Raina's Story

by Lurlene McDaniel

  “I heard you.” Raina gripped the wheel hard. Midnight had passed. Lights had dimmed and streets were deserted. The car radio kept playing sentimental music about days gone by. “I miss Hunter,” she said softly. “You should fight for Carson if you care about him.”

  Stricken by the note of sadness in Raina’s voice, Kathleen said, “I shouldn’t dump on you. You’re a good friend and I appreciate your help.”

  “That’s what friends are for.” Raina pulled up in front of Kathleen’s house, and Kathleen was relieved to see that only one lamp glowed in the front window, meaning that her mother had gone to bed. She didn’t want to have to explain her situation tonight. Before getting out of the car, she took deep breaths and told herself to get a grip. She asked, “Have you heard anything about your bone marrow match?”

  “I don’t expect to hear anything until at least the end of January. I’m not getting too psyched about it yet.”

  “You know, Holly’s green with envy. She wishes it was her bone marrow that had been matched.”

  Raina smiled. “She’s only told me that fifty times.”

  Kathleen slid out of the car. “Call me tomorrow. After noon. Way after noon.” She shut the door and it made a hollow sound that set a neighbor’s dog barking. “And thanks again for the rescue.”

  Raina leaned sideways. “Don’t write Carson off yet. Give him a chance to defend himself.”

  Kathleen nodded, but the image of him and Stephanie with their bodies molded together burned a hole in her mind. She couldn’t think of one thing he could say that would explain his behavior. Not one thing.

  Kathleen was roused from a sound sleep by her mother before eight the next morning. Mary Ellen opened the bedroom door and announced, “Honey, Carson’s on the phone insisting he speak with you. I told him you were still asleep.”

  Kathleen sat up groggily. Memories of the night before flooded back. “I’ll get it, Mom.”

  “You’d think that saying goodbye to each other at one this morning would have held him off until later in the day,” Mary Ellen mused. “If you want to invite him over for dinner, you can. I’m fixing us a nice pork roast.”

  Kathleen nodded, knowing she was not going to invite him. She’d tossed and turned for more than an hour, unable to shake off the vision of Stephanie and Carson pressed together, before finally falling into sleep. Now that she was awake, the image returned. Once her mother had shut the door, Kathleen reached for the phone beside her bed. “Yes?” she said.

  “Where did you go last night?” Carson growled. “I looked everywhere for you when the party started breaking up. I almost called the police, then somebody said they saw you getting into a car with a girl and driving away. Was it Raina? Why did you go? Why didn’t you tell me you were going? I’ve been up all night waiting until a decent hour to call your house, trying to figure out what happened!”

  She waited patiently for him to complete his tirade, then cleared her throat. “I would have told you I was leaving except I didn’t want to interrupt your lip-lock with Stephanie.”

  He fell silent.

  “Was it good for you, Carson? Because it wasn’t good for me.”

  “Is that what this is about? You think I was kissing Steffie? She was kissing me, Kathleen.”

  “Well, don’t I feel stupid? Not to have been able to see the difference.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.

  “She got to the party while I was standing around waiting for you to come back from the bathroom—” He poured sarcasm into his answer. “For your information, she was drunk. She was supposed to be in Brazil with her mother, but she showed at the party instead. She came over to me and next thing I knew, she laid a big wet one on me.”

  “You didn’t look to be fighting her off.”

  “She caught me by surprise. I was in shock—”

  “Oh, puh-leeze.”

  “What’s with you about Stephanie?” He sounded exasperated. “How many times do I have to tell you that she’s a friend and that I’m not interested in her in any other way? When are you going to get over this fixation about her?”

  “A fixation? Are you so blind that you can’t see that she likes you, Carson? That she hates me?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “And I’ll bet all your friends from Bryce thought it was just so funny,” she continued, remembering the catty remarks of the two girls on the porch. “I can see the headline now: ‘Carson Dumps Kathleen, a Nobody, for Stephanie, Right in Front of our Eyes.’ When I saw the two of you, I freaked. I called Raina and she came and got me and drove me home. Maybe I should have told you, but how could I, with Stephanie hanging all over you like a decoration on a Christmas tree?”

  He blew out a long puff of air. “You know, Kathleen, one of the things that I’ve liked about you is that you’re a girl who doesn’t play head games. Because I hate that about the other girls I know. You’re up front and you usually say just what’s on your mind. But this vendetta you have against Stephanie makes no sense to me. I’ve told you what I can about her, and I thought you understood and that things were all right. But they aren’t, are they? You just can’t let go of whatever it is you have against her.”

  “What I had against her last night was her body up against yours.”

  “All you had to do was walk over and I’d have made it really clear to her that you and I were together, and she would have grabbed somebody else.”

  “How flexible of her. She’s a leech.” Kathleen was steaming by now.

  “I’ve told you, she’s my friend and there’s nothing between us. But you don’t believe me.” His voice had turned cool. “I hate playing head games. Especially with you.”

  She felt white-hot anger pouring through her blood. “Then let me relieve you of the burden of my company!” She slammed down the receiver.

  She threw off the covers, jumped out of bed and furiously paced the floor. Before long, what she had just done began to sink in—she’d broken up with Carson. Well, so be it. Who needed a boyfriend who couldn’t keep his hands off other girls, anyway?

  Kathleen’s righteous indignation lasted until late afternoon, when she went to Holly’s house. In Holly’s bedroom, she told her the whole story and broke down crying. “He made me crazy angry.”

  Holly handed over a wad of tissue. “Gee, breaking it off seems kind of harsh. He explained what had happened.”

  “What was I supposed to say? ‘That’s okay, Carson, whenever Stephanie wants to exchange spit with you, just tell me so I don’t walk in on you.’ ”

  “Well, you are awful jealous of her.”

  “Wouldn’t you be? She’s gorgeous and she’s out to get him.”

  “So you just moved aside. That should make her happy. Now she has a clear path to him.”

  Kathleen felt annoyed because Holly wasn’t more sympathetic. “She’s always had a clear path to him. I was just a ‘plaything,’ remember?” She quoted Stephanie’s word when she’d heard that Kathleen and Carson were dating.

  “What’s Raina’s take on all this?”

  “I haven’t told Raina yet. I told you first.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel special? ‘Cause it doesn’t. It’s terrible watching the world fall apart—first Hunter and Raina break up. Then Hunter flies the coop. Now you and Carson call it quits. Oh, wait!” Holly threw up her hands in mock surrender. “You called it quits. Carson never got a chance to vote on it. Is that right?”

  Kathleen sagged onto the bed, twisting the tissues until they tore. “Okay … so I blew up. But you don’t know what it feels like to see someone you like kissing someone you dislike … and who doesn’t like you. And then to have him tell me that I was acting silly and playing games and not being understanding. It hurt, Holly. It really hurt.”

  Holly sat beside her on the bed. “My dad says it ain’t over until the fat lady sings.”

  “Your point?”

  “Maybe you can talk to Carson again and fix things up. He likes you, Kathleen. And I�
�ll bet anything that he’s just waiting for you to call him back. Or maybe by the time you get back to your house, he’ll have called you.”

  Kathleen gave Holly a sad look. “My cell’s been on all afternoon. He hasn’t called.”

  For Raina, January stretched like a long lonely road and time crawled. Hunter called once, e-mailed several times. He sounded happy. The campus was white with snow, the student center a popular hangout for coffee and endless hours of studying, the classes more exciting than he’d ever imagined. She told him she was glad he was having a good time. And she missed him so much that she ached. She felt left behind, bogged down in high school while he was sprinting ahead into a life she didn’t understand.

  She found an old Bible in one of her mother’s bookcases, dusted it off and flipped through it, hoping to catch a glimmer of the light that beckoned to Hunter so insistently. Some of the stories were evocative, even shocking—King David committing adultery and then having the woman’s husband sent off to war to be killed, leaving Bathsheba for himself. Some of the stories were baffling, painful—Job losing his family and all his worldly possessions when God and the devil made a bargain to test his faithfulness. Some of the stories were mystifying, puzzling—a self-proclaimed Messiah telling his followers to “forgive seventy times seven” and to “love one another.” Raina didn’t get any of it and put the Bible away.

  Two things kept her from despair. One was waiting for the results of her bone marrow matching tests. The thought of becoming a donor intrigued and sustained her. To offer another person, a stranger, a second shot at life seemed noble to her and something she wanted to do. The other thing that brought her satisfaction was working in the hospital’s nursery. She was a fixture there now and dreaded the day when she’d have to move on to another volunteer job. There was something about the babies that always lifted her spirits.

  On the last day of the month, she was gowning up for duty when she saw a lone plastic isolette shoved up against the wall in the neonatal ICU, as if someone had abandoned it. Intrigued, she went through the double doors, gowned up and went into the unit. Inside the bassinet lay a tiny dark-haired baby, covered, not swaddled, with a pale pink blanket. “Who are you?” she asked aloud. The card taped to the edge of the cart read COLLINS, GIRL.

  “You shouldn’t be in here unsupervised.”

  Betsy’s voice startled Raina. “Oh, sorry. I—I saw this baby parked over here and thought someone forgot to put her back.”

  Betsy shook her head. “No, she’s been put aside on purpose.”

  “Really? But why?”

  Betsy’s expression grew pensive, then professional. “This baby was born with a severely compromised liver. A failing liver, actually. She’s dying, Raina.”

  thirteen

  “DYING? Can’t the doctors fix her?”

  “Unfortunately, she has many more medical problems than just needing a liver, even if we could find her a healthy infant-sized, compatible liver—which is extremely difficult. Her heart’s missing a valve, she has no spleen, her kidneys are shriveled—well, you get the picture.”

  “B-but you can’t just do nothing.”

  “We’re keeping her drugged and comfortable. That’s all we can do.”

  “What about food?”

  “We pulled her feeding tube this morning.”

  Raina was horrified. “I’ll feed her! Every hour if she needs it.”

  “She can’t eat. She can’t suckle.” Betsy touched Raina’s arm sympathetically. “And it’s her parents’ wishes that we don’t prolong the inevitable.”

  “What? Her parents have just abandoned her?”

  “They haven’t abandoned her, they’re just letting nature take its course.”

  “But don’t they want to be with her?”

  Betsy regarded Raina with gentle eyes. “They’re devastated, Raina. Think of carrying a child for nine months and then having her be born with such massive medical problems that nothing can be done to save her. They have other children who need them. Why add to their agony with a bedside vigil, watching her die?”

  A lump rose in Raina’s throat. The sleeping baby looked peaceful, and her cheeks were plump and round.

  “It’s fluid buildup,” Betsy said, as if sensing Raina’s confusion over the baby’s seemingly well-fed appearance. “See her skin’s yellowish cast? That’s from the toxins building in her bloodstream because she has no liver.”

  “How … how long will it … take?”

  “A few days. I know you think it’s cruel, but it’s merciful. There are simply too many things wrong with her. Doctors aren’t gods.” Betsy smoothed the baby’s blanket. “Now come on. There are a lot of healthy babies in the other room who need to be taken to their mothers.”

  “Wait.” Raina stared down at the sleeping infant. “Can I hold her sometime? Rock her?”

  Betsy considered the request. “That will only serve you, not her.”

  “I—I just think she should be touched and cuddled.” Tears filled Raina’s eyes.

  “She feels nothing because of the drugs.”

  “I don’t care. She should be more than just some terminal baby shoved against a wall.”

  Betsy sighed deeply and nodded. “Remember, Raina, all of life is terminal. Healthy or not, we’re all going to die. Some sooner than others.”

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “No, it isn’t.” Betsy headed toward the door.

  “Does she have a name?”

  “Annie. They named her Annie.”

  Raina touched the baby’s cheek and hurriedly followed Betsy out of the unit.

  For Holly, the hardest thing about Hunter’s leaving home for college was that she now became her parents’ sole focus. Without Hunter, her buffer zone was gone and everything she did came under scrutiny. She told her friends, “Living with Dad is like living with the eye of Sauron, the dark wizard in Lord of the Rings. He sees all, forbids all. I’m going crazy!”

  When Holly and her father clashed, her mother often tried to smooth things over. “He loves you, Holly,” Evelyn would say. “Don’t you understand? He’s hard on you for your own good.”

  “What’s so good about wearing skirts below my knees? I look like an old lady!” Holly ranted. That had been their latest argument from that morning, when she’d tried leaving the house in a cute miniskirt and Mike had made her change.

  “Modesty matters,” Evelyn said. “You can’t go around looking like a tramp.”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “And I can’t go around looking like a fashion refugee either.”

  “Why is it that you hold what others think of you above what we think of you? We’re your family and we know what’s best for you. You’re intelligent, you’re attractive—you have so much going for you. Why do you persist in fighting with us over every little rule we give out?”

  “Because your rules stink?” Holly ventured a smart answer in spite of knowing it would only get her into trouble.

  “That’s it. I won’t listen to you ridicule all that we believe in. You’re grounded,” her mother said, leaving the room in a huff.

  Holly had shrugged, gone to school and in the bathroom hiked up her skirt to a tolerable length. School and her volunteer job were her escape valves, the two places where she excelled and felt she was taken seriously by adults. Her home life was just something she’d have to endure until she went off to college or moved out on her own.

  Raina took Holly to see the desperately sick baby. “That’s her,” Raina said, pointing through the window of the neonatal unit. “Over by the wall, all alone.”

  “It’s hard to see her. Can’t we get closer?”

  “No way. I’m not even allowed in there without permission.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s hanging on. But Betsy says there’s no way she can survive.”

  “Poor little baby. I hear about kids on the cancer floor who die, but I’ve never had to see it happen. That would really be tough.” Holly looke
d thoughtful. “Does seeing Annie like this make you sorry you became a Pink Angel?”

  “Mom warned me before I signed up last summer that hospitals can’t fix everybody and that people die. I knew it, expected it, especially when a person’s really old or really sick. But a baby …” She shook her head. “I never expected to see a baby die. And I didn’t expect the doctors to give up on her so totally. It’s like, ‘She’s broken, can’t fix her, let’s move on.’ ”

  The way Raina said it made doctors seem callous and unfeeling. “That sounds cold,” Holly said. “A lot of the people who work here care. I do. You do. Sierra does. It’s a long list.”

  Raina shrugged. “Mom warned me about getting too involved with one patient too.”

  “I got involved with Ben, and it turned out okay for him. You need to have faith.”

  Raina scoffed. “Faith won’t heal Annie.”

  Holly rested her palm against the window’s cool, flat surface. She wished she could infuse the element of faith into Raina. It was the thing that separated them from each other, and Raina from Hunter. And while faith might not cure Annie, it would go a long way to help Raina.

  Suddenly, Raina plucked her pager from her waistband and peered at it. “My pager went off. Has yours ever gone off?”

  “Never.”

  “Sierra’s extension. I’d better call in.” Raina grabbed a phone at the nurses’ station and made her call. When she hung up, she said, “Sierra gave me another number. She said Mr. Charles has been trying to reach me.”

  “Maybe it’s about the match?” Holly said.

  Raina quickly called, identified herself and listened, mumbling a few thank-yous before hanging up. She turned to Holly, her eyes wide with awe. “My test results came back, Holly. I’m a good match for the woman with leukemia. They want to harvest my bone marrow and send it to Virginia in the hopes that it will save her life.”

  Raina went straight to her mother’s office with the news. “Isn’t it exciting?”

  “I guess so.” Vicki looked thoughtful.