The Lost (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Mom doesn’t interrupt once. She listens to every detail and then after I finish, she contemplates me. I watch the display on the heart monitor. The line jolts in rhythm to the beeps.

“You disappoint me, Lauren. Three months of dreaming about a hot, half-nude wild man, and you only kissed?” Mom clucks her tongue. “Or are you sanitizing the story for your mother’s ears? On second thought, don’t tell me. I don’t want the mental picture in my head.”

“He slept in my closet most of the time.”

“That wasn’t a metaphor, was it?”

“Nope. Literally in my closet. To protect me.”

“From dangerous hangers?”

“From attackers. I think he planned to surprise them.”

She coughs, and I have to grip the sides of my chair to keep myself from going to her. Her entire body quakes from the coughs as if every muscle were spasming. When it subsides, she continues as if nothing happened, “A conventional guard would guard the doorway and stop the attacker
before
he enters the room.”

I make myself smile. Her logic is sound, of course. “Peter was anything but conventional.”

She squints hard at me. “Now, Lauren, don’t you fall for an imaginary boyfriend after I went through all the trouble of getting sick in order to find you a nice, handsome doctor to marry.”

“Aha, I knew there was an explanation for all of this.”

“Take it from me, imaginary boyfriends will only break your heart.” Her smile fades, and her eyes flutter closed. I listen again to the
beep-beep
of her monitor. I used to hate that sound, but today I find it soothing. She’s still here, it says. I lean my head back on the chair. My limbs feel heavy, and they throb. I know I should try to pee, but I don’t think I can face the burning. I ignore it. Her breathing is slow and even, and I think she’s fallen asleep. But then her eyes flutter open. She turns her head to look at me. “Oh, good. You’re still here. Unless I’m hallucinating?”

I pry myself off the chair and try not to wince. Shuffling the few steps to the bed, I take her hand in mine. It feels so fragile, like holding a baby bird. “Real.”

Her fingers close around my hand. “You should rest.”

“I can rest here.” I point to the chair. “It reclines. Besides, it’s not like there aren’t doctors and nurses on this floor, too. In fact, they’re kind of in abundance. I’ll stay until they kick me out.”

Mom pats the bed next to her. “Come on, Laurie-kitten. Let me hug you.”

It’s the nickname that gets me. She hasn’t called me that in years. I feel my eyes heat, and to hide that, I sit on the edge of the bed. It takes some maneuvering to squeeze me in beside her without disturbing any of her wires or tubes. Some get caught in my hair, and we laugh as we untangle them, occasionally setting off the IV alarm. It’s either laugh or cry, I realize. After a while, though, I manage it. We lie side by side on our backs. I’m panting from the effort of climbing onto the bed with limbs that haven’t worked much in three months. She’s breathing shallowly, too, and I wonder if this was a good idea. But then she slides her hand into mine, and she sighs softly and it’s all okay.

“Tell me what I don’t know about you,” I say.

She’s silent for so long that I think she must have fallen asleep again or not heard me or both. I think about repeating the question, but if she is asleep, I don’t want to wake her.

“You’ve finally accepted this,” she says softly.

I don’t answer.

“Really was some dream you had.”

“Really was,” I agree. “Funny thing is, I keep feeling guilty because I promised to go back.”

She squeezes my hand. “Please, don’t go back. I don’t want you in a coma again. Stay in this world. Please stay where I can see you and touch you and know you’re okay. Promise me you’ll stay.”

She’s so intense that I hesitate. It reminds me so strongly of Peter begging me to stay. But he’s not real, and Mom is. “I’ll stay with you.”

She relaxes, either not noticing or not caring how I phrased my promise. I don’t even know why I said it that way. I can’t go back to a place that doesn’t exist.

“I’d wanted to be an actress,” Mom says.

I turn my head to look at her. She was always mocking the wannabe celebrities that clog Los Angeles, the bottle blondes and the overbuilt pretty boys. “You?”

“You asked what you don’t know about me. In fifth grade, I was certain that I was going to be an actress. We had a school play, and I was cast as Mrs. Rabbit. I still remember the song, ‘Oh, I am Mrs. Rabbit and I say hello to you...’ And then two years later, I auditioned for the town community theater and won the part of the White Rabbit. I was destined to play rabbits. I couldn’t see that as my future. So I gave it up before I could ever be the Velveteen Rabbit, Peter Rabbit, or... I can’t think of any others.”

“Rabbit from A.A. Milne.”

“Yes.”

“Harvey, the six-foot invisible rabbit. I think that was a movie.”

“With Jimmy Stewart. Black-and-white. I remember it.”

“Br’er Rabbit. Bugs Bunny. Uncle Wiggily. Thumper. Thumper’s girlfriend. Edward Tulane. Bunnicula.”

“See, I had a whole career ahead of me that I simply abandoned because I didn’t have the imagination to think of what could be. On the other hand, I suppose all the hopping would have been hard on my knees.”

“Probably,” I say. “But good exercise.”

A nurse comes in to check Mom’s monitors. She changes one of the IVs, as well as the catheter bag, and she pats Mom on the shoulder. “Nice you have a visitor. Must perk you up.” To me, she says, “Visiting hours are over in a half hour.”

“Oh, I’m not a visitor. I’m a patient.” I hold up my wrist to display the plastic band identifying me by name and number as an inpatient.

“She’s my daughter,” Mom says.

“Ahh, the one in the coma?”

“She woke up,” Mom says, as if this weren’t obvious.

The nurse smiles at me. “Visiting hours are over in a half hour. You both need your rest.”

Mom snorts. “You lot come in and poke and prod me every hour and then remind me to sleep. I’ll rest better if she’s here. Please, Mary. Turn a blind eye?”

The nurse Mary scowls, though I can sense she doesn’t really mean it. Mom must have charmed everyone in the entire hospital.

“Dr. Barrett brought her in,” Mom says. “You could always blame him.”

“Oh, did he now?” Mary’s scowl shifts into a smile. “He’s a good one. Works too hard, but they all do. Everyone does. Sometimes I think the whole world has its priorities out of whack. Yes, stay. I’ll let the next shift know.”

“Thank you, Mary,” Mom says. I echo her.

She waggles her finger at both of us. “Get your mother to eat.”

Mom makes a face.

After pricking Mom’s finger with a needle and then checking her temperature, Mary leaves. She pulls her nurse’s cart with her, and she sticks a clipboard in a holder by the door. She pulls the door mostly shut.

“Everyone makes exceptions when you’re dying,” Mom says with satisfaction. “It’s as if every statement I utter is a last request that has to be honored. I’m thinking of asking for something completely ludicrous, like for the entire staff to dress in medieval garb.”

“There might be rules against that.”

“Who would think to make a rule about not wearing medieval garb? I’m betting that it hasn’t come up before. After me, they might make a rule about it. Maybe they’ll name it after me. I’d be immortalized in the hospital employee handbook.”

“I wish you weren’t dying,” I say. I don’t know why I say the words out loud or so plainly. They float in the air like bubbles. Mom doesn’t say anything. There isn’t much to say back. She knows I don’t want to hear a platitude, and I doubt she’ll say one anyway. She has never been one for platitudes, unless they’re ironic or clever twists on clichés. Truthfully, I’m relieved she hasn’t said anything. I sneak a look at her. She looks serene. “How do you feel?” I ask. It isn’t really a question I ask much, I realize. I haven’t wanted to hear the answer.

“Sometimes sad. Sometimes angry. Usually tired. Mostly, though, I just feel like me, only with the inconvenience of this body that won’t cooperate with me. I forget occasionally, like when I wake up, that I’m too weak to walk, and I think I need to go to the bathroom to pee or brush my teeth. I miss being home.”

“Will they let you go home? I’m here. I can take care of you.” As I say it, there’s a part of me that cringes inside. I don’t want the responsibility. I’m not trained as a nurse. What if I do something wrong? What if I can’t take care of her? But I don’t take the words back.

“No, Lauren. No one wants to be a burden.”

I know she can’t be happy here, without her things, her plants, her home, her privacy. “Let me look into it. In the meantime, maybe we can make this room more homelike. Real plants. A few photos for the wall...” I trail off. I have the seed of an idea for what I can do to make it better here. Maybe I can ask Dr. Barrett to help me with the supplies I’ll need.

“Sounds nice.”

She sounds tired. I decide to stop talking. I listen to the beep of the monitor. It’s steady, reassuring. I feel my own tiredness in my bones.

Eventually, we both sleep.

I wake suddenly and stop myself from shooting upright in bed. I listen to the
beep-beep
of the monitor, and I exhale slowly. She’s still here. I twist in bed to look at her face. Her brow is furrowed, and I think she’s not having a good dream. I consider waking her, but I know she needs the rest. Maybe the dream will shift soon.

I slither out of bed as best I can without touching her or her wires or tubes. It isn’t easy because the bed is narrow, plus there’s a railing on the side. But I slip out. My knees shake as my legs remember that they’re supposed to support my weight. I wobble over to the chair. I have a crick in my neck, and my back feels sweaty from lying next to another person. It’s dark outside, but I can see the silhouette of the palm trees and the endless stream of car headlights and taillights. Always traffic in L.A.

The hospital isn’t asleep. Hospitals never sleep. Through the door, I hear the hushed voices of the staff. Carts roll past outside, everything in them clattering together as if a chef were tossing all his knives and pots and pans into a steel sink. My eyes feel gummy, and I feel sticky. I don’t think Mom would mind if I use her shower. I raid the supply of hospital gowns in one of the drawers and slip into the bathroom.

Stepping into the shower, I turn on the water. The water falls over me, and I feel as though I’m sloughing off my skin. It feels glorious, and I remember my first shower in Lost. And then I try not to remember it. I don’t want to cry. I’ve cried enough in showers to last me a lifetime. I let the water flow as hot as I can stand, and I feel my muscles begin to unknot.

I dry myself with the rough and not-big-enough towel. My hair is still dripping when I finish, but I do my best to mop up the puddles so that no one will slip and fall. I pull on a hospital gown and wish I had a bra and my own underwear instead of this knit hospital underwear. Maybe I can call someone—coworker? neighbor?—and ask them to fetch me clothes from home. I don’t know that I’ve stayed close enough to anyone to ask a favor like that. Combing my hair with my fingers, I wonder who has been taking care of our apartment with both of us here. Mom must have made arrangements to pay the rent and other bills. She’s the consummate worrier; I’m sure she thought of it. I’ll ask her when she wakes. In the meantime, I have a project.

I slip out of the room.

The nurse at the nurses’ station glances up at me as I pad across the hallway. There’s a doctor filling out a form. His back is to me, but I recognize his hair immediately. “Dr. Barrett?”

He turns. “Ms. Chase. Is everything all right?”

“Fine. She’s sleeping.”

His shoulders relax. I’m surprised I can tell under his doctor’s coat. “Are you all right?” he asks. “You should be resting. Do you need assistance back to your room? I’m on call so I can’t—”

“No, thanks. I’m fine. I’m actually looking for a pencil and paper.”

“That I can arrange.” He leans over the nurses’ station and tears off a few sheets from a pad of paper and then he plucks a no. 2 pencil out of a cup. He hands them to me. “Anything else?”

I shake my head, but then I think of something. “Can I look in your lost-and-found bin? For unclaimed clothes? It might be a while before I’m back in my apartment.”

“Of course.” He addresses the nurse. “Paula, would you mind?”

“Go ahead. It’s in supply closet 308.” She waves her hand. “You wouldn’t believe some of the things people leave behind and never claim.”

I think of the stuffed puffer fish and smile, a tight sad smile but the best that I have right now. “I’m sure it’s quite interesting.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I meet Dr. Barrett in the hospital cafeteria at noon. I’m surprised to see him, though I suppose doctors have to eat, too. In line for the pasta Alfredo, I ask, “Isn’t there a doctors-only cafeteria where you don’t have to mix with us riffraff?”

“Yes, there is,” he says. “But this one has cupcakes.” He points to a red velvet cupcake with a mass of ivory frosting, and for an instant, I can’t breathe. Claire would have loved it.

I try to keep my voice light and normal. “Can’t argue with cupcakes.”

“Indeed,” he says gravely.

We reach the cashier, and I pay with my mom’s credit card. I sign her name and hope that Dr. Barrett doesn’t notice, or doesn’t mind. My purse was lost in the crash. The credit card company has issued me a new card, but it’s being mailed to my apartment and I haven’t been home yet. Happily, home does still exist. Mom said she arranged for automatic payment of rent through the end of the year. And in thanks, I steal her credit card. Okay, I asked her first, but still I feel a twinge of guilt. Trapped in a hospital bed and Mom still finds ways to take care of me. I wonder if there will ever be a point when I’m not so damned needy and selfish, when I can be the one taking care of someone else. You’d think this would be my opportunity, but the credit card belies that.

“Wait,” he says. He snags a second red velvet cupcake, and he pays. Once past the cashier, he drops the second cupcake on my tray. “You can’t pass up the only good thing about being in the hospital.”

“It’s good that I can stay with my mom,” I say. “Thanks for arranging that.” After my first visit, he’d added a formal note to Mom’s chart that I didn’t have to leave when visitor hours ended. Mom no longer had to plead with each shift’s nurse. “I should have bought
you
a cupcake in thanks.”

“Next time.” He points, one hand holding his tray, to a table by the window. “Join me?”

“Sure.” I feel my heart beat a little faster, though I don’t know why. He’s already delivered all the bad news about Mom that there could possibly be... I shouldn’t tempt fate by thinking like that. I sit across from him.

There’s a fake daisy in a pink vase in the center of the table, as well as a condiment carrier with an array of ketchup, soy sauce, jelly, and syrup. I can’t imagine what meal would require all of those, but I eye the packets of jelly for a second. Claire loved strawberry...
No, Claire’s not real.
She was never real. The doctors had made that abundantly clear. I don’t know how I keep forgetting, or why I can’t get her out of my mind.

Dr. Barrett picks up a bit of rope tied into a noose that was tucked behind the ketchup. “Cute, gallows humor. Different people cope in different ways.” He tosses it onto the next table, and I think of Tiffany. I am about to reach for the noose, but then Dr. Barrett says, “Nurses tell me you haven’t left the hospital yet. Are you getting enough sleep?”

He’s been checking up on me? I don’t know how I feel about that. Flattered? Comforted? Unsettled? “You know I’m not your patient, right? I’m fine.”

“Sometimes this is hard, and a night’s sleep at home can help.” He eats his pasta, swirling the noodles expertly on his fork.

“Mom sleeps better when I’m here.”

“You have to look out for yourself, too.”

I don’t want to explain how I don’t want to go home, don’t want to see the life I built, don’t want to resume it. I haven’t called in to work. I don’t know if they even know I’m out of the coma. I don’t know if I still have a job. There’s probably some policy about not firing people in comas, kind of like maternity leave minus the cute baby photos. I try to deflect the conversation. “How do you look out for yourself? All of this...so much loss. It must be hard sometimes.” I think of Peter and all the people he’s lost.

Not real.
Dr. Barrett is real. I force myself to focus on him.

“Sometimes, not always.” He makes a face. “I have bad days. When I fail.”

“Perfectionist?”

He nods. “And control freak. Bad combination.” He leans forward as if about to tell me a secret. “I alphabetize nearly everything.”

“Must be nice. Bet you never lose anything.”

“Not if I can help it.”

I think of the junk piles in Lost, the treasure troves of everything that people failed to alphabetize and control and put in its perfect place. I feel as though I should say something profound, like “sometimes you need to lose in order to find” or “there’s beauty in being lost.” But I don’t. Instead I take a bite of the cupcake. It’s sweet and rich and pretty much perfect.

He’s grinning at me. “Good, right?”

Mouth full, I nod.

He reaches over with a napkin and wipes my upper lip. “Bit of frosting.” For an instant, I freeze. His proximity, the warmth of his eyes... I think of Peter.
Not real. Not real!
But this man is. And he’s kind and smart. I want to seize him as if he’s an anchor in a storm, but I barely know him. “How did my mom help you? You said that when...” I trail off, not certain how to broach the topic of his father.

His smile fades, and for an instant, pain crosses his face.

I wish I hadn’t asked. “I’m sorry. If you don’t want to talk about it...”

“No, it’s okay.” The smile is back. He really has the nicest smile I’ve ever seen. I notice that others in the cafeteria, women in particular, are sneaking looks in our direction—at him admiringly and at me curiously. I realize I must be sitting with the catch of the hospital, and I don’t understand why he is being so overly kind to me. With Peter, his motivations were clear...
Not real,
I tell myself yet again. Dr. Barrett is talking, and I tell myself to listen. “My father’s death was unexpected. Seemed healthy. Went to the gym daily. No trace of heart problems. But he went out for a jog one day and collapsed. The paramedics were unable to revive him. Your mother helped me with the aftermath. My father was a...he would have said ‘collector,’ but he was a hoarder. I wanted to pitch it all immediately. She helped me sort through it. Came daily for about two months.”

How did I not know this? I was at work. She was partially retired.

“She talked about you all the time.” He smiles at me in a lopsided way that reminds me so strongly of Peter that my heart does a flip-flop inside my rib cage. “I know several of your embarrassing childhood stories, and you don’t know even one of mine. It’s distinctly unfair. But that’s why the cupcake. I feel like I already know you.” He falls silent, and he’s looking intensely into my eyes, seriously, as if he’s seeing straight to the core of me. I feel as though the world has sucked in to a bubble around us. All other sound fades. I am acutely aware of everything about him, from the way his scrubs hang on his shoulders, to the curve of his cheekbones, to the breath in his throat, to his grip on his coffee cup, but all I think is
Peter, Peter, Peter.
He runs his fingers through his hair nervously. He is real; Peter is not. “I apologize if all of this comes off as creepy. It’s just...I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“I think...I’m flattered?”

“Good.” He seems relieved. He leans back in his chair, tipping it a few inches backward. “Let me take you to dinner tonight. Someplace not here. Give you a break. Tell you a few of my embarrassing childhood stories.”

I should say yes. Mom would want me to say yes. It would be healthy. Help me forget about Peter and ground me in reality. But I shake my head. “My mom needs me right now. Probably shouldn’t even be here now.”

If he’s disappointed, he hides it well. He nods understandingly. “I have lousy timing, don’t I? You need a friend right now, not some guy stalking you in an awkward fashion.” He stands up. “I’ve never been very good with women.”

I half laugh. “I find that difficult to believe.”

He shrugs. “I don’t have time for building relationships. I’m married to this hospital. Which is why you’re ideal. I already know you.”

“Yeah, that does border on a little creepy.”

“Ask your mother for my embarrassing stories. She knows them.” He winks at me, and then he picks up my tray, as well as his own, and heads for the trash can.

“Thanks for the cupcake,” I call after him. I then look over at the table next to us. I pick up the small noose and wind it around my fingers as if it’s a talisman.

I take it with me as I go to visit my mother.

* * *

I slip into Mom’s hospital room quietly. She’s asleep. She looks so fragile when she sleeps, as if at any moment, she could be blown apart like dried leaves in autumn. I sink into the chair by the window and look out at the palm trees.

I twist the noose around my fingers and then untwist it. Twist. Untwist. Twist. Untwist. I think about Dr. Barrett. About Peter. About Mom. About Claire.
Real. Not real. Real. Not real.

“Did you have a nice lunch?” Mom’s voice is soft and wavers. I scoot the chair closer so she doesn’t have to raise her voice.

“Dr. Barrett joined me.”

She starts to nod and then she coughs. The coughs shudder through her entire body, and I drop the little noose and reach for her. She holds up her hand to stop me. “Fine. I’m fine. William’s a nice boy, isn’t he?”

“He said you helped him sort through his father’s things.”

“I did.” A ghost of a smile drifts across her face. “His father and I were close once.”

“Close close?”

She tries to cackle, but again she’s caught in a cough. She smiles weakly at me. “You were a teenager. I didn’t want to tell you until I was certain it would last. You were looking so fiercely for a father figure. I didn’t want to disappoint you if the relationship fell apart. And it did fall apart. My fault, mostly. I kept comparing him to my memories of your father. At any rate, there was no reason to tell you. But we remained friends.”

“You’re certain it was when I was a teenager? I’m not going to discover that his father is my father, and my life is suddenly a British soap opera.”

“I swear you can date him without any fear of creating three-headed children or violating any laws.” Her eyes gleam. This is the most alert I’ve seen her. “Did he ask you out?”

I shouldn’t admit it. But I don’t want to lie to her. “Dinner. I said no.”

“Why?” she screeches. I didn’t know she could still get that kind of volume out of her lungs. I’m impressed. And pleased. She levels a finger at me. “You are to go out to dinner with him tonight. Someplace nice. Order wine. Pinot noir. You’ll like it. Then you are to have him go back with you to the apartment since you’re obviously too scared to go by yourself. Water my plants. Take in whatever fast-food ads have accumulated outside the door. Let air in. And then you can come back. If you choose to sleep with him, just don’t do it in my bed.”

“Mom!”

Mom presses the nurse call button. A few minutes later, the nurse appears. Mom smiles at her. “Would you please page Dr. Barrett? Tell him it isn’t an emergency, but when he has a free moment, I’d like to speak with him.”

“Sure thing.” The nurse checks her IVs, makes sure Mom is comfortable, and waggles her finger over the dinner tray. “You need to eat.” Mom obediently opens the soup and spoons some into her mouth. Her hand shakes, and drops spill on her hospital gown, but a tiny mouthful of broth makes it past her lips. She closes the lid when the nurse leaves.

“I’ll go if you eat everything on that tray,” I say.

She pulls the tray closer.

“And breakfast tomorrow, too,” I quickly add.

“Done,” she says with satisfaction.

“Well played, Mom. Well played.” Leaning over, I pick up the noose. It’s just a ratty piece of string. I should toss it in the trash.

She gestures at me with the fork. “What do you have there?” She points to the noose.

“Just a thing I found.” Firmly, I put it down. I pick up the pad of paper and pencil that I’d gotten from the nurses’ station. As she eats, I doodle, using the menu as support for the paper. I draw the motel as I remember it with the desiccated saguaro by the sign, and I draw the diner with all the tacky kitsch in the windows. I then sketch in the rest of the street, the post office with the eagle, the darkened alleys. When I finish, I tape it to the wall.

On a fresh piece of paper, I start to draw Victoria, the harsh lines of her jaw and the severity of her hair. I sketch in her waitress uniform. Taking another sheet, I begin on Tiffany.

Mom finishes every bite of her food.