Pitcher's Baby (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-Six

Charlee

Sometimes in life, we are faced with
decisions that no person should ever have to be faced with—that inevitable fork
in the road, where you decide to go left or right. One way will undoubtedly be
easier in the short run, but chances are, you will pay for it later on down the
road, usually when the next fork appears and you realize that you didn't avoid
anything earlier. You just postponed it.

I’m at that fork right now.

Everything I'm feeling right now makes me
want to shut down, lock the pain up tight and never let it out. I can feel my
monster getting restless wherever I buried her, hidden but not gone. She will
never be gone completely. I accept that. She is a part of me, but that doesn't
mean I want her to poking her nosy head into my business every waking minute of
the day. It's been kind of nice not having her around for the last few weeks,
and I'm not sure I want to let her back out, but the sight before me makes me
consider it.

My mother is strapped to the bed with
white Velcro straps tied loosely around her wrists and ankles. Her eyes are
already sunken in the way only a dead person's eyes do. I watch as the machine
next to her pushes air into the tube going down her throat, breathing for her.
Her chest rises seconds after it pushes and then falls unnaturally. It's not a
normal breath. That's the first thing I notice, and for a second, I entertain
the thought of how cool it would be to have one of those during one of my
anxiety attacks, but my mind quickly rebels against that thought.

The next thing I notice is the drain tube
coming out of her left nostril. I follow it with my eyes to where it connects
to a bag at the side of her bed. I don't understand this tube, and when the
doctor enters behind me, I ask him about it.

“That's a drain for the bile in her
stomach. Her organs have begun shutting down. This happens in most patients
with sepsis. Unfortunately, not many come back from it once it reaches this
level of severity.”

“Sepsis? What do you mean?”

“She has an infection. It looks like she
may have had it for a while, but now it's in her bloodstream. We call this
infection sepsis. Her organs have already started shutting down. The machine
will keep her alive, but you will have to make to make a decision soon on how
long you want to make her wait. It's my opinion that she won't come back from
this.”

“Thank you,” I say, because what else do
you say in that moment? I turn and walk out of the room, unable to see her like
this for one more second.

Ashlin is in the waiting room when I walk
back out, arguing with a nurse. I run up to her and wrap my arms around her,
thankful for her just being there.

“Oh my God, Charlee. I came as soon as I
got your message. Is she okay? What happened?”

I spend the next ten minutes filling her
in on everything I know. I don't like the fact that the final decision for her
death is left up to me. I feel like her life is riding on my shoulders, and it
all depends on my decision. How did this become just my problem? I didn't ask
for this. I pull my phone out and text Matt. I haven't seen him in months. He
stopped by one day the week mom first arrived and stayed for about twenty
minutes, and then—poof—he disappeared again.

Me
: Mom is in the hospital.
Doesn't look good.

Matt
: Really?

Me
: Yea. They said she
probably won't make it.

Matt
: Oh.

Me
: I need to know what you
want me to do. I have to decide whether to leave her on life support.

Matt
: Idc. It's your
mom.

Me
: Thanks.

I can't even begin to describe how much I
want to wrap my hands around his throat right now and squeeze until his brain
is deprived of oxygen. Then maybe he would wake up—just for one tiny little
moment—and care about something other than getting high! I'm so fed up with him
I can't see straight. As soon as this is over and life is back to a somewhat
normal state, something is going to have to be done about him. He's still
underage, so technically, we can have him admitted for drug rehabilitation. I
hate to see it come to that, but on the other hand, I don't want to lose my
brother, and if he continues down this destructive path he is on, one of two
things is going to happen. He is either going to end up in jail or he will end
up dead. If not from a drug overdose, then some drug deal gone bad.

People in this world are crazy. You throw
in altered frames of mind, and there is no limit to the amount of fuck up they
are willing to do. All for their next buzz. I bet if I text him back right now
and say Mom has a bag full of pain meds, he would care. Hell, he'd probably be
here in fewer than ten minutes. It's not worth it, though.

“What are you gonna do, Charlee?” Ashlin
asks.

“I don't know, Ash. I do not have a clue.”
And I really don’t. I wish I had a magic eight ball I could shake right this
moment and ask it, DO I PULL THE PLUG? Or even better, DOES SHE WAKE UP? And it
would reply with its magical answer, IT IS CERTAIN, or even better, WITHOUT A
DOUBT, but this is real life, and eight balls don’t hand out magical real life
answers, so I’m left trying to make the best decision I can. Normally, I wouldn’t
think it would be this hard, but every time I think I have an answer, I end up
talking myself out of it because a million other questions pop up.

Like when I say yes, pull the plug. Then I
ask myself, are we saying yes because it's the right thing to do or because
it's the easy way out? Are you saying yes because in reality you don't want her
here and you're happy she is dying? The list goes on and on, and in the end,
the only decision I can make is the decision to not make a decision . . . not
yet.

I
fall asleep in the hard plastic-backed chair in the waiting room. I know that
only because Lucas wakes me up, telling me that my brother and Ashlin are
heading home. There isn't really anything any of us can do here right now, and
until the doctors finish with whatever tests they are running, I’m not going to
worry about making a decision. I did sign the DNR, allowing the staff to let
her go peacefully if for some reason her heart stopped.

In
a way, I hoped that it would and that I wouldn’t have make to any more
decisions. I didn't want the pressure of it on my shoulders anymore. I wish I
could pass it off to Aaron and let him deal with it, but apparently, I am the
only one allowed to handle it since I'm her next of kin. Ugh, why couldn't Aaron
have been born first? It sucked giant monkey balls.

At least this time, I hadn't lost myself
to the pain and grief like I had when Dad had been sick. I wanted to believe
that I was stronger now, having already been down this road once before, but I
know that's not true. Last time I was faced with these decisions, I wasn't
alone. My dad was there by my side, making them with me. Actually, most of my
issues then went in direct opposition to what he wanted. He signed the DNR. I
begged him and pleaded for him not to do it. I understood his decision better
now. I couldn't imagine ever seeing my dad hooked to a million machines like
she was. I would fall apart like humpty when he fell off the wall, and nothing
or no one would be able to put me together again.

Thankfully, he made it through surgery
fine, and not even cancer could take him away from me, so we ended up not
needing that cursed piece of paper after all. I remember the agonizing hours
spent pacing the waiting room for the doctor to come in and tell me his news.
Either he made it through fine or he was dead. There was no middle ground. In a
lot of ways, I feel like I did then—stressed to the max, wanting nothing more
than to pull my hair out strand by strand. I’ve already bitten my nails down to
the quick, my nerves getting the best of me. I hate this feeling of
hopelessness. I need an activity—something to occupy my mind.

I wish I could go back to mine and Lucas's
house. I can think of a few things that we could do that would take my mind off
things for a while, but the sad truth is that even if I could, I wouldn't. It
wouldn't really help anything to lose myself right now. I need to stay strong
for her. And focused. Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. It’s after
midnight when we pull in the drive of our house. Aaron is standing at the front
door, waiting for me to walk in, or so I think, until I hear him call out to Lucas.

I stop at the entrance to the living room
and peer inside. I'm happy to notice that someone cleaned up the mess. The
couch cushions are missing and the floor has been steamed. All the white paper
sheets and the gauze the paramedics threw around the room are gone too. I look
back at Aaron, silently questioning him.

 “I called in the cleaners. Charged me out
the ass, but I didn't think any of us wanted to come home to that.”

I wrap my arms around him, hugging him
tightly the way I would when I was little. He pats my back. Once. Twice. Three
times, and I pull back and continue my journey to the kitchen. Once I'm there,
I decide that I should get a bite to eat too. Actually, I don't decide anything.
My stomach does, in the form of a loud rumble. Lucas's copies, and I burst out
laughing. I never knew stomach growling was contagious. I thought that was
strictly reserved for yawning, but I guess I was wrong. It makes sense that he
would be hungry too though. The last time either of us ate anything was this
morning—or rather, yesterday morning—for breakfast. No wonder we are both
starving.

I offer to make him a sandwich, and he accepts.
Minutes later, I'm sliding a plate in front of him loaded down with two turkey
and cheese sandwiches, a handful of chips, and a pickle spear. I don't know why,
but I can't ever eat a sandwich without chips. It's like those two things were
just meant to go together, kinda like a Coke and a glass. Have you ever tried
to just drink coke from a can? It's not the same. Something about the cold
glass just makes the Coke. I grab the ranch dip from the fridge and set it
between us. Lucas is laughing at the obscene amount of food on our plates when
I return with a Pepsi for him and my glass of OJ.

“Anyone ever tell you that you eat a lot
to be so tiny?”

“As opposed to what? How much I each to be
so fat? Why do people say that? Wow, you sure are strong for a girl. What the
hell does that even mean? Why can't I just be strong? Or why can't I just eat a
lot? Why does it always have to be redirected to the fact that I'm skinny or a
girl?”

“Hmph. I’ve never really thought of it
like that. In that case, you sure do eat a lot.”

“Thank you. I know.”

When we finish eating, I put the dip back
in the fridge and rinse our plates off in the sink. I waste a few more minutes
in the kitchen before I head up behind them, anxious to finally peel out of
these clothes and climb in the bed. Lucas wanted me to sleep in there with him
tonight, but I just feel like I need some space to process everything that has
happened today. Plus, I don’t have this room set up for Everly yet, and until I
get a baby monitor, I don’t want her sleeping in here all alone. We can handle
a few more days apart.

Me
: Goodnight.

Lucas
: Goodnight, baby.
I love you.

Me
: I love you too.

I plug my phone into the charger and pull
the covers up over my shoulders. I think it might be hard to fall asleep, and I
debate taking one of my sleeping pills, but no sooner does my head hit the
pillow than I'm drifting into the dark abyss of my dream.

My phone rings, waking me from my sleep. I
reach over and swipe to the right, not even bothering to read the name on the
screen.

“Hello?”

“Miss Cooper? It’s Dr. Fondu at Citizens.
I'm sorry to wake you, but I thought you would like to know your mother is
awake.”

“What?” My heart is beating wildly in my
chest.

“Your mother. She is awake, and she is
asking for you. We will be discharging her soon.”

My phone beeps in my ear, and I hit answer,
swapping the calls.

“Hello?”

“Charlee? It’s me. Hey, do you think you
could bring me my toothbrush? And don't forget my wallet. I need to stop by
Wal-Mart on the way home.”

“Mom?” I ask, trying to piece everything
together.

“I thought you were dead. They said you
were going to die.” I'm sobbing now, unable to hold it back any longer, and all
the doubt from the last twenty-four hours comes rushing back.

“I was going to tell them to pull the
plug. You were gone.”

“It's okay, baby. I know what they said,
and I wouldn't have been mad at you if you had, but I'm okay now and you can come
get me. Will you come get me, Charlee?” she says, and I almost believe her. I
want to believe her so badly that my heart latches onto that statement for dear
life.

“I'm on my way.” As soon as I say the
words I'm standing in the hospital just outside her room. I hear her talking on
her other side of the white curtain, but I still can’t believe it’s true. The
doctor walks up next to me and hands me a clipboard. I see a stack of papers
attached to it and a black pen. He grabs the curtain while I'm holding the
papers and pushes it aside.