by Lynne Hugo
“No, really, I wasn’t. Appreciate your…”
Madalaine knows she’s switched on Wayne’s guilt, finally. Good, let him stew in it. Let him and Lydie and even precious, perfect Claire stew in it. Her satisfaction isn’t unmixed when he turns and walks to the bathroom. She does feel a little sorry for him, too. It’s really Lydie she wants to hurt the way she hurts, though Madalaine couldn’t say why in a sentence or paragraph. Right away she hears water running full force in the bathroom, too quickly. She goes to the end of the hall and then, her footfalls absorbed by the carpeting, stands until she can hear his rough sobs.
Madalaine hasn’t wasted much time feeling bad, and it’s a good thing. She’d thought Wayne would be done with her, but no, he comes back into the kitchen while she’s still at the table trying to call up the energy to make more tea for the refrigerator. All the morning’s momentum has dissipated, flying off in every direction like dust motes and then disappearing the way they do when the sun goes behind a cloud, and a room chills and darkens at once.
“That’s it,” he says, as though twenty minutes hadn’t elapsed.
“What’s it?” Madalaine says, brow furrowed as much in irritation as confusion.
“I won’t be party to it. Can I stay here?”
“Slow down, will you? Won’t be party to what?” she asks, angling for time to think. She’s pretty sure she knows exactly what he’s talking about.
Such weariness she feels, and no thought emerges with enough clarity to trust.
“What Lydie’s doing. I can’t have it. It’s not right.”
“Well, I worry about what she’s going to tell Claire. Will the doctor let her just lie and say they found a match from the cadaver pool whose family said yes?” Madalaine is being clever. What does he mean, Can I stay here? For what? For how much longer? This afternoon? Six years? She is wary, wanting to know how to maneuver. She doesn’t want Wayne in her house, not Wayne or anyone else except maybe Bill, in her house, but wouldn’t Lydie just have a fit? Not that Lydie would admit it. Not now, not to the Mother of the Dead Boy.
“I dunno.”
“You dunno which?”
“Either one. I don’t want to know it, anyway.”
“Well, Wayne, for heaven’s sake, she’s your daughter.”
“Not mine, his now.”
Madalaine wonders if she’s gone too far. She shrugs invisibly, fatigued at the whole mess, and then the stream rises again and she knows to go to the bedroom to cry awhile for Brian.
It’s late afternoon when she emerges from her room again, to answer the front doorbell. Two late arrangements of longer-lasting flowers, some kind of nasty-smelling mums in the dining room, are finally exhaling their last. She hasn’t watered them in days, which has, doubtless, helped them toward premature death. Bill stands outside on the step up to the door, though only a day ago he was coming in whenever he liked, not even shouting out a hello of warning. “Wayne here?” are the first words out of his mouth, and he gestures toward Wayne’s truck, still on the street in front of the house. Then he remembers his manners, and says somewhat formally, “How’re you doing? I came to pick up Jenny for dinner, did you remember?”
Of course she hadn’t. “I was sleeping,” Madalaine says. “I guess she’s in the family room, or the yard…Jen?” On the last she raises her voice, and when there’s no answer, calls again. “Outside, I guess. Check the back.”
Bill returns to it. “That Wayne’s truck?”
“I guess. Like I said, I was sleeping.” Madalaine had hoped Wayne would be gone when she came out, that the question Can I stay here? would have disappeared like a stillborn problem.
Bill takes a step deeper into the living room. “Wayne?”
“Yeah,” comes back the answer from the family room where the local news has just started on the television.
“Hey, how’re you doing?” Bill calls again.
Wayne’s answer, an inaudible blur, gradually separates into distinct words as he walks through the kitchen to respond.
“Hey, how’re you doing?” Bill repeats it, sticking out his hand to shake Wayne’s. “What’s up? I thought you’d still be at work.”
“Didn’t go,” Wayne answers, which is true, although he’s dressed in his coveralls.
“How’s Claire and Lydie?”
“Don’t know.”
Bill is confused, shoots a look at Madalaine then turns back to Wayne.
“What do you mean you don’t know? Is Claire worse?”
Wayne hesitates a moment, dreading the number of words he’ll have to string together if he really answers, and decides he’s not up to it. “I dunno. I haven’t been up there.”
“What? I mean, why not? What’s going on?”
Wayne sighs. “Me and Lydie have a difference and I asked Maddie if I can stay here awhile.”
Bill shoots Madalaine a look that says, Jesus Christ, what have you done now? at which she instantly takes offense, even knowing she’s had some hand in it. He has no right accusing her.
Bill runs his hand across his head, his fingers leaving rake tracks in his dark blond hair. “Jeez, man, I’m sorry to hear that, but isn’t this sort of a time that a family ought to stick together? I mean, what with Claire’s dialysis and all…”
Madalaine snorts and says softly, “Yes, Wayne, take it from Bill. A family ought to stick together.”
Bill ignores her. “Can’t you and Lydie work out…whatever it is? I mean, this just isn’t the time to be…doing this.”
“Bill, there is just so amazingly much you don’t know about this family that you would, if you’d taken your own advice for five minutes. As I told you, Wayne, you’re quite welcome here.”
Wayne sees the look on Bill’s face and mutters, “No reason anymore not to tell Bill.”
“Tell me what?” Bill wheels to Madalaine. “What’s going on?”
“Look, Bill, if you want to be part of this family and know our business, then tell Melody goodbye and come home. Otherwise, our family will keep it to ourselves, thank you.” Madalaine knows this makes no sense, that Bill’s connection to the family is, if anything, stronger than Wayne’s, there being a biological child connecting him. And, of course, Wayne is, in his way, doing exactly what Bill did. It all just makes her too tired to sort out. She hates both of them standing there uselessly as men do. She just plain hates them, and now she’s stuck herself with Wayne for at least another night.
“I’ll go find Jennifer,” she says, before Bill starts picking at the holes in her gauzy logic. She doesn’t want to talk to him anymore.
The two men stand, both looking at the floor and air space Madalaine just left empty.
Moments pass, and Madalaine comes back with Jennifer behind her. “Hey, Daddy,” she says with an open smile and picks up speed to get around her mother, across the room to Bill, who lifts her off her feet in a bear hug.
“Hey, yourself, princess. Where you want to eat?”
Madalaine realizes that Bill is telling her he won’t take Jennifer to Melody’s apartment for dinner, and a small flare of gratitude lights and then subsides like a match.
“McDonald’s!” the girl cries.
“Yuck,” he answers. “Well, I suppose. Did you ever hear of vegetables, young lady?”
Since when had he been able to identify a vegetable, let alone care who ate one? Madalaine feels the presence of another woman in Bill, and the gratitude extinguishes.
“I’ll have her back by nine,” Bill says, opening the door and guiding Jennifer out with one hand on her back. “After we eat, we’ll get ice cream and maybe go over to school, shoot a few hoops? Or…”
“I’ll get the basketball,” Jennifer says, pleased that he’d play ball with her, something he used to do with Brian.
Madalaine closes the door behind them a good deal more loudly than necessary, but stops short of slamming it for Jennifer’s sake. She turns to Wayne. “You can stay here tonight, and maybe another night if you need to, but after
this, you’d better find your own place.”
“Yeah,” Wayne answers. “Yeah.”
Three days later, Wayne is still there. He’s gone to Lydie’s and gotten some shirts, socks and underwear, the razor he uses to shave above and below his beard and a few more items of that sort. He sat around for another day, but then got up and went to work, as though homes and lives were interchangeable without the occupant having to much notice. But he’s silent most of the time. While he’s watching television in the same room with Jennifer the second night, a memory of Wayne’s mother comes to Madalaine. “He’s ate up,” Madalaine had heard Mildred say one Christmas at Lydie’s, referring to someone who was angry or brooding or both. “Just ate up.”
CHAPTER 22
I am bringing Claire home. No working spleen, which is no big deal, and no working kidney, which is a very big deal, and half the basement filled with a one-month supply of her Y sets, povidone iodine caps and forty boxes of bagged dialysis solution. Claire’s IV pole is already set up next to Wayne’s recliner so that she can watch television or read while she does her exchanges. John was tested yesterday and I can almost believe that he will be a match. I caution myself; God’s made me no promises. No one has except Wayne, and I believe he’s breaking his now, though with good cause, he’d say.
Years ago I wanted to believe in John and I did. Too much. How much of what I saw in him did I paint there, with the hues of the palette I carried, and with my own brushes? I find myself slipping back to that place—seeing what I need in him, seeing what I long for. Of course, then I wanted something for myself and now it’s for Claire, but perhaps that’s not so different and I haven’t learned a thing after all.
He wants something from me, that’s for sure. There’s a price. The pull is there, strong as the moon on tides, and I know he knows it. Maybe he believes that I still cannot say no to him, even though no has shot out of his mouth to me as easy as spitting ice a couple of feet, more than once and when it’s been about more than a casual question. Perhaps he’s right and I still can’t. Of course, it’s all too confused now, with Claire’s life on one side of the balance scale, as light and tenuous as soul. I know I’ll put whatever I have to, whatever I can find from wherever I find it to lower the platform that holds her up there like someone all ready for God to take, back toward this grounded life here, here with me.
This morning, I got in the shower before I went to pick up Claire. I’ve not told her that Wayne isn’t here. It’s twice occurred to me that he might be at Maddie’s, but only because she’s made herself so scarce and I’d think she’d want all the support she can get, but I remind myself that Bill’s been with her and he’s doubtless more comfort than she’d consider me.
That brings me back to Wayne, though, and where he is. Not why, of course, that’s not really a question. I know the answer to that. What I don’t know is what he means to do. I don’t let myself have feelings about his being gone, except for Claire’s sake. But I don’t even know if Wayne’s been to see her in the past two days and asking her could only provoke questions I don’t want to answer. My mind chases its tail around the presence of the IV pole and the absence of Wayne, but I made myself put on cheerful colors, fixed my hair and put on makeup, so Claire wouldn’t guess how frightened I am.
“Mrs. Ellis is going to come over after she sees Kevin today, Mom, is that okay?”
“I guess.” Really, I wanted Claire to myself today, but like a ninny, I can’t say no to her, not now. And I’ve not asked about Kevin the way I know Claire wants me to. I try to correct my lapse, infuse hearty concern into my voice. “How is he doing? Still no change, I guess, or you’d know.”
“No,” Claire says and her eyes fill. Kevin is still unconscious—she avoids the word coma—and the longer it lasts, she understands, the worse his chances. Beth Ellis, his mother, has stayed in contact with Claire by phone, and wants to see her. This much I understand. Claire must feel like a link to her son, to the last time Kevin was himself, awake, vital, possessed of a certain future. I do understand. I know that by tomorrow Claire will be badgering me to take her to see him.
We’re in the living room, Claire on the couch with a sheet underneath and then folded over her as if she’s the filling for a cotton taco. Her schoolbooks are piled on the coffee table, with a pitcher of water, a glass, tissues, the TV guide from the paper and a pink rose in a bud vase, surrounded by baby’s breath. She’s thin, but she’s here, she’s alive. She’s brushed her hair and pulled it back into a barrette, which makes the hollows under her eyes stand out. I find myself touching her in every little way I can, smoothing her hair, squeezing her shoulder when I pass alongside the couch, sitting beside her and stroking her hand. It’s too much, I know. Before she shoos me away, I try to lighten up on my own.
“Did you believe Ellie? She’d pass out if she ever had to actually help you hook up,” I say with a laugh.
She grins. “Presley would be more help. I was pretty impressed when she said she understood everything, especially since she kept her eyes closed when the nurse was showing her how to connect the catheter to the Y set. I think she actually did lose consciousness when they were showing us how to give me the Epogen shot,” she laughs. “Actually, I couldn’t believe she even agreed to show up.”
I’d stepped widely around why it wasn’t Wayne being trained by saying what I’d told Maddie, that the hospital suggested one person who didn’t live in the same house be trained…patent nonsense, but credible enough. “Yes, well it was like nailing Jell-O to a tree, pinning her down to come. We probably would have been better off with Presley…or Charles.”
We smile at each other and roll our eyes. Then, she turns suddenly serious. “Mom, is Dad mad at me about something?”
I pause, too long. I’d hoped to open the subject myself so Claire wouldn’t think I’ve been hiding it from her. Which, of course, I have. “Of course not, sweetheart.” My heart feels like a rock in an avalanche, pounding and falling, pounding and falling. I sit on the edge of the couch, but between her feet and her knees, where I can touch her but not up by her waist where eye contact would be requisite.
“Where is he? I mean, not right now, I know he’s at work, but he didn’t come to see me with you…”
“He’s angry at me, not you.” Let this cup pass from me.
“What?” This isn’t something Claire is accustomed to. Wayne and I rarely argue, and certainly not in front of Claire. She doesn’t realize that we don’t have enough in common to argue, that’s how separately the currents of our lives run, though on the surface we’re as unrippled as the river on a windless night.
“He’s angry at me, not you.”
“What do you mean he’s mad at you? Why?”
“We disagree about…how to go about getting you a kidney.”
“What’s there to disagree about? I’m on the list, aren’t I? I mean, I had the interviews, I had the tests, what else is there?”
“Yes. Yes, you’re on the list, I mean. But…usually a relative, they call it a first-degree relative, is the best match.” This has to be the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. “The chance of rejection is less if the donor is a first-degree relative, I mean it’s a better match, more of the tissue matches…you remember about the antigens.” I’m stammering, sounding like Charles, the way I’m repeating myself. I can see the confusion gathering on Claire’s face.
“But you and Dad were already…”
“Honey, there’s no easy way to say this. Dad’s your Dad and he loves you more than anything in the world. He’s not your biological father, and—”
“What?” Claire cuts me off. It’s a disbelieving gasp.
“He’s not your biological father. That doesn’t change how he loves you, or how much he wishes he were, and, see, I’d promised him that I’d never… Claire, I’m so sorry. I can’t stand that I have to tell you this, but I have to. Your dad isn’t here because I contacted your real, I mean your biological father, to ask him to be teste
d. I’d promised your dad that I’d never let the man know anything about you or me, but, can you see, I…” I stop, seeing the shock on Claire’s face, a deadly white replacing the hospital pallor she’d worn home.
“Are you telling me I’m adopted?” She is trying to sit up, but the angle is awkward. Maybe she’s sore from where they inserted the tube.
“Not exactly, but I guess that’s kind of it, I mean with Dad.”
“Was I born to you?”
“Oh yes, sweetheart, yes. I didn’t mean…yes, you were born to me.”
“But Dad’s not my father? Do you mean you were married before? I thought you and Dad were married way before I was born.”
Forcing the words out is like physical labor. My hands and face are clammy with shame. “We were, honey.”
“So you…?”
“Yes, I did. I hope you’ll try to understand, I’ll try to explain it. Your father is…”
But Claire doesn’t want my nice, fuzzy explanation with the watercolor wash that would run right and wrong into a coherent picture together. She is crying, but interrupts, making her voice clear as words newly etched on a marble tombstone. “My father is Dad, and I don’t want to hear anything else. I don’t want anything from whoever you’re talking about, especially not his kidney. I’d rather die. And I don’t want anything from you, either. Could you please leave me alone now?”
Nothing she could say would be worse than what she’s said. Leave me alone. I plead with my eyes and put my hand on her leg. “Claire, please let me ex…” But there’s no point in going on. She’s turned her head toward the couch back and closed her eyes, like Ellie yesterday, keeping themselves from the bloody, the ugly side of life where I, sister and mother, live now.
Claire lies like that, unmoving for better than an hour. Twice I tiptoe to the end of the couch and start to open my mouth, wanting to beg. Twice I close it and slink away, because there’s nothing to say. The doorbell rings, and Beth Ellis, a tiny woman, is on the porch, dwarfed behind a bouquet of red roses all arranged with greenery and baby’s breath in a clear glass vase. There must be at least a dozen, maybe more. She had sent flowers to the hospital, too, signing Kevin’s name to the card with a sweet note. I’ve never liked Kevin all that much, but maybe I’d not think anyone was good enough for Claire. He’s not really objectionable; he’s okay, that’s all, okay. Claire could do a lot better; probably she could do worse, too. I’ve never seen what she sees in him. Hoping Claire hasn’t heard the bell, I keep my voice low when I greet her.
