Chapter Twenty-Eight
The funny thing about the ICU is that there is no time. Walking into it is like stepping out of life, out of the regular daily routine, away from a world of lattes and streetlights and reality TV and into some hushed dimension where everybody speaks in whispers, and each second is ticked off by the steady beep of heart monitors and the whish—click—fffft of the ventilators.
A stream of people wandered in and out of my box of consciousness: Vin, bringing me food; the nurses, smiling apologetically; people asking what we needed. A number of those people turned out to be Fierros, which surprised me, but I didn’t have the brain power to think much beyond that. Vin’s family was helping. That was nice of them.
At first, I was uncomfortable by their offers. No, we don’t need anything. We’re fine. Thanks for asking. I’d try to smile, then worry that was wrong, and try to frown.
“Let them help,” the grief counselor told me. I hadn’t asked to see him, but he’d appeared in her room anyway. “Don’t be afraid to tell them what needs to be done.”
After that, I strived for honesty. We needed rides for Gram to and from the hospital. Gram needed meals. Vin’s family sprang right into action, and Rachel even offered to stay a couple of nights with my mom so I could go home and sleep in a real bed. When I got home, I found out they’d been doing dishes and cleaning, and the fridge and freezer overflowed with amazing, wonderful food. Whatever else I needed, they told me, just ask.
Vinnie himself was great. Solid. Present. Most of all, silent. I didn’t know if it was because he didn’t know what to say, or because he sensed it was what I needed. Either way, I appreciated it. I wished there was a polite way to tell the others to do the same.
They meant well. I knew that, but the repetitive awkwardness of the conversation wore on me.
“How is she?” they’d always ask.
Mostly dead, just like she looks. “They say her MRI doesn’t show any new degeneration.”
“What happened?”
She abused her body for forty years. “We don’t really know.”
“Are you holding up all right?”
“I’m fine.”
The conversations made me self-conscious. Was I behaving the way a son should? Did I sound too sure when I told them I was fine? Was I too callous? Did I seem properly mournful? Maybe I should seem more grateful?
“There’s no right or wrong here,” Vinnie said to me when I tried to make sense of my unease.
How could that be true?
I sat on the fake leather bench in her ICU room, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. The nurses came in regularly to check the bank of monitors. They straightened the tubing across the white sheets of the bed. Tucked the blankets tighter around her feet. The ventilator caused fluid to collect in the back of her throat, and they’d suck it out to prevent it from falling into her lungs. That was the only time she’d make any sound—a sort of low-pitched whine that spoke of primal pain. I learned to put on my headphones and crank the volume until they were done.
I quickly decided those working there were saints, but they’d lost a bit of touch with reality. “We’re going to put in a suppository today. A good bowel movement will probably make her more comfortable.”
Good Lord. What could anyone say to that?
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The monitors went on.
I lived each second as if it were the only second. No thoughts of the past. Anything that had happened before our admittance to this strange universe seemed foggy and dull. To say there were no thoughts of the future would be inaccurate, but it felt like walking a tightrope. They did not expect her to live. We would need to have a coffin. There would be a service. I had a brief vision of myself, in a suit I didn’t own, standing in front of a faceless congregation.
No.
That was as far as it could go.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It wasn’t grief. I’m sure that’s what everybody thought. It was certainly what was expected. I wondered if the grief would come. I worried that it wouldn’t. I wondered if at some point it would crash down on me from above, taking me by surprise. In the next room over, a man twice my mother’s age lay unmoving. Unresponsive. Three women sat with him. They had a book, and they took turns reading from it, rocking gently as they did, their lips moving, but their voices too quiet to hear. The book wasn’t in English. A Koran? A Torah? I didn’t know. But when they looked at me, I saw the pain in their eyes.
That was grief.
That wasn’t what I felt.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Maybe it would come. Maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe it would be something else entirely. And that was where I couldn’t allow myself to go. I couldn’t bear to open that door, to acknowledge what might be behind. Whatever paths were there, whatever endings they may hold, whatever emotions they may create, I couldn’t ponder them. I stared at the floor.
Square tiles. White. Blue chips.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
I should call someone. People from her past. The lady who’d been our neighbor. The man she’d dated briefly years ago. Somebody should know.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
My friends didn’t call. Tara texted once, but I let Vinnie handle it, and whatever he said to them, they left me alone after that. I was glad. I didn’t want anyone else in the way. I’d go to the hospital cafeteria with Gram, and we’d sit in silence, pushing mashed potatoes around our plates. Then back through the veil to the tiles and the curtains and the whispered prayers.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“If you have something to say to her, you should say it now,” the counselor said.
I nodded. Because he expected me to agree.
I had plenty to say to her. Vile, angry things. I doubted that was what he meant.
“This may be your last chance,” he said. “You’ll regret it later.”
Yes, that was probably true. Later, when the grief finally found me, I’d probably remember the good times. I’d probably remember what it had been like to have a mom. I’d probably wish I’d lied and told her all was forgiven.
But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear the thought of telling her it was fine. Of telling her I loved her. Of telling her I understood, because there was still a chance, however remote, that she would wake up. And when she did, I’d have to live with my lie. I’d have to look in her face, see her smiling and pleased that somehow this trip to the hospital had earned her exactly what she wanted—my approval. My acceptance that drinking bottles of cough syrup was fine. My bullshit confession that having her drunk through most of my life had somehow been a mistake. That her saying, “I couldn’t help it,” somehow made up for the years of lies and deceit and hiding and selfishness. That a few nights in a hospital bed somehow absolved her of it all.
Because it didn’t.
Years of cleaning up after her. Finding the bottles. Going to meetings. Picking her up drunk from work. Apologizing to bosses and neighbors. Years of excuses and pandering and blaming every fucking problem we ever had on “the disease”. It was still there, lurking just beyond my periphery. In the hush of the halls, under the sound of the prayers, behind the whish—click—fffft of the machine that kept her breathing, was the anger. The fury that somehow she’d made herself a victim. The ultimate martyr. The fucking Virgin Mary of the ICU. Somehow, the world expected it to be washed away in tears and grief, each measure of it ticked off by the beep, beep, beep of the monitors, draining away like the endless bags of saline emptying into her veins.
“How are you?” some nameless person asked.
“I’m fine.”
My voice was too loud, shattering the unspoken sanctity of the place. In the room next door, I imagined the women stopping in their prayers, raising their heads toward my voice.
Grief. They’d chalk it up to that.
I bent over and put my head in my hands.
White tiles. Blue flecks.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Vinnie stood up. He took the person out of the room. I didn’t hear what he said. I didn’t care what excuse he made for me.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
At home, her clothes hung in the closet. A stash of empty bottles waited for me to throw them away. I couldn’t dare hope it might be the last time, because that would be wrong. That would be cruel. That would be contrary to what every fucking person who walked through the door expected me to feel. That would make me heartless and ungrateful.
Inhuman.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Those ladies next door brought in some food,” Vinnie said to me quietly. “They said to tell you to help yourself.”
“I will.”
“Trey, honey, maybe you should eat. Maybe you should go outside?”
“I’m fine.”
He sighed. He sat next to me and put his hand on my back, heavy and warm between my shoulder blades. I moved over, curling up against him like a kid. His shirt was soft. His body warm. He smelled so good. So much better than the horrible urine and plastic smell of the hospital. He smelled like shaving lotion, and laundry detergent, and a hint of sweat. A wonderfully comfortable smell that was home. That was him. I wrapped my arms around his waist.
He held me close. He didn’t say anything else.
I’d never loved him more than I did in those moments of silence.
Time wore on, but contrary to everything we’d been told, nothing changed. The doctors’ grim expressions began to be replaced by confusion and occasionally outright frustration. She wasn’t getting better. She wasn’t getting worse. They had a hundred theories, but no sooner would they present them than some test would prove them wrong.
I had a hundred questions, and they had no answers. Would she be this way another day? Another week? Another month? As long as a year? They didn’t know. I hadn’t gone to work in nearly two weeks. How long could I continue to live in the confines of the ICU? At what point did one walk out the door and resume their day-to-day life?
“Come on,” Vin said to me. “We’re leaving.”
I looked up at him. “I’m okay here.”
“Rachel’s here now, and your grandmother. They’ll stay tonight. But you need to go home.”
Home.
The word meant nothing to me. He took my arm and led me like a child down the hall, into the elevator, into his car.
I sank into the passenger seat. I leaned back and closed my eyes. Visions of white tiles with their blue flecks and the pulsing red lines of the heart monitors floated behind my lids. I could still hear the beep of it in my ears. Weariness filled me, choked me, made me long to cry, if only I had the energy. The seat of Vinnie’s car was curved and soft, so different from the stiff-backed chairs in the ICU. My eyes began to sting and I swallowed hard, determined not to embarrass myself.
At home, Vinnie took me into the shower. Some part of me knew this could be erotic. It might be distracting, or comforting, but the weight of my exhaustion was too much. He was gentle, and I closed my eyes and let him wash me clean. Afterward, he put me to bed. He tucked me in with a quiet devotion I’d never had from my mom. He brushed my hair back from my forehead.
“Trey, honey, tell me what you need.”
I need it to end.
But I couldn’t say that. Those weren’t words anybody was allowed to say. I closed my eyes and shook my head.
“Sleep then,” he said. “I’ll be here.”
Yes, he’d be there. The idea of asking him to lay with me in my narrow twin bed, to hold me, maybe to make love to me, crossed my mind, but only briefly. I was too tired. Too drained. Too empty.
He held my hand as I fell asleep. But a few seconds later, he shook me gently. “Trey, wake up.”
Was he actually here? Was I still asleep? It felt like I’d barely laid down, and yet my limbs were heavy and unresponsive, as if I’d been asleep for days.
“Trey, we have to go. Come on. Hurry up and get dressed.”
I sat up. I tried to make sense of the world.
The clock on my nightstand said 3:17 a.m.
I was in my own bed. Vinnie was there. “Trey?” There was a frightening note of urgency in his voice.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Rachel called.”
I looked over at him. I saw the tension and confusion in his eyes. My mother is dead, I thought. But the thought was small, like a secret locked in a box. I couldn’t let it out yet. I couldn’t face how it looked in the light.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Your mother’s awake.”