’d heard time and time again, the same one she had gotten after countless blood tests that had contributed to her daughter’s intense needle phobia.
I don’t know.
“I don’t know,” Dr. Walker said. “I do want to see Meghan in my office for some more tests.” Surprise, surprise, Becky thought. “Here’s the number to schedule an echocardiogram and make a follow-up with me.” He handed Becky a card. “Until then, please check with us if she is started on any new medications. Certain ones might need to be avoided if she feels faint again. I’m sure you have lots of questions, but, Meghan, I suspect you’re anxious to get back home after spending a full day with us. You’re always welcome, but I’d prefer you stay away.”
He gave a wink. The anemic attempt at a joke failed to register with anyone.
“Beck—Mrs. Gerard,” Dr. Walker said, catching himself. “I was wondering if I could speak with you in private.”
Carl was too distracted—or too oblivious—to notice that Dr. Walker had requested Becky, and only Becky. They left the curtained room and found a private corner to talk.
Becky touched his arm again—she was not a touchy person in general, but she wanted assurances he’d answer the next time she called.
“I got a list of Meghan’s current medications, but I have to ask this, even though we’ve already run a tox screen. Is there a history of illicit drug use?”
Oh God, Becky thought. Must we go down this rabbit hole again?
“No. Never.”
Dr. Walker glanced at the ER bay a bit apprehensively, as if encouraging her to be honest. “It’s okay to tell me, even if it’s just a suspicion on your part,” he said. “It’s just that prolonged PR intervals can be a consequence of drug use or electrolyte disturbance, but her electrolytes are normal.”
“No. I promise you, Meghan doesn’t use drugs.”
“Very well,” Dr. Walker said. “Call my office number, and we’ll get Meghan seen right away.”
That’s all I needed to hear, thought Becky.
“And I’m so very sorry about that episode on the airplane. Wendy called when she saw the video online—thank you again for your help with her apartment, by the way. It was terrible how badly the airline mistreated you. I hope you get some sort of compensation for the trouble and embarrassment.”
Becky thought of all sorts of things to say—questions about his trip, how Wendy’s medical school applications were coming along—but she did not have the stamina to play any part other than the real one.
“Thanks for the concern, but all I care about is Meghan.”
Becky returned to the ER bay to find Nurse Alexandra disconnecting the monitors.
“I don’t know what happened to me,” Meghan said after Alexandra departed, sounding like she was pleading for answers. “I still feel strange.”
“I’ll make you some of my chicken soup when we get home,” Becky said, which was the only meal Meghan seemed capable of eating these days. “I think I need some, too.” That raised a smile on Meghan’s lips, but it also brought that look from Carl again, the one that came with accusations. She was glad she had not told him about her call to Michael—aka Dr. Cohen, a.k.a. the neurologist who was coming by—and that Meghan would not be leaving until he saw her. And no way would Becky settle for anything less than a CAT scan.
* * *
THREE HOURS later, they were still in the hospital, seeing another doctor.
Dr. Cohen, who had a horseshoe of white hair and sallow skin, would have been headed for retirement if only his wife had not surprised him with a divorce late in life. Becky had learned the sad news months ago, after Dr. Cohen examined Meghan for a persistent headache. She had seen the pictures in his office, studied them closely (thank you, Cora), and thought to ask about his family when she noticed that the photographs of his wife were no longer up. Becky offered to help with his search for a new home, but what he wanted was to have coffee with her, as she reminded him of his daughter who he’d been estranged from since the divorce.
Bad for him, good for me, Becky had thought at the time, hating herself for feeling anything other than sympathy. But she reminded herself what was at stake, and that had lessened her guilt several degrees.
Dr. Cohen entered the ER bay carrying a small doctor’s bag that was so familiar to Becky, she could guess the contents without looking: a reflex hammer, a portable ophthalmoscope, some tuning forks, a broad cloth tape covered with a pattern of black stripes, a number of safety pins, and even a small vial of ground coffee to test for sense of smell if the occasion called for it.
“We’re not sure just why Meghan fainted today,” said Dr. Cohen, looking alternately at Carl and Becky with an occasional obligatory glance at his patient. “I spoke at length with Dr. Walker, who thinks it may be her heart, but I understand that a friend said Meghan stiffened up when she lost consciousness. I can’t rule out a seizure. The good news is that the CAT scan looks normal to my eyes.”
Becky let go a sigh of relief. Dr. Cohen looked the way a grandparent might upon receiving good news.
“We had to give a small sedative to get the blood test, but we didn’t find anything in her labs that was overly concerning.” Dr. Cohen sent Becky a conspiratorial glance, as if to say they should chat in private about her daughter’s fear of needles. “Still, I’d like to see Meghan in the office for an EEG and possibly run some more tests, depending on the results
. You have my office number. Call first thing in the morning. We’ll make sure to get Meghan in right away.”
Becky could imagine what Carl was thinking: More doctors. More tests.
“Of course. Thank you,” Becky said. “It’s been a long day. We’ll call in the morning.”
“I’ve had it,” Carl said after Dr. Cohen had departed.
“Not here,” responded Becky.
Carl left in a huff so Becky could help Meghan out of her hospital gown and back into her street clothes.
How can Carl be so cavalier with Meghan’s health? Becky asked herself as she helped her daughter get dressed. Didn’t he want to make sure they turned over every stone, explored all avenues, and examined every possibility? Why wasn’t he willing to do anything and everything in his power so they would not have to endure the unshakable grief and unyielding sorrow of losing another child?
CHAPTER 4
MEGHAN
I could see it in my father’s eyes.
It’s not disappointment, though that’s there, the letdown because he doesn’t have a perfect fifteen-year-old daughter (soon to be sixteen) who is perfectly healthy. I could almost live with that. I knew he missed the rough-and-tumble kid I used to be, a real scrapper.
I’m a soccer player, a battler for the ball. I shove. I push. I elbow and trip my way to that ball—my ball, mine! Knock me down, and I pick myself up by the shin guards, dust myself off, and get back at it again. I’ve always been the girl who could dress up pretty, but who also loved to get muddy, and that’s what I think my dad loved most about me. For a while, before everything changed, I was Daddy’s special girl, his spunky daughter. I was tough, a never-say-never, game-on, up-for-anything kind of daughter.
I was like him—a fighter.
When my dad started his home renovation business, all he had was a dream and a lot of determination to see him through the lean times. He’d built his business from the ground up, pushed to make a better life for himself and for us. More than anybody, more than Mom, he understood that you couldn’t win every time. Sometimes you got beat. That’s why whenever I got beat on the field, nobody was more supportive, more encouraging, than my father. He got that for every peak there’d be a valley. So the look I caught in my father’s eyes wasn’t disappointment, but something else, something far, far more hurtful.
I could tell by the way he looked at me with sadness and sympathy that he’d do anything and everything to make me well again. But there was a deep sense of loss in that look, too. He was sure he’d lost me to her—to my mom. He feared she’d taken over, planted ideas in my head.
They’re so funny, my parents. They thought a closed door was the same as having cotton balls stuffed in my ears. They had no idea how loud they are when they start fighting over me; how their voices rise slowly until hushed talk becomes loud talk. I’ve heard them arguing about the doctors, all the tests I’ve done and specialists I’ve seen, my mom’s obsession with her Facebook group, all of it. He sees that Facebook group as just more people filling her head (and by extension, mine) with nonsense.
Did my dad notice how Mom worked the doctors? Did he see how she gathered personal details about their lives like a squirrel collecting acorns for winter and used them to gain favors? I did. Lord, if it weren’t so sad, it would make me laugh. But the outright flirting, well, that’s the hardest to take. I’ve seen her with some doctors, touching their arms, cocking her head to the side, looking at them like they were the most incredible, smartest, most amazing people on the planet. My mom is gorgeous, so it’s not hard to see how they can fall for her routine. I just can’t believe my dad doesn’t notice—or more likely he doesn’t care.
Maybe there really is something wrong with me. Maybe I do have some strange sickness, maybe a parasite lurking in my bloodstream, living off me, vampire-like. Granted, it’s not nearly so romantic as the vampire from Twilight, but that would be just my luck. Instead of landing the handsome and mysterious Edward Cullen, I’d get some wiggly worm swimming in my veins. But after all the doctors and tests, if there were some wormy thing inside me, it would have been found by now. So, sorry, that’s not it. Test after test, doctor after doctor, it was always the same story: We don’t know what’s the trouble with Meghan.
The only thing obvious was that I was getting sicker and losing weight I couldn’t afford to give up. It’s not like I weighed a ton to begin with. I’m barely a hundred pounds, which puts me in the rare 5 percent range on the doctor’s height and weight chart. But despite what my father thought, I don’t have an eating disorder.
His browser history was like a window into his worries. I’m not purging every meal, or counting how many ribs I can see in the morning, or popping diuretics the way my mom does her Xanax. I’m just small-boned to begin with. (Yeah, I know that’s not a real thing, but people understand what I mean when I say it.) Put more simply, I’m naturally thin, but that doesn’t mean I’m naturally weak. A lot of girls misjudge me on the soccer field as some prissy, fragile thing, but their opinions quickly change after the first shoulder-to-shoulder hit. That’s when they see I’m no pushover. I’m no weakling. I’m not someone they should take lightly.
But that was the girl from before. Now I don’t even play soccer.
Dad drove his Mercedes home in that pukey way, with lots of quick stops and fast accelerations to show his annoyance. It was no surprise to me that Mom and Dad weren’t speaking to each other. The whoosh of the wipers was the only soundtrack as they beat away a light rain. I thought of that look in my father’s eyes, the one I caught in the rearview mirror, and it made me want to cry. I wanted so badly for him to look at me with pity, or sadness, or worry, or fear, or something other than what I knew he was thinking.
It was dark out when we arrived home. Once again, I hadn’t seen the day become night, because I was trapped in a windowless space (not even a room) in the ER. On the surface, our home looks like the kind of nauseating Facebook posts that adults use to make their friends and neighbors feel inadequate. I’ve seen the crap my mom Likes online: gorgeous families all aglow in a dreamy sunset, or perched on manicured lawns in front of a hotel impersonating a house.
I try to tell myself that we live in a McMansion because that’s the kind of thing my father does—he builds big homes; turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. He’s the Candy Man for grown-ups. My dad loves Willy Wonka, the ancient ’70s version, which is the only reason I know that dumb song. Instead of pounds of sweet treats, he leaves behind sparkling new kitchens with gleaming marble countertops, state-of-the-art appliances, and fancy-pants cabinets. Instead of taking the sunrise and sprinkling it with dew, my dad can take a shit-shack and turn it into a castle. That’s where we live, inside a castle that’s big enough for me to have four siblings and still not have to share a bedroom.
I wish I did have brothers and sisters, not only for the company, but also to have someone around to take the focus off me for a change.
Dad pulled the car into the garage, which was so neat and tidy, it looked like we hadn’t fully moved in yet. That was another drawback (or benefit?) to being an only child. There wasn’t a ton of crap (sports stuff, ski stuff, bike stuff, tool stuff, stuff stuff) to clutter up a space even a quarter the size of our garage. We trekked inside in a solemn processional, Dad in front, me in the middle, Mom behind me, her delicate hand perched on my shoulder as though ready to catch me should I faint again. We passed through the mudroom into a kitchen big enough to double as a ballroom.
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” Mom asked.
Of course I wasn’t. The idea of food made me sick to my stomach, but I knew what’d I get if I refused. I’d get that look from Dad, as if he were saying “Of course you’re hungry, but you think you have to say you’re not so you can keep up appearances for your mom.”
In a strange way, I could take it as a compliment that my dad thinks I’m far more crafty and clever than I really am, that I can think ten moves ahead like a chess player just to keep e
veryone fooled.
I compromised and agreed to a cup of Mom’s chicken soup, the only thing I could stomach these days. Even though I had agreed to some food, I could tell my dad wasn’t really convinced I wanted to eat. He knew that after I finished slurping unenthusiastically at the broth, I would send a pile of carrots and chicken down the disposal. It was as though he knew I was doing it to appease him, so he’d think I wasn’t playing any games—which, of course, is a game.
While waiting for the soup, I got my phone and checked out the Likes on a “get well soon” Instagram post that Addy had made, alerting the world that, once again, Meghan Gerard had been in the hospital. I noticed the Likes weren’t as many as when I first got sick. Same as my father, social media had a limit as to how long it would care.
“Need anything?” Dad said before kissing the top of my head.
Yes! I wanted to scream. I need you to pull me into your arms and tell me everything is going to be all right. I need your reassurance that someday soon, I’ll be able to kick a soccer ball around and not feel the ground drop out from under my feet. I need your love and unconditional support. But, most of all, I need you to believe me.
Those were my thoughts, but the only words I managed were: “No thanks, I’m fine.”
“I’m going to go to bed, then,” my dad said, giving me that look again.
As an objective observer, I got his problem. After all this time, there should have been some kind of diagnosis to explain my headaches, muscle weakness, heart palpitations, weight loss, my trouble concentrating, my general malaise—a word my mom uses with pretty much every doctor we see. I should be bedridden in a hospital, but I’m not sick enough to even get admitted. I’m not sick in any measurable way that he could understand. My dad thought if it could be measured, then it could be cut into a recognizable shape, and then, and only then, could it be put into its proper place. But my blood work was fine. My labs were fine. My vitals were fine. Everything about me was fine. But even though my tests said that I was fine, they couldn’t tell how I was actually feeling.