Blueberry Hill

by Bette Lee Crosby

  Mama and Donna had a number of good years together, years when they were more like girlfriends than mother and daughter. Now that Donna had acquired banking experience, getting a job was no problem. She’d go to work during the day, and when the bank closed at three o’clock she’d drive by, pick Mama up, and off they’d go.

  When I picture Mama and Donna driving off together, Donna’s always got a cigarette in her hand. I picture it that way because that’s how it was.

  “Those things are gonna be the death of you,” Mama would complain.

  Donna didn’t care; she’d just laugh it off. “Everybody’s gotta die sometime,” she’d say and fire up another cigarette.

  Few people knew Donna as I did. We were close in age and grew up together. We shared a room and shared secrets no one else was privy to. Although we were as different as night and day, we were stuck together with the crazy glue of sisterhood. That’s how it was and how it would always be. I saw the inside part of my sister that no one else could see.

  In Baltimore Donna thrived, or at least she gave the appearance of thriving. She opened up with a personality that drew people in and made them want to be the one standing next to her. If she walked into a bar filled with strangers, she had nine new friends before she left.

  Once she no longer had the responsibility of caring for her children, Donna went back to being the girl who came home from Virginia. Live fast and fly high. She could out-drink, out-smoke, and out-last any partier in the room, and more often than not that’s what she did.

  She never mentioned Charlie, but when the news came that he’d remarried she spent the next three days partying harder than ever.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.

  Donna shook her head. “Nope. What’s done is done.”

  I wished she’d cry, not because I wanted to see her sad but because I hoped she’d unlock that dam of misery and let it wash away.

  “You might feel better if you get this off your chest,” I said.

  “I feel fine,” Donna replied. Then she pulled on a pair of skintight jeans and headed to the Crab House where they were supposedly having a disco dance contest. I tagged along.

  We weren’t there five minutes when Donna grabbed a guy standing at the bar and said, “Come on, let’s dance.”

  They won the contest, and she came home with a bottle of champagne and a six-inch tall trophy.

  “Man, that was fun,” she said, then stretched out on the sofa.

  We stayed at Mama’s that night, and when I came downstairs in the morning Donna was having a glass of champagne and a cigarette for breakfast.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  Donna didn’t answer, and Mama, standing behind her, just rolled her eyes.

  The Call

  The call comes four years after Donna moved to Baltimore.

  When I answer Mama says, “Donna’s got to go to the hospital for a procedure, and I’m too nervous to take her by myself. You’ve got to come down.”

  “What kind of procedure?” I ask.

  “She’s having trouble breathing,” Mama answers. Her voice has that nervous high-pitched sound.

  “Trouble breathing?” I repeat. This is news to me. I talk to Donna every week or two, and she hasn’t mentioned anything about this. “Are you sure?”

  “Dammit, Bette, I know what I’m talking about!”

  “But I talked to her last week, and she didn’t say anything about—”

  “’Cause she doesn’t want you to know,” Mama argues. “She doesn’t want anybody to know. Just me. She wants to keep smoking those damn cigarettes and worry me into my grave, that’s what she wants!”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “Well, you’re not here!” Mama snaps.

  I have no answer for that because it’s true; I’m not there.

  “I’ll drive down this afternoon,” I say.

  “Well, hurry up and get started,” Mama says.

  I can almost feel the fear in her voice.

  ~ ~ ~

  Mama was never the same after she spent six months thinking Donna might be dead. All that worry caused her to shatter like a plate dropped on a tile floor. Even after Donna came home safe and sound, Mama stayed broken.

  For months on end she tried to glue herself back together, but it never quite happened. There were slivers of heart and chucks of determination that were gone forever. You hear that time heals all wounds, but it didn’t heal Mama’s.

  She still needs someone to lean on. Needing someone alongside of her is a lot like that plastic bottle of rye whiskey; she doesn’t like it but it’s something she has to have.

  ~ ~ ~

  I drive to Maryland alone, all the while thinking, She’s my sister, so why wouldn’t she tell me if something was wrong? It starts to rain before I hit the turnpike and continues all the way to Baltimore.

  It’s still raining the next morning when Mama and I take Donna to the hospital. As we drive crosstown I ask Donna why she hasn’t told me about this.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” she says, but I can hear the thick rasp in her voice. How long has it been this way, I wonder. And why hadn’t I heard it before? Even as I listen to her say it’s nothing, I know better and I hate myself for not noticing sooner.

  Once Donna is admitted, we settle into the waiting room. It’s a dreary place with outdated magazines and a television no one watches. Only one other person is in the room. He is an old man with a thin top of white hair. The fingers of his hands drum against each other as he leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees. I can’t help but wonder who he is waiting for. A wife perhaps. Although this is none of my business I find that thinking of this stranger and his troubles, helps me to move away from ours. For a brief moment I stop asking myself why I never noticed the sandpapered sound of my sister’s voice.

  I turn to my mother. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No, thanks,” she says, trying not to appear nervous; but I know better. We have been there a little more than two hours and she has rearranged the contents of her purse three times, folding and refolding her lace-trimmed handkerchief.

  I thumb through the pile of magazines, pick up a dog-eared issue of Woman’s Day, and hand it to Mama. “Would you like to look at this?”

  “No, thanks,” she says again. “I’ve got to clean out this purse, it’s a mess.”

  “Okay.” I replace the magazine, get up, and walk to the window. It’s still raining. The flat cold gray of the sky fades into a darker gray horizon, and I try to push back the thought that it is the type of day to promise tragedy.

  “Please, God,” I pray, “don’t let it be Donna.” Before I return to my seat, I say another prayer asking God to spare the old man’s wife also.

  As soon as I sit down Mama says, “We’ve been waiting for over two hours, seems like we should’ve heard something by now.” She pulls a bunch of credit cards from her wallet and starts rearranging them. When the Sears card falls to the floor, she turns to me. “Get that, will you? Then go ask if there’s any news.”

  “I just did,” I answer.

  “That was twenty minutes ago!”

  I can see how nervous Mama is, so I do as she asks. The receptionist says the same thing she said last time. “Doctor Craig will be down to see you as soon as he is out of surgery.”

  I tell Mama what the nurse said and again ask if she’d like something to read.

  “No,” she answers, then flips open her rearranged wallet. “But I could use a new picture of you three girls.” She shows me an empty glassine pocket. “I took out that old photograph of Cousin Bessie. She hasn’t called me in two years, so why should I bother carrying around her picture?”

  Before Donna ran away, Mama would look a problem in the eye and go at it. Now she does as she’s done with Bessie’s photograph. She sets it aside, removes it from sight, and tells herself it’s not something worth worrying about. Knowing this, I nod my acceptance. “When I get home, I’ll look
through my album and find a picture for you.”

  “Just don’t forget.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay.”

  Mama puts the wallet back in her purse and says, “I need to stretch my legs.”

  We get up and walk outside where we can stand under an awning. Searching for words to fill the emptiness, I say, “This weather is miserable.” I pull a pack of cigarettes from my pocketbook and light one.

  Mama says, “I’ll have one too.”

  This astounds me. I have never seen her smoke. Never. I pull the pack out and give her one. She puts the cigarette between her lips, and I touch the flame of my lighter to it.

  “I’ve never seen you smoke.”

  “I haven’t for years,” she answers, “but I’m real nervous today.”

  As I draw a second and third puff of nicotine into my lungs, thoughts of Donna’s labored breathing and raspy voice come to mind. When I can’t rid myself of the image, I snuff out the cigarette. Mama slowly finishes hers. The cigarette is like her rye whiskey; it fills the empty spots of who she used to be.

  Another two hours pass before the short, dark-haired doctor comes into the waiting room. He is no longer wearing his operating room scrubs; he has changed into a navy blue business suit. He sits in the chair beside us and speaks in a soft, almost apologetic tone of voice.

  “Unfortunately, Donna had a lot more problems than we anticipated,” he says. “We had to do a tracheostomy.”

  Mama gasps.

  “Do you know what that is?” the doctor asks.

  I say, “Yes.”

  Mama answers, “No.”

  He removes his glasses and looks to Mama’s face. “Donna has quite a bit of scar tissue on her bronchial cords, and it’s restricting her ability to breathe. That, combined with the emphysema, prevents her from getting enough oxygen into her lungs.”

  “Donna has emphysema?” I repeat. This is the first I’ve heard of it.

  “Severe emphysema,” Doctor Craig replies. “To enable her to breathe we had to bypass that scar tissue, so we made an opening in the front of her throat and inserted a device to keep her airway open.”

  “Will she be all right now?” Mama asks.

  “She’ll be able to breathe, but not speak.”

  I listen and wait. I know what a tracheostomy is, and it seems somehow impossible he can be speaking of my devil-may-care sister. I want to call him a liar, but I only ask, “Is this permanent?”

  “It’s difficult to say.” Doctor Craig pauses a moment. “With the tracheostomy she won’t be able to smoke anymore, which will help with the emphysema, and she’ll be able to suction out the congestion in her throat. If the fluid in her lungs clears, there’s a possibility she can eventually have the scar tissue removed and the tracheostomy reversed.”

  “If that happens, will she be able to talk again?” I realize this is a dumb question, but it is all I have. I am searching for hope.

  To avoid seeing our desperation, Doctor Craig looks down at the glasses in his hand as he speaks. “If we reverse the tracheostomy, Donna will be able to talk in a somewhat normal voice. But,” he says with considerable emphasis on the word, “she’s done a lot of damage to her throat and lungs. At this point I don’t know whether it’s reparable.”

  “What’s the long-term prognosis?” I ask.

  The truth is I don’t want to hear what I am afraid is coming. For a moment I want to be like Mama. I want to close my eyes to this tragedy and swallow gulps of rye whiskey to dull the sorrow of reality.

  Doctor Craig rubs the bridge of his nose then replaces his glasses. “The likelihood is that Donna will never live to be an old woman.” He avoids looking at either of us when he says this, and then with the worst of the ugliness out of the way he lifts his eyes to Mama and says, “But rest assured, we will make certain Donna is kept comfortable for however long she has.”

  “However long she has?” Mama gasps. She starts to cry. Soft sobs bring forth a flow of tears that forces her to use her lace hankie.

  I wrap my arm around Mama’s shoulders. “Don’t worry,” I say, knowing such a thing is not possible. “Donna’s strong, she can beat this.”

  Mama takes my hand in hers and says nothing. She is simply holding on to whatever she can, and right now I am it.

  “When can we see her?” Mama asks.

  “Donna is still in recovery.” Doctor Craig suggests we go have lunch. “By then she should be back in her room.”

  I take Mama by the arm and lead her away. Neither of us speaks. It is as if we are walking through a bad dream, one from which we will wake and find it to be nothing more than the aftermath of a late-night pizza. In the span of a few hours it seems as if the world has changed. Everything looks unfamiliar. Even the green hallways appear narrower and headed in different directions. Clinging to one another, we walk to the end of the hallway and step into the elevator. On the ground floor there is a small coffee shop and we go in.

  I cannot remember what we ordered; I remember only that we did not eat whatever it was. And I also remember Mama tearing her napkin into tiny shreds, nervously picking it apart piece by piece until there was nothing left but a scattering of scraps.

  When we finally get to see Donna, she is pale and confused. Several times she tries to speak, but the words are no longer there. They have been replaced by a gurgle that starts in her chest and is then held prisoner by the steel fixture tied to her throat. I make a feeble effort to cheer her by saying it might only be temporary. She in turn pretends to believe me.

  Donna doesn’t cry. She never cries. Whatever sorrow Donna feels remains trapped inside of her. She mouths the words, “I guess this means I’m not going to be smoking for a while.” She then gives a so-what shrug.

  We stay beside her for another two hours, and as we turn to leave I hear the gurgling coming from her open airway. I can still remember the sound.

  The Aftermath

  We have entered into a time of life when we are all liars. We lie to one another, and we pretend to believe the lies. Not only do we believe them, we pass them on as truths. I tell Mama that Donna will be okay. I say she just needs time to let her throat heal and then the tracheostomy will be reversed.

  “You know Donna.” I say, “She’s tough. She can do it.”

  Mama pretends to believe me. She nods, but the fear never leaves her eyes.

  When I ask Donna if she is uncomfortable or if there is something she needs, she shakes her head and grimaces. I know the look; it is her “Don’t be such a sissy” expression. As I said, we are all liars.

  Two days later Donna comes home from the hospital, and that afternoon medical supply trucks start arriving at her apartment. They come with a machine that growls and churns as it sucks loose the accumulation of mucus. They bring oxygen tanks that stand nearly as tall as me and cartons filled with gauze, tubing, and bottles of saline water. Donna sits in the recliner as Mama and I push chunks of furniture aside to make way for the barrage of medical supplies. In her bedroom the nightstand is turned sideways so we can squeeze in the chest that was moved to make way for boxes. The apartment was small to begin with and now it is overcrowded. It has the jumbled look of a storage bin.

  “Maybe we should try to find you a bigger place,” I suggest.

  Again Donna shakes her head and gives me that same disdainful grimace. This time it is accompanied by a wave of her hand pushing the thought away.

  I remain in Baltimore for another week, and during that week I learn what Donna’s life will be like. She is a woman with a boyfriend and countless friends, yet she has told no one of this situation. The phone rings constantly, but Donna waves me off when I start to answer. Instead we wait until the caller leaves a message, and then we listen to it. Don, her boyfriend, has called twenty or more times. At first it is just a message for her to call him back. Then his messages become more desperate. “Dammit, Donna,” he says. “I’m worried about you! Call me back!”

  Don doesn’t even
know Donna was in the hospital. She is a person who shares good times and fun. She is not a person who shares her fears and heartaches.

  “Let me call him,” I say. “He’s really worried about you.”

  For the first several days, she simply gives a negative shake of her head then finally she writes a note and hands it to me. The note reads, Call Don & tell him I don’t want to see him anymore. Don’t tell him about the tracheostomy.

  “I can’t do that!” I say.

  She points to the phone and nods.

  “You’ve been dating him for over six months,” I remind her. “He’s not going to believe you just don’t want to see him.”

  She takes the notepad and starts writing. The notepad is always with her; it is our way of communicating anything that can’t be said with a nod, a shake of the head, or a wave of her hand. This time she writes Tell him I’m involved with someone else, and it wouldn’t be fair to keep seeing him. DO IT NOW!

  Not happy about doing this, I dial Don’s number. Fortunately his answering machine picks up. I leave the message, but I am not a good liar and my words sound like a bad recording.

  Afterward Donna settles into her recliner and watches television. There is little else to do. Although she has never been outside the United States, she watches travelogues of France, Italy, Greece, and faraway places I have never heard of.

  At four-thirty I call and order a pizza for our dinner. She has no appetite and neither do I, so pizza sounds good. Fifteen minutes later the buzzer sounds, and I push the button to allow the deliveryman to enter the building. When I open the door it’s not the pizza; it’s Don. He angrily pushes past me and into the living room where Donna sits in the recliner.

  “What the hell is—” He sees Donna and stops short.

  She turns her head and waves him off. This is how Donna now dismisses anyone or anything she doesn’t want to deal with.