Love, Aubrey

by Suzanne LaFleur

  “What?” I asked. “What are you doing?”

  “You smell good,” she said.

  “I smell like Gram’s soap and shampoo,” I said.

  “Well, it smells nice.”

  We stayed very still for a long time, feeling each other, warm and present. I liked feeling her against me, and I felt safe like that. But that swish of chocolaty saliva kept coming back into my mouth, like in Amy’s office. Eventually I would have to talk, or I would end up stuck again. Maybe stuck forever. I asked an easier question first.

  “Why didn’t you come on Christmas? You didn’t even call.”

  “Christmas was just… it was too hard.”

  “But you’re here now. That’s not too hard.”

  “Christmas is… there are just some days of the year that are harder than others. Christmas is probably the hardest day of all. Now, well, these are just regular days. We can start over on regular days.”

  It was time for my second question.

  “Did …,” I started to ask. “Did …”

  “What, baby?”

  “No. Never mind.”

  “No, Aubrey, it’s okay. Go ahead.”

  I took a deep breath, and waited. She waited, too.

  “Did you love Savannah more than me?”

  “Oh no! Aubrey, honey, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.” I felt her body shake with sobs even though I couldn’t hear them. She pressed my hand to her cheek, and I felt that it was wet. “Of course I didn’t. Have you thought that all this time?”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t say anything. I closed my eyes and felt her sadness mixing with mine.

  “And how many times I’ve thought that you should still have your dad instead of me….”

  I found my voice. It was very small, but it said, “I never wished that.”

  Mom squeezed my hand very tightly. “I lost them for you. I lost them.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “It was an accident.”

  She didn’t say anything for a long time. I whispered again, because I knew, deep down in my heart, that I meant it, “It wasn’t your fault.”

  When Gram came up to tell me it was time for dinner, I asked Mom to come downstairs with us. She agreed. So we sat around the table, the three of us, grandmother, mother, and daughter, and ate the ham and baked sweet potatoes and baked beans that Gram had made. It was the first time I had sat at a table and eaten with Mom since the last time we ate with Dad and Savannah. I knew she was thinking of it, too. Even though it felt heavy in my stomach, the food tasted good and sweet and warm.

  Every afternoon I visited with Mom. I showed her my schoolwork, and told her about my friends. I started bringing my homework upstairs and doing it in her bed, or in a chair against the wall. I brought her to my room to meet Sammy. After a few days she was meeting me downstairs when I came home from school. One afternoon Bridget brought over Monopoly for us all to play. One night we watched movies and ate pizza right out of the box in the living room. The next night Mom actually cooked dinner. She made spaghetti and meat sauce. I gave her a kiss on the cheek when she served me.

  After she had been with us two weeks, the weather became unusually warm for January. Mom and I put on our jackets and sat out on the front-porch swing. Martha came out, too, and I could tell she was enjoying the breeze and the sunshine.

  “Aubrey, I want to talk to you about something.”

  “Is it good news or bad news?” I asked.

  “It’s just news.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “I’m going to go back to Virginia in a few days.”

  “Oh,” I said, looking away from her.

  “Gram and I think that it isn’t time for you to come with me yet. I’m going to keep seeing a doctor, and I want to hold a job for a while. I want to work on getting better.”

  “You do?”

  She nodded. She was getting better, I could tell. But one spaghetti dinner wasn’t everything.

  A few days later it was time to say goodbye. I stood outside the car and hugged Mom for a long, long time. Gram took her turn, and then Mom and I hugged again.

  “I’ll see you soon, baby,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Really soon.”

  I cried when she drove away. Gram put her arm around my shoulder. “This is the best thing,” she said.

  Soon there was the sound of a door opening, and Bridget crossed her lawn and joined us.

  “Hi, Bridge,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said. “Do you want to come over?”

  I looked up at Gram, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “Yeah. Is that okay, Gram?”

  “It’s a good idea,” she said. “Go on and play.”

  Bridget gently caught my elbow with hers, and together we walked back to her house.

  In February Gram announced that she was going to check on Mom. She was going to go for a whole week.

  “Do I get to come this time?” I asked. I’d been talking to Mom on the phone a little. It seemed like she was doing well. She never told me very much; I did most of the talking.

  “Not yet, honey. You’ll stay with Bridget.” I might have been annoyed not to get to see Mom, but a week with Bridget sounded really fun. The good thing about February was that we got a whole week off from school. That was new for me, because in Virginia we had our vacation in March. Because Gram picked that week to go, not only did it mean I could have a bunch of sleepovers with Bridget, it meant that we could play together all day, too.

  On Saturday Gram kissed me goodbye on the porch. “Be a good girl,” she said. Then she sort of laughed. “Well, I know you can take care of yourself, but Bridget’s mom is expecting you by lunchtime. Bring over your things for sleeping. I told her it was okay if you and Bridget want to hang out here for a little bit during the day sometimes, but you two need to sleep at her house. Don’t forget about Sammy and Martha.”

  “I won’t,” I said.

  “I love you,” Gram said, giving me a final squeeze.

  “Love you, too,” I responded. It felt funny to say that out loud.

  I liked staying at Bridget’s. Her family was fun, and I was comfortable with them. Her dad took part of the week off to spend some time at home, too, so it really did feel like vacation.

  Over the first weekend Gram called to check in, but it was easy not to think too much about her and Mom when I had Bridget and Mabel to play with. On Monday evening Bridget’s dad set up a game of Monopoly that went on from six to ten o’clock, which was when Bridget’s mom finally put her foot down and said we’d have to finish in the morning. But Tuesday we woke up and there had been snow in the night, so we went sledding and made snow people in the yard.

  Bridget’s family had a room in the basement called the mess room. It could also be called a playroom. There were toys all over it, but even more fun, there were lots of art supplies and you were allowed to make a mess.

  That was what Bridget and I were doing on Wednesday after noon, making crowns with glitter and feathers all over them, and we had found streamers to hang behind them. We were going to put together costumes, too, and put on a play.

  “Do you want to play makeup?” Mabel asked. She was crouched on the floor, collecting play makeup into a yellow toy purse. She was having a hard time because she was also holding a pink wand with a glittery star on the end. She was dressed like a fairy, with a gauzy skirt wrapped around her clothes, and pastel wings.

  “Not now,” Bridget said. “But later we’ll need some makeup for the costumes. You can go practice.”

  “Okay,” Mabel said. She climbed up the stairs with her purse.

  Our hats were finished in another hour, and we left them to dry and went upstairs to have a snack. Bridget got two pudding cups out of the fridge, and we sat on the couch to eat them.

  “Have you seen Mabel?” Bridget’s mom asked us.

  “Not for a while,” Bridget said.

  Her mom disappeared to go look upstairs. She returned after a few moments, leadin
g Mabel by the hand. In her other hand she held an open bottle of orange cough syrup. There was very little left in the bottle.

  “How much of this did you drink?” Mabel’s mother asked her. It sounded like she had already asked the question but hadn’t gotten a good answer.

  “Some,” Mabel said.

  “That wasn’t a very good idea,” her mother said. “You know you only take medicine when you are sick, and only what Mommy and Daddy give you.”

  Mabel nodded.

  “What’s the matter?” Bridget asked.

  “Mabel got into the cough syrup,” her mother answered. “Can you find Dad?”

  Bridget looked worried, and went to get her father. When he came into the kitchen, he knelt in front of Mabel. “How do you feel, pumpkin?” he asked.

  “Good,” Mabel said.

  “That’s good,” he said.

  Then Mabel opened her mouth, leaned forward, and let out a sticky strand of orange goo into her dad’s hands.

  “Bridget, Aubrey,” he said, “get coats, shoes, hats, gloves…. It’s cold outside. Get Mabel’s and Danny’s, too.” Bridget and I understood his not-to-be-questioned tone.

  “Where are we going?” Mabel asked.

  “To the doctor,” he said.

  It was then that Mabel started crying. She wailed as Bridget handed her mother Mabel’s little coat and her mother draped it over Mabel’s fairy wings.

  Within a minute everyone was rushing out the door, Bridget’s mom holding Danny, and her dad carrying a sobbing Mabel. At the last second I grabbed the medicine bottle off the counter and raced outside.

  In the car, Bridget and I squished between the car seats. Mabel was still crying, but as her dad drove down the hill, she opened her mouth again and got sticky orange sick on my jeans.

  I caught Bridget’s eye. In Bridget’s face there was something I had never seen there before. She was scared.

  I didn’t know how this could have happened. Well, it wouldn’t have if Bridget and I had just gone to play makeup with her, like she had asked. We should have been there.

  Bridget’s dad was driving very fast. Between speeding along the highway and listening to Mabel being sick, I had to cover my own mouth not to be, too.

  When we got to the hospital he drove up to the door and let out Mabel and her mother. He parked the car in the lot and hurried us inside, taking the cough-syrup bottle from me to show the doctors. The smell of the hospital hit me, and without a word I ran for the nearest restroom.

  I threw up into the toilet and sat down on the floor. I threw up again, and again, and I was still clutching the toilet bowl when I began to remember where I was, and what was going on. Bridget needs you, I told myself. She needs you.

  I stood up on shaky legs. I washed my face at the sink. I rinsed my mouth out and spit, and I took off my hat and pulled my hair back with a little water. I took three deep breaths, then walked to the waiting room.

  Bridget was sitting there with Danny, playing with him on her lap. Her parents weren’t there.

  “Dad said she’s going to be fine. They’re just checking her out,” Bridget said. “She’s going to be fine, right?”

  I looked around and took in the other families in the ER. An old woman by herself, crying. A group of older teenagers who looked as if they had been skiing because they had boots, goggles, and jackets. A pacing man who kept sitting down and jumping right back up again to walk some more.

  “You okay?” Bridget asked me.

  “Oh. Yeah,” I said, sitting down next to her. Then I remembered. This was her emergency. She was the one who might be upset. “You? Okay?”

  Bridget shrugged. I had no idea what to say.

  I wake from a deep, deep sleep. I am not in my room. There is a funny smell and very soft noises made by machines. I feel heavy with blankets and very very warm, and pretty content to be sleeping.

  Someone comes into the room. A woman. She looks soft and nice. She speaks to me softly, too. “It’s good to see you’re awake, Miss Aubrey.”

  My thoughts fluff like cotton balls. I blow at them gently to toss them around like clouds. I don’t know this woman. Where are people I do know? Why am I here?

  “When we get you off this IV, then we can let you go see your mother.”

  Mother. Okay.

  What is an IV?

  My limbs feel heavy, heavy. I wiggle my fingers and my toes. I feel like stretching my arms, but it would be too hard to get them out from under the blanket.

  What about everyone else?

  “Where’s Dad? Can I go see Dad?”

  The woman doesn’t say anything. She takes to fixing the blanket around me, tucking it a little tighter.

  “Savannah?” I ask. Somewhere under the sleepiness a sharp panic thumps in my chest.

  “Sleep now. Don’t worry, darling. You just need to go to sleep.”

  The car. The bent metal. The glass sparkles. The rain. The blood. The road.

  “Where’s Savannah?” I yell.

  But the soft, gentle woman is too quick. She hurries to the side of the bed, adjusting some of the knobs on the fluid bags there. I can hear her say, “Deep breaths, deep breaths, that’s right.” My eyes grow heavy again, and sleep feels so warm, and nothing is wrong….

  I heard a small cry. Danny. He whimpered from his spot on Bridget’s lap. She was staring into space, as if she didn’t see or hear him.

  I picked Danny up. “Shhh, shhh,” I said, bouncing him up and down a little. “Shhh.”

  I left Bridget sitting and took Danny for a walk up and down the hallway outside the waiting room. Eventually he stopped crying and put his tired head down on my shoulder and gave in to a nap. He felt so warm and heavy. Would he need to be changed? Maybe someone at the hospital could give me a diaper. I was pretty sure we hadn’t packed the baby bag.

  There were vending machines in the hallway. In the pocket of my jacket I found a dollar bill and some coins, left over from school snack money. Hugging Danny to my chest with one arm, I pushed the money into the machines and pressed the buttons for a ginger ale and a bag of Cheetos. I collected the food and went back into the waiting room.

  “Here.” I held the snack out to Bridget.

  She came back from the world she had been staring into. She looked at me and started crying. She stood up and hugged me, getting large, wet tear-tracks all over my shoulder. So I had Danny on one side, and Bridget on the other, and I held them both.

  The nurse helps me walk from my bed. I feel a draft on my back and bottom and legs, and realize that my gown is open at the back. I can’t make myself seem to care about that, though, and I let the nurse’s arm guide me out of the room, down hallways, into elevators.

  After a few minutes she brings me to another patient room. I stop in the doorway. There is my mother, in a hospital bed, sitting up, waiting for me.

  When I see her there, all alone, that is when I know. I know.

  I run to the bed, letting sobs fall out of my mouth and tears run down my face, and she accepts me and presses my face into the blankets at her stomach with her hand in my hair. Her howling is even louder than mine, the loudest pain I have ever heard.

  “Hey … Bridge … Aubrey.”

  I felt someone shaking my knee. I opened my eyes to see Bridget’s dad kneeling in front of us, his eyes tired but happy. Relieved.

  My thoughts jumped with alarm to Danny. I had lost track of him when I fell asleep. But I was still holding him against me, and he was still asleep, just fine.

  “She’s okay,” Bridget’s dad said. “Everything’s fine.”

  Bridget started crying again and fell against her dad, who hugged her and chuckled a little at her emotional outburst. “They just had to clean her tummy out a little more, but they’re getting her ready to go home now.” When Bridget kept crying, he held her a little tighter. “It’s all right,” he said. “She was never in serious danger. Everything’s okay.”

  Soon Mabel was wheeled through in a tiny wheelchair pu
shed by a nurse. Her mother walked alongside, sharing Bridget’s dad’s look of relief. Mabel looked pale but sat like a princess, still in her fairy outfit. She seemed proud of her new bracelet, because she set that wrist across her lap so you could see it. I bet her stomach still hurt, but she seemed to be enjoying the attention. The rest of us joined in the parade. Bridget’s mom paused to kiss Danny’s head, and then she turned back to Mabel.

  I concentrated very hard on holding Danny and making sure I didn’t drop him.

  Mabel was propped up on the couch with blankets and pillows and Snow White to watch. Bridget snuggled next to her. Their dad waited on them, getting them juice and adjusting the TV. Danny stood in his playpen, shouting and holding up toys to show us. Bridget’s mom sat on Mabel’s other side, twisting Mabel’s curls around her fingers.

  I didn’t feel like hanging out with them in the living room. I walked to the table in the kitchen and sat down by myself, leaving the lights off. I could still hear the movie and Danny.

  Eventually Bridget’s mom came in to start dinner. She saw me sitting there.

  “Aubrey! Why aren’t you in the living room, watching the movie with everyone?” She sounded truly concerned.

  “I just—this is your family’s happy time, you know? You should be together alone.”

  She sat at the table next to me, taking both my hands in hers and turning me to look at her. “You are a part of this family, I want you to know that. I heard you were a great help to Bridget this afternoon, and I couldn’t ask for a better friend for her than that. I know it must not have been easy for you to go with us. My girls would love for you to go in there and be with them.”

  I nodded. She let go of me, and I went and took my place on the couch.

  At bedtime, after pajamas were on and teeth were brushed, Bridget said, “Can I sleep with Mabel?”

  “What, in her bed?” her dad asked.

  “Yeah!” Bridget said.

  “No, sweetie, she needs to rest, okay?”

  “Fine,” Bridget said. She sounded as if she understood. We went into the girls’ room, where an extra mattress had been put on the floor for me. Their mom had already tucked Mabel in and was just finishing reading a story.