Blueberry Hill: a Sister's Story(12)

I turn to my mother. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thanks,” she says, trying not to appear nervous; but I know better. We have been there a little more than two hours and she has rearranged the contents of her purse three times, folding and refolding her lace-trimmed handkerchief.

I thumb through the pile of magazines, pick up a dog-eared issue of Woman’s Day, and hand it to Mama. “Would you like to look at this?”

“No, thanks,” she says again. “I’ve got to clean out this purse, it’s a mess.”

“Okay.” I replace the magazine, get up, and walk to the window. It’s still raining. The flat cold gray of the sky fades into a darker gray horizon, and I try to push back the thought that it is the type of day to promise tragedy.

“Please, God,” I pray, “don’t let it be Donna.” Before I return to my seat, I say another prayer asking God to spare the old man’s wife also.

As soon as I sit down Mama says, “We’ve been waiting for over two hours, seems like we should’ve heard something by now.” She pulls a bunch of credit cards from her wallet and starts rearranging them. When the Sears card falls to the floor, she turns to me. “Get that, will you? Then go ask if there’s any news.”

“I just did,” I answer.

“That was twenty minutes ago!”

I can see how nervous Mama is, so I do as she asks. The receptionist says the same thing she said last time. “Doctor Craig will be down to see you as soon as he is out of surgery.”

I tell Mama what the nurse said and again ask if she’d like something to read.

“No,” she answers, then flips open her rearranged wallet. “But I could use a new picture of you three girls.” She shows me an empty glassine pocket. “I took out that old photograph of Cousin Bessie. She hasn’t called me in two years, so why should I bother carrying around her picture?”

Before Donna ran away, Mama would look a problem in the eye and go at it. Now she does as she’s done with Bessie’s photograph. She sets it aside, removes it from sight, and tells herself it’s not something worth worrying about. Knowing this, I nod my acceptance. “When I get home, I’ll look through my album and find a picture for you.”

“Just don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

“Okay.”

Mama puts the wallet back in her purse and says, “I need to stretch my legs.”

We get up and walk outside where we can stand under an awning. Searching for words to fill the emptiness, I say, “This weather is miserable.” I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocketbook and light one.

Mama says, “I’ll have one too.”

This astounds me. I have never seen her smoke. Never. I pull the pack out and give her one. She puts the cigarette between her lips, and I touch the flame of my lighter to it.

“I’ve never seen you smoke.”

“I haven’t for years,” she answers, “but I’m real nervous today.”

As I draw a second and third puff of nicotine into my lungs, thoughts of Donna’s labored breathing and raspy voice come to mind. When I can’t rid myself of the image, I snuff out the cigarette. Mama slowly finishes hers. The cigarette is like her rye whiskey; it fills the empty spots of who she used to be.

Another two hours pass before the short, dark-haired doctor comes into the waiting room. He is no longer wearing his operating room scrubs; he has changed into a navy blue business suit. He sits in the chair beside us and speaks in a soft, almost apologetic tone of voice.

“Unfortunately, Donna had a lot more problems than we anticipated,” he says. “We had to do a tracheostomy.”

Mama gasps.

“Do you know what that is?” the doctor asks.

I say, “Yes.”

Mama answers, “No.”

He removes his glasses and looks to Mama’s face. “Donna has quite a bit of scar tissue on her bronchial cords, and it’s restricting her ability to breathe. That, combined with the emphysema, prevents her from getting enough oxygen into her lungs.”

“Donna has emphysema?” I repeat. This is the first I’ve heard of it.

“Severe emphysema,” Doctor Craig replies. “To enable her to breathe we had to bypass that scar tissue, so we made an opening in the front of her throat and inserted a device to keep her airway open.”

“Will she be all right now?” Mama asks.

“She’ll be able to breathe, but not speak.”

I listen and wait. I know what a tracheostomy is, and it seems somehow impossible he can be speaking of my devil-may-care sister. I want to call him a liar, but I only ask, “Is this permanent?”

“It’s difficult to say.” Doctor Craig pauses a moment. “With the tracheostomy she won’t be able to smoke anymore, which will help with the emphysema, and she’ll be able to suction out the congestion in her throat. If the fluid in her lungs clears, there’s a possibility she can eventually have the scar tissue removed and the tracheostomy reversed.”

“If that happens, will she be able to talk again?” I realize this is a dumb question, but it is all I have. I am searching for hope.

To avoid seeing our desperation, Doctor Craig looks down at the glasses in his hand as he speaks. “If we reverse the tracheostomy, Donna will be able to talk in a somewhat normal voice. But,” he says with considerable emphasis on the word, “she’s done a lot of damage to her throat and lungs. At this point I don’t know whether it’s reparable.”