Home Again

  “Really?” Madelaine said.

  “Of course, I was often talking to a teenage boy with blue hair. But you’ve got to fight the big battles and let the little ones go.”

  Madelaine set the chart back in its sleeve and smiled at the two of them. “Well, I’ve got rounds to make. See you tomorrow.”

  Smiling to herself, she walked out of the room.

  No-shit weeks. It had a certain appeal.

  * * *

  Lina sat in the passenger seat of the cushy Volvo, her arms crossed, her jaw set mutinously. Things were not going well.

  She cast a surreptitious glance at her mother. Madelaine sat as she always did, erect, chin up, eyes on the road, her hands at the invisible ten and two positions on the steering wheel.

  Lina had tried every trick in her arsenal this morning to get to ride her bike to school—she’d screamed at her mother, begged her, stomped out of the kitchen and slammed her bedroom door. She’d refused to eat breakfast and refused to pack a lunch. Heck, she’d even cried.

  None of it had worked.

  It was as if an alien had invaded her mother’s body. Suddenly Madelaine was Dr. Hillyard all the time. Cold, detached, sure of herself. Not like her mother at all.

  Lina didn’t know what to make of it, how to act. It scared her, this turnaround on her mother’s part. For years Lina had prided herself on running the household, on knowing how to wrap her wimpy mother around her finger with ease. All she’d ever had to do was cry—heck, just tear up—and Mom would give her the world. Lina had always been able to stay out too late, come home whenever she wanted, eat whatever she wanted. A tear here or there at the right moment, and Mom turned to jelly.

  Until yesterday.

  Madelaine eased the car up to the curb and shifted into park. The soft hum of the engine filled the interior. She turned. “I’ll be here to pick you up at three-thirty.”

  Lina bristled at the order. This was getting ridiculous, and embarrassing. How was she gonna tell Jett that she couldn’t go to the mall after school? That her mom had to pick her up like she was a baby or something?

  “Mom, it’s not like shoplifting’s a felony. Lighten up. Jett’ll bring me home after we go to the mall.”

  “I’ll pick you up at three-thirty sharp. If you’re not here, I’ll call Mr. Spencer.”

  “And tell him what?” Lina snorted. “You’ve got a felony failure-to-pick-up-at-school situation?’

  “I’ll tell him you ran away.”

  Lina’s jaw dropped. “They’d send me back to detention.”

  “Would they?”

  Lina just stared at her mom, feeling as if she were suddenly falling and there was no one there to catch her. “You’d let them do that to me?”

  “I have no choice, Lina. We’ve got some changes to make, you and I. You know we do.”

  “You want to make changes, Mom? Quit lying to me.” With satisfaction, she saw her mother flinch.

  “You’re going to make everything about him, aren’t you?” she said quietly.

  “Everything is about him. It’s your fault I shoplifted. I wouldn’t have done that if you’d told me my father’s name.”

  “I’ll be here at three-thirty to pick you up.”

  Lina felt a rush of pure, blinding anger. How dare her mother be so calm and matter-of-fact and … and motherly? It made Lina feel off balance, confused. It wasn’t supposed to be this way; she was supposed to get what she wanted by using the old tricks.

  She yanked up her backpack and wrenched open the door. She lurched out of the car and spun around to stare at her mother. “I’ll be home when I feel like it.”

  Madelaine stared at her, so cool and calm that Lina wanted to smack her perfect face. “Then give my regards to Mr. Spencer.”

  “I hate you,” Lina hissed.

  “That’s too bad,” her mother said quietly. “Because I love you.” Then she leaned over and shut the door.

  Lina stood there, so angry she was shaking. She wanted to yell or scream or cry. She wanted to kick something in. But all she could do was watch her mother drive away.

  Madelaine ducked into one of the empty hospital rooms and peered into the bathroom mirror.

  She looked like Sylvester Stallone at the end of the first Rocky.

  She poked at the dark circles under her eyes and frowned. It was too bad Maybelline didn’t make a combat fatigue face makeup. She looked like she hadn’t slept all night—which she hadn’t. This “no shit” parenting was harder than it looked.

  She’d done the right thing with Lina. For once, she’d been a parent.

  And what if Lina ran away? What then, Miss Parent of the Year? The voice was her father’s, booming and authoritative, but the words were her own. It was that worry that had kept her up all night, trying to assuage her guilt in books about tough love and hard choices in parenting, but the experts’ words were cold and dark against plain white pages. No comfort at all.

  She left the bathroom and headed down the familiar white corridor toward Intensive Care. When she reached Angel’s room, she knocked lightly and went inside.

  She couldn’t believe what she saw.

  He was lying there, sucking on a cigarette, then blowing smoke into the air. An open bottle of tequila sat on the bedside table.

  He didn’t even have the common decency to look guilty. Instead he gave her a bleary, cockeyed grin. “Uh-oh, hall patrol.” He reached for the bottle and hit it with his knuckles. It wobbled and crashed sideways, spraying golden liquid everywhere. The sickeningly sweet smell of tequila wafted upward. He stubbed out the cigarette on the bedside table.

  A white-hot flash of anger swept through her. She grabbed the bottle and took it into the bathroom, pouring the remaining alcohol down the sink. The bottle hit the wastebasket with a satisfying thunk.

  She spun around and surged back into the room. “You are the most selfish, self-centered son of a bitch I’ve ever known.”

  “Way to ruin a good party, Doc.”

  She could smell the cigarette smoke, hovering in the room, reminding her with every indrawn breath that Angel was too selfish to change, too weak to really make the decision to live. Even here, in the cold blankness of ICU, with machines hissing and spitting around him, holding his battered heart together with a dozen electric threads, even here he couldn’t find the strength to change. Instead, he’d brought his partying, irresponsible life into the hospital.

  “What in the hell were you trying to do?”

  He laughed, a hacking, breathless sound, a pale shadow of the laugh she remembered. “Die of cancer.”

  Then, very slowly, he turned his head on the pillow and stared up at her through watery eyes. Suddenly he wasn’t smiling anymore. He looked sick and weak and broken. His hair was greasy and uncombed. Two days’ growth of beard stubbled his chin and darkened his upper lip. Even his eyes, those incredible green eyes, looked inestimably tired.

  She’d seen this face before, a thousand times in her career. Sometimes the eyes were blue, sometimes brown, sometimes green, but they were always watery and sad and tired-looking.

  He was dying.

  The anger dissolved as suddenly as it had come. She walked over to the bed and pulled out a chair. “Oh, Angel,” she said softly, shaking her head, releasing a heavy sigh.

  “Don’t do that to me,” he said in a Demerol-slurred voice. “I… don’t…”

  The rattling wheeze of his breathing seemed to suck the words away. She had to scoot closer to hear him. “What is it?”

  He stared at her, and the bleakness in his gaze was almost too much to bear. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  Madelaine saw his fear, his uncertainty, and though she didn’t want to be moved by it, she found herself being drawn to him. She touched his rough, unshaven jaw. “It’s okay to be afraid.”

  “Who said I’m afraid?”

  She smiled gently. “You don’t fool me anymore.”

  He moved a little, immediately winced in pain. Grimacin
g, he dragged the bed’s remote control onto his lap and pushed the button. Click, grind, the bed eased upward. Breathing hard, he stared at Madelaine. “What does that mean?”

  She was surprised by the intimacy of the question. For a second she remembered so much about them, the little things, the tiny moments, the things they’d said to each other, promises they’d made in the dark of the night. Until I met you, Mad, I wanted to die….

  And her answer, so naive and afraid, Don’t say that, Angel, don’t ever say that.

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  She pushed the memories away and stared down at him. “When we were kids, you used to tell me that you wanted to die.”

  There was a long pause, and she didn’t even realize she was waiting for his response until he answered. “That was a long time ago.”

  It struck her suddenly how different they both were, how, over time, the same words could take on such different meanings. As a young girl, his death wish had seemed wildly romantic, a gauntlet that she alone could pick up. But no more; now she saw the words for what they were—selfish and stupid. And a waste, such a waste. “You’re a coward, Angel DeMarco, and you always were.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Go ahead, swear at me. It doesn’t change the truth that you’re afraid to live.”

  Anger flashed in his eyes. The heart monitor beeped a warning. “Quit acting like you know me. You don’t.”

  “I know who you were once, Angel, and frankly, I don’t see much change. You never knew when to compromise, when to really try. What you knew how to do was run. Well, you’ve tried running and drinking and hiding. And you’ve ended up here, right where you began.”

  He stared at her a long, long time, until the anger faded from his eyes and was replaced by a worn resignation.

  Finally he spoke, and when he did his voice was reed-thin. “I don’t know how to change.”

  She felt something in that moment that surprised her, a sudden connection with this man, as if, for the single space of a breath, the past had never died, and she’d never watched him ride out of her life on a brand new Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She remembered in that second the why and how of her love for him, the tiny chinks in his armor that had drawn her in, the bruised vulnerability she’d always seen in his eyes. She thought of how alike they’d once been. “I know how hard it is to really change. But you’re home now, that must mean something. Francis is here, and I know how much he loves you, how ready he’d be to help you. You’re home, Angel. Maybe if you look around, you’ll find a reason to live.”

  He gave a weak smile. “I think it was Thomas Wolfe who said, ‘You can never go home again.’”

  “I don’t know,” she said slowly, meeting his gaze. “Home is part of us. It’s in the scars we have on our knees and elbows, in the memories that surface when we sleep. I don’t think you can ever really leave.”

  He started to respond, but before he could speak, Madelaine’s beeper went off. It was a message from Allenford. She reached immediately for the bedside phone and punched in the four-digit extension.

  Chris picked up on the first ring. “Allenford.”

  “Hi, Chris,” Madelaine said. “What’s going on?”

  “DeMarco. I think we have a heart.”

  Angel had thought he understood fear. He’d known the sweaty palms, the knot in the pit of the stomach that tightened with every breath, the metallic taste on the tongue. Once he’d almost overdosed on drugs, and even that—waking up in the emergency room with a dozen faces peering over him—even that was nothing compared to this.

  Fear was a living, breathing presence inside him, pushing at his skin, seeping from his pores in foul, salty beads of sweat.

  He closed his eyes and knew immediately that it was a mistake. The images were there, waiting in the darkness like macabre specters—the accident that would bring him life, the “donor” who would never open his eyes again, never smile at his wife or hug his children. He saw blood—his, the donor’s, the mingling of the two….

  He twisted slightly on the narrow bed, his hands curled talonlike around the warm metal rails. A groan slipped up his throat and released as a sigh. Slowly he opened his eyes and stared sightlessly ahead, until the white ceiling blurred into the silver fluorescent fixtures.

  He wanted to pray, needed to pray, but it had been too long, and he knew that no one would listen. Oh, he knew he could seek absolution from a priest, from his own brother, in fact, but it was too easy, too pat. He couldn’t believe in a God that was so forgiving. He knew that he deserved to suffer.

  And he was suffering. Sweet Christ, he’d never been so afraid in his life.

  “Angel?”

  He heard Madelaine’s throaty voice, and for a split second he remembered it all, every second they’d been together, every touch they’d shared. The memories brought an aching, bittersweet sense of loss. He wondered suddenly what it would have been like, that road not taken, the life he’d run away from.

  Slowly, hurting, he turned his head to look at her.

  She stood poised in the doorway, one slim, pale hand lingering tentatively on the jamb. As always, she stood perfectly erect, her chin upthrust just a little, her hair combed into a series of honey-brown curls around her face.

  He wanted to smile at her, cockily, as if none of this mattered, and he tried. “Hiya, Doc.”

  “Hello, Angel. Are you ready?”

  He was staring at her so intently that it took a second for her words to register. When they did, they hit with the force of a blow. “Ready?” he whispered, blowing how pathetic he sounded. He was lying there, shaved from chin to ankles, his skin discolored by antiseptic solution, his veins riddled with intravenous needles, his hair covered by a paper cap.

  He was going to die, here and now, with his chest cut open and his heart taking its last feeble beats in another man’s gloved hands.

  Madelaine let the door shut behind her and moved quietly toward his bed, sitting down beside him. “Dr. Allenford is on his way to Tacoma to check out the donor heart.”

  Donor heart.

  The words reverberated through his skull, echoing, echoing. One heart cut out, another sewn in.

  “I don’t know if I can do this, Mad,” he said softly.

  She leaned toward him, and her touch was cool and comforting on his damp cheek. “You never did have much faith in yourself,” she said with a smile that came and went so fast, he wondered if he imagined it.

  He gave a laugh that ended in a rattling cough. “When you’re lying around waiting to die, you tend to think about what your life means.”

  Another smile, softer, longer-lasting. “Don’t tell me you’re getting philosophical.”

  He wanted to smile at her, but there was no smile inside him right now. There was only that yawning fear and the loneliness. “Don’t look so surprised. I almost qualified for ‘Jeopardy’ in 1986. It was the morality category that screwed me.”

  “It would be.”

  He fell serious again. “My life doesn’t mean much, Mad.”

  “Life is what you make it, Angel. Maybe … after the surgery you’ll make a different one.”

  “Life is what you make it,” he parroted, feeling a rush of unexpected bitterness toward her. The bitterness left him, and without it, he felt cold again. “Yeah, you’re right,” he conceded, staring at her, seeing for the first time the tiny lines that hung like commas at the corners of her mouth. Self-consciously she smoothed a nonexistent hair from her forehead, and he noticed that a button was missing from her sleeve.

  It made her look so human, that little tangle of thread on her perfect silk blouse.

  “I shouldn’t have run out on you that way.” He tossed the words out as if they meant nothing, but surprisingly, they did mean something. Even though the apology was pitiful and small and years too late, it felt good to admit to his mistake. He had spent a lifetime running from one bad decision, as if he could change it or outrun it. From a dozen dirty pay phones
in towns he couldn’t remember, he’d called Madelaine and Francis, dialed the numbers and listened to the intermittent ringing. But he’d always hung up before they answered.

  What could he have said to them?

  But still he’d tried, until the numbers he had for them had been disconnected.

  “That was a long time ago, Angel.”

  “Sometimes it feels like aeons. And sometimes it feels like yesterday. Anyway, I know it doesn’t matter, but I wanted you to know. I should have faced Alex with you.”

  She flinched. He watched as color fell from her cheeks, left her face an ashen white.

  He saw the pain in her eyes, and it made him feel like an ass. Of course, she didn’t want to think about that. “Sorry,” he whispered.

  She didn’t move, just sat there, staring at him.

  Her beeper went off, blipping through the tense silence. Absently she reached for it, shut the noise off, and grabbed his phone. Punching in the numbers, she asked for Dr. Allenford. She spoke a few quiet words, then hung up.

  He knew it was bad by the look on her face. “What is it?”

  She covered her eyes with her hand, then slowly, slowly drew her hand away and looked at Angel. “It wasn’t right. The heart wasn’t in good enough shape. I’m sorry.”

  “No surgery?” He tried to draw a good breath, couldn’t, heard himself wheezing. “I—” Before he could get the words out, he felt his heart seize up. Pain erupted in his chest. He tried to breathe, but he couldn’t.

  I’m dying, he thought suddenly, and he knew it was the truth. He reached out blindly.

  Madelaine took hold of his hand, squeezed it hard. Dimly he heard her click a button, heard her yell, Code blue Cardiac ICU 264 west. Stat. Get the cart. Then he felt her hands at his chest, wrenching the cotton gown aside.

  Don’t you die on me, Angel. God damn you, don’t you die on me.

  He heard her voice through the fog in his mind, through the pain shoving through his chest, shredding his muscles. He wanted to answer, but he couldn’t.