“Hello, O’Neill. Merry Almost Christmas to you.”
He blew out a slow breath. “Look,” he said. “You completely ignored me the last day of school and we’ve hit crunch time. I kind of need to know what you’re thinking about this dance thing. I realize I’m in my salad days, but it seems to me most girls would’ve said yay or nay by now. Especially girls who are just friends.”
“Wait.” I suppressed a laugh. “Salad days?”
“You know, these are my days of youthful inexperience? Shakespeare?”
“Right.” Taking a deep breath, I put words to the decision my heart had made long ago. “I’ll go.”
“You’ll go because you want to?” he said. “Or you’ll go because Thanet laid the guilt on thick?”
“Does it really matter?”
Quinn grunted, a soft frustrated release of sound. “Yes, Meg. It really matters. My ego’s kind of on the line here.”
I clicked my tongue. “Your ego shouldn’t be on the line. You know the situation.”
The line went quiet for a few seconds before Quinn spoke again. “Yeah, I was going to ask you if I should call Henry or something. He’s not coming home for Christmas, is he?”
I tried not to laugh at him. “No, and I think it’s a supremely awful idea for you to call him. I talked to him and he’s okay. He’s biting his tongue and trying to be big about it.” I paused for emphasis. “But, hear this, he won’t be big about it if you call him.”
Quinn chuckled. “Message received.”
“Anyway, I told him you were in life skills and you have buck teeth and body odor, so now he just feels sorry for you.”
“All right,” he said. “Good thinking, Miss Smarty Pants. Because, probably, when he saw me on Skype that time, he didn’t memorize my face or anything for future reference.”
Jo started coughing in the other room and I stilled for a minute to listen. Usually, her coughing spells lasted seconds, but this one seemed to be dragging on for a while.
“She okay?” Quinn said.
“I don’t know. I’d better go. But, Quinn, I’m excited about the dance.”
I could hear the grin in his voice when he said, “See you tomorrow, Meg.”
By the time I made it to Jo’s side, I could tell this was serious. Jenny had given her a firm pillow to hug to her chest when she coughed and Jo had a death grip on the pillow. I poured her a glass of water and patted her back, waiting for her to take a breath.
Her lips turned blue, so I set the water down and started looking for my phone. When she fell out of her chair onto the floor, I pressed 911, got on my knees next to her and started trying to position her for CPR.
“911…what’s your emergency?” The dispatch operator had to repeat herself several times before I was able to yell between my clumsy puffs of air into Jo’s mouth.
“I need an ambulance at 212 Live Oak—Jo Russell’s house. She’s suffocating. I don’t know…she can’t breathe. Please help me.”
***
Banished to the waiting room at the hospital, I paced like a trapped animal. No one seemed to know what was going on and I wasn’t allowed in with Jo because I wasn’t a relative. By the time Henry’s parents walked in, I had collapsed on a small sofa. Miriam immediately joined me and wrapped me in her arms.
Clayton squeezed my knee and looked at me with the same compassion I always see in Henry’s eyes. “How’re you doing, honey?”
“I’m really worried about her. They won’t tell me anything.”
He took a folded paper from his back pocket. “I’ve got the magic paperwork. Give me a minute and I’ll find out what’s going on.”
After talking to the woman at the desk, he was whisked away to Jo’s side. Miriam and I sat together, holding hands and staring at the door that closed behind Clayton.
Miriam began to hum “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” and I relaxed against her, laying my head on her shoulder.
“You and Henry and your big, old hearts,” she said. “It’s no wonder you found each other.”
I tugged a tissue out of my pocket where I’d stuffed it earlier. “I miss him so much.”
“Have I ever told you about the days before Henry’s grandmother died?”
“No, ma’am.” I sat up to listen closely. Details about Henry’s childhood were like little surprise parties to me.
“Henry was fifteen when Clayton’s mother died.” Miriam rubbed my knuckles as she talked. “She lingered a while in hospice, in and out of a coma, and Henry spent every minute he could right by her bedside. I’d catch him arranging her pillow and wiping her face with a washcloth. It made me so proud of my son.”
I nodded and smiled.
“Anyway, in her last hours, she opened her eyes, saw Henry, and called him over. Henry pulled up a chair, and she started telling him why she loved him—his kindness, his eyes, the way he’d always taken care of her and their children. It didn’t take long for Henry to figure out she thought he was her husband, Henry’s grandfather. And she was saying goodbye to him.”
“Did she ever figure it out?”
“No,” she said. “And she died shortly after that. After Henry had fallen asleep on her couch. She waited until she was alone to finally let go. But the best part of the story is what Henry had to say about it.”
Leaning forward and fixing her eyes on the windows across the room, Miriam smiled. “He was so young, you know? And after the funeral, he said, ‘Mom, I think Grandma knew it was me. I think she was teaching me what love is so I’ll know it when I feel it.’”
I smiled at her reflection in the window and she smiled back. “Maybe he was right,” I said. “And the only thing that matters to all of us at the end is making sure the people we’re leaving know how to find love.”
Miriam took my hand. “That’s what Henry said, almost exactly. The point is—he was there for it. He got to soak up so much wisdom from his grandparents and he was smart enough to recognize the important moments.”
I voiced the question plaguing my mind. “Do you think Jo’s going to die soon?”
Miriam sighed. “I think, whether she dies tonight or next year, she’s living some final moments out right before our eyes and we’d be wise to pay attention. She’s not who everyone thinks she is.”
The heavy, swinging door to the ER exam rooms opened and Clayton walked straight to us, his eyes locked with Miriam’s. He dragged a flimsy waiting room chair close and sat, looking subdued.
“They’ve just moved her to the ICU upstairs. It appears to be a serious case of viral pneumonia. The doc was hoping it was bacterial so he could pump her full of antibiotics to help.” He glanced at me. “He wanted to know if she’s been more confused in the last few days.”
“She’s been really off,” I said. “I thought her dementia was speeding up or something.”
Clayton shook his head. “It’s probably a combination, but apparently viral pneumonia sneaks up. And it can cause a lot of confusion and neurological lapses.”
I felt the color draining from my face. “If I had paid better attention, she wouldn’t be so sick, right?”
Clayton reached for my hand. “No, Meg. She’s frail and infections like this lay claim faster on older people. Her lungs were compromised because she smoked for so many years when she was younger.”
“Can I…is she awake?” I said.
He smiled. “She is. She’s asking for you. Only you.” He glanced at Miriam and then back at me. “That’s overwhelming and if you don’t want to go in, you don’t have to. Her doctor said she has about fifteen minutes before he’ll need to put her on a ventilator to help her breathe so she can fight the infection. Once she’s on that machine, they’ll sedate her heavily and she won’t be able to communicate.”
I nodded and let the implications of his words sink in. She had fifteen minutes left to talk and, after that, who knew what would happen. And she wanted to spend those minutes with me.
“I’ll go. Right now. I want to go.”
>
TWENTY-SIX
henry
A car’s engine rumbled low in the courtyard, misfiring like it had a bad cylinder. I leaned back in the office chair to look out the window. Another black sedan, another nighttime visit, another child. I knew it wasn’t for Raf or Aidia, so it had to be for Equis.
The day we’d all dreaded had finally arrived—three days before Christmas. Until now, Equis had been spared this fate because the social workers had made a good faith effort to find his family of origin. The kid we called Equis was actually named Xavier. According to John, he’d appeared out of thin air, as scrawny as an acorn calf. He’d filled out some, but he still seemed too fragile to make it anywhere but here.
What had always confounded me about Equis was his detached acceptance of all hardship. He should cry. He should recognize the injustice of this, the unbelievable abuse. I just wished he’d hit something—hit me, for crying out loud.
But Equis accepted this change with mild-mannered silence. He packed, hugged us all, kissed Aidia, smiled at Raf, and climbed into the sedan. They called him Xavier and, for a minute, I thought they’d picked up the wrong child. He corrected them before he turned to face the front windshield. “Me llamo Equis.” As they drove away, he didn’t look back.
“I thought I was cold,” Raf whispered, watching Equis disappear. Poof, like he’d never existed.
John, who had tried to hold it together while Equis watched, now walked in a circle around the perimeter of the courtyard. Raf and I waited, recognizing a man who’d reached his limit. After three or four times around, John stopped, tipped his head back, and threw a punch at the sky. And another one.
Raf glanced at me. My heart raced and scared me a little. I stretched and moved, trying to see if it would settle. Finally, bending over, hands on knees, I began to calm down. I caught Raf’s gaze and said, “We all reach a wall eventually.”
“Henry,” John yelled, still raging at the sky. “Tell Raf to make the connection. Right now. Tell him to call her and set it up in an hour.”
With barely a nod to Raf, I communicated the importance of his role in our next mission. Raf stepped into the office, hovered over the desk, and dialed the phone. After three quick calls, he returned.
“Una hora. El Caramanchel. Wear something less…American, okay?” Raf rubbed the back of his neck and pointed to my Denver Broncos t-shirt.
I had no idea what to wear to a seedy Nicaraguan bar for a meet and greet with a junkie prostitute. I finally picked a faded plaid shirt, untucked, and old, busted up jeans and boots.
John and I had devised a plan to cut through the red tape surrounding Aidia’s adoption. The first hurdle, definitely a forty-two incher, was a signature from her birth mother. I assumed she’d agree, considering she’d dumped Aidia on our porch with a bottle and a note that basically read, “Hola, me llamo Aidia.” And it didn’t shock any of us that we didn’t know where mamá lived—or even that we didn’t know mamá’s name.
The shocker was that the very agency that required her signature for the legal adoption of Aidia also made it illegal for us to look for her birth mother.
Our secret weapon in the case turned out to be Raf. His wandering through San Isidro late at night, which had worried John and Kate to death, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He’d overheard a conversation about the girl who’d left her baby on the steps of Quiet Waters. He did some digging for us and found her name, Carmen Alvarez, and her occupation.
After much discussion, John decided the best way to locate Carmen without scaring her would be through a convoluted system of backyard messaging. Raf put the word out that he knew of an American man who had an interest in Carmen. Carmen sent back a message, giving him a cell phone number he could call.
She said, for an American, she’d be available with thirty minutes notice. It was insane to imagine John posing as a john, but there you go. We’d already bought tickets for this crazy bus and we had to ride.
After a short, tense drive into San Isidro, John and I squeezed into a booth in the little bar Raf had picked. The place could’ve been a watering hole in a Western movie. Here, though, the atmosphere was a little danker. The stakes a lot higher. I wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans and glanced at John, who must have felt as out of place as me.
He covered his mouth and coughed, hiding behind his hand to say, “Can you try to look a little less conspicuous, Henry?”
“Back at ya, brother. You might want to loosen up on the table.” His knuckles were turning white where he gripped the grimy table’s edge. “Why is it so dang quiet in here? It’s like a morgue. Where’s the music?”
Raf waited outside by the front window. We could see him through the dirty glass because he stood directly under a neon sign. When he saw Carmen approaching, he gestured to us behind his back with the common Nica signal for “give me a minute.”
John leaned around me and watched her intently, taking in everything. I resisted the urge to turn around the stare—no need to alert the regulars.
“Does Aidia favor her?”
“It’s eerie.” He spoke without moving his lips. “Aidia is her spitting image.”
“What are they doing?”
“I think she’s trying to tempt Raf with her menu of services,” John said, chuckling. “Wish I had a picture of his face—she’s scaring him to death.”
The door squeaked as it opened. An older couple stepped past Raf and Carmen to enter the place. While the door stood open for a moment, the sound of Raf’s nervous laughter reached us. Carmen turned on the charm with a soft voice like Latino music. I turned quickly to catch a glimpse just as Raf placed his hand on her shoulder and leaned close to her ear.
“What’s he doing?” I said. John had a death grip on the table again.
“I think he’s telling her what’s up. She’s squinting, trying to see us, and checking the street like she’s nervous. If she bolts….”
I put my hand out, telling John to stay calm as the door opened again.
“Señor John,” Raf called. “Can you come here for a minute?”
John hopped up and moved smoothly toward the door, acting calm and collected even though he was anything but. His boot heels knocked hard on the wood floor. Raf held the door open for Carmen to step inside.
Good Lord, she was so thin and rawboned, she looked like she had a tapeworm.
“Hola,” John said. “Me llamo John Stahl.” He took her small hand in both of his.
“Hola,” she said.
I willed myself not to stare. I’m pretty sure the focused attention of two tall American males would send her running for the hills.
“¿Como está, Carmen?” John continued.
“Bien.” She glanced around, noticed me, and then took a step backward toward the door. John took a step forward, not letting her get away.
“¿Habla ingles?” he said.
“Un poco,” Carmen said, licking her lips.
“I’ll speak in English and Raf can help translate if you need him to.” John nodded at her to make sure she was with him.
She whispered, “Okay.”
“I have no desire to make trouble for you,” John said. “My wife and I love Aidia so much and we want to adopt her. The Nica government says you have to sign a paper saying that would be okay with you. Would you do that for us? For Aidia?”
Carmen breathed deeply through her nose and stood still for so long I had to check behind me again to make sure she hadn’t run off.
“Five thousand American dollars,” she said, in an unexpectedly hard voice, no doubt perfected in the back alleys.
“Five…five thousand,” John repeated, stuttering and fading away.
“Sí. Por la molestia.”
“For your trouble?” John translated, touching his chin with his hand. “Your trouble? I’m willing to give you five thousand American dollars to help you get on your feet. To help you put your house in order. ¿Entiende, Carmen?”
She stayed quiet, wearing a stone cold
mask of whatever. John’s brow wrinkled and he shook his head. “But let’s not call it money for your trouble,” he said. “Can we agree that’s just degrading to Aidia? This money…I want you to use it to turn your life around.”
Before she could bolt, John touched her arm and gestured to our booth where he’d laid the papers out neatly as soon as we’d arrived, along with three pens in case two failed us. She sat and held a pen, but her raised eyebrow and her hesitation made it clear she wouldn’t sign until she’d seen the money.
John had come prepared. In fact, he’d come prepared to pay a lot more. He kept his wallet under the table so she couldn’t see just how prepared he was, counted out five large, and laid the money like a fan in front of her. I took a scan of the room to make sure none of the locals had taken an interest in the deal.
I was still so jacked up from losing Equis, I felt like I could take every guy in here if it came to that.
John kept a hand on the money until she’d signed on the dotted line, in triplicate. He read the form once more, mouthing the words, desperate to make sure we hadn’t missed anything while we had her captive.
He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk through fire to see her safe.
Raf stood back, watching the exchange, but something had changed in him. He was engaged, like he had an emotional stake in what was happening in this place. I stood, walking over to him. He stiffened and hardened his expression again, but I wasn’t fooled.
“Thanks for your help with this, Raf,” I said, leaning into him so he’d hear me. “You know you’ve probably changed a little girl’s life completely.”
“I just made a phone call. I didn’t do nada.” He jammed his hands in his pockets and studied his shuffling feet.
I smiled. “Yes, you did. John would never have been able to find her or convince her to meet him. That was all you. We’ll never forget what you did.”
Perfect Glass (A Young Adult Novel (sequel to Glass Girl)) Page 18
