Some Kind of Normal (10 page)

"But what if I do?"

I want to point out that livin' in the middle of
Texas with no water closer than Town Lake ain't likely to get her
over the ocean, but I realize she's seen her web too close to the
door, too. "Well," I say, twisting my face into a serious
expression, as if I'm really considering this. "If you go on a
plane trip, maybe you make sure you take extra insulin on board
with you. That way, if you go down, you'll have enough until you're
rescued."

This seems to satisfy her for a few minutes. She
watches the fields fly by out the window. Then she says, "What if I
want to be a cheerleader?"

"You hate cheerleaders."

"That's not the point. What if I decide I want to be
one? Can I do that with diabetes?"

"Do you want to?" I look at her sideways and wonder
if the disease has affected her brain. Will she be a different
person now? Has this changed who she is?

"No way. They're all snotty and stuck on themselves."
She looked out the window instead of at me, which is good because I
almost snort in relief. "But if I did. If I changed my mind."

My heart aches with the squeezing of her life into
something smaller than the world she knew a few days ago. "Dr.
Benton said you could do anything you wanted."

"But he also said I have to be very careful about
exercising because it can make my blood sugar go really low."

"Do you really think cheerleading is exercise?"

This makes her smile a little, and so I decide to
play along. "Then you make sure you have a juice box with you all
the time."

She grows quiet again, and I wonder what other
obstacles she's building for herself.

When we turn onto our street, cars crowd the curb so
we can barely squeeze between them and into our driveway. Balloons
are tied to our mailbox, and a homemade banner hangs from our
porch. "Welcome Home Ashley."

Ashley looks wide-eyed at me and grins. "For me?"

She jumps out of the car before I turn the ignition
off, and she's running up the sidewalk as her friends burst out the
door at her. I see her running, and I think of the morning hardly
more than a week ago. I keep hoping the doctors are wrong. I hope
it's a fleeting thing. But I see her now, all pumped full of
insulin, and she's normal again. Well, at least, a new kind of
normal.

Janise comes to help me get the bags after the girls
have all disappeared into the house, giggling and gossiping.

"Thanks," I say, but not for the luggage help. I nod
towards the sign and the now wide-flung door. "It's the happiest
I've seen Ash for awhile."

She gives me a hug. "You know I'd do anything for
y'all." A dark look passes over her face. "Morgan isn't here."
Morgan is Ashley's best friend since kindergarten. "Her mom was
afraid she might 'catch it' if she got too close."

I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. "You can't catch
diabetes. How ignorant is she?"

"The same as all of us. None of us knew any better a
week ago," she says, but not to rebuke me, because she is
my
best
friend since kindergarten. I know what she says is true, but I
can't help being angry.

"Just call her. She wants to understand. We all want
to understand."

I just pick up our bags and carry them in myself. In
the dining room I see the girls gathered around our table looking
at something. When I peer over them I see a sheet cake decorated
with thick icing and yellow roses. "
We're glad you're better
," it says.

"Can we have some," Ashley says, looking expectantly
at me.

I press my lips together and look over at Janise. She
clearly don't see the problem. "I bought paper plates so you
wouldn't even have to clean up," she says, missing the point.

Travis picks this time to exit the kitchen with a
fist full of plastic forks. "I found them!"

"What are you two doing," I seethe. The girls are all
looking at me now. I tell them to go play Wii until we're ready,
and I wait until they scramble off like prairie dogs before whaling
on the two people who should have my back.

"Are you crazier than a rabid coon? She can't have
that stuff! It's loaded with carbohydrates!"

"What are carbohydrates?" Janise asks, as if she
hadn't spent the last three days in the hospital with me.

"Flour," I practically scream. "Sugar. Milk.
Apparently anything white and edible. Doctor Benton says she can't
have more than 45 grams in a sitting for the next few weeks. Ten
Doritos got 15 grams. That cake is more than 45 grams."

"You have a scale in the kitchen," Janise says,
trying to be helpful and missing the mark entirely. "We could weigh
out 45 grams for her."

"It's not like that. You have to know how much flour
and sugar and stuff is in it, and I don't." I think about the
nutritionist and her plastic food. "If a bagel's got 60 grams, that
cake's got about a bazillion."

"What if we did know?" Logan is standing in the door
so quiet I don't hear him until he speaks. "Did you make the cake
or buy it?" he asks Janise.

"Made it," she says indignantly, because she's never
served a store-bought cake in her life.

"Then tell me what you put in it." He disappears into
the kitchen and comes back with a calculator and a pen and a scrap
of paper. "It's not that difficult. We can do it."

So Janise lists the ingredients, which she knows by
heart because this is the same cake she makes for every church
function and every birthday. Logan asks how much of each until he
has the recipe written down. Then he crosses off the baking powder,
salt, eggs, butter and vanilla and Crisco. "These don't have
carbohydrates in them, so we don't have to worry about them." He
circles the flour, sugar and sour cream in the cake and the
powdered sugar and milk in the icing and disappears back into the
kitchen.

He comes back with the sacks of flour and sugars from
our pantry and the tub of sour cream that I know is expired. He
looks at the labels on the side. "See? This tells you exactly how
much is in each."

Janise looks over his shoulder as if seeing the bags
for the first time. "Jiminy. What's all that mean?"

"It tells you what's in them. You know--how much
salt, protein, fat, and carbohydrates. See? The sugar has four
grams of carbs per teaspoon."

"Well, ain't that grand! That's not so much then, is
it?" Janise is ready to call the girls when Logan gets out the
calculator.

"That's per teaspoon. You have two cups in this
recipe." He crinkles his forehead like he did when he was two and
trying to figure out some cosmic question like why God gave some
animals tails and some got none. "Let's see. Three teaspoons in a
tablespoon. Sixteen tablespoons in a cup. That's 48 teaspoon in a
cup. 48 times four is 192. And you have two cups, so that is 192
times two, which is 384." He doesn't even type the numbers into the
calculator. He writes 384 next to the word sugar.

He moves on to the flour, and then to the sour cream.
He totals the numbers in the cake column and circles it. 596.

He begins the column with the powdered sugar and milk
from the frosting. It's even scarier. 772. He adds the two. The
grand total is 1368. Janise's face falls, and my own heart sinks
knowing not just this week, but never will she be able to eat cake
again.

"That's for the whole cake though," he says, quickly
writing more numbers. You don't eat the whole cake. You just eat a
piece. So if you cut the cake into, say, twenty pieces, that's 1368
divided by 20. That's about 68 grams per serving."

Janise's face gets even longer, but suddenly I see
what Logan is getting at. "Try twenty-four pieces," I say. "How
many grams is that?"

"57."

"What about 30?"

Logan taps it out on the calculator. "45.8!" He
grins, and I could kiss that pink Mohawk.

"45! She can have that, then. We'll cut the cake into
thirty pieces, and she can eat it!" I'm so excited I could
spit.

Travis is already beside me, cutting even pieces, and
Janise is at the stairs yelling at the girls that cake's on. Logan
makes himself scarce before the girls can overtake him, and I don't
even have time to kiss him on his pretty pink Mohawk head. Travis
gives each kid a plate with a small piece of cake and not one
complains. They grab it and head back upstairs. I take Ashley's arm
and pull her into the kitchen before she can escape up the stairs
as well.

"We've gotta give you a shot," I whisper.

She nods, but she's still flush with joy, and it
don't seem to phase her.

"Check your blood first," I say, digging the meter
out of my purse.

She does it like a pro while I'm putting the needle
on the insulin pen. "It's 130."

I beam at her. "Thata girl! 130's a good number!" I
find the sliding ruler that the hospital gave us that tells us how
much insulin she should take. "One half unit to every twenty carbs.
So forty grams is twice that, so one whole unit." I frown. "What
about the other five grams?"

"Can't we just round?"

"Maybe. I guess. Do you think, Travis?"

"Why don't you just scrape off some of that icing,"
he says, licking yellow frosting off a fork.

"Okay. That sounds good." I give the insulin pen to
Ashley and watch her dial it to one. She looks at me for approval.
I nod, and she lifts her shirt, closes her eyes, and stabs her
stomach, squeezing the top of the pen until all of the insulin is
in.

She opens her eyes and smiles at me. "That's it?"

"I think so." I'm breathless. She hands me the pen
and rushes out to find her friends. I look at Travis, who is
grinning like a Cheshire. "We did it," I say.

"Yup."

For the briefest moment it feels like we've beaten
life.

~~~~

At dinnertime she tests again and is within the
spread Dr. Benton gave us. We measure out the rice and the green
beans, which I substitute for the usual fried potatoes and okra,
and round it off with chicken I've broiled instead of taken out of
a box. She uses the calculator and the sliding scale to figure her
insulin while Travis taps his fork on the table, watching his food
get cold. I can tell we may need a better routine. Logan and Travis
stare at the plate a little too long, as though I've gone
California fruit and nuts on them, but I ask Ashley to bless it and
we all dig in. We try to talk as though nothing is different, but
there's a shift I can't name, and we mostly eat in silence.

I excuse Ashley from doing the dishes, and she goes
to her room to practice the flute. Logan goes out to the garage,
and Travis settles in his chair and turns on the ball game. I clean
the kitchen. It's all so normal, but it don't feel that way. It's
as if a stranger came into the house to live with us, and we're on
our best behavior, waiting for it to leave.

Except I know this stranger will never leave.

At bedtime Ashley tests again. I stand over her,
making sure she does it right, and we both gasp when the number
blinks 332. Her eyes get wide. "Do I need to go back to the
hospital?"

I call Dr. Benton, who gave us his cell phone number
when we left and told us to call--day or night.

"What did you have for dinner?" He asks. I tell him,
including the amounts of insulin. He does quick calculations in his
head. "That sounds right. Did she eat anything this afternoon?"

My stomach sinks thinking about the cake and I almost
lie, except I really need God on my side now, and lyin' ain't going
to get us nowheres good, so I fess up. I tell him about Logan doing
the math and making sure Ashley didn't eat more than 45 carbs. Then
I remember that we checked before dinner and she was fine, so I add
that the cake can't be the culprit.

"That's it," he says, to my dismay. "The fat in the
icing, with all that Crisco, delays all the sugar from reaching the
body fast. It probably hit about the same time dinner did. It's not
unusual for things like cake to not add up right, also. You think
that the sum of the carbs would equal the insulin needed, but for
some reason it doesn't always do that. Sometimes, even though the
numbers say one thing, the requirement is totally different."

"Does that mean she can't eat cake anymore?" Ashley
is hanging on every word and I see sudden desperation.

"No. Of course not."

I pat Ashley's hand that is clawing me.

"It's a balance," he says. "And a lot of trial and
error. Write down in the logbook what she ate and how much insulin
she took and what her blood sugar was, and next time she eats it,
give her a little more and see if that helps. For now, wait another
hour and test again. It takes the insulin some time to fully run
its course, too. Then correct according to the sliding scale you
have."

I thank him and hang up. I look at the clock and
wonder how to test in an hour if Ashley is ready for bed now.

She gives herself the other shot, the one she takes
at bedtime, eating or no eating, and then goes up to bed. Logan's
still in the garage pounding away at his music. I tell him it's
time to put the drumsticks away and get ready for bed. On the way
upstairs I pass Travis, still in his chair, snoring.

I haven't tucked Ashley in since she was eight, but
tonight I sit on the edge of her bed while she arranges her stuffed
animals beside her.

"I'm going to have to check your blood in an hour," I
say.

"Like in the hospital?"

"Yes, but not all night. Just in an hour. And if it's
still high I have to give you a shot."

"Okay." Her eyes are almost closing, and I wonder if
this is part of being twelve, or part of being diabetic. I may
never know. The two are now the same for us.

I want to kiss her but instead I tousle her hair.
"I'll be back in an hour."

"Mom?" Her eyes flutter open. "What if I die in the
night?"