An Illusion of Control

by Cecelia Earl

  Tears pool at my temple and melt into my hair that's pushed up against the blanket. I continue to talk to his hand that I hold with my heavy head lying next to his arm and my eyes closed, picturing all the stories I tell him. When I'm shaken awake, the room is much brighter. The clock tells me it's noon. It's disorienting to realize I'd fallen asleep and for hours. Food still doesn't sound like a good idea, but my stomach is making noises.

  "Lainey, come eat lunch with your brother and me." Mom's eyes look paler, but her hand on my cheek feels cool and soft. I stand like I'm three and she's telling me to follow her down the hall for nap time; I don't want to go, but I'm little, she's big, and she's the boss.

  Even with a nap in my system, I'm drained. Shuffling along after my mom, I notice all the people we pass. So many patients being wheeled by in chairs or on beds, on their way to have a procedure done, or an operation. So many hospital staff in one color of scrubs or another. Still haven't figured the system out.

  After lunch, Mom takes a walk and Brady goes to our room to nap, so I sit in the family center waiting area to . . . sit. I stare. After a little while, the sound of the television taps into my cotton-filled head. There's a breaking news story about an accident in downtown Milwaukee. The child was rushed to Children's Hospital, right next door to where we are now. Outside I hear distant sirens, the sound of helicopter blades circling overhead. I think again about what I didn't want to think about: Someone will have to die for my dad to live. Some other daughter, mother, father, brother, sister, friend, cousin will have to lose for me to gain.

  This is so horrible. I curl up on my chair and close my eyes. When my seat is bumped, I jolt. Groggy, I look at the seat next to me to see why I've been disturbed. Through fuzzy eyes, I see Jax, rumpled but smiling.

  "Morning, sleepyhead," he whispers.

  I crinkle my forehead and yawn. How long did I sleep? The sky doesn't look any different. "What time is it?"

  "Two in the afternoon."

  "Oh, so you're not a vampire." I haven't moved from my fetal position and don't want to. I'm chilled from sleep and miss my bed back home.

  Before he can even respond to my nonsense, I shift, straighten, and say, "Never mind. Just never see you in the afternoon." His eyes are still electric, though there are dark circles beneath. "Everything okay?"

  He shrugs.

  "Do you not want to talk about personal things? About why we're here?"

  "We can." He tilts his head and focuses his blue, blue eyes on mine, searching. "I want to know about you."

  I'm still too sleepy for the intensity in his eyes. I blink. "Okay, but I might not make a lot of sense yet."

  "Seems you're the one with vampire habits."

  I laugh. "Yeah. Guess I have gotten in the habit of many all-night study sessions over the years."

  "No. There's no way you wait until last minute to cram in a study session."

  "Oh, no. Of course not." I shudder. "I overstudy. Overprepare. One can never be too ready."

  "Says the exhausted girl next to me."

  I bat the air with my hand. "Sleep is overrated. Plenty of time to sleep when I die." The aftershock of my words are written on his face, and I rush to apologize. "Sorry."

  Now he bats the air. "Actually, I don't believe we'll sleep, but I don't think we'll be tired anymore, either."

  I don't know where he's going with this.

  "Heaven, you know."

  I shrug.

  "No? Don't believe in Heaven?"

  I shrug again. "Not really. I don't believe in anything after we die. We just . . . die."

  "God?"

  I shake my head. But I feel bad because our dads are possibly approaching this . . . phase, and I don't want to go against him if it's what's holding him together. Not that my opinion would shake his beliefs. But, I'm curious.

  "Tell me why you do believe."

  His eyes roll up toward the ceiling. They must look so blue because of the contrast with his black hair and tan skin. His face is long. His nose is straight and symmetrical. He's beautiful. He's thin, but his shoulders are broad. Supportive. I have an urge to lean into him, rest my tired head against those shoulders.

  "Just always have."

  That's not a reason, I want to say. "I can respect that."

  I wait for him to say he respects my not believing too, but I don't feel that coming from him. Now I feel a distance in the way he looks at me.

  Especially when his mom texts him and he heads back up by his dad who'd been having a scan of his head. I don't ask why, and he leaves shortly afterward.

  I curl back up and close my eyes. I don't sleep, but I let my thoughts lull me into a cyclone of worry and confusion. About life and death. Fear overtakes me, and I wish I had a god to talk to, to pray to, someone bigger than Mom and the doctors to trust and ask to help.

  I wish I didn't feel so alone.

  19

  another day

  Mom and Brady want to venture into the Luna Cafe for dinner around six, so I eat a tasteless chicken wrap with ranch dressing oozing out of it. They are happy with how theirs taste, so Brady tells me my tongue is broken. He implies it was only a matter of time.

  "It's catching up with the rest of you."

  I take my tray to the conveyor trash belt and wait for them by the elevator. Jax's mom exits with a woman who looks identical to her. They're shorter than Jax, maybe an inch or two taller than me, with long, wavy, dark hair and dark eyes. Stunning. No wonder he’s beautiful too. They're speaking Spanish. I wonder where Jax is. I head up to "our" room, the one we'd stayed awake talking in together, but it's shut tight and locked. There's no smiley-faced note. I consider leaving one but worry the blue-lidded lady will give the room to another family. I wonder if I could leave a note near his Dad's room to find, but then worry his mom would read it instead.

  Brushing my teeth and washing up with a washcloth do nothing for my oily hair and sticky-feeling skin. I want a shower, but don't feel like going to the YMCA tonight. I miss home. I miss my old routine.

  I lie down on a recliner and check my phone. I've missed a call from Chase. His message tells me he's checking in. I don't feel like talking to him, so I text, asking if I could come in for training tomorrow.

  He texts back: Sure!

  I'll be there at four o’clock.

  See you then.

  I call May and update her on everything from Dad's condition to Mom's staring to Brady's strange family-oriented being to my aunts, but not Jax. I don't know what to tell her about Jax. She tells me that Marc is making a huge show of not being with Lucy or anyone else.

  "He's practically glued himself to my side, the perfect boyfriend to my best friend."

  "Gag."

  "Yeah, I’ve made it clear I’m unimpressed." Her laugh trails off. "How are you handling the hospital germs?"

  "Not. I am about to climb out of my skin and run it through a sanitization machine."

  "Gross. And you'd have to invent one first."

  "When I'm a brilliant surgeon, brilliant researcher scientist and inventor will naturally follow."

  "I don't doubt it." She clicks her tongue. Never a good sign.

  "What." I don't ask. I say the word with a flat tone. "Tell me what's wrong."

  "Since you've been out, Lucy's making a case for valedictorian."

  I snort. "Whatever. No worries. I've had that in the bag since freshman year."

  She clicks.

  "What."

  "She's been talking to Ms. Fulton."

  "Whatever. She's the one who suspended her for pouring alcohol into the punch bowl."

  "She wasn't suspended."

  "Close enough."

  "Ms. Fulton is plotting a case against you for missing school."

  "What? Family crisis!" I stand up and pace. "I’ll be there all next week. Everything will be made up. It will be like this week didn't exist. They'll forget I wasn't there."

  She clicks. "I know you can pull it off."

  "I'm comi
ng home tomorrow. Whatever make-up work you collected, please put it on our kitchen table."

  "Done."

  "Thanks."

  "Oh, and May?"

  "Yeah?"

  "How've you been?"

  "Well, aren't you little miss friendship all of a sudden."

  "Sorry."

  She clicks.

  "Look, I know I get wrapped up in myself a lot."

  She clicks.

  "So, did you decide on a college?"

  "You know that I have."

  "Humor me," I say.

  "Are you asking because you want to know, or because you want to turn the conversation around and talk about where you're going to college?"

  "Well, initially it was to know where you chose, but now that you bring it up . . . no, I don't want to talk about where I'm going, because I don't know yet. I can't think about it."

  "You're going to have to think about it," she tells me.

  "Did anything from you know where come in the mail?"

  "Maybe."

  "Oh, good. Play with me. Great timing."

  "Yes, and you'll open it and find out tomorrow. Then this week, you'll make a decision and be happy about it. Either way."

  "And?" I ask.

  "And what?"

  "You're going?"

  "To UW Madison. I've been planning to go there since I was five. There wasn't another option. My parents went there, my sister goes there. I'm going there."

  "Had to make sure you didn't change your mind."

  "You could go to the University of Chicago. You'd be close. It's one of the best, most innovative research universities, with a great surgeon program. Plus, you don't have to continue on where you start out. You can always get into Johns Hopkins later . . . ."

  "Shhh."

  "Avoidance," May says, all singsongy.

  "Shhh."

  "Either you're plowing ahead like a madwoman or you're pretending something doesn't exist."

  "Shhh."

  "You know who you are?"

  "Laine Carroll?"

  "Scarlett O'Hara."

  "What?"

  "Think about it," she says. At least she's stopped all that tongue clicking at me.

  "I did. What?"

  May pulls out her southern accent and raises her alto voice to soprano. "I'll beat those Yankees. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill. I will save Tara." She drops back to alto. "It's either war, or, back to soprano. "I can't think about that now. I'll think about that tomorrow."

  "Your point?"

  "I made it clear."

  "I'll see you tomorrow."

  Soprano May says, "After all, tomorrow is another day!"

  "I'll expect to see you in all your glory. Hoop skirts and all. You really should have tried out for the spring play. Maybe major in drama at Madison."

  She clicks.

  "'Night, May."

  "'Night, friend."

  After that, I get my first full-night's sleep since my dad was flown here, but my sleep is full of dreams and nightmares. Dad's in a brightly lit, blue-filled space with wispy clouds and he's smiling. I can't get to him because he's on the other side of a glass wall and he can't hear or see me. I don't even know the people he's with. When I look around, I'm surrounded by blackness. My skin itches and it burns. Every breath scalds my throat. It's like I'm in a steam room that keeps getting hotter and hotter.

  Through the nothingness, faces flash, like they're coming up for air, breaking the surface of the black ocean every so often. There's Lucy with a smirking smile. She's not talking, but her voice somehow tells me she's valedictorian and going to Johns Hopkins. Marc is hers to kiss whenever she wants. She's taking my life for her own. Ms. Fulton breaks the surface next; her faceless body looks smug. Her expression is frozen, but she's telling me she knew I'd fail eventually. Nobody can keep up the exertion I had going forever. She knew waiting for me to fall wouldn't be in vain. She's proud to ruin my perfect record with a big fat F.

  F. F. F. F. The letter is flashing around me in red, like a neon bar sign. My dad can't see me to help. He's still floating around in perfection, bliss. My torment is my own.

  In later dreams, I'm at Tara. Everyone around me is in old Southern-style clothing, but I'm wearing all black, like a stagehand. I'm trying to tell them where to go, how to stand, what to say, but they're doing it all wrong. Speaking in French and Spanish or gibberish. Nobody is using the right accent, saying the right words. Nobody is sticking to the storyline. Jax is there, and he's falling for Scarlett, giving her his intense eyes, the way he looked at me once or twice. I don't know who's playing Scarlett. I've never seen her before. Marc is there, too. He's the only one looking at me. The moment he reaches his hand out to me, I'm woken by a sneeze.

  Brady is sneezing and blowing his nose. The sun is cutting in through cracks in the blinds. Mom's not on her couch bed, and the clock tells me it's time for the transplant team to make their rounds, if they even do that on Saturdays. Up I go to find out.

  I don't even brush my teeth first.

  20

  ticking away, like sand

  Dad's been moved to the other side of the ICU, the side where Jax's dad is. There's no reason for it, but now Paul won't be our nurse anymore. Actually, Paul will be, but not the same Paul. This guy's huge, like Hagrid from Harry Potter. Big Paul. Sue, for whatever reason has followed my dad over and is still the daytime nurse. Swell. She pulls me over while Mom is talking to a guy in a white coat.

  "I'm worried about your mom. She's a little . . . off."

  "Off?"

  "I don't think she grasps the situation."

  "Situation?"

  "The severity of your dad's condition."

  Before repeating "severity" like I want to, I nod. I don't want her to think I'm not grasping the severity of the situation, which I'm clearly not, because I have no idea what she's talking about.

  "She thinks he's going to be going home any day now, and he's not."

  I shake my head, like I'm agreeing with her.

  "He's very, very ill."

  I nod.

  "He's not going to be leaving without a kidney."

  I shake my head. An icy lace is spreading across my organs, freezing my insides with terror. Even the one woman in the family center had said that we’d have to adjust life until he got his kidney. Why is she going against this information?

  "If he gets a kidney—"

  "When," I say.

  She narrows her eyes. "When he gets a kidney, it'll be a long road. He'll be here for a long time afterward, and life will need to do a complete 180."

  "Do you want me to talk to her?"

  "I want you to pay attention when the doctors talk, ask questions, explain what they say to your mom."

  "Then they need to be explicit. No pussyfooting around the concerns."

  She looks shocked. "We have been."

  "No, you haven't been. This, the severity, has not been made clear. It's not her fault. These concerns need to be said, straight out."

  Her face resumes its rigidity. I don't think I'll be her confidante anymore.

  Except she says, "Then you need to accept it's if he gets a kidney. Not when." And she walks out.

  The man in the white coat is gone by the time I try to catch what he tells Mom.

  This new room is a little larger. Mom takes up a position on a green chair by the wall to my right. I find a green chair against the curtain/door to the room.

  "What'd the doctor say, Mom?"

  "Dad will have a cardiac assessment this week sometime. Though he was approved and put on the list a while ago, they're checking on his overall health now, to be sure he's still healthy enough to survive surgery and recovery."

  "So he could be pulled from the list?"

  "No, I don't think so."

  I start a mental list of questions to ask next time the doctors come around. Though I plan to be in school all week. I don't know how I'm going to make this work. How can I be in two places at once? School
starts at seven thirty, which is when the doctors come around. I need to create a cloning device, or time machine, in addition to a skin sanitization machine.

  Showers. Showers are good sanitization machines.

  "Will anything else be happening today?"

  "No, today he'll have dialysis for a few hours. Nothing else will change. His oxygen level hasn't changed. His fever has gone down with the help of the antibiotics, so that's good."

  "Mom?"

  She looks up from her journal where she's been scribbling words even while we were discussing everything.

  "Is it okay if I run home this weekend to get my homework and work my new job? I'm supposed to be at training, and I don't want to mess up before I've even begun to work. I'll bring back changes of clothes for you."

  "Of course. You don't need to stay. You should go to school. I can have Grandma come and stay with you, or you can stay at her house."

  The last thing I want is to go home and not be at home. "That's okay, Mom. I'm eighteen. I won't even be home that much, what with work and everything. I'll probably eat at May's and do homework the rest of the time. No worries."

  "M’kay."

  "Call me if anything changes. I'll be back as soon as I can."

  "Mhmm."

  "Do you want to come home? I can bring you back. Maybe shower?"

  "No. I'm not leaving." She looks at Dad with a longing in her eyes.

  "Make a list of what you want me to bring back for you."

  She looks at me, spacey-eyed. She looks down and starts jotting. She tears out a page from her notebook and holds it out to me.

  I stand and take it. Jogging pants, long-sleeved shirt, hooded sweatshirt, socks, underwear, vitamins, newspapers, mail, prayer card.

  "Prayer card?"

  "Yeah, there's one in my underwear drawer."

  "What for?"

  She shrugs. "Just grab it, please."

  We hug and I walk out with her list, conflicted, not wanting to be far away from Dad and the doctors, but itching to shower and be home, to take control of my life there again.

  Maybe I am a little bit like Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind. Maybe I want to avoid this and pretend I can live a normal life again. When I'm not here, maybe I'll feel like myself again. Regain my drive.