The Secrets of Flight (25 page)

“No, honey, I'm Stephanie, the nurse anesthetist.” The other anesthesiologist had gone for coffee, she explained, but she'd be taking over, and in fact she was giving me Versed that very minute. “It's going to feel like you've had a couple of glasses of wine.”

The last thing I remember was Sol's face, leaning over me to kiss me. He whispered that he loved me. His lips were very soft. And then I was gone.

T
he first time Dr. Khaira came out to the waiting room after Mrs. Browning's surgery, I was sitting all by myself reading a
Glamour
magazine. “Everything went beautifully, buddy,” he said, sitting down beside me, and I quickly shut the article I was reading, thinking how Gene was right: as soon as he left to go to the bathroom, someone would come and tell us what was going on. “Her vital signs are perfect—and her gallbladder was about to rupture, so it was a good thing we got it out,” Dr. Khaira said. “We're just waiting for her to wake up from the anesthesia, and then you can go see her.”

“Great!” I said.

Dr. Khaira gave me a fist bump. “Stay out of trouble, kiddo.”

A half an hour later, the anesthesiologist came out from the recovery room. Gene was back from “the can” (his word) by then, so the doctor told us both that Mrs. Browning had a minor reaction to the anesthetic that they'd given her to relax
her muscles, but that it would wear off in no time—anywhere from eight hours, up to a day.

“What kind of side effects are we talking about here?” Gene asked, rising to a stand, since the doctor never sat down.

The anesthesiologist shrugged and said, “Temporary paralysis of all her voluntary skeletal muscles. We'll be admitting her overnight, obviously.”

“Are her eyes open yet?” I asked, and he looked down at me like I was a tool before telling me that eyelids
are
voluntary skeletal muscles, so obviously hers were paralyzed shut.

“So basically, you can't be sure she's not awake inside that head of hers?” Gene asked. “'Cause I don't want her to know nothin'.”

“She'll be kept sedated,” the anesthesiologist said. “Instead of waking up five minutes after surgery, it might just be tomorrow.”

I felt kind of weird collecting my things in my backpack and leaving knowing she was still on a ventilator and that she couldn't move any muscle in her entire body and that she'd practically predicted this. I thought about the conversation that we'd had the day after I'd sent her to Dr. Khaira, when she'd said that if she went ahead with the surgery and she couldn't “resume regular life as I know it now,” she'd rather not be anywhere at all. I had just stared at her, thinking about my grandma and how her regular life as she'd known it had gotten all fucked up, when Mrs. Browning added, “I would rather meet my maker than face the inside of a nursing home, if you catch my drift.”

I could tell Gene felt sort of uneasy about leaving her behind, too. He'd rolled up his
Car and Driver
magazine and paused
just beside the sliding doors of the hospital to tell me that we should just meet up the same time tomorrow and pretend that nothing bad had happened and that it was still Tuesday. “That way Mary doesn't get to be right—she was so sure something would go wrong,” he'd said, hovering on the gray mat, which made the doors keep opening and closing, blasting me with cold air and then warmth. I had already cut an entire day of school, but I'd told him I'd find a way to get there.

It wasn't until the next day that I heard anything about Mrs. Browning naming me her decision maker. I should've been in first period study hall, listening to the sound of student's text alerts, but instead I was sitting in a different waiting room this time, a smaller, more private one just outside the double doors of the Intensive Care Unit, when Dr. Khaira came out to talk to me. The skin under his eyes looked puffy, and, for once, his mouth wasn't smiling.

“The muscle relaxant is out of her system, but she still hasn't opened her eyes yet,” he said. “She's losing a lot of blood from somewhere, and I'm going to have to take her back to the OR to find out where.” Then he showed me the form that had my name on it in Mrs. Browning's shaky writing. “Do you know anything about this?”

I read the top of the form and said, “What exactly is a medical power of attorney again?” and Dr. Khaira kind of threw up one of his arms as if that was his answer.

“Without an exploratory surgery, she might die. I need the power of attorney to sign a consent form for the surgery . . . but you can't when you're only fifteen years old.” Dr. Khaira ran his fingers through his hair like he might want to pull it out, clump by clump, and said that since she was a “full code”—
meaning she'd authorized him to save her life—he was just going to do the surgery and call in the hospital lawyers later.

“Should we page Gene?” I asked. “He's probably in the cafeteria. He would know what Mrs. Browning would want.”

Dr. Khaira looked up from his hands. “Is Gene eighteen years of age or older?”

I thought of how Gene's even got vertical forehead wrinkles, as if eroded by years of standing in the rain. “I'm guessing he's like . . . eighty-five?”

“How's Gene related to Mrs. Browning?”

“He's not,” I said. “He's just in the writers' group, too.”

“Find him,” Dr. Khaira said.

When Gene made it up to the waiting room ten minutes later, he listened to what Dr. Khaira had to say about the emergency surgery. “I'd say go ahead and do whatever you need to do,” Gene said.

O
NCE
D
R.
K
HAIRA HAD LEFT,
G
ENE SAT DOWN NEXT TO ME AND
shook his head, like he still couldn't believe it. Finally he said, “She called me the night before the surgery, said she had a favor to ask of me—the whole power of attorney thing. And I told her I've been through all of this once before, and let me tell ya, once is enough . . .” he trailed off, still shaking his head, probably thinking of his wife, Lucille, who was starring in his story about saving the bottles of wine during the war—it had all been for her, his quest to come home alive with a souvenir. Then he seemed to remember that I was still there. “Looks like when she wakes up tomorrow we're gonna have to pretend it's yesterday,” he said instead, and I smiled at the idea of Mrs. Browning waking up, and everything going back to normal.

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON,
I
STOPPED BY
M
RS.
D
ESMOND
'
S CLASS
room, even though we don't have psychology on Wednesdays. I'd been married to Holden for over three weeks by now, and Henry had been dead for six days. She was sitting behind her desk, which was covered in papers, but she put down her red pen as soon as she noticed me. “Can I talk to you?” I asked, shifting my slipping backpack up onto my shoulder.

“Of course!” she said, and her face lit up like she was wishing for any excuse not to have to grade another paper. “Please—have a seat! Is this about the Marriage Project?”

“About that . . .” I said, pulling up chair. “I want a divorce from Holden Saunders.”

Mrs. Desmond frowned and her eyebrows furrowed, and I wondered if it sounded dramatic, considering that after Friday—the day we were supposed to turn in our sacks of flour to get full credit—we could pretend we'd never met anyway. Mrs. Desmond was probably older than Mom, but her hair reminded me of Aunt Andie's: brown and frizzy, which made it easier to keep talking, so I told her the story of Henry's demise—the abbreviated version, minus the public ridicule. Finally, she said, “I have to tell you, Elyse, that in all my years running the Marriage Project, I've never had a student divorce. I'd hate for you to be the first couple unable to work it out.”

“Don't we automatically fail if the kid gets killed, anyway?” I asked.

“Not necessarily,” she said, with encouragement in her voice, as if it were just my grade that I'd been worried about. “If you and Holden write an informative essay about what you've learned regarding teen pregnancy, you can still get a C. After all, that's the point of the project, isn't it?”

“What if I expand the paper to include divorce statistics after the death of a child, and I write it alone?”

Mrs. Desmond sighed before picking up her pen again. “Elyse, I think you two need to find a way to work this out.”

A
FTER SCHOOL,
I
WAS ROOTING THROUGH MY LOCKER WITH MY
backpack on my knee when Holden Saunders walked toward me wearing jeans and my favorite navy sweater of his that makes his eyes bluer, but his face was serious, so I knew he must've heard from Mrs. Desmond about the divorce. It was easier to peer into my backpack and search for my ringing cell phone than to meet his eyes. Dr. Khaira was calling to tell me that Mrs. Browning's second surgery went great. “Did you get the bleeding stopped?” I asked, and he said yes. When I asked if she was awake, he said, “Not yet, kiddo; she's still sedated from the surgery.” Holden just stood parked next to my locker and watched me talk to Dr. Khaira.

After I hung up, Holden said, “Wow. Go, Dr. Strickler,” as if I'd had an incredible promotion from hospital volunteer. I shrugged and zipped up my backpack. “You really rocked that physics bridge,” he added.

“Thank you. I know.” I slammed my locker shut.

“What was that—like, the Golden Gate?” he asked, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“We live in a city with four hundred and forty-six bridges, and you think I'm gonna pick one from San Francisco?” I started walking.

The corridor was empty, which was probably why he said, “Elyse—wait. I'm sorry,” instead of avoiding me in front of his friends like he had all week. “This Homecoming thing with
Karina isn't, like, exclusive or anything.” I turned around and asked him what he was saying. “I'm saying she's not my girlfriend. No one's my girlfriend. Me and you can hang out again. I had fun—I still think you're cool.”

It wasn't fun; I thought I might love you; and it's “You and I” not “me and you.”
I turned and started walking again.

“Don't you care about your psychology grade?” he called after me.

“Not if you fail, too,” I said over my shoulder. It was almost scary how I could convert all that love into hate.

O
UTSIDE OF SCHOOL,
I
WAS WALKING BY THE TENNIS COURTS
when I heard a familiar half cackle/half shriek and turned to see Thea, running back and forth between two different courts and swinging a racket. It was probably forty-five degrees, but she wasn't wearing tights and the skin between the bottom of her miniskirt and the top of her combat boots looked red and cold. I guess she was taking her fashion tips from Carson Jeffries, perpetual wearer of shorts, who was sprinting between two courts on the other side of the net and yelling at her to “keep it going!” They were playing our game, the one we made up in the summer before sixth grade, where the only rule is to hit the ball no matter where it lands—even if it's three courts away. I buttoned up the top of Mrs. Browning's flight jacket and watched them through the chain-link fence until Mr. Glansman, the tennis coach, called to them that the courts were reserved for the team and they would have to leave. Carson was collecting their balls, and Thea had just grabbed her backpack off the ground, when she glanced up at me and kind of
gaped and then scowled. I waved but she didn't wave back, so I walked over to the door in the fence, their only way out.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, once she and Carson had come through the exit. Thea hesitated and glanced at Carson as if he were her real husband.

“I'll meet you in the library later,” he said before walking away. A few paces later, he whirled around and asked where their flour baby was.

“In my locker,” Thea said, like,
duh
.

“As long as our little bundle of joy is safe,” Carson said, and Thea rolled her eyes.

“I'm sorry,” I said, once he was gone. Thea and I walked through the grass and away from the courts, where the tennis team was starting to assemble for practice. “I'm sorry I ditched you for the physics bridge. I'm sorry I haven't called or texted you lately . . .”

“And where the hell have you been at lunch? It's like you disappeared off the fucking map.”

“I've been kind of . . . busy . . .”

“Yeah, I heard. How's
Holden
?” she asked, and the sound of his name made my cheeks redden.

“I'm such a tool.”

“No, you're not,” Thea said with a noisy exhale. “He's the asshole.”

“Yeah, but . . . I was really into him,” I said.

Thea put her arm around me. We sat on the hill and watched Karina Spencer run across the court. I wished my legs were as long and as perfect. I wished I knew for sure that saying “I'd prefer not to” had been the right thing to do. I wished part
of me still didn't want to be with him, which reminded me of Mom and Dad, loving and hating each other at the same time.

“My parents might be getting a divorce,” I said, realizing all at once that if I said it out loud, I was afraid it might make it come true.

“That
sucks
. Which one of them cheated?” Thea asked. Ever since her mom moved to California with Rocco, she thinks there's only one reason people split up.

I hesitated, wondering whether to admit that I'd seen a drug rep's pen and underwear at Daddy's apartment. “Neither. It's . . . complicated,” I said, echoing Daddy.

Thea hugged her knees and stared ahead at the tennis team, making it look so easy to keep all the balls within the lines. Finally, she glanced at me. “Your bridge was fucking insane, dude.”

“My dad has the steadiest hands in the world,” I said, remembering the way he'd just held them there, waiting for each toothpick to dry, whereas I had accidentally ripped down one of the arches when a clump of wet toothpicks had stuck to my thumb. Even then, at four in the morning, he hadn't gotten mad. “And patience,” I added. We were both quiet for a minute, as Mr. Glansman blew his whistle and told everybody to switch sides. Then Thea stood up and brushed the grass off the back of her skirt. I stood up, too, and slung my backpack over my shoulder again. “I'm sorry I disappeared,” I said. “All this stuff happened. My friend from the writers' group got her gallbladder out, and my grandma died . . .”