My dad sighed. “Well, maybe Maureen—”
“I mean, she’s not even really here,” my mother went on, working herself into a frenzy. “She’s in a hotel half an hour away in the other direction. What exactly is the point?”
“Maybe she just wants to be here—”
“Is it helping Maureen? Isn’t it enough that we’re here? That Nora’s here? I mean, Elayne is here now the same way she was here when Mom was dying. It’s the same thing all over again. . . .”
Dad didn’t answer, because it wasn’t really a conversation. My mom was blowing off steam. Easier now because she had someone to be mad at. I wanted to defend Aunt Elayne and I wanted to tell my mother that I thought she was being a really good sister to Aunt Mo and I wanted to know more about what it was like when my grandmother died. But more than all those things put together, I really wanted Mom to finish her verbal assault on Aunt Elayne. I just couldn’t do it—listening to people’s anger is exhausting—I’d also had enough of trying to figure out what people really meant when they were talking. I did it with Riley every day, and it also felt an awful lot like the triangle conversation with Jack; every time I tried to play, it stopped feeling like a game.
DAY 6
It took an impossible two hours to get to the hospital the next morning because of an accident on the parkway that shut down all but one lane of traffic. This was another reason why Aunt Maureen stayed at the hospital, I finally understood. If she never left, she never had to worry about how or when she was going to get back. I had plenty of time to sketch in the backseat, which I did. I worked on a few Aunt Elaynes, which I didn’t think my mother was going to appreciate—but she was here and she was on the team, whether my mother liked it or not. I finally settled on my third version and redid it onto the page with the rest of the family.
It was another eternity to park the car. The lot was full and we parked even farther away than we had in the rain two days ago—clear on the other side of the main road; we had to cross over six lanes of traffic to get to the hospital. It was a dangerous cross, too, even with the light, because cars were turning off the parkway. Seemed like cars were coming from every direction. It was hard to know where to look, so I held my father’s hand, sketchbook tucked under my arm, and walked when he walked and stopped when he stopped.
When we finally made it to the eighth floor, Aunt Maureen was waiting for us outside Riley’s door. She was beaming. “Ta-da!” she said, sweeping her arm out as if she were welcoming royalty into the room. There were too many of us—we would be over the visiting limit—but Aunt Mo insisted we all come into the room.
Whaaa? Then I saw.
Riley was sitting up in a chair!
My mother bent down to give Riley a hug. “Look at you!” Riley still had her tubes and wires and monitors, but there she was—in a chair! And I realized to my horror that I had never once, in all this time, pictured her any other place but the bed. Riley looked happy, if a little crooked, in the chair. I made a mental note to add a column of sparks.
“How long have you been sitting there?” teased my dad. “And where am I supposed to sit?” He gave her a hug after my mom’s.
“Riley worked so hard this morning,” explained Elayne, looking almost as happy as Aunt Maureen. “Jodi let her stay out of bed a few extra minutes just so you could see!” Despite staying in a hotel in downtown Manhattan, fourteen miles away, Elayne had beaten us to the hospital. We had missed the big reveal, but my aunt had been right on time.
“Jodi?” asked Dad. Jeez, Dad, get a clue. Even I knew who Jodi was.
“That’s me. I’m Riley’s physical therapist. Hi, everybody!” Riley had a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, and even an art therapist.36 Jodi was standing in front of Riley now, adjusting some kind of belt around her. It was a few inches wide and wrapped around Riley’s waist, pinching her gown. This was the first time I had seen her physical therapy in action.
“She’s going to do a lap around the hallway by the end of the week,” Aunt Maureen announced. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?”
Riley gave a thumbs-up sign with her good hand.
“We’ll see,” Jodi enthused. “We will be taking a few steps with a walker pretty soon. I like to get my patients up and out as soon as possible! For now, though, how about we get you back to bed?”
“No,” teased Riley, with a small smile, looking as happy as I had ever seen her.
Jodi knelt in front of Riley on the floor and placed her hands on Riley’s hips to help her scoot her body to the front of the chair. Then she moved Riley’s feet farther apart on the floor. “Um . . . we’re going to need a little more space here, guys. Could we thin out the crowd a bit?”
Neither Mom nor Aunt Elayne moved a muscle, so Dad bit the bullet and offered to stand in the hallway. “I’ll step out. But I’m right here, so I can watch! I call the empty chair when I get back!” Riley smiled a half smile at him. I think she liked that he was teasing her again.
“Any other volunteers?” Jodi insisted. When nobody moved, Aunt Maureen very clearly shot my mom a look. She stepped out.
“We’re going to stand now,” Jodi began. “Now remember, I’m going to help you with your weaker leg by placing my leg against your shin, right? Just like getting off the bed. On the count of three, you push off with your arms as much as you can, and don’t worry, I’ll have my arms around you. Ready? One, two, three . . .” Riley used her good arm to push herself up and leaned into Jodi for support. “Good job!” Jodi chirped. “Now straighten your legs and let’s get you balanced.” Riley was unsteady, and I could tell we were all holding our breath. Riley and Jodi stood like a couple doing a slow dance, even swaying a little. “We’re going to turn now, Riley, so your back is toward the bed,” Jodi now told her. “Remember how we practiced? Shuffle your feet as we turn, slowly, slowly.” Riley was pivoting her body by shuffling her feet, the way you might do in a cramped space. “Great!” Jodi was grinning big-time. Riley was facing us now, standing mostly on her own, although Jodi still had her hands on her shoulders. “Now before you sit back on the bed, make sure you can feel the bed with the back of your legs so you know where you are.” Riley nodded as she continued to shuffle a few inches backward, Jodi keeping her steady. Riley’s face lit up when she felt the bed behind her, and she lowered herself down. We all exhaled when her butt made contact with the bed. I was actually sweating, and I wasn’t doing anything. I couldn’t believe how much work was involved in just moving three feet. Riley wasn’t going to heal herself by resting anymore, like I had with the flu; she was going to heal by working—and working hard. Three feet at a time. One chair at a time. While I stared at her, I couldn’t help but wonder if Jack was watching pieces of Colin fade away while I was watching pieces of Riley come back.
Riley needed help from Jodi to get her weak leg up onto the bed. When she was finally flat, she barely had the energy to pull the blanket over herself. Her breathing was heavy and she was beeping a little faster, but she didn’t conk out. Instead she shuffled her communication boards around until she found what she wanted:
And I swear, we all screamed. Even Mom and Dad in the hallway! Yes, it was a quiet hospital scream, but Riley used the board! Spark! Spark! Spark! Spark spark spark spark!
“Good job!” Aunt Maureen was so excited, she filled Riley’s cup to overflowing, and had to drink some off the top before handing it to Riley, who held the cup herself and sipped. Then she looked at me and pointed.
“No,” said Riley, still pointing.
“I think . . . she means Nora,” said Aunt Elayne, surprisingly.
“More drawings?” Aunt Maureen gestured to the notebook I was holding. Having just spent five minutes watching Riley struggle to stand up and sit down, I didn’t feel like now was the right time to reveal what suddenly felt like a glorified arts and crafts project. Look, everyone, I can draw monkeys and owls! But Riley was looking at me expectantly, so I had no choice. I sat down on the chair that Ri
ley had just been in. It was still warm.
Aunt Maureen reached for the book, slowly turning first one page, and then another.
“Oh, Nora, is this for Riley? For her communication board?” Aunt Maureen blinked away tears. “It’s fantastic!” Then she held up a page. “Look, Elayne, you and the monkey have the same hair!”
“That was an accident!” I said quickly, hoping having monkey hair wasn’t going to set Aunt Elayne off. “Besides, look, yours is curly and the monkey’s is straight!” If she was mad, she didn’t look it. I snuck a peek at Riley to see if I could read anything on her face. Nope. Nothing. Definitely no spark. None that I recognized, anyway.
“Are there more?” asked Aunt Maureen.
“I’m working on a few things,” I said, pulling out a separate notebook where I practiced some of the pictures I wasn’t so sure about. I showed them:
“I love it, sweetheart, thank you. Riley does, too,” Aunt Maureen said just as Dr. Mejia stuck her head in and motioned for my aunt to join her in the hall. The sketchbook was on the tray table in front of Riley now, but she wasn’t looking at it.
“What is this, exactly?” asked Aunt Elayne. “I know, I know, I’m a little slow. . . .”
“Just Riley words, um, I mean words she might want to use.” I had pointed at Riley, like she wasn’t really there. Embarrassed, I looked back down at the french fries and the monkey. I wanted to string them all together and give them to Riley. These are yours!
Aunt Elayne turned to a page where I had carefully traced Riley’s drawing:
Beside it I had left a blank box.
“What’s the wolf for?” asked Aunt Elayne. “Is it for: ‘Do you need anything?’ Maybe an extra pillow . . . or a wolf?”
“Can you ask the nurse for an extra wolf?” she went on.
“I smell wolf. Check under the bed!” I realized that Aunt Elayne might be the funniest Sullivan sister.
“Walt.” It was Riley. It didn’t really sound like a real word, but it felt like Riley was trying to say something specific. I smiled at her, but it was a tomato-soup smile. I’m pretending that you make sense, Riley. That I know what you mean.
“What’s the extra box for?” Aunt Elayne asked, either oblivious to the new sound or ignoring it.
“It’s for Riley,” I said. “In case she wants to add something.”
“Oh,” she said. There it was—the verbal cringe. She looked at Riley and then smiled at me with her own 100 percent tomato-soup smile. “Maybe when she’s feeling a little better.” She shifted around uncomfortably all of a sudden. “God, I hate hospitals.”
“See.” Riley. She put her good hand up to her face. Wait . . . See! “See” was a real word! Aunt Elayne stopped shuffling. We looked at each other, eyes wide, waiting for more.
“Sssseee,” said Riley. “Ssseeee.” She was leaning forward, trying to push herself up off the pillow. I think she was trying to get out of bed. I guess this was what agitated looked like.
“Do you want to see the pictures, honey? Do you want to point to something?” Aunt Elayne glanced at me. “Go get Maureen. She’s better at this.” I stuck my head into the hallway and spotted Aunt Maureen a few doors down. Dr. Mejia was gone and now Aunt Mo was talking to my parents. I motioned to them frantically. “Riley’s trying to do something.”
“See,” Riley said softly, as her mother rushed into the room, my parents right behind her, no matter what the visiting rule was. She was sitting up as best she could, leaning back on her right arm for support. She was upset. She fell back down to the pillow and brought her hand to her face again.
“See what?” Aunt Maureen asked calmly, trying to follow Riley’s eyes around the room to pinpoint what she was trying to say. “See? Aunt Elayne?”
My aunt Elayne suddenly gasped. “Oh my God, she can’t see! Is she telling us she can’t see? Has she gone blind?!!”
My mother made a move toward Aunt Elayne, but my dad pulled her back.
“So help me, Elayne . . . ,” Aunt Maureen muttered. She held out her hand, letting us all know to keep back.
Riley shook her head again, this time very slowly, like she was losing patience. Her good hand was balled up in a tight fist. There was no doubt that she understood what everyone was saying. And it was very, very clear that she had something important to say.
“Can you see me?” Really, Aunt Elayne???
“See, see, see.” Calmer now.
“Okay, okay, I think she’s telling us she can see,” said Elayne. “Thank goodness. Thank goodness. You can see, sweetheart. You can see!” I thought she was joking. She wasn’t.
“She can see just fine!” Aunt Maureen snapped. Her first real flash of anger since this whole thing started. “She can see just fine and she can also understand you, so stop with the theatrics!”
“All right, I got it already!!” Elayne snapped back.
As their voices rose, Riley seemed to hone in on them. She was looking from one to the other like she was watching a Ping-Pong tournament. So was I! It was nothing new to watch Mom and Aunt Elayne bicker. It was something else to see Aunt Maureen involved. And Aunt Mo clearly had a hyper Riley radar; she seemed to sense her daughter’s surprise, because she turned from Elayne.
“You’re okay, Riley. Mommy’s here,” cooed Aunt Maureen, switching back to her caretaker voice. The anger and frustration evaporated. How did she do that?
“See-e-e,” Riley repeated. She turned her head, slowly, slowly on the pillow until she was looking straight at me. Then she very deliberately pointed at me.
“Are you saying ‘she’?” said Aunt Mo. “Is that it, sweetheart? She who? She, Nora?”
“See,” she said again, nodding, pointing. Aunt Mo tried to put a communication board in her hand, but Riley pushed it away.
“Maybe you should get some rest, honey,” said Aunt Maureen, pulling the blanket up under Riley’s chin. Riley laid her head back down on the pillow but kept her eyes on me. She closed them for a second. I thought she was going to sleep. Then she opened them suddenly and stared right at me. Her eyes flashed. She was telling me something. “See,” she said. She pointed at me with her good hand.
And then I knew.
I knew exactly what she was trying to say, in front of everybody. She was trying to say, See what you did to me.
* * *
36 The road to medical abbreviations is tricky! Occupational therapists are often referred to as OTs and physical therapists as PTs, but speech therapists are not referred to as STs, nor are art therapists referred to as ATs.
DAY 7
Archie’s breath was in my face. It was just about my least favorite way to wake up, but it was actually slightly better than the blare of Riley’s alarm clock. I brushed my teeth, splashed water on my face, and went downstairs, Archie at my heels.
My parents were at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.
“Hi, honey.” Mom had already set a place for me to eat breakfast. Froot Loops on the table.
The house was so quiet. “What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost ten thirty.” Mom smiled—I think she might have actually slept late today too. I put the bowl on the table along with a banana. I was glad we were running late; that meant less time at the hospital. I know Riley’s angry face. Riley had been angry when she pointed—something about those drawings had made her angry. Was it horrible to put singing and dancing and drawing? Three things she definitely could not do right now? Or was it the very simple fact that I was the reason she couldn’t do any of those things?
“Sit down and eat, honey,” said Dad. “No hospital today.” I stiffened. No hospital?
“Why not?” I asked in alarm.
“Sit down, Nora.” Mom looked so serious. “We thought it would be a good idea for you to take a break for a day.” Stay home?
My stomach lurched. “Because Riley’s mad at me?”
“What? No. Why would she be mad at you?” Mom put down her coffee cup.
“I don’t know, she
just seemed mad yesterday, that’s all.”
“Honey,” said Dad, “I’m going to take the train back to Maryland today and you and your mom are going to stay here.”
“What? You’re going home?! That’s not fair!” I jumped out of my seat, slamming my palms on the table so hard the bowls jumped.
“I can’t take any more time off, Nora,” explained Dad. “I have to get back to work.” He motioned for me to sit.
“Listen, honey,” Mom began, “Riley is doing much better, but she still has a long way to go. . . . You and I . . . we . . . need to be here.”
“Why?”As a punishment? To make me see what I had done? After Riley had glared and pointed at me, I had taken off for the family room again, this time to watch a baseball game in silence. I fell asleep in there too. It was really the only way to escape—fall asleep in the family room and people left you alone. Then I pretended to sleep in the car on the drive home and went straight upstairs after walking Archie. It’s not that I blamed Riley for hating me; I didn’t. It’s just that I didn’t have any defense. She was right—I had done this to her.
“We have to stay and help out, and Dad will be at work all day,” Mom was explaining.
“He can go to work and I’ll stay home,” I pleaded. “I’m not helping here. You know it’s true.” I looked to my father for support, but he left the room, leaving Mom to handle the argument.
“Honey, you can’t stay home by yourself all day for the rest of the summer. And you are helping here, more than you know. It’s important for Riley to have you here—she doesn’t want to be surrounded by grown-ups and doctors and nurses all day. Trust me. And she’s coming home soon; your aunt is going to need you even more.”