Streams of Babel

  "Here, Mom. Watch what you want." I held the remote out to her as she zoomed away from Scott's evil paramedic meddling. He went rooting for a cold pack he'd said he would crack for her headache.

  "I'll watch what you want, Owen."

  "No. I'll watch what you want." I had to force it out, but the major sacrifice got me feeling somewhat in their league of unselfishness.

  "I finally rented Joan of Arc, thinking you'd be doing homework."

  Joan of Arc. A Mom special. A female-superhero-superdeluxo-the-woman-saves-the-day chick flick. Double, triple, quadruple damn. "That's fine, Mom."

  Then, there was a knock at the door, and I lost it. Took the Lord's name in vain, which makes Mom really unhappy. And just to make me feel worse, she said to Scott, "And whoever it is, we have finished lying tonight. I can't stand lying, even to keep my boys out of a party, where surely there is trouble to be found. If you don't want to see somebody, Owen, don't run up to your room and think I'll tell somebody you're not here."

  Mom patted my cheek on the way past, and I could feel her hand was all too warm, now that I was paying attention. I just chucked the envelope back on the table, listening to Scott peal off with the truth to the person at the back door.

  "You don't wanna come in here, Rain. He's in one of his moods. Yeah, one of those watch-TV, don't-touch-me, don't-talk-to-me, I'm-not-home things."

  "Oh, he'll talk to me." Rain's ski jacket rustled as she tried to push past him, and I shut my eyes.

  Rain Steckerman lived kitty-corner to us, and if you were in the mood to see no one, she was about the last person you'd want to have over. Rain was a captain on two of her four sports, was the life of every party, and never had my social breakdowns. She had a car but couldn't drive it half the time because her dad was chronically taking the keys from her for breaking curfew. She didn't do much wrong while she was out, but she just couldn't stand to leave a party until it had fizzled down to the loadies, herself, and whomever she drove.

  Fortunately, she knew about my moods and never busted my stones. I think she was so popular because she didn't know how to pass judgment.

  "Owen?" she shouted in the door. "Please let me in. I won't touch you, I promise. It's an emergency, and this time I really mean it!"

  "Emergency" meant she still didn't have a date to the prom, and it was nearly March.

  "At your own risk," Scott muttered, and she came barreling in as Mom put the video in the machine.

  "Hey, Mrs. E, sorry to bust in when you're sick, but I didn't know where else to come." She threw off her ski jacket and flopped down beside me. Her hair was still wet from swimming, and her cheeks were all red like she'd lost her car keys again and walked it from school.

  "You're going to catch pneumonia," I lectured. "You got individual championships tomorrow, right?"

  "Right."

  "You gonna do us proud?" I asked as she put a hand on her chest, out of breath.

  "It's in the bag. Fifty yard, at any rate. I was losing air on the butterfly, which is a truly frightening experience if your nickname happens to be Iron Lung. Listen to this wheeze."

  She breathed in, and I stuck my head closer to her neck. Definitely a wheeze. "How'd you get sick at a time like this? Danny Hall keeping you up all night?"

  "We had a fight on Monday. He told me I'm domineering, which is so not true. I haven't talked to him since. Can't blame this on him."

  "Well, this time you kept a boyfriend for ... three weeks? Maybe you're getting a little handle on that domineering thing, Rain." I cracked up.

  She balled up her fist at my humor. "Mrs. E, I said I wouldn't touch your son, so don't let me hit him!"

  I put an arm up, just in case she came through.

  "You probably caught it from me," Mom said, and Rain dropped her fist, distracted.

  "This is bad, Mrs. E. Dad won't let me swim if he hears my death rattle. He's got those FBI detective ears, you know? I know I can talk in front of you. You've covered for us before, right?"

  Mom groaned and dropped into the chair with her hand over her eyes.

  Rain turned to Scott. "Dude, I need a miracle drug and a place to lay low until it kicks in. Can you guys help me out?"

  He laughed, cracking the cold pack and holding it up as he moved toward Mom.

  "Does this look like a miracle drug?" He laid it on Mom's forehead and held up his hands, waggling his fingers. "These are just ... normal hands, darling. Take two aspirins and go to bed."

  "I can't go home! All the lights are on, which means my dad's over there. I'll never get past his eagle eyes. And I know I said I wouldn't touch you, Owen, but check this out."

  She took my hand and laid it on her forehead. That's when I realized her red face wasn't from walking home. She was burning up. I made the hatchet sign on my neck and raised my hands helplessly at Scott.

  "We're looking at two medals down the toilet, bro," I pleaded with him. He felt her forehead and then let out a laugh.

  "How well do you know the pope? Know any television evangelists?" But he pointed to Mom's chair at the dinette table while griping about how many people in the neighborhood do this to him. "And it's not like people around here don't have money to go to the doctor. They're all rolling in bucks except us. It's time they can't spare. Nobody has the time to go to the doctor, so they impose on my time."

  "You don't look so busy to me," Rain argued as he pulled his white backpack with the red Saint Ann's Hospital insignia on it from behind the door. He listened to her back through a stethoscope and continued to gripe. "Tell that to the DOA we picked up tonight and the baby I delivered in the ambulance this afternoon."

  She spun to look at him. "Wow, you can deliver a baby already?"

  "Shut up and breathe."

  She wheezed and shut her eyes, like she was praying.

  "It's not in your lungs. You sound like Mom. Bronchitis ... flu of some sort."

  "Whew. I'm swimming, no question. So, you delivered a baby?" She tried again.

  He was over at the sink washing off the digital thermometer and laughing at her. People think when you work on an ambulance squad, all you do is either drive or sit there and tremble.

  "It's easy," he said. "We call it 'playing catch.' You just plant yourself down by mom's knees and you ... catch."

  "Yeah, but ... you look at naked ladies?" She cracked up, and I did, too, watching the disgust bloom on his face. My brother was born old.

  "Children, children..." He stuck the thermometer in Rain's mouth.

  "What about the DOA?" Mom asked. "Anybody we know?"

  "Well, sort of. Since we're not lying anymore tonight, there's a kid involved, lying about her age. I had to leave her alone in the house when we took away the corpse, which was killing me, but hell, I couldn't pick her up and carry her out."

  "What are you saying?" Mom sat up totally straight, holding the cold pack so it wouldn't drop. "How big a lie are we talking about? Three months or five years?"

  Rain stood up beside him, watching the digital reader cross-eyed until it beeped.

  "Hundred and one. It's not a death sentence, but you really shouldn't be swimming tomorrow, Rain."

  "We'll get it down! You got Tylenol?" She handed the thermometer part back to him. "Mrs. E? You got any antibiotics you can spare?"

  "Great. Lies, cover-ups, now drug peddling ... what kind of a mother do you think I am?"

  "The best," Rain assured her, going over to the TV.

  "I'm not giving you any medicine Scott says I shouldn't. Scott, what about this DOA?"

  He was reaching in Mom's medicine cabinet with a finger to his mouth to help him think. "It's not a big lie. Who knows, she might be eighteen; she just looked like she was lying to me. I never miss a detail, ya know? Upperclassman at Trinity Regional. Senior, I think. And that's all I'm telling you. If you think I'm going to inspire you to go flying out of here when you're feeling like this ... I'll tell you tomorrow."

  "No, no, no, no." She moved a few steps toward him. "We
don't leave minors alone in houses after picking up a DOA. What on earth were you thinking?"

  "About the corpse, Ma! That's my job. Cops were there. Rain's dad must have seen the lights on his way home, because he was there, too. Somebody'll work it out. She's got a grandmother coming in from California tomorrow. California, hmm...There's an off-the-top-of-your-head ring to it if you think about it. Probably a lie, too."

  "Give me a name. I'm your mother."

  "No. Beat me. The answer's still no." He was pulling out a pill bottle and he stopped to look at her. "Will you please think of yourself for a moment? Do you want to stay sick forever? Mr. Steckerman will handle it, I'm sure."

  "Well, I'm going to call him and make sure."

  "Tell him I'm here, but don't tell him I'm sick!" Rain begged, curling up on the other end of the couch. She put her feet on me for a moment, stuck out her tongue, and then mercifully pulled them up under herself. I think she missed hearing the "upperclassman at Trinity" part to describe this daughter of the DOA, but I didn't.

  "Bro, just tell me it's not someone we hang with."

  Scott handed Rain a handful of pills, probably aspirin, vitamin C, and whatever penicillin Mom was trying this week.

  All he said to me was "No, definitely not someone you hang with."

  So, I left it at that. Mr. Steckerman would handle it. Scott had a glass of water, but Rain said, "I need a bigger one. You know what? That's what we should all do while we're sitting here. We should each try to drink a quart of water. I can flush anything in twenty-four hours just by drinking, drinking, drinking water."

  "That's probably not a bad idea," Scott said, though back at the spigot, he was grumbling about being a cocktail waitress. Mom had him fill up her Evian bottle under the tap while she called the Steckermans', got the voice mail, and just said, "Alan, please call me back."

  "Huh ... He didn't say he was working tonight," Rain mused, but she didn't get up to leave. Never let it be said she would hang out alone when there was some other option.

  So, we sat there watching Joan of Arc, Rain and I drinking from these huge German beer mugs and Mom nursing an Evian refill like she did every night. Rain whispered every once in a while that we needed to get a water filter because our water tasted like metal. She drifted off to sleep. Mom just got glazed, watching Leelee Sobieski, alias Joan of Arc, take some huge spear through the shoulder that was threatening to make her bleed to death—until Saint Catherine showed up. Scott vacuumed the bedrooms, folded wash on the table, did the dishes.

  I went back and forth between watching Leelee Sobieski's decent blond hair get shorter and more snarly, and Rain's miraculously long blond hair dry. Somehow, even during swimming season, Rain managed to keep it shiny and silky, and it dried around her shoulders like she'd brushed it a hundred times. While she was sleeping, I picked up a strand of it, flicking it this way and that.

  We had never gone out. It probably had to do with us living too close for comfort in anything but the friendly sense. We had that next-door-neighbor, best-buddy, can-I-borrow-your-gym-socks-mine-are-dirty thing going pretty well. About twice a year I'd go over there and collect half my T-shirts off her bedroom floor. The buddy thing was for the best.

  I called her my relationship counselor. I would get a heart attack going for some hot girl. I would realize after a few weeks this hot girl had a vicious streak that didn't sit well with me. Rain would wander over to my house, and I would dump on her, and she would give me fifty ideas for send-off lines that left nobody hurt. That is something you don't take for granted, and you don't want to ruin it by kissing.

  As for Leelee Sobieski, aka Joan of Arc, this was not a chick flick after all. And she was very cool, surrounded by these gnarly soldiers, who were trying to use her to win a war against the English. Finally, the English guys caught her and shoved her in some birdcage to humiliate her, and you got the idea they were going to burn her at the stake.

  I whispered to Mom, "How old was she?"

  "Teenager. Around your age." It took Mom a minute to answer, and when I looked she was squinting a little. The ice pack was in her lap.

  "My age. And all this really happened, Mom?"

  "Yes"

  "And they're going to burn her alive."

  "Yup."

  "That must have hurt."

  I kept watching, remembering Leelee Sobieski had heard the voice of Saint Catherine at the beginning, telling her to be good and she would have a really meaningful life. And yet here she was, a teenager, hung up in a birdcage, about to be burned at the stake.

  I thought, God, what kind of a deal is that? But there was something about her situation that made me first twitch, then grow annoyed, then feel disturbed, and finally, it left me with some blooming revelation. In a strange way, I was jealous.

  To have some belief in your life so meaningful that you would die for it? What would that feel like?

  Then it struck me about all this sports stuff, all these parties, all these girls I decided I liked and then didn't like. It was all a big bore. I was bored, not schizoid.

  I watched this bunch of British priests tie this girl to the stake, and I was feeling really sorry for her, but at the same time I was asking these questions that were, like, coming out of nowhere. God, how come you gave her something so heroic to do with her life? Did she try extra hard, or did you just like her better than me?

  By the time the British lit the flames and they started eating away at Joan of Arc's feet, I definitely decided I was not jealous anymore. I was all How long do you stay conscious while you're turning to London broil?

  I pressed on my eyes with the balls of my hands. "That's perverted. Tell me they're not going to show it."

  "You can look. In fact, watch her face. She's going to look up, and Saint Stephen is going to come down, sweep her off, and prove to her that it was all worth it."

  Mom was slurring a little, and I figured she was tired. Sure enough, the directors did this very cool shot from over Leelee Sobieski's head, like from Saint Stephen's perspective. In the next shot, it was from her perspective, looking up, and coming down from heaven was the shining white light, and in it was a horse and some guy, obviously Saint Stephen, and she said in relief, "Thank you."

  Nobody wants to die young and in a disgusting way. But I was asking myself, Which is better? To have a shelf full of sports trophies that your kids won't even remember to bring down out of the attic? Or to live a life so meaningful that people would make movies about you five hundred years from now?

  The credits were rolling. Mom had turned out the light at some point, and that's why I didn't see her stand up. I switched on the lamp and saw she was putting on her coat.

  "Where are you going at this hour?" I asked.

  "I really wanted to see the ending." She sniffed like her nose was full and sounded like she was slurring worse. "I don't want you to alarm your brother. But go upstairs and tell him very calmly that he needs to drive me to Saint Ann's. This sinus headache is really out of hand. I think ... something's wrong."

  Scott called his unit instead of driving her, just because if my mom asked to be driven to the hospital, it was way serious. They brought in a stretcher, which freaked me out beyond words, despite that she refused to lie down. Her nose had started to bleed.

  Last thing Scott said before he left with them was to Rain. "Don't forget, you got germs. Keep your face out of his." I realized Rain was beside me, rubbing my face with her hand, whispering in the side of my head that everything would be all right.

  THREE

  CORA HOLMAN

  THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2002

  10:31 P.M.

  I SWITCHED ON the living room lamp and stared past the couch, seeing the blood streak only out of the corner of my eye. I really didn't know what had driven me out of bed with these chills.

  My eyes fell on Oma's cordless phone, and shame wafted through me over how little I had used it. Maybe ... twice in the past four years? I couldn't remember if my avoidance of the
phone had been sudden, upon Aleese's arrival, or learned after a few embarrassments. My memory felt clunky, half asleep.

  Maybe I had dreamed the phone was ringing. Maybe I had just wanted it to ring. Maybe Aleese had become a form of company over the years, and without her groans and rambling nonsense, I was feeling new depths of alone.

  I blinked at my watch ... 10:31. Aleese was still alive some four hours ago. I had slept restlessly for three hours.

  Instead of seeing the huge mound of Aleese's laundry on Oma's TV chair, I saw Oma, watching her shows and smoking her cigarette, one leg tucked under her as always. I saw myself at five, playing Barbie at her feet. I wanted badly to remember Oma's and my good times, but I'm snapping Barbie's tight, blue skirt. I like my Barbies to look perfect, but it's hard to snap.

  "Oma, do I really have a mommy?"

  "Are we going to start this again?"

  I don't like the silence that follows Oma's trail of smoke. There's something dark in it, something that seems to say...

  "She doesn't like me."

  "She doesn't know you, Cora."

  "Why doesn't she ever come here to visit me?"

  Silence.

  I get Barbie's suit perfect, but she still looks messy. It's her hair. I start brushing it with my own hairbrush. Long, smooth strokes.

  "When did you see Mommy last?"

  "Two days after Christmas last year. Remember, you stayed with the Blumbergs next door, and they gave you homemade ice cream every night? She was in New York for a three-day layover."

  I don't want to ask why I can't go, too, when she sees my mom. Oma never answers. Barbie's hair is free of knots. I twist it up in a swirl to clip with a bobby pin.

  "Would Mommy like me if I had blond hair?"

  "Come up here." Oma pats her knees. I climb into her lap, despite that she's smoking a cigarette, which makes her cough a bad smell.

  "Now, you know I don't lie to you about anything, Cora. Right?"

  "Oma is not perfect, but Oma never lies." I repeat what I hear often, and I'm thinking Barbie needs a handbag.

  "So, it's like I've said. Your mother doesn't have a lot to say about her daily life. But she's a photographer. She works far away. She's very smart ... too smart. If I'd have had my ten kids, and they were all that smart, I'd be set for life."