Pieces of Me (23 page)

“Hauled her away.”

“Never woke up. Looked like a junkie, if you ask me.”

“She’s sick.” Leif held George’s trembling shoulder in solidarity and support.

“Did this girl look anything like him?” Vivian pointed toward George.

“Could be. Dark and all. Hood over her hair, her face.”

“The flashing lights hurt my eyes.”

Leif edged closer. “How long ago did this happen?”

“Don’t know. A hiccup of breaths.”

“Thank you. Thank you for your help.” Vivian handed the money over and ushered the boys back to the car.

Leif scowled. “That was dangerous.”

Vivian didn’t answer him.

Leif checked the time and swore. “I have to get to the airport to get Sam.”

“Okay, split up. We’ll go to the med center. It’s closest, and if they see her scar they’ll know she had a transplant. You want to come with me?” Vivian asked George.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” The boy nodded vigorously.

Vivian touched Leif’s hand. “Text me when you get Sam.”

“And me if you find her.”

There was an awkward moment when Leif bent to kiss Vivian and she went to hug him.

They were still angry and hurt and kind of strangers to each other.

Vivian ignored George’s confused look and kissed Leif’s cheek before grabbing George’s hand and moving toward the main road.

“Hurry.” She hailed a cab.

Yes, hurry
.

Leif stood at the B concourse passenger exit
amid the late-night gathering. Seeing each other via video conference didn’t mean he and Samuel had officially met; Leif worried he somehow looked different in real life.

“Hey—” Samuel approached.

“Hey—” Leif responded with relief. Sam was shorter than he expected and appeared no older than thirteen.

Is that handshake–chest bump–half hug in boy DNA?

“We can’t find Misty; Vivian went to the hospital.” Leif brought Samuel up to speed on the way to the parking garage.

Samuel checked his phone and dropped a curse.

Leif glanced over at Samuel’s agitation. “Wha?”

“My ma blew up my voice mail.”

“She mad?”

“Beyond.” Sam shrugged. “She’s on her way. We gotta find Misty quick.”

Thank god the voice mail filled up after thirty messages. Her shrill outrage makes my head hurt. Sam’s gonna be in trouble
.

Vivian texted her favorite nurse from the cab.

“You know people here?” George asked as Vivian escorted him toward the main visitor entrance.

“I’ve spent a lot of time in this place.”

Her phone beeped and she read the reply aloud. “ ‘Y—you in ER? What happened?’ ”

Her fingers moving quickly, she responded. “I’m good. Friend might be here. Need help.”

Almost immediately, the answer came: “Down in a sec.”

Vivian felt better. “Nurse Heidi’s going to come down. She knows everything that happens in this hospital.”

“If they took her to the emergency room, shouldn’t we be there?” George asked, studying the map of the medical center.

With its big windows and conversation areas upholstered in soothing blue (Pantone 277) and green (Pantone 12-0313), this was the least contaminated area of the waiting rooms. No one spent time here—they moved through to find patients and family. “Nurse Heidi will help us.” Vivian had to be careful with her own health. The last thing she needed was exposure to a virus, or bacterial infection. She didn’t want to say anything to Leif, or George, but while most people felt safe in hospitals, for her being in one could be deadly.

Big risk for a stranger
.

Speaking from across the lobby, the nurse approached with a frown. “If you’re not sick, you can’t be here. Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

Vivian smiled. “Nice to see you too.”

“No hugs—who the hell knows what’s on these scrubs.” It took a special person to wear teddy-bear scrubs and daisy antennae on a headband and scold with a grin on her face.

So this is Nurse Heidi of the Friday-night kettle corn, chocolate chip cookies, and ghost stories at two a.m
.

“Extenuating circumstances,” Vivian offered.

“They always are. What’s going on?”

Down to business, Heidi listened to Vivian and George explain.

“I know it’s against policy, but …?” Vivian let her voice carry the rest of her question.

Privacy rules, patient confidentiality, perhaps the fact Misty never regained consciousness …
We waited with held breath.

“If she’s here, I’ll find her,” Heidi promised. “But you have to wait here, or better yet, outside, and then go home. And don’t touch anything. You can’t see her, Vivian. It’s way too dangerous for you to be up on the floors.”

“I know, but you can take George to her.” Vivian gestured.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“You’re thirteen, right?” Heidi asked Misty’s brother.
And I’m alive and you can see me. No one will believe that
.

Vivian answered for him. “Of course he is, no visitors can be younger than that.”

George stayed silent.

Smart kid
.

I sat with Misty
while they gently bathed her, bundled her in blankets, rehydrated her, and waited for test results.

Bodies are complicated
. They sounded so simple in biology class. The systems were straightforward: circulatory, respiratory, digestive, and reproductive. There were more, but I didn’t memorize them. With Vivian and Samuel part of my life, I knew about the endocrine and the lymph and metabolic. They, and so I, knew more than most med students hoped to cram inside their brains.

And yet there is nothing to do but sit with Misty
.

How did all of those physical safeguards and redundant systems and parts fail?
Because there are a million ways the same piece can break
.

Samuel focused on cell memory and soul printing, though I knew his newfound love of sauerkraut had nothing to do with me and instead was merely the process of living life. Exploring. Tasting. Trying. Loving. Failing.

Epic failing
.

Misty’s skin was bloated and rashy, tinged with gray and yellow, like an old bruise.

I felt her snipping the threads connecting her soul to her body.

She’s getting ready to fly. Why can’t I fly?

I felt Samuel’s anxiety and questions pounding closer to the hospital.

There are a thousand million little miracles that when done right make a human being live. And yet none of these turn a living body into a life worthwhile. Lives are lived beyond the numbers. In the space between the miracles
.

I didn’t fly away because I was waiting. Waiting for something I couldn’t name, something I’d know when I saw it, and only then.

When Nurse Heidi escorted George to Misty’s hospital bed, Vivian did as promised and left the hospital. She headed for the studio.

She needed her paints. Her colors. The soothing of vibrants, not pastels. The splashes of fuchsia and violets of sunrises. The vast expanse of endless nights with full blue moons.

She needed the smell of wood frames and treated canvas and fresh paint.

The feel of color sliding over itself and mixing.

Some people needed chocolate or macaroni and cheese to soothe; Viv needed color.

Misty wasn’t going to live. Vivian knew enough that not even a single cell in her held out hope for a miracle or a redo. Misty had been lucky to get a second chance; she wouldn’t get a third.

How many times had Vivian faced this hopeless feeling?
She wanted control; she wanted predictability. She wanted the impossible. She wanted life served up on a canvas with straight edges and perfect corners, the mess elegant and defined, beauty evident in at least a square inch of the space.

There was nothing beautiful about dying. Misty’s body shutting down was ugly.

Dying is ugly
.

Vivian mixed blues and reds for the deep purples, but they kept going brown.

She scraped and started again.

Brown.

Ugly.

Dying.

Out of control.

Out of her control.

Vivian scraped the canvas again. Each stroke angrier, rougher, more impatient.

With each exhale she shoved paint around the canvas and another face flashed in her mind’s eye.

Sally.

Blob the paint onto the canvas.

Brian.

Blow it north.

Wallace.

Brush it south.

Crystal.

Another splash of blue from the west.

Billy.

Blow it southeast.

Misty.

Me
.

Blue and red bled into each other until brown became black at the center.

Vivian collapsed with her head in her hands and cried.

When Leif and he arrived at the hospital, Samuel tucked the worry dolls and prayer beads into his cargo pants pocket. They asked for Nurse Heidi as Vivian instructed.

“Where’s Vivian?” Leif glanced around, expecting to see her waiting.

“Dude, she can’t be here. It’s too dangerous,” Samuel answered in a loud and surprised voice.

“How do you know that?” Nurse Heidi asked as she approached.

“I know about transplants.” Sam didn’t offer his own experience as evidence, and when Leif opened his mouth, Sam’s icy glare shut him up.
Yeah, you shouldn’t be here either, genius
.

George shook Samuel’s hand with an adultlike expression that belied his eleven years. He was almost the same height and outweighed Sam by a good thirty pounds. “You’re her friend, right? Who she talks to online?”

“Yeah.” Samuel didn’t notice that he was the smallest person there.

“Thanks. You helped her.”

“How?” Sam’s expression was full of total bewilderment. They were standing in a hospital, for heaven’s sake. How helpful was he?

George shrugged. “She seemed happier talking to you.”

“He followed her to the library a lot, keeping an eye on her,” the nurse said, and introduced herself.

“She told me she was taking the medicine. That she went to her doctor. She lied,” George whispered.

“Hey. This is not your fault,” Samuel reassured George.

“Then whose is it?” George asked no one in particular.

“George, we need to call your parents.” The nurse stopped them at the door to the room.

“How bad is it?” Leif asked the question no one else seemed willing to voice.

“We’re waiting for test results, and I can only tell her parents what the results of those are.”

He knew that. He wasn’t sure why he bothered to ask.

She paused and seemed to understand they needed more than that. “She is not in pain. She’s comfortable.”

Samuel nodded.

“But if you have anything you want to say, you should say it sooner rather than later.” She held George’s shoulders in a motherly hug and led him toward the main counter. The boy cried silently, tears rolling straight down his cheeks, as if there were permanent tracks for them to follow. They all knew what she meant.