Some Kind of Normal

by Heidi Willis

  "Okay. How is Ashley today?" And we stop talking about cures and shift to the day to day we're comfortable with. He found his company two new jobs that'll take him through the summer. Logan is job-hunting for the first time and is weighing the choice of fast food or gas attendant, not particularly thrilled with either. Life is going on as normal at home, and it seems like a world away from where I am.

  ~~~~

  Chapter Sixteen

  The stretches of boredom are broken by bits of news called in from home. Pastor Joel's wife had her baby--a healthy girl they name Mary Ashley. I am both touched and horrified. It ain't like Ashley's dead already, but since they mean well I try to lean more to the touched.

  Brenda calls to say her cinnamon brownies won second place in Cinnamon Fest. Yolanda's new pool hit a snag when the diggers hit granite and had to bring in dynamite to blow it out. The paper had a typo in one of the ads, and HEB had to sell all their brisket and t-bones at 80 percent off instead of 30 percent.

  Despite the mundaneness of these news bits, I look forward to my cell phone ringing, if only to hear a voice that's not a doctor or nurse's. But when I hear the voice of Logan's principal, I know no good can be coming.

  It's not just that it's her, although that alone sets my teeth on edge, 'specially since school's been out a month already. It's mostly the way she says my name, like a squeeter got caught in her throat and she's trying not to swallow it.

  "It's about Logan."

  "I didn't expect you'd call about anyone else," I say, taking the phone into the bathroom so's not to wake Ashley and not to expose the hospital staff to what I'm sure is about to be a very unsavory conversation.

  "The school janitor has made a very unfortunate find in Logan's locker."

  "A moldy PB and J sandwich?"

  "A test, Mrs. Babcock." I've always hated the way teachers and principals use my formal name to emphasize they are serious, the way I use Logan and Ashley's first and middle to get their attention.

  "Oh my. A test. In a school locker. Shall we report this to the police, because I'm quite sure there has been some great crime committed here, Mrs. Gianuzzi." I can do it too.

  There's a pause and I can almost hear her teeth grinding. "A standardized test, Mrs. Babcock."

  "Should I know what that is and why this is a crime?"

  "It's the test the state gives students every year, part of the requirement for federal funding. Logan and his classmates took the test at the very end of the year. No one in the school should have had a copy of that test. Every copy was kept under lock and key until distributed for testing, and then every one was numbered, handed out, and collected."

  "If they were all collected, how does Logan have one in his locker?"

  "That's what we would like to know."

  My completely fine stomach suddenly feels completely not fine. I sit on the toilet and push the door closed all the way. "What is it you're trying to say, Mrs. Gianuzzi?"

  "That we believe it's possible Logan got a hold of a copy before he took the test and used it to prepare."

  "Was it an answer key?"

  "No."

  "So you're afraid Logan found out what was on the test and studied to make sure he got the answers right?"

  "Yes. That's called cheating, Mrs. Babcock."

  "You can stop using my name like that. I know who I am. What I don't know is why a school would be so worried about a student studying to make sure they do well on a test." I've never liked the principal, mostly because it seems to me like she has never liked Logan. From the first day, she tried to force him to change his hair, except there ain't no rule in school about hair cuts. I swear she made a judgment about what kind of student he was the moment he stepped off that bus looking like some punk rocker, and she ain't never looked far enough to see differently.

  She don't like me none either, which I gather is mostly because, while I don't like Logan's hair none the better, I don't make him change it. And I don't have past a tenth grade education, and she ain't the kind that can understand that.

  "Don't you find it strange that Logan barely makes Cs in class, and yet he scored almost off the charts on the standardized tests?"

  "I find it strange that he makes only Cs in school and yet can translate everything the doctors tell us about his sister into language we all can understand. That, and he's like some rainman of nutrition facts 'cause he can calculate the carbs off the side of a box faster than you can whip out your calculator. I find it strange that you would call me, worried that he did well on some test you should be hoping he does well on instead of calling his teachers asking why he ain't making better grades."

  There's more silence on the other end, but I don't get the feeling she's considering me so much as taking time to load her weapon. "The fact that he had the test in his locker is enough for us to bring him in for questioning."

  "Bring him in for questioning? What are you, Law and Order? I still don't see no crime."

  "Having a copy of this test is a crime."

  "How do you even know it was him that had it? If you didn't find it until after school was out, how do you know it was his locker, or that he put it in there?"

  "We know it's his locker because we have the records of which student had which one from last year."

  "Do you know where I am right now?"

  "I'm not in the mood for a game," she snaps.

  "I'm in the hospital." Well dang if that don't shut her up. "In case you didn't know, my other child is real sick, and our family is spending every minute of every day trying to find the cure that's gonna bring her home. Right now, I don't give a hoot about your test. All I care about is keeping my daughter alive."

  "I didn't know. I'm very sorry to hear that." She does, actually, sound sorry.

  "Look, Mrs. Gianuzzi. I'll talk to Logan, okay? I'll ask him about it, and if he took it I'll make him come by and personally apologize."

  "It doesn't work that way. This is very serious."

  I sigh, because this ain't getting nowhere. "I'll make him take the test over again, then. How about that? Will that make it right?"

  "It's not a matter of the scores. This is going to go before the school board. Logan may be facing expulsion."

  The word expulsion is just getting funnier and funnier. "You're gonna have to wait in line. I gotta see the board about my daughter first. Her crime was trying to take the medicine she needs to stay alive."

  "The school board meeting is the end of the month, Mrs. Babcock. You and Logan will have to show up then to present your defense."

  "Yeah," I say. "I'll just make sure my daughter is all better by then so we can make your issues our priority." I hang up without saying goodbye. A moment later the phone rings again. I turn it off without answering. I try to collect myself before leaving the bathroom.

  Travis and Logan are there already, looking at me strangely as I exit the loo so gracefully. Travis looks at the phone in my hand. "Trouble?"

  "Apparently Logan swiped some big test at school, and the principal has her panties all in a wad." The color drains from Logan's face and Travis turns to him, the mood in the room suddenly chilled.

  "Logan?"

  "It wasn't mine. I swear."

  "So you know about this?" I ask, angrier than I have a right to be now. "I just told your principal you couldn't possibly have been involved." I didn't, but I'd been wanting to say that to her. I'd been thinking it, and the fact that Logan so easily cops to the crime makes me feel betrayed.

  "I wasn't involved. I didn't take the test. I didn't even look at it."

  "Then how did it land in your locker?"

  "Another kid stole it."

  "Who?" demands Travis.

  "I can't say. He stole it, but he didn't use it either. I found him sneaking out of the counselor's office with it when I went in to. . ." He trails off a minute and before I can ask why he's going to the school counselor he finishes. "I saw him with it and told him he needed to give it back or he'd be in real trouble."


  "Real trouble? As opposed to. . ."

  "Failing the test."

  "I thought it was one of those state tests. That doesn't even affect his grades does it?" I know it can't, 'cause Logan got hugely good scores, but his grades didn't go up an iota.

  "If he failed, he couldn't graduate."

  "Doesn't he have another year to take it?"

  Logan flops onto the daybed. "He's a senior. He flunked it last year. This was his last year."

  Travis sits in the chair across from him and leans back, folding his arms across his chest. "So you took the test and he failed?"

  "No. I told him he needed to return it, and I'd tutor him."

  "You?" I realize I have snorted at this idea, and I cover it by pretending I am sneezing. As good as his test scores are, I can't imagine Logan teaching anyone.

  "Except by the time I convinced him I could help, the counselor was back and he couldn't get in to the office to return it. I took it, cause I didn't want him being tempted to cheat, and I thought I could put it back when. . ." He breaks off again, and then adds, "later."

  "So?" Travis says.

  "So what?"

  "Did he pass?"

  Logan grins that cat-in-the-fish tank kind of grin. "Yeah."

  "That don't excuse it," I say, frustrated at the situation he's just put us all in. "Now, you're the one in trouble. They want to expel you."

  This wipes the grin off his face, and he pales again. "But I didn't do anything wrong."

  "You have a test in your locker you shouldn't have. That's all they care about."

  "But it's not even the test I took."

  "What?" I stop pacing and stare hard at him.

  "It's not my test. They give a different one to the juniors and to the seniors."

  "Well, there's your defense," Travis says, as if that settles that. He gets up and walks to the door. "Anyone want a Dr. Pepper?"

  When he's gone I sit down across from Logan, who picks up a magazine and flips through it just to not make eye contact with me. "Logan, put that down." He does, and sighs heavily.

  "I was trying to do the right thing, Mom."

  "Why didn't you just take the test back to the counselor, or tell your friend to?"

  "Obviously if he took it back, he'd get in trouble. And if I took it back, I'd get in trouble."

  "But, like you said, you didn't do anything wrong."

  "You think they'd believe me?" I look at his hair, his clothes, the way he hangs over the daybed like he's been draped there. I think about his grades and the way he's more likely than not to say exactly what's on his mind the moment it pops into it. And I know he's right. And like a flash I realize the two of us is just peas in a pod.

  "Okay," I say.

  "Okay what?"

  "Okay, I'll take care of it."

  "Take care of what?" Ashley says in that groggy voice we've come to know as her usual voice.

  "Doing what I do best: cleaning up after the two of you. I'm going to go see what happened to your dad."

  I close the door behind me and lean against it. I have no idea how to fix this. Stolen tests. Contraband needles. Unfist-fights. Even in doing right, they did wrong. Right now there's just too much of life to battle, and I am tired.

  ~~~~

  Chapter Seventeen

  In my room at the Ronald McDonald house, the last resident had left a calendar. It's a diary of sorts, the small boxes that are supposed to represent days filled with appointment reminders, medicine changes, drug reactions, simple facts of life with a dying child.

  Meagan admitted, relapse, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. chemo/radiation ruled out as options cbc-white count 1500 Meagan falls getting to bathroom, breaks tibia, wheelchair bound hip bone marrow aspiration, spinal tap done

  m.d.b.g and g tested for compatibility. negative. Meagan put on bone marrow transplant list

  The notes are jottings of facts, but I wonder how many tears were shed writing them.

  The notes end abruptly. I don't know how to interpret the facts of the last few days to know if it ended well, but I tend to think not. If'n it were me, I'd take the calendar home and put it in the baby box where I keep Ashley's treasured things, so that one day I could pull it out and show her and say--

  But I don't know what I'd say. See how God answers prayers? See what a little faith can accomplish? Or will I say, See how miraculous science is? See what the persistence of doctors and the will of a family can accomplish?

  I sit on the bed fingering the pages, the glossy photos of Texas wildflowers. I find a pen and turn back a month, just two days after Meagan's last treatment and write, "Ashley admitted, diagnosed type 1 diabetes." I fill in as many days I can. First low blood sugar. First shots: lantus and humalin. Leave hospital. And then I stop to decide if I want to fill in the days we are home and decide not to, merely drawing a line though them with the word HOME on top,

  Next I fill in our current stay. I end with today. 1 month anniversary. Dr. says desens a failure. It is all that will fit in the box but it says so little about what is going on.

  Travis walks out of the bathroom as I'm hanging it back on the wall. "The shower was cold tonight."

  "Visiting hours are over. Everyone is coming back to clean up for dinner." Dinner has come to mean less of a meal and more a time of day. No one here eats much.

  He looks at the calendar where I've written and points at a blank one at the end of the month. "One day we'll write, 'took Ashley home' on one of those squares," he says.

  "Not take it home?"

  "No. We should leave it for the next family. So they know."

  "About Ashley?"

  "Yes. And hope."

  I don't answer, so he takes me by the shoulders and turns me around.

  "You have to believe, Babs."

  "In what?"

  "Just believe--that Ashley will get better."

  But that makes no sense to me. You can't just believe without believing in something. And right now neither God nor science is pulling through for me.

  "Did Dr. Benton tell you what he's going to do now?" Travis asks.

  "No," I answer.

  Travis lets go of me and picks up his towel to rub his hair dry. "He said he has someone flying in to talk to us tomorrow. Where are you going?"

  "Back to the hospital. Do you want to come?"

  "I thought we were going to spend some time together. I just got here. I ain't hardly seen you in weeks."

  "Then come with me."

  "We can't talk there. Not in front of Ashley."

  "She's asleep."

  "Exactly. Now's the perfect time to go out. Let me take you out for real food, Babs."

  It's been three weeks since our last eating out disaster, and seeing as how that one didn't end so well, I'm not anxious to repeat it. "I'm not hungry."

  "It's not about the food."

  "So why go out?"

  "To be together," he insists. I want to remind him that our last togetherness thing ended with me alone at the table and him fuming in the bathroom until his enchilada got cold.

  "We can be together in the hospital."

  "This conversation's like a dog chasing his tail." He grabs the remote to the TV and throws himself in the one chair we got in the room.

  "What?"

  "Just go." He punches buttons on the remote. A baseball game appears.

  "Are you coming with me?"

  "No."

  When I get to Ashley's room she's asleep, and I sit in the dark watching her chest rise and fall. Her hair has thinned, and she is ghostly white.

  I should be at the house with Travis. We've barely spoken in the weeks since Ashley and I packed up and moved our lives to Austin. He drives back and forth every night and we talk on the phone, but mostly when we talk it's about his roofing job and TV shows and Logan, who is now out of school and working at a music store selling guitar strings and clarinet reeds. The conversations are clipped; we are both exhausted. If we speak about anything truly important,
we argue, so we don't.

  It's not because of Ashley, though. It's been years since we've had more than these surface conversations. I don't know when we stopped having the real conversations that newlyweds have: the kinds that are about what you hope and dream for your life and for the world in general. It must have been when I couldn't see no further than getting through the piles of laundry and how to make dinner with no cheese or ground beef in the house. Sometime around when Travis gave up running his own contracting business to work for someone else so we could have insurance and afford to fix the brakes on the truck.

  Brakes and insurance are important things, but not much of a conversation starter.

  The monitor hooked up to Ashley's heart is beating unbearably fast. Tiny bleeps across a black screen. I move over to the bed and sit beside her. Brushing her hair back, I can tell her head is hot, like she's running a fever. I feel like she's slipping away from me.

  "Can't we do a transplant?" I asked Dr. Benton last week. Pulling out my notebook and flipping to the pages full of examples of islet and pancreas transplants, I ask again, "Why aren't we doing this?"

  "I'm not ruling it out. But she's going to be hard to find a match, and on top of that, the success rate is about 64 percent. The likelihood that her immune system would attack the new pancreas is high. It's just delaying the decision we have to make now."

  "But it might buy us time, right? Isn't that all we need? A little more time? Then maybe that mice vaccine thing might be working."

  "We don't want to trade one very serious problem with another. There's a risk of death with the surgery, along with a long list of complications that could have Ashley needing to come back to the hospital several times a year. And whether the new pancreas works or not, Ashley would have to be on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of her life."

  "We'd be trading one poison for another?"

  "In a sense. There's also a good chance, a very real chance, that the transplant would only be partially successful."

  "How can it be partially successful?"