A Different Kind of Normal

  I heard my mother scream. I heard Caden yell, “Tate! Oh my God!” I heard Damini say, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”

  Ethan was pounding down the bleachers and sprinting across the gym immediately. I followed him, pushing myself into the aisle and shoving people out of the way as I ran to Tate. I pushed his teammates aside, his coach aside, my blood running cold, my body shaking.

  I knew. I knew right then.

  Tate was not moving, blood pooling beneath his head, a river of blood, streaking here, streaking there. Ethan shouted for an ambulance, then put his hands on Tate’s head, holding it tight, the blood spreading through his fingers.

  I watched horrified, the noise gone, as I saw my Tate, my son, as if I was in a nightmare, the blood flowing out of him, hot and red and sticky . . . all that blood, blood that shouldn’t be there. This was a basketball game, we were on a court, he shouldn’t be bleeding, he shouldn’t be still, his eyes shouldn’t be closed, he shouldn’t be pale and getting more pale by the second. He shouldn’t be twitching. The paramedics shouldn’t be shouting and putting tubes in and an oxygen mask on as Ethan directed them to do.

  Beside me, my mother was making raw screeching noises, Brooke holding her, Caden shouting, “Tate, Tate, my boy, Tate!”

  I was too petrified to scream, I could only clutch Tate’s cold hand, getting colder and colder it seemed, while I keened, rocking back and forth. “Tate, oh Tate. I love you, honey. It’ll all be fine. Oh God. Please. Make everything fine.”

  I heard my mother praying. I heard Caden swearing, I heard Brooke and Damini crying.

  I was in a nightmare of blood, the life draining out of my unconscious, ashen boy.

  I thought of the herbs and spices, and a hard chill balled up in my constricted throat, my whole body trembling. I had been smelling death for months.

  It was him.

  It was for Tate.

  I wanted to die, too.

  “I don’t have comforting news.” Ethan sat across the conference room table from me. He was pale white.

  My mother made a high-pitched, gasping sound. Caden groaned and pulled me closer.

  “No, Ethan, no.” I shook my head at him. “No.”

  Ethan clenched his jaw, his eyes darting to a corner, as if he couldn’t bear to meet my eyes until he brought himself under control. There were other doctors and nurses in the room, a number of whom had been with Tate from the second the ambulance rushed to the hospital, siren blaring, and whisked him into the trauma unit.

  I had collapsed as soon as I climbed out of the ambulance. Caden picked me up and hauled me to a private waiting room, my mother limping behind, crying, propped up by Brooke, her makeup smeared all over her face. The triplets and Damini had been taken by friends of ours to their home.

  “Jaden.” Those brown eyes with a touch of cinnamon found mine again. “Tate is not doing well. When he hit the floor the shunt shifted.”

  “And how is he now? How is he?”

  “Hon—” He stopped himself from calling me honey. “I am sorry, I am sorry to tell you this, but he’s . . . he’s in a coma.”

  A coma!

  A coma! No, he’s a boy. A seventeen-year-old boy. He’s not in a coma!

  “Can’t you, Ethan”—I could hardly speak—“can’t you get him out of the coma?”

  “Yes. But we have to operate. There are complications, there’s been bleeding, his vitals are . . . they’re struggling. He’s struggling.”

  “Then do something! Do something! Fix it!”

  Ethan’s eyes filled with tears.

  I stood up and pounded the table, the crystals in my hair from Tate swinging forward. “Help him! Help him!”

  “Jaden, sit down, let me explain.”

  “I will not sit down.” My voice cracked like broken glass, and I hit the table again, both palms down. “You’re going to operate on him. You’re going to fix this, Ethan.”

  He didn’t say anything for a few long, hanging seconds. “I don’t know if it’s fixable.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know if it’s fixable? You’ll fix it. You love him.” My voice broke as I batted down hysteria. “You love Tate. You know you do.”

  Ethan leaned back in his chair, his face tight, flushed.

  “You love him, you can help him, you can do this, Ethan!”

  “Loving Tate has nothing to do with it, Jaden. He’s in a critical place, I’m sorry.”

  I am not stupid. I saw the expression in Ethan’s eyes. “He’s not going to die.”

  Ethan would not confirm that. He would not confirm that my son wasn’t going to die. I thought I was going to faint. “He’s not going to die, he won’t. Operate on him!”

  “I can’t operate on him.”

  “You can!” I shrieked. “You will.”

  He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Dr. Raminsky will operate. I will assist.”

  Dr. Raminsky was sitting next to him. The only thing that registered was that he had black hair. “No, you’ll do it. I want you! Tate would want you!”

  “I can’t operate because you and I are engaged. Tate will soon be, legally, my son. In my heart he is my son already.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can. You can do it.” I felt my knees going weak, that weakness spreading to my whole body. “You do it, you’ll do it right.”

  “Dr. Raminsky can—”

  “No. No. Not him, you!” Tears rolled down my face and onto the table.

  Ethan came around the table and tried to pull me to him, but I struggled away. In the background I heard my mother’s sobs, Brooke’s hiccupping cries, Caden’s moan of “God help us.”

  “It’s not right, Jaden,” Ethan said, his voice firm, his eyes pleading. “It’s not medically sound. I’m involved with you and with Tate. No one operates on his family members or close friends, and there’s a reason for it, this is it—”

  I yanked off my sparkly engagement ring and banged it onto the table. “We are no longer engaged then! Tate is not your son. He is not your son-to-be. I am not your fiancée. We’re done.” I was hysterical, I knew I was hysterical, but I had lost all control. “Go operate. Help him, help him!”

  Ethan grew completely pale.

  I grabbed him by the lapels of his white coat. “Listen to me, Ethan.” I did not even recognize myself, I did not recognize the wild and rash animal I’d turned into. I had always had Witch Mavis, but this was Witch Mavis multiplied by two, plus raw panic. “I want you to save my son. Save him. If I have to give you up, I’ll do it. This is my son, don’t you get it? Don’t you get it?” I screamed. “Don’t you get it?”

  “I get it.”

  “Good. Then go!” I pushed him in the chest, both hands, hard. I pushed him again, when he didn’t move, tears raining down my cheeks. “I am begging you, Ethan. Go! Go! Please, Ethan!”

  “Jaden—” he said, his voice soft, comforting, but I knew he was hurting, head to foot.

  “Don’t Jaden me!” I pushed him again. “Get in there, damn it!”

  Dr. Raminsky interjected, “Dr. Robbins, may I see you outside for a minute?”

  Ethan pulled me close, hugging me. When he released me, I wobbled, dizziness and despair making me feel ill. Caden leaped up and put me in a chair. I dropped my forehead to the table and banged it. This was my fault. I loved Ethan, I had loved him since I met him, but I should never have gotten involved. Never. Tate had seemed healthy the last couple of years, but I knew that anything, medically speaking, could happen, I’d known it all along. Any emergency could come up at any time, and it had! It was my fault.

  I had blinded myself to this tragic reality because of what I wanted, what was best for me, and now I was depriving my son of one of the best pediatric neurosurgeons in the nation. All for love, for lust and passion.

  I shouldn’t have let him play basketball. I knew it. I’d said yes. And look where we were now! In the emergency room of a hospital arguing about my son getting his head operated on. I l
eft my head on the table, overwhelmed, weakened to nothing.

  Dr. Raminsky and Ethan walked outside, already talking. My mother held me as she trembled and sobbed, as did Caden and Brooke. We were a group of horrendously wrecked people.

  Within three minutes, Ethan was back in the conference room. He was even whiter than before.

  “Jaden,” he said, his voice soft, but I heard the steel running through it. “I’ll operate on Tate.”

  I lifted my head, but I could move no other part of my body. “You will?”

  “Yes. I will.”

  “Thank you. Oh, thank you, Ethan.” I wanted to get up to hug him, but my knees didn’t work; fear had turned them to goo.

  Later I was to learn that Ethan had not acquiesced to operate because I’d thrown a fit and whacked his ring on the table. He agreed to it because Dr. Raminsky, who was highly qualified but not as qualified as Ethan, had told Ethan, point-blank, that he wasn’t sure he was skilled enough for this operation. Was Dr. Raminsky afraid that Tate might die under his hands? Maybe.

  Ethan sat down by me and stared deep into my eyes, so deep that I could see the despair in his, the pessimism, the doubt. “You have to know, as the mother of my patient, that I cannot guarantee you”—he took a deep breath—“I cannot guarantee that I can save him. I am operating because it’s our only hope, his only chance. But it is . . .” He paused and his eyes filled, before he blinked and I saw him willfully, with each ounce of strength and professionalism he had, pull himself together. “This is a last-ditch effort, Jaden. You need to know that going in.”

  I gripped his hands hard. “I know you, Ethan Robbins. I know you, I love you, and I know you’ll save my son, and you and I and Tate will go rafting again.” My voice became high-pitched and tight. “We’ll throw Skittles at each other. We’ll hang out in my greenhouse. We’ll see Tate graduate. We’ll laugh together again. I know it. I know he’s going to live. He will, Ethan.” I burst into dry heaving. “He will live, he will, he will.” Mentally, I was gone, lost, devastated. “He will live.”

  For a brief millisecond, that concrete hard resolve weakened, and I saw the harsh pain on Ethan’s face, but he snapped back, his training kicking in. His shoulders straightened and his eyes started to focus elsewhere, as if he was already in the operating room.

  “We need to operate immediately.”

  He whirled around and left, the other doctors and nurses following him.

  The sheer hell of waiting began.

  The public waiting area of the hospital was jammed. We were hugged and held. People insisted we sit and eat, have something to drink. We couldn’t eat, we couldn’t drink, we could barely breathe. Over the course of several hours, our neighbors and friends came, along with relatives we hadn’t seen in a while. The team was there. Their parents, kids from school. My mother’s friends in Hollywood, many from Foster’s Village, flew up. People prayed, they cried, they held hands.

  Three hours into the operation, my crumbling mother, Caden, Brooke, and I were escorted to a private room with a table and chairs. Dr. Raminsky met us. “We’re trying,” he said, but I saw the defeat in his eyes.

  “Try harder!” I yelled. I burst into yet another round of tears as Caden grabbed me. “Damn it, try harder!”

  “Some things have gone well, some things have not gone well,” Dr. Raminsky said. “It’s going to be awhile.”

  “Then get the things that aren’t going well done better!”

  He patted my arm. He knew a hysterical mother when he saw one. He did not take it personally. “Jaden, you know that Ethan is the best pediatric neurosurgeon. If anyone can save Tate, it’s him.”

  “I know that, I know! Get in there and do it! Help him, please! Please!”

  “It’s an extraordinarily complicated operation. Tate received a critical blow to the head.” His face was tense, white, stressed. “We’ll let you know as soon as we know more. We’re doing our best, and we will not quit on your son, Jaden. Please remember that. We will not quit on your son.”

  “I know you won’t!” I told him, my panic turning to anger, Witch Mavis now out and flying. “I’m not quitting on my son, either! I’ll never quit on him! Never.” I picked up a chair and threw it. I picked up another chair and threw that, too. “I will not quit on Tate! Don’t you dare do it, either!”

  Caden grabbed me.

  I could not throw Caden so we cried together instead, Brooke and my mother wrapped around us.

  19

  At the end of eleven hours, I felt Tate.

  I felt him in my heart. I heard his voice. I had walked outside, by myself, to stand near a fountain that the hospital had designed, undoubtedly, to soothe the rampaging emotions of anyone unfortunate enough to be there. I let myself fall apart and kneeled as near as I could to the water, droplets spraying my face. I held the charms around my neck and prayed for Tate.

  It was pitch-black, the stars white and shiny, the air clear and bone-chillingly cold.

  “Boss Mom.”

  I whipped around at Tate’s voice, but Tate wasn’t there.

  Of course he wasn’t there.

  Tate was in an operating room. His head was cut open. Heads should never be cut open. Never.

  People in white coats with sharp instruments, tubes, suctions, computers, and beeping machines were poking into his head, led by Ethan, my Ethan. He was cutting things and shifting things and trying to heal and trying not to kill my son. He was threading in and out of brain mass that should be left alone your whole, whole life.

  Ethan was trying to save my son. He was trying. Try, Ethan, try! Please, Ethan. Help me. Help us. Help us.

  “Mom.”

  I heard Tate’s voice again. Clearly I was losing my mind. There was no one out here, only the water rushing from the fountain designed to soothe the hearts of the grieving and the petrified.

  I felt Tate’s arm around me. He put his curly-haired head close to mine. There was no blood. There was no coldness, either; he was warm and I felt his warmth. He held me close and I clung to him. “Oh, Tate!”

  This was not the real Tate, I knew that. It couldn’t be. But I sobbed into his shoulder anyhow, believing I would die from pain. “Oh Tate, hang on, Tate.”

  “Boss Mom, it’s okay. I’m good and everything’s okay now.”

  “Tate, honey.” I thought my heart would burst. I thought it would open up and burst.

  “I love you, Boss Mom.”

  I heard those words so clearly, each syllable, the cadence, the lilt of his humor.

  “I love you, Tate,” I said, rasping. “I love you with my whole heart. You can do this. Stay with me, stay with us. Fight!”

  “I’m fighting, Mom. Billy and Bob are up and fighting.” I heard him chuckle. “The same way I fought to understand advanced statistics.”

  “Keep fighting.” I clenched my hand around my cross charm. “Don’t give up. We’re Bruxelles. We don’t quit, you know that!”

  I smelled Tate, the smell of that musky shampoo he used, Skittles, apples, chicken pancakes. “Oh my God, help me,” I cried. “Please help us.”

  “I’m right here, Boss Mom. Soon I’ll be balancing an orange on my head, don’t worry.”

  “I want you right here, with me, with us!” I ran a wobbly hand through my hair, and all the crystals that Tate gave me fell off and into the fountain. “Oh no, oh no . . .” My hands shot into the water and I tried to find them, I tried and tried, the water droplets mixing with my tears, covering my face, my arms, part of my shirt, but the crystals were lost in the bubbles. Lost.

  “I’ll give you new crystals, don’t worry. I’m going for a while, but you’ll see me again. You can make me chicken pancakes. They’re better when you make them. Bye, Boss Mom.”

  “Tate? Tate!”

  Soaked, defeated, the crystals gone, I knew I was alone again. Completely, utterly alone. It was me and the fountain. That was it.

  He was gone.

  There was nothing now. There was no Tate.
r />   I felt it as clearly as I had felt his presence earlier.

  It was only me now. Only me.

  “Tate! Tate!” I screamed, my voice muted by the rush of the fountain. “Come back, Tate, come back, Tate.” I pleaded with the heavens, with that blackened sky, “Come back! Please, Tate! Please God!” I curled up, sobbing. I was dying, too, I was dying from the pain, and from the invading, pervasive guilt. All the times I had smelled cloying, rotting death, the scent of it rising from my herbs and spices . . .

  I had known the threat was there.

  I had smelled death and I had turned away.

  I had known that basketball could be dangerous for Tate. I had known it.

  I had said yes, so he could live the life he wanted.

  And now he would not have a life. Because his stupid mother said yes when she should have said no.

  It was my fault.

  I was responsible.

  I would pay for that irresponsibility for the rest of my life.

  I would pay for that in the loss of Tate.

  I had failed as a mother.

  I was alone. I would always be alone. This loss would never leave me. I would never be happy again without Tate.

  I had heard of this now and then through my patients’ families, the dying, the dead, coming to say good-bye to people who were not present at the death. This was what had happened. He’d come. Tate had said his good-bye.

  A stab of pain lanced straight through my heart like a sword had sliced it in half, and I keeled forward, my forehead on the cement, the water from the fountain splashing my hair, but I didn’t care. I did not care at all. I had no idea how long I was hunched over; time was gone. Tate was gone.

  I heard the door behind me open and I looked up. Two nurses hustled outside, their faces grim, their eyes sad for me. I knew them, but I did not know their names. I pushed the water off my forehead into my hair and rasped, “No, oh no,” then put up my hands, to ward them off, to tell them not to come, I didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to hear the words, leave me alone, don’t say it, go away, please go away . . . not those words.