All Dressed Up (25 page)

Sarah said to
Emma, “You’ll have to tell me when I should go complain about the
vending machine and start kicking it. What’s the protocol?”

“I’m glad you
appreciate my expertise in this area. Much better for it not to be
in daylight hours. Ideally it needs to happen at three in the
morning.”

After an hour,
Billy went for his ultrasound. More waiting. The technician thought
it looked like appendicitis despite the non-typical early warning
signs, and someone must have made the decision to operate because
the level of treatment and attention stepped up. He was moved to a
bed in the E.R. and they hooked him up to an I.V. line. Fluid and
drugs went in. Mom signed consent forms.

Emma, Sarah
and Mom did more of that door-holding-open stuff about who was
going to sit with him and who was going to go find something to
eat, because it was quite late now. Six o’clock. How had that
happened? Mom called Dad with another update. Emma looked at her
cell phone a couple of times and Sarah knew it was to see if she’d
missed any messages from Charlie. From the look on her face, he
hadn’t called.

The senior
surgeon came and promised the best of care, a bed in the pediatric
unit soon, and surgery after a couple of other more urgent
procedures that were next in line. He prodded at Billy’s stomach as
if it might tell him something different this time. He asked Billy
some questions, and Billy gave polite replies.

They
waited.

“We’ll have a
bed for him soon, but he might end up going for surgery before he
gets there,” said a nurse.

Other patients
lay in other beds. The lights were too bright, bouncing off too
much shiny metal. The place smelled of chemicals and suspect
fluids. Mom told Emma and Sarah to go home, and they didn’t know
whether to obey her, whether she was being generous or the
opposite. Did she want to hog the drama of Billy’s illness for
herself, or did she want to spare her daughters the wait, the
tension, the hospital smell?

“You see, who
do people do this for?” Emma said. The three of them had stepped
into a dead-end corridor. Sarah could see massive machines –
scanners – in an adjacent darkened room. “Billy doesn’t need three
of us. No matter what I might be feeling, he doesn’t need me to
suddenly – “ She stopped.

“Please don’t
do this to yourself now,” Mom said.

“So when
should I do it?” She made an operatic gesture with her hands then
wrapped her arms back across her front.

“Later,” Mom
told her in all seriousness. “Save it for later, when Billy’s
safely through the surgery.”

“I’m not doing
it to myself now, anyhow. I’ve been doing it to myself for years. I
think now is the first time I’m being healthy about it, instead of
completely stuffed up.”

“Oh… no… don’t
say that.” Mom was very uneasy about this. “You’re not. Stuffed up.
You’re wonderful. Both of you.”

After another
half hour, they went. On the way home, Sarah asked Emma, “So will
you go to Brooke’s shower?”

“It would look
bad if I didn’t.”

“It would look
bad if you went and couldn’t manage to pretend that you liked her,
Emma. Lainie likes her and so do I.”

“God, you’re
on Lainie’s side about everything, now, aren’t you? I stole your
nervous breakdown ten years ago, and now you’re stealing my
mother-in-law to pay me back. I gotta tell you, Sarah, neither
nervous breakdowns nor mothers-in-law sell for much on the open
market, so why are we doing it?”

“Because we
don’t know when we’re well off, and we don’t want to be left out.
Other people get to have nervous breakdowns and mothers-in-law so
dammit we want them too!”

“Yeah, sure,
that has to be the reason.”

“I am sooo
going to have that nervous breakdown one day, Emma, and you are
going to cover me for the cost of every airplane ticket and every
wardrobe disaster and every speeding fine and every cent of credit
card interest.”

“Oh, that kind
of nervous breakdown? Well, peachy for you, mine weren’t like
that.”

They were kind
of arguing and hostile, and yet the atmosphere felt easier. There
was a dizzy freedom in spitting some of it out, at last.

“Go to
Brooke’s shower,” Sarah said. “Please? I want you there. You can be
my date.”

“She asked me
to be a bridesmaid and I turned her down.”

“She was only
reciprocating. She didn’t want your bridemaiding any more than you
wanted hers. You can still go to her wedding and her shower.”

“You’d better
hope there’s a stripper, Sar.”

The phone was
ringing when they walked in the door. Mom reported, “He has a bed,
now.” Darkness fell. Dad called. Sarah gave a report from her
perspective. Mom called again and said that Billy was going for
surgery. “I’ll let you know as soon as he’s out.”

“How long
should it take?” Sarah asked Emma.

“Around an
hour? Something like that.”

But they
waited for almost three.

The phone
catapulted their beating hearts toward the ceiling when it actually
came. They each jumped up off the couch, wakened from half-sleep.
It was almost midnight. Sarah got to it first.

“Okay, now,
you mustn’t worry,” Mom said, “Because they promise he’s going to
be fine.”

“Going to be
fine?” Her heart played up again. “You mean he’s not fine now?”

“They had a
complication with the surgery. Some instrument nicked the iliac
vein. It’s big. It brings the blood back from the whole leg. Emma
will know. He was a junior surgeon, not the one who talked to us.
Billy lost a pint of blood internally and they had to make an
emergency incision to go in there and do the repair. They brought a
vascular surgeon in. But they say he’s going to be fine,” she
repeated. “He didn’t need a transfusion.” She sounded a little
pumped, as if the drama had awoken her adrenalin.

Emma had come
closer to listen, alerted by Sarah’s impatient questions. She
grabbed the phone and hit Mom with questions of her own. “Tell me
again from the beginning. What did the vascular surgeon say?
Where’s Billy now?”

“We’ll come
down,” Sarah said. “Tell her.”

Emma told her,
then asked, “Are you going to sue?” She listened to Mom’s reply.
“I’m glad you haven’t thought about it. Don’t do it.” More
listening. “Because I was gearing up to talk you out of it. Oh,
why?” She pressed her lips together and thought for a moment. “I
just – Don’t teach Billy to be someone who dwells on his
grievances, that’s the main reason.” She thought again. “I’m trying
to separate it out from the other side, the doctor side, you know.
The how would I feel if I was the surgeon and it happened to me
side. Trust me, the surgeon feels bad. But the grievances thing is
more important. Don’t teach Billy that’s the way to go.”

When she got
off the phone, Sarah almost yelled at her, “It’s only just happened
and you’re thinking about suing?”

“About not
suing. I wanted to jump in quick before Mom’s thoughts went that
way. I think it’s important. Not to dwell on grievances.”

“Like I’ve
done?”

“Moving on is
stronger.”

“Move on. Just
like that?” Sarah clicked her fingers.

“No, of course
not. Nothing is just like that. But it’s a good goal, Sarah. It’s
not that I think you’ve dwelled on your grievances.”

“Then
what?”

“More that
you’ve let them define you.”

“That could be
true. Are you moving on, Em?”

“I think we
both score points for trying, okay?”

They drove to
the hospital on deserted roads, and by this time Billy was back in
his room in the pediatric unit, heavily medicated, drifting in and
out of sleep. He wore white surgical stockings and a blue patterned
gown with fabric ties in back, and he looked very slight in his
wide bed, with all those lines going in and out. It was one in the
morning.

“Oh, Billy,”
Sarah said. “Oh, Billy Boy.” She kissed his forehead, and so did
Emma, awkwardly, and then they all sat around with nothing to do or
say.

“It’s crazy
for three of us to watch him sleep,” Mom said. “Keep me company a
while, and then go home. This is a sofa bed I’m sitting on, but
it’s only a single. I don’t know if I’ll even fold it down.”

“Is that what
you really want, Mom, for us to go, so you can sit up with him all
night?” Sarah asked.

“Okay, so I’m
selfish.” Mom closed her eyes as if trying to blind herself to her
own sins of love.

“I didn’t know
where else to go,” Charlie told Lainie at her place Wednesday
afternoon. He had two bags and a laptop, first slung over his
shoulder then dumped on the polished hardwood of her front room. “I
didn’t want to bring my stuff to her parents’.”

“It’s okay.
It’s fine. Of course you can stay here.” Lainie touched his
shoulder. “Does she know you’ve come up?”

“Not yet. She
asked me to. She’s left three messages since Monday.”

“You didn’t
text her, or anything?”

“I wanted to
wait until I knew I could get the time, then I just… I didn’t…” He
didn’t want to risk words, Lainie understood. Not text or phone
conversation. Only face to face.

“Are you going
to stay?”

“Didn’t we
just talk about that?”

“No, I mean,
eat something, or take a shower. Unwind.”

“I want to go
see her.”

Sometimes
Lainie felt as if she must have found Charlie rather than given
birth to him. Found him abandoned on her doorstep in a basket, or
as a pup in the woods with his leg bleeding in a trap.

“Call, don’t
you think?” she suggested. “Call the house?”

“I doubt
she’ll be at the house.”

This was when
Lainie found out about Billy.

“…so I’ll head
to the hospital, first.”

“At least have
a soda before you go.”

“You know I
don’t drink soda.”

He didn’t
belong to her the way her own child should. He’d come to her fully
formed, with an ‘Otherness’ about him. A soul like his didn’t
normally blossom in a place like Fort Edward, and you couldn’t
explain it, it was like an orchid pushing its shoots through the
weed-filled cracks of some run-down rental’s concrete steps. If
there had been no other reason – and there were plenty – to propel
herself out of the town, Charlie’s orchid soul would have been
enough. Lainie had practically killed herself in her twenties,
taking care of him and working two jobs, for the sake of that
soul.

“Okay, so have
whatever you do drink,” she said patiently.

He gave her
one of those looks of belated recognition, flicked a mental switch
and on came his humanity, glowing beautifully into life. He could
debate the universe and the human condition for hours, seeing every
angle and every side to the argument, but when it came to things
like love and honor he was implacable and simple and complete.

How did I
manage to make this person? she so often wondered. Where did he
come from?

“Iced water
would be great,” he said. “Or juice.” He followed her into the
kitchen. “Everything okay, Mom? If I’m here for a few days, what do
you need me to do? Clear out the gutters?”

“Just watch TV
with me would be nice.”

He laughed,
lifting his chin, the laugh that said he did know how to appreciate
her, when he remembered. “I’ll take a look at the schedule, see
what’s on.”

“Charlie,
coming up here, responding to her messages, are you hoping – ?”
That you can bring the two of you back together.

He just looked
at her with those all-seeing dark eyes and that steady mouth, and
she knew that he was. He’d never been any good at leaving a task
half-done.

Billy had a
slow recovery from the surgery, and the nurses didn’t get him out
of bed on Tuesday as they’d initially planned. They bombarded him
with antibiotics and heparin injections, and he pressed his pain
medication button way more often than the system would actually
administer a dose. His first heroic trip from bed to chair and back
again took place on Wednesday morning.

Mom wanted him
to drink his clear fluids. “Have some more juice, Billy. Does it
need ice?” She tore herself from his bedside to go to the bathroom
and call Dad, leaving Sarah in charge while Emma returned a message
from Charlie on her cell phone in the Pediatric play area. Charlie
had kept her on tenterhooks for two days and she hadn’t said a
word. She didn’t need to. The obsession with checking her cell
phone said it all for her.

Mom, Emma and
Sarah had all been fighting politely over who most needed a break,
who should go for a meal, who had to drive home to sleep in a real
bed. Now, at almost three on Wednesday afternoon, Emma was the only
one who’d had lunch, and that was only yoghurt and coffee. Sarah
had a vague idea that she might be hungry but the smell of the
hospital dampened her appetite. She picked up Billy’s juice to
offer him another sip, but he shook his head.

And suddenly
he vomited, a violent, greenish-orange gush onto his gown and his
sheet and then into the kidney dish that Sarah whisked beneath his
chin. The first kidney dish filled up. “’Nother dish. ’Nother
dish,” he gasped, and then another huge gush came just as she
lifted the old one aside and put a new empty one in place.

“Oh, Billy, oh
God, Billy…” He spat in a panicky way, hostage to his body’s
rejection of its stomach contents. He settled again, seeming
exhausted and too scared to move. “Is this normal?” Sarah asked his
nurse. She hadn’t really gotten to know any of the nurses yet.
There seemed to be someone different with every shift.

“Could be the
morphine,” the nurse said, as if she wasn’t sure.

Emma must
still be on the phone. Mom came back from the bathroom. “What
happened?” Billy looked white. He hadn’t had anything to eat in two
days. “Oh God,” Mom said, when she heard. “Poor little guy.” She
sat and stroked his forehead and said, “Feeling better?”