I pour myself a cup of coffee, sit next to her, and take a big spoonful of eggs and a slice of toast. For the first time in days, I have an appetite. I spread preserves on my toast and ask, “Did the hospital call?”
“Actually, I called them. Mom’s doctor happened to be at the nurse’s station, so I lucked out and got to talk to him.” She sighs. “There’s no real change. Her cranial pressure has not elevated, so that’s a good sign. They’re going to take her for two tests in about an hour.” Donna reaches for the pad of paper that she scribbled some notes on.
“Let me see.” She scans through her notes. “Here it is. He said the tests are a SPECT Scan to determine if there are any abnormalities in blood flow, and an MRI to show the swelling and midline shift. She’ll be down there for a good couple of hours. Probably by late afternoon, early evening they’ll get the results.”
“Did they tell you what the midline shift is?” It’s a relief to have someone else asking the white coats the hard questions for a change.
“No, actually, I Googled it. It’s scary stuff. When the brain shifts, it’s associated with distortion of the brain stem, which causes serious dysfunction.” Tears spring to my eyes. Donna notices and quickly adds, “But let’s not worry about that now.”
“I was hoping they had told you she was awake,” I say.
“No such luck, honey. Believe me, if she was up, she’d summon your ass to bring her one of her adorable nightgowns. Sorta like the one you’re wearing and just dripped a huge glob of raspberry preserves down the entire front of,” she says with a smile.
I look down and wipe away the jelly that has fallen from my toast. “Oops! This is hers,” I say. “I came home without any clothes except what I was wearing. Luckily, Mom and I are about the same size. Everything fits pretty well, even her bras. Which is surprising. She’s a 34C—I’m a 34B. She must be getting smaller.”
“Or you’re getting bigger. You’re sure you haven’t gotten enhanced since the last time I saw you?”
I look down at my chest. “Trust me, I have not and never will get a boob job,” I announce.
“Never say never, sweetie,” she says.
“It’s ’cause I’m getting my period. I have to remember to pick up tampons. Do you have any?”
“That ship has sailed,” she tells me, and takes a handful of grapes.
“Wow… I had no idea.” I am stunned. Auntie D. seems so young!
“I guess I’ll take a shower in a few minutes and go over to the hospital. You gonna come with?” I ask.
“Of course. Oh, I almost forgot, I spoke to Ferny and Tommy this morning. Ferny said he’ll be over here at twelve to do your makeup and hair.”
“You have got to be kidding me. I’m going to call him and tell him I can take care of my own makeup. Walking in the front door of University Hospital isn’t a friggin’ red carpet!”
That catches Donna off-guard and she laughs so hard that she spits her coffee clear across the table. We are both laughing hysterically and can’t stop. When she finally catches her breath, she says, “Let Ferny come over. He wants to feel like he’s doing something for you and Daisy. And that’s what he does best, so let him.”
“Yeah, okay. You know, I kind of feel the same. I can’t do anything for her—while she’s in the coma, I mean.”
“Remember what I told you last night. You keep doing what you’re doing. And when Daisy comes out of the coma, she’ll delegate so much work for all of us that our heads will spin!”
“I can’t wait,” I reply quietly.
“Me neither.” She stands up and starts clearing the dishes from the table.
“Do you remember this picture?” she asks, pointing to an old framed photo of Mom and me on the antique credenza opposite the dining-room table. In the photo I’m sitting in Mom’s lap and look to be about five or six years old. Mom, of course, looks gorgeous. Her hair was even longer then, dark and wavy. It looks so soft and shiny. She’s wearing a white tee and what looks like a leather motorcycle jacket. I’m looking up at her like she hung the moon.
“No, I don’t remember the picture. Is that a motorcycle jacket she’s wearing?” I ask, stunned. Why hadn’t I noticed that before? It seems so un-Daisy.
She smiles. “It certainly is—you don’t remember the story behind the jacket, do you?”
I shake my head and sit back in my chair.
“Well, I took the photo. We were in the city, I think either in Little Italy or the Village, I forget. Anyway, your mother was wearing a tuxedo-style leather jacket. She’d had it for years—in those days we were on a really strict budget, so we kept everything for years. That was before your mom sold her first novel, and I was only dreaming of singing as a career.
“Anyway, we were on the street corner waiting for the light to change, and a girl around our age was standing next to your Mom. She was wearing a cropped, really cute motorcycle jacket. She looked at your Mom and said, ‘Nice jacket, wanna swap?’ Your Mom said, ‘Sure.’ Just like that, they exchanged jackets. When the light turned green, they crossed the street, each wearing their ‘new jacket.’ Far as I know, they never saw each other again!”
“Are you kidding me? What a great story.” I look at the photo and my Mom’s beautiful face. She smiles not only with her mouth and her eyes, but with her whole being.
“After we crossed the street, I snapped this photo of you both. Oh, and then the funniest thing happened. I’d forgotten this part. Two construction workers were across the street and they looked at your Mom, gave her a few catcalls, and said, ‘Hey baby—lookin’ good.” Your Mom laughed it off, but it made you furious!”
“It did?”
“Oh yeah, your cute little face got beet red. You turned to them and shouted, ‘Hey, you guys, stop that! That’s my Mom, and she’s old!’ I laughed so hard I had to sit down on the sidewalk. Your mother picked you up and kissed you. She thanked you for preserving her honor. Then we took off for the next adventure.”
“I don’t remember any of that,” I say regretfully. “I really wish I did.”
“You know, Lily, you were so adorable, and the light of her life. You still are.”
I think of the last time I spoke to my Mom on the phone and am riddled with guilt, and too ashamed to talk about it.
Auntie D. starts washing the dishes.
“You know, we have a dishwasher. You don’t have to do them by hand,” I tell her.
“Oh, I don’t use one, never have. I like the feel of washing dishes myself. It’s sort of therapeutic. Grab a towel and dry, please.”
“I don’t need that kind of therapy—I’m fine,” I joke.
She throws the dish towel to me and I catch it with one hand. “You and Mom must have a million stories, huh?” I ask.
She laughs and says, “Oh yeah, you have no idea—we’ve known each other since we were seven years old. We know each other inside and out, that’s for sure.”
A funny look comes over her face and she says almost in a whisper, “And inside again.”
“You know, I found Mom’s diaries yesterday,” I tell her.
“Oh?” She looks up, surprised.
“Yeah, it’s sorta comforting—reading her inner thoughts from when she was a kid. Auntie D., was my grandfather really that bad?” I ask nervously.
She stops washing and looks into my eyes. “Whatever you read, honey, multiply it by one hundred—then times two. That man was a certifiable bastard! He abused your mother and his wife for years. He didn’t deserve either one of them.”
“I had no idea. Why didn’t she ever tell me?”
“Look, I can’t speak for your mother—but all I can assume is that since your dad wasn’t in your life, and you were so close to Sam, she didn’t want to ruin that relationship for you. But before you were born, they didn’t speak for years,” Donna says.
“I never knew.”
“He taught her a lot—how not to be a parent. She raised you exactly the opposite of how she was raised. She s
upported you with everything you wanted to do—whether it was playing soccer or painting or singing—”
“—or acting?” I interrupt her.
“Well … that was a little different,” Donna smiles, remembering. “That took a little finesse on my part, remember?” she asks.
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“Well, I guess you were about seven or so. Your Mom was working two jobs at that time, remember that?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“That was when we all lived together in that small apartment on Seventh and Bleecker.”
“Oh, I loved that apartment. I was just thinking about it yesterday. I thought it was so cool going to school in Greenwich Village.”
“Yes, it was cool, even though the apartment was the size of a postage stamp.” She smiles. “But we had some good times. Your Mom worked in an office while you were in school from nine ‘til about two. Then she’d pick you up and spend the rest of the day with you. Later on, when you went to sleep, she’d go to her second job, hosting at a local restaurant until about 2 a.m. I’d be home those nights with you.
“When did she sleep?” I asked.
“She’d come home, sleep a couple of hours, and then get up, make you breakfast, and her day would start all over again.” She stops speaking. “I forgot, why was I telling you all this?
“The acting—you were telling me how I got started.”
“Ok, yeah. Your mother and I were cleaning up from dinner one night. You came in and said, ‘Mama, Auntie D., I’m going to be a movie star.’ Daisy was drying the dishes. She knelt down and said, ‘You can be whatever you want when you grow up, Lily.’
“You looked at her with the most serious face and said, ‘That’s the thing, mama—I wanna be a movie star now.’ Daisy said, ‘Honey, you’re too young to be an actress. You’ll have plenty of time when you get older to do that. You can be an actress or a doctor or an architect—anything you want, after you graduate college.’ You were having none of it. You folded your arms and stomped your feet and said, ‘I need to be an actress now—I just need to be.’ We thought you were so adorable, being oh so dramatic. We both started laughing. You thought we were laughing at you. You ran out of the kitchen and locked yourself in the bathroom. Your mother and I felt so miserable; we were afraid that we had hurt your feelings. Your Mom knocked on the door and said, ’Lily, sweetheart, we were not laughing at you. Auntie D. and I thought you looked so cute. Please open the door.’ You finally came out and announced to us, ‘My mind is made up, and you two can’t take my dream away from me, that’s just mean!’”
“No way!”
“Oh yeah. I looked at your mother and she looked so sad. I knew it had to do with how she felt when she was a child. So before you went to sleep, I whispered to you, ‘Tonight, when you go to sleep, pray to God to change your mother’s mind. Pray really, really loud.’ I figured if anything would sway her, it would be that. You were so mad, you didn’t even say goodnight to either of us; you just went into your room. Your mother walked by your door later on and heard you praying. The next morning at breakfast she told you that if you really wanted to be an actress right away, she would figure out a way for you to follow your dream. I had friends in a talent agency, and the agency had a kid’s department. Well, you were the most adorable, precocious, happy child—the rest is history. That was a cornerstone year for all of us. Your Mom sold her first book and was able to cut down to one job. After the book hit the top of the bestseller list, her publisher gave her an advance to write the second. The next day, she quit her hostess job. I got my first singing gig that year, and you booked your first commercial.”
“Wow, that was a bit conniving of you, the prayer thing, Auntie D.”
“Are you complaining?” she asks.
“Not at all. I’m grateful,” I say. “Mom has always been pretty terrific to me, hasn’t she?”
“Yes. She’s one of the good ones.”
I get up, give Auntie D. a kiss on the cheek, and say, “So are you!”
“Thanks. You better get upstairs and take a shower before Fernando comes to apply your red-carpet hospital makeup. You’ll never hear the end of it if you’re not dressed and ready for him.”
I agree and run upstairs. While I’m undressing, I hear the house phone ring.
“Can you answer it?” I shout down, and step into the shower.
After a nice hot shower, I am getting dressed when Auntie D. knocks on the door. I tell her to come in. She enters the bedroom looking perplexed.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“The phone call was rather bizarre.” She sits on the bed.
“How so?”
“It was Phil’s Garage. Your Mom’s car is ready—it’s been fixed.”
That took me aback. Didn’t Jamie say that he saw the car on the news and it was totally unrecognizable, just a pile of metal?
“Her car was fixed? They were able to fix it??”
“That’s the strange part—her car’s been in the shop for two weeks. Her Jeep wasn’t the car in the accident,” she replies.
Donna and I arrive at the hospital in the late afternoon. As we walk into my mother’s room, we notice that the entire medical team has surrounded her bed. I can’t see my mother through the wall of white coats.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Doris, the head nurse, come overs and asks me to step outside the room. She walks us halfway down the hall, explaining that she is doing so in order that she can speak privately with me. But I think she just wants to get us away from the doctors. She lowers her voice and says, “There have been some changes in your mother’s condition, and the team is examining her right now.”
“Changes…what kind of changes?” I ask.
“What Dr. Niptau would like is for you meet him in the conference room in thirty minutes, and he’ll explain everything to you.”
“Doris, is there something you can kindly tell us so that Lily and I don’t spend the next thirty minutes imagining the worst?” Auntie D. asks.
“So sorry, Dr. Niptau really wants to go through everything himself. Do you remember where the conference room is?” she asks. She is obviously not going to give us a morsel of information.
This is just one of many hospital annoyances that multiply during the day, leaving a patient or family member frustrated and frightened and angry beyond belief. I feel like throwing something (Doris, perhaps) across the hall.
“Oh yeah, I know that room—it’s become my second home,” I say sarcastically, and turn to Auntie D. “So far, any time they tell me to go to that room, the news is always bad.” I look Doris in the eye. “Isn’t that right?”
Doris’s expression does not change, but her face turns red in response. She replies, “Well, then, I’ll tell the doctor you’ll be waiting for him there.”
When Doris leaves, Donna turns to me and says, “Remind me when this is over to get you the book How to Win Friends and Influence People.” She put her arm around me.
“Why, do you think I came off as a bitch?” I ask.
“Uh, yeah.” She squeezes my hand and we walk to the conference room.
Earlier in the day, while we had waited for Fernando to arrive at the house, Auntie D. and I had checked online and in the Times for any news about the other person in the accident. All we found was some sketchy information at best. Some reports online said that she was in a crash with another vehicle, and that the driver of the other car was injured; others said that someone else was injured in the accident, but that he was in the car with my mother.
So before going up to the I.C.U., we went to Admissions to see if, on the night of the accident, someone else had been brought in to the hospital with my mom. The woman in the Admissions office couldn’t give us any information, because she said it would go against the HIPAA Privacy Law. She was able, however, to give us the police precinct phone number and the name of the police officers on the scene. We called and left a message for Sgt. Tim Green.
While we wait for Dr. Niptau, Sgt. Green called me back.
“Thanks for getting back to me, Sergeant. As I said in my message, I’m Daisy Lockwood’s daughter. She was in the accident on the LIE a couple of days ago.”
“Yes, Miss Lockwood, I know who you are. My wife and daughter are big fans. So sorry about your mother. How’s she doing?”
“Right now she’s in a coma, so we’re waiting. I’m going to put you on speaker so that my aunt can hear too, okay?”
“No problem,” Green replies.
“Can you tell us what happened in the accident, and if another car was involved?” I ask. I hear him going through papers. He says, “Well, let me look through the report. At 13:50, we got a 911 1053 call—”
“You got a what??” I interrupt.
“Sorry, just habit—we got an emergency vehicular accident call on the LIE Westbound east of exit 65. We got to the scene ten minutes later and assessed the situation. We called for an ambulance and the firehouse to bring the jaws. Your mother was behind the wheel. They were able to cut her out within a few minutes. Her passenger, man in his thirties, had been thrown approximately twenty feet from the car. ”
“Oh dear God,” Donna said, shaking her head.
“Was there another car? How did it happen?” I ask.
“As far as we could tell, it had been raining—coulda been faulty brakes. We don’t know for sure, yet. The skid marks indicate the car went about thirty feet, then hit the divider and flipped. The paramedics called for air support for your mother. The passenger was brought by bus… ambulance to the hospital.”
“Hi, Sergeant, this is Donna Bianca speaking. Can you tell us what kind of car it was—and whose it was? Since Daisy’s car was in the shop, we know it wasn’t hers.” She pauses for a second. “Also, we’d like to know the name of the passenger, and if he was brought to University Hospital.”
“Okay, let’s see what we got here, hold on.” We hear more paper shuffling. “It was an Infiniti 35, a rental car. I’ll fax you over the report, if you want, so you can have all this info. Let’s see the man’s name. Here we go: David Rosen.”
The Seeds Of A Daisy: The Lily Lockwood Series: Book One (Women's Fiction) Page 12
