Whisper Me This(14)

“She fell.”

“Three days ago, the police said.”

I wait for him to contradict the absurdity of this, to clearly and unequivocally tell me that Edna Carlton is full of bull hockey and the police have lost their minds.

But he just swallows and doesn’t answer.

“Dad!”

“She didn’t want to go to the hospital.” His eyes go dark again, and he stares not at me, but past me, out into the night.

It takes Elle and me both to get him out of the car and into the ER reception area. Fortunately, the staff are not only expecting us, but know the story already. We don’t even have time to sit in registration before the doors open and a tech comes out to get us.

Somebody fetches snacks for Elle and me from the staff room. Homemade cookies. Crackers and cheese. A cup of real coffee with half-and-half. I can’t choke down food, but the coffee is a lifesaver.

“I heard your mom is up in ICU,” the tech says, his voice comfortingly matter-of-fact. “If you want to go see her, we’ll start working up Walter here. It will take a bit, and we can call you when we know anything.”

Dad doesn’t seem to even hear. He lies on the exam table where they put him, staring up at the ceiling. His expression is blank. He looks old and fragile, and my heart feels swollen and sick. Feverish.

“I’ll stay with Grandpa,” Elle says.

At the sound of her voice, he turns his head, and the blankness in his eyes dissipates a little. “What are you doing here?” he asks, as he did at the house. As if he’s only just seen her for the first time.

“Waiting,” Elle tells him. I hesitate. She’s only a child, and he’s so terribly lost. Elle makes a shooing gesture at me with her hands, and I step out of the door and head upstairs, leaving pieces of myself behind all the way, like a trail of breadcrumbs.





Chapter Five

A curtain is drawn around my mother’s bed.

At first glance she seems to be sleeping. But I’ve seen her sleep before, and this is different, a terrible absence rather than slumber. She looks smaller than I remember. Her body, always thin, seems insubstantial, barely a bolster-size bump beneath the hospital blanket and sheets. One arm lies on top of the covers. An IV tube connects to the back of her hand. On the inside of her elbow a bruise blossoms, probably from a blood draw. I find myself wanting to cover it. A sleeve. A Band-Aid.

Lacking that, I cover the blemish with my own hand, startled at the heat of her skin.

The room smells like disinfectant. It reminds me of scraped knees and the sting of hydrogen peroxide and my mother’s voice telling me I am brave, I am strong, I can handle this temporary pain.

But I am not brave, and I have never been strong enough to carry the weight of my mother’s ambitions and expectations, to bear the brunt of her obsessive love.

Since my earliest memories, Mom was in control of everything. She ran the house with precision. Calendars, schedules, lists, and more lists. Routine was her religion. When I came home from school, she allowed me a half hour of homemade cookies and milk to sweeten what I came to think of as interrogation about the school day. What did I learn? Who were my friends? What could I do better or smarter tomorrow? This was followed by homework, from first grade on up. If I had no homework, she gave me some.

“You’re smart, Maisey. You have opportunities. But that will get you nowhere without discipline.”

My father came home every day at 5:15. If he was a minute late, she got restless. At two minutes, she was pacing. At 5:20 she’d be looking out windows and standing on the porch. The advent of cell phones was God’s great gift, and she embraced them with fervor. To this day, when my cell phone rings and I answer, I expect to hear her voice demanding, “Where are you? Do you know what time it is?”

“Where are you?” I whisper now, sitting by her bedside. “Do you know what time it is?”

Her breathing is loud in the room, loud enough to cover the whirr of the IV pump. It rasps and rattles in her chest.

A nurse comes in, checks the IV, straightens the sheet over my mother’s thin chest. Her eyes pass over me and away, like I’m wearing an invisibility cloak. I can see that she doesn’t want to engage, but I need information.

“Is this normal? Her breathing? And she feels hot to me.”

My questions hit the nurse right between the shoulder blades. Her body turns to face me, stiff, like it’s all one piece and none of the joints move on their own.

“None of this is normal.” Her jaw is as locked as the rest of her, and the eyes suddenly leveled on me are ice-cold.

I stare back at her, bewildered by her clear hostility. “Can we do anything about it? I mean, should she be on oxygen or something? Is she getting antibiotics?”

“She’s dying,” the nurse says. “Do you really want to prolong the process?”

Her words connect squarely with my solar plexus and knock all the breath out of me. She’s right, of course. The doctor I talked to on the phone yesterday was much kinder and did not use blunt words. But the message was the same.

My mother is leaving me.

The room door opens wider and another nurse comes in. This one is older and heavy with her years, her breasts and hips straining the bounds of her scrubs. She lays a hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “Can you answer the light in 205? I’ve got this.”