The Picture

by Stephanie Taylor

  She threw her hands up in defense. “It's not me. It's the mom. I've told her she can't smoke in the house anymore and every time I tell her that, she lights one up just to spite me.”

  I nodded. “We'll see who wins this battle.”

  Emily was dying. Her mother probably didn’t want to speed up the process. If she didn't listen, I would play dirty. Second hand smoke was dangerous for Emily as well as for my own lungs.

  “She's never around,” Rachel mumbled, obviously about the mother. “She's avoiding the inevitable, out acting like she's twenty again. You'd think she would have learned the first time.”

  “The first time?” I asked, confused.

  “Miss Sophie, you can come do my vitals now!”

  I glanced up as Emily sat down on the edge of the sofa, ready for her examination. It was protocol for me to take her vital signs, especially given how sick she looked.

  “I'm outta here.” Rachel gathered her things. She pointed her finger at Emily. “You better behave yourself with Sophie. I've got a feeling you can't get around her rules.”

  Emily turned innocent eyes on me but I saw curiosity in their depths. “Are you going to make me go to bed at seven like that other nurse did?”

  I frowned. Granted, Emily needed rest, but a strict bedtime schedule? She was dying. I intended to let her mother make the rules. My frown deepened when I remembered she wasn't around. “Do you know when your mother will be home?” I asked.

  “Usually around three or four in the morning.”

  I unwrapped my stethoscope from around my neck and waved goodbye to Rachel. “Where does she work?”

  “Over at Wal-Mart a few days a week. She goes out when she doesn't have to work early the next day, which is most days.” I noted the drop of her eyes and the sadness in her voice. I already didn't like the woman and tried not to be curious how she provided medical care for her daughter while working part time.

  I listened to her heart for a few moments. “Any trouble breathing?” I asked, making notes on my chart.

  “Nope.” Emily took a deep, dramatic breath and let it out as her shoulders dropped. I grinned at her display of childhood. I loved it.

  “Any chest pain?”

  “Nope.”

  “Bowel movement today?”

  “Yup.”

  “Chemo this morning?”

  “Yup.”

  “And how are you feeling from that?”

  “A little yucky, but I'm feeling better right now. Rachel gave me Zofran.” I noted the anti-nausea med on my chart and continued with the battery of questions. She was precise with her answers and didn't seem bored with answering. Most people barely paid attention to me after the fourth or fifth question.

  “So,” I said, after my assessment. “What do you like to do when your mom is gone?”

  Emily brightened. “I love to go to the park! But can we watch a movie tonight instead?” It was after five in the evening and she was showing signs of fatigue, but at least a movie wouldn't make her more tired.

  “Sure. What do you want to watch?”

  “Wizard of Oz is my favorite!” She clapped her hands, her smile blossoming into a giggle.

  “Why is it your favorite?” I asked, merely curious.

  “Because I want to be like Dorothy. I want to click my heels three times and go somewhere else.”

  A stab of pain pierced my heart at her confession. “Where do you want to go?”

  “To be with my daddy.”

  “Where does he live?”

  “I don't know. He's a singer. I've only met him a few times, but I will someday. Mom promised me.”

  I cocked an eyebrow at her mother's promise. It didn't sound like she was in any position to be making those.

  As it was, it took us some three weeks to get properly acquainted and when we finally did, it was over vomit and Emily's feelings about her mother.

  I reached to hold back Emily's hair over the toilet, only to remember she had none. A bald head never shook me, but on Emily, it just seemed wrong somehow.

  When her stomach settled, she turned to me and ran her pallid fingers over it. My touch apparently made her realize what I was trying to do. “Mom hates it,” she said. “It makes her sad.” Apparently, she dwelled on this fact more than anything else about her sickness.

  The absent mother in Emily's life brought me up short when she mentioned her. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I don't know, but she won't even take my picture anymore.”

  The lump in my throat threatened to choke me. What was wrong with her mother? But even as I thought it, I knew the answer. She was running from the situation. I wasn't that kind of person, but I could understand it. Watching your child die wasn't an easy thing.

  “Your mom...” I started as I wet a washcloth to wipe her face. “Your mom is very sad, Emily. When moms run away like this, it's because they care so much and it's hard for them to see their children this way.”

  Emily just stared at me.

  “It's selfish, Emily. Your mom is being selfish, but there's a part of her that thinks if she can stay away long enough you won't be sick anymore.”

  When I unraveled the washrag and turned to run it over her face, tears were streaming down her puffy cheeks. “But I don't want her to forget me after I die!” she sobbed. She flung herself into my arms and cried harder than any little girl ever had. Her small fingertips dug into my shoulders and she clung to me like the very life her body was clinging to. I cried with her then, allowing myself a moment of self-indulgent pity. I carried her to the rocker and held her, giving her the physical touch she obviously needed and craved.

  “I wish,” she started and had to take a deep breath because she hiccupped. “I wish you were my mommy.” And once again her face scrunched and tears formed. She struggled a moment to get them under control.

  I smoothed her invisible hair and kissed her forehead. My heart ached. Those words alone almost undid me, but I recalled every professional protocol that I needed to keep my heart distant enough to get through it. “That would make your mom very sad to hear that.”

  “She's already sad.”

  “She loves you, Emily. Even if it doesn't seem like it.”

  “She hates me. She wishes I had never been born.” For a white-hot second, I thought I was going to lose the battle with my anger toward the woman, but I held fast. I considered a moment that maybe Emily projected her own fears and insecurities on her mother. And there would be hell to pay if the woman had actually said that to Emily.

  “Did your mom tell you that, Emily?”

  “I heard her telling her friend Belinda. She said, 'She's so sick, it would be better if she was never born.'"

  I cuddled her close and thought about how to proceed. “Emily,” I finally said, stunned at how much older she seemed. She even held herself straight and proud as she mimicked the hurtful words. “Your mom didn't mean what you think she meant. She was saying in her own way that she didn't want you to suffer like this.”

  “But if I'm not sad about it, why is she?”

  “Because she loves you so much. That's what I'm trying to tell you.”

  After I held a straight forward talk with Emily's mother before my shift the next day, she stopped staying out so late. But it still did little to make the relationship between the two grow. Emily continued to yearn for what she would never have.

  Coming back to the present, Emily announced she was done swinging, I slowed her to a stop and wrapped my arms around her from behind, planting a motherly kiss on her soft, bald head.

  “I love you, Sophie,” she said and placed her hand on my cheek over her shoulder.

  “I love you, too, Em.”

  Bounding down from the swing, she turned around and placed her hands on her hips in a playful stance. The dark circles under her eyes spoke of her progressing illness and fatigue, so I made quick work of gathering our picnic from earlier and placing it in the basket.

  “You never told me wh
y you're so sad.”

  I grinned and shook my head. “You're not going to give it up, are you?”

  “Nope!” She giggled.

  I stood from my knees and ushered her to my car. “Come on, Em. When we get back to your house, I'll tell you a story.”

  Chapter 4

  Leaving Nicholas was one of the hardest things I ever did. The look shadowed on his face continued to haunt me weeks after leaving his hotel room. But I went on with my life and tried to pretend that I’d never met him. Hard as that was, I was able to regain some semblance of normalcy.

  I continued to work. My new patient was an elderly man with liver cancer. He was a World War II veteran with white hair and reminded me of Opie. The pictures his wife kept on the mantle confirmed that long ago he was a handsome catch all decked out in his Army dress blues.

  I helped them deal with the emotional aspects of the disease. It wasn't really part of my job description, and I could probably get in trouble for the counseling since Madison County Hosptice had someone on staff for that. Mainly I helped them get their feelings out in the open and to understand the path his disease would take. As I spoke to them, his wife cried and held his hand. His arm came around her and the one who needed the comfort most became the comforter.

  It reminded me of how Nicholas, despite his own pain, had comforted me.

  The night before, Emily's mother, Jessica, had called to ask me to stop by today on my day off to help her go through Emily's things. It wasn't a chore I relished or even thought I should partake in, especially since Jessica never made it a secret that she hated me. From day one, our relationship was tenuous at best. She didn't appreciate my no nonsense lectures about spending time with her dying daughter, and I didn't like her flighty inability to stick around and give Emily what she needed. But toward the end of Emily's life, we formed a truce of sorts. Jessica accepted my role as friend and confidant for her daughter, and I accepted Jessica simply wasn't going to change.

  As I knocked on the door, my pulse skittered. Being here, seeing this house again, brought it all back as if it had happened yesterday, not six months ago. The cold January air whipped at my cheeks, and I pressed my lips together to embed the Chapstick deeper into my lips. Glancing up, I saw clouds dash across the sky in big, dark puffs, some racing so fast they crashed into each other. We didn't see snow very often in Alabama, but the weatherman was forecasting up to a foot of snow overnight tonight, the first major snow storm in over fifteen years.

  The slide of the deadbolt drew my gaze away from the sky and I came face to face with Jessica, bleary-eyed and clearly hung over, even at nearly nine in the morning. My palm settled on my hip and I looked at her. She clearly didn't remember why I was here.

  I reminded her as patiently as my renewed sadness would allow. “You asked me to come by and go through Emily's things with you...”

  “Oh, that's right. Yeah. Come on in.” Jessica opened the door and gave me a wide berth as I stepped inside.

  I studied her with a critical eye. She was still in her pajamas and her blond hair was so oily it was plastered to her head despite her pathetic attempt to pull it into a ponytail. Her bare toes were chipped with dark red paint and she reeked of cigarette smoke. Her slender frame was gaunt and her blue eyes sunken.

  “Jessica, you look like death.” Even before the words were out I realized my mistake.

  Her eyes hardened and she slammed the door behind me. Somehow she managed to produce a pack of cigarettes and lighter from thin air, too. She squinted as she lit up. “Too bad it wasn't me instead of her.”

  I didn't know what to say to that, but I did speak my mind. “You need help, Jessica. Counseling maybe. Or a support group.”

  “Stop it!” She pointed one bony finger at me, shaking of her head. “I don't need to wallow in self pity with a bunch of other parents who lost their kids.”

  “So you're just going to wallow in self pity here all alone?” I asked softly. Despite our differences, my heart broke for her. She had left Emily so often and now she was paying for her selfishness.

  “I'll do whatever I want.” Jessica took a desperate drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke defiantly in my direction.

  “You need help. No amounts of alcohol or nicotine or whatever else you use is going to take away the hurt until you know how to cope, Jessica." I sighed and tried to temper my tone. "This isn't an easy thing, I know.”

  Her hazy eyes focused on me. Her laugh was harsh and without humor. “You don't know nothin'.”

  But I did. “Do you think I don't miss her, too? Do you honestly think that a day goes by when I don't think about her smile or want to spend even a few more minutes with her?”

  “You were her nurse,” Jessica spat. “You weren't supposed to make her love you more than me.”

  A snarl curled back my lips. “You have no one to thank but yourself for that. She needed her mother and you chose booze and men over your child when she was dying.” None of this was new. These were the same things we had argued about every time we were near one another.

  “Nothing I can do about it now, huh?” Jessica pretended nonchalance, but I could see the mist gathering in her eyes.

  “Do you want my help with her stuff or not?” I sighed as I pulled my purse up my shoulder and waited for her to make a decision.

  She glared at me, her lip quivering. Finally, she spoke so softly I had to strain to hear. “Yes.”

  Jessica led the way to Emily's room. I tried to ignore the filthy state of the house. Beer cans sat on every flat surface, some flattened, some tipped over and laying in small puddles of amber liquid. Cigarette butts, some half smoked, others smoked down to a nub, overflowed ashtrays. Dirty clothes and shoes were strewn everywhere. An insane urge came over me to start cleaning, but I resisted. Jessica wasn't my problem anymore.

  When she opened the door to Emily's room, I was overwhelmed with the familiarity of it all. Not one thing had changed. In fact, it looked like Jessica simply closed the door and pretended Emily still napped inside. Even the cap for a syringe, most likely for the morphine I gave her only hours before she passed, was still laying on her nightstand where I'd put it. All the medical equipment was gone. An IV stand no longer stood in the corner. All the monitors and wires were gone. All the things that defined Emily's short life vanished. Just like she had.

  I looked at Emily's bed next, and my hand flew to my mouth, a sob escaping past the lump my throat. The covers were still wrinkled, as if she just stepped into the bathroom. I half expected to hear her voice chattering away to me as she sat on the toilet. I grinned through the tears but looked away from the bed.

  This was so much harder than I ever imagined. It was like losing her all over again.

  “I need to figure out what goes to Goodwill and what I should keep. You knew her better than I did.” Jessica hovered in the doorway.

  “How would I know what you're supposed to keep? What's sentimental to me probably means nothing to you.” I snapped.

  “I want to keep what meant a lot to Emily, not what meant something to you.”

  I kept my mouth shut, even though my insides screamed that she should be the one to know her own daughter so well, not me. But the words would fall on deaf ears. Jessica wasn't the kind of person who admitted mistakes. She just kept making them.

  “What's in that bag there?” I pointed, laying my purse on the floor next to it.

  Jessica stared at it a moment with a studious expression. “Oh, yeah, that's a few things Emily's dad requested I save for him.”

  “Mmm,” I eyed the bag, but kept my curious hands from rummaging through it. The mention of Emily's father sent a shard of pain through my stomach. Oh, how very badly I wanted to see Nicholas again.

  “I want this whole room cleaned out. I'm getting rid of everything. Whatever I need to keep, just form a pile over here and I'll bag it up.”

  How sad that Emily's life was being reduced to a simple pile of things. “Is there anything in particular you wan
t to save before I make a judgment call?”

  Jessica shook her head. “No. Just the things that meant something to her. Maybe one day they'll mean something to me.”

  I stifled my gasp at her careless words, but the look on my face probably said it all. Fortunately, the look on her face explained a lot, too. Her eyes were dead. Probably, a look inside at her soul would reveal it was dead, too. Save only her beating heart, Jessica was no longer alive. I was sure of it. Jessica had shut herself off to any emotion. It was the deepest form of grief in my opinion. She suffered now, feeling so numb, and would suffer again once she snapped out of it to finally deal with Emily's death. If she snapped out of it. Some grieving people didn’t.

  She shrugged when she noticed my stare and turned to leave the room.

  “You're not going to help me?” I asked, my voice an octave higher.

  “You knew her better than I did,” she tossed over her shoulder and disappeared.

  I turned back, giving her room the once over again, and allowed myself a moment of sorrow. A tear slipped down my cheek, and I snatched it away before I gave in to a full fledge cry. Clearing my throat, I got to work.

  Emily had a library of books that would impress...well, a librarian. I had bought her too many to count during my six months with her and every nurse before me apparently had, too. I immediately removed the bottom shelf where she organized the books she had outgrown or didn't care for anymore. They could all be donated.

  I saved all the books that Emily and I enjoyed together. When I came to her absolute favorite, Llama Llama Red Pajama, I smiled, but another wave of sadness hit me. Emily always giggled at me when I read it to her, making funny voices and yelling when the baby yelled. But it was also about a baby who felt alone at night and wanted his mother. How appropriate that Emily formed an attachment to that particular book.

  Next was The Wizard of Oz. I read this one to her twice through during those six months and still thought about the time she told me she wanted to be like Dorothy so she could go live with her Daddy.