16 Things I Thought Were True

by Janet Gurtler

  “There’s, uh, this girlfriend,” Adam says as he glances around the hallway, and his voice cracks at the end of the sentence.

  “Oh?” It’s all I can think of. God, I’m such an idiot—my mom could be dying and I was getting all pervy over my boss.

  “She wants to be a doctor too,” he says, still looking around the pale-painted hallways, avoiding my eyes.

  “Yeah, well. They say compatibility is important.” I wonder if she’s a douchebag too. But he left work early to drive me here. He’s been helpful and kind and thoughtful. Not a douchebag at all. It’s not his fault I reacted inappropriately to his hug. My anger isn’t at him. It’s at me for taking his kindness the wrong way.

  “My girlfriend…” he starts to say.

  “No. It’s okay.” Last thing I want is an explanation. I tap my fingers against my phone. “Thanks again. For driving me here. And, well, for everything.” I’m finally able to look at him again and attempt a smile, but my lips quiver and quit halfway up. “Sorry if I was being a bitch earlier. At work.”

  He adjusts his glasses up on his nose. “You were just standing up for Amy.” He meets my gaze. “You know I kind of have to be a jerk at work, right? Or no one will listen to me.”

  “At least you do it well.” I grin as I say it. He doesn’t laugh, but he does smile back. Something passes between us. Friends, I think. We really could be friends.

  “See ya, Morgan,” he says softly. “Keep me posted.”

  I have an urge to grab his arm and ask him to stay. I have a feeling he would, but he’s walking, and he waves at my brothers and keeps going toward the elevator.

  Almost immediately, Josh and Jake walk back to my side. “Was that your boyfriend?” Josh asks.

  “No!” I glance at the back of Adam’s head, hoping he didn’t hear as he disappears around the corner.

  “A good guy won’t care about that video, Chaps,” Jake says. “He was looking at you like a boyfriend,” he says. “Do you owe me ten bucks?”

  My cheeks burn. “Check your texts. Lunch was a disaster. You owe me ten bucks. He’s my boss, and he already has a girlfriend.”

  There’s a rat-tat-tat of clicking heels behind us, and we all turn. A woman in a white doctor’s coat, carrying a clipboard and tapping a pen against the side of it, walks toward us.

  She stops when she reaches us. “You’re Maggie McLean’s kids?” she asks.

  We all nod in unison.

  “Good. I’m Dr. Sally. Libby Sally.”

  I study her face. She has high cheekbones and dark lashes, and far as I can tell, she’s not even wearing makeup. She’s naturally beautiful. Not only that but she can slice into human skin and deal with copious amounts of human blood and save lives. It seems rather unfair.

  “We need to talk about your mom.”

  I hold my breath.

  The tone in her voice doesn’t sound good.

  “She’s definitely got a heart condition. I suspect she’ll be needing angioplasty surgery, but we don’t know for certain until we go in.”

  chapter three

  2. Heart disease happens to other people.

  #thingsithoughtweretrue

  “You can go in and see her. I’ll be with you in a minute,” Dr. Sally says after delivering her news. She described how high risk Mom is for a heart attack, with her smoking and high blood pressure, and talked about other symptoms and probable causes. Heart disease. My mom. It’s hard to digest.

  I step into the hospital room. Four beds. In the bed closest to the door, a pale old man hooked up to a bunch of tubes lies on his back, covered by a blanket. His papery white feet stick out of the bottom of the blanket, his toes pointing straight to the ceiling. He snorts and grumbles with his eyes closed.

  Across from him, in an identical bed, there’s another sleeping man with tubes everywhere. He’s old, with thin skin and white hair. The bed beside him is empty, but across from it is my mom. A half-closed privacy curtain separates her from the old man beside her.

  I walk closer and see she’s tucked into a narrow bed. The steel sides of the bed are pulled up, almost as if she’s in a crib for adults. Her eyes are closed, and plastic tubes stick out of her. She’s attached to a pole with IV bags hanging from it and more tubes that run to another machine. It looks scary and obscene, as if she’s a giant voodoo doll. I worry I’ll trip on a tube and unplug her and try not to imagine what will happen if I do.

  She looks tiny and vulnerable under the thin covers. Her hospital gown falls opens at the neck, and her skin is translucent. I study her pale face, and it occurs to me that she doesn’t have her lipstick on. She always does her makeup so early in the morning, it’s rare to see her without it.

  She’s incredibly still, no indication of her chest rising and falling even. Worried she’s not breathing, I move closer and hold my hand above her mouth. She swats away my hand and rubs her nose. Then she sputters and opens her eyes and glares at me. I pull my hand back.

  “Geez, Mom. You scared me,” I say and drop my backpack on the ground beside her bed.

  “Did you think I was dead?”

  I frown at her, and she giggles, but it’s frail and fades off. Jake steps behind me and reaches over and pats Mom’s hand.

  “Chaps, quit bugging Mom.” He bumps my hip with his, and I shut my mouth even though I didn’t mean to bug her. She actually freaked me out.

  “Hi, boys,” she says and smiles, but it’s weak and fades quickly too.

  Josh hangs back, behind Jake and me.

  “I’m really tired,” Mom says, looking at Josh.

  He shuffles his feet but doesn’t respond.

  “You’ll be fine, Mom. You’re a tough old broad.” Jake glances back at Josh and frowns and then turns back to Mom and pats her hand.

  There’s a cough behind us and we all turn. Dr. Sally grabs the privacy curtain and expertly swings it all around, so we have a false sense of isolation from the other patients in the room. “We have you scheduled for an angiogram in two days,” she says to Mom. She turns to Jake and me. “We’re keeping her admitted to keep an eye on her. Because her blood pressure is high, and she’s been short of breath, we want to monitor her. She’s high risk for a heart attack.”

  I picture a doctor on TV rubbing together a defibrillator and trying to shock someone’s heart to start up. Mom closes her eyes.

  “What exactly is an angiogram?” Jake asks.

  “Basically an X-ray of her arteries, so we can see what’s going on around her heart. We’ll check for blockages. We can do the angioplasty if need be.”

  Dr. Sally goes on, describing what they’re going to do in the angiogram, inject a dye into her and poke around her insides and what they’ll see if she needs angioplasty. My stomach swoops, and my head sways with a dizzy queasy sensation. I shut my eyes. This is not supposed to be happening to my mom. She’s not a sixty-year-old man with a bad heart. I open my eyes when the doctor stops talking, and she’s glancing at her watch.

  “Any other questions?” she asks briskly.

  “How old are you?” Josh asks.

  She blinks at him, presses her lips together, and raises her eyebrows. “I’m thirty-five. And if you’re concerned, my credentials are impeccable. I’ve performed this procedure dozens of times.”

  Josh doesn’t take his gaze off her. “You look young is all,” he says.

  I honestly can’t tell if he’s worried about her qualifications or if he’s trying to flirt and figure out if she likes twenty-somethings with mustaches. It’s hard to say which is worse.

  “Thank you,” she says without a trace of thankfulness. She looks down at her watch again and then up at us. “Right. Don’t tire her out. I have another patient to see.” She turns and leaves.

  Mom feebly attempts to boss us around to give the impression she’s in charge, but she tires quickly. “If I w
ere to base my chances on the looks on your faces, I’d be a goner,” she says.

  Jake pushes down the side railing of her bed and sits, making sure he doesn’t sit on any tubes. Josh doesn’t move from where he’s standing, his shoulders hunched over.

  “You’re going to be fine,” Jake says. “If there’s a blockage around your heart or anything, they’ll take care of it right away. We’ll have this done and get you rested and back on your feet,” he says as if he knows it all now. He stands and walks to the window and stares out of it.

  “I guess things happen for a reason,” she says, looking at Josh.

  That’s her favorite saying. Things happen for a reason. Well, that and “pass the wine, would you please, sweetie.” She loves her wine, that’s a fact. I hope at least one of those will change.

  Josh attempts a smile but looks lost. The whole scene feels like an awkward segment of a reality show. It would be nice to tell someone to turn off the camera. Mom fades back into her blankets. “I’m dying for a cigarette,” she says.

  “If you’re not careful, you’ll mean that literally,” I tell her.

  She sighs. “You’re right.”

  I move closer to her side. “I’m going to get you Nicorette gum. You have to quit smoking, like, yesterday. No heart attacks allowed.”

  She nods, and I know she’s definitely scared. The boys and I have been asking her to quit smoking for years. Even Jake’s late-developing asthma didn’t stop her.

  “Boys,” she says. “I want to talk to Morgan. Go get something to eat. You must be starving.” She’s probably right, because they’re always hungry, but I remember I haven’t had anything to eat besides one or two French fries on my embarrassing break, hours ago now. Josh and Jake mumble, and I watch them disappear from the room with a little dread and a little resentment.

  When they’re gone, she reaches out her hand. I move beside her and stare at the steel thing on her finger that looks like a splint. It’s connected to a tube that runs to a machine.

  “I think I knew this was coming,” she says. Beeps and other noises from the machines hum in the background. “I’ve been having dreams.”

  I don’t ask what kind. She’s always believed she has psychic abilities through her dreams. She loves to describe them and analyze the meaning. In excruciating detail.

  “You’ve always been the strong one in this family,” she says to me.

  I watch a monitor as it beeps out her heart’s rhythm. “Me? I’m not strong.”

  “Yes, you are, Morgan. You’re stronger than the boys. You’ve had to be.” She sighs, and for a moment, her silence is deafening. This is not the usual script. She doesn’t let go of my hand, and I barely resist an urge to pull away from her. She squeezes it. “I always hated it when my parents pried into my life when I was a teenager,” she says, “but you know you can always come to me.”

  I gently pull my hand away, pretending to have a scratchy arm.

  “I did silly things too, Morgan. Everybody does. If there’d been camera phones around when I was younger.” She whistles, and I glance away and her gaze follows mine, and we both stare outside the tiny window at mist creeping up a red brick wall. “Honestly, I expected Lexi to be a better friend,” she says. My jaw clenches tight, and I close my eyes to keep out the images of me in underwear. Dancing.

  “Me too,” I whisper and close my eyes, wishing I didn’t have to feel so incredibly guilty about what happened with that video.

  It’s quiet except for the whirs and beeps in the room, and then she sniffles. “I’m scared, Morgan,” she whispers. I reach for her hand this time and squeeze, trying to forget my own pettier problems.

  “You’re going to be all right,” I say, but it’s hard to make my voice sound convincing when I don’t know. She’s been a smoker as long as I’ve been alive. And she loves wine and hates exercise. “You have to make changes. You will make changes,” I say.

  “Listen to you, acting like the mother.” She tries to giggle but it turns into a sniffle. I reach over to the table beside her bed and take a Kleenex from the box and hand it to her. She takes it and loudly blows her nose. “I wish you had more friends to talk to,” she says with another little sigh. “In case something happens to me.”

  “You’re going to be fine,” I answer automatically. “And I have friends.”

  She narrows her eyes. “I mean real ones.”

  Now this, this is the familiar script. I sit up straighter and hold in my comebacks. My online friends are real. No matter what she thinks.

  “You’re going to be okay, Morgan,” she says.

  I swallow and swallow again and breathe deeply, suppressing my urge to make this about me, to ask if I came with a money-back guarantee—or if a dream told her that. But this isn’t the time or the place for old arguments.

  “I’m not going to make it,” she whispers.

  “Mom. You’ll be home before you know it.” I wiggle myself a little closer to her on the bed, so my knee touches her hip. It’s bony. She’s always kept herself so thin. “You’re going to be fine.”

  “No.” A single tear plops out of her eye and runs down her cheek.

  My heart beats faster, and for a moment, I have an urge to throw up. She’s not going to die. She’s scared. She’s going to have an operation and she’s being melodramatic. I close my eyes and fight an instinct to flee the room, run to my phone.

  “Yes,” I say softly.

  I stare down at her hand and notice age spots. I close my eyes and say a silent prayer to God. We’re not always on great terms, but I hope He’s listening.

  “I owe you some explanations,” she says.

  I open my eyes, and she’s staring at me so intently, I frown.

  “Mom? You don’t owe me anything,” I say quietly. “And even if you did, you’ll be home soon and can tell me then.”

  Frrrrrrrrrrapppppppppp.

  There’s a loud sound from the bed across the room. I turn my head, startled, and realize the old man across from her farted. It’s drawn out and loud and travels through the privacy curtain to us. Mom and I stare at each other for a second and then we both start to laugh. The old guy snorts.

  “Sorry ’bout that,” he calls out. “Damn medication.”

  Mom and I laugh softly, but it dwindles quickly, and the room is quiet again, except for the whirring.

  “I’m sorry for so many things,” she says. “For not telling you…” she continues, in a quieter voice.

  My entire body goes stiff, on full alert. I don’t move. I can’t move.

  “I should have told you I love you more.” She wipes away a tear, and my own eyes fill up. I’m not used to this person; it’s much easier dealing with the less helpless version of my mom.

  I rub my eyes and wipe my nose with the back of my hand. “I know you love me,” I say softly. The words taste foreign in my mouth.

  In the back of my mind, I’m composing a tweet to make this funny somehow. Hashtag #awkwardparentmoments. It would probably trend on Twitter. I want to laugh at this to make the whole situation less real.

  “Do you?” She stares intently at me, not blinking. “I’ve never been, you know, good at expressing things. And with you, you’ve always been so self-sufficient. You were an old soul, even when you were a baby. I swear you did everything on your own. I guess with the twins and the energy and attention they consumed, well, maybe I took your independence for granted.” She stops talking and stares off past me, at the curtain separating us from the rest of the room. I remember being younger and trying desperately to earn her attention. The things I did never seemed to matter as much as the boys’ things.

  This hospital version doesn’t look the same or talk the same way as the mom I know. She doesn’t even smell the same. “You’re a lot like your father, you know, and sometimes I guess I resented you for that.”

  Ev
erything in my body goes on high alert. I don’t move. Something fills my stomach, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s excitement or anxiety. My dad?

  I don’t even blink, yet somehow a tear rolls down my cheek and slides into the corner of my mouth. I ignore the salty taste and hold my breath, waiting for her to continue. I’ve never been this terrified, terrified she’ll say more about him—terrified she’ll stop and leave me with nothing but this one small mention. I’m like him?

  Layers of silence pile on top of each other. Finally she sighs. “He had a dry sense of humor, your dad.” She says it quietly and then laughs, staring off out the window, seeing something I can’t. A memory of him? My dad. I want to see it. I want to peer inside her head and see it.

  “You’re smart like him. He could do math in his head in seconds. And he could turn on the charm.” Her eyes focus, and she turns to me. “You’ll be able to do that someday—when you grow into your skin.”

  Her specialty—the backhanded compliment. Still, I lean forward and will her to continue. My heart beats so fast and loud I feel it in my throat, but if she doesn’t say more about my father, it will stop and I will die. My math comes from him? What else?

  “Your awkward phase won’t last forever.”

  I close my eyes and breathe deeply. No. This isn’t what I want. I don’t want to hear about my faults. I open my eyes. She’s about to have surgery. I shouldn’t upset her. But she brought him up. My insides are close to exploding, wanting to demand more. But I breathe and wait, reminded of the silent treatments I used to get if I dared ask questions about my dad when I was little. She never told me anything about him. Not if I cried, not if I had a tantrum, not even if I refused to eat. She knew eventually I’d stop and get hungry enough to leave her alone. And I did. I heard that being ignored has the same effect on the brain as being physically hit. My bruises were invisible.