Something Noble (2 page)

“You let him sleep with this thing on?” I say. “He'll strangle to death.” I take the camera off Marco's neck.

“That's an old wives' tale,” says Ernest. “If he started choking, he'd wake up. Besides, I tried to take it off him and he wouldn't let me.”

“Sometimes those old wives were right,” I say.

Ernest is wearing the kind of clothes I hate on him: a tight muscle shirt and jeans that show off how much he's been going to the gym. He never worked out once during the years we were married. Sometimes I wonder if he's trying to get me back, making me jealous by showing off his new body. It ain't working.

I keep him waiting while I go with Dre to his room and help him take off his shoes. I make him lie down to rest. Then I go back out into the living room.

“What's going on?” Ernest asks me. He crosses his arms and waits. Ernest is mostly bald, and when he's concerned, he doesn't just wrinkle his forehead. He wrinkles his whole scalp.

I fill him in. He nods.

“Well, you just let me know if there's anything I can do, baby,” he says. “Anything at all, I'm there for you.”

I hate it when he calls me baby. That's another thing he never did when we were married. I would like nothing better than for him to just go away and leave me alone. But we have a son together, and I need his support.

And at least Ernest isn't in jail, which is more than I can say for some people's fathers. Ernest has a decent job, and he believes in taking care of his kid.

“I'll need you to help with Marco,” I say. “And I hate leaving Dre alone while he's this sick. I know he's not your kid, but if you're here with Marco anyway, it doesn't matter, right?”

Ernest nods.

“No problem,” he says. “Dre is a great kid. We always got along well.”

“I have to go to work now,” I say. “Can you stay with them until I get back?”

“Sure thing, baby,” says Ernest. He starts moving in closer, for what reason I am afraid to ask, so I dodge him and go into the bathroom. It's going to take a lot more than this to make up for what he did. But I don't even want to think about that right now. I need to start getting ready for work.

I'm trained as a continuing care assistant. I go into people's homes and do some nursing and some light housekeeping as they recover from illnesses. Or sometimes I just sit with them while they die. I feel like it's important work. So do my clients. The only ones who don't seem to feel that way are the ones who sign my paycheck. When the work is steady, it's not a bad living. It's enough to pay the bills. But it hasn't been steady for a long time. This economy is destroying us.

I could drive to work. But I decide to leave my car at home to save gas money. I take the bus a few miles down the road to a senior citizen's apartment complex. This is where I'm working right now. I let myself into the apartment and call out:

“Miss Emily! It's Linda Gonzalez.”

I don't hear anything, but I wasn't expecting to. I go into the bedroom. Miss Emily is asleep. She's a very old, very tiny woman who is dying of cancer. She doesn't have long left. I stroke her hand lightly. She gives a little moan.

“It's Linda, Miss Emily,” I say again. “You need anything?”

Miss Emily is well cared for. She's one of the lucky ones. A lot of poor people die alone, in what you might call undignified circumstances. That means lying in their own filth in the middle of a public hospital ward. Not Miss Emily. I guess she saved enough money in her working life so she could afford to die in private. Kind of depressing when you look at it that way. Isn't there more to life than that? Working until you get old and die? Sometimes my life feels like that's all it is. It's my kids that make it all worthwhile.

Miss Emily wakes up enough to press her morphine drip. The pain must be pretty bad. I read her chart. The visiting nurse hasn't left much in the way of orders. She knows the end is near. Right now we're just keeping her comfortable. I pull back the sheets from her feet and look at her toes. They're starting to curl. That's always a sign that the end is coming. You won't find that in any textbook. It's just a trick I picked up from nurses who have been on the job a long time. We know a lot of things they don't teach you in medical school.

There's not much for me to do. The place is pretty clean. There are no dishes in the sink, no meals to be made. So I sit down next to Miss Emily's bed and pick up the book that's sitting on the floor. The title is
The Audacity of Hope
by Barack Obama.

“Let's see,” I say. “Where did we leave off ?”

I read about when Mr. Obama's mother was dying. It's funny to think that the president of the United States of America is just as powerless against cancer as the rest of us.

It doesn't matter what the words are. Miss Emily probably doesn't understand me anyway. But I know she can hear the sound of my voice, and she finds it comforting.

Suddenly I feel my cell phone go off. I have it set to vibrate. I stop reading and go into the other room.

“Hello?”

“It's Ernest. You gotta go to the hospital.”

CHAPTER THREE

I
've got that feeling every mother dreads. Which one of my boys is it? Please, God, nothing serious, okay? I can't deal with another thing right now. I'm too tired.

“Why? What happened?”

“It's Dre. He collapsed. I called nine-one-one. They took him away in an ambulance.”

“Okay,” I say, as calmly as possible. “Can you stay with Marco?”

“I'll take him home with me,” says Ernest. “He can spend the night at my place.”

I hang up on Ernest and call my head office. I explain the situation to them, hoping they will let me leave early. They say it all depends on if I can get someone to replace me. Which really means it's my problem, not theirs.

I call the girl who was supposed to come on next and ask if she can come in a few hours early. She says she wasn't planning on it. So I'm reduced to begging her. My son is in the hospital, I say. Please. Just this once. I'll make it up to you somehow.

She agrees, but I will owe her. I don't care. I would mortgage my soul to help my kid. I wait until she shows up. Then I leave for the hospital, riding the slowest bus on the planet. After what feels like ten lifetimes, I finally make it to my son's bedside. He's in a little room in the ER.

I promised myself a long time ago I wouldn't shed any more tears in front of my children. But when I see his face, looking scared and exhausted, it's all I can do to keep it together.

“Hey, bunny boy,” I say. That was my nickname for him when he was a baby. Normally he would yell at me for using it. How I wish he was healthy enough to be embarrassed.

“Mama,” he says.

“Listen, you hang in there,” I say. “We're gonna get you fixed up.”

Dre doesn't answer. But I gotta keep talking. This is one of those times when silence is not golden.

“You remember back in the old days, when it was just you and me against the world? We made it through some rough times, kiddo. But we kept each other going. I was there for you, and you were there for me. You're my whole life, Dre. So just you remember that. A little old kidney ain't nothing.”

“I don't wanna die,” Dre whispers.

“You're not gonna die. You're gonna live. Hear me? Don't let me hear that word again.”

“Okay,” Dre whispers.

“Let me hear you say it. You're gonna live.”

“Gonna live,” Dre says. He can barely get the words out.

Dr. Wendell shows up a few minutes later along with a couple of nurses. I'm so grateful to see him. He feels like the only friend I've got.

“Things are worse than we realized,” he says.

“What's going on?” I ask.

“I got Dre's results back, but I didn't have a chance to call you yet. Both of Dre's kidneys are having problems. He needs dialysis right away. They're going to take him down now and put in a shunt. That's like a needle that never comes out. After that you can sit with him if you want. The treatment takes a while.”

I start to follow them out of the room. But Dr. Wendell puts his hand on my shoulder.

“Wait,” he says. “I need to talk to you a minute.”

“What is it?” I ask. I watch Dre's bed disappear down the hall.

“It's about the future,” he says. “I'm afraid the dialysis is only a temporary fix.”

“What do you mean?”

“My tests showed that both his kidneys are malfunctioning. Dre is going to need a transplant as soon as possible,” says Dr. Wendell.

I stare at him. “You mean…a whole new kidney?”

“That's right,” he says.

For a moment I feel like I'm going to faint. First I wonder how Dre is going to deal with this news. And then all I can think of is how much this is going to cost. I barely afford to pay the phone bill.

But then I remember not to worry about that kind of stuff. The important thing is Dre. Money is temporary. Love is forever.

“Wow,” I say. “This is just—”

“Overwhelming,” says the doctor. “I know.”

“So how do we get a new kidney?” I ask.

“Basically, we have to wait for a donor,” says the doctor. “There's a waiting list. You're already on it.”

“You mean we have to wait for someone to die so Dre can have his kidney,” I say.

I don't even want to ask how long that can take. It feels like the wrong question. Our family's happiness depends on some other family's misery. It seems cruel and unfair. What kind of a world is this anyway? Sometimes I don't want any part of it.

“There's another way. Someone could donate a kidney,” says Dr. Wendell.

I have the solution before I've finished drawing my next breath. I'll give Dre one of my own kidneys. Hell, I would give him my life if I had to. But Dr. Wendell can tell what I'm thinking.

“We can't use one of yours,” he says. “You can't be a donor for Dre.”

“What? Why not?”

“Dre has a very rare blood type,” he explains. “It's AB negative.”

“I remember,” I say. They told me that when he was a baby. I thought it was strange he wasn't the same blood type as his mama, but they said that happens all the time. “So what?”

“It would be best if the kidney came from someone with the same blood type,” says Dr. Wendell. “And it would be best of all if that person was a relative. That way, the kidney stands the best chance of being accepted by Dre's body. If it works, he could have a long, healthy life.”

“And if it doesn't?”

“I don't want to sugarcoat it for you, Linda, so I'm going to tell you straight up,” says Dr. Wendell. “If Dre's body rejects the kidney, he'll stay very sick, and he'll probably get sicker. We'll have to do another transplant, which will be hard on him. His immune system is already weak. I'm sorry to tell you this, but you need all the facts. There's a chance he could die.”

I reach out for the wall. I need something to hold me up.

“So the question I have to ask you is this,” says Dr. Wendell. “What relatives does Dre have who have the same blood type and who might be willing to give him a kidney?”

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he search for the answer to that question takes me somewhere I never thought I would go: prison.

When I was young and stupid, I used to run with whoever made my mama maddest. In those days, that meant a young black boy who was always in trouble with the cops. His name was Terrell. He was lean and handsome, and he always did whatever he wanted. I thought he was a hero, because nobody could tell him what to do. My mama said to watch out, because I couldn't rely on him. She predicted he would end up in prison. If he got me pregnant, she warned me, I wouldn't be able to depend on him. I didn't pay any attention to her. I thought it would be Terrell and me forever.

Guess what? Terrell knocked me up. He was the first boy I was ever with. Ten minutes of fun for sixteen years of consequences. When I told him there was a baby coming, he dumped me. Then he started spending more time in prison than out. I was a teenager with a baby and no high school diploma. If it wasn't for my mama, we would have been on the street. And Terrell wouldn't even have cared.

That's why I never visit Terrell. He and I have nothing to do with each other. But that's not my choice, it's his. He's still Dre's father. He could at least send Dre a birthday card if he wanted to. But he doesn't even bother. I don't think he would know Dre if he passed him on the street, even though they both have the same sloping shoulders, the same easy smile.

So if Terrell won't give Dre the time of day, why am I crazy enough to think he's going to give him a kidney?

Because I have no other choice.

* * *

Visiting hours at the prison is the most depressing thing I've ever seen. There are lots of families that remind me of myself when I was younger. Young women with small children, sometimes two or three, visiting their men in the big house. What kind of memories will these kids have when they're grown? How long before they're slinging drugs on a corner or sitting behind bars themselves?

I sit at the table, waiting for the guard to call Terrell's name. Finally the door opens and in he comes. He's changed a lot. He used to be cool and slick. Now he just looks like a shifty con. He's the kind of guy you cross the street to get away from. The kind of guy who thinks prison is a career. I can't believe I ever slept with someone like that. For the millionth time, I wish I could have a do-over. But then I wouldn't have Dre.

Terrell looks around. I can tell he wasn't expecting a visitor. He's surprised anyone wants to see him at all. I wonder when was the last time that someone came. He spots me, and the look on his face changes to shock. Then he recovers his sense of cool. He comes shuffling over and sits down.