Rain Song (14 page)
“Hi, Iva,” I say calmly, expecting to hear my aunt clear her throat and then tell me something about either a runaway prisoner or details of our upcoming reunion. The last time Iva called she said Great-Uncle Clive’s cucumber crop was producing many lovely green cucumbers. “I can taste those cucumber sandwiches, Nicki. They are going to be the best,” she said.
“She’s had a heart attack.”
I am confused. “What?”
“Oh, Nicki.”
“You’re at the hospital?”
“Yes.”
With my aunt you can never be sure, so I ask, “Ducee?”
“Yes, yes!”
“I’m on my way.”
———
Ducee is in the intensive care unit at Wayne Memorial. Pumps, tubes, and machines that make gurgling noises surround her as she lies motionless in a sterile bed of white. She is breathing softly and on her own. Her eyes are shut, the veins in them the color of her blue crocheted throw rug.
I approach a nurse and ask what happened. The nurse asks another nurse. Suddenly out of what seems like nowhere, a doctor with a white mustache stands at my side. I don’t remember his name, but his worn face and bushy white eyebrows are familiar. I’m certain he was Ducee’s doctor the last time she was brought here in an ambulance, the time Mrs. McCready found her slumped in her recliner.
“She had trouble breathing,” the doctor tells me as his eyebrows wiggle. “Pain in her chest. I heard that the donkey’s braying alarmed the neighbor. When the neighbor came to your grandmother’s yard, she found her on the ground by the donkey.”
Good ol’ faithful Maggie McCormick.
Then the doctor makes the Hippocratic Leap—at least, that’s what I call it. The huge leap into using medical jargon. I want to scream, “Just give me the layman facts, good doctor. Just the layman facts!”
But he’s already taken off, using those five-hundred-dollar medical terms, terms that make my head spin. Greek would be easier. Of course, the doctor has to use them. Learning them cost him a pretty expensive tuition.
I stand by Ducee’s bed, watching her and all the machines. My eyes dart back and forth—her, machines, her, machines— until my knees grow weak and I leave the room, while I can still walk.
In the waiting room I am greeted by familiar faces. Almost a dozen of them. Iva, her daughter Clarisa Jo, Mrs. McCready, who is frantically reciting the Lord’s Prayer, Cousin Jerome from Elizabeth City, Tweetsie from Goldsboro, Great-Uncle Clive, and his daughters Chloe and Jackie Sue. Then in comes Cousin Aaron and his wife, who likes to be called, believe it or not, Puddin’. They take turns hugging me. I smell their cologne, lotion, hairspray, and perfume.
Not one of them smells of that familiar scent I have grown to love—Ducee’s lilac.
The waiting room is tiny, with straight-back chairs and one lumpy fluorescent green sofa. Aside from the scents we’ve brought to it, it has its perpetual aroma of lemon furniture polish and chlorine. After all the hugging, no one knows what to say.
Mrs. McCready keeps scratching her silver hair. “I’m not going to use that conditioner anymore,” she tells the assembled group. “It said it would make my hair soft and shiny and . . .” Sitting up in the chair, she reprimands herself, “Oh, how can I be talking about my hair at a time like this?” Silently, she adjusts her glasses, places her hands in her lap so that they form a small mound, and then scratches her head once more.
“I know all about bad conditioner,” Clarisa Jo tells us. She raises her short arms to her own head of dyed-blond hair. Neither she nor Grable inherited Iva’s long-limbed-and-tall genes. “Believe me, I used some awful product last year and was miserable, just plain ol’ miserable.” She looks at her mother. “Wasn’t I, Mama?”
Iva’s mind is yards away, in the intensive care unit with her sister. I know because mine is still there, too. Iva manages to produce a nod.
“I don’t use conditioner,” Chloe tells us. Her southern accent allows her to replace every word ending in an “er” with an “ah” sound. “Makes my hair too soft. Such a bother to do anything with it.”
Her sister Jackie Sue agrees. “My hair just flies away when I use that Herbal Essence stuff.”
“Although it does smell nice,” says Chloe.
“It does, but I like Pantene. That’s what I use now,” says Jackie Sue. “Only every other day, though.”
There is a page over the PA system for a Dr. Williams.
Iva’s face loses its color as she grabs my hand. “That’s Ducee’s doctor,” she tells us.
The one whose name I’d forgotten, the one with the bushy eyebrows.
Suddenly, hair conditioner doesn’t matter anymore. We’re back in reality. In this moment of crisis, we are knit together unlike any previous reunion. I look at each anxious face in the waiting room. We are truly family.
———
Later, Iva takes note of the No Smoking sign as she’s about to light up. “I guess I’ll have to go outside,” she says, but doesn’t budge.
I know she won’t chance leaving this floor where her sister lies motionless, even for a coveted Virginia Slims.
I pick up a copy of a dog-eared
Time
magazine. The sound of my flipping through the pages is loud in this tiny, anxious room. I try reading an article on Taiwan’s economy, but it is no easier than listening to the doctor tell me what is wrong with Ducee.
Iva leans over and whispers close to my ear, “Nicki?”
“Yeah?”
She lets out a moan. “I was supposed to die first.”
“Iva.”
“I’m the one who smokes and is difficult to get along with.”
I pat her hand the way my grandmother pats mine. “You’re not difficult.”
An hour later Monet bursts into the room with Grable. Grable looks exhausted, bags billowing under her eyes.
Monet rushes over to me and buries her face in my chest. She’s brought her Sazae doll, the one she named Niccc. After dangling her in front of my face, the little girl embraces the cotton doll at the waist with both hands.
Just the other day Grable said Monet takes her new doll with her no matter where she goes. She even took it to her last MRI and screamed that the doll had to be scanned too.
As evening approaches and we have all taken turns seeing Ducee in the room where none of us chose to stay very long, Grable’s mom and Iva’s daughter, Clarisa Jo, calls Howie, a distant cousin of mine, twice removed, who runs a sandwich shop. Howie delivers a large hoagie filled with turkey, ham, cheeses, pickles, tomatoes, olives, and lettuce.
“That must be nine feet long!” Iva says as she eyes the sandwich and watches her daughter set it on the table in a small kitchen connected to the waiting room. Clarisa Jo unwraps the clear plastic and paper surrounding the hoagie. Grable opens a few random drawers, finds a knife, and cuts the sandwich in pieces. Everyone enters the kitchen and stands around the table like a vulture, ready to eat. We wait. We’re used to Ducee giving the blessing. Finally Clarisa Jo mutters, “We thank you, God.”
Monet mumbles, yet for some reason we all understand each word loud and clear tonight. “Duceeeee get weellll soooo.”
“Yes,” says Clarisa Jo to her granddaughter, “we do ask God to make Ducee well really soon.”
It is eight o’clock at night in Mount Olive, and we are famished.
Ducee would enjoy this, I think as I bite into the bread filled with turkey, ham, and cheese. It’s fresh and full of flavor. Oh, she might think it needs a little salt, but because of her blood pressure, she’d use a salt substitute instead. I chew the sandwich and feel a vast improvement. Then I realize why I’m more hungry than usual; I skipped lunch.
Iva says the food is wonderful and I agree.
Is it wrong to feel good about eating when someone in the next room is unable to eat?
Monet tugs at Grable’s pants and asks for a hot dog. A low groan springs from Grable’s throat.
Quickly, I tear off a piece of ham and pretend to feed it to Monet’s doll. “Yum, yum, the doll likes this. Do you want to try some, Monet?”
Monet frowns, starts to cry, and then as I continue acting like Monet’s doll is enjoying the ham, the wild one screams, “Me! Me! ME!”
Monet patiently stands in front of my hand as I feed her a bite of ham.
From across the room, Grable smiles.
Monet asks for more. Then she grabs my arm and starts talking about my fish. “Fee! Fee at my hommmm. Fee! Fisssz swwi, swi mmmm.” She sticks a finger in my stomach to let me know she now wants to know about my aquarium of fish.
“Yes,” I reply. “My fish are at home swimming, too.” It’s surprising to me that I can actually understand this creature when I used to think it impossible. Ducee says sometimes ears have to be trained in order to hear what they need to hear.
I’m grateful when Clive inquires about her new doll and Monet leaves my side. We all watch as Monet is swooped up into Clive’s large lap along with her Sazae look-alike.
Monet fingers Clive’s eyebrows, squeals a few phrases, and then settles down. Her doll faces me, and for the hundredth time, I wonder what my own Sazae felt like brand-new when Watanabe-san first gave her as a gift almost thirty years ago.
I look around the room and suddenly recall why we are all here. Ducee is stuck in intensive care, and we have no idea if she’ll pull through. It is much too much to comprehend. I chew on a pickle as the conversations in the room become a dull din. A tinge of panic overcomes me as I am bombarded with questions. What were my last words to Ducee? What were her last words to me? Did I let her know how much I love her? That she makes the best barbecue in the world? That she is the only mother I can remember having?
I almost choke on the pickle. Tears well in my eyes, and conscious of the others in the room, I sniff a few times. I will not cry, not tonight.
Luckily, Pastor Donald steps into the room then, rescuing my mind from the endless worry, as well as any more tears. He has just been in to see Ducee. He says he’d like to pray with the family before leaving.
I close my eyes and attempt to concentrate on his words, asking for Ducee’s speedy recovery and telling God how much Ducee means to all of us. I suppose God knows how much she means to each of us in this room, but I also suppose appreciation for His creation is something He never tires of hearing.
At the end of the prayer, my heart no longer feels as if it’s on the racetrack.
Iva blows her nose in a crumpled tissue she takes from a corner of her overstuffed purse.
When Pastor Donald says he must go, I hate to see him leave. He shakes hands with Great-Uncle Clive and Aaron, and pats the women’s hands, saying he’ll be back tomorrow and to be sure to call him if anything changes.
Monet clutches her doll, rushes into his arms, and plants a kiss on his left cheek. “Thannn youuu,” she says, her tone booming to the ceiling of the small kitchen. “Thannn youuu praaaa.” She smiles into the pastor’s eyes.
He takes her hand and smiles back.
Suddenly everyone else is smiling too, grateful for Monet, the little wild thing, somehow able to express at this time how each one of us feels.
The next morning, after a troubled night of sleep where Iva kept shouting in my dreams that Ducee was dead, I toss on a pair of jeans and a UNC-Greensboro T-shirt and check my answering machine. Seeing that no one has left a message, I feel Ducee must still be alive. If anything happened, Iva would have let me know.
Quickly, before heading to the hospital, I open my email. I ignore all the messages—mostly spam—except the one from Harrison.
Nicole,
Do you remember the day we went to the park and two Japanese girls made a crown out of clover for you to wear? There was a patch of clover and you were in the middle, the other girls surrounding you, creating this crown for your head. They were mesmerized by your red hair. I visited Watanabe-san today and she regrets that the picture she took of you wearing the clover crown didn’t survive the fire. She has lots of pictures on her bulletin board that she was able to save. She wonders if your father has that clover photo in the boxes of items packed up for him. I said I’d ask you.
Harrison
Clover crown, I muse. I do wonder what that looked like. As for the boxes neighbors apparently packed for Father after the fire, I have yet to see the contents of those. They were shipped to his parents’ house and stored in their attic.
I went up there once. That was the day I broke my ankle and was told never to enter the attic again.
“There is nothing up there for you,” my father’s mother sternly told me. “Nothing.”
———
Two days later, Ducee is moved to a private room. The nurses cart all the flowers, balloons, and cards she’s received to her new room, a room with yellow walls, the color of her own kitchen.
Alone with her in the room, I gradually make my way to my grandmother’s side and remove strands of her gray hair from her pale face. Gently, I run fingers across her cool forehead, cheeks, and eyes.
Ducee doesn’t make a sound.
Sitting on the stool by her bed, I remember how Ducee cared for me one summer when Father drove me down for a four-week visit. I’d been in Ducee and Grandpa Luke’s home only three days when I came down with the flu.
“Why do my eyes hurt? Why am I so hot?” My questions had been constant, even back then.
Ducee smoothed my hair back from my flushed face.
“Why does my foot feel funny?”
“Just rest, dear. It’ll be okay.”
I started to cry.
“Oh, honey,” Ducee whispered. “Shhh. Shhhh.” She brushed her fingers over my aching arms. “There, it’s okay. Don’t you know you are my chutney girl?”
At the time I thought, “I am Ducee’s chutney girl. I guess I am going to be okay.”
Now Ducee twitches just a tiny bit, which makes me think I should phone every relative.
I wait and watch as she opens her eyes. I feel I am viewing a child’s first steps. I want to hurry the process, yet I know I need to be patient.
Ducee swallows, and then mumbles.
I lean in, place a hand on Ducee’s shoulder, and touch my fingers to her left cheek.
Ducee’s lips are colorless as she moves them.
“Just rest,” I manage to say. “It will be okay.” And, oh, how I want to believe this.
I tuck the white sheet against Ducee’s shoulders as her eyes shut.
Later she asks for a sip of water and gets frustrated when some of the liquid dribbles onto her checkered hospital nightgown.
“Shh,” I tell her. “Shhhh. Don’t you know you are my chutney girl?”
I hope that is a smile I see on my grandmother’s lips. She looks peaceful. On second thought, it could be her dying face. A face I have yet to see. How do I know that it isn’t?
This could be the day her heart, which was under the surgical knife years ago, decides it can take no more, and stops.
“Emma.” Like a blessing, I hear my mother’s name float from Ducee’s lips. “Emma.”
“Ducee?” I edge closer to her.
Ducee’s eyes flutter open, catch mine in their gaze, and she smiles. I know it is a smile. She is not going to die. Not now. Ducee slowly whispers, “Did anyone ever tell you . . .”
“What?” I strain to hear.
“That you . . .”
“Yes?”
“ . . . have hands . . . like your mother?”
———
The attic belonging to Father’s parents was dank and musty. Somehow I knew that there were boxes up there, boxes that had been sent from Japan, filled with items that survived the house fire. I suppose Ducee had told me. Curious, one afternoon while the adults were downstairs watching a game on TV, I snuck upstairs and pulled down the attic steps. The dark hole leading up to the attic gave me goose bumps, but I told myself that the wonderful reward would be opening those boxes and finding pictures of Mama in Japan. Perhaps there was even some of her jewelry that had been rescued from the fire, like the turquoise bracelet she received after graduating from nursing school. I had heard about that bracelet from Ducee and imagined how it would feel against my skin, on my wrist. The thought of having something to wear of Mama’s produced a happy sensation within my twelve-year-old heart. With determination, I embarked on the steps, slowly making my way up. Downstairs, a door opened and slammed; I felt my heart freeze in my chest. Fearful of getting caught in the act, I quickly bounded up the last steps. In the darkness I could smell the coolness and ancient odors of the attic. One more step and I’d be inside, but instead, I lost my balance and fell six feet to the floor. Pain seared my whole body as I lay in a lump on the rug in the hallway, certain that blood was pouring from every crevice. I couldn’t move. I was sure I was dead.
“Nicole?” I heard my grandmother Michelin approaching me. “Nicole? Where are you? What have you gone and done?”
I had to wear a cast on my ankle for six weeks. No bracelet of Mama’s to dangle on my wrist, or photos of her and me to gaze at—just an uncomfortable piece of plaster to add to my clumsiness.
———
Ducee’s room is silent after the doctors make their rounds. I sit, stand, look out the window, think about Harrison, and sit again. I guess I could write to tell Harrison about the failed search for my mother’s belongings. For all I know, the boxes could contain a picture of a little American girl in a clover crown woven for her by two Japanese girls. But someone else will have to venture to the attic to sort through boxes to find it.
In the early afternoon as a thunderstorm brews, Grable visits. From the minute she enters the room, I feel anxious.
Seated beside me on a stool, she’s unsure what to do with her long nails. They are painted a rosy red, the color of Monet’s cheeks when she’s flustered. She runs the back of a finger over a thumbnail, studies another nail, and then folds her hands so that her nails cover her knuckles. “The doll has been wonderful. Thank you.” Her smile is fleeting, just a quick gesture.
I think that perhaps I’ll now tell Grable about Harrison. It would pass the time as we sit beside Ducee. I could tell her how we met online and build up to my plane ticket to Japan. She can keep a secret.
As I am about to begin, clearing my throat and wishing for a glass of water, a nurse opens the door. Systematically, she marches over to check on Ducee. We watch as Ducee has her pulse and blood pressure taken. The nurse refers to Ducee as “Mrs. Dubois.” I forget sometimes that my grandmother has another name besides Ducee.
Ducee remains quiet, breathing slowly. How can she sleep so much?
When the nurse leaves the room, Grable says in a voice that hangs heavy in the air, “Dennis is in love with someone else.”
I want to tell her that isn’t true, that Mr. McGuire isn’t sure it was Dennis and another woman at his store that morning months ago. I want to tell her that Dennis loves her, that their wedding ceremony is something Ducee still mentions, that Dennis is going to take Monet to the park this afternoon and embrace her when she sails down the slide.
“He’s tired of us. Tired of Monet and nobody knowing what’s wrong with her. He’s tired of me. Of me being tired.” Grable’s sigh expands to fill each corner of the room.
“He says he loves Monet.” She pauses to take a breath, a breath that seems to swallow her. “But he wants to move out. Away from us. Away. For good.”
I fight the desire to chew a nail, a short and broken nail, one that will never be tapered and glamorous, frosty, and red. I fold my hands instead. Rain pelts the windowpane by Ducee’s bed, angry and fierce. “Grable,” I say over the noise, “I’m sorry.”
“We used to have it all. He used to love me, and I was enchanted with him.” She looks at her shiny wedding diamond. “But it crumbled.”
I hate not knowing what to say.
“I hope the divorce doesn’t harm Monet. Sometimes at night she just presses her nose to the window in hopes she will see him coming home.”
“I’m so sorry, Grable.” It is such a lame thing to say. A time like this needs a symphony of mellow and heart-wrenching violins playing. Not little ol’ me, unsure of what to say and so aware of my bitten nails.
Looking out the window, Grable muses, “Why do we need to find out what is wrong with Monet?”
I hope she doesn’t expect me to have the answer to that.
“There is no cure, anyway. All these doctors poking and prodding and trying to come up with some sort of neurological or behavioral reasoning for why she’s unique.” She inhales and lets the air out slowly, deliberately. “She is who she is.” Her words seem as though they’re coming from a well-scripted play, one of optimism and strength, yet her eyes are shadowed by a forlorn look on her face. “She might be autistic or have some condition no one has ever been diagnosed with before.” Shrugging, she folds her hands in her lap and stares at them.
Time ticks away; I’m aware of the clock on the wall.
Thunder crackles in the distance as the rain picks up speed.
My cousin continues to watch her hands, as though if she were to take her eyes away from them, they might disappear.
I think about reaching over to hug her or saying that she can bring Monet over anytime to feed my fish. But before words form in my mouth, Grable rises from her seat.
She is gone as quickly as she entered.
The room is consumed with pain. I feel its heavy weight pushing against every sterile crevice, each tile on the floor. The sound is booming in my ears, louder than any thunder. I want to comfort, yet I need to be comforted.
I touch Ducee’s cheek. “You can’t leave me now, Ducee. Please, not today.”
And as the room grows dark, I wonder at how we humans are born to pain, experience it constantly, and yet never learn the techniques of dodging it. We just learn to cope, to live. And some of us, if we are lucky enough, to thrive, in spite of it all.