Graceland
Page 15
“Well,” she says. “Well, we’ll just keep our fingers crossed….” Dr. Douglas stands, and comes around her desk to put her arm around me as I rise. Much more formally, she shakes John’s hand. “This can’t be easy…” she says to him, and then, to me, “I’ll be in touch about the dialysis.” I, however, am still stuck on We’ll just keep our fingers crossed. I’m trying to figure out how it took her all this medical training to learn to cross her fingers, and how that’s better than reading my horoscope and crossing out anything that’s not pertinent. I’m thinking I’ll just take Claire directly to Gert to let her get her hair cut and a side dish of spiritual healing when I start to cry.
John puts his arm around my shoulder and helps me toward the door. We cross the waiting room like an old married couple who have just received bad news, and right then, it feels like that’s just what we are. I can almost hate him for this, that after these years of denial, regret, neglect, I can still slip into this connectedness as if it were a silk slip instantly, perfectly fitting even the revised contours of my body. I love him without reason. In defiance of my best interest, I love him.
That, however, doesn’t mean I’ll make the same mistake twice. Now there’s something else that matters, not he, not I. Something that really matters.
“So what’s the next step?” John says.
I’m getting myself under control. By the time we were in the parking lot, the crying I’d begun in Dr. Douglas’s office was bunching into sobs and my legs weakened. I tried to pull free of John’s arm to head for my car, but he steered me to his, opened the door and literally put me into it. He dug his handkerchief from his pants pocket and handed it to me when he got in the driver’s side.
Early June sunshine is breaking into shards on the water when I focus on where he’s driven us. The car is pulled into a little parking area above the river, one of the places we used to meet. Neither of us has spoken during the ride. I glanced over at him once, embarrassed that I’d fallen apart so badly, and saw him wipe his cheek with the back of his hand. I put my hand on his leg, and then he wrapped his around it, and the two of them rested on his leg for the rest of the ride. The back of his hand was still moist; my thumb pressed into the residue of his tears.
When he asks, it all overwhelms me again. “I don’t…there’s nothing, I don’t know what…the dialysis…and Thursday is graduation, but she’s too weak and now she’s talked to Wayne and she left…”
“Whoa,” John says. “I’m lost. Slow down, what’s going on? Is this about a transplant?”
Of course it’s not. And then I can’t help it, the tears start all over again. Last night and this morning have been too much. The news about John is devastating and anticlimactic at once. I can’t sort it all out.
“I told Claire about you. I had to. Wayne’s left, I don’t know where he’s been, because I called you. I had to call you, can you understand that?” I hear it in my voice: I am begging for something.
“What did she say?” John looks out the car window, away from me when he asks.
“She was, I don’t know, furious, disgusted. She wouldn’t let me explain, then her boyfriend’s mother came to see her— Kevin, the boy who was driving, he’s in a coma and it doesn’t look good. And then I couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or pretending to, but Dr. Douglas told me a dozen times that she needs a lot of rest. I was going to try again to talk to her when she woke up and then Wayne showed up.”
John shakes his head and looks out the window again. “God,” he says. “God.” He’s still not looking at me when he goes on. “So what did he want?”
“He knocked on the door. Isn’t that bizarre? He never told me he was leaving me, but he knocked on the door like he doesn’t live there. He just said, ‘I’m here to see Claire,’ when I opened it. She wouldn’t let me stay in the room, I tried to hear what they were saying, but… I’ve made such a mess of things. I don’t know what I should have done.”
John shifts in the driver’s seat so he can see me. “It’ll work out, try not to worry. I thought I’d lost my kids, I mean the divorce was really hard on them and there was enough anger in that house to blow out the plumbing.”
I’m sure he means well, but right now I would like to kill this man who I once thought walked on water. I would like to put cement boots on him, set him down in the middle of the river and let him walk.
Bile mixes itself into my tears. “That’s very nice, John, but I think you miss the point. You did lose one of your kids, or didn’t you ever even think of her that way? Now I’m losing her, too, even though I’ve been there for her every minute of her life, when her own father turned his back on me and her. Now I’m losing her because of you. And you’re not even a match. The one thing you ever could have done that would have counted now, and, no, of course not. No help from John.” Yes, I recognize that the last part is wildly irrational, but I don’t care anymore. I just don’t care.
“What do you mean?” John ignores most of what I’ve said. “You can’t assume you’re going to lose her. I know it’s not as good, but there’s no reason to believe there won’t be a cadaver donor.”
“There’s more than one way to lose someone, John. I’d have thought you’d have figured that much out by now. She’s gone. She went with Wayne.”
“What? What about…”
“Yes, the IV pole, the Y sets, the iodine caps, and I don’t know how many of the boxes of solution, he made a bunch of trips.”
“Where…?”
“I don’t know.” And it’s the truth. I don’t. Claire took four Tshirts, two pairs of shorts, a bra, a couple of pairs of underpants, her toothbrush, her hairbrush, some rubber bands, her schoolbooks, Kevin’s senior picture, the dialysis equipment, and left with Wayne. She leaned on him going down the two steps off our porch, and then again, when he helped her into his truck. I am as bitter as I’ve been in my life. “See how easy it is to lose?” I say to John. “Isn’t it just amazing how many ways there are to lose someone?”
CHAPTER 25
Things have plain spun out of control. Lydia flat out promised Ellie that she wouldn’t have to actually do anything that involved dialysis, and now Madalaine has just called and said Ellie has to get over to her house now.
“I’m on my way to work,” Ellie told her. “I can come over tonight if you want.”
“Wal-Mart is going to have to let retail sales slide today, Ellie, because somebody that knows something has to be around. Claire’s shaky. Call in sick, or, just tell them the truth. Whatever.”
“Where’s Lydia? What are you talking about?” Ellie had been completely confused. “I thought you said to come to your house.”
“I did. And I suppose Lydia’s at home.” Some crazed, elated flame had ignited Madalaine’s voice. Ellie checked out the kitchen window to see if the world looked normal. Across the street, the Henkel kids were straggling from their yard toward school. Belle, the Daltons’ ugly pug, crossed the street in front of the Sams’ house, squatting to pee in their yard in her leisurely fashion, driving Presley to his morning frenzy. Charles’s cartoons chased across the television screen. Ellie had closed her eyes and turned her back to the window to try again with her sister.
“What’s Claire… Claire’s at your house?”
“And to think people have said you’re not bright. You got it, El.”
“Why?”
“Ours is not to reason why… Look, just call in to work and come over here.”
Ellie wonders if Madalaine could be drunk. She doesn’t even believe that Claire is at Maddie’s. Maddie has been spacey since Brian died, not mean and not teasing Ellie about Elvis the way she always has. Ellie’s not been herself, either, of course; how could anyone be? But Maddie’s stayed away more than usual and when Mama calls her on the phone, Maddie gets off fast. Daddy’s not had a word to say about it, nothing unusual in that anymore, but something seems off to Ellie. Maybe Maddie has gone and lost it. That’s most likely it. Lydie will have to do something.
Obviously Ellie can’t deal with this. Mama and Daddy and Charles are on her list, she has to go to work and Presley’s needing attention. He’s snappish and it’s obvious that he feels the weight of the house—the attic floor is practically sagging over their heads with just the feelings Ellie has personally stashed there.
And it’s even worse when Ellie does get to Madalaine’s, a good hour and a half later. Lydie had been no help whatsoever on the phone. Ellie had asked, just to confirm for herself that Madalaine was drunk or off the deep end, “Is Claire there?”
Lydia had said, “No, I’m sorry, Claire’s not here,” just as if Ellie were one of Claire’s friends calling about going to the movies.
“What do you mean?” Ellie had been confounded, stammering out, “How can she…I mean, why isn’t she, where…?”
But Lydia had said in a wooden sort of way, “I’m sorry, Ellie, she’s gone out with Wayne and I don’t know where she is. Did you want me to take a message?”
This wasn’t Lydie at all. Lydie was always telling Ellie that she wasn’t making sense, and here she was making absolutely no sense herself. Lydia, of all people.
“What’s going on? I just got—” Ellie was about to go on and tell Lydia about Madalaine’s call, but Lydia cut in.
“Excuse me, Ellie, but I’ve got to go. I have an appointment with Dr. Douglas in a little bit and I’ve got to…it’s urgent. Please give my love to Mama and Daddy and Charles.” And then she’d actually just hung up on Ellie.
Ellie had paced between the kitchen and living room, working on a ragged cuticle on her thumb with her forefinger and then her teeth, until she tore off a big hunk of skin and it bled. She talked to Presley and then directly to Elvis, because there have been times when she’s been pretty sure she could feel his spirit guiding her. She thought it might have been Elvis who gave her the idea to call Gert.
Gert had a customer in the chair with a perm half-wrapped, but was nice enough to listen and say, “Ellie, it sounds like you’d best go to your sister’s house. Honey, you know, when people are so hurting, they don’t hardly know what comes out their mouth. You’d best go see what you can do for her.”
Well, it had sounded right when Gert said it, but now Ellie has half a mind just to get out while she can. Maddie opens the front door and sort of leers and laughs at the same time. “Oh yes, you must be the nice lady from Lobotomies-R-Us come to do my free in-home demonstration. Well, come right on in.” This Maddie says to Ellie, and steps back with a grand sweeping hand gesture. Then she bows and offers her arm to Ellie, like she’s some kind of escort.
“You’ll have to excuse the commotion here,” Maddie goes on in a confidential, lunatic’s whisper. “I’m having a home-decorating consultation today, too. The interior designers here like the neo-IV pole and plastic-bag look, but I’m leaning in favor of some delightful, very, very soft rubberized wallpaper in a soft gray. It has the added attraction of being easy to clean if some extra liquid happens to spatter around.”
Maddie sort of half pulls Ellie through the kitchen—the table has dirty dishes and the rinds of toast in disarray on it, very un-Maddie-like—and to the threshold of the family room. There sit Claire, looking frightened and determined at once if that’s possible, as well as looking very thin and very white, and Wayne, huddled miserably, and looking as if he has no idea in the world what to do. Which he doesn’t; Ellie gets that much immediately, and begins to panic herself.
“What’s going on?” Ellie aims the question at Claire, who usually can be counted on have a clear head.
“Aunt Maddie and…Dad don’t want me to start dialysis without you here because they think I’ll pass out or something and they won’t know what to do.” Claire sounds pinched, an unidentifiable something in her voice.
“You’ll pass out?” Ellie is horrified. No one has mentioned that to her. She feels light-headed.
“No, I won’t pass out. I’ll be fine. They’re just worried. All you have to do is sit down and watch television. I don’t need anybody’s help. I’ve done it before. I’m just pretty late now, I mean, this was supposed to be done already.”
“I…I’m not good at…I mean, where’s Lydie?”
“Nobody is accusing you of being good at anything, Ellie.” Maddie interjects this with a giggle.
“I assume Mom is at home,” Claire says evenly, but does not look at Ellie.
Ellie feels like she is in a Three Stooges skit, everyone deliberately misunderstanding each time she asks where someone is.
“I know she’s at home. Why are you here, and if you’re here, why isn’t she here, too?” Ellie spits the questions, as precisely as she can phrase them.
No one answers. No one says a word.
Madalaine pops a beer even if it is barely afternoon. Well, actually, it’s only eleven in the morning, if you’re insisting on precision, but since she’s been up since five, it should be afternoon. Another cosmic mistake, she snorts to herself. God is really slipping these days. She needs to calm down and think this through. Both Claire and Ellie had obviously been counting on Lydia to actually know what to do. Ellie was flat useless, but Maddie should have expected that: if an intelligent thought managed to be born in Ellie’s head, it would soon die of loneliness. “Look, El, you go on to work and get those M&M’s alphabetized or whatever you Wal-martians do,” Maddie finally snapped in exasperation. Of course, Ellie immediately went off in a huff. “Aren’t there…instructions, I mean some sort of review sheet of the steps, maybe a diagram?” Madalaine asked Claire after Ellie left.
“That’s what Ellie was looking for. I have enough instructions and diagrams to paper a room,” Claire said, miserably. “I was getting some clothes together.” Madalaine noted how Claire dropped the Aunt before Ellie’s name once Ellie was gone. The girl looked alarmingly frail to Madalaine. They were in way over their heads.
“Maybe you ought to go over and see if they won’t train you at the hospital,” Madalaine said to Wayne.
“No,” Claire interjected quickly. “No, I’ve got to get it myself, and I’d be more…comfortable if it were Ellie or you. Dad, I’m sure you need to get on to work. I’ll just call the hospital and go over this with one of the dialysis nurses. It’s really not hard at all. I’ve got to talk with Aunt Maddie, anyway.”
Ah, Madalaine thought. Here it comes in all its glory.
Wayne looked as if he’d lost two inches of height and twenty pounds during Ellie and Claire’s fumbles with the long, clear tube that extended from Claire’s abdomen and the bag they hung from the pole. “See, it’s okay, it all works by gravity,” Claire said. “I’m pretty sure this is right.”
Madalaine would have sworn that there was actually a tail tucked between his legs as he slunk toward the door between the family room and the garage.
“Well, then, I guess…I’ll see you later,” Wayne mumbled, and was gone.
Then it was just Maddie and Claire. Madalaine had to admire how Claire sat right there at Madalaines’s kitchen table, sucked in and tackled it head-on.
“Aunt Maddie, I need to tell you how sorry I am about Brian. I know I’ve told you before, but I don’t think I can ever say it enough.”
“I know,” Madalaine answered, and meant it, not that it would make an actual difference.
“I’ve had the feeling off and on that maybe you partially blame me. Not that you’ve said or done anything, but maybe just because I haven’t seen you too much.” A questioning, apologetic tone crept into Claire’s voice, and Madalaine knew that her niece hoped to hear a convincing denial.
Well, too bad. We just don’t always get what we want, now do we? Madalaine thought, but tried, unsuccessfully, to moderate the harshness when she answered. “I think you could have seen to Kevin’s driving…” she said. It was the obvious understatement, what she doesn’t add that is most devastating.
Instantly, Claire’s eyes filled. “I know. I know. I did ask him to slow down once. We were late, you know, from all the pictures.”
“Would it have been such a big deal to be ten minutes late? Was it worth my son’s life?”
“No, no, Aunt Maddie, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m so sorry. I just meant that Kevin is usually a good driver, he doesn’t…” She trailed off, recognizing that it was the wrong thing to say. “I should have made him stop. It’s my fault that he’s…where he is, and that Brian’s gone.”
Silence filled the kitchen like something palpable, the noon sun flooding the window as it moved around for a clear overhead shot, the angle from which a tennis ball is served. Madalaine used to play tennis, back when she was alive.
Claire broke into the quiet, her voice low, although there was no one else in the house. Jennifer wasn’t even due home from school for three hours, and if Maddie remembered right, Bill was taking Jen out to dinner tonight, unless, of course, Melody went into labor early, as Jennifer had gratuitously reminded her mother.
“Aunt Maddie, I wanted to ask you if I could possibly stay with you. I mean, I was going to ask, but now, I’m not sure if it’s even okay to ask, because…of how you feel toward me. I can’t stay with my mother. Dad told me you know about it…and my dad, I can’t stay with him either, it’s not fair, he’s not…not really…I don’t know who else to ask, except someone in my mother’s family.”
“I’ll need some time to think about it,” Madalaine answered, not that she’d really consider saying yes, but wanting it to appear as if she’d at least struggled with the request. Now that she thought about it, she realized that Lydie would end up modeling straightjackets if her husband and daughter were both here. A nice touch, she thought, and I don’t have to do a thing except respond to their requests out of the kindness of my heart. I get to be Saintly Mother of the Dead Boy, an extra adjective.