The Mourning After (13 page)

“It’s Chloe’s nighttime feeding tube.” 

“Her
what
?”

Lucy’s insistence leads Levon to sum up the last ten years of living with a sister who could die at any minute.

“Cornstarch?” she asks, “That’s the cure?”

“There is no cure,” he dryly answers.  “The cornstarch maintains her blood sugar levels.  If she misses a dose, she will die.”

“I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Most people haven’t. Why don’t we sit?” Levon suggests, noticing that Lucy’s entire body is trembling.  “Or let me put George back in the house.”

She shakes her head no and holds the leash in her hand tightly as she thinks about what she just witnessed.  “I’m freaked out, Levon.  I don’t typically get freaked out.  That was crazy freaky.”

“Welcome to my world,” he replies.

“Really?” she says. “You’re going to make light of this?”

“Never,” he says. “But it’s my life.  Our life.”

“I feel horribly.  How could I have let this happen?” 

Lucy’s barrage of questions doesn’t end there.  Frantic and frightening, her questions solicit the information she needs in order to tame her hysteria.  Agreeing, finally, to sit down, the two perch themselves on the thick grass while George rests his head in Lucy’s lap.  She strokes his fur as a method to soothe him and herself. 

Levon takes note of how Lucy’s temperament shifts as she learns more of the facts. The answers, although senseless and sad, swaddle her in their steady facts, and her hands seem to lose their tremor.  None of his friends has ever shown this much interest in Chloe.  While everyone politely treats the sick girl as though she is as delicate as glass, they conveniently avoid the details, as if they might catch GSD through its explanation.

“Your family’s been through a lot.”  Noting Levon’s breadth of knowledge on the subject—the statistics he blurts out, the enlarged liver, fatigue and chronic hunger he explained with medical precision, and the tremendous strides Dr. Gerald has made with gene therapy, she says, “And you manage to keep track of it all and hold it together.” 

This makes Levon proud and embarrassed.  “I love my sister,” he says.  “Who do you think gives her the cornstarch while she sleeps?  My mother has no concept of what day it is, let alone the time.  My dad and I have been taking turns.”

“Your parents are lucky to have you.  Chloe too.” 

“Whatever.” 

“Whatever, according to my sources, is a bad method of changing the subject,” she says. “Rule #921.”

Levon wants to tell Lucy to remind him of that when his mother learns that his foolishness permitted a dog to maul his sister.  Chloe’s hopes of ever getting a dog—hypoallergenic or mini—have just gone out the window along with a dozen or so of her other wishes that his mother had stripped away.

“And when someone compliments you,” she continues, “the only response necessary is a polite
thank you
.  Rule #610.” 

Levon does not find her life bites even a bit encouraging right now.

There is a white hair clip stuck to her belt loop that catches Levon’s eye.  In one sweeping movement, she snatches it from its place, twists her hair in a knot, and fastens it behind her head.  Levon is spending more time studying her face, her fingers, and the stray wisps of hair than he likes.

“What happens now?” she asks.

The question makes him tense.  He is scared that something even as minor as a displaced feeding tube could take a sudden turn for the worse.  He remembers back to how, after they had hit the tree, David seemed okay, he and David had been talking.  There
was
a definite exchange of words.  He
was
alive then.

His silence unnerves her.  The apprehension returns. “She’s not going to die, is she?” Lucy asks, her voice cracking.  “This isn’t going to kill her, is it?”

Thinking it best to keep his uncertainty to himself, Levon shakes his head and tells her, “No, they’ll replace the tube.  She’ll be fine.”

“You’re so calm,” she points out.

Levon is coming out of his skin.  She doesn’t need to know that.

“What can I do?” she asks.  “You have to let me explain to your parents.”

“No,” Levon insists.  “It’s best if you walk in a direction away from my house.  My mother holds serious grudges.  If she sees George, it’ll set her off.  Who knows what she’ll do.”

This seems to placate an ordinarily obstinate Lucy, and the afternoon draws to a close.  Night washes over the sky, and steals the final rays of light.  It is one of those early fall evenings in Miami when darkness vanishes the day’s heat. This is the time Levon feels at peace.  If it were possible to close his eyes and breathe in waves of air that haven’t been polluted by misfortune, he would fill his lungs with the fresh mist and pretend that everything that had transpired over the last two weeks was a dream.

He is worried about Chloe.  He is heartbroken about David.

Gazing along his stretch of street, Levon sees lights illuminating kitchens and dining rooms where mothers are preparing dinners for their families.  The streetlights are caught between the faint light of dusk and the approaching curtain of nightfall.  The stars above are winking.  It is the hour when Levon would hear the growling of the car engine outside his window and watch as David bundled his books and equipment into sweaty arms, home from football practice.  He would be wearing the school’s white practice uniform, and Levon could see the dirt and grass stains, muddy and green.  His hair would be damp, and sometimes David pushed it behind his ears and away from his face.  Their mother loved it that way; she could see the outline of his eyes, the smooth jawline.

He was always excited to see David.  To Levon, their friendship was so important.  In his playful way, David always rang the doorbell whether or not he had his key.  He said he liked the sound of the chime.  It reminded him of the ice cream truck that used to drive down their block when they were kids.  Levon would run to the door to let in his brother.  For him, after school was comprised of a conscientious round of studying and an abundance of Yodels.  The lack of extracurricular activities stopped mattering when the bell marked an end to his cramming sessions and a foray into David’s world. 

When Levon would open the front door for David each evening, the family dynamic would immediately change.

“What’s up, bro?” he’d say to Levon, jabbing his little brother with his fist and dropping his dirty things to the floor—his mother would inevitably ask him, for the hundredth time, to leave his things anywhere else but on her expensive Persian rug.

Nothing was ever
up
or
happenin
g until David stepped through the threshold of their home.  Much hinged on his presence.  And while Chloe unnerved them, David was the center of all things hopeful that could be.

“Levon, are you all right?” 

Lucy’s voice is pulling him from his memory.  She has laid herself flat against the grass and is staring up into a grayish half-lit sky.  “Lie down and stare at the stars.  Isn’t the universe an incredible thing?  Think about it.  Look how big the sky is.  It goes on and on until infinity.”

Levon looks up and sees a depressing shade of gray hovering over their block.

“What do you think’s up there?” she asks.

Levon answers, “Stars, some meteors, JetBlue.”

He doesn’t say
David
, though the word is on the tip of his tongue.

George is resting his head on her belly.  He has been chastised into silence and restraint.  She is petting him the length of his back while she speaks.  “Do you believe there’s anyone up there watching us?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like people or spirits?”

“I’m not sure what I believe anymore,” he says.

“You don’t feel a connection to something bigger than us?”

“No.”

“You have to believe in something.”

He is pondering a mountain of thoughts.  He hates not knowing where David is.  He wants to believe he’s up there watching, perched on his shoulder, though what about the times when he doesn’t want him there? 

“I think we’re all here for a reason,” she continues, “that we’re connected in some weird, cosmic, magnetic way.  All the choices we make route and re-route the course of our lives.  It’s like circuitry.  The components of an electrical system rely on each other; if one breaks down, the others can’t do their job.”

“You don’t happen to have Mr. G. as your physics teacher, do you?”

“Mr. who?” she asks.

“Never mind.”  And then he adds, “What does any of it matter if we’re these microscopic specks with no lasting impact?”

To Lucy, it mattered.  Lucy believed in karma and the power of the universe.  “Everything in life happens for a reason.  We don’t always understand it at the time because we accept things at face value, but, believe me, nothing happens by chance. Rule #215.” 

Levon interrupts, “Explain Hurricane Katrina.  All those people losing their lives, or if they lived, their homes and families?”

“It’s part of the greater good, Levon.  That’s what I’m trying to tell you; the world is huge.  We’re a small component of a much greater existence.”

He doesn’t understand why he’s arguing with her.  Hadn’t he turned into a believer after hearing the story of the church in Nebraska? 

Levon closes his eyes.  He can feel his brother’s hands, smell him in the open doorway, hear his voice, but he can never touch him again.  He can never talk to him again.  He can never share the same air. 

It sounded like she was saying his brother had to die. 

How could that be true?

Chloe.

They didn’t get back from the hospital until way past midnight.

It should have been as simple as popping in a new feeding tube and sending her on her way, but the emergency room doctor recommended she stay for a few hours so they could monitor her.  I bet he was amazed to see a medical condition as rare as GSD and just wanted to spend some time with it.  Dad’s demanding pleas forced Mom out of bed, and Mrs. Bell drove her to the hospital.  I don’t know.  I wasn’t afraid, at first.  Lucy kept calling the house throughout the night.  I kept telling her that everything was fine, but she was having a hard time believing me, and by then, I was having a hard time believing myself.  Every time I told her that things were going to be okay, she argued back, projecting some horrible outcome.  After a while, I started to think she was onto something.  Maybe something terrible was going to happen. 

I waited up.  When my parents and Chloe walked through the door without a word of dreadful news, I called Lucy’s cell phone and let it ring once, our agreed-on code that things were okay.  I would have liked to have texted her—something about us having our own private cyber-language enthralled me—but my cell phone remains at the bottom of our pool where my mother so graciously flung it.  I wouldn’t even consider asking for a replacement. I could just hear her now, the way she’d rip my head off with some cutting remark about the word “replacement.”  We’d both know right away what she was referring to, though neither of us would allow the words to escape our mouths.  As if humans can be replaced.  As if David could ever be replaced.

I went into Chloe’s room and sat with her for a while.  She was chattering away, playing with the ponytail that one of the nurses braided for her.  I studied the freckles on her face, half-listening to her tell me about the IV and the doctor with the bad B.O.  I was trying to count the coffee-colored dots.  It was something I did often when I was afraid.  Tonight, I got to fifteen before she hollered at me, “Levvy, are you listening to me?”  I never lie to Chloe, so I told her the truth.  I told her I was half listening.  She didn’t understand.  Either I was or I wasn’t.  I told her I was counting her freckles.  “Again?” she asked, which took me by surprise because I had no idea she knew that I’d ever done it before.  “What number are you at?  Break it to me gently,” she demanded, throwing her fingers up to her face, hiding from my stare.  Sixteen.  Seventeen. 

“
Eighteen,” I said aloud, “and that’s good luck, so I won’t count any more tonight.”

With that, she let her hands find mine, and she squeezed them hard.

Then she looked up at me with puppy dog eyes and asked about the puppy dog George. 

“
Is he in trouble?  Is mom going to make them give him away?”

 
I told her George was fine and, no, George wasn’t going to have to move.  Then I reminded her that the only thing that really mattered to any of us was that SHE was fine. She shushed me, not one to revel in the constant attention thrown her way.

“
Did he actually swallow the tube?  Is he going to have to have an operation to take it out or will he have to poop it out?  That’s gonna hurt, Levon.”

“
He didn’t swallow it,” I reassured her.  I didn’t tell her it was mangled and bloodied and that I gave it a proper burial like one might a pet hamster. I couldn’t just throw it in the garbage with her blood on it.

Mom and Dad were in their room.  Sid and Lyd were downstairs watching
All in the Family
reruns. It was quiet, so I relished the time I got to spend with Chloe without interruption.  I was waiting to be punished, scolded, or yelled at—it didn’t come.  I was more curious than relieved.

I turned the lights out and tucked Chloe into her hot pink, dimpled blanket.  Then I knelt down on the floor next to her bed and took the braids out of her hair because she said they were starting to give her a headache.  Amazing.  She complains about a headache and nothing else!

“
You know, Chloe,” I told her, while brushing the strands of her hair with my fingers.  “You know what all these freckles mean, right?”

  
She was beginning to fall asleep, so her words were quiet and slow.  “Yes, Levvy, I know.”

I watched her falling sleep, and she whispered, “Tell me again.”