Hope and Other Punch Lines(64)

Baby Hope, my father, and nineteen jihadis walk into a bar….



* * *



   —

   Still no news from Abbi or her parents.





When I open my eyes, my grandmother is sitting next to my bed, and Paula, her aide, is sleeping in what I already think of as my father’s chair. My chest feels like someone cut it open with a knife, which given the circumstances is totally appropriate. My inner elbow, where the IV attaches, throbs, and though I’m buried under blankets, I feel cold.

“Where’s Mom?” I ask. I need to see my mother’s face. Right now. I feel unmoored and confused and I don’t care if wanting my mommy makes me sound like a whiny baby.

“Your parents stepped out for one second. They’re going to be so pissed off. They’ve been waiting for you to wake up for forever,” my grandmother says, and reaches out her hands and grabs mine firmly in her grip. “I don’t know what you’re playing at with this whole hospital thing, but just so you know, I’m the only one who’s allowed to die around here.”

“Grandma,” I say, but then my lids close and I drift off for a minute. I open them again.

“I’m going to say some words that are scary to say, especially right now, but that I still need to say, okay?” she says. “I’ll always be with you, even when I’m not.”

“What?” Where is she going? Why does my mouth feel like I licked the inside of a toilet bowl?

“You know what I think about sometimes? I think about how all the little bits of me that I’m losing will somehow find their way to you. Like they are…what’s the word…tangible. Like they are tangible things that can crawl from my bedroom to yours and so as I become less me, you will become more you, and I will continue to march on within you when I’m not me anymore. You’re going to keep growing. That’s how it’s supposed to be.” I can smell my grandmother, feel the knots of her fingers. Her words add up somehow to a feeling. A swell. “This is life with a capital L. It’s not always pretty,” she says, and she laughs the same laugh I remember from childhood, when we wore steel colanders on our heads while we chopped vegetables from her garden. A memory bubbles up: she always let me use the grown-up knives. “But you already knew that.”

“Grandma?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I’m going to be okay, though, right?” I ask even as I realize it’s unfair to make her promise me something she has no control over, and something she cannot have for herself. And yet, still I ask.

“Of course you are,” she says, and strokes my cheek. “Of course you are.”

And this time I let myself sleep with the comfort of knowing I will again wake.



* * *



—

I don’t know how much time has passed, but my parents sweep into the room, their arms overflowing with flowers. My dad has a bottle of something that looks celebratory tucked into his elbow.

“Abbi!” they scream in unison.

“Hey,” I say, and look around the room. “Where’s grandma?”

“Home.”

“Really? I didn’t hear her leave.”

“Dad bought some carbonated apple cider, because he’s a lunatic and counts chickens before they hatch,” my mom says, and leans over my bed and kisses me all over my face, like she used to when I was a little kid. “The doctor should be in to talk to us any minute.”

“Mom! Stop!”

“Sorry. You smell terrible anyway,” she says, and the smile on her face wobbles and then fixes into shape.

She’s terrified.

As am I.

It turns out there’s an entire ocean between knowing and knowing. It turns out they are different states of being entirely.

I want to stay here, in my cozy before.

“You’re going to be fine,” my dad repeats.

“Let’s wait for the doctor,” mom says. “But either way, Abbi, you’re a fighter.”

If my poor mother weren’t on the verge of a nervous breakdown, I’d roll my eyes. I once held on to a balloon while being carried. That does not make me ready for whatever is coming.

“Don’t roll your eyes at me,” my mom says.

“I didn’t!”

“You did in your head. You have that teenager thing where you think I don’t get you. I get you, Abbi Hope Goldstein,” she says, and plops down next to me on the bed and points her finger right at my chest. “You are a fighter. I didn’t know you were sick. You covered your tracks on that one. But all this stuff with Cat and the girls? You’ve been so tough. I knew you were heartbroken, but you kept right on, no complaints. Of course you should have told us you weren’t well. We are supposed to protect you, not the other way around. After we get you out of this place we’re going to start doing things differently. But don’t for one second think you’re not a fighter. You are the toughest kid I know.”

“Feel better?” my dad asks.

“No,” my mom says. “But I’ve had a bunch of Xanax.”

“I was asking Abbi.”

“That was quite a pep talk,” I say, intentionally rolling my eyes hard so that both of my parents can see. Then a wave of panic hits. Dr. McCuskey is here. Her hair is pulled into a bun that’s precariously secured with a pencil. She better have worn a scrunchie and a hairnet during my surgery.