From The Dots
A few months later, Dot was in the hospital again. The doctors at the new hospital thought they’d fixed her with a new mixture of medications, but her seizures returned one spring day at home, shortly after lunch. The first one came on strong, with bright lights kaleidoscoping in her eyes. Her mind peeled away from her body and lay in flakes on the floor.
Dorothy hurried her back to the hospital. Back to Dr. Osuri and the children’s ward with the cheerful yellow walls and hot-air-balloon mural. Back to the same room with the television remote that only worked sporadically. Dot waited for her mother to show up. Hours passed. Finally, she rushed in, still in scrubs.
“I’m sorry,” Dot’s mother said in a begging tone. “I came as soon as I could. There was an emergency patient. I didn’t have my phone. And no one told me.” She bit her lip. “Your aunt should have called the front office like I always tell her to.”
“It’s fine,” Dot said, calmly, distantly. Dorothy was here, after all. She was off buying magazines at the gift shop.
More tests, a few days of feeling better, and then a relapse. Dot wondered what Stella, the look-alike from St. Mother Maria’s, was up to. Now, a sad-eyed woman in a brown headscarf took her blood pressure most days. She had very cold hands and made a funny sniffing sound as she checked the gauge.
All the nurses were distant this visit. Unsmiling and serious, as if they were keeping a grave secret from Dot. Dot asked Dorothy what was going on. Dorothy sniffed.
“They’re just snotty, jealous bitches. They can’t stand that we’re so pretty.”
“But they’re nice to the other kids. That one girl down the hall, Sarah? They give her lollipops, like, all the time.”
“Yes, but that’s because Sarah has a wealthy father. There’s always an angle, Dot.” Dorothy waved her finger. “Always an angle.”
And then, a good-ish day—Dot could see straight, she could eat. At lunch, an aide wheeled in a cart from the children’s lending library across the street. She must have been going to an adult ward next, because Dot noticed a Los Angeles magazine on the top of a stack on a lower shelf. When Dot saw her own face on the cover, she drew in a sharp breath. She looked shorn and dopey, her arms the circumference of pencils, her veins visible through translucent skin. Next to her was her aunt, her black hair sleek and straight, her skin flawless and her violet eyes wide. Fighters, read the big yellow caption. And then: Dorothy Banks, Magnolia Hotel resident, puts her hopes and dreams on hold to save her dying niece’s life.
Dying. The word sliced through Dot’s veins, hot as coffee. She’d certainly thought enough about death, even her own death, but she hadn’t realized she was actually, literally, dying. It seemed impossible.
She thumbed through the pages. The story was embedded among slick pieces about Beverly Hills home renovations and ads for plastic surgeons. Dot read every word of the piece, focusing on words like cancerous and inoperable and terminal. She’d never heard the doctors describe her illness in those terms before.
She ran to the bathroom and threw up pinkish, gummy chunks in the sink. When she returned to her room, Dorothy had reappeared. She was fluffing up the pillows and humming. A nurse named Lisa stood in the corner, pretending to busy herself with Dot’s medications. Then Dorothy noticed the magazine on the bed.
“Ah,” she said to Dot. “So you’ve seen it.”
“When was this picture taken?” Dot demanded, so angry her teeth were chattering.
Dorothy lowered her eyes. “A few months ago, dear. When you were at the other hospital. Don’t you remember?”
“No.” Dot tore through her memories. She tossed useless visions aside like limp T-shirts she had no interest in wearing. There was nothing in her brain about a photo shoot. She would have never allowed a photographer to take a picture of her when she looked so grotesque. But that was the trouble with her brain: sometimes, memories dropped out of her entirely, like water through a sieve.
She grabbed the magazine and stuffed it into the trash can, though not before checking out her picture one last time.
“I look awful.”
“Oh, darling. The article brings awareness to your case. Everyone will see now how sick you are. I’m thinking of starting a foundation for donations. That article is all about you!”
Lisa cleared her throat. Dorothy glanced at her and set her mouth in a line.
“The article hardly mentioned me except to say I was dying,” Dot said. It was difficult to even say the word out loud. “It said my tumor was cancerous and inoperable. I thought my tumor was gone. And no one told me I have cancer!”
“You don’t,” Lisa answered loudly.
“It says that?” Dorothy glanced at the trash can. Dot was afraid she was going to fish the magazine out, but instead she folded her hands in her lap and remained seated. “Honestly, darling, sometimes reporters—well, they exaggerate things. Look—it doesn’t matter. People probably won’t read the article. They’ll just look at the picture and the headline. That’s what’s important.”
“They’ll still see the picture of me, then.”
“You don’t look so bad.”
Dot wasn’t in the mood for lies. “Has Mom seen this?”
Her aunt’s head shot up. Her skin seemed to visibly gray. “You know, I was doing this as a favor to you. I was just trying to make sure you didn’t end up like Thomas—I’m certain there was something wrong with his brain, but no doctor would listen. It’s articles like this that get doctors to sit up and notice. But I’ll leave you alone, since that’s what you crave.” She walked out and shut the door, hard.
Dot stared at the door, shocked. Across the room, Lisa sighed.
Dot’s gaze fell numbly to the tiles on the floor. They were a faded avocado-green color and covered in scuff marks. She pushed the beaded bracelet Dorothy had given her when she first got sick around her wrist. It had a bunch of skeleton charms on it. Charm bracelets were out of favor this year at her school, but she didn’t want to take it off. That would hurt her aunt’s feelings.
Lisa glided over and touched her shoulder. “Hey there, hon. Want me to stay for a little bit? We could play Uno.”
Dot shook her head yes, then felt the ever-present tug. “Maybe bring my aunt back in, if she’s still here.”
Lisa’s face fell. “Are you sure?”
“See if she’s out there. Please?”
It took two more pleases, but Lisa did as Dot asked. Dorothy walked in with a sour look on her face.
“You must hate me,” Dot blurted.
“You’re lucky the elevator was taking a long time,” Dorothy said at the same time.
They looked up at each other. Dorothy bent down and pressed her chest to Dot’s. “Why, I could never hate you, darling,” she said, looking into Dot’s eyes, as honest as she’d ever been. “I’m your biggest fan.”
A few days after the Los Angeles incident, Dorothy came into Dot’s room excitedly. Dot looked at her through a curtain of exhaustion. She’d been having so many seizures lately. They pounded her hard, huge waves rolling onto a rocky shore. Her brain actually felt tired from so much quaking. Sometimes, in quiet moments, she thought death might be kind of nice. Not nearly as chaotic, anyway.
“The doctors are having a meeting about your condition,” Dorothy crowed. “Apparently, you’re a bit of a medical mystery. And guess what? They’re letting me sit in on it! Isn’t that wonderful?”
Dot blinked at her. She lingered on the medical mystery part.
Dorothy preened about the room. “Thank God they finally respect me. Now we’ll be sure they aren’t lying to us. I’ll get the real dirt.”
“You think the doctors are lying?” Dot asked. Dorothy didn’t answer.
Dorothy wore a silk caftan and Chanel pumps for the meeting. She hired a makeup artist to do her face. “Wish me luck,” she said before she went into the conference room. The meeting was at ten a.m.; the clock crawled to eleven, and then twelve, and still no Dorothy. At 12:30, Dorothy finally returned. She’d eaten off all her lipstick, and she was muttering.
“What happened?” Dot asked, turning off Days of Our Lives.
“The doctors are wrong,” Dorothy said. “It’s asinine. Irresponsible.”
Dot felt a pull in her chest. “What did they say?”
Had the tumor returned? Would she have to endure radiation again, that hot line turning her insides to liquid, reducing her to molten piles of stones? It was bizarre—despite all the seizures, her MRIs kept coming back clean. But maybe the scans weren’t catching everything.
“They’re going to transfer you. They want you in the ICU, without visitors. They’re saying it’s so they can rule out anything environmental that might be causing your seizures. But I think that’s bullshit. I think it’s a conspiracy.”
“They’re putting me in a room without visitors?”
“I’m filing a complaint, don’t you worry, but I’m not sure it’s up to me anymore.” Dorothy’s gaze shot to Dot. Her pupils were hard, black pins. “What have you been saying about me?”
Dot grabbed a handful of sheets. “Nothing.”
“They trick you. They pretend they’re your friends, they get all buddy-buddy—darling, you had to have said something. I believe they’re putting you—us—in the ICU as punishment.”
Punishment? For what? Had Dot somehow slipped to them that she’d had a sip of Dorothy’s wine a few days before, when Dorothy had turned her back? Or did she tell them she’d stolen the M&M’s packet off the desk at the nurses’ station? Dot had moved during a recent MRI, too. The tech hadn’t commented, but he also hadn’t said they needed to repeat the procedure. She’d just been so itchy.
“I’m sorry,” Dot whispered, her bottom lip wobbling. “I don’t know why they’d do this.”
Dorothy took off her left shoe, rubbed her ankle, then put it on again. “Just know you can’t trust them. Ever.”
“Can’t we just move to another hospital?”
“It’s not so easy, honey. Not anymore. They called your mother.”
“Surely she doesn’t want me in there all alone!”
Her aunt made a strange coughing sound. “Look, I’m not trying to make her out as the bad guy, but I think she was in on this decision, too.” She set her jaw. “Anyway, I have to go.”
“What?” Dot sat up straight. “You can’t leave!”
“I have an appointment.” She stroked Dot’s arm. “I’ll be back, don’t worry. Just be good, okay? As long as you’re good, it will all work out fine.”
She sauntered out of the room in a heady scent of orange blossoms. Dot couldn’t control her tears; she sobbed uncontrollably for at least ten minutes. She was surprised the crying didn’t propel her into a new seizure. She didn’t know what to make of any of it—had her mother been in on the decision? What if she’d proposed the idea? What if this was some way to get her away from Dorothy? She was jealous, maybe, because clearly Dorothy had taken her place.
But why did Dorothy leave? Why wasn’t she fighting this? She’d fought so hard for everything else.
A few minutes later, Nurse Lisa swept in and pulled out Dot’s IV tubes. Then she ordered her out of bed so she could strip her sheets. She dressed Dot in another gown and took her to X-ray and to draw blood.
“But you already drew blood today,” Dot whined.
“We just want to make some comparisons,” Lisa said cheerfully.
Dot had yet another MRI and CAT scan that day, too. And after all that, with no explanation, they wheeled her into the ICU.
It was deathly quiet in the ward. Dot’s room was tiny and had a strange smell she didn’t recognize. She was old enough to understand that all around her were other children who were very, very sick; probably some of them would die soon. Feeble wails from babies woke her up in the night. Sounds of vomiting. A woman, standing outside her door, crying uncontrollably. What on earth could Dot have done to land her in here? Had she said something disparaging in her sleep? Did the nurses know that she and Dorothy made fun of some of them when it wasn’t their shifts? Maybe the rooms had little microphones hidden in them, like in the movies, and the nurses heard everything. If Dot just apologized, could she go back to the normal ward?
Or was she really this sick?
And then, in the morning, she heard Dr. Osuri’s voice: I said you couldn’t be here! What part of that don’t you understand?
Dot strained to hear whom the doctor was talking to. Had some madman broken into the ICU? She hallucinated axe-wielders, orange storm clouds, pointy-horned ibexes. The drugs she was taking to quell the seizures made her so drowsy, and she dropped back into sleep. Just before she slipped into unconsciousness, she saw her mother standing in the doorway, her arms crossed over her chest, a tight, worried look on her face. Dot probably could have struggled to stay awake to say hello to her, but she didn’t want to.
A few hours later, Dr. Osuri came in to check on her, praising her for having no new seizures in the night.
“See, I’m better!” Dot crowed. “So get me out of here!”
Dr. Osuri chuckled. “Soon, I promise.” There was a sad, kind look on his face. Dot was sure this hadn’t been the same doctor who’d been yelling at someone earlier in the day.
Three days in the ICU, no new seizures. Dot played Solitaire on an iPad; a nurse gave her the wireless password and she watched toy reviews on YouTube. Her mother appeared in the doorway, but every time, Dot pretended to be sleeping. Patients around her moaned. An alarm went off in the middle of the night; nurses and doctors hurried into an adjoining room, and there was a flurry of tense instructions and bleeps of machinery. Dot was astonished to fall asleep amid the cacophony. In the morning, when she woke up, she had no idea if the person who’d had the episode so late at night had lived or died. Her brand-new cell phone, which Dorothy had bought for her but which Dot didn’t quite know how to work yet, received text messages, a very new thing.
Are you being good? Dorothy had texted her. Dot answered yes. Not talking to anyone? Dot answered no. Good, and don’t think anything, either, she said. Because they can read your thoughts. Who? Dot always asked. Dorothy never answered.