Some Kind of Normal

by Heidi Willis

  "But if I'm not. . ."

  "You will be."

  She squeezes my hand and lets go. "I'm really tired. I think I'll sleep a little."

  "Okay."

  I watch her sleep, see the moment when the tightness of her face eases, when her eyelids stop quivering and her body relaxes into itself. I'm selfish to want her here. To want her to keep fighting through all this. Maybe if I were her, I'd just want to let go too.

  I slip out and go to the restroom to cry. I wash my face before meeting Travis and Logan, and I don't tell them about the conversation. I pretend to be excited about the transplant and tell them Ashley is curious about the others and that I think she's back to her competitive self because she wants to be the first to have it work. We talk about her name being in medical journals and all the others who will be cured after her. I don't mention her dream. I don't mention death, because today is all about life. I want to hold on to that as long as possible. As Travis and Logan shove down sandwiches and chips, I watch the animation on their faces, their hopes wrapped up in possibility, and I stay quiet.

  ~~~~

  The sun is barely set by nine o'clock, and we say goodnight to Ashley, although she's already asleep again. Logan's invited to go to a celebration dinner with one of his basketball friends, and so Travis and I walk around the Johns Hopkins campus. He holds my hand, and I feel closer to him than I have ever felt. The trees haven't started to change yet, but the air feels like fall already.

  I want to ask Travis something, but I can't bring myself to do it. Words have never been easy for me. I open my mouth, and then close it and pretend to find something fascinating about the squirrels running across the path.

  Travis, though, feels it.

  "All this time, Babs, you were right. This was the right thing to do."

  "It hasn't worked out yet," I answer, measuring my words and tempering my hope.

  "It will though," he says. "One way or another, it'll be okay."

  He squeezes my hand; I squeeze back. "How can you have such faith in God?" There. I've said it. I wait for his avalanche of self-righteousness, but it doesn't come. Travis, it seems, is measuring his words too.

  "I think sometimes you mistake me trusting God to answer, for liking what he has to say." He says this slowly, weighing the thought as though maybe this is a new revelation for him, too. "I trust that God will do what is best, because that's what the Bible says. I trust that he hears my prayers, because that is what the Bible says. It also says he always answers, but it doesn't say he answers the way we want him to. Just that the way he chooses will be the best way. In the long run."

  He stops walking and stares up into the darkening sky. I wonder if he's looking to see if God is there, or if God will strike him down for thinking what he's thinking. "I believe he can save Ashley's life, but maybe if she dies, something greater will happen. Something good in us, or in someone else." There are tears on his cheeks now, and he turns to look me in the eye. He is more fiery now. "But I don't like that. If he takes Ashley, I may trust that he's going to make something good come out of it, but I'm still going to hate the answer with a passion for awhile."

  This is the first time it's seemed possible Travis could be mad at God.

  "So how can you trust that he's good, then?" I ask.

  "Because the Bible says. Because everything in nature and history shows us that he can make good come of bad. Because," he shrugs. "Because he loves me."

  I suddenly have a flashback to a dinner table argument with Logan and Ashley when they were little, about eating broccoli. They wanted nothing to do with the green vegetable. Why couldn't they have candy instead? I don't like it, Ashley had whined. It tastes yucky.

  But it's good for you, I'd said. You may not like it, but you have to eat it because it will make you healthier.

  Was that like God? Were we just like children who couldn't see for the life of us how something so bad could be good for us?

  Travis and I begin to walk again, our fingers still intertwined.

  "I don't always feel like God is there," I say.

  He nods. "Sometimes it's that way. But he's there."

  "How do I know?"

  He strokes my palm with his thumb, his fingers running over mine. "Because he promises he will be." It seems like too simple an answer, but then I think of Brenda and Yolanda and Donna Jean and Janise. I think of all the food they made and the laptop that brought us here, to this very place, this very hope. And I suddenly realize God was there, in all of that. He loved me through the people around me.

  "I want to believe," I say, stopping again. "I want to trust that God will take care of us, the way you believe it."

  He raises his eyebrows at me. "Even if Ashley doesn't get better?"

  I suck in my breath. Tears spring to my eyes, but I nod. "I want to trust him even if he don't answer the way I want him too." I hold both his hands in mine and look into his face, wanting desperately the peace he has. "I think, if Ashley doesn't get better, I'm going to need to trust him even more than if she does."

  He wraps his arms around me, and I melt into them. He's saying words in my ear, and it takes a minute to realize he is crying and praying. I cling to him under the oaks trees, along some dark and foreign path, and pray with him.

  ~~~~

  Chapter Thirty-One

  One day, suddenly, after nothing for so long, her blood sugar is down. Not all the way, but a good 100 points down, and I stare at the meter. For the first time in two months, the numbers really are going down.

  "What's wrong?" Ashley is stronger now, and curious about what's going on with all the doctors and injections and testing. She's sitting straight up today, writing emails to her friends because we got her texting bill last month and took away the phone.

  "I need to do it again. I think I made a mistake." She offers her hand out to me without question and goes back to typing, one handed. I wash her fingers off with a washcloth, dry them thoroughly, and prick her again. The meter blinks. 5. . .4. . .3. . .2. . .1. . .

  281.

  Five months ago that would have meant nothing to me. Three months ago that would have been a bad number. Today it is so good it makes me want to cry.

  Ashley glances up and sees my face and closes the laptop instantly. "What is it?"

  I show her the meter, barely able to keep the smile off my face.

  "What was it last night?"

  "395."

  She searches my eyes, as if asking for permission to believe what this seems to mean.

  I nod. "It's working," I say, almost in a whisper because I'm afraid that to say it out loud is to give us unfounded hope.

  "Could it be the insulin?" She takes out the pump again and looks at it, as if it will blink the answer in digital code.

  "It's the same amounts of insulin you've been getting for weeks."

  "So. . ."

  "So it's you." I give her a hug. At first she is limp in my arm, but slowly the realization hits her, and she wraps her arms around me. I feel hot tears hitting my shoulder. Without sound, the tears come faster and faster until her entire body is heaving.

  "It's over, isn't it?"

  I hold her tight, not wanting to say anything. I don't know if it's over. I don't know what this means, but for the first time I dare to hope.

  A knock at the door interrupts us, and we both wipe tears as Dr. Van Der Campen walks in. He stops in the doorway and crosses his arms over his chest. "And I see we have another success."

  "Another?"

  "It's day five after the first transfusion. The same day both of the other two patients began making their own insulin."

  "So it's true?"

  "Well, let's see." He asks Ashley to test her blood again. Her hands are shaking so hard she can't get the tiny strip into the meter, and it falls to the floor. I throw it away, take out another, and put it in for her. She pricks her own finger and squeezes the blood out. She hands the meter to Dr. Van Der Campen, who holds it while it beeps five times, count
ing down.

  278.

  "I'd say that looks like success."

  "I'm cured?"

  Dr. Van Der Campen holds out his hands. "Let's not get ahead of everything." He pulls a chair up beside the bed and motions me to sit too. "This process isn't an instant thing. We may not know for a long time what the final outcome of this is. It may take a long time for your pancreas to totally take over regulating your own insulin. And your own immune system might attack it again. We can't know for certain what's going to happen."

  "But. . ." I say, waiting for him to say something positive.

  "But, for now, this is very good."

  "It's good?" Ashley asks.

  "Very, very good." He finally smiles, one of the few I've seen from him.

  "So we can celebrate?" I ask.

  "I'd say we should all celebrate," he answers. "Where's the rest of the family?"

  "They went to throw some hoops in the courtyard. I'll call them." I take out my phone, but Ashley holds her hands out.

  "Let me." I hand it to her, and she hits the redial button and waits for the ring. Her face is glowing, the faintest hint of color in her cheeks: something I haven't seen in a long time. I can tell when Travis answers because she smiles even wider. "Daddy? I've got good news." I can hear him whoop through the phone, and she holds it away from her ear, the sound of both Travis and Logan coming through the phone.

  "We'll be right there," he yells.

  By the time they burst through the door breathless, Dr. Van Der Campen has brought in a round of little plastic tubs of sugar-free jello for each of us to toast. For Ashley this is truly a treat: she's eaten almost nothing since our doomed campout except for some broth. She picks the red jello and peals back the tin foil, digging her spoon deep into it and watching it wobble. The rest of us grab one and open it, even Dr. Van Der Campen joins in, and soon we all have the slimy substance, holding the spoons out towards each other.

  "To you, Ashley, and a life free of diabetes!"

  We all toast and eat, Logan and Travis huddling around Ashley. The excitement in the room is almost as electric as lightening. I watch Dr. Van Der Campen, and he seems like he might just burst with pride. When he slips out of the room I follow.

  "Dr. Van Der Campen?" He stops and turns around.

  "Jack. You can call me Jack, Babs."

  What do I say? How can I possibly put into words what it means, what he has just done? In this constant shifting sand that is our lives, he gave us something to stand on.

  "You're welcome," he says, smiling as if he knows.

  "It's working for the others, too?" He nods. "Are there others after Ashley? You said maybe twenty or thirty in this phase of the trial."

  "Not yet. The press hasn't exactly been flattering. Sometimes that stops people from flocking to a new trial. But they'll come." He smiles a kind of sad smile. "There will always be people like you--people who need it enough to brave the bad press because there are no other options."

  I remember the newspaper articles and the rally posters with the angry red slash across his face. I don't even know the name of his little girl, but I know exactly how desperate he must have felt.

  "Like you did?"

  "Like I did."

  The hall is unusually quiet, no nurses rustling about in their over-starched scrubs, no stretchers or visitors. Hardly a sound except the sound of celebrating from the door behind me. His eyes are a mix of emotions, and I realize what it is. Ashley's life, this miracle today, came at the cost of his own daughter. If she hadn't died, we wouldn't be here.

  Suddenly, my heart is so full of gratitude and love and relief it feels too heavy for my chest. I take a step, and then another, and then another until I am within a breath of Jack. And I put my arms around him.

  "Thank you," I say.

  It takes a moment for him to hug me back, but when he does it's as full of pain as it is with happiness. He lets go and turns quickly, walking away before I can say anything else.

  ~~~~

  We test Ashley's blood every fifteen minutes. She can't wait, hoping to see it plunge, but it's a gradual process. The nurses bring her food, little things mostly, liquid foods to get her stomach used to food again, and she crosses her fingers when she tests afterward. The numbers go up slightly, but they come back down, and in five more days, they are remaining steady around 95.

  The difference in Ashley is amazing. She's up and around again, most of the IVs removed, and she insists on taking showers and wearing her own clothes. We take walks around the hospital halls, slow and short at first, her legs weak and her breathing hard until they gradually grow longer. When Dr. Jack approves it, we take short walks outside. Her immune system is slowly building again, and we shed our masks, then the gloves, and finally the scrubs we have come to feel as comfortable in as our own skin.

  During the days, Logan and Ashley sit on her bed and work on schoolwork. This is the compromise I've worked with the schools. Before we came out I explained to the principals that we'd be gone for the beginning of the school year, that Ashley was terribly sick and that Logan wanted to be with her. They organized a sort of home-schooling/ internet option for him to cover the weeks we'd be gone.

  So now that Ashley is stronger, they study together, and Dr. Jack even sometimes comes in and sits for a few minutes to look at the math and science and offer help. He's taken Logan out for lunch several times, and I think they're forming a great relationship that is just as good for Dr. Jack as it is for Logan.

  I leave them on the bed studying and head out to the snack machine. A woman is already there, banging her palm against the glass and swearing.

  "Can I help?" When she turns around there are tears on her face. She wipes them off, embarrassed. "I can't seem to get it to come out."

  I ask which ones and put in more money and push the buttons. The spiral moves and drops two bags of chips. I reach in and pull them out for her.

  "Thanks," she says.

  "Are you new here?"

  She nods. "Son or daughter?"

  "Father," she says. "Alzheimer's."

  "You're not the first to wrestle with that machine. The one on the first floor works better. But the coffee on the third is better. I think it's their attempt to keep you from getting too flabby from sitting in hospital rooms all day waiting."

  She smiles a little, and I'm glad I stopped to help.

  "Thanks," she says. "I'll remember that. You been here long?"

  I shrug. A lifetime, it seems. Was there life before this? "A couple months."

  "Wow. That's a long time. Why are you here?"

  "My daughter has diabetes." I say this but then think of her sitting on the bed right now, the last of the IVs taken out this morning, Max the pump packaged back in the box, the blood tests showing normal insulin production. "She had diabetes, I mean."

  "But now she doesn't?"

  "No. Now she doesn't." I watch these words take effect. I see in her eyes the possibility of her dad regaining his memory of her, of their past together. A few months ago I wouldn't have known what it was I saw in her eyes, but today I know what it is, because I have found it too.

  It's hope.

  ~~~~

  Chapter 32

  One Year Later

  After an oppressive summer, the air tonight is cool as we sit in the football stands. I lean into Travis, and he puts his arm around me to warm me. A few people stop to chat with us, and then move on as the game begins.

  On the track Ashley bounces around with the rest of the cheerleaders, a sight that still makes me laugh.

  "For true? A cheerleader?" I asked when she brought the form home and asked to try out.

  "It just looks like fun."

  I find it hard to say no these days, so I signed the form. She went to tryouts and jumped and yelled and flipped her hair and now is the proud owner of a blue and yellow skirt short enough to give her dad a heart attack.

  She waves her pom poms along with the rest of her freshman squad as the foot
ball players run onto the field. I look for Brian Lee and find him easily, waving his helmet in her direction and smiling through his black striped face. Ashley is all lit up, her cheeks rosy, her finally thickened blond hair pulled back into a ponytail with blue and gold ribbons and glitter sparkling under the stadium lights. She looks magical.

  Logan sees us and climbs the stands and offers us a tray of hot chocolate. Girls walk by and giggle, but he seems not to notice. His hair is short now, and all brown, but he sports a tattoo on his shoulder instead, a small red staff with two snakes circling it. He calls it a caduceus. It's the symbol of doctors. In January he will enter Johns Hopkins University as a pre-med major.

  The air smells of fall, that smoky, leafy smell that brings back memories of my own days as a kid. It's the smell of beginnings and endings. It's anticipation.

  This weekend I take the GED. I'm not nervous. Logan tutored me for a while, but it turns out I'm not too bad at learning on my own. In the practice exams I've scored nearly a hundred percent. When I showed them to Logan, he just gave it back to me with a smile and said, "See? You were right after all."

  "About what?"

  "We're two peas in a pod."

  Travis thinks I should go to college. Logan suggested UT in Austin, but I may start closer to home in the community college. I'm thinking of being a nurse.

  Last year seems a long time ago, and just a minute ago at the same time. We're not the same people, the same family. We can't bring ourselves to say that this whole experience was a good thing. The thought of how close we came to losing Ashley . . . it still stops my heart. But we can't say it was bad either.

  I lean my head against Travis, and he leans his head on mine. Logan holds his Styrofoam cup out to us in a toast. Ashley beams.

  Someone once said faith is standing on a cliff and knowing that if you jump, someone will catch you, or you will be given wings to fly.

  I am flying.

  ###

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