An Illusion of Control

by Cecelia Earl

  "Is there another name—"

  Mom huffs. "Richard. Richard Carroll."

  "Ah, yes. Just a moment, please."

  I'm pretty sure Mom's about to reach across the high counter separating us and wrap her fingers around the lady's throat.

  "You're all cleared now. Wear these badges and head up to fifth floor, the ICU. There's an intercom. You'll need to be buzzed through before they'll open the doors." She smiles real big and wide and nods sympathetically. I think she thinks she's been of the utmost help to us.

  I squint at her while grabbing my badge. I'm exhausted, and she bugs me. It isn't until Mom and I are in the elevator that I wonder if I should be nicer. Dad would want me to think nicer thoughts. Plus, I may need that lady's help in the future. I suppose I shouldn't burn any bridges.

  Who knows what's in store for us in this place.

  11

  more toward death

  I'm not prepared for what I see.

  Dad's hooked up to machines galore. There's a tube going into his mouth, into his nose, and more tubes going places I can't see. There are numbers and beeps. I find a chair in the corner and sit down. Mom stands and fidgets. The clock reads two in the morning. This whole night seems like an out-of-body experience. I feel numb and emotionless, except for the tingling in my forehead, hands, and feet. Even my eyes are tingling. Everything is fuzzy, unreal. I keep wishing this weren't my life, that I’ll wake up and this will be a horrible nightmare, as cliche as that sounds.

  A nurse comes in. I like him. He tells us what all the tubes and numbers mean. Well, not all of them, but many. Enough. He tells us about the transplant team, how they meet with families, and when we can catch them (early in the morning between seven and eight when they make their rounds).

  I find I'm staring at a cross hanging at the nurse's neck. His name is Paul. He's short, only a little taller than me, but has a full, close-shaven, dark beard. His smile makes me trust him. We sit for a while longer, looking at Dad, relieved he's still alive, but shaken by his appearance.

  Brady texts: whats up

  I leave the room and the ICU and pace the hallway down by the elevators while calling him.

  He's coming. Now. He sounded tired, but sober. I think he may actually have been in bed. See? Benefit of the doubt, Laine. Give people a chance, will ya? I can hear my Dad saying it to me, and I'm disappointed in myself on his behalf.

  I use the bathroom while I'm out and stare into the mirror until my face blurs, still trying to make it sink in that this is happening. Now my feet are in trudging mode. So wide awake, and yet so tired at the same time.

  After I push the intercom button, I tell the woman speaking through it that I'm here to see my dad in room four. She opens the doors for me and I glance left to find the mirror image of the hall my dad is down. Left and right there are patients whose lives hang in the balance, tipping more toward death than life. The guy my age from downstairs is standing about three rooms down with a woman about two-thirds his size. His arms are wrapped around his body, like he doesn't know what to do with them. I'm not sure if he's truly bouncing, but something about him looks like it's in constant motion, a being of energy.

  Turning right, I pass rooms on both sides of the wide hall-like ICU, walking to the room on the far left where my dad waits. He's waiting for me, and I'm waiting for him—to live. Curtains separate me from six or so other patients. I'm not sure which rooms are empty and which are filled. Some of the wall placards say trauma. Does that mean they were in a terrible accident?

  I really hate hospitals.

  "Brady's hopping in the car. On his way," I tell my mom after pushing through the curtain.

  Mom doesn't look surprised, though I expect her to. "So's Grandma and your aunts."

  I stiffen in a moment of shock. "Really?"

  "I couldn't stop them."

  "Do you think we'll all fit in here?"

  Mom blinks at me. "Oh, no. We can't all be in here at once. Paul said we can bring one or two up at a time."

  "Up?"

  "We have to stay in the family center. We should probably go down to get a room and some blankets."

  So back down we go.

  The blue-eyelidded woman is smacking gum now as she walks us toward the abyss on the right, talking all the while. It's not really as abysmal as I'd thought, though. Well-lit by flickering fluorescent lights and all. She's friendly and cheerful, I'll give her that, but I'm tired and tune her out. A narrow hallway is created by four cubicle rooms to the right, lining the wall of windows looking over a well-lit outdoor courtyard. Each cubicle has a table and some chairs in it. I can't imagine trying to sleep in one of those chairs.

  Past the closets lining the wall to our left, where the receptionist is removing blankets and pillows, is a door, then a corner, which after turning past I find yet another door on the left and another to the right. Straight ahead is the family room she's shooing us into after Mom announced we have four others joining us. The receptionist informs us it's the largest they have. Much, much better than the cubicle rooms we just passed.

  In it is a round table with two chairs, two recliners, and a couch she says pulls down into a sleeping area. She turns on a lamp, hands us sheets to cover the recliners, the thinnest blankets known to man, a couple of hand towels and wash cloths. I raise my eyebrow in question.

  "To take a sponge bath if you'd like, dear. We don't have showers, but there's a bathroom with a toilet and sink down the hallway." She turns to Mom. "Normally you have to reserve this room on a daily basis, but I'll mark you down for tonight and tomorrow night."

  The gravity of the fact that we're here for an unknown amount of nights weighs on me. I want so badly to shower and scrub this day off me. This night is scum crawling all over my skin and teeth and tongue.

  "I'm going to wash up and brush my teeth," I say.

  Mom nods and says she'll go when I get back. She plops our bags on the chairs and closes the blinds on the window through which I can see another hospital wing. Even at this time of night there are people strolling the hall. With the blinds closed, I feel like we've turned off the television showing footage of the outside world. We've pretended they've gone to sleep.

  But here people stay awake all night long. Never sleep.

  I wonder whether or not I'll be able to get any rest, and if I do, if my nightmares could possibly be worse than my real, waking life.

  12

  the better choice

  Someone's jiggling the doorknob while I'm spitting out toothpaste. I finish and make sure I grab everything I brought into the bathroom with me, which isn't much. I don't expect the impatient person to be standing on top of the door when I open it and take a step out smack dab into him. I look up long enough to see it's the guy with all the energy, but quick enough that I don't notice any details. My eyes are on my tennis shoes by the time I speak.

  "Excuse me," we say at the same time. Cue a nervous, apologetic giggle. Whatever, he's the one in my way.

  I move left, so naturally he moves left. Then we go right. This is ridiculous. I'm way too tired for this crap.

  I huff and close my eyes, wait for him to move.

  "Thanks," I say, for who knows what reason, and walk back to the room by my mom. After dropping my toiletry bag, towel, and wash cloth, Mom heads out. I don't even warn her the bathroom is occupied. Maybe there was another bathroom down the hall, but I don't think so. For there to be only one bathroom, I wonder how many families stay overnight in the family center. It seemed empty when we got here. There must be somewhere else for people to sleep. And shower. Hopefully we'll figure that out tomorrow.

  Standing in the middle of our room, looking at the closed blinds and made-up chairs, I start to panic. This is more than I can take. I walk back down the hall toward the receptionist desk. Without knowing what else to do, I grab another Styrofoam cup and the pot of coffee.

  Mid-pour I hear, "You shouldn't drink that now."

  I'm startled so I jerk and spill co
ffee on my hand and the carpet at my feet. I whimper at the heat scorching my nerve endings. Then I continue pouring into the cup, ignoring the voice. When I'm done, I turn and find the voice belongs to that same guy. Is he, like, the only other person in this hospital?

  "You'll never get any sleep," he explains.

  I shrug. "I probably wouldn't without it, either." It's weird to hear my voice in this space, this otherwise silent, empty, unfamiliar room.

  My first words seem monumental and out of place.

  I'm out of place.

  I grab a napkin and wipe up the coffee at my feet. When I rise, he gives me a gentle nod, as if he can read me and how foreign I feel, and I notice his eyes and mouth are drawn down, weary and sad. Maybe he noticed the slight tremor in my hands.

  I inhale, exhale, long and drawn out before speaking again. "How long have you been here?" I ask, realizing everyone in here has a tragic connection. We're linked without even knowing each other's names. We're here waiting for someone else. In limbo.

  "Two days."

  He doesn't offer any other details, and I'm beyond ready to lie down, or at least recline, so I give him a smile that hopefully offers sympathy and reassurance along with a "good-night then" nod.

  I hear him turn on the faucet as I walk away. Water probably was the smarter option. The bathroom's open so I dump the coffee down the sink and toss the cup in the trash. Mom's lying on her side facing the wall when I get back to the room, so I turn off the floor lamp that's next to my recliner and try to get comfortable in an oddly curved position. "Good night," I whisper to the darkness, not sure if Mom's awake.

  "Night, Lainey."

  Turning from side to side, staring at the light coming through the cracks in the blinds, and listening to the tick, tick, tick of the clock on the wall take up lots of my sleep time. It can't be that long before the door creaks open and Grandma, Aunt Linda, and Aunt Margie walk through the door. I find the lamp knob with the help of the hall light filtering in through the door.

  "Hi," we all whisper. Whispering seems the right thing to do in the middle of the night. Mom is up giving hugs. It's then I notice Brady sitting hunched over in a chair.

  "How long have you been here?" I whisper-call to him.

  He shrugs. "'Bout a half hour. Couldn't find this place."

  "I know, right?"

  My aunts look at each other. "Oh, we didn't have a problem." They shrug and abandon the whispering thing.

  Aunt Margie is the oldest of the three. She's tall and thin with perfect posture and perfect gray-white hair. She's a perfectionist in all she does, and she rubs it in to everyone else. Everything always has to be her way. She'll be the first to offer help, but the first to turn on you if you tick her off. Mom says I'm most like her. This really bothers me.

  Aunt Linda is smaller, hunched over a little at the shoulders. She has a red complexion and thin, brown hair. She's quiet, but funny. I like her the best.

  Mom, Sylvie, highlights her brown hair so it looks sun-kissed year round, and she's a little shorter than Margie. Mom's serious and hard-hearted. We've never really shared secrets or giggled together the way May and her mom do. If something happens to Dad, I'll be alone. Mom's mostly stared without seeing me the past six hours, barely spoken a word to me. She'll lock herself up in her head if Dad goes. Brady'll go back to school and his life. I'm eighteen. Who would care? I’d be on my own to trudge on to adulthood.

  Everyone is huddled around Mom, sitting on the couch and the "bed" where she was sleeping, while she recaps every detail of the day. With questions, she retells some of what's been going on the past week, the past month. I hear stuff I hadn't even been told. This makes me even more upset. I want to go see Dad, but I might be too scared to go up there myself. Regardless, I grab my school bag and head out. I pause at the door. Nobody even notices.

  Lost, I leave one parent and head toward another. I take my backpack for a ride in the elevator. The woman behind the intercom screen doesn't seem fazed by my 4:00 a.m. visit. She opens the double doors and then smiles at me from behind the reception desk straight ahead. I turn right and walk down the dim hall. Lights are lower now, and the nurses sit at computers outside the patient rooms. They're not rooms, really, so much as squares with three walls and space enough to fit a bed, lots of IV stands, tubage, and screens with blinking lights and numbers that I figure I'll come to stare at a lot and eventually understand.

  I wonder how long it takes to become fluent in hospital language. If it's anything like becoming fluent in French. I've been in French since elementary school, and I still often wonder if I'd make it through the country alone. We traveled to Epernay, France as a junior class last year, about twenty of us with five chaperones. I don't think any of us actually tried the language out much. Even when we spent three days with our host families, our student-hosts always spoke English. Whenever we did try out their language, they laughed at us and responded in English.

  Dad hasn't changed. Paul's in by him when I arrive. He points to a chair in the corner for me to sit on. He explains that they've added a breathing tube along with a tube into his nose for nourishment. He tells me about oxygen levels and which numbers to watch on which machines, but I'm kind of groggy. I thank him anyway and hope I understand more in the morning—well, the real morning if ever I sleep at all. I just want to see my dad, know that he's still here, still real. I need to be here in case he wakes up. Is there a chance he'll wake up?

  Once Paul steps out, I stand and move to touch Dad's hand and say, "Hey, Dad. We're here. Mom and I are here. And Grandma, Aunt Margie, and Aunt Linda. Brady's here, too, Dad. We all love you. Rest. When you wake up, we'll all still be here. Don't worry about us. Just get better, Dad." Tears are dripping now and I'm too tired to be embarrassed and wipe them away. "I love you, Dad." So tired. I whisper, "Don't leave me."

  13

  speak in fragments

  My legs get sleepy after a while of standing and looking at Dad's closed eyes, trying to imagine their exact color when open. It's probably best he's asleep so he can't feel those tubes in his mouth and nose. I can't imagine waking up to find those in there. Pain. Paul had said something about sedating him, especially during the normal nighttime sleeping hours, to keep him from coughing with the breathing tube in his mouth, down his throat, into his lungs. The dialysis machine is exchanging his blood, and he hasn't peed yet, so it's not working. After considering sitting in the corner chair and pulling out some homework to do on my lap, I decide to head back down. Maybe use a table in one of the cubicle rooms.

  "Sweet dreams, Dad. See you in a little while."

  The cubicle rooms are all empty, but I feel exposed. People might be coming in once daylight hits, only an hour or so away, and I don't want them glancing at me as they walk by. Instead I decide to try a couple of the mysterious doors we’d passed on our way to our sleeping room. The first corner door is locked, but the one kitty-corner to our room isn't latched, so I push through and enter. There's light enough from the hall to head straight for the circular table and plop my bag down.

  "Told you," says a voice through the semidarkness.

  I suck in a breath and jump, giving a yelp.

  The person attached to the voice turns on a lamp. Guess who?

  "Told me what?" I ask, breathing to calm my heart.

  "That you wouldn't sleep after having coffee in the middle of the night."

  I deflate with calming nerves. "Oh, that." I look toward the door once I realize looking at him means I'm looking at him with sweatpants and no shirt. He's lying on a love seat, half propped up on an elbow. His black hair is mussed just so, and in my exhausted, foggy, not-myself stupor, I'm suddenly feeling warmish and unable to look toward the door for too long. With my eyes back on his hair, lips, chest, stomach, I apologize for breaking in. "Actually, my family showed and woke me up. I had to get out of there." I fan my fingers out over my backpack. "Figured I'd do homework." Inwardly I groan when I think of how much I have waiting for me to catch up
on. "But I'll go out to one of the cubicles. Very sorry." I back out the way I came.

  This place seems so empty. I shouldn't have assumed the room was open when the door wasn't latched.

  He pulls a shirt up from the floor and tugs it down over his head. Buh-bye athletic chest and tummy with impressive abs.

  "Stay," he tells me. "I'm just resting my eyes. I won't bother you."

  I look at him, unsure.

  "Really." He lies back down and closes his eyes to prove to me that I'm not bothering him.

  "Okay." I move to sit next to the round table. "Thanks."

  His lips turn up at the corners, but he says nothing.

  I pull out my calculus and a sheet of paper, write my heading at the top, number the problems in the margin, and stare at the problems in the text. Seeing nothing. My head is heavy. My shoulders are heavy. My eyelids are heavy. Now dropping my head on the pillowy book seems like a great idea.

  "Getting lots done, I see."

  I jolt. "Thought you were sleeping?"

  "Looks like we're both failing."

  "I don't fail."

  His eyebrows raise at that, and he has no comeback.

  "Junior?" he asks.

  I shake my head. "Senior. You?"

  "Same."

  "Where are you from?"

  "Here. Milwaukee area. You?"

  "Appleton. Hour and a half north of here."

  "Been there. An aunt, uncle, and some cousins moved up there a few years ago."

  I nod.

  "Been to a couple of Packer games, too," he tells me.

  "I never have."

  "What? You live that close to Green Bay and you've never been to the stadium?"

  "Nope. Been to a few Gamblers games, though."

  "Absurd."

  "What? Hockey's absurd?"

  "No. That you live half an hour from Green Bay and you're not a Packer fan."