Have You Found Her (32 page)

“God.” Bill shook his head over the onion he was chopping. “Poor Valentina Jesus Colón.”

Yeah, poor everybody. “Poor Maria, is who’s poor,” I said. “She’s all alone on Sam duty next week, while you and I go play in the ocean.”

“Well, we’ll send her a postcard,” said Bill. “‘Wish you guys were here! Not!’”

I biffed him in the shoulder. “Meanie.”

“Sorry. I just can’t believe I’m going to have you all to myself for a week. It’s been a while.”

Of course, the next day was a down day for Sam. Not as bad as the day when the monitors went flat—she was fully conscious, her eyes flashing with anger as she squeezed her arms across her chest—but she was feverish and cranky, she had no appetite and fierce pain in her abdomen and back.

“What’s going on?” I asked, arriving at her room to find her glowering in the dark.

“I feel like hell. And I’m sick of it. And I wish these fucking doctors could do something for me, but they can’t, because they’re all a bunch of idiots.”

“What happened?” I put my bag down, dropped into the familiar bedside chair.

“What do you mean, what happened? I got totally screwed! First I got a false negative last year, and I’m walking around thinking I’m fine—good thing I didn’t have sex with anybody, huh? And meanwhile I keep getting real sick, and it took, like, sixteen doctors to notice, oh, maybe we should test her again! And then I find
this
out, and it’s like they
still
can’t even do anything for me! I mean, look at my eye, why’d they even bother doing all that stuff to it? I can’t even barely see out of it anymore! All they keep doing is tests, and it sucks. I’m sick of it. I just want them to switch me to oral meds, so I can get out of here.”

Meanwhile, her temperature was over a hundred, and the lunch tray on her table was untouched. The nurse came in with a new bag of antibiotics, and Sam glared at her the whole time.

“It’s got to be frustrating,” I said, trying to empathize. “They keep telling you conflicting things. I mean, are they really going to send you home with less than twenty T cells?”

She turned her glare toward me. “Why not? That’s where I want to be. I don’t want to be here anymore. However long I got left, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life like this. I want to be outside; I barely got outside at all this summer. And now it’s almost October.” She leaned forward, frowning hard, hand on her belly. “This just sucks so bad.”

I conferred with Maria by phone from the elevated-subway platform, waiting for my train downtown. “What the hell are we going to do if they really do discharge her?” I asked. “Go back to the barbershop Realtor and get her some crappy room, where they can eventually find her dead? This is crazy. This is the second time in three months she’s been this sick. She can’t go ‘home.’ I gotta talk to this Dr. F.; we’ve gotta get some answers.”

“I agree.” Maria’s voice was quick and tense; she was catching a few minutes between rehab patients before she ran out to see Sam. “I mean, I can see she’s gotten a little bit better than she was two weeks ago, but she’s still…I agree. It doesn’t make sense for them to send her home. Maybe I can get some answers while you’re away.”

The lights flashed as the train approached the station; I heard the shriek of metal brakes against metal rails. God, I was sick of this subway ride, of the hospital, of the whole rotten routine. “I hate to leave you alone at a time like this.”

Maria scoffed, though I could tell she hated it, too. “Oh, it’s as good a time as any. And Sam’s adamant about you going. She told me so, more than once. She said, ‘If Janice tells you she’s not going on her honeymoon, you have to get her to go.’”

Once again, I was touched by the selflessness of our little girl. “Well, I’ll be thinking of you guys. And I’ll check in as often as I can. Listen, the train’s here. Good luck with her tonight—she’s moody. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“All right, take care.”

I spent the ride home brooding. They couldn’t release Sam; they just couldn’t. She needed round-the-clock care, and she couldn’t get it from me. It wasn’t just the medical inadvisability of sending her home that bothered me—though of course that bothered me, enough to inspire several impassioned rants on the state of health care in our country, where they’ll drag you out of the hospital and roll you from a sheet into the gutter if your Medicaid runs out—it was the idea of Sam leaving the hospital, trying to live a normal life, getting a job walking dogs when she wasn’t too weak, applying for school. It seemed like a cruel joke.
Sure, Sam, let’s sign you a lease. Hell, let’s buy you some furniture! What classes do you want to take your first semester in college? Oh, I’m sorry. You dropped dead!

I scolded myself. Why was I so eager to forecast her death? It was like I wanted her to hurry up and die, like I was waiting like a vulture for it to happen, already. That’s what it all felt like: waiting. I’d said as much to Bill that week—“I don’t know. Part of me feels like, if it’s going to happen…”
Let it happen already.
Which was awful. An unforgivable way to feel. And yet I wanted to know, how much longer was I going to have to do this? How many more days would I spend on that subway, at the hospital; how many phone calls would I get—
She’s bad today, this might be it?
Would we cancel the trip to Disney in December because I’d be at her bedside, watching another spinal tap; would we celebrate her twenty-first birthday in April in an oxygen tent? Would she live a whole year—could I go on like this for another
year
?

I couldn’t think that way. Every day with her was a gift. I would have the rest of my life to live without her. Right now, I had to be grateful for the time we had. Right now, I had to celebrate her life, to pack in the joy and fun and silliness she never had as a kid, to read her children’s books and praise her drawings, to make her feel safe and loved. I had to soak up every word she said, every inflection and every gesture, and record them all, so when she was gone, I could remember her, and she’d continue to live. Right now, I had to be there for her.

Or, right after the honeymoon, anyway.

That Saturday morning I popped a Valium and strapped myself into the seat next to Bill’s on an airplane bound for Bermuda. Bill held my hand as we took off, and—remember how loud I screamed on the Zipper?—I managed not to scream. But my terror of flying was still strong enough to chew through whatever soporifics I threw in its path; by the time we landed, three hours later, I was completely, mercilessly sober.

“We’re here!” Bill cheered, relieved of the manacle of my clutching hand.

“God, this is
gorgeous
.” And I thought the sky was blue in New York. That wasn’t a sky, that was a sliver—
this
was a sky. It surrounded you in three dimensions, the florid breeze wafting over you, through you.

The resort was beautiful, the bungalow room enormous. We opened the sliding door to the patio, and the birds sang a welcome.
Greetings, Mr. and Mrs. Scurry!
said the brochure on the bedspread.

“Oh my god,” I said to Bill, pointing at it. “I think your
mom
’s here.”

Soon we were splashing in the ocean in the bright afternoon sun, the sand glowing pink on the shore. We were lying together in lounge chairs, wrapped in plush towels, awaiting the arrival of frosty drinks. We were showering, dressing for dinner, making eyes at each other across a linen tablecloth. Walking along the water’s edge, as silver and slippery as mercury in the moonlight.

The week passed far too quickly. We rose late and ate enormous breakfasts, smuggling lox from the buffet for the posse of stray cats that prowled the resort’s grounds; then we went swimming or snorkeling or sightseeing for the rest of the day, eating enormous lunches and dinners and desserts. Evenings, we sat on the beach and watched the sunset, talking about all the things we still planned to do: climb the lighthouse, go to the caves, swim with dolphins.

I called Sam’s hospital room, interrupting her afternoon cartoons. “I been doing real good,” she reported, her voice perky and high. “They’re saying they might move me to a recovery hospital in Westchester next week. It’s, like, a kids’ hospital again, but I don’t care, I’m used to it. And it’s more flexible than a regular hospital—you don’t have to stay in bed all day if you feel all right, they have activities and physical therapy and stuff. So they’re saying I’d be there for a few weeks, and then they’d see if I was doing good enough to go home.”

“That’s great!” I cheered. “Where in Westchester?”

“Well,” she said, a little hesitant, “that’s the only thing. It’ll be good for Maria, ’cause it’s close to Larchmont, but it’d be a little harder for you to come visit. I forget the name of the place; I’ll tell you when you get back.”

“Okay.”
Huh.
I couldn’t help but think, if they moved her to Westchester, I’d have an excuse to visit less often—not only would she be doing better, by the doctors’ estimation, she’d also be farther away. There was no way I could make it to Westchester every evening; no one could expect me to. “Hey, I’m so glad you’re doing so well. This is great news.”

“Yeah, I been a lot better. And me and Maria have been having a good time. Remember that night nurse I hated, the one who was a real bitch to me? Well, she was on days last week, and I started, like, fucking with the heart monitor. I made the leads real loose so it kept going flat, and she kept running in, like, ‘What’s happening? Why is your heart stopping?’ It was so funny.”

I remembered my own experience, watching the lines on her monitor flatten. “Hilarious,” I said, sarcastic. “Listen, those guys are there to help you. Don’t fuck with them, okay?”

I could picture her hanging her head with her naughty grin. “I know, I know.” She changed the subject. “So how’s Bermuda? Are you having a good time?”

“It’s awesome,” I reported. “It’s so beautiful, I can’t stand it. And I think we’re getting ready for another swim, so I’m going to let you go. Say hi to Maria for me, and I’ll give you a call in a day or two to check up on you, okay?”

“Okay.” Her voice went sad for a second, then perked back up. “And hey, thanks for calling. It means a lot to me.”

I smiled, my heart full. “I love you,” I told her.

“Love you, too,” she said. “Bye.”

I hung up the phone, slid open the patio door, and found Bill a few yards away, sitting on the edge of a hammock, offering purloined turkey scraps to a ragged-eared orange-and-white stray.
Pss pss pss,
he said, as the little cat reached out to gobble a scrap from his hand. I approached slowly, and the cat swiveled around, prepared to flee, but Bill produced another scrap.
Pss pss pss
. The cat stayed.

I beamed at my beautiful partner, and he looked up at me over the cat’s Creamsicle head, grinning.

“Everything’s great,” I told him. “What now?”

Chapter Fourteen

Revelations

         
W
e unlocked our apartment door that Sunday night, and all three cats ran to greet us and sniff our luggage. Bill flipped through the bills while I listened to the messages on the answering machine—our catsitter, welcoming us home; my folks, doing the same. Maria’s perky, familiar voice: “It’s me. Just wanted to see if you’re back, catch you up to speed.”

“Back to work,” noted Bill.

I called Maria back the next morning and caught her between clients.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed. “Oh, thank god. It’s been a hell of a week.”

“Really?” I asked, distressed. “I thought she was doing better.”

I heard Maria exhale hard, or maybe she was smoking again—she’d quit for a while, but recently she’d confessed to cadging a cigarette here and there from a work buddy. “Physically, maybe, but psychologically, I think it’s started to sink in, what’s happening with her.”

“She’s starting to confront her mortality.”

“You could say that.” Maria took in a breath, and I could tell she was definitely smoking. “She spent most of last week in a suicidal rage, telling me she didn’t want to go like this, and it isn’t fair, and she’s afraid of what’s going to happen after she dies—she goes, ‘What if hell is just the worst parts of your life, over and over?’ She’s really freaked out about dying. And I’ve got to say, so am I. You know, I signed up for this class at school called ‘Grief and Grieving,’ and let me tell you, Janice, I do not know what I’m going to do when this kid goes. I’ve been walking around like I’m all fine and dandy, got everything under control, but I
know
I am not going to be able to handle losing her. I’m going to fall apart.”

Scary to hear Maria say it, in her matter-of-fact way—
She’s going to die, and it’s probably going to kill me, too.
Maria may have been younger than I, but ever since Jodi had had to back away, I’d still counted on her to be the primary adult in the situation, the sober professional with all the clinical experience. If Maria—tough, capable, pragmatic Maria—was going to fall apart, what was going to happen to me? “I know. Me too.”

But for the meantime, the prognosis was okay—Sam was en route to the rehab hospital in Westchester, where she’d have teenage roommates, and arts and crafts, and a therapist to help her deal with what she was going through. The place had a good reputation, Maria told me. “And as for afterward, if she does recover enough for them to release her, I think we might have a short-term plan—I’m thinking of letting her stay with me for a few weeks, until I go away for the holidays, and then we’ll see where we go from there.”

“Wow.” Just as I was thinking about cutting down on seeing Sam, Maria was talking about taking her in. The old jealousy, that tug-of-war feeling, sparked in my breast—Sam was closer to Maria than to me. I’d have to yank her arm to drag her back over toward my side. Instead, I put up my hands and let her go. “That’s great,” I said. “That’s so huge of you.”

Puff
. “Oh, believe me, I wish there was another alternative. I can’t even imagine taking her on full-time. But if we can’t work things out with the social worker at this new hospital, and there’s really no other way, at least we have a backup plan.”

Thank god, again; thank god times infinity for Maria. Thank god, thank Jesus Christ, thank Jesus Colón. She was Maria, the Virgin Mother of Sam. “You’re a saint,” I told her.

Two days later, I got on a Westchester-bound train at Grand Central, on my way to the new hospital. I’d spoken to Sam the night before—she was enjoying her new surroundings, getting to know her roommates, excited about playing wheelchair basketball in the gym. “I’m real glad you’re coming to visit,” she said. “I feel like it’s been forever since I seen you.”

“I know.”
Ugh.
I felt a pang of guilt, then a sliver of resentment. Reminded myself:
I didn’t do anything wrong. I went on my honeymoon. She wanted me to go. I didn’t abandon her.
“I can’t wait to see you.”

It should have been true—we hadn’t seen each other in a week and a half, which was an eternity in Janice and Sam time. And yet I realized, watching the passing scenery from my window seat, the longer I went without seeing her, the more okay I felt about not seeing her. Weird. I used to get so antsy if she wasn’t in touch; now I flinched when the phone rang. And then answered it: “Hi there! Just thinking about you.” I was nervous about the visit. I didn’t want Sam to sense how I was feeling, didn’t want her to know that I was grateful for the distance of the hospital, the length of the train trip. Didn’t want her to know that something had changed in me.

Do you feel different?
she’d asked me the day after the wedding.

Yeah. I felt different.

I arrived at the hospital, asked for her at the front desk, and found her room down a corridor lined with children’s artwork, passing kids scooting by on crutches, in wheelchairs, bald. I came into her room—big, airy, with three other beds, and throw rugs on the floor—smiling my widest smile. “Hey!”

“Hey!” She was sitting in her wheelchair by the window; she gave it an expert shove and twisted to face me. “Whoa, look how tan you got!”

“Oh, you should have seen me when we got back on Sunday.” I stooped and kissed the top of her head. “And check you out—you’re getting really good on those wheels.”

She smiled at her lap, smug. “It’s kind of like a skateboard, in a lot of ways.” She tilted back, executed a few more sharp turns on her back wheels. “I’m looking forward to not needing it soon.”

“Yeah, this is great—it looks like you’re really recovering.” I eyed her warily, following her chair over to her part of the room, where I pulled up a chair of my own. She looked good. She’d put on a few pounds again, and her color was back. The one eye still lagged behind the other, but if you didn’t know to look for it, it might take you a minute to notice. More than that, she looked energetic, like the old days; she seemed raring to go.

“I am. I mean, I still feel real weak a lot of the time, especially if I walk a lot. But the doctors say the infection’s getting better—even though my T cells are practically gone, the drugs are fighting it off, and the antivirals are finally getting a chance to work. At least my viral load’s gone down.” She looked up at me with her wide eyes—
Aren’t you proud of me?

“That’s great news. Speaking of which, did they assign you a primary doctor? I was hoping I’d get a chance to speak to somebody today, or…”

She shrugged one shoulder. “They don’t really have primary doctors here the way they did in the Bronx. But I’ll ask who you should speak to—it’s probably Dr. Eng, or Dr. Gambine. I’ll find out, and I’ll have them call you.”

“Okay. Or I’ll call them. Or…is either of them around right now?”

“Um, I don’t think so. Probably not.” She twisted her chair around again. “Hey, so do you want me to show you around?”

I followed Sam’s chair into the hallway, trying not to show my irritation. I wanted to speak to someone, already, now that I had the health-care proxy; I wanted an actual medical professional to tell me what was going on. I’d had enough of pumping aides and technicians for answers—“Why are they doing another MRI?” “Did she eat anything today?” I was tired of trying to look things up online. The Internet was a lousy doctor.

Sam started giving me the tour, guiding me down the hall. “It’s pretty cool here. I like it, so far. I wish some of my roommates were around. This one girl Kyla’s all right. She’s only, like, fifteen, and she has leukemia—this is the fourth or fifth time she’s had to stay here for chemo. But they have, like, a school and teachers here, for the kids, and she works her butt off at it, ’cause she really wants to be able to graduate with all her friends and go to the prom and everything. Which is sad, because she’s probably not gonna make it.”

She hung a sharp left, leaving a short black skid mark on the tiled floor. “Okay, this ramp here takes you to the gym. Over there they got a pool
and
a whirlpool; they use it for physical therapy, but I can’t go in, ’cause it’s too dangerous, ’cause of the bacteria. And there’s Tommy. Hi, Tommy!” A young kid wrapped in bandages cruised by on a motorized wheelchair. Sam dropped her voice. “He knocked over a candle and set his house on fire; he’s covered in third-degree burns. His younger sister died. He’s the
sweetest
thing. Everybody loves him.”

We navigated through the doors to a grassy courtyard, and Sam parked in the sun. It was warm for early October; it felt like summer again—the summer we’d missed, indoors at Mid-Bronx Hospital for weeks at a time. “So,” she said, facing me.

“So,” I said. “So…”

Strange—there seemed to be nothing to say. We’d covered her health, her doctors, her new surroundings; now I couldn’t think of anything to talk about.
So, how’s that whole “confronting your mortality” thing going? Still in an existential panic over your imminent death?
This was supposed to be my moment as a mentor, where I said something profound and meaningful, where she let go of her terrible burden and cried to me and I comforted her. Instead, there was an awkward pause.

“Did you watch
The Amazing Race
the other night?” she asked. “It’s so stupid, the family edition—they should have just kept it regular.”

“Oh, yeah,” I agreed, and we talked about TV for a while, until we hit a dead end and she tried a new tack.

“And…did you read the new Augusten Burroughs book yet? I want to read it, if you get it.”

“Well, maybe I’ll bring a copy next time I see you.”

My leg was bouncing, I realized; it took effort to stop it. Sam flicked the brake of her chair on and off with her foot. “Did Maria tell you I’m gonna go live with her?”

I raised an internal eyebrow at her characterization of Maria’s offer. “She mentioned you might stay with her for a few weeks, if push comes to shove.”

She grinned at me. “I hope it works out. That would be so awesome. You know what’s cool, this place isn’t so far from her house. I think she’s coming by later, if you can stay that long.”

“I can’t,” I said, feigning regret. “I have, uh, a lot of work to catch up on.”

“Oh.” She wheeled around a little, gazed off toward the end of the courtyard, marked by a brick wall with a Dumpster in front of it. “That’s cool.”

I stayed for a while longer, talking about books and movies and Disney World. I asked about Valentina. “Did she ever call you, tell you where she wound up?”

Sam’s eyes flashed. “Fuck Valentina. She ran out on me when I was real sick. I never want to see
his
ugly ass again.”

Discomfiting, to see her snarl like that about her former friend. I thought of Sam and Valentina mucking around in the Bronx River, playing King of the Stairs at the halfway house; how they jabbered that day we found their apartment—“I want to put stars on the ceiling.” “No, mirrors!” I hoped Valentina was all right, wherever she was. “I understand.”

Soon I pulled out the train schedule and the number of the local taxi. “Well, I’d better be heading back—looks like there’s a six o’clock train, and then nothing for an hour….”

Sam slumped in her chair, crestfallen. “Already? ’Cause there was some stuff I wanted to talk to you about….”

“Oh yeah?” I put on what I hoped was a patient smile. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged, like she was reluctant to get specific, started picking at stray threads around her pants pockets. “Just stuff I been thinking about. Stuff from my past.”

“Uh-huh.”
Goddamn it,
I thought. We didn’t have time to get into “stuff from her past” right now; she should have brought that up an hour ago. “It must be hard, huh.”

“Yeah.” She looked up and met my eyes, the dull one wandering before it could fix on mine. “I mean, I’m still wondering, what if I’d done things different? Like, I always tried to bleach my needles, but what about those times I didn’t? I keep thinking if I could go back…”

“Uh-huh.” I had my hand on my phone, ready to call the cab. “But you know, we have to think about the future—there’s a lot to look forward to.”

Wow.
That could not have sounded more hollow if I’d said it through an empty paper-towel tube. What was wrong with me today? I couldn’t seem to muster the usual urgency, the overwhelming concern I needed to feel for her. This was Sam, I reminded myself; she was
dying
. I was supposed to feel anguished at the thought. Instead I felt fed up.

I faked another smile. Sam stared at me, frustrated. “I’m
trying
to stay positive,” she said. “It’s just hard, is all.”

“I know. But right now, you’re doing so much better—I have to say, it’s great to see you with so much energy, and…” And I had to call my cab now. I had to go home, call Bill, smoke a joint, make dinner. “Hang on,” I said, interrupting myself. “Just let me call the cab so they’re on their way.”

Sam folded her arms and tucked her chin to her chest as I dialed and made the arrangements. “Ten minutes? Okay. And do you think I’ll be able to make the six o’clock train to the city? Great, thanks.” I snapped my phone shut. “Okay. Sorry about that.”