Chapter Eight

 

Pastor Joel motions me to go after him, so I do, though I'm madder than a hornet at him. I catch up at the elevators, where he's pushing the down button so hard and fast I think he's going to break it.

"Stop it, Travis," I say, yanking his hand away like I might've if it was Logan doing that and he was three. "You want to explain why you went off like that?" What I'm thinking is how it's usually me thrashing out at God like that. It's Travis's job to hold it together in the God department and hearing him yell like that is like the floor dropping out from under me.

"No." He pushed the button again, just to show me he could.

"What is going on with you?" I say, which is a poor way of saying I need him to be strong. I know it's a poor way 'cause he don't even look at me. The elevator doors open and Gloria, Brenda and Janise step out. Travis storms past them, but I'm too taken back by all the sudden appearances. I hesitate just long enough for the doors to close.

Janise leans over and hugs me--one of those long, I'm-so-sorry-for-you hugs. She's the one person in the world that would really mean it when she said, "If I could take your place, I would."

She hands me a bag of cinnamon rolls. "I knew you'd probably be stuck with hospital food, so I brought you breakfast." The smell, which would normally make me drool, leaves my stomach a little sick. In Texas, food is the cure for everything. Everything except this.

"Thanks."

"Is Travis all right?"

"I don't know." I'm still staring at the elevator doors, wondering what's just happened. I shake it off. "Sure, he's fine. It's been a rough morning."

"With Ash?"

"All of it. Being here, not really understanding what's going on. It happened so fast."

I lead them back to the room where Pastor Joel is sitting in the chair that Travis already claimed as his territory. Ashley is still asleep and Pastor Joel has his Bible out and is reading to himself. I share the rolls with him, and we all talk as if Ashley ain't lying right next to us. Gloria has brought plans for the Memorial Day church barbeque, and they discuss that for a few minutes. I listen, but not really. The Ricardos can rent a party-size grill for the burgers and chicken, and the deaconate will man it. We need at least four families to bring coolers to store the ice and cokes. Gloria is making her famous lemonade, and we need to find one or two other women to make sweet tea. The church will provide the meat--Brenda is calling the order in to the market, and someone on the deaconate will pick it up on Friday. Families A-M will bring side dishes, and N-Z will bring deserts. I half-heartedly suggest switching that around, because frankly who enjoys making potato salad all the time more than brownies, but Brenda waves me off and insists it works better when there is consistency. She's a Williamson.

She drones on some more. I'd like to tune out completely. I'd like to not be here. I'd like them to not be here, talking like nothing is changed, like life's going on. To be talking about picnics sitting next to my daughter who might as well be in a coma at this moment is surreal. That's one of those SAT words. It's a good one.

Brenda moves on to the Pro-Life rally that's happening here in Austin next week, and which our church is participating in. A million folks descending on the capital steps to make sure people know it ain't okay to kill babies, or something like that. This has never been my thing. I'm just not that much of an activist, although Travis is pretty vocal, especially for a man. His mama was a single mom and almost aborted him. I think that hits a little close to home for him.

Ashley gets really into it, too. The youth group is pretty active that way, and so she's been planning on walking in it for the last two months. Now, of course, I'm not sure if I'll let her.

Brenda's yapping on and on about things that don't matter at all: details about the busses, and how many kids are going, and what kind of poster board will stand up to the marching, and how hot it's supposed to be. I realize she's talking and talking 'cause she don't know what else to say to me. She's here to help, but there's nothing to do to help. Nothing even Travis and me can do. Some of us ain't that good at just being there for one another. Brenda's one of those folks. Baking and cleaning and making phone calls, sure. But not so much of the just being there.

She's going over the agenda for the day and asks if she can put me down as a chaperone for the youth group bus, if'n we're out of the hospital by then and all. I guess she figures she's got me cornered 'cause who's going to say no to life when their daughter's hanging by a thread. I don't want to admit to her that I've never been comfortable with the way the church is involved in political issues. Seems to me a church should be about God and not so much the government. But it always seemed important to Ashley, so I say yes. I don't add the "if we're out of here" part.

Now she fishes around in her trashy gold bag and pulls out a stack of fundraising flyers and a box of envelopes and hands them to me.

"You've got lots of time here, I figured this would be the perfect job for you. You can stuff the envelopes and put the labels on them while you're sitting here all day. Ashley can even help if she's feeling better." She smiles sweetly, the kind of smile the wolf in grandma's clothes smiled right before he gobbled up Red Riding Hood.

She's talking about where to get the banner printed that the kids will carry in the march downtown when I see Ashley's eyes flutter open. I get up from this tiresome group and sit on the bed beside her.

"Hi, Ash. It's me. How're you feeling?"

The women get quiet for the first time, and suddenly, Pastor Joel senses Ashley's awkwardness and herds the small group out into the hall.

"Why are they all here?"

"Because they care about you."

"I think they're afraid you might not show up for church this week and ruin our family's perfect attendance."

"I'd say that's a certainty."

"What time is it?"

I look at the clock behind her bed. "Ten. You fell asleep after the shot."

"I was so tired. I woke up all sweaty and jittery, and I couldn't keep from shaking all over."

"I know. The nurse said you had a sugar low."

"I felt like all I wanted to do was sleep, but I was shaking so much I couldn't. She gave me a shot." She rubbed her arm. "It really hurt. Are all my shots going to hurt like that?"

She still has the IV in, and the insulin is dripping straight into her arms. She's supposed to get it out later today, and we'll start the shots for every meal. We're both scared. "I hope not, baby."

"I have to pee."

I help her out of bed. She's still shaky in the knees, so I let her lean on me. She drags the IV behind her and shuts me out when she can lean on the sink, instead. I do motherly things, like fluffing her pillows and opening the blinds and pouring the now-lukewarm water from the pitcher on the table into the flowers. When she comes out she waves me off and makes a bold but slow stride towards the bed.

"You want to play a game? Pastor Joel brought a few board games, in case you're bored. Get it? Board games for the bored."

"Ha ha!" She grins, though, so I pull the tray table over as she raises the back of the bed so she's sitting upright. Her eyes are more alert and her face looks newly scrubbed, and I think how hard this must be for her at this age to not be taking care of her looks. We've only recently allowed rouge, and the teensiest bit of mascara and lip-gloss, but she already fits into them like a glove.

I rub my hands together fiendishly, the way I do every time we play a board game, and cackle like a witch. "Okay my pretty, what is your poison today?"

"Apparently it's food." She says this with a broad smile, as though finally she has found the perfect comeback at the perfect time, but it wipes the grin straight off me.

"Don't say that, Ash."

"Why? Gosh, Mom, do I have to feel terminal all the time? If I can't joke about it, I'm going to have a really depressing life."

Because it's true, I think.

She gives me a goofy face, mouth twisted and eyebrows arched, her tongue lolling out.

I force a smile. "Okay, then, Miss Cheerful. What'll it be?"

She looks through the games and picks Monopoly, which promises a good, long diversion. She is the banker, because I can't do math in my head fast enough, and I line the properties up by rainbow color order rather than board order along the foot of the bed.

She picks the shoe. She always picks the shoe. I sort through the rest, less certain. I hate the water so the ship is out. I'm allergic to dogs, and horses scare the bejeebers out of me. The use of the thimble is beyond me. I choose the hat. I put it on my head the way I did when Ashley was young. It still makes her laugh. I'd give all the monopoly money in the world, and all the change in my own account, to hear that every day.

She charges around the board buying up every property she lands on until she's near broke. I only buy the bigger payoffs. She never lands on them, but I'm forking over two's and five's like nobody's business.

About six turns around the board Logan sticks his head in the door. He looks unhappy, which ain't unusual, and nods down the hall. "The church people want to know if everything's all right." This is code for they want to know what's going on. Ashley scrunches her face because she knows the code, too.

"Don't tell them all of it, Mom."

"All of what?"

"You know, the personal stuff." Suddenly she's the self-conscious twelve year-old.

"I'll only tell them about the throwing up and the dragging the IV to the bathroom with your gown flying open in the back. How's that sound?"

She sticks out her tongue at me, and it means something faraway different than when Logan does it.

"Can you do the go round for me," I ask him, nodding at the game.

He shrugs but, God love him, he don't roll his eyes. I kiss Ashley's head, and Logan takes my place in the chair, sizing up the board and his loot with an expressionless face.

In the hall down by the nursing station the ladies are sitting in the waiting room. I can't tell if they're praying or gossiping. Probably a little of both. I don't see Pastor Joel.

Brenda seizes on me. "Is everything all right?"

I stare because I can't believe the words coming out her mouth.

"No, Brenda, they're not all right." Janise steps in and puts her arm around me, more to keep me from lunging than to comfort me. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know why these women bug the heck out of me so much.

"We know this is really hard. What can we do to help?"

Suddenly, I'm tired of all this. I am tired of fighting these women who have driven all this way to be with me. I am tired of trying to make a wall between us when I've been on the other side so often. I look at their faces, and even though I want to see the false sympathy, there ain't nothing there but love. I feel ashamed.

"The doctor gave me lots of information I don't quite get. Maybe you could help me sort it out."

They all immediately jump on that, anxious to do something other than bring gifts we can't eat and plan church socials. I say I need to get all the pamphlets back in the room, and I tell them to meet me at the cafeteria.

When I get back to Ashley's room, I stop short at the door.

Logan's sitting on the bed with Ashley, and they're laughing so hard I see tears in Ashley's eyes. She's bunched up like she's got the stomach pains, and Logan throws out one-liners that make her gasp for breath.

I'm all at once standing at the doorway of Logan's bedroom when they were just young'uns, buried in the dark of night in Logan's bunk beds. Despite me painting a whole room of pink butterflies for Ashley, she still sneaked in every night to sleep with Logan. As I'd head to bed, I'd hear them giggling in the black, trading jokes that revolved around body sounds and stuffing the blankets in their mouths to keep me from hearing. Of course I heard, and I'd stomp in and demand Ashley go back to her room and the laughter to stop, because school was coming early in the morning. She'd slink past me, but in the morning I'd find her back in his room, curled up in the bottom bunk.

One night she stopped going in, and I wished I'd never sent her back.

I haven't seen them pass a word between them for barely a year other than to grumble at each other over the dinner table. I want to be happy they've found each other again. Mostly I'm jealous.

I back out of the room without a sound and return to the nurse's desk where I say I've lost some of the pamphlets Dr. Benton gave me. She flips through a file cabinet and produces another stack like magic.

I sit in an orange plastic chair like my middle school had in their cafeteria, and I go through the motions of explaining diabetes to women with blank looks on their faces. Already, I'm using words they don't know, like I've entered a private club with its own language. I'd be surprised by how easily the new words slip from me but I'm numb, and they're just words.

They stay about an hour, nodding and looking through the papers, asking polite questions like "Can she eat cherry cobbler?" and "How do you know how much insulin to take for a chicken potpie?" They arrange a list of people who will feed the fish until we get home and water the flowers. Since we're all here, there's nothing else to do at home, and they all realize there ain't much else for them to do here. So one makes an excuse to go, and they all follow. One by one they hug me and kiss my cheek and say goodbye.

"We're praying God will heal, Ashley," Brenda says.

"But what if he don't," I say. "Maybe it's not his will to heal her."

I might as well have let loose a string of cuss words for all the shock. "Why would he not?"

I don't know this answer. God knows I'm praying for the answer, because I don't think he plans on healing her. The peace that he isn't going to heal her sits like stone in my stomach. When they leave I'm alone in a cafeteria full of other people who are alone.

 

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In the room, Logan's put away the monopoly game and is sitting in his totally-bored position on the daybed reading a book the size of the New York city phonebook. Ashley is chattering with Travis, who won't make eye contact with me.

"The game's over already?"

"Logan wiped me out in a matter of minutes," she said, her voice all bubbly. "Look what Pastor Joel left me!" On her lap lay dozens of homemade cards. "From the kids at church! The youth group and a bunch of Awana kids got together last night and made them for me." She is so excited she's nearly bursting. She holds a few out, and I take them and look through them. Some are just pictures, the kind Ashley and Logan drew before they realized that nothing they drew looked like what it was supposed to. Some are obviously from the youth group, with scripture verses handwritten in everything from chicken scratch to calligraphy.

"I'd say you look pretty loved," I muse, opening each one and pretending to read and admire them, though I can barely see through my watery eyes.

"Especially Brian Lee." This comes from Logan, who, although he don't even look up, manages to smirk behind the pages of his book.

"Shut up, Lo!" Ashley's cheeks flush, and I'm irrationally relieved to have the two like cats and dogs again.

"Brian Lee made you a card?"

Brian Lee is in the grade above Ashley, which makes him a high schooler, and I've heard her giggle on the phone with her friends about him when she thinks I'm not listening. I suspect he's the one that instigated the interest in lip-gloss.

"The whole youth group did. Not just him." She sticks her tongue out at Logan, who buries himself further in his book. "I'm sure they all had to," she adds lamely.

I hand the cards back to her, and she shuffles them in the pile on her lap and begins to go through them again.

"So," I say, "Pastor Joel brought them by?" I try to sound innocent but Travis knows me well enough, and he suddenly finds some need to wash his hands in the lavatory. He washes for a long time. Ashley murmurs something akin to consent but is now lost to me for conversation.

Ash with her cards, Logan with his book, and Travis avoiding me with his near-to-godliness hands. My entire family is in one room, and we might as well be blind and deaf for all the interaction.

Travis comes out drying his hands on a paper towel and, without looking at me, says, "I talked to Joel. We're good."

This is as much as I'm likely to get from him. I'd bet anything they didn't actually talk. Girls talk. Men nod curtly at each other, slap each other on the back and ask how the Rangers are doing this season.

Still, they'll be some hearty praying at the deacons' meeting tonight with Travis's name attached.

 

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In the afternoon Ashley is officially unhooked from her lifeline of insulin and saline, and Dr. Benton presents us with our very own box of syringes. There are enough to draw all the heroine addicts in Austin to our small room. Logan tries to sneak out, but the good doctor tongue-lashes him into a chair and tells us we all need to know how to do this. He produces an orange and a vial of saline, which he says will neither harm Ashley nor the orange, and proceeds to show us what he assures us will become second-nature.

Pull air into the needle. Put air into the vial. Turn vial upside down and draw medicine into the needle. Pull needle out of vial.

This part is simple, even for me.

He holds the syringe like a dart, and I have a sudden visual image of Logan using them for target practice on our dartboard in the garage. I give him my best "Don't even think of it" look, and he gives me that "what in the world are you talking about" look, and even though we are in a hospital holding needles, this strikes me as so terribly normal I start to laugh. I turn it into a cough and nod for Dr. Benton to go on.

Quick as lightening he stabs the orange and depresses the plunger. Then he hands it to Ashley.

She forgets to fill the syringe with air and has trouble getting the saline out. "It's pressurized," Dr. Benton says as she struggles to pull the plunger back. "There has to be a certain volume in the vial. If you don't put air in first to take the place of the insulin you take out, it gets harder and harder to get the insulin out. Try again."

She does it right the second time and triumphantly holds up the full needle. "Now the orange," he says. She holds it like he showed her, but she's scared of stabbing it too hard, though I'm not sure she's scared of hurting the orange and more likely she's scared of doing this to herself. She places the tip gently on the skin and tried to press it in slowly. The needle bends.

"You gotta do it quick," he says, taking it from her and putting it in a red plastic jar with skull and crossbones on it. "Slow is painful. Fast is fabulous." He winks at her. "Again."

She does it again, and then again, and then once more before she passes it to Travis. Over the next half hour we all manage to mangle a handful of syringes and destroy the orange to a holey pulp and pop Ashley's illusion that we can be her backups if she finds herself unable to poke herself.

When lunch arrives, we're required to calculate the carbs and insulin, and Dr. Benton passes the syringe and the real vial of insulin to Ashley. Something akin to panic flickers but disappears behind her resolve. She takes the needle and draws out the insulin, looking to Dr. Benton who nods his consent, and then she plunges it, eyes closed, into her abdomen.

We're all holding our breaths. Ashley opens her eyes and looks around. "Is that it?"

Dr. Benton laughs. "That's it."

She smiles wide. "It didn't hurt at all."

Dr. Benton moves the tray over her bed. It's no country fried chicken and cornbread, but for the first time in days Ashley looks famished. "Go ahead and eat," he says, handing her the fork. "It's not going to kill you."

He tousles her hair and winks. And she, who blushes at a card from Brian Lee, winks back.

 

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