Choose Me (36 page)

After a while, the news got repetitious and Maya turned off the radio.

“When you didn’t answer your phones, I knew something had happened,” Maya said quietly, after we digested the additional reports.
“I went over to your house last night and you weren’t there. You don’t know how scared I was. Where were you?”

“I spent the night. At Adam’s. I was there when Luciano came over.”

I stared out the passenger window but I could feel their eyes on me. Because I knew them so well, I imagined their faces:
shock on Maya’s, surprise on Simone’s.

“That was you?” Maya asked. “When he came back to the car and told me Adam had a woman up there, we got into a big fight,
right in the garage. I thought he had some other woman up there. I told him, ‘I can’t believe your partner is seeing someone
else while he’s seeing my sister.’ You know what he had the nerve to say? ‘It’s not like they’re married.’ So I said, ‘Hello?!
We
are!’ That’s when I realized, ‘what am I doing with this man?’”

“So, you didn’t sleep with him?”

“No. I realized being with him
was
about revenge. It wasn’t love.”

“I’m glad.” At least my prayer for her had been answered.

“That was no one but God, girl. When I got home, Alex had just gotten the call from the state police.”

As we drove in silence, my mind juxtaposed between two different scenes. While I was in Adam’s arms, my children were being
shot. While I was in his bed, my children were being carried into ambulances. And while Adam was kissing me good-bye, my children
were lying unconscious, fighting for their lives.

“Did you have sex with him?” Simone finally asked, breaking the silence.

I nodded, unable to verbally confess. I massaged my right temple as my head threatened to burst.

“Hey-ey,” Simone said with approval. “It’s about time.”

I knew she was trying to liven up the mood and take my mind off the boys, but her timing was really bad.

Maya sucked her teeth. “Shut up, Simone.”

“She doesn’t need
you
making her feel worse,” Simone snapped.

“I’m not trying to make her feel worse. But she doesn’t need you congratulating her either.”

“I’m not—”

“Ladies, ladies,” I appealed to them for the sake of my head.

“I knew something was up when I couldn’t reach you. Didn’t we promise to always,
always,
let each other know where we are, no matter what?” Maya returned to berating me.

“Did you tell me you were going with Luciano?” I knew it wasn’t the time to argue, and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry.
You’re right, I should’ve called you.”

“Don’t ever let it happen again,” she scolded mockingly, trying to cheer me up, but that was impossible.

“Here I am worried about you falling into temptation with Luciano and I’m the one who falls.”

“I’m no better.
‘He who has lusted with his eyes has already sinned in his heart.’
”

From the backseat, we heard Simone scoff softly, but she didn’t comment.

“I didn’t spend the night sleeping in his bed,” I said, wanting to clarify my actions, as if it made any difference. “I slept
on the sofa, because it was snowing so hard. I realized it was a mistake right away.”

“If it’s meant to be, between you and Adam, it will be,” Maya offered quietly.

“It doesn’t matter, anymore. I told him we should take a break and he basically said it was over. We don’t want the same things,
so what’s the point?”

I didn’t want to talk about Adam anymore, but I didn’t want to think about what was waiting for me at the hospital. I didn’t
want to think or talk—period. What I wanted was to go back in time or fast-forward to the future, and pretend none of it ever
happened. Or just disappear, forever. Adam, for the most part, was history, a part of my past along with everything else that
had gone wrong in my life.

“Ms. Clemente, I want to prepare you for what you’re going to see,” the doctor explained. “Your son Elias was shot twice:
once in his chest, fortunately on the right side, so there was no heart damage. He was also shot in the abdomen and his spleen
was badly damaged, so we removed it. His left leg was broken in two places in the femur during the stampede. We were able
to repair the bone with pins and he’s in traction. He was still conscious when they brought him in, but he’s been unconscious
since surgery; he is responding to pain stimuli. However, your son Anthony—”

I had been listening without interrupting, looking blankly at the doctor’s forehead, but now as she paused, my eyes focused
to meet her eyes, wondering why she had stopped.

“Anthony is in critical condition. The bullet is lodged in his brain stem,” she said, pointing to the base of her neck. Impulsively,
I flinched. “This part of the brain controls all the essential functions—breathing, talking, everything. His head is quite
swollen, so he may look a little frightening when you first see him. A shunt is draining fluid from his head and we’re monitoring
him closely with periodic brain scans. There is some activity, but we won’t know the extent of brain damage until he wakes
up. Ms. Clemente …”

“Yes?” I answered, my voice far away. The words “critical,” “frightening,” and “brain damage” remained suspended in the air
like neon signs.

“He’s in a coma, on a respirator, which means he’s not breathing on his own. We don’t know how long it will be before he comes
out of it. In time, we can operate, but now, he’s too weak. All we can do is wait.”

“And pray,” Maya added.

I nodded to indicate I understood, though I really didn’t. I knew doctors didn’t know everything. They thought their skill
came from their education and years of practice, but I knew better. God was in control.

I went to see Eli first because I didn’t think I could take seeing Tony. But when I walked into Eli’s room, I had to cover
my mouth to keep from gasping. In addition to the tubes and wires and the machines beeping and clicking, his face was bruised
and swollen, like he had been beaten up. The thought of my son prone as feet stomped his body and face made me sick. I prayed
that he had been unconscious the entire time. Maya and Simone walked in with me and helped me sit in a chair near his bed.
I searched for a bare spot on his face that wasn’t covered by black-and-blue bruises, and settled on his nose, kissing him
softly.

“You can speak to him. He may be able to hear you,” the doctor said.

I cautiously reached for his hand, which was also covered with bruises. “Eli. Elias, it’s Ma,” I started, my voice breaking.
“Maya and Simone are here. Your daddy’s on his way back from New York. We’ll be right here when you wake up, okay?”

“Do you want me to pray?” Maya asked me.

I nodded. She took my hand and laid her other hand on Eli’s cornrows, which were unraveling and in need of rebraiding. Simone
placed her hand on top of ours and we all closed our eyes as Maya prayed: “Father God, we come to you in Jesus’ name and place
Tony and Elias in Your hands, Lord. We are convinced that You alone know what is best for them and You alone know what they
need, Lord. Father, we release them into Your anointed hands, to protect and heal them and we ask that You guide the doctors
in their work, Lord. Help us not to impose our own will but pray that
Your
will be done in their recovery. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

“Amen,” Simone and I echoed.

I tried to prepare myself to go to the neuro-intensive care unit one floor above, tried to envision Tony with the same tubes
and wires, machines, a bandage wrapped around his head. I prayed silently the entire way on the elevator, down the hall, but
when I got to his room, I froze at the glass door. My body began trembling and my knees suddenly buckled. My head was pounding
worse than ever. Maya and Simone held me up as we walked into the room.

It was worse than I had imagined, worse than the doctor had described. He was connected to so many machines, he looked like
some scientific experiment. My son’s handsome face was gone. Someone had replaced it with an ugly monster, a head swollen
twice its size. I thought there must have been some mistake.

“That’s not my son,” I said to no one in particular, even though I could see his shaven head under the bandage, a bandage
stained with a yellow substance.

And then everything went black.

When I came to, I was on a gurney in a brightly lit room. Too bright. I squinted, trying to remember what had happened, hoping
I was dreaming. But then slowly it all came back to me: I was in a hospital in Marion, Illinois, and my boys had been shot.
I sprang up and became lightheaded, falling back again.

“You fainted,” Maya said, suddenly appearing by my side.

I had never fainted in my life and for the first time I got a glimpse of what death might be like. You forget about the past,
the present. Nothingness.

A nurse appeared at the other side of the bed. “How do you feel, Ms. Clemente?”

“I’m fine.” I sat up on the side of the bed, this time slowly, and moaned. “My head is killing me.”

“She has horrible migraines,” Maya told the nurse. “Can you give her something?”

“I’m fine,” I insisted, even though I wasn’t. “I have my pills with me.”

“Do you want to go back?” Maya asked, handing me my purse.

I nodded. Holding hands like we used to when we were little girls crossing the street, she led me back to the room down the
hall. Simone had stayed with Tony, and she quickly wiped her tears when she saw me. This time, I didn’t stop at the door,
but walked in, my back straight, and sat in the chair that Simone had vacated, next to the bed.

He looked so fragile, I was afraid to touch him, afraid I’d disconnect some vital tube and cause irreparable damage. I touched
his scalp where it peeked out of the bandage at the top, and I thought of how he had been teased as a boy because of his “good”
hair, how the neighborhood kids used to call him “Whitey.” He would beg me to cut his hair close to his scalp where his roots
were curlier, kinkier. Later, as a teenager, he hated how his hair was the object of girls’ attraction, so he continued getting
regular haircuts, opting for the bald look by the time he left for college. Where Eli had used his hair to his advantage with
girls, Tony had always tried to repel them.

I slipped my trembling hand under his, my hand disappearing under his big knuckled one so that it looked like he was comforting
me.
He had Anthony’s hands, wide flat fingers and box-shaped fingernails. When he was born, Anthony took one look at his hands,
placing them both on his cheeks, exclaiming,
“That’s my boy alright!”
as if there had been any doubt. From far away, behind me, I could hear Maya praying, non-stop. And then a line from Adam’s
poem, “Choose Me,” came to me:
For if you stray from the prize, if you choose their lies, I will take what I have given to you
… In my head, I kept repeating,
Please God, don’t take my sons from me.

*   *  *

I was afraid to sleep, afraid to leave Tony’s side, so I asked Maya and Simone to stay with Eli while I stayed with Tony.
I didn’t eat or drink anything because I didn’t want to go to the bathroom. Deep down, I knew if I left, he would slip away.
I tried to remember my last words to him, the last time we spoke, but my head was hurting too much. I stroked his arm and
told him all the things I would tell him when he woke up: how proud I was of him, how much I missed him every day even if
I didn’t act like it. A couple of times I thought I saw his eyes flutter, as if he were trying to wake up but it was too hard
for him. When I asked one of the nurses if it was a good sign, she informed me that they were only involuntary reflexes, her
tone so matter-of-fact I wanted to slap her.

The next day, Eli regained consciousness, and it was then that I reluctantly switched places with Maya.

“Hey,
mijo,
” I said, my voice catching in my throat at the sight of my youngest son’s opened eyes.

“Don’t get mushy, Ma. I’m alright,” he said groggily.

I pressed my lips to his cheek, my tears flowing onto his face. He moaned and I pulled away. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

“How’s Tony?”

“He’s in critical condition, up in ICU.”

“How many people died? They wouldn’t tell me anything.”

“Eight so far,” I said without hesitation, because there was no easy way to say it, and because he would soon find out.

“Who died?”

We all looked at each other, debating whether he needed to know. Simone tried to hide the newspaper she had been reading.

“You might as well tell me. I’m going to see it on TV sooner or later.”

Simone read the names from the newspaper. At the mention of a girl named Rain Dandridge, Eli paled.

“Did you know her?” I asked.

Eli swallowed hard and turned his face away. “She lived down the hall from my dorm. She’s Tony’s fiancée.”

“What?” I asked.

“She wasn’t the girl the killer was after, was she?” Maya asked.

“No. She and Tony have been going together since last spring.” He turned to me. “He didn’t tell you ’cause he knew you’d freak
out if you found out he was serious about a girl.”

Stunned, I couldn’t respond.
How could my son have been engaged without my knowing?

“You told us to stay away from the girls down here and concentrate on school, so he never told you.”

“I just didn’t want you to get distracted from school, or make a mistake.”

He gave me a weak smile. “He was going to bring her when we came up for winter break. He was crazy about her, Ma.” His voice
cracked and he turned away.

The next couple of days were a blur as family and friends arrived: first Anthony, his parents, and various members of both
of our extended families. Pastor Zeke drove down in a church van with some of the church elders. The first thing they did
was bless Tony’s body with anointed oil, forming a prayer circle around his bed. I noticed the doctors and nurses step aside,
making way, some even bowing their heads in respect or perhaps joining in. I felt God’s presence multiplying sevenfold, empowering
me with strength, the weight of my burden lifted from my shoulders, if only briefly.