“What was I supposed to do? Leave it there to traumatize somebody? You can’t have things alive one day and then dead the next. Definitely not in the PICU. Much better that it went missing.” Okay, so this Jack kid was a mind reader. It was crazy.
“What was his name? The fish that died?”
“Chemo.”
I stared blankly at him.
“Like Finding Chemo?”
I continued to stare.
“Chemotherapy? Finding Nemo?” He waited for me to get the joke. I didn’t. “Well, I thought it was funny until he died. I never told my brother, though. That the fish died.”
“Your brother?”
“Colin. He was actually okay with the name Chemo. It made him laugh.”
“How old is your brother?”
“Seven. Leukemia.”
“Leukemia?” I’d heard of that, but I wasn’t really sure what it was. Jack the mind reader could tell, because he blurted out, “Cancer . . . in his blood cells.22 How about you?”
“Huh?”
“Who are you visiting?”
“My cousin, Riley. She had a stroke.”
“Ah, that explains the AFib and P-SOCKS.” He pointed at the fish.
“You know those things?” Did he get a Monica welcome speech too?
“Yep.”
“T-Cell and Squamous?” I asked. I did not know those things.
“T-Cell is a type of blood cell.23 It’s supposed to help you fight infection. Squamous24 is just a shape of a cancer cell, really.”
“You want a doughnut or something?” My knee-jerk reaction to pediatric cancer was apparently comfort food.
“Nah, I’m good. Doughnuts will kill you, you know. Poison for your body. Lots of chemicals.” He didn’t look like a doughnut eater, actually. Too skinny. He was also incredibly pale for the middle of July.
“You sound like my coach.”
“Soccer?” he guessed.
“I run,” I answered. “I just started last year. I’m pretty good, but not very fast, if that makes sense.”
“Don’t you have to be fast to be good?” We were looking at the fish tank, not each other.
“Not all the time,” I answered. “It’s cross-country—you know, long distance. It’s different from running track. My best friend does it too. She’s the one who convinced me to join.” It felt weird to talk about myself in the middle of everything that was happening, but he sounded like he was interested. “I actually run better at courses with hills. Weird, right?”
“Sounds really . . . hard.”
“Nah, it’s all about endurance,” I explained. It was true, too. I had faster times on hilly courses, even though Marisol is usually a better runner. “I’m supposed to be running all summer, at least three days a week, but, well, it’s not important anymore.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Well, because.” I hesitated. “We’re here. Riley is important now.” And Riley couldn’t run. Or walk or talk or swallow. Or move all of her face.
“Jack?” Monica stuck her head in the doorway. So he did know Monica. “You have time for me this morning?”
“Sure.” He stood up and shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly looking uncomfortable. “See you later, Nora, AFib, P-SOCKS.”
“Hi, Nora!” Monica waved. I waved back.
“See ya, Jack.” I went back to watching the fish. I should have asked which one was T-Cell and which one was Squamous.
* * *
The sickest I’ve ever been in my life was when I had the flu in the fourth grade. I had a 103 fever, and I did nothing for a full two days but sleep and sweat while my parents brought me toast and made me sip water. But on the third day, I suddenly felt a little better, maybe 50 percent myself, and my fever was gone. I sat up and asked for toast. On Riley’s third day in the hospital, her second full day in the PICU, I was hoping for the stroke version of asking for toast. I went right to the sink to wash my hands before I even said hello—my number one responsibility as a Riley team member was not to spread germs.
“Good morning, Nora.” Aunt Maureen smiled tiredly from her permanent spot next to Riley. “Look who’s here, sweetheart.” No response from Riley, or should I say the girl in the bed with the wires and the tubes and the numbers and the beeping who looked like a very bad flu version of Riley, without her voice or personality or funny eyebrow tricks. Like 20 percent Riley.
Beep beep beep.
“Hi, Riley,” I said awkwardly in her direction and then smiled at my aunt, sitting down directly across from her. “My mom said she needs to make a few phone calls and then she is going to come up.”
“Thanks, Nora,” she answered. “How was the drive in today?”
“Not bad,” I answered. “People were flying kites in some kind of park along the water. It was really cool.”
“Sounds pretty,” she answered absentmindedly. “Is it windy out today?”
“I didn’t think so, but the kites were whipping around like crazy.” Aunt Maureen hadn’t been outside since she climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“That’s right, not far from the bridge,” she said, remembering. “I’ve seen them before. It’s a great spot for kites because of the ocean breezes. We’ll have to head over there when you get out of here, Riley.” Riley wasn’t looking at her mother. She seemed to be looking out into the hallway. Something about the angle of her head made the facial paralysis less noticeable.
Beep beep beep.
“Have you ever flown a kite?” Aunt Maureen asked.
I tried to remember a time that I had. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Really? My sister never took you kite flying?”
“Maybe I was too young to remember?” I had absolutely never flown a kite, but I didn’t want to ruin the conversation.
“She should take you now. Well, not now exactly . . .”
“I know what you mean,” I answered, glancing at Riley and then embarrassed that I had glanced at Riley. Yes, tell your cousin she’s the reason you can’t fly a kite.
“Once when I was little, younger than you, a kite actually picked me up off the ground! I was airborne! It was just a split second and I let go of the string, I was so scared!” Her face lit up as she thought about it. “Lost the stupid kite, but I never forgot the feeling!”
“I’d love to be airborne!”
“This summer,” she said optimistically. “Riley and I are going to make sure you fly a kite this summer!”
Beep beep beep.
“Hi, guys! How’s everybody today?” My mother bounced into the room, handing me coffee to hand over to her sister so she could wash her hands.
“Planning a trip to the park to fly kites,” answered Aunt Maureen. “And we’re not leaving until somebody’s airborne!”
She winked at me and rubbed Riley’s arm excitedly. She really was planning a kite outing in her head. She could see past 20 percent Riley. Hear something other than the beep beep beep. See a summer that might still have room for kites.
“Why don’t you grab some breakfast, Nora? Your dad said that you didn’t really eat this morning.” My mother’s hands were sufficiently clean, and the first thing she did was take one of Riley’s in her own. “How are you today, sweetheart? How did you sleep?”
“Bye.” I waved to Riley, shocked to find that she was looking at me and sort of suddenly expected a wave back. But not today. Today was not the day. Twenty percent Riley could almost make eye contact, did not speak, and might or might not be interested in kite flying. She definitely did not want toast.
Beep beep beep.
* * *
My visit done for the day, I headed back to the family room. With one entire wall of the room made of glass, it was easy to see who was in there and who was not. Now that I was on my third day here, I recognized some of the people as they came in. Lots of people fell asleep in here too, mostly by accident. Bags, books, and newspapers sometimes open on their laps. Heads back, mouths open. Everybody in var
ying states of shock, despite the comfort food and the fish tank.
I sat down facing the fish tank again and pulled a pink ottoman toward me with my foot, the screech made by its metal feet against the floor startling a middle-aged man napping in front of the television. He was asleep again before I could even apologize.
I tossed my backpack on the green-blue combo chair next to me, saving it for Jack, in case he showed up again. I pulled my summer homework packet out, and my runner’s log came out with it. Running. Right. I was supposed to be running over the summer. I had managed to keep up a good streak at home, running two to three nonconsecutive days (okay, I ran too often), for thirty to forty minutes. The feelings column always made me laugh, because I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel when I ran. I mean, what was I supposed to “feel” when I was running besides my legs, my breath, and my feet? I had even asked Riley if she wanted to run with me. She laughed out loud. She’s not a runner. Three days later she couldn’t walk or talk, let alone run. I had some feelings about that. I grabbed a green pen, the first one I could find:
“Jeez, how much homework did your school give you? It’s summer!” Jack appeared silently, this time with a cup of black coffee in his hand. He looked slightly less gray than he had earlier.
“This? This isn’t homework. Well, it was, sort of . . . ,” I trailed off, and slid my runner’s/visitor’s log beneath the summer math packet on my lap. “I had a summer essay to do . . . but . . . I did most of it already.” What was I supposed to do with my essay now, give it a horrible surprise ending?
He leaned over for a look at the math. “Decimals?”
“Yeah, I could actually use some help with decimals.” I actually didn’t mind the math. It would give me something to do besides watch the fish and the muted cooking shows.
“Decimals aren’t really my strong point,” he confessed.
“Don’t you have summer homework too?”
“Nope.”
“I thought summer homework was universal. Like fish naming.”
He smiled. “I’m excused . . . because of my brother . . . because of this. . . . You could probably get excused too.”
“I don’t want to be excused. That’s just lazy.” Jack took it like a slap. “Oh gosh, that didn’t come out right,” I backtracked. “I meant for me. You should be excused . . . I’m sorry. How’s Colin?” Now I slid the homework packet beneath the runner’s/visitor’s log, embarrassed.
“Same. Riley?” He was moving on from my faux pas. I couldn’t believe I’d said something so stupid.
“Same.”
“I think I saw her,” he said, sipping his coffee in between bites of a strip of beef jerky.
“But how did you know . . .”
“I kind of keep track of who comes and goes,” he answered. “You guys don’t look anything alike. You’re cousins?”
“Yeah, my mom and her mom are sisters.”
“I guess you guys are close?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I mean we don’t see each every day because I live in Maryland, but, yeah, we’re close. . . .” She has a secret boyfriend she never told me about, and she hit me the night before she had a stroke, but yeah, we’re close.
“You drove up when she got sick? That’s cool. We used to have a lot of family visitors—aunts, uncles, you name it. Then it kind of petered out as things, well, dragged on.” I suddenly realized I hadn’t seen him in the family room with anyone. I was here on my own a lot too, sure, but I hadn’t seen him with any other adult besides Monica. Where were his parents?
But what I said was, “No, we were already here . . . at Coney Island . . . at the amusement park, when it happened.”
“Your cousin had a stroke at the amusement park?” I hadn’t put it in a sentence before. It was a terrible sentence, and even though there was nothing new in it, hearing it out loud was awful. My cousin had a stroke at the amusement park.
“Yeah.” I didn’t offer any details.
“I walk down there sometimes, from here. I went more before it got so hot. In May it was great—and hardly anyone there. But now the sun is brutal.”
I did a quick calculation. “Colin’s been here since May?” Two months was a long time to be in the hospital.
“More or less, yeah. Not always in the PICU.” Hospital lingo.
“Oh.” I thought intensive care was the only place you could be with cancer. He didn’t say anything more about Colin. We weren’t really big on swapping medical details. “Are your mom and dad here too?”
“My dad doesn’t come anymore. And my mom’s at work. No work, no health insurance. You know.” I didn’t know. There were so many people in and out of the family room that I just assumed everybody stopped going to work when bad things happened. Mom and Dad and Aunt Maureen had stopped going to work. I didn’t know some people could and some people couldn’t. There was an awkward silence.
“Have you ever actually seen anybody feed the fish? P-SOCKS looks a little off.” The fish did seem a little wobbly to me.
“He’s blue,” he said, pointing out the obvious. “It’s tough to look healthy when you’re blue.”
“Maybe that’s how Chemo died? Maybe nobody fed him?” I was suddenly concerned that there really wasn’t anybody feeding the fish.
“I don’t know. They run a pretty tight ship around here. I’m fairly confident they make sure the fish get fed. Seems like a no-brainer.”
“Well, if something is going to slip through the cracks, it may as well be the fish.”
He laughed, but only a little. Possibly a tomato-soup laugh.
“What’s that?” He pointed at my lap, where my runner’s log was hanging over the side, threatening to slip to the floor.
I shrugged. “It’s just a stupid thing I did. . . . I was . . . bored.” I hurried to put the runner’s/visitor’s log away, but he stopped me.
“Come on, let me see? Please?” He must have been pretty desperate for something to do.
“Um, sure.”
It didn’t take long for a reaction, but it wasn’t the one I expected.
“They only let you see her once a day? For fifteen minutes?” Jack sounded like he was going to march off to Monica and demand more time for me.
“Well, no. It’s not that, it’s, you know, it’s just kind of hard to see her with all the tubes and stuff.” I was completely flustered. “So we decided that I would just go once a day.”
“Oh. Sounds . . . easier.” Monica was no longer his target, and his face was gaining color rapidly.
“No! Not easier. Monica said I could decide and that it was important for me to, you know, have a choice. . . .” It was Monica’s suggestion, after all. And she was a specialist. “Plus, you know, she can’t even talk and she’s mostly asleep.” The more I said, the worse I sounded.
“ ‘Beep, beep’?” he read from my comments. “Interesting.”
I snatched the runner’s log out of his hands but refused to look at him. “I have homework to do.”
“Yeah,” Jack stood up. “No excuses, right?” I didn’t look up. “See ya later.”
I didn’t see Jack again that afternoon. I guess he hung out with his brother the rest of the day. By lunchtime, I had finished decimals, compared rational numbers, and wrapped up the whole summer’s worth of improper fractions.
When I was done, I did a few casual loops around the floor to see if I could find Jack, but it’s hard to look around without staring into patients’ rooms, and that is just not something you do. Even though we were all there together, in the family room and the elevators and the hallways, sharing small talk and doughnuts and magazines, the patients’ wide-open glass cubes where families sat and slept and cried and waited were the most private of places. They were where you pretended not to see.
* * *
A few hours later my mother and father walked into the family room with an announcement.
“I’m going back to the house with you today.” Apparently it was more of an order
from Aunt Maureen than a decision Mom had made, but for at least one night, Mom was leaving the hospital. I was practically giddy when I slid into the backseat of the car and Mom got in the passenger seat in the front. It was the first normal thing that had happened since they lowered the safety bar on the roller coaster.
“You’re making a big difference, Nora,” Mom told me as soon as her seat belt clicked. “It’s great that you sit with Riley. It helps her more than you can tell. And I know it must be hard. It helps Aunt Maureen, too.” Truth: I had been feeling pretty lousy about my fifteen minutes a day since my conversation with Jack, and Mom exaggerating how much it was helping made me suspicious.
“When will she be . . . you know, better?” When will she sit up and ask for toast? When will she be able to talk? When will the stroke be over? I watched the exit signs glow in the headlights.
“Everything takes time,” she answered, pulling her hair out of its ponytail. And wow, my mom had a serious case of hospital hair. I felt my own greasy hair and then wiped my hands on the seat. I wondered if Mom was going to jump right into a shower when we got back to the house—or if she even cared at all what she looked like. “She’s certainly better than she was four days ago.”
“How do you know? I mean, her vitals25 are always the same. I always check, and they haven’t really changed. What should the numbers be?”
“Her vitals are good. That’s why there’s no change. She’s stable.”
“If she’s stable, then why is she still in intensive care?” What use were the numbers then? Why have them blink at you all day if they didn’t change anything?
“I’m—I’m not sure,” Mom stammered. She shot a look to my dad, and I worried that she was going to change her mind about coming back to the house.
“Actually, it’s the very small things that tell you someone is getting better,” Dad explained. Mom seemed to relax when he took over the conversation. “And then the small things get a little bigger. Today she was awake a bit more, and she pointed at the water pitcher when she was thirsty. Those are good things.”
I thought about what Aunt Mo had said about her brain sparking. “Like sparks?” I also thought about how I hadn’t seen a single spark myself.